Star over Bethlehem - Agatha Christie [15]
“You’d better all come up to my place,” she said.
“Where is it?”
“Up there.” She pointed.
They turned to look.
“But—that’s a Castle,” the woman exclaimed in awestruck tones.
“Yes, it’s a Castle all right. So you see, there will be lots of room …”
St. Scoithín stood rather doubtfully on the seashore. He wasn’t quite sure what to do with his Salmon.
He could smoke it, of course—it would last longer that way. The trouble was that it was really only the rich who like smoked salmon, and the rich had quite enough things already. The poor much preferred their salmon in tins. Perhaps—
The Salmon writhed in his hands, and St. Scoithín jumped.
“Master,” said the Salmon.
St. Scoithín looked at it.
“It is nearly a thousand years since I saw the sea,” said the Salmon pleadingly.
St. Scoithín smiled at him affectionately. He walked out on the sea, and lowered the Salmon gently into the water.
“Go with God,” he said.
He walked back to the shore, and almost immediately stumbled over a big heap of tins of salmon with a purple flower stuck on top of them.
St. Cristina was walking along a crowded City street. The traffic roared past her. The air was full of diesel fumes.
“This is terrible,” said St. Cristina, holding her nose. “I must do something about this. And why don’t they empty the dustbins oftener? It’s very bad for people.” She pondered. “Perhaps I had better go into Parliament …”
St. Peter was busy setting out his Loaf and Fish stall.
“Old Age Pensioners first,” he said. “Come on, Granddad.”
“Are you National Assistance?” the old man asked suspiciously.
“That kind of thing.”
“Not religious, is it? I’m not going to sing hymns.”
“When the food’s all gone, I shall preach,” said Peter. “But you don’t have to stay on and listen.”
“Sounds fair enough. What are you going to preach about?”
“Something quite simple. Just how to attain Eternal Life.”
A younger man gave a hoot of laughter.
“Eternal Life! What a hope!”
“Yes,” said Peter cheerfully, as he shovelled out parcels of hot fish. “It is a hope. Got to remember that. There’s always Hope.”
In the Church of St. Petrock-on-the-Hill, the Vicar was sitting sadly in a pew, watching a confident young architect examining the old painted screen.
“Sorry, Vicar,” said the young man, turning briskly. “Not a hope in Hell, I’m afraid. Oh! sorry again. I oughtn’t to have put it like that. But it’s long past restoring. Nothing to be done. The wood’s rotten, and there’s hardly any paint left—not enough to see what the original was like. What is it? Fifteenth century?”
“Late fourteenth.”
“What are they? Saints?”
“Yes. Seven each side.” He recited. “St. Lawrence, St. Thomas, St. Andrew, St. Anthony, St. Peter, St. Scoithín, and one we don’t know. The other side: St. Barbara, St. Catherine, St. Appolonia, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, St. Cristina the Astonishing, St. Margaret, and St. Martha.”
“You’ve got it all very pat.”
“There were church records. Not in very good condition. Some we had to make out by their emblems—St. Barbara’s castle for instance, and St. Lawrence’s gridiron. The original work was done by Brother Bernard of the Benedictines of Froyle Abbey.”
“Well, I’m sorry about my verdict. But everything has got to go sometime. I hear your rich parishioner has offered you a new screen with modern symbolical figures on it?”
“Yes,” said the Vicar without enthusiasm.
“Seen the big new Cathedral Centre at New Huddersfield? Coventry was good in its time, but this is streets ahead of it! Takes a bit of getting used to, of course.”
“I am sure it would.”
“But it’s taken on in a big way! Modern. Those old Saints,” he flicked a hand towards the screen. “I don’t suppose anyone knows who half of them are nowadays. I certainly don’t. Who was St. Cristina the Astonishing?”
“Quite an interesting character. She had a very keen sense of smell. At her funeral service the smell of her putrefying body affected her so much that she levitated out of her coffin up to the roof of the Chapel.”
“Whew! Some Saint! Oh