Chapter Twenty-One: The Ugly Little Church
Finding himself a little too changed to sink comfortably back into his old life in Hove, James was presented with a sudden expanse of boredom. Especially given that he wasn't going to be admitted to the local boy's private sixth form until March.
James managed to fill a good amount of time speaking animatedly to his father of Sowsworth and everything he'd accomplished there, leaving out certain instances involving improper use of urine and instead emphasising on his general farm-saving attempts. This kept him happy and occupied for a while, but every conversation had to end and whenever they did his mother was still dead and his life in Sowsworth was behind him.
Coincidentally or not, the day before the Sowsworth football tournament, James found himself walking past the ugly little church just down the road and saw that several notices and signs had been posted on and around the building, announcing its imminent destruction.
This filled James with a passion and determination he'd not felt for over a month.
He stayed up late that night, researching the ugly little church and designing a petition he would knock on doors the next day trying to get people to sign.
James Potter was going to stop that church being torn down if it was the last thing he ever did.
On the last Saturday of February, the church sponsored charity football tournament took place. It had been almost a month since James Potter had left Sowsworth and the whole event went off, in spite of his absence, without a hitch.
Dorcas was gratefully in charge of the face-painting stall. Not simply because it was located inside the village hall and therefore saved her from the unforgiving chill of late February, but also because Dorcas was rather passionate about face-painting.
Ever since she had been a young girl, upon first arriving at any fete or fair, she'd searched desperately for the face-painting stall. Then she would sit ecstatically as she was transformed into a fairy or a butterfly or anything that allowed her to get covered hair to chin in glitter.
Now that she was a grown up (in her own eyes anyway), she felt honoured to be given this all-important task.
During a lull, when the children had no doubt rushed off, their faces painted as various animals, to watch the Punch and Judy show, Dorcas made her way through odd stalls selling old clothes and lucky dips, and went to the kitchen to fetch herself a cup of orange squash. When she returned she saw a single person waiting in line, not a child this time but a fully grown (again, by Dorcas' sixteen year old standards) Maureen Baddock.
"Maureen, you want your face painted?" asked Dorcas, a little incredulous.
She'd always thought that Maureen Baddock was the epitome, if such a person existed, of being too cool for face paint.
"Well, I didn't come to decorate my own biscuit. I've already done that," said Maureen, holding up a digestive biscuit covered rather sloppily in pink icing, hundreds and thousands spread unevenly across the surface. "Can you make me a tiger?"
"Of course I can," scoffed Dorcas, "I'm not an amateur."
Maureen cracked a small smile before saying, "Okay then, Meadowes. Do your worst."
With that, Maureen hopped onto the stool by Dorcas' stall and pulled a fifty pence piece from the pocket of her jacket, the price of a painted face.
"Okay, but don't get upset if you see a little boy running around looking more like a tiger. Smaller faces are just easier to paint," said Dorcas.
"Whatever you say."
"And stop smiling. It crinkles your face."
"Stop being funny."
Dorcas stuck out her tongue and began to sponge orange paint onto Maureen's face, humming quietly as she did so.
A couple of minutes passed without a word exchanged then, quite suddenly, Maureen let out a small laugh.
"What did I do now?" cried Dorcas, jumping back a little for fear of smudging Maureen's new pink nose.
The woman selling old clothes looked up at the noise and tutted disapprovingly.
"Were you just humming 'Love Will Keep Us Together'?" asked Maureen.
"Was I?" said Dorcas, a slight blush blooming in her cheeks. "It doesn't seem likely. I barely even know that song and I definitely don't like it."
Maureen laughed once more.
"What now?"
"I don't know why you're bothering to lie, Meadowes. I always thought you marched to your own drummer or whatever."
Dorcas relished in the few seconds she tricked herself into believing that this statement in fact reflected her true nature in any way.
"Although, to be fair it's a pretty embarrassing song to be humming," said Maureen.
"Oh, it's not that bad. It's kind of… fun."
Maureen smiled mischievously, making Dorcas nervous.
"What now?" said Dorcas.
"I like that song too," she whispered. "Don't tell anyone."
Dorcas giggled before reaching for the pot of pink glitter.
Emmeline Vance lived a few houses down the road and had been in James' class at school. Beyond that James knew very little about her. She had always come across as very bookish, distancing herself from the main social scene and always having well informed opinions in English.
She looked very much the same as James remembered, with her skirt long and her hair neat. The one major difference was that she was sporting a rather heavy pair of black boots which caused him to suspect she'd seen that Sex Pistols interview with Bill Grundy and had been inspired to rebel against society further by dipping her toe into the world of punk.
This suspicion grew when she, after opening to door to James and reading the petition, immediately agreed to accompany him, saying, "Well, I've been wanting to get involved more in protests and politics so I suppose this is good practice."
Although he felt she was a little half-hearted about the cause, it was nice to have company as he went around knocking on strangers' doors. In fact, the small talk, though usually hated venomously by James, was an almost welcome break from avoiding speaking about his dead mum with his dad.
It was Colin's team that would be playing Kenneth's in the final. Benjy tried not to be disappointed. Not that he really gave a damn about winning, but the final match felt like the perfect culmination of his new playfully competitive relationship with Kenneth.
After his last game, Benjy's eyes sought immediately for Frank. Frank, however, was giving Alice a vigorous pep talk through the medium of snogging.
Feeling it would be improper to interrupt, he went to visit Lily at the cake stall. Lily was slicing a victoria sponge, wearing an enormous coat and a pale pink apron which clashed horribly with her dark red hair.
"Hi, Benjy. You want anything?" said Lily.
"No I'm just bored," he admitted. "You need any help?"
"Aren't you cold?" she asked, nodding at his skimpy football uniform.
Benjy shrugged. In fact he was completely frozen, but he wanted to watch Kenneth play the final match. Not that he'd admit it.
"How about you count how much money we've taken?" said Lily kindly.
It was a pointless job, but at least it was something for him to do. She suspected he felt rather bad about losing the football tournament and wanted to help distract him.
Benjy, too, knew it was pointless, but was glad of the job. Especially considering the cake stall was situated just a little over three feet from the edge of the pitch, giving him a pretty decent view of the game which had just started. Happily, he joined Lily on the other side of the table and began counting coins.
"So have you spoken to Kenneth recently?" asked Benjy with an attempt at a casual tone, watching the boy in question fail to tackle John Tuft.
"Erm, a bit," said Lily. "I mean, we've had to speak a lot about with planning this tournament. You know, you were there for most of it. "
Benjy did know. He'd been surprised and shamefully disappointed to see how well they got on still.
"So do you think you there's a chance two will get back together?" he asked, forgetting to filter his anxieties for just a moment.
Lily merely blinked back at him, astonished.
"Sorry," said Benjy, meaning it. "That was probably really inappropriate. I wasn't thinking."
"Oh, it's not that," said Lily absently. "It's just… the thought never crossed my mind. I mean, I didn't break up with Kenneth because I fancied James, but I can't pretend it didn't factor in at all. We just weren't a good match. Besides," Lily let out a bitter laugh, "I don't think I'm anywhere near getting over James."
Benjy wanted to point out that Lily had barely waited for the news of her breakup with Kenneth to settle before moving onto James, but he knew that this was a whole different kind of moving on, one unimaginable to him as a boy who had yet to experience real love let alone the loss of it.
"I'm really sorry," he said once more.
Lily waved a hand to indicate the whole thing should be forgotten and Benjy felt completely inadequate beside her.
Dorcas was the last person left in the village hall when everything was over, having spilt a considerable amount of paint on the floor which she had to stay behind to scrub. Just as she had burst into song, the one from Cinderella which she sings while cleaning and reflected beautifully in the colourful bubbles, a teenage girl with the face of a tiger appeared.
"Oi, Meadowes," said Maureen, causing Dorcas to look up. "What are you doing here? Everyone else has packed up."
Blowing a strand of hair out of her eyes, Dorcas held up the sponge in her hand in explanation.
"Need some help?" asked Maureen.
"Really? That'd be great. I've only got one sponge, but you could start putting the paints back in the box for me."
Maureen started screwing on the caps of the paint pots, contemplating something. Dorcas started singing once more.
"You're a pretty bad singer, you know?" said Maureen.
"You're quite rude," snapped Dorcas, becoming more indignant as she heard Maureen laugh at this. "Why are you even here?"
"Oh, I was looking for you," replied Maureen calmly. "Hey, I've noticed you don't didn't get your face painted."
"Oh, I'll do it later when I get home," said Dorcas seriously.
Maureen suppressed a smile, knowing Dorcas would only think she was making fun of her again. Instead, she offered, "Why don't I do it for you?"
"Really?"
"Yeah. But fair warning, I'm pretty bad at anything artsy."
Maureen's badly-applied blue eyeshadow confirmed this, but her offer appealed to Dorcas nonetheless.
"Okay," said Dorcas, getting up off her knees. "That sounds fun."
As Dorcas took her seat on the stool, Maureen picked up a random pot of paint.
"You're going for the green?" asked Dorcas. "I mean usually I paint my face with a lot of pink. Like a fairy princess."
"Well, now you're a frog," said Maureen, gently pushing Dorcas' hair away from her face. "And stop smiling it crinkles your face."
"If I'm honest," said Emmeline as she sat down in the comfiest chair in the Potter's library, "I thought my first experience with politics would be more exciting."
"I feel like that's a dig at me," said James, taking the chair nearest hers and kicking off his shoes. "How was I supposed to know nobody would care about this bloody church?"
They'd spent a little over four hours knocking on doors and gathered about eight signatures, including his own and Emmeline's. Half the people they asked had no clue which church 'St. John's' was and when they explained it was the ugly little one down the road they all had a look about them which said, "Why on earth would I want to save that eyesore?"
"Well, it is pretty horrible," said Emmeline, eyeing the overflowing bookshelves with something akin to desire.
"Yeah," agreed James, smiling to himself.
If Lily was here, James thought, she'd properly take the piss out of him. Conditioned to keep thoughts like these, ones that made it seem as though he sorely missed Sowsworth, to himself to save his father from worrying he was the reason for his sons misery, James didn't say any of this out loud.
Then, realising he was in the comfortable company of a virtual stranger, he said fondly, "You know if my girlfriend was here she'd properly take the piss out of me."
"Well, that's not very nice," voiced Emmeline with a frown.
"Oh, no, not like that," James began to explain, but gave up.
They fell into an awkward silence before suddenly James said, "Ex. She's my ex-girlfriend. I keep forgetting that."
"How long were you together?" asked Emmeline, out of politeness more than anything, assuming correctly that this was topic James wanted to explore further.
"Oh," James thought for a moment before answering, "Two months. Around that. Weird. It felt a lot longer."
"So was it wasn't that serious? With your girlfriend, I mean," said Emmeline. Adding, upon seeing the bewildered look on James' face, "Just because you said you were only together for two months."
"I don't really know what you mean by serious to be honest. It didn't feel very serious until the end when everything got all morbid. Before then it was just… fun."
"So if it wasn't serious what was it?"
"I don't know," said James, picking at a loose thread in his jeans, distractedly "Nice. It was really nice."
James looked over to Emmeline, expecting a solemn nod, a slight confirmation that she sympathised with his pain, understood the importance of his relationship with Lily from his simple phrasing, but she was flicking through a book she'd picked up from the table beside her. Perhaps if he'd used some sort of metaphor involving a green light or stars crossing Emmeline would have stayed interested.
He was then filled with a sudden urge to get Emmeline out of his house so he could ring Lily and have a proper conversation.
In the end, Dorcas ended up looking more like the Wicked Witch of the West in a low budget production of the Wizard of Oz than a frog. Still, she found the results highly entertaining and, after parting ways with Maureen Baddock, thought she'd try and scare.
When Mary answered her front door she did not even bat an eyelid, which disappointed Dorcas greatly. She did, however, welcome Dorcas into the kitchen and made her a cup of tea.
Before Mary could explain her day manning the tombola stall, Colin marched into the kitchen in search of a packet of crisps.
"Hi, Colin," said Dorcas in a broken, quiet voice. But still, loudly enough so that he heard.
Colin left the room without saying a word, yet found the time to give Dorcas a brief look of reproach. This caused Dorcas to come over very embarrassed and start absent-mindedly picking at the paint on her face.
"Listen, Mare," she said weakly, pushing her still-hot cup of tea away. "I think I'm gonna go home and de-frog myself."
Mary barely waited for the front door to close behind Dorcas before she stormed upstairs to Colin's room and pounded on the door. He opened looking confused and irritated.
"What is it?" he demanded of her.
"Why are you such a little shit?" said Mary, pushing past him into his room.
Colin closed the door warily, watching his sister perch on the edge of his bed; arms folded and scowl in place. He remembered this look from when he was a child. It was the look his mum used to give him when he tried to make Mary eat mud pies. Even though it was his baby sister glaring at him and not his long dead mother, Colin still felt compelled to appease her in any way possible and sat in his desk chair, facing her and waiting to be scolded.
"Why do you have to be so rude to Dorcas?" she asked.
At her words, Colin hardened and immediately wanted to chuck her out of his room regardless of her resemblance to their mother.
"Oh, please. She started it," he snapped.
"How?"
"She…" Colin trailed off, embarrassed, then eventually he said, "She laughed at me."
Mary scoffed, "I'm sorry, Colin, but if you don't want a girl to laugh at you don't just whip your penis out."
Colin's eyes widened in an expression of genuine shock.
"I did what?" he asked.
"You didn't whip your penis out?"
"No!"
"Well, then why did she laugh at you?" said Mary sceptically.
"I don't know. You tell me. One minute she was asking me if she was prettier than Maureen Baddock, who isn't even that good looking she's pretty much just got her tits going for her," Colin pressed on ignoring Mary's look of disapproval at his words, "Then I started to kiss her and she wouldn't stop laughing."
"Are you that bad?"
"Oh, piss off. She's the one who acted like a twat. Not me."
"It still seems like an overreaction to me," said Mary. "Just because she kept laughing doesn't mean you should just ignore her forever."
But Mary knew that, even though her brother was a complete twat, ignoring someone was nowhere near as much an overreaction as telling half the village a bloke had whipped his cock out on you when no such thing had happened. If Colin was telling the truth, that was.
It was around the time the Evans' family usually finished dinner when the phone rang. Jill Evans was alone in the kitchen with the washing up and waited for the familiar sound of her daughter's arguing. No argument was heard, however, and shortly Petunia joyfully entered the kitchen and picked up the phone.
"Hello?" said Petunia.
Her smile faded and her eyes narrow before she said, rather curtly, "Just a second I'll get her."
Petunia disappeared and a minute later, after a brief conversation Jill only heard mumbles of, Lily appeared and picked up the phone from the counter.
"James?" she asked, her distorted in confusion.
"So what is it about punk that draws you in?" It was indeed James. "Do you feel like it's the only music that speaks to your angry soul?"
Lily's heart lurched forwards at the sound of his voice, sending her into a mixed state of mild panic and complete joy.
"Is everything okay?" she said.
James ignored her question and continued, "So what is it that fuels this anger? Is it your unfortunate red hair or your small boobs?"
Lily bit her lip, trying to stop herself smiling. James was trying to make her laugh, she knew, but she refused to be drawn in, suspecting something was terribly wrong.
"I'm fine, Lily. I promise. I've just been thinking a lot about where all your unpleasant punk anger comes from."
This soothed her and she allowed herself a smile.
"I think the anger mostly comes from this bloke I know who really grates on me," she replied, aware that she was flirting and finding herself not caring all that much.
"Who's that then? Remus?" asked James.
"How'd you know?"
"Lily, guess what I did today."
"Grew a chest hair?"
"Don't be daft. No, I tried to save this ugly old church from being torn down."
"Why?"
"I've got no idea. It's really really ugly and no one ever goes," he admitted.
"So, did you manage to save the ugly church?"
"Nah, I failed miserably. How was the football tournament?"
They carried on speaking for about an hour or so, contently unaware of the passing of time. Jill had finished the washing up long ago.
Around the time Lily had finished describing Stebbins' exact facial expression when he missed the goal for the fifth time in a row, Petunia burst into the kitchen and complained that she needed to call Vernon's sister to talk about bridesmaids' dresses.
"Listen, I've got to go," said Lily. "It was nice hearing from you."
This was all she could say with Petunia hovering miserably at her shoulder.
She heard him laugh nervously but before Lily could hear James' reply, Petunia had hung up the phone on Lily's behalf, using her bony forefinger.
"I hate you," said Lily coolly, passing over the phone.
"I thought you two had broken up," snapped Petunia. "You can't sit on the phone to your ex all night. It's pathetic."
"What would you know about break ups? You're marrying the first bloke who asked."
Remus, Sirius, and Peter planned to meet Mundungus Fletcher the next morning after church. Remus got a few odd looks during the service given that he had a plastic cricket bat resting on his lap. Sirius was stared at a little more, however, because he wasn't exactly known for frequenting church. The handful of old women who made it a habit to cook him dinner were thankful to see him there, hoping his soul was on the way to being saved. Perhaps they were right, in a way, because in contrast to his two companions, Sirius was feeling a slight sense of guilt over their plan.
Near the end of the sermon, Reverend Macdonald spoke about the football tournament, happily announcing that it had been a wild success and that the church was planning on donating a considerable amount of the money to the Prewett farm, a staple of Sowsworth society.
Remus, Sirius, and Peter all glanced at the back of Mundungus' head (another infrequent church attendee), thinking of how he'd react when they explained he wasn't getting any of that money. Remus hoped he wouldn't have to use the cricket bat.
"Are you sure this isn't completely immoral?" asked Sirius.
Remus shrugged, fiddling with the bat in his lap, and reasoned, "It's for charity."
"Anyway you're not one to talk," whispered Peter from Sirius' other side. "You threatened to kill Snape."
Sirius snorted, "That bugger deserved worse. But Dung's not a bad sort."
"It's for a good cause," said Remus firmly.
Sirius wasn't sure who Remus was trying to reassure, Sirius or himself. Certainly not Peter who was, for once, free of any nervous perspiration.