His grandmother was apparently religious, although he had always harboured grave doubts about it.
Apparently, it was by the merciful grace of the Lord that his grandfather had got drunk and tumbled into the village pond, and didn’t bob back up for three days. Throughout his childhood he’d been subjected to the notion that just about everything came about by the merciful grace of the Lord.
When their neighbour’s boy fell out of their tree and broke his arm, she said it was by the merciful grace of the Lord.
When his uncle’s toolbox fell on his foot and crushed his toes, so that he had to have a special boot made, it was by the merciful grace of the Lord.
It seems that it came about by the merciful grace of the Lord, when the butcher’s three your old daughter died after eating cotoneaster berries in their back yard.
When the vicar’s wife died in their house fire it was by the merciful grace of the Lord.
When the neighbour’s cleaning woman choked on a fishbone and died, it was by the merciful grace of the Lord.
Naturally, it was by the merciful grace of the Lord that his mother’s sisters’ boy suffocated to death, when he was bandaged from head to toe for the school’s production of The Mummy.
When the farmer that his Dad knew from his army days shot himself while cleaning his rifle, this too was by the merciful grace of the Lord.
When the scoutmaster’s boy got electrocuted and died after pushing the handle of a teaspoon into a wall socket, it was deemed to be by the merciful grace of the Lord.
There seemed to be no doubt that it was by the merciful grace of the Lord, when the nice lady who worked in the local library was crushed to death when her bookcase holding her home collection of health manuals came away from her living room wall.
And on the occasion of his best school friend’s whole family perishing when a gas leak caused their holiday caravan to explode, it was by the merciful grace of the Lord.
All these religious affirmations finally stopped, on the occasion of the public procession of army manoeuvres rumbling through the local town’s high street. When, on leaning forward to get a better view, his grandmother fell under the track of an oncoming tank.
On this occasion, he had no compunction at all about considering it to be an event that had truly been brought about by the merciful grace of the Lord.