Two thousand and fourteen years ago a grey bearded man, famed for his ability to tell a good story, sat surrounded by children who gazed up in wonder as he continued his tale:
Over the next few months the friendship between Joe and May Ray blossoms. May Ray spends less and less time with her mother and father and more with Joe.
Feeling secure in Joe’s presence and confident in him, she nervously tries to make her future clear to him. “Joe dear, I am going to have a baby.” The colour rises in Joe’s cheeks as he finds no words to match his emotions. He is angry, he is sad, he is confused, he is shocked. He will not ask questions, because he knows he cannot handle the answers. Slowly he starts to walk away. The last he hears is a timid voice, “Joe. Will you help me?”
Those words echo in Joe’s mind for the next few months, but Joe feels cheated and makes no attempt to contact May. May’s many tears are washed away by the incessant rain and the temperatures drop as winter approaches. No one suspects that May Ray carries a baby, though sometimes another child giggles that she is getting a bit fat and her mother keeps encouraging her to eat lettuce and cabbage and stops buying her sweets and chocolate each weekend. Even May Ray doubts she is pregnant despite the authority with which her mysterious visitor in Spring had told her that she would be. Perhaps it was easier not to think about it.
Come and see the Cribs at St James Church Chipping Campden Tuesday 2nd December to Saturday 6th December 2014
Chapter 5
Chapter 5