La Femme

by Storm Constantine

  “Be calm but firm!” I called through the door, only to be rewarded with silence. Perhaps it was because she was making friends with him. I would give them a few hours together before coming back to check how things were going. I hoped that this time he would at least leave her face alone – it always seemed to be the part of a girl that fascinated him the most.

  High Church

  Jonathan Oliver

  Madeleine was considering a second gin and tonic when a man in a garish Christmas jumper sat himself on the stool beside her. The plastic reindeer’s nose on his chest lit up and the relevant ditty issued from somewhere within the cable knit.

  “That’s unusual,” she said.

  “Yes, isn’t it? I’m Richard. Can I buy you a drink?”

  “I wouldn’t say no to another G&T.”

  When the barman placed the drinks before them, Richard fanned his face theatrically and said, “Rather warm in here, isn’t it? Think I’ll just take this off.”

  “Now that its desired effect has been achieved, you mean?”

  He blushed. “Something like that.”

  Madeleine waited until he’d struggled out of his novelty jumper before she put down her drink.

  “You know,” she said, “you’re right. It is a bit muggy in here.”

  And she removed her own jumper, folding it neatly on the bar beside her.

  She looked up to see Richard’s drink hovering before his lips, his eyes fixed on the dog collar now revealed at her neck.

  “Cheers,” Madeleine said, clinking her glass against Richard’s, his drink slopping over his frozen hand.

  “So,” she continued, “are you looking forward to Christmas?”

  “Erm… yes, that is…”

  “Perhaps we’ll see you in church?”

  “Is that…?” Richard patted his pocket and retrieved a mobile phone. “Yes… I think it was. Sorry, I just have to…”

  He hurried away from the bar, his phone glued to his ear, his face burning.

  Madeleine raised her drink to his back and smiled.

  Being a single woman could be tricky at times, but being a single woman vicar presented its own set of challenges.

  “Can I get you another, vicar?” The barman said as he whisked away her empty glass.

  “No, I think that’s enough sinning for one evening and, beside, work in the morning and all that.”

  “Work? It’s Sunday tomorrow is it?”

  “Oh, ha ha.”

  Outside The Who’d Ha Thought It she waited a good five minutes before a break in the traffic allowed her to cross the road. It took all of her Christian resolve not to raise her middle finger at the Mini which came dangerously close to clipping her.

  The dark bulk of the vicarage loomed at Madeleine as she made her way down the rutted drive. She’d heard of newly appointed clergy who had been placed in quaint country cottages with ivy climbing the walls and thatch covering the eaves. She even knew of one vicar whose job came with a five bedroom Georgian terrace complete with underground garage and live-in housekeeper. Though Madeleine loved her parish dearly, in terms of housing she hadn’t been quite as lucky as some of her fellow ministers.

  The vicarage may have been built in the brutalist style – Madeleine wasn’t sure, not being aux fait with architectural terms. Either way, it had probably seemed like a good idea in the sixties, but now it just screamed eyesore. She had requested some modernisation from the parish office, but was, for now, stuck with living in the past with temperamental central-heating and rising damp.

  That evening, after trying to hear the radio over the knocking of water pipes, she was about to turn in for the night when the phone rang.

  “Madeleine? It’s Peter Barkely at All Saints. Listen, I wouldn’t usually ask this, only I can’t find any other clergy to cover for me. Anyway, long story short, Grahame Staines is on his way out.”

  “Grahame Staines?”

  “Ah, yes. Sorry, I forgot how new you are. Grahame was the last but one incumbent of St Mark’s. He’d still be there, haunting the place, if the parish hadn’t removed him on grounds of ill health. Anyway, his carer just called to say that he’s not going to last the night, so I need you to be there to attend to him.”

  “And you can’t because…?”

  “I’m in Antigua until next week.”

  “Lovely. I’m sure that it’s very nice this time of year.”

  “Oh, it’s not a holiday. No, it’s a conference on pastoral care.”

  “In Antigua?”

  “Yes… anyway, would you be a love and do this one favour for me?”

  Be a love? Who does he bloody think… Christian thoughts, Madeleine. Christian thoughts.

  “Of course. Let me know the address and I’ll head over now.”

  “Thank you so much. I owe you one.”

  “Just get me on that conference next year, eh?”

  *

  Lake View House looked out not upon a lake but a landfill site on one side and a busy road on the other; not a place one would choose to die in. The high-rise should have been pulled down years ago but, for reasons Madeleine didn’t entirely understand, had recently achieved listed status.

  Inside, the lifts were out – “Of course, why wouldn’t they be?” Madeleine mumbled to herself – and Peter had told her that Grahame Staines lived on the fourteenth floor.

  She started up the poorly lit stairwell – Bible in her right hand, small leather satchel in her left – fervently hoping that the Reverend Peter Barkely was having a lovely time in Antigua, and not at all wishing a bizarre accident befall him involving the pointy end of a cocktail umbrella.

  By the eighth floor she was seriously out of breath, and so not at all prepared for the sight that came lumbering down the stairs towards her.

  The Rottweiler stopped. Its tongue lolled and its tail wagged, and for a moment Madeleine thought that she was going to be okay. But when she held out her hand and said “Hey there. And what’s your name?” a growl issued from deep in the dog’s throat, sending a jolt of fear lancing through her.

  Madeleine knew that if she turned and fled the dog would be on her before she could reach the next landing, and trying to edge past the beast and continue on her way was clearly not an option. Realising that she may well die before she could get to the dying, she did the only thing she could.

  The Bible was a family heirloom, originally belonging to her great-grandmother on her mother’s side. Its pages were edged with gold leaf and the cover was red aromatic leather stretched over wooden boards. When the book connected with the dog’s jaw there was a sickening crack that at first made Madeleine worry about the integrity of the Bible, and then made her hope that she hadn’t injured the dog too badly.

  The Rottweiler dropped, the stink of dog briefly filling her nostrils as it tumbled past her, its flank connecting with a meaty thud on the landing railing below.

  Madeleine stood frozen to the spot, wracked with guilt at the thought that she may have killed the dog. But then its hind legs twitched, its eyes opened, and it growled.

  A frenzied barking followed her as she fled, and Madeleine was terrified that the dog would be on her in seconds before a cry of “Rommel, you cunt! Get the fuck in here” silenced the animal. There was the scuffle of claws on concrete, a door slamming, and then silence. She breathed a sigh of relief.

  Outside 14b she tried to regain some of her former composure, wiping her brow with her stole and straightening her jacket. When she knocked, the door was answered by a young man with a stethoscope around his neck and a name badge that read: Stu.

  “Oh, hi. I’m Madeleine Drew.” Stu didn’t respond and seemed to be considering whether to close the door in her face, perhaps thinking that she was trying to sell something. “You know, the vicar?”

  “Oh, right! Right, sorry.” Stu laughed. “I wasn’t expecting…”

  “A woman?”

  “I was going to say someone so young.”

  “Well, thank you, St
u. Is Grahame…?”

  “Still with us? Just. Follow me.”

  This wasn’t the first death bed that Madeleine had attended, but it was perhaps the most Spartan. There was nothing in the room beyond the bed on which the elderly priest lay and a cabinet, on top of which stood a lamp and a glass of water. Madeleine thought that in one’s last moments, a person would want to be surrounded by family, or at least mementos of familial love – pictures and the like – but the room was virtually bare.

  As his carer had said, Grahame Staines clearly didn’t have long. Each uneven breath rattled as it was dragged in and out, and the shadows were deeply pooled in the hollows of his face.

  “Would you like me to leave you alone with him?” Stu said, nervously fingering his stethoscope.

  “No, that’s fine, Stu. You can stay.”

  Madeleine placed her Bible on the bedside cabinet and took a small vial of oil from her satchel.

  “Grahame, as you are coming to this part of your journey, may I pray with you for God’s blessing?”

  The rattling wheeze stopped abruptly and Madeleine thought that he had gone before she had even begun, but then the priest’s eyes briefly fluttered open and the wheezing began again.

  “I’d just go ahead if I were you, vicar.” Stu said.

  Madeleine dipped her index finger into the oil and then made the sign of the cross on Grahame’s forehead.

  “Grahame, receive the sign of the cross, the mark of your baptism, the sign of your salvation. May God who is faithful bless you and–”

  A clawed hand shot up from the bed clothes and clamped painfully around her wrist. The elderly priest’s eyes snapped open, and this time they stayed open.

  “A… ah…” he gasped, his head straining above the pillow.

  Ignoring the trickle of oil running beneath the sleeve of her shirt, Madeleine leaned in close.

  “Yes, Grahame? Is there something you would like to say?”

  “A woman!” The two words were shouted directly into her face.

  Stu hurried to the bedside and tried to gently remove the priest’s hand from Madeleine’s wrist, but she was held fast.

  “Now, Mr Staines. We gain nothing from being agitated, do we?” Stu said.

  “They sent… a woman?”

  The water glass on the bedside table jumped a short distance into the air and then exploded. Madeleine was only vaguely aware of the shards peppering her face. All of her awareness was on the pain of the priest’s fingers digging into her. It was as though his grip were sinking deep into her flesh. She thought that she smelled incense burning, though she hadn’t brought any with her.

  “L-lord… now let your servant depart in peace, a-according to your…”

  But she got no further, for a great darkness rose up from the bed and took her.

  *

  Peter Barkely blew out the candle and, at the same time, the chanting ceased.

  He released his grip on the hands he had been holding and uncrossed his legs. As he got to his feet, a sudden cramp gripped his right calf and he hissed in pain.

  “You know,” he said to those sat within the circle, “all things considered, I really would much rather be in Antigua.”

  *

  Madeleine came to, jerking back into consciousness so forcefully that she dropped the glass of whisky she had been holding. She watched it roll across the carpet of her study and fetch up against the foot of her desk.

  She had no memory of returning to the vicarage. The last thing she could recall was praying over the elderly priest as he thrashed about in his bed. And now, here she was.

  Somehow she’d made her way home, somehow she’d poured herself a whisky – a spirit she didn’t drink or keep in the house. Madeleine saw the empty Londis bag in the bin and realised that somehow she had also been shopping.

  She dialled Peter Barkely’s mobile, but there was no reply. She would have called Stu or even Graeme Staines himself, but she hadn’t been given either number, so there was no way to check just what had happened.

  After a couple of hours spent trawling the internet for the symptoms of a brain tumour, Madeleine realised that she was only making herself more anxious. No doubt exhaustion, job stress and the two gin and tonics she’d consumed earlier had all added to… whatever had happened. For now, she decided to go to bed and call her GP first thing in the morning.

  *

  The following two days passed without incident. Madeleine didn’t suffer from another ‘episode’, as Doctor Ewing had called it, and life at the vicarage continued much as it had before. On Friday the local paper ran an obituary of Grahame Staines. The accompanying photo showed a severe looking man with a shock of jet black hair and a piercing gaze. He had apparently been the vicar of St Mark’s for six decades – a parish record – and tended to his flock with ‘utmost diligence, dedication and fiercely held convictions.’ “Sounds like a right barrel of laughs,” Madeleine muttered as she threw the paper in the bin.

  Six decades, though, that was impressive. The Reverend Staines must have made quite the mark on Abbeyfield.

  On Sunday she rose early and walked down to the church, breathing deeply of the spring air and admiring the daisies scattered across the vicarage’s lawn. Ahead of her, St Mark’s was wreathed in a light mist, the headstones in the graveyard seeming to hover before the dark granite of the church.

  Madeleine thought that she saw someone pacing her down the hill – perhaps Gavin Nesbitt, the organist, who usually liked to arrive good and early – but when she turned there was nobody there.

  Ducking beneath the lichgate, she remembered fragments from the dream she had experienced – something about earth raining down on her upturned face.

  Shaking her head clear of the night’s phantoms, she used the massive iron key to unlock the double doors of the church porch. She had barely stepped across the threshold when the darkness rose to take her again.

  *

  “… a lovely service, vicar. Just lovely. And, pardon my French, but I’m glad that you finally had the balls to say it. Something does need to be done about those scroungers and immigrants – expecting free handouts as they pop out yet more children they can’t look after. Anyway, keep up the good work.”

  Madeleine found herself outside her own church, shaking hands with the departing congregation, the sound of the organ echoing through the porch behind her.

  Another hand grasped hers. It was Ivy Butler, one of the more senior members of her flock. “Good for you, Madeleine. You know, your sermon reminded me of the good old days of Grahame Staines.”

  Good Lord, what had she said?

  Not all of the people filing past offered their hands, and from the expression on some of the faces a good many would not be returning to St Mark’s next Sunday.

  Am I going mad?

  “Not mad, no.”

  The voice sounded like it came from directly behind her, a chill breeze insinuating itself into her ear.

  “Madeleine,” said Patricia Stevens, a young mother who she had shared a bottle of Shiraz with on many an occasion, “I don’t know what happened in there, but get help.”

  “Yes… yes, I will.”

  Ignoring the rest of the congregation, Madeleine fled back up the hill to the vicarage, where she shut herself in the study.

  The whisky glass was still where she had left it, on the floor against her desk, and she had to fight the urge to pick it up and fill it. Instead, she closed her eyes.

  “Lord, be with me during this time. Let me get to the heart of the problem and know that you are by my side at all times.”

  No sooner had she spoken the words of the prayer than the phone rang. It was Paul Green, her curate.

  “Madeleine, I must say that I was rather shocked by the content of your sermon.”

  She wanted to say that she was under a lot of stress, she wanted to tell him that she was seriously worried she may have a brain tumour, but when she opened her mouth, the words that came were not her own.<
br />
  “It is time, Paul, that we stopped stepping so daintily around the truth. It is time that this modern church of ours stop dressing up scripture to appease the liberal agenda. It is not my job to tell people what they want to hear.”

  There was a long silence, during which Madeleine railed against the words she had unwittingly spoken, but she was trapped within her own skull, her silent screams echoing in her ears.

  “I think, in that case, Madeleine, that I’m going to have to reconsider my position at St. Mark’s.”

  “Yes, I rather think you should.”

  And before she could command it to do otherwise, her hand had returned the phone to its cradle, ending the call.

  For a moment, all that she could do was sit and stare at the phone, her body rigid with shock. Whatever she had said during the sermon, they hadn’t been her words. And now she had dismissed her curate entirely against her will. It was as though she had been taken over by something, as though she had been…

  … No. She didn’t want to start using that word. It was far too reminiscent of The Exorcist, and this was the modern church, this was her church.

  “No! This church is mine”

  The time the voice that came from her lips was most certainly not her own; the cadence of the words was slightly different, but the vehemence behind them, the spiteful tone, could not be mistaken.

  “Reverend Staines?”

  “Ah… at last you understand.”

  “Hang on… hang on just a moment.” No no no! This cannot be happening. “When I prayed over you the other night, when you passed on, did you…”

  “Enter you? Yes.” And the filthy laugh that came from her lips chilled her to the bone.

  “What do you want with me?”

  “With you? Nothing. What I want is my church back. What I want is to return my flock to the true path.”

  “Sorry, your church? I hate to break this to you Grahame, but you died. St Marks is my church.”

  “The priesthood is no place for a woman!”

  There was a knock on the study door and Madeleine realised that, in her haste, she must have left the front door of the vicarage wide open. Had whoever was standing on the other side heard her conversation? If so, what would they think when the door opened and they found Madeleine alone?