The Sexton’s Bet

The Sexton’s Bet

The sexton gorged on the last of the fish. It didn’t even touch the sides.

When his fork hit the empty plate he raised his eyes to the bargirl for service. Rita was preoccupied, nervously fingering her way through the pages of an old Evening Sun as though the news was hot off the press. The torn brown pages stained with time spoke otherwise. 

Fagan Muxlow was muscular and tanned. So prone to being undressed was the sextant that he was rarely seen without bare chest. Even on a late October day such as this one. Alone he sat. His hands were scarred and sore from work. In vain he tried rubbing them together for warmth, but none would come. Only the corpse of a single log remained on the fire. These were cold days now and he was in good business.

The door to the pub opened lazily, a cold draft entered and with it came the town’s Vicar.

Each night drew colder than the last. They were all gaunt. But everyone was gaunt. These were gaunt times. The Vicar, a man once the regarded as portly by his polite parishioners, was now bone thin, the thinnest of them all, and though he tried to stop his coughing, or at least stop others from hearing it, Fagan knew that there was a problem.

Rita’s eyes slid from the paper to the door. She pulled down a dirty glass and filled it with ale. The Vicar hung up his coat, muttered a blessing at the girl and joined the sexton.

'Did you enjoy your meal?’ he said.

'In the end, nothing remains,' Fagan replied and pushed the plate away.

The Vicar chuckled jovially before being seized by one of his uncontrollable coughing fits. With his arms around his ribs the Vicar weathered his painful storm with some grace.

Had he seen blood? Fagan wondered to himself as he picked the pieces of remaining fish from his back teeth. Was there red on the tissue the Vicar had discarded so quickly? The lack of food and sleep was making Fagan question his own sanity. It affected them all, and none had any patience. It started with little things, like forgetting each other’s names, but then as the days slid by it had gotten worse.

Fagan smacked his chest and licked his lips. The Vicar’s eyes were glazed over.

‘Ah, I am the custodian of sacred objects.’

‘You were the custodian.’

‘All fish must be eaten and all men must die.’

‘But not all by your hands, he was a naught but child.’

‘There'll be a time when your services are no longer required and the dead will not need to be buried. That time fast approaches.’

‘Was it worth it? A death on your hands is nothing, but on mine?’ The Vicar answered his own questions with a long glug of the brown liquid. Fagan watched his Adam’s apple as he swallowed it down his scrawny neck.

'Can I have a drink?' Fagan said.

Rita put away the paper and poured another dirty glass. ‘You may as well.'

The bargirl walked over and sourly placed his glass down on the table, spilling a little as she did so and offering no apology.

'They will be here shortly.'

'Should I say a prayer?'

'I've spoke enough lamentations today.'

'Fine, let them come and I shall answer their knocking with my spade. She is as sharp and fine looking as any blade, is she not?'

The Vicar looked over and saw the immaculate spade propped up against the wall; not a single piece of dirt from the day stained her dress. The Vicar wished he could start the day over. He wished he could take back that stupid bet. But now a boy lay buried and his hands were bloody.

‘Was it sinepsia? He had the symptoms didn't he? The shaking, they say that is how it starts, with the shaking and then the blood.’ Fagan raised himself out of his chair and retrieved his spade.

‘No. It’s the other way around Vicar, first the bleeding and then the shaking, don’t you know anything?’

‘I know a meal is not worth a child in the ground.'

‘Really, Vicar? Ten graves you bet me and ten I dug.’

The Vicar closed his eyes. His praying hands rested against his nose. The last log on the fire slipped noisily down into its bed of embers.

'Besides, the boy would have died, and painfully too. I spared him the labour of a long death.’ For a minute the wry look on the Martian skin of Fagan’s face faded. His eyes were cold.

‘The choice was not yours to make. Who is to say who lives and dies? Only God above.’

At that the sexton sniggered. On his lips were faint reminders of the meal. He twisted around, lifted one of the old wooden chairs high up in the air and smashed it against the floor.

‘Oi! What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Rita said, leaving the bar. ‘Have you lost your mind?’

Fagan diligently picked out three choice pieces of the broken chair and placed them on the embers of the fire. He then gathered what remained and stacked it in the corner. ‘Another drink,’ he said, failing to bother with eye contact.

‘Vicar?’ Rita said, but the man was ignorant in prayer. Biting the inside of her lip she breathed out through her nose. ‘Fine, but don’t think I won’t be telling Simon when he gets back.’

Fagan returned to his chair opposite the Vicar. His drink was silently placed on the table. Through the boarded up windows he heard them come. Feint voices which grew louder with each sip he took.

‘Did you bolt the door? They come for you as much as they come for me.’

‘Who do I fear but God?’

The sexton stroked the hard wooden handle of his spade. And then three raps struck the pub door.