JOSIAH PYKE AND THE KING'S ARBORETUM

A Chapter by Peter Rogerson

The first year at theological college is over and Josiah goes for a few weeks at a retreat

The first year at the Benedict College, a small and relatively insignificant part of County University, was one of mixed feelings for Josiah Pyke, who had been obliged to come to terms with the fact that he and Penny were, as a twosome, history. But in his heart he still had feelings for her, especially when he remembered the glory that was her hair and found himself if it had grown any longer since he last saw her. Feelings like that don’t recede so easily and leave the spirit disenchanted for far too long.

He had written to her one more time, a long and emotional teenage exposition on his feelings and explaining about the way he cried himself to sleep at night without her, and her reply had merely politely and without feeling suggested that he grew up, though not in so many words. But it had been brief, and as a consequence he had written to Mildred opening his heart to her.

But Mildred was no spring chicken and had a now ailing partner in Malcolm to care for and she reluctantly replied that he must cope with his emotions as best he could, she loved him as a son, of course she did, but her own health wasn’t what it was and she and her Malcolm were going away for two months during the summer, on a world tour, whilst they still could. He could, of course, return to Tom’s Playground for the summer break, but there would be nobody else there.

So Josiah had a long vacation ahead of him and nowhere other than an empty house to go to, and if that’s what he chose he had nothing to do in it and a whole summer to occupy, and his attention was drawn to a retreat at a place fancifully called the King’s Arboretum that had some kind of connection to his college, and he opted to spend six weeks there rather than bounce around in an empty house.

The King of the King’s Arboretum was the deity worshipped by everyone who professed to be Christian and a few who didn’t, and the arboretum part was a small but ornate garden supplied with outdoor seats where the righteous could contemplate their place in the world and under the stars.

And he hated it.

The accommodation was spartan, the food minimal and the hours spent in religious pursuit long and tedious. All the visitors had a cell-like room, reminiscent of those supposedly lived in by monks of old as they passed their lonely lives in prayer and penance. The bed was uncomfortable and the window high up, too high for him to see through should he want to look out upon the equally minimal arboretum. The whole place had clearly been designed to encourage the enquiring mind to enquire for as long as it wanted by praying in dull silence to a deity that never seemed willing to reply.

He was there with his room-mate from college, and his first thought that it was just as well they weren’t sharing a room here because Eddie would fill the hours of silence by continually doubting every nuance of their worship and generally making the time seem to crawl by even more slowly than it did.

Once or twice, though, their paths crossed and Eddie would smirk and ask “What do you make of that garbage, then?” without waiting for a reply. If he had Josie was sure that he would agree with the use of the word garbage, because even to him that was what some of it was.

And then things looked up so far as Josiah was concerned.

He’d only been there for a week and had five weeks of relentless monotony ahead of him when he contracted a bug or a virus and collapsed half way through an interminable prayer and was violently sick all over a polished wooden floor.

He was carted off to the small sick bay (two beds and a toilet) where there was a buxom nurse, the only female on the premises with the exception of an elderly cook. In years to come various enactments by parliament in the battle for female equality would oblige the arboretum to include ladies amongst their prayerful numbers, but that time had still to come and it was an all-male refuge. But there was the nurse, employed primarily for economic reasons because a female nurse cost less in wages than a male one would, and none of the academics and theological recluses who lived there full time fancied caring for the physically sick: they were too concerned with those who faith had shown signs of illness to have much time for enfeebled flesh.

Matron was, of course, a matronly woman known to one and all as Nurse Jennie, and she was one who enjoyed her employment because sometimes weeks would pass by and she had virtually nothing to do yet still got paid for it. During term time she was hired out for half a day a week to the local private school where she checked hair and jabbed needles, and the rest of the time was her own.

“You poor darling,” she said when she saw how pale Josiah was, “you need feeding up, that’s what you need. This might be an excellent establishment for the feeding of minds, but it leaves a great deal to be desired when it comes to the feeding of the flesh!” And it was the way she uttered the word flesh that stirred something in Josiah’s heart, ill as he felt.

“I think I’ve caught something,” was all he could say.

“Then let’s tuck you up in a nice comfy bed and see what’s in the medicine cupboard,” she burbled.

He started undressing himself ready to put on the pyjamas she pulled from a cupboard, but she shook her head with a broad smile and murmured, “these should fit a big lad like you,” and when she saw him struggling with the belt that held his trousers up she added, “let nursey do that for you, Josiah. Nursey knows when a patient needs help,” and he let her undo his trousers.

It wasn’t that she did anything improper when she removed those trousers because she didn’t, but the expression on her face was far from proper and the way his body started reacting to the way she looked at what she was doing was even further from being proper. He might have been feeling wretched in the stomach region, but not everywhere was in his stomach...

“There, there,” she cooed, “now you pull off your panties and let nursey help you with the jim-jams,” and with no more ado than that she pulled his pyjama bottoms over his feet, along his legs and tied them at the waist.

“I get the feeling,” she whispered quietly, “that you’re quite a naughty boy some times! Better not let the Holy Father know or he’ll want his turn! He can be quite naughty too when the mood takes him! Now let me see, what would you like for evening meal?”

“I’m not hungry,” he muttered honestly, “I feel sick,” he added.

“Well, you lie yourself down, sweetie, and if you feel sick the lav’s over there,” she pointed, “and if you want anything, anything mind you, just call for nursey and she’ll come and soothe your troubled breast! But I will arrange for a light little something at meal time. We can’t have a precious boy like you starving to death, can we?”

Then nurse Jennie with a wink and a bounce of what was evidently a superb bosom she returned to the armchair where she sat down, picked up a book, and started reading it. Obviously she spent a great deal of time in that chair and equally obviously the piles of books on a small bookcase within reach of her were evidence of what she spent most of her time doing.

Josiah sighed and closed his eyes and dreamed of sleeping, and gradually lulled himself to sleep. A sleep in which he dreamed, but those dreams were confused and tormented by the undulating presence of nursey Jennie offering a variety of medical services, all of which her patient yearned for with closed eyes and the unsteady resolve that dreamers sometimes have.