Idol Bones

by D M Greenwood

  ‘Trevor has an enormous appetite,’ said Mrs Riddable as though to deprecate the bounty strewing the table.

  Theodora’s social nerve was beginning to fail her. She could think of nothing whatever appropriate to say to this.

  ‘Have you lived here long?’ she tried desperately.

  ‘It seems an age. In fact it’s only five years. We came eighteen months after Ben was born. It was a big sacrifice. It meant Trevor had to give up his research. He was a church historian, you know. He was absolutely brilliant, making a tremendous name for himself.’ The italic delivery was in evidence. ‘He’d had a couple of things in Church History Review and they’d been terribly well received. Trevor had some really appreciative letters from some of the parish clergy here. And of course his father, poor old fellow, was so proud of him before he died. He’d dabbled a bit in that field himself but hadn’t got anywhere. So when Trevor made a success he was over the moon. But of course when we came down here, Trevor had to give it all up.’ Mrs Riddable dramatised this sacrifice with every inch of her body. ‘All of it,’ she added, lest Theodora should suppose otherwise. ‘Of course you have to take preferment when it’s offered.’ Mrs Riddable spoke as though it had been offered to both her husband and herself. ‘But to be honest I did rather prefer All Saints, Forest Hill. We had some really super folks there.Terrific support in the parish. Trevor always said he couldn’t manage without them. And some of them had really important jobs. In the City, you know. You know where you are with a parish. I mean, it’s all clear about what you’re supposed to do.’

  Mrs Riddable stopped as though she might have embarked on deep waters.

  ‘I imagine it might be more difficult to find a personal ministry as a wife of a residentiary canon than as the wife of a parish priest.’ Theodora was sympathetic.

  Mrs Riddable’s response to this suggested she was short of understanding listeners. ‘That’s absolutely right. People don’t realise. It’s all right for Trevor. He’s, of course, terrifically important and very busy as precentor. Up to his eyes. Never has a moment. And of course he was born to it. His father was a canon of Lincoln. But I do sometimes wonder what I’m supposed to do. Though, of course, wife and mother must come first and that takes a lot of time.’Theodora thought of the frozen vegetables and murmured that she was sure it did. At this point the door was flung open and Rebecca appeared with a tray containing two cups of coffee and a jug of cold milk.

  ‘You don’t take sugar, do you? Most people don’t nowadays,’ Mrs Riddable informed her. Theodora, who did if the coffee were powdered, agreed that few people did.

  ‘How are the children coping with the dean’s death?’Theodora ventured when they’d addressed the coffee.

  Mrs Riddable leaned forward. ‘Trevor says it’s all the fault of that idol. Massive unconscious forces, he says, are at work and the dean should never have come here in the first place.’

  ‘How does he think the idol affected the murder of the dean?’ Theodora carefully kept irony out of her tone.

  ‘How can we ordinary mortals tell?’ Mrs Riddable was dismissive. ‘The fact is that it’s been lurking in the grounds of the cathedral for nearly two thousand years waiting to claim its victim. Now it’s sprung.’

  Theodora hated irrationality or hysteria. She scented both here. ‘Surely physical strength rather than numinous power is needed to slit a throat.’

  ‘Oh, I know,’ Mrs Riddable had the air of explaining difficult truths to a young child. ‘But the dean’s own character would precipitate murder in the end. Trevor says.’

  Theodora was beginning to dislike Canon Riddable on the strength of his family’s quotations alone. ‘What was wrong with his character?’

  ‘He’d no parish experience and he was a terrible thruster.’

  Theodora hardly liked to say that having parish experience was a positive disqualification for high office in the Anglican church and being a thruster was not uncommon and did not usually result in murder.

  ‘Of course,’ Mrs Riddable was scurrying on, ‘Trevor will get his deanery in the end.’

  So that was it. But surely Canon Riddable hadn’t expected to be preferred to the deanery where he was a canon, that would be quite unusual.

  ‘Bishops,’ Mrs Riddable was following what was clearly a well-beaten track in her own mind, ‘have such tremendous scope for doing good. Quite enviable really.’

  Theodora forbore to say they also had considerable power, patronage and sheer privilege. The inability to distinguish between worldly power and spiritual power, Theodora had discovered, was as widespread among the clergy as the laity.

  ‘I sometimes think Trevor feels time is rushing by. He’ll be fifty next birthday. He’s a Cancer and of course they are late developers.’

  Sergeant Mules regarded the toes of the archdeacon protruding from beneath the red Jaguar.

  ‘If you had a moment,’ Mules murmured to the soles of the dirty trainers.

  ‘Half a mo,’ said Archdeacon Gold.

  The car was raised dangerously on a couple of jacks, Mules noticed with disapproval. Presumably Parsonage Committees didn’t run to providing pits in garages even for archdeacons. The Archdeaconry was out on the bypass. It had been built within the last ten years. The diocesan architects had used expensive materials to create an appearance of solidity. It was however only an appearance. The brass door fittings were hollow metal, the walls a mere brick facing on breeze blocks. It suited the archdeacon well. He liked it.

  The archdeacon wiped his hands on a rag and stood leaning against the body of his car as though loath to be separated from it.

  ‘I suppose it’s about poor Vincent. I thought I’d said all I could about that one.’

  Was it Mules’ imagination or was the archdeacon hesitant? His normal manner, Mules guessed, was so jerky that it was difficult to tell if he was genuinely nervous.

  ‘It’s a matter of times initially,’ Mules ventured.

  ‘Well, as I’ve told you, I made my getaway about ten to twelve. Brian Brace said how about a noggin, so I went to get the old girl,’ he tapped the car, ‘from the car park outside the magistrates’ courts and followed old Brian down the road.’

  ‘Arriving?’

  ‘Say twelve ten.’

  ‘Councillor Brace has a flat I believe.’

  ‘He’s got a pad at the end of Watergate for late-night sittings. That’s in addition to his place out on Boundary Road. Enormous place,’ the archdeacon added reverently.

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Well we had one or two and I thought perhaps I’d better not risk the drive. Brian very decently offered me a billet.’

  ‘So you stayed the night?’

  ‘We turned in about oneish, I suppose. It’s terribly well appointed, his little flat. It’s got TV and a fridge in the spare bedroom.’ The archdeacon’s admiration knew no bounds.

  ‘That must be very convenient,’ said Mules heavily. ‘Now, did you notice anything out of the ordinary happening during that evening or when you were leaving the Deanery? You didn’t see anyone who shouldn’t have been there? Any stranger?’

  ‘To be quite honest,’ the archdeacon gave the semblance of thinking, ‘I can’t remember too much. I think everything was shipshape.’

  ‘Were you the last to leave the Deanery?’

  ‘Yes. No. Er, well I think Trevor was actually behind us. Yes,’ strength of mind grew on him. ‘Yes, come to think of it I’m pretty sure Canon Riddable was hanging back and having a word with Vincent as we left.’

  ‘You didn’t by any chance hear what he was saying?’

  The archdeacon shook his head. ‘Something about expert advice.’

  ‘Expert advice on what? Who was giving advice on whom and about what?’ Mules phrased his question precisely.

  ‘Oh, I think Trevor was asking the dean for it. It’d have to be that way round, Sergeant.’ The archdeacon grinned. ‘But on what I haven’t a clue.’

  Mules shifted his ground. ‘Do
you happen to know if the dean had any financial worries, sir?’

  ‘Vincent?’ the archdeacon seemed genuinely surprised.‘Well, I suppose we’re all a bit strapped for cash in the church. We don’t do it for the pay, after all. Of course the big difficulties come in the upkeep of the cathedral. The fabric’s crumbling and eating money in the process. We’ve simply got to get some cash from somewhere.’

  ‘Was the dean very concerned about that?’

  ‘No more than the rest of us. It’s collective responsibility after all. Anyway with any luck the Hollow sale should fix it. Provided it comes off.’

  ‘Is there any doubt of that, sir?’

  ‘Many a slip, Sergeant. And I can’t pretend it’s a popular move in certain quarters.’

  ‘Would that unpopularity provide a motive for murder, would you say?’

  ‘I can’t say what it would do in the mind of a madman, Sergeant.’

  There seemed to be no more Mules could extract. He moved to take his leave. At the last his sense of responsibility overcame him. ‘You ought to get a pit dug, sir. It’s dangerous like that,’ he indicated the jacks at either end of the car chassis. ‘Could come crashing down on you any time.’

  ‘Can’t afford it, Sergeant. Got to live dangerously haven’t we?’

  Stella read the article again, smoothing out the page of the Bow Examiner on the table in the Nissen hut in the Hollow. ‘New Age, New Religion’ ran the headline. Below that was a picture of the black lurcher standing and looking slightly embarrassed beside two white goats with the railway line in the background.

  The article had been influenced by colour supplement journalism. ‘Number Two in our Series of Lifestyles’, its subheading announced, by ‘A. Pathfinder’.

  ‘ Oliver

  ‘The community at the Hollow (literally on the wrong side of the railway tracks) has hit the headlines because of the activities of its dynamic leader, Oliver Fresh. Oliver came to Bow in 1982. His own personal odyssey has given him wide experience of a variety of life styles both in the UK and abroad. Originally a village lad from Quecourt, he left school early and travelled the world. He’s worked in Africa and on oil rigs. He was an apprentice saddler and knows about welding. Latterly he’s turned his attention to archaeology. So it was the dream of a lifetime when he discovered the Bow St Aelfric Janus in the cathedral close. He’s over the moon about it. “It confirms all I’ve striven for,” he said when I interviewed him at his community centre in the Hollow.

  ‘ Gods

  ‘“The Janus and the Hollow are the two things in the world I most care about,” he said. And when I asked him, “Yes,” he said, “I’m a deeply religious man. I think I’d call myself that. If you mean do I believe in God in the traditional sense of a big man up in the sky, then I’d have to say no. But I certainly do believe in gods, little sacred godlets who have a particular patch, like postmen. They’re very powerful these little local gods. We neglect them at our peril. I think too we need to recognise there’s a god inside us all. That’s why I started the Hollow. When I came here, there was one Nissen hut and a lot of out-of-place water. Now look at it.” He gestured to the neat allotments of onions, carrots and potatoes, flourishing between drainage ditches. The living quarters for the goats and hens. The LNER railway carriage and the two caravans.

  ‘ Who and How?

  ‘Who comes here and how do they live? “Well, it’s for anyone in need really. When I was in Africa I stayed with some Franciscan friars. It struck me they lived a completely harmonious life. They showed me what life should be like. They were so poor even I felt rich in comparison. At least I owned the clothes I stood up in. They lived from day to day and they fed and cared for and loved anyone who sought them out. I’d like to think we do something like that here. We don’t refuse to house anyone, you know. They may not choose to stay with us because the price of a bed is work and not everyone wants to do that. But we never turn anyone away until they’ve refused.”

  ‘ Money

  ‘So how are they funded? Oliver himself works as a carpenter part time. “There’s always plenty of work for a competent carpenter,” he says. The other long stayers, Cathy and Reg Bean, also have regular work. She does part time with the special needs kids at the local primary school, he’s a plumber with a firm of local builders. Then there are Kevin and Sean on community service. Kev knows about car maintenance, Sean’s learning how to fence and paint and garden.

  ‘They all keep their worldly needs to a minimum and work out the bills weekly. They take no state money but don’t refuse contributions for the care of the animals if offered. The local schools pay small fees to bring their kids to help for a day and learn that milk doesn’t come from bottles or honey out of jars. Many people, young and old, have found some sort of meaning in their lives by their contact with the Hollow men. “I hate to hear people say they’re out of work and so they’re useless. It’s a real indictment of our society,” Oliver says. “There’s always work to do, skills to be learned and offered back. It may not be paid or recompensed. It may not make you successful or powerful, but there’s always, as long as we draw breath, something we can all of us do.”

  ‘That’s the sort of man Oliver Fresh is. And that’s his lifestyle.’ And it was true, thought Stella. He did think that and he lived it day by day, with integrity and a sort of determined optimism. He knew the world was a terrible place; he knew he’d not win but he reckoned it was better to do the right thing and lose than to hedge your bets and be only half alive. She was grateful to him. Thanks to him, she had regained her confidence. She had come to the Hollow paralysed by her guilt. Her emotions, indeed her very senses had been frozen. She remembered not being able to smell or taste anything. At her worst moments she had the impression she could not see people clearly. Bit by bit the work had restored her. She had literally come to her senses. Her first salvation had been food. The rituals of preparing and serving it had occupied her at the beginning. Later she had turned to planting and harvesting. She knew a great deal, she realised, about potatoes. From food she had progressed to weather. She began to be able to notice the basic stuff of the world. Earth, sand, mud, gravel, compost and water reawakened each of her senses. Their textures, their colours and smells literally grounded and confirmed her. Gradually pattern and harmony returned to her life and with it the ability first to notice and then to relate to people.

  She looked round the room. The kitchen flowed into the living area which in its turn became a bedroom. At the far end a door led to Oliver’s own room, part workshop, part bedroom. There was nothing rickety in the hut. Two rather elegant chairs of extreme solidity which Oliver had made stood on either side of the table.The bare boards of the floor were scoured to white cleanness. It had a look of a colonial homestead or perhaps the Amish dwellings she’d seen in America.

  The sound of the car startled Stella from her self-appraisal. The lurcher bitch’s hackle rose in an alarming brush on her shoulders and spine. Reluctantly, for she was a coward, she rose to a sitting position then, still baffled with sleep, flung back her head to give a deep contralto bark. Stella looked out of the window and a moment later the door was flung open.

  ‘Stella, my dear.’ The Reverend Canon Millhaven embraced her. ‘Is all well with you? May I introduce a colleague of mine, Theodora Braithwaite. She’s doing a placement with us on laity training. I felt she’d learn more from you and the Hollow than ever she will dashing round our cheery little meetings of retired bank managers.’

  Stella saw a very tall woman of about ten years her junior, thirty or so, dark-haired, dark eyes set wide apart and strong features which you could not call pretty but might want to call handsome. Theodora saw the woman she had glimpsed from the railway carriage on her journey to Bow two days ago.

  ‘How do you do?’ they murmured in unison and realised that they were probably going to discover they were from the same stable.

  ‘I’m going to leave Theodora with you. I’ve got to dash over to Quecourt to
tidy one or two loose ends. Stella, show her what real religion is.’

  Canon Millhaven swept her cloak around her and was gone. Theodora and Stella were left to make their own running.

  ‘Are you fond of animals?’ Stella was tentative.

  ‘Very,’ Theodora could reply with truthfulness.

  We’ve got a school party coming at two-thirty.’

  ‘I’m less keen on children,’ Theodora admitted.

  ‘We should get round before they descend in full force.’

  Stella led the way from the Nissen hut, the lurcher weaving through their legs to get out first.

  ‘I read the article on you in the Bow Examiner,’ Theodora began her exploration. ‘I wondered who wrote it?’

  ‘I think Oliver fed the information to someone at the Examiner office. I don’t know who. I met the photographer though. He was very patient with the goats.’

  ‘They seem to admire what you’ve achieved here,’ Theodora said.

  ‘It’s more or less accurate. We don’t aim quite as high as it suggests. I don’t think any of us would claim to be offering a religion.’

  ‘Canon Millhaven seems to think you are.’

  ‘I suppose it depends a bit what you think religion is.’

  ‘What would you say?’

  ‘For me it has to be any system of techniques which saves you, gets you through without murder or madness.’

  Though this had the virtue of moral practicality, Theodora felt that it was a bit minimal.

  ‘I think Erica’s swayed by the shortcomings of her own institution,’ Stella went on, ‘so she overestimates the aims and perhaps the quality of what we can give here.’

  ‘You mean she’s exasperated by the Anglican Church.’

  ‘Anything as elaborate and rich and many faceted and as political and powerful as that will have its problems,’ Stella spoke with authority. ‘It’ll be trying to serve too many masters, for a start. Simplicity is all.’