Marion behaves strangely, sheltering only weeks after her mother died. At nightfall, she leaves her bedsit over the baker’s shop in the high street, walks to the rectory, and sleeps rough on the grass using leaves for blankets, earth for pillows. Come dawn, come sunrise, she dusts herself down, shakes herself off, and starts all over again.
Marion is thirty-five and single. She is vigorous and healthy with a buxom figure which young men find attractive, sweeping-long hazel hair, and a disarmingly beautiful smile: a pure, honest, convincing smile. She works the early shift at the local supermarket. Pleased for the company since her mother died. Her mother controlled her as a little girl. Beating her senseless for being young. Sending her to the cubby hole under the staircase for being forward. Offing her to bed without supper for asking questions.
How she misses her mother since she slipped the dose of sleeping tablets into her tea. How she needs to shelter the poor young, the needy filth, the starving youths. As repentance for her sins.
One night, Marion goes to the park, finds herself a young tramp, takes him into her little hovel, and tells him to be quiet. Lest the Devil, Breda, her landlord, should find him laying on her sofa bed, undressed.
Marion is insane. She slayed her mother. Cut her into tiny pieces. Kneaded clumps of her hairy flesh into the flower border. And set her on fire at sunset. Marion Filbert still hears her voice.
She rents a bedsit with a grimy kitchenette, greasy stove, mouldy shower cubicle, single bed, sofa and collapsed chest of drawers. And in those drawers, she keeps her mother’s ashes before their disposal sealed in a black urn gilded with red roses, her mother’s chunky diamond rings, her five pairs of big pants, and two old bras by Damara mail.
And so, it comes to pass that she finds him sleeping rough in carrier bags on the village green, on a rainy Saturday night in March. And Marion, who deceives her victims into thinking she is a Good Samaritan, takes pity on him. Takes him into her bedsit. And onto her sofa bed where he sleeps soundly, opposite her, fully dressed in his black sweater, drainpipe blue jeans, and olive ankle socks.
And, at midnight, when the bedsit is coal-dark, Marion stands over the dirty vagrant in her tatty grey petticoat, clasping a bloody great kitchen knife. Preparing to sacrifice him to her perverse, imaginary gods. He, nineteen, homeless and unemployed, stretches, yawns, aches, stares into her dark face and.
‘I made you coffee,’ she says.
He slouches on the sofa, gesturing for her to hand him the red mug. Its inscription reads:
STAY CALM! SOMEONE UP THERE LOVES YOU!
He grins, a smug grin, ‘Oh, yeah, thanks.’
Marion has no shame. She pulls her petticoat over her head. Showing off her fanfare of dark chocolate moles, the spattered human pebbledash on her creamy skin. And reaches for her pure comfort summer highlights maxi briefs, sliding them up her lean legs.
He sips his coffee, watching her dress – never having seen a naked woman before last night. Marion blushes as she sees him ogling her. To think, she actually let him fornicate with her. She should have killed him when she had the chance. Now, she feels dirtied by him, unclean, nervous as to what to do next,
‘Did you sleep okay?’
‘Yeah, best night’s sleep I’ve had in ages, thanks.’
‘Tell me something.’
‘Yeah.’
Marion cups her ample breasts into her tea rose bra.
‘Tell me last night meant something to you.’
‘Last night meant something to me.’
‘Don’t be a child. You know what I mean. Why, I’ll wash your mouth out with soap and water!’
She hangs her lucky silver charm around her neck. Straps on her silver wristwatch, her mother’s copper bracelet. Callously, he brushes her soft body aside with a feint flick of his limp wrist,
‘Go on then, try me!’
Marion blanches, shocked by his blatant disregard for her feelings,
‘Do you really mean it?’
‘Yeah, course I do!’ he slurps his coffee, ‘Mm that tastes good. Pass me my fags, will you?’
She pulls on her smartest, dry-cleaned, figure-hugging, grey-flecked-wool dress,
‘No, you’ll set the place on fire.’
‘Pretty please?’
‘No!’
He watches Marion intently as she stoops to slip on her sandals,
‘You look nice.’
Her face lights up, ‘Thank you.’
‘Where are you off to then at this time of the morning?’
She flushes, stammering a little, ‘Church, I go to Church every Sunday.’
‘Cool,’ he lies, ‘What are you doing in Church?’
‘Reading.’
‘What does that mean, reading?’
‘I’m giving today’s reading to the congregation,’ she says.
‘Oh, yeah, what’s that about?’
‘It’s about the temptation of Christ. The Lord moves in mysterious ways, doesn’t he?’
He reaches for her. Puts his hand behind her head. Strokes her wavy hair. Pulls her towards him. They kiss, throatily. Gasping, panting, she pushes him off her,
‘I have to go. Be late for Church. There’s bacon, sausages, eggs in the fridge. Help yourself. To breakfast. Before you go.’
‘Will I ever see you again?’
‘Probably not. Here. Take this. For your lunch.’
She offers him a £10 note.
‘I couldn’t possibly.’
Fifty pounds maybe, not ten pounds.
‘Well then. Take good care of yourself. Stay out of mischief. Thanks, then. For last night?’
‘Yeah, thanks. You’re a star.’
‘You take care, you hear?’
‘I will.’
She turns to face him as she reaches the door, and gives him a little wave, ‘Bye then.’
He smirks, ‘Bye-bye.’
She enters the parish church of St Agnes in Aigburth and joins the congregation in the sacred holding of hands. Her god-fearing best friends, Mark and Kimberley, arise from a pew at the back of the church to greet her. Secretly, she refers to them as her disciples, such is the intensity of their fawning over her.
‘Peace be with you, Marion,’ Mark says, his eyes sparkling with tears of joy.
She places her soft hands around his hands to comfort him, ‘And with you, Mark’
‘Peace be with you, Marion!’ Kimberley bawls.
‘Oh, and with you, Kimberley!’ she calls, ‘And with you!’
‘We are so looking forward to your reading today,’ they chime.
Feeling overwhelmed, Marion quickly turns away and strides down the aisle to the pulpit.
‘Peace be with you,’ says a strange girl with freckles, in a red leather mini skirt and white vest.
‘And with you, Mary.’
She makes her way as far as the front pew. He is waiting for her. The man with the odd beaver haircut, and crazy eyes. He reaches out and squeezes her hand, tight, long enough to cause her discomfort.
‘Peace be with You, Marion!’
He leers, a mouthful of rotting black teeth.
Oh, my God! she stresses, he knows my name.
‘And with you, Ha-Ha-Hannibal,’ she stutters, wrenching her hand free.
Marion is relieved to feel the warm hands of Reverend Iain Smyth embrace hers. He reads her face, the quizzical look, speaks too quickly,
‘Peace be with You, Child,’ he says, his face glowing, all puce.
She announces to the whole congregation: ‘Child? I am not your child?’
‘Ah, Mrs Mulgrew!’ Smyth cries, hastily turning away from Marion, ‘Peace be with You!’
‘And with you Vicar!’ retorts Mulgrew.
Marion stares down at the little boy slumped in the wheelchair at the far end of the front pew. His sad head lolls to one side. Drool and spittle ooze from his cracked lips. His thick, purple, tongue hangs out of the right side of his mouth.
Why is he still alive? What is the point?
The point is his mum loves him with all her heart, unlike Marion’s cow who was cruel to her,
‘Peace be with you, Sam,’ she whispers.
The boy’s mother speaks, looks exhausted, close to tears,
‘Thank you so much, Marion.’
Marion looks up at The Cross on the altar, genuflects, bows her head, then makes her way to the pulpit where she sets down a sheaf of typed A4 sheets of paper for the reading. She goes and sits next to the strange girl in the third pew.
Excluding the Vicar and Baxter the Organist, there are nine worshippers in the congregation, she counts. Only nine.
The rest of the parish worship the new material gods: social media, flash hybrid cars, holiday homes, exotic erotic breaks, online shopping, football.
Marion lays down a tussock, kneels, clasps her hands together, closes her eyes and prays:
‘Please Lord, give me the strength to carry on my good work till I meet you in Heaven. Amen.’
She glances sideways at the strange girl kneeling in prayer. Her mini skirt has ridden up her legs, exposing her bare freckled thighs.
Some people have no sense of dignity or respect.
The Vicar reads the Notices, then everyone, except the little boy, stand up and sing the first hymn: To Be A Pilgrim.
‘Please be seated!’ Smyth cries afterwards, nodding at Marion.
The church falls silent as she steps up into the pulpit and reads:
‘Luke, Chapter 4: the temptation of Christ.’
She pauses for effect, then:
‘And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days, he did eat nothing; and when they were ended, he afterward hungered.
And the devil said unto him: If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made into bread.’
Marion pauses while someone in the congregation coughs loudly.
‘And Jesus answered him saying: It is written: That man shall not live by every word of God.
And the devil, taking him up high into a high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him: All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them; for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I shall give it. If thou therefore wilt worship me, all will be thine.
And Jesus answered and said unto him: Get thee behind me Satan; for it is written: Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. And Jesus answering said unto him: It is said: Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him.’
And so, it came to pass, even as Marion was reading the parable of the temptation of Christ to the tiny parish congregation, the boy ransacked her bedsit until he found her mother’s chunky diamond rings. A petty thief, he knew a thing or two about jewellery. Each ring was crusted with diamonds. The rings could easily be lost on the black jewellery market for five thousand pounds each.
He took the rings in his fist, went to the kitchenette, and treated himself to a fine breakfast of fried eggs, grilled rashers of back bacon, and prime pork sausages, served up with lashings of HP sauce. Smiled ironically at the bloody great kitchen knife that she held over his throat in the dark last night before she sinned with him. Then, he placed his dirty plate in her dishwasher and left her life forever.
When Marion returned to her bedsit, lying on the Formica kitchen work surface, she found a note:
GET YOURSELF A CHEAP SAFE, YEAH? BEFORE SOME CLOWN NICKS THEM?… LUKE xxx
And two diamonds rings.
