Resurrection

Chapter 37 : The Last Cup of Sorrow

How does a congregation, that was ever expanding and feverish with energy and activity, become so silent? While they stand around in mourning, apathetic and distant, the widow Beverley wept till her cheeks were red in the night and the signature puffiness stayed around till morning. The people were now confused and rudderless like a yacht without a sail, drifting whichever way the current could take them. They were divided, leaderless and the serpent without the head. While this may have seemed like a perfect chance for yours truly to push forward, mass psychology doesn't work like that and suspicion would be paramount. Instead they needed someone to step in like the Weimar before the Nazis – a temporary filler to provide calm and restore a temporary status quo. I looked to the woman behind the man. No doubt the impact of Father Brian was felt significantly, extruding an impact on each wrinkle of furrowed eyebrow or chinline as each seemed lost in their temporary depression. Luckily a remarkable woman stood there vigilant, and would inspire a temporary relief in the leadership. She just needed some honeyed words and well-nurtured support to push her in this direction. She was at least trying to organise sermons for the following week. This was when I decided to make my move:

"Beverley, I know it's a stupid question but how are you holding up?" I tentatively asked.

She sighed.

"It's just hard. Really hard." She said.

"When's the funeral?" I asked.

"I'm not sure, we're thinking of making it Friday or perhaps the weekend. We have to finish organising all of the relatives." She said.

"Why not make it Sunday? That way it can be the church service as well. I'm sure he would have liked that." I enquired.

She was able to force the tiniest of smiles.

"That's actually a good idea." She agreed.

"Is there anything else I can do?" I asked.

"I'm not sure, really."

"I could come over and cook dinner. I don't mean to brag but I make the finest road kill in Texas."

She tried to be polite and forced out another grin.

"You could make it tonight if you like. I am just sick of being alone in that large house." She lamented.

"I know the feeling. Loneliness can feel like an eternity. It's a deal." I stated with a bit of enthusiasm.

Death has a way of reinvigorating the living, even in their hopeless grief. A nervous survival mechanism to make them attempt to feel whole again, death often lets inhibitions lapse in whichever outlet humans could find.

I greeted Beverley at the door with a bottle of red wine. A blend of Syrah and Cabernet sauvignon, dry with a burst of flavourful , long tannins that appealed to even my Australian host body. This was followed by a gewurtztraminer dessert wine. I knew that Beverley would not be able to resist the heady bouquet of wine, allowing herself the chance to purge the combination of guilt and grief.

"It's very sweet of you. Come inside." She greeted me.

I also held a few fine cuts of porterhouse. As Beverley chopped up a salad, I warmed up the grill and we talked away everything that the aggrieved held onto, clutching at the darkened tufts of a sobering reality that their loved one had shuffled off the deathly spiral of life. During dinner we polished off my gifts of wine, along with another bottle Brian had earmarked for a special occasion.

She continuously stirred the tip of the wine glass and looked straight through me. At first I was concerned she may have been horrified by the flickering deadlights of my murderous vocation, yet all she saw was comfort and hope eternal. My fingers locked over hers.

"Beverley, you are so strong. I don't know how you keep it together." I said.
"I really am not. But thankyou." She replied earnestly.

"I don't want to state the obvious but they are all counting on a strong woman like you to guide them through these dark times."

"I think it's you who actually gives me some strength."

My fingers locked tighter and my other arm gently patted her shoulder.

"Is there anything else I can do?"

"There could be." She said.

My ears pricked up and I felt a strange sense of excitement fire up my spine and through my neck.

"I would just like 'you' at least to treat me normally." She said.

"What do you mean, exactly?" I enquired further.

"Stop treating me like a pariah like all of the others. I'm just so fucking tired of it. Like the poor pastor's wife, however will she go on."

"You are a hell of a lot more than that... I hope that didn't come off patronising. You know what I mean."

She smiled and nodded. The wine had mulled my senses somewhat and I could sense Beverley's altered state.

"You know I haven't always been a preacher's wife. I was a much more open person before I was shoehorned into this way of life."

Her fingers clutched mine tighter. It was at this point she burst into tears, rocking back and forth slightly. I stroked her hair with my other hand.

"I am just sick of feeling this miserable. I guess it's how we're all supposed to act... I do miss him terribly but how else am I supposed to go on?"

I topped up her glass and continued to commiserate.

The once granite-like walls of her convictions and morality faded away with each sip and it wasn't long before Beverley invited me up to the master bedroom.

The beauty of older women is often mocked or denigrated by society with the machinations of the media empire to sell more beauty products and pressure people into disfiguring their faces and bodies with botox, facelifting, chemical peels and liposuction. My age numbered into the millenia, so why was I concerned with an older woman? I was borrowing a body with a renumbering of DNA coding so what I saw in Beverley was a beautiful pattern of cells clumped together appreciating my group of cells as we fused together to enjoy the benefits of post-conception phase sexual unison. Like my interlude with Fallon, I was surprised at how much I was enjoying this encounter. Of course, this was merely a phase of my deliberate planning but that wasn't at the sacrifice of personal enjoyment. Like the various coffees, this was a guilty pleasure of my need to vacation as a human.

She would wake up eventually and feel a brief moment of guilt, only to be reminded by me that she was now a widow with needs, however I promised to keep this new affair clandestine under the guise of good taste for the benefit of Beverley as well as myself. 

After the funeral service, we held hands for the briefest of moments but my emotional and physical support were best felt behind closed bedroom doors. It was during this time, much like Rasputin that I would pour sugar over this lily white devil herself and start to make requests. Most evenings we shared a glass of wine together among other ethereal pleasures and as she gulped down each glass in her sorrow, I could imagine her sealing her own covenant with me, her new saviour.

Very shortly after, I was starting to make multiple prayer readings and the gospel of the day, feeling my capital climb in the eyes of these sinners. All the time I could sense Beverley's exhaustion at trying to lead this rabble. I continued to be her advisor and occasionally grab the odd secret here and there from each of the followers. Sometimes they were shameful confessions escaping their mind's eye or they were past memories embedded in their psyche. Still there were no repeats of Loch Lomond so I wasn't privy to everything. I continued to focus on my pet project of Beverley and waited for the moment of revelation.