by Heide Goody
Clovenhoof slapped his knee, laughed and waggled his mug for a top up.
"He’s rumbled you."
"Oh, I won’t let on," said Ewan. "Anything to keep the peace. It’s just you’re, I don’t know, the kind of man that Nerys would want for a boyfriend but not the kind she needs. Whereas you, Ben... You and Jayne. That’s the real deal?"
"Yes, sir," said Ben.
"And she’s not pregnant or anything?"
"No," said Ben. "I mean, not by me certainly. I mean, I’m not saying that she would…. I mean, she could if she wanted because she’s her own person, not that I’d imagine her ever… I mean… I’ll stop talking now."
"Probably wisest," said Ewan. "But you love her and want to make her happy?"
"I think so. Yes."
"Can’t ask for more than that, can I?"
Ewan got to his feet, stumbled momentarily and then drew aside a low curtain under his desk to retrieve what looked like a bundle of knotted ropes.
"What’s that?" said Clovenhoof.
"Hammocks," said Ewan. "You’re sleeping in style tonight, lads. Here, take this."
As Ben helped Ewan unwind the hammocks, Michael watched Clovenhoof help himself to yet another home-brewed beer.
"Did you dig him up?" asked Clovenhoof.
"Who?" said Ewan.
"Joseph of Arimathea."
"Couldn’t. The tomb’s in a difficult spot."
"Oh?"
"Underneath the car park in the centre of Aberdaron."
Michael caught Clovenhoof’s expression.
"Don’t suggest it," said Michael, his mind already filled with images of Clovenhoof with pneumatic drills and pick axes. "Don’t even think it."
The kitchens at St Cadfan’s were lit by a series of high windows. Though it was midwinter, the early morning light filled the room with a bright, cleansing light.
While Novice Stephen screwed the lids and wiped down the last of the jars of apple preserve, Brother Sebastian cut up the labels. Brother Manfred sat on a stool at one of the preparation benches and muttered to himself, pen between lips.
"What are you working on?" asked Stephen.
"A menu," said Manfred.
"You’re planning something special for us tonight?"
"Not for you, dear brother. We have spent the winter months refurbishing rooms for guests but, if we do have a wedding booking, what will we feed them?"
"The usual?" suggested Stephen.
"The usual?" squeaked Manfred. "There is no ‘usual’ in my kitchen. You should consider yourself very lucky, young man. I should think no other monastery in the world offers its brethren the variety of food ours does."
"That’s true," said Sebastian. "Melon balls and bacon. That was a varied and surprising treat."
"I think it worked, no?" said Manfred.
"It went to work on my innards," agreed Sebastian.
"Squid curry," said Stephen. "That one sticks in the mind."
"Not just the mind," said Sebastian. "Are you putting sardines on the wedding breakfast menu?"
"No," said Manfred. "You think I should?"
"Maybe. It’s just that there’s this Portuguese trawlerman I know who can get us a job lot."
Manfred scowled and returned to his thoughts.
"Here," said Sebastian and passed the labels to Stephen. "I’ll glue, you stick."
Stephen read the labels.
"’Bardsey apple preserve. Honest Food, Tastes Divine.’ Really?"
"I think it has a nice ring to it," said Sebastian. "Let’s get busy, Owen will be here with the boat in half an hour."
Twenty-nine minutes later, they had thirty jars labelled and boxed up and, along with the pamphlets, brochures and small items of monastery craftwork, headed out. Sebastian, as procurator and the head of finances, carried the small lock box of money they were taking to the mainland. Stephen was laden down with everything else.
"Watch your step," said Sebastian as they crossed the lawns. "There’s a stone there."
"Thank you, brother," said Stephen as he stumbled blindly on, unable to see over the top of his boxes.
"Brothers!"
"Oh, hell," hissed Stephen as they turned at their abbot’s voice.
"Good morning, Father Abbot," Sebastian called back to the abbot at the door to the monastery.
"You are off to the town with our produce?" said the abbot.
"Yes, Father Abbot."
The abbot nodded and made a gesture of benediction.
"God be with you. Come back rich."
Sebastian smiled.
"Thank you, Father Abbot."
"He knows about the apples," whispered Stephen. "He’s going to kill us. Remember what he said. However we wrong him, he’ll get his vengeance seven times over."
"He knows nothing," Sebastian replied smoothly. "He’s older than Methuselah and is twice as senile."
"How old is he anyway?"
"I don’t know. Seventy?"
"Well, who was the previous abbot?"
"Some of the older monks like Brother Gillespie or Brother Henry might know. I’ve only been here a few years, took up the habit shortly after the Credit Crunch."
"Did you lose your job in the recession?"
"Let’s just say I had eggs in all the wrong baskets."
On the way down to the coast, a peacock hooted as they crossed its path. Others took up the call in reply.
Stephen looked across and saw Barry the peacock stood still and proud by the monastery wall. He found himself gripped by the notion that even if the abbot didn’t know about their enterprise, somehow the abbot’s pet did.
"I think Manfred should put peacock on the menu," Stephen muttered.
"I’ll second that one," said Sebastian. "Look, there’s the boat."
Chapter 7 – In which a question is popped and Clovenhoof is utterly (well, mostly) blameless
Michael woke with a headache and a dry mouth. He was nonetheless surprised to realise that he slept well in the hammock. Ewan had strung the four of them from the shed’s supporting struts, two high, two low, like hanging bunk beds. Michael had been lulled to sleep by the gurgling alcohol in his belly and the soft sound of Ben next to him whittling his lovespoon, a soft sound broken only the once when Ben slipped and stabbed Clovenhoof in the hammock above him. Clovenhoof’s pitiful yelp had brought a smile to Michael’s face.
Now, Michael was awake, thirsty beyond measure and not particularly content to have Ewan’s gently farting backside in his face. He silently rolled out of the hammock, still fully clothed from the night before and slipped out the shed door. The sun wasn’t up but a grey half-light suffused the garden and the greenhouse. Michael found a standpipe in the greenhouse ran his hands under it and splashed his face with the cold water.
"Awake," he said and stepped out into the garden to find Jessie, the border collie, sitting on the lawn, eyes bright and tongue lolling.
"Morning," said Michael.
Jessie ducked her head and shifted her feet as though preparing to pounce. Michael took it as a greeting.
"Ewan says you’re the brightest button in creation, Jessie. Bet you can’t rustle me up a drink, can you?"
Jessie ran off and hurdled the low hedge between this garden and the next.
"Didn’t think so," said Michael.
Michael took out his smartphone. No signal. He hadn’t been able to get one all night. Maybe there was a text from Andy hanging around the ether. Michael experimentally waved his phone in the air but to no avail.
There was a small bark. Jessie sat in front of him, a square plastic milk bottle with teeth marks on the handle on the ground between them.
"A drink," said Michael and, not wishing to appear ungracious, picked it up and drank it. It was cold, invigorating, and empty before he knew it.
"Good girl, Jessie," he said and stroked her head. "Now, if you could find God for me, that would be really impressive."
Jessie ran up the side of the house and then paused to loo
k back at Michael as though urging him to follow.
"Are you serious?" said Michael but followed anyway.
Round the front of the house, Jessie leapt up at the side of Nerys’s car, placing her front paws on the door. Michael looked in. Twinkle sat on the back seat, looking back out at them.
"Yeah, that’s a ‘dog’, Jessie. A touch of dyslexia there. I was looking for ‘God’. G-O-D, yeah?"
Jessie span around and then ran off down the drive, stopping once again to wait for Michael.
"Fine," said Michael.
He let Twinkle out of the unlocked car, clipped his lead on and the pair of them followed Jessie into the cold Welsh morning.
Two hours later, Michael discovered a number of things. Firstly, Wales was not England. Here, in the fresh light of day, he could see a rolling, rugged freshness in the landscape that England could never offer, like England before the English had smoothed off all the edges and turned their own wilderness into a garden. Secondly, exercise was a mightily powerful cure for a hangover, even one inflicted by meadow flowers and root vegetables. Thirdly, Michael didn’t personally have any idea where they were, apart from being on a hill somewhere along the coast. Fourthly, his phone signal had returned, there were several texts from Andy and his phone GPS told him that he was standing on a hill above Porth Cadlan, the scene of Arthur’s final battle. Fifthly and finally, God was nowhere to be found, although Jessie had led him to an almost invisible set of ruined stone foundations that Michael suspected might have been a church or chapel in earlier times.
Michael sat on one of the old rocks while Jessie and Twinkle sniffed and frolicked among the stones. King Arthur, he read from an information link from his phone map, died here and was carried across the sea to Avalon. Michael looked out across the water. Near to was the small island, Maen Gwenonwy, named after King Arthur’s sister. Out of sight, along the coast, lay Bardsey.
"Avalon, eh? Hey, Jessie, reckon you can find Excalibur for me?"
Jessie barked and then rolled over.
There was a ping from Michael’s phone. His daily G-Sez message had arrived.
Surely, the tree of Zaqqum is the food of the sinful. Like dregs of oil it shall boil in their bodies, like the boiling of hot water.
Michael recognised the quote from the Noble Qur’an and put a hand to his still churning belly.
"I could have done with that advice last night."
Twinkle yipped.
"What have you found there?"
Twinkle, clearly not as bright as Jessie, was barking at a small outcropping of mushrooms, growing in the shadow of a stone.
"Those things can be poisonous, you daft thing."
Michael grabbed an image of the mushrooms and made an internet search.
"Not poisonous," he said eventually. "In fact, positively magical, you hairy dope-fiend."
Michael found a folded paper bag in his jacket pocket and began to harvest the fungi.
~ooOOOoo~
Nerys sat up in bed with a gasp.
She looked around at the bedroom in her family home. It troubled her slightly. It was so familiar, yet at the same time, like a window to the past. A past where so much of her life seemed out of her control.
She'd been dreaming, but it had seemed so very real. She replayed the last few moments. The impression of remorse and despair was powerfully seared into her brain, but the details were already slipping away. She laid herself back and tried to recall as much as she could. It came easily, more like a memory than a dream.
She sits in a room that is unfamiliar. Jeremy Clovenhoof sits opposite. She holds in her hands two bared electrical wires and tears are running freely down her face.
"I’m rude to you and Ben," she says. "And my work colleagues. And I’ve driven away pretty much every friend I’ve ever had. I don’t even love my own family. And I was never the niece Molly deserved to have. I’m a horrible person."
Jeremy addresses her.
"And do you wish you had been a better person?"
"Of course I do."
"Are you sorry for all those bad things you’ve done?"
She nods and Jeremy flicks a switch.
Nerys reached for more, but that was it. That was when she had woken up. The only other detail she could recall, strangest of all, was that the Jeremy in the dream was Satan. Definitely Satan, with the horns and everything. Dreams of Jeremy as Satan. Why did that keep happening? She would need to look up what it signified.
She went downstairs to find Ben and Clovenhoof eating toast. Ben had marmalade spread thinly on his, but Clovenhoof was trying to find out how much Nutella he could fit onto one slice of toast. He seemed to be on course to manage the whole jar.
"The key is, to look as if you're official," Clovenhoof was saying to Ben. "Some hi-vis jackets and stripy tape to put around the hole, we can do what we want and people will think we're meant to be there."
"Yes, but how would you actually get through the tarmac?" asked Ben.
"Well, obviously, we find a real road crew and steal their tools," said Clovenhoof. "I quite want to try one of those big pneumatic drills."
"What are you two on about?" asked Nerys.
"How we'd dig up Joseph of Arimathea," said Ben, between mouthfuls of toast.
"Oh, that," said Nerys, starting on the toast herself. "Dad been filling your head with nonsense, huh? Well we've got more immediate fun on the cards today. It's the Farmer's Market in the town. The WI will have a bake sale there, so mom will want to make sure we all turn up and enthuse about cakes.
"I think I can manage that," said Ben.
"What's the WI?" asked Clovenhoof.
"The Women’s Institute," said Nerys.
"Sounds like a madhouse for crazy bitches."
"Thank you. It’s an organisation where women get together for meetings and to learn new skills."
"Oh yeah, I know," said Clovenhoof. "We used to call them ‘covens’ in the old days."
"There are quite a lot of young women in the WI," said Nerys.
"You’re in it then, are you?"
"Well, no, but I could be," said Nerys. "It’s very structured as well, not just a load of old biddies gossiping."
"More like the freemasons for women you mean?"
"No," said Nerys. "You shouldn’t be so rude. Not in front of mom anyway. She’s the chair."
"Oh. Interesting. Do they torture their enemies?"
"What?"
"That’s quite popular with other underground organisations like the French Resistance. Or was I thinking of the Illuminati?"
Nerys squinted at Clovenhoof. She found that if she tried to imagine him with horns, it was easy. Very easy. She wondered what that meant.
"It’s not underground. It’s very respectable," said Ben, taking another slice of toast.
"Respectable women don’t gather in covens to swap spells – why are you looking at me like that?" asked Clovenhoof.
"I had a dream about you," said Nerys.
"Women do."
"You were Satan. I was just picturing you with horns. I think they might, ah, suit you."
Ben joined Nerys in staring at Clovenhoof, his head cocked to one side.
Clovenhoof wriggled in his chair and scowled at them both.
"Where’s Michael?" he asked. "He was gone when we woke up. Did your fake boyfriend pop up to your room for a fake shag?"
"Shhh!" said Nerys. "I haven’t seen him. But Twinkle’s out, so I think maybe he went for a walk."
At that moment, Twinkle scampered into the room, followed a few moments later by Michael.
"Ooh, Mickey! Loving the windswept look," said Clovenhoof. "Walking around in this countryside stuff is all very well, but your hair’s going to look like a haystack all day now."
Nerys rolled her eyes.
"Hurry up and have a quick slice of toast then get cleaned up. We’re going into town."
Her mother entered the room, wiping her hands on a towel.
"… darling," added Nery
s, with an affectionate pat on Michael’s shoulder.
"Nerys, you’re going to have to come and pitch in with the baking," said her mother. "I know you’ve got guests, but I’m sure they can spare you for a while."
There were murmurs and nods from around the room.
"You can make the quiches for the WI meeting, can’t you?"
"Quiches?"
"Lord save me from having to do everything myself."
Nerys nodded.
"What do you want in them?" she asked, but her mother was already making her way back towards the kitchen, berating Jayne for the icing on the cakes being the wrong shade of pink.
"Just find something," she called back. "Just remember there’s vegetarians as well as normal people."
Michael climbed into Nerys’s car with Clovenhoof and Ben. Jayne appeared.
"Can I come with you?" she asked.
"Sure. We haven’t got room for Lydia and mom though."
"Lydia’s not going, she’ll be fine. Mom will ride her bike. Nobody needs to go in dad’s car."
"What’s so wrong with your dad’s car?" asked Ben.
Ewan tooted as he drove past. They all looked across. As his car rounded the bend, the kitchen chair he was sitting on skated across the floor of the car, so he scooted it back over to where the pedals were and gave them a small wave.
Ben made wordless noises as he pointed, his eyes wide.
"At least he has a steering wheel to hang on to," said Jayne, with a sniff. "You should try being a passenger."
They drove the short distance into town and parked up.
Part of the car park had been annexed for the market. Michael wondered why it wasn’t held in a market square, or perhaps indoors somewhere, but he quickly realised that the small cluster of buildings over the stone bridge was the entirety of Aberdaron’s tiny town centre. Many of the buildings were freshly whitewashed, adding an uplifting purity to the scene. He inhaled deeply.
It was a chilly day for an open air market, but the sun was shining and the stall holders were wrapped up in a mixture of hi-tech all terrain clothing and things that looked like tea cosies and dog blankets.
The WI cake stall, two long tables of cupcakes, fruitcakes, icing, fondant and chocolate attracted a steady stream, but Michael with his mind still far away on a Welsh hillside, drifted away from his fake girlfriend to look at some local produce stalls. Clovenhoof was rootling through a charity table that was piled high with old clothing and bric a brac. As Michael looked across, he was already carrying armfuls of strange-looking goods.