Ring Road: There’s no place like home. Ian Sansom

Dylan herself that did for Francie I do not know.

      Bobbie Dylan was christened Roberta and was not a fan of Bob Dylan until she heard the Saved album, and then it was but a short leap into the whole world – the admittedly small but pleasantly cosy world – of Christian rock, a world which the leather-trousered Roberta now bestrode like the proverbial colossus.

      Roberta had been converted at the age of twenty. There is probably no good or bad age to become a born-again Christian, but twenty is perhaps one of the worst. It meant that Roberta had enjoyed a few years of tasting the fruits of this world and now, as she emerged into her mid-thirties, she could still taste the many, the complex flavours on her tongue: the terrible sweetness of all those things that as a born-again Christian she knew it was right to deny herself. She tried not to think about it too much and it was not something she liked to admit, but sometimes she had a hankering after the world and its ways. Sometimes, for instance, at night, in her one-bedroom flat on Kilmore Avenue – with its lovely en suite, tiled and decorated by her own fair hand, with a nice fish motif and a power shower – she would drink several glasses of Chardonnay while watching American television programmes in which strong women with beautiful hair and clavicles and good upper-body strength boasted to each other of their sexual conquests, and their ability to please and to dominate men. Just watching them Roberta would feel ashamed and excited. Watching ER had the same effect, and also Sebastian Faulks’s novel Birdsong.

      Not that the world of Christian rock didn’t have its excitements. Roberta had toured extensively throughout Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales, and had been to many Christian rock festivals throughout Europe – in Germany, for example, and in Holland. She had released no fewer than five CDs of her own original material and although she hadn’t yet had a breakthrough in America, where the competition was pretty fierce in its own Christian way, she was already big in Korea, where Christians seemed to appreciate her work, which was influenced by the many traditions of Christian and sacred music: gospel, soul, country and mid-period Bob Dylan.

      Like Bob Dylan, and like many another rock musician, Roberta had been tempted at times by rock‘n’roll’s inevitable accompaniments and attractions. There were times when she feared that sitting in recording studios late at night with unshaven men drinking beer would prove her undoing.

      But when it came to Francie’s Good Friday Carvery and Gospel Night Roberta’s mind was set firmly on her music and her ministry. She had showered and washed her hair, and laid out her best clothes: a pair of black leather trousers, a white long-sleeved blouse and a pair of black boots with a slight heel. She had straightened her hair with straightening irons, put on a little lipstick – a sheer glossy rose – and applied some kohl and some mascara round her dark-brown eyes. The look was a combination of rock chick and bride of Christ which she hoped was pleasing both in the eyes of God and of man.

      As for Francie, he was wearing his usual minister’s outfit: a brown car coat with pockets large enough to accommodate a Good News bible, a range of tracts and a Scripture Union diary; a pair of grey sta-prest casual trousers, the pockets jangling, full of keys and small change for emergencies (Francie does not possess or carry credit or charge cards, and encourages his congregation to cut up their own); a blue bobbled V-neck pullover thinning around the elbows; a check shirt with blue and red biros tucked in the breast pocket; and a good plain pair of Clark’s shoes from Irvine’s (‘Clark’s, Norvic and Bective Brands for Ladies, Kiltie Shoes for Children, Savile Row for Gentlemen’), the laces securely double knotted. He looked, in fact, like most of us do here, both the men and the women: the unmistakable look of people who are not in full charge of their own wardrobes, people who get dressed once a year by Father Christmas and who do not feel any further need to add to or to accessorise their festive knitwear, or to worry about some small thing like a wrong-sized shirt collar or polyester pants. Francie had gone straight from being dressed by his mother to being dressed by his wife, both of whom were more interested in questions of value for money than any considerations of style or current fashions, but fortunately clothes had never been important to Francie. Apart from a couple of troublesome years in his teens when he had rebelled against hand-me-down duffel coats and had insisted on a red harrington and dealer boots, he did not dress to impress. It was not necessary. Francie was not setting out to attract the attentions of the opposite sex. He had never kissed another woman apart from his wife and, indeed, he could probably count every kiss he had bestowed upon her, in every place and everywhere, although, actually, recently the kisses had become rather scarce.

      Not that Francie’s and Cherith’s was a loveless marriage. On the contrary. Their lives were fulfilled in many ways. They enjoyed the fellowship of the congregation and they both regarded it as a privilege to be able to minister together: this was their role and their mission in life, and they desired little else, although sometimes, if he were honest, Francie would have to admit to entertaining improper thoughts. Sometimes, for example, he wondered if he’d have been better off as a Catholic priest. He liked the idea of a sacramental role, something that involved a little less Doing – fewer committees and less street evangelism – and a bit more good old-fashioned Being. Sometimes he thought he wouldn’t at all have minded a Roman collar, or wearing a soutane. And sometimes he imagined female members of his congregation modelling swimwear.

      On that Good Friday, though, such thoughts were far from Francie’s mind. On that fateful night Francie was worrying about the kitchen.

      He and Cherith had argued before coming out – after they’d eaten their microwaveable quiche and a salad consisting of a small hard tomato, two sticks of celery, a pyramid of sweet-corn and half an iceberg lettuce, the barbecued meats at the Carvery being strictly prohibited to them. They had argued again – for it was not the first time – about what an appropriate work surface for the new kitchen might be. A laminate was cheapest, of course, which is what Jesus would have wanted, but Cherith had been trying to persuade Francie that a good hard solid wood or even a granite surface would wear better, and so in the long run it would please Jesus and the elders of the fellowship just as much. Francie quoted Scripture – ‘Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God’, Luke 6:20 – and Cherith rejoindered with some verses of her own – ‘In the house of the righteous there is much treasure’, Proverbs 15:6 – which was something they only ever did when they were really annoyed with one another. In the end they had left the house having to agree to disagree.

      Cherith, of course, did all the cooking and food preparation, and most of the washing up, as was appropriate for a minister’s wife, so she spent a lot of time in the kitchen. But Francie was the expert. He had started out life with his father as a kitchen fitter – McGinn’s, which still has its small showroom up there on Union Street, near the old Kincaid furniture factory. McGinn’s specialise, and always have specialised, in kosher kitchens, but unfortunately for Mr McGinn there aren’t that many Jews in our town – only two, in fact, as far as Mr McGinn is aware, although there may be others who don’t keep kosher, and one can only pray for their souls and for God’s forgiveness. There are not even that many Jews further afield – the only synagogue in the county, a fine example of Victorian optimism, was knocked down twenty years ago, to be replaced by a garage, a Chinese takeaway and a joke shop, Joyland, offering ‘Jokes, Magic, Tricks’, which is now itself derelict, good clean fun these days being about as unfashionable as religious orthodoxy. This meant that Mr McGinn had to travel far and wide for business, which was not convenient, but it was worth it. He’d gone into kosher kitchens because kosher kitchens meant two sinks. ‘And two sinks,’ he would say, with the kind of mad and unassailable logic that Francie himself had inherited, ‘are always better than one.’

      Francie had met Cherith shortly after he’d given up the kitchen fitting, when God had called him away from installing kosher sinks with his father to the full-time saving of souls. It was not an easy calling. Francie had been brought up a good Catholic and he was the youngest of ten children, his parents having married when they were nineteen and his mother having been pregnant every year throughout her twenties. By the time she was thirty she looked fifty and Francie’s dad had finally put his foot down, told her it was time to shut up shop, pull down the shutters and put a stop to all the shenanigans: the house was never quiet, he said, and all the children were having to compete for attention. Some of Francie’s brothers competed for attention by drinking