by Phil Rickman
‘I’m sorry …’ Merrily looked around for the clock, confused. ‘What time is it now?’
‘I should think coming up to midday. Clock’s in the kitchen. We don’t allow time in here.’
Midday. Oh my God.
She’d had breakfast at nine — most of a boiled egg, one slice of dry toast — watching Teddy Murray cheerily loading his knapsack, off to plan out a circular ten-mile walk for the German party next weekend, Bev inspecting Merrily, practical, blonde head on one side. ‘Are you sure you’re all right, Merrily?’
She’d gone back to her room, lay down for a moment on the bed … woke up over an hour later, in a panic. Rushing into the bathroom, washing again, brushing her hair and stumbling down the stairs — nobody about, a radio somewhere playing Classic FM, but it still brought back celloed strands of ‘The Cure of Souls’, that reproachful song. She’d ring Lol, just as soon as she got back. Wasn’t his fault — her dream, her paranoia. Slipping quietly out of the front door, which had steps down to the lane, forgetting for the moment where she’d left the Volvo, only remembering where she had to go in it. Past The Turning three hundred yards, sign on the right, Ty Gwyn. Short track.
An end of a terrace, two tiny white-rendered cottages at one end knocked together, set well back from the road, overlooking fields and woodland under a pocked and mottled cheesy sky. Didn’t really remember getting here.
Mrs Morningwood had pulled up a piano stool with a black velvet seat to the foot of the chaise longue. Arranging a blue woollen travelling rug over Merrily’s legs. Bending over her feet now, reading glasses on her nose. Separating the toes and then running a thumbnail along one sole; it felt like a Stanley knife. Blanking out the pain, Merrily scrabbled for a question unrelated to her state of health.
‘Why did Jacques de Molay come to Garway?’
‘Who?’
‘Templar boss.’
‘Haven’t got a heart condition, have you?’
‘Not that I’m aware of.’
‘Should’ve asked before I started. Remiss of me. Jacques de Molay. I suppose it’s more or less established that he did come here. About twelve years before his unfortunate death, I believe.’
‘Where would he have …? Oh my—’
‘Your stomach, darling. Tight as a drum. Intestines wound up like a watch spring. And then something implodes. I think you’re rather close to an ulcer. What’ve you been doing?’ Mrs Morningwood stood back, deep lines in her long face, all her features hard-focused in the sunless light. ‘You really weren’t aware of this? At all?’
‘No, I … God!’
‘It’ll get less painful after a while. At first, you know, I was thinking premature menopause.’
‘What?’
‘No stigma. Sometimes happens to girls in their twenties. Probably isn’t. Probably plain stress. Never had reflexology before?’
‘Well …’ Rolling her head in the pillow ‘… Not quite like this. Not the seriously painful kind.’
‘Some so-called practitioners are merely playing at it. Feelgood, massage-parlour stuff, bugger-all use to anybody. Sorry, darling, what was your question?’
‘De Molay. I was trying to ask you where he might have stayed. When he was here.’
‘You really need to rest. A holiday. When did you last have a holiday?’
‘Four years? Five? I don’t know, we weren’t living here then. Another lifetime.’
‘I can feel other people’s problems curled up tightly inside you, stored away in little sacks.’
The Stanley knife again, biting into the side of a big toe.
‘Sacks that swell,’ Mrs Morningwood said.
Merrily shut her eyes. This was not going the way it was supposed to. The plan had been to walk in, eyes wide open, go for some straight answers: Mrs Morningwood, you didn’t just accidentally bump into Jane and me the other day, you had an agenda and presumably still have. Why did you court Jane with your revelations about the four pubs and the heavenly bodies? Why were you so keen that we should check out the Master House while you buggered off?
The pain faded. She let her head sink into the pillow. With her usual uncompromising dynamism, she’d staggered up the path, under a wooden pergola still lush with vines. Still trying to find a doorbell or a knocker when the door had opened and she’d virtually fallen over the threshold.
‘I suppose you’re thinking of the Master House,’ Mrs Morningwood said. ‘It would make sense of the name, certainly. Doubtless the sort of grand celebrity occasion they’d have wanted to commemorate.’
‘Nobody know for sure?’
‘So little from that period was written down, Mrs Watkins. Not exactly known for their illuminated script, the Templars. Didn’t keep diaries or ledgers, far as I know.’
‘Being illiterate couldn’t have helped. No word-of-mouth, old wives’ tales about why de Molay came?’
‘He was presumably inspecting the preceptory. Why does it interest you?’
‘Trying to get a handle on the place, that’s all. To what extent it’s connected to the Templars.’
A log collapsed in the range, gases spurting, Merrily starting to sweat.
‘Good.’ Mrs Morningwood didn’t look up, working on a toe with both hands, like peeling a plum. ‘You’re probably full of toxins. I’d hate to even inquire about your diet.’
‘Mostly vegetarian. Bit of fish.’
‘Bit of this, bit of that, I know. A vegetarian diet needs to be carefully organized or there’ll be deficiencies. Looks of you, I bet you don’t even bother to eat at all half the time.’
‘You find life isn’t something that happens between meals.’
‘Life, my darling, needs to be battered into shape.’
‘Easier said than— Oh, for … I thought you said it’d get less painful.’
‘I expect I lied,’ Mrs Morningwood said.
When Merrily awoke, still on the chaise longue, the light in the two windows was blue-grey and the light in the cast-iron range was molten red, like the crater of a live volcano. Like the sun through the glass of red wine she’d been given. The sun had been out then, when she’d drunk it. Gone now, the sun and the wine.
Mrs Morningwood was rocking gently in the bentwood chair, smoking. Merrily raised herself up on her elbows.
‘What was in it?’
‘Nothing much. Valerian, mainly.’
‘What’s that do?’
‘A remedy for nervous debility. Unclenches the gut. Promotes sleep, quite rapidly sometimes.’
‘You didn’t tell me that.’
‘Of course I didn’t tell you that — you’d’ve buggered off.’
‘This wasn’t supposed to …’ Merrily’s head fell back. ‘How long have I been here now?’
‘Why are you so obsessed with time? You’ve been here as long as was necessary.’
‘Right.’
‘Don’t get up yet, Watkins, you might fall over.’
Couldn’t have if she’d wanted to. Merrily felt limp and disconnected and distinctly odd but not in a bad way. And not, as she’d feared, in a drugged way. Something seemed to be vibrating inside her, like a motor idling.
‘Where did you learn all this stuff?’
‘The basic herbalism — and it is basic — was from my mother and she had it from her mother and so on.’
Always be a Morningwood on Garway Hill, as long as badgers shit on the White Rocks.
Right. Merrily felt like someone abducted by aliens, taken away to the mother ship, physically investigated, brought back. Mrs Morningwood supervising the experiment.
‘Wasn’t complicated, darling. Bad diet, insufficient sleep and nervous stress. You’ll sleep well tonight, probably wee quite a lot first, mind. And after that it’s up to you. The reflexology, picked that up in London. Seemed to be something I could do, almost from the outset. Technique might go back to ancient Egypt — who knows that the Templars didn’t bring it back from the Middle East? Although it’s not, as far as I know, in th
e traditional repertoire of the nine witches of Garway.’
‘Garway’s loss. I expect.’
‘You feel better.’
Merrily eased herself up again, nodded slowly, very aware of the movements of her neck, the fulcrum of bones.
‘I feel — a bit worryingly — relaxed.’
‘Smoke if you want to. Why worryingly relaxed? You feel guilty about relaxation?’
‘Teddy Murray says it’s a function of the clergy to appear totally placid at all times. I realize that’s his excuse for spending hours strolling the hills, but maybe there’s something— How much do I actually owe you, Mrs Morningwood?’
‘Owe?’
‘It’s going dark, I’ve been here over half a day—’
‘Lots of other tasks were performed in between. You just didn’t notice.’
Mrs Morningwood arose from the chair, went over to the range. There was an earthenware teapot on the hob. She detached a brown mug from a hook.
‘But since you mention recompense, sadly from your point of view I’m not much of a Christian, so yes, I have every intention of extracting payment in kind.’
‘Oh.’
‘What brought you here — feeling of failure?’
‘Partly.’
‘What could you have done?’ Mrs Morningwood brought over the cup, steaming. ‘It’s only tea, weak as gnat’s piss, and I can assure you there’s nothing in it that will send you back to sleep. What do you think you might have done to save either of them?’
‘Could’ve believed her. Thank you.’ Merrily sipped, holding the mug in both hands, swinging her feet tentatively to the floor. ‘Although I had no reason to at the time.’
Drinking the weak tea slowly, telling Mrs Morningwood how Fuchsia had claimed to have been haunted by something which, it transpired, had been invented by M. R. James.
‘Interesting.’
‘You’ve read that one?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘And you knew James was in Garway?’
‘My grandmother met him. And the girl — his ward, Jane McBryde. But that’s by the by. So Fuchsia Mary Linden borrowed Monty’s seaside ghost. How very imaginative of her.’
‘What’s that say to you?’
‘Only that she didn’t want to tell you — or Barlow — what actually happened to her in the Master House.’
‘Which was?’
‘How should I know?’
‘She wanted me to bless her, give her protection. Before she came back here.’
‘And then, afterwards, she returned and battered Barlow to death. What do you know about Barlow’s history?’
‘Not a great deal.’ Merrily thought about it; where was this going? ‘He spent time in a tepee community in West Wales where he met Fuchsia’s mother, who was already pregnant. Felix was a bit in love with her and also, I think, felt sorry for her. He said she was … fragile. And he seems to have accepted a role as a kind of godfather … guardian. Tragically sealing his own fate, if you want to be—’
‘Tepee community,’ Mrs Morningwood said.
‘Tepee City. In Cardiganshire.’
‘Why did Barlow go there?’
‘Gap year was all he said.’
‘No such thing in those days, darling.’
‘I think he was probably being ironic. It was just a year between leaving school and having to do something responsible connected with his dad’s building supplies business. Which maybe didn’t seem very appealing at a time when everyone else seemed to be sleeping around and taking exotic drugs.’
‘Did he …’ Mrs Morningwood sat on the piano stool ‘… mention being a part of any other community? Before Wales?’
‘No, he didn’t. What are you thinking of?’
‘I’m thinking of the one that was in occupation at the Master House in the 1970s, when the Newtons were repeatedly leasing it out.’
‘Don’t know anything about it.’ Merrily finally brought out her cigarettes. ‘Some kind of good-life smallholding — did you tell me that?’
‘Good life? Not me, darling. Bastards couldn’t even grow their own dope. The house was leased by the Newtons to an honourable — son of some minor member of the Midlands aristocracy. Newtons were well pleased, at first. Not realizing he’d turn out to be the kind of dissolute, overprivileged hooray hippie that could turn … I don’t know, Sandringham into a shell in a matter of weeks.’
‘Anybody I’ve heard of?’
‘Shouldn’t think so. Lord Stourport?’
Merrily shook her head.
‘Endless rumours about the things that went on there,’ Mrs Morningwood said. ‘Orgies and the rest. Nude bathing in the Monnow. Place would probably’ve been burned to the ground, result of some discarded spliff, if there hadn’t been a rather timely police raid. Result of which Lord Cokehead was sent down for three months or so. Lease effectively terminated.’
‘So why would Felix Barlow have been there?’
‘Most of the hoorays couldn’t replace a washer on a bloody tap, so anybody who was halfway practical was welcome to move into one of the sheds, drugs on the house, long as he brought his tools. That’s what I was told, anyway — wouldn’t know anything for sure, all this happened while I was … away.’
‘Well … Felix was indeed a very practical man, but I’m not getting why you think he would’ve been at the Master House. In fact …’ Merrily sat up, the cigarette halfway to her mouth. ‘What is your angle on this, Mrs Morningwood? Where are you actually coming from? Like, what did you mean when you said on the phone that someone didn’t do a terribly good job?’
Merrily slumped on to the edge of the chaise longue. Her body felt weak but the low vibration was still there and went cruising up into her head, bringing on a dizziness.
‘Steady, girl. You got the works, you know.’
Mrs Morningwood turned and threw the remains of her cigarette, with practised accuracy, into the heart of the fire.
Merrily lay back against the pillows. The windows had dimmed, crimson caverns opening up in the iron range. Roscoe, the wolfhound rose up and stretched, his front legs extended, revealing the black smudges of old burn marks on the rug where he’d been lying.
Mrs Morningwood stood up and moved across to the ebony desk. Sound of a drawer sliding open. She bent and drew the piano stool towards the well of the desk, switching on a green-shaded oil lamp converted to electricity.
Placing a fold of paper on the floodlit blotter and beckoning Merrily over.
‘Sit there. Won’t take you long to read it. I have to go and shut the chickens in for the night. Toilet’s back into the hall, second left. You’ll probably need it now you’ve been on your feet.’
Merrily sat looking down at the paper, pooled in lamplight, apple green. She opened it out.
‘What is it?’
‘A suicide note,’ Mrs Morningwood said. ‘Kind of. With hindsight.’
29
Like a Ghost
SITTING ON THE lavatory, bent over, elbows on her knees, head in her hands, Merrily was holding the first sentences in her head.
People say death is like sleep.
I just hope they’re wrong. Sometimes I think I must be very close to death and I hate sleep more than anything.
It wasn’t the original, that was clear. There was no address, and — she’d looked at the bottom — no signature. Mrs Morningwood, or somebody, must have copied it into a computer.
When she came out of the downstairs bathroom, a bit fresher, Mrs Morningwood had returned and was stripping off her old Barbour, hanging it in the whitewashed hall, fluffing up her hair — the first conspicuously feminine thing Merrily had seen her do.
‘You’ve read it?’
‘I had to stop. Had to … go.’
Mrs Morningwood nodded, and Merrily went back to the desk in the living room.
You wouldnt know me Muriel. Theres nothing of me no more I am so thin and my head feels like a rotten egg sometimes and what can you do with a rotten egg
except get as far away from it as possible. But you can’t, can you, if it’s inside your head day and night and all your dreams are addled. (See, I remember all about eggs. They were the good times.)
Merrily looked up.
‘This is a girl?’
‘Poor little darkie.’
Mrs Morningwood came over to the desk. Brought out a small leather photo album and began thumbing through it.
‘It was what people called her. Almost a novelty in the 1970s, a black girl in these parts. Mixed race, actually. Used to come here on holiday with her parents, in a caravan on a farm at Bagwyllydiart. There.’
The photo, its colours faded, showed two girls sitting together on a five-bar gate.
‘That’s … you?’
‘Frightening, isn’t it?’
The young Muriel, willowy and lovely, linking arms with the other girl, who was laughing so hard that her face was fuzzed and her white hoop earrings had ghosts.
‘They were from Coventry. Black father, white mother. They didn’t appear one year and then we heard the parents had broken up. Learning later — from the poor kid herself — that she was being interfered with by the mother’s new man. She’d’ve been fifteen or sixteen. Ran away a couple of times, finally hitch-hiking to just about the only place that had good memories for her.’
‘Here?’
‘Twenty quid in her pocket. Got picked up by the chip man — there was a chap in Monmouth ran two or three fish-and-chip vans, came out to the villages one or two days a week. He recognized her, picked her up, gave her a job in his shop in Monmouth, let her sleep in the room over the top. Until his wife found out.’
‘Oh.’
‘It was probably quite innocent. She’d never have told, anyway. He was there when she needed help. Upshot of it, she turned up at our door, ended up moving in. Would’ve been on the streets otherwise.’
I’m sorry to keep on at you but you were always strong and I dont know anybody else I can tell who wouldn’t just hate me more.