37. Hungry and Thirsty...

A Chapter by Peter Rogerson

The very end of my saga.

That first night back at his St Jude’s parsonage home was a terrible one because all he could find to drink was cold water that didn’t look quite the right colour, and Barney really liked to go to bed with a hot milky drink inside him. But sleep he did, eventually, after spending a silly waste of time tossing and turning and trying to remember where Mrs Dresden might have hidden something like powdered milk, which he’d heard of but was pretty sure he’d never bought.

So when he emerged from what was supposed to be a refreshing night’s sleep but was anything but refreshing, he knew he only had one option in the absence of Mrs Dresden. He must venture forth himself, find a shop that was open and actually buy some milk. And food. He needed that, too.

If, that is, he could find any pennies. Or pounds. Did milk come in penny bottles. Or was it pound bottles? He had no idea, though at the very back of his mind he had a feeling that it might be quite expensive. Hadn’t his father complained about the price of essentials like milk? But he didn’t know for sure if it was an accurate memory or just an echo of his father being grumpy for no apparent reason, like he usually was.

He searched for where he might have put some money and came up with very little, but then he knew that would be the case because when he’d been searching for the funds to repay Mrs Dresden for the underpants she’d picked up for him he’d searched in the same places.

He even tried down the back of his favourite chair, and as good fortune would have it he did find a coin: a twenty cent Euro from when he’d visited a university friend who lived in Ireland.

Maybe he should call in at the bank, but no. He shuddered at the memory of last time he’d done that and tried to talk an extra ten pounds out of them when his account had apparently reached rock bottom, and then those wretched youths had come in.

But more than anything else he needed some milk

Maybe if he went out he’d stumble on a coin or two. People are always dropping loose change and leaving it on the pavement for passers by like him to pick up.

It was a lovely day outside. The recent rather wet spell of weather had dried up and the air smelt fresh and sweet. Mrs Dresden would like it out here, he thought, not knowing why he should either think it or whether she would like it.

Without really working out where he might be walking he found himself near the bank. Bugle bank into which his stipend was paid monthly. But not yet. Maybe in a couple or days, but not yet.

He was quite close to it, wondering whether he should brave going in and asking about a tiny pint-of-milk sized overdraft or just go in search of the kind of shop that sold milk and asking if he could have one bottle on, what did they call it? On tick. After all, as the vicar of Saint Jude’s he must be respected enough to be entitled to the kind of deal he knew the poorer members of his parish sometimes asked for.

Or did he know that? Maybe it was just hearsay from a past age, say Victorian years, and such things never went on any more.

As he thought these things his need for milk receded into a secondary place because the fish and chip shop round the corner from the bank was open and the smell of it frying wonderful food swept over him on a warm and gentle breeze.

He was hungry. Hungry and thirsty and it was getting to be uncomfortable.

Then, suddenly, there was a loud shout from the direction of the bank and to his shock and almost disbelief a familiar figure ran out of the place It was the Scumbag boy, but not the one who (here he crossed himself) had died for a few minutes but his lively brother. And then came the other Scumbag, alive rather than dead, but limping and clearly breathless.. He looked far from well. He looked as if he might, after all, be dying.

Then the spritely Scumbag, having obviously noticed him, ran up to him, grinning like Scumbags often did, mostly at nothing amusing.

Then the wretched boy thrust something into his hand as he ran past him, pushed it firmly, making sure he was holding whatever it was before he ran on. The sickly Scumbag limped past him as well, slower than his brother, of course he was slower, he must be in that hinterland that lies between life and death.

Then two things happened at once.

The smell from the fish and chip shop grew in tempting intensity, and he looked to see what he was holding.

It was a roll of money. Of notes, a whole lot of them, clearly important and to his eyes valuable because they had a portrait on them, one that he recognised from somewhen.

The thought was given birth by his own hunger and thirst. He might borrow just one of the no doubt high value notes. He could pay it back in a day or two, and if he didn’t just use a single note the alternative could well be him starving to death. Saint Jude’s would be without its vicar and there’d be a new angel in Heaven.

No. Not angel. He’d be a thief and go to hell as his father had told him always inevitably happened to sinners.

But if he starved to death, would that be tantamount to suicide because here, in his hands, and he hadn’t stolen the notes, was the wherewithal to buy some fish and chips and maybe a pint of milk…

It didn’t take much thinking about. Not really. Not for a starving man.

So he almost ran into the fish and chip shop and asked for a portion of fish and a few chips. And he peeled one of the notes off the roll that the Scumbag boy had forced into his hand and held it out to prove that he could afford what he was asking for.

Then two more things happened at once.

The man serving in the chip shop laughed and said “are you having me on, father? Trying to pay for a nice portion of cod with a Mickie Mouse note?”

And simultaneously two Scumbag boys stood in the doorway of the shop, laughing as if tomorrow and today had suddenly become the same thing and it was amusing. And when Barney looked at the roll of notes in his hand, looked really closely, he saw that the familiar face he’d thought was royalty belonged to a cartoon rodent and that he’d been duped by two insolent boys who needed the sort of sound thrashing his own father would have administered there and then.

But he didn’t. He wasn’t his own father, and he actually saw the funny side…

“Come on, father,” said a voice just behind him, “I’ll pay for those chips and take you home, and you, you disgusting hooligans,” to the Scumbag youths, “you must leave a good man along, or I’ll deal with you!”