17. The Evil Night

A Chapter by Peter Rogerson

The Reverend Pickle wakes up in the night, scared and confused.

“I hope you don’t mind, but I’m tired,” muttered the Reverend Barney Pickle after night had fallen and it seemed that Emma was going to be happy sitting on the edge of his bed and gossiping: and she was n encyclopaedia of random items of news, mostly of a local nature and regarding people the vicar probably might have known.

“I’ll go in a tick then and leave you in peace,” she said, and smiled at him, a smile that did all sorts of things to the way he thought of her. She was rapidly accelerating away from being the woman who “did” for him in a servile way, who occasionally popped to the shops in order to do some of his more personal shopping because he hated having to ask young and possibly fresh from school young women shop assistants for his male underwear. And Emma happily did that for him. She understood the requirements of a godly man like him. White was the colour (if white ever was a colour) that he wore, so white Y-fronts she would buy without a moment’s embarrassment on her part.

“It’s good to have a companion in this rather, what shall I call it, sterile place,” he observed, more to fill a gap in the conversation than for anything else.

“Mrs Peacock would have liked to be here with us,” Emma told him, a confidential sound in her voice, “she’s one for what you call sterile places, she is. That’s why Herbert left her, poor man. He had red blood in his veins if some of the things she said were true! Made me wonder what was what when she told me!”

“She seems a pleasant enough soul,” observed Barney without actually knowing who Mrs Peacock might be.

“Oh, she is, Barney,” smiled Emma, accentuating the use of his forename, and smiling almost affectionately, “why, she liked nothing better than seeking lonely peace in the coffee shop in the library where she’ll happily whisper to herself all the little secrets that have come her way…”

“Very nice,” he replied, wondering how many more sagas he would have to endure before he could climb into his bed and get some rest, and it did look inviting did that bed, even with Emma sitting on it.. What this woman probably didn’t understand, he thought, was how the echoes of doors slamming in Brumpton gaol still haunted him even though his brief sojourn that dreadful place was in the past.

“I must get some sleep,” he protested when her mouth opened at what looked like the start of another sentence, “maybe tomorrow you can bring me up to date with all the important news.”

“I’m sorry, Barney,” she smiled, “I know I can be a right devil when I start gossiping. But I’ll leave you to your prayers, and a good night’s sleep.”

And as good as her word, she stood up and made her way tp the connecting door that led into her own room. When he was sure she was gone he turned the key on his side in the lock.

Left on his own, Barney extracted a pair of pyjamas (plain, nothing decorative about them, and obviously cursed with frayed age), checked that the door between their two rooms was, indeed, locked, and undressed. He could hear Emma softly singing to herself and smiled. She was a good woman, but talkative to the extreme. He didn’t really mind that, and sometimes it could be helpful to a clergyman short of ideas for a eulogy and not much time to work one out.

With such thoughts on his mind he drifted off to sleep and if his dreams were pleasant or otherwise he couldn’t have said until much later, and it was very dark outside indeed, the Retreat being a great distance from any street lights, he was re-awoken by a frantic knocking. His eyes opened of their own accord and for the briefest of seconds he wondered whether his cellmate was about to plunge something sharp and dangerous into his flesh until it crossed his mind that he was being punished for something he hadn’t done, and was in solitary confinement and almost as quickly realised he was in the Cowslip Retreat and someone, it must have been someone rather than nobody, was banging on his window.

“Who’s there?” he whimpered, and wasn’t blessed with any sort of reply, but the knocking continued. Maybe, he thought, his trembling voice was too quiet to be heard above the knocking, so he repeated the demand “who’s there” in a marginally louder voice.

Then a verbal reply joined all the banging. “Are you all right, Barney?”it called, and he was sure it was trembling.

Who would call him Barney? Not even the Bishop was that familiar. And his father certainly never had called him anything but boy.

“Who’s there?” he yelped. Someone, he was sure, was out to get him, maybe a dissatisfied parishioner, maybe one he’d officiated at a wedding ceremony, and the marriage hadn’t been a happy one.

Then, in a brilliant flash of hope, he knew the voice. It was Emma and she was next door and the door between them was locked.

Of course it was. He, himself, had locked it. He’d been warned years ago by his dad that any woman having access to his body during the night would make him worthy of the heaviest of thrashings and must, at all costs, be avoided. So he had turned the key in the lock. Had locked the door.

The thrashing against the window continued, along with the howling of wind and he knew he was about to die.

To meet his maker. That was what was happening. In mere moments he would be standing in his pyjamas in front of, what was it, a pearly gate? Or a diamond one? With golden light shining on him and a bearded Saint consulting a heavy tome, checking that he was worthy of entrance through that gate, or whether he, a mere man, was named in holy calligraphy among a list of sinners.

And he had sinned. He knew that, though for the moment he couldn’t remember when or how. But he must have done. His father had told him. He could hear his cruel voice as he lay shaking in his bed. You have sinned, you vile boy! And he was treated to a dose of his father’s stick, across his bottom, across his back, until the pain was unbearable.

“But I didn’t dad,” he had tearfully protested.

“But you might, boy!” grated the master of his childhood.

So that was it. That was when he had sinned, He still had the marks left by the stick on his flesh, so the sin must have been dreadful, and would certainly bar him from any chance of an eternity in glory like he preached from the pulpit Sunday in and Sunday out. And at funerals, too, if he could weave the thought into an empty eulogy.

“Barney! Open the door, please, I’m worried about you!” came Emma’s voice.

Should he? Emma was a woman, and a pretty woman at that, even he could see that, and it was surely sinful to see a woman and think of her as pretty. Wasn’t it?

“I’ll fetch Father Teatrader…” came Emma’s voice.

Father Teatrader? Who was that? Then he remembered and the last thing he wanted was for another man to come along and confuse him.

“So, “all right,” he yelped, his voice frantic even at his age, for he knew sure as eggs are eggs that he wasn’t young any longer.

The banging on his window continued, loud, demanding, threatening, and he staggered to the door and reluctantly yet needfully turned the key.

“What is it, Barney?” asked Emma as she glided into his room clad in a shiny pink something that barely covered her, her voice like that an angel might have when that heavenly being was kneeling in front of their maker in a fglory he’d never understood.