9. THE GRINNING CLERGYMAN

Thew ruined church appears to have a custodian in clerical costume, and with a band of angels... all female, of course.

We approached the place I remembered from my younger years, when the Sparklers had been a dream and a hope for fame and glory, before the dream had wibbled and wobbled out of being, to be replaced by reality

Once it had been Saint Beatrice’s Church and now it was nameless, which for a moment I thought was a shame until I remembered that I gave no truck to saints and hadn’t a clue who Beatrice may or may not have been. But the road up to it, winding in a huge curve through what looked like ancient woodland, wasn’t camper-van friendly.

“This is rough,” muttered Jed, who was driving and wincing as the wheels crunched over shards of broken coincrete.

And he was right. The road was forcing him to drive at a snail’s pace (or slower) and the four of us were only too aware that a great deal of jolting might dislodge Crin from where we had been forced to lay him in the back, and deposit his lifeless and slightly leaking body onto the floor when gravity took over, and that thought was most unpleasant.

Angela was bearing up well. Her self-inflicted injury can’t have been anywhere near as bad as we’d first assumed when we thought she had committed violent suicide in a fit of unbearable grief, and she just sat next to Joanie with a determined expression on her face. Crin, had he been alive, would have been proud of her relative insouciance in a time of sorrow.

The old church was much as I remembered it from the long ago of my life with, perhaps, less roof than it had boasted back then. But despite the lack of tiles someone had gone to what must have been considerable trouble and draped tarpaulins over the worst bits. The walls were still standing proud and there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with its tower. We climbed out of the van when we pulled up and gazed at the wreck of a building.

“It could be fixed,” suggested Jed.

“But who would want to use if it it was fixed?” asked Joanie with the sort of smile that suggested that her husband might have lost his mind even thinking it.

“I could live in it,” he said, seriously, “with a nice little garden where the gravestones lie like broken teeth in a corpse’s gums. It would make a nice lawn there,” he pointed to a scrubby area of weeds and rubble, “And a new roof, of course. It must be peaceful here...”

“There, there, there, you are very right, sir,” said a new voice. Someone had appeared from round the side of the church and was eyeing us with a focused grin on his ancient face.

He was dressed in the vestments of a clergyman, was probably approaching his century in terms of his age and leaned heavily on a stout rustic walking stick. But something must have been right with him because his face was one huge wrinkled smile and eyes that maybe ought to have been dim were still bright and fiery.

“Why hello,” said Joanie brightly, “what a wonderful old building!”

“Saved it from the knacker’s yard myself,” smiled the newcomer almost irreverently, then, “It’s the Lord’s home and needs protection from the elements so that His Mightiness can have somewhere to rest his head when he blesses us with his second coming.”

“Oh mercy, mercy me!” squawked Angela, “my Crin must have known! That’s it, the good Lord told him and took him in preparation!”

“Your Crin, madam? By all the saints, who is your Crin?”

“Was,” murmured Jed. “He’s a was not an is.”

“Robin Hood shot him,” added Joanie, “by accident.”

“He was looking for somewhere they might bury him,” I put in, “wherever the arrow lands, there will I be buried, or something like that. It’s in all the old accounts of the outlaw. Anyway, it landed in Crin’s heart, and stilled it.”

“Guided by the good Lord,” added Angela, “unerringly, knowing what he was doing like the good Lord always does.”

“What a savagely romantic tale!” exclaimed the elderly cleric with the broadest of smiles. “Let me introduce myself. I am Father Absolom of this parish and I preach here every Sunday, come wind or high weather. Mine is the word of vengeance...” His grin seemed to strangely contrast with his words, “and cruel torment is promised for all who deny his Mightiness a crust for his curly hair or a spoon for his sweetened medicine.”

“Amen,” sighed Angela, and she fell to her knees on the broken surface of the concrete driveway, “I have lived all my life to hear such wisdom from such a saint!” she wept.

 “You are indeed an angel,” grinned Father Absolom. “It was foretold to me that one such as you would come my way, would come to soothe my ancient bones and add succour to my words! And what a one you are! Tell me, my sweet maiden, are you a free agent? Are you wed to one of these men…? He gesticulated towards Jed and myself, “Or can we be together until we are called to higher spheres, just lovely you and me and, let me be honest, my angels?” he added.

“I … I’m single,” stammered Angela.

“Then will you join me with the Lord?” begged Father Absolom. “Let me introduce you to the angels that guide me day and night, who lay beside me when I ail, who feed me when I starve...”

He clapped his hands, still smiling broadly, and such was his vigour that his clapping sounded like thunder cracking from the heavens themselves. This man had a spooky and not altogether pleasant influence on my mind.

The heavy wooden door to the ruined church sprung open, and three women skipped out. They were far from being at the pinnacle of their youth and one of them skipped with the aid of a zimmer frame. They were dressed, though, in flowing white garments designed to reveal as much as they concealed despite the age of the so-called angels, which allowed a fair number of varicose veins to throb in the sunny air.

“My angels,” sighed Father Absolom, “tenders to my every need. Will you, dear lady, think of joining them if you are free from Earthly contracts?”

“Crin’s dead, if that’s what you mean,” murmured Angela thoughtfully.

“Let’s get away from here, the man’s loopy,” I hissed to Jed.

“You’re right, but wait, let’s see,” replied Jed, almost silently, and Joanie nodded. They both obviously were curious and wanted the drama to unfold whereas I was more concerned with Angela’s state of mind, one that had witnessed her husband’s demise and was consequently suffering a surfeit of grief.

“Okay,” I agreed reluctantly.

“Crin’s dead,” almost crowed Angela, “and he was the love of my life, my very reason for being on this Earth, him and my boys, Boris and Leo. But they’ve got their own lives to live, so yes, I’ll be an angel for you.”

“I knew you would,” laughed Father Absolom, “when I first cast my eyes on you I knew you were with me and the Lord.

“I’ve one condition,” added Angela, “Crin needs burying, and I’d like him buried here, in this lovely place, with the good Lord looking down on him.”

“Agreed!” laughed Father Absolom, “where is he, this Crin of yours?”

Angela nodded her head towards the camper-van. “In there,” she said, sadly, “in there, in the back where he lies, and with the Lord.”

© Peter Rogerson 25.06.18