O, Mensa
Some collect stamps. Others collect coins. I, however, collect churches. A cycle ride on a sunny afternoon of a weekend is not complete without exploring the interior of a place of worship and its graveyard, if there is one. One can learn much about the history of a community by scanning the memorial stones inside a church. Generations of dignitaries and benefactors are remembered in stone set in the aisles. A member of the gentry might be commemorated with a stone slab in the floor of the nave. You look at the brass name plates on a pew or wooden seat outside the church. You can visualise the local great and good sitting, kneeling, praying, singing the Lord’s praises more loudly than anyone in the congregation (and possibly off-key, just to keep their fellows on their toes and dare youngsters to stifle giggles during ‘To Be a Pilgrim’), slipping a discrete ten-shilling note – as opposed to the coppers and threepenny bits from lesser mortals – in the collection bag. Never mind admonitions about camels passing through eyes of needle.
One of the gems of my ‘collection’ is a chapel that stands proudly in the middle of a field. On that overcast afternoon I stood under the wooden portico over the west doors. Alas, they were locked. On my second visit three months later, I strode up the grass pathway between a ripening wheat crop. A gentle breeze soughed through the stems and ears on an afternoon when the sunlight was intense. This time, the door opened with slight resistance due to a small stone or two underneath leaving light grey arcs in the flag stones. I scanned the nave floor for the tombs of local worthies until this unusual epitaph caught my eye. Carved in relatively new stone it read:
Hic jacet ’Enery VIII
Natvs 1956
Obiit 2012
Ecclesia Anglicorum eram
Ne obliviscaris.
‘Stands out, doesn’t it?’ said a voice behind me. The owner of the voice noted my alarm when I turned around. He apologized. He was wearing garb that proclaimed him a man of the cloth.
‘You’re lucky to find it open,’ he said, explaining that he “looked in on the dear little place” once a month.
‘I noticed your bicycle outside. Have you come far?’ he inquired with no trace of a regional accent. We went on to chat about the narrow asphalt road that follows the Portsmouth-London railway, and marvelled at the tranquility of the area – not even perturbed by the noise of trains – commented lyrically on the bright lemon-yellow rapeseed fields, and less poetically broached the topic of the Anglican Synod of 1997. At the last mentioned, Mr Lyall’s face lit up. Lowering his eyes and fixing them on the newest tomb, he said, ‘And there lies the one who raised the issue discussed at that synod.’ He grew almost breathless at the prospect of explaining how a matter of national importance had a permanent register in the stone floor of a chapel in an unknown wheat field. Although I began to translate the epitaph aloud, Mr Lyall, not wishing anyone else to steal his thunder, finished it.
‘“…Church of England I was; don’t forget.”’
*****
‘But this can’t be the tomb of Henry VIII. He’s buried at Windsor Castle, isn’t he? Besides, the dates aren’t right, are they?’
‘Quite. But look at the spelling of the name.’
‘I just thought that was an alternative, y’know, when spelling wasn’t entirely fi—’
I broke off. I was confused. If this person was born in the 20th century, spelling does not matter. And yet it did.
‘A Londoner – a Cockney – lies here,’ the vicar said.
’Yeah. ‘Enery the Eigh’ft I am I am,’ I sang. ‘Herman’s Hermits, 1964!’
‘Ahem! The signature tune of Harry Champion, the music hall star. The song was written in 1910,’ corrected the cleric as if he were compering a pub quiz.’
’And this ‘Enery was a bit of a controversial character, was he?’ I ventured.
‘Indeed, he was.’
‘This isn’t a wind-up, is it?’
‘Goodness me, no.’
And he proceeded to tell me the story of this latter-day ’Enery VIII.
*****
Pollard of the ‘Merry Widow’ was wiping the bar clean as he kept an eye on his live-in partner Julie, who was supposed to be polishing the brass glass stands. Julie had moved in after a few hours’ courtship a few days before during a seven-day package holiday in Benidorm. After six days of sitting with Pollard at a bar in the Mediterranean glare, she ended up cleaning a prosaic public house in Peckham. She was expert at raising the glass, but as for buffing up the brass ten days later, she was a complete novice.
‘Hurry up with them, will you?’ he called over his shoulder.
‘Doin’ the best I can. They’re sich buggers t’buff up!’ Julie replied, wiping her brow with a forearm.
‘Why d’you have ter leave things ter the las’ minute, you?’ he whined. It was two minutes to opening time.
’Have ter ‘Oover the car-pit an’ all, doan I?’ Julie whined.
‘Don’t bovver. She’ll be in in a mo’.’
‘Your girlfriend?’ she teased.
Pollard went over to the door at the corner of the public bar and turned the bunch of keys in the lock with a jailer’s rattling. He resumed his station behind the bar, glanced at the clock, and watched the door, which opened at 6.04 p.m. as it always did on weekdays and Saturdays.
’Doan arf smell nice in ‘ere, Poll,’ remarked the buxom woman who let herself onto the premises. ‘Gossome new air freshener, dearie?’ the large lady said, taking in nosefuls of the cheap, pungent odour. Puffing and blowing, she eased herself onto a bar stool, brushing a tight-fitting mauve skirt under each cheek of her ample buttocks. Pollard pulled her a pallid brown pint in a glass tankard. She thanked mine host. Flecks of broken potato crisps dotted the carpet by the bar.
‘Missed a bit, Joo!’ she chortled.
‘Wot?’ Julie shouted.
‘I said you missed them crisps wot’s on the carpet,’ the newcomer mocked.
’Ain’t ’ad no time to ‘Oover, have I?’ Julie called out. ‘His nibs tole me to do the glass stands, didn’t he?’
‘Take no notice of her!’ interjected Pollard, jerking a Julie-ward thumb. ‘An’ if you’re thinking about offerin’ your cleanin’ services, I can’t afford you!’
‘I wouldn’t dream o’ takin’ money off you. I’ll come an’ do for you for a couple o’ pints on the house. Know wot I mean?’
‘People’d talk, wouldn’t they? Me givin’ you drinks buckshee. They’ll say, “Kay Harrigon’s well in there!”’
With verdigris stains on her palms and wrists, Julie emerged and smiled Kay a good evening.
’Is ‘e workin’ you hard, Joo?’
‘Werl, t’be expected, wannit? He was my knight in shinin’ armour, sweeps me orft me feet and brung me here, polishin’ glass stands,’ Julie said, looking up at Pollard half-mocking, half-affectionate. ‘Can’t complain, uvverwise, can I? He’s a nice bloke an’ he looks after me. ‘Ere, where’s your knight in shining armour, eh?’
Kay sat more upright on her stool and pushed out her bosoms that seemed about to burst out of her black blouse. Even the cameo brooch was showing the strain on its pin. As she preened her big curly hair, her hoop earrings swung wildly. Having smoothed down her blouse collar, she took up her tankard by the handle and took an enormous swig of ale. She set it down with a clunk.
‘I’ve had seven!’ she boasted.
‘An’ where’re they now?’ Pollard asked with a knowing smile like someone who has heard the answer countless times before.
‘In the cemetery,’ Kay said after a slight pause. She burst into a dirty laugh.
‘Murdered’em all, didn’t you?’ Pollard goaded, grinning. Wide-eyed and shocked by this revelation, Julie gawped.
‘Remember that film about them acid bath murders? I got the idea from that, didn’t I?’ Kay said gleefully.
‘Really?’
‘You’re so gullible, Julie!’ Pollard said, putting an arm around her and kissing the tip of her nose. ‘That’s why I love you so much!’
‘Did…d-did she really kill all them blokes?’ she asked her boyfriend.
‘Every single one o’ them. An’ they deserved it! But I got away wiv murder every time, didn’t I, Pollard?’ said Kay.
‘You knows a good solicitor, don’t you?’
’Slip ‘im a couple o’ thousand from the business an’ Bob’s yer uncle.’
‘She’s as innocent as you, my baby!’ Pollard told his lover, lightly tweaking her nose.
‘Like a virgin,’ Kay chipped in. ‘Werl, sort of.’
‘Expert at cleaning, especially since she has her own cleaning business, so she can leave a murder scene spotless an’ no one would know otherwise, would they?’ Pollard explained.
Kay took up her tankard again and drained it.
’Before I took up the tenancy of this ’ere pub, it was called the ‘Brace of Pidgeon’, but then I changed it to the ‘Merry Widow’ in honour of our very own Kay,’ said Pollard.
Kay grinned. One of her incisors was smudged with scarlet lipstick.
‘Aow! You’re makin’ it all up, aren’t you?’ Julie laughed with a hand gesture that brushed away the silly stories from the air. At that moment a merry band of men in their prime barged onto the premises. Two of them plumped themselves heavily on the settle opposite the bar. Another pair took chairs with their backs to Kay who, roosting on her stool, paid them no need. The fifth member of their party sauntered up to the bar fumbling in an inside pocket of his jacket for a wallet. With arms outstretched and hands flat on the bar, Pollard assumed a challenging posture.
‘Whaddyou bastards want?’
’Oh, kind sir, do not take on so. I ham but a youf seeking mirth and hamusement at this ‘ostelry,’ he performed, gesticulating with arms and hands with exaggerated theatricality.
‘Cor! An’ you brought those twats with you an’ all!’ Pollard beamed as he straightened up and prepared to serve his regular rogues.
’Oi, ‘Enery! Stop chattin’ up the local talent and get the drinks in, will yah?’ called out a lanky young man from the settle.
‘Dyin’ of thirst down ‘ere!’ another commented.
Enery glances at Kay, who looks him up and down, she moistens her lips. No reaction from Enery. As the drinks are coming up, Enery notices Kay’s near-empty tankard. Buys her another drink.
‘I’m in the mood for celebrating. Just got out of the looney-bin, haven’t I?’
‘Were you a patient, then?’
‘Yeah. Had delusions of grandoo-er’
‘Wot?’
‘Just joking, love. Finished working there as an orderly. Moving onto better things. Working with that lot over there at the factory up the road.’
Fresh drink placed in front of her.
‘There you go, love!’ Enery smiles. ‘Drink to me only with thine eyes, an’ all that, eh?’
It was love at first pint.
Ten days later, Kay and Enery were an item.
Three weeks later they were cohabiting at her place. He was enthroned as Enery the Eighth. He celebrated his moving in by singing the song to that effect.
Then they had their first tiff.
Two hours before sunrise, Enery was schlepping to the bathroom when he trod on something hard and sharp. He swore. He looked down to see Kay’s stilettos lying inoffensively on the floor. He kicked one inoffensive shoe so hard that it struck their bedroom door. Kay awoke with a start. He sent the other shoe flying through the banister. It clattered on the parquet floor of the hall. He swore again. At that moment he felt Kay’s baleful gaze upon him. Enery looked sheepish and was about to say sorry. She asked him who he thought he was, acting like a demented gorilla. He asked why she had to leave her shoes where he could trip over them. He pointed out the graze on his foot. She said she could leave her shoes where she wanted, that it was her house and that therefore she could do what she wanted, which meant leaving her shoes where she wanted. He went on to express his disgust with the fact that she did not even say ‘sorry’. She said she did not have to say ‘sorry’ to anyone, least of all to him. She ordered him to pick up her shoes and put them away in her wardrobe.
‘You’re so bloomin’ Aragón, you are?’ Enery retorted, slamming the bathroom door closed behind him.
Fast forward 6 p.m. in the evening and we find Enery and Kay sitting on the sofa, holding hands and watching several actors delivering their lines with similar pronunciations and cadences as themselves. The windows were open to let in the faint scent of honeysuckle from the back garden. Boys and girls of all shapes, sizes and ages thronged the garden of their eccentric middle-aged next-door neighbour, whom they dubbed the Pied Piper. Still three hours before sunset and the light was cheerful and optimistic as if darkness could be staved off for a long time yet. The ice cream van sped down the cul-de-sac distorting ‘Greensleeves’ with the Doppler effect. The chimes of the Tudor classic were going strong as the van driver executed a three-point turn and parked outside their house. ‘Greensleeves’ wafted through the glass-pannelled front door and into the hallway. Suddenly, Enery sprang up and did a jig to the tune. Kay laughed. When the tune stopped, so did Enery, who fell heavily back into his place on the sofa. A few seconds later he asked her what she was laughing at. She told him.
‘Do you presume that thou canst dance better than thy sovereign lord?’ he inquired. Kay was stunned.
‘Been reading Shakespeare or summink?’ she wondered.
Enery’s expression changed from one of regal disdain to that of his cheery self.
‘Want an ice cream, luv?’ he asked.
Puzzled, Kay said she wanted a ‘Ninety-nine’, but did not sound too sure about her choice.
*****
Seeing the monarch in his armour lifted by a crane onto his horse must have been funny. The spectators were finding it hard to keep straight faces as they watched their Enery being winched up helpless in several pounds of metal covering his body. Once gently lowered onto the shire, Enery was given a lance, which he almost dropped. A gasp rose from the spectators. One more mishap like that and it would be an off-with-his-head job. Flags of all colours and designs fluttered gaily in the summer afternoon breeze. Kay never liked watching the jousting, not because it was inherently dangerous, but because the sight of two grown men armed with long bits of wood attempting to knock each other off horses was plain pathetic. But it took all sorts to make a world, even in Tudor times.
Into the lists went Enery and his worthy but nameless adversary. Enery lowered his visor and the referee dropped a handkerchief. The riders spurred their steeds. Galvanized into action, the horses launched themselves into a ponderous gallop. Enery felt the weird sensation that what was about to unfold was happening in slow motion. His heartbeat outpaced the rhythm of the hooves on the gravel. He blinked and felt a searing pain through his thigh. He heard a sickening crack and panicked. Had his femur been broken? He tumbled with a crash of metal and panic as he cradled his leg uselessly through the armour. A pool of blood spread under his leg. He passed out.
Kay was doing paper work at home when they told her that Enery had had an accident. She rushed to the hospital’s accident and emergency unit, where she found her partner lying on a trolley cradling his gashed thigh. A nurse approached her from behind. Having established that she was a former employee of Kay’s, the nurse told her of the nature of Enery’s injury, which, as it turned out, was “nothing serious”.
‘His ego’s been a bit dented more than anything,’ Sally whispered.
‘Tell me about it,’ Kay rejoined.
Sally went on to mention Enery’s bizarre ramblings when he was first admitted.
‘He was saying things like “A physician! A physician! My horse for a physician!” and he threatened to have the duty doctor beheaded if he dared so much as touch him and cause him pain,’ she explained. ‘Then he wanted a poultice. He seems to be an expert on poultices.’
Sally said that Enery was lucky not to have been more seriously hurt. Rather, he had risked being impaled by a broken broom handle.
‘He’s been given a couple of painkillers and something to calm him down. The wound will be dressed,’ Sally said, adding that Enery should come back in two days to change the dressing. Kay thanked the nurse, clip-clopped out of the A & E heading for home to conclude her paperwork.
*****
Someone knocked at the front door.
‘Who the hell can that be?’ Enery moaned as he lay on the sofa later that evening.
Kay went up to answer the front door.
‘Hello, Kay,’ said an eight-year-old piping voice, joined by another to greet the lady of the house.
Enery rolled his eyes, muttering ‘Bloomin’ kids wanting their ball back I s’pose.’
‘Is Enery all right?’ inquired the piping voice.
Kay assured the speaker that Enery was OK and was resting.
‘Y’see, Kay, we were playing knights in armour on our bikes in the road this afternoon. We had broom handles and we were…were…Well, y’know, doing what knights used to in the olden days when they had horses and long things to knock—’
‘Jousting?’ Kay prompted.
‘Yeah, that. Only we knocked Enery off his bike. It was an accident. Honest. And we’re really sorry.’
Kay thanked the boys for coming and said she would pass on their sorry’s to the patient on the sofa.
‘I ain’t givin’ them their ball back. Enough’s enough, I say!’ Enery chimed on Kay’s return.
*****
In the candlelit chamber, the Cardinal stood behind Enery, watching him peruse state papers and signing them. Every so often, Enery would point to a word or phrase that was either illegible or unfamiliar. The Cardinal leaned slightly and glanced at the text and answered his liege’s queries. Satisfied with the explanations, Enery applied his seal to the documents. He then commanded the churchman to listen carefully.
‘I need a son,’ Enery began. ‘It is my intent to avoid the dynastic wars that tore our kingdom apart for thirty years. To do that, a son is imperative.’
‘Indeed, your grace,’ the churchman assented with a respectful nod.
‘Kay is old. Find me a young wife,’ Enery ordered.
‘Very good, your grace.’
‘Make sure she is healthy and comely.’
‘Of course, your grace.’
‘Most of all, she must be well endowed in the bosom area.’
The cardinal grinned, but not too widely.
Suddenly, an electric light was flicked on. The cardinal disappeared.
‘Who are you talking to?’ Kay demanded.
Enery rubbed his eyes and moaned about the pain in his leg.
‘Take a painkiller and come to bed, will you?’ she said before stomping back up the stairs.
It was summer bank holiday and Kay suggested they go out for a walk along the sea front. Enery protested weakly complaining about the pain in his leg.
‘C’mon, let’s get some colour back into those cheeks!’ she encouraged. Enery rose unsteadily to his feet and limped to the cupboard under the stairs to retrieve a comfortable pair of shoes. They took the bus to the South Parade Pier, where the smells of greasy chips and vinegar pervaded the air. Enery grimaced and limped. Kay, on the other hand, felt suddenly optimistic. A bright late August day, a cloudless sky, smiling and gaily chatting people in colourful summer clothing and a sea that invited swimmers – all were ingredients for a pleasant afternoon’s outing that cost no more than a bus fare and an ice cream. By a nearby boating lake, a kiddies’ fairground induced youngsters to tug at elders’ hands and T-shirts and clamour for a turn on the carousel, whence the tune of ‘Greensleeves’ was music to Enery’s ears. Instantly he brightened. Kay was gratified to see her partner’s mood improve so quickly.
‘I told you it’s do you good,’ she remarked. ‘How’s your leg?’
Enery’s eyes glazed over.
*****
The Mary Rose glided sedately seaward through the harbour mouth. Sails billowed as if puffed with pride. A long red swallow-tailed pennant flew almost horizontally, as if pointing the way forward. One could barely discern human figures on board, pulling ropes and cannon away from the portholes. Enery turned round to face his admirers on the fortress on shore and smiled. His admirers clapped and cheered. He promised that a few more ships like the Mary Rose would be no match for the French or Spanish.
‘Aragón whoresons all!’ he punned. His audience laughed, hardly understanding his witticism immediately, if at all. But chuckle they did and burst into a second round of applause. As if to change the subject, all eyes except Enery’s were watching the ship. Words such as ‘wond’rous’ and ‘truly magnificent’ were uttered sporadically, until eyes widened and mouths opened in ghastly surprise. Enery looked round and saw the flower of is navy capsize. The lower decks took on water through the portholes. The wind carried the screams and clamour of condemned men from several leagues out to sea. In seconds, the ship vanished under the gentle waves. Enery sobbed.
*****
Kay asking what the matter was brought Enery back to another reality. People had gathered along the ramparts that ran parallel with the coast to watch the regatta. Triangular-sailed vessels wheeled around buoys and raced towards the finish line. Some of the spectators cheered. Perhaps they had money on one or two of the crews.
‘I’m taking you to the doctor’s tomorrow,’ Kay said.
The following weekend was promising. Then it was not. Kay gave Enery some more of his tablets to calm him down. He was so calmed down that he hardly moved all day Saturday. The first sounds they heard on the following Sunday morning were those of hymn singing to a brass band accompaniment. The Salvation Army sang ‘All people that do dwell on earth’ lustily to an empty, somnolent cul-de-sac. Enery twitched, then sat bolt upright in bed.
‘How dare they!’ he roared.
He jumped out of bed and opened the window.
‘Heretics!’ he bellowed. ‘I am the Church of England!’
The band played on.
‘I am the Church of England and don’t you forget it!’
The band still played on.
*****
‘The poor man went from bad to worse,’ Mr Lyall said. ‘He died a few weeks later in a psychiatric hospital.’
The priest explained that the inscription was his dying wish. And one cannot deny a man’s dying wish, can one? Kay made all the arrangements and paid for it.
We then exchanged a few remarks about the church’s architecture and sensing that we had run out of comments to found another round of conversation, I took my leave. I mounted my bicycle and proceeded along the road that went parallel to the Portsmouth-London railway line. The sun shone through the tall hedgerows making a dappled pattern on the asphalt. Trees joined branches overhead to make a near perfect semi-circular arch over the lane. A train whished past at high speed whisking serious-looking mortals to destinations further up the line. I found myself whistling ‘Greensleeves’ to myself as I pedalled blissfully on.
