4. The Rumour Mill

The Reverend Paul Wolf aa sseen through the eyes of an elderly lady friend.

WORDS MEAN DEATH

Mrs Sylvia Standish was worried.
Having been widowed now for the best part of a decade there were several things she was missing that married life had taught her were worth experiencing. For starters, there was the camaraderie. Len would take her to the Horse and Jockey just outside town and they would spend most of the time laughing with anyone daft enough to laugh with them. Then there was the other stuff, she shuldn’t, she knew, be remembering it but she couldn’t help it. Len had been no doubt a man and she had been an enthusuastic woman, and well, the two could only go in one direction together seeing as he said he loved her and she rather thought she might love him too.
Then after a decade of loneliness Paul had come unexpectedly into her life. She couldn’t quite remember how she had first seen him, maybe in the shops or on the street walking around like she often found herself walking around, and then ,out of the blue, he had called on her.
And he had a dog collar, which meant he was a decent man who would never lie or steal, who would always be honourable and constant, and yet he wanted, he said he wanted with a twinkle in his eye, to go to her bed. And it made something inside her shiver when he said go to bed with her. He never mentioned what for, but what else could he mean?
So she’d let him. Why not? He was a good religious man and she had been a lonely widow for, what, about ten tears. It wasn’t that she’d have done what she did with just about any man, certainly not, but she had all those years ago with Len as his wife, and now there was a man of God who suggested that it might be like cuddling up to that deity himself.
“God needs the love of a good woman,” he had said, knowing it was nonsense but nevertheless quite certain that it would bring him a massive reward of pleasure. After all, he needed a woman, occasionally. didn’t he? And this widow looked clean and decent enough, she’d do, she’d oblige him wouldn’t she? And not too often, she mustn’t be passionate too often, not at her age, there were limitations after all... And she’d be all rigbt, at no personal cost to herself.
And now, unknown to hm. she was worried. Worse than that, she could see a massive future (she was only seventy-four, and might easily last another ten years of more). She lived well, didn’t she? She ate the right things (except for sausages, which might not be quite right), but she liked them and a little or a lot of what you like can’t be bad for you, can it? And her massive future might become a vacuum like they say space between the stars is, and Paul was filling it beautifully, and then she heard the rumours.
He had a clerical collar, but he wasn’t a clergyman. Then someone whispered that he’d been man of God but had misbehaved. One whisper didn’t bother her, there were always rumours in the air, probably even about herself, tittle tattle that meant nothing or even less than nothing until one piece confirmed another, and so on.
But yesterday Jilly had said something quite worrying.
“I’ve seen the widow-snatcher knocking at your door…”
At first she hadn’t known who she meant. She was a widow and not many people knocked on her door, except for Paul. She had wanted to give him a key but he had declined. “What would people think?” he had asked, all innocent and needing to protect her good name, honourable like that. So she hadn’t given him one which meant he had to knock if he wanted to see her.
Which he often did.
He’d come into the house and they’d stay in. Len, before the cancer got him, had taken her out for fun and drinks and they’d laughed and gone to the Horse and Jockey and had a good time, but Paul didn’t want to, he said folks were always rude when it came to clergymen in the same pub as them, and anyway, wouldn’t they be better off doing you-know-what in bed together? Wouldn’t that be more fun?
She had reluctantly submitted and when they climbed into her bed (clean sheets that first time, and a nice new pillow for him) he had done very little before snoring so loud she had to cover her ears and wonder why he was there in the first place.
I mean she thought why does he want to be in bed with me if all he does is snore and sleep?
If things hadn’t improved she would have given him his marching orders, dog collar or no dog collar, but he turned on the charm and the passion just often enough to make her think twice about him and decided not to order him out of her boudoir.
After Jilly there had been Cherie, and she had been more explicit. And it was only that very day.
“The police were talking to the widow snatcher,” she said, “you know, the creep who likes to chat up us old birds. I wouldn’t have anything to do with him, a collar means noting to me… Have I seen him popping in here, maybe to see you?”
“What me?” she had spluttered n the sort of way that had liar etched on every globule of spittle.
“They say all he wants is to bed a soul, do his dirty deed and leave her bereft” added Cherie.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she had lied.
“Well, be warned because he ain’t no clegyman, no matter what his collar calls him, got the sack he did, turned out of liis living for courting widows old enough to be his own ma.” Cherie had warned her.
And then it had dawned on her. She was in thrall to this widow snatcher, and she was a widow and... the nightmare dawned on her, he was snatching her, piece by piece with rare naughty cuddle after rare naughty cuddle.
Was that his game? Or was he no more than a lonely old man with a case of erectile disfunction? Yes, that, and a bad case of snoring.
She’d wanted to ask Cherie a bit more, especially how she got to know about his getting the sack in the church. Was that possible? She’d heard of priests and their misbehaviour with choir boys, but he was courting elderly ladies, widows like herself, and could that be a cardinal sin? Surely not. Especially as he didn’t go anywhere near as far with her as she’d have liked. As Len had, for instance, bless him.
Then the door was knocked.
And she knew by the rhythm of the knock who it might well be.

© Peter Rogerson, 07.01.24