The Wine of Angels

by Phil Rickman

  The worst moment came when the Cassidys emerged – the Cassidys, who rarely attended morning worship because of the Sunday lunch stampede. Norman Gemmell held Caroline’s fingers tenderly, led her a few yards away from the porch, bent his head to her pale, tight face. Spoke with earnest sincerity, and then patted Terrence on the shoulder as Caroline began to cry and two press photographers recorded the moment in a discreet chatter of motordrives.

  Seemed like a good time, before the saintly Gemmell returned to the vestry to change into his civvies. Merrily crept from under her apple tree and made for the small rear door which led to the Bull chapel and the organ.

  Pushed open the small, Gothic door and stopped.

  There he stood, in his friar-like organist’s robe, pensive by the effigy of the Bull. Looking up – an initial shock at seeing her, plumped up in a second into the charming, old Dermot.

  ‘Why, Merrily, I thought ...’

  ‘We need to talk.’

  ‘Ah, if only I’d known, I should have rearranged my lunch appointment.’

  ‘You know now,’ Merrily said coldly.

  ‘Perhaps this evening? A table at the Swan?’

  ‘Dermot,’ Merrily said, ‘get your chubby little arse through that door before I rip my sweater and make allegations.’

  ‘Merrily!’

  ‘Calling as a witness, Mr Watts, the organ repair man ... among others.’

  ‘Merrily, what are you saying?’

  She looked him steadily in the eyes and slowly lifted her sweater, exposing her midriff and the base of her bra.

  Then she screamed.

  ‘All right!’ Dermot scowled and scurried after her out of the church, hitching up his robe.

  41

  Home Cooking

  AT THE BOTTOM of the churchyard, where apple trees in bloom overhung the graves, Dermot Child sat, legs crossed, on a nineteenth-century tombstone, looking very affronted and – disturbingly – very much like a goblin. A poisonous loser. Man’s so embittered he doesn’t care who goes down.

  And Merrily, gripping a gravestone, had cold feet. Supposing they were wrong about him? Suppose he was just a funny but basically harmless little man with a perfectly harmless, perfectly natural, perfectly healthy ...

  ... about a hundred buttons down the front, and you imagine yourself undoing them all, very slowly, one by one. Oh God. White collar, pink body, brown nipples ...

  ... lust for female clergy.

  ‘Let’s be frank with each other, shall we, Dermot?’

  His button eyes arose to level on her. No smile, possibly the beginning of a sneer. ‘Let’s do that, Ms Priest-in-Charge. Oh yes, I’m all for that.’

  Merrily thought she could see, behind the blossom on the apple trees, the first small swellings of the embryo Pharisees Reds.

  ‘What do you know about the posters scattered around the village? The ones we discussed yesterday.’

  The eyes were still. ‘A poor joke, as I said. Not terribly funny.’

  ‘Except there wasn’t really time for subtlety?’

  ‘Wasn’t there?’

  She took a chance. ‘I gather they were done on the festival office printer.’

  The eyes flickered. ‘Really?’

  ‘You supervise that?’

  ‘The printer or the production of the posters? Yes to the printer. And the posters ... well, indirectly, who knows? Do you know, Merrily?’

  ‘And the Sunday Times. Did you, perhaps, speak to them?’

  There was nothing prominent in today’s Sunday Times, as it happened. At least, not the edition she’d picked up on the way to the church. The story had evidently been judged insufficiently strong at this stage, which was fine.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Dermot said. ‘Of course. I’ve spoken to all the quality papers. I have to try to interest them in our lovely festival. Part of my function, in the absence of poor, dear, tragic Terrence.’

  ‘And told them about the storm-in-a-teacup over Coffey’s play?’

  ‘More than that, surely, Merrily. A storm, at least, in a hogshead of cider. Old cider. A dark storm fermenting for many years. Centuries. Let’s not make light of these things.’

  ‘And you told the Sunday Times about it.’

  He shifted on the tomb, uncrossed his legs under the thin robe. ‘Did I?’

  ‘Did you?’

  He giggled. ‘Did I?’

  She gritted her teeth.

  ‘Did I?’ Dermot said gaily. ‘Did I? Did I? Did I? Oh, Merrily, my dear, you don’t know a thing, do you? You’re fishing in the dark with a twig and a bent safety-pin, and you don’t know a thing about our ways, any more than poor old Hayden did, but he, at least, was content with that and went his bumbling way, the very model of a genial, faintly tedious country cleric. Ghastly, though not everyone agreed. Oh Lord, how I wanted you as his replacement, a jolly little dolly of a clergyperson with nice legs and dinky titties, oh what fun.’

  Merrily cut off a shocked breath. Don’t react. She stayed very still, tried not to look away from his eyes, although Dermot had certainly looked away from hers, blatantly lowering his sardonic gaze to her breasts.

  ‘What fun,’ he said coldly. ‘But don’t dare imagine that you, any more than Cassidy, any more than the obnoxious Coffey, could ever know the essence of our quaint little village ways.’

  She bit her lip. He wasn’t supposed to behave like this. Back in the church, she was convinced she had the little bugger. She was going to threaten him, quite calmly, in an absolutely straightforward way – tell him about the projected Wil Williams event, a village affair, and warn him that if the merest whisper of it got out to the media, she’d know precisely who to blame.

  She rallied. ‘And what do you know about the village ways, Dermot? About Ledwardine life as it’s been lived in the past two decades? Having spent over halt your life away, trying to make it in the big cities.’

  A plump cheek twitched.

  ‘With no conspicuous success,’ Merrily said.

  He scowled. ‘And so feisty, aren’t we? The new woman, oh my. Well, as a matter of fact, Ms Wafkins, being born and raised here and then separated from it for a while gives one a highly individual perspective. The incomers don’t see at all, the locals see but don’t notice. But someone like myself, with a foot in both camps, observes all. Knows all the pressure points. Knows where a tiny tweak may have maximum effect.’

  ‘And you do like to tweak, don’t you, Dermot?’

  Dermot grinned. He leaned back on the tombstone, legs apart, hands behind his head. ‘I like to think,’ he said, ‘that I orchestrate. The parish organist. One takes great pleasure in that. The first, dramatic chords which stir the blood and energize the sleeping church. Like auld ciderrrrrr ... does to a man. Wonderful.’

  He stretched and spread his legs, assisting the slippage of the dark, cotton robe from his fat, red, naked thighs.

  ‘Cassidy hates all that, as you know. To him, it’s an academic exercise, for purely commercial purposes. Like his phoney wassailing. I didn’t go to that. It was always going to be a silly charade, with his pompous speeches and Caroline fussing and tinkling. Mind, wasn’t a charade in the end, was it? Old reality burst on to the scene with a vengeance. Thank God for the Powells.’

  Merrily realized she’d lost it. He couldn’t care less whether she knew about him or not. He felt completely secure in revealing the side of him that, when you thought about it, he’d never entirely hidden behind the civilized glaze of educated frivolity.

  She said, ‘I suppose you’ll say old Edgar topped himself at the wassailing specifically to show up the superficiality of it all’

  ‘Shouldn’t think so.’ He smiled. ‘Can’t see Edgar throwing away a good old country death on the Cassidys. Salt of the earth, the Powells. A bloody good phrase, salt of the earth. Overused, devalued. But it’s a good one for the Powells. A good, dark, old family.’

  ‘Older than the Bull-Davieses?’ This was ridiculous, she was merely making conversation now. H
e’d insulted her to her face and she was just sidling away from it.

  ‘The Bulls?’ Dermot snorted. ‘Norman blood, there. Acquired the Davies adjunct a few generations ago to highlight a little Welsh strand amounting to nothing. The Bulls of Ledwardine. Sounds good, doesn’t amount to a lot. Always liked to think they had control, but they were still newcomers compared with the Powells. Something strong and tight and sturdy about the unassuming Powells. That’s where the real tradition lies.’

  She was picturing Garrod Powell in his well-pressed slacks and his blazer.

  ‘Rod?’ He startled her, seeming to snatch the thought from her head.

  ‘Can’t see it in Rod, is it? Well, you can’t see anything, can you? You’re an outsider. Even if your grandfather did farm at Mansell Lacy, you’re way out of it now and you’ll never get back in. Let me tell you about Rod. Raised the old way. Ever hear talk of Edgar’s wife? Scabby old harpy, she was, but eyes like diamonds. I remember her on Pig Friday, marvellous great toothless grin and blood up to her elbows. And then home to teach young Rod a thing or two. If you know what I mean.’

  ‘What?’ Merrily’s legs felt suddenly weak.

  ‘Ha! Shocked you at last, have I, Reverend? What d’you think traditional country life’s about if not fecundity and potency? And making sure your eldest boy knows what a woman likes best on a dark night in front of the fire. Country life, Merrily: home cooking, home sex and plenty of auld cider, home milled with a dead rat or two thrown in, for flavour. The farmer’s wife hoisting up her skirts and pissing into the mix.’

  ‘I’m going.’ Merrily turned away. ‘Thank you for the anthropological lecture.’

  ‘Go on, give us a real blush, girlie. How’s this?’ He leaned right back on the tombstone, grinning into the sun, sliding the robe to the tops of his flabby thighs where the thin fabric rose up triumphantly. ‘Whoops,’ Dermot said.

  ‘Well, that’s that, isn’t it?’ Her voice distressingly shrill. ‘You’ve finally made sure we aren’t going to be able to work together again.’

  ‘Sad, isn’t it? We could have got on so well’

  He pulled down his robe, the smile vanishing.

  ‘Where will you go, Merrily? Leave the clergy, perhaps? We all make mistakes, don’t we?’

  ‘I could have you arrested. Enough police about the place.’

  Dermot sat up. ‘Ah, yes,’ he said soberly. ‘I’m glad you reminded me. I do have to see the police. Did you notice the prowler in your garden? In the vicarage garden? Last night? Latish?’

  ‘No.’ She began to walk away along the blossom-strewn path, the big sandstone church in front of her, the old country church with its erect steeple. She wanted to scream. The bloody goblin had been creeping about her garden?

  ‘Not a very big chap,’ he called after her. ‘Spectacles.’

  She froze.

  ‘Just had a haircut, one couldn’t help noticing that. And dressed, bizarrely, as a clergyman. What happened, you see, I’d returned to the church to collect some music and couldn’t help noticing him going through your gates. I think the lady inspector would want to know about that, don’t you? What d’you think, Merrily? Or should one tell Ted Clowes first? Good old Uncle Ted. No, the police, I think. It might be important.’

  His forced but merry laughter followed her all the way to the lych-gate. She slowed, evened up her pace, would not show him her panic.

  He delivered Sunday papers, too, then.

  ‘Oh,’ Jane said, like this was an afterthought. ‘And a couple of bottles of that – what’s it called? – Wine of Angels.’

  Jim Prosser, who always looked too big for the counter at the little Spar shop, reached up instinctively to the shelf and then paused.

  ‘How old are you again, Jane? Fourteen, is it?’

  ‘Fifteen!’

  ‘Old enough to know the rules, then.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Jim, it’s only cider.’

  ‘No such thing as only cider. Cider’s stronger than beer, and this stuffs stronger than your average cider.’

  ‘It’s not for me. It’s a present.’

  ‘That’s what they all say, my dear.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Jane, exasperated. ‘You’re always selling cans of Woodpecker and stuff to Dean Wall and his mates. This is sexism.’

  ‘Oh, come on now,’ said Jim. ‘Don’t give me a hard time. The place is crawling with coppers, and you are the vicar’s daughter.’

  ‘For my sins.’

  Jane paid for the two bags of Doritos. This was going to be a problem. There was whisky in the house, a few bottles of wine. No cider.

  ‘You wouldn’t like it, anyway,’ Jim Prosser said. ‘It might be in a fancy bottle, but you can get better at half the price, I reckon.’

  42

  The North Side

  MERRILY STOOD IN the Sunday morning square and prayed silently for guidance. Two parishioners discreetly crossed into Church Street, pretending they hadn’t seen her.

  Or perhaps she’d become invisible now. A nine-day wonder and the nine days were over. Nobody special any more, just another single mother to be ignored, gossiped about, sniggered at, flashed at.

  Stop it!

  All right. So Dermot Child had recognized Lol Robinson, knew where he was hiding. Had gone to the trouble of delivering a late-edition Sunday tabloid to make sure Merrily knew the police had named Lol as someone they wanted to question. The devious Goblin planning ahead. Setting something up.

  Blackmail? Would he have held on to the information and tried to blackmail her? Demanding what, in return for his continued silence? Precisely what? The mind boggled. The loins shrivelled. Her hand went to her mouth, stifling reaction.

  ‘Vicar ...’

  Gomer Parry stood a few yards away, breathing heavily, cigarette waggling whitely in his teeth. He’d run after her.

  ‘A word, Vicar?’

  ‘Sure.’ She followed him between the oak pillars into the market hall.

  ‘Apologies for the state, Vicar. Cleanin’ out your boundary ditch, I was, see.’ Gomer held up both mud-red hands. ‘I know, I know ... the sabbath, it is, but there en’t gonner be a fine day for near-enough a week, ‘cordin’ to the farmin’ forecast, so I reckoned I’d get to grips with the bugger, do the manual ‘fore I brings in ole Gwynneth, see?’

  ‘I see. Well, just – you know – keep the lid on it. We have our zealots. You didn’t actually have to inform me.’

  ‘And wouldn’t ‘ave, Vicar, no way. If, that is, I hadn’t been down in this yere stinkin’ ditch, keepin’ a low profile, as it were, when our friend Mr Dermot Child happens to take up occupancy of the ole Probert family tomb just this side the hedge, followed by your good self.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘You want my personal stance on the issue, I reckon that feller oughter be strung up by the nuts, but that’s only my personal opinion, like.’

  ‘Gomer,’ Merrily said fervently. ‘It’s a very valid one.’

  ‘Tried to rope me in for this ole cider rubbish. I sez, Mr Child, I can’t sing worth a bag o’ cowshit. Don’t matter, he sez. Long’s you got it down there. I sez, whatever you got down there, I sez, is between you and your ole woman and you don’t bring it out in no church.’ Gomer coughed, embarrassed. ‘Or churchyard.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘If it’d gone any further, see, I’d’ve been up outer that ole ditch. But you was off. An’ Child, he just stays there, lyin’ on the stone, chucklin’ and schemin’. Anyhow, all I’m tryin’ to say ...’ Gomer looked down at his mud-caked boots, ‘is that’s a dangerous feller. An’ he en’t on ‘is own. So for what it’s worth, Vicar, you got my full support, whatever goes down. Like if you wants a witness ...’

  ‘No, I don’t think I’ll be taking it any further.’

  ‘What’s happenin’ yereabouts, see, it smells off. I were you, I wouldn’t trust nobody. I know that en’t in the spirit of your profession, like, but that’s my advice, see. It smells off. An’ that’s comin�
�� from a man who was once up to ‘is Adam’s apple in Billy Tudge’s cesspit.’

  It was time, Merrily decided, to take Gomer Parry seriously.

  ‘I suppose,’ she said delicately, ‘that you heard the bit about the intruder.’

  ‘Sure t’be,’ Gomer confirmed, producing a soggy match, bending down to strike it on a cobble. ‘That would be Mr Robinson, mabbe?’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Merrily said.

  Gomer stood up, his cigarette burning. ‘Vicar, there’s no problem, yere. Friend of poor ole Lucy’s, right? So no problem. See?’ He rubbed mud from his glasses and winked.

  ‘All right?’

  ‘Thank you,’ Merrily said.

  ‘En’t done nothin’, yet. Jus’ lettin’ you know I’m yere. Anythin’ I can do, say the word. ‘Cause, I never told Lucy Devenish, see. I never quite said that to Lucy, and now she en’t yere no more, which was a funny sort of accident, my way o’ thinkin’, and so the only other person I can say it to’s you, an’ I’m sayin’ it.’

  ‘You knew I was her executor?’

  ‘Nope. That matter?’

  Funny sort of accident?

  ‘Gomer, can we talk?’

  ‘We’re talking, innit?’

  ‘Not here. Back at the vicarage?’

  ‘Hell, I wouldn’t go in the vicarage in this state. Minnie’d never speak a civil word to me again. I’ll mabbe get a bath and catch you later, if that’s all right with you.’

  ‘No. Please. Gomer, listen, there is something you can do. You come into contact with quite a few people, and Minnie’s secretary of the WL’

  ‘On account of nobody else’ll take it on. Aye.’

  ‘OK.’ She told him briefly about Stefan Alder’s private preview of the Wil Williams play. To be performed in about ten hours’ time. It didn’t sound remotely possible.