on a groundsheet. You’d need sunglasses to work with them.
We had three or four displays on ordinary Sundays, and they’d usually last, with a bit of judicious dead-heading, for a couple of weeks, and maybe, in chilly weather, even longer. Our church didn’t, after all, run to much in the way of heating.
I checked the vase on the altar – no, nothing could be retrievedfrom that. And the water was so rank it turned my stomach. Out to the compost heap, then. I propped the empty vase under the stand-pipe we use, hoping the force of the water would wash away some of the green sludge, and wandered off to look at the graves, pulling weeds here and there as I went. My route took me down towards the stream I’d walked beside earlier in the week. How many folk had died in times past because they drew their water from a stream polluted by the graveyard, innocent, clear water, but far from pure? I leaned on the wall and peered.
Pink water? Not pink as in strawberry ice cream, but pink as in the water left when I soaked Tony’s handkerchiefs he really should have thrown away after one of his nosebleeds. Why should the stream be any sort of pink? It wasn’t as if we’d got any industry to turn it that colour. I’d once been to some ancient abbey up in Yorkshire only to get hay fever from the river – it ran past a shampoo factory, and frothed myriad bubbles, giving off the richest of pongs. Unforgivable, of course, but in those innocent days before tight environmental controls it was almost funny. Our stream didn’t smell, though.
The altar vase still did, but not so much. I gave it another swirl, resolving to bring rubber gloves and a scourer next time.
By now the other lady was back from wherever she’d gone. No explanations for arriving, sorting flowers and then popping out again.
‘Those are my flowers,’ she greeted me, flexing her secateurs.
I didn’t need to ask which. ‘Very well. And where are they to go?’ Though I could have put money on the answer.
‘On the altar, of course. Where is the altar vase?’
I passed it to her; it was still dripping, of course. How she’d deal with the wet bottom and the altar’s pristine white linen cloth, I had no idea.
‘I don’t know you, do I?’
How could some only five foot two look down her nose at me? ‘Josie Welford.’ I put out a friendly hand, ready to shake hers. She neither shook it nor responded with her name. ‘And you’re…?’ I prompted.
‘Mrs Coyne. You’re from?’
From? Ah, which house! Brean Park or Teign Court, that sort of from. ‘The White Hart.’
‘The publican! What on earth are you doing here?’
‘Arranging the flowers beside the lectern.’ I suited the deed to the word.
‘A publican. Arranging flowers.’
The conversation didn’t develop much. I didn’t know my Bible well enough to tell her exactly what dealings Christ had had with innkeepers, but I did want to mouth words like ‘pharisee’ and ‘whited sepulchre’ under my breath. Anyone else I might have made a quip about water and wine and the pink stream, but any more snubs and I might forget Whose house I was supposed to be decorating.
Mrs Greville’s, I suppose, to judge by the memorials and brasses. Well, Mrs Greville’s husband’s ancestors, at least. It wasn ’t a terribly distinguished church, every period having had a little go at it, the Victorian Grevilles most of all, with a floor tiled in glossy blood and custard. But I enjoyed decorating it, all the same, tucking vases into niches that might once have held statues, before Cromwell or someone knocked them off their perches. I was happy to let Mrs More Money than Taste go wild with her colours. My restricted palette did very well as far as I was concerned – whites and yellows, yellows and oranges, oranges with russets. Halfway through, I produced the flask of coffee I always shared with my usual partners, Jem’s mother Rose and an aunt of Lucy’s. I unscrewed a cup – would she like to
We had three or four displays on ordinary Sundays, and they’d usually last, with a bit of judicious dead-heading, for a couple of weeks, and maybe, in chilly weather, even longer. Our church didn’t, after all, run to much in the way of heating.
I checked the vase on the altar – no, nothing could be retrievedfrom that. And the water was so rank it turned my stomach. Out to the compost heap, then. I propped the empty vase under the stand-pipe we use, hoping the force of the water would wash away some of the green sludge, and wandered off to look at the graves, pulling weeds here and there as I went. My route took me down towards the stream I’d walked beside earlier in the week. How many folk had died in times past because they drew their water from a stream polluted by the graveyard, innocent, clear water, but far from pure? I leaned on the wall and peered.
Pink water? Not pink as in strawberry ice cream, but pink as in the water left when I soaked Tony’s handkerchiefs he really should have thrown away after one of his nosebleeds. Why should the stream be any sort of pink? It wasn’t as if we’d got any industry to turn it that colour. I’d once been to some ancient abbey up in Yorkshire only to get hay fever from the river – it ran past a shampoo factory, and frothed myriad bubbles, giving off the richest of pongs. Unforgivable, of course, but in those innocent days before tight environmental controls it was almost funny. Our stream didn’t smell, though.
The altar vase still did, but not so much. I gave it another swirl, resolving to bring rubber gloves and a scourer next time.
By now the other lady was back from wherever she’d gone. No explanations for arriving, sorting flowers and then popping out again.
‘Those are my flowers,’ she greeted me, flexing her secateurs.
I didn’t need to ask which. ‘Very well. And where are they to go?’ Though I could have put money on the answer.
‘On the altar, of course. Where is the altar vase?’
I passed it to her; it was still dripping, of course. How she’d deal with the wet bottom and the altar’s pristine white linen cloth, I had no idea.
‘I don’t know you, do I?’
How could some only five foot two look down her nose at me? ‘Josie Welford.’ I put out a friendly hand, ready to shake hers. She neither shook it nor responded with her name. ‘And you’re…?’ I prompted.
‘Mrs Coyne. You’re from?’
From? Ah, which house! Brean Park or Teign Court, that sort of from. ‘The White Hart.’
‘The publican! What on earth are you doing here?’
‘Arranging the flowers beside the lectern.’ I suited the deed to the word.
‘A publican. Arranging flowers.’
The conversation didn’t develop much. I didn’t know my Bible well enough to tell her exactly what dealings Christ had had with innkeepers, but I did want to mouth words like ‘pharisee’ and ‘whited sepulchre’ under my breath. Anyone else I might have made a quip about water and wine and the pink stream, but any more snubs and I might forget Whose house I was supposed to be decorating.
Mrs Greville’s, I suppose, to judge by the memorials and brasses. Well, Mrs Greville’s husband’s ancestors, at least. It wasn ’t a terribly distinguished church, every period having had a little go at it, the Victorian Grevilles most of all, with a floor tiled in glossy blood and custard. But I enjoyed decorating it, all the same, tucking vases into niches that might once have held statues, before Cromwell or someone knocked them off their perches. I was happy to let Mrs More Money than Taste go wild with her colours. My restricted palette did very well as far as I was concerned – whites and yellows, yellows and oranges, oranges with russets. Halfway through, I produced the flask of coffee I always shared with my usual partners, Jem’s mother Rose and an aunt of Lucy’s. I unscrewed a cup – would she like to
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