by Heide Goody
“Thank you,” said Carol. “And perhaps it would be for the best if I left tomorrow morning so that I might go share the good news with the worldwide ornithological community.”
She looked at Bastian.
“No,” said Manfred. “Don’t leave so soon. Surely you’re staying for a little longer?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “What do you think, Brother Sebastian?”
The expression on her face made him want to hold her. It made him want to cry. He gazed down into the foam of his drink.
“I don’t know, Caro– Ms Well-Dunn.” He put on a smile he could barely sustain. “Let’s leave such decisions until the morning. Cheers.”
He drank deeply and shuddered.
“That is an interesting brew,” he said.
Manfred nodded.
“Isn’t it just? I’m not sure if I should call it beer or wine.”
“Or some sort of hazardous industrial run-off,” said Bastian.
“Mmm,” said Carol, suppressing a cough. “You can really taste the, um …”
“Meths?” said Bastian.
“Sea, I was going to say. Very, um, nautical.”
“Well, don’t just stand there,” said Manfred. “Get some grub and have a seat.”
“We need music!” shouted Brother Henry.
“Wheel out the gramophone!” shouted the geriatric Brother Cecil.
“We haven’t had a gramophone since seventy-four,” replied the equally geriatric Brother Roland.
Brother Cecil laughed and slapped his knee.
“The fight over who was better, George Formby or Max Bygraves. Brother Bernard broke the Max Bygraves record over Brother Lionel’s head.”
“And Brother Huey threw the gramophone out the almonry window,” laughed Brother Roland in reply.
Brother Cecil launched himself drunkenly to his feet.
“Brother Bernard!” he yelled, hoisting his tankard in the air. “And Brother Huey! Great men and the best of brothers.”
There was an uncoordinated reply as the monks held their drinks aloft and toasted their dead brothers.
Father Eustace clambered on top of his table, waved his drink in the air, shouted “Organ grinder!” and then ran from the room.
“Is that normal behaviour?” asked Carol.
Bastian shrugged.
“Insufficient data to say, really. Manfred, did Lionel leave this morning? I had hoped to say goodbye.”
Manfred gave him a distressed look.
“Yes, well, you and I need to talk about that …”
Stephen surveyed the damned souls, all dressed in fresh monks’ habits, and made a decision that he suspected he would regret but wanted to make anyway.
“I’ve had a thought,” he said.
“Yes?” said Rutspud.
“It would involve you putting on a habit too.”
“Oh?”
“I had thought to have a little party down here in the library, sneak out a little beer and bread from the refectory upstairs. But, now that I think about it, the brothers upstairs have been at the booze for some time and they’re probably …”
“In their cups,” suggested Nightingale.
“Three sheets to the wind,” said Cartland.
“Absolutely trollied,” agreed Stephen. “What would ten extra monks be in that great hall?”
“Are you sure?” said Rutspud.
Stephen shrugged.
“If we are to offer your … your team a night off, then the least I can do is make it a good one. And, besides, you’ve got some of that magical forget-me juice, if things go pear-shaped. I think you all deserve a chance to experience our full hospitality.”
“You are too kind,” said Bernhardt.
“And where’s the entertainment in that?” said Wilde. “Give me a stingy host any day. Begrudging generosity was always more fun.”
“Ignore the man,” said Whitehouse. “Lead on, Brother Stephen. I am sure a simply splendid evening awaits.”
Stephen led the party out of the library, up from the refurbished wing and to the refectory.
“Okay,” he said in hushed tones. “Go in, find a seat and I will bring some food and drink across to you. Hoods up everyone.”
Mentally preparing himself for it all to go horribly wrong at any moment, Stephen led the way inside. As he had suspected, his fellow monks were deep in drink and deep in conversation and filling the refectory with enough noise for a hundred people. Maybe one head or two looked round as the line of new monks shuffled in, but none for more than a second.
Stephen waved his guests over to an unoccupied table and benches and made his way over to the side tables where an enormous feast had been mostly demolished. He gathered several plates and began piling the still plentiful remains onto them.
“S’Trevor!” said Brother Henry, wobbling over.
“Stephen,” said Stephen.
“S’what I said,” said Brother Henry drunkenly. “Where’ve you been hiding, eh?”
“Here and there,” said Stephen.
Henry shook his head disapprovingly.
“You’ve missed a wonderful night. S’bastian and the little woman’ve found their bird.”
“Oh, that’s good news.”
“And we’ve had sooo much food, it’s been brilliant.”
“Well, I hope to tuck in myself, so …”
Henry grabbed his shoulder.
“It’s just good to have us all here. You know, all the monks together. United.” He hiccupped, momentarily looked like he was going to turn it into a retch, and then converted it into a belch at the last moment. “You do know that I love you, don’t you, Trevor?”
“I do now,” said Stephen.
“I mean I love all of you.” He swung his hand wide, knocking the top off Manfred’s fruit display. “All these men. It’s like … It’s like …”
Brother Henry squinted.
“How many monks are there at St Cadfan’s?” he asked.
Stephen’s stomach flipped.
“I don’t really know, Henry.”
“I thought it was like twenty or something but tonight … tonight there’s … one, two, three, four …”
Suddenly the lights went out, all but the long strip light between the kitchen serving hatch and the top table.
“What the …?”
There was a loud, high-pitched and violent trill of plucked strings and Father Eustace was back on the table in the circle of light, a long-necked instrument in his hand.
“Where on earth did he get a guitar from?” said Brother Henry.
“I think it’s a banjo,” said Stephen. “And I’ve no idea.”
Father Eustace strummed his way through a number of surprisingly tuneful chords.
“Oh, my God, he’s going to sing,” said Brother Henry.
Stephen took advantage of the diversion and bustled his many plates over to the party from Hell as Father Eustace launched into his song:
“Ol’ Tom went up to Adam’s cave to see the organ grinder.
And she was a comely wench with a fine career behind her.
Coin he brought, scrumpy fine, gold and sweet from Devon.
And she welcomed him, arms open wide, like the Gates of Heaven.”
It was a simple tune, with a few folksy embellishments, the sort of song that Stephen could picture someone singing with their eyes closed and a finger in one ear, indeed the sort of song most people would prefer to listen to with fingers in both ears.
Stephen placed the food on the table of the damned.
“I’ll be back with the beer,” he said.
Rutspud helped dole the food out but found himself distracted by the mad monk’s singing.
“To Adam’s cave I’ve come, my love, a place to rest my soul.
Let me lie with you till I moan no more and bury my bones in your hole.”
“I’d swear I’ve heard that tune somewhere before,” said Rutspud.
“It’s not like t’music they ’
ad in my day,” said Shipton.
“Nor mine,” said Tesla.
“I’d lay down my tool, rest my head and drown myself in cider.
In your warm cave, I’ll breathe my last and find sweet peace inside ‘er”
“It has a certain vulgar charm,” said Wilde, smiling thinly.
“Vulgar is right,” said Whitehouse unhappily. “But the food looks quite appetising.”
“What is this?” said Boudicca.
“It’s a roast potato,” said Potter.
“Mmn pa-pa?”
“That’s right. Potato. It’s nice. Particularly with gravy.”
“Ooh, I do love a good gravy,” said Cartland. She prodded the food in front of her with a fork. “Do you know something?” she said.
“What, dear?” said Nightingale.
“I … I can’t remember when I last ate anything.”
“I don’t think I’ve actually had real food since I died,” said Bernhardt.
“Well, now’s your chance,” said Rutspud. “Come on, tuck in.”
“It seems odd,” said Cartland softly.
“What?”
She put the fork down.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Same here,” said Tesla.
“Thou speaks true,” said Shipton.
“Are you kidding me?” said Rutspud, flabbergasted.
“And what’s this?” said Boudicca.
“That’s also potato,” said Potter. “Mashed.”
“Mmn pa-pa,” said Mama-Na.
“I see,” said Boudicca and put it down again.
Rutspud, for reasons he probably could not articulate, found himself growing angry.
“What is this? Are none of you going to partake?” he said.
“If you tell us to, we will,” said Potter dutifully.
“No. I want you to want to eat it. I’m not forcing you to.”
“It seems like more than one pleasure of the flesh fades away with lack of use,” said Wilde.
“We don’t wish to appear ungrateful,” said Whitehouse. “This all seems delightful, although the lyrics of the abbot’s song seem more than a little suspect.”
“Pickled in drink they found him and they buried his bones in the hole.
No Heaven’s Gates for Ol’ Tom, for he’d damned his soul.”
Stephen returned to the table and loudly slid a tray of beers onto the table, sloshing foamy head into the tray.
“And here’s your drinks,” he said grandiosely.
“Don’t tell me you lot don’t want a drink as well,” said Rutspud, passing them around.
“Of course not,” said Tesla politely. “I am sure we’d all like to drink to the health of our host, Brother Stephen, and offer our thanks to Rutspud.”
“Quite,” said Cartland.
Bastian looked down at the contents of the freezer.
“Hmmm, I don’t suppose you brought me here to show me that we’re fully restocked with ice lolllies?”
“No,” said Manfred.
“And, I’m just taking a wild guess here,” said Bastian, “but I don’t suppose you happened to come in here this morning and found Brother Lionel dead in the freezer?”
“No.”
“Not done a little Walt Disney on himself and decided to freeze himself for future scientists to restore to life?”
“No. He died in his sleep.”
“Like the other two?”
“Indeed.”
“And your plans?”
The curly-haired German gave his friend a guilty look.
“I think we should bury him on the island. In secret.”
“And tell everyone that he left on Owen’s boat?”
“I’m sure we can pull the wool over Owen’s eyes somehow.”
“And thus spare the monastery further scandal and months of isolation?”
“That is right, brother.”
Bastian nodded thoughtfully.
“Unless our illegal attempts to conceal a death are discovered. In which case the monastery will face further scandal, months of isolation, and see at least two of its members sent off to Cox’s Farm Prison.”
“Yes,” said Manfred.
Bastian took a deep breath. Manfred watched him nervously.
“What do you think?”
“Beer,” said Bastian. “I think I need a lot of beer.”
It surprised no one that everyone was drunk long before midnight.
Firstly, the twenty-odd men of St Cadfan’s monastery had been living on starvation rations for several months and were, to a man, several pounds underweight and ill-prepared for a night of raucous drinking.
Secondly, the damned of Hell drank on stomachs that had been empty for decades if not centuries (millennia in the case of Mama-Na, whose only previous experience with alcohol involved a pile of rotten and fermented mangos her tribe had found).
Thirdly, three monks drank in the knowledge that they had hidden their dead brother in a chest freezer and were already stepping across the line into criminal activity. Alcohol was, for them, a blessed escape from reality.
Fourthly, one of those three men (and his illicit lover) were drinking to numb the shock of what they had done and to help them process the emotional fallout that was certain to follow.
Fifthly, no one was surprised because Brother Manfred’s seaweed beer had a startlingly high alcohol content and soon rendered them all incapable of surprise. They were drunk, the world was as it was, and, as drunks, they simply took the world as they found it.
“We’ll burn Ol’ Tom in our fiery hole – hey! – and there he’ll moan and moan – hey!
Drown him in piss, gold and sweet – hey! – and feast on his throbbing bone – hey!”
A conga line had formed in the refectory, many habit-wearing figures weaving in and out between the tables to Father Eustace’s improvised music. Some of the monks had picked up pans and trays and provided additional percussion.
“His heart and brains and lights beside – hey! – we’ll feed into the organ grinder – hey!
And though he’ll search ‘cross Hell for his love – hey! – Ol’ Tom will never find ‘er – hey!”
Only three groups of people were not taking part at all: those who had stepped out of line to refresh their drinks, those who had passed out on the tables or benches from too much drinking, and Rutspud.
Rutspud, hiding his clearly inhuman face and lack of a right arm in the folds of his habit, was trying to spot faces beneath cowls and count up his party of damned. There was Cartland, who had managed to decant her beer into a wine glass that she had acquired from somewhere. There was Whitehouse who, tending to find sexual impropriety in all things, was nonetheless relishing the hip-wiggling dance, although perhaps not with the sinuous expressiveness of Bernhardt there. And … there was Mama-Na, at home with the dance’s simple rhythms, and Wilde, who was pretending not to be enjoying himself enormously. And even Shipton, hobbling along in the middle of the chain, was giving a raucous “Ha!” with every conga kick.
“And where are the rest of you?” he muttered.
Rutspud began exploring the darker corners of the refectory, occasionally taking hold of a table for support because the tangy seaweed beer affected even those of hardy demon stock.
A circuit of the hall revealed no extra bodies and, beginning to fear that one of his trusted damned had broken Rule Number One and fled, Rutspud began a hurried search of the adjoining rooms. Much to his relief, he found three of them in a room just off from the kitchens, gathered around an icy chest.
“What are you doing in here?” he said.
“Taking some scientific readings,” said Tesla, waving a device of dials and gauges over the frozen box.
“It is a strange tomb of ice,” said Boudicca.
“It’s not a tomb,” said Nightingale.
“Then why have they surrounded the dead man with food offerings?” asked Boudicca.
“It is clearly some sort of larder for keeping
food cool,” said Nightingale.
“A Frigidaire,” said Tesla. “But this is most abnormal.”
“I’ll say,” said Rutspud. “Stephen told me they don’t eat their dead and yet here’s one they’re quite clearly saving for later.”
“No,” said Tesla. “The readings are abnormal.”
“I think we’d all agree that poking scientific instruments at dead people is a bit weird, yes.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“You must listen to him, sir,” said Nightingale.
Rutspud grimaced.
“What I must do is get you out of here. We’re supposed to be keeping a low profile.”
There was a loud scream from the refectory and the music came to a sudden halt.
“Mmm,” said Rutspud, “I’m guessing we’ve entirely failed on the low profile front, haven’t we?”
He darted back into the refectory to find Mama-Na swinging from the wooden rafters by her knees and a bunch of monks stunned gathered around a dazed man on the floor.
“It slapped me,” muttered the prone monk.
“What is it?” shouted another.
“There are too many monks in here!” shouted yet another with a sense of vindication.
Stephen looked across at Rutspud and, panic written large on his face, was miming a throat-slicing action.
“Right,” declared Rutspud loudly. “Party’s over. My lot. We’re off.”
He tried to clap his hands for emphasis but failed because he had the wrong number of hands.
Stephen wildly directed the damned to the door while Rutspud prodded, propelled and generally rounded them up.
“Interlopers!” yelled a human.
“They’re fake monks!”
“Fiery hole!” shouted the abbot.
Rutspud dug deep in his robes and tossed the flask of Lethe water to Stephen as he ran out the door.
“Maybe a nightcap for everyone, eh?” he said. “Onward! On! Go!”
Rutspud brought up the rear like a high-speed shepherd, shouting the occasional instruction when one of the damned took a wrong turn. Down into the cellar they ran, through the corridor of garish paintings, past Stephen’s library and into the noticeably warm stone room.
Rutspud counted them down the stairs.
“One! Two! Three!”
Tesla stopped beside Rutspud.
