How the Light Gets In

[Lucy Parr]

Lucy laughed. "Why, thank you." She responded. "I do my best. An unfriendly vicar is rather redundant, if you ask me." One's vicar should be one's confidante, and if she snapped at, shouted at or dismissed everyone that wanted to speak to her, it certainly wouldn't inspire confidence. She might well lose her position, in fact.

"Oh yes, I'd love to hear more about that, if you wouldn't mind. The village gossip mill is working overtime, and it would be nice to hear something about what's going to happen." Penchurch was a quiet little place, and the coming of the BBC was a dream come true to the local rumour manufacturing business.

[Ada Beckett]

"Oh...well..." Ada brushed a strand of hair back from her face before folding her hands in her lap. "...gosh, I'm not sure where to begin. I mean, obviously I can't tell you any plot-twists that I know about, but if you have any other questions I can certainly do my best to answer them. I've done a bit of work in TV, before, but nothing quite like this."

Ada wanted to say it was going to be big...but she felt like even dwelling too much on that hope in her own thoughts would jinx it. She was even a little nervous about it being popular--as much as she wanted that, she realized that the exposure would put her into a much larger pond than she was used to swimming in, so to speak.

[Lucy Parr]

"Oh gosh, no. I wouldn't dream of trying to wheedle plot twists out of you." Lucy responded lightly, brushing a stray hair behind her ears. No-one in the village would be especially interested in the plot of the drama; many of them didn't watch TV much (or at all), and reception tended to be somewhat patchy. What people would want to know was the answer to the all-important question. How would it affect them?

"I mean things like... Well, when will you be starting filming?" Lucy was rather looking forward to everything kicking off, to be honest. Life in the village, while full of melodrama in its own way, tended to be rather monotonous after a while, and it was difficult to maintain an expression of interest when being told that a girl had just broken up with the same boy for the fifth time running. The BBC production would add a little interest to her life, she thought.

[Ada Beckett]

"Oh, well...hm..." Ada's brow furrowed as she tried to think of the correct answer. "My first day on-set is the week after next--I came down a little early to settle in, and then there's last minute costume adjustments and all that--but there's already a fair few producers and crew types up at the castle...er, I mean the abbey."

Ada grinned a little self-consciously and shoved her hands into the pockets of her coat.

"Sorry--I'm a London girl, so every magnificent old house out in the country looks a bit like a castle, to me."

[Lucy Parr]

Lucy smiled and nodded. She hadn't seen many people who looked like part of a production crew around, but then it was difficult to tell someone's occupation by looking at them. In Penchurch, though, you could generally spot a stranger a mile off, and she'd seen very few people wandering around gazing intently at the scenery, or walking slightly awkwardly down the street while trying to ignore the weight of massed gazes on them, which were how you could usually identify a newcomer. Well, that and the fact that they looked unfamiliar.

"It's fine, it's a common problem." the woman joked lightly. "Abbeys tend to be less bristling with defences, for future reference."

[Ada Beckett]

"Ah, right," said Ada, relaxing a little into her smile. "Though here on the coast I suppose you must be prepared for an armada at any moment."

Though considering the retirement patterns of so many older Britons, Ada had to wonder if Spain were being invaded by the English, at this point. Vikings...Normans...King Phillip for the Elizabethans...the general horror of Catholics after that...Napoleon for the Georgians...Hitler for her grandparents...the coasts of Britain had withstood threats both real and imagined for all of recorded history, and Ada found herself getting a little far-away look in her eyes as she considered all the history that lay beneath her feet in a place like this. Somehow it was easier to cast one's mind back to the past in a place like Penchurch than it was in a cramped flat or terraced house in the suburbs of London. The British Museum and such were all very well and good, but in this village it seemed like every corner one turned there was a bit of something that felt ancient and undisturbed--or at the very least, prettily antique.

[Lucy Parr]

Lucy chuckled and shot her visitor a bright smile. "Not so much these days, although I believe that there used to be a Royal Navy base around here some time in the last couple of centuries. These days, anyone who wants to invade comes by air." And naturally, Penchurch was rather too small to have an airstrip, hence the fact that they were largely undefended against the terrors of the modern and wider world.

There was a lot of military history around this area. It attracted rather a lot of tourists, or strictly speaking, she supposed that they ought to be called military historians, since they were here for a specific purpose. No castle here, for some inexplicable reason- perhaps even in ancient times, Penchurch had been too small to attract any attention from the Government and their army-type people. Lucy had considered working as an army chaplain, but only briefly. Aside from the fact that loud bangs terrified her half to death, she was also pretty sure that she'd never come anywhere close to passing either the fitness or medical tests.