The Right Reverend Edmund Williams Thorne had been banished from the pub for one year, three months, and six days.  He had done the math.  Sometimes he wondered if it had been long enough for him to set a tentative foot inside the Finch and Purple Iris which everyone just referred to as the pub. In fact, most people wouldn’t be able to dredge up its proper name if asked.

The request for him to leave came on a St. Stephen’s Day when he, the Right Reverend, had gotten deep into his cups and argued with the owner about a complicated and thorny Anglican church piece of doctrine.  This isn’t as unlikely as it seems because the pub owner had taught theology at Oxford for 20 years before abandoning the ivory tower for a working-class pub. 

Will longed to finish the debate.  He missed intellectual conversation, and the pub keeper was the only likely choice for someone that could pleat his brain and twist it in new directions.  The Right Reverend felt like he was getting complacent and boring.  No one else would argue with him.  He missed the banter and camaraderie of a good philosophical discussion.  He still didn’t understand why the Apostle Paul was such a thorn in the side of Louis Greene formerly Don Louis Neil Greene of Oxford’s School of Theology and Philosophy, but he had behaved irrationally which was quite out of character.

The Right Reverend was lonely.  When his wife died before his banishment, he encountered a loneliness the likes of which he’d never even been able to imagine.  He should probably remarry, but he still felt wedded to Margaret even now two years, four months, and twenty-one days after her death.

That’s what had set off the argument – Paul’s professed celibacy and the passage “better to marry than burn.”

Margaret and he had been inseparable as children and became lovers after uni much to Will’s chagrin.  He hastily proposed marriage to Margaret, and they married just as quickly.  Premarital sex made the Right Reverend very nervous, but he burned for her and had done since teenagers hanging at the pub during the summer breaks.

He was surprised to find himself at the pub.  He had no memory of walking there.  Will steeled his spine and opened the pub door. Getting dotty in his old age, he thought as he walked in. Louis was at the bar polishing glasses. 

“What can I get you?”

“A pint and some good conversation.” 

“Done and done,” Louis said sliding the full glass in front of Will. “Now listen, I’ve been thinking.  It seems to me that Paul. . .”