by Phil Rickman
‘You look very tired,’ Mick said. ‘I hear you’ve been working hard tonight.’
‘Finding it hard, that’s all.’
‘As you’re bound to.’ His lean face was crinkled by a sympathetic, closed-mouth smile. He surveyed her in the mellow light. ‘It’s a very taxing role: social worker, psychotherapist and virtuoso stage-performer, all rolled into one.’
‘Stage-performer?’
‘We’re all of us actors, Merrily. The Church is a faded but still fabulous costume drama.’
‘Oh.’
‘And, to survive, it has to be considerably more sophisticated these days. Poor Dobbs is strictly Hammer Films, I’m afraid. He should retire, if he recovers, to one of those nice rural nursing homes for ageing clerics. There to write his memoirs, don’t you think?’
‘I don’t know what I think.’
‘You’re overtired,’ Mick said. ‘Poor baby, I’m not going to let you drive home, you realize that.’
‘It’s only twenty minutes.’ He was offering to drive her?
‘In these conditions? At least an hour – and requiring rather more attention than I suspect you’d be able to summon. Consider this an executive ruling. Come to the Palace. We’ve lots of spare rooms I always feel guilty about. Perhaps we should make some available to selected homeless people, what do you think?’
‘I think it would be very much an unnecessary imposition on Mrs Hunter.’
‘What, accommodating the homeless? Or accommodating you? Either way, not a problem. Valentina’s away for a couple of days, visiting her ageing parents in the Cotswolds. Old Church, Val’s father – yesterday’s Church. We have endless and insoluble theological arguments, so these days I tend to plead pressure of work.’
Merrily smiled. ‘Look, it’s very kind of you, Mick. It’s just—’ She moved self-consciously towards St John’s door.
‘You’ – he followed her – ‘need all your strength. Just let others look after you sometimes. We can get you back in good time for tomorrow’s services, if that’s what you’re worried about. We have a wonderful old Land Rover at our disposal.’
‘There’s Jane, you know?’
‘Jane?’
‘My daughter.’
She thought he blinked. ‘She’s not a child any more, is she? She must be getting quite used to your nocturnal comings and goings.’
‘I suppose she is.’
‘Well, then…’
He put his hands on her shoulders, as he had on Sophie’s earlier. His hands were big and firm and warm.
‘Merrily, you have to stop shouldering the problems of the world. Besides, it would be a good opportunity for us to talk about the future. It’ll be impossible to keep this out of the papers, you know, especially if the old guy dies on us. We need to be ready, hmm?’
As Mick Hunter lowered his arms from her shoulders, his head bent quickly, and she was sure his lips touched her forehead just once, on the hairline.
‘This means we can stop quietly phasing you in and officially announce the establishment of a Deliverance consultancy. We need to discuss how we’re going to handle that.’
‘But not tonight.’
‘Oh no, not tonight. Tomorrow.’ He paused. ‘Over our breakfast, perhaps.’
The way he said our breakfast. The way he had his arms by his sides now, but had not stepped back. The way he seemed to be closer than when his hands had been on her. She felt an awful compulsion to fall forward, collapse into that strong, muscular episcopal chest.
‘Up to you, of course,’ he said. ‘Coincidentally, we’ve just had a guest suite refurbished. Bathroom with shower, small sitting room – that sort of set-up. You may find you have to overnight in Hereford quite often as your role expands. Consider it available at any time. As you’ll be reporting exclusively to me, it would seem like an arrangement with considerable… possibilities, you know.’
She stayed silent, giving him an opportunity to qualify that, but he didn’t. He just stood there gazing at her, and after a moment he calmly folded his arms – sometimes a defensive gesture, but not this time.
No, this couldn’t be? Couldn’t possibly be how it sounded.
‘Everything’s changing, Merrily,’ Mick said easily. ‘This is a time of transition when traditional values, old restrictions, should be allowed to drift away. We should stop presuming to know what God wants of us.’
Merrily backed against the door, needing cold air, space.
‘We should be prepared to experiment,’ Mick continued calmly, ‘until the waters settle and we know where we are again. For a while.’
He followed her out of the Cathedral, leaving the door for the verger to lock. Outside, an unreal mauvish mist was gathering around white roofs, over white pavements, the grey-white road. A Christmas-card Hereford, out of time. Mick Hunter, in his purple tracksuit, seemed part of the picture. Part of the illusion. Not real.
‘See, no traffic at all,’ he said. ‘Earlier, I believe, the TV and radio stations were warning motorists not to venture out unless it was absolutely vital.’
Time of transition? In the tingling mist, Merrily felt as though she was being drawn into a developing, lucid dream and had to go with it – some of the way, at least – to see if its destination could possibly be what she was half-imagining.
Or make a wild dash across Broad Street for her car. Or…
She heard Jane saying, It’s probably considered socially OK to fuck a bishop, and felt appalled.
‘Mick, look, I actually think it’s beginning to thaw. I can be home in half an hour.’
‘Nonsense. Merrily, you know you don’t really want to do that.’
‘I have to.’
She began to walk away from him towards the road, and then stopped and turned as the Bishop spoke again with quiet insistence.
‘You only have to do what you want to do.’
‘That’s not true…’
This was not the Bishop talking but the bulge in his tracksuit trousers. She closed her eyes briefly and wished him gone.
‘Oh… Excuse me, miss.’
A man stepped out from behind one of the trees like some accosting beggar – one of those homeless that Mick and Val would not be accommodating at the Palace.
‘Not now,’ the Bishop told him irritably.
‘Sorry, sir. Not you – the lady. Are you by any chance the lady whose daughter ordered a minicab?’
‘Huh?’
‘Mrs Watson?’
‘Watkins.’
‘Yeah, that’s it.’
Mick Hunter didn’t move. Merrily shrugged and gave him a bashful smile. ‘I didn’t know she’d done that. Kid does my thinking for me. Thanks anyway, Bishop. What time do you want to see me on Monday?’
‘Eleven o’clock,’ the Bishop said tonelessly, ‘in the Great Hall.’
She nodded.
‘Good night,’ he said.
‘It’s this way,’ said the cabbie.
Mick Hunter had vanished by the time she found out that the cabbie did not have a vehicle with him.
20
Not Good
THEY WALKED IN silence a short way along Broad Street until Merrily was sure the Bishop had returned to the Palace. Then Lol Robinson hurried her discreetly across the whitened green and into Church Street.
‘Little Jane called me, about half an hour ago. Said you were heading this way and you might be able to use a cup of coffee at some stage. I’ve just been… hanging around.’
‘So intuitive, that kid.’ God, she was pleased to see him. Although, under the circumstances, anybody at all would have been a serious blessing.
‘I think she was worried about you,’ he said.
Merrily smiled. ‘I’m sure.’ She felt light-headed – glad, for the first time she could remember, to be out of the Cathedral.
‘Who was that guy in the tracksuit?’ Lol unlocked a recessed door in the alleyway next to the little music shop.
‘That, Laurence, was the Bishop of Herefo
rd.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Lol wore nothing over the familiar black sweatshirt with the Roswell alien face printed on it in flaking grey. He must be freezing. ‘I had him down as some late-night jogger, who… I don’t really know.’
‘Thought I was a prostitute.’
‘Like you always find in the Cathedral Close.’ Lol grinned. ‘Who was the bloke they put in the ambulance?’
‘Canon Dobbs. He’s had a stroke. We found him collapsed in the Cathedral.’
‘Oh.’ Lol shouldered the door open and turned on the light. They entered a hallway with a flight of stairs and a mountain-bike.
‘They called me in,’ Merrily said, ‘because he was… still is the last diocesan exorcist. You know about all that, I suppose.’
‘Well, you know, I’ve talked to Jane.’
‘Then you know everything.’
She looked around the shapeless, lamplit room with its beams and trusses and sash windows with lots of little square panes. Lol’s old guitar rested on a metal stand by the bricked-up fireplace. A stained and sagging armchair she remembered from his old cottage in Ledwardine.
‘Ethel used to sleep in this,’ she said.
‘How is Ethel?’
‘Ethel is fine. You get extra points for being a vicarage cat.’
Lol moved around, opening up radiators. His brass-rimmed glasses had half-misted.
‘This place is better for you?’ Merrily flopped into the chair without taking off her coat. ‘Do you feel better here?’
‘Haven’t been here long enough to think too much about it. It’s OK, I suppose.’ He went into what was presumably the kitchen, leaving the door open, a blue-white light flickering.
‘Very central. Convenient for the Cathedral.’
‘Right.’
She forced herself out of the chair, and went to join him in the kitchen. It had barely room for two people. The fluorescent strip-lighting hurt her eyes, reminding her of the sluice-room next to the Alfred Watkins Ward.
‘That was your idea, the taxi?’
‘All I could think of at the time.’ He had his back to her, filling the kettle.
‘Thank you,’ she said solemnly. ‘You… got me out of something heavy.’
‘Really?’ He turned round, looking happy. ‘Like you did for me and Ethel that night?’
‘Oh, more than that. The way this was going, I might not have had a career.’
‘Well, you know, I didn’t really hear anything.’
‘Yes, you did.’
‘OK, I did. How many points for sleeping with a lady vicar?’
‘For a bishop? I honestly can’t recall a precedent. But bishops are survivors – especially this one, I suspect. Lady vicars… they’re expendable. Especially ones caught in sin.’
She was startled at how easy it was to discuss all this with Lol, though they hadn’t spoken for months. It might have been just this morning she last saw him. She looked around the little kitchen: plywood cupboards, a small fridge, a microwave, three mugs with hedgehog motifs on a shelf. Nothing suggestive of permanence. She was looking for a sign that Lol was out of limbo now and not finding one.
‘Erm…’ He turned to pull two of the mugs from the shelf. ‘When you said just now that you might not have had a career, does that mean that if I hadn’t shown up…?’
‘What it would have meant,’ Merrily said slowly, ‘is that, in order to get away from him, I would probably have had to stop pretending he was simply offering me a room for the night.’
‘Right.’ Lol set down the mugs. His glasses had misted again. ‘Jane’ll be glad to know that.’
They sat and drank their coffee, Merrily in Ethel’s old chair, Lol on the floor, his back to the window. She’d have to be going soon if she was going to grab a couple of hours before Holy Communion.
‘Jane said you were training to be a psychotherapist.’
‘Wild exaggeration. I’ve been helping my therapist. Former therapist, hopefully. That means I help a bit with other clients – as a kind of therapy. Well, one other client mainly: the woman who used to live in this flat.’
‘Oh,’ Merrily said, ‘that would be this, er… Moon? Just that Jane implied—’
‘I’ve got a vague idea what Jane implied.’
‘That kid could start wars.’ Merrily stretched. ‘I don’t want to move.’
‘So don’t move.’
‘I have to. Anyway, I think you’d make rather a good psychotherapist.’
‘Being an ex-loony?’
‘Not only that.’
‘Thanks.’
‘You know what I mean. You’ve been swallowed by the system once. You could be good at keeping other people out of the system.’
Lol said, ‘Maybe there are too many therapists and counsellors around already, all talking different kinds of bollocks.’
‘Is this Dick paying you?’
‘Kind of. There’s no big problem with money: the song royalties trickle in. And I might have another album – sometime.’ Lol stood up. ‘I, er… I was thinking of ringing you sometime, actually. What do you do if someone insists they’ve seen a ghost? I mean, not just any old ghost – a close relative. And so maybe they want to see it. To see more of it.’
‘Well… I’d try and find out if it was a real ghost. Maybe I’d ask a psychiatrist – or a psychotherapist – for some advice.’
‘And say this psychotherapist – or somebody else who knew this person well – was fairly convinced that there was something… unusual happening here.’
‘Well…’ Merrily lit a cigarette. ‘I’d probably try and explain to the person that this was not a very good idea. It’s not uncommon, actually, seeing relatives who’ve just passed on.’
‘Twenty-five years ago?’
‘That’s more uncommon. A visitor is the loose term we, er, we tend to use for this kind of… phenomenon.’
‘And it’s a bad thing, is it? Even if the person is not scared by it.
‘Any prolonged contact with a… spirit, or whatever, is unhealthy. It can lead to all kinds of problems. Mental problems obviously, and also… Well, you might think that what you’re seeing is your old mum, but it might be something else. I take it we’re talking about this Moon?’
‘Possibly.’
‘Lol, you only have one client…’
‘OK, it’s Moon.’
‘Who’s she been seeing?’
‘Her father. He died when she was two.’
‘Any complications?’
‘Shot himself.’
‘Oh.’
‘That’s not good, is it?’
‘That’s not good at all,’ Merrily said. ‘Would she see me, do you think?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe if you weren’t wearing… you know?’
‘A dog-collar.’
‘And I introduced you as a friend.’
‘Sounds like a good idea.’
‘She’s working in the shop down below all week.’
‘Maybe I’ll call in on Monday, then,’ Merrily said. ‘I don’t know what time yet. I’ll be in the gatehouse if you want me – except mid-morning when I’m having discussions with my friend the Bishop.’
‘Pity you can’t see her house, really – a barn she’s leasing up on Dinedor Hill. She’s quite obsessive about the hill. It’s where she was born, where the family have lived since the Iron Age – or so she claims.’
‘This sounds awfully complicated, Lol.’ Merrily yawned and forced herself out of the chair. ‘Where’d I put my coat?’
‘All I can say is that she’s different when she’s up there. A different person – half… half somewhere else.’ He unhooked her waxed jacket from behind the door. ‘I don’t suppose… No, never mind.’
‘I hate it when anyone says that.’
‘Just that she left her bike here and I drove her home last night, because of the snow. So I have to pick her up on Monday morning, fetch her in to work.’
‘Early?’
‘Ish.’
‘If you could get me back to the gatehouse by eleven, I can come up with you. What’s my excuse, then?’
‘Your car wouldn’t start, so I’m giving you a lift somewhere? She’ll buy that. This is really good of you, Merrily.’
‘It’s my job. We’re told to work with shrinks. The Bishop would approve.’
‘The shrink doesn’t know,’ Lol said. ‘The shrink must never know.’
‘A non-believer, huh?’
‘Of the most intractable kind,’ Lol said. ‘You want me to drive you back now?’
‘No, Lol,’ Merrily annunciated carefully, ‘you’re – not – really – a – minicab – driver. That was for the benefit of the Bishop.’
She went smiling into the snow. She must be overtired.
At least the roads were no worse. Back in the vicarage just before five, she called the General Hospital. She gave them her name and they put her through to the ward. She just knew which one it was going to be – there was an ironic inevitability about it.
‘Reverend Watkins? Not the biggest surprise of the morning, to have you ring.’
‘What was the biggest?’
‘The biggest, to tell you the simple truth,’ Eileen Cullen said, ‘is that the auld feller’s still with us.’
‘Would that be an indication he might be coming through this?’
‘Ah, now, I wouldn’t go taking bets on that. He knows when you’re talking to him – his eyes’ll follow you around the room. But he’s not talking back yet.’
‘Mr Dobbs is not a big conversationalist, in my experience. The room? You haven’t got him—’
‘Christ no. We have this other wee side ward at the far end of the main ward. If Denzil was still with us, Mr Dobbs wouldn’t even be able to smell him.’
Merrily shuddered.
‘So, collapsed in the Cathedral, they say?’ Cullen said nonchalantly.
‘Yes, that’s what they say.’
‘Well, I’m off home in a while, but I’m sure they’ll keep you posted on any developments. I’ll mention it.’
‘Thanks.’
A pause, then Cullen said, ‘Funny, isn’t it, how things come around. Mr Dobbs arranging like that for you to have a mauling from Denzil in his death-throes, and now… You ever find out why he did that to you?’
