Midwinter of the Spirit

by Phil Rickman

  ‘I never did,’ Merrily said. ‘Maybe never will now.’

  ‘Well,’ Cullen said, ‘a patient’ll talk about all kinds of things, so he will – in the night, sometimes. I’ll keep my ears open.’

  21

  Chalk Circle

  SHE KNEW THE words, of course she did, she knew the words. But they wouldn’t come. She bent close to him – his breath uneven, his eyes closed against her, like this was an act of will. She brought the chalice close to his stony face on the hospital pillow, white as a linen altar-cloth, and tipped her hand very slightly so that the wine rolled slowly down the silver vessel and trickled between his parted lips, a drop remaining on his lower lip, like blood.

  Blood. Yes. Yes, of course.

  ‘The blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ, which was shed for you, preserve your body and soul into everlasting life. Drink this in remembrance that Christ’s blood was shed for you…’

  Thomas Dobbs began to suck greedily at the wine. She was so grateful at having remembered the words that she tilted the chalice again, at a steeper angle, and wine flooded between his lips and filled his cheeks, and she began to murmur the Lord’s Prayer.

  ‘Our Father, Who…’

  There was a cracking sound, like splintering stone, and his eyes flicked open, shocking her. Dobbs’s eyes were grey and white and, when he saw who hovered behind the sacrament, they blurred and foamed like a stream over rocks in winter.

  ‘Hallowed be…’

  Dobbs’s shoulders began to quake.

  ‘Thy kingdom…’

  She watched him rising up in the metal bed, his cheeks expanding. She could not move; this was her job. She kept on murmuring the prayer. When, eyes bulging in fury, he coughed the consecrated wine in a great spout into her face, it was indeed as warm as fresh blood, and she felt its rivulets down her cheeks.

  This was her job; she could not move.

  His hand snaked from under the bedclothes, and when it gripped her wrist like a monkey-wrench, the green tubes were ejected from his nose with a soft popping.

  She didn’t scream. She was a priest. She just woke up with a whimper, sweating – after a little over an hour’s sleep on the sofa, and half a minute before the alarm was due to go off.

  ‘You look awful,’ said Ted Clowes after morning service. As senior churchwarden and Merrily’s uncle, he was entitled to be insulting. ‘This damned Deliverance nonsense, I suppose. I’ve told you, I have an extreme aversion to anything evangelical.’

  Uncle Ted, a retired solicitor, had read ‘widely’ (the Daily Mail) about the Toronto Blessing and certain churches in Greater London where parishioners with emotional problems were exorcized of their ‘devils’ in front of the entire congregation. He was monitoring all Merrily’s services for ‘danger signs’.

  ‘In addition, there’s all the time it seems to take up – time that should be spent in this parish, Merrily.’

  ‘Ted, I wouldn’t have been doing anything here in the parish in the early hours of this morning.’

  ‘But look at the state of you! Look at the shadows under your eyes. You look as if you’d been beaten up. I tell you, these things don’t go unnoticed in a village. Half of those old women are not listening to a word of your sermon; they’re examining you inch by inch for signs of disrepair. Anyway, I should get some sleep for an hour or two after lunch. Put that child of yours on telephone duty.’

  Jane was sitting in Mum’s scullery-office, with Ethel on her knees and her one purchase from the psychic fair open on the desk: a secondhand copy of A Treatise on Cosmic Fire by Alice A. Bailey. So far, she couldn’t understand how a book with such a cool title could be so impenetrable. It sometimes read like one of those stereotype fantasy sagas she devoured as a kid – well, until about last year, actually – with all these references to The Sevenfold Lords and stuff like that. Except this was for real. But wasn’t there a simpler way to enlightenment?

  In her pocket, she had the phone number Angela had given her.

  Sorrel.

  She took it out, then put it back. Instead she rang Lol. Mum had said very little about last night apart from Dobbs and his stroke – like, tough, but the old guy was plainly out of his tree, as well as being seriously outdated on the issue of women priests. If you had to have soul police – and no way did you – better someone decently liberal like Mum; Dobbs should have bowed out long ago and gone to tend his roses or something.

  Jane scratched behind Ethel’s left ear until the black cat twisted her neck, purred luxuriously and faked an orgasm.

  Lol wasn’t answering his phone. Mum said she’d had a cup of coffee with Lol, that was all. Not as good as getting completely soaked through, and having to take off all her clothes on Lol’s hearthrug, but a start.

  Jane hung up, closed Alice A. Bailey, put Ethel on the carpet.

  She took a long, long breath and got out the piece of paper.

  Denny had upgraded his studio to 24-track. ‘This is it for me,’ he said. ‘Finito. I think we’ve all been getting too technoconscious. It’s not what rock and roll’s about. When I was a kid you had a two-track Grundig in somebody’s garage and you were bloody grateful.’

  ‘What on earth is a Grundig?’ asked James Lyden’s friend Eirion, unpacking his bass.

  ‘Forget it,’ Denny said.

  The house was no more than half a mile from Dick’s place, about the same age but detached and with a longish drive. Just as well, with a studio underneath. However, Denny had also allowed for major soundproofing; the creation of an anteroom and homemade acoustic walls had reduced the main cellar to about two-thirds of its original size. Four of them now stood in the glass-screened control room, with Denny’s personalized mixing-board. It was a warm, secure little world.

  ‘This was the wine cellar?’ James enquired, presumably wondering what Denny had done with all his wine.

  ‘Coal cellar,’ Denny snapped.

  James didn’t have a Stratocaster. He had a Gibson Les Paul copy – a good one; you had to look hard to be sure. He gazed around. ‘I’ve got a rough idea how this set-up operates, but perhaps you could stick around for an hour or two, before you let us get on with it.’

  Lol blinked. They expected Denny to leave them here alone with his gear? But Denny wasn’t listening. He was underneath the mainboard now, with a hand lamp, messing with something. Lol wondered if James actually had got the wrong idea about this, or whether he was just trying it on. He looked like the kind of kid who would always try for more.

  With a fair chance of success, Lol figured. The boy looked austere and kind of patrician, and tall – a good six inches taller than Dick. A good bit slimmer than Dick, too – who would have ceased to be James’s role model many years ago. Like when James was about six.

  ‘I used to rather like those Hazey Jane albums,’ he said to Lol. ‘You were a pretty good songwriter. You had that melancholy feel of… what was his name? I can’t remember… Mum had an album of his.’

  ‘Nick Drake?’ Through the glass, Lol could see the two nonsongwriting band members erecting a drum kit down on the studio floor.

  ‘Oh, I know… James Taylor.’

  ‘That’s interesting,’ Lol said.

  James nodded knowledgeably. His mother, as a therapist, would have told him about the young James Taylor’s psychiatric problems. Which would be why he’d made the comparison. Letting Lol know he knew the history.

  He smiled compassionately down at Lol. ‘You did absolutely the right thing, in my view. I mean packing in when you did. If everybody stopped recording at their peak, we’d have a hell of a lot less dross to wade through, in my view. Like, someone should’ve shot Lennon ten years earlier.’

  ‘That’s what you think?’

  ‘They should have shot McCartney first,’ said Eirion. He was from Cardiff – one of those wealthy, Welsh-speaking families – but Eirion spoke English with an accent straight out of Hampstead or somewhere.

  ‘Eirion reckons twenty-five,’ James said. ‘I s
ay twenty-seven, giving them the benefit of the doubt.’

  ‘Compulsory retirement age for rock musicians,’ Eirion explained. ‘We argue about it a lot.’

  ‘Personally, I think semi-voluntary euthanasia’s probably the best answer,’ Lol said. ‘When they stop playing, their health goes or they take too many drugs and become a burden on the state.’

  Eirion considered this. ‘They could surely afford BUPA or something, couldn’t they?’

  Lol heard rumbles from underneath the mixing-board. Detected sounds resembling fucking, little and shits. He was beginning to enjoy this. In fact, he felt much better today about… well, most of it. This morning the disparate pieces of a song which had been lying around for most of a month had fallen exquisitely into place.

  ‘So how many songs you actually got, James?’

  ‘How many, Eirion? Twenty, twenty-two?’

  ‘Well, yes, but some of them are fairly embarrassing now, actually – things we did over a year ago.’

  ‘That old, huh?’ said Lol.

  James looked sullen. ‘Dad says he’s only paying for four. But he can cock off. That would be a pure waste of time and manpower. Besides, we’ve worked seriously hard and we’re pretty fucking efficient. It wouldn’t take that much longer to lay down the other six.’

  ‘An album in fact?’

  ‘Anything less isn’t worth the hassle,’ said James, ‘don’t you think?’

  ‘We’ll see how it goes,’ Lol said. ‘It’s this bloke’s studio.’

  Denny came up, red-faced, from underneath the board, his big earring swinging furiously. ‘Sorted,’ he announced.

  ‘Oh, I get it.’ James tucked his rugby shirt into his jeans, and strapped on his guitar. ‘You’re the engineer, too.’

  ‘And the cleaner,’ Denny said menacingly. ‘And the teaboy.’

  ‘No, I mean… to be tactful about this, we don’t mind you guys hanging around. We do want to be produced, but we need space to experiment, yeah? We’re only into being… guided, up to a point. I mean, you know, I don’t want to sound arrogant or anything.’

  ‘Perish the thought,’ Lol said.

  He kept wondering how he would be feeling now if, instead of meeting Merrily Watkins again, he’d spent last night in Moon’s barn – in Moon’s futon.

  But it hadn’t worked out like that, and he was so glad.

  Merrily lay awake, tasting the formless dregs of a dream. With the feeling of something wrong – of loneliness. And the recurrent domestic agoraphobia of two small women sharing seven bedrooms.

  You’re never really alone, you know. How often had she said that to a bereaved parishioner? Whichever way you looked at Him, God was never another warm body in a cold bed on a winter’s night.

  The luminous clock indicated 5.40 p.m. Time to leave for Evensong – except they’d dropped it last September because so few people liked turning out in winter darkness.

  She remembered the essence of her dream. Oh God, an image of the lithe and tawny Val Hunter astride Mick under some high, moulded ceiling, with all the lights on. Merrily standing in the doorway, shocked to find herself wearing a very short black nightie. Cold legs, cold feet. Come on, Merrily! the Bishop had shouted impatiently. Don’t be nervous. This is a time of transition. We have to experiment! The king-size bed, a four-poster, had shiny purple sheets.

  But that confrontation under the aumbry light now seemed no less unlikely than the dream of the purple sheets. Merrily slid out of bed.

  Downstairs there was no sign of Jane. Ethel eyed her sleepily from the basket beside the Aga, as Merrily made herself some coffee. She thought of the night Lol had first arrived with Ethel, after the cat had been savagely kicked by a drunk. They’d examined her on the kitchen table, just there –

  Where a note lay, neatly printed from the computer.

  MUM: Rowenna turned up. Didn’t want to wake you, so left machine on. Back by ten… swear to God.

  Here’s list of phone calls so far.

  1. Emily Price, from Old Barn Lane, wanting to firm-up a date for wedding rehearsal.

  2. Uncle Ted, in Churchwarden Mode. Didn’t say what it was about – probably usual pep talk about not neglecting parish for glamour of Hereford.

  3. Sister Cullen. Can you ring her at home?

  That’s it. Love J.

  * * *

  Eileen Cullen said, ‘Don’t worry, the auld feller’s not gone yet.’

  ‘I was thinking of visiting him. Is he allowed visitors?’

  Cullen laughed. ‘Well, it’s funny you should say that, Merrily. Mr Dobbs has had a visitor. That’s why I called you. I thought you’d maybe want to know. Just the one visitor.’

  ‘Someone I know?’

  ‘You’ll be on your own if you do.’

  ‘You’re going to spin this one out, aren’t you?’

  ‘All right,’ Cullen said, ‘I’ll tell you. First off, I wasn’t there. Young Tessa was there – you remember Tessa? Sunday-school teacher – the plucky kid holding Denzil’s other hand?’

  ‘I remember.’ Like you could forget anybody there that night.

  ‘This afternoon, all right, a man in an overcoat carrying an attaché case. A minister, he says, come to pray with Mr Dobbs. But Mr Dobbs can’t speak, Tessa tells him. Doesn’t matter, the priest says. They would like some peace and quiet and nobody coming in.’

  ‘What was his name?’

  ‘He didn’t give his name. I told you Dobbs was in another wee side ward, all on his own? Well, the priest’s drawn the curtain across the glass in the door. Except it’s not possible to block the window fully. If you’re nosy enough, you can stand on a chair and look down through the top. Which Tessa did, after she caught the light from the candles.’

  ‘Candles?’

  ‘We’re always a bit careful, the range of religious fellers show up these days – and all quite legit, you know? Only Sister Miller’s on her break and Tessa’s a wee bit unsure about this, so she takes a peep. He’d about finished by then, so he had. He was picking up his wee bottles of holy water, scrubbing out his chalk circle.’

  ‘Chalk circle?’ Merrily sat down hard at the scullery desk.

  ‘Me telling you like this, it sounds like a joke, but the child was terrified. He’d drawn a circle round the bed, if you please! Yellow chalk. Making a bit of extra room by pushing the visitor’s chair under the door handle, the cheeky sod, so anyone’d have a job getting in even if they wanted to. And some bottles of water, with stoppers, placed around the circle. He also had a black book – very eerie, very frightening.’

  ‘What did she do?’

  ‘Went to find Sister Miller. Time the two of them got back, your man had gone. She rang me here during her break.’

  ‘Well…’ Merrily drew erratic circles on a pad. ‘I’m lost. I don’t understand this.’

  ‘All I can say is that I was raised a Catholic, and it isn’t one of our… things… our rituals.’

  ‘Doesn’t even seem like proper religion, Eileen. More like… magic. You sure this was a real priest?’

  ‘I didn’t see him. Tessa says he was wearing a dog-collar. He had a hat and scarf, so she couldn’t see much of his face.’

  ‘Did they check Dobbs over after he’d gone?’

  ‘No change. He lies there still as corpse, so he does. Sometimes his eyes’ll be open, but you never see it happen. What’ll we do? Call the police, you reckon?’

  ‘I don’t know what the police could do, to be honest. But if he shows up again… would you mind calling me?’

  ‘Merrily,’ Cullen said, ‘if it’s me that’s on when he shows, I’ll be on to you before the divil’s got both feet on the blessed ward at all.’

  22

  Edict

  MONDAY MORNING, AND Jane felt good – which was rare. She lay and watched for the dawn.

  She’d seen like hundreds of dawns from here now, her bed facing the east window. This was not brilliant feng shui-wise, but you did get to see the sun come up over the
wooded hill, and that was seriously important today.

  Jane replayed last night’s encounter – still amazed at how cool Sorrel had been, inviting her and Rowenna over at once to talk about it all. Jane calling Rowenna, and Ro saying, ‘Look, better not tell them we’re still at school. These people worry about parents finding out and making a fuss.’ That was cool – so they were office working girls. Sorrel, who looked about Mum’s age, had with her an elderly woman called Patricia who was kind of the head of the group and was obviously a really heavy person and had quizzed them in this really soft, knowing voice. How important is it to you to find the Path within yourself? Are you ready for so much hard work at a time when most girls your age are out having fun?

  That made you think. You could spend years in search of enlightenment, and still wind up disillusioned at forty or something. The answer was: give it six months and then, if it wasn’t working for you, let it go.

  No sign of dawn, and it was getting on for seven. Mum was probably up already, because – yes! – Mum was meeting Lol later in Hereford.

  She didn’t know what the meeting was about, and why it was so early, but that didn’t matter. Their meeting was still a major coup for Mystic Jane, who had set the whole thing up the other night. Classic, when you thought about it: Lol taking Merrily in from the cold, offering her sanctuary just like she’d done for him that time. Mum still very big on the sanctuary concept, like with all those hookers she tried to rescue when she was a curate in Liverpool.

  It would be really good to have Lol around again, so cool in his vulnerable, nervous way. This Moon – she was entirely wrong for him. You could tell, just by watching her in the shop, that she was remote and self-obsessed. So, OK, she was beautiful and about ten years younger than Mum. But Mum was still sexy. Well, she could be sexy, if she wanted to. If the bloody Church…

  Or if they’d met way back – Mum in her Goth frock and her Siouxie Sioux make-up, Lol unhappily on the road with his band, Hazey Jane. You seemed to go all tightened up and inhibited when you got older. Especially when you had your whole life hijacked by the Church. The dogcollar – it was like some sick masochism trip. The punks used to wear actual dog-collars. Had Mum once been into bondage gear, and was that a natural progression to clerical costume?