by Heide Goody
“No, you misunderstand. Us lot, we’re all SCUM.”
Clovenhoof nodded in agreement.
“Glad we’ve cleared that up.”
“Sutton Coldfield Union of Mums.”
Something clicked in Clovenhoof’s brain.
“I went on your website,” and immediately something else clicked. “And I spoke to you. You’re Sandra DribblyBibbly-something.”
“Millet-Walker.”
“Dribbly-Bibbly-Millet-Walker. That’s the one.”
Sandra gave him a suddenly shrewd look.
“Were you the man with the – and I quote – ‘five boob emergency’?”
There was a smattering of laughs from the others.
“Depends,” said Clovenhoof.
“I’ve told all the women,” said Sandra.
“We do like to laugh,” said one of the others.
“At men, mostly,” said another.
“Sorry,” said Sandra.
Clovenhoof shrugged.
“Men. Women. I laughed at everyone.”
“So this is …” Sandra closed her eyes. “Belle, was it?”
“Beelzebelle.”
“That’s a lovely name. Is that Eastern European?”
“Philistine originally,” said Clovenhoof.
“I do like the old names,” said a woman.
Another woman wearing an outlandish headscarf approached with an expression of deep consternation.
“This is my garden, you know. You can’t just leap in.”
“I would have barged through,” said Clovenhoof, removing a piece of garden gate that had got wedged on one horn, “but your neighbours left a pile of rubble in my way.”
“Most people would have used the gate.”
“No, it wouldn’t work if we went round,” said Clovenhoof, and then suddenly yelled, “Don’t you move an inch, Gorky!”
Gorky froze in the act of returning a dummy to a smiling babe.
“Would he hurt us?” asked the mother.
“Dunno. Depends how hard you throw him. Gorky, we have to stay on the route. Let’s not ruin it now by going goo-goo over a little pooper. Back on the pram.”
“So, what is this?” said Sandra. “Some sort of parent and baby parkour?”
“Ye-es,” said Clovenhoof slowly. “Yes, that’s exactly what this is. We just like leaping off random street furniture. And we’ve still got some leaping to do. Gorky. Pram.”
“How exciting,” said Sandra. “Well, it was nice of you to drop in.” She said it with the heavy emphasis and accompanying eyebrow waggling of someone who rarely told jokes and didn’t expect people to pick up on the subtlety of her comedic efforts. Several of the women laughed, though not the somewhat miffed garden-owner.
“Perhaps you’d care to give us notice before you drop in again,” she said.
“Ooh, perhaps he’d come to our swishing party tonight,” said a mum.
“We do lack dads in our group,” said another.
“But we’re not called SCUD.”
“Or SCUMAD.”
“But we’re all about acceptance, support and diversity,” said Sandra to her colleagues, who were all white, Anglo-Saxon, and so middle-class it was probably stamped on their DNA.
Clovenhoof had only truly picked up on one word.
“Party?”
“If you’re free,” said Sandra, and presented Clovenhoof with a business card. “We start swishing at six.”
“Count me in,” said Clovenhoof, and consulted his GPS tracker. “Now, you’ll have to excuse us. I need to do a testicle on Fourlands Avenue.”
“Testicle?”
“I think it’s a parkour manoeuvre,” suggested a woman, as Clovenhoof aligned himself. “Test a clé. The, um, key test.”
“Bollocks,” said Clovenhoof.
Michael attempted to walk off his troubles.
He loved St Michael’s Church – yes, partly because it was his church in more than one sense – but he couldn’t get over the weird irreligious failings of both the congregation and the man who was meant to be shepherd of the flock. And it wasn’t just Netty’s lack of belief in key Biblical events or, more galling, Reverend Zack’s utter lapses in faith. St Michael’s seemed to favour a certain Christianity-lite in which the choice of coffee morning biscuits was more important than contemplation of the communion host, where the Christmas nativity took precedence over the church’s apostolic mission.
Michael could have taken his concerns home and shared them with Andy, but Andy didn’t share Michael’s faith. Andy was prepared to pay lip service to Michael’s beliefs, attending church at the most important times of the year, but he was gleefully unbothered by the finer nuances of religion.
A walk was a fine way to clear the mind and gain some perspective. Michael’s mind-clearing was somewhat interrupted by the sight of Jeremy Clovenhoof running up and down the driveways all along Fourlands Avenue. The odd sight was made all the odder by the pram that Clovenhoof pushed in front of him, and the capuchin perched on the top of the pram.
“What are you doing?” called out Michael, as Clovenhoof came out of one driveway and into another.
“Pubes!” Clovenhoof shouted and was gone.
Michael’s befuddlement at that carried him a considerable distance. It was only when he heard someone reciting from the Book of Matthew that he looked up and considered his surroundings. Ahead of him, on a wide sweep of pavement by the traffic lights, was a white transit van – not just a transit van, but a stretch transit van.
Clovenhoof had mentioned this vehicle, as had Nerys. Ah, yes, there were the signs of a repair in the roof, presumably where Clovenhoof had crashed through. And, Michael could see, Jeremy had not lied about the vehicle’s interior. There was the plush red carpet. There was the altar rail and the altar of polished pine. And there was chalice, patten and a priest in a cassock administering communion to the short queue of people by the van’s open side door. Meanwhile, on the pavement, a young woman read through a megaphone from an open Bible. A pair of men supervised the distribution of sandwiches and tea from the picnic table at the rear of the van.
Michael’s feet carried him over.
“Hungry, sir?” said a stocky man, offering Michael a cellophane-wrapped sandwich.
“No, thank you,” said Michael. “This is all fascinating.”
“Just doing our bit,” the man said. “Feeding those that need it.”
“Are there many homeless people in Sutton?”
The man jiggled his head toward the tea-server beside him.
“Quentin here used to sleep rough behind the train station.”
“S’true,” said Quentin. “A horrible life of Scrumpy Thunder and petty theft. Cuppa?”
Michael accepted the Styrofoam cup.
“Our streetside missions offer sustenance to any who want it. But, of course, man shall not live on bread alone.”
“But on every word that comes from the mouth of God,” said Michael, finishing the quote.
A broad grin split the sandwich-bearer’s stubbly face.
“A man of the faith!” he declared. “You belong to a local congregation?”
“Ah, well…” said Michael, feeling his spiritual unease resurface.
“We’ve recently opened a church on Beechmount Drive.”
“Consecr8?” said Michael, surprised in having to reconcile this earnest grassroots work with the imposingly modern church building he had previously disparaged.
“That’s the one, mate. The very Reverend Mario Felipe Gonzalez in the van there is our preacher-man, but I’m very pleased to admit I had a hand in its founding. I’m a builder by trade and, if there’s one thing a church needs, it’s a building.”
The man stuck out his hand. Michael shook it.
“Chip. Chip Malarkey,” said the man. “Maybe you’d like to come see our church sometime.”
“Yes,” said Michael. “I would like that.”
Clovenhoof pushed the pram up Penns Lane at a
speed that was less of a jog and more of a stagger. He had bruises across his back, rips in his finest green smoking jacket and his hair was so stuffed with twigs and foliage, from all the hedges he’d run through, that he looked as if he was auditioning for the role of Puck in regional theatre. All in all, it had been an exhausting outing. The scramble over fences into Pilkington Avenue had been followed by a slog across Walmley Golf Course, which had involved churning his way through several sandy bunkers and a running the gauntlet of half a dozen elderly golfers who had not been afraid to use their clubs to defend their right to a quiet game.
Clovenhoof’s phone rang as he reached the end of the road and turned up towards home. He didn’t answer it. To stop now would be to admit defeat.
“Almost… there…” he panted.
Once back onto the Chester Road, he felt a renewed energy. The end was in sight and his glorious little project would be complete. Gorky held on tight in that final dash, although did lean out to snatch a poster that had been tied to a nearby lamppost as they ran past.
In the closing moments, Clovenhoof braced his arms on the handlebar and lifted his feet off the ground, coasted along and then brought his hooves down hard. There were even sparks.
Gasping, he looked at the tracker screen which Beelzebelle was helpfully holding up for him.
“Work… of… art…”
Gorky put the screen to one side and gave Beelzebelle a bottle of formula milk. The little girl burbled and farted. Clovenhoof gave a fart of his own in reply, accompanied by a fist pump.
“Job well done, eh? What’s this?”
Gorky had thrust a sheet into his hand, the poster from the lamppost.
In the centre was the headshot of a baby in a pink baby-gro.
“Missing,” read Clovenhoof. “Beatrice Wilson. Abducted from her family in the Boldmere area earlier this month.”
Gorky pointed at the picture and at Beelzebelle.
“What?” said Clovenhoof. “Oh, yeah. I know.” He screwed the sheet up into a ball. “But all babies look alike. It’s just a coincidence.”
Chip walked Michael down to the Consecr8 Church. It was only a stone’s throw from the ARC Company portakabin compound where Michael worked and took up the bulk of the reclaimed wasteland between the Sutton Road and the new housing estate that was going up by Wilmot Drive.
The great curving wooden edifice of the Consecr8 building was a modern – or was that even post-modern? – rose among the brambles and weeds of Sutton’s architectural skyline. Automatic doors opened as they approached. Chip produced a plastic card and swiped in through a reader at an inner door.
“Security?” said Michael.
“Not at all,” said Chip. “All are welcome day or night. This just records how often I come to church.”
Michael understood instantly.
“That’s clever. Not that attendance to church necessarily equates to personal piety.”
“Of course not,” said Chip, leading him through. “We have an app to measure that.”
The interior curved like the exterior, making a giant compartmentalised bowl of the central space. Seating, vibrant hangings, and the musical and electronic trappings of a place of celebration ranged up the sloping walls.
Michael blinked at the majesty of it all. It wasn’t opulent as such. The stylings were relatively modest, but the scale and presentation of it all was something else entirely.
“I beg your pardon?” said Michael, his brain catching up. “There’s an app?”
“There certainly is, mate.”
Lugging the pram upstairs took considerable additional effort and, once they were all inside flat 2a, Clovenhoof declared himself thoroughly knackered.
“Gorky! Findus Crispy Pancakes all round!” gasped the Fallen One. “And a glass of Lambrini for me.”
Gorky chattered and bounded into the kitchen.
“Actually, make that a pint,” Clovenhoof said. “I’m parched.”
He unstrapped Beelzebelle and lifted her out. She smelled wonderful. That biscuity baby smell, baby poop guffiness, plus the faintly chemical buzz of a damp nappy. Shattered though he was, Clovenhoof laid her out on the sofa and, with the skill of a man who’d learned on the job in recent weeks, changed her. He tossed the wipes at the bin by the fire, merrily missing every time. He arranged it carefully and fetched his polaroid instant camera.
“Mmm, textured,” he said as he took a nappy snap. “Beelzebelle, ma gal, if I ever get to do a father of the bride speech, there will be a slide show.”
Gorky returned with a laden tray: Lambrini, milk, and an orange for himself. As Gorky began to play peek-a-boo with Beelzebelle, Clovenhoof savoured a drink well-deserved. He caught sight of himself in the mirror above the mantelpiece and saw the various twigs and leaves stuck in his hair.
“Decorative,” he said, and then had a sudden thought. He pulled the bits of plant from his hair and horns and took them to the airing cupboard. There, on a wooden shelf above the heating tank, sat a glass demijohn of what Clovenhoof entirely expected to become beautiful sparkling Lambrini, but which currently resembled the water left behind after a rugby team’s communal bath. He wasn’t sure when the transformation would occur, but he was sure it would be soon.
“A few bits of local flora to sweeten the brew,” said Clovenhoof, popping the stopper and stuffing the leaves and twigs in.
He returned to the lounge and, as he drank his glass of monkey-poured Lambrini, saw he had a voicemail on his phone. He played it.
“What did you do with Bea?” hissed Spartacus. “Mum’s back from her holiday and we’ve only just discovered that she’s not at my nan’s. You were meant to hand her over! If you’ve cremated her, I will burn your house down! Call me!”
Clovenhoof stared at the phone.
“Well, that was rude,” he said.
Gorky was blowing raspberries on Beelzebelle’s tummy. The baby laughed and squealed. The two of them had bonded so well in their short time together.
“Break time’s over,” said Clovenhoof.
Gorky looked at him. Clovenhoof dug in a pocket and pulled out a set of keys, copies of the keys to the other flats.
“Brilliant plan number two,” he said. “We’re going to make ourselves a wad of cash. I need some plastic bags, a pair of scissors, and a little light burglary.”
Chip went to a bank of tablets on the wall, swiped his card to release one from its docking station, and opened an app.
“I won’t lie to you, mate,” he said. “We adapted this from some software used by a vile and manipulative American cult. I won’t mention it by name, but let’s just say I’m betting Tom Cruise has got something very much like this on his iPhone.”
“Really?” said Michael.
Chip waved his concerns away.
“We could have just as easily adapted something from Weight Watchers or the Open University. You see, in a narrow sense, faith is about goals. There are smaller goals to fulfil along the way, but there’s one ultimate goal.”
Chip looked to Michael for an answer.
“To return to Heaven,” said Michael.
“Return? I don’t think either of us have been there yet, Michael.”
“Sorry. I meant to go to Heaven.”
“Right. And what is Heaven?” said Chip. He provided his own answer before Michael could. “It is God. It is love. Our goal is to worship God and to be with him. As our Muslim chums would put it, to submit utterly to his will. And how do we do that? We follow his instructions. After all, he tells us what to do!” Chip said this last with the passion of someone who couldn’t see how anyone could fail to understand this simple fact.
Chip tapped at the tablet screen and brought up a menu.
“The Jews had the right idea – I won’t hear you say a bad word about them, Michael – they codified the laws of their religion. Do you know how many commandments there are in the Old Testament, you know, the Jewish bits?”
“Six hundred and thirteen mitzvot,” s
aid Michael.
“Very good,” said Chip, surprised. “All the dos and don’ts, laid out clearly for them. You know what SMART targets are?”
Michael nodded.
“Specific, measureable, attainable, realistic, and timely.”
Chip grinned.
“Oh, you are a man after my own heart, Michael mate. I think you can see my vision already.”
“I think I can,” said Michael. “‘Measure what can be measured and make measureable what cannot be measured.’”
Chip laughed, reached into an inner pocket, and pulled out a retractable metal tape measure. The quote from Galileo was inscribed on the side of it.
“Who says builders can’t be philosophers?” Chip put a hand on Michael’s shoulder. “We can’t presume to know the mind of God, but I think you were destined to come here, mate. Out on the street, I saw you a troubled man, spiritually lost. Maybe you’ve found your spiritual home.”
Michael was taken aback. Chip’s church and approach to faith was fascinating, but was he looking for a new spiritual home? Surely, St Michael’s church with all its idiosyncrasies and flaws was already his spiritual home. Did he really need to move on? Shouldn’t he just attempt to mend and renew his relationship with his current church?
“Tell me a bit more about this app,” he said to Chip.
Stuffed animals, including the recently mounted and surprisingly perky looking Twinkle stood in a row on Clovenhoof’s coffee table. Gorky and he had successfully liberated the lot of them from Ben and Nerys’s flats. Next to the animals were freezer bags decorated with white snowflakes and blue penguins. Several of them had already been filled with various materials – scrapings from Clovenhoof’s horns, claws snipped off some of the stuffed mammals, a skin sample from the one stuffed lizard.
Clovenhoof paraded up and down in front of the stuffed creatures, inspecting the list Ed had given him.
“Next. Bat-eared fox. What do they look like?”
Gorky turned the computer monitor on the corner desk so Clovenhoof could see it. Clovenhoof sniggered at the image on the screen.
