Nicola Barker - Darkmans

Eh?

‘Oi. You. Behind ya curtains. Old Smarty-pants. What’s Maundy Thursday when it’s at home?’

‘Maundy Thursday’—his disembodied voice wafted through, ‘is the last Thursday before Easter Friday. And I’m delighted to discover that you like my pants so much.’

‘Ha ha . I don’t like your pants. I hate your pants…’

Pause

‘…So what’s the point of it?’

‘Well, traditionally it’s a day on which the monarch likes to hand out cash gifts to paupers, but in terms of purely religious observance, it’s generally celebrated,’ he continued, somewhat dogmatically, ‘with the old-fashioned custom of feet washing.’

‘Fuck off, you nutter!’

‘Look in the Bible and see for yourself — John XIII. XIV…’

A neat, hardback, King James Bible — its pages held together by an elastic band — came scytheing through the curtains towards her, landing — with a thwack —against her cast.

‘ Ow! Watch out! You tryin’ to take Bible Bashin’ to a whole new level or what ?!’

Kelly grabbed the Bible and checked the reference (it took some time to find it): John XIII. XIV:

‘If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another’s feet.’

Que?!

Scogin and his Chamber Fellow (to get back to the nub of the matter) actually imbibe so royally on Maundy Thursday that the Chamber Fellow eventually passes into a dead faint (drunk as a skunk), at which point Scogin cheerfully strips him naked, rolls him up in a sheet and runs around the college telling everyone he’s dead.

The remaining Masters all duly line up to inspect the body, sober preparations are made for a burial, and everything’s proceeding very smoothly, when ( Aaaaarrrrrgh! ) the drunken Fellow suddenly awakens, takes fright, jumps to his feet and begins running around in a total panic. The Masters start yelling and screaming (thinking he’s some kind of ghostly apparition), which makes him panic all the more and run still faster, until (inevitably) his scant coverings promptly fall off (yet more screams from the Masters). It’s at this point (as he’s sprinting about, in the raw, his goolies flapping) that Scogin takes the opportunity to commence yelling: ‘A miracle! A miracle!’, as if testifying to an act of Otherworldly Intervention (It’s Easter , now, dammit! He’s gonna be dining out on this sacrilegious little farce for weeks !).

!?

Hmmn…

Well maybe it weren’t actually so funny as all that…

When the nurse arrived to serve her dinner (an hour or so later) Kelly calmly refused it. ‘I’m dietin’ for Jesus,’ she announced piously (she just liked the idea, somehow). ‘Oh…An’ would you mind returnin’ this holy cosh to Greta Garbo over there?’

The nurse did as she was bidden, returning the Bible (‘Thank you, nurse,’ he purred, ‘that’s extremely kind of you’), but then, when she attempted to serve the Reverend his meal: ‘You know what? I think I might diet for Jesus, too…’

Pause

‘…Although a nice, tall glass of iced tomato juice certainly wouldn’t go amiss…’

Pause

‘…a little squeeze of lemon, if it isn’t too much trouble…’

Kelly glanced over towards the curtains, with a scowl.

‘…with just the tiniest dab of Worcester Sauce,’ he murmured, ‘to render it more palatable.’

And then, once the nurse had gone: ‘You don’t mind if I keep you company?’ his disembodied voice enquired, cordially.

‘I don’t mind what you do,’ Kelly snapped.

‘Holy cosh …,’ he mused. ‘That was actually quite funny. Well done you .’

Kelly rolled her eyes.

‘So you like giving things up, then, Kelly?’ the Reverend asked.

‘I’d like it if you gave up,’ Kelly opined, returning to her reading.

‘Could I ask you a special favour?’ the Reverend wondered.

Kelly glanced over at the curtains for a second time.

‘Nope.’

‘It’s just that now we’re on this fast together…’

‘Whaddya mean? Fast? I ain’t on no fast.’

‘Now that you’re dieting for Jesus …’

‘Who cares why I’m dietin’?!’ she expostulated. ‘It ain’t none of your damn business .’

‘But it is my business,’ he maintained calmly, ‘Jesus is my business, which makes you my business.’

Kelly threw down the photocopied sheets with a frustrated hiss. ‘Why’re you in here, anyways?’ she asked, crossing her arms. ‘ Brain tumour?’

‘I’m here because God willed it,’ he informed her.

‘ Fuck off!’

‘He struck me down three times…’

‘What? With his fist ?’

‘…and each time,’ he ignored her, ‘I was blessed with a singular vision.’

Silence

‘An’ what do the doctors make of that ?’ she asked.

‘Of what ?’

‘Of God’s willin’ it an’ stuff?’

‘The doctors don’t give a hoot about God’s will. They think it was probably a minor stroke.’

‘But God told you different , huh?’ she sneered.

‘Yup.’ Reverend Jacobs seemed very sure on this point.

Kelly snorted, derisively, and grabbed a hold of her papers. She tried to find her place, but couldn’t.

‘If God made you sick,’ she reasoned, slitting her eyes, ‘then why don’t he make you well again?’

‘Ours is not to reason why,’ the Reverend quoted.

‘How old are ya?’ she asked, scowling.

‘I’m forty-two.’

( Hmmn . A mite younger than she’d calculated.)

‘Old enough to know better…’ she mused.

‘Absolutely not ,’ he informed her, curtly. ‘And I pray I never shall be, either.’

She stared at the curtains, quizzically. ‘Why’d they keep your curtains shut?’

‘It’s the glare ,’ he sniffed, ‘it makes me dizzy. The environmental stress . I’m actually wearing dark glasses behind here.’

Kelly pondered this for a moment.

‘What kind?’ she asked.

‘Calvin Kleins,’ he answered promptly, ‘but a nice pair.’

She frowned.

‘Are you a real Reverend, or is it your street name or your tag or what?’

‘I suppose you could call me a kind of missionary. I work mainly in Canada. I’ve been on a sabbatical in England for seven months…’

‘I broke my leg in three places,’ Kelly promptly interrupted him, ‘fallin’ off a wall, an’ I’m allergic to prescription painkillers…’

She paused, “spose you prob’ly think God had a hand in that, too , huh?’

‘I try not to think, in general,’ the Reverend sighed. ‘I find those intellectual Christians such a bane , don’t you? I’m what they call a “Charismatic”. I’m sensitive. My relationship with God is predicated not on thought but on love .’

?!

Kelly slowly shook her head and returned to her papers. After a minute or so, however, she suddenly looked up, with a nervous start, swore, turned sharply and peered behind her, scowling, as if a mischievous hand had just snapped at her bra strap.

He didn’t know Bixley Woods well. He’d visited them once, at best, ten (possibly even fifteen) years ago. It’d been spring — he recalled — and the Bluebells had been in full splendour; the forest floor a dense and seemingly infinite tapestry of gently shimmering cobalt-blue.