Tea with Mr. Jenkins

by Liam Rands

By 6:30 that night, most residents of Wheatleigh Street had gathered on the footpath outside number 26. It wasn’t just the sight of two ambulances and the three police cars blocking the road that kept the people from their
homes.

They watched with keen interest as a continuous line of police came and went from Mrs. Bealie’s place. They watched as lights flashed in the windows of Mrs. Bealie’s sitting room, as the coroner went to work photographing and documenting the crime scene.

Agnes Rein discovered the body. She found Mrs. Bealie around three that afternoon, when she came to make her weekly visit to chat and have tea with Mrs. Bealie and Mr. Jenkins—who also shared the small house on Wheatleigh Street. It was something Agnes did as part of her church group. She saw the visits as her civic duty to help the old and frail of the community. To makethe elderly feel they weren’t forgotten and alone. Of course, it sounded great, a worthy task for good Christian women. Mrs. Bealie, on the other hand, if she wasn’t dead, would probably be the first one to point out that the ladies of Saint Mark’s church were a little short on actually fulfilling their commitments on visiting the elderly in question.

This was the case with Agnes, who through one distraction after another, forgot all about her weekly pledge to visit number 26 for two weeks in a row. It was only after one of her sisters in the church asked how the visits
were going, that Agnes remembered she’d forgotten completely all about it.

Clara Danebridge found Agnes shrieking in the street. It had taken a good hard slap to calm the distraught woman down. Clara, being a no-nonsense night nurse at Sydney’s North Shore hospital, took charge of the situation
immediately, and, after seeing Mrs. Bealie’s body for herself, called the police before waiting calmly with Agnes until the authorities arrived.

Of Mr. Jenkins, there was no sign in the small two-bedroom house. Clara’s description, given to the crowd that gathered later outside— after the police had taped off a section around the house—was full of graphic
detail. She recounted what she had seen on entering the house and coming face- to-face with Mrs. Bealie’s body and its present gruesome condition.

When Mary Sheen, from number 14, spoke up about witnessing an incident involving Mrs. Bealie and Mr. Jenkins and their ‘special kiss’, she caused another stir among the crowd. Mrs. Wen raised her voice above the others as
she too told a tale of seeing the kiss for herself. Apparently, it was somethingMrs. Bealie did with Mr. Jenkins, when having tea, to entertain or shock those visitors sitting on the large couch, in Mrs. Bealie’s very tidy sitting room.
On those particular days, Mrs. Bealie would add an extra spoon of sugar to her milky tea, ensuring a nice sticky coating for both of her lips, ready for her kiss with Mr. Jenkins.

Agnes, who was currently in the back of one of the ambulances, in shock and sedated, would verify this form of entertainment, if she could, having witnessed it herself on the three occasions she had managed to visit number
26. Saddened as they were by Mrs. Bealie’s passing, the crowd, nevertheless, discussed her present condition. According to Clara Danebridge’s professional eye, both lips and a good deal of the flesh from Mrs. Bealie’s
right cheek and lower jaw were missing. Of course, Clara reminded the crowd,due to the fact Mrs. Bealie had probably been dead for some time, there was also the swelling and distortion of the body to take into consideration,
when trying to gauge to size of the wounds on her face. This time Clara also remembered seeing Mrs. Bealie’s lower dentures sitting on the front of her nice lilac dress. Without the flesh of her lower lip to hold them in place, the
teeth had simply fallen out and plopped onto her lap where she still sat in her favorite chair in the sitting room.

Mary Sheen said what they were all thinking. They all knew where to point the finger of guilt for Mrs. Bealie’s facial disfiguration, and possibly even her death too. It wasn’t hard to lay the blame at the feet of Mr. Jenkins, the only other resident of number 26. Especially, after the revelation of that ‘special kiss’ he shared with Mrs. Bealie. There were some who understood and forgave. Others wanted to skin him alive
for his horrific act. All agreed that Mr. Jenkins must be found before he grew a liking for the taste of human flesh.

The crowd turned. There was fresh movement at the door of number 26. They rushed forward to press against the tape. Mrs. Bealie, sealed tight within a black body bag, and lying on a gurney, wheeled past them as two paramedics steered her over and loaded the body into the back of the other ambulance. A ripple of disappointment broke across the eager crowd. Most had wanted to satisfy their own inquisitive natures by viewing the damage on
Mrs. Bealie’s face for themselves. It was car-crash curiosity in another form. The screams of the frightened and cornered Mr. Jenkins turned the crowd again. They faced the door of number 26. From the ruckus, the police had
found the place where Mr. Jenkins had remained hidden for the last several hours.

His shrieks of protest rose to a fever pitch, and an uneasy shifting of their feet made the crowd appear to move as if dancing to an unseen beat. All held their breath as they waited for what would happen next. A blur of black and a flash of a shape raced out the door. Ignoring the crowd and their startled shouts, Mr. Jenkins—his green eyes round and wide— bolted as fast as his furry, feline legs could carry him. He aimed for the back of the open ambulance. In a scrabble of claws and fur, he mounted the gurney and hooked his claws deep into the material of the black body bag. Turning his head, he emitted a low growl as he spat and eyed both paramedics; his posture
defied either of the men to try to part him from his dearly departed owner.

Later, the autopsy would show Mrs. Bealie had died of natural causes.

There was no foul play involved. Mr. Jenkins found a new home with one of the paramedics. He wasn’t blamed or found responsible for Mrs. Bealie death, nor held responsible for the lack of cat food in the house for the two weeks he was left to fend for himself after Mrs. Bealie’s fateful stroke.

The paramedic later changed Mr. Jenkins’ name to Nibbles, on account of the man’s macabre sense of humor. And as he had never drunk a cup of tea in his life, the paramedic never shared a sticky kiss with his new feline friend.