by Heide Goody
“That was good of him. I bet he’s top of the list.”
“Dave?” Nerys laughed. “Don’t be silly. We can’t give him ideas like that! No, my list is broad, but it’s very carefully selected.”
“What are all the magazines for?”
“Hello magazine is for the celebrity break-ups. Eligible men on the rebound. These others are trade magazines we get at work. I can target all the movers and shakers in the most lucrative fields. Then I always check the obituaries, local and national, to see if anyone interesting has been recently bereaved. You’d be surprised how they respond to a bit of kindness and attention.”
“So, how long is your list?” Ben asked.
“I’ve ordered a print run of five hundred. I can call off more in blocks of fifty if I need to.”
Ben blew out his cheeks.
“Aren’t you afraid of rejection?”
“I’m less afraid of rejection than I am of not finding Mr Right.”
“Am I on the list?”
“Oh Ben, you are funny!” laughed Nerys.
“I don’t think you realise, this is pretty serious.” Clovenhoof said to the receptionist at Good Hope Hospital.
“Please take a seat, sir, someone will be out to see you soon.”
“But I’ve been here for an hour already.”
“You might have to wait for a bit longer, there’s a queue.”
“But it’s an emergency! My computer said so. I think I’m dying!” Clovenhoof yelled.
“Please don’t get agitated, sir. We’ll be with you when we can. I’m fairly certain that you’re not dying.”
“Are you a doctor? No. You’re a pencil pusher. I must be dying. It hurts so much. Do you know my legs feel wobbly as well? My head is thumping and my throat hurts, of course I’m dying.”
“It sounds like a cold to me.”
“A cold? A COLD! Are you crazy? People get colds all the time! There’s no way that this is a cold. I’m in AGONY.”
He turned to the waiting room.
“Nobody here’s really suffering, are they? Not like I am?”
“Sir, there are people here with much more serious problems than you. There’s a woman with a broken arm, several people with bad lacerations and a boy with glass stuck in his knee.”
Clovenhoof wandered over to the woman who was cradling her arm.
“Are you sure that it’s broken? That sounds pretty serious.”
He picked it up, making her scream with pain and shock, and saw that it was an unusual S shape at the wrist.
“Oh yeah.”
“Security!” said the receptionist into the phone.
“Listen,” Clovenhoof said, addressing all of the waiting patients. “Why do you put up with this? If you’re really suffering then who wants to sit and wait for help? It’s completely stupid.”
A large security contractor took him by the arm at that point and led him away to a room where he sat for another two hours, glaring sullenly at his captor.
Eventually a head appeared around the door.
“Mr Clovenhoof?”
“Yes.”
“I am Doctor Singh. We’ll do an examination on you now.”
Clovenhoof gave a weak smile. At last! Someone would find out how ill he really was.
He followed Doctor Singh to a cubicle, and took a seat on the edge of a bed.
“Roll up your sleeve for me please.”
Clovenhoof exposed his arm and closed his lips around the thermometer that was slipped into his mouth. The doctor put a cuff onto his upper arm and pressed the button to inflate it. The machine made a noise like a wounded buffalo.
“Aaargh! What are you doing to me?” yelled Clovenhoof. “It’s crushing my arm, make it stop!”
“It’s just to measure your blood pressure,” said the doctor, pressing his stethoscope to Clovenhoof’s lower arm and pressing another button to deflate the cuff. “Really nothing to worry about.”
He paused as he looked at the results, and pressed the inflate button.
“I’m just going to check that again.”
There was a small ting and the end flew off the thermometer.
Doctor Singh turned to look.
“Oh, that is most unfortunate. A faulty thermometer. Let’s get another.”
He fetched another thermometer and put it in Clovenhoof’s mouth as he repeated the blood pressure check. Clovenhoof managed not to yell this time.
Doctor Singh’s pen hovered over his clipboard, a frown upon his face, when there was another small ting and the second thermometer broke.
He crossed out everything he’d written and wrote faulty equipment across the section.
“OK, we have the gremlins today. Let’s get some history. Did you ever smoke?”
“No,” said Clovenhoof, “but I worked for years in a smoky environment.”
“How about alcohol? How much would you say you drink?”
“Well, I like to drink Lambrini. It’s very weak.”
“Well, go easy on it while you’ve got this cold.”
“A cold! You people clearly don’t know what you’re doing!” Clovenhoof yelled.
“I do think it’s possible that you have a secondary infection as well. You’re running quite a high temperature.”
“An infection? Is that serious?”
“It can be, if untreated. I think I’ll give you a shot of antibiotics just to be on the safe side.”
Clovenhoof felt a swelling of pride. He did have something life threatening after all.
The doctor rubbed his arm with something chilly and then produced a small instrument that Clovenhoof regarded with interest.
“What’s tha – oww!” he howled and leaped back. “How can you call yourself a doctor? You’re an inflicter of pain! If I still had my old job, I’d snap you up with skills like that! Did you make a hole in me?”
“Just a little prick.”
Clovenhoof gave him a look.
“Now you’re just being offensive.”
Nerys finished writing the last address.
“I need to make sure that these get in the last post and I can make it if you’ll help me.”
“You’ve got plenty of time yet.”
“No, I haven’t. They all need swalking.”
“They need what-ing?”
“They need a SWALK. It stands for Sealed With A Loving Kiss. Here, put this on.”
Ben examined the offered lipstick.
“SuperVamp?” he read out. “Can’t I have something a bit less -”
“Just put it on.”
Ben applied the lipstick with an obvious lack of training. Nerys sighed and applied some more, so that it was at least symmetrical.
Ben tried his first SWALK. He closed his eyes and pressed his lips to the envelope.
“Whoa, steady! It’s just meant to be a light peck!”
Nerys examined his work and sighed.
“You’re not supposed to be snogging them, it looks like a crime scene. Do it like this.”
She demonstrated the required technique, puckering up and dabbing lightly.
“Then you put a bit more lippy on after every four or five.”
They worked their way down the pile, Ben becoming much more adept at handling the lipstick.
“Good, that’s the lot,” said Nerys finally, packing the envelopes into carrier bags. “Er, Ben. Why are you putting on more lipstick?”
“This is the best my lips have felt for weeks, they get really dry in the winter.”
Clovenhoof walked home from the hospital. However, he soon regretted attempting something so energetic, particularly when the computer under his arm revealed itself to not simply be silvery and very clever but also very very heavy. It started to rain heavily. He was only a short way from home but he couldn’t afford another soaking, not when he had an infection. He scurried up the pathway of St Michael’s and sheltered in the doorway.
The door opened and the vicar, the Reverend Evelyn Steed, backed out, key
s in hand to lock up. She glanced at Clovenhoof and then did a double take. She clearly remembered him.
“It’s Jeremy, isn’t it?”
He nodded glumly.
“Can I help you?” she asked him, with an expression that suggested she was thinking he might be there to cause further trouble.
Clovenhoof shook his head and stared at the floor.
“No, really,” she said, softening. “Can I?”
Clovenhoof shrugged.
“You look unhappy,” she said.
He looked up. The last thing he needed was one of God’s happy band trying to tell him that Jesus wanted him for a sunbeam. But then she had asked, and it had been quite a while since anyone had been kind to him.
“I’ve been feeling bloody awful.”
“Oh, dear. You’ve not been watching Satanic horror movies again?”
“No. I’ve got a horrible, life-threatening infection, but everyone keeps telling me it’s just a cold. Even when I’m better I’ll still be here, in this place, where everyone hates me.”
“I don’t think they do,” said Evelyn and then stopped. Clovenhoof could see the memories of his last visit to the church parading in front of her mind.
“I can’t imagine ever being happy again,” he said.
“Listen, Jeremy. We all have days that seem black, when the world seems like a cold and friendless place. You’ve been happy in the past though.”
“Oh, yes.”
“Can you remember what it felt like?”
“Of course. There was a time when everyone would do as I said.”
“Er.”
“I could have whatever I wanted.”
“No, that doesn’t sound like genuine happiness to me. It’s much easier to be genuinely happy without power and material things.”
Clovenhoof grunted with confusion.
“It’s love and friendship that makes us happy,” she said.
“My friends are idiots.”
“And still you love them. That’s what makes them friends.”
“I don’t think that makes sense.”
“Have you ever heard of King Solomon?” said Evelyn.
“Solomon the baby-slicer. Once claimed to have trapped me in a brass vessel. Load of bollocks.”
“King Solomon,” she continued forcefully, “once asked some wise men to give him something that would provide comfort when the world seemed black, and also to keep his feet on the ground when pride and vanity threatened. The wise men went away and later returned with a ring for the king.”
“Yes?”
“On it were inscribed the words ‘this too shall pass.’”
Clovenhoof thought hard about this.
“Whatever it is,” said Evelyn. “Whatever this fug is hanging over you, remember that. Go find your friends.”
She locked the church door and headed off. At the end of the path, she turned and called back to him.
“Remember, Jeremy. This too shall pass.”
She gave him a wave and stepped backwards into the road.
That was when the speeding hearse hit her.
Ben and Nerys carried the bags full of cards downstairs just as Clovenhoof came in. Nerys bristled and prepared her cat’s arse face. She glanced at Ben, who was doing the same, but who looked unfortunately like a pantomime dame.
Clovenhoof wasn’t himself though. Instead of his wide-open arrogant gaze, Nerys thought he looked troubled.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
He looked between Nerys and Ben, opened his mouth wide as if he had lots to say and then closed it again.
“There was an accident,” he mumbled, and slipped inside his flat without another word.
Ben and Nerys stared at each other for a long moment.
“He didn’t even comment on my lipstick,” said Ben.
“It’s a subtle shade.” She checked her watch. “Come on. The law of averages says that one of these kisses will end up with Mr Right!”
Ben fingered his lips and felt queasy as he followed her out of the door.
Several days later, Clovenhoof was at the church carrying two bunches of flowers. He’d been forced to queue for a long time and the florist took some convincing that neither bunch was for a wife, girlfriend or that ‘special someone’. He reached the spot, just outside the church gate. There were already several bouquets tied to the nearest lamppost and others resting at its base.
He felt the need to say something. There were the words he could say, the words a stupid human being would say, but they weren’t the words for him.
“Yup,” he said. “See what happens?”
He laid down a bunch of flowers amongst some others.
“Should have followed the rules, read the instruction book.”
He kicked at air, his little hooves clicking on the pavement.
“Doesn’t stop you being right though, eh?”
He turned to leave with his remaining bunch but something made him turn back.
“And he was wrong, you know. You looked better in the dress.”
A much larger, beautifully arranged bouquet on the pavement caught his eye. He checked that nobody was looking and swapped the bouquets over, carrying his new prize back home.
Ben was sorting through the recently arrived post when Clovenhoof entered with a posh-looking if somewhat sombre bouquet of flowers.
“Nice flowers.”
“Thanks. I chose them myself.”
“Here’s your post. A parcel too.”
Clovenhoof flicked through a sheaf of official-looking envelopes. Quite a few of them seemed to have red writing. He’d burn those later.
“Hang on,” Clovenhoof said to Ben. “There’s something in here for you.”
He undid the parcel and handed Ben some small boxes.
Ben lifted the lid and examined the figures.
“Oh wow. Thank you.”
“I thought you could use them with your Macedonian Revolt soldiers.”
“What are these dogs with things on their backs?”
“They had braziers strapped to them, on top of a blanket, so that they could run under the enemies’ horses and singe their bellies.”
Ben looked appalled.
“They didn’t do that in the Macedonian Revolt!”
Clovenhoof gave him a sideways smile.
“Were you there?”
Ben shook his head in confusion.
“By the way, this doesn’t mean that I fancy you,” said Clovenhoof. “It’s just, you know...”
“Yeah I know. Thanks.”
“Are you taking those up to Nerys?”
Clovenhoof indicated some handwritten envelopes in pastel covers.
“Yeah, I thought I would,” said Ben. “It’s funny, I wondered if she might have sent some of these to herself. It’s the handwriting-”
“Best not ask. Would you take these up for her?” He handed Ben the flowers. “They’re just to say...”
“Yeah I know.”
Ben took the flowers and walked upstairs, impressed with Clovenhoof’s version of an apology. He’d even taken the trouble to include a small card in the arrangement for Nerys. She’d be pleased with a detail like that.
Matters Arising
Seraphim Rota
The Throne
Easter Bonnet Parade
Clovenhoof
Harps
AOB
“Ah,” said Michael, looking St Joan of Arc up and down as she entered the boardroom.
He understood that many of the blessed had their own personal iconography. Heaven was a busy place and it was only understandable that individuals might want to dress in a way that made them instantly recognisable to the faithful. Looking round the table, he saw St Peter with his keys of office, the Archangel Gabriel in his pristine blue robes and St Paul with a book of his own writings plus his trademark pointy beard. Pope Pius XII had his little spectacles, even though he no longer needed them. Mother Teresa, even in Heaven where most people incarnated
as the youngest and healthiest versions of themselves, kept her ‘pickled walnut in a tea-towel’ look. St Francis had his tonsure, brown robes and, depending on his mood, a full set of bloody stigmata.
These affectations and traits were all understandable, but Michael had an issue with anyone who turned up to a boardroom meeting wearing shining plate armour and wielding a massive broadsword.
There was a blonde woman in casual clothing with Joan. Michael recognised her at once.
“These seats taken?” said Joan. She plonked herself down with a harmonious clang of armour and patted the other seat with a gauntlet for the other woman to sit beside her.
The board members looked at them.
“Sorry, I’m late,” said Joan. “I was showing Evelyn around. She’s a recent arrival. What’s that word, Evelyn? Newbie?”
“Newbie,” agreed Evelyn.
Joan gestured to the board.
“Evelyn, this is the board that runs the whole show. Everyone, this is the Reverend Evelyn Steed. Newbie.”
“Reverend?” said Pius.
“Women should remain silent in church,” quoted St Paul.
Michael coughed politely.
“Joan, nice though it is to meet Evelyn, we aren’t usually in the habit of bringing chums to these meetings.”
“What’s he doing here then?” said Joan pointing to the pink, jowly man lurking behind St Peter’s chair.
“Herbert is my amanuensis,” said St Peter. “Not my chum.”
Michael kept his gaze from Mother Teresa’s minute taking and her attempts to spell ‘amanuensis’.
“Well, Evelyn is my new chum,” said Joan, “and I think her experiences would provide some valuable insight into the problems Heaven is currently facing.”
“I thought you were here to talk about the Seraphim singing rota,” said Pius.
“That’s just a piece of the puzzle,” she said. “Do you know how many people have died since the beginning of time?”
There were shrugs and shared glances.
“No,” said Gabriel.
“Nor do I,” said Joan, “but a rough guess would put it at over one hundred billion. And how many of those people are in heaven?”