by Ashly Graham
By the time that the first autumnal chills crept into the air, the old musty odour, the natural habitat of which is the still air of churches and chapels, was back. Knowing better than to go far, it had lurked in the narrow space between the chapel and the village hall while refurbishment was under way. Soon the wind was hurling welcoming splinters of rain against the plain glass panes, and everything was as it had been and ever more should be.
The keys to the chapel were in the keeping of a beldame who lived in a cottage across the Street. The woman was referred to as Cerbera, from a distance, by the villagers, and her mythical three-headed brother who guarded Hades was reckoned a lap-dog by comparison. Cerbera, who had played a small role in the place’s renovation, now that she was the only person associated with it became its jealous guardian. The altar-cloth, the gold thread for which she had supplied, she was convinced exerted the allure of the Turin Shroud over anyone who had heard tell of it. Because of this she treated any application for the keys to the chapel, even if it were only for a few minutes solace or to remember a loved one, as if the person was wearing striped pyjamas and had just escaped from maximum-security choky.
The squat and unpretentious village hall next door was where both Parish and Parochial Church Council meetings were held, and as such it was the only location in the parish where religious and temporal influences, if not converged, uneasily co-existed. Because the hall was also Church property, Cerbera was the custodian in charge of granting permission for its use too, entering the reason in a book and demanding the token rent with a rapacity worthy of Shylock.
Since the Church, even in its modern state of enfeeblement, was still capable of inspiring high emotions and deep divisions of opinion, parish councillors tended not to be parochial church councillors as well; or if they were, they were either effective on only one of the committees that they were on, or useless on both. For it was impossible to simultaneously pretend that one was sympathetic with one’s fellow man, as one was required to do on the PCC side of affairs, and evince the homophobic cynicism and suspicion that was expected of a parish councillor.
While PCC membership was conferred with enthusiasm by the other PCC members upon anyone flattered enough to accept the invitation, or foolish enough to volunteer, elections for a four-year term on the parish council were hotly contested. Putting oneself up for a position on the parish council was not for the faint of heart, since elections were popularity contests rather than demonstrations of what people thought of the suitability of any candidate for office. Everyone got to know how many votes were polled by each of those standing, and not to get elected even by the narrowest of margins was a humiliating experience.
Although lobbying was frowned upon rather than forbidden, candidates had to be sure of convincing the necessary number of people that they were credentialled xenophobic fascistoid Romany-averse NIMBY Luddites—translation: persons possessing an ingrained love of the English countryside who were desirous of preserving the environment, behaving Greenly, supporting the community, fighting the District Council, and noise and light pollution, encouraging the Neighbourhood Watch, and doing everything they could to enhance and preserve the village’s few amenities, especially the bus service (for which the driver was one of the church phantoms who in recent life had scored two drunk-driving arrests, a hit-and-run, and had a reputation for treating traffic lights and Stop signs as suggestions.
The phantom had been appointed because, in addition to his requiring no wages because he was a phantom, he had once been fined by Helmston City Council for driving a private vehicle at sixty miles an hour in a bus lane.) Then, if they got onto the Parish Council, they could relax, do nothing and sit silently through the quarterly meetings for four years without anyone expressing the least concern about how useless and lazy and ignorant and careless about local affairs they were.
The hall had at one time been used for a variety of functions. There were bridge and chess clubs, and the Women’s Institute met there; a village choir had practised in it, there was a flower festival, and concerts were put on, and debates held. Amateur theatricals used to be popular, and there was still a proper stage with storage underneath for props, speakers, lighting fixtures, and lines, blocks and counterweights for flying scenery and drawing the curtain. One by one these community activities had been discontinued for lack of support as the men, drained from their competitive exertions in the City after returning in the evenings off crowded delayed trains with refreshment cars, found themselves unable to do anything but eat, watch TV, and go to bed...until the pub reopened, that was, which had a remarkable effect in reviving their desire to be sociable.
Otherwise the gladsome evening gatherings of yore at the village hall dwindled until only yoga night was left, plus the quarterly council and social committee meetings, and operating as the polling station voting for local and district and general elections; and the Christmas party, until that too was relocated to the more congenial and amenity-provided cricket pavilion. Even the yoga class was on its last legs, a depressive affair patronized by a hard-core of village women—who had long ago lost interest in the physical and mental benefits of contorting their frames, which ranged from scrawny to gelatinous, into flexible poses conducive to meditation—and a few males who said that they were interested in hard-core opportunities to discipline their bodies. Yoga night had only survived because the women had been deprived of a place to gossip…the village pump no longer, literally, being a draw…after the shop cum post office had closed for the last time.
This was a situation that they continued to deplore, though for years they had used the superstores almost exclusively, and never bought more at the shop than an occasional newspaper and extra pint of milk, a ten-pack of Woodbine cigarettes and a box of Bryant & May matches, a bottle of cooking sherry, and a bar of stale Cadbury’s chocolate.
Chapter Twenty
One Thursday, highlighted in red pencil in the devil lady’s diary, was to be held the quarterly meeting of the troublous village’s parish council, at eight o’clock in the evening; and since it was an open meeting the DL was inclined to attend. As disgusted as she was by the Reverend Fletcher Dark’s failure to carry the day at the equivalent session of the Parochial Church Council, of which he was chairman, she knew that it would be a mistake to ignore its laical counterpart. But, not having a seat on the committee herself, she resolved to resist any temptation that she might feel to speak from the floor.
Because she was uncomfortable leaving her manservant alone in the house with a fireplace full of demons, after supper the DL detailed him to spend another night engaging the men of the village in social intercourse at the pub. Then, having put on a long fur coat that some long-extinct dark-hued carnivore had reluctantly parted with, she took a torch and set off down the Street.
It was a pleasant evening with the sun falling golden across the fields, and the devil lady felt restored by the fresh air and exercise as, at exactly eight o’clock, she let herself through the white wicket gate on the Street outside the village hall, and walked up the short concrete path and the few irregular mildewed steps to the door. Turning the loose handle and entering, she saw that the room was already full, which left her no choice but to take the last remaining folding chair at the end of the back row; one with a cracked leg that had obviously been spurned as unsafe by everyone else.
The audience was mostly composed of those who, lacking the funds to go the pub, and finding that there was nothing on television, had nothing else to occupy and entertain them that evening. A couple of local grandees, their status declared by tailored jackets and silk cravats, were deigning to grace the proceedings with their presence; as well as, at the opposite end of the social scale, a drunk who had been unable to stand his round chez Hob. The man had gone to sleep with his chin sunk on his chest and mouth open, and the councillors were eyeing him and exchanging glances, hoping that he would not wake up and lower the tone of their deliberations. The DL was amused and hoped that he did.
Nobody looked around at her, so, keeping her coat on for warmth and to alleviate the discomfort of the hard seat, and raising the collar to make herself as inconspicuous as possible, the DL settled down to listen as the Clerk to the Council—the aforementioned Cerbera—opened the proceedings by reading the minutes of the previous quarter’s meeting, from a table on the stage round which the committee was seated.
As boring as the details were, consisting of storms in a teacup over a disputed footpath right of way across someone’s land, and a case of stolen sheep, the devil lady found the introduction helpful as a recapitulation of the state of affairs. She was already aware, from a shockingly timely fax she had received that afternoon from the HQ Infocentre, in response to her enquiry regarding the workings of parish councils, that the Parish Clerk had tenure until she—it was always a she—got fed up with it and could find someone else to take over. Although those of a clerkish disposition derived pleasure from harassing local authorities and the ability to talk down to parishioners, the issues were pettifogging, and the remuneration could be counted in pennies.
The DL noted that Cerbera, although as Clerk she had no official standing on the committee and could not vote, was in the habit of expressing her views on each item as she introduced it. It was obvious that the clerk got her jollies from berating bumptious bureaucrats—dash it, there was another Darkism. Although being so occupied might make the life of a catfish seem as exciting as that of a one-armed trapeze artist, to Cerbera it supplied the nearest she had ever experienced to a sexual thrill.
It was also clear that the Chairperson, who was a stout woman with a ruddy complexion and an eye full of cheap Rioja, was afraid of her; and that the council members, now that they had satisfied their Village Hampden ambitions by securing seats on the Council, had not bothered to read the papers related to the agenda that had been circulated amongst them in advance of the meeting, and were relying upon the Clerk to inform them and guide their decisions. Nonetheless, whilst the devil lady was grateful to Cerbera for providing a synopsis of what had gone before, the DL had been made aware that all the interesting stuff happened when villagers arrived en masse to vent their feelings regarding some recently committed outrage that the council had no brief to deal with; and for that one had to attend the meetings because they would not be written up in the minutes.
Also thanks to the Infocentre the DL knew that there were three ways of getting anything done in a parish. Method One, the preferred one, was to buttonhole a councillor when a meeting was coming up, in order to have a confidential word about some party whose activities were causing one distress, or matter taking place that was inimical to one’s personal interests. The councillor had to be chosen with care because when committee members were not tittling they were tattling just like everyone else.
The first method had the advantage of concealing the identity of the plaintiff, rendering her—again, in the majority of cases both she and the defendant were female—free to attend the meeting without losing face should the thing not be resolved as she wanted. If she won, she had only to maintain an expression of neutral concern for as long as it took to get home afterwards and close the windows, whereupon she could do a Heimlich on a wine bottle and yodel all she wanted. If the unidentified complainant was lucky, the object of her disaffection would be present, ignorant of the embarrassing details that were about to be made public. She could then watch the object of her disaffection squirm and blush to the exposed roots of her coloured hair as she heard the charges read and, the complainant hoped, a verdict arrived at that was not in the impugned party’s favour. This made for great free theatre for all in the audience who liked their Schadenfreude cocktails stirred then shaken.
If the perpetrator of the alleged offence was not in attendance, and found guilty, she would receive written notification from Cerbera that she had been convicted in absentia; and that, although her name would be forever mud in the eyes of the village, here was what she needed to do to begin the lengthy process of expiating her sin. Alternatively she could put her house on the market and relocate to another village, with no guarantee that someone did not have a friend there who would spread word about her before she had settled in, which would necessitate moving again.
Method Two in this game of “Heads I win, tails you lose” entailed a resident going public on an issue by writing an official letter to the Clerk for review by the Council, protesting about another person’s flagrant disregard for the civil code, ignorance of regulations, failure to maintain property, trespassing, or unsociable habits. It was of course important only to send such letters when there was little or no possibility of the case not being decided as one wished it to be.
In the unhappy event that the outcome was inconclusive or unsatisfactory, one had the option to proceed to Method Three, which was appealing to the higher authority of the District Council. But going to the District Council was dangerous: because it was not intimately familiar with the vital issues at stake in each of the parishes it had jurisdiction over, it more often than not made arbitrary and illogical determinations that suited no one because no local person, having used a sledgehammer to crack a nut, could claim an honest victory. Being miles away with many a pissant problem to process, the officers of the District Council did not care because none of the affected parties were around to harass or criticize them.
In the few instances when the District Council surprised everyone by overturning the PC’s decision, the village prosecutrix might only briefly consider herself on top of the world, before the overruled parish councillors made it clear that they greatly resented that person for engineering the reversal. What happened in Sin City was supposed to stay in Sin City. Most likely the other villagers would feel the same way because they were jealous guardians of their own affairs. Of course, if the District Council went against the petitioner by upholding the Parish Council’s decision, the stigma was such that she might as well take the veil and apply to a nunnery.
The District Council, thought the devil lady, was a body with which she could do business. A lot of business, because the only further recourse, which was such a desperate one that it could not be classified as a Method, was to Hail-Mary the Secretary of State. Doing so was akin to filing a motion in Chancery, where, as in Dickens’ Bleak House case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce, generations and a lot of Secretaries of State before anything came of it.
The weapons chosen by contestants in these confrontations, wrapped though they were in a metaphor of official correspondence, ranged from razor to mallet, from innuendo to threat. At the council meeting the accuser would sit back, her features composed into martyr’s mask. She knew that her target would receive a black mark irrespective of rectitude on the latter’s part; and that the size of the audience was irrelevant, for the few who were present would circulate every detail before sundown the following day. Even so, the taste of success at the parochial level could be bitter-sweet, for the bringer of the action knew how easily on another day she might find herself in the vindictive dock; in acknowledgment of which she took the precaution of casting melting glances of sympathy at her enemy, to indicate how she was feeling her pain.
A particularly acerbic dispute might remain on the council’s agenda for many subsequent quarters, continuing to irritate and upset the accused until at last it was concluded, and the winner could, if it had been a Method One anonymous suit, hug the doll of hypocrisy to her bosom as the object of her disaffection was paraded through the streets like a captive in a Roman triump
h; or, if it were a Method Two action, bask in the adulation of those who had kept their own counsel pending judgement, which was their cue to affirm their approbation, and assure her that they had believed in her righteousness all along and had never been in any doubt that she would carry the day.
On this night the DL was gratified to find that there was a mature case on the agenda that would afford her the opportunity to savour these textbook intricacies. Helpful in the extreme was that the plot of the story had been summarized in the reading of the minutes from the last session; which, in addition to clueing her in, served to refresh the rest of the audience’s memory and whet its appetite for the next instalment. The case was in re a woman who had caused a new porch to be built at the front of her house to replace the old one that had collapsed.
When the rubble from the project, at the Porch Lady’s instruction, was dumped in the field that she owned to the rear of her garden, this had affronted a number of people, on the grounds that it was an eyesore next to a well-used bridle-path. This thoroughfare ran the length of the rear of the village, along the garden walls of the houses that lay to the south side of the Street, and between the Porch Lady’s property and the field. In addition to those on horseback, the path was used by the men as they returned home from the pub, to avoid running the bulls of racing automobiles on the Street, and so that the curtain-twitchers were not able to register their unsteady gait. The women also used it to walk their dogs, encouraging them to make their messes there, while they stood ahead, for other people to step in rather than having them foul their own gardens.
The case demonstrated that, although the residents were passionate about the beauty of their village, they were far-sighted in their appreciation of it. Many had testified that the indecorous pile of bricks from the old porch spoiled the view from the downs, and the consensus in the village was that it was as if Claude Monet had woken up to find that his lily-pond had been turned into a municipal car park. The rubble in the field constituted enough visual pollution to turn a sheep’s stomach, and needed to be removed sine mora at the owner’s expense.