The Wine of Angels (30 page)

Jane looked at the matchstick-limbed, gossamer-winged things clinging to the rims of cups and plaques, perched on the tops of shelves, the edges of picture frames.

‘Nothing like those, Jane, I’m afraid. Those are the traditional forms that everybody knows, and if one is to create an impression of the spirit in nature, that’s the one people are normally prepared to accept, even as a joke. If one were to create an effigy of a
real
tree spirit, as they’re more often perceived by those able to, the customers would be disturbed and I’d have a reputation as something a good deal worse than a lunatic crone.’

‘Tree spirits?’

‘For want of a more credible term. Essences, whatever you want to call them. They are, in fact, more perceptible in and around fruit-bearing trees. The female trees. That’s why I was so outraged by all this nonsensical talk of the oldest tree in the orchard as the Apple Tree
Man.
Not a feminist thing, simply the way it is.’

‘But I still don’t understand why the apples were called Farises Red. Were they supposed to belong to the fairies?’

‘What you have,’ said Lucy, ‘is a belief in some supernatural intervention in the creation of this particular apple. It’s a not-so-rare blending of paganism, as we’re forced to call it, and Christianity. The church being, for much of its history, in the very centre of the orchard. Which came first, I wouldn’t like to say, though I suspect the orchard. Perhaps there was a pre-Christian shrine where the church now stands, we can’t say, we can but speculate.’

‘Oh, w—’ Jane swallowed. Waited. Lucy detached one of the tiny fairies from a shelf edge, held it up to the light.

‘Translucence, you see. That’s the essence of it. As fine as air. Spirits of the air. The spirits of the earth, goblins and things, are denser. The tree elves are brown and green. They’re the protective and motivating forces in nature. Some of them are of limited intelligence but, like us, they evolve. I find it impossible to explain the phenomenon of life without them.’

‘Mum might not be sympathetic’

Lucy thought for a moment, her lips becoming a tight bud.

After a while she said, ‘The great mystery of life can be approached in terms of pure physics – the electronic soup of atoms and particles. And also in religious terms. Terms, that’s all it is, Jane. Traherne never speaks of elves or devas, but he refers all the time to angels. Cherubim and seraphim and cupids who pass through the air bringing love. Traherne is full of coded references – we know of his interest in the ancient occult philosophy of Hermes Trismegistus, we know from the writings of John Aubrey that Traherne was psychic.

But in those days, as you know, one had to be extremely cautious.’

‘Or you ended up like Wil Williams?’

‘Precisely, Jane. Williams, we know, was Traherne’s protege as well as his neighbour. I think Wil was a little too incautious in his attempts to walk with the angels.’

Jane said, ‘Mum doesn’t have much to say about angels. Angels are not cool in today’s streetwise Church. I mean ...’

‘Angelic forces correspond to what are called devic presences. The devas are the prime movers, if you like, in the structure. A deva may control a whole area, a whole sphere of activity, or an ecosystem.’

‘Like an orchard?’ Jane said automatically.

Lucy positively purred with pleasure. ‘You’re making the leaps. You’re receiving help. The channel was opened – you know when.’

‘I thought it was just the cider.’

‘Oh, the cider’s very much a part of it. The cider’s the blood of the orchard. It’s in your blood now. I felt at once that it had to be one or both of you.’

‘Us?’

‘You and Merrily.’

‘She won’t want to know,’ Jane said.

Jane returned just before six. She said trade had not been exactly brisk, but a nice Brummie couple with a corgi had bought a set of four hand-painted apple-shaped cups and saucers for sixty-four pounds.

‘Thank heavens for people with no taste,’ Jane said.

Merrily noticed she had with her a copy of the Penguin edition of selected poems and prose by Thomas Traherne.

‘You bought that with your wages?’

‘Lucy gave it to me. I refused to take any wages. It’s fun playing shop.’

‘You going to actually read it?’

‘Of course I’m going to read it. Traherne’s cool’

‘Oh. Right. Should’ve realized. Why is he cool?’

‘Because he could see that we were surrounded by all this beauty, but we didn’t appreciate it, and we were quite likely to destroy it. Which was pretty prophetic thinking back in the mid-seventeenth century, when there was no industry and no insecticides and things.’

‘Fair enough,’ Merrily said.

‘And he said we should enjoy the world. Get a buzz out of it. Get high on nature. Like, God wanted us to be happy.’

‘Like have parties and things?’

‘You know,’ Jane said, ‘you kind of make me sick sometimes. You’re so smug.’

Merrily said nothing. Oh, dear. One of
those
moods.

And yet – thinking about it – she hadn’t been at all sullen or sulky of late. Just distant, more self-contained. As if there was something going on inside her. Which, of course, there would be at her age, all kinds of volatile chemicals sloshing about.

A boy?

Possibly. But why would she hide that? She’d never hidden it in the past. No, this was something to do with Miss Devenish. Twice Jane had disappeared, twice she’d turned up with Lucy Devenish.

But I rather
like
Lucy Devenish.

Merrily lit a cigarette. Should she go and talk to the old girl?

Jane went up to her apartment to work on her Mondrian walls. This apparently involved painting the irregular rectangles between the oak beams in blue, black, red and white. The Listed Buildings inspector would probably come out in the same colours if he ever saw it. Still, as even Merrily wasn’t allowed to see it ...

What the hell ... Sometimes kids should be allowed – even encouraged – to behave bizarrely. Merrily finished her cigarette then went to put some supper together.

When Jane came down to eat, she dropped the big one.

‘I’ll probably go to church tomorrow.’

‘Sorry?’ Merrily turned from the Aga, dropping a slice of hot focaccia in shock. ‘What did you just say?’

‘I think you heard.’

‘All right, flower,’ Merrily said calmly, ‘you go and lie down, I’ll call the doctor.’

‘Very funny.’

Jane walked over to the kitchen window. There was a sunset blush on the lawn. Merrily gazed out, a little bewildered, unsure how to handle this development. She’d made a point of never exerting any pressure to get the kid into a service. Admittedly, it would be politic for the minister’s daughter to be present at her mother’s official installation ceremony with the bishop next Friday, and to persuade Jane to come, she’d planned a small deal – after the service, she could go on to Colette Cassidy’s birthday party, no restrictions.

It looked as if no deal would be needed. Who was the influence? Thomas Traherne? Miss Devenish, more like. She should be delighted, but somehow she felt rather offended.

She took in a big breath. ‘Jane.’

‘Huh?’

‘What happened the day you didn’t go to school?’

Jane looked at her, almost through her. The dark blue eyes were completely blank. She’d seen eyes like that on kids a year or two older than Jane, up in Liverpool; they were usually on drugs.

Merrily tried not to panic. ‘Tell me what happened, Jane.’

‘She told you,’ Jane said almost wildly. ‘Lucy told you.’

‘I want to hear it from you.’

‘You don’t believe me.’

‘You haven’t told me anything not to believe.’

A shadow seemed to pass between them. She remembered how, as a small child, Jane would conceal small things – an old tennis ball, once, that she’d found in the garden – for fear they would be taken away from her if her mother found out. At the age of ten, she’d got hold of a thick paperback by Jilly Cooper, hiding it under a panel in the floor of her wardrobe like it was real hard porn.

‘You’re all the same.’ The kid’s face suddenly crumpled like a tissue. ‘You think you know everything.’

‘What ...’ Merrily moved towards her. ‘What’s wrong, flower?’

‘You ...’ Jane backed away, something inflamed about her eyes. ‘You stand up there in your pulpit, Mrs sodding Holier-than-thou, and you drivel on about the Virgin Birth and the Holy bloody Ghost, the same stuff, over and over and over again, and—’

‘Jane? What’s all this about?’

‘What’s the fucking use? I don’t think I’ll bother with any supper. I’ll just go to bed.’

‘You’re not making a word of sense, do you know that? What’s brought this on? Can we talk about it?’

Jane just stamped past her, gripping the copy of Traherne.

It must be ... what? Three a.m.?

The alarm clock ticking, very loud in the big bedroom with hardly any furniture. The clock – an old-fashioned one with twin bells, none of your cell-battery bleepers in this house – set for five-thirty because there was Holy Communion at eight. Only about half a dozen people last week, mainly pensioners, including Uncle Ted out of familial loyalty.

She thought about Jane, then, and her mind flooded with anxiety. Once again, the kid had a secret she was afraid might be taken away from her. This time it would not be so innocuous.

She drifted away again, with the ticking of the alarm clock. A night breeze ruffled the trees. And the sounds overhead. Footsteps. Very soft. Bare feet, slithering.

Merrily was icily awake.

The room – one pine wardrobe, one small table, one bed – was grey-washed by the moon behind clouds like smoke. She lifted up an arm, and that also was grey, as though her skin was transparent and her body was filled with moon gases which made it very light, and so she didn’t even remember getting out of bed and moving to the door.
I’m dreaming,
she told herself.
This is a dream.
But she didn’t wake up.

Outside were the doors, concealing mournful, derelict rooms that would never be filled. Rooms where even the memories were stale. She was alone on the first floor of Ledwardine Vicarage. A bathroom, a toilet and four bedrooms, only one slept in. She was alone on this level, while Jane paced overhead, angrily painting her walls by night. Was this part of her secret? Was the secret simply that she had to have secrets, a private life?

Merrily shivered; it would soon be summer and the night-house was November-cold.

The nighthouse.
A different place, a colder place.

The noises overhead had stopped. Well, all right, if Jane wanted to paint in the night, that was up to her. It was the weekend; she could keep her own hours in her own apartment. Merrily, on the other hand, needed her sleep if she was going to be up and bathed and breakfasted in time for Holy Communion.

She found herself standing by the stairs, a hand on the oak rail, a foot on the first step to the third storey. She looked up quickly and thought she saw a light glowing, and then she turned away, took a step back. It was Jane’s storey, Jane’s apartment, none of her business. But in the moment she turned away, she felt an aching sense of impending loss.

She would go back to bed, try for two more hours’ sleep. She turned to her door and realized she didn’t know which it was.

She trembled, hugged herself, arms bubbled with goose-bumps. Doors. Moonlight turning their brass knobs into silver balls. She lunged at the nearest, grabbed it, turned it. Stumbled in with her eyes closed, slammed the door behind her. In dreams, you could make as much noise as you liked.
When I open my eyes, I’ll awaken in my own bed. It will be nearly morning.

Cold moonlight soaked an empty room, a room she hardly recognized, been inside it no more than a couple of times. A long, narrow room, uncarpeted, its floorboards black and bumpy and ending in a long and leaded window, unseasonally running with condensation.

A figure stood by the window, its back to her.

‘Jane? What are you doing down here?’

There was a vibration in the room, running like a mouse along the floorboard from the window to where she stood; she could feel it through the soles of her bare feet, and it ran up the backs of her legs, under her nightdress to her spine.

It wasn’t Jane.

She backed up to the door, her fingers feeling behind her for the knob and gripping it and turning it. The brass knob turned and turned again, but the door did not open.

Merrily turned it harder and faster, in a panic now. The figure at the window began to shift, and she saw the head in profile and the face was a man’s.

The knob loosened, began to spin in the lock until it just came out in her hand in the very instant that the figure turned from the window to face her, and it needed no moon, it carried its own pale light.

‘Oh, please,’ Merrily whispered. ‘Please, not here.’

Sean glided towards her. He could not speak for the blood in his mouth.

Jane didn’t make it to church after all. There was no explanation. After the morning service, two parishioners commented on there being only two hymns, and Uncle Ted had told Merrily she wasn’t looking at all well. It must have been a wearing few weeks, getting used to everything and now moving into a new house. She ought to think about having a few days away. Perhaps after her installation service, when she felt more secure, more bound to the parish.