Saints and Sinners

Chapter Thirty-Four

Meadvale

Surrey

No one does a public state occasion like the British, of course. Before, the deaths of royals and former Prime Ministers and even celebrities were true international events, treated with all the pomp and circumstance of times gone by. And to all Christian Reformists, the death of Archbishop Michael Winstanley was certainly the equivalent of the loss of a monarch or a prince. But London was not the venue for his last journey. He had helped create Meadvale and the Old Cathedral, originally built for his father, had been his stage for over sixty happy years. In the digital age, his sermons were all available online, and his cathedral was a major tourist attraction, on every Christian's bucket list. So, he had to be buried there, and there was only one man who could ever perform the funeral service. For all their differences over the last few years, Sebastian Osborne had to send his friend and former mentor on his way in style. No one but the good bishop would do. It was a challenge even someone of his great experience found daunting and he puffed out his cheeks as he checked his appearance in the mirror one last time.

"Have you taken all your medicine?" Brogan asked from the cleaning frame as her husband finished dressing in his full ceremonial robes, as far as she could see, turning her head as far as her straps would allow.

"Yes...earlier...Blackstone stands over me whilst I take the wretched things these days...I assume that is your doing?" He grumbled as he examined his shave in the mirror. He had managed not to cut himself, at least.

"Dr Blackstone is your personal physician...he is just doing his job?" Brogan hissed as the auto-lacer got to work on her. Miss Bryant had left the room, because the master wanted to talk to his wife whilst he dressed, but she had set the lacer going before she went. Everyone was on a tight schedule and there was no time to waste. "They say a billion people will watch the service live today...it would be nice if you survived until the end of it?"

"Brogan...you worry too much...Hugh says I am in pretty good shape..."

"For an eighty-two year old with high blood pressure and type two diabetes?" She gasped as the lacer pulsed whilst she was breathing the wrong way. He glanced at her and frowned at her pained grimace. "Even Charles told you to pace yourself?"

"And I am...but today is different...as you say, the eyes of the world will be on us...and I want to do a good job for Michael...we might not have seen eye to eye after Forbes, but he was still my friend?"

"Harrumph," Brogan replied, which could have been a snort of derision, or a reaction to a sharp pull on her ribs. He decided to give her the benefit of the doubt, because she had never liked Michael Winstanley, or her late father, for that matter.

"Like it or not, I worked at his side for sixty years...good and bad...and he was a great man in his pomp...a fine preacher...a man who could inspire others?" Osborne suggested as he brushed what was left of his hair. Brogan decided not to argue, for once. It was a big day for Sebastian and she chose not to add to his stress. "He is the reason I am here...the reason that we are here...I want to do this for him?"

"Excuse me, your grace...but I really must get on...Lady Osborne needs to be in position to follow the coffin...and you should really be..." Miss Bryant said, putting her head around the door.

"Yes, Miss Bryant...sorry...it's just stage fright...I'll leave you ladies to it!" He said as he moved across the room to kiss his wife on her forehead. "I will see you both after...be good Brogan?"

Not that Miss Bryant would ever let her do otherwise, she thought, as she watched him rush out of the room, not even watching the keeper fiddle with the enema machine. For some reason, just at that strange moment, she realised that she had not even seen a toilet in fifty years, since her father essentially kidnapped her and brought her to Meadvale just a month before her eighteenth birthday. It was a strange thing to think about, to miss, but it was an example of how complete her dependence had become. Nothing that happened to her body was supposed to be any business of hers. Her wastes were collected, or washed out of her without her participation, and she played no part whatsoever in the painful process. She had no control whatsoever over her life. She could ask her husband or Miss Bryant for things she wanted, but they did not have to agree to indulge her. And that was Michael Winstanley's legacy, she reminded herself as her bowels filled with cleaning fluid, because it was his holy doctrine that put every British woman on her knees before God, earning His love.