The Wine of Angels

by Phil Rickman

  ‘I described him to you, sweetheart, and it still meant nothing. How do you ...? Oh, never mind. Would I be chancing my arm if I were to ask you where Blackberry Lane is?’

  ‘It’s up there. See that funny little building in the square? Just go up the side, to the left, and it’s this really narrow little lane. You’ll have to go a lot slower than you did when you came round that corner or you’ll wind up under a tractor or something.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  The window went up; Jane watched the car move off. She hadn’t really wanted to help him, but he would have found out anyway. She supposed Lol lived up there, and now he’d get a nasty surprise.

  He had a breakdown. Actually, he used to be a sort of pop star, way back. Well, very minor. I mean, like, tiny.

  She’d forgotten that. And Colette saying Lol was megasad. And ... and ...

  And she’d seen him again. She’d been in his arms. Carried in his arms. Oh God, he’d brought her home last night!

  And now she’d shopped him to this bastard.

  The Reverend Mum was right, as usual. She’d got pissed and left a trail of disaster. She had a lot of apologizing to do.

  12

  Sympathetic Magic

  A WISPY BREEZE plucking at her poncho, Miss Devenish climbed, without much effort, to the top of the knoll. With her back to the sun, the big hat pulled down, she loomed over Merrily like some ancient warrior chieftain.

  ‘You’re never alone in the countryside, Mrs Watkins. It’s the most intimate place. The poet Traherne knew that. When he walked out here, Traherne knew he was inside the mind of God.’

  Below them, nearly a mile away down the long, wooded valley, the village of Ledwardine lay like an antique sundial in an old and luxuriant garden.

  ‘The core of the apple,’ Miss Devenish said. ‘The orb. Traherne was always talking about orbs and spheres. Understanding that he was at the very centre of creation.’

  ‘Suppose he’d lived in some filthy city.’ Merrily looked down on the lushness of it all. ‘Or a desert somewhere.’

  ‘Wouldn’t have mattered. The man was a natural visionary. He instinctively picked up the pattern, the design. Before Wordsworth, before Blake, he stood here and he saw.’

  Merrily sat down on the edge of the green knoll, her legs dangling over a mini-cliff of rich, red soil. ‘How do you know he stood precisely here?’

  ‘I don’t.’ Miss Devenish smiled enigmatically. ‘And yet I do. He would’ve walked here with his friend Williams, to see the best view of the village.’

  Because of the hedges, freshly greened, you couldn’t see the roads; you couldn’t see the cars and vans and tractors, only hear their buzzing.

  ‘So much country,’ Merrily mused. ‘Even inside the village.’

  ‘Still, thank God, an organic community. In spite of the best efforts of those who’d turn it into a museum full of horse-brasses and warming pans. And supposedly authentic ceremonies’ – darkness entered Miss Devenish’s voice – ‘which belong elsewhere.’

  Merrily looked towards the church. The sandstone steeple stood proud, like the gnomon of the sundial, but the graves were all hidden by trees and bushes. The churchyard, more egg-shaped than circular, was partly enclosed by the orchard which, from here, had a deceptive density. Had the church once been entirely surrounded by apple trees?

  ‘Indeed. The heart, Mrs Watkins. And the blood it pumped was cider.’

  Along the hidden road, a heavy lorry rumbled, the landscape seemed to tremble and her mind replayed the deepened voice of Dermot Child. Auld ciderrrrrrrrrrr ...

  ‘Yes.’ Merrily pulled herself together. ‘And talking of cider ...’

  ‘I can’t tell you what happened to the child.’ The old girl scrambled gracelessly down from the top of the knoll and came to sit beside Merrily. ‘And if I tell you what I think might have happened, I’m afraid our embryonic relationship might well be aborted.’

  ‘Don’t like the sound of that.’

  ‘Laurence phoned me,’ Miss Devenish said. ‘The Cassidy girl had arrived at his door.’

  ‘That’s ... Lol?’

  ‘I do so hate slovenly abbreviations. Gaz. Chuck. Appalling. Laurence Robinson helps me in the shop. His is the nearest cottage to that end of the orchard. The Cassidy girl was somewhat distressed – well, as close to distress as that madam’s capable of getting. Told Laurence your daughter had drunk too much and passed out in the orchard. The two of them brought her back to the cottage. Which was where I first saw her.’

  ‘She was conscious by then?’

  ‘I wonder,’ said Miss Devenish, ‘if she had ever been, in the strictest sense, unconscious.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘She’d apparently been sick. Before she apparently passed out. My distant memories of such things tell me it’s usually the other way about.’

  ‘Was she coherent?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  Merrily took a deep breath. ‘Miss Devenish, she’s fifteen years old. She has no father, she’s had to change schools rather a lot, and ... well, she’s very intelligent, but rather less sophisticated than she thinks she is. Last night she was with a girl who seems to me to have been ...’

  ‘Been around. Yes.’

  ‘They seem to have been ... pursued ... by some boys. What I’m trying to get at is, when you found them, did you see any suggestion of ... of ...?’

  ‘Hanky-panky? No, Mrs Watkins. I don’t think you need worry on that score.’

  ‘Thank you. Next question. I don’t know how much cider she drank, but it was enough to knock her over. The first time I got drunk – not that much older than Jane – I spent most of the following day wanting to die. Jane slept like a baby and woke up with absolutely no trace of a hangover. So I wondered ... I mean, the word is, Miss Devenish, that you know a thing or two about herbal medicines. And things. I just wanted—’

  ‘My assessment of the situation tells me,’ said Miss Devenish, ‘that you wanted her to suffer.’

  ‘Well ...’ Merrily averted her eyes. ‘Let’s say I wanted her to regret it.’

  ‘Well, of course,’ said Miss Devenish, ‘you’re a Christian, and Christians are reluctant to believe that any significant lesson can be learned without suffering.’

  ‘And what are you, Miss Devenish?’

  ‘Labels!’ The old girl glared at her. ‘Why should one always have to be a something? Traherne was a Christian, but with the perceptions ... the antennae ... of a pagan. But I’ll not be drawn into that sort of argument. I’d prefer us to remain on speaking terms. You want to know how your daughter could get horribly inebriated on copious draughts of rough cider and come out of it without a king-size hangover, and I’m trying to give you a possible explanation without offending your religious sensibilities.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Merrily lay back against the knoll. ‘I’m not some fundamentalist bigot, honestly. Go on.’

  ‘What we used to call sympathetic magic. You’ll probably think this whimsical.’

  ‘I’ll try not to.’

  ‘All right. Like cures like. If you’re drunk on cider, what better place to sleep it off than an apple orchard? Crawl into the centre of the orb and curl up. Let nature do the rest.’

  ‘You’re right. That is whimsical.’

  ‘Wouldn’t work for everyone. The orchard’s a risky place, an entity in itself, a sphere. And this is a very old orchard. So it tells you – or rather it tells me – something about your daughter.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but what does it tell you about my daughter?’

  ‘I really don’t want us to fall out,’ Miss Devenish said. ‘But you would do well to trust the child.’

  Wearily, Lol opened his front door.

  In the brightness of the afternoon, the willow tree in the front garden dusted with gold, it was almost a relief to see Karl Windling there on the step. In person, in his denims, beaming through his beard. A moment of ridiculous anticlimax. No surprise; Karl would know Dennis would have war
ned Lol.

  ‘How the hell are you, son?’

  ‘I’m all right,’ Lol said tentatively. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Pretty good,’ Karl said seriously. ‘Pretty ... fucking ... good.’

  And looked it. It was nine years since they’d last been face-to-face. Karl’s beard was evenly clipped like a hairbrush. It was probably concealing a double chin; he’d put on some weight, but only the kind of weight you needed to make work-out sessions worthwhile. He looked fitter, in fact, than he had fifteen years ago when he used to remind Lol of Bluto in the old Popeye cartoons. The difference being, course, that there was never any real, lasting harm in Bluto.

  ‘Hey, this is cute.’ Karl stepped back on to the lawn. He wasn’t actually that big, when you saw him. Only huge in the memory. ‘This is picture postcard. How long you been here now, son?’

  ‘A year. Something like that.’ Lol felt numb, anaesthetized by the new acceptance that no matter where he went, how he lived, he was never going to have the balls to control his own life.

  ‘Quaint.’ Karl fingered the rotting trellis. ‘Sweet little cottage at the end of a country lane. Little garden, little porch. Retirement home. Lovely.’

  Lol nodded. He didn’t have to rise to it, or hide. Only let Karl see him as he really was: a small, spent force, a loser. And then Karl would leave him alone.

  ‘But you’re writing a bit, I hear. Few lyrics for Gary Kennedy?’

  Lol shrugged. ‘He sends me tapes.’

  ‘You can do better than that, son. Gary’s long gone.’

  ‘Still writes good tunes.’

  ‘He’s gone, son. Washed up.’ Karl prodded a cracked plantpot with his desert boot; they must be back in fashion. ‘Look, we just enjoying the lovely country air, or are you gonna invite me in to meet your lady?’

  ‘There is no lady,’ Lol said.

  Karl grinned in disbelief. In the old days, one of his more socially dubious pastimes had been poaching women from his friends and colleagues. He’d screw them once, rarely more than that, then give them back. To varying degrees, the friends and colleagues had found this irritating, but there was no record of retaliation.

  ‘You’re shitting me, son. You were always so popular with ladies. That air of helplessness brings out the universal mothering instinct. Made us all very, very jealous.’

  ‘That was then,’ Lol said.

  ‘So Dennis got it wrong.’

  ‘There was somebody,’ Lol said. ‘She left.’

  ‘Ah.’ Karl peered over Lol’s shoulder into the hall. ‘So you’re on your own.’

  Lol stepped back to let Karl into the cottage. It felt like holding out your wrists for the handcuffs, baring your belly for the knife.

  ‘I don’t want to fall out with anyone.’ Merrily nibbled a stem of grass. She was finding Miss Devenish disturbingly easy to talk to. ‘I’m the new kid on the block, trying not to put my foot in it. But something tells me I’m on the edge of a minefield.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Miss Devenish. ‘Methinks the Reverend Wil Williams rears his pretty head.’

  ‘Perhaps, under the present circumstances, we ought to avoid words like “pretty". Who told you about it?’

  ‘Anyone residing within a few hundred yards of Cassidy’s restaurant this morning would have heard the appalling Terrence beating his sunken breast. But I got the full details from Colette, as no one else seemed to be talking to her after last night. Don’t agonize about it, my dear. That’s my advice, for what it’s worth.’

  ‘It’s my job to agonize.’ Merrily sat up, reached for her bag. ‘Would you mind if I had a cigarette?’

  ‘Feel free to be human.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Merrily gratefully extracted the Silk Cut.

  ‘Agonizing.’ Miss Devenish regarded her intently as she lit up. ‘The need to agonize. That’s very interesting. I wonder, would your predecessor have said the same?’

  ‘AlfHayden?’

  ‘Faced with any moral challenge, the dreadful Hayden would simply erect the screen of buffoonery and vacuous twittering that’s sustained the Anglican clerical tradition for the past fifty years.’

  Merrily laughed, the smoke softening her up, the sun warm on her face and arms. ‘You’re a cynic, Miss Devenish.’

  ‘So perhaps the ordination of women will be the salvation of the Church. Women listen. Women worry. Call me Lucy. Listen, my advice, for what it’s worth, is to let it happen. Let the awful Coffey have his play.’

  The face was shaded by the big hat and the eyes were invisible. The hands lay placidly where the hem of the poncho met a baggy frock splattered with sunflowers.

  Merrily was cautious. ‘Why do you say that? I mean, Cassidy, for one, would be glad to hear you say it, but—’

  ‘Good heavens, whichever way it goes, Cassidy’s screwed, isn’t he? The festival needs Coffey for artistic credibility, but it needs Bull-Davies ... well, not for money any more, obviously, but certainly for the use of land for marquees and car parking. And also, more importantly, because Bull-Davies is the voice of the county set, and those buggers still stick together – more than ever, in adversity. Cause offence in that quarter and all kinds of barriers are erected. No, I shall enjoy watching Cassidy squirm. May even poke him with the occasional twig.’

  Under the shadow of the hat, the lips twisted with a happy malice.

  Merrily sighed. ‘So you think the play’s going to be valid.’

  ‘What?’ The hat came off to reveal a steel-grey plait in a tight coil and a fierce cobalt glare. ‘Valid? I think the whole concept is absolute cock.’

  ‘Then I don’t understand.’

  ‘Frolicking in the orchard with naked youths? Utter tosh. And yet the poor man was misjudged, I’m sure of that. Friend of Traherne’s, you see. Not a poet, unfortunately, but were his perceptions any less keen for that?’

  ‘So what are you saying? Was Williams a witch?’

  ‘Was Traherne a witch?’

  ‘Of course he wasn’t.’

  ‘Really? You’re sure of that?’

  This was getting silly. ‘I wouldn’t claim to know much about him, but people who do tell me he saw God in everything.’

  ‘Quite.’ Lucy Devenish stood up, jammed on her hat.

  Merrily followed her as she stalked down the footpath, across the sloping field towards the village. ‘You still haven’t explained ...’

  Lucy carried on walking, with long strides.

  ‘... why you think the play should go ahead in the church,’ Merrily said, out of breath now.

  ‘Why? For the truth, of course. Nobody cares about truth any more. Coffey doesn’t care – he just wants to mangle history for his own purposes. Cassidy doesn’t care – he sees the past as a marketing tool. Bull-Davies cares, of course, but only about his personal heritage, his reputation. His family have doubtless been distorting the truth for generations.’

  ‘But we don’t know what the truth is.’

  ‘No.’ The old girl stopped. They were on low ground now. Ledwardine had sunk into the trees so that only the steeple was visible, like a rocket waiting to be launched. ‘But when the ditchwaters are stirred, the turds often surface.’

  ‘Just don’t tell me,’ Karl said, ‘that you don’t miss it.’

  A pigeon, disturbed, battered its way out of the hedge and flew up past the open window.

  Lol was silent. Sitting in the blue chair with the cat on his knees. Being himself. A sad person.

  ‘Well, then?’ Karl looked around the room again, at the few cheap things in it. ‘Well?’

  ‘I’m doing what you said,’ Lol said desperately. ‘Not telling you I don’t miss it.’

  ‘Nah. You’re not being honest with yourself, son.’

  Karl was leaning back in Ethel the cat’s chair, with one of the three cans of half-frozen lager Lol had found at the back of the fridge. He had his tobacco tin on the arm of the chair, the tin which had upset Dennis Clarke because it was not the drug of choice in his part of Chippenham
. As he relaxed, another drug – California – had drifted into Karl’s accent.

  ‘This guy in LA, right? I hadn’t been there very long, and he was another Brit. Ex-para. Bodyguard to the stars now. Big bucks. We get pissed one night. I’m saying, So this is living, right? He gives me a funny look. Sour. He says, This is cruisin’, man, living it ain’t. He says, You wanna know the last time I was really alive? Port Stanley, he says. Or it might’ve been Goose Green. Back in the Falklands War, anyway. The last time his senses were really buzzing. I didn’t believe it. But like I say, I hadn’t been in Hollywood very long.’

  Karl drained the can, crushed it with feeling.

  ‘What am I saying, son? I’ll tell you. His time in the Falklands was like our times on the road, gigging. The buzz, right? On stage, a little pissed, high on your own music, and the thought of—’

  ‘No! Bollocks.’

  ‘Listen, a year ago, I played bass for two nights with a band called APB, from Santa Monica. I was older than any of those guys, by a good twelve years. But it was still there, son. By Christ, it was there. Afterwards ...’

  Afterwards. Was that what Dennis Clarke’s letter was saying in its cautious, accountantly way? Was that what had really offended the neat, suburban Mrs Gillian Clarke – Karl going on about the good old days of hot nights and tender young flesh? Lol tried to switch off Karl’s voice, summoning Traherne. Your enjoyment of the world is never right till you awake in heaven, till you ... till you look upon the earth ... no ... till you look upon the skies, the earth and the air as celestial joys ...

  ‘... tell you, I coulda gone on all night. Incredible. Left my brains all over the bedroom ceiling, yeah?’

  Lol’s fingers tightening on Ethel’s scruff; Ethel purred. You never enjoy the world aright till the sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens and crowned with the stars ... and ... and perceive yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world ... and ...

  ‘... stayed in Hereford last night. This morning, I’m in Andy’s, browsing through the albums, and – I’m not kidding, son, this was like a mystical experience – these two young girls, sixteen, seventeen, black stockings, skirts up to here. Combing the racks – obviously not got a bundle to spend – pick one up, study it, put it back, have arguments. Finally, they come up with one CD. One says, Look, it’s midprice, too. Guess what it was ... Guess—’