(iii)

She shuffled in her chair. Having decided some days ago that he needed to be told, she had not quite made her mind up when she was going to do it and now it had just sort of fallen out.

" It was shortly after Andrew first claimed to have seen something. I always doubted that there was anything to it, and I was sitting there just rather like you were today. Trying to work out just where the image was. It seemed to shift all the time, like the clouds. Sometimes you could see it clear as anything, and then it would disappear.
Finally I decided enough was enough and I simply prayed to be allowed to see something if something as there. I needed to be free of it one way or the other."

He remained silent as she revealed to him what must have been a difficult disclosure. They had both liked each other the moment they had met, there was the rapport that you don't have with everyone in a parish. It is precious, and you are careful not to squander it.

She laughed nervously, wondering if he was thinking she was crazy.

"I suppose you will think that I'm lonely too, like Andrew."

Phillip hastened to reassure her. He had withdrawn from friendship mode and was now fully in pastoral mode. He did not need to judge what was being said, he rather had to pay attention and realise that this was holy ground. Not his holy ground by any means but the holy ground of a fellow traveller. It was not his place to trample or make light of other people's encounters of God, or what they believed to be God.

She sensed the change, and felt a little sad. It was as a friend that she wanted to share this with him, and not because he had a pastoral responsibility to her.

"Not at all,"Phillip tied to reassure her, "Andrew had his issues, but they are not yours."

He smiled to try and make sure he didn't blow what was potentially an important step in their relatonship with each other.

"Well anyway, I did almost immedately become aware that I was not alone. This is often the way I am in my prayers. I feel God powerfully close. I actually started to feel very warm. Very, very warm. It was almost stifling. I had to stand up and as I did I noticed something drop from my lap, and on the ground there was a handful of rose petals."

"Did you tell Andrew any of this?" He was careful not to mock his predecessor as he had done moments before.

"Oh No! I would never do that. He would have taken it over completely, and I didn't want that. I actually came to understand that there may have been a perefectly normal explanation. I did think that I had felt something drop in my lap, and I suppose it was a flower. A bird must have dropped it or something. And then when I stood up the petals fell on the ground."

"I suppose that is plausible," Phillp suggested, "but maybe you should just ask yourself what God might have been trying to say to you. Have you thought about that?"

"Indeed I have. I'm much more inclined to think that it was a natural occurrence which God used, than a magical one."

"Me too. But nevertheless obviously a special time. What do you think it was all about?"

" I vacillate some what, but I think that the image is about not realising what has landed in my lap and then finding that when I get going I stand up and it all falls apart."

She paused and gazed off into the river. He noticed she bit her lip as though she was trying to stop emotion welling up.

"It was George first. I don't think I realised until he died, just how much he meant to me, and then when he did go everything rather fell apart."

Phillip had never heard her talk about her husband, though he knew she was a widow. Nor did he know anything about her two children who had moved away long before George had died.

"Do you think this was about George?"

"Yes, it has to be. He was a lovely man, but we rather fell out love with each other. I've realised that since he died there is a great void which I can't seem to fill, and part of it at least is being sad that I didn't understand how much we actually loved each other."

Phillip knew this sort of admission was hard for her to make, but knew too that it was therapeutic and necessary.

"Of course," he ventured, "there is an inevitable grief process."

"Yes I know that, but this was more than that. As I've thought about it I realised that one of the strange things about the petals is that they were the reddest red I have ever seen. I have looked and looked for a rose that colour but never seen one. There certainly is no such rose around here, and I've walked the town looking for the bush a bird would have got them from. But to no avail. I'll show you one day."

"What do you mean?"

"I've still got the petals."

"What do you mean you've still got them?"

She was bemused to think she had stimulated his interest in a potential religious relic.

"Oh yes," she taunted him a little,"I kept them intact. Relics of my own personal holiness."

(ii)

The Rectory was a turn of the century delight. It was one of the two houses in the town with actual river frontage. The highlight was no doubt the five sets of French windows which opened out on to the river, so that on those hot nights when no air seemed to move you could lie awake and hear river sounds. Splashes as birds fell into the water. The occasional riverboat, loud at first as you heard the music and the clinking of the glasses, then the voices were far awayagain. The expanse of the river just devoured everything around it.

In the darkness it was surreal, there was no sound like it. No sound like the deadened sound soaked up by the river.

It was not too hot when they returned so they sat on the verandah and watched the sun crash into the far bank as the twilight increased, the gums on fire with the sunset glint that only Australians truly appreciate. The gift of God every evening

"So what do you think it's really all about?"he frowned at her as she tried to encourage him to talk.
"What do you mean?"
"Well you've been here nearly two months, surely you have some idea whether or not this apparition is true."
"Ahh!,"he said, "true! What is truth?"
"Don't play games!,"she chided, '"I think it's quite important."
"I think,"' he ventured, "the blessed Andrew of holy memory," he bowed his head facetiously as he referred to his predecessor, "was a very lonely man. He needed to believe, in a way that most people don't. It meant something to him, more than it should have"

He sipped the gin and tonic and gazed into the river.

"It's not so much that I don't believe in visions, because in a way I do. Yes, and not just in a way, I am quite happy with the idea of visions. But he desperately needed to have a very, very concrete vision. The voice had to be audible. I am never going to be like that."

"No,"she laughed, "you are never going to be like that"

She paused, a little too long he thought on reflection, and said
"But I might!"

He knew his eyebrows had moved so that she would have perceived his reaction. A stir of annoyance rumbled inside him, after all these years he had trained himself to not react when people said the outrageous. He wanted people to trust him. He wanted Penny to trust him, there were too few people in this wretched town with whom you could have a frank conversation. He could not afford to waste them.

The Face in the Wall(i)

He supposed he could see the face if he tilted his head a little to the right. Perhaps if he almost closed his eyes and then slightly opened them it was a little more obvious. It seemed more pronounced, and then not so. Was that crease the mother smiling at her baby, or where the arm caressed the child and held it safe. It was no use! He could not see it today.

It did not worry him too much, he had long since decided that it did not matter whether the image of a Madonna was there or not. It did not matter even if some people heard the virgin speak to them in dulcet tones. He would never have that sort of experience. He was not that sort of man.

He knew he was a holy man, but he knew also that true holiness prevented you from admitting that you yourself were holy. He certainly never talked about it to anyone. Even when you wanted to make a point to show how things moved on, when it was necessary to encourage people to help them see how they had progressed.

He felt guilty when he cited himself as an example.

He knew he had moved, he had once been a young priest full of enthusiasm but of immature faith. He did not take long to realise this. He had only been ordained a few months when he realised he had limited resources to bring to people.

He was reassured only by the insight of the colleague who told him that it was sufficient to stay at least "one step ahead" of people who sought his advice or teaching. This simple truth had seemed to be borne out in practice, by and large it was mostly possible to stay that one step ahead.

It was a pleasant town. He had been happy here , in many ways he had been happier than he had been in other places. But this did not inevitably lead to the conclusion that he could believe in this particular apparition. He quite wanted to at times, it would be nice if the world was like that. But somehow he could never quite believe that it was.

"Good afternoon Rector"

He recognised the voice but he couldn't see the face. As he turned round the glare of the sun flooded the face of the speaker so that instead of instant recognition he was dazzled completely.

"Oh my goodness!" He exclaimed throwing his hands into the air, "is that you Penny?"

" It certainly is. Who did you think it was? The Blessed Virgin Mary!!"

He guffawed foolishly, and she joined him in the raucous laughter.

"So, you're still trying to see it.. You know you never will."

"You're right of course," he sighed, "these things are reserved to the faithful few. Faithful I may be, but few I'm obviously not.. Let's go and have a drink!"