Back in the vicarage he threw himself on his bed and bucked against the mattress, still fully clothed, until he came, long and hard and miserably, in his pants.
This was no good.
He had to get out of here. Soon.
But he wasn’t leaving without Evie.
Chapter Six
MRS WITTS LOOKED somewhat alarmed when Adam burst into the kitchen the next morning before breakfast, and well she might.
He had not shaved and, after a sleepless night, he imagined he must present a somewhat wild aspect. He ran a hand through unbrushed hair and asked her to sit down.
‘What’s this about, vicar?’ She paused in the search for a frying pan from the cupboard and leant against the work surface, a picture of reluctance.
‘Please, sit. I want to talk to you.’
She sat at the farmhouse kitchen table.
‘’Bout what?’
‘Evie.’
‘Ah. Our Evie.’
‘That – thing yesterday at the maypole. What was that?’
‘Village tradition. Every year, the May Queen has to accept the tributes. It’s for luck, you see.’
‘I don’t see. At all.’
‘If she is generous with her favours, then so will Mother Nature be.’
‘What utter …’ Adam lowered his forehead to the table and knocked it a few times before sitting back up. ‘This is what Saxonhurst is, then? Flagrantly pagan? You seem to have no – shame.’
‘What’s to be ashamed of? We don’t harm no one.’
Evie’s old refrain.
‘You harm your immortal souls!’
‘Oh, them.’ Mrs Witts shrugged. ‘We don’t know about them, do we? Who sees them? Who knows they’re really there? No. What’s really here is our bodies, vicar, and our minds and everything around us. That’s what’s real in Saxonhurst.’
‘But why the incessant fornication?’
Mrs Witts laughed out loud.
‘Why not, love? Life’s short and full of pain and trouble. We must take our pleasure where we can.’
‘I don’t think you’re a suitable person to be working in a vicarage.’
‘Now don’t you think about sacking me! I’ll have you at a tribunal faster’n you can thump your Bible, mister. You can’t discriminate on the basis of my religion – or lack of it.’
He took a moment to calm his mind and accept the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, which counselled against taking this woman by the scruff of the neck and hauling her out of the front door. Besides, he hadn’t asked the crucial question yet.
‘Where does she live?’
‘Who, love?’