35. A Confused Vicar

Barney is rearning about life the hard way

It wasn’t until the Reverend Barney Pickle had watched Emma Dresden waking sadly out of the room, carrying a small suitcase, moving with gentle determination through the door and closing it behind her, that he wa struck by a sudden horror.

Because despite his certainties learned in childhood and re-enforced since then, he really liked the woman. He didn’t know why and the truth was he’d never actually liked a woman before, not even his mother before a weak heart had taken her from him at a young age. There were tales a=plenty of the evil women carry with them, and evil equates with sin, which itself equates with an eternity stoking the fires of hell.

Maybe, he wondered, his bullish father had contributed to the failure of his mother’s heart, he didn’t know and would never find out now that his father was also dead.

But Emma was perfect. Cheeky, yes, and teasing, but also caring in a way he’d never known. He had buried her husband Ralf (though he hadn’t known anything about her at the time) and she had volunteered to work in the parsonage if he needed to employ anyone, not full time but enough to make his own life infinitely more comfortable than it would have been without her.

It had been she who had asked and he who’d admitted to himself that he wasn’t coping so well on his own. But even then when she wandered around the parsonage, duster in hand, he had admired her, that was really all, until this week when he had been forced closer to her, sharing the same pair of rooms and actually (how on Earth could he have allowed this and what in the name of goodness would his father have said) sleeping in the same bed as her. But that had been innocent with a huge space between them and no chance of even an accidental contact. And to make absolutely sure he had been covered up so thoroughly that it must have given modesty a new target to aim for.

And now she was gone.

He could hear the fading sound of her footsteps as she made her way past a row of rooms towards the offices.

He sat and worried about it. She would have told the Father with his ridiculous name of Teatrader why she was going. He knew she wouldn’t fail to do that because he knew that she believed she owed him something. A woman as decent as Emma wouldn’t just slope off without saying a word.

Then she had also said she wasn’t going to work at the parsonage any more. He’d even have to risk the indignity of enquiring about his underpants on market stall after market stall where he’d be asked awkward questions, like what was his size, until he found one that sold the sort he liked. Young girls selling things like that! It was a disgrace. What had happened to good old fashioned men’s outfitters? Where an understanding middle-aged man would nod understandingly and produce exactly the right perfect pair of jockey shorts or y-fronts depending on his varying mood.

He’d never find another woman prepared to do that, surely.

His mental meanderings were interrupted by a knock at his door.

Good! This must be Amma, back to be his companion and apologise for walking out on him, and he would be magnanimous accepting her heartfelt apologies, and then everything would be back, the same as before.

But it wasn’t Emma returning, it was Father Teatrader, and he was scowling.

“Well Reverend Pickle you’ve put yourself in a right pickle, and no mistake,” he said, not meaning the tautology, walking into a guest’s room without any sort of invitation.

“I don’t understand,” he mumbled, saying those exact words because in all truth he didn’t understand.

“That woman was an angel. Mrs Dresden, I mean,” rattled the Father. “There aren’t many men fortunate enough to have the good will of such a person, and, well, take it from me because I know, the Mrs Dresdens of this world are few and far between. Yes, they most certainly are.”

“Oh.”

Then he said the most unlikely thing because somewhere in his mind that was racked with self-doubt anyway, he said, “but she’ll be back. She’ll take a walk round the Retreat and realise she’s making a mistake and come back.” He might have added I know it, but as he didn’t know anything of the sort and disapproved of lying, he didn’t.

“I watched her leave in a taxi-cab,” the Father told him, “and it went in a most decided fashion. I’d be very surprised if she returned here today. No, you’ve lost her, and that’s probably for good. She did tell me in passing that she no longer intends to be your skivvy either.”

He didn’t know what a skivvy was but rather thought it was something offensively rude, but had the sense not to say anything.

“The upshot of all this,” continued the Father Teatrader, “is I telephoned your Bishop and explained to him what had happened and what the good lady Mrs Dresden had said to me, and he decided there and then that the experiment should forthwith be drawn to an unhappy conclusion, So I’m to tell you to collect your personal possessions and be ready to return to your parish. A car is already on its way to pick you up and convey you to your parsonage.

To Barney this was like what getting the sack for a petty misdemeanour must seem like to any ordinary man in the street. And to make matters worse, he was being sent back to the place where he worked, and he knew there was very little in the way of provisions in the pantry. And to make matters even worse, he remembered that he had switched off the small refrigerator in his kitchen for safety’s sake like his father had always done on the very rare occasion when he went away from home for even a single night.

“I’ll need some shopping done…” he mumbled.

“Well, you live in Brumpton and I happen to know there are plenty of shops there,” growled the Father, enjoying his confusion and quite sure that the silly Reverend Pickle deserved any discomfort coming to him.

“I’m sorry… I don’t understand…” he muttered pathetically.

And the truth was, he didn’t any more than he had understood his father when he had told him it’s much better for a lad or a man to get rid of all women from their lives because, he had said quite obtusely, “it says so in the good book.”

© Peter Rogerson 10.05.24