Liverpudlian hospital maid dies! (inspired by Eleanor Rigby sung by the Beatles)

The silence of a frozen English evening is broken as St. Peter’s bells begin twelve tolls. The last grain of rice falls to the murky puddle on the cobbled paving outside the church as its scrawny, sickly picker drew her last breath of icy air. The street lamp shines on what was once Eleanor Rigby, a 44 year old former scullery maid at Liverpool City Hospital.
A few hours earlier, the stone church against which Rigby’s body lay was abuzz with festivity. At three o’ clock, Father McKenzie placed the hands of a bride into a groom’s, while the congregation cheered and applauded the latest couple to the quiet suburb of Woolton. Rigby was allowed to attend the ceremony by the grace of the bride Mary, who had noticed the beaming, fair-skinned woman at the church, lining up hymn-books and straightening banners that morning.
After the service, Rigby carefully cleaned the church, moving about like a church mouse, picking up every grain of rice. It was her last meal.
She had been fired yesterday from her job at the hospital. She had been accused of eating a piece of beef from the superintendant’s lunch.
The grain hits the puddle at one toll past midnight and Rigby is no more.
“What difference does it make?” thought Father McKenzie as he nudged the lifeless body lying below a stained-glass window. “She has no mouths to feed. Another burden on our parish I suppose and one less tithe. I’ll have to bury her along with all the other bodies piling up in the mortuary next week. I’ll have to write another sermon no one will hear.”
McKenzie had known her all her life and yet didn’t. He knew she was parishioner number 122 and that she was the simply-dressed, brown-haired woman who sat under the stained glass depicting the holy family. Next week, after much idle research among dusty records, McKenzie might deliver a sermon describing her life as an orphan at the Woolton Children’s Home, a diligent primary school pupil who had to leave to work as a maid at a young age, a hard worker at the Hospital kitchens and a faithful member of his flock. Although he was often a cast member of the scenes of her life, he probably won’t mention the bruising he her gave her at Sunday School for not remembering the fifth commandment, nor the form he signed as her guardian when he was a young priest, discharging her from school and giving her adult status at age 11. The old man, however, might remember her baptism.
The ripples in the puddle fade as bell makes its twelfth toll and the body is alone again, minus the women’s only valuable possession now dangling from the pocket of the tall dark figure that had passed by moments earlier. He is in quite a hurry to get home and doesn’t see his attacker. As his life flashes before his eyes, he remembers that Rigby’s clothes were torn and that her thighs were blood-soaked. The gleaming knife darts into McKenzie as the killer makes off with the gold holy family charm and necklace. “Ah,” he mutters as he passes his victims, “look at all the lonely people.”
This short story was inspired by the Beatles' ode to loneliness Eleanor Rigby. It is pure fiction and any bearing to real people or places is unintentional.