The Wine of Angels

by Phil Rickman

  She didn’t go in. ‘Jane ...’ She hurried around the side of the house, under a wooden arch and on to the big, square lawn overhung with willow and birch. ‘Jane!’

  She walked right round the house. The Volvo was still parked under the trees. She’d had it nicked four times in Liverpool, and she was always ridiculously grateful to see it. Why couldn’t they have stayed in cosy old Liverpool, where you only worried about your car getting nicked?

  Jane’s CD case was still on the dash, with its photo of four men in a forest clearing watching a blurred girl-shape, and the words Hazey Jane. Merrily smiled. No wonder the kid was infatuated. Tears pricking.

  ‘Jane!’

  Brushing at her eyes, she found her face was glazed with sweat. She ran back to the gate. No schoolkids left on the square now. Just two women with prams and toddlers. It was nearly five o’clock. Oh my God.

  No. Stop. Think.

  All right ... She wasn’t on the bus tonight, she probably didn’t catch it this morning. She’d made a point of leaving early. To take a stroll around the village. Well, OK. Merrily hadn’t questioned that; Jane was a curious kid, liked to get to know places. On the other hand, Ledwardine wasn’t a place that took that much getting to know, not when you’d already lived here for several weeks.

  She’d arranged to meet someone? A boyfriend? Merrily thought of the overweight youth slurping his cider. Please not.

  Cider.

  Her mouth tightened. She strode across the square towards Cassidy’s Country Kitchen.

  I’ll kill her.

  Oh God, please let her be out with that little bitch on some unholy binge.

  Lol walked out into the garden. White blossom. Spring. Always the most depressing time of year. All those long, empty summer days ahead. In winter, on your own, you could spend whole hours of dwindling daylight chopping logs to stay warm through the evenings.

  Blossom all over the orchard. Even though it began at the bottom of his garden, Lol had hardly ever been in there. It was someone else’s property. It was also unwelcoming, overgrown and gloomy – nothing picturesque about neglected apple trees.

  It was Alison who’d really liked this place. Alison who’d said how much she would love it here, watching Lol rebuild himself. Turned to him with that look of longing and then the coy smile, with eyes downcast that always worked for the late Princess of Wales. Turning Lol like the right key in a rusted lock.

  Scattered with clusters of tiny flowers the orchard was no longer clawed and sinister. But still eerie, the old, gnarled fingers white-gloved.

  He wondered if it would have made a difference if he’d been here with Alison at the wassailing on Twelfth Night. The truth was he hadn’t wanted to go, be among all those strangers. Partly why he’d agreed to go over to Oxford to work on the songs with the fading legend Gary Kennedy. (Lol felt safer with people who were fading.) Thinking Alison would go with him, but she’d said she was sure she had a cold coming on and it was better if she stayed here, kept warm.

  There’d been no cold, but she’d kept warm. Perhaps she and Bull-Davies had come back to the cottage afterwards to shower away bits of the old man.

  Old man Powell. This made it two suicides, if you included the hanged minister, Wil Williams. At least two. A place to stay out of, if you were that way inclined. He’d been amazed to find himself following Colette Cassidy into the heart of it last Saturday night. He hadn’t had time to think.

  But he was thinking now. Thinking hard. Thinking, You have to do this. You have to keep fighting back.

  Against Karl. Dennis behind him now – reluctantly, of course. Dennis was a nice guy. Karl Windling wasn’t. Karl wouldn’t give up. He’d come again to the cottage. And when Karl had finally exhausted his limited powers of persuasion, when he realized there was nothing else to be done, nothing to lose, nothing to gain, he would become destructive. His pride would demand it.

  Lol walked on, becoming increasingly depressed. All this blossom, promising apples. The only harvest last year had been logs from dead and dying trees. Last winter, he and Alison had bought a trailer-load of apple logs from the Powells. On the wood-burner, with the doors open, it had perfumed the whole room. No logs like apple logs for perfume; if traditional Christmas cards were scented, this was how they’d smell.

  Lol had wanted to make love with Alison on the rug beside the stove at Christmas, but it had never happened.

  How she’d changed. How classy she looked in her dark-blue riding gear, very point-to-point. Classy, but not sexy. Too militaristic.

  When he turned round, the cottage had vanished into a tangle of white-dusted trees. Soon, he’d reach the so-called Apple Tree Man, where he and Colette had found Jane. It would be today’s test to get that far on his own, to touch the Man’s scabby bark. And then he’d turn and go back.

  Clouds had gathered and the sky was nearly white, with holes of wet sunlight and veins like cheese mould. The trees closer packed, their blossom exploding around him, like a flour bomb; whichever way he turned it was the same, and even though there was no breeze, the whiteness seemed to swirl. He felt disoriented, but he wouldn’t stop. A battle against himself. He moved on through the warm, windless snowstorm. When he looked up, the blossom and sky absorbed each other and floated down around him like a crinkling shroud; he didn’t like that, looked down at the ground.

  Where he saw, God help him, the girl lying across the path. Apple blossom around her face, like lace.

  17

  Whiteout

  ‘OH, HI,’ COLETTE Cassidy said without enthusiasm. ‘You want to talk to my father?’

  Merrily’s heart plunged. The girl shouldn’t be here. She should be somewhere – anywhere – forbidden. With Jane Watkins.

  ‘Because he’s out,’ Colette said.

  She had a luscious, sulky mouth, which seemed to be all there was under heavy, mid-brown hair. She had in abundance what you could only call Attitude. Merrily saw in Colette a lot of things she’d never seen in Jane. Yet.

  The girl leaned inside the doorway of Cassidy’s Country Kitchen, arms folded, long denim legs straight. It was a wide doorway, built into what had evidently been the bay of a barn. Colette hardly barred the way, but there was a certain type of customer her presence would deter. And probably another type it would attract.

  ‘Colette, where’s Jane?’

  Colette shrugged. ‘I should know?’

  ‘I hoped you would, yeah.’

  ‘Well, I don’t,’ Colette said. ‘Sorry.’

  Through the flower transfers on the high, glass doors, Merrily saw Caroline Cassidy scurrying across the delicatessen. Caroline spotted her and changed direction.

  ‘You’re sure?’ Merrily said.

  ‘I wouldn’t lie to you, Vicar,’ Colette gave her a Nutra-sweet smile as Caroline came out. Tipping a glance at her mother that said, At least, not like I lie to her.

  ‘Merrily!’ Caroline wore a kind of milkmaid dress with gingham sleeves; only true townies dressed like this. ‘We’ve been dying for you to come ...’

  ‘Hello, Caroline.’

  ‘... but I said to Terrence, for God’s sake don’t pressure the girl, she’s far too much on her plate to worry about our little festival.’

  Throwing her all into a smile of sympathy and true compassion. Right now, it almost helped.

  ‘I was just asking your daughter if she’d seen Jane.’

  Caroline’s face hardened. ‘Colette?’

  ‘No, I haven’t.’ Colette levered herself upright. ‘I really haven’t, OK? I mean, like, what is this, for Christ’s sake? Just because we went out once and got a tiny bit pissed, everybody thinks we’re on some kind of permanent pub crawl. I saw Jane for a few minutes last night and I haven’t seen her since, OK?’

  ‘Colette, two coffees. Go.’ Caroline pushed her daughter through the doors, turned back to Merrily. ‘Is there a problem here? When did you last see her?’

  ‘This morning. When she left for school.’

  ‘
Oh, yes, she goes to that ... comprehensive. Isn’t there a special bus?’

  ‘She wasn’t on it.’

  Caroline shook her head with a jingle of earrings. ‘Teenage girls are so utterly thoughtless. She’s probably stayed behind to play tennis or something.’

  ‘You think so?’ For a moment, Merrily clutched at it. Caroline Cassidy was perhaps twelve years older, she had a very difficult daughter; this must have taught her something. She took Merrily by an arm.

  ‘Come and have that coffee. You’ve been very lucky with Jane if this is the first time she’s done this to you. Look, why don’t you ring the school from here? There’s always someone around these places for hours.’

  ‘No, it ...’ It came down on Merrily that, according to the cider-swigging youth, Jane hadn’t even taken the bus this morning. How long, she wondered despairingly, were you supposed to wait before you called the police?

  Caroline Cassidy propelled her inside, sat her at one of three empty tables in the deli, went back to the door and turned over the laminated closed sign.

  ‘You know, teenagers, much more than children, have a problem moving to a new place.’

  ‘She’s done it several times,’ Merrily said. ‘OK, she was unhappy about it at first, but lately she’s been fine. More or less.’

  ‘Is there anyone she knows, locally, apart from Colette?’

  ‘Nobody ...’ She thought of this man, Lol. She’d been remiss; she ought to have checked him out. ‘Nobody special. Look, I’m sorry, I’m probably worrying about nothing, but didn’t a girl go missing from Kingsland or somewhere a few months ago: Petra ...?’

  ‘Good, I think. Petra Good. But that was back in the winter. Look, Merrily—’

  ‘And they haven’t found her, have they?’

  ‘My dear, you won’t find many parts of the country where there isn’t a girl missing. That doesn’t mean— Colette, isn’t that coffee ready yet?’

  Merrily said, ‘Do you know Lol Robinson?’

  Caroline sniffed. ‘Works for her, sometimes. Miss Devenish. Odd little man. Alison Kinnersley, James Bull-Davies’s ... partner ... she used to live with Robinson. They bought the Timlins’ cottage in Blackberry Lane – old couple, he died, she went into a home. Hadn’t been there more than a few months and Alison’d taken up with James. One suspects there could be a drug problem.’

  ‘What?’ Merrily’s fingers tightened on the seat of the rustic, wooden chair.

  Caroline’s look was penetrating. ‘Jane knows him?’

  ‘She had one of his records, that’s all.’

  ‘Aw, look ...’ Colette dumped two coffees, with cartons of cream. ‘He’s harmless. He’s just screwed up is all’

  Her mother looked up sharply.

  ‘Look,’ Colette said, ‘we’ve all been round there. At first, you think like, wow, a rock musician, and you’re expecting him to have his own studio and cool people around, but he’s like ... like he could be a bank clerk or something. One old guitar. Anyway, he’s all messed up over Alison. He won’t stay around here. Or, if he does, he’ll like OD or something.’

  ‘I have to go.’

  Merrily stood up. She was thinking of that album. The track called ‘Song for Nick’. Jane asking her, as they lay in their sleeping bags, You ever know anybody who committed suicide?

  ‘You’ve been very kind. But what if she’s come back to the vicarage or the inn? I’m sorry—’

  ‘Drink your coffee, Merrily, please. Colette, go to the vicarage, go to the Black Swan, ask around and be discreet.’

  Colette went without a word and Caroline gently pressed Merrily back into her chair, sat down opposite her.

  ‘I can assure you she’ll leave no stone unturned. My daughter is being ultra cooperative – at least until after the party.’

  ‘Sorry. Party?’

  ‘Didn’t Jane tell you? She’s certainly invited.’

  ‘Well, I—’ There was obviously a whole lot Jane hadn’t told her. Merrily drank some coffee, although she was starting to feel sick. ‘She probably mentioned it and I forgot. Things have been ... you know.’

  Caroline slid a hand over Merrily’s, squeezed it. ‘You’re taking on too much. You really ought to let us help. Alfred delegated. He’d learned, you see. No, the party ... Oh dear, it’s her sixteenth. People say we must be absolutely mad to let her have it in the restaurant. But what I say is, better our own premises here in the village than some awful disco-club in Hereford. We’ve promised to go out, but Barry will be in charge. Our restaurant manager. Barry’s awfully capable.’

  Merrily was only half-listening. She was thinking of suicide. Mass suicides of once-rational people, like the Heaven’s Gate thing. Suicide was contagious. God, you really thought you knew your own child. You thought your generation was going to be different. There was going to be nothing you wouldn’t be able to talk about, that you couldn’t iron out between you. But every generation, there was something new growing in their heads, something terrifying.

  ‘Terrence has gone to see Richard Coffey,’ Caroline said brightly ‘They were hoping to catch up with you over the weekend. Richard’s got some friends down from London, a theatre director whose name I ought to know but I’ve forgotten. They were hoping to put their proposals to you ... for the church?’

  Maybe it was the Church. God. God had come between them, made Merrily into a remote figure. Or even an embarrassment. The way Jane looked at her when she went to pray. She’d thought that was just going to be a phase.

  Caroline said, ‘They want to show you they can present Wil in a way that would cause absolutely minimal disruption to normal services and things. Hasn’t Richard been to see you yet? With his friend? One has to say he totes that young man around like a trophy wife.’

  ‘I ... I’ve been putting people off. Until we got settled into the vicarage. Well, not settled, exactly, that could take years. But, you know, in. Oh my God, we’re supposed to be moving tomorrow.’

  ‘We’ll help. Of course we will. Everything will be absolutely fine, you’ll see.’ Caroline paused, eyes narrowing. ‘We, er, we heard James came to see you.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t know what’s got into that man. He was always so enthusiastic about developing the village economy and restoring a degree of self-sufficiency. Suddenly, he’s become a positive millstone, and Terrence is terribly scared that Richard will simply turn his back on us and the whole festival will be a disaster. It’s all so worrying.’

  ‘You seem to be ... treading on old corns.’ Merrily drank some more coffee; most of her mind was out on the square with Colette.

  Caroline scowled. ‘That illustrates precisely what we have to overcome if we’re going to get this place buzzing. The past is over. It can’t harm us. But we can use it. Do you see? We’re lucky enough to have these wonderful old buildings, set in such beautiful countryside, and an absolute wealth of traditions. But, Lord, we mustn’t let them hold us back.’

  Merrily suspected Caroline Cassidy had just said something deeply flawed, but her anxiety wouldn’t let her concentrate.

  There was a tapping on the glass.

  ‘We’re closed!’ Caroline called out. Then she said, ‘Oh, no.’ Pushed her coffee cup aside. ‘Bloody woman. Now she really does make you think you’re trapped in some ghastly timewarp.’

  Caroline opened one of the double glass doors.

  ‘Is that the vicar I see with you, Mrs Cassidy?’

  Merrily stood up, heart thumping.

  Miss Devenish was hatless. She wore a shapeless dress with a geranium pattern. Her hair was in two plaits which looked as strong as anchor chains. Her face was grave.

  ‘Ah. Mrs Wafkins. Yes. Could I talk to you, please? In my shop?’

  Lol was shivering in the dark. Hunched into a corner of the loft, hugging his knees; he felt like a priest in a priest’s hole. Hunted.

  Filtered through a tiny, mossed-over skylight, the only light in here was green. It was unearthly, it made his finge
rs look like corpse fingers; he shuffled to squeeze himself into shadow.

  Although his eyes were fixed on the green skylight, the pictures rolling in were all white. The warm blizzard of blossom in the orchard. The disorientation.

  The whiteout. And the girl. Her features indistinct, a corpse under a pale catafalque of blossom.

  Oh God, the girl.

  The mews was deserted. The shops had closed, the afternoon clouded over. Lucy Devenish didn’t speak until the double doors were between them and the face of Caroline Cassidy, puckered with resentment.

  ‘Appalling woman. Never tell her anything you don’t want the entire county to know.’

  Merrily said, ‘Lucy, unless this is really important, could we perhaps talk tomorrow? I’m honestly not thinking too well at the moment.’

  But it clearly was important. ‘Come to the shop.’ Lucy Devenish took her arm and led her into the mews. ‘Please.’

  From even a few yards away, Ledwardine Lore looked like an old-fashioned fruit shop. Then you saw that none of the apples in the window were real and small butterfly creatures were all over them. Merrily experienced a momentary illusion of being outside herself, as though nothing at all here was real, as though this was an enchanted village in a child’s dream. It was a moment of strange relief.

  ‘Come in, Merrily.’

  The door was unlocked, but the shop had closed, the lights were out. It was dim inside. The smell of apples was overwhelming.

  ‘Hello, Mum,’ Jane said softly.

  Lucy Devenish didn’t put on the lights. As though she didn’t want Merrily to see Jane too clearly.

  The kid was on a stool up against the counter. Her features were indistinct. There was a couple of yards between them, so Merrily couldn’t tell whether she was smiling or serious. All around her, things shaped like apples. Mugs, candles, ornaments. Pot fruit, wax fruit, fluffy fruits.

  Breath bolted into Merrily. Her anxiety swelled for an instant and then burst, like a boil. Relief, but a discoloured relief.

  ‘Oh Jesus,’ she croaked finally. ‘Where the hell have you been?’

  Jane said nothing. Merrily saw that she was holding an apple-shaped mug, faintly steaming, between her hands, as if for warmth.