The Black Joke

by David Bramhall

  Chapter 18

  Thou hast made us to drink the wine of astonishment (Psalm 60)

  Sunday morning was Communion, and Pert had planned how he would get into the vestry cupboard while the Vicar was busy with the sacraments. He intended to be particularly efficient so as not to arouse any suspicion, but his plan foundered at the first hurdle, for the Vicar was there before him, sitting at the vestry table.

  “Potts!” he said, “been waiting for you. Stand there.” His face was flushed, and Pert smelt spirits. It was ten o'clock in the morning and the Vicar had started already.

  The Vicar planted his elbows on the table and fixed Pert with a beaky glare. “Where is it?” he said sharply.

  “Sir, where's what?”

  “Where's the money you stole?”

  Pert was floored. Now they were accusing him of theft. He'd already been convicted of assault and battery, of defiance and rebellion, and of unspecified crimes against the virtue of Rosella. Now it was theft.

  “I've stolen nothing,” he said truculently. If he resisted, if he was stubborn, was there much they could do?

  “Liar!” screeched the Vicar, and rose to his feet. “Liar, and thief! Thief and liar!” He advanced round the table, his knees very high and his hands outstretched. Pert braced himself for flight.

  “Where is it? Where is it, you unspeakable little blackguard?” the man yelled in his face, and gripped his lapels. “Where is the sixpence you stole from the collection?”

  Pert breathed a sigh of relief. Was that all? Was that all it was about? Sixpence found on the floor, which he had kept and spent on presents?

  “Sir, I found that money. I didn't steal it. And I've spent it.”

  The Vicar's narrow face flushed with anger and his little eyes grew round. He shook Pert by the lapels. He was strong, too strong for Pert to break away. What should he do? Rosella would have kicked with her big boots, kicked at his shins, that would have done the trick but Pert was wearing ordinary shoes, the shoes he used for church, with soft soles so they didn't click when he walked about during the service.

  “Sir, let me go! I'm not a thief. I found that money, and I believed it was all right to keep it. If you want, I'll pay it back. I can give it to you tomorrow.” He did his best not to sound scared, though he was. Not of the Vicar's violence, but of the label “thief”, of the word that the Vicar would put round the town. But, he thought, whether he paid the money or not, that wouldn't stop Tench and his crony Urethra Grubb from noising it abroad that he had stolen – and stolen from the church, at that. What worse crime could there be?

  The Vicar let go of him. He thrust his great nose in Pert's face, and barked “Pay it back? I guarantee you will pay, my sneaky light-fingered friend. Oh yes, you'll pay all right, with this to add to your other sins!”

  He calmed at this, and sat down again. “You will bring me sixpence tomorrow. Bring it to my house. And you are fired from your post as altar boy. You will serve at this morning's communion, and then you will never darken the doors of this building again. This is the house of God, and black spirits like yours have no place it its observances!”

  Pert watched him, and felt an icy calm spread over him. Be rational, now, Pert, think calmly and work it out. Do you mind not being an altar boy any more? No, not in the least. Will you still be able to accomplish what you set out to do, and purloin the parish accounts? Yes, you will. You'll do it now. Will you pay back the six pence as you promised? No, not in a thousand years. Let the Vicar whistle for the money. It wasn't his, and there was nothing he could do about it that he wasn't already going to do anyway.

  Pert felt a surge almost of joy. He was free, somehow, as though a shackle had been released from him. Here's to a life of crime, he thought, and beggar the consequences!

  “Very well,” he said, trying hard not to smile. “Shall I get the wine and wafers out now? Could I have the key to the cupboard?”

  The service followed its usual course. The usual prayers were intoned, the usual hymn was sung though this time Pert didn't feel it was incumbent on him to take part in it. As usual the Vicar made his mystic passes over the pewter cup and the pewter plate, and the usual worshippers rose from their pews and shuffled forward to take communion.

  Sir Humphrey Comfrey was always first, followed by Mrs.Wheable and the Widow Dolphin, then other town dignitaries, the fish merchant and his wife, the headmaster, then down the pecking order, Miss Throstle, then the harbourmaster, then the more ordinary people, shop keepers and stall holders and fishermen and their wives.

  “This is my blood ... shed for you ... drink it in remembrance of me ...” and sip, and wipe the rim with the cloth, and turn it a little so that the next person drinks from a different place though there are only so many different places, thought Pert, so you've got to share someone else's spit anyway, just not someone of your own social class.

  Then the wafers, thin, poor little things from a packet printed “Makepiece & Thorogood, communion wafers, economy grade”, and “this is my body ... in remembrance of me ...” and the worshippers struggle to their feet and file back to make room for those behind.

  Pert had deliberately given the chalice half-measure, so he could be absolutely sure he would have to go and refill it. There were two chalices, in fact, both coarse pewter things, so that there would be no break in proceedings. He had only half filled them both. When the Vicar handed him the first empty chalice, Pert walked swiftly to the vestry, went to the cupboard which the Vicar had, perforce, to leave unlocked. On the top shelf were the bottles of communion wine and spare packets of wafers. He slopped some of the thin red stuff into the chalice, hurriedly put the bottle back and looked at the lower shelves. Mr.Surplice had not been mistaken. There they were, a number of notebooks with stiff covers of marbled cardboard and red cloth backs, partly hidden under a mess of old robes, boxes of candles and prayer books. He pulled them out and put them in the bottom of the other cupboard that held the old choir robes. This one was never locked. Pert had never seen a key for it. He put an old cassock over them and closed the door. In the main cupboard he rearranged the candles and the old robes so the gap would not be noticeable, and returned to the sanctuary with the chalice.

  At the altar rail a new row of parishioners knelt while the Vicar moved up and down. He put the chalice back on the altar, and took the wafer plate. “This is my body ...” he intoned, placing a wafer on the tongue of each supplicant. Pert picked up the almost empty chalice and took it back to the vestry. Here a wicked thought struck him. He stood transfixed by the enormity of it, then acted. His final duty as altar boy would be one to remember. He went back to the special cupboard. Right at the back of the highest shelf was the Vicar's special bottle, the whisky. It was half full. Pert emptied it into the chalice, replaced it, and took the chalice back to the altar.

  He waited just long enough for the Vicar to take the chalice and begin to administer it to the fishermen and their wives who knelt before him, and to see the look of surprise on their faces as they sipped. The first ones crossed themselves and rose to go back to their pews, grinning. That was a communion and a half, that was!

  Pert slipped back to the vestry, threw off his robes, and grabbed the accounts books. He pulled open the door from the vestry into the churchyard, ran down the side of the church beneath the yew trees, along the path to the lych gate and out into the Canonry. Leaping and bounding at the mischievous freedom in his heart, he fled down the hill and turned for home.

  For the rest of the morning Pert was half expecting that the Vicar might call to vent his anger on Mother, but nothing happened. After all, he mused, how could the Vicar admit that he regularly drank a half bottle of whisky before officiating at holy orders? And the chances that he had missed the accounts books were slim – no one had taken any notice of them for ten or fifteen years, to judge from the dust. Just in case, he took them up to the attic and hid them behind a loose brick in the back of the chimney breast. He must remember to get them out before t
he mouse found them and fancied a snack, though.