Jack Chisnall knocked twice on the dark pew and the congregation stood. There was a short silence, the evening traffic beyond just audible. Then he started to sing. Alone at first, his voice mounting and clear, before the rest of us joined in. At this chapel, Pusey House in central Oxford, the psalms are recited antiphonally, those on the left singing the first verse, those on the right the next, the strange poetry of the Old Testament passing back and forth like information moving between the hemispheres of the brain.
Jack led us through the lineaments of the service – the Nunc dimittis (The Song of Simeon), the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer. Under his long black cassock, he wore a bright red short-sleeved shirt tucked into belted drainpipe jeans, a look that marked him out from the regulars in their blazers and ties of varying browns and greys. The way he sang, the way he held himself, everything about him suggested this was the place he was meant to be, as if had never lived another way. After the service, I leaned over to say something to this effect. He shook his head and sighed, “Thanks, but I fucked the Nunc.”
