Pressure Drop by Peter Abrahams

Author:Peter Abrahams
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781504016308
Publisher: Open Road Media Mystery & Thriller

MATT

26

Did the inhabitants of North Andros like Hew Aikenfield, baronet? Matthias would have said so, but they didn’t attend his funeral in great numbers: not Constable Welles, not Moxie, not people who had known him all their lives. Maybe it was just the weather: a raw December morning, with a northeast wind blowing dark clouds across the sky.

Reverend Christie’s Church of Eternal Life stood on one side of the Conchtown road, a dirt track leading south out of Blufftown. On the other side was the Happy Times Bar. The bar was a small shack, made of tar paper and scavenged bits of lumber; the church, not much bigger, was a concrete block structure, painted turquoise. The bar was turquoise too: there had been a few cans of paint left over. Both buildings were owned by Reverend Christie.

Behind the church, and predating it, the bar and all the other buildings in Blufftown—only the well near the flame tree in the center of the village was older—lay the graveyard. There Reverend Christie supervised the lowering of Hew into a hole—shallow because the limestone foundation of the island reached close to the surface—dug between a grave marked BABY PINDER and another too eroded to read. Then Reverend Christie lifted his eyes to the clouds and addressed God. Perhaps taking a global view and realizing he had to compete with all the other funerals going on in the world at that moment, Reverend Christie spoke in a loud voice, almost a bellow.

“Thank you, Lord, for giving us the gift of death,” he said. No one was shocked by this introduction: it was the reverend’s standard oration. He went on to explain that death was the sweet release from the hardship of life and thus a sign of divine mercy; some in the little group of listeners appeared to agree, nodding and murmuring in the pauses he left for nodding and murmuring. But Hew himself served only as a starting point and Matthias soon found his attention weakening.

After the speech, a boy ran an extension cord into the church and returned with Reverend Christie’s amp. The reverend plugged in his box-shaped Bo Diddley model and accompanied the singing of “Ain’t Givin’ Up, No Way.” Reverend Christie played well, not as subtly and imaginatively as Krio, but well enough to incite a few restrained dance movements in the graveyard. Death, whether good or bad, slipped into the background. The mourners segued into “Can’t Nobody Do Me Like Jesus” and went out on “Amazing Grace.”

The reverend walked over to Matthias and shook his hand. “We should have sung ‘La Vie en Rose,’” Matthias said.

“How does that one go?”

“It’s not really a hymn.”

“Then I’m afraid it’s unsuitable. This is sacred ground.” Reverend Christie reached into his pocket and produced a bill. “Reverend Thomas Christie, B.A., Enterprises,” it said, “All-inclusive burial and service—$200.00.”

Matthias, reading it, felt the reverend’s eyes on him, perhaps calculating whether haggling would ensue. Matthias handed over the cash.

“Bless you,” said Reverend Christie.

Matthias walked around the church to the road.

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