The Chinese Takeout

by Judith Cutler

  One or two took the hint.

  ‘Mrs Rose. And this is my husband Mr Rose. Ted, really, I suppose.’

  ‘Mrs Gray…’

  ‘Mr Heath…’

  Our conviviality was suddenly interrupted by a thunderous banging.

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ Mrs Rose expostulated gently, ‘don’t whoever it is know we wouldn’t lock the door during a service?’ She set off down the aisle to admit the disturber of the peace.

  Assuming the worst, Tim followed, at first at a scuttle, but breaking into a dignified stride.

  ‘Stay where you are!’ His voice was rock steady, as he leaned his full weight against the door. ‘Leave your weapons outside. And then one of you may come in. I said leave them! You do not enter the House of God with batons and gas!’

  CHAPTER TWO

  Tang watched the proceedings with horrified eyes, his hand gripping mine as if he would collapse without me. His nails were long and filthy. As he got warmer, the smell grew. But I wouldn’t permit myself so much as a twitch of a nostril, not until the police had left us. Instead, I used my free hand to pat his shoulder.

  Bathos. Pure bathos. It was only Mrs Mills, who lived next to the church. She had scuttled off to bring a travelling rug for the poor kid. The tartan clashed hideously with the cerise of my jacket, but we all appreciated the gesture. And were relieved that it had not been the police. How would we have reacted? How much support would Tim have got for his spirited stance?

  As if in response to the unasked questions, Tim swallowed convulsively and coughed for silence. ‘Now, as soon as possible I must speak to the rural dean,’ he said. ‘And we all – thank you so much, Annie and Mrs Mills and Josie, for setting an example – have to care for Tang’s needs.’ He wrung his hands. ‘If only this were a modern building, with all mod cons.’

  Corbishley’s eyes bulged. ‘But he’s not staying here!’

  ‘What else would you suggest?’

  ‘He – he’s not even clean!’

  ‘Damn it, he stinks to high heaven!’ Malins added.

  ‘Why doesn’t Mrs Welford take him back to her pub? There’ll be food and drink there, and plenty of bedrooms and bathrooms,’ Corbishley continued.

  ‘She can’t possibly – not with all those children living there!’

  I didn’t like Malins’ excuse. It was true I had a family staying in the pub long term, the siblings of my head waitress, soon to be my trainee manager. But I objected to the implication that Tang must be a danger to children, simply because he was seeking sanctuary for crimes unspecified.

  ‘Josie can’t possibly offer him hospitality,’ Father Martin cut in. ‘Any more than you or I can, much as I am sure we would like to. As I understand it, if the laws of sanctuary still apply, and it’s a big if, they protect the claimant only as long as he is within the church’s precincts. In other words, as soon as he steps outside the police can pick him up.’

  ‘But we have no… facilities!’

  ‘It can’t be beyond us to find anything he needs,’ I said, perhaps trying to make up for not immediately seconding Corbishley’s proposals for Tang. ‘He’ll be roughing it here for a bit, obviously, so we must try to make his life bearable.’ If my nothing less than a four-star hotel constituted bearable, but let that pass. ‘Do any of you own camping equipment?’

  Father Martin stepped into the growing puddle of silence. ‘I’m sure the Scouts have practically everything.’

  ‘I thought they usually camped in proper sites, these days – with shower and toilet blocks,’ Malins added, significantly.

  ‘Not to mention camp-fires for cooking.’

  Father Martin didn’t even need to look at me.

  ‘Food’s no problem,’ I said. ‘He can have his own take-outs, by courtesy of the White Hart. And if the wiring’s up to it, I’ll donate a microwave,’ I added. Not the restaurant one, no way, but the little one in my own kitchen. If necessary I could replace it tomorrow.

  A couple of people slipped quietly away, not relishing the horn-locking, no doubt. Or perhaps their Sunday roasts were demanding to be basted. Thank goodness for my wonderful crew. Robin had introduced his cousin Pix into the kitchen, and Lucy’s sister Lorna was deemed old enough to waitress, provided she had nothing to do with the serving of alcohol. That needed me. I flashed a look at my watch.

  Father Martin caught me at it. ‘I know you have work to do, Josie,’ he began sadly, ‘but—’

  ‘But I will be back as soon as I’ve supervised lunch. And, Father, whatever you do, I’m sure you’ll have the absolute support of both the congregation and the parish as a whole,’ I lied. ‘Tang – I am going away.’ My fingers walked in front of his face. ‘But I will be back.’ They made a return journey. Did he understand? ‘We need an interpreter, Tim. Shall I get on the phone to a friend of mine who runs a Chinese restaurant?’

  ‘Probably won’t speak the right sort of Chinese,’ Malins muttered.

  ‘He’ll know a man who does,’ I said, crossing my fingers behind my back.

  I patted Tang’s hand and touched his cheek with my finger, smiling positively, and started down the aisle. The door swung open before I reached it. In came Annie, with a tray covered with a bright check tea towel. The smells were such I wondered if I could recruit her to my team.

  I watched with pleasure as she presented the plate of roast chicken with all the trimmings to our guest. And in disbelief as he dashed it from her hand, shouting hysterically. After a moment, he sank to his knees, scooping into his mouth with those filthy hands all the vegetables. But the breast, glistening in its beautiful coat of gravy, might have been purest poison. He backed away from it, shuddering. Then he retreated to the sanctuary chair, huddling up against the viciously carved wood as if to a comfort blanket.

  ‘OK, no chicken then,’ I said, and set off.

  Nick Thomas, my other lodger, had to have chosen this weekend to go and visit his daughter up in Birmingham. I was glad for his sake there’d been some sort of reconciliation, Elly understanding at last that her father’s erratic behaviour had been a result of mental trauma when he’d been a policeman back in Birmingham. She might understand, but it seemed to us both that forgiveness was some way off. While he was building bridges, of course, he wasn’t doing his usual casual bit of bar work for me – he was actually a full-time inspector for the Food Standards Agency – and Lucy was run off her feet.

  I couldn’t have anything to do with food till I’d stripped off any clothes that had been in contact with Tang, and my hands would take a week to feel clean, despite the anti-bacterial scrub I assailed them with. But I was on duty within ten minutes of getting back, presenting the smiling, confident face you need front of house. Mentally I was reviewing what I could immediately provide for Tang, besides my little microwave.

  During lunch I realised I had to put the morning’s doings firmly to the back of my mind. There were regulars to talk to, and newcomers: not many of those because all tables tended to be booked from week to week these days – hence the possibility of an Abbot’s Duncombe venture. Some were becoming friends, including one couple I had to phone up to put off if there were going to be nuts in any of the recipes. Already there were gluten-free items on the regular menu. John Oakham, who was waving me over now, had to exist without dairy products, and not because he was watching his weight, either.

  ‘So what’s my special dessert this week, Josie? This is the wonderful landlady Daisy’s been telling you about,’ he explained, rather unnecessarily, to his guests, a couple, like the Oakhams, in their sixties. ‘She does something special for me every week, bless her. And it doesn’t feel like worthy good-for-you food, either.’

  ‘Pears in red wine,’ I said. One of my staples, and a boon if you were busy. All you needed were Conference pears, still as hard as the devil’s head, a sprinkle of sugar, a little water and enough red wine to cover them. Once they were in a slow oven you could simply leave them to it. Some people added cinnamon or cloves, or
mulled wine spices: I trusted them as they were. After eight hours, they’d be a wonderful mahogany brown, sitting in a wondrous liquor that cream or ice cream positively demeaned.

  ‘Do I pick up a familiar accent?’ one of their guests asked. She had a trace of Brummie, so I hammed up mine to sound like Frank Skinner on speed.

  ‘Ar. Nice to see you, me wench. How’s the metropolis?’ I added, in my usual voice.

  ‘Bustling. Vibrant. Dirty. Business as usual, in fact. Do you miss it?’

  ‘She lives here in Paradise and you expect her to miss a place like that?’

  I laughed. ‘I don’t often. Just sometimes.’ I thought of the people I’d left behind. People who’d taught me everything about cooking. ‘There’s something special about a multicultural community…’

  ‘Absolutely! I’m a cricket freak, Josie, and there’s nothing better than going to Edgbaston and sitting with people from half a dozen different places all yelling for England!’

  I nodded. ‘And the food! And Diwali and the Chinese New Year and Eid!’

  The Oakhams were almost scratching their heads in bemusement. ‘But we have foreigners here too,’ Daisy said. ‘In Exeter.’

  Their friends and I exchanged a look. Somehow and quite unwittingly Daisy had made our point for us. And the Oakhams were enlightened, generous-minded liberals. If their first reaction to Tang would be that he was foreign, it wasn’t hard to predict the reaction of the more insular villagers.

  I had no sooner parked by the St Jude’s lychgate and started to unpack the Saab I currently favoured than an estate car pulled up, driven by Aidan Carr.

  I could have hugged him – did in fact. His preference might be men, but we got on very well, and he’d put one or two very good antiques my way.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I asked.

  ‘News spreads fast in villages, Josie! As a former outcast myself, I thought I should help the poor boy. He might need this to keep out those raging draughts,’ he said, dragging out a screen covered with unlikely Victorian women. ‘Should be Chinese, of course, but I thought this old thing would be better than nothing. See – someone’s cut all these pictures out of magazines or whatever and pasted them on. Collage, we could call it, if we wanted to be pretentious.’

  ‘We could. I’d call it a godsend, myself – the church is like a wind-tunnel. Here, let me give you a hand.’

  The door was locked, and it took a few moments for Annie to admit us. She pounced on the screen with glee. ‘The very thing to create a little bathroom – Mr Barnes has lent us a new plasterer’s bath and he’s just gone to get a chemical toilet. Quite urgent, that,’ she added, lowering her voice. ‘We had to let him use a flower vase. Not very sanitary, of course, but there you are. We can use the tea-urn to boil water for a bath, too.’

  In fact Tang needed very much less than I’d expected. The people I’d suspected of supine escape had in fact been using their initiative too. I spotted pillows, a bedroll, and a couple of those director’s chairs complete with a ducky little drinks holder. And if church fêtes were anything to go by, those biscuit tins would harbour the sort of delectable cakes that figured in my weight-watching nightmares.

  ‘There’s a jogging suit of mine in the car,’ Aidan said, waving at Tang but not approaching. ‘And some new undies. Then we can burn that awful stuff of his.’

  Tim overheard and shook his head. ‘It’s just possible that the Bishop will insist we hand him over to the police and that he’ll have to be tried…’ His voice faltered. ‘…for whatever it is he’s done. If we keep his clothes, then maybe his defence can use them.’

  I pulled a face. ‘Or more likely the prosecution.’ I have to admit that the trials that saw Tony sent down for all those stretches generally brought in the correct verdict – guilty, that is. But I had seen entirely innocent men fitted up, either by their so-called mates or by the police. Maybe the clothes would provide indisputable evidence. ‘I’ve got a roll of bin liners in the car. Everything can go in one of them.’ Returning, I said, ‘As far as an interpreter’s concerned, I had to leave a message for my restauranteur friend, I’m afraid. But you seem to be communicating without his assistance.’

  ‘I wish. Now, Josie, can you stay with him for a bit? I’ve got early evensong over in Duncombe Minimus, and since they only see me once a month, I can’t let them down.’

  ‘And you need a shower first.’ I grinned. ‘What have you and the church wardens decided about a rota for keeping an eye on things?’

  ‘The church wardens and I!’ he snorted. He looked at his watch. ‘I’ll be back by five-thirty, Josie.’

  By now the whole church smelt bad. True, it wasn’t a large building, the aisle about the length of a cricket pitch, the sanctuary only three or four yards, and overall it wasn’t much wider than, say, two buses, side by side. The trouble was that Tang was now toasting himself over a single-burner butane cooker. Who could blame him? Late February it might be, but it was bitterly cold in here, despite the wall heaters Tim had left on, and he still wore only the clothes he’d arrived in, plus my cashmere jacket, of course.

  As I stepped forward to greet him, Malins, who contrived to look straight through Aidan, intercepted me. I produced a deceptive smile: if Aidan was good enough to ring Kings Duncombe’s church bells, he was good enough to be treated politely.

  ‘Geoffrey, you know Aidan Carr, don’t you? Where’s the best place for this screen, do you think? In the Lady Chapel? Or nearer the kitchen?’

  ‘I’m sorry to see you’re party to this sacrilege,’ Geoffrey hissed, spraying us equally in his fury. ‘This is an abomination! Letting a criminal stink out an historic building like this: it’s intolerable!’

  ‘My understanding,’ Aidan said, drawing himself up to his full five foot five, ‘is that the dear boy is a fugitive, not a proven criminal. We don’t even know what he’s fleeing, do we? So let us give him at least the benefit of the doubt. Now, the sooner we can get him into that bath, the better. Ladies, given my proclivities, it might be better for the poor lad’s reputation if I were not present. What about you, Geoffrey? Are you an old queen too?’ And he tucked his arm into Malins’ and led him from the building.

  Annie seemed more than capable of taking charge, so I left her to usher Tang into his new boudoir while I fetched towels, soap and a manicure kit from the car. On reflection, I removed the scissors, just in case. Tony reckoned no one had ever managed to top himself with clippers and emery boards.

  Having to refill the tea-urn from the standpipe was a pain, because we had to do it jug-kettle by slow jug-kettleful and I could see that bailing out the bath wouldn’t be easy, but at least, as Annie and I sat sipping our tea – I’d brought along a rather better class of teabag – we congratulated ourselves on doing our best. The incident of the chicken still puzzled us.

  ‘Do you suppose he’s vegetarian?’ she asked.

  ‘I can’t imagine even a devout vegetarian making such a fuss. Damn it, most vegetarians I know would have stuffed it down, if they were as hungry as he obviously was. What about religion?’

  ‘China? I thought they were officially atheists? And they’d be Confucians, wouldn’t they? What does that mean, dietwise?’

  ‘I’ve never known a vegetarian Chinese restaurant,’ I said. ‘And I certainly don’t know any religion that bans chickens.’

  ‘Halal? Is there a Confucian version of halal or kosher?’

  We shrugged in unison, and fell into a quiet gossip. It turned out that Annie had been a teacher before she retired some sixteen years ago. At first she’d thought the life of a hermit would be ideal after all her years being at other people’s beck and call, but she’d realised how much she missed her fellow men and now worked a couple of days a week in Exeter in the Citizens’ Advice Bureau.

  ‘So you’re better able than most to advise Father Martin?’

  ‘I wish I were. Telling folk how to reschedule debts and deal with bad landlords doesn’t help when it comes to ecclesi
astical law. Or criminal law. Or, come to think if it, immigration and labour law. Tang could have problems with all of them. Tim’s first job is to establish as best he can that Tang is innocent of anything. Only then can he tell the rural dean and then the bishop he has to keep him here.’

  ‘So it’s the bishop’s decision?’

  The heavy door opened and slammed shut, as Malins and Aidan returned. ‘The bishop’s? Dear me, no. At least, not entirely,’ Malins corrected himself. ‘The church is in the jurisdiction of its wardens: Mr Corbishley and my good self. And we have an appointment with the rural dean – it’s to him we report in the first instance – at nine-thirty tomorrow.’

  In which case I would be with him at nine. I’d no idea which dean, of course, or where he might hang out, but Tim ought to know.

  I nodded noncommittally, however, and merely asked, ‘That bath: it’s too heavy for us women and it would take forever to bail it out. You couldn’t recruit a couple of younger men to carry it out?’ Given his age, I certainly wouldn’t have asked him to help.

  ‘Bailing’s the only answer.’

  ‘In that case, I hope it doesn’t take too long.’ I pressed an empty vase into his nerveless hand.

  Aidan soon appeared with a full bucket in one hand and the bag of stinking clothes in the other. At least it was tied so tightly it emitted fewer noxious odours.

  ‘And all this will have to be stored somewhere?’

  ‘Anywhere. So long as it isn’t the White Hart.’

  ‘Quite. I’ll leave it in the porch for the nonce. By the way,’ he added, as casually as if he were reporting an early spring daffodil, ‘did you hear? Snow’s forecast. Just what you need.’

  I checked my watch: if Tim’s service was over, it would be good to warn him. But there was no mobile signal up here, as I found when I perched on the highest grave. Aidan offered a gentlemanly hand to help me down. ‘Any idea who will stay and care for Tang tonight?’