Low life | 18 June 2015

Before delivering his sermon, the vicar said we must offer one another the sign of peace. He struck the first blow by stepping forward and thrusting a stiff karate hand at the nearest inert parishioner and demanding that peace be with her. I hoped to get away with shaking hands with just the pair of female deaf mutes in my row or, if the spirit moved, with the very elderly woman in front of me, subject to her having the agility and the ambition to turn around. But the giving of the sign of peace in this church, I now learned, meant getting up off one’s arsebones and trotting about, offering it to as many people as possible before the music stopped. So once I’d done the deaf mutes, I moved out into the aisle and plunged into the orgy of cheek-pecking and handshaking that was going on there, and I said ‘Peace be with you’ and grasped at hands and planted kisses more or less indiscriminately.