by Heide Goody
Nerys watched in surprise as the young monk turned and walked away, shaking his head. She heard him mumble as he went. It sounded like "for God's sake," but she must have misheard.
Michael appeared at her side moments later.
"Have you scared off young Stephen, again?" he asked.
Nerys shrugged. She had no idea what had just happened.
"Listen," said Michael. "I want to take a better look around the place. Cover for me, will you? If anyone asks, I've gone for a lie-down with a headache."
"Sure," said Nerys, watching a second man abandon her in as many minutes.
"Oh, wait," she called, but it was too late as Michael disappeared. "What exactly do you mean, have I scared him off again?"
Once all the various friends and family had been brought ashore, Ben and Jayne followed the wedding party up to the monastery at a leisurely pace.
"Hmmm," said Jayne, mimicking her mother. "And this is it. Today."
"Yep, on a damp rock in the middle of the sea. Us and all our family."
Jayne linked her arm with Ben’s.
"Your parents are nice."
"Thank you."
"Did they really go on a holiday to look at radar installations?"
"Three weeks in a camper van with the kind of itinerary only a real geek could come up with."
"Because you’re not a geek, are you?"
"I’m the very best kind of geek. I was thinking about our honeymoon holiday. I hadn’t booked anything because my –"
"I have," said Jayne.
"You have?"
"I thought it would be a surprise. A nice one."
"Oh? I’m sure it will be," he said. "Where are we going?"
"In the footsteps of Alexander the Great."
Ben stopped on the track and looked at his fiancée.
"In the footsteps? As in we’re going to go there?"
Jayne nodded.
"Along the route his armies took. Takes us right into the heart of what would have been the Seleucid Empire. I know you’re such a fan."
"Of miniature table-top wargaming. I… You know I’m not a big fan of travel."
"And this is a way to give you the chance to catch the travel bug," said Jayne brightly.
"Well, I think we’re likely to catch something," said Ben, feeling slightly queasy. "So, what? Greece? Turkey?"
Jayne nodded. "Egypt too."
"Israel?"
"Yes."
"Iran?"
"It’s apparently quite safe for Western travellers, depending upon the mood of the government when we go."
"But not India, surely? Or Afghanistan?" said Ben, struggling to keep the fearful tremor out of his voice.
"India definitely," said Jayne. "Afghanistan we will need to play by ear."
"You think?" Ben squeaked.
Jayne’s mouth settled into an uncomfortable and disappointed line.
"This is meant to be a good surprise, Ben. I thought this would make you happy."
Ben tried to give her a smile but it flickered and died almost instantly.
"Okay," he said, taking a deep breath. "I hate Greek food and Turkish food. For two countries that hate each other so much, their cuisine is virtually identical and equally stomach-churning. I once got a verruca in a Turkish bath and was severely frightened by a fat, naked guy with a big moustache."
"Right?"
"Egypt has the highest rate of road traffic accidents in the world. It’s all camels and badly ventilated tombs. And crocodiles! They have crocodiles."
"No one’s asking you to going swimming in the Nile, Ben."
"I won’t even begin to talk about the quality of the plumbing in India."
"You’ve never been to India."
"I’ve watched Slumdog Millionaire. The rest of the itinerary is a roll call of every warzone, fiercely disputed territory and downright dangerous place a Brit could visit. And don’t get me started on the fretwork doors."
"Fretwork doors?"
"All of those countries. What’s the point of having doors you can see through? It won’t be bad enough that we’ll spend every minute either frantically looking for a toilet that doesn’t look like a sewage overflow or hiding from men with guns and very fixed views on what God wants them to do. No, we’ll be doing that with everyone being able to see us doing it through closed doors."
"I don’t think that’s true at all," said Jayne.
"I’m sorry, my love," he said. "I know you meant well but it’s an awful idea."
"I thought…"
"What did you think?"
"I thought…" Jayne blinked rapidly and gazed for a moment away and out to sea. "I thought it would be a chance for you to be like those ancient heroes you admired so much."
Ben sighed, a horrible and heavy weight inside him. He took Jayne’s hands in his.
"Jayne. Why do you think I admire them so much?"
She shrugged, teary-eyed.
"It’s because I am not them," he said. "I’m nothing like them."
"Maybe you’re more like them than you think."
"Not enough," said Ben.
~ooOOOoo~
Clovenhoof stood in front of the mirror in his room’s en suite bathroom to practise his best man’s speech.
"I wouldn’t say Ben is a virgin. He spent three months in prison on remand for murder. Don’t worry, he got off the charge. And I’m sure, surrounded by all those burly sex-starved men in prison, there was some getting off behind bars as well, if you know what I mean."
Clovenhoof paused for the imagined laughter to die down. It went on for a very long time but, then again, he was very funny.
"But I wouldn’t say Ben’s never had a female wriggling between his thighs. There was the time when he mistook a female tarantula for a bath sponge."
As Clovenhoof began to mime Ben giving himself an all over scrub with a giant spider (to much hilarity), he heard the door to his room open.
"You in?" called Ben.
"Just knocking them dead with my best man’s speech," Clovenhoof replied.
Ben came into the bathroom and looked at Clovenhoof frozen mid-mime with his hand over his groin.
"It is going to be a clean speech, isn’t it?" said Ben.
"It’s going to be honest, affectionate and paint you in an entirely positive light."
"Really?"
"Totally. Now, am I okay to mention your dinner date with a sex doll?"
"No."
"The time we set the fire alarm off in the adult education centre and had to run out naked?"
"No."
"The fact that your pre-nuptial ‘back, sack and crack’ waxing went horribly wrong and that you’re bald on one side, hairy on the other and Nerys had to do some blending in work on your balls with her make up kit?"
"Definitely not."
"You sure? This is some of my best material."
"I am sure, Jeremy."
"Okay. But I can mention the time you ate a bowlful of horse tranquilisers because you thought they were M&Ms?"
"Er, I don’t think so."
Clovenhoof sighed.
"Well, what about the time I thought you were a zombie snowman of the apocalypse and I went round the neighbourhood on a mobility scooter with a box of fireworks, blowing up all the snowmen in a bid to save the world from certain destruction?"
Ben thought on this.
"Yes," he said eventually. "Mention that one."
"Excellent. I brought some Roman candles for the re-enactment."
Ben shook his head.
"Look, Jeremy, I came to ask you some advice. If I make Jayne cry on the day of her wedding is that a bad sign?"
Clovenhoof nodded sagely.
"This is a wedding night question, isn’t it? You’ve come to the right person."
"I’m not sure it is."
"You see," said Clovenhoof, putting a fatherly hand on Ben’s shoulder, "the thing to remember is that ‘down there’ women have two holes."
"No, that’s not what I’m asking –"
"And if you go for the wrong one it’s going to bring tears to her eyes."
"No! Jeremy, that’s not it. Maybe I’m getting cold feet but I’m worried about rushing into this thing."
"Of course you are," said Clovenhoof. "You can’t go rushing into it. She won’t like that either. There’s this thing called ‘foreplay’. It’s called that because you have to do it for at least four seconds before leaping on and riding the bedroom rodeo."
"Jeremy! I’m asking whether Jayne and I are really made for each other."
"Oh, I see."
"You do?"
"Yes. And, of course you are made for each other."
Ben almost wilted with relief.
"You think it’s going to work out fine?"
"Of course it is, dear friend." He patted Ben on the shoulder. "You see, Jayne has what we in the business call an ‘inny’ and you have an ‘outy’. You put the ‘outy’ in the ‘inny’ and jiggle it about. It’s almost as if the Other Guy made you so that’s the only way he wanted you to do it. However, I find that with enough imagination, there’s an almost infinite variety of ways you can –"
The door slammed as Ben left. Clovenhoof stared at the door for a second.
"Glad to be of help!" he shouted and returned to his speech.
~ooOOOoo~
That afternoon, Nerys, as bridesmaid, had a perfect overview of the wedding ceremony and concluded that it was a perfect ceremony but for one small detail.
Ewan walked Jayne up the narrow aisle, while Nerys held her train. Clovenhoof, standing beside the groom, danced along to the wedding march but at least limited himself to a subtle hand jive and soft tap dance. How could no one else hear the click of his hideous goaty hooves on the flagstones? Clovenhoof’s white smoking jacket – which looked like a costume out of low-budget sci-fi movie – did a marvellous job of distracting everyone’s attention from Ben’s suit which, despite being hugely expensive and freshly pressed, seemed to slouch over Ben’s almost boneless frame, becoming no more formal or impressive than Ben’s regular T-shirt and jeans.
It was all perfectly adequate and adequately perfect. If only the whole affair wasn’t being unsubtly and relentlessly critiqued by one Agnes Thomas of Aberdaron. The commentary was ostensibly delivered to Lydia beside her but conducted in a stage whisper that the building’s acoustics carried throughout the entire church.
"Who’s playing that organ?" Nerys heard her say from halfway down the aisle. "Far too twiddly. Who does he think he is? Jean Michel Jarre? These hymn books are disgusting. Look. Tell me that some disgusting man in a habit hasn’t spent every Sunday picking his nose and pressing them in there. I tell you, they’re not going to make up for that with a few twiddles and knobs on the organ.
"Oh, look. Here she comes. Well, she’s certainly no Kate Middleton, is she? I told her that she’d show a visible panty line in that dress. Was I wrong? No, I wasn’t. It’ll be sweat patches before the first dance too, mark my words. Yes, she looks happy but let’s see how long that lasts. You know your father refused to buy a new suit. That one’s lasted longer than the Berlin Wall. Come sit down. You’re an embarrassment.
"Well, at least it’s a serviceable suit. The boy’s parents clearly buy all their clothes from a charity shop. I bet they’re not short of money, no. They’ll be those ‘oh, look at us being so frugal and austere’ middle class types. It’ll be all couscous and mushrooms in their house. No, too shabby to even pass for shabby genteel.
"Oh, lummy. They’ve got old father time doing the ceremony. He’d better not give us that ‘love, honour and obey’ claptrap. This is the twentieth century not the – okay, twenty-first. Don’t interrupt me. I didn’t sign up to obey you forty years ago so I’m not going to start now, Ewan.
"That’s a wig, isn’t it? That’s definitely a wig. Who says monks can’t wear wigs? It’s not in the Bible. Of course, he’s looking at us. We’re the audience. We’re paying for this charade. Well, not us exactly. Nerys’ supposed boyfriend paid the money but we’re paying out with time and effort. I’m missing a WI trip to Aberystwyth for this. Hmmm. Something suspicious there. Why did he pay for it all? He’s a poof too, you know. Lovely people but you can’t help wondering what they’re up to. I don’t trust his motives. Where is he, anyway? Probably off somewhere, doing something… you know… poofy."
~ooOOOoo~
In his guest room, Michael looked at the time on his smartphone. The service would be in full swing and everyone in attendance including, he hoped, many of the monks.
He looked at his G-Sez message for the day. It was from the book of Job.
Where then is my hope – who can see any hope for me? Will it go down to the gates of death? Will we descend together into the dust?
"Where then is my hope?" he said to himself, opened the door and stepped out into the corridor to find Jessie the border collie sat outside.
"What are you doing here?"
Jessie whined, rolled over and then scampered down the corridor a little way.
"I’m not playing games," said Michael. "I’ve got things to do."
Jessie barked.
"Shush. I’m trying to keep a low profile here."
"Can I help you at all?" said a voice behind him.
With an inward groan, Michael turned.
"Novice Trevor – no, wait – It’s Novice… Stephen, isn’t it?"
The young monk was both pleased and impressed that he was remembered.
"Yes. Aren’t you meant to be in the church?"
"Well, I wasn’t feeling very well so I came back to my room for a few minutes."
"And I see you’ve got your dog with you again."
Michael smiled.
"She’s still not my dog, brother. Somehow I don’t think she belongs to anyone but herself."
"I see what you mean," said Stephen, pointing.
Michael turned. Jessie had vanished.
"Best get after her," he said, seeing an excuse to get away from prying eyes. "Even if she isn’t mine."
With Stephen wishing him a speedy recovery from his ailment, Michael hurried off in search of the errant dog and some answers to the monastery’s mysteries. He quickly found Jessie in the cloisters, apparently waiting for him. He looked at the door beside her.
"Here again?" he said, recognising it. "Is this where they keep the sausages or something? I’m going up to the prior’s house to have a poke around. Maybe investigate that orangery again. I don’t want to go in here."
Jessie, a dog with a remarkable range of facial expressions for a creature with no lip muscles, simply looked at Michael.
"What?" he said. "When have I ever said I wanted to go in here?"
He peered closely at the door and the fan-shaped carving in its ancient and weathered surface.
"Almost like a peacock’s tail," he said. "You know, St Augustine said that peacock’s flesh had antiseptic qualities. In ancient times, many people believed that peacock bodies did not rot after death. Within the Christian tradition they are a symbol of immortality. Eternal life. Interesting, isn’t it?"
Jessie, who was possibly neither of a philosophical or theological bent, simply looked at him.
"Suit yourself," said Michael, lifted the latch and opened the door.
The interior was dark but Michael could just about make a set of stone steps going down. There was an alcove just inside the door and a small electric torch. Michael turned it on. It worked.
He looked down at Jessie.
"Will it go down to the gates of death?" he said. "Will we descend together into the dust?"
Jessie led the way and Michael took that as a yes.
Chapter 11 - In which discoveries are made and Michael finds some lost property
In the refectory, monks bustled to and fro with platters, whisking away the veal flamenco and wheeling in the Black Forest gateau for the guests.
The words of Nerys’s reading from the wedding ceremony kept echoing through Ben’s mind. They accompanied him th
roughout the remainder of the service and back to the refectory where the wedding breakfast was now being held.
The reading had been from an A.A. Milne poem, Us Two. It was not a religious reading, which had apparently caused some consternation to the fusty abbot; it was a children’s poem, which possibly raised some eyebrows, but it was one Jayne had remembered from her childhood and it was about friendship, solidarity and companionship.
However, Us Two put certain other thoughts in Ben’s mind, because when he heard Nerys read out "Where I am, there’s always Pooh. There’s always Pooh and me," it wasn’t the ‘Pooh Bear’ kind of ‘Pooh’ Ben was thinking of.
His wife – yes, she was his wife now – had told him that she had booked a holiday of the type that sent shudders of horror rippling through Ben’s body and he had told exactly why he would not be going on it and then she had cried. Was it just a minor spat, a thing they could look back on and laugh about in years to come? Or was it a terrible omen of the gulf between each of their desires and expectations?
Ben looked at his bride, sat next to him at the high table. Jayne was listening intently to Ben’s dad's recollection of the recent East Anglian holiday and, remarkably, enjoying it.
How much could you really know a person? Didn’t everyone truly and honestly live alone in the confines of their own skull? How could he possibly know what was going on in her head?
Jayne nodded, smiled, laughed politely when it seemed appropriate and tried to avoid yawning.
Every word her father-in-law said cemented her belief that she had never met a man as dull and uninteresting as Tony Kitchen. It wasn’t the fact that he was talking about World War Two radar stations or the Suffolk coast, both of which were dull enough in themselves. Tony Kitchen was able to take it a step further and describe them in such circumstantial and digressive detail that Jayne was left with the feeling that he was saying nothing at all.
"And do you know what the most interesting thing about the radar dishes at Dunwich Major is?"
"No?" she smiled.
"They’re actually not… there… at all."