JOSIAH PYKE AND THE XENOPHOBIC NUN

A replacement for the Reverend Julian Pyke proves to be controversial...

“it’ll do the village good, having a black vicar,” suggested Ophelia.

“He’s a good man,” said Josiah, “he lectured us when I was at University and if his words are anything to judge him by he’ll be good for a community like Henstooth.”

The Reverend Michael Stocks was the replacement for the very late and barely lamented Julian Pyke and he was proving to be a success in the village from his very first day. Attendance at his services on Sundays remained much higher than they had been for his predecessor and his cheery face was often seen in the village, walking around, getting to know his parishioners

“The people like him, anyway,” murmured Ophelia. “He called here a day or two ago, while you were away at Goosebury doing your duty at Vic’s church, and he seemed to know all about us.”

“I hope he didn’t think...” began Josiah. He didn’t want it thought by anyone that he was having what he thought was a disgracefully improper relationship with his beautiful lodger, and Ophelia understood that. She liked and admired him, and in a way she believed that she loved him, but the truth was he kept her at an admittedly very short arm’s distance.

“He didn’t,” she said, knowing what his question would be. “But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. There’s Sister Theresa who seems to have settled in at Hope Cottage now that there’s no convent left in the county.”

“I’ve seen a nun about,” said Josiah thoughtfully, “quite an old biddy by the looks of her. Must be in her eighties if she’s a day.”

“She worries me,” sighed Ophelia. “She gave me shock when she came by yesterday. When she popped in it was clear she had quite unpleasant thoughts about our new vicar. I think, and I hope I’m wrong but I’m sure that I’m not, it’s because he’s Afro-Caribbean...”

“Oh dear...” Josiah frowned and shook his head. “The rest of the village seem to like him,” he said slowly, “and there’s always the chance of there being one rotten apple in the barrel, I suppose. But Sister Theresa is an old woman and sometimes people in her generation have had fixed ideas for too long.”

“Do you think it would help if I spoke to her?” asked Ophelia, but before Josiah could answer there was a knock at the door. “Now who can that be?” she muttered, frowning.

The door was knocked for a second time and she shook her head. “For goodness’ sake, have some patience!” she muttered, and went to open it.

“Goodness me,” Josiah heard her say, “we were just this moment talking about you, and here you are...”

“Nothing bad, I hope!” came the growling answer, more male sounding than the female that it was, and Ophelia returned with the oldest woman dressed in the habit of a nun that Josiah could remember ever having seen.

“It’s the sister,” sighed Ophelia, “wanting to see you,” she added.

Before he could welcome her the elderly woman locked his eyes with her own and frowned.

“I hope you’re not one of those men with a collar who’s fallen into the path of the devil,” began the nun. “I see you’ve got a woman here with you and I hear she cohabits with you. That’s the devil’s work, that is, and I won’t have anything to do with it!”

Josiah stared at her, speechless. The rest of the villagers, he believed, were aware that Ophelia was little more than a friend and lodger to the neighbouring village’s curate, and he had heard nothing in the way of criticism of the arrangement he had made with Ophelia. For his part he insisted on sticking to their arrangement even though he had to admit to himself that it wasn’t always easy, what with some of the revealing clothes that she chose to wear, and underneath it all he being a mere man.

“Ophelia is my house-keeper,” he said, a little sharply, “I am curate of the neighbouring village of Goosebury and what with travelling and so on I have little time to do much in the way of domestic chores. In return, I offer a small wage and a roof over her head in a room of her own.”

“So you say,” grunted the geriatric nun, “and I dared say you might say it’s no concern of mine, you being from a different parish and so on.”

“It isn’t,” Josiah told her, “in fact the only persons that our arrangement concerns are ourselves. Now how can I help you?”

“The vicar,” she said, “the one in the church here. The foreigner.”

“The Reverend Stocks?” asked Josiah.

“That’s what they call him. I don’t like to say it, but I will. He’s foreign, and no good will come of it!”

“Pardon?” asked Josiah as his mind raced in order to find a decent reply. “What’s his nationality got to do with it, not that he is foreign. He was born, I believe, in Yorkshire, and that doesn’t make him remotely foreign even though there are some Yorkshire folk who think it might!”

“You’ve only got to look at him!” snapped the Sister Theresa. “No man of his kind belongs here! I’ve been a God-fearing creature for all of my life and I’ve never bowed my head to foreigners and their kind!”

“Are you, perhaps, not being a bit racist?” asked Ophelia.

“Racist? Racist? Of course I am!” screeched the old woman. “It’s not that I’ve got anything against him, of course I haven’t, but his god isn’t the same as our god, and that’s a proven fact!”

“The good book suggests there’s only one god,” murmured Josiah, “and if that’s the case the gods of all nations must be one and the same. But it’s my day off and I’m not at home in order to have a religious argument with a xenophobic woman who judges a man by the colour of his skin!”

“That’s enough of that sort of language!” squawked Sister Theresa, “calling me that kind of name when all I want is to make my opinion known! I’ve talked to the odd bods I’ve bumped into in the village and there’s not one of them with an ounce of sense in their bodies. Why, there’s some as actually likes him!”

“That’s probably because he’s a good man,” Ophelia told her, “and a lot better and more holy than his predecessor...” here she glanced at Josiah, “… who wasn’t the best advertisement for his faith!”

“I hear the Lord took him on his doorstep,” The nun shook her head with assumed sorrow, “which means the Lord wanted him. Wanted to escort him to Heaven to sit at his side in his Heaven. The Lord must have really loved him.”

“Despite his sins,” murmured Josiah, “of which there were plenty, I can assure you. Now, sister, can we offer you refreshment? A cup of tea? Something like that?”

“Tea!” squawked sister Theresa, “tincture of Satan more like! As foreign as the man in the church, and as evil! You wouldn’t have a good drop of rum to warm an old woman, would you?”

“Rum? From the Caribbean?” asked Ophelia, smiling.

“I don’t care where it comes from… it warms the flesh on a cold day, which is it doing the Lord’s work.”

“Just like the good Reverend Michael does with every day of his life, hailing as he does from the very same corner of Creation as the finest rum,” said Josiah evenly, “and yes, I think I can find a drop of the stuff for you.”

Sister Theresa smiled a toothless smile and nodded her head. “Then I’ll have a sip and go straight to the church and offer my prayers to on high,” she said, “and see what’s what in Heaven.”

Which must have been what she did, for her lifeless body, smelling faintly of Jamaican rum, was found sitting in a pew at the front of the church by the Reverend Michael Stocks, stone cold and wrinkled about two hours later.

Time enough for her to seek the truth if there was any truth to find in the hugeness that is infinity.

© Peter Rogerson 30.03.18