8. The Reverend Sallowman

THE HIDDEN FOREST - 8

“I’m getting out of this madhouse!” snapped Davey, “rats everywhere, cobwebs dangling from the roof and buckets catching the raindrops and making spider soup when it rains! And the whole place stinking of I don’t know what!”

“But it’s home,” protested Paul, “and they say there’s no place quite like home, the blazing hearth warming you on cold evenings when the snow drifts round outside and it seems as if you’ve got ice running in your veins, a glass of something warming at your elbow and Strictly on the telly!”

Davey looked at him in disgust. “Your home is next door to my home back in town,” he told him, “and has got nothing to do with a derelict nightmare hole like this, and as for a blazing fire, we’ve got central heating.”

“What are you calling a hole?” demanded the figure in the bell jar, “and what makes it into a nightmare?”

“If you really must know I’ll give you a list,” snapped Davey, “but I must first recommend you visit a decent optician’s. What about you and those triplets who seem to be sharing but a single brain cell? The four of you make a big enough nightmare for any sane person to want to run from, and then there’s the rats!”

“What rats?” The voice from inside the glass dome was hesitant. “I see no rats.”

“Because they’re dropping from way above and bleeding onto your silly glass jar when they crash down from the rotten roof!” snapped Davey, “come on, Paul, we’re off! You can sort the legal side out when these urchins have been dealt with!”

And he turned and marched off.

In fact, he was so determined to look in control of himself and everything around him that he marched the wrong way, and Paul Fairweather followed him.

The two of them weren’t helped at all by the fact that the Manor House seemed to have a mind of its own. They hadn’t gone above ten yards when, rather than walking on a level and somewhat noxious stone floor that had rats’ entrails and decomposing spiders giving it a lived-in look, they wondered why they seemed to be going up a rather steep slope rather than marching determinedly on the level ground. Maybe they ought to have stopped immediately and given what they were doing some thought. Maybe they ought to have been aware that all was not right, but they didn’t until it was too late.

“Turn round! We’re going the wrong way!” snapped Davey.

And when they turned round there was only a vertical and somewhat calloused wall behind them, and no sign of the glass bell jar with its grotesque but opulent occupant anywhere near. The first thing both of them should have wondered was how they’d walked through that wall to get where they were, but neither of them was bright enough to do that, or if the question crossed their minds they shoved it aside as being silly.

“What the…!” wailed Paul, limited to two syllables because the struggle up the slope had taken his breath away.

“I don’t believe this!” snapped Davey, and he pulled out his mobile phone. “Time to call for help,” he added, and switched it on.

“But this is home...” stammered Paul, “my lovely inheritance, with open hearths and all that sort of stuff I keep on dreaming about, pretty maids dusting my nicknacks in short skirts and frilly knickers, luxuries like that … “

“Dream on,” growled Davey, “and just look around you before your start dreaming. I see no maids, pretty or otherwise.”

But Paul was lost in hopes and dreams that he wanted to taste before they were completely shattered by reality, and he shook his head, “with a cook in the kitchen, an auburn haired beauty who liked peeling the spuds in the nude...” he muttered

“Not a nightmare of a place, then?” asked Davey grimly, “unless you’ve had your eyes shut and put your brain out of gear, you will have noticed we’ve just walked up a path that wasn’t there and we’re almost in the roof!” He shook his phone and raised it as high as he could. “And to make matters worse there’s no darned signal,” he added, “I might have known! We’re trapped and there’s no signal!”

“That was silly,” came a voice from just in front of them on the mysterious sloping path, “you’ll get lost coming up here, and the roof isn’t always the nicest place to be spending your life in… allow me to introduce myself, I’m your guide to Heaven for today, name of Sallowman, don’t ask me why they call me that because I don’t know for certain, and until I came to this holiday home I was known as the Reverend Jonathan Tidy... I hold services every Sunday, or at least I hope it’s every Sunday though I’m never quite sure when Sunday comes… time loses a lot of its awkward nuances in the Manor and the little fellow in his glass jar doesn’t help a committed servant of the church when he seems to be able to break just every natural law and church regulation under the sun...”

The owner of the voice, calling himself Sallowman, appeared in front of them. He reminded Paul of stories he used to love in the days of his childhood when ghosts were reckoned to walk through solid things like walls, because that’s exactly what Sallowman did. And when he appeared he was obviously a man of the cloth if his vestment and clerical collar together with his sombre voice were anything to go by.

He was a most conversational reverend gentleman, and at least he was within the normal range of height for the human race rather than being dwarf-like after the manner of everyone else they’d met in the manor, with the exception of the simple-minded Fangor, who made up in height about what he lacked in intellect.

“I got lost in here, what, it must be months or maybe even years ago,” continued Sallowman. “I was out for a saunter one summer morning when the sun was shining on our Lord’s good Earth, and I found my way into a mighty forest. The air was fresh with the sweet aroma of farmyards and dung, and roses bloomed round a cottage door, at least I’m sure there was a cottage somewhere near, there were no carriages on the pathway which, in fact, looked a little the worse for wear, and the church bells were calling, but I could see no church!

“Since then I have wandered about, trying to find my way out, and failing. I have prayed, you know, for enlightenment, and none has come. Still, it could be worse. They let me conduct my services when I think it’s a Sunday, and I always have a full congregation. The little bloke in his glass jar comes, sort of floats in by holy magic, and he’s got a mighty fine tenor voice. You should hear it! The only choir is the triplets, but if you want the truth I don’t think that they’re triplets at all, but that it’s all done with mirrors with only one of them, if you see what I mean, and he or they can’t hold a tune to save their lives… tell me, is the war over?”

“War?” asked Paul, “what war? There hasn’t been a war for donkey’s years!”

“My grandad was in it,” put in Paul, “he flew Spitfires.”

“Spit-what’s?” asked Sallowman, “that’s something new! What’s one of those?”

“Aircraft, you must have heard of them. They helped win the war, or so grandad keeps on telling me,” said Paul, a trifle sarcastically.

“No. Never heard of them. But I do know a bit about flying machines, called Camels. You know, Sopwith Camels? Wonderful machines when they’re not falling out of the heavens in pieces.”

“Never heard of them,” Paul shook his head, “there’s no such thing.”

“Sopwith Camels?” asked Davey slowly, “you mean, the first world war planes? Biplanes made of wooden struts and canvas?”

“First world war?” asked the Reverend or Sallowman, “you mean there have been more terrible wars? With deadly aircraft and poison gas?”

“The first world war,” said Davey, “ended above a century ago. How long did you say you’ve been here? And more importantly, how long have you been trying to find a way out?”

© Peter Rogerson, 09.11.20