Moses
by Chris Cottom
[this is the third in the five part series–
read Good and Faithful Servent from the beginning, here]
Rose put down her hairbrush and waited as Edwin yanked his nightgown over his head, dropped it on the rug and ran down the passage. She knew what was coming.
‘Moses!’ he shouted as he jumped into his bath.
While she took strength from her husband’s staunch faith and regular devotions, Rose was less convinced about his ablutions. Almost as firmly as he believed in the infallibility of Scripture, Reverend Lovibond believed in the efficacy of a daily cold bath. He would wash vigorously and dunk his head before leaping out, careless of the water cascading onto the cracked linoleum from his six foot one inch frame. Fortunately, the bathroom’s distance from the nursery meant Roland in his cot would usually remain undisturbed by his father’s morning routine.
When Edwin returned, a towel around his waist, Rose paused from pinning her hair at her dressing table in the bay window and watched three Edwins in the triple mirror: Edwin the husband, Edwin the father and Edwin the priest. After rubbing his hair with his towel he crossed the bedroom, pulled back the curtains and stood behind her with his hands on her shoulders, evidently heedless of the hoarfrost tracing every twig in the garden, beyond which the church tower stood sharp against the dawn sky.
‘Another day shepherding the flock,’ he said.
‘Amen to that,’ she said, leaning back against the firm bare stomach of Edwin the husband. She took a deep breath of his clean soapy smell and wondered if he thought hot water was sinful. In which case why had God given them a boiler? This monster’s voracious appetite for scuttles of coke meant they’d dubbed it The Bunter. ‘I’ll just feed The Bunter,’ she would say, before she got their own breakfast and before they climbed the stairs to bed.
‘Is it symbolic, the cold bath?’ she said. ‘Like baptising yourself again?’
‘You can’t really baptise yourself. That’s why Jesus needed John.’
‘So why–’
‘I’m just waking myself up, that’s all.’
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