Binscombe Tales - The Complete Series

by John Whitbourn

  ‘What’s he doing there?’ I asked.

  ‘Praying,’ said Doctor Bani-Sadr with distaste.

  ‘Seeking sanctuary,’ said Disvan, correcting him. Bani-Sadr shrugged his shoulders, cheerfully conceding the point.

  ‘He reckons he’s actually a baal teshuva,’ Disvan continued, still half concentrating on the distant game. ‘You know, a penitent. If you asked me though, I’d say the sanctuary motive was uppermost. Still, who am I to judge? We must be generous minded.’

  At that suspiciously coincidental moment, the referee’s mind ran out of generosity and he called the game off. In parts of the field, however, battle continued regardless.

  ‘Things generally improve after the ref’s thrown in the towel,’ explained Mr Disvan. ‘Without his provocative presence, the teams shape up and get down to playing proper rugby.’

  ‘They realise that if they don’t behave themselves,’ added the doctor, ‘there’s no one else to make them. The linesmen can still decide on penalties and things...’

  I recognised this as a prime slice of strictly Binscombe logic, but recognised it too late to prevent acceptance. To my intense annoyance I even found myself nodding in agreement. Yet again, their world view had penetrated the armour of reason.

  ‘Hang about!’ I said, the effort of the mental gear change creasing my brow. ‘That’s the biggest load of—’

  ‘Proof of the pudding, Mr Oakley’ interrupted Mr Disvan with his approximation of an innocent smile. ‘Proof of the pudding.’

  He was gesturing towards the field of play and I saw this particular pudding being proved. The teams were freshly interested in the ball’s whereabouts and play was becoming fluid and skilful. A Bretwalda-led drive was, at that very moment, heading forcefully (but fairly!) towards the Goldenford line.

  Somehow it all seemed like a subtle insult—and probably deliberate at that. I’d come out to see rugby, not some devious sermon about the liberating alternatives to rationality. Deep inside I felt that, without first asking permission, the Binscombe summa theologiae was being preached to me.

  ‘I’ve had enough of this,’ I said abruptly, turning on my heels. Like a well drilled dance team, Disvan and the doctor moved with me, one on either side, matching my steps.

  ‘I don’t blame you,’ said Mr Disvan amiably. ‘Why watch that foregone conclusion? Especially when there’s a chance to meet your sporting hero.’

  In my illogical annoyance, I’d quite forgotten about the Oscar Tug business. It now returned to me, coupled with the realisation that my path was being discreetly shepherded by my two companions in the general direction of St Joseph’s Church. Like a beckoning finger, its eccentric spire could be seen peeping over the trees of the ‘Glade’ which mysteriously survived in the centre of the village.

  I decided to go along with it. There was nothing better to do prior to the Argyll’s opening time and the great Oscar Tug had indeed been a childhood hero of mine. I could still recall dim, falsely pleasant memories, of wet prep school afternoons when I’d tried to emulate his exploits—before I lost three front teeth in a tackle and took up the badminton option instead.

  ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘why not? If you think he’ll see me.’

  ‘Oh, he will, Mr Oakley,’ said Disvan, full of assurance. ‘Being trapped there all the time, he likes fresh company.’

  That could have struck an alarm bell in my mind but I didn’t let it.

  ‘But can’t we meet him for a drink in the Argyll?’ I asked. ‘Why must it be the church?’

  ‘Sanctuary, Mr Oakley. I already told you that.’

  ‘From whom, though?’

  This gave Disvan pause for thought, and I could see he was struggling for an answer.

  ‘Debt collectors,’ he said at last. The reply caused a cold smile to dawn across Doctor Bani-Sadr’s face.

  ‘Now I know you’re having me on,’ I said. ‘Oscar Tug was a wealthy man, what with the TV commentating, the South-African coaching, and all that. And anyway, you can’t claim sanctuary against...’

  ‘Mr Oakley,’ said Disvan with great finality, ‘sad to say, not all debts are financial.’

  * * *

  By the time I’d thought it through and added up all my misgivings, it was too late to change the scenario. We were at the church.

  Aside from theological objections, after the events of the previous Christmas Eve I was none too eager to darken St Joseph’s door again. Sadly, however, the bonds of cultural conditioning, elastic but not brittle, would not permit me to just turn and scamper away. The church’s door was open, Mr Disvan and Doctor Bani-Sadr were watching me. Had it been a dinosaur’s maw gaping before me, I would still have had no choice but to enter in.

  Inside it was cool and peaceful, a sudden and welcome transition from the motorised discord of St Joseph’s Street outside. I recalled I had to be careful of churches in general. Even the most modern, most brutal, 1960s God-bunker, had a certain seeping air of sanctity. Combined with the vote of confidence of those buried within and without, such sanctity carried a risk of it being sticky. It might adhere to the visitor and accompany him home, injecting a spiritual venom deadly to the sort of full and active social life I liked to lead. I had scheduled the meaning-of-life sort of thing for the tail end of my existence, if at all, and didn’t want my plans upset at this early stage.

  Accordingly, I skipped looking at the Victorian stained glass (too reassuring), the Ten Commandments painted on the wall (too accusing) and tried to bear in mind that this was just another four walls and a roof. The disconsolate looking Anti-Apartheid and Amnesty International stall helped with that.

  In any case, I was in good company. Doctor Bani-Sadr had pointedly kept his trilby on and Mr Disvan was plainly more interested than awed by all about.

  ‘I know you hate having your values challenged, Mr Oakley,’ he said. ‘So make your way to the vestry. That’s where you’ll find him.’

  I thought it rather rude to read someone’s innermost thoughts from their treacherously open face, but didn’t say anything in retaliation. I knew where the vestry was and went straight to it, concealing my confusion with my back.

  A few seconds after arrival, I wished I hadn’t bothered. Either I had a migraine for the first time in my life or else the weather had abruptly turned oppressive. From a very great height someone had dropped a wet mattress on my brain.

  The two men seated in the vestry turned to greet me, as I rudely ignored them and shook my head, attempting to shift the weight off my mind, so to speak.

  The Reverend Jagger I knew already, but the monk with him was a newcomer. He looked as bad as I presently felt—which was saying something. I wondered briefly if his anguished, burning gaze had something to do with my headache—à la ‘evil eye’—but got a grip in time to reject the notion with respectable speed.

  ‘Well, hello, Mr Oakley, Mr Disvan, Doctor Bani-Sadr,’ said Reverend Jagger, beamingly cheerful as ever. ‘To what do we owe this pleasure?’

  ‘Mr Oakley wants to meet Oscar Tug,’ came Disvan’s voice from behind, in fact, surprisingly far behind me, ‘his sporting hero and all that.’

  I turned and saw that Disvan and the doctor hadn’t actually entered the vestry. They were hanging back, lolling in the entrance, proud possessors of some knowledge I didn’t share. Then my attention was redirected eyes-front by a loud moan from the monk.

  ‘Oh, if only you knew,’ he howled, glaring fixedly at me. ‘If only... Yes, I was once prop-forward for the Prince of Darkness, but now I’m a spectator on the terraces of righteousness. Aren’t I, Rev?’

  Jagger looked decidedly uncomfortable. He was well known for his distrust of enthusiasm, preferring religion to the religious.

  ‘Well, I suppose so,’ he said, not wishing to give offence. ‘But I think that’s putting it a little bit—’

  ‘Bathed in the endless ocean of forgiveness, I am!’ interrupted the monk, now highly agitated. ‘Vindicated! Justified!’

  Just at tha
t moment, a wind powered tree branch scrabbled at the vestry window and the monk cowered in his seat, all his passion (and volume) fled away.

  ‘Ransomed!’ he concluded weakly, looking shiftily at the window.

  An uncomfortable silence followed. I’d started to query if this was really the best use I could make of my free time. Not only had my headache failed to go away but I was now painfully conscious that the vestry’s heating was cranked way up high. Ten minutes in that sauna would be enough to flood anyone’s boots.

  ‘Are you well, Mr Oakley?’ asked Jagger. ‘You look out of sorts.’

  ‘That’s because I am, vicar,’ I said, all hot and bothered, tearing at my tie. ‘I came to see Oscar Tug but he’s not here—and why should he be, in a church? Mr Disvan wouldn’t explain that bit as usual. And all of a sudden, I don’t feel very well and... Why do you have this vestry so hot? It’s like Hell’s kitchen in here.’

  The monk had been listening to my sullen soliloquy in morose silence, but this last comment was like a poke with a cattle prod to him. He leapt up, in extremities of agitation, and pointed a bony finger at me.

  ‘Don’t say that!’ he screamed. ‘Don’t say that—or I’ll tear your bloody head off, man!’

  This real-ish sort of threat held little appeal and I instinctively backed away from him and out of the room. Disvan and Bani-Sadr made way for me, knowing better than to ever get between me and safety.

  Then, like the lifting of a veil, my headache vanished. The heat blanket went with it. For a few seconds the contrast was sheer bliss, a natural high, before, all too soon, my unambitious nerve endings returned to dull normality. The relief must have advertised itself on my face.

  ‘I was going to suggest you took a few steps back,’ said Mr Disvan. ‘You were getting awfully flushed.’

  ‘And if you can’t stand the heat,’ quipped Doctor Bani-Sadr, ‘get out of the Hell’s kitchen!’

  Meanwhile Reverend Jagger was calming the monk, albeit with difficulty.

  ‘Anger—surely a minor sin only?’ I heard him say.

  ‘But I threatened violence!’ the monk countered. ‘And used profanity! Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa... Oh dear, oh dear.’

  He slumped back into a chair and buried his head in his hands.

  ‘Maybe if I...’ he muttered. ‘Double penance, yes, that’s it. Bread... dry bread and water, plus the really ferocious hair shirt...’

  Jagger plainly disapproved of all this and tut-tutted his way over to us.

  ‘Distressing medievalist literalism,’ he said sadly. ‘Quite untouched by the gentle hand of the humanism/faith interface.’

  ‘Abso-lute-ly,’ agreed Mr Disvan—which was his way of saying ‘balls’ without causing offence.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Jagger continued. ‘I’m afraid your meeting with Mr Tug has not gone as you might have wished. I know what it can be like with childhood sporting heroes. Sir Stanley Mathews was dreadfully rude to me when I asked for an autograph.’

  I was shocked and looked it.

  ‘He’s slow—but he does get there eventually,’ Disvan explained to the reverend.

  ‘You mean... he’s Oscar Tug?’ I stuttered. ‘I don’t... he can’t...’

  Tug’s last game was, what, six years in the past but how could even that lapse of time turn the brick out-house, rugby godling Tug into the gaunt and haunted spectre before us? It didn’t seem charitable to even consider it possible.

  ‘Well,’ said Jagger, just slightly offended by my doubt, ‘I can assure you that’s who this is.’

  ‘Oh, right. Nice to meet you then... Mr Tug.’

  Tug the born again monk looked up again, with new hope in his eyes.

  ‘Is it, Mr Oakley? Is it really? Does that mean you forgive me for threatening you? Will you overlook my grievous outburst? Will you?’

  With that sort of ‘grab for the heart’ type sales pitch, I could hardly refuse.

  ‘Um... of course, of course. Think nothing of it—all forgotten, no offence. I expect it was the heat.’

  Tug looked pitifully grateful, yet at the same time intimidated by my mention of the vestry’s temperature. He looked slowly round without seeming to anticipate actually glimpsing anything new.

  ‘I know what you mean, Mr Oakley,’ said Jagger, entering the uneasy conversational pause. ‘Like an oven in there, isn’t it? I mean, no, not like an oven at all,’ he hastily corrected himself, noticing Tug’s renewed distress. ‘It’s just very hot. Overheated, that’s all I meant. And we should be thankful it’s dry heat, not humid, shouldn’t we?’

  There was something beyond the bounds of permissible oddness in all this I decided. However, rather than think about it, I settled for a shotgun-scatter of questions instead.

  ‘But why not just turn it down, or off?’ I asked. ‘And why the dramatic change in temperature—and air pressure—at the threshold. And why aren’t you affected?’

  I’d just noticed. The Reverend Jagger was standing precisely where I’d stood a few minutes before. But even so, coat and ethnic Arran sweater notwithstanding, he remained as cool as the proverbial cucumber.

  His habitual ‘at peace with the world and myself’ smile (or smugness) wavered only a second.

  ‘I seem to be exempt,’ he said crisply. ‘It must go with the job.’

  ‘Or the dog-collar,’ laughed Doctor Bani-Sadr. ‘Happen it allows greater air circulation than a normal man’s shirt!’

  You could almost hear Jagger’s mind counting to ten before he felt able to turn the other cheek.

  ‘Quite. So amusing,’ he said insincerely. ‘And how is your young... niece, Doctor Bani-Sadr? Still staying with you is she?’

  Mr Disvan caught the sultry undertones of the question and turned to study the doctor with all the silent primness of which he was capable.

  ‘Yes, she is, thanks,’ said Bani-Sadr, brazening it out.

  ‘How nice for you,’ said Jagger, his mask now firmly back in place. ‘Such a nice young girl. And so... vivacious, in a colourful sort of way.’

  Things were getting as acid as Alien’s blood and looked fit to get more so had not Mr Disvan intervened (whilst obviously filing the ‘niece’ business away for future reference).

  ‘So,’ he said firmly, ‘all’s well that ends well. Young Oscar here sought Mr Oakley’s forgiveness and it was freely given. However,’ he turned to address the almost forgotten Tug, ‘why not put it beyond doubt and repay his kindness by telling him the story? That’s what he came for, after all.’

  ‘No, I didn’t!’ I protested, from the heart. Every omen pointed to a story I didn’t want added to my mental inventory; the kind of tale that would disturb my intended, contented old age. As usual, I was ignored.

  ‘All the story?’ said Tug incredulously, getting up and stepping forward.

  Suddenly the heat wave expanded its boundary to include us. Like a long-haul coach opening its door at journey’s end, a wave of unsavoury warmth wafted our way.

  Mr Disvan waved him back and the Hellsbreath abated.

  ‘Why not?’ he replied. ‘Cathartic for you and an exemplar for Mr Oakley. All things considered, it’d be a mitzvah...’

  ‘A statutory good deed,’ interpreted the Reverend.

  ‘And goodness knows, you need some of them on your scorecard,’ Disvan continued.

  Tug obviously concurred. He sank back into his seat, cowled head nodding.

  ‘The sin of pride, Mr Oakley,’ he intoned, ‘and false perspective. Those were my downfall!’

  I was still hopeful of aborting the flow and butted in, ‘Actually, I was more hoping to hear about your England captaincy and beating the All Blacks and—’

  ‘Vanity!’ shouted Tug, his deep set eyes flicking fiery despair vibes across the room at me. ‘ “All is vanity and vexation of spirit”—Ecclesiastes 1:14. And I’ll give you another quote—Mark 8:36, “What profit it a man if he should scale the summit of his chosen career, represent the country he loves at the sport he loves—and
incidentally construct probably the best pack-to-wings interaction system this century, and beat the All Blacks—if he should lose his soul?” Answer me that!’

  ‘Hang on,’ I said, ‘it doesn’t say that in the Bible.’

  ‘It’s a paraphrase, Mr Oakley,’ said Tug.

  ‘Oh, um... well, I know that competitive sport can be very absorbing, to the detriment of...’

  ‘If that’s the standard of Mr Oakley’s perception,’ said Doctor Bani-Sadr, ‘we’re in for a long one. I’ll get us some chairs.’

  ‘You misunderstand, Mr Oakley,’ said Tug as the doctor sauntered off. ‘I mean that I was presented with a decision. A single choice about the direction of my life. I was put to the test—and failed.

  ‘Just a minute,’ I interjected. ‘Yours was the famous undefeated captaincy. You never lost—’

  ‘I lost everything!’ said Tug, hammering home the words like stakes into a heart.

  ‘And now he’s feeling the heat,’ said Doctor Bani-Sadr, returning with seats for himself and Disvan. They settled themselves in the doorway while Jagger got on with tidying some shelves of dusty, neglected Books of Common Prayer. He still played polite attention to us but had obviously heard it all once too often before. I was left standing, half in, half out, of the room, like the fabled Dutch Boy, facing a torrent of tortured Tug.

  ‘And now I’m feeling the heat,’ he echoed. ‘Lapped by tongues of flames, pressured by the weight of my sin.’

  ‘You’re taking it all a bit serious,’ I said, mustering a smile in an attempt to lighten the conversational, if not actual, atmosphere. ‘After all, rugby’s only a game.’

  ‘Exactly!’ roared Tug, once again pointing a gnarled digit at me. ‘But at the crisis of my life I failed to recognise that truth. I acted like the galaxies whirling in their paths stood and held their breath upon some silly game of ball and brawl.’

  ‘Well yes,’ I said, ‘now you put it like that...’

  ‘We were one point behind, in injury time,’ said Tug suddenly. ‘England versus Wales, 19—. Do you recall it?’

  I was wrongfooted by the abrupt transition from metaphysics to the concrete and took a while to get my brain down-gear.