The Triple Goddess (73 page)

Dark’s mouth worked for a moment; then he made an impatient gesture of acquiescence to the manservant, who had taken up his sentinel station by the door. As Ophelia approached like an automaton, he opened it and jabbed a finger at the rear of the hall.

‘Khazi’s on the left.’

After splashing her face with water and dabbing it dry with a pristinely ironed linen hand-towel embroidered with the logogram of the Savoy Hotel in London, the devil lady’s stolen memento of a night on the tiles, Ophelia spent several minutes contemplating herself in the mirror over the basin. When she returned to the drawing-room, her host had moved away from his former position in front of the fire, and was shifting his weight from foot to foot. The sting of the flames had not gone away, and to take his mind off the pain, he was filling the minutes by murmuring some apropos lines recollected from childhood:

‘I really must compliment you both,’ said Ophelia, looking earnestly from one man to the other. ‘I’ve never been in such a beautiful house. It says so much about you both and the tastes you share. I dare say it was your artistic bent that brought you together and makes you such a perfect couple.’ She looked around her with a predatory eye. ‘This room makes a real statement, doesn’t it…it is so
you.
From the design and furnishings down to the colour of the paint....’

As primed as he thought he was for the meeting, Dark was disconcerted. He had been eager to making the most of his brief authority, and took a moment to reassure himself that he was the one responsible for setting up the interview, that he was in charge, Ophelia’s boss, and that they were on home ground at the Old Rectory, residence of the Lady of the Manor.

‘Bowels of Bathsheba, you switch-hitting bimbo. Tea, coffee? Tempt the tart with toast?’ Politeness had nothing to do with it, he was the one in need of fortification.

‘Perhaps a little of whatever you’re having. A cup of tea would be nice, splash of milk, no sugar.’

Dark barked at the manservant: ‘Two coffees, black.’ Shrugging, the man turned and padded from the room, and, without waiting for his guest to sit down first, Dark threw himself into a William and Mary wing armchair, which creaked in protest, and waved at the high-backed Elizabethan bare wooden settle that he had asked the man to drag in from the hall and place opposite, with the Kashan rug that had occupied the space rolled up behind it.

‘There, make yourself comfortable,’ said Ophelia; and she dipped onto the edge of her seat, barely acknowledging its presence or her need of it. ‘Will the other half be joining us? I do hope so, I should like to get to know him better. Oh, I am so pleased to have this opportunity to observe you together in your domestic environment.’

The veins stood out on Dark’s temples as he leaned forward. ‘You know perfectly well, madam, that this isn’t my house. I live in The Annexe at the back of the property. This is the residence of the Lady of the Manor, who has done me the honour of retaining my services. Previously it was occupied by the former vicar, your ex-superior, whom presumably you met once or twice. The lady is elsewhere today on important business, and she requires that I formally review the subversive nature of your activities with you. That man is her servant. He is not, repeat not, my...my partner. Lallygagging lesbian lingo! Insufferable Sapphic suasion!’

Withdrawing into his chair, after a moment of silence the reverend resumed in a more measured, sepulchral voice. ‘Listen to me attentively. I will come to the matter of your conduct in alliance with that woman, Effie, in a moment. But first, you must understand that I have every intention of discharging my stewardship here faithfully and diligently. And at all times I absolutely require that you support and obey me without questioning my actions and decisions, in a spirit of priestly cooperation. Meaning, that you shall do exactly as I say.’

Observing that Ophelia was not attending, but looking around the room with a sickly expression of pleasure on her face, Dark achieved what in a man of his corpulence passed for rocketing to his feet. His face bulged, his jowls shook, and the wattles of his neck turned crimson. ‘Enough! Bash the bitch’s bonce and…’ For once running out of colluding consonants, with chest heaving he fell back into his chair.

The manservant returned with the coffee. Depositing the Sèvres tray on the low table between the pair, he poured a rich Continental roast into two chipped white porcelain coffee mugs from a Queen Anne silver coffee pot, and resumed his post by the door. His face was twisted with annoyance at having to obey his mistress’s minion, and from a conviction that the interview was doomed. Dark slopped sugar directly from the bowl into his coffee, scattering granules over the tray, and stirred so ferociously with his stainless steel spoon that liquid slopped out. Unable to pick up the cup because his hands were shaking, he leaned over the table and moulded his protuberant lips round the rim. When he sat back and rising bile met descending beverage, he grimaced.

Ophelia ignored her coffee. ‘Fletcher,’ she said, directing her words to a mediaeval gargoyle mounted on the wall—it had large horizontal ears and a fat tongue was hanging out of its mouth to one side. ‘How could I have been so blind? Only now do I see the great toll that life has taken upon you. I blame myself for not detecting it earlier, and can only pray that I am not too late to help. For whereas I am as a reed bending before the gale of iniquity, you, Fletcher, oak of strength that you are, can only fall and be drowned in a sea of troubles. Poor Fletcher.’

Dark gasped for air. ‘What medication are you on, woman? Enough of this Mumbo Jumbo you miserable manky monkey!’

Ophelia smiled. ‘I mustn’t take up any more of your time, for it will only tire you. I’m so glad that I found you at home, both of you, and that we’ve been able to have such a productive conversation. Perhaps now you should lie down for a while before supper? The tea was lovely, thank you.’ She rose.

‘Sit...down!’ thundered Dark, and Ophelia dropped like a sack of potatoes. ‘Suffering slaves of Surinam! Shag the shriven sheep!’ He got up and faced the fire and, staring unfocused into the flames with the heat fierce on his corneas, spoke in a hanging-judge voice. ‘To continue. So far as the lady and I are concerned there is no obligation upon us to keep you in your ministry. Your licence can be revoked at our pleasure. Based upon what I have seen of you so far, which has not pleased me, I should eliminate your position immediately. Fact is, you’re only here at all because your dear Effie pulled a Bunny Girl out of the Archdeacon’s wardrobe. Now make no mistake, woman, from now on you are here on sufferance only, and you need to know that I am not a long-suffering man. Know that from now on I will be watching every move you make, and the first time, the very first…’

As he continued talking Ophelia stood, walked to the door, nodded to the oblivious manservant whose attention was still fixed on Dark, and left the room, closing the door softly behind her. Getting up, the remaining reverend paced up and down, his oratorical momentum undiminished as, similarly unaware and still seeing her in his mind’s eye, he cast smouldering glances at the empty settle.

‘But because you undeniably have a way with your congregation, I’m giving you one last chance by charging you with helping me demonstrate to our parishioners, those puffed and reckless libertines, how their treading of the primrose path of dalliance, their having chosen to go the primrose way, has led them to the everlasting bonfire. In so doing you shall obey my orders to the letter, as in minding your Ps and Qs and following them to a T. And if you don’t I’m telling you on the q.t. that gorillas will gobble your gonads. So there it is and that will be all, for now.
Dis
...wait for it, wait for it...
Diss…miss
!’

Dark looked away for an instant and, when his eyes returned to observe Ophelia’s departure, this time he saw that she was already no longer there, and jumped as if he had been stuck with a pin. Quivering, his piggy eyes blazed with anger and confusion. The manservant, equally dumbfounded, reacted like one released from a spell. Together they searched the room, looking underneath the furniture and behind the draperies; and the man checked the hall, the cloakroom, the kitchen, and the upstairs.

When all possibilities had been exhausted the reverend subsided into the wing-chair, and a dark study, while the man stood before him on the hearth with his arms akimbo, glaring into the fire. Then, crouching, the servant removed a couple of large well-seasoned logs from the basket and placed them, very carefully, at the back of the fire. Although tongues of flame licked up and down his arm, he withdrew it only slowly and inhaled the heat as if it were restorative ozone.

Forming words again, Dark glumly recited to himself his meaningless mantras: ‘
Sotto voce
, Celia said the cerebral Simon’s semen should survive for seven centuries.’ ‘Should the shenanigan shyster shuck Shivaun’s shawl?’ Propping his chins on his chest he listened to the crackle and shrill of the wood, imagining that they were his own bones burning.

Chapter Fourteen

The week following his hearthside humiliation, Father Fletcher chaired the quarterly meeting of the Parochial Church Council, which was held in the parish hall. When the co-opted curate failed to appear he went ahead and opened the meeting with a prayer, which he had written on the back of a grocery receipt and set amongst the
Psalms of David
.

‘As a young man, I behaved impulsively and without thought for the consequences. But now that I’m no longer a spring chicken, let me remember the days of my youth, the wine, the women and the song; and seek them out again. Again and again. Amen.’

The reverend began by announcing to the members,
ex cathedra
, that by hook or by crook he would bend this bothersome body to the yoke of his will. As priest-in-charge and Chairman, he was hereby notifying the Council that he would shortly be introducing a number of moral and other initiatives and measures in the name of Religion and the Lady of the Manor, the Patron of the parish, which would be recorded in the minutes as having been agreed
nemine contradicente
. One of these would be the sale by the Church of the parish hall, which it had owned since some time or other, for the purpose of whatever it was, the proceeds of which would go towards something or other.

Dark advised that he had recently informed Ophelia of his agenda at a meeting at the Old Rectory, and that she had most humbly acquiesced to be bound by his authority, as she was required to do. He said that she had wholeheartedly endorsed his reformatory programme and complimented him upon it, not that he cared what she thought because if she disagreed he would fire her.

There was an outcry of dissent. ‘I don’t believe it,’ said the senior warden, Mrs Bawtrey, when her number two, Mrs Patnode, had shouted the words in her ear. ‘Ophelia would never let anyone tell her what to do and how to behave.’

‘What this awful man is proposing,’ said another woman, ‘is a return to the Dark Ages, pun intended. The congregation’ll dwindle from packed every week to nothing if Ophelia goes, and the Bishop will close the place down. Young, adult, old, and dead, everyone adores Ophelia. The church is packed every week. Some people get married more than once, and my grandfather has just booked his fifth funeral.’

‘Ophelia!’ huffed Dark. ‘This isn’t a popularity contest. Case of being cruel to be unkind. Call me as dull as ditch-water, dry as a dust bowl or the dong on a dessicated dingbat, I don’t care. Can’t drop bomblets without busting heads. Cue labial laughter. Read them the Riot Act and rein in the rebels. But what the hell, I am an accommodating man. If you prefer beer or cocktails to wine at the altar, that’s fine by me. Hold services in the pub? By all means. Use the church for parties? Drive yourselves mad. Prefer hard rock to hymns? Go right ahead. Pardons and indulgences, they’re all worth the paper they’re written on, signed by me. Up to fifteen sins a week without points off your licence, granted. Guilt-free adultery on Wednesdays. I’ll even throw in manslaughter once every five years. Is there Any Other Business before I shut this charade down?’

The committee was implacable in its support of Ophelia. As the agenda proceeded, votes were taken and Dark went down on all counts, with the exception that he might take service occasionally, for the purpose of reminding everyone how unpleasant he was and afford people the entertainment of abusing him and pelting him with rotten tomatoes. He was also at liberty to do them all a favour by digging his own grave and jumping in it, whereupon the community would fill it in, and when he had decomposed disinter him and cast his bones on the village midden.

After the members of the council had filed out muttering to each other, preparatory to holding an even more vociferous caucus on the Street, Dark, left alone at the table, stabbed at the corpse of the agenda with a stubby forefinger and fumed.

‘Impossibly pedantic Protestant paedophiles!’ Then he stood and, according to his word, threw an illustrated children’s Bible that one of the churchwardens had left behind through the open window. A cat yowled, but it was not enough to restore his good humour.

In the morning he presented himself at the Old Rectory to account for himself. ‘Well, Dark, what have you got to say for yourself?’ The devil lady was tucking into a late breakfast, one that included everything except yogurt and muesli; which was a good thing, she thought as she learned of the debacle, because she might be about to lose them in a fit of projectile vomiting. ‘Remind me why I made the right decision in hiring you. So far you seem to have changed things for the better rather than worse, by uniting further those we are supposed to be disuniting.’