by Heide Goody
"Wow," said Jayne. "What?"
"That whole section fell into the sea in 1956."
"Did they?"
Perversely, Tony Kitchen was so boring that there was something intensely fascinating about it. He wasn’t just a bit boring, as all people are, which would have been dull enough but he took it a step further by waving the prospect of intrigue in one’s face and then whipping it away at the last moment.
"You can actually get a boat out in the area and then dive down and see the old army base and indeed the local village which also fell into the sea," said Tony.
"I’ve heard about those kinds of places," said Jayne. "They say that the houses and churches are still standing and you can even hear the church bells ringing in the depths."
"No idea," said Tony. "We didn’t do it. We stood on the beach, I read a chapter from Fritkin’s guide to dismantled Second World War installations and we then went and ate an adequate lunch in Bungay. I gave it a six out of ten."
"Bungay?"
"The lunch. I rate all my meals in my diary."
"Even your meals at home?"
Tony nodded.
"I can only compliment Pam’s divine cooking if there’s a benchmark to measure it against."
Pam, who seemed to be enjoying the fact that someone else was entertaining her husband for a while, leaned in.
"I’ve told him that if he ever gives me below five, I’m leaving him."
Tony nodded gravely.
"I gave her a four once in 1982. She moved back to her mom’s for a month."
Jayne wasn’t sure what she could say to that so decided to ignore it completely.
"And did you enjoy seeing, I mean not seeing, the radar station in Dunwich Major?"
"Oh, I was all for getting the scuba gear and diving to the seabed," said Pam. "I mean it’s not the Aegean or the Caribbean but you’ve got to grab these opportunities when you can."
"Well, quite," said Jayne firmly. "But you didn’t?"
"Wasn’t on the itinerary," said Pam.
"Certainly wasn’t," said Tony.
~ooOOOoo~
Nerys decided to give the rest of the best man’s speech a miss.
As Clovenhoof launched into another anecdote, she sighed inwardly. Of course, he would want to make a best man's speech that would last for over half an hour. Of course, it would be crass, mortifyingly embarrassing for everyone concerned and almost entirely true. Those things were inevitable when you were dealing with Satan.
Why could nobody else see it, why? His skin was Ferrari red, and he’d already spent five minutes popping balloons with his horns after realising that there was an archway made of them.
What was she supposed to do? Nobody was helping her to deal with this. Her world had been severely shaken up and she had no idea how to react. Should she be reading the Bible? Was this all a test? She didn’t even know how she was supposed to feel about Clovenhoof.
According to every horror film she had ever seen, it was her duty to kill him at the earliest opportunity. She really wasn’t sure about that, after all he was her friend, wasn’t he? Well, not quite friend, but something that to the casual observer would look like friendship. It wasn’t as if he’d set out to deceive her. Well yes, of course he had, like the time he’d tried to sell her belongings on eBay, or cheated his way into a teaching job at her agency, but he’d never really lied about who he was. She was quite sure that he’d mentioned things on occasion, about the Old Place. She racked her brains to remember what they were. If she was to live her life based on her new-found knowledge that Heaven and Hell were real places, she could do with knowing what they were really like. Why go to the trouble of avoiding Hell if it turned out to be quite nice? Hadn’t Clovenhoof mentioned a Lake of Fire? He spoke about it with fondness, as if it were a bracing outdoor lido. She really needed more information. Actual facts.
One thing was certain, her tolerance of Clovenhoof's attention-seeking nonsense was at an all-time low. She murmured across to Jayne that she was popping to the loo and made her escape.
She made her way up the corridor with no clear plan. Surely, she could find answers to some of her questions in a monastery, but where to start? She slowed down to look at some tapestries. Like the stained glass in the chapel, these seemed to depict scenes from the Bible. They might be a handy aide-memoire for someone who hadn't looked at the Bible since the hated Sunday school days of her childhood, where the enduring memories that had stayed with her were more about the coldness of the church hall and the fact that woolly tights for children were seen as an indulgence by her mother.
The first tapestry she saw depicted Cain and Abel. It was lucky that there was a title emblazoned over the top otherwise Nerys might have imagined it was some sort of harvest festival scene. One of them held a lamb in his arms and the other offered a basket of vegetables toward the central figure who looked like - Nerys stepped forward to take a better look.
"Morgan Freeman?" she said. "Um."
How strange.
She tried to remember what happened with Cain and Abel. Did the lamb get lost? Or was there some dispute about the land that they both farmed? She stepped back again and realised that the face of Morgan Freeman must be a recent addition. It was beautifully worked, but the colours were brighter and the strands of thread were a little thicker. It was clearly a repair. The two main figures were original though, she was sure of that. The brother with the vegetables gazed at the other. It was an intense and malevolent expression that made Nerys rather uncomfortable for reasons that were hard to put her finger on.
She moved on and looked at the next tapestry.
This was interesting. It depicted Arthur and Merlin. She was not an expert on the Bible, of course, but she was pretty sure that they weren't in it. The tapestry showed Arthur in death. Merlin stood over him, staff in hand. Behind Merlin there was a cave of glass, a sort of natural greenhouse. Merlin’s own waiting tomb. Nerys peered at the face of Merlin.
"Hang on."
Nerys walked back to the other tapestry.
There was a striking similarity with between the figure of Cain and that of Merlin, although the wizard had a more mellow expression. Cain was much angrier-looking and the expression here was definitely more familiar.
"I’ve seen you before," she whispered.
Where had she seen that face? There was a mark on his forehead which didn’t look right. Perhaps if the hair was different? She tried to imagine him with a wig. A wig, of course!
"Bloody hell, mom. You were right."
But why? What did it mean?
Nerys hurried along to look at the other tapestries.
~ooOOOoo~
The silence that followed Clovenhoof’s best man’s speech was eventually broken by the applause of the stunned guests. It was the polite clapping of those who had been bludgeoned into a trance by Clovenhoof’s unbelievably and incomprehensibly vulgar tirade and now, upon waking knew that they should clap because that’s what people did.
Clovenhoof patted Ben heartily on the back as he sat down and then downed two flutes of champagne and shouted out for more.
Jayne squeezed her husband’s hand.
"Well, that was an education," she said.
"Ng," said Ben.
"How much of it was true?"
"Mmmm. Yes. All of it."
Jayne frowned.
"Even the bit about you getting your knob stuck in a clay pot?"
"Mmmm. We had to go to A&E in the end."
"You’re a bit of dark horse, aren’t you?" said Ewan, from Ben’s other side.
"A dirty pig more like," said Agnes.
Brother Sebastian, as Master of Ceremonies, tapped a wine glass to draw everyone’s attention.
"And now, ladies and gentlemen, a few words from the father of the bride."
"Let’s pray it’s a short speech," said Agnes loudly.
Ben was praying that it would somehow whitewash over Clovenhoof’s speech and wipe it from everyone’s minds.
Ewan go
t to his feet with a smile for his ex-wife and then his daughter and then began by thanking everyone for coming out to this beautiful place on this beautiful day. He name-checked some of the older relatives who, if his inferences were to be believed, had risen from their deathbeds to be there. Whereas Clovenhoof had addressed the guests with all the charm of a taxi driver putting the world to rights, Ewan spoke with a quiet warmth that had everyone’s attention.
"You know," he said, "I never thought that Jayne would be the marrying type. Too much of a tomboy in her youth, too much of a free spirit. I remember that on her Christmas list, when she was ten years old, there were three things: a quad bike, a crossbow and a goat. That pretty much summed her up, I think. And those of you who remember will know that she did get one of those three and she was a very happy girl until it had an unfortunate encounter with Larry Pearce’s rear end four doors over."
A ripple of laughter swept through the room and, from one corner, came a loud but unintelligible comment. Whether that was Larry Pearce himself or not, Ben couldn’t tell.
"She didn’t need material things to make her happy," continued Ewan. "That’s what I’ve always loved about this little girl of mine. As a toddler she’d play with fresh air and, when she was older, she’d be up on the hill, running hither and thither, on her own make believe quest like the knights and heroes of old."
Jayne groaned good-naturedly and hid her face and embarrassment in Ben’s shoulder.
"Yeah," whispered Ben. "Me going to prison on suspicion of murder doesn’t seem so awful now, does it?"
"I remember asking her," said Ewan, "whether a make believe knight in shining armour ever came to save her, my princess, from the evil wicked dragon. And she looked at me like I was daft – yes, just like she’s doing now – and said, ‘Dad, what would I need one of them for when I can just rescue myself?’"
There was more laughter. Ewan took up his glass.
"But, you know, dragons come in all shapes and sizes."
Ben wasn’t sure but Ewan seemed to give a sideways glance at Agnes as he said this.
"And so do knights in shining armour," said Ewan. "And that’s what this young man here is."
Ben, red-cheeked, shook his head.
"No, it’s true, you silly sod," said Ewan. "I couldn’t ask for a better or finer son-in-law than Ben here. I can’t imagine a more perfect couple. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would do me the honour. Join me in raising your glasses…"
~ooOOOoo~
Jessie was a brave and wilful dog but as they descended further, and the steps became rougher and more uneven, and the monastic crypts gave way to damp tunnels, Jessie slowed her pace and kept closer to Michael’s side. Even dogs didn’t rush in where angels feared to tread.
Eventually, they reached the bottom and Michael stood in a vast, cool cavern. Jessie whined. Apart from the trickle of unseen water, it was the only sound to be heard.
At first, the place seemed empty, a hollow conclusion to their murky descent, but then Michael saw something glitter momentarily. He approached, stumbling over black rocks. At the bottom of a shallow pool lay something small, round and golden. Michael dipped his hand into the chill water and lifted it out.
He read the inscription stamped on the coin, knowing that maybe only a handful of humans today would be able to translate it and that none would have heard it in the original tongue.
"This is Sumerian," he said to Jessie. "Unbelievably old."
Jessie yapped from some distance away.
Michael turned with the torch. The white patches on Jessie’s fur were just visible in the gloom.
"What are you doing over there?"
Michael picked his way over the ground. He now saw other coins - gold, silver and even obsidian – dotted about here and there. It was if there had been a mighty and ancient hoard here, which had then been hastily spirited away.
Jessie barked again.
"I’m coming," said Michael testily. "What is it?"
And then he saw the sword. It was resting on a table-sized rock, resting in a recess in the stone.
Untarnished, it shone like silver but Michael knew that it wasn’t silver at all. Michael had not seen the sword for thousands of years but he recognised the workings around the hilt, the simple patterns on the guard and fuller. He was stunned.
"Jessie. That day on the headland. I said. I asked you. The sword in the stone." He shook his head. "But this isn’t Excalibur."
Jessie barked in disagreement.
"It isn’t Arthur’s sword," he said and picked up the blade.
At once, yellow flames flared along its blade, filling the cave with a holy golden light. Jessie whined.
"This is my sword," said Michael with an incredulous grin on his face.
~ooOOOoo~
Tony had gone off to consult his diary so that he could give Jayne a more accurate account of the third week of their holiday. Pam reached past her husband’s vacant seat and patted Jayne kindly.
"Men are closed books until you check them out of the library, my dear. It’s only when you take them home that you find out what secrets lie between their pages."
"Not sure I agree," said Jayne, giving a certain look at Ben. "Surely, that’s why we browse through the books before picking one."
Pam smiled kindly.
"Yes, but who knows what twists and turns the book’s going to take? Marriage is about taking the rough with the smooth though."
"Of course, it’s all give and take," Jayne agreed politely.
"But, you’ll find there’s more give than take. More rough than smooth."
Jayne frowned.
"I don’t see why that should be so."
"That’s because you’re young."
"You mean not jaded?"
Pam shuffled into Tony’s empty seat to be beside Jayne. She struggled for a moment, her heels caught on the chair leg, perhaps suffering the effects of one too many champagne toasts.
"When I married Tony I had my own ambitions. I wanted to work abroad. I wanted to open my own health food shop. But then life takes over and things take a different path. Tony’s a lovely man but he has his own ideas about things. Foreign travel doesn’t agree with him."
"Ah, that’s where Ben gets it from then."
"And his own hobbies and interests were so very important to him."
"More important than yours?" said Jayne sceptically.
"I had Ben then. He was a demanding young man."
"Oh?"
"We had the entire Trojan war re-enacted in our back garden when he was eight."
"Doesn’t sound too dissimilar to my childhood games then."
"Really? Did your mom build you a six-foot high replica of the Wooden Horse of Troy out of corrugated card and egg boxes?"
"Er, no."
"I tried to get Tony to try different things. We did a trip round all the pillboxes and Nazi fortifications on Jersey one year. That’s as ‘foreign’ as it ever got. I’m not telling you how you should live your life. I’m not telling you how you should behave. I’m giving you the wisdom of experience. Marriage is compromise, dear. It’s sacrifice. And, one day, you’ll realise that your hopes and dreams were just that. Dreams."
"That’s too bleak for me, Pam," said Jayne.
"It’s not bleakness," said her mother-in-law. "I’m a very happy woman, Jayne. Happiness is not something you go out and find. Happiness is something that comes and finds you wherever you are. You just have to accept the form it comes in. Speaking of which."
"Got it!" said Tony, returning to the table, waving his diary at them. "And look what else I’ve got. Maps!"
"Oh, good," said Jayne and Pam in unison.
~ooOOOoo~
The Brothers Manfred and Sebastian had organised the post-dinner disco between them. Manfred had decorated the room with imaginative festoons of coloured lanterns. Fashioned from recycled catering jars of sauerkraut, the room held only the faintest aroma of pickled cabbage. Manfred was especially pleased with the da
nce floor, which he'd designed as a stained glass window, lit from beneath. He had tested it out with some secret Saturday Night Fever moves days before.
Sebastian was the disc jockey, and sat at the control desk with his laptop, lining up the MP3s for the audio system.
It was clear to everyone that the best man was unfamiliar with the concept of the married couple’s first dance. As Jayne and Ben swayed gently in each other’s arms to the sound of Celine Dion, Clovenhoof cavorted energetically around them, with a repertoire of swaggering, pelvic thrusting and air guitar. Sebastian decided to play some crowd-pleasers to get everyone else up and dancing.
"Welcome everybody, to this celebration of a beautiful union of souls," he crooned. "Here's one that'll get the blood pumping. From the year when a surplus of crude oil made petrol prices collapse, and Ben was pictured with his first Rubik's cube. It's The Jam, with A Town Called Malice!"
Several more people got up to dance. Agnes did a discreet and angular shuffle, striking poses that were designed to show her silhouette in the most flattering way. Ewan made a brief jiggle across the dance floor as a short cut to the bar, while Jayne flung herself across Clovenhoof's path with a vigour that startled him, briefly.
"God, I love The Jam!" she yelled. She gestured for Ben to join her, but Ben had followed Ewan to the bar, and he pretended not to see her.
Abbot Ambrose stood at the back of the room, mystified by the vulgar loudness that was apparently a necessary part of a modern wedding celebration. He saw the father of the bride standing with Ben, the groom, both of them holding pints of beer. He walked over and clapped Ewan on the shoulder.
"Well done with your speech, I thought it went very well."
He thought he detected a fleeting look of pain on Ben’s face.
"Thank you, Abbot," said Ewan. "I must say we’re all enjoying your splendid monastery and the hospitality."
He raised the pint glass in his hand.
"Is the beer brewed here in the monastery?" he asked.
"No, we buy it in from the mainland," said Abbot Ambrose. "Is that a professional interest? I understand you work for the Food Standards Agency."