St Birinus introduced Christianity to Cufa’s Lea, now known as Cowley, in 635 – just under six hundred years after the death of St James the Apostle, who is also referred to as St James the Great.
Following the Norman Conquest, Cowley, or Covelie as it is in the Domesday Book, was seized and divided up between the King, his brother the Bishop of Bayeux, the Count of Boulogne and a wealthy Norman landowner. Former landowners Leofwin and Toli still managed, and profited from, over half the land in exchange for paying taxes to their Norman liege lords. Covelie’s villagers continued with their daily tasks, tenant farmers worked the land and paid landholders from the fruits of their labour, and slaves toiled just as they had before.
The present church, dedicated to St James the Apostle, was built in the twelfth century, probably replacing an earlier Anglo-Saxon church. It is a simple stone structure, barn shaped with a squat tower, the top of which is slightly lower than the roof of the nave. But back in 1130 it would’ve seemed an impressive and imposing structure to villagers more used to buildings of wood and plaster.
Matchbox sits on a low brick wall that lines a path through the churchyard. He has a headache and a sore throat, and resents the peacefulness of his friends, who are curled up like babies under a spreading yew tree.
The sky is blue. The birds are singing. It is breakfast time and his mouth is dry. He shakes the branches of the yew tree. No response. He kicks Robbo’s leg, gently at first and then harder until he elicits a groan.
“Come on Robbie Bobs,” croaks Matchbox, “I need a drink. Have you got anything?”
“Half a tin on a gravestone,” Robbo doesn’t open his eyes.
“Which gravestone?”
“Got sick so left it.”
“Which gravestone?”
“Dunno, a gravestone.”
“Help me find it.”
“Leave me alone.”
Matchbox stumbles off to look for half a can of stale lager. Robbo opens his eyes, ‘fuck, it’s dark. Why’s it dark?’ He sits up, brown yew needles stuck to his face. He swipes at them, thinking they are insects, and inadvertently brushes one into his eye, “ah, fuck!”
Maureen half wakes, rolls over and reaches out for something to hold. There is nothing there except dirt, twigs and tree needles.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” repeats Robbo like a novelty alarm clock.
“Shut yer trap,” replies Maureen.
“Eye hurts, fucking hurts!”
“Oh God! Let me see you, ya wee baby, come to Nurse Maureen.”
Maureen wipes the sleep from her eyes and then the needles from Robbo’s face, and carefully examines his bloodshot eye. With one finger she prises the eyelid open as far as it will go and, using a finger from her other hand, pushes a needle, which was partially in Robbo’s eye, out. She flicks it away with a wave of her hand.
Robbo sits up, hugs his knees to his chest, and bows his head.
“What? You praying now?” asks Maureen sceptically.
Robbo shakes his head but doesn’t look up.
“You seen Hank?” Maureen asks him and when he doesn’t respond, shakes him by the arm, “I said, have you seen Hank?”
“No.”
“I can’t find that drink,” Matchbox returns, and points accusingly at Robbo, “what have you done with it? Have you got it? It wasn’t by the graves and I really could do with…”
“Oh fuck off!” shouts Robbo without lifting his head.
“No I won’t,” Matchbox shouts back, “you said there was some beer but it’s not there. Where is it?”
“Don’t care,” mumbles Robbo.
“I need a drink,” insists Matchbox.
“Now MB…” starts Maureen.
“Don’t ‘now’ me,” retorts Matchbox, “have you got any money? Just enough for a can. I’ll share it. Or two or three so there’s enough to…”
“Ah, here’s Petra,” Maureen interrupts, “thank God!”
Petra walks down the path, “shush Matchbox, half of East Oxford can hear you. I’ll pop to the Co-Op and get you a cider when it opens. It’s Sunday morning though, not every dog is up and barking like you.”
“But I need a drink now,” whines Matchbox.
“As soon as I can,” reassures Petra, “but don’t shout and argue. Losing your temper gets you into trouble, remember?”
Matchbox nods and mutters, “yeah, suppose.”
“Good boy,” encourages Petra and pats him on his head, “you know, St James, the St James of this church, was martyred. It is said that King Herod had him executed because he kept losing his temper. I guess old Herod just wanted a quiet life. There is something to be said for that. But I can’t endorse execution as a means to achieve it.”
Maureen walks around the churchyard, tries to go into the church – it is locked so she bangs on the thick wooden door. No answer. She goes back to the yew tree and looks all around it; peers over a wall into the back garden of a neighbouring house; goes out onto a narrow, sloping lane, and looks up and down. Not a sign of him.
“Where is that Hank?” she demands of Petra.
“Maureen, I have no idea,” replies Petra, a note of concern in her voice, “has he wandered off again?”
“I don’t know.”
“When did you last see him?”
“I don’t know.”
“This morning?”
“No.”
“Maybe he’s been taken in by the people at the mosque again.”
“They should leave him alone,” scowls Maureen, “he’s not one of theirs.”
“Robbo, MB, when did you last see Hank?” asks Petra.
“Don’t know,” they both say together, before Matchbox adds, “I need that drink, I can’t never remember anything without a drink.”
“Bullshit,” says Robbo.
“It’s true,” insists Matchbox.
“Hangover bullshit. Just sleep it off,” dismisses Robbo and adds, “gonna look for Hank.”
Robbo pulls a big yellow dandelion, stalk and flower, from its roots. He walks up to the church door and attaches the flower to the heavy metal handle. It creaks slightly as he ties the stalk in a knot.
Taking deep breaths with every unsteady step, Robbo walks out of the churchyard and down the lane. He keeps going, looking straight ahead, across a usually – but not on a Sunday morning – busy road and then continues down the side of Florence Park, past bleary eyed dog walkers and their excitable charges, and eventually turns right towards Cowley Road.
—
“I’m glad your father is making the effort to get in touch,” Sylvie slides a crispy rasher of bacon off a fish slice onto Jak’s plate, “it’s better than just relying on bumping into you like he usually does.”
“Thanks mum,” Jak squeezes a glob of tomato ketchup from a plastic bottle, “but he’s probably just after money. Does he still owe Mr Rumbelowe?”
“Oh probably,” sighs Sylvie, as she carefully removes a poached egg from a saucepan of water and drops it on her own plate, “did you want an egg?”
“Yes please!”
“Okay,” and then removes a second egg from the pan, “but at least he wants to meet, not just keep texting until one of us gives in.”
“Okay, thanks,” Jak takes a slice of toast, from a plate with several slices that Sylvie has put on the table, and starts buttering, “I’ll reply and say I’m sorry I couldn’t do dinner but maybe meet up somewhere nice, maybe Florence Park, this afternoon.”
“Good plan. Don’t leave it too long though. You need to get hold of him before he gets together with that gang of misfits and starts drinking. I’m still hungry, aren’t you? There’s more bacon in the fridge, I might just finish it off.”
—
“No beer,” insists Robbo, “given up.”
Ali roars with laughter, “not again, my friend, not again.”
Robbo takes a deep breath, “everything’s gone wrong. Need to get a grip.”
Ali, still smirking slightly, pats Robbo on the arm, “fair enough, fair enough, I’m not open for hours yet anyway. But what in the name of goodness are you doing in my shop? Testing your willpower?”
“No,” Robbo looks Ali in the eyes, “doing good to make up for bad.”
“What’s so bad? What have you done wrong?”
“Absent father, useless husband, drunk, lazy, broke, good-for-nothing. Failure.”
“Okay, okay, I see. I tell you what, my dear friend, we can talk more upstairs over a cup of tea,” and with a smile, hoping that Robbo will smile too, Ali adds, “I’ll even let you piss in my bathroom.”
Robbo just nods blankly, “okay”.
Ali’s flat is clean, orderly. Bright red and green wallpaper covers the walls. There are no pictures, just a poster with Arabic writing. A shelf has a row of coloured pebbles, pink, pale green, white; and a large cowrie shell with ‘Bournemouth’ written on it in black felt-tip. A deep, well-worn blue armchair faces a large television mounted on the opposite wall. A small side-table has a half drunk glass of water and an ashtray with several cigarette butts.
Robbo sniffs. A plug-in air freshener just about masks the smell of stale tobacco and take-away dinners.
“Grab a pew, my friend,” Ali beckons towards two chairs at a counter next to the sink.
Robbo perches on the edge of his seat, “have you seen Hank?”
“Your friend who laughs a lot? No, I haven’t seen him. Not for a few days.”
“Hank’s gone missing.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, I really am. How can I help?”
“The mosque?”
“No,” Ali shakes his head, “he has been there before right enough. At morning prayers. He just stands and watches. Sometimes he is asked to step outside and then let back in again. He is perfectly respectful. But not that interested, I think. Harmless, you might say. He wasn’t there this morning.”
“Where then?”
“I don’t know. But, sadly my friend, I can hazard a guess. Your friend Hank is a vulnerable man. He is easy to mock, easy to lead…” Ali stands up and paces around the room.
He looks out the window, down at the pavement in front of the shop, and laughs nervously, “all quiet out there. East Oxford has just woken up and is already on siesta. Look, Robbo my friend, there was cars going about last night, old cars. I think Crispin Miles’ squad was out and about, looking for midsummer dancers.”
“What?”
“Midsummer dancers, my friend, reluctant participants in the revels in the University Park. Mr Miles likes to put on a show of, what shall we call it, ‘celebratory Englishness’,” Ali sighs and mutters, “all good, honest fun I’m sure. Well, maybe not for the dancers. They’re basically kidnapped.”
“And they make them dance? How’d they get away with that?”
Ali laughs, “oh Messina’s in on it too. All the powers that be are in on it.”
“That’s where Hank is?”
“Dunno, maybe. Or maybe someone found him wandering the streets and took him in. For good or bad. Who knows? But then where is he now? We can’t be sure,” Ali shakes his head, “I am sorry but it might be bad news, hopefully not too bad. They let the dancers go again. But maybe ask your little errand-boy friend if he can do anything?”
“Who? What?”
“Your friend, Tudor. He is, shall we say, close to Mr Miles’ inner circle. Hard as I find it to understand given that Mr Miles, much as I dislike the man, is a very effective operator and Tudor… well, my friend, there are other names I could call him but, as my mother would say, ‘be nice or be quiet’.”
“Tudor?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Okay, I see,” lies Robbo and continues undeterred, “Uni Parks? Thank you Ali, my friend.”
Ali smiles ruefully, “be careful Robbo.”
—
An ice-cream van chimes its tune. Jak checks the time on her phone. And her messages.
Jak Churchwell: Hi again dad. In Flo park you about?
She walks down an avenue of trees, tall sycamores and spreading limes. A family – mother, father, two young girls – walk past, too intent on not dropping their ice creams to even register her. She steps out of the way of the smaller of the girls, who has chocolate sauce in her hair and is trying to lick it off. A hand-in-hand teenage couple also walk past, swigging energy drinks and deep in earnest conversation.
Jak turns along another path, this one lined by horse chestnuts. She looks up at the branches. The candlestick flowers have passed, a few remain with withered petals, and green, spiky conkers are starting to form. Sunlight glances through the large, hand-shaped leaves, dappling the path in light and shade. Jak holds her arms out to see them dappled too.
At the end of the path is a queue. At the end of the queue is an ice cream van. Jak joins the queue.
She buys a bottle of cold sparkling water and takes a swig right away before screwing the cap on and heading back up the path. The line of trees gives way to open parkland. A group of girls kicks a football about. Another, mixed, group plays frisbee. Most people are sprawled under trees or sat on the grass vaping and checking their phones while small children run around them.
At the heart of the park is a circular space where four paths meet. Jak sits on a bench next to one of the colourful flower beds that form a broken ring around the space. She takes another swig of water and gazes at the flowers.
She is not an expert on garden flowers, she is more interested in wild plants and birds. But she recognises geraniums – both the sight and the smell. She knows her mum used to grow them in pots with a label on a stick saying what they were. Maybe she still does. Jak isn’t sure.
Her earliest memory of flowers though is helping her dad plant them. Digging a little trench and pouring the seeds out of a packet. That must’ve been in their old house, she reasons to herself. It didn’t get as much light as the new one. But enough to grow… what were they? She wants to say ‘forget-me-nots’ but really she has no idea.
‘Why was dad planting flowers? Maybe mum told him to.’
As she remembers it, the old house was big and dark. A long hallway, steep stairs. An epic trek and mountaineering expedition to go to bed. The kitchen window was almost right up against a high brick wall.
Obviously she was small then so everything seemed bigger. Maybe she should go back and see if it still seems big and dark now. It’s not as if it’s far away, just round the block from Ali’s Bottleshop. But not anywhere she ever has reason to go. Or any inclination until now.
Jak Churchwell: Can wait but let us know if youre coming?
‘Mum was so tired. I shouldn’t have hid behind the settee for a whole day that time. Panicked her. Was dad’s idea I think. Was it? But you did it. Wait ‘til it’s dark and start going woo-woo like a ghost. Oh Jak, you’re such a twat sometimes! Poor mum.’
Jak gulps the rest of her water down and checks her phone. Nothing. She turns her phone off and reaches into her bag for the tube of sunscreen Sylvie had made her bring. She squeezes some lotion, and rubs it into her face and arms.
The air hums quietly with the buzzing of bees on the geraniums and whatever other flowers are nearby. Jak closes her eyes and leans her head back against the bench.‘Damn him. Can’t want to see me that much. Must’ve got a loan off someone else. Probably drunk already. Nice here though. Good place to forget stuff.’