Authors: Phil Rickman
10
A better place
T
HE CITY OF
Hereford seemed to be dying, the way a venerable tree died, from the centre outwards – long-established businesses left to rot while councillors turned away to nurture their doomed, peripheral shopping mall, hand-feeding it with taxpayers’ money badly-needed elsewhere.
Most people were saying that, but nothing came to save the city.
Still, it was one of the few English cities where, in the absence of high-rise offices and flats, the oldest buildings were still dominant. The spired All Saints Church, on the corner where Broad Street met High Town, was probably packing in more worshippers these days, Merrily was thinking, than at any time in its history.
Except that they were coming to worship lunch. Half the church was a restaurant now, part self-service and not expensive enough to deter vicars. She’d followed Sophie to the upstairs gallery overlooking the business end where a ghost was said to play the organ.
Something authentically medieval about having lunch in a still-active town centre church. Merrie Englande. If you looked up from your table, you could see a little carved wooden man with his legs in the air, flashing his bits from the ceiling frieze.
‘She rang again,’ Sophie said.
‘What, since this morning? It’s been nearly a month. She hasn’t even returned my calls.’
‘She’s probably not entirely rational, but she
is
clearly distressed.’
A man at the next table was telling his woman companion that Hereford needed to take its lead from towns like Ludlow and Hay-on-Wye and attract more tourism and high-quality independent retailers with whom the Internet could not compete. Sophie unwound her silver silk scarf.
‘The point of contention is Ms Merchant’s continued insistence that she didn’t ask you to get rid of her partner.’
‘I wouldn’t use those words, would I?’
‘I told her I presumed you’d offer prayers aimed at guiding Ms Norris to a better place. But it seems clear that Ms Merchant’s idea of a better place is… her bedroom.’
Merrily poured sparkling water into two glasses.
‘I thought it was sentiment, grief – entirely understandable. I offered to help her move the second bed into another room. Which was very much the wrong thing to say.’
‘I suppose,’ Sophie said, ‘one can understand why immediately disposing of her partner’s bed might make her feel in some way disloyal. And yet the very presence of the bed might, on first waking, with one’s senses a little befuddled…’
‘You come out of a dream, your mind’s holding an image. It’s projected into an empty bed. She really wasn’t open to that kind of explanation. As for keeping that chair in the bedroom…’
‘The very symbol of a secretary. I’m not sure I particularly like what that implies.’
‘I’m not sure whether it’s just morbid or, as you say, a bit sinister. What does she expect from me now? She tell you that?’
‘Not in a way that was comprehensible to me.’
‘When she said Ms Nott was not smiling any more, did you get the idea that was more a reflection of the way
she
was feeling? Or that the image had gone?’
‘She wouldn’t be drawn. And it wasn’t my business to do that.’
‘How well do you know her, Sophie? She said they both came to services at the Cathedral.’
‘Didn’t really
know
either of them, but I remember them, vaguely. Tall woman, quite formally dressed, and a smaller woman. Younger, I think. Quite plain. Demure – although that might be with hindsight.’
‘Boss and secretary.’
‘You
might
think that.’
‘You see, at first, I had the impression that what Sylvia Merchant wanted from me was simply reassurance that what was happening to her was quite normal. That she wasn’t deluded. I told her how commonplace it was. That there was nothing to worry about. And then it all slowly became…
ab
normal. She started asking questions about me that went beyond the usual pleasantries. She knew about what we do. She’d gone into it. But clearly what we do… wasn’t what she wanted.’
‘I’m assuming,’ Sophie said, as lunch arrived, ‘that, in normal circumstances, this would have begun and ended with prayer.’ She looked up at the waitress. ‘Splendid. Thank you.’
Merrily waited until they were alone again, apart from the wooden flasher in the ceiling.
‘Far too early to suggest anything like a Requiem Eucharist. Which, under the circs, would not have been exactly welcomed.’
‘So, did your response… differ in
any
way from the normal?’
Something here she wasn’t being told. Merrily looked for Sophie’s eyes but they were lowered over her feta cheese salad.
‘I may have formed the impression that, rather than arranging a delicate parting of the ways, I was being asked to bless a… oh God… a continuing relationship? She was saying Alys Nott was with us in that room. The dent in the pillow. The chair which, shortly after I’d stood up, creaked, as if someone else had sat down…’
‘Eerie.’
‘I need to see her again, don’t I?’
‘I think not, Merrily.’ Sophie still didn’t look up. ‘The Bishop happened to be there when I was dealing with the call and asked me what it was about. His opinion was that this was something
in which, ah… in which it was better that Deliverance should not be involved.’
‘Bernie said that? Better for whom?’
‘Better for you, certainly. Better for Ms Merchant, in the long term. And – presumably – better for poor Ms Nott. So I’m afraid I had to call Ms Merchant back and tell her that I’d forgotten you were on holiday. And that another priest would come to see her.’
‘What?’
‘Didn’t have a choice in the matter.’
‘Who?’
‘Likely to be George Curtiss.’
Cathedral canon. Large, bearded, well known for diplomatic skills.
Bloody
hell
.
‘Merrily…’ Sophie was looking up at last, cutlery abandoned. ‘… your role, surely, is primarily as an adviser on the paranormal. In most cases an adviser to the clergy.’
‘But once I’m involved—’
‘Once it becomes clear it’s a
mental health
issue, some form of delusional grief, it might require an entirely different approach. Let it go, Merrily. You need a holiday. You need to spend time with Jane.’
‘What exactly did Sylvia Merchant say to panic Bernie? Because I can’t imagine, from what you’ve told me so far…’
Sophie’s eyes narrowed.
‘We’ll talk about it back at the gatehouse.’
11
Without comfort
M
ISTAKE
. T
HE GATEHOUSE
office was Sophie’s domain. Sophie’s eyrie at the top of a narrow staircase, overlooking Broad Street and the Cathedral Green.
‘So… Laurence,’ Sophie said. ‘
Did
he go, in the end?’
Merrily looked out of the window, an irritable rain bubbling the glass, smudging the people crossing the Green with their heads down into the weather.
‘Yes. He went. I think he wanted me to say don’t do it.’
‘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
.