A Little Bit on the Side by John W O' Sullivan Read Free Book Online Page A

meditation on the same theme, on the contradictions and uncertainties of life, and the need to look beyond the surface of things before rushing to judgment. As the sermon concluded the organ sounded again, and before the service had resumed all four of them slipped quietly out of the south door, and headed for the Shagger.
    ‘Well what on earth are we supposed to make of that?’ asked Jack. ‘Was it true Christian commitment on behalf of one lost and outcast lamb in his flock, or some strange private joke?’
    ‘Oh I don’t think it’s a joke,’ said Jimmy. ‘I realised from the talks we’ve had that Larry’s a bit of a one-off and very much his own man. In fact I sometimes wonder just how much he subscribes to some of the basic tenets of the Church, but he wouldn’t joke in the pulpit, and if you mean what I think you mean by Christian, then Larry’s a Christian…. No, I think he really wants to make a patently obvious point to a very conservative and innately suspicious community. He’s giving you a clean bill of health.’
    ‘All very puzzling. Though I must say I quite took to him when he called in the other evening. As far as this morning goes though, we’ll just have to wait and see, and as far as the locals are concerned, well I can take them or leave them alone without being troubled, but it would be nice if they weren’t so cool to Kate.’
    Unusually for the Shagger on a Sunday morning the public bar was empty, apart from Albert standing disconsolate behind the counter.
    ‘All very quiet today Albert. Where’s your usual News of the World brigade?’
    ‘Very odd Mr Gillan. Word seemed to get round that a church visit might be interesting this morning. Haven’t had it this quiet on a Sunday for years.’
    Picking up their pints, Kate and Celia included, they settled at a table by the door to await the arrival of Albert’s regulars.
    They weren’t long in coming, and within minutes it seemed that most of the men and many of the women in the congregation were cramming in, eager to put Albert in the picture, and buy themselves a drink to stimulate the gossip. Jimmy, whose plumbing and electrical skills had taken him far and wide across the hill, got a few words of greeting from most of them, when he was always Jim or Jimmy, but more than a few now gave Jack a nod and a circumspect ‘Morning Mr Manning.’
    Before the end of the month came the second event which finally led to their gradual and cautious acceptance by the community. Acceptance as incomers that is: even Jimmy and Celia were not seen by the locals as ‘one of us.’
    Kate had given notice from her teaching post in Wolverton as soon as they started their search for a home in the country, and had been out of work for a couple of terms before they arrived on the hill. When an unexpected vacancy arose in the Barlow junior school that served the children of Barton Hill a supply teacher was needed, with the near certainty that the post would become permanent. Kate applied and was accepted, and for the first time this brought her into regular and close contact with the Barton mothers who carried favourable reports back to the Barton fathers, leading to the gradual acceptance that, despite the whiff of sulphur about Jack’s professional activities, he was not after all the Devil incarnate.
    In the weeks following that most unusual of Sunday services, however, Ada Sutton found herself constantly tormented by those ex-cathedra precepts of her priest, and of all the village Ada was without doubt the most faithful and devoted of the Rev Breakwells’s parishioners. She realised well enough when she thought things over that his sermon had not really been directed specifically at her, but his words had wrought powerfully upon her Christian heart, and as a village elder and the oldest member of the vicar’s congregation she now felt it incumbent upon her to act upon those words. And if Ada was looking only for her reward in heaven, she was