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Authors: Jonathan Gash
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to protect Father Jay!'
Who? Miserably I followed her out to her motor while she ballocked
me for not having a gate. I explained that these women kept battering in, et
cetera. It made her hiss in fury like a snake. That's woman's logic - turf you
out of bed, deny you breakfast, haul you out before cockshout, then blame you
for having a non-gate gate and not doing your cleaning.
Spirits low, they went lower. A priest, at this ungodly hour? And
in trouble? They're supposed to help us, for Christ's sake, not the other way
round. And why was she so desperate to help the bloke? Only a lover, actual or
potential, can drive a woman so, and a priest was way out of reach, right?
Unless . . . well, things change.
'Can we call in Fenstone?' I asked, clambering into the scented
interior. 'Only there's a bloke called Jox owes me - '
That gentleman brings the village unwelcome attention,' she said.
'Do not associate with him while you are engaged upon this undertaking.'
‘I’ not engaged upon any undertaking, Miss Witherspoon.'
Women have a distant smile that isn't a smile, but shows secret
scorn at your pathetic resistance. She did it. I watched, gloomier than ever.
It always implies threat. I wish I could do it. I've tried in the mirror,
failed. If ever I learn how, I'll do it to everybody, then let them watch out.
She fired the engine, and we hurtled - and I do mean streaked like an arrow -
north through Suffolk's dark leafy lanes. My cheeks dragged at my skull from
the G force. Only the seat belt kept me in the damned vehicle. She drove with a
cool disregard for limits, scared me to death. Her one comment was Tut tut'
when a herd of Jersey cows lumbered across our path. I thought we were going to
smear them and us, but with a horn blast she set them scampering clumsily any
old where, their demented collie scurrying after to round them up.
Not that I wanted to linger. Countryside's grim and horrible. It
lies there with nobody much in it, waiting, ticking off the days like one
massive timepiece. I'm convinced it only looks pretty the way demons and sirens
are said to take on a winsome guise, to lure honest people away from reality.
How ruralists have the nerve to stock up with jam butties and tea flasks, then
march along lonely riverbanks and ancient trackways enjoying woods and fields,
God alone knows. I can't understand. If ever I get the money I'll be out of our
remote rusticity and never ever leave the comfort of dense town houses, crammed
humanity and shops. Where nature lovers see 'scenery' and conservationists see
'survival', I see only things sinister.
'I beg your pardon, Lovejoy?' she asked, as we slithered to a
stop. 'You said "eating everything".'
'Ah. Countryside. Everything hunts everything.'
She opened the car door. That's simply Nature, Love joy.'
Oh, aye, I thought. Putting a nice word to anything makes it okay
then, does it? Assassination, murder, carnage, they all sound respectable. It's
only their import chills your spine. I disembarked in the cold wind. She dowsed
the motor's glims.
We were in a narrow lane near a lych gate - modern. The original
old gate had gone. There was just enough coming light to see by, the eastern
skies shredding black clouds but leaving the pieces there as a warning. More
rain due soon. Vaguely I could see the sombre mass of a church thickening the
shades beyond the trees. Down the lane, I guessed hopefully, a huddle of
houses, cottages, maybe a farm or two. . . ? Until I realized this must be
Fenstone, that huddle of vacancies, one of East Anglia's dying villages. In
Juliana's careering arrival I'd noticed one or two wattle-and-daub cotts, one
shop front, a walled garden, in a blur.
'This way, please.' Her torch went ahead up the path.
Incredibly, a vestry light was on. She knocked, and we entered
light and dryness. I shut out that widespread malevolence of field and flower.
'Good morning,' he said.
'Father Jay Smith, may I introduce Lovejoy,' Juliana simpered. She
didn't
Who? Miserably I followed her out to her motor while she ballocked
me for not having a gate. I explained that these women kept battering in, et
cetera. It made her hiss in fury like a snake. That's woman's logic - turf you
out of bed, deny you breakfast, haul you out before cockshout, then blame you
for having a non-gate gate and not doing your cleaning.
Spirits low, they went lower. A priest, at this ungodly hour? And
in trouble? They're supposed to help us, for Christ's sake, not the other way
round. And why was she so desperate to help the bloke? Only a lover, actual or
potential, can drive a woman so, and a priest was way out of reach, right?
Unless . . . well, things change.
'Can we call in Fenstone?' I asked, clambering into the scented
interior. 'Only there's a bloke called Jox owes me - '
That gentleman brings the village unwelcome attention,' she said.
'Do not associate with him while you are engaged upon this undertaking.'
‘I’ not engaged upon any undertaking, Miss Witherspoon.'
Women have a distant smile that isn't a smile, but shows secret
scorn at your pathetic resistance. She did it. I watched, gloomier than ever.
It always implies threat. I wish I could do it. I've tried in the mirror,
failed. If ever I learn how, I'll do it to everybody, then let them watch out.
She fired the engine, and we hurtled - and I do mean streaked like an arrow -
north through Suffolk's dark leafy lanes. My cheeks dragged at my skull from
the G force. Only the seat belt kept me in the damned vehicle. She drove with a
cool disregard for limits, scared me to death. Her one comment was Tut tut'
when a herd of Jersey cows lumbered across our path. I thought we were going to
smear them and us, but with a horn blast she set them scampering clumsily any
old where, their demented collie scurrying after to round them up.
Not that I wanted to linger. Countryside's grim and horrible. It
lies there with nobody much in it, waiting, ticking off the days like one
massive timepiece. I'm convinced it only looks pretty the way demons and sirens
are said to take on a winsome guise, to lure honest people away from reality.
How ruralists have the nerve to stock up with jam butties and tea flasks, then
march along lonely riverbanks and ancient trackways enjoying woods and fields,
God alone knows. I can't understand. If ever I get the money I'll be out of our
remote rusticity and never ever leave the comfort of dense town houses, crammed
humanity and shops. Where nature lovers see 'scenery' and conservationists see
'survival', I see only things sinister.
'I beg your pardon, Lovejoy?' she asked, as we slithered to a
stop. 'You said "eating everything".'
'Ah. Countryside. Everything hunts everything.'
She opened the car door. That's simply Nature, Love joy.'
Oh, aye, I thought. Putting a nice word to anything makes it okay
then, does it? Assassination, murder, carnage, they all sound respectable. It's
only their import chills your spine. I disembarked in the cold wind. She dowsed
the motor's glims.
We were in a narrow lane near a lych gate - modern. The original
old gate had gone. There was just enough coming light to see by, the eastern
skies shredding black clouds but leaving the pieces there as a warning. More
rain due soon. Vaguely I could see the sombre mass of a church thickening the
shades beyond the trees. Down the lane, I guessed hopefully, a huddle of
houses, cottages, maybe a farm or two. . . ? Until I realized this must be
Fenstone, that huddle of vacancies, one of East Anglia's dying villages. In
Juliana's careering arrival I'd noticed one or two wattle-and-daub cotts, one
shop front, a walled garden, in a blur.
'This way, please.' Her torch went ahead up the path.
Incredibly, a vestry light was on. She knocked, and we entered
light and dryness. I shut out that widespread malevolence of field and flower.
'Good morning,' he said.
'Father Jay Smith, may I introduce Lovejoy,' Juliana simpered. She
didn't
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