She Was Wearing Her Sunday Hat the Wrong Way Round

She was wearing her Sunday hat the wrong way ‘round. The tiny stuffed robin which usually perched coquettishly just above her left ear was now presiding over the back of her neck which, Eunice noticed, was not as clean as it could have been. When they stood to sing the opening hymn she leant forward a little, angling her gaze down the neck of Mrs Middingford’s blouse. A smudged line of -what might have been make-up, though could just as easily have been dirt- ran the length of her starched white collar.

Her handbag was missing altogether. She was toting a carrier bag in lieu of her faithful black, patent clutch. Not even a fancy kind of carrier bag: something from Harrods or Brown Thomas. No, this was a bog standard Tesco bag of a cheap and slightly transparent hue, through which Eunice could see Mrs Middingford’s house keys, her Bible and a packet of Kleenex paper hankies. Eunice, noted with growing alarm, an absence of cinnamon lozenges. It was Mrs Middingford’s duty to distribute the cinnamon lozenges up her pew, then down Eunice’s during the opening moments of the intercessory prayer. What were they going to suck upon to get them through now?

If the hat and the collar had not been enough, here was damning proof. All was not well with the Middingford’s. Mrs M was not herself this morning. Mr M was nowhere to be seen.

Eunice knew the service’s structure inside out. It had not changed in forty three years, the Rev Allingham having been in situ for forty two years and eleven months. She knew no opportunity to enquire further would present itself for at least half an hour. She closed her eyes, sat back in the pew, and mirroring the stance of at least two thirds of the senior choir, tried to look like she was praying whilst she quietly and earnestly dozed. Eunice woke in time for the offering. As the elders spread across the church, passing their plates from pew to pew, light conversation was permitted, as was the distribution of sweets.

Eunice leant forward slightly so her mouth was next to Mrs Middingford’s ear. “Is Mr M poorly this morning?” she whispered. Mrs Middingford started violently. She did not answer but began to shred the order of service and tremble violently. She was still trembling some three minutes later when the congregation rose to sing How Great Thou Art. Eunice noticed Mrs Middingford was holding her hymnal upside down though this was not necessarily a sinister sign. Mrs M was blind as a bat. The hymnal was only a token gesture. She knew every word of the four dozen hymns they commonly sang off by heart and belted them out with tremendous gusto though with no particular adherence to tune.

Eunice noticed Mrs Middingford was not in good singing form this morning. She held her silence through the verses and only managed a defeated mumble on the most familiar lines of the chorus. Eunice wondered if she might be ill, or in some way wanting. This happened sometimes with the older parishioners. They grew quieter and quieter of a Sunday morning, then one week failed to show up entirely. You’d hear on the grapevine that they’d taken to their bed and this was not laziness on the individual in question’s part, so much as a sure indicator, the poor old soul was on their last legs.

As they took their seats in preparation for the sermon, Eunice leaned across the pew again and placed a hand lightly on Mrs Middingford’s shoulder. “Is everything ok?” she whispered. Eunice was anticipating a tearful glance, a whispered confidence: Mr M would be at death’s door, or she’d have lost an elderly sister, or be suffering dreadfully with her legs. Eunice might have been an Anglican, but she still recognised a woman in need of confessing. she angled her ear even lower, ready to receive whatever Mrs Middingford told her, ready to administer reassurances, ready, if necessary, to offer absolution. She was not prepared for what Mrs M hissed back at her.

Mr Middingford was no longer.

She’d buried him in the vegetable garden on Monday evening.

She hadn’t felt herself since.

All this was imparted angrily, in an urgent whisper, so none of the other elderly ladies who occupied the Middingford’s pew heard what Mrs M had said. Her confession was aimed entirely at Eunice who, faced with the fact the sermon had, by this stage, started and the whole congregation settled back in their seats, couldn’t do anything with the information for the guts of another hour. In other churches purgatory might have been a little shorter but the Rev Allingham liked to preach a good long sermon, he liked to make his congregants squirm.

Inspired by a line from Agatha Christie’s 1952 novel, They Do It With Mirrors