My journey back to Skipton was not the one that I’d expected when Mary dropped me at the station that morning. I felt an inner calmness and that was strange to me. I’d been excited about getting those dresses made for me but after the incident in the Cathedral, it was as if they didn’t matter any more.

Mary met me at the station. In an instant she noticed that I was different.

“Did Vic give you the tour?”

I nodded.

“It got to you didn’t it?”

“Yes it did. As much as I didn’t want it to, it did.”

Mary laughed.

“I could tell it was something like that. Your eye makeup is a mess.”

Her effervescent aurora brought me out of my stupor. I laughed.

“I’m sorry for that. I guess the place did get to me. The history, the peace and the beauty.”

“York is better though. We must go sometime. I can give you the tour.”

“Ok but not just yet. I don’t think I can take all that… in anything but small doses.”

“Same here but don’t tell anyone,” confessed Mary.

The day ended with the pair of us demolishing a nice bottle of wine. It had been quite a day.

Life returned to normal at the Vicarage. People around the town even started to call me by my name. It was as if I was carving out a niche for myself in the community. That alone made me feel happy but also unsure about the future.

One day, I’d been out to the Market getting some Shin of Beef for our evening meal when I met Mary running down the road.

“What’s the hurry? Has Mrs Clarke finally popped her clogs?”

“No. They’ve arrived.”

“What or who has arrived?”

“Your uniforms,” she whispered.

“Oh.”

“What’s up? Don’t you want them any longer?”

“It is not that.”

Mary took one look at my face and got the message.

“Come home and let all out to Auntie Mary.”

I just nodded and followed her like a lamb.

“Sit yourself down and Auntie Mary will put the Kettle on.”

I couldn’t help notice the big box on the table. I couldn’t face the contents for a while. While Mary was filling the kettle, I moved the box out of the kitchen and into the hallway.

Just doing that made me feel a bit better.

Mary sat down and put two mugs of tea down in front of us.

“Now tell Auntie Mary what is troubling you.”

I looked at the cup and at the steam coming off the hot liquid for some time. Many people would have given up but Mary is like most priests, a born listener.

“I’m afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Of everything.”

“Nonsense. You can’t be afraid of everything. Are you afraid of me?”

“No.”

“Well then. You aren’t afraid of everything. So what are you really afraid of?”

I stared at the cup again.

“I’m afraid of being too comfortable. Comfortable here and comfortable with you.”

Mary gave a sharp intake of breath.

“Of shit Jess. Are you saying what you think you are saying?”

I nodded my head before replying,
“My trip to Durham made me realise that I’ve fallen in love with this place and even more with you. Mrs Chamberlain spoke to me today at the market as if I’d been here forever. It started to hit me then. I was comfortable, happy and content with things.”

“What are you rabbiting on about?”

“I don’t want those sodding dresses and I’m going to leave because I’ve fallen in love with someone who can’t return it. Someone who can’t be seen in a relationship with me for obvious reasons.”

“And that someone is me?”

“Yes.You. Oh why do you have to be a sodding Vicar?”

Mary laughed for a second but soon she regained her composure.

“Are you sure that I’m not just a convenient replacement for him?”

“I never loved him. He’s a man.”

Neither of us said anything for a while.

Then I said,

“I’ll work out my notice and go. That way the gossips won't chatter too much. Say the end of the month?”

“You will do no such thing,” replie Mary being form for once.

“Why? Why ever not?”

Then Mary reached over the table and took my hand.

“Because did it not occur to you that I might have feelings for you too.”

That was not the answer I was expecting. Never in a million years.

“But your position here?”

“I know. You really don’t want to know how much sleep I’ve lost recently trying to reconcile that question. The only viable answer is for me to leave the ministry if we are to be together. The introduction of Women priests was a big step but, the Church is most certainly not yet ready for what appears to be Lesbian Clergy even if there are some already working in parishes. So let us have no more talk of you leaving until we can work things out for us. Understand?”

All I could do was to nod my head.

“Right, now it is time to try on those lovely dresses. Yes?"

“Yes."

A few minutes later in my bedroom, the package had been opened and the contents poured over.

“These are wonderful,” exclaimed Mary.

“Vic’s friends have done you proud.”

“I have to admit they do look nice.”

“Well try one on then. One petticoat or two?”

Her joke made me laugh.

“Ok, two,” I said stripping off my skirt and blouse.

We spent the next hour playing dress-up. The sheer act of truing the different outfits made me awful lot happier.

When we’d done, Mary said,

“Why don’t you fix your makeup and get dressed, that black one with the scoop neck plus three petticoats would do very nicely. Put on some heels and we’ll go out for the evening. I don’t think either of us is in the mood to cook anything. There’s a nice pub near the station in Barnoldswick that I’ve been meaning to visit for some time.”

Twenty minutes later I came downstairs wearing the black dress, a white blouse and black heels. I’d also put on some nearly black tights. I thought I looked pretty decent.

Mary was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. She’d put on a very nice LBD and there was no trace of her ‘dog collar’. She’d also put on some heels and black tights.

“Ready?” asked Mary.

“I think so.”

We’d just finished eating our main course and the episode of earlier in the day have almost been forgotten when disaster struck. The saying, ‘It never rains but it pours’ was never truer.

“Fancy a desert?” asked Mary.

I was about to reply when I felt that someone was standing close by.

I turned around to find Liam standing there smiling.

“Hello Jess. Are you going to ask me to sit down?”

“Liam… What are you doing here?”

“Well, are you going to ask me to sit down or do I have to stand here attracting attention?”

“No, we were just leaving.”

I stood up and said to him,

“I have nothing to say to you. I said all I wanted to say when I left you.”

Then I turned to Mary,

“Are we going?”

“Yes we are.”

She stood up and went face to face with Liam.

“Jess said everything she wanted say to you when she left you. I don’t know what your game is but don’t mess with me. I have God on my side.”

Then she gripped my hand and then gave me a long and very passionate kiss right there in the middle of the pub and with a good few people watching us.

Then we left the pub as I mentally thanked god for the fact that we’d paid for our drinks and food when we ordered them.

Mary drove us home with her hand in mine as much as possible. I was visibly shaking.

Back at the Vicarage Mary tried to comfort me.

“I sure put a flea in his ear.”

“Don’t be too sure. He is a very powerful man and you insulted him in public. He won’t like that.”

“I don’t care. You made it clear that you did not want to speak to him.”

“He is still a very powerful man. People do not cross him and get away with it.”

Mary thought for a moment. Then she smiled.

“I had better get first blow in then hadn't I?”

She reached for the phone and dialled a number from memory.

“Hello Charles. Mary Hammond here. Is the Archbishop free?”

“Yes I will.”

A few seconds later the Archbishop came on the line.

“Good Evening Archbishop.”

“I’m fine.”

“No this is not a social call. You may be receiving a complaint about my behaviour tonight.”

“No. I kissed someone in Public to avoid a messy scene between two former lovers.”

“The… the fact is that the person I kissed is a woman. My housekeeper in fact. If you want it then I’ll resign my post in a flash but it was the only thing I could do to avoid a scene. She didn’t want to speak to him so I had to act. I am afraid that my good Samaritan act may backfire not only on my but on you and the Diocese.”

“Thank you your grace. I will. Goodnight.”

Mary put the phone down with a wry smile on her face.

“The A-B says that I did the right thing.”

I shook my head in disbelief.

“You really don’t know how powerful the A-B is. He has the PM on speed dial.”

“Well, I said what I wanted to say. If I have too then I’ll resign.”

Before I could say anything Mary added.

“Then again I might just do that anyway.”

“Why? It is your career. You are a very natural Vicar. You have a kind heart and people respond to you. I hear only good words about you in town.”

“Thank you for the compliments. But I meant what I said earlier. I have feelings for you as well. I didn’t know what I was missing in my life until you breezed into it and knocked it all over the place.”

“But…” I tried to grasp a straw, any straw.

“But what about your sister and your family? They all have to live here.”

“Yes. I know but if we are discrete about it then no one will know.”

“You’d do that for me?”

“Not for you, for us.”

My mouth emulated a dying fish.

“Now get upstairs and get ready for bed. I’ll join you.”

“Bed? The two of us? Together?”

“Not that but I think we both need a cuddle tonight. It has been quite a day for both of us.”

We were both very edgy the following day. I was dreading a knock at the door from Liam. When nothing came we breathed a sigh of relief. Mary was happy but I feared that it was the calm before the storm.

We tried to act normally but it was very hard. In the evenings we spent a lot of time talking about us and the future.

In the end, the storm hit three days after the episode in the Pub. I was alone in the vicarage. Mary was away on Church Business. The knock that I’d been dreading came just before 4pm.

I opened the door and saw Parker, Liam’s driver and general fixer-upper.

“Hello Miss. Nice to see you again.”

“Hello Parker. Where is he?”

“In the car Miss.”

“Waiting for the all clear I presume?”

“Yss miss, something like that.”

While I was trying to work out what to do, Parker said,

“If you don’t mind me saying Miss, this wasn’t my idea. I did everything I could to stop him but he hired literally dozens of Private Dicks to find you. You have certainly burried yourself deep here.”

Then he grinned.

"Being housekeeper to a Vicar was probably the least likely job I would have expected you to have. Well done."

“How did they find me?”

“Just by luck. One of them was on a train in Leeds. He saw you on the station. They eventually tracked you down to this neck of the woods. They saw you in town the other day and took your picture. Mr Liam was flying to New York. He turned the jet around as soon as he got saw that it was really you.”

“He says he loves you Miss.”

“Well, I don’t love him. I don’t now and have never loved him. What we had was a business arrangement. Even you knew that right from the outset. But thank you Parker for telling me that. Why don’t you make yourself scarce for a while I sort of Mr 'high and mighty' Liam once and for all?”

“Yes Miss. Good Luck.”

Then he added,

“You are looking good. You seem to have found your place in life. I’m very happy for you.”

I almost went and hugged him on the spot but that would have deflected me from what I had to do next.

I walked out to the car where Liam was waiting. He was in the Rolls. Everyone in Town would know that he’d been here. A big flashy Rolls with personalised number plates is hard to hide in a small town like Skipton.

I opened the rear passenger door and got in.

“Why Liam, why?”

“I missed you.”

“Well I didn’t miss you. I said everything I wanted to say in my note to you. I have built a life for me here. People know me by name not as someone who is apparently your wife. I’m done with that. Got it?”

“Well marry me and make it legit.”

“No Liam I will never marry you. I don’t love you. You are gay one moment, hetro the next, gay the next. I’m now a woman and in with love another woman. Being your wife all these years was all an act. You should know that because you set it all up in the first place. I did everything we agreed. You kept your side of the deal. Actually, did more than keep mine. Two years you said. How long did play that role eh? Never mind. When I said I was done, I meant it. I’m not going back. EVER!”

I swallowed hard.

“Yes, you made me into what you see before you. That was business. But I needed a life outside of looking pretty for you. I had nothing to do. You wouldn’t even let me learn to ride a horse in case I fell off and spoiled my looks.”

I glared at him hard.

“I was fucking lonely. Pure and simple. You wouldn’t let me have friends, real friends. Not those plastic and botox enhanced fifty-year old wives who seem to dress like twenty-year old hookers but people my own age that I could relate to. God knows that I tried to get you to listen but there was always some deal in the offing so you put me off by saying ‘later babe’.”

“Oh, and your money and all that it stands for is not important. I have found people here who treat me as a real person not, your appendage. If I go out without makeup on then no one cares. I have a life. A life that I craved for. A life that you could not give me.”

“Do you love her?”

“Yes I do. We spend each night in the same bed. Mary has already spoken to the Archbishop about our little kiss in Public. She will resign if asked to do so. So please go back to wherever you have parked whichever one of your Lear-Jets you are using at the moment and go somewhere very far away and GET LOST preferably for the next twenty years at least.”

With that, I got out of the car and slammed the door behind me. But being a Rolls, the Car knew better and the door did a soft landing much to my annoyance.

I’d walked a couple of steps before I turned around and went back to the car and opened the door again.

“If there was one thing I learned from you and that is to never ever go back on a decision made from the heart. I made the decision to leave from the heart. You deserve to know that much."

Then I left him sitting in the car just staring out of the window.

When I got back to the house, Parker was nowhere to be seen. Sitting on the hall table, there was a large A4 envelope with the words ‘You earned this. Make her happy’ written on the front. Inside was a wad of share certificates for a US Company that Liam had invested in not long after I first met him. I remembered that I’d had to persuade him that it was a good investment. I knew in an instant that they were worth an awful lot of money just because their product line appealed for young women and not stuffy middle aged men or techno geeks. We’d joked at the time but Liam had put a good wad of the shares in my name. I’d forgotten all about them. I suspected that Liam had done the same.

I sat down and wept for a while.

I’d just about packed everything when Mary returned from day out. Her good mood changed immediately when she saw the cases by the door.

“I take it that has he been here then?”

“Yes. He appeared about four.”

Mary came over to me and took my hands in hers and looked me in the eyes.

“I saw the A-B and tendered my resignation. He didn’t want to accept it but I persuaded him that it would be best in the long run. I will announce it on Sunday. Then in one month we can be together. Can you last that long?”

We kissed passionately for almost a minute.

“I can wait for you. No matter how long it takes.”

“I can’t wait to be free. Free to marry you.”

“Thank you darling.”

Then I showed her the envelope.

“I’d forgotten all about this. I had to really work hard to get Liam to invest in this company. As a joke he put twenty-five percent of the investment in my name. Now they are worth a small fortune. I think the last market valuation I saw was around 60 million dollars. Apparently, I own 4% of it. Parker must have remembered that these were in my name not his.”

“Parker must have thought the world of you,”

“Yes he did. He always said that I was the daughter he never saw grow up.”

Mary hugged me tight.

We put the unexpected windfall to one side and we both agreed that now Liam had shown his hand, our exit plan could be put into action.

“Do you want me to call Vic as we agreed?” asked Mary.

“No. I did that a little while ago. She will be expecting me around midnight.”

“Midnight? Why so long?”

“I am going round the houses, up hill, down dale. I don’t want to put Vic in any danger. I still don’t know if he has given up so better safe than sorry eh?”

“Better I don’t know then?"

“Yes darling. Better you don’t know,” I said before giving her a very long kiss.

Vic met me late that night at Durham station like before. I’d travelled into Leeds and back out again on the slow train to Carlisle and then to Durham via Newcastle.

Her beaming smile gave me a big lift. As we met up, she wrapped her arms around me and gave me a hug.

“You are just what Mary needs in her life. I knew that the moment I met you.”

Her kind words almost brought me to tears.

“Hey, I’ll have none of those waterworks. Those can wait until I marry the pair of you.”

[Two months later]

Vic was true to her word in that she married Mary and Jeffrey McGee in a simple ceremony at a church high up on the Pennines. Jeffrey McGee was a name plucked from the phone book and was mine for a day as I changed it for the wedding and then I changed it again and took Mary’s surname. Thus began the married life of Mary and Jess Hammond.

[A further three months later]

“Well Darling what do you think?” I asked as we stood outside a property on the edge of Thetford Forest.”

“It ticks all the boxes and will be the perfect place to raise our children,” replied Mary as she patted her stomach. We’d found out that she was six weeks along only the previous day. Then she added,

“The sandy soil will be perfect for raising veggies.”

“Well I’d better put an offer in then.”

“Yes you’d better do that.”

“Yes Mrs Boss.”

Then I kissed her. We did that a lot.

My heart wasn’t lonely any longer as it had found a mate for life.
[The End]

A Verse from the song ‘Owner of a Lonely Heart’ by Yes.
After my own indecision
They confused me so
Owner of a lonely heart
My love said never question your will at all
In the end you've got to go
Look before you leap
Owner of a lonely heart
And don't you hesitate at all - no no

This song along with reading an article on ‘trophy wives’ inspired this story.

[The end]