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Everything is going great for Nelle.
So, so great.
She has a new life. A good life. A family!! A real one, not– whatever that doesn’t matter anymore. The point is that things are going great—and not that it’s the most important thing or anything, its just a happy coincidence really— but this new life she’s made for herself brings with it an excellent way to showcase all the ways that people were wrong about her.
Great.
She cooks for the homeless, she goes on litter picks, she carries that goddamn choir on her back (and she only rarely brings it up), she grows stuff in the church garden, she even visits (and feeds!!) old people.
She is, simply put, great at being good.
She throws an M&M up into the air above where she lays on the couch in Phil’s office, her legs tossed carelessly over one of the arms, and cranes her neck to catch it.
Ok. So maybe it lands in her eye and not in her mouth as planned, but what does that matter when things are going so great?
Plus there’s no one here to see so later when she tells May about how good she is at this she’ll just leave out the fact that she’s yet to catch one in her mouth, but you know, who’s to say what happened? Truth is in the eye of the beholder. Or something.
And a beholder would just know that things are going great.
Not any specific beholder, obviously.
Just anyone who happened to be watching Villanelle..Nelle…she corrects herself, they would see her and they’d think– wow, here is someone good. Here is someone who can throw M&M’s up into the air, catch them in their mouth and look cool (and pious, obviously) whilst doing it.
She is a prolific Parishioner of the Month after all and just– wow.
Her eye’s flicker to the church notice board briefly, her eyes settle on March where they always seem to settle lately, and despite how great everything is going she feels a twinge of– irritation.
Its not a big deal of course, barely a feeling really, and you know– its all– dealt with now anyway but– even so the photo is still up there and–
Alright, fine, so when it was first announced she was irked, a little.
Not a lot.
She isn’t like that anymore.
She was mostly just—glad. That’s right! She was glad that they had won it instead of her. That’s just the kind of person she is now, and given the kind of challenges they have faced in their life—being glad for them was the Christian thing to do.
They were challenges she’d never had to deal with herself of course, but she could only imagine—how terrible it must be to sing in a choir and consistently sound so flat. How embarrassing that they almost never steamed their Cossack quite as dutifully as Nelle did. How awkward they must have felt when their chocolate cake hadn’t sold out at the Christmas Fair, and was left sitting alongside the empty plate of jam tarts that Nelle had—made (bought? But does it really matter?) and Nelle being the type of person she is recognised all that and was able to put aside the injustice of it all to feel glad for them.
But then they put the photo up on her — no, sorry, on that board and her mind had started to turn in a way that felt kind of familiar.
What kind of person would need to put their photo up on the board like that?
Nelle certainly never did.
No, that was all May, of course, and it had started way before Parishioner of the Month, it had really started when someone had donated an expensive camera to the church (Ok, fine, it was Villanelle—she makes a mental note to add philanthropist to the list of her good qualities) and if May wanted to take pictures of her doing good deeds then she wasn’t going to discourage her.
In fact Nelle was so thoughtful about encouraging May’s interests she may have even been the one to suggest it. So when Parishioner of the Month became a thing, it was hardly her fault that there were a significant number of photos to choose from, and if May wanted to put a selection of those that Nelle had carefully vetted onto the notice board to inspire others in the congregation then Villanelle would not be the one to stop her.
Clearly none of that was at Nelle’s insistence. Not like the March person. No, they had brought a photo in themselves! She couldn’t believe the cheek of it. How gauche. How self-aggrandising. How un— she flounders for the right word even now— how unchurchy they had been.
Worse than that—it was rude. She was the Parishioner of the Month, and if she wasn’t consistently winning that award then there was room for doubt over whether this was all genuine, and that could not be allowed to happen.
And so she had started to think—did they even deserve to win it in the first place?
It was a question worth considering, particularly since Nelle had won it on every other occasion and so her mind began to turn the question over.
March had been a rough few weeks and there might have been—slip ups.
Nothing terrible!
Not like anything from— before. But not the impeccable performance of the previous few months—actually, wait, no, that’s not fair, this isn’t a performance this is who she is now. But regardless, it had been a rough few weeks and admittedly she may have—slipped.
Ok, fine, so there may have been a few occasions when she hadn’t opened up the soup kitchen in the evening when she was supposed to and had instead stayed in to rewatch Fleabag (season two only of course, after all she is religious now-- or does that mean she should only watch season 1? Honestly there are a lot of rules and its hard to keep track of them all).
And yeah ok, maybe once or twice she might have inadvertently added several bags of Kettle Chips (the sweet chili ones) to the parish’s online shop.
And-- maybe she’d bought some of her new church appropriate outfits on the Parish’s credit card (What? It’s not like it would be right for this new devout version of herself to dip into her own money—it is blood money after all!!)
Oh and—yeah, ok, sure, there was that whole silly misunderstanding over Barbara’s broken wrist and the St David’s Day raffle. But is any of that really so terrible?
She was going through a tough time! People should be more sympathetic to her plight.
It had been her birthday and—she just thought that maybe—they’d left things in a good place, right? So was it really so unreasonable to expect—something?
It’s not like she really believed that maybe Eve had been watching. It’s not like she thought Eve might have received the invite to her Baptism in a few months and maybe googled the church. She hadn’t spent countless mornings mopping floors and imagining that Eve might have seen photos of Nelle in all her yellow vested splendour picking up McDonalds wrappers from the side of the road, and realised that Villanelle is a good person now. She hadn’t gone to bed at night imagining what comes after Eve realising that Villanelle had found a way to make it stop without them needing to be apart anymore and—
She hadn’t done any of that.
Obviously.
But really, how many times can Villanelle give Eve exactly what she asks for only to be ignored? She wants to know how it feels to kill? Villanelle hands her an axe and is hated for it. She wants whatever is—was—bad in Villanelle to stop encouraging whatever is bad in her? Well here she is spoon feeding pureed chicken into 90 year old vegetables, all because Eve had asked her to be something more than a monster?
So yeah—a birthday card might have been nice.
Then as every day ticked beyond her birthday and nothing, and no one, arrived things had started to feel shit again and there started to be—slip ups.
But— and this was the more important issue than any of the slip ups—wouldn’t someone truly worthy of Parishioner of the Month have noticed Nelle’s pain?
Wouldn’t someone genuinely good have seen Nelle’s anguish and done something other than slip in front and take her place?
So if this March person wasn’t good, what were they?
The question had started pushing her into old habits.
Not those habits!
She isn’t like that anymore. But she can’t really be criticised if her old career came with some transferable skills, and so she starting—gathering intelligence on her target person of interest.
She’d started low key of course—she’s not insane. She’d made (bought) May a chocolate eclair and sat down with her one afternoon. Maybe she’d sat a little closer than usual, nothing shocking, nothing inappropriate, just—closer. And maybe she had let her eyes linger longer than they would normally, and maybe she’d demurred and fluttered her eyes prettily when May showered her with compliments, and then maybe the conversation had turned to the March Person and—nothing.
It remains both fortunate and deeply unfortunate that May seems to have the same ability to judge character as a bar of soap.
So she stepped it up a bit, she had followed them from the church back to their parent’s house everyday. She blew a bit of her own money (no, but actually this time) on someone who could access their phone, socials and email. She did that for weeks and found—nothing. Although, admittedly their essay for upper sixth English lit on Birdsong was quite poignant. But other than that there was nothing.
But that didn’t matter because Villanelle knew what that meant. She smirks with satisfaction at the memory and throws another M&M up into the air only to miss it again-- urgh.
The only way a bad person could really conceal it this well is if they were something worse, and that is something that Villanelle knew only too well. So if the March person was worse than bad, certainly worse than Villanelle, what would the rightful Parishioner of the Month do about it?
The answer came to her on a Wednesday afternoon at the church run embroidery class—Psalm 82:4—Rescue the weak and the needy, deliver them from the hand of the wicked.
Perfect. Sometimes the messages in the bible really are relevant to real life, who knew?
In the end it had all been rather easy— who would have guessed that book on poisonous plants she picked up at the January Jumble Sale would have been so useful so soon? Add to that a request from the March Person to do some volunteering for a school thing (clearly another plot to steal June’s title from under Villanelle’s nose), and a group of old ladies at a basket weaving group which apparently needed refreshments and—Bingo.
And yeah ok, the clean up had been on par with that time she had to wash intestinal juice out of her hair with only baby wipes but honestly, sacrifices like that is what Parishioner of the Month is all about.
Would the March Person have been prepared to do that? Hardly.
She smiles at the thought and throws another M&M into the air—and this time it lands straight in her mouth. She pumps her hand into the air in triumph and now she is definitely going to tell May about this—and she won’t even need to lie. Sometimes being a good Christian comes without her even having to try now.
The sound of sandals on floorboards catches her attention and she turns to see the door open and May creep through with a sombre expression. She twists herself back upright and wears her most sympathetic face as she gestures for May to join her.
“You ok?” She asks gently.
May sighs, “No?” She responds sadly, and Nelle nods in sympathy. “Dad’s just spoken to their parents—it was – it was about as awful as I thought.”
Villanelle coos a noise that she hopes sounds appropriate and moves her arm to encourage May to lean against her side.
“I feel like—“ May starts and then breaks off.
“You feel like what?” Villanelle asks as gently as she is able.
“It’s just—you told me that there was something off about them, and if—if I had just listened to you maybe I wouldn’t have encouraged Dad to let them run the refreshments for the basket weaving group and—” She sighs again, “All those poor elderly ladies—and—well—you know, you were an angel and did most of the clean up, it was just—oh it was just terrible— and I mean—what kind of evil person would poison such a sweet group of old ladies?”
Villanelle frowns slightly as something prickles at the base of her spine at that, because really what is more righteous; someone who lets evil go unpunished, or someone prepared to get their hands dirty in order to deal with it.
Eve would get it.
Urgh.
Anyway.
She’s playing a part here.
“Hey—come on, It’s not your fault. They had everyone fooled, remember in March? Everyone thought they were Parishioner of the Month material and—” Villanelle watches as something shifts in May’s expression and admittedly that last bit might have been pushing her luck, “Anyway—its fine now—they are banned from the church and the old ladies are fine—some of them are probably quite glad it happened, bikini season is right round the corner after all and—” She breaks off as May’s face twists in confusion again, “Anyway—”
May sighs before reaching over and taking Villanelle’s hand.
“Well I’ve learnt a lesson on not trusting strangers I guess.”
Villanelle squeezes May’s shoulder gently, “I don’t know. You did the Christian thing and took me in and you know what the bible says—‘do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unaware—'”
May giggles lightly.
Thank you, Julian.
“Would that make you an angel?” She asks shyly.
Villanelle dips her head coyly in the way that she knows May likes and—god she is good at this. “Come on—lets organise some flowers to be sent to the ladies who were poisoned.”
“Sometimes, I don’t think the Parish realises what they got when you arrived, Nelle.”
Villanelle smiles in response, and finds it is completely genuine. Come the baptism Eve isn’t going to know what hit her.
Parishioner of the Month? Please.
Parishioner of the Fucking Year.