Demons on her Shoulder

Chapter 4

Chapter 4The Reverend John McLean contemplated Jayden’s retreating figure for a moment as his white hair fluffed in the breeze from the slamming doors. He squirmed under the possible ramifications of her threat. His claim of allegiance with the bishop drew to a close in the wake of the old man’s sudden retirement and proved an empty stick to beat anyone with. A complaint might prove dangerous, especially with the new incumbent taking up his post any day. The interim bishop had already bawled him out for messing around in the counselling centre’s business.

“Have you met the new bishop?” Sal called, yanking her coat over her shoulders.

Reverend McLean growled and tossed his head in defiance. “Of course!” he snarled.

She hid a grin behind the pretence of straightening her scarf. Rubbing salt into his wounds gave her pure enjoyment. “What’s he like?”

The vicar rolled his eyes as though privy to the new heavyweight’s deepest secrets. “He’s due to arrive in the next few weeks; he’s unexpectedly delayed in his northern diocese but should take up his post very soon.” McLean’s brow furrowed and he gnawed at his thumbnail. He wanted an excuse to meet his new superior and size him up, but another complaint would provide an inadvisable pretext.

“It’s odd you’ve already met him,” Sal continued. She stuffed her keys into her bag after locking her desk drawer against McLean’s after hours prying. “Nobody else even knows his name.” She disappeared through the interconnecting door to the church when the vicar’s eyes misted and he didn’t respond.

McLean’s bulbous, red-veined nose wrinkled at the thought of greeting his new boss for the first time. He imagined all kinds of platitudes and wondered whether the congratulatory card addressed to the diocesan office in Harrogate had reached him yet. Bishop Pargeter’s hasty resignation following a major heart attack had left McLean unguarded. He and Pargeter had gone through seminary together and the former bishop turned a cataract laden eye towards McLean’s archaic modus operandi. Until last month. McLean bristled at the indignity of the meeting during which the flying bishop turned on him with surprising ease. McLean suspected the real source of the pressure originated from above. And not with the Good Lord. He winced at the interim upstart’s warning about his behaviour during their last conversation. His mind turned back to the new man. “Not much longer to wait,” he purred with satisfaction. A thought occurred to him and wiped the smile from his lips. “I hope it’s not a woman! Oh no! I bet it is.”

McLean placed his ragged nail between thin lips and worried. No more whiskey chasers in the expensively furnished lounge with an old friend. “Not to worry,” he reassured himself out loud. “St Jude’s is free of the usual riff-raff clinging around the edge of decent Christian communities like ours. I make sure. It’s a nice safe church with nice safe people and the new bishop will be thrilled with my no-nonsense approach.” His lips pressed together in a pout. “Unless it’s a woman. Then I should retire.”

The vicar poked around Sal’s neat desk for a while, seeking information he could use to enhance his fake supernatural knowledge of his parishioners. He thrived on their horrified expressions when he spouted something relevant. It made him feel superior and godlike. “The world changed too fast,” he muttered to himself, drawing a blank on the receptionist’s desk. “It’s cascaded down the moral chute. One minute I chatted to fresh-faced newlyweds and baptised fluffy, pink babies; the next they expected me to deal with homosexuals, terminal illness and pregnant teenagers. Such a slap to the face for a man with my skills and experience.”

The Reverend McLean operated as a hard taskmaster. He proved inept at just about everything and the smoke and mirrors approach kept that fact hidden. His inflated image of himself created chaos without bounds. Then with the wailing and gnashing of teeth, he stepped back and let others clean up his mess. As they burned out from exhaustion, he emerged with a smile, expecting congratulations for their achievements. The previous bishop gave him St Jude’s to destroy two decades earlier. He’d landed on his feet by sheer default and as lip service to the ever-present phenomenon in which dross still rose to the top. Demons named Pride, Avarice and Deceit rode high on McLean’s shoulders, jostled by a circling Prejudice.

He believed everyone loved him. Smiling and simpering, he threw occasional treats at his employees to quell their complaints and buy their loyalty. To the bursar he gave a decorated office when the man requested a new computer. To the part-time assistant he bestowed an afternoon off when she asked for more hours. For those in real difficulty, he offered the odd insincere platitude before they burst a blood vessel and left, retired or expired. His rule had decimated a thriving church and hastened the death throes of a formerly solvent business. He accepted no responsibility for St Jude’s painful decline. It was always someone else’s fault.

The diocesan administration reclaimed the counselling service to prevent McLean driving away any more counsellors. His megalomaniacal management style had run its course. He wrangled for long hours over minutiae; searching for the right shade of red rug for his office for weeks and arriving one morning with a blue one. Meanwhile, cancer snatched the church organist from beneath his nose without him giving her any care. He put his efforts into replacing her at choir practice instead, behaving as though she’d died just to spite him.

McLean played ‘favourites’ with skill, elevating and disposing of employees and congregation members without a backward glance. One week he called them marvellous, amazing and irreplaceable. The next, he called them useless, irritating or divisive. Without warning, he discarded loyal people in exchange for shiny new sycophants. Curates came and curates left, arriving fresh faced and leaving depressed and suicidal. Those who passed through the Reverend McLean’s fingers didn’t just flee from his church, they abandoned their faith on the doormat and wiped their sensible shoes on the way out. His ineptitude turned their distress into a personal betrayal of him and he complained loud and long.

John McLean’s phone rang and he sifted through his cassock’s depths to retrieve it from his pocket. “No!” he snapped at his wife. “I don’t know what time I’ll get home. You must get yourself up the stairs.” He paused for a moment and then raised his eyes to a heaven which didn’t know him. “b****y hell woman! Why did you leave your walking frame there?”

Mrs McLean’s frail voice rattled down the line and he rolled his eyes. “I can’t take you to Skegness this weekend. Stop going on about it. I know I promised, but something came up. And keep quiet about the new holiday home. I want no one here knowing our business, especially your horrid knitting circle. Don’t want them thinking they can borrow it for weekends at the seaside. I must go, there’s a crisis at work.” He disconnected the call and pulled a nasty face, as though he’d sucked on a lemon. Jayden’s threat rose to the fore again and he winced at her name embossed on a metal plate on her office door.

“b****y woman! I won’t let you drop me in the proverbial manure. You need a mate to knock you down a peg or two, you haughty bitch.” The reverend took a step towards her door and winced. He’d had an accident in her filing cabinet with a mouse trap the previous day. He couldn’t be sure she hadn’t left it there on purpose. Instead of continuing his snooping, he swished around with a squeak of his sensible brown shoes on the stone floor and went in search of his curate. “I’m the only one who does any work around here,” he grumbled.

“Briiiiaaaannn!” His voice echoed around the empty church and he smirked at the thought of Brian’s recent discomfort. “Stupid fool,” he hissed into the growing darkness, hearing his words echo back to him. “Briiiaann. Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

McLean searched the vestry, expecting to find Brian’s chunky legs resting on the desk and tomato sauce stains on his black shirt. “Hope you’re not swigging communion wine again,” he trilled. He brushed off any sense of blame for not mentoring the young cleric in the previous ten years. Life got in the way and the curate sought attention like an overgrown teenager. Lately, the balding male with the revoltingly full lips had tried to tell him something McLean did not want to hear. “Come out, Brian. I won’t get angry,” the vicar called. The silent church echoed his words but his curate remained hidden.

McLean steered his creaky body towards his favourite hiding place. The high balcony ran uninterrupted around three sides of the church beneath the eaves. “Best place in the building,” McLean wheezed, stopping to catch his breath on the narrow staircase. “Greatest thinking spot in the city.” His muscles complained at the steep climb via the rickety back stairs and his heart fluttered for a while after the courageous ascent. He peered over the balcony rail into the nave of his Lord’s ancient house, the light stone reflecting the flicker of candles and tea lights.

Spotting his curate, McLean drew an imaginary revolver and pretended to shoot him where he lay asleep on a pew in the south transept. The vicar stepped around the narrow walkway, his feet scuffing along the worn stone. He covered the remaining two sides of the cavernous space and peered over at his sleeping assistant.

The overwhelming urge to spit on the idle man’s head caused McLean an uncharacteristic moment of mirth. He clamped his age-spotted hand over his thin lips to suppress the snorts of laughter. A plan rose into his mind and he scurried back towards the balcony door and the steep stairs. “I’ll ring the new bishop before you, Miss Haughty-Pants. Brian can take the blame for this afternoon’s fiasco. It’s time I got rid of him, anyway. Silly Brian; what possessed you to double book the counsellors?”

Brian slept on in the nave, his alcohol sodden liver hardening beneath a dirty cassock. Bitterness and Regret kept vigil overhead while Mischief returned to the vestry, watching as the vicar left his spiteful voicemail.