by Phil Rickman
‘I won’t get up,’ she said.
Simon St John said, ‘You might think she says that every time.’
‘Just go and get me a drink, you bugger.’ Isabel’s accent was Valleys Welsh. She was plump and had light brown hair, with tufts of gold, and warm eyes. ‘No hurry. Give me time to get to know this boy.’
‘I’ll get these,’ Lol offered.
Isabel glared at him. ‘Sit down, you!’
Simon headed for the bar, still in plain clothes – the jeans, the crumpled collarless shirt. Vicar’s night off. It was gone nine p.m., the Hop Devil three-quarters full. Lol sat down.
Isabel’s black top was low-cut and glittery. Over one shoulder strap and a handle of the wheelchair, he caught a glimpse of Gerard Stock, sitting in the shadow of the bellying chimney breast. So the landlord had let him back in.
Stock was on his own, except for a pint of Guinness and a big whisky. He was leaning back against the wooden settle, with an empty smile and an arm extended along the top of the back rest like he was claiming an invisible girlfriend. Lol thought suddenly of the Lady of the Bines and felt uneasy for a moment.
‘You a Catholic, Lol?’ Isabel inquired loudly. ‘Only I’ve decided it’s time I went to Lourdes, but you’ve gotta go with a Catholic, isn’t it, or it doesn’t work.’
‘Is that true?’
‘What?’
‘That you need to be accompanied by a Catholic?’
‘Well, he won’t take me, anyway. And his lot’s rubbish at healing.’ Isabel pouted. Then she laughed. ‘I fell off a high wall, Lol, is what it was. A long time ago. So, that gets that out of the way. Now – what’s a nice-looking boy like you doing all on his own?’
Simon had said he and his wife had made a practice of going to the pub on Monday nights, making it known that this was when the parishioners could get to them without making an official visit out of it – and therefore when delicate issues could be raised informally.
He’d asked Lol to join them, explaining that Isabel liked to meet new people; she didn’t get out much.
So Lol had back-burnered his usual reservations about country pubs. Tonight, he felt he owed Simon several drinks. The first analogue recording they’d made of the River Frome song – Lol humming the bits where the lyrics were incomplete – had been so much stronger, more atmospheric, more ethereal than the demo playing in his head. And this was all down to the cello, of course. The cello – dark, low-lying, sinuous – had become the spirit of the Frome.
Simon had sat there, listening to the playback with his arms folded, wincing at the cello parts and then remarking shrewdly, ‘Somehow, you can’t settle anywhere, can you, Lol? You’re the kind of guy who really needs a proper home, but you don’t know where it’s safe for you to be.’
‘Huh?’
‘Rejected by the born-again parents, shafted by the shrinks, dumped by the girlfriend in Ledwardine. You want to trust, but you’re scared to trust people. And then you fetch up here, and the first thing you latch on to is a sad little river.’
‘Very perceptive of you, vicar,’ Lol told him. ‘But I’ve learned how to psych myself now, thanks.’
* * *
Isabel leaned her head close enough for Lol to smell her shampoo. ‘Expecting trouble, he is,’ she murmured.
‘Simon?’ Lol wiped condensation from his glasses.
‘Needs you for back-up,’ Isabel confided.
‘Me?’
‘And me. Who’s going to assault a clergyman minding a short-sighted songwriter and a cripple?’
Lol grinned. He loved the way she said crip-pel and troubel. Now Isabel had turned away and was loudly advising a woman who didn’t look pregnant to get the christening booked before she missed the boat. The woman looked alarmed for a moment, then dissolved into giggles and tossed Isabel an oh you kind of gesture on her way into the toilets. Lol thought that maybe the vicar’s wife had already become more a part of this community than the vicar was ever going to be.
‘There’s a reason someone would want to assault him?’
‘Oh, always someone who’d like to.’ Isabel grimaced. ‘Some people here, they’d do anything for Simon. Others… well… Trouble is, he doesn’t care, see. Doesn’t give a toss, not about himself nor who he offends. One reason I had to marry him. Give him a reason to keep himself alive.’
‘Sorry?’
‘You’re not one of those men who says “sorry” all the time, are you?’
‘Sor—no.’
‘Good. Play well for you today, did he?’
‘It was almost spooky.’
‘You want to hear him on electric bass. Always be a fallback for him, when they chuck him out of the Church.’
‘There’s a danger of that?’
‘He tries,’ Isabel said.
Lol stood up to help Simon with the drinks: lagers and something golden-brown for Isabel. The atmosphere in the pub was like in the days before ventilators and smoking restrictions. Thin fluorescent bars glowed mauve between the beams, as Isabel jogged her neckline to and fro to fan the air on to her breasts. Lol tried not to look.
‘Stock’s over there,’ he remarked.
Isabel pushed her wheelchair back to see. ‘On his own, too, poor dab. She’s a funny one, his wife. Adapted to that dreary hole like a bloody barn owl. Invite him over, shall I?’
‘This woman is a liability,’ Simon said to Lol, then he turned to his wife, and spoke as to a child. ‘Isabel, Stock has probably been in here three hours, at least. Do you know how drunk that makes him?’
Lol said, ‘Why exactly are you expecting trouble?’
‘After a while, you learn never to ask him that,’ Isabel said. ‘Never tempt fate.’
Trouble came, just the same. It came with the arrival of Adam Lake and a lovely young woman with a wide, sulky mouth and short hair the colour of champagne.
‘His wife?’ Lol wondered.
‘Fiancée,’ said Isabel. ‘Amanda Rae. She’s got a discreet little chain of tiny fashion shops in Cheltenham and Worcester, places like that. Not Hereford, mind – they wouldn’t pay those prices for that tat in Hereford.’ She sipped her drink. ‘Don’t much in Cheltenham, either, I reckon. That’s why she’ll always need someone like him. Shallow, pointless people, they are, supporting each other’s public façades.’
‘My wife the social analyst,’ Simon murmured.
‘They’ll’ve come out for the first time today, I reckon,’ Isabel told Lol. ‘All these press people about the place, see, and the wrong kind of press. Rip off all their clothes for a centrefold in Horse & Hound, but the buggers’ll lie low till this one’s over.’ She smiled slyly at Simon. ‘Bit like him. Taking off before ten in the morning with his cello case.’
Simon glanced uncomfortably at Lol. Lol thought about the magical enhancement of the River Frome song. It was an ill wind.
It was getting very warm in the bar. He noticed that all the tables had been taken except for the one in front of Stock, who sat there motionless, still smiling. See, I don’t have to talk to people, if I don’t want to. It’s a rare skill and I’m good at it, man. I can be very relaxed, very cool, sidding quietly, saying nothing. The level of Stock’s pint had gone down a couple of inches, though, like he was taking it intravenously.
‘Lake usually come in on a Monday night, too?’ Lol asked Simon.
‘More often than not. Meets his friends from the hunt. He’s taken up the cause – a crucial part of the salvation of his birthright. Just become local organizer for the Countryside Alliance, so called. Leads demonstrations to London.’
‘Hypocritical bastards, they are,’ Isabel growled. ‘Still the Norman overlords, isn’t it? All the countryside’s their hunting ground. It is a class thing, whatever anyone says. But they also grow to enjoy killing. I’ve seen it. Doesn’t have to be like that.’
‘She means that, in the country, sometimes things do have to be killed, if they’re preying on stock,’ Simon explained. ‘But there has to be something questionable
about people who simply love to do it.’
‘He said that in the pulpit one week,’ Isabel said proudly. ‘That old bugger complained to the Bishop.’ Lol followed her eyes to a fat man, seventyish, in a khaki shirt, at the centre of a group at the bar.
‘Oliver Perry-Jones,’ Simon said. ‘Former master of the hunt. Failed politician. Almost made it into Parliament once, until the true nature of his politics became apparent, thanks largely to revelations by Paul Foot in Private Eye.’ He swallowed some lager, leaned back and scanned the room. ‘Knight’s Frome’s like all rural communities: scratch the surface and you come away with all kinds of crap under your—’
‘Shhhh.’ Isabel’s warning hand on his wrist.
‘Good for you, vicar,’ Adam Lake said.
‘I’m sorry?’ Simon looked slowly up at him. Lake wore a light tweed jacket. His mutton-chop sideburns had been pruned and razored to sharp points. The whole style looked too old for him, too old for anyone of his generation, Lol thought. Lake was like a gangly mature student playing a spoof squire in the college review.
‘It won’t be forgotten,’ Lake said, and Simon was on his feet.
‘Oh shit,’ said Isabel.
‘What won’t be forgotten?’ Simon said quietly.
‘Your support,’ Lake said. He was taller than Simon, taller than anybody here. ‘Your support for the community, against potentially disruptive influences.’
‘Right, listen!’ The bar noise sank around Simon like it was being faded by a slide control on some hidden mixing board. ‘I support what my particular faith tells me is right. And you, Adam – you don’t represent the fucking community.’
Dead silence. Adam Lake smiled nervously, his girlfriend looked annoyed. ‘Fine language for a so-called minister,’ Oliver Perry-Jones muttered.
‘OK,’ Simon said. ‘As Adam’s raised the issue, is there anything anyone thinks I ought to know about?’
And Lol realized what this was about: the vicar making himself available for questioning about the Stock affair. Most clergy might have saved it for the pulpit, but that would leave no opportunity for argument. In pubs, though, arguments never lasted long before they turned into rows, and rows turned into fights.
This was Simon St John opening his arms to the accumulating shit.
Which was admirable, Lol thought. Also a little crazy.
Simon looked around, raised his voice. ‘Anyone here who thinks I’m under the thumb of what Gerard Stock likes to call the rural mafia? Anyone thinks I declined to assist Mr Stock purely for the purpose of currying favour with The Man Who Would Be Squire?’
Silence. No sign of anyone rising to the bait. Maybe it wasn’t so crazy.
Simon shook back his hair. Isabel had a hand around her glass as if she was expecting someone to knock it to the floor. Eddies of tobacco smoke fuzzed the lights.
And then a slow handclap began.
Pock… pock… pock…
Heads started turning, cautiously.
Stock didn’t lift his head, just went on clapping. His pint glass was down to its final quarter. His whisky glass was empty. The space in front of his table soon grew bigger, people instinctively edging away, until there appeared a meaningful emptiness between Stock’s table and the one Lol was sharing with Simon and Isabel. Although no one was looking at him, Lol, who hated an audience, felt exposed. I can get you a nationwide tour, Prof Levin promised in his head.
Pock… pock… pock…
‘What’s the problem, Gerard?’ Simon said.
Stock stopped clapping. His eyes were like smoked glass.
‘You’re a hypocritical bassard, vicar.’
Simon shrugged.
‘But thas how the Church survives, isn’t it? Never take sides.’
Isabel shouted, ‘That’s ridic—’ Simon put his hand on her shoulder and she gripped her glass tighter, clammed up.
‘Thas right,’ Stock said. ‘Keep the liddle woman out of it.’
Oliver Perry-Jones called from the bar, ‘Why don’t you just clear out, Stock?’ His voice was high and drawly – like a hunting horn, Lol thought. ‘Take your money from the gutter press and your drink-sodden fantasies, go back where you came from. People like you don’t have a place heah.’
Stock stared into his beer for a moment and produced a leisurely burp before turning his head slowly. He was clearly very drunk. He peered in the general direction of Perry-Jones.
‘Jus’ like old Stewart, me, eh? Din’ fit in either, did he, the old gypo-loving arse-bandit?’
‘Take your foul mouth somewhere else,’ Perry-Jones said predictably. ‘There are ladies here.’
Isabel smiled.
‘I bet…’ Stock pointed unsteadily at Perry-Jones. ‘I bet you were so fuckin’ delighted when Stewart got topped. Served the bassard right. And, hey, it also took a couple of dirty liddle gypos out of circulation.’
No reaction. Stock’s rosebud lips fashioned a blurred smile. Lol caught sight of Al Boswell with his wife, at the end of the bar. Expressionless. Non-confrontational is all we are.
‘Din’ like the gypos, did you, you old fascist? Gypos and the Jews. You and old man Lake, eh? Fuckin’ blackshirts. Still got your armbands?’
Lol wondered if Derek the landlord might intervene at this point, but Derek was looking down at the glass he was polishing; he’d know there were enough people here to deal with Stock – and enough people who would want to watch it happening.
Perry-Jones had started to vibrate with fury, but Lake’s tanned face was like a polished wooden mask. His girlfriend, Amanda, had her mobile out. ‘I’m calling the police.’
‘Go ’head, darling,’ Stock said mildly, not looking at her. ‘Lezz have the coppers in. Whole wagonful of the bassards. Swell the audience. Lezz get the fuckin’ press back.’ He shouted out, ‘Any hacks in the house?
Amanda clutched the phone but didn’t put in a number.
‘Where’s the Lake boy gone? Where’re you, you liddle arse-hole? Tell me one thing: what you gonna do if the Smith boys geddout? Appeal’s gotta come up soon. Case’ll be wide open again, the Smith boys geddoff.’
If Stock was expecting a reaction from Lake, he didn’t get it. He searched out Simon again.
‘You think they did it, vicar? Maybe the police were a liddle hasty, there, whaddaya think, man? You’re a liberal sorta guy. You think the Smith boys really did it? You ever wondered who else wanted poor ole shirtlifting Stewart out the picture?’
Lol sat up. A new agenda was forming like invisible ink appearing between the lines of the old one. He heard Lake’s girlfriend saying, ‘Right. I am calling them,’ but felt nobody was really listening to her.
Adam Lake finally spoke. ‘Put it away,’ he told Amanda. ‘Let him finish himself. Plenty of witnesses here. We can talk to my solicitor tomorrow.’ He walked out into the space between Simon and Stock. ‘Spell it out, Stock. What exactly are you saying? You think someone else killed Ash, rather than the convicted men? That it?’
‘There’s a turn-up,’ Isabel murmured.
Lake said coolly, ‘Well?’ He was either hugely arrogant or he really had nothing to hide.
Stock picked up his beer glass and drained it calmly.
‘Come on!’ Lake suddenly roared. ‘Scared to say it, are you? Scared to say it in front of witnesses?’ He put both big hands flat on Stock’s table. ‘Stock, for Christ’s sake, how much do you really think I care about that place? You really think I’d… you think anyone would kill for it? For a broken-down bloody hopkiln? Have you seen my place? Have you seen where I live? You really think I’m now going to offer you some ridiculous sum for that hovel, is that it? Just to get you out of my hair? Are you mad? Are you sick?’
Stock stared at him, froth on his beard, set the glass down hard, about an inch from one of Lake’s hands. He said nothing. He’d got what he wanted: Lake was losing it.
‘Let me tell you… Gerard. Let me tell everybody…’ Lake looked around wildly, and Lol saw emotional im
maturity twitching and flickering in his big angular frame like a forty-watt bulb in a street lamp. ‘You picked the wrong man.’ Lake levered in towards Stock. ‘You couldn’t have done it to my father and you won’t do it to me.’ His face inches from Stock’s, exposed to the booze and the sour breath. ‘You can stay in that dump for as long as you like, you and your imaginary ghosts, you stupid, pathetic little turd.’
Like some soiled Buddha, Stock gazed blandly into the bared teeth and the glaring eyes for maybe a couple of seconds before his own eyes seemed to slide up into his head and his body wobbled.
Lol knew what was coming and so did Lake, but too late.
Simon stood with Lol on the forecourt under a night sky like deep blue silk shot with rays of green.
His white shirt was dark and foul with brown vomit. The good shepherd. It was Simon who’d guided Gerard Stock outside. In his life of ducking and diving, bartering and bullshit, Stock had probably come close many times to getting beaten up; Lol reckoned maybe he was now so physically attuned to the proximity of a kicking that his metabolism automatically came up with the most effective defence.
After it happened, Adam Lake could have battered him, drunk or sober, into the stone flags without blinking. But it was clear that all Lake wanted – women and some men shrinking away from both of them with cries of abhorrence and disgust – was to get into the men’s toilets and wash Stock away. On his way, he’d collided blindly with Simon.
Now Simon stank of Stock’s vomit, too, but Stock was clean and dry, leaning casually against the pub wall, the calm in the eye of the storm.
‘You are a piece of work, Gerard,’ Simon said. ‘It just drips off you, doesn’t it?’
‘I’m a survivor, Simon,’ Stock said.
‘You’d better go home. Lake’s going to be out in a minute, in search of a change of clothes. He sees you out here, he – he’s a big boy, Gerard. And not a happy boy.’
Stock made a contemptuous noise.
‘You as good as accused him of murdering Stewart. You accused him in front of a score of witnesses.’
‘Oh no.’ Stock straightened up. Apart from the sheen on his face, caught in the blue light from the window, he looked almost sober. ‘You don’t listen, Simon. I asked a question, was all. I asked who else might have done for Stewart if it wasn’t the Smiths. No libel in a question. Didn’t even ask him, either, I asked you. He doesn’t get me that easy. Nobody gets me that easy.’