What she didn’t expect in the dim downstairs was a recognizable male voice shouting “Reverend Joy? Are you all right?” and sunlight shining in through her open door. There was someone on the floor too. With horror Joy realized that it was Arthur Ambleside-Smith. She rushed down the stairs, completely forgetting her last failsafe and found herself — and the broom — going flying as she tripped over the fishing line. She landed in a sprawl at Tom Truman’s feet, just as he had helped the hapless Arthur to get up.

  He gave her a hand as she tried to stand up, and apologize at the same time. “I am so sorry!” she said, aghast at the effect of her trap.

  Tom shook his head “What would my mother say, me picking up a fallen woman, and at this time of morning too. What’s going on here, Reverend Joy? Are you all right? Or are you in shock from Arthur’s outcry of delight when everything including him fell over when he walked in?”

  “Oh, I am really so sorry!” repeated Joy ignoring the jokes to concentrate on the victim of her trap. “Arthur, are you all right?” she asked anxiously. “It’s all my fault. I really am so terribly sorry. Did you get hurt?”

  Arthur shook his head. “Um no. Just tripped, and er, must have knocked a lot of things over.”

  Tom had found the light switch, was looking at the scene, feeling the strand of fishing line. “What on earth is going on in here?” he asked, plainly struggling to suppress a smile. “Is this normal church practice, or a new liturgy you’re working on? I’m sorry we interrupted it. We came with strict instructions to fix a mouse hole and set traps.”

  “Oh… oh no. It’s just I had a burglar last night. I thought it was the mouse and chased whoever it was off. So… well, I was scared I wouldn’t hear them if they came back, so I er, made sure I would!”

  She could see that at least Arthur was looking at her as if she was possibly a dangerous lunatic. Of course Tom was laughing. “I now understand the meaning of ‘build a better mousetrap, and they will come’,” he said, looking at the fallen pots and pans, and the chair and brass tray. “Did you really think Felixtown was crime central, Reverend Joy?”

  “It did happen!” she protested, indignantly. “Wait.”

  She ran upstairs with as much dignity as possible, and re-emerged having put her dressing gown on, with the piece of wire. She handed it to them. “This wire was being pushed through the window gap… here.” She walked over to the window, nearly tripping over the remains of her home-made alarm system. “Look, you can even see a few scratches on the paint. And there is a bit of black mud here. It wasn’t my imagination!”

  “Aluminum MIG welder wire,” said Tom, thoughtfully. “Wouldn’t have been my first choice. Too soft.”

  “Did you call the police?” asked Arthur. “We, um, don’t have many break-ins… or anything like that here. Someone took a car outside the Pub for a joyride last year though.” He sounded almost… relieved they had that much of a problem to cite.

  “Well, no. After the last performance with the brick… and they didn’t actually get in,” said Joy. “But… I was rather nervous. I was scared they might come back and I would wake too late to call for help. So, uh, I set this up.”

  “Very ingenious,” said Tom. “And wise, considering that you must be a rock-solid sleeper. We’ve been knocking for ages and then I remembered I happened to have a key from when we were clearing the place up. I thought you might… well, be in trouble, or be an early riser and have gone out, and we could do the repair work and set the traps quickly before you got in. I’m sorry we disturbed the death-trap, but it was the one time that Arthur and I could both make it.”

  “I’m just sorry Arthur fell. I… struggled to sleep after that, and I must have fallen into a really deep sleep when I finally did. I normally get up early — around half-past six, for morning prayer, and I’m quite a light sleeper. Just not this morning, I am so sorry.”

  “Heh. Early is relative. For dairy farmers like me, this is mid-day. For Arthur, this is predawn. And God will probably forgive you for being late with the prayers,” said Tom.

  “I am sure he will. But actually I meant sorry for Arthur being ambushed by my burglar alarm. And for not waking up. And for arriving in my pajamas with a broom,” said Joy, assuming dignity. “So I hope you weren’t hurt, Arthur, and that you will forgive me for being so silly.”

  “Really, I um didn’t get hurt,” the younger man said, smiling sheepishly. For all that he had obviously started balding very early in life, he wasn’t a bad-looking young man — in his early thirties perhaps — Joy guessed, when he wasn’t looking like a terrified rabbit.

  “Or even say words that must have led our poor new pastor to think she’d been attacked by drunken sailormen” said Tom, laughing again. “I’m impressed, Arthur. I hadn’t heard you being quite that expressive before. I haven’t heard anything as descriptive since I left the Navy. Is that what you’ve learned at those conferences you keep going to? I’m sure you’ve given Reverend Joy material for at least three sermons. Now, come on, let’s get on before you have to get back to work, and I have to get back to meet the dairy truck. If we can have a look at this mouse-hole, and measure up, I’ve got a new length of skirting board in the ute. We can cut it out there and avoid making a mess in the house.”

  “Well, I do have a broom to sweep up with,” said Joy, waving it, and wincing as some new falling-down-the-stairs bruises made themselves known.

  “I did wonder about closet witchcraft when you came flying down the stairs with that. But Zenobia told me that’s blatant nonsense and that all witches are just innocent naturalists, like her.”

  Joy happened to be looking at Arthur’s face as Tom made this crack. His mildly miserable expression suddenly pursed itself into a look of intent hatred, before he hastily looked away. It wasn’t just his father who didn’t like Zenobia, Joy thought.

  Her own wince had obviously been noticed too. “Are you sure you’re all right after that little tumble, Reverend?” asked Tom.

  “Just a bit bruised I think. It serves me right.”

  “You should go and see Dr. Hammond, just in case,” said Arthur. “I know someone who broke her collarbone and thought it was just a bruise.”

  “Maddie,” said Tom. “She was at the pool, with my daughter. They never would tell me quite what they were up to.”

  “They were playing rocket-ships into the pool, you know, where one of you lies on your back and pulls their legs up against your chest, and the other one sits on the feet, and gets boosted through the air. Katie launched Madeleine so hard she hit the other side,” said Arthur. “They didn’t dare tell you because apparently your wife, um, ex-wife, had forbidden them to do it.”

  “Ah, that explains the evasion. It wouldn’t have worried me, but they always believed we were in collusion. I didn’t know you knew Madeleine and Kathleen. They must have been seven or eight years behind you at school.”

  “Oh, er, I heard it somewhere,” said Arthur, earnestly peering at the gap which could be a mouse hole. “I’ll go and put a trap or two in the crawl-space. Have you got any peanut butter, Reverend Joy? Although it seems a waste on a trap, it’s the best bait, I’m told.”

  “Um. I don’t think so. I could offer the bread to go under the peanut-butter, but not the peanut butter.”

  “Are you sure they wouldn’t like marmalade instead?” asked Tom. “I have heard many people like marmalade instead.”

  “I had no idea you were an Alderney, Mr. Truman,” said Joy, recognizing the quote.

  “Can’t be. The Alderney are extinct as a pure breed.” He grinned at the expression on Arthur’s face. “Winnie the Pooh. The King’s Breakfast. The mice will just have to be a little less fussy and have a piece of bread. And it reminds me: I have marmalade from my sister, and eggs, and some home-cured bacon from my pigs in the ute for you, Reverend Joy.”

  “You had to say that after I had Weet-Bix for breakfast,” said Arthur, far more human now that he was away from his parents. “Mother won’t have bacon in the house. ‘Too much salt and fat, bad for your father’s blood pressure. Are you trying to kill him?’ So we don’t, ever,” he said in remarkably good mimicry of manner and voice.

  “She means well,” said Tom.

  “You don’t have to live with it,” he said, resignedly. “Some bread will have to do.”

  Joy gave him a slice, which he tore in fragments and baited the mouse-traps with, while Tom calmly took a well-used pen-knife from his pocket and cut the fishing line before kneeling to measure the skirting board. Joy put the kettle on to boil and retreated upstairs to change out of her night-clothes. Really, what would the good people of Felixtown think!

  Coming back down, as the kettle whistled, she heard a brief terrible shriek outside. It took her a few frightened seconds to realize that it was a power-saw. Moments later Tom returned, with Arthur, carrying a new skirting board, and a basket — with eggs, a vacuum-pack of bacon slices, a jar of marmalade, a hammer and a bag of nails.

  “I was sure the eggs would survive close proximity to my hammer, but the two had better be separated or they might start to bicker,” said Tom. “The relationship is not what it was cracked up to be.”

  Joy relieved his arm of the basket, and took the hammer and nails out of it.

  “Actually, I want the basket back, you can keep the eggs, bacon and marmalade. It’s handy for putting the old nails in.”

  The two men worked well together. Joy had expected Tom Truman to be handy with tools, but Arthur was not the sort that she would have assumed would be good with his hands. Which all went to show, Joy thought, how stupid it was to judge people by appearances. She could hover and try to help, or make coffee. The latter, she decided would help her, and them, most.

  So she asked if they’d like some, got an assent, and busied herself with that. They had the old, gnawed skirting out and the new nailed in before she’d finished. “If you can live with the smell of varnish, I’ll give it a first coat right now. It’s a smell best countered by the scent of frying bacon,” said Tom.

  “Before I joined ministry I used to work in a museum. No little bit of varnish can compete with the smells in the back rooms of museums. I am not going to cook bacon for myself while you work. Would my reputation in Felixtown survive my offering you both breakfast?”

  “Yes,” said Arthur, nodding his head eagerly. “Bacon!”

  But as it turned out, she varnished and they cooked. Watching Tom with tape and paper had been too much to bear. “I have taped a lot of things, and, um, painted a lot of things. Do you mind if I help?” she asked after a few seconds of watching the fumbling.

  “Delighted,” said Tom trying to detach a piece of tape from one finger and attaching it to his thumb. “I’ll fry the bacon and supervise from the stove.”

  Joy discovered that what she’d been told about Arthur and food was all too accurate. He would cheerfully have eaten all of the food. He did get through six slices of toast, butter and marmalade. “Douglas Adams was wrong. The answer to life the universe and everything may be bacon, not 42,” he said, contentedly.

  He might not have read or remember Winnie-the-Pooh, but he obviously had read the Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy. “I think I have to professionally disagree about the answer to life,” said Joy, “But I’m not Marvin. This is the best bacon I’ve ever tasted.”

  Arthur looked at her in some surprise. And then gave one of his rare smiles. “Even a paranoid android would have to enjoy it.”

  “What are you two talking about?” asked Tom.

  “Science Fiction.”

  “Ah. Arthur has been to several conferences about it,” said Tom, getting up, collecting plates and heading for the sink as if this was a habit. “I’ll pass.”

  “You also won’t do the washing up,” said Joy, getting up, and wincing.

  They both noticed.

  “What is wrong?” asked Tom.

  “My ankle is a bit sore,” she admitted.

  “You’d better see the Doctor.”

  Some argument — in the nicest sense of the word — ended in Joy agreeing to book an appointment with the town’s only doctor and for them to leave her to the smell of varnish and bacon and to the washing up.

  CHAPTER 7

  Joy got someone’s cancelled appointment, for three o’clock, and felt her disturbed night, and relatively early morning entitled her to sit with her sore ankle up and try to prepare the message for Sunday. It was perhaps not the best position for doing so, and it was just as well she’d set an alarm on her mobile to remind her that she had an appointment, or she’d have slept through it. She drove hastily to the surgery and parked next to the maroon Land Cruiser. Honestly, was she being haunted by it?

  It was interesting to notice that the receptionist was the woman with the pram whose baby she’d admired with Tom Truman. That was still the feature of this small country town that she was struggling to deal with most. Now the mother, in a crisp uniform blouse with a headset on, looked rather more harassed and professional. Did the two go together? She still had time for a bright smile, and to give Joy a new-patient form on a clip-board, and point her at the waiting room area. The room already had several occupants, one of whom was Major Ambleside-Smith. He looked mildly discomforted to see her there, but greeted her politely enough. “Afternoon, Reverend Norton. I won’t ask how you are, because if you’re here, the answer is obviously not well.”

  “Actually,” said Joy, “I’m feeling fine. I… um tripped on the stairs and was persuaded that I ought to see the Doctor. I do need to register as a patient anyway, and so, here I am. I am feeling much better and rather like a fraud for being here. But I did ask and the receptionist said she couldn’t fill this slot anyway.”

  “Hmph. If it wasn’t for the fact that two thirds of us are too old, he couldn’t fill half his slots. Ah.”

  The ‘ah’ was aimed at the Nurse who was beckoning to him. He got up and waved a farewell to Joy, ignoring the rest of the waiting room. The other woman in the room was trying hard to stop her spotty little boy from destroying the furniture, so she didn’t pay him any attention either. Joy filled in the form and returned it to the front desk.

  “Thank you, I’ll enter that right away. He’s only one behind at the moment. And how are you finding Felixtown, Reverend Norton?” the receptionist asked, typing as she spoke. “Mum says she was ever so surprised at having a woman priest. She’s a bit old-fashioned.”

  Joy resisted the urge to say that she was still looking for Felixtown, but was sure she’d find it any moment now. “And your mother is?”

  “Oh, Lorna Smithson. We’re so used to everyone knowing everyone else here. Can I have your Medicare card please?”

  Joy produced it. “Yes, I’m still finding that quite strange. I’m not used to seeing my parishioners and their families everywhere. I suppose it is part of country life. I saw your mother heading into the IGA and I just saw Major Ambleside-Smith here.”

  “His wife has him in here every few days,” said the receptionist with just a slight shake of her head. She handed the card back. “Yes, it’s like that here. Doctor will call you in a few minutes, Reverend Norton.”

  So she returned to the waiting room, well stocked with piles of the magazines no-one wanted, unless they were keen on improving their golf swing or into the Celebrity gossip of ten years earlier, neither of which really held much interest for Joy. The Doctor came out and called Ms. Clemens and Dylan, before Dylan could rip any more pages out of anything. Joy got another wave from the Major as he walked to reception, where the next patient was trying to find out when she could have another appointment, and the receptionist was dealing with one phone call, being interrupted by a second caller that she’d had to tell that she’d ‘be right with in a moment’. The poor receptionist was also looking for travel forms, and trying to get a signature on another document. Otherwise it was quiet.

  Shortly Ms. Clemens and a now howling-his-lungs-out Dylan came down the passage, and added more happiness to the poor receptionist’s day, just as Joy was called in.

  Dr. Hammond had probably, Joy decided at first look, and first handshake, played Rugby Union at University. He had a broken nose and a stocky muscular build that was now turning into a paunch. It could have been the copper rugby-ball paperweight on his desk or the picture of the university team on the wall, just as much as his appearance, however. “And what can I do for you this afternoon?” he asked, motioning her towards a chair, while returning to his own.

  “I tripped and fell down the stairs. I don’t think there is anything wrong with me, but I did end up promising two of my new parishioners I’d come and see you.”

  He nodded, slowly. “So you must be the new priest. The unfortunate Peter Hallam’s replacement. Well, I’d better have a look at the injuries, once I have taken a proper history.”

  “Yes,” said Joy, trying the direct approach. “It’s been very difficult for the congregation. What did he die of?”

  “I’m afraid that crosses the line of patient confidentiality,” he said, with the sort of stolid assurance that told Joy she’d get precious little out of him. “Now, you have no allergies listed here?”

  “That’s because I am not allergic to anything, or not that I know of.”

  “That’ll be easier, anyway,” he said.

  “Easier than what?” she asked. After all, Mary had said Peter Hallam suffered from allergies.

  He smiled and shook his head, “Now, I see you had rheumatic fever?”

  “Yes, my mother always said that was why I was so small. Nothing to do with her being five foot two. My heart is as sound as bell, I had an ECG when I moved to Dr. Virthanan’s practice two years ago.”

  “Well, if you could fill in the paperwork with Jenny on your way out, we can get your records here. I assume you’ll be here for a while?”

  “I’m afraid that crosses the line of Church confidentiality,” she said with a twinkle, trying for humor.

  It struck no chord. “Well, we’d better examine you then.”

 

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