Maureen presses the button marked ‘Robertson’. The grubby off-white speaker by the door buzzes softly. She waits. Counts the dead flies – six – in a cobweb above the door and presses the button again.
“Is he out?” Matchbox narrows his eyes, “he’s always out somewhere these days.”
“I’ll try again in a moment,” promises Maureen unenthusiastically, “but I believe Robbo may have left the building.”
“Like Elvis?” asks Hank.
“Well,” Maureen pauses to consider the implications, “hopefully not, at least not in as conclusive a manner.”
“Maybe he’s just on the bog?” suggests Matchbox.
“That’s the problem, young man,” grimaces Maureen, “so was Elvis.”
She tries the doorbell again but to no avail.
Petra, who has been standing quietly at the back of the group, speaks up, “put a note through the door, tell him we’ve gone to Iffley.”
“Good idea Prof,” agrees Matchbox.
“Have you got a pen and some paper yourself?” checks Maureen.
“Yes, I’ve got a pad in my handbag,” confirms Petra, “I always carry one with me.”
“Except when you forget,” laughs Matchbox.
Petra nods, “except when I forget.”
She scribbles a note and tries to push it through the letterbox below the button. The metal is stiff, reluctant to open, and snaps back as she hurriedly pulls her hand away. A corner of the note is visible, sticking out of the metal jaw.
Maureen shrugs, “he’ll see it if he wants to. You don’t want to be losing your finger just to push that through.”
“Gloves,” suggests Hank.
“Yes dear except that, as it is the height of summer, our kind mothers have let us come out without them,” Maureen strokes his shoulder patiently, “come on then people, let’s get ourselves down to the churchyard.”
“The finest in all Oxford,” asserts Petra, “outside the gates or in.”
—
Sticks finds a parking space on the main road by a row of shops. He takes a quick look around and steps aside as an elderly woman pushing a co-op shopping trolley with various tins, packets and bottles struggles past on the narrow pavement.
He presses the lock on his key fob, pauses for a second to get his bearings and starts walking in the opposite direction to the woman, past a shuttered kebab shop that won’t open until this evening, a vape shop, a presumably permanently shuttered estate agent’s shop with ‘dev SQUAD outreach’ sprayed in purple across it, and walks into a pizza and chips shop.
Sticks pulls a cold can from the fridge and places it on the counter.
“Three pounds,” mutters the man behind the counter.
Sticks shows the man his credit card.
“Not got cash?”
He shakes his head.
“Alright then but that’ll be three pounds fifty.”
The man taps at his phone, swears at it, taps some more and holds it out. The card takes a second to register but the payment goes through.
Sticks opens the can, takes a swig and walks back along the pavement to his car. He looks around him, waits for a pair of teenage boys to stroll past, presses unlock on his key fob, grabs a half full black bin bag from the back seat and locks up again.
Robbo’s block is five minutes’ walk away, mostly along the main road past more shops, including a co-op, and then down a side street. Sticks stops at the stair door, double checks with a written note that he has the right address, and presses the button marked ‘Robertson’.
He only counts four dead flies before noticing the corner of paper sticking out of the letterbox. Quickly looking around him, nobody in sight, he pulls the note out.
The handwriting is a thing of beauty – bold down strokes, fine cross strokes and elaborate curls all joined up in a continuous ivy trail of words: ‘Dear Robbo, we have gone down to Iffley Church. Please join us if you get this note. It would be lovely to see you. Your friends x’
—
‘Registered name: Sylvie Churchwell’
‘Password: *************’
‘Biometrics: 👍’
‘Get your lippy on and fix your hair, you’re ready to find yourself a date!’
‘Theo Fontaineau, claims to be thirty-three. Dodgy tache, might not be real, probably not. Polo neck jumper and likes poetry but also archery and wild swimming. AI cliche I think.’
Swipe.
‘Tony Claridge, claims to be thirty-nine but probably about fifty. Photo looks real. Into motorbikes. Has own leathers and large helmet… oh for God’s sake grow up.’
Swipe.
‘Marc Badger! That’s never a real person!’
Swipe.
‘Robert O’farrel, claims to be forty-one. And looks it. Seems legit. Not much bio but likes baking. Baking? That sounds good. And nothing too macho or AI alpha-yet-gentle male.’
—
Sticks follows a curving street of houses past front gardens with trampolines, St George flags, neat flowerbeds, overgrown bushes, paved with cars, well mown lawns, paved with weeds, barking dogs, watchful cats, bored children and abandoned fridges. The houses, patchy white pebble-dashed walls with dark, damp streaks below the windows, are all the same size and design.
At the end of the street, a downhill footpath leads him beneath a canopy of overhanging trees and through a so-called kissing gate, with a sign declaring ‘no bicycles or any other wheeled vehicle, powered or unpowered’, to a very different street – roughly cobbled with high, slightly crumbling, sandstone walls on either side, buddleia spilling over the top with a fluttering of feeding butterflies. Beyond the walls, Sticks can see a row of tall, ornate chimneys.
The tower of the Church of St Mary the Virgin, Iffley, soon comes into view. And the path takes Sticks between a graveyard with a range of stones from faded Victorian angels to shiny granite shrines, some fresh with flowers, and the medieval church, glowing golden in the afternoon sun, with an abundant garden of yew trees, lawns and berried bushes.
Matchbox, Maureen and Hank are sat cross-legged in the garden, facing away from the church’s intricately carved south doorway, which has sandstone blocks where the actual door once was, drinking from a shared plastic bottle of cheap cider.
“Are you Robbo’s friends?”
“Might be,” replies Matchbox warily, “are you?”
“Do you know where he is? I’ve got a bag of his stuff.”
“Outside!” announces Hank, “definitely outside.”
“We don’t know,” interjects Maureen, “but we’re hoping he’ll be here soon. The professor wrote him a note.”
“I see,” scowls Sticks, “and where is this professor?”
“She’s gone to Graceland,” smiles Hank.
“What?”
Maureen just shakes her head. Sticks looks from one to another of the friends, feeling slightly helpless.
Eventually Matchbox waves a hand towards the graveyard and says, “she’s over there. Talking to ghosts.”
“Okay,” Sticks backs away and turns to walk towards the gate, calling over his shoulder, “thank you for your help.”
“You’re most welcome,” shouts back Matchbox before muttering, “stuck up prick!”
Maureen nods in agreement, muttering back, “didn’t even say hello.”
Hank swigs from the bottle and starts to sing, “hello… is it me you’re looking for?”
“Yes, my love, it surely is,” Maureen sighs and puts an arm round Hank’s shoulder. He grins.
—
About a mile downstream of Iffley Lock, Jak trudges across Heyford Meadow and sits on a bench by a reedbed that fringes the River Thames. She pulls her binoculars from their bag and scans the far bank.
The may bushes that blossomed so abundantly not so long ago are now just large green shrubs. She can hear a bird singing but cannot see it. Some kind of warbler? Her view moves from may bush to may bush but whoever the singer is, he – almost certainly a ‘he’ – is staying well out of sight.
A few insects drift through the air above the water, others actually on the surface of the water. Where are the swallows? There is a feast to be had.
‘Tabs, do you remember the kingfisher? You said how beautiful it was. Don’t think you ever said that about birds. Or didn’t mean it anyway but that time we were sat here… it made everything beautiful, I thought. I wanted it to go on forever, that day, but now I’m scared I’ll forget it. Maybe I already have forgotten some of it.’
The small, beautiful, perfect bird; a flash of electric blue and brilliant orange that momentarily took their breaths away; is fishing elsewhere today.
Jak’s thoughts turn to her dad. What was she thinking introducing him to Sticks? Is he safe there? Probably. Sticks is strange. Paranoid, obsessive, doesn’t seem to care much about other people, at least not some of the time, yet politically for the common good. Not actually going to hurt someone, surely. Well that’s how he seems anyway.
‘Mum’s right, dad’ll be okay. As long as he don’t get bored and drink too much. He was way more vulnerable in Uni Parks. Anything could’ve happened there. God knows what did happen.’
Jak rubs her inner arms. The bruises have gone, the puncture marks healed. But what did happen? She shakes her mind to see if anything falls out. Nothing much comes, just vague feelings of anxiety. Like a bad dream that has faded.
Was it even that bad a dream? Did anything much really happen? She can’t remember.
Did she just get so drunk that night with Dr Maddy Birch? Maybe she was plying her with booze hoping to seduce her but over did it and called her a taxi when she realised she could barely walk? But was she really that drunk? She can’t remember.
And where on Earth did the taxi take her? Did the taxi driver think she lived on a boat? Whose boat?
She can’t remember.
‘Tabs, I need to see you. I’m scared I’ll forget what it feels like to sit with you and talk to you. Scared I’ll forget how you look when you find something I say funny. Or the softness of the hair on your arm when I stroke it. Or all those butterflies inside when I’m waiting for you to meet me. I’m scared, Tabs, I’m scared I’ll forget how much I love you.’
—
“Matthew Dominic Culver. Born on the fourteenth of September, eighteen ninety-two. Died on the twenty-eighth of January, nineteen thirteen. Safe in God’s arms now.
“Barnaby Wallace Armitage Simpson. Born on the third of July – oh, happy birthday Barnaby. Do you prefer Barney? In eighteen twenty-seven. Died twenty-first of November, nineteen oh two. With thanks to merciful God.”
Sticks coughs and asks, “are you the professor?”
“Oh hello,” Petra doesn’t look round, “I’ll be with you in a second. Mrs Antonia Livia Rideout. Born on the twenty-third of June. Ooh, nearly a solstice baby. Must’ve just missed it. Died on the sixteenth of April, oh hang on now I missed a bit. So, born on the twenty-third of June, eighteen fifty-one. Died, as I said, on the sixteenth of April and that was in nineteen twenty. And she is now, ‘Living yet without fear of death.’
“Yes, my friends sometimes call me ‘professor’. For their own reasons. I much prefer just ‘Petra’. That is my name after all.”
Sticks shows her the note, “this is beautifully written.”
“Thank you,” Petra half giggles shyly.
Sticks is unsure whether she is genuinely shy or just playing with him, “where did you learn calligraphy?”
“Oh, from this man. He said he was dying and wanted to teach me. I’m not sure he was, to be honest, in fact I think he’s still alive. But I enjoyed learning from him. I think he used to run a shop in town. He was very well-spoken. Wore a lot of Tweed.”
“Ah, something of a gentleman then.”
“Yes, but fallen on hard times,” sighs Petra, “as we all were in there.”
“In where?”
“Littlemore Hospital. It’s a mental institution you know.”
“The mental healthcare hospital? Yes, I’m aware of it. Do you spend a lot of time in graveyards?”
“Yes, some of the time. I think the dead can hear me. Some of them. I like to think I’m proving to them that they’re not forgotten. I think that’s a lot of people’s biggest fear. Not physical death but the death of their memory. Most people who have lived are now completely forgotten.”
“Forgotten by our narrow view of history, yes. But still part of the universe. And part of us,” Sticks holds out his arm for Petra to take, “so shall we take a look at the church together? It is a very fine building.”
—
‘Dear Sylvie. I understand completely you’d prefer a daytime meet. How about Saturday lunchtime?’
‘Hi Robert, that sounds good. Is Iffley Road any good for you? I know a nice cafe with nice outdoor space. They bake their own bread.’
‘Sounds good. I love fresh bread!’
‘Ok the Gardenhouse at 12 then?’
‘Agreed. See you then. Bobby x’
—
The Moonshine is quiet, Sunday evening quiet. A few random people eking out the last of the weekend, trying to keep Monday morning out of their minds.
Sticks and Petra sit at a small corner table with a lamp. Petra drinks diluted orange juice, plenty of ice. Sticks has a sugar-free cola, a brand more ethical than famous, straight from the bottle.
“So, how well do you know the story of Frideswide?” asks Sticks earnestly.
“Frith-us-weeth,” pronounces Petra carefully, “Anglo-Saxon princess. She was very devoted to God. And didn’t want anything to do with men. Especially after her father tried to make her marry the King of Leicester. They had tiny kingdoms in those days, in places you wouldn’t think of. Mind you, Oxford seems to he reverting to that kind of thing now. Anyway, she was from Eynsham originally, I think, and was sworn to celibacy…”
“Unusual in Eynsham!” laughs Sticks.
Petra ignores him and continues, “so she hid from this king guy in Oxford. The good townsfolk help her hide and keep her hidden even when the king sends rough men to find her. The people were loyal to her, you see, because she had integrity and stuck to what she believed. And they respected that and wouldn’t hand her over to the king’s thugs even though there was nothing in it for them.”
“And she set up a priory?” Sticks returns to being earnest.
“Yes, at Binsey. The ruins are still there. And there’s a well, it’s a modern well but on the site of where she prayed to God for water to spring from the ground.”
“And he obliged?”
“Must’ve, there’s a well there after all,” Petra’s eyes sparkle at the story of the miracle and she laughs, “if you believe in that sort of thing, of course.”
“And do you?”
“Yes, I think so. Frithusweeth was very special, unwavering, I think. Most saints’ miracles seem a bit too convenient, you know slightly good but unexplained things that happen long after their deaths. But Frithusweeth founded Binsey Priory and asked God for help, which he gave. In some ways, it’s easier to believe that than it is to think nobody at all in Oxford gave her hiding place away, despite whatever threats and bribes were being offered.”
“Yeah,” smiles Sticks, “it is kind of hard believe that. Wouldn’t happen now.”
“No,” laughs Petra, “it certainly wouldn’t!”
Sticks looks at Petra, how the lamp illuminates her face, the lines that form when she smiles, the deep sadness – it looks to him like sadness – in her eyes.
“If we ever need hiding places,” he leans in towards her, voice hushed, “I know some. Not just round here either.”
Petra considers the suggestion, “well, I’d like to explore more.”
“And you seem to like medieval history?”
“Yeah, I think in those days there was a fuzzier line between earthly reality and the spirit realm, life and death, God’s graceful light and the Devil’s strange delights. If you knew the secret, you could move between them. These different states of being. I guess I wish I’d lived then. But, hey, you don’t get to choose when you live and die, do you?”
Sticks laughs, “maybe not. But we can choose when not to die.”
They both finish their drinks. Sticks insists on getting another. Petra only wants a glass of water.
“Are Donny or Jazz around?” asks Sticks at the bar.
“No, they’ve gone out for the night.”
“Mention me to them, will you? That I came in for a few drinks,” Sticks pauses and then asks, “what time is it?”
“Er,” the woman behind the bar looks at her phone, “just after eight.”
“Okay, thank you.”