THE VICAR'S WIFE

An idea that came to me out of the blue this morning....

There is no grief quite so joyous as the grief Bernard felt when his Scandinavian and very lovely wife passed away.

Bernard Glowbottom was the vicar of Swanspottle, a parish in the back of beyond, where clerical authorities had long since decided he might best serve their cause, occupying, as he would, church premises that nobody else would go anywhere near for fear of being trapped there. And that same church authority had, in its wisdom, concluded that a permanent caretaker would cost more in remuneration and so on than would Bernard.

Bernard, though, was perfectly happy in his small vicarage in Swanspottle until, that is, November 30^th of 2017, when his beloved Ingrid passed away. Then he was even happier because he knew with the certainty enjoyed by the gullible that Ingrid had finally found her way into a better place.

And that better place would cure her of her disease. Tourette’s syndrome had been her curse for as long as he could remember and probably even longer, and there was no way she could help it.

Normally, in the vicarage, it hadn’t been a particular problem and he sometimes enjoyed the deeper meanings in her bursts of profanity and even occasionally responded to them in a way she found overwhelmingly pleasant. For instance, many’s the time she had been polishing the furniture in his office whilst he was struggling with the following Sunday’s sermon (he always wrote his sermons in his office, seated on a polished mahogany Windsor chair in front of the leather top of an Edwardian writing desk complete with its antique writing set and blotter pad.) And many’s the time she had burst into outrageous strings of words that seemed most inappropriate coming, as they did, from a vicar’s wife, invariably ending with something like (and this is cleaned up) “shag me rotten”.

But it was in church that her Tourette’s became a problem, but how could he, in all justice and observing his faith, stop her attending if attending was what she wanted to do? And what did he do if, out of the blue, she made the same demand as that italicised above? Or peppered the nave with her huge vocabulary of words that should never be uttered within the sacred walls of a church, even a crumbling one like that at Swanspottle?

“You really must try, Ingrid,” he had said more times than he’d had poached egg, “the congregation doesn’t like to be told, by you, that you need them to, if you’ll excuse the language but I quote, shag them rotten.”

“I know, Bernie dear, but I can’t help it,” she had many times and always tearfully replied. “It just happens to me and I wish it wouldn’t. And, to be helpful, I’ve tried to substitute good words for naughty ones, but that doesn’t work. I’m almost at the end of my tether, my darling, shag me rotten.”

They had seen medical men. Their GP had arranged for a psychologist to see Ingrid, and he had failed. They had tried hypnosis, but the insanity of her condition had led the hypnotist to remove his own trousers whilst she still made her customary demand. Psychotropic medications had been tried, but all they’d done was make the outpourings of her Tourette’s sound more drowsy and consequently seductive. Nothing had worked, and the last day of November in the year 2017 came along as specific days always do to the living.

It was a Thursday, and he was writing his sermon for next Sunday, though even he was beginning to question the worth of spending two or three hours struggling to find a suitable text in the Holy Book, one that he could elaborate intellectually with enough floury words to satisfy his congregation (sometimes of only a single soul, the old witch Entwhistle who had no time for God but who had developed a fetish for rubbing brasses whilst the good short-sighted vicar was concentrating on his notes). But he was a simple man with a simple faith, and he was convinced that his congregation of unbelievers would slowly become absorbed into the wonderful world of love and flowers that existed almost entirely in his own mind.

And on that Thursday, just as he was checking the spelling of chrysanthemum in his dictionary, Ingrid squawked out her usual mantra, making him jump and putting the inevitable bit of excitement into his underwear.

“Really, my dear, you can’t mean that,” he murmured, hoping that the quietness of his voice would send her Tourette’s to sleep.

“Mean what, beloved?” asked Ingrid, her Scandinavian accent almost imperceptible. She had, after all, been a resident in Swanspottle for as long as he had, which seemed to have been for ever.

“What you just shouted out, dear,” he told her, “you know, what you normally find yourself incapable of not shouting out.”

“I’m so sorry, Bernie,” she crooned.

“Come on, let’s talk about it in the bedroom over a small sherry,” he suggested.

“Oh, Bernie, I’d like that!” she crooned, “shag me rotten!”

And on that Thursday 30^th November in the year 2017 the Reverend Bernard Glowbottom escorted his lovely wife up the stairs of the smallest Vicarage for miles around and into the one and only bedroom, the one with the word “Boudoir” on a sign stapled to the door in much the same way as the door next door proclaimed it was The Lav.

And what happened beyond that door is mostly of no concern to any third party, and you, dear reader, are a third party. Suffice it to say that a considerable number of non-verbal squeals and yelps, mostly of delight, would have been heard by you as a third party were you standing on the other side of that door and listening. They were certainly heard by me, your writer, and made me go all squiggly inside.

And then there was silence except for the almost imperceptible whisper of a zip being raised.

Then the door opened and a white faced Reverend Bernard Glowbottom staggered out.

“Dead,” he told himself, “she’s dead...”

And she was. Cold and still and dead and finally free of her Tourette’s affliction. It turned out (there was an inquest) that she had a heart condition that might have taken her from him any time during the past half century and a sudden burst of physical activity had triggered a massive and fatal heart attack.

“She begged me,” stammered Bernard to the Coroner at the inquest, “I think she must have known that something was wrong… and I was weak enough to submit...”

“The poor woman,” hummed the Coroner.

“And me,” agreed Bernard, “poor me too.”

But that wasn’t actually the case. With Tourette’s no longer part of his religious rituals his congregation increased from the brass-rubbing one to half a dozen, all ladies of a certain very old age, which meant it was a lot more worthwhile spending Thursday mornings trying to made sense of the Good Book.

And, before long, he was promoted.

There was an empty church in Rasten that needed a new cleric, and he was the chosen voice.

After he left it, the church in Swanspottle, needing a new roof, was sold to developers and became a medical centre for the treatment of the debilitating Tourette’s syndrome. Which is a spooky sort of coincidence.

© Peter Rogerson 30.11.17

Reviews

[Coyote Poetry]

The story sad and you brought the reader in. Made them understand the situation and the Tourette's syndrome. Hard to watch someone suffer you loved. Thank you Peter for sharing the worthwhile and powerful story.
Coyote

[Peter Rogerson]

Sometimes the least of ideas can lead to something I'm proud of writing.

[Coyote Poetry]

You did well my friend. A amazing write.