Y) The Vicar's Wife and the Blue Eyed Boy

We all took advantage of the vicar's wife, she was such a pushover.
We used her mercilessly and she was always available to be used,
opening her door to hoards of the care home urchins offering home-made
cakes and lemonade. At the home we only got water, lemonade was a treat
indeed.

She even came to work at the home in the early evenings. I think they
kept her on out of sympathy because she was hopeless at the job.
Normally there was only one member of staff on duty between half three
and five, but when Mary Robert's worked they had to have back up
because us kids ran amok.

Mary believed that each and every one of us hopeless cases had a bright
future ahead of us, all we needed was a little love. She took it upon
herself to be the provider of it. She never raised her voice and even
when she was in a terrible fluster and was at her most out of control
she kept smiling at us.

"My door is always open," she used to say. She meant it too. The poor
vicar was at a loss to stop the rampaging throng of scruffy kids
knocking at the vicarage door every weekend. Some of them used to throw
her kindness back in her face by robbing her blind. She learned though.
She learned to keep her handbag close and her urchins even closer. Mary
was unable to have children of her own, so she 'adopted' each and every
one of us. We were her special children.

I kept in touch with Mary all these years since leaving that place. She
had been good to me and I wanted to repay her unnecessary kindness when
I too became an adult. Edward her husband died a good few years ago now
and Mary had become a little bit flaky. Don't get me wrong now, I don't
mean senile, nothing nearly so severe as that, but she became the local
cat lady. You know every town has one, a lady who fills her home with a
hundred and one stray-cats. Only Mary didn't stop at cats, she had
cats, dogs, hedgehogs, birds, rabbits, badgers and a naughty goat. Both
the vicarage and Mary's heart were large and the place resounded with
strange animal noises and the lull of love.

I knew something had happened as soon as I rang the doorbell that day.
Mary appeared at the door pink cheeked and dishevelled, she ushered me
quickly into the house and shut the door behind me.

"Wait until you see," she said. Her delicate hands fluttered by her
pinny pocket like an excited bird. "He came to me. The Lord sent him,
and it's my duty to make him well again."

I had a feeling, you know that feeling you get when you just know you
aren't going to like what comes next, but I was powerless to stop the
force that is Mary with a mission.

She opened the drawing room door and there he was.

Jerry Springer wasn't happy about the situation and spun his head in
distaste. I had only been in the room three seconds and found myself
concurring with Jerry's sentiments, while admittedly lacking the
ability to spin my head right round. He glared at the newcomer as he
might if confronted by a six foot mouse, he knew that he wanted to
attack this thing, but wasn't sure if it would be wise. Having the
reputation of being a very wise old barn owl he knew he wouldn't like
to do anything to jeopardise that. He contented himself with blinking
his huge amber eyes at me and tutting, it was all too much for him.
Owls shouldn't have to put up with that. He went to sleep still sitting
on the back of the cherry red armchair.

Treacle the black lab pup had Benjamin the Lop-eared Rabbit by the
snout and was trying to pull him out from under the occasional tables.
I rescued the poor Rabbit from the exuberant pup but not before the
nest of tables and all the accumulated junk had fallen with a loud
crash to the floor.

Sugar the sulphur crested cockatoo said " Oh Bollocks," much to Mary's
disgust.

Treacle yelped and scampered off to the other side of the room, but he
made sure he gave the thing crouched by the patio doors a very wide
berth.

Mary said "ta-daaa," and spread her arms wide to display the latest
creature in her pack. There was no denying the existence of it any
longer. But in truth I was at a loss as to what to say.

Crouching by the door and wearing very little was a man, well more of a
boy really. His hair was long and matted. It didn't look as though he'd
washed it for years and it hung in rat-tails to below his shoulders. He
wore a pair of tatty denim shorts cut from jeans just above the knee,
and in this weather too. He had a dirty yellow T-shirt and a pair of
slashed trainers, but no socks. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about
this 'thing' sitting on his haunches on Mary's floor was his eyes. They
were the brightest blue I had ever seen in a fellow human being. They
darted from side to side as he tracked even the smallest movement in
the room.

"Hello," I said hesitantly. After all if he was a guest in Mary's home,
then I had no right to question the validity of this. "Nice to meet
you."

"Oh, he doesn't speak dear," said Mary delightedly. "He's a wolf
boy."

"He's a what?" I asked with a derisive laugh forgetting for a moment
the manners that Mary so admired in a reformed care urchin.

"The Lord told me in a dream, he's a wolf boy dear, he's been roaming
the fells all these years and living of the land with his pack. Well
the Lord didn't tell me that bit exactly, I worked that out for
myself." It had to be said she did look very pleased with herself. "So
you see he's been sent here for me to look after and
rehabilitate."

"Mary," I said aghast, "you can't keep him. I mean, he must belong to
somebody, he, he, well," I lowered my voice to whisper but the lad must
have been able to hear "He might hurt you. The man obviously has mental
health issues. You have to call the authorities."

"Oh he won't hurt me dear, he's very gentle. And anyway, I have called
the authorities, I called the police but you didn't want to speak to
them did you Stephen dear?" The man ignored her and continued staring
wildly ahead.

"How do you know he's called Stephen?"

"We chose it didn't we dear?" again Stephen ignored her when she spoke
to him, even though she made encouraging clicking noises with her
tongue. "I was going to call him Mowgli, but he didn't seem to like
that, so we settled on Stephen after St. Stephen, he was a gentle soul
too. I don't think he was ever raised by wolves though."

"You say you called the police? What did they say?"

"Well do you know dear it's the oddest thing. Three times they came to
see Stephen, but every time I let them in Stephen disappeared, so I
don't think he wants to see them, he's very shy you see. I don't think
the nice policeman believed the Lord has sent me a wolf boy to
love."

I bet he doesn't, I thought and I glared at the crouching man, he sized
me up and grunted at me in obvious disdain, I was not a worthy
adversary it seemed. He shuffled a few feet to the left and taking his
eyes off the room for the first time sunk his head into a water dish
that Mary had placed there and lapped at the water like a dog.

"Mary, you have got to get this man some help, he could be
dangerous."

"Oh nonsense, Stephen and I are good friends, he won't hurt me. Now
then Tea, Yes I'll get us some tea. Stephen had better stick with his
water, he's not very good with china tea cups are you dear?" I followed
Mary's eyes to the waste bin that was chock full of various bits of
broken crockery."

She pottered off in her element, leaving me with various animals and
the strange young man.

Having left his water his eyes narrowed and we stared at each other in
open hostility each of us weighing the other up with neither of us
observing the usual rules of polite society.

I decided that while Mary was out of the room, I was going to ring the
police and demand they come and remove this strange person. And that's
when he gave himself away.

We had been staring at each other, his brow wrinkled slightly in an
expression of doleful puzzlement. I must have subconsciously glanced
over at the telephone because, suddenly his face took on a sly
expression, his eyes also went to the phone. He had blown his cover.
This was no feral wolf boy, he knew exactly what was going through my
mind.

"Right you, before I ring the police and have you arrested, lets have
our cards on the table eh? You might fool Mary, but you're not as
clever as you think matey. So come on you've got three seconds to tell
me what you're doing here."

He shrugged his shoulders with an air of belligerence, and then gave up
the act of the cornered wild animal. He sat on the floor, swept his
long hair away from his face, and crossed his legs in front of him.
Just this change of posture changed wolfboy into scruffy chancer.

"Okay, okay I admit it I broke in to rob the old Bat. She caught me and
gave it loads with all this 'You've been sent to me from God' lark. I
saw my chance didn't I? And so I took it. She started fussing round
making bloody tea before I had the chance to say a word. All the time
she's talking to the freakin` animals as though she's Doctor Freakin
Doolittle, and the idea of the wolf boy thing just came to me. After
I'd flung my head back and howled a couple of times she caught on and
made the story up herself." He grinned sheepishly and I went to lift
the phone from its cradle.

"Wait, hear me out before you do that." It wasn't an order and after
he'd added a "please" in a small voice, it became a very polite
request. To this day I don't know why I didn't make that call then. I
suppose with the big blue eyes and sheepish grin he had a charm about
him.

"Listen, I know I came here up to no good, but I like Mary. Look at
this place for Chrissake, it's a mess. I just thought that if I could
stay for awhile I could earn my keep."

"You thought that by drinking out of a dog bowl and breaking all her
best china you were earning your keep?" I made no attempt to soften the
sarcasm or hard edge to my voice. This con man had taken Mary for a
fool, amazing eyes or no, he wasn't about to do the same to me.

"Oh I was going to give the old lass a few days to 'tame' me. What harm
could it do to humour her a bit? Do you know how easy it was to break
in here? The door virtually opened itself to me. Look I'm not asking to
stay now. I'm well busted as they say and if you want to ring the cops
then fine. I did wrong and I expect I deserve it. But I was going to do
all the odd jobs that need doing round here in exchange for a couple of
weeks bed and board. I've got nowhere to go and no money."

The ludicrous suggestion was starting to make sense, in a minute he'd
have me emptying all Mary's silverware into a swag bag for him, if he
said he'd kindly take it to the tip for her.

With new resolve I went to pick up the telephone. At that second it
started to ring. From somewhere down the hall Mary's voice came to us
with a muffled "Hello"

Elsie Granger-Smith chose that moment to play a trump fate card in
Stephen and Mary's future. If she hadn't Rung to beg some of Mary's
pickled preserves for the WI fete, I'd have rung the police and it
would all have been out of our hands.

"Oh just get out," I said to him. "Leave by the patio doors and I'll
say you got frightened when you heard the phone and I had to let you
out. But I warn you, come sniffing round here and preying on the good
nature of Mary again and I'll have you arrested before you can say big
hairy werewolf." He was going to go too but for the fact that Mary came
back in with tea and cakes for us and a juicy piece of raw steak for
Stephen. "It's what he's used to dear," she said while Stephen pulled a
face over her head.

Mary had a light in her eyes that went out on the day of Edward's
death. I couldn't say anything to darken her world again. Who knows
maybe the Lord did send the scruffy man to her. I tried to find another
excuse to send Mary out of the room again, but she was stuck fast to
her armchair for the duration of our afternoon gossip. When I had to
leave, I glared at Stephen. Hell I didn't even know what his real name
was. He smiled at me and gave me thumbs up sign while Mary fussed with
her knitting. An insanity bolt must have struck me, but I found myself
trusting him. "You look after our Mary now," I said as I left with as
much menace as I could get passed Mary in my voice.

Stephen was as good as his word. He 'was a very fast learner' and Mary
even managed to teach him a few simple sentences within a week. Once he
got the hang of a little English there was no stopping that ole
wolfboy, he picked it up as though he'd spoken it all his life. And
then he fixed locks and mended shelves. It seemed there was nothing
that Gary couldn't do. He persuaded Mary one day that he'd like to pick
his own name, he had a vague recollection he said of being called Gary
once. He painted and papered, plumbed and gardened. He was a good
worker and more than paid his way.

Soon it seemed that Gary was home to stay. He found work in a timber
yard and made an honest living each night coming home to a freshly made
meal from Mary. He begged me one day to have a word with her about the
gaudy jumpers that Mary gaily knit for him and he felt obligated to
wear, and I had to admit that life before Gary was a grey place to be
compared to life after. Mr Phipps the goat had his own picket fence
enclosure at one end of the pretty garden. As each component of the
family livestock reached the end of its days Mary shed a little tear
for it and Gary duly buried it in the garden with all its little
friends. Strangely Mary didn't feel the need to replace it with another
pet anymore.

But that was after Gary fell in love. He met Louise in the garden
centre one day. She advised Gary on which lobelia he should buy. It was
after they married and gave Mary a granddaughter that the animal
adoption agency stopped. Gary's mad jumpers stopped about that time
too, Mary was far too busy knitting cardigans for little Rose-Mary. The
vicarage finally had what it had been lacking all these years, a child
to make it live.

Oh you expected a horror story did you? I can see by your faces you
aren't impressed. Well it was all a long time ago now, my memory is not
what it used to be. Maybe it is a horror story. Maybe Stephen crept up
the stairs that night after I didn't called the police. Maybe he beat
Mary to death with her good nature and kindness. Maybe I just make up
nice stories to tell you kids when I come to feed the ducks because I
can't live with myself for not stopping it when I had the chance.
You'll never know will you? So run along home now, your mother's will
be waiting for you. Old Jenny has to be back at Twilight Haven in time
for tea. If they know I've got out again they'll only give me the awful
sleeping pills through the day as well as at night. Goodbye Kids
&;#8230;see you tomorrow?