The Triple Goddess (84 page)

Verbally chiselling his marbled prose with care, the Bishop dictated to his new Estuarian-spoken youthful and well-endowed secretary, Gail, a letter asking by whose authority the addressee, Father Fletcher Abraham Dark, had been appointed vicar; adding that perhaps he had been labouring under a misapprehension in believing that such decisions were his and his alone to make. The Episcopal Bull went on to remind Dark that the office of Patron, or holder of the Right of Presentation to a Benefice, no longer existed; a fact that a certain Mrs Diemen, as he understood her name to be, was apparently not aware of. This woman seemed to be possessed of the quaint notion that the Living of the parish within her supposed fiefdom was hers to be handed out like candy to children.

His Right Reverendship shuddered, remembering his infantile experience while returning from holiday with a former object of his affections, Jody. Furthermore, his letter went on, not only had this woman had the brazen effrontery, the gall, to kick out his appointed vicar, the Reverend Nate Posey; but she had also requisitioned as her residence the Rectory, which the Bishop was more or less certain was still the property of the Church.

Having ended the letter by expressing the desire to be favoured by a prompt reply, and remaining, Sir, everything but Father Fletcher’s humble, obedient and Christian servant, the Bishop sat back and contemplated his amanuensis, Gail. He imagined himself in the library at the Athenaeum Club on Pall Mall, reading a desultory morning newspaper as he anticipated a tremulous luncheon in Gail’s company—he would take her with him when at last he was admitted to the inner circle of bishops—at a restaurant off the New King’s Road that had been recommended to him by a Westminster canon residentiary as a popular venue for such encounters; or perhaps a little hole-in-the-wall place in Wapping that a Southwark Cathedral verger had overheard was fit for purpose.

At lunch Gail would consume three bottles of Babycham, and behave so amenably that her boss might dare to hope unto himself that, being a bachelor and barely on the wrong side of fifty years old, if he diligently pressed his suit she might want to get to know him better, yea, even in the biblical sense. After lunch his Right Reverendship would return to the Athenaeum and spend an hour in the company of Morpheus surrounded by a number of his fellow snoring prelates who had similar plans for the evening. And then, his carnal appetite refreshed, at eight o’clock in a pressed heather-mixture suit he would press his suit, fuelled by red Hungarian wine and veal goulash side by side with Gail on a banquette at the Gay Hussar on Greek Street in Soho.

As she read the letter and tried to assess its import, and what she should do about it, the devil lady’s head buzzed and throbbed. She was about to crumple it up and throw it into the fire, but decided against it on the grounds that the resident demons would seize it and use it as evidence against her. It was then that she noticed a handwritten scrawl of a PS: “As soon as Our schedule permits, We intend to make a Visitation to Our parish in order to view the situation for Ourselves.”

At first the devil lady did not like the sound of that postscript. But there was a dark cloud in every silver lining, and the publicity to be gained by making a party hat of a prelate’s mitre would show everyone in the village the futility of resistance. To beat the bish on her territory would be a major
coup
, one that would get the demons off the premises in a twinkling and earn her a most favourable report at home. It might even be enough to win her promotion to the management position that she so longed for, thereby relieving her of the constant pressure to produce new business; which, were it not bearable because it had to be bearable, would have been unbearable. The devil lady was so cheered by the thought that her headache disappeared, and she rang the bell for her manservant and told him to pour her a double dollop of whisky.

‘But it’s only eleven o’clock,’ he said reproachfully, eyeing the demons, who had ceased their corybantic antics and mock duelling with pitchforks to stare at her. Then, because they were not agreed on what the correct time was, being ignorant of Greenwich Mean Time and indeed the concept of Time altogether, the occupants of the fireplace began disputing with each other. The only things they agreed upon was that it was impossible to verify that it was eleven o’clock in the morning (they could not see the clock on the chimney-piece), whatever that meant, and that they needed to find out what whisky was and why anyone would want to drink it.

‘Don’t bandy words with me, you horrible little man,’ said the DL; ‘just do it, and don’t stint on the measure.’ Complying without further word, he was deliberately clumsy with the decanter, and plonked the glass down on the side-table so that some of it spilled. His mistress sighed as she sipped the single malt from the cut glass tumbler, and the man stuck his nose in the air and left the room. Half an hour later, without being summoned, he was back and clearing his throat in a contrastingly deferential manner.

The devil lady frowned. ‘What is it?’

‘Shall you be going to hear Ophelia’s sermon tomorrow?’

‘Ophelia doesn’t preach, I understand, neither does she pronounce, postulate, or pontificate. She is pulpit-averse.’ The whisky had done its job.

‘If you say so.’

‘Well, as little as I want to return to that place after the circumstances attendant upon my last visit, I suppose I’d better. You shall come with me and we’ll sit by the door. I may want to make a quick getaway.’

The church was packed for the service, and people were talking nineteen to the dozen as Ophelia roamed up and down, leaning into the pews and grasping hands with concerned enquiries as to everyone’s well-being, bestowing a hug or a kiss here, and murmured greetings there, and patting children on the head as they went up and down the nave clutching toys from the play box at the back. She addressed everyone by name, including several who had attended only once before, and asked after their proximate relatives, also by name. She assured those whose family members were ill or too infirm to attend or who were in hospital or, vital decession notwithstanding, were absent on this occasion, that they would be remembered in her prayers and that she would visit them soon. Next to the table at the back, Effie was supervising her usual half-dozen or so women, the Church Rats, as they set out the post-Service refreshments.

When she was ready to begin the show, Ophelia went to the cupboard and utility area under the tower and behind a screen to collect her thoughts. Then she took a long look at herself in a small shaving mirror set askew on the wall, adjusted a lock or two of her hair, and breathed deeply before gliding down the gangway. An expectant rather than reverent silence fell on the congregation. When she was halfway to the front she began speaking informally and with animation, her usual solicitous whisper replaced by an articulate and musical voice that carried to the corners of the building. As she walked, she dropped the white surplice that she was carrying over her head—there might have been an alb and stole, cope or chasuble in the vestry, had there been a vestry, or there might not.

The audience smiled and settled down to enjoy itself, confident that Ophelia could be relied upon to entertain and pay scant attention to the order of ceremony, which everyone knew too well anyway to be bothered with.

With an iron clunk of the door handle the devil lady and her serving-man entered, and Effie, who was seated opposite the door for ease of assuming her station afterwards, looked away, her face set in a mask of antipathy. The infernal pair ignored the prayer book and hymnal that were thrust at them at arm’s length by Mrs Patnode, whose many duties included tending to those who came in after Service had begun. Each unwillingly accepted a service booklet, which Mrs P. was very insistent that they take, as if she were serving a writ. Hearing the door, the congregation rounded and glared balefully at them, and some crossed themselves. Making a swift visual recce of the assembly, the two took the last remaining seats at the end of the back row to the fore of the font; upon which those closest to them slid as far away as possible towards the wall.

Ophelia always insisted that there was no such thing as being late, and would hail by name any who entered after she had begun, to their embarrassment. Today was no exception.

‘Welcome to our Lady of the Manor, and her, ah, friend, who I understand can drink more beer than anyone in the village. That’s quite an accomplishment.’ This was received in silence, and Ophelia proceeded to open with one of her favourite gambits.

‘I don’t see any bishops among us today...not that they wouldn’t be welcome, for even bishops ought to go to church once in a while.’ The audience tittered: their priestess’s run-ins with authority were part of local lore. ‘Which reminds me that the last time I was at a Service with a bishop, at his place not mine, attendance wasn’t voluntary for either of us because I was there to be ordained.’ Laughter. ‘As to bishops in general, I am reminded of the words of my late-eighteenth-century friend Sydney Smith, who said, “I
must
believe in the Apostolic Succession: there is no other way of accounting for the descent of the Bishop of Exeter from Judas Iscariot.”’

The DL’s eyes narrowed with interest.

‘I also recall that on that occasion I was only one of quite a few who were joining the clergy. Some of the others have since moved onward and upward to become solicitors and accountants. One of them, instead of reading
Numbers
—I refer to the book in the Bible—is now counting the days in gaol. When I went to see him he offered to sell me his car, owing to his not needing it for four to eight years, by which time he should want a more up-to-date model. As much as I would loved to help him, I don’t drive, and neither does Effie. People tell me that is as much a blessing to those on the roads as the one they get in church.’

As more laughter rang out, a shadowy figure at the front of the congregation stood and hurled an overripe tomato, large enough to be one of the genetically modified variety, to the rear. Narrowly missing the serving-man’s head, it splatted against the wall above the collection box.

Ophelia beamed. ‘Now, I’m sure that none of you have come here today to be “preached to death by wild curates”, to use another expression of good old Sydney Smith; which is why, as all of you know, I never use the pulpit or give sermons. Pulpits are only for railing against the perils of Hellfire, and I fervently hope that none of us here has been wicked enough to deserve such an awful fate.’

The devil lady shifted on the hard bench.

‘So instead I have it in mind to tell you a parable, or story. One about animals and birds. Let us suppose, if you will, that I am a badger, or brock as the animal used to be called. In Latin,
Meles meles
. As a badger I live with my family in a place called a sett. A sett, for those of you who don’t know—ah, Jimmy does, well done, Jimmy—is an underground house consisting of rooms connected by a network of tunnels. We badgers have more than one dwelling, so as to have somewhere to go if we get flooded out or have to move in a hurry. For there are many hazards associated with living out of doors, and I don’t just mean unwanted visitors. Some of the oldest setts are a hundred years old and more, and we badgers dig them out every season, shifting huge amounts of earth with our short muscular limbs and long
claws and probing snout.

‘
Foxes and rabbits live in similar homes but they’re smaller. On occasion we badgers might agree to rent our spare place out for the season, perhaps to a family of foxes, because foxes are often too lazy to dig a home for themselves. But we would only let them move in upon payment of a heavy damage deposit, because whereas badgers are clean and tidy animals, foxes are not; and the sett is sure to need fumigating and redecorating at the end of the lease.’

As she was speaking Ophelia drew a picture of a badger on the ever-present easel, which entertained the grown-ups as much as it did the children.

‘Now then. Because I’m a badger I wake up and begin my day at sunset. Although I generally avoid other animals on my rounds, I tolerate foxes and rabbits so long as they don’t expect me to stop and chat. I’m an animal of few words, and a grunt or gruff hello is about all they’ll get out of me. The badger way is to stick to well-worn paths and tracks up and down and along the hillside, and we’re so regular in our habits that you could set your watch by me—if you wear one, which I don’t—as I forage for food. Although I’ll eat pretty much anything, I prefer plain food and subsist mostly on roots and grubs.

‘What’s that Jimmy? Ah, you got a watch for your birthday, did you? You must show it to me afterwards. And you ate a worm…I’m sure your mummy talked to you about that. You didn’t tell her? Well, you have now, Jimmy.

‘Where was I? Ah yes. As a badger you might call me a stolid yeomanish sort of beast, drably grey except for the white blaze or stripe on my head. You’d be right to call me dull or boring if I was the sort of animal that went out into society, which I do not. But as shy as I am, watch out. Should you pick a fight with me I’ll turn very fierce indeed, and once I’ve got you in my powerful crunching jaws it’s impossible for you to escape.

‘So long as you leave me alone, however, you’ve nothing to fear. I’m a family person and like a quiet life, sleeping during the daytime and hibernating in winter, all cozy and dozy and warm. We badger boars and sows insulate our home before winter arrives by dragging in bracken and grass to line the sleeping chambers with. There, in a thick bed of sweet-smelling straw, I lie and dream of the spring, when I will feel the cool night air on my nose again, and roll in the dew on the emerald turf as dawn glimmers on the horizon. For we badgers are beautiful dreamers with vivid imaginations, which comes of our eyesight being so poor and our senses of hearing and smell so acute.’