Friends of the Dusk

by Phil Rickman

  ‘Athena, are you—?’

  ‘Just do it.’

  Merrily crouched to one side of the altar so she could reach the laptop’s pressure pad without blocking the view. Huw Owen pulled up a chair next to Athena’s as a man’s white-shirted midriff came up on the screen. White. He would be in white, wouldn’t he?

  ‘Stop it there for a moment,’ Athena said. ‘I should tell you the circumstances under which this was filmed. This morning, he came looking for me. He left his room to come and find me. I saw him coming along the passage, looking faintly disoriented in the sunshine.’

  ‘How did you know he were looking for you, owd lass?’ Huw said gently.

  Athena scowled, her eyes near-black in the dull light of the autumnal dusk through tall leaded windows.

  ‘I tried the nearest door – unmarked – and it opened. It was a white-tiled room containing just a chair and a table and a hospital trolley. I had a sense of death, I suppose. Perhaps an intermediate storage place for people who died in one of the lounges. It had a frosted window. I put my bag on the table, hoping to God the camera was pointing the right bloody way, and waited. He came in, and I leaned against the trolley. Oh, I felt quite dizzy for a moment, I said. Coming on with that sort of dithery, old-person nonsense. He looked quite disoriented, out of his quarters.’

  Merrily said, ‘Why did he come looking for you? If that’s…’

  Athena White did her tiny squeaky laugh.

  ‘Because I’d gone to him, the night before. I probably suggested to you, rather boastfully, Watkins, that I do it all the time. In fact, I can’t remember the last time, so it was much harder than I’d expected, performing to order. I was quite nervous – hadn’t expected that.’

  Merrily looked at Huw. He’d put on his reading glasses.

  ‘Found it surprisingly difficult,’ Athena said, ‘holding the peripheral state between sleep and wakefulness. And then allowing the vibrational stage to continue for long enough to achieve separation.’

  ‘Oh,’ Merrily said, dismayed. ‘I see.’

  It had come back to her, from that afternoon at The Glades with Hurricane Lorna on her tail.

  Don’t trivialize breathing. I enjoy my breathing, in all its infinite varieties. Along with occasional astral tourism, it’s all I have left.

  ‘It’s not an exact science, Watkins. And I’m hardly a master or a yogi. It was simply a matter of letting him know that someone was here. There’s always a low-level paranormal vibe in old folks’ homes. He’d pick that up. Question of rising above it to a level he’d notice. I’d visualized his quarters, his door with the number on it, the smells, the ambient sounds, the general atmosphere. Awoke this morning quite exhausted, with an unlikely memory of a huge bed, entirely out of proportion to its surroundings. Anyway, he’d come. What an extraordinary-looking man he is. Face like wood.’

  Merrily didn’t look at Huw. Anyone here could have told Miss White about the bed.

  ‘And you talked?’

  ‘Oh, yes, as you’ll see. Dementia is not a perpetual condition. There are moments of clarity. I’d even wondered, as I’m sure you had, if his dementia might have been something of a misdiagnosis. Or even a scam. One can be labelled as demented by one’s GP, especially if it’s not Alzheimer’s. Hospitals and scans and all that are very easily avoided.’

  ‘It’s true,’ Huw said. ‘A doctor can make a diagnosis based entirely on clinical findings, memory and cognitive tests. Especially if he’s your mate.’

  Athena shook her head.

  ‘No, I do think it’s the real thing, Owen, if less advanced than one might have imagined – I’d expected him to have the responses of a radish, but no. There was a kind of electricity. The only way I can describe it. I think, from what Owen told me, that you noticed that, Watkins. Anyway… observe.’

  On the screen you saw him sitting down, but he was quite close to the camera so the top half of his face had been cropped.

  ‘Who are you?’ his mouth said.

  ‘Athena, my name.’

  ‘Goddess.’ His mouth twisted into amusement. ‘Goddess? You’re an old bag.’

  ‘Goddess of wisdom, Selwyn,’ Athena said. ‘Forget the goddess bit. But dismiss the wisdom at your peril.’

  His mouth opened and you heard him breathing. It was loud and hollow, like a yawn, the almond cracks in his face stretching.

  ‘Freeze that, Watkins. You hear that? That’s not his breathing. Not his breath.’

  Merrily felt the cold snaking around her legs like a spectral cat, moved away from the altar.

  ‘I can hear why you’re saying that, owd lass,’ Huw said. ‘but—’

  ‘We’re not going to prove anything here, Owen. Proof is entirely subjective. I’m just telling you what I think. Make it continue, Watkins.’

  Merrily touched the pressure pad and Athena’s voice emerged.

  ‘Where were you last night, Selwyn?’

  He answered at once.

  ‘Where I live.’

  His voice was all breath now, his mouth wide open. ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘You know.’

  Merrily wished she could see his eyes but was also glad that she couldn’t.

  Athena said, ‘The phrase “phantasm of the living” is often used for a situation when someone might appear to be in two places at once. Quite often it’s no more than a longing, on the part of the viewer of the apparition, to see a particular person, loved one, whoever, and, lo, the person manifests.’

  ‘Aye,’ Huw said, ‘I’ve encountered that. Usually unreliable.’

  ‘And then there’s the question of projection.’

  ‘We touched on it this morning. When we were discussing the Second Death.’

  ‘Projection is hardly high occultism, Owen, it happens with astonishing regularity, even if some people aren’t even aware of it, or are in complete denial. Or regard it as a vivid dream. But, yes, the connection with the Second Death is obvious. It’s an intermediate state and is usually reached through one – in my case, the state on the very rim of sleep where one must hold oneself. Fall asleep and you have to start all over again.’

  ‘Or it could be an illusion,’ Merrily said.

  ‘Or could indeed be an illusion. Even a folie à deux type illusion. Such as might have occurred last night when I lay in my room convincing myself that I was entering his room – not wanting, I should tell you, to remain there long – and he convinced himself he’d seen me.’

  The old girl smiled sweetly. Merrily said nothing.

  ‘Tell us what you think he does.’

  ‘Hard to say precisely. I would probably suggest he falls back into his own psychic construction. He’s decided that the Cwmarrow valley, with its vanished village, should be where Map’s malefactor roamed, picking off his neighbours to allow him to go on living his half-life. Because that’s all it can ever be. But half a life, it might be argued, is better than death, especially if you’re in fear of what might happen afterwards. You go on taking life in the hope of escaping retribution.’

  ‘Or that’s the theory,’ Merrily said.

  ‘I’m not going to argue with you, little clergyperson. You’re perfectly free to reject my opinions – as that’s all they can be, this side of mortality.’

  ‘I… I’m sorry, Athena. Really, I’m grateful for what you’re doing. I’m just…’

  Huw came to her rescue.

  ‘You say a psychic construction. That he’s decided the Cwmarrow valley was the home of the maleficus.’

  ‘It might not be. It doesn’t matter. He’s spent years walking that place and visualizing and storing it in his subconscious mind. I imagine all he has to do sometimes is close his eyes and he’s there. The sights and sounds and smells and whatever erotic extras he uses. He may always have had the ability. If you study, as I have, the accounts of astral projection you’ll notice time and time again the sexual element. He probably doesn’t even know he’s harnessing that. Especially now…’

  ‘Wh
at’s the bottom line? How come he can do this?’

  ‘Possibly through the maleficus itself. He becomes fascinated by Walter Map’s exercise in Hereford Gothic – a vampire story which is perhaps not fictional like Dracula or Carmilla – and he goes in search of what remains of the evil angel of the nameless predator. His quest is fuelled by his enormous sexual appetite. Did you know he raped a cleaner?’

  ‘Here?’

  Merrily stepped back. The dusk had turned to night. The only light was the quivering screen.

  ‘Or so it’s said by some of the inmates. People do tend to talk to me. A young cleaner – just out of school – left the staff with a hefty lump sum.’

  ‘It might be nonsense. He’s a rather sinister presence. Do you want to see the rest?’

  Huw opened his hands in assent. Athena activated the recording, the camera still on Selwyn-Pryce, the voice hers.

  ‘Must be strange, Selwyn, for a man like you, with a fondness for female youth, to have a son with more diverse tastes.’

  No reply. Bloody hell, you had to admire her.

  ‘When did you first become aware of Hector’s bisexuality? Obviously, as you weren’t around when he was growing up, you wouldn’t be aware of it coming on. But surely you must have noticed his more regular visits to Cwmarrow and how they coincided with the occasions when Tristram was there. Young Trissie?’

  Had she told Huw about this on the phone last night? May well have done. And he’d passed it on, perhaps very early this morning, to Athena. God, she picked up on things so fast…

  That yawning breath came again.

  ‘He was never the same again after Trissie, was he?’ Athena said on screen. ‘The boy would have encouraged him. An influential man in Hereford. Rather amoral, Trissie. Eye to the main chance. Would’ve dropped Hector like a stone when an offer came in from the satellite TV people in London. Was that when Hector started coming to you for boys? Boys loved your books, too. And then, when he discovered Trissie had returned to Hereford and wanted to meet you all again, what did Hector do to the face which had tormented his dreams all those years ago? What’s the matter, Selwyn?’

  The picture stuttered, an explosion of pixels, and then the man in the white shirt was extending an arm, his breath coming in spurts.

  ‘Kee, kee, kee.’

  The finger pointing.

  ‘Kee, kee, kee… Athena… White…’

  The screen went black.

  Huw’s voice was gentle.

  ‘Why did you switch off there, owd lass?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ Athena said.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I did, however, in keeping with the tradition, attempt to make the sign of the cross and found I… found I could not.’

  ‘Ah,’ Merrily said.

  She pulled the laptop and the bag and the wire from the altar. Brought out the airline bag.

  ‘Will a blessing cause offence?’

  ‘Perhaps not,’ Athena said.

  In the last of the light, a glimpse of both her veiny hands quivering in her lap.

  67

  Invitation

  ALL THE LIGHTS were on now, four hanging globes.

  Merrily helped Athena back to her chair. You could feel the relief coming off her like steam. Or was that imagination?

  ‘You weren’t expecting it, were you?’

  Athena scowled.

  ‘Of course I was, you silly girl. I only brought you in here to make you feel at home. Little clergyperson.’

  Her mascara had spread down her cheeks. She was trying desperately not to shake.

  Laying on of hands. Probably the first time she’d ever touched Athena White.

  ‘OK.’ Merrily finding she was breathing hard, close to panting, but it wasn’t hollow, it was nothing like a yawn. That had been the giveaway, that had brought the cold out of the screen. ‘He hasn’t been in here, to your knowledge?’

  ‘Last place he’d come,’ Athena said.

  ‘Right. Huw?’

  ‘I’m convinced, lass.’

  ‘I haven’t had a chance to tell you, have I, about Aisha. I suppose I wasn’t sure how much of it I believed. It’s a funny time, adolescence and the years that follow.’

  ‘You have to believe it,’ Huw said. ‘While you’re doing it, you have to believe it totally. You know that.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘It’s what he does. If he thinks he can do it, he can. It’s about will power, self-belief. Tremendous, self-generating inner world. Like Crowley. He could do it. Love is the law, love under will.’

  She told him about Aisha. What Casey had said. Like the face of a mature woman who’d… been round the block.

  ‘There’s a bond now,’ Huw said. ‘She doesn’t have to be in the valley. If he wants her, he’ll find her. And he’ll make her ill. And if he keeps on wi’ it she’ll die. And after that she won’t rest and the cycle goes on.’ He lowered himself to look into her eyes. ‘That’s what you have to believe, lass, if we’re going to do this.’

  She nodded. She unzipped the airline bag, took out the prayer book, the Bible, the holy water, the wine, the wafers and laid them on the altar.

  ‘Right then, Huw. Let’s get Lol in. And then you can give me communion.’

  ‘And then you want to do it.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘The major E? You? Or me?’

  ‘Yes. Me. It’s my patch,’ Merrily said.

  Athena White kept out of it. Well, you couldn’t expect her to make too many concessions. But Lol… for the first time since they’d been together, Lol knelt before an altar, as if he was at last prepared to open himself to a wider plan. He was doing it for her, of course, but that didn’t matter. He looked up and she caught his eye.

  The light of the body is in the eye. Therefore when thine eye is single thy whole body is full of light.

  She smiled. She hoped to God that the sense of high calm was not an illusion.

  When it was over, Huw produced a thin paperback book from his canvas shoulder bag.

  ‘I don’t know whether to give you this or not, lass.’

  ‘What is it?’

  It looked old, decades old. You couldn’t tell whether its cover was yellow or just yellowed.

  ‘First published 1972 when it were all the rage and the Church decided we should go for it. With rules. But you can see from the title what it were still called, back then.’

  EXORCISM

  EDITED BY

  Dom Robert Petitpierre.

  THE FINDINGS OF

  A COMMISSION

  CONVENED BY THE

  BISHOP OF EXETER.

  EXORCISM

  ‘Pre-deliverance,’ Merrily said.

  ‘Seen it before?’

  ‘Actually, I may have.’

  ‘The deliverance handbook’s over three times as thick, good in its way, but essentially it walks all round major exorcism.’

  ‘Which is what’s needed here.’

  ‘A major? Oh aye.’

  ‘You sure you don’t want—?’

  ‘No. I’ve faced Kindley-Pryce – it – before. It knows my name, Huw.’

  ‘That might not be…’

  ‘Come in with me, though?’

  ‘Oh aye. Try and keep me out. It’s not a one-priest job, this.’

  ‘He’s an old man. An old, demented man.’

  ‘No. You don’t say that. You don’t think that. It’s something inside an old man’s body and his corroded mind. And it were invited in. Don’t forget that. This is not oppression, this is invitation. Invitation.’

  ‘Right.’

  She took off the hoodie, positioned the pectoral cross on her cotton top.

  ‘After you,’ Huw said. ‘You know the way.’

  Lol stayed behind in the chapel, with Athena.

  Walking slowly down the passageway, muted lighting, the night in the glass walls on either side, she read from the booklet.

  FORMS FOR EXORCISM OF PERSONS.

  The difference between an
exorcism and a blessing was the resistance.

  The fight.

  I command you, every unclean spirit…

  Too generalized?

  I command you, O Evil Spirit, through God the Father Almighty and through Jesus Christ his Son and through the Holy Spirit the Paraclete, that you depart…

  Evil. Just a word.

  Not just a word.

  ‘Damn,’ Merrily said, carrying on walking, the airline bag over her right shoulder. ‘I forgot to phone Bishop Craig to check if this was all right with him.’

  ‘Do not laugh,’ Huw said. ‘Don’t you dare laugh.’ She didn’t laugh.

  The last time.

  The last Deliverance.

  The Old Stables. Three doors, only one with a number on it and a white speaker grille.

  Man or woman?

  Kee, kee, kee….

  They stopped. The door was ajar. Merrily glanced at Huw, who lifted a hand, and not in benediction. Presently, Hector Pryce came out, looking at them with no surprise. Donna must have called him, told him who’d arrived. He’d had plenty of time to get here from Hereford while they were in the chapel.

  ‘Dead,’ Hector said.

  As if to illustrate his point, he held a human skull, yellow and brown and coming apart in his hands around a crooked grin. He’s getting it out of there, Merrily thought, as Hector kicked the door fully open behind him.

  ‘See? Old man’s gone. Somebody seen him off, look.’

  An overhead light had turned the whole room into a Victorian engraving of a classical funeral, the great Cwmarrow bed an ornate tomb, Selwyn Kindley-Pryce its rigid effigy. There was an acrid stench of funeral. Death and earth.

  ‘I just found him,’ Hector said. ‘Thought he was having his nap before tea.’

  A buff-coloured pillow, creased, lay beside the head of the corpse. But the eeriest thing was Hector’s face: flushed with relief, excitement and a delight only half suppressed. Was he glad he’d done it… glad that someone else had done it… fooling himself that someone else had done it?

  ‘Gone, eh?’ Huw said.

  She could see his grey eyes wondering where.

  68

  The door

  SHE WAS THERE again, under the gatehouse arch, just as she’d been on that very first day.