vicars

Unhallowed Ground – part two

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Tonight’s tale follows on from yesterday’s.

Tuesday Tiny Tale – Unhallowed Ground – part one

The next morning the team arrived early and the vicar and the robin watched with interest as slabs of rough grass were carefully removed to expose the soil, but then progress slowed as the team painstakingly marked out squares with string and appeared to be brushing soil away with toothbrushes. John Dee had to leave for his appointment at the local primary school. The head had been delighted when the vicar offered to visit the school. She welcomed fresh input to their school project ‘Layers of Time’ aligning with the interest in the dig. But if she was expecting him to talk about Romans she was soon disappointed. John didn’t like children much, however they were part of his calling and he found he soon had their interest when he started describing the more gruesome aspects of history. He ignored the expression on the teacher’s face as he moved onto public hangings and burials in unconsecrated ground. Before she could interrupt him he rounded off his talk with the politically correct plan to understand the wrongly accused of the past.

The vicar returned to the dig just in time to hear a cry of surprise and fear from a young woman and see other team members grab her before she was sucked into the sink hole that had suddenly appeared. It was not large, but wide enough that she could have slipped in. With great presence of mind the vicar had his camera out and leaned over the wall to take a picture before the leader of the dig ordered everyone to move right back. They joined the vicar on the safe side of the wall.

‘I saw a ladder’ gasped the girl.

 John brought the pictures up on his phone screen, a bit blurred, but they did seem to show a wooden ladder. There was excited chatter. Some were pragmatic and thought it must be an old sewer, while others suggested a secret tunnel to the church. Romans were forgotten about for the moment.

‘It is not safe for us to proceed at all, we need the council to send in their engineers’ said the dig’s leader.

John was disappointed, hoping a mystery tunnel would be of nearly as much interest as skeletons and they only had a short time to produce historical drama for the locals.

‘I’ve got an idea,’ piped up another young woman ‘my boyfriend’s a potholer and even better, he is on the potholing recue team. They could check this hole more safely than council workers.’

‘Yes let’s get this underway before the council gets involved,’ said John ‘after all, you have permission to dig, does it matter how it’s done?’

The emergency potholers treated the operation as a good training exercise. Within an hour all sorts of rigs and pulleys were set up so the volunteer could be lowered without stepping on the ladder. Initial shining of torches showed the ladder went down a long way. The ropes were played out and he disappeared out of sight to report back on his radio that the narrow passage down widened into some sort of cavern. His boss ordered him not to go any further, lest the whole lot came down on top of him.

They all heard his reports from down below ‘I’ll try and take photos, it’s a small space, oh my god, bring me up…’

He was helped off with his helmet and he looked pale and shocked.

‘Skeleton…’

‘A catacomb?

‘Just a small space and a skeleton laid on a slab of stone.’

‘A burial in unconsecrated ground, just as we expected,’ said the vicar ‘but why so deep and why the ladder?’

‘Whoever buried him would need a way to get back up, whatever the reason.’

‘Or he could have requested in his will that a ladder be installed in case he wasn’t really dead and then he could get out. People used to be scared of being buried alive.’

‘Still are’ said someone else.

‘He was definitely dead,’ said the potholer ‘he had a large wooden stake through his ribs.’

‘A vampire?’

‘Poor chap’ said the vicar ‘he probably had a disease which makes your mouth bleed and could have had mental health issues as well. We don’t have vampires in England.’

‘Yes we do’ piped up someone else ‘Count Dracula landed in Whitby.’

‘That is fiction’ sighed the vicar. ‘We will certainly pray for him at the All Hallows’ Eve Service tomorrow night, I trust you will all be there.’

Saturday Short Story – Gardener’s World

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This is the final part of Lottie’s latest tale and follows on from…

Thursday Tiny Tale – Family Secrets

The home of Cousin Ruth stood out in the row of large Victorian terraced houses. The front garden was packed with raised beds of vegetables and wigwams of runner beans. Lottie had never had much success with vegetables so she was impressed. Before she could peer closer as Tilly and Wesley ushered her up the garden path, the front door flew open and dogs and children hurtled out.

‘Just stand still’ said Tilly, doing the same.

Wesley obviously knew the routine and swept up an escaping toddler, kicked the front gate shut and herded dogs and children through the front door.

‘Wait for the dust to settle’ added Tilly.

 As the sound of barking receded Cousin Ruth emerged. She enveloped Lottie in layers of crocheted poncho and guided her inside, warning her to mind the toys. Lottie stepped over a huge dinosaur and dodged a strange lurid pink wheeled contraption. More dogs appeared and she would have been happy to pet them if she had been wearing casual clothes instead of one of her smart book launch outfits.

‘Come through, come through, Kizzy made you some cakes at Brownies.’

Lottie hoped the baking facilities at Brownies were cleaner than the kitchen she glimpsed through a half open door. She was led into a large sitting room where adults were gathered. Tilly appeared at her side.

‘Lottie is a famous author, I’ve read all her best selling novels.’

Nobody looked very impressed.

‘I don’t have time to read’ said Ruth.

‘Hey Lottie, did you hear the joke about the dumb blonde who was asked if she would like a book for her birthday… No thanks, I’ve already got one.’

‘Dad, you can’t say that, politically incorrect.’

‘But I like dumb blondes, I married one didn’t I?’

‘Down Flossie, sorry Lottie, she gets over excited, Bernie put the kettle on. Bernie is Geoff’s son, Geoff is husband number three, he has a large family too, but when he moved in here we weren’t expecting to both have adult children moving back in or to have grandchildren dumped on us. This is Oliver, husband number one, still good friends and Elspeth his wife, they both wanted to meet you and of course some of these grand brats are his as well. Sally did you order the pizzas, is that Dominoes you’re talking to?’

‘No, just booking my flight, I’ll do the pizzas next.’

In the midst of the confusion a child thrust a puppy into Lottie’s arms. It was undeniably cute and fluffy. Her handbag dropped to the floor, but at least she hadn’t dropped the puppy. She felt quite protective, how could this tiny being survive the tumult around it.

‘Sit down, sit down.’

Lottie was thankful to sink into a spot at the end of the sofa, a cosy corner of cushions and puppies as another tiny dog was placed in her lap. For a moment she thought longingly of her little cottage waiting for her return on Sunday evening, but as she looked around she realised she was experiencing life with a capital L. Life went on, it had not ceased when Callum died. Although her head was spinning she felt new ideas tumbling into her brain. Her next novel with the renegade vicar would feature love for real people; families tossed up into the air like a broken jigsaw and tumbling down into a different picture of blended families and romance for each generation. This family certainly seemed very happy.

As Lottie imagined her first chapter her thoughts were interrupted by a piercing scream and a child sobbing.

‘Granny, Tommy pushed her down the stairs, not me.’

Lottie clasped the puppies, she felt a maternal need to protect them from Tommy.

Ruth darted out into the hall and yelled up the stairs, hauled back a child from entering the adults only zone, then shortly returned with two mugs in each hand.

‘Is tea okay, Bernie forgot to ask what you like.’

‘Fine, fine’ said Lottie, wondering where she would put a mug or how she would hold it with her hands buried in warm puppies.

‘I’ll put it on the mantlepiece, we keep all hot drinks up there. Now, I hear that the fairies were a complete surprise, Callum never told you, he must have been in complete denial, which is a shame, because we would have believed him now we have seen them at the bottom of our garden.’

Lottie wondered if this was a joke, had the whole thing been an elaborate joke, but Ruth’s expression looked genuine so she couldn’t resist asking if she could see them.

‘It doesn’t really work like that, we have never told the children.’

‘That’s a relief… I mean I guess you need to protect them.’

‘That’s why we grow the veg in the front garden. When we bought this place we loved the long garden, even though it had run wild. I jokingly said I was going to look for fairies down the bottom of the garden and imagine my surprise when I saw them. We didn’t want to harm them, make the same mistake as Callum’s parents, so we built a wall across and never kept cats. Occasionally I see one on top of the wall watching when the children are playing in their part of the garden, I’m sure they wink and wave. In recent times we have put cctv up and observed them properly and secretly. We never told anyone and we tell new neighbours we are rewilding.  Can you imagine scientists wanting to examine them or worse, fairieknappers…’

Charlotte paused, she was even beginning to believe in fairies herself. Was this for real? Her novel about Lottie was meant to be light hearted and fun and if people believed in angels and people used to believe in fairies…

Tilly was guarding the door as Ruth tapped her mobile phone then showed Lottie a picture. Little people, very tiny when you saw them under dandelions. Not like children’s Victorian books, actual miniature people, but with wings, genuine wings, they were flying. Lottie gasped and glanced at Tilly and Wesley, the only adults who were probably sensible.

‘Wesley, have you seen them, is this all for real?’

‘Well the Church of England doesn’t do Fairies but…’

‘They do angels’ said Tilly ‘so why not believe in fairies.’

‘Yes, all God’s creatures are entitled to their own lives so we have a sacred duty to protect them Lottie.’

‘Their secret is safe with me and I certainly won’t write them in my novels, I don’t think my readers’ credibility would stretch that far.’

Opting Out

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When I was a teenager, among my fantasies of what a future husband might be like was a desire to be a vicar’s wife. This was partly religious sentiment, partly a crush on an older chap at youth group who wanted to become a vicar, but most of all the attraction of achieving an identity, a career and a home all in one package with little effort on my part. This imaginary young vicar would worship me almost as devoutly as God, preach in a wonderful baritone voice, look divine in a cassock …and in the bedroom, though details about the bedroom part were very hazy.

Other candidates for the perfect husbands were vets, explorers and policemen. I didn’t marry a vicar, but I was right about the desirability of securing a secure position in life; as it turned out I was not very good at doing careers. Armed with some brains and motherly encouragement; ‘you don’t want to end up working in a shop’ or ‘you don’t want to be one of those girls who just takes any job till she gets married’ I ventured to seek the interesting and the worthwhile.

I have never thought of myself as someone who suffers from depression, anxiety or has mental health issues. I always assumed any career failures were entirely my fault and even if I had heard of such a thing I would never have dreamed of suing my employers for letting me down when it was me that let them down. Armed with other words of wisdom from my mother ‘I don’t need a doctor to tell me when I’m depressed’ I developed a simple strategy, escape. Not literally, as in disappearing without a trace, though I could see the attraction and I did cross to the other side of the world. The nearest I got to a medical issue was my periods stopping for three months, a sure sign your body is telling you something and they returned after my escape. But how close do we all come to mental health problems?

In my newly enthusiastic reading of The Big Issue, an article about a homeless man who lived in his car touched a chord. He had been a teacher, had a nervous breakdown, couldn’t work, lost his home. If he had escaped sooner, taken a safe hum drum job perhaps he would not have dropped out.

My avoidance tactics have applied in other areas. I don’t drive. I did get a licence when I was seventeen, but even driving in a small city presented challenges such as going round roundabouts, turning right and parking in awkward spots. I don’t regret letting the driving lapse. My friend at work suffered immense stress adding to traffic problems by driving her children to the nearest grammar school miles away. I was not stressed as our children had no choice but to walk to the nearest school. The potential terrors of multi storey car parks, edging out onto busy roads, being obliged to offer lifts to unknown places negate the convenience and independence of driving.

So what did happen? I married a policeman, we got a police flat to start with and my grandfather was delighted I was marrying someone with a secure job. Then we had children, further delaying career pressures and resulting in me doing all sorts of ordinary jobs which turned out to be very enjoyable. Perhaps I should have been a writer from the start – writers can write about life without the stress of actually participating in it.