But evenings at the vicarage dragged by painfully. Thank God for television. Thank God for the novels of Joanna Trollope and Rebecca Shaw. Thank God for surreptitious sips from the brandy bottle Helen kept at the back of the cupboard under the kitchen sink.
The coffee was ready, and Helen carried a mug of it through to Christopher. Plenty of milk, plenty of sugar. Christopher was not, as anyone who beheld the full doughy repellence of his exposed waistline would attest, a self-denying man.
She knocked on the study door, and Christopher let out a low, braying “Come!” He was at his desk, penning his latest masterwork. He did not turn as she entered. He did not even look up. He patted a space on the desktop where she might lay the mug, and as she did so, Helen dared to take a peek at the piece he was working on. Christopher wrote his first drafts longhand, before typing them into his computer and emailing them off. He had had numerous articles published in the Church Times and other ecumenical journals, and had made forays into the world of secular print with opinion pieces commissioned by various national newspapers, giving the Christian slant on current hot moral topics. These “articles of faith”, as Christopher liked to call them, supplemented his vicar’s stipend and the collection plate quite tidily and cemented his status as a local celebrity. Christopher was a big fish in the small bowl of Fairford and its environs.
Helen could not, in the few seconds’ glimpse she had, make out much of what he was writing, but she spotted the name Sisera, and knew – because you could not be a vicar’s wife for thirty years and fail to pick up a reasonable working knowledge of the Bible along the way – that Christopher must be expounding on the story of Jael. Jael, Heber’s wife, who killed the Gentile captain Sisera as he was fleeing the scene of battle after his army was routed by rebel Israelites under the command of the prophetess Deborah. Jael, who welcomed Sisera into her tent, hid him there, gave him milk, showed him every courtesy, promised to protect him should any of his enemies come looking for him – and then, when he was asleep, drove a tent peg through his skull.
Helen lingered a fraction of a second too long at Christopher’s side. He was pernickety about people reading over his shoulder, not least if they were reading something he was writing. She knew this, but thinking about Jael and Sisera delayed her just long enough for him to detect that she was doing more than merely setting his coffee down. She backed away hurriedly, overcompensating, hoping he would not round on her. He did anyway, and just as he brought his gaze to bear, looking fierce and disapproving, Helen managed to collide backside-first with the lectern on which sat Christopher’s prize possession.
It was a huge King James Bible which he had bought with the proceeds of the first article he ever sold, a facsimile of the 1611 first edition, bound in calfskin, the pages edged with gilt. The lectern wobbled, the Bible was shoved a centimetre or so out of position – nothing more disastrous than that occurred; but it was enough to cause Christopher’s expression to shift from irritated to downright cross.
He eyed the lectern, then his wife, and nodded briskly, piously, in the manner of someone who expected no better. “‘All wickedness’,” he intoned, “‘is but little to the wickedness of a woman.’ Ecclesiasticus.”
Helen corrected the position of the Bible on the lectern, murmuring something along the lines of “No harm done.”
“‘A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike.’ Proverbs.”
“Honestly, Christopher, it was a little bump, that’s all.”
“‘Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.’ One Timothy.”
She looked into his eyes, small and proud behind his spectacle lenses. Christopher was fond of quoting the Bible at her – far too fond – and he had ready to hand a fund of chapter-and-verse sayings that pertained, negatively, to women. The Scriptures teemed with misogyny, from Adam and Eve onwards, and Christopher seemed to have memorised every single example. He would trot out one or more whenever Helen did something wrong, and at first she had thought he was simply joking with her. This was some time back, when they had not been married long. She ignored it then because she honestly thought Christopher meant the comments ironically; his deadpan delivery masked the wry understanding that no one in their right mind could take such rubbish seriously. “As a jewel of gold in a swine’s snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion.” “Give not thy soul unto a woman.” “It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop, than with a brawling woman in a wide house.” It was outdated, antiquated nonsense, and even if Christopher regarded every word in the Bible as (literally) gospel, surely he appreciated that times had changed and certain parts of the Good Book’s content were no longer considered apt or applicable. For heaven’s sake, here was a man who had deflowered a woman out of wedlock! If he was prepared to commit that sin, then he must surely be progressive enough to accept other modifications to the tenets of his faith.
But apparently not. The years went by and the quotations continued, until Helen was so familiar with them she could almost have saved Christopher the trouble of uttering them. She had grown inured. Outrage had faded to annoyance, which in turn had faded to indifference. She had learned to grin and bear his Biblical harangues, just as she had learned to grin and bear so much else.
Today, she was tempted to answer back. Just once she would like to hear the sound of her own voice telling her husband to shut up, stop belittling her, stop parading these vile, stupid, woman-hating sentiments in front of her. She even fancied the idea of swearing at him, and imagined the reaction. Christopher hearing her call him a bloody fucking bastard. The shock on his face, as though he had been slapped.
She retreated instead, as she had before, so many times. Under Christopher’s baleful stare, she withdrew from the study, closing the door softly. Eaten inside with shame and loathing, she took her coat from the rack in the hallway, put on a pair of Wellingtons, and went out for a walk.
It was late May, and after a long wet spring, summer had yet to arrive. Clouds tore westward across an unwelcoming sky, and the countryside was deeply green, without the hardened, burnished gleam that a few days of decent sunshine would bring. Green like moss, green like stream-bed slime. Helen set off from the vicarage at a brisk pace, heading toward the church. Past that venerable flint edifice she came to the Old Vicarage, which she could never help viewing with a certain amount of envy and longing. The Old Vicarage was a marvellous five-bedroomed manse, with arched windows and ivied walls. The C of E had sold it off into private ownership in the 1950s to raise funds and reduce overheads, and had built for the incumbent of the parish a small, boxlike brick dwelling instead, altogether more modest and better suited to the lessened stature of the latter-day priest. Had Helen’s life gone according to plan, had the world been kinder to her, she would now be living in the Old Vicarage – which, of course, would be just plain the Vicarage – and her husband would be a loving, giving man whose domestic demeanour was the equal of, and not the sharply contrasting opposite of, his professional demeanour.
Helen forged up a steep chalk track and was soon breathlessly cresting the brow of a hill. Fairford lay in full view below her, an asterisk of houses at the confluence of three country lanes. Beyond it, a few miles off, was Allaston, the county town, and some way beyond that, glittering distantly, the sea. If you inhaled hard and the wind was right, it was just possible to catch the scent of brine. The smell reminded Helen of childhood, of bucket-and-spade beach holidays, of space and untrammelled freedom.
A mile or so along the hill’s ridge, past a copse of scrubby elders, she found herself walking toward the lip of a disused quarry. Men had dug a huge horseshoe-shaped gouge out of the hillside, hewing into the lily-white flesh of the earth, creating a wound that plunged away at Helen’s feet, forty yards deep, unhealable. All that separated her from the drop was a stave of sagging, weary barbed-wire fence. It would not have required mu
ch effort on her part to hold the upper strand of wire down, straddle it, lever herself over, stand on the ledge of grass beyond the fence, teetering on the brink of the precipice… Stand there and wait for the courage to come, the boldness needed to take that last, crucial, irrevocable step.
The Lord frowned on suicide, that was what she had been led to believe. The souls of suicides went downwards – all suicides, not just those who threw themselves off high places. Her plummet would continue even after her body hit the floor of the quarry. One pit followed by another Pit. Perhaps her eternal punishment would be to fall for ever.
Helen, however, was not sure she believed in the survival of the soul after death. She also felt she had endured enough chastisement in her lifetime to offset any sins she had committed or might yet commit. Even suicide would not tip St Peter’s scales against her.
Still…
The wind got up. Helen turned and headed home, clutching her coat collar to her throat. The clouds thickened and darkened. As she reached the vicarage, spitty rain began to fall, like scratches on an old movie.
She spent an hour in the lounge, just sitting, just listening. From Christopher’s study there came a sigh every so often, and the rustle of a sheet of paper being slid aside. On the windowpanes, the prickle of the rain. Otherwise, quiet.
This was Helen’s world. This was her existence till she died.
She had been brought up to settle for less. A child of the austerity years, and the youngest of four sisters, she had grown up with, and grown used to, deprivation. She could have competed with her sisters for everything – food, gifts, love, attention – but came to the conclusion early on that it wasn’t worth the effort. She seldom won any of her battles with them; it was almost unheard of that she, little Hels, got her own way. Why fight? She adapted. She learned to get by on little. She accustomed herself to leftovers and hand-me-downs. Even though she excelled academically, the only one of the four who did, she understood that her parents did not have time to praise her for her achievements. They were too busy admiring Joanna’s beauty, and Sarah’s singing voice, and Elspeth’s prowess at lacrosse. After all that, not a lot remained for Helen. She was the runt of the litter, always pushed to the back, always ignored.
It meant something, when she got to university, that Christopher adored her, that he fawned over her, that this attractive vicar-to-be could not do enough for her. And when, shortly before he began studying for his holy orders, he asked her to be his wife, how could she not say yes? At the time, she’d been under the impression that she was pregnant, which certainly influenced her decision. But while the apparent pregnancy came to nothing, as several other apparent pregnancies had since, the wedding went ahead without a shred of doubt on Helen’s part. She was doing the right thing. She and Christopher were going to have a wonderful life together.
She ought to have known better. She ought to have known that the life she would end up having would be just the same as the life she had had before – that she would be shunted into the shadows, disparaged, downtrodden, cloistered, neglected.
She might as well, she thought, be a prisoner in jail. It would make very little difference to her circumstances.
At four o’clock, she stood and went to make her husband some tea.
She knocked. “Come!” She entered the study, holding cup and saucer in her right hand. Christopher patted the desk beside the coffee mug. Helen set the cup and saucer down.
His back was to her. All she could see was that haircut – so hopelessly out of date, so fossilised. Christopher, the man she preferred to think of as Christopher, belonged to another era, the era of that haircut, long gone. This here in front of her, this was not Christopher.
She moved with a stealthy precision she would never have suspected herself capable of. She stole over to the lectern. She closed the Bible – which was open at Judges – without a sound. She levered up the heavy tome. It must have weighed the best part of twenty pounds. All that binding. All those pages. The gilt. The marbled endpapers. The Smythe-sewn, reinforced binding. A thing of vanity. (But could any Bible, however grand and ornamented, be considered a thing of vanity?)
All those words.
All those “begats”.
All those murders.
Christopher was oblivious. Engrossed in his work. Unaware that Helen was still in the room. Unaware that she was creeping up behind him, Bible brandished. He scribbled on, writing about God knows what.
Helen raised the Good Book above her head and brought it down on his.
Once.
Twice.
Hard as she could.
Christopher gave a strange, cracked, gurgling cry. The first blow slumped him in his chair. The second sent him sliding sideways out of his seat, so that he fetched up on his knees on the floor, cheek against the side of the desk.
How appropriate, Helen thought as she lifted the Bible again and delivered a third and final almighty thump to the crown of her genuflecting husband.
When she was sure that Christopher was dead, she placed the now-bloodied book back on the lectern and went to the lounge. There, she picked up the phone and dialled 999. Then she sat down in an armchair and waited serenely, blissfully, for the police to arrive.
DEFORMATION
by
GARY MCMAHON
Cale drifted into the colony at midday, sweltering beneath a slate-coloured sky that seemed to draw closer to the damp earth with the slow passing of each hour. The market was busy, with people bustling like basic entry-level mechanoids: they were filled with a sense of purpose, but no room for delay. The smells of modified fruit and vegetables barely penetrated his olfactory system, and he had a sudden yearning for the fresh undersea lichen he'd eaten during his stay with the gillmen out near the tiny scattered London Isles. Electronic carnival music was piped through desktop speakers, and clunky 'noids danced erratically in the streets, their metal joints stiffened by the constant moisture in the air.
The old longboat drifted along a narrow canal, and Cale sat up on deck smoking his last dry cigar. He passed a crooked marker attached to a bobbling buoy, and smiled at the words etched there: Welcome to Squid City.
He guided the vessel ashore, tying it to a rusted steel stanchion that stuck out of the concrete landing pad, a flat structure that was actually the upper level of some old skyscraper, its roof pocked and pitted, and sitting at exactly the correct level to be utilised by busy traders. These remnants of the ancient world often filled him with a sense of sadness, but it never lasted for long.
A tall man helped him ashore, smiling from behind a face that was so smooth it looked sandblasted. Cale nodded, and took the man's proffered hand. It was a nice mod-job. The third arm looked genuine; in fact, it was the best Cale had ever seen. When he gripped the hand, the skin felt warm, malleable. Like real flesh.
"Thanks," he said, eyes scanning the dock.
"No bother," said the man, scratching at the mottled skin of his neck – the surgeon had not done a good job there: the leftovers from whatever kind of extreme facelift the man had undergone resembled folds of loose sacking. He examined Cale's features with interest, as if looking for flaws.
"I see it’s market day."
"It's always market day in Squid City," said the man, laughing quietly to himself as he walked away.
Cale left the dock and entered the melee, closely inspecting stalls as he passed. There was the usual abundance of fish and mollusc, but dotted here and there he saw tables boasting waterlogged herbs, dented tinned vegetables with handwritten labels, and even grey spongy boxes filled with second-hand drugs, surgical equipment, and the accompanying CD Rom manuals. He'd met a few people who'd carried out home-clips, or had them done by others: the results were rarely totally successful. Sometimes they were simply horrific.
"Hey, pilgrim. Looking for business?" A girl with a waist so thin that her ribcage tottered precariously above it sidled up to him, laying a nine-fingered hand across his chest. He'd heard rumours of what could
be done with so many added digits, but had not yet felt the urge to experience such questionable pleasures.
"Oh, come on, captain. Let's go somewhere and party."
Cale shook his head, flashed a brief smile. The lightness of her tone was certainly attractive, but his pockets were empty. "No pay, no play," he said, shrugging his shoulders; suddenly ashen-faced, the girl scurried away.
Vendors held their wares up in the air above their heads, attempting to bring attention to whatever it was they were selling; grubby ‘noids darted to and fro, fetching and carrying stock; spicy aromas drifted like toxic clouds; small children, many of them with heavily tattooed faces, brushed past Cale as he walked the aisles, picking up a water-damaged book here, an old blues cassette there.
Finally he reached the open space where anyone was allowed to set up shop. It was a place kept empty in case of passing trade, or to accommodate someone who’d failed to renew their license – this was a close-knit community, and people tended to band together. Cale shrugged the leather case from his shoulder and took out his instrument. He held it up to the light and watched as it sparkled like spun gold.
“What’s that, mister?” A three-armed child stood next to him, his eyes cloudy with cataracts. The boy’s complexion was pallid, like that of some nameless deep-sea creature.
“It’s a saxophone.”
“What does it do?” asked the boy, a hand tugging unconsciously at Cale’s trouser leg.
“This,” he said, and closed his eyes, putting the valve to his lips and preparing to generate the sound of bone-dry, rainless dreams.
Within minutes a small crowd had gathered, bright faces taking in the music, open eyes drinking in the tones as they wafted gently through the air. Cale played some Charlie Parker, followed by Miles Davis. He finished on an upbeat rendition of In the Mood, and then put away the sax. Laughter barked; the warm sound of hands clapping was its own kind of music.
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