A Load of Old Bones

by Suzette A. Hill

  “Nonsense!” I snapped, momentarily taken aback. “He’s as sane as I am.” For some reason he seemed to find that statement very funny and rolled about drumming his tail in the dust. When he had recovered I enquired whether he could produce evidence for his allegation. He replied lamely that he couldn’t, that it was just a funny feeling he had. I told him that I was hardly impressed by his funny feelings and that he was spreading unnecessary alarm. He protested that dogs possess a sixth sense in such matters. I whisked my tail impatiently and asked him what Bowler thought of the vicar.

  “Not much,” he answered. “He thinks he’s a bit prissy.”

  “Well, better to be prissy than oafish,” I responded pointedly. He went back to his digging and I sat pondering the matter.

  ♦

  There is a gossipy little Pomeranian called Flirty-Gerty who used to live near Bouncer and for whom he had a bit of a yen. Short of leg, she keeps her nose close to the ground and is thus a fund of all manner of scandalous titbits. I thought that unlike Bouncer she might know something tangible about Oughterard which could be useful to my assessment. I would get the dog to sound her out on the subject. However, when I put this to him he seemed disinclined and looked shifty. Apparently he had gone off Flirty-Gerty, having been sidelined in her affections by another.

  “Who?” I asked with interest.

  “William,” he answered morosely.

  “Ah, well…” I said. “I see the problem.”

  William was the local patrician: a Great Dane of immense dignity and proportion. If he had Flirty-Gerty under his protective paw then indeed Bouncer stood little chance.

  My own feelings about William were mixed. He left me well alone which I appreciated. But there is a difference between being left alone and being entirely overlooked. During my time in this neighbourhood I think I can safely say that I have made my mark. Most creatures, animal or human, are aware of my presence and accord me the appropriate respect (except for those pernicious people next door to Marchbank House). I do possess a certain distinction and this is normally acknowledged.

  William, however, seemed totally oblivious of my existence. He would lollop around in benign lordly fashion, great head held high, gazing into the distance with his thoughts apparently fixed on some rarefied matter quite unrelated to his surroundings – let alone to me on my gatepost. He did once lift a languid leg against the base of the pillar but even when I fixed him with one of my sharper glares he remained supremely indifferent, almost as if I wasn’t there at all. This was distinctly galling – though I have to admit that had he deigned to register my presence in a hostile way then it would certainly have been a case of curtains or cat-meat. So I suppose one must take the long view.

  Anyway, for the time being Bouncer did not have the ear of the Pomeranian so I decided to quiz her myself about the vicar’s credentials. Reclining on my sentinel a couple of days later, I heard the brisk clickety-clack of dainty toenails, and guessing it to be the little lap-dog adjusted my features into a suitably ingratiating leer. As she drew close, all prancy and fluffy, I emitted a long dulcet mew calculated to beguile even the most timid of creatures, and awaited her response.

  Flirty-Gerty froze. She cast a look of abject terror in my direction and then with an ear-piercing scream shot off down the road as fast as her teetering little paws would carry her. The banshee shrieks rent the air for several excruciating minutes. The sound was amplified by the owner who suddenly appeared around the corner shaking a redundant lead and hurling imprecations. She seemed to imagine that I was somehow responsible. I shut my eyes and tried to think calmly of haddock…

  There is simply no pleasing these canines, they are such a contrary tribe – and in view of Gerty’s current alliance I thought it politic to withdraw into the safety of the house. This after all might be the one occasion when William came looking for me.

  ♦

  After that fracas clearly a low profile was called for; and for a couple of days I stayed well within the Fotherington domain, emerging only after dark to do a little mouse plundering. Such confinement was irksome for it interrupted my reconnaissance of the vicarage and also meant I was forced into closer proximity with the daughter.

  Whereas the mother had been fidgety, mincing and foolish, the daughter had a bovine disposition. Her clumsy movements (twice treading on my tail) and constant requisitioning of the most comfortable chairs were really beginning to get on my nerves. Like her mother she had a propensity to hum: not with the former’s high reedy note but in a series of low toneless grunts. At least they heralded her presence, as did the dinner gong in the hall when it vibrated to her heavy tread. Increasingly I found the interloper tiresome and unaesthetic, and the need to remove myself elsewhere was becoming urgent.

  After those two days of enforced isolation I was glad to resume my position on the gatepost. Fortunately there seemed no evidence of William; nor unsurprisingly of Flirty-Gerty. What with one thing and another I had been having a trying time and thought that before proceeding further with the vicar and his property I should give myself a little treat. I would visit the Veaseys’ garden and survey its fishpond. I do this from time to time and it is always a pleasurable outing. In the current circumstances such a tonic would be most welcome and I set out briskly.

  Despite the grotesque architecture of their house Nirvana, the two Veasey sisters possess an attractive garden and a fine lily-pond stocked with gleaming goldfish. I settled myself comfortably on the pool’s edge, and shaded by the overhanging tree proceeded to admire the inhabitants’ fishy grace. Languidly I pondered which I should select for my special attention, and as I gazed a particularly choice specimen glided past right under my whiskers. Just as my paw was in an exquisite hair’s breadth of its shimmering tail there was a piercing commotion from the direction of the house.

  I looked up startled. Grey and angular, the Misses Veasey were advancing upon me like a pair of enraged ghosts; one brandishing a walking stick, the other armed with a vicious-looking rake.

  Dividing at the sundial they made a pincer movement around the pond, bearing down on me with remorseless and shocking speed. Feet thundering, beaky noses a-quiver, they launched the assault with military precision. Outflanked and almost outwitted, I made a desperate leap for the tree whose branches were just within reach of my flailing paws. There I dangled absurdly like a cat on a gibbet, swinging, spitting and yowling while those harpies screeched and lunged beneath me. I can tell you, those were tense moments and not ones I care to dwell upon.

  The ignominy was compounded by the fact that out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed Bouncer’s woolly face peering in from the open gate. Even in my plight I could see that his head was tilted on one side in that inane way of his as he watched, relished, my situation. The Veasey bellows were now punctuated by his coarse guffaws which reverberated around the garden producing a trio of nightmare dissonance.

  Happily his mirth was cut short: for with a collective bray and a brisk right-wheel, the Veasey twins launched themselves in his direction, the rake-bearer hurling her missile with practised accuracy. It caught him a glancing blow on the shoulder and with an anguished yelp he veered off down the road in a flurry of dust. In his haste he had dropped his mangy rubber ring, which afforded me some satisfaction at least. Alas, it was short-lived, for later that evening under cover of darkness he was able to sneak back to retrieve it; and despite his sore shoulder bore it home in martyred triumph to his lair.

  The whole episode left an unpleasant taste in my mouth which returns to me even as I recount it. It was nasty, brutish, not particularly short, and grossly undignified. Events like that are not good for cats.

  7

  The Vicar’s Version

  The morning after the soiree dawned bright and sparkling; conditions which doubtless would beckon the untroubled from their beds. I remained in mine. The events of the previous evening capered before my eyes in all their humiliating detail.

  As earlier mentioned, until that
occasion things had been going very well in the new parish. People were agreeable but incurious and my duties comparatively light; mercifully any internecine friction seemed confined to the mutual point-scoring of Mavis Briggs and Edith Hopgarden; Bishop Clinker had telephoned only once and even my humdrum domestic surroundings were somehow reassuring in their very ordinariness. In short, Molehill was fast conferring a deep and merciful repose. However, there had been nothing remotely reposeful about that evening at Marchbank House! I stared morosely at the ceiling, wondering whether like the Macbeths Elizabeth and Bowler had murdered sleep.

  Still not stirring, I pondered this fear for a time but after a while began to feel less gloomy. How absurd, I thought, to be agitated by an event patently not my fault. If Bowler was fool enough to bring his wretched hound to the party then that was his problem not mine, and he must take the consequences. Admittedly, being the butt first of his smarmy patronage and then of his boorish temper had indeed been galling. But in this respect it was at least satisfying to recall the spectacle of those punch-stained trousers. Serve him right, I thought. Clearly an enemy had been made there but the combination of a wide berth and a cheerful courtesy would doubtless smooth things over.

  Similarly with Elizabeth Fotherington. Her inane blandishments had irritated me at the time and even permeated my dreams; but it was silly to allow a foolish woman’s style of speech to affect one’s mood. The incident had certainly been unfortunate but was really no more than a minor social embarrassment easily forgotten. After all, I argued, it wasn’t as if the dog had been permanently maimed or I had disgraced myself in some drunken horseplay. A sense of proportion was needed. All surely would be well. All manner of thing would be well…Comforted by those thoughts I got out of bed, put on a dressing gown and went downstairs to make a reviving pot of tea.

  The morning post lay on the mat, and picking it up I noticed an unstamped envelope delivered by hand. It had not been there the previous night when I had got back from the vet’s so presumably the sender was an early riser. I opened it idly, assuming it to be from some parishioner requesting a visit or my signature on a form.

  It was from Bowler: a curt note enclosing Robinson’s bill plus a demand that I pay his dry-cleaning expenses.

  As I sat at the kitchen table gloomily sipping my tea and wondering with some intensity where exactly I should like to stuff Bowler’s letter, there was a fluttering tap on the window. I looked up and was confronted by the beaming face of Elizabeth Fotherington.

  ♦

  The upset of the soiree was as nothing compared with the nightmare of the ensuing weeks. From the moment Elizabeth appeared at the kitchen window armed with asparagus and solicitations my life ceased to be my own. My cherished space was under daily siege; the telephone became an instrument of dread. Sunday sermons were an agony: where should I direct my eyes – to the front, back, side or centre? On whatever place my desperate gaze alighted there was her face – staring, simpering, nodding, mapping my every movement like some crazed cartographer. I am not a particularly confident preacher at the best of times and Elizabeth’s watchful presence increased the tensions a hundredfold.

  The visits were the worst: they were so unpredictable. Like those poor unfortunates in Germany and Poland, you never quite knew when the knock would come. Pre-emptive action was invariably foiled, retreat cut off, bluff called. The gifts, the flowers, the vegetable marrows, the passed-on library books, back copies of Country Life – all piled up relentlessly in the hall and in my dreams. They were the deadly weapons of her battery, for while none was solicited all needed acknowledgement and thus contact.

  It was when the knitting started that I thought I should go truly mad. Little things to begin with: tea cosies, dishcloths, pan holders. These, however, soon progressed to scarves – items of interminable length and garish hue. Fortunately she never got as far as socks but I think they must have been on the agenda.

  It wasn’t just the attentions per se that made life intolerable, but their public effects. For example, Bowler’s original antipathy to me was now fuelled by a quite blatant jealousy. (Why Elizabeth should have spawned such feelings in him goodness knows – a more impossible woman it would be hard to imagine!) It did not help of course that I had declined to pay Robinson’s bill; but it was her attachment to me that seemed the root of the matter and really got him going. At first after the Bouncer incident he had remained studiedly aloof, just fixing me with cold stares, but gradually as Elizabeth’s attentions became more marked he grew bellicose, actively seeking out opportunities for challenge and dispute. As he was one of the churchwardens these attacks would often occur in committee meetings, prolonging the business and giving embarrassment to all.

  Sunday mornings in particular were times of tension. In addition to my torture in the pulpit trying to avoid her avid eye, there would be the awful business of the church porch…

  The service over, it was the convention that I took up my position at the main door murmuring pleasantries and shaking hands with my departing flock. I used to rather enjoy the ritual. As with actors, and possibly teachers, those post-coital moments were times to be savoured. Feelings of relief would mingle with – if one were lucky – satisfaction at a job well done, and an almost euphoric sense of release would descend. (At the start of things the congregation seemed the potential enemy: truculently poised to snore, sniff or walk out. By the end they were dear friends whose departure one almost regretted. In the porch one might promise them anything: in the pulpit one prayed they would never ask.) This pleasant little epilogue would be enhanced by the prospect of a modest luncheon and a stiff restorative. Thus the ceremony of the porch was both a fitting coda to the morning’s prayers and a prelude to a restful afternoon. Bowler and Elizabeth spoiled all that.

  The instant the service was over they were up and running. Well, sidling and elbowing really. Elizabeth, eager to be at the centre of things, would be intent on establishing prime position whence she could also pluck me by the sleeve and issue wheedling invitations for ‘some refreshing Sunday sherry’. Bowler, equally set on stopping her, would place himself in such a manner as to inadvertently block her way. If successful he would then steer her with grim briskness towards his car. Looking back on things I now realize that these Sunday contests held good betting material – but at the time I was too agitated to enjoy the sporting angle.

  The mêlée that these skirmishes caused at the narrow junction of aisle and porch was extremely irritating and made worse by the fact that the congregation – normally phlegmatic and unobservant – was beginning to notice. Quizzical, even amused looks would be cast, and my normally bland smile would harden into a rictus of embarrassment. Generally by dint of sheer cussedness Bowler would outmanoeuvre Elizabeth. But on one occasion he had been slow off his mark and in a moment of weakness I succumbed to her offer of sherry. Pursued by a gaggle of twittering cronies she tore off eagerly to prepare the decanters, and puce in the face Bowler gave me a look so malevolent that I nervously wondered whether I should transfer my account to the Guildford branch.

  I was also terrified that my name might become coupled with hers. So frequently had she been seen with me in public that there could well grow an assumption that we had more than a little in common. Insidiously a feeling of doom began to creep upon me as I realized that my whole edifice of contentment was in mortal peril. Elizabeth Fotherington’s clinging awfulness, Bowler’s insane jealousy and his relish for making mischief, the pitying mirth of some of the congregation – it was all too much and too dreadful. Where would it end? I could not bear to think that my yearned-for peace was about to be so cruelly shattered.

  The piano brought occasional solace but the moment I ceased playing the anxieties would come thrusting back. I racked my brain for some solution but nothing offered itself. Could I perhaps go to Clinker and request a transfer?…But what would that achieve? Probably a posting as dire as the last, and in any case could I really face further uprooting and all the tensions of re
settlement? The prospect filled me with a terrible fatigue. Damn it, I fumed, I like it here! Why should I be driven out by that woman and her ludicrous nonsense?

  Perhaps a heart-to-heart talk would do the trick. In my training days it had always been impressed upon us that ‘delicate’ situations need firm handling. I seemed to recall that ‘clearing the decks’ had been the favoured phrase. Truth, we were told, must out: candour was the key to all. I have never been entirely convinced of that dictum, feeling that total truth probably brings as much pain as it is claimed to bring comfort. In any case, the prospect of being closeted with Elizabeth Fotherington while we held a ‘full and frank’ discussion about our conflicting personal interests was not something that entirely appealed. Furthermore, even if it were the moral course, would it be the sensible one? At the back of my mind there echoed some line about hell knowing no fury like a woman scorned. Supposing my kindly meant honesty were to rebound and that far from defusing the problem it simply turned it into something different and possibly worse?

  These were questions my brain could no longer cope with. As on certain other occasions I began to experience a slackening of control, a sense of things falling apart and a frightening diminution of self. A wave of helplessness and hopelessness engulfed me. There was of course the ultimate step: leave the Church. Start anew. But start how? Where? With what? A pall of despair descended. I stumbled upstairs, removed my collar and shoes, and fully clothed climbed into bed and closed my eyes.

  8

  The Vicar’s Version

  When I awoke dawn was breaking and I realized that I must have slept solidly for a full nine or ten hours. The long rest didn’t seem to have done me much good. Mentally I was still jaded, and physically felt stiff and uncomfortable. I got out of bed, threw off the clothes I had slept in, bathed and shaved and went down to the kitchen. Recently I had got into the habit of keeping the curtains closed while I drank my morning tea just in case I should be surprised by another apparition at the window. It was barely seven o’clock so such a visitation was unlikely but I had become increasingly jittery and couldn’t take the risk.