The Lychgate Read online

  The Lychgate

  Devon De’Ath

  Copyright © 2019 Devon De’Ath

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-70864-114-6

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places,

  events, locales and incidents are either the products of the

  author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner.

  Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,

  or actual events is purely coincidental.

  DEDICATION

  In loving memory of Antonia Winter (nee Smith).

  Childhood playmate and friend.

  The girl next door, gone before her time.

  And for Jack Ralph - ‘Uncle Jack’

  who taught me the value of a wave and a smile.

  1

  The Flock

  OCTOBER 2000.

  “A few more turns. There we go. How’s it look?” the weathered face of a man in his late thirties squatted atop a four rung stepladder. He ducked below a shaped wooden crossbeam forming the apex of a Gothic arched gateway. This crowning piece was now bolted in pride of place beneath the steep, triangular shingled roof of a porch-like, ecclesiastical structure. But this was no porch. The renovated, ancient church of St. Guthlac lay across a graveyard beyond weed-choked headstones and crumbling crosses. Mouldy memories of a long-forgotten community that once inhabited the same spot. They jutted out of soggy, peat-rich sod at assorted, higgledy-piggledy angles. To look through the lychgate past those stones to the church, gave the impression of peering into the maw of some horrendous mythical beast. The grave markers were its broken teeth. The squat stone church with re-pointed tower and unremarkable stained glass windows - some unfortunate, hapless prey devoured by the monster for lunch.

  “It’s wonky, isn’t it?” A cheesy grin followed the teasing comment from one of the craftsman’s male peers.

  The man’s wife elbowed him in the ribs. “Mark, cut it out. Thomas has it level.”

  A crowd of seven families assembled in a semi-circle before the churchyard entrance.

  Thomas grimaced but his eyes twinkled. He rested a forearm-length spirit-level atop the narrow beam where it formed the base of a gap in the shape of an equilateral triangle. The green indicator bubble stopped midway along its glass container. “This says it's true. Could be your eyes are wonky from all that home brew, Mark?” He clambered down off the ladder and wiped a satisfied hand through his thick mop of curly brown hair. The hinge squeaked as he folded the ladder and set it to one side amidst a natural wall of brambles. These buttressed the fence of cleft chestnut paling, which formed a rustic boundary between the world of the living and the dead.

  A tall, slender woman with frizzy, ginger hair looped a coy hand through Thomas’ arm and joined him in admiring his handiwork. They'd engraved the crosspiece with the number ‘2000.’ This year. The year in which the members of ‘Fenland Free Saints - Celtic Christian Community’ had moved out to start a new life in the windswept, South Lincolnshire landscape. “It’s beautiful, Thomas. I can't believe we’ve restored the whole place of worship in under a year.”

  Thomas glanced back over his shoulder. A hundred yards away stood the first of several worn and beaten caravans. Paint scratched and faded, windows foggy and smeared; they sagged and listed as their wheels sank into spongy topsoil from months of immobility. Nearby, the accompanying collection of vehicles looked like the final dregs on the roster of a budget car auction. Rusted, leaking oil, with mis-matched breaker’s yard replacement panels and more body filler than an impossibly proportioned adult film actress. The likelihood of one passing a modern MOT test was akin to playing slot machines in a casino weighted in favour of the house. The odds weren’t good. This combined assembly of metal shapes didn’t blend well with either the landscape, or the beautiful but simple old church. They appeared a modern-day British equivalent of encircled settlers’ wagons from some old western. Yet ‘civilisation’ lay but a few miles across the broad, flat terrain. Open ground streaked with a myriad of drainage channels and waterways like blue varicose veins. Thomas moved his gaze sideways until it fell on an assortment of crumbled stone walls. “Now we have our important community hub completed, we can sort out structures for permanent habitation. How long ago were there last proper homes here, do you think?”

  The ginger-haired woman rested her head against his shoulder. “No idea. But it's not before time. Do you think we’ll be in before winter? The caravan will be miserable, if there’s snow.”

  “Doubtful, if I’m honest. Might get the walls and roofs up, but they’ll need to dry out. It's the wrong time of year for that, Grace.”

  “Thank the Lord our twelve-year-old still looks on all this as an adventure. We’d be less lucky if she were already a teenager. Have you seen her anywhere?”

  “Here I am.” A meek, young female voice piped up behind them. “You finished it, Dad.” A girl with shoulder-length hair - inherited from the paternal gene pool - stepped closer. Her gaze drifted across the final piece of the lychgate puzzle. “It’s perfect.”

  Thomas took time to inhale a significant, deep breath. “Thank you.”

  “Why does the end of the churchyard have its own porch? You’d still get wet in the rain, walking in for a service.”

  Grace reached out to stroke her daughter’s curly brown hair.

  The resonant, warm and fruity tones of a late middle-aged man boomed across their shoulders. “Lychgates came from a period when most people died at home. A time when there weren’t hospitals and mortuaries to store bodies.” Pastor Gilbert stomped up beside them. It was difficult to gauge whether his ruddy, rosy-cheeked face was a symptom of the windy environment, or too many lonely nights with only communion wine for company. About his neck, a bronze Celtic cross of intricate knot-work swung on a black leather cord. “Back then, mourners placed a shroud-wrapped corpse on a bier beneath the roof of the gate. Vigil keepers stood guard and rested with the body on the seats inside.”

  The child frowned. “What were they standing guard against?”

  Pastor Gilbert leaned forward, his eyes narrowing. “Body-snatchers.”

  “Yuck.” The girl stuck out her tongue.

  Thomas and Grace laughed.

  The minister straightened. “The body remained in situ for a couple of days until the funeral took place. Such services began at the lychgate in those days.”

  Grace sighed. “Where does the word come from?”

  “Lych, Lic or Lich was the Old English term for a corpse. I’m sure the rest is self-explanatory.” He studied the carved date. “You’ve done a fine job, Thomas.”

  The craftsman picked at a hole in his fluffy, pea-green sweater. “It came out exactly as I envisioned. That rarely happens on a project. There wasn’t much original material left to work with.”

  Pastor Gilbert stretched and placed both hands in the small of his back. “The carpenter of Nazareth must have been your unseen project manager.”

  Grace swiped her husband’s fingers away from a growing gap in his clothing. “Amen to that.”

  The minister ambled over to stand before the lychgate. He studied it for a moment, then faced his small congregation. Above them, oppressive stove-black clouds descended from the expansive Lincolnshire skies. Harbingers announcing a band of rain soon to sweep in from The Wash. With no hills to prop up the firmament, this landscape felt as if the heavens could fall and crush you like apple pulp in a cider press. A sense of awe mixed with uncomfortable pangs of vulnerability, snaked its way through the hidden emotions of those assembled. Pastor Gilbert kissed his cross then lifted both hands in a welcoming gesture to the flock. “Shall we offer a prayer of thanks to the Almighty on this special day?”

  Every head b
owed, eyes closed.

  The minister followed suit. “Lord Jesus, we thank You that this is the day that You have made. We WILL rejoice and be glad in it.”

  A mumble of quiet ascent drifted from several mouths.

  Pastor Gilbert continued. “Today, at this blessed moment of the Christian millennium, we re-dedicate this church of St. Guthlac as a place of worship to the glory of Your holy name. As we do so, we also re-dedicate our hearts in service. With God first in our community, we know You will stretch forth Your hand to aid and protect each member. Keep us in Your love, as we go forward to establish new homes for the faithful servants present. As the namesake of our church once dedicated himself in solitude to blessed communion with his maker, so we too separate ourselves from the background noise of modern life. Help us walk in unswerving devotion as Guthlac did. We ask this in Your name. Amen.”

  The crowd muttered a respectful, “Amen.”

  “Cheers.” Thomas clanged a pewter tankard of frothy home brew against another offered in salute. Mark - his joking critic from the lychgate ceremony - settled down on a rough-hewn bench in a long, canvas tent the community had erected for group activities. Roger Newton the stonemason, played a rollicking ditty on a penny whistle. Dogs and children skipped in time. Three of the wives sat next to a pile of cakes, the secrets of their rising agents (in a challenging cooking environment) disclosed to one another by the loosening effect of Mark’s ale.

  Thomas knocked back a hearty gulp and wiped foam from his mouth onto the long-suffering pullover. “This is what I like about Celtic Christianity.”

  Mark grinned. “Copious booze?”

  Thomas snorted. “Yeah. No. Well, sort of. I dunno. The freedom of ‘the world’ but with the joy of ‘faith.’ You know?”

  “The best bits of Christianity without all the legalism?”

  Thomas went to slap one hand on his thigh, but missed and almost toppled off the bench. “Oops. How strong is this new batch of yours?”

  Mark rested his tankard on the fragrant grass between his feet. Outside, sheets of light rain drizzled against the flapping and billowing canvas in the approaching night. “So how’s Grace looking forward to living in a house again?”

  Thomas rubbed his eyes. “You mean you had to ask? How’s Kelly?”

  Mark peered beyond a central pole in the tent, from which two dirty oil lamps flickered. His short, dark-haired wife stood nattering about this and that with Grace. “We’re blessed to have such patient partners, aren’t we?”

  Thomas followed his stare. “Yeah. When Pastor Gilbert put forward his vision to start this project, neither one of us could broach the subject. Turns out we were both excited, but worried what the other would say.”

  Mark picked up his tankard. “Selling our houses and moving onto the fens to live as one body in community? Who wouldn’t worry about bringing that up with their significant other?”

  “Once we’ve got the housing situation rectified, I’m hoping to put up a workshop. No more driving into town each day. Feels like I’ve feet in two worlds at present.”

  “I know what you mean. Sort of half-commitment. How are you going to run a carpentry business without electricity for power tools? Solar panels?”

  Thomas shook his head. “No. I’ve been dialling back my contemporary work for a while and taking commissions based on traditional methods instead.”

  “Is there any money in it?”

  “Not as much steady income. The pay is okay for heritage and other listed projects. Grace and I agreed that if we were going to support this vision, we needed to go full-bore. Now there’s no mortgage hanging over our heads, outgoings are minimal. There’ll be even less once I no longer have to rent the workshop.”

  “How’s your young-un coping?”

  “She loves it. Best pals with your lad over the last few months, too.”

  “They’re like rhubarb and custard, that pair. Did you know they even use those terms as nicknames now, it’s become such a joke?”

  Several feet away, a twelve-year-old boy and girl sat side by side, listening to Roger Newton strike up a joyful rendition of ‘Lord of the Dance.’

  Thomas leaned back on the bench. “Our neighbours thought we were mad when we sold almost everything. Feels like I'm richer now than when I still had all that stuff to manage.”

  Mark watched his friend with gentle eyes. “Storing up treasure in heaven instead?”

  “I’ll drink to that.”

  They clanged their vessels together again and knocked back the contents.

  Outside, the gentle sheets of rain gave way to a loud and persistent torrential downpour.

  * * *

  “Rhubarb? Rhubarb?” A boy’s voice not yet deepened by the onset of puberty, carried through the entrance porch of St. Guthlac’s. To one side of the altar, Grace wound an iron handle connected to a rope winch. A leaky wooden bucket sloshed into view from a circular opening in the medieval floor. Her daughter grabbed hold of the receptacle and set it down, so her mother could release the handle. Together they unhitched the bucket from a hook. Grace coiled the rope to one side and covered the well opening with a sturdy stop-gap. The young girl tipped the water into a drum mounted on wheels. The crystal clear liquid shimmered in slanting rays of light from a low autumn sun. This rainbow display stabbed in multi-coloured shafts through basic, workmanlike stained glass windows to bring scant cheer to the church’s dingy interior.

  Grace popped a lid on the drum. “That should be plenty of water for now. I can wheel it back to the caravan. You go and play.”

  “Thanks, Mum.” She wandered down the central aisle, head bowed in silence. The silhouette of a young lad lingered in the main doorway. His figure stood back-lit by precious hazy sunlight. A resource growing rarer by the day, to a community without the modern convenience of electrical illumination.

  Grace paused, her statuesque frame rigid with concentration. What’s gotten into that girl in the last couple of weeks? Something is on her mind. You’d think I’d told her to do chores, not play with her best friend. She shook her head a quarter turn and froze again. Could her sweet daughter be about to suffer the confusing indignity that came with the onset of womanhood and its flow of blood? She sighed and screwed her eyes tight. “Please, Lord. Please give her another year before all that starts.”

  “Whatcha doin’?” the boy pushed off from leaning against the porch door frame.

  “Fetching the day’s water with Mum. Isn’t it obvious?” the girl replied.

  The lad blinked. “All right. No need to snap and bite my head off. Wanna go play by the river?”

  “Okay.”

  The pair wandered down the church path between uneven rows of long-forgotten tombs and their decaying corpses within. They passed through the lychgate and followed the exterior graveyard boundary fence up a small incline. Beyond, a bank sloped down to a bed of rushes and the wide but slow-moving dark water of the river. Its peat bed gave a lustre of obsidian to the rippling surface in that restricted autumn light. This tributary of the Welland formed one natural barrier to their community. Several other watercourses - mostly drainage channels - crossed at various points, leaving a lone minor access road in and out. This traversed a single-track stone bridge spanning one of the narrower wetland bottlenecks. While not the official island it had once been before the draining of the fens, the site remained isolated. Its whole area covered a good many acres of fields, hedgerows and a patch of trees more copse than woodland.

  “Wanna hold hands, Rhubarb?” the boy’s voice lacked its usual bluster.

  “Why?” The girl stopped walking.

  “I dunno. Thought it might be nice. Don’t you like me?” He halted a pace beyond and turned back.

  A faint blush rouged the girl’s delicate cheeks. “Okay, Custard. But I’m not kissing you.” She swung a playful arm up, hand open.

  Custard made a pretend retching face in mockery of his supposed disgust at kissing. It concealed nerves causing his fingers to tremble
, as he stepped closer and took her dainty digits in his own.

  Down the bank they strode, a heady elation setting both hearts aflutter at this new and intimate experience.

  “Help. Help.” The heartsick cries of a young girl penetrated the thick, sound-deadening mist of early evening. Thomas’ face snapped aloft from turning a piece of wood on his pole lathe. There was no question over the identity of the distressed. His daughter stumbled out of the long grass behind their caravan, cheeks stained with tears.

  Thomas jumped up.

  Grace burst out of the caravan door. “What’s wrong?”

  The young girl came to a halt, doubled-over to catch her breath. “It’s Custard. We were playing down by the river. He slipped and fell in. I can’t reach him and he’s not moving in the water.”

  Mark and Kelly the boy’s parents, reached the shouts in time to catch her breathless account.

  Thomas exchanged a momentary stare with his friend. Both men ran for the river, their wives and the weeping child several paces behind.

  On the crest of the bank, they spotted the motionless form of the twelve-year-old floating face down in the water. A slight current held him in a gentle eddy at the periphery of the reed bed. Thomas and Mark waded into the river until its depth forced them to swim the last few yards to retrieve the still figure.

  On the grassy rise behind, the boy’s playmate sobbed next to the panicked, embracing forms of their mothers.

  A simple but elegant coffin was lowered into a fresh pit dug beneath the thick sward of St. Guthlac’s churchyard. Four men from the community eased it to rest in the dark earth, before retrieving their ropes. They returned to waiting wives, huddled together weeping gentle tears at the graveside.

  Pastor Gilbert opened his Bible to read from Isaiah 57. “The righteous perish, and no one takes it to heart; the devout are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil. Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death.” He’d intended to wax lyrical and expound on this scripture. In the quiet of his prayer time rehearsal at the church altar, the words flowed thick and fast. Now before the boy’s devastated parents in a chilly graveyard with rain threatening, Gilbert no longer had the heart. Clever exegesis and homiletic flair would do little to salve the raw pain experienced by the bereaved. Better to let the words speak for themselves this time, without adding his two penn’orth. His gaze drifted to a twelve-year-old girl standing apart from the adults. Her eyes remained fixed on the dark pit, unblinking. The child’s composure suggested either the effects of shock or denial to the thoughtful minister. Post-mortem results concluded that the lad slipped into the river and couldn’t get out. Carried away from the bank by a deceptive undercurrent, he'd floated out of reach of the girl like a tantalising lure. Face in the water, his lungs filled in moments. How must the poor child be suffering, as that awful scene replayed in her mind? Would she come to him for comfort? Did he have any to offer? Mortal tragedy and loss. This wasn't the way he’d foreseen their community launching itself. The words of the thirtieth Psalm rose to comfort his mental anguish and a slight guilt at what his realised vision had meant for Mark and Kelly. ‘Weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.’ He kept the scripture to himself and left the grieving souls alone.