I was furious with Tom for trying to comfort her. In my mother's day they didn't make church a social thing. Nowadays the congregation is encouraged to stay for coffee. Being nice to the range of people that turns up in a London church is draining. One way of getting a breather is to look after a tramp.
Tramps always find the vicarage.
One Sunday a persistent guy tried to follow me into the house. I pushed him back out, but as an encore he went round to the garden and started flashing. Early on people asked how I was enjoying the house. There is no polite answer. You're lost in a big, old place, difficult to clean and expensive to heat, constantly answering the phone.