The New Murrey and Blue blog

By Susan Lamb.

Richard was going for a nice quiet walk… until it was not.

Richard slipped out of the peace of the cathedral for a rare moment of solitude. The gardens were quiet, the early spring air crisp, and his statue was standing in its usual heroic pose — the one he privately thought made him look like an overexcited bingo caller.

He leant beside it anyway, his arms folded, enjoying the stillness and the appearance of new spring flowers.

A woman approached. Middle‑aged, gentle‑faced, wearing a murrey and blue scarf and carrying a single white rose. She paused before the statue, touched the plinth, and laid the flower down with quiet prayerful reverence.

“Loyaulte Me Lie, King Richard,” she said.

Richard was unexpectedly moved, and sniffed, blinking rapidly. But then, he completely forgot himself.

He said, loudly, warmly: “Thank you so much, my dear Lady.”

The woman screamed.

She spun around and ran full tilt into two men carrying a large pink plastic bath, full of baked beans, who were heading towards the cathedral.

The bath tipped right over.  The men lost their grip.  The woman flailed around, screaming. Beans spilled like a tomato tsunami of orange peril.

Richard winced and bit his knuckles. “Oh dear.”

The bean collision:

One of the men, red‑faced and furious, shouted: “Mind where you’re going, Miss!!” Bloomin’ Ricardians, heads in the clouds, feet heading there too!  Tut-tut…”Harry mate,” he said to his colleague. “We’ll have to head back to the bean factory now. That celebrity, whatshisname, will be there soon.”

The woman, absolutely mortified, tried to apologise profusely while attempting to remove dripping beans from her parka, without much success in either task.

Richard, panicking, decided to help out. This was always the point when things began to go wrong.

He reached out to steady her,  forgetting that royal ghosts don’t merely steady people… They lift them up.

“Here my lady, take my arm, we will swiftly remove those horrid, little, orange thingies.”

She began to rise, three feet off the ground, with a scream.

Richard was horrified, and tried at first to lower her gently. Instead, though, he panicked again and charged at speed with her, crashing through the cathedral doors, as if he was executing a medieval fireman’s lift, but performed by a panicking Plantagenet poltergeist.

The font incident:

Richard charged in towards the font at great speed.

“I won’t miss this time,” he thought.

The woman was deposited — plonked unceremoniously — into the font with a splash that echoed through the nave. And dunked up and down!Richard then grabbed a mop and began scrubbing her coat and her hair manically.

“I’m so sorry, Madam, but those little, orange things are the very devil to remove!”

The water, now liberally seasoned with baked beans from her parka, became a sort of medieval, ecclesiastical soup.

She emerged, traumatised  and spluttering, a bean stuck to her left eyebrow. He pulled her parka off and hung it on the beak of the eagle on the lectern.

Richard whispered: “So terribly sorry my lady, I must find something dry for you to wear.”

He emerged from the side room with a nun’s habit.

He lifted her up once more and pulled it over her head, not in a rough way, but all the same, determinedly, adjusting the wimple, and pulling the back of it down over her hips and legs, while she was dangling in mid air.

“There, that will keep you dry, Madam.”

This time, she didn’t scream, she began to pray. At that exact moment, the reality TV celebrity arrived: sunglasses, orange tan, glowing white teeth, an entourage, and a sense of self‑importance large enough to require it’s own post code.

He flounced in and  surveyed the scene: The bean‑encrusted woman in the font, the men outside still yelling about the ruined bath of beans, the cathedral smelling faintly of tomato sauce, and, Richard hovering guiltily nearby, unseen by all but Cuddles, the Cathedral cat, lurking behind his tomb.

The celebrity snapped: “Where is my bath of beans? I’m scheduled to be filmed at precisely thirteen hundred hours climbing in slowly for the lady viewers of ‘Meet Henry Scroggers, An Ordinary Male Model’. I’m gonna lose my year’s supply of Wyndbrakers beans, my advertisement for them with Polly Blender, the celebrity cook and my contract from Ball-bearings swimwear! And my own celebrity fragrance deal: ‘Scroggers Sweet Secretions’, fifty mil eau de parfoom, thirty quid with a signed photo of moi! This is totally unprofessional.”

Richard bristled. “You pretentious popinjay, you are complaining about beans while this poor woman has nearly drowned in them?”

Henry Scroggers, celebrity, model and totally oblivious, continued ranting.

“I’m due a re-tanning treatment at five.  Do you know how important it is after sitting in beans for hours? Do you? Well, you’d better make sure they’re at the right temperature as well, or else!”

Richard’s expression shifted. That mischievous, Plantagenet glint was in his eyes.

“Oh no,” Anne would have said, if she  had been there. “He’s about to cause mischief again.”

Henry Scroggers marched toward the nave, in his white monogrammed bathrobe, barking orders.

Richard followed him silently, smirking to himself.

Suddenly a hymn book lifted itself off a pew and smacked Scroggers lightly on the back of the head, twice.

He spun around. “Who did that?”

Then a cassock on a hanger swung out and wrapped itself around his legs. He tripped right over.

A kneeler, with white boar embroidery on, naturally, slid under him like a big banana skin tipping him up. And somehow, Richard wasn’t quite sure how, he landed face‑first in the bean-infused font.

The woman, still dripping in the nun’s habit, yelled: “Serves you right Scroggers!” 

Richard beamed with the utmost satisfaction and did a little victory dance.

Scroggers spluttered: “Oh my gosh! This cathedral is HAUNTED! I’ll get loads of likes on Scroggers blog! I’ll do a spot on the ‘Celebrity, I’ve Seen a Spook’ show! I’ll get millions of views and likes!”

Richard, drifting smugly above him, replied: “Yes, it is haunted, by me, king Richard III, King of England, Lord of Ireland and Fra…”

He looked around quickly. Uh oh…there came Anne, drifting radiantly along the nave, looking splendid in a green Burgundian gown.

She drifted towards Richard and he couldn’t sense the ‘Neville Nip’, which hopefully meant he wasn’t in trouble this time.

The minor reality TV celebrity, Henry Scroggers, was re-bronzed, re-blow‑dried, and radiated the confidence of a man who had never done a day’s work in his life. He positioned himself in front of the camera crew.

“Welcome, fans and followers,” he purred. “Today, I, Henry Scroggers, will be bathing in baked beans for charidee! It’s very different from my usual spa, using my very own ‘Scroggers Sweet Secretions’ products, now on sale in Basement of Bargains at half price. Also, don’t forget to like, subscribe, and—”

Behind him, the cathedral font gurgled noisily, like a dinosaur burping .

A single bean floated in front of his eyes. The camera operator frowned. “Is that…?”

Scroggers waved him off. “Continuity, Trevor. It’s all fine.”

It really wasn’t fine. Richard and Anne took to their seats for the live  entertainment. Up in the choir stalls, they hovered like two naughty kids.

Anne was trying valiantly  to maintain dignity. Richard was already laughing, clutching his sides and trying to speak.

“Look at him,” Richard wheezed. “He thinks he’s about to  languish in  legumes.”

Anne pressed a hand to her mouth. “Richard, do behave.”

“I am behaving Anne. I’m merely… observing.”

He was not merely observing, oh no, not Richard.

The bath arrived… kind of. The men carrying the bath of refilled beans finally staggered in, still grumbling about the earlier collision. The bath was a bit dented. The beans were sloshing around.  Scroggers shrieked. 

“Careful! That’s for my Vlog on View Tube!”

Richard snorted so loudly Anne elbowed him.

The woman returns:

The poor woman, was now wearing a borrowed choir robe, after a furious Carmelite nun wanted her dirty habit back. And although she was still smelling faintly of tomato sauce, she was escorted back in by a kindly verger. She was still very traumatised, and still picking beans out of her hair. Still glaring angrily at the font.

Behind her, two advertising reps from rival bean companies, Wyndbrakers and Crossley & Parpwell arrived, quite breathless and panicky.

“We heard what happened!”  

“We’re so sorry, Madam!”  

“Please accept this compensation package!”

They thrust a box at her. It contained: A designer coat and handbag worth thousands, a silk designer scarf, personally signed by Manolo Sukkapolo, a cheque for five hundred pounds and, funnily enough, a year’s supply of premium baked beans.

She stared at the pile.

“I don’t even like baked beans.”

The reps freeze. “Oh, we didn’t know – so sorry!”

She sighed: “It’s ok, just give them to the food bank, most children love baked beans.”

Suddenly, Scroggers was in front of the camera. He was pouting and taking off his bathrobe, suggestively. He stepped into the bath, slowly and seductively… or so he thought.

The beans were ice cold, as if they’d been in some kind of freezing liquid. He screamed like a banshee.

Richard was doubled over in mid‑air, laughing so hard he nearly vanished. 

Anne had given up trying to be dignified. She was laughing too, tears in her eyes.

“Oh Richard,” she gasped. “You didn’t even do anything this time.”

“I didn’t need to… well… I only blew on them, er, just in case they were too hot!” he managed.

As Scroggers settled himself into the bath with a forced grin, trying to regain composure, Cuddles the cathedral cat, leapt gracefully onto the rim and dipped a paw into the beans.

“Waah!” Scroggers screamed loudly. “I’ve got a cat phobia! I’ve had it since I was four when a cat stole my rice pudding!! Waah!” He screamed and flailed around and, in his panic, he submerged himself in the beans.

The livestream was filming a bath of beans and, just visible beneath the surface, were sunglasses and glow-white teeth – you couldn’t see his face as it matched the colour of the beans – and a black cat licking his paws delightedly.

The livestream captured everything: Scroggers flailing around, beans flying, the bath tipping dangerously, the woman clutching her new designer coat in abject horror, the Vicar walking in, taking one look and walking straight back out again, making the sign of the cross.

Richard and Anne were howling with laughter.

Epilogue:

The livestream went viral.

The woman, who’s name was Belinda, became an accidental meme: ‘Belinda, baptised in beans but blessed with a bounty!’

The advertising companies sent her even more designer gear, and now she has her own blog on View Tube, getting loads of followers.

Richard, watching her leave the cathedral gardens later, murmured: “At least she got something out of it and so did the children whose parents sadly have to visit the food bank. Do you know, Anne, she dislikes beans?”

“As I recall Richard, beans dislike you!” And she wrinkled her nose. “But, you behaved, Richard.”

“Well, yes I did Anne…mostly.”

“And Scroggers is now…wait for it, Husband… a has-been, or should that be ‘has-bean’!? See what I did there, Dickon?”

Richard nodded, and beamed at Anne. They drifted away together, still chuckling when they passed the font, where one stubborn bean continued to float in quiet defiance of all that was wrong with this world.