Our church has one bell. One person to ring it—me. 

There’s a storm today and I am grateful for the lightning rod. My predecessors would have fried on the rope, chanting to the great instrument above them to out-ring the thunder. I peer out at the rain through the window, falling in shards from a maroon sky, obliterating on the headstones.

Surely, they won’t come. 

Every Sunday at 6 p.m. they meet in the cemetery—her in an ice-blue dress, him in Harris tweed. She punches him at 6.05 p.m. In the face. Every time. After, they blot their tears, and they stay holding each other on the old bench for the remainder of the hour.

I can’t work out what’s going on.

Why they keep coming back.

If they are rehearsing something.

Why haven’t I called the police?

I pull the rope and the round peal from the bell makes the rain shake and my eyes blur. It’s a familiar disorientation. I’ve had this cold for weeks. Maybe longer. Years. I wipe my nose on my sleeve because there’s no one judging in the bell tower, just a painted Madonna cradling baby Jesus, haloed in light and a heavy gold frame—one I’ve considered Robin-Hooding often and lost my nerve. So many times I’ve lost my nerve, stood back when I should’ve stepped in, heard the hurl of a parent’s words, observed unblinking strangers with young women in misty bars, kept my mouth shut when Fiona told me to get a haircut, to teach Billy to fight, to stop wearing my old man’s flat cap—he’s been dead years, it’s “creepy”. Maybe I felt bad when she told me through chains of mascara-tears, “You always take things the wrong way.”

The package from my chicken salad sandwich lays on the floor like an open, empty mouth. I kick it from my feet.

I’ve read about the bystander effect—how people are less likely to intervene in groups, more likely when alone. But what about when your arms throb and your ears chime and your wife tells you to take a shower because you smell like shit and the only bystander is in Batman pyjamas, and you need to be the superhero, heave the heavy bell?

The clapper stops but the clash of brass on brass still storms, rain silvering the limestone church. Nothing is still. Outside, the couple arrive and head towards the Yew tree, his hat in his hands, her lips painted magma, trailing ice under her coat and in her fist. They pass the stone angel with the broken wings and face each other. I swear they flicker.

“Stop!” I yell.

And everything does.