Bleak Expectations (36 page)

The church’s communion sword.
⁵

I pulled it from the wall and managed to get it into the path of Benevolent’s down-rushing blade. They collided with a great metallic clang, sparking and scraping.

‘Dammit!’

Not only had he lost his chance to kill me, but he was

destined to lose. For strength had flooded into me like muscly water, strength derived from all the injustices I had suffered, all the losses, all the happiness I had been deprived of and, as I had promised him back in my prison cell, now no force on earth could stop me.

I smashed at him again and again, and he backed away, terror on his face.

‘Go on, Pip!’ shouted Pippa and Mr Parsimonious, encouragingly.

‘What, no one shouting for me?’ whined Mr Benevolent.

‘Go on, Mr Benevolent,’ the vicar said, but received such a look from Pippa and Mr Parsimonious that he instantly changed his mind. ‘Go on and lose, I meant. Hurray for Pip!’

My violent assault had pushed Mr Benevolent into a corner of the church that was piled high with prayer-books, hymnals and Bibles, and there was nowhere left for him to go. I smashed the sword from his hand and slashed onwards, my vengeance nearly at hand. Desperately, he picked up a book and threw it at me, but I easily caught it on the point of my sword, skewering it straight down the middle. He threw more and more, and I merrily stabbed them from the air until there were none left.

‘Aha, you are out of books!’ I said, stepping forward to administer a killing blow . . . but there was no fear on his face, not even resignation. Instead he seemed strangely, smugly certain.

‘And you are out of sword, Pip Bin.’

I looked at the weapon in my hand, and discovered that he was correct in his statement: I had caught so many books on the tip that it was now less sword and more word-kebab – there was absolutely no pointy, cutty, stabby bit left.

‘Oh.’

‘Yes, oh.’ He leaped forward, quicker than a startled cheetah or espresso-addicted rattlesnake, and regained his own sword.

Now it was my turn to retreat, my theological library on a stick being useless for fighting.

‘I shall soon be rid of you, Pip Bin, and then my incredibly complicated plan to destroy your family will have succeeded.’

Slash, slash, he went. Stumble backwards, stumble backwards, I went.

‘I have worked on my plan for so long . . .’

Slash, slash, stumble back, stumble back.

‘Since Aunt Lily?’

More slashing, more reverse stumbling.

‘She was just the start of it. You are the end. And that end is . . . now.’

He abruptly stopped slashing as I took another backwards pace and tripped on an unexpected step, falling helplessly to the floor. Mr Benevolent loomed over me, sword in hand, hate on face, murder in mind.

‘Ha! You have tripped over my special step! Many years ago I funded the building of this church and had that step incorporated for just this eventuality. That is how complicated my plan was.’

Though I was about to die, a part of me had to hand it to him: he had played the long game and had clearly really thought things through.

‘Now die, Pip Bin, die!’

He raised his sword and prepared to plunge it into me. I refused to close my eyes and instead stared hard at my evil ex-guardian, determined to meet death openly, bravely and with a manly handshake.

It turned out I had no need to. For at that moment the church doors swung open and with a cry of ‘Mine!’ Aunt Lily hurled herself into the path of the down-rushing blade, taking its full force into her own body, saving me but seemingly mortally wounding herself.

‘Aunt Lily . . . why did you do that?’

‘I wasn’t going to let that swine kill you, Pip Bin.’

‘But he has now killed you instead.’

‘Yes. Bit of a drawback that. But I’d take a sword for you any day, Pip. That said, if I’d known it would hurt this much, I might not actually have done it. Still, all done now. Ow. Really ow. Earn this, Pip. Make it count.’

Then, with a trickle of blood from her mouth and a brief sigh, she collapsed, and was dead.

And I was angry. Worse than angry. I was livid. Enraged. Furious. Incandescent, apoplectic, fuming, seething and incensed.

In short, I was blinking cross.

I stood, pulled the sword from poor Aunt Lily and ran at Mr Benevolent screaming, ‘Take that, you fiend!’

He looked at me, baffled. ‘Take what?’ Then he glanced down and saw what I had given him. ‘Oh. A sword in the guts. Ruddy heck.’

And with those underwhelming last words of mild sweariness, he slumped to the floor in death.

I had finally triumphed over him, but there was no sense of glory or fulfilment, only a sick, empty relief that left me shaky and weak, for at what cost had victory come?

‘Oh, Pip . . .’ Dear Pippa, now safe from Benevolent’s marital attentions, rushed up and threw her arms around me.

‘Good work, young Pip.’ Mr Parsimonious, that most generous of men, shook me heartily by the hand. ‘You must have my thanks, my well dones and my admiration.’ He looked around for more physical gifts. ‘And these wafers . . . this hymnal . . . and this bottle of communion wine.’

He handed me these things, and I gratefully uncorked the last and took a great swig. ‘Thank you, Mr Parsimonious. After all that I need a drink.’

As I glugged down the welcome wine, I heard the doors slam open and then a familiar voice. ‘It’s all right, I’m here! Nobody move!’

It was Harry! Alive and well.

And stark naked.

‘Sorry about my nudiness, everyone, but I hadn’t got any buttons left and so my clothes all fell off as I ran here.’

‘How did you escape the soldiers, Harry?’

‘Bit of luck, actually. There’s been a colonial rebellion somewhere in Africa, and they all got summoned to go and fight that, leaving me to come here and help.’

‘Thankfully, Harry, there is nothing left for you to do.’ I gestured at Mr Benevolent’s body, and swigged at the bottle of wine again, shaky weakness retreating and a calm satisfaction settling upon me.

‘Oh, but there is one thing I must do.’ Harry turned to Pippa and knelt nakedly before her. ‘Pippa Bin . . .’

‘Yes, Harry Biscuit?’ Her voice quivered with anticipation.

‘Will you marry me?’

‘Oh, Harry, of course I will! Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!’

‘Harrumble! I am to marry Pippa!’ Harry danced ecstatically around the church, knocking things over and creating general joyous havoc.

‘And we may all be happy again,’ I said, joining in with his dance – but that merry dance was interrupted by a weak though still distinctly evil voice.

‘Not if I’ve got anything to do with it . . .’

No! Mr Benevolent yet lived! Pale and blood-stained, he raised himself from the floor, in his hand a small flintlock pistol he had clearly had concealed upon his person.

Then he fired, and it was as if time slowed, dramatically and terribly.

Harry was closest to Mr Benevolent and made a desperate lunge for him as the rest of us dived for cover; but it all seemed too little, too late, as the pistol belched fire and sicked up its deadly load.

Then normal speed resumed, and I could see Mr Benevolent no more, for he was buried beneath the colossal, fleshy mass that was Harry.

‘Is everyone all right? Did he hit anyone?’ I asked, hoping that the answers to my two questions were ‘yes’ and ‘no’ respectively.

Fortunately, those were the answers; it seemed we had escaped, both wound and dead-person free. But then I noticed that Pippa was pointing at my chest with a trembling finger, and I looked down to see a great red stain spreading across my shirt.

‘Oh . . . I am hit.’ Yet I felt no pain. Was this the numbness of approaching death? The others ran to me and opened my jacket. Beneath it, all was blood. There was a strange smell in my nostrils, potent but calming, what I assumed to be the Heavenly smell of the hereafter. I could feel my vision fading and my strength going, but at least I knew I had defeated Mr Benevolent and saved what parts of my family I could; in the end, it had been worth it. ‘Then I must bid you farewell. At least I shall be with dear Flora soon. Promise me that you will live and love well in my name, dear family. For I love you all more than I can say. Goodbye . . .’

I fell back on to the cold stone floor of the church and closed my eyes, ready to be received into Paradise by the angels of the Lord.

I was dead.

‘Hang on,’ said Harry. ‘That isn’t blood . . . it’s wine.’

What? Not blood? Wine? That would explain the smell in my nostrils, for on reflection it was not Heaven’s scent but that of fermented grapes. When Mr Benevolent fired, I had still been clutching the communion wine Mr Parsimonious had given me, and the bullet must have struck that. It
was
blood, but only symbolic Jesus blood and not the actual blood that ran in my veins.

My strength came back and my vision returned.

I was not dead!

But I was quite embarrassed.

‘Ha, had you going,’ I bluffed, but I need not have done so for people were simply glad I was alive and I was now surrounded by love and hugs and happiness. ‘Are we quite sure Mr Benevolent is dead this time?’

‘Yes,’ replied Harry.

‘Absolutely certain?’

‘Well, I am sitting on him, and I weigh forty-three stone. And I’m naked, so the embarrassment alone would be enough to kill him.’

It seemed as if my vicious ex-guardian was definitely gone this time; and now evil had departed, we needed joy to take its place.

‘Reverend, I am assuming there is still a wedding that has been paid for?’

‘There is.’

‘Then let us see Harry and Pippa married this day!’

Amid cheers, jolliness and harrumbles, we quickly assembled at the altar and the vicar prepared to maritalize.

‘First, I must once more ask whether any persons here know of any lawful reason why these two should not wed?’

I smiled as I remembered that I had recently waited outside the door until after just this sentence, the better to make my entrance, but surely no one would object this time.

I was wrong.

For someone else had a similar dramatic sense of timing to mine as the doors now opened and a deep voice boomed, ‘I know a reason!’

We turned to see who it was, but this person’s next words revealed all before we saw it with our eyes.

‘For no girl should be wed without her father to give her away!’

It was Papa! Alive! And returned! Pippa and I rushed to him and smothered him with embraces, kisses and other affectionments.

‘Oh, Papa! Where have you been?’

‘It is a long story, and one for another time. Suffice to say, Benevolent faked my death and hid me away, keeping me quiet by making me become addicted to opium.’

‘How terrible!’

‘Oh, I don’t know, the opium was pretty good, actually.’ He caught himself and coughed. ‘Um, I mean, yes, it was awful. Really, really awful. But thankfully your aunt Lily found me and set me free.’

We bowed our heads in memory of that marvellous aunt.

‘We all owe her a great debt.’

‘It was my pleasure . . .’ came a weak voice from where Aunt Lily lay dead, somewhat indicating that perhaps she was not as deceased as we had thought. We rushed to her side – she was still alive! ‘Did no one think to check whether I was actually dead or not?’

‘Sorry . . . sort of slipped our minds,’ I admitted.

‘Doesn’t matter. Help me up, someone. If Pippa and Harry are getting married, that’s a family function I’m happy to be at.’

We helped her up and returned to the altar. On the way, Papa stopped and knelt next to his poor mad wife, my poor mad mother, where she had sat in a pew through all these events, trying to iron herself with a Bible.

‘Agnes, dear Agnes, what has happened to you?’

She looked at him with the glassy eyes of madness, but they quickly cleared as if someone had washed them with the soap of sanity.

‘Oh, hello, Thomas. Not dead after all, then.’

‘No, my love. And you are no longer mad.’

‘Gosh, no. I never was. I was just pretending to be mad as part of a very clever plan to defeat Mr Benevolent.’

‘Really? Are you sure?’ He quite reasonably sounded sceptical at this claim.

‘It worked, didn’t it? Unless that’s not him lying dead over there.’

‘Um, right . . .’ He looked as if he did not know what to say in the face of Mama’s patently ludicrous suggestion, but the exigencies of marital harmony won out over the truth. ‘Yes, well done, dearest. You beat him, all right.’

‘Clever me, eh?’ Mama now turned to Pippa and me. ‘Aren’t you going to give me a hug, children?’

‘Of course, Mama!’

We rushed over and hugged her, and I felt the warmth of a restituted family growing inside me, like an expanding loaf of happy bread. For not only was my family as mended as it could be, it was about to be enlarged by the addition of a new brother-in-law.

Our small group of re-happied people gathered before the vicar and he proceeded to join Pippa and Harry in holy and wholly deserved matrimony.

‘Will you, Harry Chocolate Wafer Biscuit, take this woman to be your wife?’

‘I will.’

‘And will you, Pippa Wheelie Bin, take this man to be your husband?’

‘Oh, I will.’

‘Then I declare you to be husband and wife.’

‘Harrumble!’ we all cried delightedly, and as Harry kissed Pippa, the church erupted in joy.

My father was returned; my mother was re-saned; Pippa and Harry were wed; and Mr Benevolent was at last conquered and dead. True, there would be the bumps and scrapes of any life still ahead of us, and me in particular, for this is my book, by me, about me, and there are more tales to tell, more stories to write.

But for now let us leave my younger self in that church all those years ago, with joy and optimism restored; let us come to a happy end, ignoring the tiny detail that on leaving the church for the weeks of happy celebration that ensued, my younger self noticed that Mr Benevolent’s body was suspiciously absent, strongly hinting at the possibility that he was not dead and might one day be back for vengeance; let us leave the woe and misery behind, the betrayals, back-stabbings and front-punchings; and let us shortly set the book aside, take up a bracing glass of post-reading brandy and toast the fact that, at that point in time, all I could see was a clearer, brighter future stretched out ahead of me, like a glorious carpet of happiness, a future of love, family and friendship, a future of rich experience and high adventure, and, above all, a future in which finally all my expectations were far from bleak.