The Bishop was shrouded in a sterile melancholia. No Paul, no Barnabus. The preoccupied silence intermittently splintered as believers, heads studiously bowed to their books, whispered ritualistic rejoinders to the calls to silence. Not like the pub book-reading club at all!
*****
My thoughts drifted back four, no five, months. The conversation flowed then with that lack of embarrassment of familiars who knew exactly where the boundaries of safe conversation lay.
“Can’t bend… belly’s in the way.” The speaker, Betty, strained to retrieve a biscuit for Barnabus, a particularly yappy male Jack Russell, enthusiastic to the point of obvious sexual excitement whenever a woman entered the bar. That was one reason I routinely assumed a seat in the snug opposite; in clear view but removed. The other was discomfort. The invite “Come and join us” was no longer repeated, – no doubt deterred by my repeated rebuttals. I swigged a mouthful of stout and continued my solitary reading. Chapter 5 “The Surprise Accident.”
“Same for me. Haven’t seen my dick for ten years,” Paul replied, glancing downwards and over to me. An Invitation? Involuntary or deliberately enticing? I couldn’t tell. He had the drinker’s beer-gut and a voice like tide receding over pebbles.
“Don’t need to” he added. “As long as I can still climb a ladder, get on roof and take the cash… well that’s what the wife says”. The others, all male, laughed.
Paul was seated on the reclaimed church pew next to the counter, Betty in a captain’s chair. She placed the current read on the captain’s arms, before winching herself up, steadying and retrieving the doggy treat.
“Down Barny Boy,” the mutt obeyed Paul’s command and focussed on his retrieved treasure.
*****
I wouldn’t describe him as a boyfriend, more a friend who repaid my services in kind. He was handy at DIY and my roof needed repairing and the guttering replaced. Our relationship had to be conducted secretly. Even an encircling perimeter of six-foot cypresses would not deter eagle-eyed Pam next door; handy for the daytime Amazon delivery but not when your married paramour is visiting at night. I made him come on his bike, lights off, just to be sure.
Protracted relationships are not for me. I think I made him happy… perhaps his wife too given his rediscovered virility. Our Romeo and Juliet Game he called it, the climbing up to my third-floor bedroom balcony. It was easy to give the ladder a push as he was climbed over the windowsill.
*****
“Awful, must’ve slipped in the dark, bloody Welsh rain. Dead, both of them, and all for helping you out in an emergency. Inseparable they were, just like in the Bible. Always in that bike’s wicker basket, was Barny. Poor little bugger’s neck broke when Paul fell on ‘im. Fitting I s’pose that they went together.”
I thought of my now watertight roof and glittering guttering, nodded my agreement to Betty and turned to Chapter 6. “How She Got Away With It.”
