by Tony Brennan
“Oh yes, sir. We have much crime, very, very much crime. We very famous, for crime here.”
“Famous for crime? Really? Oh well, I suppose that’s the case everywhere now. The house would be safe enough though, wouldn’t it?”
“Goodness gracious me, no, Your Eminence,” replied Thomas. “We have many ‘in-breaks’.” Thomas, belatedly, realised he was alarming the guests, so hastened to add. “But, not to worry, Excellency, I sleep on cot inside front door with rifle. I very good shot; yes sir, very good shot, indeed.”
“I see. It’s certainly reassuring to hear that, Thomas.” Charles shuddered. “Would you arrange a cot inside the back door as well? Bishop Spotels will sleep there during our time in London.”
Sammy sat up. “Hey, just a minute …”
“Not another word, Sammy, that’s the end of the matter … Look, there’s dear old Bishop Francis Appleton standing out in the street to welcome us. Oh, dear old Frankie; he must be a hundred; I know he’s older than I am. How is he coping with the cold in this dreadful climate? He must be freezing! When we get out Sammy, give him your overcoat until we get him inside and before a fire – there must be a fire.”
The car stopped neatly outside the house, and the cardinal jumped out, cases flying everywhere, and took the very old bishop in his arms and hugged him. He then introduced Sammy who did offer his coat to the bishop, but was refused. “Thank you, my boy; it’s very kind of you, but I have no need for it on such a lovely day as this.”
Sammy realised that he’d better be careful of what he said about the weather while he was staying at this house.
***
In fact, the house was delightfully warm and soon the three men were sitting in front of a small fire with a cup of good coffee made by the multi-tasking Thomas. The talk tended to be of church matters; of the cardinal’s upcoming visit to the Holy Father in Rome, and then of the surprising re-establishment of the Diocese of Darumbuljka.
The very old English bishop was a learned, and courteous man, and soon they were all chatting freely. He explained that he had been permitted to retire and live in his old house, while a young Monsignor and two curates lived closer to the small cathedral, and did all the work. They were good men, the bishop said, and he was quite happy here with just dear old Thomas, his driver, and an old lady who came in to care for the house and do the laundry.
He rarely had visitors, and for that reason, he had been looking forward so much to this visit of his old friend, Charles, and … he smiled kindly at Sammy … at the young ‘boy bishop’ as he persisted in calling him; which amused Sammy greatly.
The cardinal asked about the security problem. The bishop nodded sadly. Yes, it was a terrible problem; nearly every house in the street had either been robbed or vandalised. He expressed his gratitude to Thomas for his constant and faithful vigilance and protection.
It was, unfortunately, a very rough area, but the bishop said he was used to it and loved it. He had been offered a better place to live, but had chosen to remain here where he had been for so long now. Charles was a very understanding man; he saw that the disparaging talk of the area was distressing to the old man, so rapidly changed the subject to His Lordship’s Cathedral. The old man brightened at once.
“When you have rested you must come and see it. It’s not a great, huge Cathedral your Eminence, but we think it is beautiful; and I think the people do too. They might be poor people here, but they are very good, and kind people, on the whole.”
“We’d be delighted to see it, Frankie, wouldn’t we, Sammy?”
“Well, I certainly would, my Lord Bishop,” Sammy replied sincerely. He stood up, “with your permission, both the cardinal and I would be privileged to be able to offer Holy Mass there tomorrow morning. But now, by your leave, I’m going to shoot off and try to see an old friend of mine, who has been doing some study at Oxford. He’s a cleric as well.”
“Oh, that’s quite a long way from here. You must eat first. I’ve asked Thomas, for your very first meal as my guests, to make a really special, authentic curry; you’ll love it – it’s so hot you’ll think you are actually in India itself.” The old man chuckled wheezily.
Both men closed their eyes tightly for a moment, but the cardinal recovered first. He smiled gently. “I can hardly wait, Frankie, and I know how much Sammy is looking forward to it.” Sammy, sitting to the left of the old man, shuddered. He had hoped the excuse of meeting an old friend would have excused him from eating anything at all. However, there being no escape, he faced the inevitable.
“I’m famished,” he lied, smiling valiantly.
***
The weather on the travellers’ first night in London turned very cold, but fine; a clear moon shed its radiance on all the chimney tops in Mulberry Street. Sammy was trying to settle on his uncomfortable, unyielding, portable bed stretched across the inside of the back door of the house.
He was actually shivering with the cold. At last he could bear it no longer, so getting out of bed, he put on a sweater over his pyjamas, and then added socks to his feet. Gradually, after a little time, grumpily trying to find the most comfortable way to lie on the hard bed, he began to nod off; it had been a long and tiring day… After what seemed an eternity, he slept.
Thomas, lying at his post at the front door, usually slept like the dead most nights, but this night he was alert for any unusual sounds in the house.
He was anxious; fully aware of the importance of his guests, and fearful that the local vandals might choose this night to smash a window, or commit some other outrage. He held his rifle in his hands tightly, but then, slowly as the hours passed, he began to relax; the rifle slipped gently to the floor, and the whole house slept.
The cardinal was wakened suddenly by a strange sound. It sounded like footsteps that went quickly past his door. He was out of bed in an instant, and grabbing a walking stick with a large knob on the end of it, in his hand – having appropriated it when he found it in the hallway last evening – he crept to the door and, slowly opening it, listened intently. Yes, there definitely was someone about. He turned the walking stick upside down so that the knob would act as a club.
Before he made a move, he looked at the luminous dial of his watch. It was three o’clock in the morning. He hesitated a moment, troubled; searching at this hour might be embarrassing; it could be someone going to the bathroom – after all, the English bishop was a very old man – but just as he stood there dithering, there was another sound which seemed to come from the main stairs. He decided he had to investigate.
Gripping his weapon tightly, he made his way quietly to the staircase.
It was not completely dark; there was a faint glimmer of moonlight from a sky-light high up in the ceiling. In the misty gloom, the cardinal could vaguely see a figure moving suspiciously. It seemed to be going slowly in and out of the rooms leading from the hall.
The stealthy figure approached the stairs, and the cardinal, firmly holding his club, began to descend the stairs slowly, silently, tread by tread.
Sammy woke with a start. He was not sure, for a moment, just where he was. He went to move in his dreadful bed, but a sharp pain in his hip suddenly reminded him with a vengeance where he was.
He sat up; something had woken him, but what was it? Was there an unusual sound? He listened intently. Yes, someone was moving about; it came from the front area of the house, possibly near the stairs; yes, definitely sounds of movement. Perhaps all those things Thomas had hinted about vandals were true.
Well, Sammy decided, throwing his legs over the side of his cot, they had chosen the wrong night for it, if they had; he’d teach these English thugs and hooligans a lesson they wouldn’t forget in a hurry.
He silently got up from his bed, flexed his shoulders, adopting his boxer stance, then on stockinged feet, made his way to where the noise seemed to have originated.
The old English Bishop was also having a bad night. He always slept lightly, but tonight, for some rea
son, the house seemed full of strange noises. Please God, he prayed, don’t let the vandals attack tonight.
Even though his neighbours were villains, the old man didn’t want the cardinal to think badly of them. He listened, holding his hand to his ear, and the noise that had disturbed him, came again. He sighed wearily; he’d have to deal with them once again.
The old man got out of bed, shivering slightly, and putting on his dressing gown, crept out to the landing. He began groping for the main light switch which would light up the entire ground floor. Just as his fingers flipped the switch … …
The cardinal saw in the dim light the head of the intruder in front of him; unfortunately, the intruder at the same moment saw, what he thought was an intruder. They lashed out at each other simultaneously. The cardinal was thrown backward, receiving a strong blow from a fist to his left eye, but he wasn’t done yet.
In falling backwards, his right arm came round strongly in a circle and, shouting loudly, he struck out at the head before him. There was the sickening sound of a dreadful crack on the side of the man’s skull.
The lights now blazing, Sammy rushed to the sound of the shouting, ready to belt the villains senseless, when he stopped dead. He saw the cardinal lying on the stairs, Thomas lying unconscious on the floor, while the old bishop was standing at the top of the stairs, screaming in horror: “Thomas! You’ve killed Thomas! Oh, my God you’ve killed him.”
Sammy, suddenly realising what the old bishop was about to do, cried out loudly, “NO! NO! DON’T!” But, it was too late. The old man rushing to his friend’s aid, forgot he was at the top of a flight of stairs, and, stepping into space, went tumbling down, head over heels, to the bottom. He lost consciousness – it appeared that his leg had been broken in the fall – it was twisted strangely beneath him.
The cardinal struggled to his feet and surveyed the carnage through his one good eye – the other was already swelling and blood-red.
Still holding the club, he looked humbly at Sammy.
“I think we’ll need an ambulance, Sammy.”
As he knelt at the side of the old bishop Sammy felt the Indian stirring, so was relieved to know that, at least, one of the wounded, was not too badly injured. Then, as he gave the cardinal an exasperated look, he fumbled with the unfamiliar emergency number on his cell phone, saying dryly: “Well, they’ll certainly remember our visit, won’t they? Is there anyone else in the house we could belt up? What about the old woman? …Hello … yes please, I need an ambulance and quickly please, yes three wounded …”
***
Cardinal York and Bishop Spotels left London much earlier than they had intended.
As it turned out, one of the para-medics had a daughter who worked as a reporter on the News of the World newspaper. As a proud dad, he just couldn’t resist phoning her, and sending her the photos he took at the scene of the disaster, on his mobile. Consequently, the shambles of the evening fiasco was splashed all over the front pages of the daily tabloid press the next morning, together with photos.
The headlines screamed: ‘Massacre on Mulberry Street’; ‘Catholic Cardinal sees Red’; and the most insulting of all: ‘Colonial Prelates Pulverise Pensioners’. The photos were terrible. There was one of the cardinal with one eye closed and swollen, still brandishing his club standing over the bodies of Thomas and of the old Bishop, lying at the foot of the stairs, and a highly unflattering one of Sammy looking belligerent, crouched like a boxer, in his short pyjamas and socks.
He looked like an out of work derelict from the underworld.
Not only were the two travellers now ‘infamous’ but were the target of reporters who thronged the street near the front gate. The infuriated Monsignor, hastily summonsed, had had to bring in a new security firm to cope with the situation and he suggested, with thinly disguised fury, that it might be wise for Cardinal York and Bishop Spotels to move on by the earliest flight they could get.
He told them the English crowd were fickle, and hadn’t forgiven their countrymen for beating England at the Ashes. They took the hint, and Thomas, now nearly recovered – with his head bandaged and a pad over one eye – hustled them away through the back door, and drove them to the airport.
He promised to send apologies to his own bishop, as soon as he was able to visit him in intensive care. Thomas, silently, also made it perfectly clear what he thought of the foreign visitors from the antipodes; they were barbarians.
He dumped the luggage on the ground, nodded to the guests, jumped into the car, and drove away at speed. The cardinal muttered irritably to Sammy something about ‘curry-eaters, what could you expect?’
An hour later, there were in the air and Sammy, settling himself in his economy seat with resignation, found himself slowly adjusting to the situation, and began to smile secretly. It struck him as in keeping with the past fifteen years of his life, that, although they had travelled nearly 12,000 miles, they had encountered another situation that was just the same as would have happened – one way or another – had they stayed at home.
Well, he hadn’t seen much of England; that was for sure. He had been hoping for a glimpse of England and that’s exactly what he got – a glimpse! Ah well, he settled himself philosophically, a glimpse was better than none at all. Roll on Rome, and then home! Blessed home!
***
Six weeks later, a very tired cardinal, and a weary bishop, were glad to be back in familiar surroundings. The previous weeks had been exhausting: with intensive, endless working meetings for Sammy, and many, many, boring reunions with fellow cardinals, for Charles. However, back home again, both cardinal and bishop had to face the fact that their days together were numbered. They had only one month left for frantic preparations, and then Sammy would be gone.
At last the packing was done, and the day had arrived. The cardinal had insisted on going to the airport with Bishop Spotels. Sammy was not sure this was a good idea. However, there was no dissuading the cardinal, so both men travelled, utterly silent, in a car driven by Mrs Luigi Costello.
It didn’t help either of the two men, having Amy Costello wiping away tears with a tissue, only one hand on the steering wheel of the car, and snuffling dreadfully.
At the airport, Sammy, juggling his hand luggage, was finally ready to enter the departure lounge. He offered his hand to Amy who burst out crying, gave him a big hug, then ran away, weeping loudly. Keeping his face utterly blank, Sammy asked:
“Do you think, Eminence, you’ll be able to behave yourself – in a manner befitting a prince of the church – now that I’m not here to keep you under tight control?”
The cardinal, who had been on the brink of tears, reacted with spirit. He replied tartly: “That’ll be the day, my lord Bishop! You control me? All these years I’ve had to put up with you and your damn, smelly motorbike, and your running, and your push-ups and skip-roping … and as for your singing … well … let me tell you, words fail me …”
“Well, thanks be to God for that! The number of times I’ve had to put up with your interminable sermons … they went on and on, and on; so many times all I wanted to do was to duck out, and have a cup of coffee. They were enough to make me wonder about taking up smoking … Why, I remember …”
The disembodied voice of the loud speaker announced: “The plane leaving for Algeria via … …”
Both men stopped their clowning. Sammy knelt immediately on the cement floor of the terminal, and spoke quietly. “Eminence, please bless me … and then, please just go …and … thank you … for the happiest years of my life.”
The cardinal blessed the kneeling man with trembling hands quickly, and pulled him to his feet. He then took the younger man in his arms, and said brokenly, “Oh, Sammy! … Sammy! … …”
Bishop Spotels broke away, patted the cardinal’s shoulder gently, and picking up his belongings, turned and went through the door, not trusting himself to look back. Charles stood still, unheedful of the tears pouring down his cheeks.
Amy returned
, and silently taking his hand, led the old man quietly back to the car.
ARABIAN FRIGHTS
I was a fool to accept the invitation, Charles Cardinal York muttered irritably, as he swayed precariously on a camel’s back. He had never ridden a camel before, and determined – if he could possibly help it – never to ride one ever again. He wondered, as he swished numerous flies from his sweating face, if that new bronchitis mixture that the doctor had given him, could be used as an embrocation – his hind quarters were killing him!
“How much longer?” he queried of the guide, Ibrahim
“Longer? What is mean, longer? I no know, longer.”
“Farther to travel, you id … er … um … my … good man.”
“I not your good man; I very bad man: I rob … I cheat … sometime I kill.”
Good God! I’ve been given a murderer as a guide, the cardinal shuddered. Sammy will pay for this – he made all the travel arrangements!
However … as he was stuck with this wild character now, it might be prudent to try to placate this barbaric native son of the desert. The cardinal’s opinion of the guide was that he looked so authentically evil, that he could easily have come straight from Central Casting.
With a renewed awareness of his precarious position, the cardinal tried a conciliatory tone.
“Ibrahim, your city, Darumbuljka – it is a big city, yes? I’m looking forward to visiting it.” Charles knew, even as he said it, that that was simply not true.
After three days on a camel’s back, he just wanted to be back home, safe and sound, in the Cathedral city he had foolishly left for this ridiculously sentimental journey, to visit his one-time secretary – now the Bishop of the See of Darumbuljka.
The guide seemed flattered by interest in his home town. He actually spoke quietly – for a change – to his elderly charge; his long flowing clothes and his head covering, moving dramatically, as he described his city.