by JL Merrow
“There’s probably some fruit juice in the fridge. You’re driving, are you?”
“Nah, Phil is. I’m just not really into all this poncey stuff. More of a beer drinker, you know?”
I probably imagined her lip curling. Wait, what was I thinking? No way did I imagine that. “I’ll see what I can find in the kitchen.”
“No half-stuffed animals, I hope. Unless it’s a turkey for tomorrow’s dinner. In which case, feel free to invite me. And Phil, obviously.” I followed her through the hallway to the kitchen, which was decorated in hideous 1970s’ style, all Formica tops and cupboard doors in shades of grunge. No pet cemetery in here, though, thank God, or at least his representative on Earth.
“Gregory’s having lunch with the bishop tomorrow,” Cherry told the fridge. “I don’t think you’d really fit in.”
“I dunno. Bloke goes around in a purple frock all day, doesn’t he? We might have more in common than you think.”
Cherry pulled out an opened carton of orange juice, frowned at it, sniffed it and handed it over. “Here. I think it’s still in date.”
I tsked. “Your Greg needs someone to look after him, doesn’t he?” I took the tumbler she handed me and poured in some juice, then tasted it carefully. “Seems okay. Ta.”
“It’s Gregory. You’re welcome. Right, well, we’d better get back to the others.” She didn’t make a move, though, so neither did I. After a moment, she spoke again. “Is it serious, you and this Phil?”
“Maybe.” I put my glass down on the counter and folded my arms. “What about you and Greg? Ory,” I added, as her forehead wrinkled up. “You never did say how you met.”
Sis had gone a bit pink. “Oh, the usual sort of way. Now come on, they’ll be wondering where we’ve got to.” She scurried out of that kitchen like it’d just made an improper suggestion to her. After a moment, I picked up my glass and followed her.
We got back to the “family” room to find it empty of anyone except, well, the family. Cherry looked a bit put out at Greg disappearing like that. I just hoped he hadn’t taken Phil off to his workshop to get busy with the skinning knives and sawdust.
“Think we should send out a search party?” I asked, wandering aimlessly around the room with my orange juice. I peered at a bookshelf, then recoiled at the sight of a mole in spectacles carefully positioned by a copy of The Wind in the Willows. If there was a rat and a toad around here too, I didn’t want to meet them.
“Don’t be silly.” Cherry was frowning, and she didn’t stop a moment later when Phil and the Worryingly Reverend Greg reappeared, looking oddly furtive. “There you are.”
Greg beamed at her. “We were in the study. Phillip expressed a desire to see my badger.”
I blinked. Even Cherry seemed a bit taken aback. “Good, was it?” I asked Phil.
He nodded. “Bigger than I was expecting too.” Totally straight-faced, the git.
“Yes,” Cherry put in. “A lot of people say that, don’t they, Gregory?”
Sod the orange juice, I decided. I was going back on the Slivovitz.
Chapter Five
What felt like several decades later, I took in a deep lungful of fresh air as the front door shut behind us. “Thank God we’re out of there. That place gives me the bloody creeps. It’s like Animal Rescue after the zombie apocalypse in there.”
“Seriously? You’ve found dead bodies—human bodies. And you’re creeped out by a few animal skins stretched over wire?” Phil laughed, the git. “Bet my leather jacket gives you the right shivers, then. And don’t get me started on your shoes.”
I frowned at them, crunching over the short gravel drive and back to Phil’s car. “That’s different.”
“No, it’s not. Skin’s skin.” Phil’s automatic central locks ca-chunked open, and we got in.
I shuddered. I’d touched dead people too. It wasn’t an experience I liked to remember. “Your jacket doesn’t look like a dead animal. Anyway, what do you mean, wire? I thought they, you know, stuffed them. With sawdust or something.”
“Nah. They make a wire frame, then pull the skin on like a glove.”
“Okay, that picture is not helping.” I was going to have nightmares about people wearing dead animals on their hands like some sick cross between Dexter and The Muppet Show.
“Remind me not to take you to see any horror movies. You’d probably scream like a girl.”
“No, I’d scream like a bloke. It’s lower-pitched and more manly.”
“You keep telling yourself that.” He pulled out through the gateway and onto the cobbles of Cathedral Close.
I was silent until we got out onto the road. “What was all that about Old Deuteronomy, then? Since when have you been all bloody theological?”
“Come off it, you’ve got to know Leviticus is the one the Bible-bashers quote when they want to justify nailing people to fences.”
“Maybe.” To be honest, those weren’t the sort of stories I liked to dwell on much.
“Thought you went to Sunday School?”
“Yeah, but the lessons there were more about Jesus suffering the little kiddies and setting up his own branch of Subway next to the sea of Galilee.”
“You what?”
“You know. Feeding the five thousand. Anyway, they didn’t go into the controversial stuff is what I’m saying.” Actually, I was surprised how well I could remember Mrs. Whatshername telling us the stories and giving us sheets to colour in where all the blokes seemed to be wearing dresses. I’d liked Mrs. Whatshername, although now I came to think about it, she’d left Sunday School under a bit of a cloud too. Right about the time Mr. Somebodysdad stopped bringing the kids to church.
No wonder they hadn’t wanted to go controversial in the lessons.
“What was up with you and Greg, anyway? Disappearing off like a couple of kids going behind the bike sheds for a snog.” I gave Phil a nudge with my elbow. “Did he really show you his badger?”
“Jealous, were you?”
“No, just worried about you. If he tried groping you with hands that size, he might snap something off by mistake.”
“You really ought to see someone about that castration complex. No, don’t tell your sister this, but he’s asked me to work for him.”
“You what? Oi, you’re not spying on my sister.”
“Did I say anything about your sister? It’s nothing to do with her. Gregory just doesn’t want to worry her.”
Huh. Now Phil was calling him Gregory. “Worry her about what?”
“He’s been getting these letters. Hate mail.”
“Seriously? What, from animal lovers?”
“No. He thinks it’s queer-bashers, but they’re not that specific.”
“What, Rot in hell for reasons unknown?”
“Just bible verses, mostly. About sinners in general, and false prophets, and people who reject God’s teachings. But he’s spoken out on gay rights, stuff like getting married in church, and that’s the one that gets people’s backs up the most.”
“What are they like, these letters? Are they done with bits of newspaper, like on the telly?”
“He said they were just printed out on cheap paper—like from a computer.”
“He said? Didn’t you ask to see them?”
Phil huffed. We were on the main road now. It was pretty quiet—I supposed this time of a Saturday night, everyone who was going out had already got where they were going, and everyone else was tucked up on the sofa in their onesies watching Graham Norton. “He burned them. Six letters so far, he thinks, though it could have been one or two more or less, and they’ve all disappeared up the bloody chimney.”
“So there’s no proof they ever even existed.”
“I wondered if you’d spot that. What do you think of him? Apart from the dead animals.”
“Dunno. Not what you’d call normal, is he? Then again, who is?”
“Speak for yourself.” Phil was silent for a moment. “He seems fairly harmless, though. A
nd he’s got integrity, I’ll give him that.”
“Yeah? How do you know that? Try it on, did you, and he turned you down?”
“As if.” I wasn’t sure if Phil meant, “as if” he’d cheat on me, or “as if” anyone would turn him down. “He could have been a bishop by now if he hadn’t stuck to his principles. Gay rights, women in the church, immigration—he’s got some unpopular opinions, at least according to the Church of England, and he’d get a lot further in his career if he kept quiet about them. Which is what most of them do. Just pretend to toe the party line.”
“So it could be the National Front sending him these letters?”
“Doubt it. He reckoned they were all spelled correctly, had good grammar and that.”
“So you think everyone who never got their A Level English is a racist? Cheers.”
“No, but I do think your average racist is pig fucking ignorant. For Christ’s sake, stop being so bloody touchy.”
“Oi. Just because I don’t happen to agree with every bloody word that drops from your lips doesn’t mean I’m sodding touchy.”
“Then calm down, all right? Jesus. You been taking drama-queen lessons from your mate Gary?”
There was a bit of a tense silence for the rest of the drive.
“You want to come in?” I asked as Phil pulled up in front of my house. It might have come off a bit more uninviting than I meant it to.
Then again, maybe not.
“Nah,” he said after a pause. “Think I’ll get an early night. Got stuff to do tomorrow.”
“Yeah, me too. Right. Goodnight, then.”
“Yeah. Night.”
I walked in, got a beer out of the fridge and sat on the sofa with it for a minute or two, feeling sorry for myself while the cats ignored me.
Then I pulled my mobile out and called Gary.
“Darling, everything all right?”
“Yeah, fine. Are you at home?” I couldn’t hear any background noise on his end.
“Mmm. Quiet night in.” There was something in his voice, but I couldn’t tell what it was. “I thought you were out tonight, though?”
“I was. I came back.” I took a swig of beer. “Do you think it’s weird Phil still wears his wedding ring?”
“Weird? No. Disturbing? Yes. Does he wear it in bed?”
“God, no.” I thought about it. “At least, not so’s I’ve noticed.”
“Good. You wouldn’t want him to be pumping away inside you and all the time thinking about a corpse.”
Great. Now I had visions of him doing just that. “Cheers, mate.”
“Have you confronted him?” Gary made it sound like it’d be some huge dramatic scene like in a soap opera. Of course, if he was involved, it probably would be.
“Well, he knows I’m not happy about it.”
“Good. Ignoring the elephant in the room never went well for my mother. Of course, as I told her at the time, she should never have married him. I told her she should make him pack his trunk.” There was the sound of muffled laughter.
I frowned. “Have you been drinking?”
“I am over eighteen, darling.”
“Just a bit. Is Darren there with you? No, don’t answer that. Tell him congrats from me, and if he jilts you at the altar, I’ll cut his balls off and sell them on the market, two for a pound.”
The laughter wasn’t muffled this time, and I was fairly sure I heard Darren say, “Come on if you think you’re hard enough,” which was asking for trouble with the innuendo meister in the room with him. The conversation deteriorated pretty rapidly after that, and I hung up with a smile.
It was good to see someone’s love life finally going all right.
Chapter Six
I was on my way to a job in Potter’s Bar when my phone rang a few days later.
It was Phil. We hadn’t seen each other since Saturday night. Must have been all this “stuff” we both had to do. I froze for a mo, then pulled over—lucky it was a quiet road—and hit “accept call”. “Yeah?”
His voice sounded a bit hesitant. “You all right?”
“Yeah, I’m good. You?” Being so bloody polite was setting my teeth on edge. “Just ring up for a chat, did you? ’Cause I’m on my way to a job right now.”
There was a sigh. Or maybe just a particularly heavy breath. It was hard to tell over the phone. “You busy tomorrow afternoon?”
“What time?”
“Straight after lunch.”
I mentally reviewed my schedule. “I’ve got a job on at eleven, shouldn’t take more than an hour or so, then nothing until four. Why?” If he said the reason was we needed to talk, I was going have to invent an emergency call-out.
“I’m going to see Greg about those notes he’s been getting.”
“And you want me to hold your hand? Now who’s scared of the little furry animals?” There was a silence. “Sorry.”
Another sigh. “Yeah.” Yeah, what? Yeah, he was sorry too? Or he was agreeing I ought to be?
“So you want me to come with?” I prompted.
“If you want.” Another pause. It was a bloody good thing I hadn’t been on the motorway with nowhere to stop the van, or we’d have been in six o’clock news territory by now. Multi-vehicle pile-up on A1(M), the headline would be. Or, if the Sun wrote it, Poofter Plumber goes Postal in Potter’s Bar. “Greg said he’d show us around the cathedral.”
I couldn’t help smiling. “Well, if there’s a trip round the cathedral in it for me…”
“Git. So, you coming?”
“Yeah, I guess so. Wanna meet for lunch first?”
“You going to have time?”
“Well, no, not really, but we could grab a sandwich somewhere. Actually, come to think of it, why don’t you come round mine tonight? I might even cook you something.”
“Sorry. Can’t do tonight.” He didn’t say why.
My smile evaporated. “Oh. Okay. See you tomorrow, then.” I hung up and then realised we hadn’t made any arrangements for actually meeting up tomorrow.
Sod it. He’d either ring me again, or he wouldn’t.
My eleven o’clock job turned out to be a bit more complicated than I’d expected, which was partly my fault. I fixed the leak in the bathroom (easy job: just the loo inlet pipe seal, which had left a nice tell-tale damp patch on the carpet) and was on my way out when I looked up at the ceiling, which was mottled with those lovely brown stains you get from an upstairs plumbing problem.
Except the leak I’d just fixed was placed wrong to have caused them. Now, I’d be the first to admit that sometimes water moves in mysterious ways, but something was telling me we had another leak here. “How long have those been there?” I asked.
Mrs. C. (plump, mid-sixties, made a nice cup of coffee but wasn’t what you’d call chatty) gave me a look that said she was starting to wonder what they were teaching plumbers these days. “Since the leak started, of course.”
“Just going to take another look upstairs, all right? Check everything else is okay.”
She followed me up, obviously suspicious I might be about to “discover” another leak with a swift blow of a wrench. I stood on the landing and listened, which probably made her wonder even more. Got it.
“You had your hot water tank checked lately?” I didn’t wait for an answer, just opened up the airing cupboard. Bingo.
She had a load of old towels and bedding stacked on the cupboard floor—obviously the type who didn’t throw anything away, in case it came in handy later. Which, as it happened, was just as well in this case.
I turned back to her. “See this?” I prodded the linens. “Absolutely sodden. ’Fraid you’re going to need a new hot water tank, love. They get these pinhole leaks in them, and then it’s only a matter of time before they go completely.”
She closed her eyes briefly, her face falling. “I don’t believe it. It never rains but it pours, does it?”
“Look on the bright side. At least we caught it before it started pouring thro
ugh your ceiling.”
When I finally got out of there and looked at my phone, I saw there was a missed call from Phil and a text that just read, Lnch?
I called him straight back. “Sorry, job overran. We still on for visiting Greg? Want to go via a drive-through?”
“Not a lot, no. Where are you?”
“Top end of Bricket Wood.”
“Right. Hop on the M1 and I’ll meet you at the Holiday Inn car park on the A414—you know it? Just past that roundabout with the modern art.”
“Those claw things? Give me the creeps, those do. Right. How long?”
“Twenty minutes. I’ll bring the food.”
I hopped and got there in ten. The van’s pretty nippy when she wants to be. I still didn’t beat Phil there, so obviously he’d already sorted out lunch before I called him, unless he’d changed his mind about the drive-through. Actually, I quite fancied a burger. The chips are always rubbish at those places, though.
I parked the van and jogged over to Phil’s car, my hands in my jacket pockets to keep them warm. Might as well let him drive us over to St Leonard’s, seeing as Greg would be paying for his petrol. “You all right, then?”
He nodded. “Get in.”
“You know, you’re going to have to work on toning down these effusive greetings. People are going to talk.”
“Git.” But he cracked a smile.
There was a paper bag on the seat, so I picked it up rather than sitting on it, then looked inside because I’m nosy like that. The mingled scent of warm bacon and greasy pastry teased my nose and set my stomach rumbling. “Nice. Not Greggs?”
“Nah, I went to the baker’s in Brock’s Hollow. Pass us a sausage roll.”
“You want to start with the bacon butties. They don’t stay hot.” I grabbed one out of the bag and took a bite. Lovely. Thick, crispy bacon and fresh, floury white bread, with just enough butter. You don’t need anything else for a bacon butty, not if you’re doing it right. I glanced at Phil. He was staring at me, his sossie roll forgotten and eyes crinkled up a bit at the corners in that way that makes him look like he’s got a headache, but actually means he’s trying not to laugh. “What? Have I got flour on my nose or something?”