Midweek Disruption

Before I knew he was there, Bill had appeared outside the church porch, as he has virtually every Tuesday morning for decades to serve at the midweek mass (once upon a time we had services every day - but the Tuesday mass is the only one that survives). I was busy vandalising the noticeboard whose backing board has gradually buckled, discoloured and disintegrated until half of it is unusable: I wanted to strip it out so we could put notices directly onto the metal at the back, but found that the glue was tougher than I thought. I was left with a pile of bits of board to throw away.

Brenda had arrived at the same time. Bill was telling her, clearly in some distress, that he was lost. 'You're at the church, Bill, you're in the right place,' Brenda assured him. We both did. Brenda took Bill inside and sat him down in the Lady Chapel where we celebrate on Tuesday mornings. He was shaky and shivery and fiddled confusedly with his glasses - he should normally have two pairs but hadn't been wearing any when he arrived. We carried on with the service but Bill's presence is so perennial and steadfast that his agitation agitated us all. When it was over, some of the others took him to the old people's day centre for tea, but he was then whisked home and a doctor's visit later on confirmed that he had a chest infection, which I suppose we have to imagine accounted for his disorientation.

Bill, like so many others in the congregation, seems eternal even though you know they aren't. Every Tuesday he pours wine and water into the chalice I hold, and then washes my fingers after the communion, and I wonder how long he will be able to do so and how different things will seem when he isn't there. Nothing in this world lasts forever, yet we yearn for it to do so, or at least I do.