By Martin Pearson
Lady Margaret D’Avening, the ghostly White Lady, doomed to haunt the flushing privy of The Squid and Teapot, placed her head on the washstand and said, in conversational tone,
“Do you realise, Ignatius, that we’re only a week away from Midsummer’s Day?”
Father Stamage, the ghostly Jesuit, frowned. She did not usually refer to him by his Christian name. Something was afoot.
“That’s not much good to us, is it?” he said, somewhat snappily. “One season is very much like another on this confounded island, and besides, as we’re both indisputably dead, I can’t see either of us being in the business of getting a tan anytime soon, can you?”
“Tanning the skin is vulgar in the extreme,” announced Lady Margaret, haughtily, “but I was drawing your attention to the imminence of midsummer for reasons far more serious than besporting yourself in unbecoming, not to say inadvisable, beachwear.”
“I never have!” protested the priest, indignantly. “But tell me, what is this serious matter? I’m dying to know.”
It was not, maybe, the best choice of words, under the circumstances.
“The coming of the Psychopomp,” she said. “Once, every hundred years, he, she or it will turn up on Midsummer’s Day without fail, and next week will be it.”
“You’ve lost me,” said Stamage. “Who or what is a Psychopomp?”
“You don’t know? The Psychopomp is the entity who will escort you to Purgatory.”
“Purgatory? I don’t understand. I was under the impression that this place is Purgatory.”
“I can see why you might think that, but it is not” chuckled Lady Margaret. “However, you being a man of the cloth will be seen as being fair game for the undivided attention of the Psychopomp.”
“What about you? Aren’t you coming too?” asked Stamage, taken aback.
The head sitting on the washstand laughed heartily, while Lady Margaret’s body, some three feet away, shook with mirth.
“They gave up on me, and all the other old ghosts on the island, ages ago. For good or ill, we’re stuck here for eternity. I am very much afraid that you alone will be grabbed this year, just you mark my words.”
“But.. but what about Miss Calder and Miss Toadsmoor, up at the orphanage? They haven’t been around as ghosts for very long. Won’t the Psychothingy be after them too?”
“They were Protestants when they were alive,” replied Lady Margaret. “And Protestants don’t believe in Purgatory.”
Had Father Stamage been in receipt of breath, he would have sworn under it. As it was, he uttered a few unpriestly oaths and disappeared sulkily into the bar. A few seconds later he returned, a worried look upon his face.
“You called this Psycho-whatnot he she or it. What did you mean?” he asked.
There was a degree of nervousness in his tone.
“Well, the last time we had a visit, it was from the Aztec dog-headed god, Xolotl. He was a bit disconcerting. The time before that, it was Anubis. I liked him, I must admit. There’s just something about a jackal-headed deity that I find strangely attractive.”
“Anubis? Xolotl? These are all a bit pagan for my taste,” said Stamage. “And do these things always originate from the canine family? I like dogs well enough but… I don’t want to be taking one for a walk to Purgatory.”
“By what I have seen in the past, you won’t be walking, that’s for sure,” laughed Lady Margaret, unkindly.
Father Stamage, ashen-faced, even for a ghost, said nothing; he drifted back into the bar, in search of Philomena Bucket.
The relationship between Philomena Bucket and Father Stamage had always been prickly, both before and after the priest’s untimely death at the hands of Obadiah Hyde, The Phantom Mad Parson of Chapel Rock (as related in the tale ‘The Exorcist’). While both parties had always been polite to each other, Philomena’s low opinion of organised religion, coupled with Stamage’s fear and loathing of anything to do with witches or witchcraft (as personified by Philomena and her spectral grandmother) had been, so far, an insurmountable block to their forging anything resembling a cosy bond. Now, however, Father Stamage suddenly realised just how much he really wanted to stick around and haunt The Squid and Teapot, and not be exiled to Purgatory. It was time to eat the proverbial Humble Pie* and go, Capello Romano in hand, to avail himself of the mercy and wisdom of the formidable Bucket women. He knew that if he was to be spared, there would be none better on his side than the ghost of Granny Bucket.
“Now, let me get this right, Father Ignatius,” said Granny Bucket, enjoying herself immensely. “You’re telling me that you have at last seen the error of your ways and you’ve decided to embrace the Old Religion… the Pagan Path?”
“I did not say that, Mistress Bucket, I merely asked…”
“Ah. I’m pulling your leg, you great Lummox. I’ll help if I can, but tell me, what does a good Catholic lad like yourself have to fear from the afterlife?”
Ignatius Stamage looked uncomfortable.
“To be honest, Mistress Bucket…”
“Call me Granny. Everybody does.”
“To be honest… Granny… I really thought this island to be Purgatory, and that I am paying penance. Now I find that I’m about to be dragged to somewhere even more ghastly by some dog-headed demon. Are there no Christian psychopomps?“
“They draw straws for the job,” said Granny. “Somehow your lot always arrange things so that one of the dog-headed brigade ends up drawing the short straw. It’s no more than I’d expect. Anyway, old Anubis is alright. I’m not so sure about the other fella, though.”
“I fully expected that, by now, I would have been raised to the glory of heaven by Saint Michael himself,” said Father Stamage, miserably. “As it is, nothing seems to be turning out in the way that I thought it would.”
“Well, in the words of a great and famous sage, also called Michael, I believe,” said Granny, “you can’t always get what you want.”
“But can you help? Please?”
“I’ll think of something. Just give me a few days.”
“Thank you,” said the priest. “But don’t forget, the clock is ticking.”
Granny gave him a withering look, and disappeared into the ether.
You cannot pressurise Granny. It probably had not been the wisest thing to say.
To be continued…
*Author’s note: Humble pie, or more correctly, umble pie, was originally a pie made from deer offal. It was considered to be an inferior food and was only consumed by the lower-classes. Although the words umble and humble have absolutely no etymological connection, someone, somewhere must once have thought that ‘eating humble pie’ sounded a lot better than just saying ‘bootlicking’
(Art by Cliff Cumber)
The Hopeless Vendetta 