Above and Beyond

Chapter 20

  Just before we left for Spain Sue had taken me to the local 18th Century church in Wroxham to explain about her ‘nun’ comment. We walked up to the blue Norman doorway (it looked like 12th Century to me – and Wikipedia) and of course it was locked, aren’t they always when you feel like a spontaneous prayer or two (or to clean out the donations box) but reaching into her shoulder bag she took out a rusty old key, not 12th century I thought, more like 19th, but I digress, and opened it. Taking hold of my hand she lead me into the fine grade one listed building, through a modern glass protective screen and made our way towards the Altar, which was overlooked by a beautiful stained glass window.

  ‘Let’s sit here’ she said, ‘this is my favourite row, the vibes are better’ and we sat down, still holding hands. She paused for a moment then knelt down, and I followed, either that or have my arm wrenched out of its socket. She did not pray ‘per se’ (I love that phrase), it was more like having a chat with an old friend (I wonder what Gods first name is? – or perhaps it is his first name – God Jones esq. – I wonder if that is blasphemy?). First off she introduced me, then thanked him for sorting me out and then they had a short question and answer session, although I could not for the life of me hear his answers, perhaps I had a wax problem. We then sat back up and we had a chat. She explained that she was not very religious (?) but when I had switched off in that art gallery she started to visit St Marys to pray for me, but found that as they only opened for business on Wednesdays and Sundays she found it a bit limiting, she felt that she needed to nag ‘him up there’ at least once a day, lest he forget. Then she heard about the lead roof, ‘it was only the small one, thank God’ she said.

  ‘Thank him now, as we are here’ I said, but it was lost to her.

  ‘And it only cost me an arm and a leg to have it repaired’, she continued ‘on condition that I have my own key, so I could visit 24/7’. Over time we have become great friends and he has advised me on loads of things, as I have him of course, but we have kept clear of the ‘religious stuff’, you should never discuss religion or politics with friends, it’s the easiest way to end the friendship, but once, just before he sent that obnoxious little brat, (his words not mine) Mark, to wake you up I asked him ‘if ‘converting’ to a nun might help your plight’ but he said ‘no it was almost over, and being a nun would only mean that I would have to break my vows later on, so I didn’t, thank God’.

  ‘That’s two thanks that you owe him now’ I thought, and then I thought ‘how on earth does she know about Mark? Alice and I had, to my knowledge, never mentioned what I had actually said to anyone else, Emma my daughter–in–law would have knocked me straight back into a comma again. This was getting spooky; I would have to ask Alice if she had disclosed our ‘family secret’ to her over iced tea. We then thanked him (or in this world of equal opportunities possibly ‘her’) for saving me (for her), then stood to make our way home.

  ‘I think you should drop the key off now’ I said as she locked the door and went to slip it into her bag.

  ‘You must be joking, the amount of money it cost me I almost have shares in this place. I think that I will hang on to it just in case anything else happens to you’.

  ‘Have you had any other conversations about me with your ‘friend,’ I thought.

  Alice swore on her unborn child’s life that she had not told Sue, or anyone else for that matter, then screamed and said, ‘we weren’t going to tell anyone until after the first scan’.

  ‘Not another obnoxious little brat’ I said, hugging her tightly, forgetting all about the iced tea: for the moment at least.

  When we arrived at El Campo a few days later I took her to meet Sheila and George & Millie, but I was left outside, ‘she wanted to have a chat with her in private’, and I was starting to get more than a little worried, then that evening, as we entered my/our boudoir she turned to me and said ‘you lied to me’.

  Racking my brain, for the life of me I couldn’t think of a single instance that I had lied to her (well perhaps once, but that had only been a white lie), did you know that there are three types of lies, the first ones, the harmless ones are – white lies – they do not intentionally hurt anyone, they just get you out of a jam, in fact they usually save hurting someone else’s feelings, like ‘of course he loves your cooking mother, he always vomits after eating fish pie’. Then there are the second, more serious ones, the harmful ones – blatant lies – that are deliberately told to hurt or damage someone or something, like ‘of course they don’t make your bum look huge darling, it must be the lighting’, and finally there are the third type, the worst ones of all – ‘statistics’, but yet again I digress, so I said ‘when’?

  ‘When you said that Sheila was a virgin when you got married, she lost it to you the day she started at your fathers firm, in the stock room when you were showing her around, she said it had been love at first sight and if you hadn’t made the first move then she would have, and she never got the ink out of her ‘best’ nickers when you both trashed the gestetner machine, AND you were engaged to Myrtle Scoggings at the time’.

  ‘Well it was only a ‘white lie’ I said, ‘nobody got hurt, except perhaps Myrtle Scoggings, but she did go on to become Mother Superior at the Abbey, and dad did replace the gestetner machine with a Xerox 914 plain paper copier, it was a giant leap ‘technology wise’.

  ‘Yes’, she continued, ‘but not very far, you then broke the glass trying to photo copy her bum, and your father then had to go out and buy reinforced glass for the machine as it wasn’t covered by the guarantee’.

  ‘That was it, I was a believer – in what I didn’t have a clue, but I was definitely a believer’. I knew that we had never told a soul about the glass, my dad would have killed us, although I may have mentioned something about the stockroom during my stag do (which was repeated by my best man during his speech), ‘but my father did deduct the full cost of the machine from our wages, after the wedding’, I said in mitigation.

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