by Phil Rickman
‘It can be a bad time,’ Jenny said. ‘When I was your age, most of the time I was in a state of confusion and terror. I’d shut myself in my room – whichever anonymous room it happened to be – and I’d shiver and cry and take pills sometimes. And then, at some strategic point, a kind man would come along and he’d go, “There, there, I’ll look after you, you’re with me now, and everything’s going to be all right”.’
‘This was when you were modelling?’ They were standing just under the fat oak pillars of the market hall, which inhabited the cobbles like some giant, fossilized crustacean.
‘I left home after an unhappy experience with the priest, Father Colm. I told your mother it was a friend of mine he’d had his auld hands all over, but I don’t suppose she was fooled.’
‘Oh.’ Mum hadn’t mentioned this.
‘The awesome injustice of it was that, although they never talked about it and they still don’t, my family and the whole damn community held me responsible for the downfall of a Good Man.’
That figured, thinking back to what Eirion had gleaned from the Net: Jenny Driscoll brought up in a rigid, rural Catholic community, and then ‘escaping’ into the heartless, soulless media world of a foreign country. Looked like a girl who bruised easily.
Jenny said, ‘Modelling. Yes, you can model for passing fashions or you can model for old, old perversions. Oh, I was a model, all right. I was styled for abuse.’
Jane looked at the pale face under the white scarf, lustred by the haloes of the fake gaslamps. Romantic in a besmirched way.
‘Some women are, you know – quite literally. This was the heartless eighties, and I became the image that fuelled the fantasies of thousands of men of a certain sort. A woman with the frailty of a child doll. Turn her upside down and listen to her cry – mama, mama – and then make it better. And they do make it better for a while. But when you stop crying, it isn’t long before they start to miss it, and they have to make you cry again and again. And they don’t realize the crying mechanism’s all worn out, and that’s how the doll gets broken. Does this shock you at all, Jane?’
‘Well, I…’
‘Ah, but you’re a modern girl. You’ve heard it all before.’
‘Maybe I just haven’t thought about it,’ Jane admitted. ‘Not really. Like, you’re bombarded from all sides with statistics and reports and people opening their hearts, and there’s just so much of it that it all becomes a mush. You don’t really hear it any more.’
‘No. Well, the thing I’m trying to explain – the time’s come when I have to explain it – is how I came to… fancy your mother. I didn’t think I’d be explaining it to you, but no matter, you’re the one that’s here.’
‘Oh,’ Jane said, with a tightening of the gut.
They walked through the deserted night-time village, through the centuries from cobbles to tarmac, down Church Street where Lucy Devenish, the folklorist, had lived in a black and white cottage and inspired Jane in all kinds of ways before dying. And then down towards the modern bungalow where Gomer Parry lived, alone now since Minnie had died, alone at work without Nev and without even Gwynneth and Muriel, the diggers.
Ledwardine itself remained unhurt by any of it, an organism, as Mum liked to call it, with the joins between the ancient and the new glossed over in black and white paint, and the warm lamps in the windows melting their bits of night. In many ways, it was the ultimate place to live. A nest.
But that wasn’t why Jenny Box had come. That was, like she’d told Mum, because of the angel. And also, it seemed, exactly as Gareth Box had said, because of the angel that was Mum. And yet it all sounded different, as Jenny Box talked about men and women and the Church.
‘… All the men who directed the religions of the world, waged the holy wars – leaving the women at home because the women weren’t strong enough to fight or strident enough to preach. Well, thank God for that, because during the time they were left behind, with only the small, domestic things to exercise their minds, women were learning to look inwards. To journey inside themselves and reach the ocean of the spirit.’
Jane struggled with this. It wasn’t feminism as she knew it.
‘We find the strength inside ourselves,’ Jenny said, ‘and that’s the only true strength. All the rest is violence.’
She’d fled the Church because it had been dominated, for her, by male violence, and she’d taken refuge in the New Age – all those hazy places Jane had been – because it was all basically Goddess-dominated. And that was how Vestalia had come about.
‘We mind the hearth, is what we do, the altar of the home. It’s men, you see, who despoiled the old, simple churches, so you have areas like the Bull Chapel in the parish church here, with the tombs of brutal men and their effigies reflecting material wealth and power. I’d surely take a jackhammer to that auld divil now and throw the pieces in the river.’
‘Yes,’ said Jane, who’d often felt the same about the sandstone effigy in the Bull Chapel, with its eyes fully open and its arrogant little smile.
But, while bemoaning the way it had been dragged into the male world of warfare and brutality, Jenny had come to miss the Church, the weight of it, the tradition, the sometimes pure beauty of it. And then something happened to beckon her back.
‘One day, I was in North Wales, alone. I’d had… well, call it nervous exhaustion, and I’d been lent a cottage, to disappear there for a while. And this day I’d walked for hours on my own, trying to cool my head, and it started raining, and I came upon this wee church, not far from the sea, and it was open, and so I went in to shelter. ’Twas very plain – no stained glass, no statues, no tombs, no carvings. The simplicity, that was a big statement in itself, a huge statement. And for me it was as if I was coming home again, you know? I was enfolded by it. I think your mother would understand.’
‘She’s been there. Well, not there, but like… somewhere similar.’
Yeah, a similar church, on a similarly desperate day, bringing away with her what she’d talked of as the vision of blue and gold, the lamplit path – less a calling than a beckoning whisper at a time of personal crisis, and the one aspect of Mum’s religion that Jane had always understood.
But had Mum told Jenny Box about the experience? And had Jenny Box now absorbed it into her own mythology? Uncertainty seized Jane again. Was she being used in some way? She glanced at Mrs Box, walking with her head down, hands in the pockets of her brown, rain-bubbled Barbour, talking about why, when she came back, it was not to the Church of Rome but to the Anglican Church that she’d been taught, as a child, to despise.
‘You see, the strange thing was, the day I went into that little Celtic church – though I didn’t know this until afterwards – that was the very day the Synod, or whoever it was, voted to permit the ordination of women. So here was I, feeling the call back to Christianity… and here was God meeting me halfway.’
Jane stopped in the street. ‘You mean you joined the Anglican Church because it had accepted women as priests?’
Jenny smiled at last. ‘And wasn’t that the most significant development since Christ himself was on earth?’
There was a stage, Jenny Box told Jane, when she’d even wondered about becoming a nun, but didn’t think she could handle the discipline. And no, she didn’t really see herself becoming a priest. Too much of a private person. But when her marriage went the way of all her other relationships – she didn’t elaborate, perhaps she didn’t need to – and she was looking for a permanent bolt-hole, it was natural to seek out somewhere with a woman priest who looked like staying.
The questions started hammering inside Jane. ‘No, listen,’ Jenny Box snapped, ‘I know it sounds like I was stalking her, but it isn’t like that. I needed to know this was the right place. The right home. The right hearth.’
‘What are you saying?’ A car came around the corner from Old Barn Lane, sending up spray from the gutter, and some of hit Jane in the face like spit. ‘What did you do?’
&nb
sp; ‘I just did my research, was all. If we’re taking on a new manager for one of the shops, I like to know where they’re coming from, whether they fit in with the ideology of the business.’
‘You had her checked out?’
‘There’s… an agency we use in London.’
‘Like…’ Jane wiped her face with the sleeve of her fleece. ‘You don’t mean a private investigator?’
‘Obviously, the agency we use doesn’t work out here, but they subcontracted it to a local man. Don’t look at me like that, Jane; I needed a priest, I’ve always needed a priest, someone who could guide me on my journey into the great ocean of the spirit. Maybe join me there. Don’t look at me like that! It’s not sexual and I’m not mad, all right?’
Jane felt suddenly light-headed. ‘Not sexual?’
‘Holy God, girl!’ Jenny Box flinched, and her features appeared suddenly blurred and oblique, as though she’d been struck. ‘Does everything have to be sexual? I’m on the run from all that. My husband is greedy, violent… and worse.’
‘Gareth?’
‘Yes, the charming Gareth, who likes young girls, gets off on the vulnerable, who only married me because when I was thirty- five there was still something about me that looked eighteen, but let’s not go into that. Oh, he has a very considerable charm, does Gareth, and a wonderfully plausible manner, and it worked on me for a long time – I’m not easy for the charm, but he was good at it, and I thought he wasn’t like the others, but… You see, it took God to show me what I was doing – letting them bully me, Jane. Hadn’t I always been attracting the kind of men who loved to bully women? And me turning it to my advantage, I thought – figuring I could get my own way in the end by letting them dominate me. Which is all fine and well until the day you say no, just the once, and then it starts to get ugly. Christ, does it get ugly. So if you ask me what I wanted from your mother… I wanted a friend, was all, a friend to go with me on the spiritual journey.’
it
Oh God. Jane looked away, across the street.
‘And the things Humphries found out, the private eye… all he told me, Jane, were good things – how she helped sort out that trouble in the village over the play, the things she’d done as an exorcist… I’d never even heard of a woman exorcist before, a woman appointed to deal with the Devil himself – well, this was stepping into the big shoes. And how she stopped this charismatic priest who was abusing women. And then helping the mentally ill guy – that kind of thing.’
Jane looked up. ‘Mentally ill guy?’
‘Robinson?’
‘Oh. Right.’
‘And when I saw her, what kind of a person she was – so unassuming – I knew she was someone I wanted to help. I swear to God it’s no more complex than that. So whatever Gareth told you…’
And Jenny began talking of this recent discord over the business, Vestalia, how Gareth Box had opposed her attempts to introduce a Christian dimension to try and reflect in a domestic setting the spiritual simplicity she’d discovered in that tiny seaside church in North Wales – Gareth saying this was commercial suicide. At the same time knowing his hands were tied, because she was both the creative force and the figurehead. And now the inevitable split was looming, and Gareth was accusing her of being brainwashed by the Church, by this woman priest.
‘He found out about the money,’ Jenny said.
‘Money?’ It didn’t strike Jane at first.
‘The money. In the sack. Well, he was salting away what he could, knowing he didn’t have long before the golden goose flew the pen, shifting what money he could get his hands on, investing in other companies. So I thought… why not? And here was Merrily in a situation where male priorities were attempting to influence her better judgement, penetrating the sanctuary. And he found out. And then he wanted to know about Merrily, this woman priest who’d bewitched me. So when you arrived at his door, the bastard must’ve thought ’twas his birthday… in all kinds of ways.’
He didn’t touch me,’ Jane said quickly.
‘Would’ve happened Jane, if not the next time you met, then the time after that. The older he gets, the younger they get.’ Jenny Box tightened her white scarf around her head and neck. ‘Another destroyer. Starting off, I suppose, trying to get information out of you – anything he could use against me, to blackmail me or humiliate me. And then he’d release the poison. Like a serpent. And then, he’d bide his time, and he—’
‘She’ll give it back, you know.’ Jane didn’t want to hear this. ‘The money. She won’t keep it now.’
‘She’ll keep it,’ Jenny said.
‘No. Maybe you don’t know her as well as you think you do.’
‘I know him, Jane. I know him better than I ever… dreaded I would. I know where he came from. We’d better be getting back, it’s starting to rain again.’
Jane followed her, in a fog of self-dismay vaguely lit by a kind of tentative elation – a rare feeling when she’d been so very wrong about so much. She found she was almost relishing the cold rain on her face, a cleansing… she needed that. She felt – although she wasn’t sure the feeling was going to last – that she needed, in some way, to start again.
At the square, Jenny Box pointed at a long blue and white car parked in the line of vehicles directly opposite the Black Swan. ‘There you are, see, that’s my man. Humphries.’
‘That’s his car? But I’ve seen it loads of times…’
Jenny Box said, rather sadly, ‘When he realized who I was, he became most assiduous in his inquiries, perhaps anticipating regular work in the future. Came up with a lot of stuff I hadn’t asked for. Some of which was useful. Told me things about you, for instance.’
‘Me?’ Jane didn’t know whether to feel outraged or flattered.
‘About your dalliance in the various spiritual byways. The man seems like a buffoon, but he’s surprisingly good at what he does. Garrulous. Asks questions without you realizing they’re being asked.’
‘Is he as obvious as his car?’
‘Twice as obvious. He… I wanted to know about Underhowle, all right? When I read about Lodge, and when I heard on the radio news that Merrily was involved, I asked Humphries to find out what he could from his contacts. On an impulse, I paid him to go to Underhowle.’
God, what it must be like to have unlimited money. ‘Did you tell Mum what you were doing?’
Jenny Box shook her head.
‘I don’t think she’d be too happy about that,’ Jane said, ‘do you?’
‘Well, that’s what I was coming to see her about. Things he uncovered. Things I should’ve known. I’ve been more stupid than I can say. Do you know at all when she’ll be back?’
‘Could be anytime. She’s with Huw Owen. He’s a bit bonkers, to be honest. They could be there all night.’
‘Jane, listen… I hope I’ve convinced you – because I’ve embarrassed the hell out of myself – that I only want to help her.’
‘Well, yeah, but…’ Jane felt awkward. ‘It’s just… the Website? Uriel?’
‘Yes, I sent your mother’s name to be put on the Uriel Website. For people to pray for her. The Uriel Website’s an international site for promoting women’s spirituality, nothing at all sinister. I put her name on the site because it attracts a weight of prayer from all over the world, and that’s what she’s going to need, believe me. It’s a deep-embedded evil she’s confronting, and she needs the angels at her shoulder.’ Jenny Box stood on the edge of the square. The blur was gone. Certainty shimmered around her now. ‘So would you tell her to come and see me, please? Before Friday. Before she buries that man. Believe me, there’re things she very much needs to know.’
‘Sure, but—’
‘I wasn’t kidding before. Whatever kind of lunatic you think I am, I don’t care. This is an awful satanic thing, and it’s close to us all.’ Well, can’t you—?’
‘No, Jane, you’ve pushed me too far as it is. I won’t have this going out second-hand.’
Jan
e nodded soberly. ‘OK, I’ll… tell her to call you in the morning.’
‘Thank you, Jane.’
‘I’m sorry, OK?’
‘There’s nothing to be sorry about. Goodnight now. God bless you.’
‘Thanks.’ Jane turned away to walk home, past the forecourt by the entrance to the church, and saw the steeple rising from the middle of the ragged apple trees.
And then she turned back and called out, ‘Did you see it? Did you really see an angel?’
Jenny Box stopped, her white scarf slipping back. ‘Jane, it doesn’t matter what I saw. It was a personal experience. A confirmation. It’s nothing to do with anyone else. I’m not claiming to be Bernadette. I don’t care whether anyone believes me.’
‘You don’t understand what I’m asking, do you?’
Jenny came up to her. They were alone in front of the lychgate. Jane felt suddenly forlorn.
Jenny reached out and took both Jane’s hands in her own. Jenny’s hands were cold.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I saw it, Jane. And she was beautiful.’
41
A Rainy Night in Underhowle
HUW CONCLUDED, ‘In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, we pray that this building might be free from all powers of darkness, spirits of evil. Defend from harm, Lord, all who enter and leave through this door…’
The words dissipated, Merrily thought, like the smoke of a single cigarette. This was Huw going through the motions – never leave a possibly disturbed place unblessed.
Ingrid Sollars put all the hanging bulbs out of their misery before locking the Victorian oak door with one of the keys on a jailer’s ring. She pulled at the iron handle. ‘Sometimes it’s come open in the night.’
‘How do you mean?’ Merrily looked at Ingrid: scratched waxed jacket, practical slacks: a woman who looked like she could shoe horses and change oil filters. ‘How could that happen?’
