by Phil Rickman
Never had got around to telling her about Alison. He’d wanted to ask her, How will this end? What can we do about it? He’d asked Alison. She said she had no idea.
But it’ll be on my terms. When I tell him.
You still hate him?
How can I hate him? My own flesh and blood.
Alison had laughed.
Yesterday morning, she’d told most of this to Lucy and then Lucy had died, bequeathing the responsibility to Merrily Watkins.
Lol was back in the alien sweatshirt, the vicar’s clothes neatly on hangers behind the door. Merrily had not told him what had happened when she and Jane had gone to Richard Coffey’s place.
Lol looked at Merrily, sleeping. He thought of Lucy on her back on a mortuary table in Hereford, cold and hatless and awaiting her post-mortem. This made him anxious, too anxious to sleep.
Ethel, the cat, wasn’t sleeping either. She lay at the bottom of the sleeping bag, where Merrily’s ankles were, and she watched Lol, golden-eyed and purring gently.
Merrily’s face was flushed by the firelight. He couldn’t stop looking at it.
Twice in the night, he got up to put more coal on the fire to keep her warm.
40
Bad Year for Apples
‘OH, WOW,’ JANE said.
She was standing in the drawing-room doorway, fully dressed. Lol came up behind her from the kitchen, with tea things on a tray. Over Jane’s shoulder he could see Merrily, hurriedly propping herself up in the sleeping bag.
‘Flower, before you say a word—’
‘Well, well,’ Jane said. ‘So you got it together.’
It was nearly eight a.m. Substantial sunshine had collected in the bay window, coloured pale green by the trees.
‘You slept together,’ Jane said.
‘No!’ Merrily sat up in the sleeping bag. ‘I mean yes, but no.’
‘This’ – Jane ambled into the room, hands on hips – ‘is really quite seriously cool’ She turned, beamed at Lol. ‘And she looks so much better. Don’t you think she looks fantastic?’
‘Yes,’ Lol said honestly. ‘However—’
Merrily stood up. The sun shone through her white nightdress. Lol thought maybe he should close his eyes. Couldn’t quite manage that.
‘That’s it. That is just about enough.’ Merrily looked around for her sweater, failed to find it, covered herself with the sleeping bag. ‘Make some toast, child.’
‘Right,’ Jane said. ‘Anything you say.’
The phone rang. ‘I’ll get that.’ Merrily gathered the sleeping bag around her. Jane giggled. Lol moved out of the doorway. Merrily passed him without a glance.
Lol shut the drawing-room door behind her, faced up to Jane.
‘Vicars don’t lie. Nothing happened.’
‘In which case’ – Jane frowned – ‘you ought to be bloody well ashamed. She doesn’t attract you?’
‘Well ... ye-es ... yes, she does.’
‘God.’ Jane breathed hard through her teeth. ‘She’s not quite a nun. She needs somebody.’
‘But preferably somebody stable.’
‘Oh yeah, somebody really, really stable.’ She glared at him. ‘Come on. My dad was stable. My dad was this like utterly focused individual who knew exactly where he was going the whole time.’
‘I thought he was bent.’
‘And getting away with it! Because he knew he could. Because he was stable inside. Focused. Balanced. Never worried about anything, not really. My dad thought a neurosis was ... was ...’
‘Something you can grow in a window box, with care.’
‘Yeah. Exactly. So, you know, screw stable. Life’s too short. Look, I know you’ve had your problems. I listen at doors sometimes, I’m not afraid to admit that.’
‘You do, huh?’
‘Those back stairs are very useful. You could go through life really ignorant if you didn’t listen at doors. Like, Colette always saying you were scared of her, like it was really cool having somebody who’s scared of you, but it wasn’t her at all you were scared of, I know that now, and I’m glad. And I’m glad Karl Windling’s dead. I mean not glad he’s dead, like if there was some other way he could be completely out of your face ...’
‘Well, I haven’t figured out how I should feel about that either.’
‘You should feel free. Hey, I forgot ... Did you get to see Alison last night?’
‘I have a problem with free,’ Lol said.
‘Just that I keep seeing people, twice, three times, Jesus, four times as old as me, and they still haven’t done anything. And then they die.’ Jane slumped into the sofa. ‘I don’t know what I’m trying to say. Everything’s peculiar. I’ve decided if I don’t want to believe things, then I won’t. So I don’t believe you and Mum didn’t sleep together and I don’t believe Lucy’s dead, OK?’
‘OK.’
‘And they haven’t found Colette. I had the radio on at seven. It was the same stuff, more or less, as last night.’
‘That’s starting to not make sense.’
‘Depends on how you look at it, doesn’t it? Suppose I don’t want to believe Colette’s dead either? Or gone off with anybody. Anybody human.’
‘That’s even more dangerous ground.’
‘Everything’s dangerous to you, isn’t it, Lol? Even Mum. What’s the matter with you? All I cut off was your ponytail.’
Stefan Alder on the line.
‘It’s sorted.’ He sounded very calm, very purposeful. ‘It’s on. I’m going to make it happen, Merrily.’
‘Well, good. That’s wonderful. I’ll put the word around.’
But what if nobody came? What if the church was empty save for Stefan and Coffey and the sick priest?
‘Come and see you, shall I, Merrily, after your morning service?’
‘No, that would be— I’m not actually doing the services today. But if you want to ... rehearse or anything, the church should be empty by twelve.’
She was calmer this morning. At least the villagers, old and new, would be given the chance. If nobody came, then it suggested nobody, except James Bull-Davies, was bothered, so the play could go ahead, in the church, whenever Coffey and his team were ready. It all seemed so simple now.
‘I hope this hasn’t caused problems between Richard and you.’
‘No ...’ Stefan hesitated. ‘Perhaps it’s resolved them. You see, Richard ... he won’t be having anything to do with this. It’s going to be entirely down to me.’
Oh God, Merrily thought. Sulks.
‘This is how it should have been in the first place. It was my idea. I discovered him.’
‘Wil?’
‘It’s a one-man show, Merrily. It comes from the heart, not the page. Some of it was going to be improvised anyway. I’m a performer. A stage, an audience, you know? Give me one and a half hours. Or more.’
‘Shall we say seven p.m.? We don’t have an evening service any more, so that’s not a problem.’
‘Could you make it half-eight? Nine? I’d prefer it to get gradually darker.’
‘All right.’
They agreed to meet in the church at one.
‘I’m bringing him home, Merrily,’ Stefan said.
Merrily put down the phone and stood for a moment, thinking about last night. She’d slept easily between the fire and Lol Robinson. Daylight had cancelled the fear.
Although there wasn’t any at the end; only sorrow.
She wouldn’t forget that.
When she came back to the drawing room, Lol and Jane had one of the Sunday tabloids spread out on the coffee table. ‘Oh well,’ Lol was saying, ‘it had to happen at some stage.’ The page two headline was,
FEARS GROW FOR PARTY GIRL COLETTE
There was a picture of a rather younger, more innocent Colette, with no nose-stud and an unfamiliar smile. The fact that it was quite small was a strong indication this was not the picture the paper had wanted, given the comments gathered from ‘neighbours’.
&nbs
p; ‘Colette was a bit of a handful,’ one said. ‘A real wild child.’
Most of the story was an innuendo-laden account of
... the steamy sixteenth birthday party which brought midnight chaos to a sleepy village.
Music was provided by notorious Voodoo DJ Dr Samedi, who has been banned from several clubs following claims of blood sacrifices.
The 29-year-old DJ, real name Jeff Mooney, said last night, ‘Compared with some of the gigs I do, this seemed like a really tame venue. But as soon as I met this chick, I knew she was trouble.’
‘He’s actually OK,’ Jane said. ‘The blood sacrifice stuffs probably a bit exaggerated.’
‘Like, only small amounts of blood.’ Lol pointed to the end of the piece.
Police also want to talk to the owner of a cottage close to the orchard, songwriter Laurence Robinson.
‘We think he may have information that could help us with our inquiries,’ DI Howe said.
Mr Robinson, who has been working on new songs with seventies rock-hero Gary Kennedy, was still not at home last night.
‘Speaks for itself, doesn’t it? I’ll go and see her. I’ll explain about Karl. I’ll spell it all out.’
‘Are you completely crazy?’ Jane snatched up the paper, waved it in his face. ‘She’ll nail you to the wall. How are you going to explain where you’ve been?’
‘She could be right, Lol,’ Merrily said. ‘With hindsight, it would’ve been better if you’d been sitting there when she came to talk to Jane yesterday. You’re still the best they’ve got. There’s at least enough circumstantial evidence to hang on to you for a few days. Which would be ... a strain.’
Thinking that if Howe’s team found a body Lol would be signing a confession before the week was out, just to get them off his back.
‘Give it another day,’ she said. ‘None of us needs to have seen a paper. Perhaps they’ll find her.’
‘Every day drops me further in it.’
‘Why? They carefully haven’t named you as a suspect.’
‘She cares, Lol.’ Jane smiled mischievously. ‘Don’t knock it.’
‘Don’t push it, flower.’
‘It was that good, huh?’
‘Make the breakfast.’ Merrily picked up the paper. ‘Where did this come from, anyway?’
‘It was on the mat,’ Lol said. ‘Is this the only Sunday paper you take?’
‘I don’t take it.’
‘I told you she didn’t,’ Jane said.
‘I normally collect the papers from the newsagent on the way back from Communion. This isn’t one of them.’
‘Well, it was on the mat,’ Lol said. ‘It must be a mistake.’
‘Laurence, in a village this size, you don’t mistakenly deliver papers to the vicarage. Somebody wanted us to see it.’
‘Us? Lol said.
‘Alison know you’re here?’
‘Yes.’
‘That wise?’
‘She’ll keep quiet; she’s on her own knife-edge. I’ll tell you about that.’
Jane blinked. ‘Young Alison? You cracked it?’
Merrily said, ‘Make the breakfast, Jane. All right?’
Jane found some eggs. Put the toaster on. It was infuriating, but maybe, after what she’d said to Lol, this was not the best time to listen at the door.
And also, Mrs Leather’s The Folklore of Herefordshire was still open on the kitchen table. It had fallen open at that page. Portentous, right?
Search was made for her and she appeared to her friends
from time to time, but when they spoke to her she
immediately disappeared.
But suppose the friends had known the score? Suppose the friends had it totally sussed?
Her mother was told (probably by the wise man or woman)
... for whom read Lucy Devenish ...
that if seen again she must be very quickly seized, without speaking, or she would never come back. So one day, a year after her disappearance, her mother saw her and took hold of her dress before she could escape. ‘Why, Mother,’ she said, ‘where have you been since yesterday?’
Jane had this sudden, crazy image of grabbing hold of the shoulder of the freshly materialized Colette’s sexy black dress, and Colette rounding on her, shrieking, ‘What the fuck are you playing at Janey? This is my poxy party!’
Jane laughed.
But why not? Why the hell not? OK, if it was all airy-fairy nonsense, total cobblers, if Colette had actually gone off with some smooth crack dealer from Hereford, then what was lost? Who was hurt?
The plain fact is, nobody, but nobody, apart from me, is ever going to try it.
OK. Practicalities. She couldn’t simply keep taking walks through the orchard on the off chance Colette would show. There had to be method in this. She thought back to the night it all began. The apple tree, the little golden lights.
Another element, though, if you followed Lucy’s logic, was crucial.
Cider.
‘Does she know what she’s playing with here?’
Merrily had a clear picture of Alison in the church that morning. Black shirt, gold pendant, knowing smile. James is full of shit.
Oh yes, Alison knew precisely what she was playing with.
And Lol, who’d been used and discarded, seemed to be able to live with that, now that he knew the circumstances, now that he understood. He was either a natural-born Christian or a natural-born sucker.
‘It’s good, at least, to have explanations,’ he said. ‘Looking back, my life’s been pretty short on explanations.’
‘It’s horrifying. What’s she want out of it? Half the hall? The farm? Half the debts?’
‘Goes deeper than money.’
‘Obviously. But this is a very old-fashioned guy. I really hate to imagine how he’s going to react when he finds out he’s been f—’
Merrily glanced at the door. They’d been whispering, but the kid had good ears and no scruples.
‘... and that his father may have killed someone. There’s certainly enough ground there to bury a body in.’
‘I don’t think,’ Lol said, ‘that Bull-Davies is under any illusions about his family. Last year, he apparently spent a lot of money on the only copy of some unpublished, handwritten addendum Mrs Leather had written to her folklore book. It was going to be auctioned; he got in first. It was all about apple orchards. With special reference to Wil Williams.’
‘Lucy know about it?’
‘Found out too late, presumably. Maybe she doesn’t have friends in auction houses. Alison came across it a few weeks ago. Not on the bookshelves. Rotting in the attic’
‘It shows the Bull family in a bad light?’
‘All it shows is how flimsy the evidence against Williams was. The farmer who accused him of bewitching his orchard ... according to Mrs Leather, all that amounted to was that it had been a very bad year for apples, except in the Ledwardine orchard, where the crop was very acceptable. The orchard, at that time, belonging entirely to the Church.’
‘So? God looks after his own. That was it? He bought the thing purely because it suggested his ancestor accepted iffy evidence of witchcraft in the year sixteen sixty-whatever?’
Lol shrugged. ‘Just, you know, an illustration of the level of James’s paranoia about his family. According to Alison.’
‘She’s got to be hard as nails.’
‘Hardened by circumstance.’
‘You are too generous, Lol. This is her brother.’
‘Half-brother.’
The sun had gone in. Another capricious spring day.
‘Lol, did she mention anything about another document? The Journal of Thomas Bull?’
‘There’re some volumes of it in a bank in Hereford.’
‘Which is where, I suppose, they’re destined to stay,’ Merrily said.
Breakfast was a muted meal.
Jane produced boiled eggs and toast. Nobody mentioned Alison or Bull-Davies or the deaths of Lucy and Karl Windling
or little golden lights or the Nighthouse. They talked like ordinary people with ordinary lives and only ordinary undercurrents. Like a family, thought Lol, who’d forgotten what a family was like.
They discussed how Merrily was going to spread the word about the personal appearance in Ledwardine Parish Church that night of its former incumbent, the Reverend Wil Williams, without attracting unwelcome publicity.
‘It’s a village thing,’ Merrily said. ‘And it has to stay that way. That’s why I want it done quickly. Done, finished with, everybody gets their say. The issue decides itself. That’s the theory, anyway. It would be good to get the Women’s Institute out in force. They’ll all fall for Stefan in a big way, lots of tear-filled hankies.’
‘What about the Press?’ Lol said. ‘You can’t keep them out.’
‘The way I see it, the search for Colette will overshadow everything. I really don’t think the Press would be interested. Unless someone told them.’
‘Dermot Child,’ Jane said. ‘The Goblin.’
‘I’m going to deal with that.’ Merrily bit decisively into a slice of crisp toast.
From mid-morning, she hung around the churchyard, under apple trees, listening to the leaden, Victorian hymns, feeling redundant and rejected. She should be in there, today of all days, offering prayers for Colette Cassidy and her family, holding the community together, siphoning God’s comfort from the chancel to the nave.
Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Hadn’t thought of the implications of not being there today. But Ted presumably had, the machiavellian bastard. It had taken her rather too long to see Ted, not as an uncle, but as the worst kind of country solicitor, a man who’d spent his adult life smoothing over, glossing over, planing off rough edges. Female priest? A nice idea that failed. Too soon, my friends, too soon.
And there he was, as the main doors opened, fawningly attendant upon the imposing figure of the Rev. Norman Gemmell – tall, stooping, pointed beard, gravely patriarchal. Presiding in the porch, dispensing cordial clerical aftercare. Bowing over hands, tilting his head with concern, as though he’d known these rusticized city folk for many, many years, followed their family heartaches and triumphs through the generations. A true professional.