St Muckymuck Episode 29. Strangers In the Night

WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO READ IS:

IRRELIGIOUS, IRREVERENT, AND IRRELEVANT.

THE PEOPLE, PLACES, AND EVENTS CONTAINED IN ST MUCKYMUCK ARE COMPLETELY FICTIONAL.  ANY AND ALL RESEMBLANCES TO REAL PEOPLE, REAL PLACES, AND/OR REAL EVENTS PAST, PRESENT, OR FUTURE IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL.  

IN FACT, ANY RESEMBLANCE TO ANYTHING AT ALL WILL BE REMARKABLY COINCIDENTAL.

Ep 29 – Monday 7pm, church hall

The choir were very keen to catch up on all the rehearsals they missed during December and insisted on coming to the hall every night to practice all the Christmas carols they didn’t get to sing.

Gladys was in a good mood, and was busy making tea, wearing her new plastic St Mocheomoc apron with matching oven gloves.  She handed out the stale mince pies, kindly donated by Father Gabriel.  She cut off the bits of blue mould first of course and the choir wolfed them down. Gladys was warming to her new position as tea lady and the feeling of power  and control it gave her.

Meanwhile, Felicity Charpentier McClark was huddled in a corner of the hall, concentrating very hard on her latest musical composition.

Felicity was 58 years old and a spinster of the parish. She sang alto in the choir and had a secret and inappropriate crush on Shug. 

She was comfortably off, her parents having owned and run Kilcathclyde’s first fish and chip shop in St Bunnicula Square, called For Cod’s Sake.  It was opened in 1956 and sold fish, chips, ice cream and confectionery.

Her mother Lizzie died in 1972 after falling into the ice cream making machine where she lay unnoticed for 2 days, and was only discovered when a customer requested a neapolitan knickerbocker glory.

Her father, Mark, died shortly afterwards in mysterious circumstances involving some frozen haddock, a rubber hose and a tub of petroleum jelly.

Felicity inherited the shop, which she promptly sold to Sam Eager and Ella McClaggan for a sum in the region of £731,933.  They immediately renamed it Sam’n’Ella’s Coffee Shop.

She was also a fairly competent amateur composer of hymns which were sung regularly at St Muckymuck.  It was her dream that one of her compositions would become internationally known and be printed in the next volume of Hymns For Tims or even Psalms For Papes.

She was currently beavering away on a ditty called Grapes To You And Peas.  She played the draft to Shug and he was so impressed with it he told her to submit it to Father Farq for possible use at the Papal Mass in the spring.  Felicity drifted away on a daydream involving Pope Quivox LXXXVII mounting the stairs towards the altar at the Kilcathclyde Theme Park to the strains of her song while Shug held her hand, smiling lovingly at her.... a mixture of pride and desire ran through her.  She licked her pencil and continued to write:

“Grapes to you and peas,

Two cods and batter.

Grapes to you and peas

To the lard, cod, cheese and fries.

I am the shepherd of Kilcathclyde

I know my cones and my cones know me.....”

“Yes!” she thought excitedly. “It’s coming along nicely”.

“C’mon everyone!” hollered Chris. “Waaaaarrrmm up time!!!”

“Sharon says Santa’s sox smell shocking

shall she shove santa’s socks in the sea shell....?” he began.

Frank O’Dhoul and Billy Burt Flanagan didn’t join in the merriment.  They were sulking in the back row of the choir. They were full of bitter disappointment at losing the Scottish Hometown Intercity Talent Show to Big Fannie White.

“I’m going outside for a fag, Billy” said Frank.

“Are you no’ a married man....?” Billy Burt was shocked.

“A smoke Billy, a cigarette!” retorted Frank pointedly.

He stepped outside, edged past Damian who was dismantling Father Gabriel’s brand new Lexus LX 600 radiator and coolant system, and stood looking up into the moonless, clear sky over Kilcathclyde. He saw Father Eric walking with Nettie and Chi Chi in tiny matching harnesses and woolly coats, heading towards St Bunnicula Square.  Their outlines silhouetted dramatically against the starry sky, all three looking up in tandem from side to side at the heavens above.

Frank was intrigued.  What were they looking for?  He followed them into the square. 

Suddenly a streak of green flashing lights zoomed past, quickly followed by another two identical brightly lit disks.  And just as quickly, they were gone.

“What the f....fuss was that?” gulped Frank.

He felt his legs begin to shake. He looked over at Father Eric, Nettie and Chi Chi, who were casually making their way back to the chapel house.  They looked completely calm and undisturbed by what they’d seen......and that scared Frank more than anything.....

©2011 Steven Gorman.  All rights reserved.