21. A First Kiss

A Chapter by Peter Rogerson

Two teenage boys are hurt and Barney receives his first kiss.

Two things happened before night fell on the road in Brumpton that day. One, that two teenage boys were carted off to hospital in a shiny new ambulance after having been knocked down by a drunken driver, and secondly that same driver a man high up in the church locally, was breathalysed by an apologetic PC Dedbeat.

“I’m sorry to ask you to do this, sir,” he said to a blushing Bishop, “but I’ve to test you for alcohol, so will you please blow into this.”

This Bishop’s blush deepened and he spluttered something that sounded very much like do you know who I am?

“Yes sir, I do, sir,” replied Dedbear, and went on to remind the Bishop that they’d met over the affair with the Reverend Pickle and a bank robbery. But why are you doing this to me?” demanded the Bishop on the sort of voice that demanded a coherent answer.

“There’s a strong smell of something boozy on your breath, sir.” replied a reluctant PC.

“Then you’d best get it over with so that we cn both get on our ways, but I warn you, young man, I;m well in the your Chief Constable and he won’t take it kindly to hear about the way you’re treating me.”

It was a threat, but it didn’t work. PC Dedbeat was aware that two boys, even if they were of the Scumbag clan, had been mown down and it was down to fortune more than anything else that neither of them had been killed. Not that he had much regard for the Scumbag lads, but life is life and also precious and booze is best kept out of cars if it’s the driver who’s partaken of it.

The breathalyser told the truth. The Bishop was almost swimming in strong whisky, and it particularly offended that man of Faith when the Scumbag parents drove by and watched his humiliation, and he was quite sure that Mr Scumbag had been to the Fox and Hounds (a hostelry he himself wouldn’t dream of entering on account of the offensively small measures his favourite anaesthetic was served in.

He even tried explaining his suspicions to PC Dedbeat, but that officer was too intent on arresting him to listen to tittle tattle about the Scumbag parents, who he quite admired for the way they blindly brought up their sometimes wayward offspring.

The Bishop was even more outraged when the callow (as he saw him) police constable produced his handcuffs with a hint of a smile on his lips.

Meanwhile, back at the Cowslip Retreat Father Teatrader explained to the two in room 13 that he was sorry to have disturbed them but now that Mrs Dresden had emerged as alive and kicking their breakfast would be available a little later than usual on account of the storm last night that had upset their access to BBC News, which they watched every morning just in cast a nuclear war had broken out whilst they slept. Brother Stonemason had been charged to leave his post in the kitchen and repair the television aerial, and the sound of his banging or hammering might be a trifle disturbing, but he begged for their forgiveness,

So the Reverend Barney Pickle, with an embarrassed smile on his face, said that he understood and turned back into his room, leaving Father Teatrader outside his door, shaking his head and smiling almost knowingly.

“Well, Barney, this is nice,” smiled Emma, “just the two of us like this, and a bed.”

Barney opened his mouth to protest but not a single syllable managed to find its way out. He was way out of his depth. This was possibly the very scenario that his father, cane in hand, has warned him about. Being alone in a bedroom in his pyjamas with an admittedly attractive widow woman. There could possibly be no greater sin, even if it crossed his mind that they’d spent most if last night sleeping

“Come on, Barney,” she said with what he took as a seductive smile, and if wasn’t intended to be seductive it was beginning to have that effect on him, “come and talk to me. I’ve slaved away in the parsonage ever since my Ralf passed away and I never really got to know you.”

“I’m sorry,” he muttered, “I guess you might say I’m not that sociable.” He looked her in the eyes, and then smiled because there was something about those eyes that made him want to smile, “I suppose I’ve never been much more lively than boring. It’s probably to do with my calling and the way my father made sure I was good and decent and veered clear of sinning”

“What is sinning, Barney?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I’m scared stiff of it, but I’ve never been quite sure what it is. But I do know that doing certain things to my own body down below is a sure-fire way of ending up in Hell. There can be no doubt about that. My father taught me, and to him I am truly grateful.”

“Touching your own body, Barney? What might that be?”

He felt uncomfortable. Surely he’d explained enough> But her eyes were on him and the half smile quivered on her lips, and so he needed to say something more.

“When I was a little boy in short pants and my father saw me touching myself, you know, scratching or something like that down below, then he beat me until I sometimes bled and warned me so many times that I was bound for hell if I sinned like that again. So I learned. It hasn’t been easy because I know other people are prepared to sin with their bodies and when I was at college I heard wicked things, but I’m not like that. I can’t. I’m a religious man.”

“But a man, Barney, you’re a man, and if you believe in a loving god then he made your flesh to be worshipped. And if, like me, you believe in something else, evolution, call it what you will, then it has evolved to be what it is because it’s important for the future, for future generations to actually be born. But you, Barney, won’t father any future people because you have been taught a silly lesson when what you, as a boy, did, was probably scratching an itch rather than deciding to sin.”

“You don’t understand, Emma.” he murmured, not quite sure what she should understand because she was a woman and could women ever properly understand?

“But I do, Barney. I understand all too well. I was married to Ralf, you know, to a good man, the very best, and by your definition of sin he must have sinned very often indeed.”

“Oh,” he replied, “he did? Yet you gave him a Christian funeral? With me officiating?”

“Of course I did, because he, as I just said, was a good man.” She was adamant. “Look, Barney, I like you or I wouldnt’ work for you ar the parsonage for the pittance you pay me. You’re a good man too, but so different from Ralfy the two of you might be likened to chalk and cheese. Tell me, Barney, what did your cruel father had to say about kissing?”