Break of Dark [S.S. Col.] by Westall Robert

Author:Westall, Robert [Westall, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Short Stories, Fiction, Horror, Fantasy
Publisher: RHCP
Published: 1982-01-29T02:00:00+00:00

St Austin Friars

The church of St Austin Friars stands in an inner suburb of Muncaster. It is huge for a parish church, beautiful in the Perpendicular style, and black as coal from the smoke of the city. It stands on a hill, amidst its long-disused graveyard, and its only near companion is the Greek Revival rectory, like a temple with chimneys, also coal-black. It is really St Margaret’s, but Muncastrians always call it St Austin Friars, in memory of the Augustinian canons who had their monastery there in the Middle Ages.

Then, it stood in fair countryside, amidst its own rich demesne. Muncaster was no more than the houses of the monastic servants. But the Industrial Revolution came to Muncaster and it grew, covering all the green fields and hills with soot and sweat and money. By the time that the Reverend Martin Williams was appointed rector in 1970, the only traces of the monastery, apart from the church, were a mean street called Fishponds and another called Cloister Lane.

Martin Williams came when the Industrial Revolution was departing, having had its way with Muncaster. The day after he moved into the rectory, the houses of Fishponds were being demolished. The dust from falling brick and the smoke from the scrap-wood fires were so engulfing that the demolition foreman, a decent man, came up to the rectory to apologize.

‘You’ll soon be shot of us,’ he said, sitting down to a mug of tea that Sheila, as a well-trained clergy wife, immediately laid before him. ‘Trouble is, you’ll soon be shot o’ your parish, too. It’s all going, you know!’

‘Yes, I know,’ said Martin, sticking his hands into the pockets of long thin trousers, and staring out of the window. ‘It’s a shame.’

‘Shame nothing!’ said the foreman. ‘Seen a mort o’ suffering, this place. Bringing up fo’teen bairns on a pound a week in a room no bigger nor your pantry. Beggin’ yer pardon, missus. But me dad an’ me grandad told me about it. Had an evil name, round here. Cholera – typhoid – afore they got the drains right. Four hundred dead in one week, they say; one long hot summer. Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say.’

‘Aren’t they going to build multi-storey flats instead?’ asked Sheila.

‘Not that I heard,’ said the foreman. ‘Not that they tell the likes of us anything. Other parts, people are crying their hearts out ’cause they’re having to leave, but not in Fishponds. They can’t wait to get out to the overspill. What you aiming to do wi’ yersel, then?’

Martin gave a violent start; he still could not get used to the sudden bluntness of the North, after his last curacy in Kent. Here, people asked you the most intimate questions the moment they’d shaken hands. This chap would be asking next when they were going to start a family.

‘What am I going to do with myself? Well, it just so happens that the city centre is also part of this parish. So I’ll be down there a lot .

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