The Lamp of the Wicked (MW5)

by Phil Rickman

  Presently, out she came again, under a big red and yellow golfing umbrella.

  ‘So what’s the actual verdict, Mr Parry?’ Attractive-looking lady, mind, in her sharp-faced way. Fortyish, and a few inches taller than Gomer, but weren’t they all?

  ‘You wannit straight?’ Gomer took out his ciggy. Mrs Pawson was looking at it like he’d got a bonfire going with piles of old tyres. She took a step back.

  ‘It’s the reason we came to you, Mr Parry. Our surveyor said that you, of all people, would indeed give it to us… straight.’

  Gomer nodded. This surveyor, Darren Booth, he was a reputable boy. He’d said these Pawsons could be looking at trouble, and he wasn’t wrong. Gomer looked over at the Efflapure, blinking through his rain-blobbed glasses.

  ‘All your ground’s to the far side of the house, ennit? That orchard?’

  ‘We did try to acquire some more, but—’

  ‘And how far’s he from the house?’ Gomer nodded at the Efflapure. ‘Four foot? Five foot? Bugger-all distance, ennit? You don’t do that, see, Mrs P. Should’ve been set back, that thing, well bloody back. Likely Lodge done it this way to save a few yards o’ pipe and having to go into the old orchard, mess with roots and stuff. But you never digs it in that close to a house, specially—’

  ‘We specifically…’ Mrs Pawson all but stamped her nice clean trainer in the mud. ‘We specifically told him that cost was not an issue.’

  ‘Ah…’ Gomer waved a hand. ‘Some folk, they’d cut corners for the sake of it. Don’t reckon he’d’ve passed on no savings to you, mind. So, er…’ Holding back a bit, because this wasn’t good. ‘What exackly did young Darren say could happen?’

  ‘He didn’t.’ Mrs Pawson shivered under her umbrella. ‘He just said it could become a problem and advised us to get a second opinion, and he suggested you, as… as the most honest contractor he knew. For heaven’s sake, Mr Parry, what does it mean?’

  Staring at him, all wild-eyed. She was up here on her own this weekend – husband still in London, kiddie with the nanny – and she was finding out, in the mud and the rain and the wind, how country life wasn’t always a bowl of cherries. She looked thin and lost under the big brolly, in her white jeans and her clean trainers, and Gomer felt sorry for her.

  He sighed. Nobody liked jobs like this, where you had to clean up after another outfit. But this time it was Roddy Lodge, and Roddy Lodge had it coming to him.

  He went over to the house wall. No way you could be entirely sure, see, but…

  ‘See this bit of a crack in the stonework?’

  ‘Is that new?’

  ‘Sure t’be. What he’s done, see, is dug ’isself a nice pit for this article, eight, nine feet down, right up against the ole foundations.’

  ‘You’re saying’ – her jaw trembling – ‘it could cause the house to collapse?’

  Gomer thought about this, pushing back his cap.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘not all the house.’

  They agreed it needed moving, this Efflapure, to a safer location. If you accepted that such an object was actually needed at all.

  ‘See, I wouldn’t’ve advised you to get one o’ them fancy things,’ Gomer said. ‘Wasteo’ money, my view of it. You got a nice, gentle slope to the ground there. Needs a simpler tank and a soakaway, like there was before. Primitive, mabbe, but he works, and he goes on workin’. No problems, no fancy meters to keep checking. Low maintenance, no renewable parts. Get him emptied every year or two, then forget all about him. Tried and tested, see, Mrs P. Tried and tested.’

  A gust of wind snatched at the brolly. Mrs Pawson huffed and stuttered. ‘So what on earth are we supposed to do with the… Efflapure?’

  ‘Get your Mr Lodge to take the whole kit back, I’d say. Tell him what your surveyor said. He’ll know Darren Booth, see, know how he puts ’isself around the county, talks to the right people, so if you and your husband puts it over to Lodge, tackful-like, that it wouldn’t look so good if it got out he’d been cutting corners to save ’isself a few quid, you’d have most of your money back off him pretty quick, I’d say.’ Gomer nodded seriously, figuring this was good advice – at least let Lodge know there were a few folk onto his games. ‘Who was it told you to go to the feller in the first place, you don’t mind me askin’?’

  ‘He…’ She brought out some folded paper from a back pocket of her jeans and handed it to Gomer. ‘Somebody… pushed this leaflet through the letter box.’

  Gomer opened it out. There was a drawing on the front of a roses-round-the-door Tudor cottage. Cartoon man in a doublet-thing with a ruffle round his neck and a cartoon woman in a long frock and an old-fashioned headdress. They both had big clothes-pegs on their noses. Underneath the drawing, it said:

  IN DAYS OF OLDE,

  DAYS BEFORE…

  EFFLAPURE

  Gomer tried not to wince.

  Mrs Pawson said in a panicky voice, ‘It was a local firm. We thought—’

  Gomer shook his head. ‘Not what I’d call a firm, exackly. Lodge, he operates out of a yard, back of Ross-on-Wye, what I’ve yeard, with a coupler part-timers on sickness benefit.’

  ‘But he’s an authorized agent for… for Efflapure.’

  ‘Agent for more dodgy outfits than you can shake a stick at,’ Gomer said.

  ‘So you… You know him.’

  ‘Well… I knows of him. Seen him around.’

  Roddy, with his baseball cap and his wraparound dark glasses. Roddy and his big, whipped-cream smile.

  ‘Can you…?’ Mrs Pawson gripped the shaft of the umbrella with both hands, knuckles white. ‘Can you take it away?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘You could probably make some money out of it, couldn’t you?’

  ‘Well…’ Gomer scratched his cheek. ‘There are places one o’ these might be suitable. Working farm, light industrial, mabbe. We could likely come to an arrangement. But I gotter say, you’d be better off going back to this Lodge and—’

  ‘No!’ Her whole body a-quiver now. ‘I don’t want that. I don’t want him here again.’

  Traffic swished past, all mixed in with the wind. There was a sudden thump in the leaves near their feet. Gomer saw that a big, ripe Bramley had tumbled from one of the trees, but Mrs Pawson jumped and looked behind her like it could be something a deal bigger than that. Now she was actually clutching his arm, the umbrella all over the place.

  ‘Mr Parry, how soon could you do it?’

  ‘You sure you don’t wanner talk this over with your husband?’

  ‘How soon?’

  ‘Well, you won’t be yere, will you, ‘less it’s a weekend?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter whether we’re here or not. Could you do it tomorrow?’

  ‘Tomorrow?’ Gomer was more than doubtful. ‘I’d have to put it to Nev – my nephew, my partner in the business…’

  ‘Look,’ Mrs Pawson said, teeth gritted, shivering seriously now, ‘I just want it out of the way. We’re new to the area and we made a mistake. It was a mistake and we’re paying for it. I want it out and I don’t want… him doing it, do you understand?’

  Likely this was when Gomer should have spotted something. The look on her face: this kind of… well, fear, really. No getting round that.

  The up-and-down of it was that he was sorry for this London woman, alone in her farmhouse with no farm attached, husband likely bored with it already. Smart-looking, educated woman washed up here, marooned in the flat fields with the traffic blasting past.

  After what happened, he’d often think what else he might have said, how else he could’ve handled it – like stalling a while, taking advice, checking Roddy out a bit more. But what was to check out? What else was there to know about an operator, a wide boy, a conman, a ducker and diver, a bit of a poser?

  ‘Please,’ Mrs Pawson said.

  Gomer wished he knew what else was bothering her but he figured she was never going to tell him. He nodded. ‘All right, then.’ What else could he say? �
�Tuesday. What about Tuesday?’

  It didn’t feel right, even then.

  2

  Pressure

  SOMETIMES, YOU JUST wanted to shake her. You wanted to get her into a corner and scream, Why don’t you just get on with it? You are a mature woman, you are unmarried. Like, being a priest is supposed to condition your hormonal responses or something? It’s the only life you’ve got, for Christ’s sake… whatever else you might think.

  Jane was leaning forward, across the kitchen table, making no secret about trying to listen.

  It was getting dark now in the big, beamed kitchen and Mum was partly in shadow, standing in the corner by the door, taking the call on the cordless. She looked very small but quite ghostly in her grey alb. Her expression hadn’t changed. Normally, when she picked up the phone and found out who was on the line, she’d react – like smile in relief, look curious, or maybe grimace. Like, she’d instinctively make a face if it was, say, the Bishop or – worse – Uncle Ted. The fact that there was no reaction at all this time meant that she was working seriously hard at concealing something she didn’t want Jane to know about. Most of the time, Mum was an open book – and it wasn’t by Proust or Joyce or anybody difficult.

  So it was Jane who made the face. Like, was this ridiculous, or what?

  ‘OK. Fine, let’s leave it at that,’ Mum said, and stubbed out the line. She put the cordless on the dresser and stood looking at it for a fraction too long before turning back to look into the room. In the lamplight her face was soft and in the long linen alb she looked, for a moment, like a little girl waiting to go to bed. Just needed the teddy.

  ‘Cold call?’ Jane raised both eyebrows. ‘Emma from Everest? Stacey from Staybright?’

  Mum came back to the table. She did look tired. Well, it had to be getting her down, this bobbing and weaving, covering her tracks.

  ‘You don’t have to do this, you know, Mum. Not with me.’

  ‘What?’ Now an expression: wariness.

  ‘I’m on your side. I like Lol. I mean, in other circumstances – like not involving my ageing parent – the twenty-something age gap between him and me would be as nothing. But, you know… if I can’t have him… What I’m saying is, if you want to arrange a little tryst, you have my blessing. And, er…’ jabbing a thumb towards the ceiling. ‘His too, I’d guess. He’s not inhuman. Presumably.’

  Jane sat back, arms folded. For a moment, Mum was almost smiling. Then she said brusquely, ‘Don’t you have homework?’

  ‘Done it. Double free period this afternoon. However, if that’s code for you want me to leave the room so you can call back, exchange a few steamy intimacies, I’d be happy to—’

  ‘Don’t push it, flower,’ Mum said mildly.

  ‘Push it? Jesus, if anybody ever needed a good push…’ Jane subsided into her chair, drumming her fingers on the refectory table. This was not the time.

  ‘Look at the time.’ Mum closed her eyes, the childlike bit dropping away. She was thirty-seven now, no getting around that – heading for the rapid slide into cronehood, with her prospect of happiness, which had seemed so close, receding again. ‘Parish meeting at half-seven, and we haven’t eaten yet.’

  ‘Not a problem.’ Jane stood up. ‘Why don’t I go down the chippy?’

  ‘I thought you were boycotting the chippy.’

  ‘They’re now claiming they’ve stopped using animal fat. I can live with that.’

  ‘Would you?’ Mum looked grateful, dragging her bag from the dresser, pulling out her purse.

  ‘You want mushy peas, too?’ Jane asked.

  After the kid had left, Merrily went into the scullery-office, closed the door, switched on the Anglepoise and sat down, pulling her black woolly cardigan over her alb. She thought about calling Lol back but then – parish meeting: income, cash flow… pressure – phoned Huw Owen instead.

  ‘You know everything,’ she said. ‘What line do I take on a mobile-phone mast in the spire?’

  Huw said, ‘Cold over there, is it?’

  ‘Not by your criteria.’ Huw’s rectory was well up in the Brecon Beacons, above the snowline, where spring and autumn would wave to each other from either side of July.

  ‘I were only thinking about you earlier,’ he said. ‘You and your rock star. Serious, is it, or just a fling?’

  Rock star: a touch of irony, there. She didn’t rise to it. ‘We’re permitted flings now?’

  ‘Merrily,’ Huw said, ‘these are the days of sex-change clergy, transvestite clergy, bondage clergy, cocaine clergy. I’d say, as long as it doesn’t involve Alsatian dogs… What’s Bernie Dunmore’s view?’

  ‘Up to the individual conscience. Between the individual and God.’

  ‘Nice. You can tell why he made bishop. And what’s God say?’

  ‘He says to get on with it or Jane’ll be back with the chips.’

  She pictured Huw slumped, shoeless and shaggy-haired, in front of his fire of coal and logs, the uncurtained window a cold blue square in the whitewashed wall. From the edge of his sheep-shaven lawn, you could see the site of the cottage where Huw had been born a bastard, as he liked to phrase it, two years before his mother took him off with her to Sheffield, to grow up a Yorkshireman with a weight of Welsh on his back.

  Huw Owen: the mongrel come home to the hills. Merrily’s Deliverance-tutor, her spiritual director.

  ‘Aye, go on, then,’ he said. ‘Mobile-phone masts? The tips of the Devil’s horns.’

  Crossing the market place in the damp dusk, Jane looked back once. Through the heavy, dripping autumn trees, the lights of Ledwardine Vicarage were blurred, as though seen through tears, and she was wondering about Mum and Lol and how it could possibly be going wrong so soon.

  All through the late summer, Mum had seemed brilliantly light and girlish, maybe for the first time since she’d been ordained. Twice, she’d actually worn this provocatively low-cut top Jane had brought back from a summer sale in Hereford as kind of a joke.

  Jane had imagined the skimpy thing lying on the floor of Lol’s loft and was entirely cool about the notion. Mum had been a widow for over six years now and, although the crash that had killed Dad on the M5 had been a drastic kind of reprieve from a marriage gone bad, it was time to dump the guilt for ever.

  It had to be guilt, didn’t it? Mum had always been good at guilt, on any level. During the summer, Lol had written this song, ‘The Cure of Souls’, about the problem women priests might have loving God while also loving a man.

  Which was only a problem if you believed that God was a man. If you believed that God was anything.

  And if this thing – this faith in something unknowable, unprovable and very possibly bollocks – was likely to screw it up for Mum and Lol, there was no way Jane could live with that… like, even if she had to stand out here in the square and publicly burn Bibles on the cobbles.

  The violence of the thought disturbed her a little. Pulling her beret down over her headphones, she switched on the Super Furries’ Rings Around the World to blow it all away, crossing now into Church Street, with its lamplit black and white façades, moving under the dimly lit windows of the former Cassidys’ Country Kitchen. At least the Cassidys had tried to serve traditional local produce, whereas now the place was charging an arm and a leg for two bits of squidge cradled in a red lettuce leaf. Gourmets were said to travel from three counties to eat here, but local people only ever came once – probably calling at the chippy on the way home.

  This was typical of the way the village was going. With another overpriced antique shop and poor Lucy Devenish’s old Ledwardine Lore turned into some rip-off, designer-trivia emporium pretentiously called Ledwardine Fine Art, it was close to becoming unbearably chic, with coachloads of French and Japanese tourists, like in the Cotswolds.

  At least the chippy was still in business. Jane slipped into Old Barn Lane, where its single window gleamed grease-yellow in the drizzle. This year, autumn had come down hard and fast, like some dank, grey roller
blind. No Indian summer, no golden October days, and too late for all that now.

  She bought cod and chips, twice. She and Mum didn’t eat meat at all any more, but occasionally relapsed into eating fish. After all, Jesus had eaten fish, hadn’t he? Jesus, in the right mood, would double your catch. Jane stepped down from the shop doorway, holding the chip package away from her fleece.

  ‘Jane – tell your mother not to be late tonight, won’t you?’ Uncle Ted Clowes stood there, merging with the greyness, bulky and stupidly sinister in his wide-brimmed Mafia hat. Until his retirement, Uncle Ted had been a solicitor, and you still couldn’t trust the old bastard. He didn’t like Mum being Deliverance consultant because it regularly took her out of the parish, out from under his thumb – which was probably the only truly worthwhile aspect of the whole crazy Deliverance thing.

  Jane looked up. ‘What’s the problem… Ted?’ In the light from the steamy window, his wide face looked like ridged sandstone; he hated it when she talked to him like an equal. She grinned. ‘Not… the great Commercialization-of-the-House- of-God storm?’

  It’s a contentious issue,’ Ted said heavily, ‘and it needs to be resolved before it starts to split the village. Your mother knows that.’

  Meaning he didn’t want it dividing the ever-diminishing percentage of villagers who actually went to church. Not much of an issue at all, then. Jane converted the grin into a sweet and sympathetic smile. ‘I’ll get her bulletproof vest out of the airing cupboard.’

  ‘One day, Jane,’ said Uncle Ted, ‘you’ll learn to take some things seriously.’

  ‘And the day after that, they’ll bury me.’ Jane refixed the headset. ‘Better split or the chips’ll be cold.’

  Get a life, Ted.

  She walked back through the village, its windows like Christmas lanterns. So far this year, it had been featured in three national-newspaper holiday supplements. Among the cars parked on the square – and taking up enough space for two – was this great long blue and cream Cadillac.