Really creative writing

(continued from The Call episode 1)

He’s writing a book about religion which he has tentatively entitled `Conflicting attitudes towards Christianity in Britain and America.’

He’s even considering adding the sub-title `In Britain it’s considered eccentric to be a churchgoer but in America it’s practically mandatory.’ Whew.
“It doesn’t seem quite right to me.” he complains to his wife, who is blamelessly trying to complete The Times crossword puzzle.
“What’s that, dear?” she says without looking up.
“Mandatory, it doesn’t seem quite right.”
She looks closely at the clue and at the spaces allocated for the word she is searching for. “It doesn’t fit. Besides, the clue is -”
He shook his head irritably and walked away. He had slept badly the night before. He’d had a dream and had got up at - God knows what time it was - 2am maybe? He had gone to the window and thought he saw a light flashing in the church. He had gone downstairs undecided whether to investigate or call the police and the dogs had escaped, had inexplicably bolted through the door and run off. A few minutes later he heard them barking, from the direction of the church.
He had got up again just after dawn to search for them but they weren’t in the garden or the nearby lanes and fields. It was damned unusual. Dogs, or at least bull mastiffs like Zac and Ben, didn’t just run off like that. He decided to look around the church for them.
That damned dream. He was in some kind of fight. He was trying to do something - God knows what, and somebody was trying to stop him. There was a woman’s voice in the background and she kept saying something - repeating something. And as if this wasn’t bizarre enough, she had a strange accent - an American accent.
Richard Mere retired but still pretty fit walking up the lane to the church frets about that sub-title. `Eccentric’ was fine for the British attitude towards churchgoing but was `practically mandatory’ apt for the American attitude towards it? Would `it’s preferable to be a churchgoer’ be better? The sooner he worked out the title and subtitle, the sooner he could start writing the book (!)
Walking through the churchyard he passes under the ancient English yew trees and senses that strange combination of continuity and forboding - impending death, that yew trees in churchyards inspire in the British.
To anyone else - a foreigner - they would have no connotations of impending death, he guessed.

Footnote:`The Call’ is entirely a work of fiction and is not intended to represent the views of American clergymen in Britain towards the British or the views of the British towards American clergymen in Britain.