Free Sidney Chambers and The Forgiveness of Sins by James Runcie Page B

love should be fixed but its workings are not. Like a watch, perhaps. It is always the same entity but the parts keep moving . . .’
    ‘Until the watch stops.’
    ‘Then you have to keep winding it up.’ Sidney reached for his wine. ‘This is not a very good analogy. I’m sorry.’
    Serena Stein was conciliatory, leaning in with almost a whisper. ‘I think your wife must be a very fortunate woman.’
    ‘I rather think I am a very lucky man.’
    ‘I heard you were going to marry Miss Kendall.’
    Sidney put down his wine glass and hoped for a speedy refill even though he didn’t actually like dessert wine. ‘That was never a possibility.’
    ‘I think it was. She told me.’
    Sidney checked that his friend was fully engaged in a conversation elsewhere before continuing to speak about her at the table. ‘Amanda could never have married a vicar. And besides, I am happy . . .’
    ‘I am glad to hear it.’
    ‘As soon as I found Hildegard, I knew.’
    ‘You did, did you?’
    ‘ Yes ,’ Sidney snapped. ‘ I did .’
    He wished he could sit next to his wife instead. He wanted them both to be on a sofa back in Grantchester with Byron asleep at their feet and their baby daughter beside them. What was he doing at this hopeless dinner party, seeking justification and approval from a ghastly woman who kept asking him impertinent questions? He tried to catch the butler’s eye for another drink.
    Serena Stein was still speaking to him when Sidney realised that he had not been listening. He regained his awareness as she repeated a question. ‘Do you not want to answer? Plenty of people have made a go of a second marriage.’
    ‘You know that Hildegard had a previous husband?’
    ‘I have done my homework, Canon Chambers. It could be that you benefit from the experience of someone who has been through it all before.’
    ‘Perhaps I do.’
    ‘The vicarious experience of failure. Are you here to approve of Amanda’s new man?’
    ‘I wasn’t sure he was.’
    ‘He will be by Sunday.’
    Sidney tried to deflect the questions back on his interlocutor. She was bloody rude, he decided. ‘You’re not married yourself?’
    ‘No. I am not.’
    Sidney then wondered if Miss Stein was a lesbian. That might, at least, make the conversation more interesting; talking to someone who, in his father’s words, ‘batted for the other side’.
    ‘I don’t really believe in that kind of thing,’ Serena continued. ‘I don’t think a woman needs a man to be happy.’
    ‘I am sure she doesn’t. But perhaps we all need someone to help us feel a little less lonely.’
    ‘Are you lonely, Canon Chambers?’
    ‘Sometimes.’
    ‘Really?’
    He had walked into Serena Stein’s trap. Why had he made himself vulnerable? ‘It’s not always easy,’ he confessed.
    ‘Being married or being a priest?’
    This woman was clearly good at her job. ‘Both . . .’
    ‘Would you care to explain?’
    ‘Not really. I think we all have moments when we don’t quite know who we are or if what we are doing is the right thing.’
    ‘You have doubts?’
    ‘Not about my marriage. Or my faith. I think.’
    ‘You sound as if you’re trying to convince yourself.’
    Sidney was even more irritated. How dare this woman make assumptions? It didn’t matter how attractive she was. It didn’t give her licence to talk about his marriage. ‘I don’t think this is an appropriate subject for the dinner table,’ he answered. ‘Perhaps we should listen to the general conversation? People will think we are being rude.’
    ‘Do you find intimacy impolite?’
    ‘When it is at the expense of others. I am not afraid of intimacy per se .’
    Serena Stein smiled. ‘Then I look forward to being better acquainted.’
    Henry Richmond was beginning another of his anecdotes, explaining away his volubility by saying that he had an extraordinarily taciturn older brother and had therefore grown up speaking for both of them. ‘The strange thing is that