by Phil Rickman
‘It was the right thing, Merrily.’
‘To get away from me?’
‘To get away from the village.’
Sophie still had her short camel coat on, open but with the collar turned up against her crisp white hair. An unspoken protest about the heating being off in the gatehouse office. Her gloves lay on the desk.
She was right, of course, about Lol, who’d arrived in Ledwardine on the run from the horrors of the mental health system, coming through with the help of the late Lucy Devenish, wise woman of this parish, whose cottage he’d bought after her death. And then, as his relationship with Merrily had deepened, had been increasingly nervous of leaving the village. It wasn’t agoraphobia, but there was probably a name for it.
‘How long’s he away?’
‘Five weeks, give or take. So that’s four more. I mean, you’re right. He was like a plant in danger of becoming potbound. And the money angle, of course.’
With free downloads starving the recording industry, the only way a musician collected a worthwhile income these days was by going back on the road. Not that Lol cared much about money but, if he wasn’t making any, his confidence would evaporate. Not good, for either of them.
‘Did I tell you Danny Thomas had gone with him? Gomer’s partner. Fulfilling an old dream. Well, the dream was Glastonbury, actually, but playing second guitar for Lol… is a start.’
She’d told Lol he should do it for Danny. What she hadn’t told him yet was about Jane. She pushed her chair back, away from the Anglepoise lamp. Sophie had switched it on, ostensibly against the unseasonal dimness; it was starting to look like the preliminary to an interrogation.
‘So at least you’ll be able to spend more… mother and daughter time with Jane, before she goes on her gap year… excavation.’
Sophie edged the lamp a little closer to Merrily, waiting, lines of concern making her face more priestly than any lay person had a right to look. Merrily gave up.
‘All right. It didn’t go quite as planned. Should’ve been an excavation down in Wiltshire, in August. But then she was offered a place on another one, in Pembrokeshire, which meant that Eirion was able to go with her. Which is good because these digs have a reputation for, erm, impropriety. So that’s worked out quite well, too. For everybody. Almost.’
‘And that’s when?’
Merrily followed the progress of an elderly couple under a golf umbrella, through the rain to the cathedral porch.
‘They left yesterday.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Sophie steepled her fingers. ‘So that’s why you didn’t come in.’
‘Seeing her off. Making sure she had everything she needed.’
‘Laurence on tour, Jane in a Pembrokeshire trench. You’re on your own. In that vast old vicarage.’
‘Me and the cat.’
‘Which doesn’t strike me as conducive to a recuperative frame of mind.’
‘I’m a grown-up, Sophie. Less afraid of ghosts than I used to be.’
‘I wasn’t thinking of ghosts. I was thinking of—’ The phone rang. Sophie picked up. ‘Yes, she is, but she’s in a meeting. Can I ask her to call you back when she comes out…? How are you now, by the way? Glad to hear it.’ Sophie sniffed. ‘Goodbye.’ She put the phone down, glaring at it. ‘Didn’t expect your friend Bliss to be back at work so soon, either.’
‘Oh. You sure he is?’
‘I don’t know. He seemed to resent me enquiring about his welfare. He wants you to call him back. On his mobile.’
Bliss. His mobile. Just like old times. Bliss on the Gaol Street police car park so as not be overheard by Annie Howe or whichever senior officer had him on a short leash.
‘Anyway, you can do that later.’ Sophie pushed the phone away. ‘I’m sorry to sound as if I’m bossing you around, but after working with the clergy for over thirty years and seeing what’s happened, all too often, even to the most balanced of priests—’
‘Sophie—’
‘And that was in the days before multiple parishes and falling congregations. And without the extra spiritual and emotional burden of people who believe themselves paranormally afflicted.’
‘I’m not cracking up.’
‘If you knew how many times I’ve been told that by people trying to steer a vehicle without brakes. Look at Martin Longbeach.’
‘Martin Longbeach lost his partner. He had a breakdown, had to give up his parish…’
‘Having also lost his faith.’
‘Mislaid his faith. And I’m not going to be smug enough to say I’d have held on to mine if anything had happened to Jane and Lol at Brinsop. And that’s— Since you bring it up, that’s another reason I can’t postpone the week off.’
‘What is?’
Oh, this really wasn’t likely to go down well, but she had to know sometime.
‘Martin Longbeach is standing in for me.’
‘Assure me you’re joking,’ Sophie said.
‘He needs to get back in the saddle. For a trial period. When Jane was offered Pembrokeshire, I thought maybe I could join Lol somewhere, but then Danny’s with him, and wives and rock music don’t—’
She felt her face colouring. Wives? Where the hell did that come from?
Sophie didn’t appear to have heard.
‘Let me get this right. Martin Longbeach is taking over your services?’
‘And the rest. The original idea was he’d stay at the vicarage with Jane and me, and we’d go off during the day, but I’d be available to talk things over in the evening. So if he was experiencing any strain or felt he couldn’t go on…’
‘I’d assumed it would be Canon Callaghan-Clarke.’
‘She knows about it. She agrees with me that Martin’s a good guy and a good priest. She thinks it’s… that it could be a good idea.’
‘So now this… this leaves you and Longbeach living together?’
‘Sophie, he’s gay…’
‘How bad can this get, Merrily? You’re taking a week off, but you’re not going anywhere, for the purpose of nursemaiding a notorious neurotic. You do know what Longbeach did?’
‘I know what he’s said to have done.’
‘He should leave the area.’
‘Well, I actually think he’ll be a better priest if he stays here and works through it.’
Sophie drew breath.
‘You exasperate me, Merrily.’
‘Evidently. In which case, perhaps now would be a good time to tell me exactly what Sylvia Merchant said about me.’
Sophie didn’t move.
‘Sylvia Merchant is not in her right mind.’
‘It’s a big club. Come on, Sophie…’
‘She told me the whole atmosphere of the bedroom had altered in the aftermath of your visit. That she was left – are you prepared for this? Isolated, deserted and without comfort.’
‘And you…’ Merrily halfway out of her chair ‘… you didn’t think it was important to tell me that?’
‘I told you I believed she was disturbed.’
Merrily pulled the cigarette packet from her bag, realized where she was and pushed it back.
‘What else?’
‘She said you… behaved as if her friend was an evil spirit. She seems to think you were determined to, as she put it, exorcize Ms Nott.’
Merrily twisted away. The window overlooking Broad Street and the Cathedral Green was grey with mist.
‘You may as well have it all. She then asked what procedure she might follow if she wanted to file a complaint. Now that isn’t—’
‘Against me, personally?’
‘Or the Church. It wasn’t clear. But it isn’t going to happen.’
Merrily pulled her bag from the desk, stood up.
‘Merrily, do sit down. It’s an irrational complaint. George Curtiss will clarify things for her. Make her see sense.’
‘And the Bishop didn’t see fit to talk to me first?’
‘No time. Had to catch his train to London. He’ll be away
for three or four days.’
‘Taking only emergency calls. Sure.’
‘Look it’s absolutely no reflection on you. He knows you’d never overreact to that extent. He simply doesn’t see it as a Deliverance issue, that’s all. Not now.’
‘Or not something he wants me to handle. Too sensitive. Meaning politically sensitive.’
‘Exorcism’s been on thin ice for several years now,’ Sophie said. ‘Still in favour in some parts of the Vatican, but you won’t find any corresponding enthusiasm in the C. of E. at present. But then you know that. Merrily, you’re—’
‘I know. Tired.’
Clutching her car keys, she stood in the dampness, looking blankly around the Bishop’s Palace yard. Had she parked the Volvo here or left it in King Street?
Her gaze had passed twice over the black Freelander before she remembered it was hers. This had happened twice before; she’d come rushing out of somewhere, absently looking for the old Volvo with its familiar dents and its rusty scabs, the Volvo that was two weeks traded in, on the advice of a reliable garage guy, friend of Gomer Parry. It had felt like putting an elderly relative into a Home.
She sagged into the Freelander, feeling absurdly tearful. Everything was changing, all the certainties in her life. Lol going back on the road, what if that triggered some old impulses: booze, dope, groupies? OK, not the Lol she knew, but she hadn’t known him back in the days when he was almost famous.
And she was tired of subterfuge. Having to hide from Sophie that it was actually Sian Callaghan-Clarke, the Archdeacon, who’d discreetly asked her to accept Martin Longbeach as a holiday locum. Keep an eye on him, but don’t let him know you’re doing it. Was she expected to grass him up if he did anything unstable, in or out of the chancel? And if she didn’t?
Leaving the palace yard under the archway, she wondered if the Bishop wanted her out… out of the psychic sector, anyway. Periodically, the C. of E. would attempt to shrink its exorcism role: an embarrassing anachronism, sometimes dangerous, rarely politically correct. Untraceable reports and memos submitted to the shadowy guardians at Church House. Huw Owen had warned her enough times.
All politics now, lass. Women bishops, gay bishops, cross-dressing bishops, sheep-shagging bishops… I’ve nowt against any of it, it just didn’t used to be what they like to call an Issue. All the Church does now is react to the whims of a society that’s lost all awareness of itself and thinks arseholes like Dawkins wi’ a string of degrees are possessed of actual wisdom. In the old days, society used to react to us.
Huw laughing like a maniac, stretching out his legs, shoeless feet exposed to the open fire at his rectory in the Beacons until, as usual, his socks had begun to smoulder.
I reckon we have one advantage, lass, folks like us… though it’s also a disadvantage. Most of the clergy still believe in a God, of sorts, but most of the general public… they believe in ghosts.
12
Cripple
BETTY HAD LEFT Robin painting tree shadows on the shop walls between the bookcases while she shopped for food in Hay.
The sun was out, tourists on the streets. Book tourists. You could pick them out by the shabby-chic clothing, bum bags and back-carriers for babies, some of the men in Bohemian wide-brimmed hats. All kind of middle-class neo-hippy, and Mr and Mrs Oliver looked more like tourists than locals.
They were coming out of Jones the Chemists, one of the oldest businesses in town, Mr Oliver stuffing packages into an old Waitrose bag-for-life.
‘—right then. If I go and pick up the rest and see you outside Shepherds in say an hour?’
Crossing the road arching his neck in his purposeful way. When, half an hour later, Betty saw Mrs Oliver – long skirt, summery bag on a sash – walk into the ewe’s milk ice cream parlour, she followed her in, introduced herself.
‘And when are you opening?’ Mrs Oliver said.
She was comfortably plump, hair short and near-white. Diamond earrings, sharp eyes, gardener’s tan.
‘This weekend, probably,’ Betty said. ‘We’re a bit nervous. Not having had a shop before.’
‘I’m sure you’ll do well,’ Mrs Oliver said.
‘Yes, we… hopefully.’ She looked round. The dominant colour in here was green, an arboreal haze over everything. ‘Are you fully recovered now?’
‘From what?’
‘I’m sorry, your husband said you’d been… not well.’
‘Did he?’
Betty said nothing. Discomfort hovered. Then Mrs Oliver seemed to relax, and her eyes lit up like coals in a stove when you pulled out the damper.
‘I’m Hilary.’
‘Betty.’
‘I’m glad we’ve met. Now, listen. You mustn’t be put off by James’s failure. Running a bookshop in a recession seems to require a level of enterprise that he lacks. We came here on a romantic whim – his romantic whim – for a weekend a few years ago, when he was convinced he’d seen Martin Amis having coffee with Andrew Motion, while he was still Poet Laureate. James’s… pavement-café-society moment. After that, he just had to live here.’
‘And open a shop? Bit drastic?’
‘My dear…’ Mrs Oliver did an unsmile ‘… James is one of those people who need to buy in. Move as quickly as possible to the centre of things. No use Martin Amis popping in for a browse and a coffee if he doesn’t become James’s close friend.’
‘And has he?’
‘Never been seen since. Nor Motion. Though I can’t deny that you do see authors here. They say every notable writer comes at least once, out of curiosity.’
‘I’ve heard that.’
‘Gets to the point, as I say, where you’re imagining you’ve seen someone and you actually haven’t. Ah, that’s so-and-so! It isn’t, but you think it is because this is Hay. I saw Beryl Bainbridge once. There she was walking amongst the open-air shelves at the honesty bookshop under the castle walls in her grey, fitted coat and a scarf and gloves. Not a face you’d think you could mistake, and I thought, I know, I’ll ask her if she’d mind signing some of her books. But it couldn’t have been. Her—’
Someone pushed past the table, dislodging it and causing Hilary Oliver’s coffee to spill. She frowned.
‘Terribly sad. Her obituary was in the Guardian the following day. I suppose what I’m saying is that this is one of those places where people become prone to delusions of one kind or another. Like this ridiculous business of the King, which began as a joke decades ago and doesn’t go away. He was pointed out to me once. I couldn’t take it on board. My God, his trousers…’
Hilary Oliver shuddered.
‘Will you still stay here, Hilary, now there’s no business?’
‘Well, we do have quite a nice house, with a big garden. And friends who like to come for weekends. We’ll probably have to stay until such time as James convinces himself it was a worthwhile exercise. He’s talking about standing for the town council. Ridiculous – town councils in this part of the world are nothing. No powers. Small-time talking shops. On reflection, I suppose he’ll quite enjoy that.’
Betty licked her ice cream, thoughtful. What had seemed quite funny at first was suddenly acutely depressing. It was how you didn’t want ever to wind up: purposeless. Looking for a reason.
‘But at least you’re out of the shop,’ she said.
‘No we’re not. We still own it. We had an opportunity to sell the premises and he refused. Two approaches. Both backed away when James demanded they sign a document committing them to preserving it as a bookshop. Perverse. He was held up to ridicule in some quarters because he would only sell good books. He said if we weren’t dependant on it for a living, we should feel obliged to stand up for what he saw as Literary Quality.’
‘That’s… kind of admirable, really. Isn’t it?’
‘My dear, it’s bloody silly, precious and guaranteed to fail. I have to say he wasn’t terribly pleased, at first, when he found out the kind of books you were proposing to sell, but at least they’
re books. In the end, he simply refuses to be seen as betraying what he calls the defining quality of the town. But… he’s out of it. I know he likes to say it was my health that was suffering, but it was his. I’ll say no more.’
Betty said, ‘I wondered why you hadn’t developed it upstairs, opened up more book rooms. Something we can’t do, of course, or we wouldn’t have anywhere else to live.’
Hilary’s chin retracted, eyes widening.
‘You’re not proposing to live in those upstairs rooms?’
‘We don’t really have a choice at the moment.’
‘James didn’t tell me that. I mean it’s all so… small and…’
Betty waited. What else had James failed to tell her?
The old woman who whistled traipsed past the door in her long coat.
‘Anyway, you’re young. You have the energy.’ Sounded like she hadn’t been told about Robin’s condition. She looked at her watch. ‘James will be coming back soon. Did you want to talk to him? About health?’
‘Er… perhaps not. Perhaps you can both drop in and have a look over the weekend. See what a mess we’ve made.’
‘We’d love to. But it won’t be a mess. I sense in you a level of determination neither of us possesses.’
Maybe she meant a level of need.
Robin had left the door open, but the paint cloths over the shelves were enough to convince passers-by they weren’t open yet for business.
Except for Gareth Nunne. Wedged in the doorway, blocking Robin’s light.
‘Feel responsible for you now, you bugger. What kind of idiot takes any notice of an old fart with his business crashing round his ears?’
‘A desperate man, Nunne,’ Robin said. ‘A desperate man.’ He put down his palette of acrylics, dropped his brush in the water jar. ‘You realize it’s gonna look better than this. We’re barely started here.’
Gareth Nunne pulled the sheets off a couple of shelves.
‘Better how, boy?’
‘Tidier, for a start.’
‘Tidy?’ Nunne reeling back, like he’d been pepper-sprayed. ‘You don’t want bloody tidy.’