Authors: Phil Rickman
'How old was she?'
'No age,' Moira said. 'No damned age at all.' She blew her nose.
I let her down, Davey. I was so smug and hard and self-sufficient. She was looking
out for me all this time, and I couldny see it.'
'Looking out for you?'
'We had a link. You all know about the comb, right?'
She looked across at Prof. 'I know the song you did,' he said.
'About the girl who's given this mystical comb and becomes, like, a princess,
glamorous.'
'Was a real comb,' Moira said. She told him about being
reunited with her mother at the age of twelve, being sent along a whole new
life-path. 'The comb was this kind of symbolic link between us. It was very
old. Celtic. A family heirloom.'
'
Was
?' Dave said.
'I buried it with her. Maybe that was stupid. Donald - he was
ma mammy's minder, kind of - he thought it was insane. Thing is, I'm no' gonna have
a kid of my own to pass it on to. I mean, like, I wouldn't, anyway, burden a
kid with this hassle.'
'I got a terrific kid,' Tom said. 'And yeah, she's got somefink.
She's starting to
see
, you know? I
try not to fink too hard about it, and she don't say much. Never has, to me. We
look at one anovver, and we know. She's close. Too close, you know? Soon's I
woke up this morning, I could feel her reaching out. Bad news, getting close to
me. It was starting to destroy Shelley.'
The morning was a dark one, as usual, because of the mist.
Three red pilot lights winked on the mixing desk and the aluminium decks of the
recording machines.
'There's this geezer fancies Shelley,' Tom said. 'Businessman.
Got hisself a chain of supermarkets. But not a bad guy, really. Normal, yeah? Maybe
Shelley should go wiv him, that's what I've been thinking. Maybe it's the last
chance she'll get to live a normal life.'
Simon said, 'And Meryl?'
'She works for the guy. She's a bit of a loony - finks it's a
game.' Dave groaned. 'But she's strong. She ain't easily fazed.
Don't misunderstand. Ain't much between us,
like. Convenience. Anyway, I was finking maybe if Shel goes off with this
geezer, Vanessa'd have a better chance. Then, when she's grown-up, she can come
and find me if she wants to. Maybe I'll give her a family heirloom.'
Tom smiled sadly.
'She's got Down's Syndrome, right?' Moira said.
Tom nodded. 'That's the
complication. Down's Syndrome and psychic, I don't know what kind of
combination that is.'
'Probably nobody knows,' said
Simon.
It was all so much less
mystical in the morning. It had become a slight problem.
'What are we going to do about you?' Meryl asked, as Vanessa
helped herself to muesli with extra raisins. 'Take you into Abergavenny for
some new clothes, for starters.'
It would be as well to get out of the house. Simon had said
the woman came every Wednesday to give it a thorough clean, top to bottom.
And going shopping was always a good practical move; it was
relaxing and it gave you breathing space. Immediately after breakfast, Meryl put
Vanessa into the Peugeot and they set off along roads which were becoming
familiar, through countryside Meryl was developing quite a feel for.
As soon as they were out of the valley, the mist thinning, she
started to look out for the Skirrid.
She'd been dipping into Simon's books, starting with the local
guides - Meryl always liked to know precisely where she was - and following up
interesting items in a couple of border folklore volumes.
Always coming back to the Skirrid.
This hill made marvellous connections for Meryl. A link
between Christianity and … and
Britain
.
That was what was always so wrong with the religion she'd been taught in school.
It was all so remote, so
foreign
. Meryl had wanted someone to assure
her that this -
this England, this Wales
-
this
was the holy land, just as
much as the Middle East, where the Muslims and the Jews were forever at each
other's throats.
But where was it, this holy mountain?
'Where's the Skirrid, Vanessa, do you know?'
Vanessa didn't reply. She sat calmly in the passenger seat in
her crumpled school blazer. Meryl had wanted to press it, but Vanessa wouldn't
let her. She knew her own mind, this child, that was for certain. Seemed to
know her limitations. And her potential?
Only child of the seventh son of a seventh son. It must mean something.
But whatever went on inside her head, she was still a problem.
When, last night, she'd asked if Grandad could come in too, because he was
cold, Meryl had looked up in great apprehension, half-expecting to see a lofty,
cloudy entity with a pitifully damaged face looming out of the mist. And knowing,
full of shivers ...
that she could never
close a door on Grandad.
She'd seen nothing, thank the Lord. And felt nothing.
But Weasel? Vanessa had wanted Weasel to come in as well.
The little man with the long, greasy
hair and the ruined smile, Shelley's driver. How did he come into this? Why
would he be with Vanessa and the Man with Two Mouths, unless ...
Oh lord.
Where's Weasel. Weasel's
not...
No! No!
The child dragging at her arm when she'd picked up the phone
to ring Shelley. Hysteria in the air.
And not another word out of her that made any sense.
Meryl, feeling suddenly overburdened, realised she'd been
staring through the windscreen at the Skirrid for about ten minutes. Only it
was from a different angle than in the picture in the guidebook. From here, she
could see two humps, a big one and a little
one which was fuzzed around the edges as if there'd
been quarrying. Meryl had read about people taking holy earth' from the Skirrid
and bringing it down, using it on their gardens and in the foundations of buildings.
'Yes,' she said. 'Why not? Indeed, why not? Maybe you'll speak
to the Skirrid.'
Eddie laid out his papers
on the gate-leg dining-table.
'Let's take it from the beginning,'
he said.
'But when is the beginning?' Isabel
put her glasses on her nose. 'What's this?'
'That's a photocopy of what Giraldus has to say. Which isn't
much, and you have to be careful with Giraldus, as is always the case with
these medieval historians. They wrote to please. They had to. Write up the
wrong history and your head would end up on a spike. See, this line ...'
Eddie pointed.
William de Braose was not the instigator of the atrocity which I
have preferred to pass over in silence. He was not the author of it, and, indeed,
he played no part in it at all. If he was responsible in any
way, it was because he did
nothing to stop it.
'Talk about a whitewash,' Eddie said. 'Well, we know this now,
of course. We know that Giraldus was dependent on the goodwill of de Braose and
actually changed his story from the first edition to the second. There is no
question that de Braose ordered the massacre and was, if not a participant, at
least a cheering spectator. Now. Giraldus also goes on, in a subsequent chapter,
to record that de Braose was one of a number of barons who gave large donations
towards the building of the new abbey at Ystrad Ddu. This ...
this
I am inclined to believe.'
'So what's new about that?' Isabel said. 'People have always
thrown money at the church, trying to buy their way into heaven.'
'Hmmm.' Eddie tapped the paper. 'I think Giraldus is trying to
tell us something here, that's what I think. Let's go back. Richard Walden,
now, despoiler of novices and altar boys. What we have here is not just a man who
cannot control his urges but a man who will use his position, his status, to
gratify those urges.'
'Again, what's new?'
'Try and follow my reasoning, girl. Not a humble man, see,
wasn't Richard, before his alleged vision. No great humility afterwards,
either, if he's going around soliciting large grants from wealthy Norman
barons. This ...' Eddie shook the photocopied works of Giraldus Cambrensis '...
this is not the kind of man to whom holy visions are granted.'
'What about St Paul? He was no
angel.'
'What?' Eddie rose up spluttering.
'Where is it recorded that St Paul introduced his member to defenceless
choirboys?' Then, remembering who he was talking to, sat down again. 'Sorry, my
dear. Get carried away, I do.'
'Don't feel you have to spare my feelings, Eddie. Everybody
within a fifteen-mile radius of Ystrad knows I'm not a virgin ... by about
three seconds .. .'
Eddie felt himself blush. Isabel parted his hand. 'I hope you're
not suggesting Simon ...'
'Good
God
no! No,
what I am saying, see ... Here's the Abbey, a great religious house founded by
a malignant pederast and lavishly financed out of the ill-gotten fortunes of
brutal marcher lords. Suppose they were all friends or associates of de Braose.
Suppose de Braose was repaying a favour.'
'And suppose,' said Isabel, wagging a finger and rocking her
chair in sudden excitement, 'that Richard Walden's vision, if it happened at
all, was not what you'd call a
holy
vision. The candles, I'm thinking of, the horrible brown candles made from ...
you know.'
'You're saying the man was a devil worshipper?'
'You've as good as said it yourself Eddie. You've been talking
all around it. For days.'
'Yes,' said Eddie, going very still. 'I believe I have. It
just didn't seem a scholarly conclusion.'
'Well, stuff that. What's scholarly matter if it feels right?'
'You know what you're saying, don't you?'
'I don't know,' Isabel said, looking worried. 'What
am
I saying?'
'That the Abbey is a satanic abbey, founded upon evil, built upon
black soil.'
'No skin off my nose,' said Isabel.
'And if you believe that these candles were ... sent ... to
Simon, then it's difficult to imagine he has not come to the same conclusion.'
'I suppose he must.'
'So what are we saying now?'
'I think ... I
know
he's a good man.'
Eddie sighed. 'I thought that too. But if, knowing what we
think he knows, he has gone back to that place, to live there for a week, in
that tower, surrounded by the decaying legacy of evil. And no safer in decay,
mind.'
'Less safe,' Isabel said. 'I speak from experience.'
'Yes. Er … He hesitated, 'I never liked to ask, Isabel, but what
is the problem exactly, with your ...'
'Lower half? They could never agree, you know what doctors are
like. At first it was spinal shock due to severely compressed nerves. I'm
lucky. I still have control of my bowels and waterworks. Well... let's say they
came back. Nothing else, though. Crushed nerves, if they don't spring back into
shape within a couple of years, you've had it. Twenty-one years? Well ...'
Isabel failed to smile.
'You must hate the very thought of that place.'
'My own fault. Everybody says so. The Abbey's a holy place, not
to be desecrated.'
'Hmmm,' Eddie said, reminded of something important. 'Tell me
... did you do that sum on your calculator?'
There was a large shovel of coal on the hearth. Isabel wheeled
herself over, lifted it with one hand and tipped the coal into the stove.