I especially remember her teeth. They were perfect, white and even but also frightening. She might have worn dentures. I never thought it at the time and even so even at the age of sixteen I would have been too polite to ask. She was in her fifties, though I was not a good judge of age. For three or four Sunday mornings she drove me with her to church. We both lived in Richmond and St. Margaret's would have been a good twelve mile drive from Richmond to north east Vancouver. I had never met her before. One Sunday at church she approached me, having heard that I lived in Richmond, and she offered to drive me to church. I never learned her first name. She was Mrs. Chapman and even though it was 1972 I was not used to addressing people formally, at least not at church where we all enjoyed a first name basis. She picked me up on Westminster Highway, not far from my home. We talked about a huge range of subjects though I can't remember much. She had a friendly but formal manner towards me. Well educated with what used to be called breeding, perhaps someone who grew up to accept a certain standard of living. It was like riding in the car with one of my school teachers. She was an attractive woman and I assume that when she was a young woman during the forties she must have been quite a knock-out. She smiled a lot, but in a way I found frightening and creepy, as though she had long been in the habit of smiling the same way, whether she was watching an episode of I Love Lucy, or sitting on the toilet, or torturing a kitten or holding a riding crop.
I sometimes wanted to get out of the car, but supposed that I should express gratitude for her kindness. She talked to me as though I were a school boy, which I suppose I was, though even at sixteen I was mistaken for eighteen or nineteen, and already smoked pot and done a few other things and really not in anyway did I resemble a school boy, at least not the kind she must have assumed me to be. The only conversation I actually remember is our last one, and now after all these years that have passed I think I understand why she seemed no longer available to drive me to St. Margaret's in the spring of 1972. In fact, I don't remember ever seeing her again, anywhere.
St. Margaret's was a phenomenon. One of the only, if not the one and only Reformed Episcopal Church in Greater Vancouver, they had taken a decidedly unique path when in the late sixties the people there began to experience a charismatic renewal that also involved opening their doors to the local hippies and street people. The church soon became a phenomenon. Although half the congregation left in protest the remnant congregation grew manifold to overflowing. The phenomenon was just reaching saturation point when I knew Mrs. Chapman. I had found my way there less than a year ago when the Jesus People Army where I experienced my Christian conversion turned into a very angry and dangerous cult. St. Margaret's became my refuge and new church home. Mrs. Chapman would have been a member of the old guard of whom many had remained. They were all generally very conservative, very white and very straight-laced, unlike the horde of under thirties such as myself who appeared to be taking the place over.
We were talking about these very developments in St. Margaret's, and of Pastor Birch's pivotal involvement, influence and support. I mentioned to Mrs. Chapman that to many he was like a father. There was a second's silence, then grinning more fiercely than ever, the Sunday morning daylight reflecting off her clenched perfect teeth she said, "He isn't a father to me. He isn't that at all." There was a another silent second. then she said, "To me, Pastor Burch is a husband." I was at first gob-smacked, then I timidly asked, "You mean because you're older than me he would be too young to be like a father to you?" She replied in well-bred ferocity, "No, I mean to say that he is a husband to me!"
That was our last ride together. A few months later there was a division in the church and several elders went to form an independent church. No one was telling anyone anything but it was rumored that there was adultery occurring in high places and the dissenting elders were leaving in protest. After that I began to notice a subtle but clear change in my relations with Pastor Birch. An eager mentor towards many of the young people in the church he appeared to shun me, to almost turn away or try to walk away if he saw me coming. It wasn't until years afterward, in my forties, that it occurred to me, that Mrs. Chapman, perhaps while in the heights of passion, might have confessed in his ear one warm illicit night that this terrible secret of theirs was now being shared with them by a precocious sixteen year old boy living in Richmond.
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