Living a Lie Part 2 & Last
By Janet Baldey
She
looked down at the pitiful remains of Feng.
At that moment no one would recognise the demure librarian; a regular
Diana, she blazed with righteous anger.
‘She must die!’ Her voice proclaimed a triumphant clarion
call.
Joey
the budgie, trapped in his cage, looked at her in alarm. Fluffing up his feathers, he sidled towards
his bell and gave it a quick reassuring ping with his beak.
* * *
‘This
is terrible!’ The butcher’s eyes bulged as he stared at the note trembling in
his hands.
‘It
certainly is. The grammar is appalling,
the punctuation non-existent and doesn’t the stupid girl know there are three
s’s in repercussions?’
Disapproval
was etched deep into the lines of her face as the headmistress’s beady eyes
noted every error. She was fuming; it
was bad enough to be blackmailed but worse to be blackmailed by an illiterate.
‘What’re
we going to do? My wife’ll kill me!’ The
butcher’s jowls quivered like jellied veal.
‘Oh! Pull yourself together man. Do you think we’re going to be beaten by a
chit of a girl?’
Gradually,
what she was implying sank into his ox-like brain.
‘What
do you mean? Marjorie, do you know who
sent this?’
‘Of
course I do. It’s as obvious to me as
that boil on your nose.’
She
read the note aloud.
‘If you dont want peeple to no what you get up to on Friday evenings, make sure you make the rite
choyce about whose going to star in the skool concert. If you dont, I cant be held responsibel for the reppercusions.’
‘Hah! She’s as good as signed her name. The wretched creature has been badgering me
for months.’
The
butcher’s face shone with relief. ‘So, it’s alright then. You give her the part and we’re off the
hook.’
‘I’ll
do no such thing. She’s completely
deluded, she thinks she can dance but she’s got as much grace as a pregnant
hippo and I’ve got the school’s reputation to think of. Anyway, it wouldn’t stop there. You must
know that!’
Sometimes
she wondered why she had got involved with a man who made slugs look astute. With
a pensive look on her face, she walked towards the window. Outside the moon had just broken free from a
tether of cloud, and was bathing the vicarage in a clear, lemon coloured light.
‘We
have to put a stop to her antics once and for all. Apart from anything else, her continued
existence is having an adverse effect on the school’s league tables’.
* * *
His
white robes billowing around him, the vicar stood at the lectern surveying his
flock. He looked down at the rapt faces, upturned
towards him. They were drinking in his
words like nomads at an oasis. His powerful voice soared as, exalted, he
flung out his hands. His heart was full
and heavy with joy. He’d been charged by
God to preach His Holy Word. It was
his calling to convert the heathen; to rescue man from Evil and wrest them from
the sins of the flesh. Oh! Would that
every day was a Sunday!
Alfreda shifted in her seat; even her well padded rump
couldn’t protect her from the hard wood of the pew. She looked around the church and
scowled. Empty, as usual. Except for Clarissa and even she had to be
forced to come. She looked at her
husband as he preened and strutted on the podium. She couldn’t imagine why he bothered; nobody
had attended his Services for months.
No doubt the lazy, good for nothings were far too busy fornicating and
stuffing themselves with food. At the
thought of food, her stomach rumbled. She
glared at the vicar as he thrust out his scrawny chest and screeched. An impious thought sneaked into her mind.
‘Get on with it man, I’m
hungry.’
She
visualised their lunch, shrivelling in the Aga, the potatoes softening and the
stringy lamb drying out in a greasy pool of gravy. She was well aware that their wretched maid
scurried off to spend Sundays with her mother as soon as the family left the
Vicarage.
As
Arnold
continued his rant, she gave up and closed her eyes. She
was just drifting into her long running day dream involving a rather attractive
wife who happened to be married to the Master of the Hounds, when she was disturbed
by a curious noise. On the pew next to
her, a hive of rather cross bees was being robbed of its honey. Her eyelids snapped open. Beside her, Clarissa’s head was slumped to
one side and her mouth gaped. As she
watched a trickle of saliva rolled down the girl’s chin. With a ferocious jab of her elbow she made
contact with the girl’s fleshy body, jerking her awake. No matter that they were the sole members of
the congregation, they had a duty to keep up appearances.
At
long last, Arnold’s sermon ground to a close, he gestured to the long-suffering
organist and as the last anthem thundered in his ears, he stood transfixed
gazing, if not heavenwards, at least towards the rafters. At
that moment, a pigeon rudely awakened from its doze, shuffled along a beam. It took aim, fired and the glistening
projectile landed fairly and squarely in the middle of the vicar’s shining
pate.
* * *
Later
that same evening, as the ground mist’s chilly tentacles groped the frozen
grass, three separate groups of wraithlike figures crept up the hill towards
the Vicarage. Their hoarse whispers
already muffled by the fog, trailed into silence as they approached their
destination. Each group had a separate
agenda but one aim in common, to silence forever those that were living a lie.
Inside
the vicarage, Alfreda sprawled on the sofa, back issues of ‘The Horse and
Hound’ scattered around her. As she leafed through their pages her jaws
chomped rhythmically on a thick hunk of bread and dripping and soon the glossy
pages were smeared with fingerprints.
At last she belched and tossed the remains of her meal to the hound
lying at her feet. Draining her beer,
she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
Egad, she was bored. She glanced
at the clock; still Sunday. It was such
a pain that her morals forbade her to go cubbing on the Sabbath. Ridiculous really, like going without at
Lent. No point to it at all! She pounded her thighs in frustration. Then an idea struck her, jumping up she
reached for her hunting horn. At least
she could practice. With a scarlet
face and distended cheeks she puffed out the melancholy notes of ‘Gone away’ at full volume over and over
again.
Above
her, the ceiling creaked and bulged as Clarissa practiced her dance steps,
pausing only to turn up the volume to drown out the sound of the horn. In his study, the Vicar, with wads of cotton
wool stuffed tightly in his ears, crouched over his computer.
Shaking
his head in sorrow, he pursed his mouth.
‘Those
poor, dear children’, he whispered, his hands trembling on the mouse.
‘It
really shouldn’t be allowed.’
His
eyes gleamed as he scrolled down the screen.
And
so, that pious, God fearing family spent a serene evening engaged in their
various pursuits, blissfully unaware of the dim and shadowy groups of figures
flitting in and out of the rhododendrons, drawing gradually nearer with every
tick of the clock.
* * *
‘Fire. Fire.
It’s a fire!’
The
newest recruit to the village Fire Service, burst into the rest-room, his face
rivalling the flames he’d just spotted.
For six boring months, he’d done nothing more exciting than polish brass
on hoses but now at last, he was going to see some action. He jumped about the room, unable to contain
his excitement.
‘Can
I press the bell?’
Chief
Station Officer Hancock, looked up from the deck of cards he held in his hands.
‘Are ye sure lad?’
‘Yes,
yes. The vicarage. It’s on fire!’
‘The
vicarage, eh.’ The Station Officer rose and walked to the window. Looking out, he saw a blazing chrysanthemum blossoming
on the distant hill, its scarlet and gold petals shooting upwards into the
night sky.
‘Hm,
looks like you’re right.’
Strolling
back to his seat, he sat down and picked up the cards.‘Right lads. We’ll just finish this hand and then we’d
best be off.’
* * *
‘Well,
that’s a shame.’ Hancock turned the key again;
the engine spluttered but did not catch’.
He
shook his head. ‘I did tell them, at the last Council meeting. We need a new
vehicle.' I said. 'But Vicar wouldn’t have it. Said he needed the money for the Church
Spire Fund.’
There
was the sound of muffled snickering from the back seats and he turned, holding
up a thick finger in reproof.
‘Now,
now lads. It’s no laughing matter.’
By
the time the elderly motor was resuscitated and coaxed up the hill, everyone
knew it was too late. The house was a
ruin, its skeletal frame engulfed by roaring flames. Every so often there was a sound like thunder
as burning timbers crashed to the ground accompanied by showers of crimson
sparks that danced off into the night.
Craning
their necks, they stared skywards at a small group of figures clinging to a
roof strut. With horrified fascination
they watched as first one and then another lost their grasp and plunged into
the flames.
The
vicar was the last to fall and when he saw what was waiting for him, his mouth
opened in a horror stricken scream.
The
demon was right. The Devil was much
worse.
Copyright Janet
Baldey
