URSULA’S PRAYER

As time runs awya ith us I suppose we just might want a bit more...

“I’m so very sorry, Mrs Pondleforth, Ursula, you don’t mind Christian names, do you? But I know you wanted to know your prognosis. I hope I’m wrong, but somehow I doubt it. You’ve got little more than three months to put your affairs in order, I’m afraid.” Doctor Midcast looked almost heart-broken as he pronounced what amounted to a death sentence to the old woman.

“Ursula’s my name so it’s all right to use it,” she said, “I never did like Reg’s Pondleforth mouthful and when I’ve gone so will the wretched name be lost to the world because I’m the last Pondleforth.”

“What do you intend to do?” he asked, curiosity getting the better of him.

“With my time? My precious three months if you’ve got it right? I’m going off for a walk. Maybe a long one… who can tell?”

“Just be careful, and don’t forget your medication,” sighed Doctor Midcast.

“Medication? What help’s that going to be?” she asked, almost rudely.

“It’s palliative,” he reminded her, “take it when you need it…”

“Of course.” She nodded, then turned to go. “I suppose this is goodbye then, Doctor, “though it may be you poking and prodding me before signing my death certificate, I suppose?”

“Maybe,” he nodded, “but in case it isn’t, I’m so sorry, Ursula, I’d love it to have been better news, but comfort myself knowing you’ve had a good long life…”

“I’m not comforted,” she grumbled, “and I ain’t finished living yet!”

She made her way out of the surgery and through the waiting room, muttering almost silently to herself.

“So the clock’s still running and I’m still counting,” she murmured as she pushed her three-wheeled walker into the street and pausing every so often to balance herself.

Doctor Midcast watched through his window as she started struggling along, and shook his head. She’s going the wrong way for her home, he thought as he pressed the button for his next patient.

But Ursula wasn’t going the wrong way. She had three months left, if she was lucky, and more things to do than most people of her age can pack into three months.

About a mile away and round a couple of corners was Saint Matthew’s church, and she was going to start there. It was the place where she’d married her late husband Reg and she couldn’t think of anywhere better, especially as it’s the same place she’d said a last goodbye to him before the short journey to the crematorium.

The church was empty and smelled of the centuries it had been there, the dust lying in hidden layers in equally hidden corners, and the faintest hint of urine where little Tommy Troubridge sat with his severe mother and little sister most Sundays.

She didn’t like Mrs Troubridge.

At the front and in his surplice, which looked to her as if it should be hanging up in his closet, but who was she to know, bustled the Reverend Glowbright.

He, the Reverend, had been in charge of that church for as long as she could remember. She rarely went there any more, the walk on Sundays being painfully difficult now that she needed a hip seeing to, the hip that would never been seen to what with there being a six month’s waiting list.

It would have been nice if she could have had a few weeks of pain-free walking, but what the hell? The Government said she couldn’t.

“I need a word, Reverend Glowbright,” she called from the door as she lowered herself into a back pew for a few moments of respite.

He looked up and squinted.

The sod looks older than me, she thought as he said “let me see, it’s Ursula, isn’t it? It’s been a long time, no see!”

“I can’t walk so far,” she told him, “you’ll have to up-sticks and rebuild St. Matthews a little closer to my bungalow! But I’ve come from the surgery, so my journey’s been shared between the two of you.”

“Is there a problem then, Ursula?” he asked.

“There darned well is, and I need more time. I need what you said I could have if I behaved myself and didn’t do wicked things. I need more time. Remember how you used to prattle on about everlasting life? Well, I need a little bit of that!”

“It’s a biblical thing,” he replied awkwardly, “it doesn’t mean life as such, if you’re talking about life on Earth. It means life in the glories of Heaven! But only if you’re not a sinner.”

She sniffed, and shook her head.

“Remember just after the war?” she asked, “you know, when things were hard and I came here every Sunday for words that would help me get through the shortages and privations?”

“Ah, the fifties when I came to this lovely little church for the first time?” he remembered with a soft smile on his face. “You were young back then, Ursula. I noticed you and your pretty smile…”

“Then that was sinful of you! I was starting to go out with my Reg and didn’t want any vicar smarming at me!”

“I’m sorry … I meant no harm, but you did smile back at me, it’s just that even the clergy can appreciate a pretty face, and you had one of those, Ursula…”

“Well, you’re forgiven then. But you spoke a lot about eternal life. Immortality. Life everlasting. And that’s what I need a pinch of right now. I’ve got things to do and only three months to do them in and if you’re in touch with him upstairs maybe you can arrange it for me.”

“It doesn’t work like that, Ursula,” he croaked, “just a monent, I’ll come back there and sit with you if that’s all right. My old bones can’t stand for too long.”

“Tell me about it,” she muttered/

She watched him as he almost staggered along the aisle before lowering himself into a pew near to her. Not too close, she thought, not like he might have done once upon a time, but still close enough for me to smell the stale piss in his pants.

Maybe it’s not Tommy Troubridge, she thought.

“What’s this about three months?” he asked after getting his breath back.

You could have shaved, she thought.

“The quack says,” she told him, “there’s stuff going wrong inside me, nasty stuff, and I’ve got three months or so before I croak. What do you make of that, eh? So I want a bit of that life everlasting. I’ve got a great-grandkid on the way, for goodness’ sake, and I’d love to meet him or her, go coochy coo at the sweet little thing, buy it something to remember me by when I’ve gone. And, you know, find out what they decide to call it.”

“Oh dear, Ursula, how sad,” he humbled.

“And there’s more. Old daft Tomkins who lives in the bungalow next to me keeps on twinkling his eyes at me, but if I’m to let him get his dirty way with me I’ll need my hip doing, and there’s quite a waiting list…”

“Really, Ursula!”

“You know what I mean, Reverend, no harm in it! Anyways, I need a bit longer than three months so if you could have a word for me with him upstairs I’d be really grateful. I need more life, Reverend, that’s what I need, and I want it to be real life and not the fairy stuff in that good book of yours!”

“Really, Ursula, that’s not the way to talk if you want to receive a blessing!”

“I’m sorry, but I’m troubled…”

And he looked at her, nodded his head gently, closed his eyes and whispered a little prayer that began with dear Lord.

There wasn’t a rumbling of thunder, either close to them or distant, there wasn’t a flash of magical lightning, there wasn’t even a divine whispering from the rafters.

No, the only response was the Reverend Glowbright as he slid slowly from his pew, gasping for breath that wouldn’t come, and settled in an untidy pile on the floor in front of him.

His last words might have been you might need more than three months, but I need more than three minutes, dear lady but they weren’t because he lacked the time to summon more than the first syllable as the light of life was extinguished in him.

“You…” he gasped, and a creaking from one of his ancient bones told her all she needed to know.

“Oh, sod it!” she whispered, and picking her three-wheeled walked from where she’d put it she staggered out of the ancient church.

There isn’t ever a policeman, when you want one, she thought, so with exquisite care she slowly made her way home.

Doctor Midcast caught sight of her as she slowly and painfully trundled past the surgery.

“That’s better, Ursula,” he whispered, and smiled to himself.

And Ursula was all lively smiles when, four months later, her first and only great granddaughter popped into the world and smiled at her.

“Well, the old fool did it for me,” thought a happy Ursula, and “welcome Ursula!” she winked to the latest bundle of joy to find its way into the world.

© Peter Rogerson 24.08.22

...