by Heide Goody
The estate agent hurriedly brushed the lingerie away, trying to pretend nothing had happened, and swept the viewers through the door and up the stairs.
Nerys met them at the door to her flat and welcomed them in. She forcibly stopped Clovenhoof following them, shutting the door firmly in his face. He stamped his hoof and listened in at the door.
"You'll see that the windows let in plenty of light, even during these darker days," said the estate agent.
"Oh, yes," said the old woman. "Whose child is that?"
"There are no children here," said Nerys.
"Look, down there. In the coal bunker."
There was a pause. Clovenhoof could picture them crowding round the window.
"Was it a child that was murdered?" the woman asked in a trembling voice.
"What? No. No children, no murder," said Nerys, annoyed.
There was a small shriek. Clovenhoof grinned.
"There! There!" shrilled the woman. "A small boy! I heard a ghoulish voice this time as well!"
"What did it say?" asked her husband.
"It wasn't that clear, but it sounded something like 'I said only one sweet you little scumbag or I’m telling Kaa.’"
There was suddenly a large number of voices but it was clear the viewers had already seen enough.
The doorbell rang. Clovenhoof tap-danced downstairs to answer it.
"She’s not selling," he began. "Oh, Reverend Zack."
The rector smiled earnestly at Clovenhoof.
"Hello, Jeremy. I’ve come round to see Michael."
"I think he’s got company."
"I just wanted to see if he was feeling any better. We’ve not seen him for a while."
"He’s an owl now apparently."
"He’s…? I just felt that, if we spoke, Michael might think about coming back to the church and j-"
"Oh, is this the God-botherer who gave you crap?"
Andy had come out into the hallway. Michael stood behind him, a pair of knickers clutched in his hand.
"Michael," said Zack.
"Back off, black shirt," said Andy angrily.
Michael's gaze dropped to the floor. Clovenhoof took a step back to get a better view of the show. He sensed he would be needing some popcorn.
"You lot make me sick," said Andy, sticking a finger in Reverend Zack’s chest.
"My lot?" said Zack.
"You have no idea how much pain you cause to simple, straightforward folk who just want to live their lives!" he shouted.
"I just wanted to –"
"Don’t give me your Old Testament bigotry. We are what we are. Get used to it!"
"You mean you’re…?"
"You’re bloody right we are. What will it take to make you leave us alone? Are we supposed to top ourselves, just to make the place a bit tidier for you?"
"I’m not sure that-"
"You make me sick! You really do!"
The elderly couple came down the stairs, uncertain and apprehensive. Clovenhoof waved them on. He gave a stage whisper,
"It's just another exorcism. None of the others have worked, but the good reverend does keep trying."
He solemnly indicated the vicar Zack and the shouting, gesticulating Andy, who now had flecks of spittle around his mouth as he really hit his stride.
The elderly couple ran out of the front door, and the estate agent scuttled after them.
"You'll see that the path features some original patterned tiles," she gasped, through force of habit as she ran to catch up, "and access to the rear of the property is round there."
As she indicated to the right, a small boy in a grubby cub uniform sprinted past them, closely followed by a second shouting, "Only one, scumbag! You’re dead, you are."
The elderly woman fainted away into her husband's arms.
"We’re going to get into trouble for this," said Novice Stephen as he peeled another apple.
"So you’ve said five times," said Brother Sebastian who was chopping apples and putting them in the huge pot.
"It’s six," said Brother Manfred. "But we’ve stopped counting."
Manfred cleaned the kitchen surfaces, laid out the foodstuffs for the evening meal and kept a watchful eye on the door.
"Way I see it," said Sebastian, "is that we may be lying to the abbot -"
"Directly disobeying his orders," said Stephen.
"But we’re doing this for the good of the monastery. Lesser of two evils and all that. We sell this preserve at the market in Aberdaron next week. If it’s a commercial failure we pretend it never happened. If it turns a decent profit, we’ll add that to the coffers and consider what to do next."
"And if the abbot finds out? Vengeance seven times over he said."
"That’s what he always says. Anyway, I’ll remind him it was your idea," grinned Sebastian and nudged the novice’s shoulder to show he was joking.
Sebastian cut up the last of Stephen’s apples, dropped them in the sugary pot and put the lid on.
"And now we let it stew."
"Come," said Manfred, "I have something to show you."
He beckoned them to leave the kitchen but Stephen hesitated.
"Shouldn’t we stay here to watch the pots?"
"It is what they say, a watched pot never cooks properly," said Manfred.
"I meant in case the abbot comes."
Sebastian gave him an honest stare.
"So, if the abbot accidentally comes across our jam-making operation, you want us to be stood next to it?"
Stephen considered this.
"Good point. Let’s go."
Stephen and Sebastian followed Manfred through the monastery to the almonry, taking a slightly circuitous route to avoid the dangerously sagging stonework in one corridor. The almonry had, once upon time, been the place where the monks offered food and money to the local poor but was now a general utility space and home to some of the equipment and supplies that had no other home.
"I see you’ve been at work on the tapestries," said Stephen, indicating the scene of Christ’s final day in Jerusalem on one wall.
"A labour of love," said Manfred. "Rather like this."
He shifted a heavy toolbox aside and opened a grimy cupboard.
Stephen and Sebastian looked in. On the floor was a convoluted piece of apparatus. Two bell jars, several funnels, a length of garden hose and a wire coathanger had been bound together with duct tape. Sebastian looked at the pale liquid condensing and dripping inside.
"Is that…?"
"It is," said Manfred with a smile.
"Apple schnapps?"
Manfred made a see-saw gesture with his hand.
"Apple schnapps or apple brandy. Let us see what it turns into before we give it a name."
Sebastian slapped the refectorian on the shoulder.
"You are a marvel, Manfred."
"I expect you to put that on my tombstone."
Manfred locked the cupboard and shifted the toolbox back in front of it.
"We are in so much trouble," said Stephen.
"You worry too much," said Sebastian and then stopped, his gaze on the wall-mounted tapestry. "You’ve been busy on this, brother. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it so vibrant."
"Thank you," said Manfred. "It’s a challenge to add new shape or colour without overpowering what is already there."
"You’ve clearly had to invent some detail."
"A little. The buildings up by Golgotha were indecipherably faded."
"And this street scene," said Sebastian. "Jesus being taken up the Via Dolorosa. Who is this figure here?"
Manfred nodded.
"I am glad that you have noticed that. I feel he is the central figure of this tapestry. It is the Ewige Jude. You would call him the Wandering Jew. The man who offended Christ and was cursed to walk the earth for the rest of time. I had to recreate him purely from his outline so I had to follow my instincts in his recreation."
"And your instincts told you…"
"That he wa
s a man who could never settle. Always travelling, always surviving despite the odds. He is rugged, a lost pilgrim, a man who carried the weight of the world on his shoulders but would never let it show."
"And that’s why you turned him into Clint Eastwood?"
"Yes," he said. "That’s exactly what I did."
"With spurs and a gun at his belt."
"And a cigarillo in the corner of his mouth," said Stephen peering closer.
Manfred was unfazed.
"All art of this period has some anachronisms. I wanted to convey the very essence of the man."
They all looked at the tapestry in the company of their own thoughts.
"Nice poncho," said Stephen eventually.
Chapter 6 – In which Michael discovers Pot Noodles and the last resting place of Joseph of Arimathea
In Sutton Coldfield, Christmas came and went. Vast quantities of food and alcohol were consumed, there was a rowdy visit to Midnight Mass at St Michael’s (during which someone shouted obscenities every time the Archangel Gabriel was mentioned) and there was the obligatory exchanging of presents, specifically a toasting fork, a lurid pink T-shirt, a coffee maker, a wickedly sharp hunting knife, a wet-dry vacuum cleaner, some belly button fluff and three books (Teach Yourself Welsh, Italian Cooking Made Easy and Dr Faustus).
New Year came and went soon after. Vast quantities of food and alcohol were consumed, there was a rowdy rendition of Auld Lang Syne and the obligatory exchanging of unwanted presents for cash or store credit. Ben subtly gave the hideous pink T-shirt to charity, Michael publicly flushed Clovenhoof’s belly button fluff down his Soyuz space toilet and Clovenhoof used the wet-dry vacuum cleaner to wash Twinkle and then attempted to ride it to the corner shop but only got as far as the pavement before the power cable reached its limit.
Two weeks into the new year, Clovenhoof was sitting in the back of Nerys’s car, idly poking holes in the ceiling fabric with his horns and cleaning under his fingernails with the tip of the twelve-inch ‘bushcraft’ knife Ben had given him. The motorway had seemingly disappeared just as they had crossed the England-Wales border and he had rapidly become bored. No one had been interested in a game of ‘belch that tune’ or ‘guess where I found this’ and the Welsh countryside, contrary to Nerys’s descriptions, was not filled with picturesque valleys populated by wandering shepherds with a song on their lips. In fact, he mused critically, Wales appeared to be exactly the same as England: cold and grey with the occasional dash of soggy greenery. It was a total con.
So when Michael declared that he really needed to stop somewhere "to visit the gents", Clovenhoof gave his hearty support. Anything was better than another ten hours in that bloody car.
"It hasn’t been ten hours," said Nerys as they stepped into the roadside café cum gift shop outside Llangedwyn. "It’s been ninety minutes tops."
"Time clearly runs slowly in Wales," said Clovenhoof.
"Actually, thinking about my childhood, you’re probably right."
"Hey," called out the woman at the till shrilly, waving a hand to stop Michael in his tracks. "Toilets are for customers only."
"That woman sounds like you when you’re drunk," Clovenhoof said to Nerys.
"She’s Welsh," said Nerys and then, to the woman, "It’s okay. We’re going to get something."
"Be sure you do."
Nerys ushered Ben and Clovenhoof towards the gift shop. With the woman’s hostile gaze redirected to them, Michael slipped into the toilets.
"If you’re Welsh, is it compulsory to be a miserable sod?" asked Clovenhoof.
Nerys nodded.
"Yup, just as it’s compulsory for the English to be arrogant xenophobic wankers," she said happily.
Clovenhoof, whose nationality was a mystery even to himself, didn’t disagree.
"And yet," said Ben, casually perusing a display of dolls in traditional Welsh dress, "this woman has elected to work in the hospitality industry."
"Don’t touch something unless you intend to buy it," snapped the woman.
"Ha!" laughed Clovenhoof. He loved the idea of British hospitality in terms of the fact that it didn’t exist. That huge numbers of people worked in the ‘hospitality industry’ without any social skills or a caring bone in their body was utterly delicious. It was like having a health service staffed entirely by abattoir workers. If he ever got back to the Old Place, he would install a Fiery Pit of Hospitality and get the British to run it.
"I see you Welsh struggle with baking skills too," said Clovenhoof, poking his finger at the glass-fronted food cabinet. "Those scones look like an elephant sat on them."
"They’re welshcakes. They’re a local, er, delicacy."
"And these?" said Ben, pointing to a row of intricately carved wooden objects, all plaits and hoops and hearts.
"Lovespoons," said Nerys.
"Oh, I’ve heard of them," said Clovenhoof. "You can order them from specialist magazines."
"Can you?"
"I thought you had one in your bedroom. Aren’t they the ones that you turn on and the woman sticks up her-"
"Whoa!" said Nerys loudly. "That’s something else entirely."
"Are you sure?"
"I am sure."
"It sounds like that kind of thing," said Clovenhoof reasonably. "Lovespoon. It’s clearly a euphemism of some sort. ‘Hey, baby, want to sup some porridge from my lovespoon?’"
"No! No! No! For the love of fuck, no!"
"You need to read the label on these things."
A deep growled brewed in the depths of Nerys’s throat.
"Shut up, you ignorant twat. Listen, we Welsh have precious little culture as it is. The bloody English annexed Wales then subjugated Wales and then spent the next seven hundred years trying to crush and belittle Wales. Most of the world hasn’t even heard of Wales and those who have think Wales is somewhere in England rather than a country in its own right. Not that the Welsh get a seat in the UN or any sort of independence. We can’t even be trusted to have our own regional parliament! No, we have an ‘assembly’. What are we? Primary school kids, all sat on the floor, waiting for Tufty Squirrel to come in and tell us about road safety?"
"Er, you’ve lost me there…" said Clovenhoof, who had no idea who this Tufty character was, but Nerys was in a fifth gear rant and not stopping. Her furious gaze and accusing finger swung between Clovenhoof and Ben.
"And you’re still bloody invading us. Half the people living here are English and they own all the good houses! Your Prime Minister, Maggie bloody Thatcher, killed off our mining industry."
"I was two at the time," said Ben timidly.
"I had nothing to do with it," said Clovenhoof who did know who Margaret Thatcher was and had even implemented some of her bolder policies in the Old Place.
"No wonder the average Welsh kid is a council estate chav with no job prospects and no dreams but to get out of Wales as soon as possible!" snarled Nerys. "And, yes, why is it that any Welsh person who achieves any modicum of success suddenly stops being referred to as Welsh and becomes British? Shirley Bassey, Anthony Hopkins, Richard Burton. You’ve taken or trampled any culture of ours that was ever worth a damn. Our national dish is cheese on toast, for fuck’s sake. So, do not mock the welshcakes and don’t defile our bloody lovespoons with your tasteless jokes. They are hand-carved decorative gifts a suitor offers to his betrothed! They are not dildos! And they are not a euphemism for your pitiful teaspoon-sized manhood from which not even the most desperate woman would lick your cock porridge! Do you understand?"
She stopped, gasping for breath, her face flushed with fury and exertion.
"We understand," said Ben in a tiny voice.
The woman at the counter had a concerned look on her face.
"Are you all right, pet?" she asked.
Nerys turned to her, still red in the face.
"Pobl Saesneg yn ffycin dwp."
"Amen to that," said the woman.
The Archangel Michael washed his hands for a second time
and inspected them critically. He had a bottle of antiseptic handwash in his suitcase and felt the urge to get it. He dried his hand on one of the needlessly coarse paper towels and went out into the shop.
Clovenhoof was at the till buying several items. The place was otherwise empty.
"Where are Ben and Nerys?"
"Ben’s gone looking for wood. Nerys has gone to scream at the hills or something."
Michael left the Angel of the Bottomless Pit to his purchases and went out into the car park. Ben was rooting around in some thick nettles at the edge of the road. Nerys leant against the car, her back to Michael and the café. Without even seeing her face, he could feel the fury radiating off her.
"Ah-ha!" declared Ben, holding aloft a short and splintered length of two-by-four wood.
"What’s that for?" said Michael.
"A lovespoon. I need to carve one for Jayne."
"I see," said Michael, who didn’t see at all. "And Nerys?"
"She hates the English."
"I can hear you," called Nerys, turning round. "It’s not that." She kicked her way across the car park. "I don’t hate the English. Actually, I do, but I hate the Welsh too." She sighed heavily. "Going home, it’s not easy for me. And it’s not made any easier by some people behaving like tits in the first Welsh shop we come to."
"Some people?" said Michael.
The café door swung open. Clovenhoof strode forth. He had swapped his Hawaiian shirt for a white T-shirt emblazoned with the Red Dragon of Wales. On his head, he wore a baseball cap with an embroidered Welsh flag.
"Look at me. Like a native. I’ll just blend in."
"Oh, God," muttered Nerys.
Clovenhoof pointed out the emblem on his chest to Michael.
"Look, I am now the Great Red Dragon."
Nerys got in the car.
Clovenhoof, seemingly sensing that no one was overly impressed, said, "Well, we had to buy something so you could use the toilet."
Michael shuddered and hoped that the standards of plumbing and cleaning in the roadside café’s toilets were not the Welsh norm.
"However much you spent-" he said.
"Thirty-two pounds," said Clovenhoof proudly.
"Definitely not worth it," said Michael.
