Chaz, chapter 8

 Well, I am sort of back.  Managed this, anyway.

Chapter 8 – Through the Valley of the Shadow of Death

Joe Taylor, the man from the bell foundry had suggested recasting the smallest bell as cheaper than repairing it.

“By the time I’ve sorted that treble out, it’ll run to the price of a new bell,” he said.  “T’others ... well I can make an improvement.”

“Anything is better than ‘dung clang pip’,” said Chaz, dryly. 

“If you were looking to increase your range, we’ve a bell at the foundry as would fit in with your three, which was ordered and then they couldn’t raise the wind,” said Taylor. “We could let you have it for five thousand on top of the six to fix yours; I’ll talk to the boss, see if we can do you ten grand all in.”

“That I could manage,” said Chaz.  “It would give us plain bob minimus to ring, at least.”

“That’s what I thought,” said the bell founder. “One or two bells call to worship, three bells is neither flesh nor fowl nor good red herring.  You want five, really.”

“I know, but that will have to wait,” said Chaz.  “I also need bell-ringers.”

“Old Tom rings,” said the foundry man. “If he’s still alive.”

“He’s still alive,” said Chaz. “You know our bells?”

“Yes, the previous vicar wanted us to fix one of them but the price was too steep,” said the foundry man cynically.

“I suppose we can’t all have independent means and a frugal lifestyle,” said Chaz. “Bellringing has always been a hobby of mine, and to be honest, I can think of plenty of sports which would cost more in the long run.  And once you have the bells, you have the long run.”

“Well, o’ course when you start getting the larger bells, it’ll be a pretty penny, but then, a new car’d set you back more’n a couple of bells,” said the foundry man.  “Or a good set of clubs and membership at a prestigious golf club.”

“Indeed,” said Chaz.  “Are you good to dismount and take them away to work on? They are not especially large.”

“Well, I have the boy with me, so we should do just fine,” said the man. “Hello, you have company.”

Mrs. Hadley had just barrelled in the door.

“Vicar! Tell me it isn’t true!” she cried.

“Tell you what isn’t true?” asked Chaz.

“That you are having the bells taken away, and replacing them with electronic bells!” cried Mrs. Hadley.  “ I saw  the ‘Nine Taylors’ truck. [1]My dear grandfather bought the tenor bell, I couldn’t bear it if you did not keep them!” she struck a dramatic attitude.

“You silly piece, the vicar is paying out of his own pocket to have them tuned, and to add another bell,” said Taylor. “You don’t think a campanologist like the Reverend Cunningham would give up having bells do you?  He’s been part of a prize-winning team he has.”

“He has?  But then why haven’t you been ringing the bells?” Mrs. Hadley turned to Chaz.

“Madam, no musician would like playing an ill-tuned piano and an artist does not enjoy painting with lumpy playschool powder paint,” said Chaz. “The bells offended my sensibilities.  I am rectifying the problems, and adding a bell so we can ring some basic changes.  Of course, if you wish to emulate your illustrious grandsire, and add a fifth bell, we can celebrate him with Grandsire Doubles.  Five bells gives us a lot more choice then Hunting and Plain Bob Minimus. Stedman described nine cross-peals on five bells, and I am partial to Stedman doubles.”

“Oh, I don’t know anything about it,” said Mrs. Hadley, “But I always felt that it was something to remember him by. My grandparents brought me up.”

Chaz thought that this explained a lot.

“Well, ma’am, Joe here will have your grandfather’s bell sorted out in no time.  I saw it had ‘Big Will’ on it; was that his name?”

“Yes, and he was a ringer,” said Mrs. Hadley, proudly.

“Aye, but he was a cheapskate, which is why ‘Big Willy’ is a bit more of a ‘Big Dick’,” said Taylor.

“Joe!” said Chaz.

The foundry-man had the grace to blush.

“Oh, no, Mr. Taylor, his name was William, not Richard, and it was always Will, not Willy,” assured Mrs. Hadley, who missed the coarseness entirely, to Chaz’s relief. A co-operative Mrs. Hadley was easier to deal with than an upset Mrs. Hadley.  “I ... I believe I might consider adding a bell; but not yet, I ... there is no point if there is no interest in ringing.”

“Indeed, as I won’t be able to ring on a Sunday,” said Chaz.  “Unless I get a locum in start things off.”

“I can’t see that being a problem,” said Mrs. Hadley. “The churchwardens could announce a text and the opening hymn.  I am a churchwarden so I think I speak for all.”

“Oh! And speaking of which, Mrs. Hadley, do you have the key to the little vestibule to the ringing room?” asked Chaz.  “I tried to get into there to see if there were things like new ropes, but it was locked and did not respond to any of my keys.”

“Yes, indeed; I will go and get my keys,” said Mrs. Hadley. “Dear me, I disremember when it was last open.  I believe it was locked up by Amos Barrow before he absconded, a piece of sheer spite, if you ask me, a disobliging old man who lived alone and kept everyone at arms’ length.”

Mrs. Hadley soon returned with a chatelaine of keys, and a disapproving look on her face at the youngest Taylor, who wore slit jeans, a Khorne T-shirt and whose ears and eyebrows sported a number of rings and other metalwork.

Introduced as ‘my boy Josh’ by Mr. Taylor, he was grinning shyly at Chaz’s jocular comment that he had enough eyebrow rings to hang a ring of seven.

“You couldn’t make them have the right sound,” said Josh.

“No, and right is right,” agreed Chaz.

Mrs. Hadley at least waited until Josh had vanished up the stair before saying,

“Should you encourage such monstrous fashions, vicar?”

“Certainly; he’ll grow out of it,” said Chaz. “I grew out of wearing a safety pin through my nose to irritate my father, and I expect you grew out of seeing how short a skirt you could get away with by leaning forward when they measured the distance from the ground as you kneeled for that purpose at school.”

“Reverend! However did you know? Dear me, I have not thought of such rebellion for years!” said Mrs. Hadley, flustered.  “I used to wear the skirt Grandma sent me off to school in over my mini skirt, and took it off in the bus.”

“All generations rebel,” said Chaz.  “And the more older folk complain, the more they rebel.  I wager that Shakespeare’s father hit the roof when young Will first started wearing an earring.”

“Dear me, I  ... I had not thought of that,” said Mrs. Hadley.  “This is the key ... dear me, it does not seem to be going in.”

“May I?” said Chaz.  She gave him the chatelaine, and Chaz tried.

“What can be wrong?” she wondered, petulantly.

“You say this Amos Barrow disappeared?” said Chaz.

“Yes, without a word to anyone,” said Mrs. Hadley.

Chaz got out his mobile phone and punched in the number of  Collingham police station.

“Superintendant Smythe?  This is Chaz Cunningham, vicar of  Lingley,” said Chaz.  “Now I could be wrong, but I think I might have a DB in my church ... one which is irregular as you might say.  Eh?  Oh, a locked room, locked from the inside with the key still in it.  Well,  before my time ... a moment.” He cupped his hand over the phone.  “Mrs. Hadley, when did Barrow disappear?”

“Goodness!  It must be ... nearly forty years ago,” said Mrs. Hadley. “Yes, I was in my teens.”

“Forty years, superintendant,” said Chaz.  “Yes, I know; I understand he was believed to have absconded.  No, the previous vicar left no intimation that he was concerned; I doubt he would have entered the little room in any case, it’s little more than a cupboard.  Thank you, I appreciate that.” He rang off.

“What is it, vicar? Why did you phone the police?” asked Mrs. Hadley.

“Well, Mrs. Hadley, this is the only door to that room, isn’t it?” said Chaz.

“Yes, it’s no more than a glory hole for keeping spare ropes in,” said Mrs. Hadley.

“And it is locked on the inside, with the key still in the lock,” said Chaz.

Colour drained from Mrs. Hadley’s face as the implication of this hit her.

“So ... you mean the poor man got shut in and could not make anyone hear?” she whispered.

“Whatever happened, I think he’s still in there, not absconded at all,” said Chaz. “No spite, just ... circumstance.”

Mrs. Hadley fainted.

The police have tools for turning keys on the other sides of locks, amongst their many tools which would get any other member of the public arrested for carrying tools for breaking and entering.  Pete Noakes and Timothy Cotton, who were assigned to the village, soon had the door open.

Mrs. Hadley was by now resting on a chaise longue in the vestry with a nice cup of tea, and Chaz raised an eyebrow.

“Suicide,” said Pete. “There’s a note and all; he hanged himself with a bell-ringing rope over one of the beams.  Chair kicked over, classic.”

“May I enquire what, in broad, the note said?” asked Chaz.

“Basically that nobody cared, that he was dying of cancer but nobody passed the time of day with him to ask how he was feeling, and that he believed it would be Christmas before anyone missed him and found the body. It was dated September, almost exactly 40 years ago.”

Chaz whistled.

“I think I need to do a sermon on loneliness,” he said.

“I’ve got two pop songs for the congregation today,” said Chaz in church.  “First one, I suspect most of the older members will know; and I wonder if some of the younger ones will know the second.  I’ve hired a big screen to show the official video for it.”

The first track he played was by the Beatles, “Eleanor Rigby.” 

“That spells it out, without equivocation, what it is like to be lonely; especially poor, old and lonely,” said Chaz.  “That was in 1966.  Do you think things have got better, or worse?  Please watch the video and then think about it.”

He played ‘Numb’ by Linkin’ Park.

“This is the oldest video next to ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ to break one million views on YouTube. It was released in 2003,” Chaz told the congregation.  “You don’t have to be old or even particularly poor to feel alone, isolated, alienated.  It can happen to anyone who finds themselves feeling at odds with what is perceived as the mainstream.  It happened to Amos Barrow, who was forty. That’s not old, though some of you old enough to recall him may describe him as old, because he was a loner, irascible, and not able to reach out.  As most of you doubtless know, Amos’ body was found here in the church, where he came, first to pray and then to commit suicide. He had cancer. Nobody knew because nobody ever asked him how he was, despite the fact that he was a churchwarden and a bellringer.  Not even the vicar.  Now, Reverent Shaw was a young man then, and new in the district and perhaps he felt a little shy.  Many of the folks here were only children and perhaps felt that it would be an intrusion.  But now you are the adults, and other generations have grown up.  And I want you to ask yourselves, have you ever shunned anyone because they were a bit different?  I know that Maggie Beales has welcomed Annie Shaw into her flower arranging class.  Annie suffers from Down’s Syndrome, and Annie, I love this bright arrangement you have made for me out of Dahlias.”

Annie crowed happily from the congregation, and signed her thanks in Makaton.

Chaz smiled back.  Maggie had introduced him to Annie, saying that the W.I. had not permitted Annie to come along, meaning that her mother was unable to join the W.I.

“Annie understands that her flower arrangements praise God,” said Chaz.  “That makes her a better Christian than those who exclude her and her mother from activities.  Fortunately Annie knows she has friends, and is not lonely; but she might be in the future.  And how much support does Mrs. Shaw have?  How many of you drop in to give her an hour to herself by sitting with Annie?  It’s more than it was a week or two ago.  But why did I have to ask some of the more generous souls who did not know the Shaws? Why weren’t there offers from those people who live nearer?” He swept the congregation with a stern eye. “Being different is not something to be punished by being ostracised.  Being different is a blessing; a unique gift. Our Saviour was ‘different’.  He did not toe the line, nor do what society wanted of Him.  He went out onto the highways and byeways to preach and to teach.  He healed the sick.  He questioned the Old Testament’s harsh laws.  He did not despise publicans and sinners, and nor did he despise the men of Samaria.  You all know the story of the Good Samaritan, but none of you apply it in real life!” he was thundering now, eyes blazing.  “You look on a kid with piercings, or on a refugee from another country, and you treat them the same way as the Jews treated the men of Samaria, and if you receive any blessings from them, then you treat them like a dancing dog, a spectacle to be wondered at like a token single good Samaritan!  Now we have the odd recluse in the village, and I have not butted in before because I wanted to see what the village does for its own.  And I discover that what it does is nothing!”

“Please, Rev. Chaz, I talk to the man in Rose Cottage!” Piped up Summer Grey.  Chaz smiled at her.

“Of course you do, Summer; you are a breath of fresh air.  Does he talk to you?”

“Well, sometimes,” said Summer.  “He doesn’t tell me to and find something else to do like he used to.”

“Excellent,” said Chaz.  “I did knock on his door but he didn’t feel like opening it.  You might tell him I don’t bite and that I make good biscuits.”

Summer nodded solemnly.

“I shall,” she said.

“And there we have a little child leading us all,” said Chaz. “Children have no preconceptions; they learn those from their parents as they grow older.  I would love to see the children of today growing up without preconceptions about other village folk who are not quite the same.  Which does not mean not warning them about dangerous people; but then, if you know someone is dangerous, you should be telling the police to go visit instead of telling your children to stay away.”

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[1] There is a Bell Foundry called Tailors, whom I am referencing; they fixed the ring of five Wolsey bells in one of my local churches which now ring sweet and clear.  Nine Taylors, as anyone who reads Lord Peter Whimsey will know, refers to the nine tolls to mark the passing of a man. [6 for a woman, 3 for a child].