by Phil Rickman
‘Fuck you, Watkins.’
‘Not even in your dreams.’
‘What do you want? What you want me to do?’
‘Tell me what happened when she first approached you. Was she on her own?’
‘Course she was on her own.’
‘I bet you thought she actually fancied you, didn’t you?’
Gittoes blushed.
‘Don’t worry, she’s good at that,’ Jane said. ‘Come on, don’t stand there like a bloody half-peeled prawn. Talk to me.’
‘I dunno what you want!’
‘What do you know about her?’
‘She’s your friend!’
‘Cooperate,’ Jane hissed, ‘or the first thing that happens – like tonight – is word gets to reach your stepfather.’
‘Please… what you wanner know? You wanner know where she goes when you en’t with her? You wanner know who her real boyfriend is? Cause I followed her – all right? – on the motorbike. Yeah, I thought I was in with a chance – how sad is that? I followed her around. I can give you stuff to, like, even the score… if you’ll leave me alone.’
‘Keep talking, hairball,’ Jane said.
For quite a long time, Miss White continued, she did not really understand what a Satanist was. For a start, nobody would ever admit to being one. You had this absurd American self-publicist, La Vey, with his Church of Satan, following a poor variation of Crowley’s Do What Thou Wilt philosophy. But that was a misnomer: there wasn’t that quality of pure, naked hate which Satanism implied.
Black magic? Ah, not quite the same thing. Black magic was simply the use of magic to do harm. And, yes, Miss White had been tempted, too – was often tempted. Aware, of course, of the easy slope from mischief to malignity, but she had done worse things without the need for magic – hadn’t everyone?
Miss White had practised ritual magic for a number of years before the robes and the swords and the chalices had begun to seem rather unnecessary and faintly absurd. It was during this period that she first encountered Anna Purefoy, or Anna Bateman as she was then.
‘We were both civil servants at the time. Anna worked at the Defence Ministry – secretary to an under-secretary, quite a highly paid post for a girl her age. She never hid her interest in the occult – neither did I. There are a surprising number of senior civil servants practising the dark arts – by which, of course, I do not mean Satanism. To the vast, vast majority of ritual magicians, the idea of worshipping a vulgar creature with horns and halitosis is absolute anathema.’
The change came with Anna’s persecution by Christians in the person of a junior Defence minister with a rigid Presbyterian background. A far more senior civil servant had been linked by a Sunday newspaper to an offshoot of Aleister Crowley’s magical foundation, the OTO. In the resulting purge, Anna’s resignation had been sought and bitterly given.
‘I suppose her resentment and loathing of the Christian Church began there,’ Miss White said, ‘but it really developed when she met Tim.’
Timothy Purefoy: already a rich man and getting richer.
‘Tim, like Anna, was blond and rather beautiful. Terribly charming and infinitely solicitous. Especially to elderly ladies in the area of Oxfordshire where he plied his trade. For in Tim’s hands it was indeed a trade.’
‘What did he do?’ Lol asked.
‘He was a minister of the Church of England, of course. First a curate and then a rector. I think he’d risen to Rural Dean by the time he was thirty. A throwback in many ways: what they used to call a “hunting parson”: field sports and dinner parties, frightfully well connected, etc. And so he often got named – along with the Church itself, of course – in the published wills of wealthy widows. This is common practice, and the Church seldom bats an eyelid as long as it gets its share as well. Timothy was always terribly careful like that. Probably be a bishop by now, if he hadn’t become fatally attracted to Anna, then reduced to a comparatively lowly post with Oxfordshire County Council.’
Miss White assumed that by this time Anna’s bitter resentment of the Church, its prejudices, and the hold it retained on the British establishment had almost certainly become obsessively bound up with her continuing magical studies. The Church had destroyed her promising career, so she felt driven to wound the Church at every opportunity.
Lol was picturing the gentle, sweet-faced woman with flour on her apron in that mellow farmhouse kitchen. Then, later, dabbing her eyes at Moon’s funeral.
‘The destruction, humiliation or corruption of a priest is a great satanic triumph,’ Miss White said. ‘Everyone knows that. But the greatest triumph, the ultimate prize, is the defection, the turning, of an ordained minister.’
‘Does that really happen?’ He thought of big, bluff, jovial Tim Purefoy in his shiny new Barbour and cap. Come to the farmhouse… have a coffee.
‘I don’t know how often it actually happens,’ said Miss White. ‘Perhaps some of them remain ministers while practising their secret arts. How many churches have been clandestinely dedicated to the Devil – how can anyone know? What I do know is how very, very much it must have appealed to Anna, as an ex-MOD person – the idea of turning Tim. The Cold War was at its height, former British agents like Philby flaunted by the Soviets, so how wonderful, how prestigious – among her circle – to convert a priest to Satan? Especially such a recognizably establishment figure as Tim Purefoy.’
Of how it happened, Miss White had no specific knowledge.
‘But one can imagine the Rural Dean’s slow-burning obsession with the sensational blonde in the little cottage… those long, erotic Sunday interludes between Matins and Evensong. The subtler arts of sexual love come naturally to a magician,’ she said enigmatically.
‘But if he’d got such a good thing going, milking widows and being accepted by the county set, why would he give that all up?’
‘Well, he didn’t, of course – not voluntarily.’
Athena believed it was a new curate, some earnest evangelical practising an almost monastic self-denial, who blew the whistle on both of them. It was revealed that Anna had been giving regular tarot readings to villagers, in a cottage in the very shadow of Tim’s parish church. And also once – famously – at the parish fête. It was Anna who was driven out of the village first, by a hate campaign drawing support from fundamentalist Christians for miles around.
‘And meanwhile Tim was photographed leaving her cottage late at night. It rather escalated from there, but it never became a very big scandal, because the Church kept the lid on it. I don’t know whether Tim was dabbling in Satanism by then, or whether that came later – but it did come. By which time both held a considerable grievance against the “witchhunting” Church itself. And the annexing of his spiritual baggage, no matter how corrupted it already was, due to his weak and greedy character, must have been an enormous boost for her own influence among her peers.’
Through the window, Lol could see a platoon of elderly ladies advancing up the drive.
‘Damn,’ Athena said. ‘First they’ll head off to their rooms to freshen up, if that’s a suitable term, then they’ll all come twittering in.’
‘How did the Purefoys carry on making a living?’
‘When a minister defects, he is treated – just like Philby in Moscow – as a great celebrity. He is presented at Court, as you might say.’
‘What do you mean by “Court”?’
‘Oh, Robinson, even I don’t know who most of these people are. Very wealthy, very evil – actual criminals some of them. Certainly the narcotics trade, whatever they call it these days, has a very large satanic element, and has had for decades. The Purefoys had capital, they had contacts, they had a very English charm. With their patronage and advice, lucrative property deals followed, leading, for instance, to the purchase of that building in Bridge Street housing the Pod. I then simply could not continue working with that group any more, which was a great pity, as it did get me out of here once a week – they always sent a car for me. No, I knew what
was going to happen, you see.’
‘What?’
‘They would use the Pod as – what do you call it? – a front. Anything from an innocent reception centre to a kind of spiritual brothel. Podmore already told me about your friend’s daughter – but I want to ask you something about that. This friend herself wouldn’t, by any chance, be Merrily Watkins?’
‘How did you know that?’
‘Ha! This clarifies certain small mysteries. Oh, what a target that woman must be for the Purefoys and their ilk. A female exorcist – and such a pretty girl.’
‘Yes.’ Lol began to fold the map.
‘Ah,’ said Athena calmly, ‘I see.’
‘Where’ve you been? I mean where have you been?’ The kid just staring back at her, and Merrily taking a deep breath, gripping the Aga rail. ‘I’m sorry. Christ, what am I saying?’
‘I don’t know, Mum.’
‘I close my eyes in church, I see that lime-green Fiesta reversing into our drive. I come back from church, and you’re not here. I’m sorry. There is no reason at all you have to be here all the time.’
‘No, you’re right,’ Jane said. ‘It was thoughtless of me.’
‘Ignore me, flower. I’m badly, badly paranoid. Previously, I see a stranger in the congregation, and I think: Yes. Wow. Another one! Now, when I glimpse an unfamiliar face, I’m watching for a little sneer at some key moment; I’m watching their lips when we say the Lord’s Prayer. I go round afterwards and sniff where they sat. Jesus, I shouldn’t be saying this to you – you’re only sixteen.’
‘Yes, I am,’ Jane said mildly. ‘And I’ve just been to see Danny Gittoes. Rowenna gave him, like, oral sex in return for breaking into the church and contaminating your cassock with Denzil Joy’s suit. Just thought you should know that.’
Merrily broke away from the Aga.
‘Also – and I’m not qualified to, like, evaluate the significance of this – but Rowenna’s been seeing – euphemism, OK? – seeing a young guy by the name of James Lyden. He goes to the Cathedral School and apparently tonight he’s going to be enthroned in the Cathedral as something called – vomit, vomit – Boy Bishop. Does this mean anything to you?’
47
Medieval Thing
SHE CALLED HUW, but there was no answer. She didn’t know his Sunday routine. Perhaps he drove from church to church across the mountains – service after service, until he was all preached out. If he had a mobile or a car-phone, it wouldn’t work up there, anyway.
She next called Sophie at home. Sophie, thank God, was home. Merrily pictured a serene, pastel room with a high ceiling and a grandfather clock.
‘Sophie, are you going to the Boy Bishop ceremony tonight?’
‘I always do,’ Sophie said. ‘As the Bishop’s lay-secretary, I consider my role as extending to his understudy.’
‘That’s not quite the right word, is it? As I understand it, the boy is a symbolic replacement – the Bishop actually giving way to him.’
‘Well, perhaps. Should I explain it to you, Merrily?’
‘Please.’
She listened, and made notes on her sermon pad.
‘Shall I see you there?’ Sophie asked.
‘God willing.’
‘I should like to talk to you. I’ve delayed long enough.’
An hour later, Merrily called Huw again, and then she called Lol but there was no answer there either, and no one else to call. When she put the phone down, she said steadily to herself, ‘I shouldn’t need this. I shouldn’t need help.’
Jane, coming into the scullery with coffee, said, ‘You can only ever go by what you think is right, Mum.’
‘All right, listen, flower. Sit down. I’m going to hang something on you. And you, in your most cynical-little-bitch mode, are going to give me your instinctive reactions.’
Jane pulled up a chair and they sat facing one another, sideon to the desk.
‘Shoot,’ Jane said.
‘It’s a medieval thing.’
‘Most of Hereford seems to be a medieval thing,’ Jane said.
‘In the thirteenth century, apparently, it was a fairly widespread midwinter ceremony in many parts of Europe. Sometimes he was known as the Bishop of the Innocents. It was discontinued at the Reformation under Henry VIII. The Reformation wasn’t kind to the Cathedral anyway. Stainedglass windows were destroyed, statues smashed. Then there was the Civil War and puritanism. In most cathedrals, the Boy Bishop never came back, but Hereford reintroduced it about twenty-five years ago, and it’s now probably the most famous ceremony of its kind in the country. The basis of it is a line from the Magnificat which goes: He hath put down the mighty from their seat and hath exalted the humble and meek.’
‘That’s crap,’ Jane said. ‘I don’t know anybody my age who is remotely humble or meek.’
‘How about if I tell you when to come on with the cynicism. OK, back to the ceremony. After a candlelit procession, the Bishop of Hereford gives up his throne to the boy, who takes over the rest of the service, leads the prayers, gives a short sermon.’
‘Would I be right in thinking there aren’t a whole bunch of boys queuing up for this privilege?’
‘Probably. It’s a parent thing – also a choir thing. The Boy Bishop is almost invariably a leading chorister, or a recently retired chorister, and he has several attendants from the same stable.’
‘So, what you’re saying is, Hunter symbolically gives up his throne to this guy.’
‘No, it isn’t symbolic. He actually does it. And then the boy and his entourage proceed around the chancel and into the North Transept, where he’s introduced to St Thomas Cantilupe at the shrine.’
‘Or, in this case, the hole where the shrine used to be.’
‘Yes, I understand this will the first time since the institution of the ceremony in the Middle Ages that there’s been no tomb.’
‘Heavy, right?’
Merrily said, ‘So you’re following my thinking.’
‘Maybe.’ Jane pushed her hair behind her ears.
Merrily said, ‘If – and this is the crux of it – you wanted to isolate the period when Hereford Cathedral was most vulnerable to… shall we call it spiritual disturbance, you might choose the period of the dawning of a millennium… when the tomb of its guardian saint lies shattered… and when the Lord Bishop of Hereford…’
She broke off, searching for the switch of the Anglepoise lamp. The red light of the answering machine shone like a drop of blood.
‘Is a mere boy,’ Jane supplied.
‘That’s the final piece of Huw’s jigsaw. Is that a load of superstitious crap or what? You can now be cynical.’
‘Thanks.’
‘So?’ Merrily’s hand found the lamp switch and clicked. The light found Jane propping up her chin with a fist.
‘How long do we have before the ceremony starts?’
‘It takes place during Evensong – which was held in the late afternoon until Mick took over. Mick thinks Evensong should be just that – at seven-thirty. Just over three hours from now.’
‘Oh.’
‘Not very long at all.’
‘No.’ Jane stood up, hands in the hip pockets of her jeans. ‘Why don’t you try calling Huw Owen again?’
‘He isn’t going to be there, flower. If he is, it would take him well over an hour to get here.’
‘Try Lol again. Maybe he can put the arm on James Lyden’s dad.’
‘The psychotherapist?’
‘Maybe he can.’
‘All right.’ Merrily punched out Lol’s number; the phone was picked up on the second ring.
‘John Barleycorn.’ A strange voice.
‘Oh, is Lol there?’
‘No, he’s not. This is Dennis Moon in the shop. Sorry, it’s the same line. I’m not usually here on a Sunday, but Lol’s not around anyway. Can I give him a message if he shows before I leave?’
‘Could you ask him to call Merrily, please?’
‘Sure, I’ll lea
ve him a note.’
‘Face it,’ Merrily said, hanging up. ‘This guy is not going to pull his boy out of the ceremony – thus forcing them to abort it.’
‘I suppose not. Actually, it does seem quite scary. What if something did happen and we could have prevented it? But, on the other hand, what could happen?’
‘Well, it won’t be anything like thunder and lightning and the tower cracking in half.’ She saw Jane stiffen. ‘Flower?’
‘Why did you say that?’
‘What?’
‘About the tower cracking in half.’
‘It was the first stupid thing I thought of.’
‘That’s the tarot card Angela turned up for me: the Tower struck by lightning. It’s just… Sorry, your imagination sometimes goes berserk, doesn’t it?’
‘Look.’ Merrily stood up and put an arm around her. ‘Thunder is not forecast, anyway. You don’t get thunder at this time of the year, in this kind of weather. That tower’s been here for many centuries. The tarot card is purely symbolic. And even if something like that did happen…’
‘It did in 1786.’
‘What did?’
‘We did this in school. They had a west tower then, and it didn’t have proper foundations and the place was neglected, and on Easter Monday 1786 the whole lot collapsed.’
Merrily moved away, looked down at the desk, gathering her thoughts. ‘Look, even if it was likely, it’s still not the worst disaster that could happen.’
‘You mean the collapse of spirituality,’ Jane said soberly.
‘Whatever you say about the Church, flower, there’s no moral force to replace it.’
‘OK,’ Jane said. ‘So suppose all the people jumping off the Tower Struck By Lightning are the ones, like, abandoning Christianity as the whole edifice collapses. Suppose the final disintegration of the Church as we know it was to start here?’
Merrily said, ‘Would you care?’
48
Blood
THE CROW.
As the crow flies: a straight line.
Dinedor Hill… All Saints Church… Hereford Cathedral… and two further churches, ending in…
