by David Pinner
For a brief moment, Lulu looked up at the moon as its serene rays illuminated her distraught face.
‘Forgive me. Oh please, forgive my satanic pride,’ she pleaded to the iridescent moon. ‘And all the horror that it has caused.’
Lulu turned to face Gwynne, who nodded grimly.
Waving an admonishing finger, Gwynne turned back to the perplexed villagers to berate them; ‘Well, don’t you just gawk there, like a lot of bloody robots. Get Hopkins off that funeral-pyre now while there’s still time.’
In instant response, Lulu moved to her left, and she knelt down, furiously digging her hands into the trampled beach. Out of the sand, she pulled the coiled, blood-stained rope, which earlier Gwynne had trampled under her feet, when she had hidden the rope from the children.
With a deft flick, Lulu unravelled the long rope. Then she crossed over to Don Winterton, who was now standing unsteadily by the rock-pool as he had only just returned to full consciousness.
The giant farmer stared inanely at Lulu while she advanced on him with her demands; ‘Now you’ve come round, Winterton, you can help me save Paul from what we’ve both done to him.’
She threw one end of the long rope to Winterton, who caught it adroitly, but he continued to look disorientated. Still grasping her end of the rope, Lulu ran towards the three tethered horses, and she shouted to the giant farmer over her shoulder.
‘Well, don’t just stand there, Don. Get on your horse, with that rope, and ride with me.’
Winterton was about to protest, when Lulu stopped in her tracks. After whirling around, she transfixed the giant farmer with her aquamarine eyes. Immediately he acquiesced, and he nodded obediently. Then clutching his end of the rope, Winterton ran across the sand until he caught up with her. With the rope in his right hand, he clambered onto his black stallion, while Lulu was mounting Davie Bigg’s piebald-mare.
‘So what are we supposed to do now?’ the giant farmer complained, tugging at his stallion’s reins with his free hand.
‘We are going to hold the rope at full stretch – like this, Don – and then together we will ride full tilt at the burning cross,’ she replied, tugging the rope until it was taut between them.
‘Yeah, but then what the hell are we going to do?’ Winterton snarled as he wrapped the end of the rope around his right wrist, while he manoeuvred his horse in the direction of the the bonfire.
‘One second before we reach the cross, Don, my mind will tell you exactly what to do,’ Lulu said, now with her mare parallel to his stallion. ‘So let’s go!’
With the long rope stretched tightly between them, Lulu and Winterton urged their horses from a moderate canter, into a full gallop. While the other villagers and the children watched in open-mouthed disbelief, the two riders pounded across the sand, clutching their ends of the taut rope.
Just before they reached the burning cross, Lulu gave Winterton an affirmative look. Instantly the giant farmer veered to the right on his stallion, while Lulu swerved to the left on her mare. Then the riders charged forward. In unison, they forced the extended rope under Paul’s outspread arms on the crosspiece. And once the two riders were certain that the centre of the extended rope was wrapped around Paul’s chest, and that the rope was also hooked securely under the two arms of the crosspiece, with a concerted yell, Lulu and Winterton pulled on their reins sharply, and they made their horses converge.
Utilising the speed and power of the stallion and the mare, while employing all the strength of their arms and their hands - and now with the rope bound tightly around Paul’s chest and the crosspiece - the two riders pulled and pulled on their ends of the rope. Desperately they tried to wrench the burning cross away from the flames.
After constantly straining, and violently tugging on the rope, at last the determined riders succeeded in uprooting the cross, with its screaming victim. As they pulled the cross out of the cleft in the rocks, where the villagers erected it, there was a sharp, cracking sound. Then shouting with triumphant relief, Lulu and Winterton dragged the cross, and its anguished burden, away from the bonfire.
The elated riders reined in their horses, and they had brought their mounts to a neighing-halt, then they released their ends of the rope. The smoking cross, with Paul still on it, skittered briefly across the shingle, before sloughing to rest by the rock pool. The writer screamed again because of his burnt feet and his crucified hand.
While Lulu was dismounting from her mare, Gwynne stumbled towards Paul, and the witch forced herself down onto her arthritic knees between the base of the cross and the rock pool. With tears in her eyes, Gwynne peered at the writer’s burnt feet, which were still bound with wire. Despairingly she waved at Lulu, who nodded vigorously.
In response Lulu thrust the reins of her mare into Winterton’s hand, and she ran over to Paul’s discarded toolkit. She pulled a pair of pliers out of the kit, and she joined Gwynne by the pool. Using the pliers, Lulu cut the wire free from Paul’s ankles. As she was doing this, Gwynne took off her own black cloak. Then while Lulu was cutting the wire that was binding Paul’s left wrist, Gwynne ripped two large pieces of material from the bottom of her cloak. After she had dipped the cloths into the rock pool, the witch squeezed out most of the saltwater. Then like a solicitous nurse, Gwynne wrapped the wet pieces of her cloak around Paul’s burnt feet, and the writer cried out, but then he nodded at her gratefully.
By now the agitated villagers had surrounded the two women and the sobbing and pain-contorted Paul, who was still lying on the cross,. The disapproving women and men loudly criticised Gwynne and Lulu for helping Paul, while the children responded by cheering their nursing efforts.
Don Winterton remained uncertainly at a distance, holding the reins of the two horses. Lulu gave the giant farmer a withering look as she threw the pair of pliers at Winterton, who caught them. Cursorily he examined the pliers, although he still didn’t move.
‘Well, don’t just stare at the pliers, Don,’ she rasped. ‘Do something right for once, and make amends for hammering that nail into his hand.’
Nodding contritely, Winterton shoved the reins of the two horses into Dave Bigg’s podgy fingers. Then while the disgruntled Biggs was still cursing him, the giant farmer knelt in the sand next to Paul’s crucified, left hand.
Winterton closed the pliers’ jaws cautiously around the head of the bloodstained six-inch-nail in the writer’s palm. Instantly the children renewed their cheering, while the rest of the villagers, with the apoplectic Dave Biggs as their leader, went on shouting their disapproval.
As the giant farmer began to lever the nail out of Paul’s bleeding palm, in disgust, Dave Biggs released his hold on the horses’ reins, and he lumbered forward, berating Winterton.
‘Don, you can’t do this! The three of you have got to stop helping the bastard. And you’ve got to stop it now!’
‘No, Dave, we have to do this,’ Gwynne retorted as she continued to bandage Paul’s burnt feet with her sea-soaked cloths.
Shaking their heads, Sue, Mary and Tina joined Dave, shouting their condemnation; ‘Gwynne, have you and Lulu forgotten everything? Burning the monster is the only way that the two of you’ll ever get your revenge for him trying to burn you!’
‘Our vengeance was misplaced,’ Lulu said dolefully.
Using all his considerable strength, with the pliers, finally the giant farmer succeeded in tugging the reluctant nail out of Paul’s crucified hand, and the writer screamed again.
‘Look, for God’s sake, folks, can’t you see?’ Winterton snapped at his complaining neighbours. ‘Lulu is absolutely right!’
With a contrite sigh, the giant threw the blood-streaked nail and the pliers down onto the beach. The villagers continued to condemn Winterton’s actions as the giant farmer removed his winter coat, and he spread it out a few feet away from the rock pool. Then slowly, and very gently, Winterton lifted Paul up from his cross, and still ignoring his protesting neighbours, he laid the shivering writer down on his outspre
ad-coat in the sand, while Gwynne covered Paul’s convulsing body with the remains of her cloak.
Quickly Lulu tore off the sleeve from her own coat. And once she had dipped her sleeve into the pool, she used the brine-soaked material to bathe away the blood that was bubbling out of the deep hole in Paul’s lacerated palm. With Gwynne’s help, Lulu wrapped her salt-impregnated sleeve around his wounded hand, which caused Paul to wail. Then gratefully the writer nodded his head.
‘Look, why the hell are you three nursing that cruel bastard?’ shouted one of the villagers.
‘Yes, if we’re to have the harvests that you promised us, Lulu, we’ve got to finish him off on the cross, and burn him now,’ chorused Tina and Mary, pointing to the crackling bonfire.
Shaking their heads vigorously, the children shouted out in favour of Lulu, Gwynne and Winterton. Then several of the kids squirmed past their parents, and they pushed their way closer to the rock pool so they could be closer to the ‘nurses’.
Sue lunged forward to challenge Gwynne; ‘Surely to God, you can’t have forgotten that when your cottage was burning down, Hopkins cheered and clapped! See, he wanted you to be burnt to death.’
‘No, I haven’t forgotten, Sue,’ Gwynne said as she continued to wipe the blood from Paul’s chest and shoulders. ‘But we can’t go on with all this pointless sacrificing because I’ve seen far too much suffering in my life.’
As the villagers’ critical clamouring increased around her, Gwynne waved her free hand at her vehement neighbours. ‘Now you’ve got to stop baying for his blood. And, instead, you must listen to me! See, I know what I’m talking about because – as you should all be more than aware – I have lost two daughters. And, what’s even worse, both of my daughters were murdered. So I know to my eternal cost that nothing good comes from murder. And that’s the reason we can’t sacrifice Paul. Or anyone. Or anything. ‘Cause that will turn us all into murderers!’
‘Yes, the very last thing we must do, is to commit murder,’ agreed Lulu as she put her arms around the distraught and shaking figure of Gwynne.
‘Mrs Spark and Lulu are right,’ screamed the children, frenetically waving their arms in approval. ‘Yes, they’re right, they’re both right.’
‘But we can’t possibly let Hopkins go free,’ Dave Biggs protested. ‘See, if we do; he’ll go straight to the cops, and shop the lot of us. Then we’ll all end up in prison, so…’
‘Believe me, Dave,’ Lulu interjected. ‘The only place Hopkins is going now, is to the nearest A. and E.’
‘Yeah, but, Lulu, how can you be sure that…well, after he’s been to hospital… that then Hopkins won’t go straight to the cops?’ demanded Tom White.
Smiling grimly Lulu knelt beside Paul, who despite being wrapped up in Winterton’s coat and the remnants of Gwynne’s cloak, was still moaning and shivering. With her insistent fingers, Lulu turned Paul’s reluctant face towards hers, and she focused her aquamarine eyes on his dilated pupils. Then she addressed him in a stentorian voice, so that his neighbours, who were now surrounding Lulu, Paul and Gwynne, could hear her every word.
‘The reason you won’t go to the police is obvious, Hopkins. You see, if you did, then everyone here would tell the police that you applauded the burning of Gwynne’s cottage because you wanted her burnt alive. But, even worse for you, there are over a dozen of your neighbours,’ Lulu said, nodding towards Gwynne, Sue, Tina, Mary and the other women. ‘And they will go to Court, where they will attest that tonight they saw you standing over me with a can of petrol,’ she said, pointing to the empty can by the still-blazing bonfire. ‘Then your neighbours will tell the Court that they heard you proclaim that you were going to pour all the petrol over me, so you could set me alight, and burn me alive. Yes, and, even worse, they will all say that they heard you declare that you were going to burn them alive as well.’
As Lulu continued to hold Paul’s pain-contorted face between her hands, her eyes bored into his, while the children watched open-mouthed.
‘So that’s why you will never go to the police. But, instead, if you do exactly as we want, Hopkins, out of the kindness of our hearts, we’ll get you to an A. and E., so they can deal with your burns and your wounds.’
‘Take Mr Hopkins to the hospital. And take him to the hospital now!’ cried the children with one voice.
‘But when I get to the hospital, then how exactly am I supposed to explain away my burns?’ Paul muttered, with a pained, but ironic smile.
‘Simple,’ Lulu replied in a whisper because she didn’t want the children to hear what she was saying. ‘You will tell the nurses and doctors, Hopkins, that you have always loved making enormous fires. And while you were in the process of pouring more and more petrol onto your Millennium Bonfire, in your fiery excitement, you became so headily-elated that you tripped over your own feet.’ Then using her full voice so that the children could hear her, she said, ‘And as a result of your pyro-mania, Mr Hopkins, you fell into your blazing inferno. And thus your trainers got burnt, and you acquired those burns on your feet.’
Lulu smiled at the now-laughing villagers, who were applauding her ingenuity, while the children went on clapping alongside their parents.
‘Yes..but what about the bloody wounds on my back and my shoulders?’ he whispered.
Lulu pointed to the knotted-whip in the sand.
‘Well, it’s common knowledge, Hopkins, that you are a Born-Again-Christian, with a fetish for self-flagellation.’
‘Yes, but how the hell do I explain this hole in my crucified hand?’ Paul riposted, thrusting his bandaged fingers under her nose.
‘The explanation for that, Hopkins, is equally simple,’ she replied as her smile broadened. ‘While your feet were being burnt in the blazing heart of your pyro-maniacal creation, you were in such agony that you staggered blindly backwards out of the fire, and in the process, you tripped over a rock. Then as you fell backwards, you flailed your arms out, and the next moment you discovered that you had impaled the palm of your hand on a nail, that wassticking out of a piece of wood, which you were about to throw onto the fire – as fuel.’
‘So where’s the…piece of wood with the nail, then?’ Paul demanded.
‘Don’t worry about that, Hopkins,’ Bob White interjected, stroking his luxuriant moustache. ‘It’ll only take me a couple of minutes on my horse to ride back to my house, where I’ve got a shed-full of planks, with lots of nails sticking out of ‘em.’
‘Look, for God’s sake, Lulu,’ Paul cried out as his tortured body went into another shivering spasm. ‘You know bloody well that you’ll never get away with this.’
‘We will, Hopkins. So you had best remember that it was Gwynne, Don and I who saved you,’ Lulu snapped, pressing her fingers down onto his wounded hand. ‘Because if you do go to the police, or the hospital, and you tell them different story to the one that I have just told you, then I won’t merely play games with your hand. Rely on it, I’ll finish you off,’ Lulu rasped.
Then she turned to Don Winterton, who was still holding the reins of the horses.
‘Right, Don. In a moment I want you to take Hopkins on your horse to your car, and then you can drive him to the A. and E. in Truro.’
‘No, Don and his horse are staying right here!’ Dave Biggs bellowed. ‘See, if we’re not going to sacrifice Hopkins, then we have no alternative but to burn our three horses. Or we will never have any good harvests.’
‘You’re right, Dave. We’ve gotta have a proper sacrifice,’ chorused the other villagers.
‘No, no, no, no!’ the children screeched in unison. ‘No more burnings, no more burnings!’
In response, Lulu released her hold on Paul, and she crossed over to Dave Biggs and Bob White. With a brusque nod of her head, she compelled Biggs and White to move away from the milling children.
‘I’ll be your sacrifice,’ she whispered to the two men.
‘You mean that?’ Biggs said incredulously.
‘Yes. But I don’t
want the children to hear this, you understand.’
‘So, Lulu, you are really willing to allow yourself to be, well…to be burnt to death?’ White asked, in wide-eyed disbelief.
‘No. But there are other ways to be sacrificed,’ she replied.
‘Like how?’ demanded Biggs.
‘After we have finished with Hopkins, I will tell you what I am prepared to do for you, and for your village,’ she said as she walked away from Biggs, and picked up Paul’s toolkit.
Then Lulu turned to the children.
‘Don’t worry, my dears, Mr Hopkins is going to the hospital,’ she announced. “So now I want you all children, to just stay where you are, with your parents.’
After briefly rummaging through the toolkit, Lulu found what she was looking for. At the bottom of the bag, her fingers clapsed the small, ornately-covered Bible, which she had shoved into the kit moments before she left Paul’s basement.
Holding the Bible in her left hand, Lulu knelt down beside Paul, who was grimacing with pain, and shaking his head aggressively at her. Imperiously she seized his wound-free, right hand, and she forced his palm down onto the Bible’s cover.
‘Now, Hopkins,’ she said quietly but insistently. ‘The only chance you have of living through this night, is if you now swear on this Bible that you will tell the medics at the hospital in Truro that your wounds and your burns were caused by accidents of your own making. Also you must swear on your Holy Book that you will never go to the police with any other story.’
‘And what will happen to me if I don’t do as you say?’ Paul riposted, after painfully coughing.
‘If you refuse to swear on the Bible, then I will leave you here, to your fate.’
Lulu forced Paul’s eyes to look at his neighbours’ belligerent faces.
Paul saw that the children were nodding their heads at him as they shouted, ‘Let Mr Winterton take you to the hospital, Mr Hopkins. You’ve got to go with Mr Winterton to the hospital.’