Here Lies Gloria Mundy

2

Chance Encounter

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When I ran into Hardie Keir McMaster after a lapse of seven years it was at one of the more unlikely places, for it was outside the south door of a church. There had not been a wedding or a funeral; neither was it a Sunday, so I could only conclude that he was there for the same purpose as I was. This was to take a look at the church itself, a most surprising thing for him to do. At college he had been one of our ‘hearties’ with, so far as anybody knew, no interest in either art or architecture.

As well as being a freelance journalist, I am a novelist and biographer. With regard to the first, I look hopefully for commissioned articles and can supply these on any subject covered by the Encyclopaedia Britannica, but for the other two I please myself. At the time I had just published my third novel. My biography of Horace Walpole was still selling, and the royalties had just come to hand, so I was taking a little holiday, ‘resting’ as actors call it, and that morning I had driven in my car to Herefordshire to look at Kilpeck church.

Kilpeck church is unique. I had heard of it from friends and had seen photographs of its south door. I was prepared for the south door, but not to see McMaster standing in front of it. I was more than surprised, but I could not mistake that massive six feet three, those mighty shoulders, the firmly planted feet and, still less, that Viking thatch of yellow hair. I went up and thumped him on the back.

It was an ill-judged act. He swung round and nearly knocked me flying. However, he collected me, planted me in front of him, held me at arms’ length and said, ‘Well, I’m damned. Just the very man!’

‘How are you, Hara-kiri?’ I asked. He had been given the title at college. He had played prop forward for us and some wit had christened him with a joke on his first names of Hardie Keir because it was alleged to be tantamount to committing suicide if you tackled him on the field. Off it, a sucking dove might have envied him and even striven to emulate him, for he was normally the gentlest and most amiable of creatures.

‘Corin Stratford, by heaven!’ he shouted. ‘What on earth are you doing here, you old son of a mermaid?’

‘Taking a photograph of the south door of this church, when you move your great carcase out of the way,’ I said. Unmistakeably of its period, the south doorway of Kilpeck church nevertheless bears some striking and unusual features. Like many late Norman doorways, it is extensively decorated, and among the decorations are two warriors wearing trousers, Phrygian caps, and tunics of chain mail. I had read that the whole doorway is a representation of this sinful world of lust and strife, but it also holds a promise of better things to come, for in the concentric double tympanum arch is the Tree of Life, and on the jamb a writhing serpent is shown, head downwards in defeat.

There is a suggestion of the Saxon origin of the church in the style of some of the carvings, but even more obvious is the Celtic influence. Moreover, on the west wall of the church I had seen gargoyles in stone which could only have derived from the carved wooden prows of Viking ships, so the church is an epitome of local history.

‘Let’s walk round,’ I said. ‘There’s a corbel-table underneath the eaves. There are birds and beasts and human heads. There is even a sheila-ma-gig.’

‘You mean a thingummy-jig,’ said McMaster.

‘No, I don’t. I mean a sheila-ma-gig. She’s a rather rude lady who appears on some Irish churches. My guess is that she represents something fairly unspeakable from the Book of Revelations. Anyway, compare her with the crude Australian term “sheila”, meaning a woman and used, I always think, in a derogatory sense. After I’ve identified her, if I can, I’m going inside the church. There’s a notable chancel arch. After one has looked at these warriors and the serpent, and has seen the lion and the dragon fighting each other as depicted on this doorway, the chancel arch promises the peace of heaven, so that the church preaches a sermon in stone.’

‘See you later, then,’ he said. ‘I’m going to look at the gravestones. I collect curious epitaphs.’

I laughed. ‘I know one or two,’ I said.

‘ “Mary Ann has gone to rest,

Safe at last on Abram’s breast,

Which may be fine for Mary Ann,

But sure is tough on Abraham.” ’

He laughed, too.

‘That’s apocryphal,’ he said, ‘and, anyway, I know it.’

‘All right, then. What about this one?

‘Here lies that old liar Ned,

But he can’t lie because he’s dead,

For now he lies on heaven’s shore,

Where he don’t need to lie no more.” ’

‘Where did you get that?’

‘From a chap in a pub in Bristol.’

‘It’s difficult to get them authenticated,’ said McMaster, ‘when they’re only given you by word of mouth. I got a beauty in East Anglia once, but the chap couldn’t name the church. It was:

‘Poor Dimity Ann,

Her tooken one can

Too many, so her vomit,

And that done it.” ’