An extra body in the graveyard

Mrs Damark had outlasted three parish priests when Father Jonathan inherited her and the high expectations the predecessors had set. In theory, the parish priests’ role in the community was left open-ended, for each individual to decide the commitments they could take on, but Mrs Damark was very clear on what his role was: it was to replace the entire Yellow Pages directory of services: oiling sticky locks, taking down curtains for a yearly wash, taking rubbish from a garden clear out to the tip, and now dog sitting. She’d done her ankle in clearing out the shed, then she’d got an infection. While she was in and out of the hospital, Father Jonathan was in speed-dial position one. 

Twice a day he drove his ageing Ford to Mrs Damark’s bungalow to check on Suzy the terrier, fill up her food, water bowls, and let her out to toilet in the backyard. Suzy was as elderly and frail as her owner. Her tongue hung limply from one side of her mouth after a stroke, and she squinted and blinked through cataracts, so she permanently looked like she’d woken up from an all-night love affair with a bottle of tequila. From the smell of the bungalow, one, if not both, of them wasn’t making it to the toilet a hundred per cent of the time. She’s not used to being on her own, Mrs Damark had said. ‘She gets lonely.’ And in case Father Jonathan was tempted to skip out on Suzy, she added, ‘And she won’t know where I am. She’ll be upset!’ He wondered a bit unkindly if Suzy noticed much, these days but he reminded himself that deeds maketh the man and adopted Suzy while Mrs Damark went for a stay with her daughter in Leeds. The daughter probably didn’t want an incontinent dog along with a poorly mother, (even if they were both more her problem than his) and so Suzy became his sweetly pathetic, stinky tenant.

‘Please don’t piss on a grave,’ he'd entreated while Suzy looked him directly in the eye and panted as if she enthusiastically agreed. Suzy shuffled off to her favourite spot in the privacy of the bushes. He suspected when she was eager to come back into the warm house, she let it go at the first available spot. Suzy had been outside for a while now in the dark churchyard so Jonathan closed the door to keep the heat in for a few minutes. He'd turned the heating off in the vicarage as it was soon time for bed. He rinsed his teacup and moved plates from the drying rack to the cupboard. Suzy must be done by now. He opened the door, and the porch light came on automatically. He tutted and rolled his eyes when he didn’t see Suzy didn't come scuttling arthritically back inside. She was off somewhere in the churchyard barking. Johnathon said something he shouldn’t on hallowed ground and shoved his feet into wellies. He called for her, the sound of his voice and the porch light should be enough clues for her to re-orientate herself and find the house but her barking didn't sound any closer. 

In the distance beyond the aching cold and dark, Sukie heard someone calling her name but flattened under the shushing of light rain, the kind of rain that would be refreshing on a Summer afternoon, but in the cold and dark, clothes quickly fatigued of repelling the shower of icy kisses. The beam of Johnathon’s torch found the terrier. She stood to attention to bark, then bowed her head to lick at something. A rock? Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. He started forward, catching his instinct to kick the dog away when he saw that she was licking a hand.  A hand covered in blood, and Suzy’s beard was daubed red with it. He wanted to vomit. Suzy, recognising he was there, stood to one side like a sentry, still barking.  Tracing the hand with the torchlight, the lump of coat under the hedge had a mass of dark curls spilling out of the hood. A nose and jawline under the tendrils of hair. He leaned in. Eyes closed, rain-glazed and peaceful, like the stone angels she shared the graveyard with.

He pulled at the sodden coat, heaving it away from the hedge. He slung her over his shoulder without meaning to be so rough, she was lighter inside that coat than he'd expected, his height and athletic shoulders made light work of the small woman bundled in the big coat. He carried her gently like he cradled Suzy when he hoisted her into the car, so he didn’t jar her painful joints. He would remember he was shouting, but he couldn’t remember what he was shouting or to whom. She remained cold and dead and rain heavy. Someone had done something awful to her and discarded her body in the graveyard. He couldn’t bring himself to look at her while the ambulance was on its way. He strode purposefully up the path, trying to exorcise the image of her hair laying in dark slashes across her face. His wellington boots hung loose over the bare skin of his feet. He picked up Suzy, who was limping along trying to keep up with him, and held her to his shoulder like a baby. She had wiped off the blood somewhere, probably on his sofa. Still, the image of her red, bedraggled beard, covering sharp teeth made him shiver and wrench shaky breaths. He increased his pace to give his muscles something to do so they wouldn’t turn into jelly. He shouldn’t disturb evidence, he thought. This was all the excuse he needed to pace along the junction at the top of the lane for the ambulance and police to wave them down in case they missed the narrow turning for the vicarage.

 The ambulance crew went about their business with the body he’d laid on the sofa. At the same time, the police took his statement in the kitchen. They found a bottle of Jack Daniels in the hedge where she’d been and bagged it as evidence. The policeman boiled the kettle for brews all round while his colleague took a statement. They received a message on their walkie talkies, and they translated to Jonathan that the doctors thought she would be alright, so they’d speak to her in the morning. ‘She’s alive?’ he asked weakly.

‘Looks like it. She’s given you a right shock,’ said the officer, handing him a cup and placing the cheerful ladybird teapot down next to him. ‘You sit there and drink this, take your time.’

‘I should have… tried to … to dry her off… keep her warm. I—’

‘Don’t you worry about none of that,’ said the constable taking the statement, Jackie, it said on her name badge. ‘You most likely saved her life by getting her inside and calling us. The doctors and nurses will do the rest.’

Jonathan stood up to get milk but then stopped, forgetting why he’d stood up and turned around. He sat back down, looked at his cup and said, ‘Milk.’ She was alive. Alive. But then if she’d been dead, why had he carried a dead body into his house? But he hadn’t carried a body. She was alive. Had he known she was alive. He couldn’t remember. Why didn’t he check for a pulse or put her in the recovery position or … or …? He watched The Bill religiously, he knew you shouldn’t touch a dead body, but he should at least have felt for a pulse. Her eyes were closed though. Idiot. You can be alive and have your eyes closed. Johnathon stared open-mouthed at his tea as his thoughts danced around a maypole. We all fall down. 

Jackie caught her colleague’s eye and directed his gaze to the fridge. The policeman put down the pint bottle, ‘There ya go, fella.’

Jonathan didn’t want to drink tea, but he held the cup since they’d made it for him.

Jackie said goodnight and started up the police car while the walkie talkie chattered to her, her junior sidekick whose job it was to make awful brews said to Jonathan on the way out: ‘It’s a shame she had to get you involved in this nonsense, bloody stroppy teenagers, I get ten of these a night.’

Bastard, Jonathan thought, but he said, ‘Thanks for coming out,’ and slammed the door. He’d really thought she was dead. The longer he sat in front of the fire, now drinking something stronger than a cup of tea, a childhood of hot toddies taught him that whiskey was the right medicine for all ills. The more his mind rolled it over, it seemed like a miracle. A resurrection. It meant something.