Midwinter of the Spirit mw-2

by Phil Rickman

  She was a big woman, dark blonde hair pushed under a wide, practical hairslide. She led Merrily through a small back door, down a short drab passage and into what was clearly her private sitting room: very untidy.

  ‘Have a seat. Throw those magazines on the floor. I’ve sent for some coffee, is that all right? God, I didn’t need this, I really didn’t need this. Everything comes at once, don’t you find that? Now I discover I have to find a room for my mother.’

  ‘Must be a problem, if you run a home like this and your mother gets to the age—’

  ‘Oh, it’s not like that. Mother’s fitter than me. She’s lost her job, that’s all, and her home – she was someone’s housekeeper. I’m sorry, I’m afraid I’ve forgotten your name.’

  ‘Merrily Watkins.’

  ‘Merrily. And you’re the new diocesan exorcist. I was in quite a quandary, Merrily, so I rang the Diocese. I said, “Could you send anybody but Dobbs.” ’

  Dobbs? Merrily still had his one-liner in her bag: The first exorcist was Jesus Christ. Hence, Jesus must be our role model, and Jesus was not a woman. ‘Why didn’t you want Canon Dobbs?’

  ‘This problem… I was very loath at first to think it was a problem – your kind of problem, anyway. Old people can be such delinquents. They’ll break a teapot because they don’t like the colour, wet the bed because they don’t like the sheets.’

  ‘This is a volatile… er, poltergeist phenomenon?’

  ‘Oh no, the point I was making is that, when one of the staff complains of strange things happening, I immediately suspect one or other of the residents. In this case, neither I nor – so far, thank God – any of the residents have seen or heard a thing.’

  ‘So who has?’ Merrily still hadn’t received an answer to her question about Dobbs. Was this another of his set-ups, another attempt to show her why she, as a woman, was unfit to follow in the footsteps of Jesus?

  ‘Chambermaids,’ said Mrs Thorpe. ‘Well, domestic careworkers, actually, but we do try to make it seem like a hotel for the sake of the residents, so we call them chambermaids. The other week, one simply gave in her notice – or rather sent it by post, having failed to return after a weekend away. Gave no explanation other than “personal reasons”. It was only then that my assistant manager told me the woman had rushed downstairs one evening white as a sheet and said she wasn’t going up there again.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘To the third floor.’

  Merrily tensed, thinking of her own third-floor problem, currently in remission, at the vicarage. ‘Did she elaborate?’

  ‘No, as I say, she simply left and we thought no more about it and took on a replacement, a local woman who didn’t want to live in but was prepared to work nights. Well, at least she couldn’t just bugger off without an explanation.’

  ‘She’s had the same experience?’

  ‘We presume it was the same. Do you want to talk to her?’

  ‘If that’s possible.’

  ‘She’ll be coming in with the coffee in a minute.’ Mrs Thorpe pulled a half-crushed cigarette packet from between the sofa cushions. ‘Does smoke interfere with whatever it is you do?’

  ‘I hope not. Have one of mine.’

  ‘I’m terrible sorry – with all the persecution these days, one assumes other people don’t smoke. Have you met Canon Dobbs?’

  ‘Kind of.’

  ‘He’s going out of his mind, you know.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Always been a very, very strange man, but it’s been downhill all the way for the past year. The man ought to be in a… well, a place like this, I suppose. Not this one, though.’

  ‘So you know him quite well then.’

  Susan Thorpe lit up and coughed fiercely. ‘Sorry, thought I told you: my mother was his housekeeper.’

  ‘Dobbs’s housekeeper? In Hereford?’

  ‘For five years. When his wife died he moved out of his canonry with about twenty thousand books. Bought two houses in a nearby terrace, one for the housekeeper – and more books, of course.’

  ‘This is in Gwynne Street?’

  ‘That’s it. Quite a nice place to live if you like cities. Mother rather wondered if he might do the decent thing and leave it to her when he shuffled off his mortal coil, but then, a couple of days ago, absolutely out of the blue, he just tells her to go, leave. Gives her five thousand quid and instructions to be out by the weekend – that’s today. “Why?” she says, utterly dumbfounded. “What have I done to you?” “Nothing,” he says. “Don’t ask questions, just leave, and thank you very much.” What d’you make of that?’

  ‘Weird,’ Merrily said. ‘I—’

  I don’t understand… What have I been doing wrong? She heard the words, with their long, cathedral echo, saw a woman of about sixty, distressed, walking away in her sensible boots, her tweed coat, her…

  ‘Mrs Thorpe, does your mother ever wear a green velvet hat, sort of Tudor-looking?’

  Go away. Go away, Canon Dobbs had hissed. I can’t possibly discuss this here.

  Oh my God, Jane thought. They are. They really are. An item!

  In the corner café, she and Lol had a slab of chocolate fudge cake each, which they had to take turns in forking up because the table had one leg shorter than the other three.

  ‘So, like, this is serious, right? You and Moon.’

  ‘We’re just…’

  ‘Good friends?’

  ‘Kind of.’ He seemed uncomfortable discussing Moon. She must be a good ten years younger. Not that that mattered, of course. Jane was a good twenty years younger than Lol, and she quite…

  Anyway.

  ‘So you’re kind of looking after her flat here, while she’s doing up this barn?’

  ‘Sort of. Her family came from Dinedor Hill and she’s always been keen to move back. Er… how’s your mum?’

  ‘Oh, you remember her? How sweet. She’s OK. In fact she’s actually working a couple of days a week out of an office just a few hundred yards from here.’

  ‘Really?’ He looked up.

  ‘In the Bishop’s Palace gatehouse. I haven’t been there yet, but I gather it’s cool.’

  ‘What’s she doing there?’

  ‘Not so cool. She’s been appointed Deliverance minister. You know – like used to be called exorcist? Like in that film where the kid’s head does a complete circle while she’s throwing up green bile and masturbating with a crucifix? Mum now gets to deal with people like that. Only, of course, there aren’t many people like that, not in these parts – which is why it’s such a dodgy job.’

  Lol put down his cake fork. He looked concerned. ‘Why would she want to do it?’

  ‘Because she thinks the Church should be in a position to give advice on the paranormal, and there was nobody around to give her advice when she needed it.’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘The question you should be asking is why would they want her to do that? And I think it’s to put a pretty face on a fairly nasty, reactionary business. Like, for instance, they’d say that the reason there isn’t much about ghosts in the Bible is that God doesn’t want us to mess with ghosts, or study our own inner consciousness, that kind of thing. God just wants us to toddle off to church on a Sunday, otherwise keep our noses out.’

  ‘That wouldn’t necessarily be bad advice for everybody,’ Lol said, and she could sense he was thinking about something in particular.

  ‘That’s the wimp’s attitude, Mr Robinson.’

  ‘Absolutely. And somebody’s who’s been banged up with mad people, and even madder psychiatrists.’

  ‘So does that mean you’ll be avoiding Mum like the plague?’

  ‘Oh that’s… not a problem. I’ve had the plague.’

  What was on his mind? Did he still have feelings for Mum, despite the exquisite Moon? Or maybe she wasn’t such a trophy.

  ‘Lol?’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘Something bothering you?’

  ‘Er…’ Lol ate the la
st bit of his fudge cake. ‘In the film – with the kid’s head spinning round and the green bile and the crucifix? All that doesn’t happen simultaneously.’

  ‘What are you on about?’

  ‘Those’re completely different scenes – in the film.’

  ‘Thank you, Lol,’ Jane said, annoyed with him now. ‘I’ll tell Mum. She’ll be ever so reassured.’

  The care assistant’s name was Helen Matthews. She lived in Hay-on-Wye, about five miles away. She was about thirty, had two young children, seemed balanced, reliable. ‘It’s the kids I worry about,’ she said, and Merrily was reminded of the poor woman in the Deliverance Study Group video, who’d said something similar. ‘I wouldn’t want to go taking anything back to them, see.’

  Despite having dependants and an iffy husband, the woman in the video had still killed herself – clear evidence that paranormal events could drastically affect a person’s mental equilibrium.

  Not a problem here. Merrily felt on relatively firm ground with this one.

  ‘From what you say, this is what we call an imprint, and it usually belongs to a place. It won’t follow you. It can’t get into you. You can’t take it away. It’s like a colour-slide projected on a wall.’

  ‘Mrs Watkins…’ Helen Matthews was at the edge of the sofa. She wore a white coat, her short black hair was tied back, and her voice shook. ‘You can tell yourself how it won’t harm you, how it isn’t really there, but when you’re on your own in an upstairs passage and it’s late at night and all the doors are shut and the lights are turned down and you know that… that something is following you, and you finally make… make yourself turn round, to reassure yourself there’s nothing there… and there is… There is.’

  She shuddered so violently it was almost a convulsion. She held on to the sofa, near tears. Even Susan Thorpe looked unnerved.

  ‘OK,’ Merrily said gently. ‘Let’s just be sure about this. You say all the doors were closed and the lights were dimmed. Is it possible one of the doors opened and—’

  ‘No! Definitely not. And if it was… Well, they’re all old ladies. There are only old ladies here at present. This was a man. Or at least a male… a male thing.’

  ‘What did he look like?’

  ‘He looked…’ Helen lost it. ‘He looked like a bloody ghost. He walked out of the wall.’

  ‘Could you see his face?’

  ‘I think he had a moustache. And I think he was wearing a suit. Like in the old black and white films: double-breasted, wide shoulders sort of thing.’

  Merrily glanced at Susan Thorpe, who shook her head.

  ‘Description like that, it could have been anyone who lived here over the past three-quarters of a century. We’ve only been here four years – moved from Hampshire to be near my mother. I mean, there were no old photo albums lying around the place, and it was a guesthouse before we came. It could be anybody.’

  ‘Are there any stories about the house? You’re fairly local, Helen. Are there any… I don’t really know what I’m looking for.’

  ‘Murders? Suicides? I don’t know, but I could ask around in Hay.’

  ‘Christ’s sake, don’t do that!’ Susan Thorpe rose up. ‘I know what it’s like in Hay. It’ll be all over the town in no time. This is a business we’re running here. Seven jobs depend on us, so let’s not get hysterical. So far, we’ve managed to conceal it from the residents, let’s keep it that way. And anyway, we haven’t seen anything, and no residents have reported anything in the past four years. Why should this… thing start to appear now?’

  ‘We believe imprints and place-memories can be activated after years and years,’ Merrily said. ‘Sometimes it’s a result of an emotional crisis or a disturbance.’

  ‘Absolutely not! Nothing like that here at all.’

  ‘You said yourself that old people can behave like delinquents. Sometimes mental instability, senile dementia…’

  ‘Any signs of dementia, they have to go, I’m afraid. We aren’t a nursing home. And the only signs of hysteria have been… well, not you, Helen, but certainly your predecessor…’

  ‘You didn’t see it,’ Helen said quietly. ‘Have you ever seen one, Mrs Watkins?’

  ‘Possibly. Put it this way, I know what it feels like. I know how frightening it is. But I don’t want to overreact either. I don’t plan to squirt holy water all over the place. What I’d like to do is go up there now, with both of you, and say a few prayers.’

  Susan Thorpe sat up. ‘Aloud?’

  ‘Of course, aloud.’

  ‘Oh no, we can’t have that. Some of the residents will be in their rooms. They’ll hear you.’

  Merrily sighed.

  ‘I think it’s a good idea,’ Helen Matthews said. ‘I’ll come.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Susan Thorpe stood up, adjusted her hairslide. ‘I can’t have it. Can’t you do it outside – out of earshot? God’s everywhere, isn’t He? Why can’t you go outside?’

  ‘I could, but I don’t think that would have any effect.’

  Helen said, ‘If I’ve seen it, Mrs Thorpe, it’s only a matter of time before one of the old ladies does. What if someone has a heart attack?’

  Merrily thought of the video again, and what Huw had said. Bottom line is that our man in Northampton should not have left before administering a proper blessing, leaving her in a state of calm, feeling protected. Yes, suppose someone did have a heart attack?

  ‘God,’ Susan Thorpe breathed, ‘this is getting beyond a joke.’

  ‘It never is a joke,’ Merrily said. ‘I’m starting to realize that.’

  ‘The problem is finding a time when that passage and all the rooms off it are empty. Look, all right… most of the residents totter off to Hardwicke Church on a Sunday morning, as people of that age tend to. What are you doing tomorrow morning?’

  ‘I’m going to my church, Susan. I’m a vicar.’

  ‘Oh.’ Susan Thorpe was unembarrassed. ‘You don’t do this sort of thing full-time then?’ Like this diminished Merrily – a part-timer. Susan became agitated. ‘Well, look… look, there’s going to be a party. One of the residents is a hundred years old; we’re having a small soirée for her. I can tell you, old people never miss a party. Suppose, while it was on, we could smuggle you upstairs and you could do your little ceremony? You do work at night?’

  ‘Your mother will be here then, I suppose.’

  ‘I should think.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Merrily said.

  It would be very interesting to talk to Mrs Thorpe’s mother. Five thousand quid, and instructions to be out by the weekend? Either Dobbs really was going out of his mind, or there was something very odd here. She had to go carefully, though: mustn’t appear to be checking on him. Casually running into the former housekeeper while processing an imprint… that would do fine.

  As she left the Glades, Merrily saw that it was snowing lightly out of a sky like stone. Winter deftly gatecrashing autumn’s mournful party.

  16

  Real Stuff

  THE STALL WHICH made Jane laugh the most was the one selling something called:

  The Circlet of Selene

  It looked like three strands of copper wire bound together into a bangle or a necklet and secured by small curtain rings. The wording was a bit careful. It didn’t actually promise you more energy, a better night’s sleep and a dynamic sex life; it claimed, however, that many people had found that all this had come about after only three weeks of wearing the Circlet of Selene. Which cost a mere £12.75 for the bangle or £17.75 for the necklet, neither of which must have cost more than 75p to produce.

  Still, people were buying them – women mostly. Well, ninety per cent of the punters here were women, in fact. The tottyquotient was pretty bloody lamentable, especially in the marquee which had been erected in a field behind the pub. Most of the blokes had stayed in the bar, as blokes were wont to do, and even that wasn’t exactly crowded with intriguing, dark-eyed, gipsy-looking guys.

 
; The marquee housed most of the stalls – crystals, incenseburners, cosmic jewellery – though it was far too cold a day for a marquee. You’d think the weather situation might have been foreseen, given the number of self-styled psychics and seers on the premises. Most had clearly taken cover in the pub, where it was warmer, but Jane hadn’t felt drawn to consult any of them; they were probably all a bit pricey, too.

  ‘Taste-lapse.’ She sipped muddy coffee from a plastic cup.

  ‘Serious, serious taste-lapse, Rowenna.’

  They were in a cold corner behind a trestle table displaying lurid healing crystals and supervised by a gross middle-aged couple in matching bobble-hats. Tape-loop relaxation music was trickling out of little speakers, and it got on your nerves.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Rowenna looked around. ‘The last one I went to wasn’t this bad, really. Oh, there’s Kirlian Photography over there. You could have your aura photographed.’

  ‘You ever have yours done?’

  ‘Once. I got a picture of my hand with what looked like little flames coming out of the fingertips.’

  ‘What does it prove?’

  ‘That you’ve got an aura.’

  ‘If you didn’t have an aura you’d be dead, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I’m glad I can’t see yours today,’ Rowenna said. ‘It’d be all dark and negative. You having problems on the domestic front or something?’

  ‘Not to speak of.’

  ‘You can speak to me of anything at all, kitten.’ Rowenna touched the tip of Jane’s nose with a gloved forefinger. Her floaty red hair was topped by a black velvet beret. The coat she wore just had to be cashmere. She looked far too cool and upmarket for this shoddy bazaar.

  ‘Well, I was talking to this bloke,’ Jane said.

  ‘Bloke?’

  ‘A bloke I was sure was seriously into Mum at one time, and—’

  ‘Oh, your mum. How do you mean into?’

  ‘Well, not into – like not in the fullest sense. I just had it in mind that they’d be good together. He’s quite insecure and vulnerable, but also kind of cool. He was a musician and songwriter when he was young – too young maybe – and he got led astray and into drugs, and wound up in a mental hospital.’