The Vicar of Morbing Vile

by Richard Harland

  ∨ The Vicar of Morbing Vile ∧

  Thirty-One

  The bathroom was on the upstairs floor. It was very old-fashioned and grand. The floor was tiled with green veined marble and the walls were lined with mirrors. There was no light from outside: Mr Quode had drawn the blinds over the window. The only illumination came from a single candle burning away in a bracket by the door.

  The room contained a washbasin, a toilet and a bath. The toilet was raised on a kind of plinth like a throne, with a series of three steps leading up to it. Purple velvet covered the toilet-seat, and the china cistern above was supported on miniature Greek columns of white marble. Similar columns supported the washbasin.

  As for the bath itself, it was an enormous tub. Enamel on the inside and iron on the outside, it stood on four massive claw-footed legs. A slatted board lay across the top, carrying an array of soaps and brushes and sponges. Nearby was a wooden rack laden with towels.

  I felt lazy and luxurious, stretched out in the tub. The water was warm and soothing, the air was steamy, the whole bathroom smelt pleasant and balmy. I finished soaping and rinsing, then lay back and relaxed.

  Suddenly there was a creak and the bathroom door swung open. It was Mr Quode. He poked his gleaming red-fringed head around the door.

  “Is the bathwater nice? Would you like a little more hot?”

  “No, it’s fine thanks.”

  “Or a little more cold?”

  “No thank you.”

  I waited for him to go away. But instead he stepped forward right into the room.

  “Are you clean now?” he purred. “Lovely and clean all over? What about washing your back?”

  “I’ve done it.”

  “You might’ve missed some dirty bits.”

  “No.”

  “You’re sure you don’t want me to inspect?”

  “Quite sure.”

  “That’s all right then.”

  But still he didn’t go away. On the contrary. He closed the bathroom door behind him.

  “Do you know whose bath you’re lying in?” he asked. “That’s the original bath of our vicar of Morbing Vyle. His original bath in his original bathroom. We try to keep everything exactly the way that it was in his time.”

  I said nothing.

  “He was always lovely and clean, you know. He took a bath sometimes two or three times a day. It’s said that he never went out without first taking a bath.”

  At any other time I’d have been eager to hear about the vicar of Morbing Vyle. But not now. I refused to be drawn. Mr Quode grew more insinuating than ever.

  “There’s something so intimate about a bath, isn’t there! To be touching the same enamel where someone else has touched! Where even the vicar himself has touched! Isn’t that extraordinary to think about?”

  I retreated more deeply into the bathwater. “I’d prefer to think about it with you out of the room,” I said pointedly.

  “Oh very good, very good!” cried Mr Quode, as though I had just coined some great witticism. “How well you say that! Quelle plaisanterie!”

  He was absolutely convulsed with delight. He wriggled and squirmed as though someone were tickling his insides with a feather. By the time the tickling stopped, his trousers were all askew, his shirt was hanging out, and his cravat had worked its way round to the back of his neck.

  “Oh dear,” he murmured, wiping his brow. “I think I shall have to go and do something.”

  “Yes,” I agreed, thinking he was about to depart at last. “The sooner the better.”

  But Mr Quode lifted the candle from its bracket and advanced towards the toilet. I goggled in amazement as he mounted the three steps and raised the velvet-covered toilet-seat.

  “What are you doing?” My voice came out in a strangled whisper.

  “I’m going to do something.” He smiled and gestured. “I’m going to pay a visit!”

  “No! You can’t go to the toilet while I’m having a bath!”

  “An urge is upon me!”

  “Control it!”

  “Too powerful!”

  “This is disgusting!”

  “Oh no! You should think of it as natural, Mr Smythe. Aren’t you the one who believes in accepting the animal side of human nature?”

  “It’s not natural for me to have to watch you doing it.”

  “You don’t want to watch?”

  “No!”

  “Ah, in that case – ”

  He smiled again and snuffed out the candle.

  There was nothing I could do. Unsavoury episode! I had to lie there in the dark and listen to the soft swish of clothes being lowered to the ground, and the squeak of a seat being sat upon. I could hear everything with horrible clarity.

  Then the other sounds began.

  “Mmmmm-ummmmm-ummmmm-ah!!!”

  “Gnnnnnn!!! Yes! Yes! Yes!”

  “Ooooo-whoooooooo-uph!!!!”

  At first I splashed around in the water, trying to drown out the noise. But Mr Quode was a particularly expressive toilet-goer. Again and again he uttered loud cries and long fervent sighs of delight. He panted and heaved and groaned and moaned with unrestrained enthusiasm. There was no ignoring him.

  I gave up splashing and lay there waiting for him to finish. It was a very long visit. But finally I heard the sounds that announced the completion of the deed. The usual sounds, that is followed by something peculiar to Mr Quode. I couldn’t hear exactly, but he seemed to be murmuring a kind of prayer. Then there was a final “Amen!”, and he pulled the chain.

  He shuffled down the steps. For one nervous moment I thought he was heading in my direction. But no, he went across to the washbasin and washed his hands. Then back to the door, where he paused for a moment.

  “I’ve finished now,” he called out.

  “Not before time,” I said, trying to keep my voice firm and composed.

  There was a scratchy sputter and the flare of a match. Mr Quode lit the candle and placed it back in its bracket. I kept my eyes averted. Somehow I couldn’t bear to look him in the face.

  “Goodbye for now, Mr Smythe,” he said. “I shall go and prepare more specialities for your banquet. Such a banquet! You’ll be surprised!”

  ∨ The Vicar of Morbing Vile ∧

  Thirty-Two

  I sat in my usual chair in the parlour, warming myself up in front of the fire. Mr Caulkiss and Melestrina and Craylene had returned from the building site. Melestrina and Craylene were laying the parlour table ready for the banquet.

  There were place mats and serviettes and four differently shaped glasses for each setting, along with a whole array of silver forks and knives and spoons. In the centre of the table, beside the wax fruit arrangement, stood half a dozen decanters containing variously coloured liquids. Everything shone and glinted with reflections under the bright light of the chandelier.

  Mr Caulkiss was in the parlour too. He seemed preoccupied. He paced in a regular triangle between the curtains and the piano and the door. With his hands behind his back he looked like an old hunched condor. At every corner of the triangle, his eyes turned in my direction. Here comes another pseudo-scientific argument, I thought to myself.

  “Mr Smythe,” he said abruptly. His Adam’s apple dived to the bottom of his throat, then leaped back up again. “I need your contribution.”

  I gazed at him blankly. At first I didn’t know what he meant. But Melestrina and Craylene did.

  “This is too soon!” cried Melestrina, raising her hands.

  “Getting in ahead!” cried Craylene, stamping her tiny foot.

  “Be quiet, women!”

  “But it’s not fair!”

  “Not yet! Not yet!”

  “Yes now! Now!” Mr Caulkiss advanced towards my chair, trumpeting mightily through his nose. “NOW!”

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “My contribution?”

  “You remember! The greatest scientific achievement of the century!” He pointed towards the design plans, still pinned up
on the wall. “You promised to contribute.”

  “Oh yes.” Now I remembered. I had promised to help him in his laboratory. There was some kind of machine he had constructed in order to demonstrate his theories.

  “It is time. Come.”

  “Does it have to be now?” I felt very reluctant to leave the warmth of the fire.

  “Yes.”

  I shrugged and stood up. Melestrina was frowning and Craylene was tsk-tsking under her breath.

  I followed Mr Caulkiss out into the hallway and down the corridor. When we came to the door of his laboratory, he dug into his trouser pocket and produced a key.

  “Wait here,” he said.

  “Here? Don’t I come inside with you?”

  “No. You can make your contribution right here. Lean against the wall.”

  I didn’t understand.

  “Here!” He indicated a precise place for me to stand. “Over a bit more. Now lean back. That’s it.”

  He unlocked the door and disappeared into his laboratory. The door closed behind him before I could get even the least peek inside.

  I was completely baffled. It seemed that I wasn’t going to play the role of lab assistant after all. So what was to be my contribution?

  I listened to Mr Caulkiss moving about on the other side of the wall. There were clicks and clinks and sounds of moving metal, followed by a low thrub-thrubbing noise.

  Then Mr Caulkiss reappeared. Again he closed the door behind him – only this time it stayed a tiny crack ajar. In one hand he carried a kind of syringe. It had a glass chamber encased in a metal pod, with a long shiny needle protruding from the end of the pod. The needle was almost a foot long.

  “Roll up your sleeve.”

  I had a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. Suddenly it all fitted together. Now I knew what my contribution was to be.

  “You want to take some of my blood?”

  “Exactly.”

  “What for?”

  “For my machine.”

  “Your machine?”

  “My machine in the laboratory.”

  “But why does your machine need blood?”

  “Come, come, Mr Smythe. You’ve read the manuscripts. You’ve seen the design plans. My machine runs on blood.”

  “Blood? But that’s impossible! Blood isn’t a fuel!”

  “Yes it is. Didn’t I prove it Post-Mathematically? Now my machine will demonstrate it in practice.”

  “I never understood your Post-Mathematics.”

  “Never understood? But it’s so simple. Human Blood equals Human Energy. B(h)2=E(h)2”

  “I still don’t understand. And I don’t want to contribute my blood. I’m not strong enough yet anyway.”

  “Yes you are. You’re completely recovered. I can tell. Your blood is charged with energy.”

  “No.”

  “Just a small contribution.” He showed me the size of the syringe. “See? You can spare that much. This is the culmination of my whole life’s work. Your body will soon make more blood again.”

  “My body wants to keep the blood it’s already got.”

  “But that’s very selfish, Mr Smythe. Very possessive. What gives you the right to lay claim to so much blood? Sheer cardiocentricity!”

  “It’s my blood.”

  “Your blood! Phhh!” He snorted contemptuously. “You, Mr Smythe, are merely the vessel. And a most unworthy vessel. So are we all. The human body is not worthy of the blood that it contains. All those tiny veins and capillaries! How can the blood realize its energy in such narrow constricting pipes? And all those intricate twists and turns! Slowing the blood down, compelling it to turn corners, frustrating its true velocity! Of course the blood can’t push through at maximum force! It needs properly designed channels to flow in! It needs to be set free!”

  “Set free?”

  “Yes! Set your blood free, Mr Smythe! Don’t hold it back! Don’t keep it in an artificial state of repression! Look at me!”

  “You?”

  “I have liberated vast quantities of my blood. Freely given, year after year. The machine in my laboratory contains nearly twenty gallons of it. Twenty times more than there is in my own body. Look!”

  He flung open his tweed jacket, displaying his chest. I could see what he meant. There wasn’t an ounce of ordinary flesh upon him. His body was like a loose sack hung over a frame of sticks. Now I understood why he was so extremely thin and gaunt. No wonder – with all that blood drained out of him!

  “Unfortunately, my blood is growing old,” he went on, pulling his jacket closed again. “No longer so full of energy. What I need – what my machine needs – is the blood of a young adult, preferably male. Your blood, Mr Smythe. Only a little! Don’t begrudge it!”

  “But wait a minute! You said gallons and gallons!”

  “Oh no. Relax now. Roll up your sleeve and lean back against the wall.”

  It was just as well I didn’t trust him. I took a closer look at the syringe that he held in his hand. There was a tube coming out at the rear end of it. A tube that he was keeping tucked in under his arm, almost but not quite out of sight. I looked further and saw where it reappeared around the other side of his back. It hung in a long loop down to the floor, then snaked its way into the laboratory. It was because of the tube that the laboratory door was still ajar.

  “Hah! Only a little? What’s that then?”

  “What?”

  “That tube there! It’s not just the syringe you want to fill. You want to suck out all of my blood through that tube!”

  “Not all of your blood, Mr Smythe. I know exactly how much you can afford to lose. I’ve calculated it Post-Mathematically.”

  “No!”

  “But you promised!”

  “I didn’t know what you meant!”

  “Mr Smythe! In the name of Science! I call upon you to fulfill your promise!”

  He was showing his teeth and his eyes were glittering with a kind of hypnotic intensity. I wanted to back away but I was strangely helpless. Then suddenly a shout rang out from around the corner in the hall.

  “Dinner-time!” It was Mr Quode.

  “The banquet is beginning!” Melestrina’s voice joined in.

  The spell was broken. I moved away from the wall.

  “We’ve got to go back to the parlour now,” I said. “I’ll think about my contribution later. Perhaps there’s some other way…”

  I turned on my heel and walked off down the corridor. It cost me all my willpower to walk calmly and naturally. I was half afraid that he would rush up and stick the needle into my back. But he didn’t. I entered the parlour. The banquet was ready.

  ∨ The Vicar of Morbing Vile ∧

  Thirty-Three

  There were plates and bowls laid out for every setting. In the centre of the table was an ornate silver dishcover on top of an ornate silver dish. Craylene had already taken her seat. She was more heavily made up than ever. She had red spots painted on her cheeks, pink paper streamers draped over her shoulders, and a sort of sparkling tinsel dust sprinkled on her hair. She looked like something out of a toyshop.

  “Here you are!” she called out brightly. “You’re sitting opposite me!”

  I sat down where she pointed, facing her across the width of the table. I was still trembling from my encounter with Mr Caulkiss. Meanwhile Melestrina moved around pouring drinks. She was wearing an extravagant purple gown with puffed sleeves and a plunging neckline. She filled each of the four glasses at each setting, pouring from four different decanters in turn. We got one glass of yellowy-green liquid, one glass of browny-black liquid, one glass of ruby-red liquid, and one glass of creamy-white liquid.

  While she was still busy pouring, Mr Quode came in pushing a trolley. He was dressed in a frilled shirt and bow tie like a waiter, with tight black trousers that rolled up in creases over his fatty thighs. There were three oval dishes on the upper deck of the trolley, and a large soup tureen below. Mr Quode took a long-handled spoon and be
gan serving out food from the dishes.

  “Ici le hors d’oeuvre,” he announced, smiling unctuously in my direction.

  Then Mr Caulkiss made his entry. He had put on a dinner jacket. He sat down at the head of the table. Melestrina finished pouring the drinks and sat down at the foot of the table. Mr Quode finished serving the hors d’oeuvre and sat down right next to me.

  The banquet began with a brief prayer, intoned by Mr Caulkiss:

  “Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts,

  Which of thy bounty we are about to receive,

  Amen.”

  Then they picked up their forks and started eating. I picked up my fork too. But when I saw what was on my plate I suddenly didn’t feel hungry any more.

  There were three round objects like large soft marbles, mainly white but veined with red. Also something in the shape of a horseshoe, a sort of coral colour. And then a pile of sliced-up greyish-black stuff, similar to sliced mushrooms. I didn’t know what any of it was, but my gorge rose at the mere thought of eating it.

  “Specialities of the house,” whispered Mr Quode in my ear. “Why not begin with the oeillades au piquante? This is how to eat them.”

  He picked up one of the soft marbles on his fork.

  “First run it around inside your mouth,” he said, running it around inside his mouth. “Savour the texture. Especially against the upper palate. Mmmm! Let it become warm and slippery in juices of the salivary glands. Then position it between the teeth and – ”

  His jaws made a sudden movement. There was a horrible bursting POP! He sat there in a state of ecstatic appreciation, head tilted and eyes closed. For a few moments he gargled whatever it was at the back of his throat. Then he bent forward and dribbled it out onto his plate as a soggy reddish-white mess.

  “Oh! Ah!” he murmured, inhaling deeply. “Smell the bouquet!”

  Then he picked up one of his four glasses, the one containing the yellowy-green liquid.