by Phil Rickman
‘Tell you what…’ Syd was back on his feet. ‘I’m just thinking, if you’ve got a chainsaw, Huw, we could get Merrily out.’
She sat down on the sofa. If he wanted her out, she no longer wanted to go. Sunk into the ruins of his armchair, Huw shook his head.
‘Take you bloody hours on your own, lad, in the dark. Dangerous, even on your terms.’ He started easing off his walking boots. ‘Make your calls, Merrily. Ring Jane. You’ll only be on edge. Go in t’kitchen. Rayburn’s on.’
‘I’ve no big secrets.’ Merrily looked at Syd, then back at Huw. ‘But if you two want to talk… Can I make you some tea?’
‘Aye, that’d be nice. Two sugars for me.’
She’d never been in Huw’s kitchen before, and it was a small surprise: clean, and not as basic as you’d imagine. New pine cupboards and a larder fridge. Odd domestic touches – spice rack, even. Feminine touches. Maybe his cleaner? There was no woman in Huw’s home, as far as she knew. Not since the death of Julia, the love of his later life.
The Rayburn was doing warm, throaty noises. She filled the kettle, found the pack of Yorkshire tea bags then called the vicarage on her mobile. Answering machine. Called Jane’s mobile: answering service. Called Lol at his cottage in Church Street: no answer, no machine.
Bugger. Since the great Christmas flood, Ledwardine had seemed vulnerable in a way it never had before. Changing times, a climate in destructive flux. Jane… variable. Something not quite right, lately. She rang Jane’s mobile back, left a message: ‘ Just call me.’
Syd had a daughter, too, around Jane’s age and problematical. For once, he seemed to want to talk about her.
‘Em’s been clean for most of a year. Though we remain watchful.’
Stretching in his chair. Couldn’t seem to keep still. He’d shown no actual surprise when she’d turned up with Huw, but then he wouldn’t. But watchful, oh yes. He always would be, until his teddy bear’s eyes were closed by someone else.
‘Where’s she now, Syd?’
‘Back home. With Fiona.’
‘Which is still down south?’
‘For the present.’
Syd was from some part of London, his wife from Reading. He’d virtually promised her they’d go south when he came out of the army, but his ordination had changed everything, the way it often did. And, like so many SAS men, he’d grown fond of the place that he’d kept coming back to with his mission scars.
Only problem being that, by the time Syd had become a curate there, Hereford had developed its own little drug culture, and Emily was a born addict. No safer, as it turned out, in Malvern. In the end, Fiona Spicer had taken her back to Reading in manacles, while Syd, bound by his faith, had stayed on.
‘But it’s going to be all right.’ Syd sat with his hands clasped between his knees, staring into the fire, rocking slightly. ‘It’s working out.’
‘You’re finally leaving Wychehill?’
‘I’ve left.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘Not been gone long.’
‘So, erm…’
‘Oh God.’ Syd stretched his socks towards the flames. ‘I know what you want, Merrily, and I really can’t help you. Hands are tied. You know how it is.’
‘Not really.’
Huw sniffed, sank lower into his chair. In the poor light, its leaking stuffing was the colour and texture of his hair.
‘Bloody old Huw,’ Syd said, like Huw wasn’t there. ‘He’s a cunning bastard. Can’t say I wasn’t warned. Hasn’t explained, has he?’
‘What?’ Merrily didn’t look at Huw. ‘I’m not getting any of this, Syd. Either you’re taking over my job and they haven’t told me yet…’
‘I wouldn’t go near your job in a radiation suit, Merrily. It’s simply that where I am now makes direct consultation with anybody outside of certain circles… inadvisable, at best.’
‘You are still in the Church?’
‘To a point.’
‘Jesus,’ Huw said tiredly. ‘Weren’t for me to tell her. He’s gone back where he came from, lass.’
‘What, the…?’
‘Bit irregular,’ Syd said. ‘The Regiment doesn’t like old warriors crawling back. Nobody wants a loser who can’t cut it on the outside, with a yen to start jumping out of helicopters again, but the current guy did his back in on an exercise, and they needed a stand-in for a while.’
‘They’ve made you…?’
‘Temporary chaplain.’ Syd plucked his mug from the chair arm. ‘Saves sending a civilian on the Vicars and Tarts for the sake of a few months.’ He smiled. ‘That’s the course they have at Sandhurst for clergy new to the army.’
He leaned back, his eyes half-closed.
‘Interesting times. Not often commented on, but the growth of the secular society’s not good news as regards the Regiment. Especially when you’re dealing with an enemy that welcomes martyrdom.’
‘Taliban.’
‘Among others.’
Syd sat up, drank some tea, leaned back again, pushing out his feet to the fire. He’d once told Merrily that there was a harsh kind of mysticism at the heart of the SAS. Something to do with the miracle of survival against immeasurable odds. Ninety per cent training and preparation, nine per cent luck and one per cent something you’d call on at breaking point. The lantern in the storm.
‘I know what I’m doing,’ Syd said. ‘First rule – don’t throw the Big Feller in their faces.’
Merrily nodded. It made sense.
‘Always a surface cynicism about all things religious,’ Syd said. ‘Which is healthy. But, in the end, these are not ordinary soldiers. They live by a very strong faith. Faith in themselves, faith in their mates. There’s also what you might call a monastic quality, and if a particular kind of inner spark is allowed to go out, they’re open to a certain creeping disillu- Shit! ’
Syd jerked his feet back from the hearth. His socks were smouldering. He stamped his feet lightly on the edge of the hearth, then rubbed them together and carried on talking.
‘If you come over too evangelical, you’re well stuffed. But you do have to come over like a priest, not a mate. They’ll always respect an expert.’
‘This mean you sometimes have to go abroad with them, Syd?’
‘You make your own decisions on where you might be needed.’
‘I mean, how dangerous is it for a priest? Stupid question?’
‘Frustrating more than dangerous. If threatened, for instance, you must never resist or exercise violence. You go willingly into captivity. And no shooters. What’s kind of amusing, if you go on exercise with the boys, they don’t like to think you’re getting off with light kit, so they give you a cross to carry, size of an old Heckler and Koch nine-mil.’
‘And if it’s touch and go, lad,’ Huw said, ‘wi’ a crazed Taliban warlord?’
Syd let his chin sink into his chest, peered up, coy.
‘Every SAS chaplain worth his kit knows thirty-seven ways to kill with a wooden cross.’
There was a silence. The elephant in the room had a big D tattooed on its hide. Merrily sipped her tea, looking for an approach.
‘Why did you want to do it?’
‘It was the right time. Iraq, Afghanistan. War, but not the kind of war people care about. You hear a lot about the dead, but not much about the damaged.’ Syd put a thumb to his head. ‘Up here, you know? The NHS got no answer to that – not much of one, anyway.’
‘You think you can help?’
‘In a small way. Makes me feel more useful than… you know…’
‘A parish.’
‘It’s still a parish. Except this is one where I can see the point of it.’
‘You’re based at Credenhill?’
‘Army villa, fully equipped.’
‘On your own?’
‘For the present. However, Emmy’s no longer at college. On account of being four months pregnant.’
‘Oh.’
‘Nah…’ Syd sat up.
‘It’s good. This is the good thing. She gets married beginning of May – to a boy who’ll soon be a baby barrister, how perfect is that? Then Fiona moves back in and we get to think about a future.’
‘Well.’ Merrily smiled. ‘Things do turn around, don’t they?’
‘Told you it was OK to smoke in church.’
He wasn’t smiling, he was wearing a smiley mask. He didn’t seem frightened, though. He seemed in control.
Right, then…
‘So, Syd… you’re here because you have a deliverance issue related to your SAS ministry?’
‘Blimey.’ Syd stretched his arms over his head. ‘Is that the time?’
There wasn’t a clock in here and probably insufficient light to see his watch. Syd was on his feet.
‘Samuel Dennis Spicer.’ He yawned. ‘Church of England. As was. Goodnight, all.’
10
Male Thing
The logs had reddened and collapsed into glowing splinters, the air outside fallen to near-stillness. Merrily stood up and went to the window. Across the valley, clouds had cleared and the hills were moon-bleached, but you couldn’t see the tip of Pen-y-fan the way you could from the chapel.
‘Of course,’ Huw said from the sunken chamber of his chair. ‘You’re a woman.’
‘We all have our cross to bear.’
‘They don’t have women in the SAS.’
‘You’re saying that’s why he won’t talk to me?’
‘He’s back in the army, his ministry’s governed by the buttoned-up bastards in the MoD. Not that he said much to me, either.’
‘An evil. What do you think that might be? As I recall, that’s not one of his words. He doesn’t do melodrama. But, yeah, I can see why you might think he’s scared. He’s a bit manic, isn’t he?’
‘You’re hardly going to see him trembling or keep running to the bog.’ Huw sat up, reached down to the hearth for the pot and poured more tea. ‘But, aye, that fact that he’ll say nowt to you more or less confirms it. It is Regiment-related. So very much on your patch.’
‘Although it has moved since Syd was a soldier.’
In Syd’s time, the Regiment had still been based on the southern edge of the city where it had been established during World War Two by an army colonel, David Stirling. The camp known ever since as Stirling Lines. Still producing highly trained commando units, parachuting in to operate behind enemy lines. That famous motto: Who Dares Wins.
Strangely, in the city, it had been more anonymous. The townsfolk part of a conspiracy of silence. But now it had moved a few miles out, to the former RAF base at Credenhill. Now everybody knew where to find the SAS: out in the sticks, with a high fence and armed guards.
Merrily came away from the window.
‘Topographically they’re in the county and in the diocese. But not part of either. The SAS are a little island of their own.’
‘So if Spicer has a problem involving a spiritual evil he has to deal with it himself. Doesn’t that bother you?’
‘In what way?’
‘He does one day on a deliverance course and thinks he knows enough to wing it on his own?’
‘Mmm. See what you-’
Merrily’s mobile was chiming in her bag. The kid had always chosen her moments.
‘Where are you?’
‘In the pub.’
‘I’m assuming not on your-’
‘With Lol. And Danny Thomas.’
‘Good. Listen, flower, I’ve got a bit of a problem.’
Telling Jane why she’d be spending the night at Huw’s rectory.
‘Jesus,’ Jane said. ‘Gormenghast?’
‘So when you get in, maybe you could ring and assure me that all the doors are locked, things like that. Or you could even stay in Lol’s spare room…’
‘And become the subject of evil gossip? I’ll be… fine.’
Hesitation?
‘You sure?’
‘Wind’s dying down. A few slates gone in the village, that’s all. You want me to take a walk round the vic-?’
‘No! If there’s nothing obvious from inside, just-’
‘You want me to hang on in the morning, till you get back?’
‘No, get the bus. I’ll call you anyway, about eight.’
‘OK.’
‘And get Lol to see you home and check-’
‘That there’s nobody around. Yes. I will. I’ll do that.’
Now that was wrong. Normally it would be, Don’t be ridiculous, this is Ledwardine.
‘Owt up, lass?’
‘Don’t know.’ Merrily dropped the phone into her bag; maybe she was overtired. ‘You think when they’re officially adult, it’s going to be easier. That they’ll be more restrained. But the only real difference is that now they can do things. Shake foundations.’
She told Huw about the Ledwardine henge issue – indications of a Bronze Age earthwork around the village, concealed for centuries by apple orchards. It was clear that elements inside Hereford Council would prefer that nothing was found on land they hoped to develop, thus turning Ledwardine into something approaching a town. Jane – obsessed with ancient sites, planning a career in archaeology – was furious. And Jane was eighteen. Jane could vote and express opinions.
‘She’s also enraged about a very rich man called Ward Savitch inviting other rich people to kill our wildlife. And she feels… I don’t know. She was a bit screwed-up when we arrived – fifteen, dad dead, mother adopting a deeply uncool career. And yet she’s been happier in Ledwardine than anywhere, and now she can see it coming apart. The village is a divided place now. Not a happy place. ’
‘And you’ve to keep walking the fence.’ Huw fell silent, gazing into the embers from the depths of his chair. Then he got to his feet. ‘I’ll go and make some more tea.’
When he returned with the teapot it was after midnight and Jane had rung back to say all was well: doors barred, cat fed, no signs of storm-damage at the vicarage.
Still detectable traces of let’s not worry Mum unnecessarily. But short of listing every conceivable mishap and pedantically putting them to her, one by one, there wasn’t a thing you could do about it.
The tea was strong, as if Huw was determined neither of them would get much sleep tonight.
‘You read the new guidelines?’
‘Mmm.’
A circular last week, underlining the need for full insurance. Be sure your clerical policy covered deliverance and all the possible repercussions.
‘It’s a farce, Merrily. Rules and procedures and targets. Like the NHS. Health and Safety. It can’t work like that. I’ve been thinking… might be time for me to pack this in. The courses.’
‘You’ve said that before.’
She moved to the chair vacated by Syd, up against the dregs of the fire. Lighting a cigarette and leaning back into a padded wing so that most of her face was out of Huw’s line of sight. You tended to think it was only the intensity of his work that had kept him going after Julia’s death.
‘What would you do?’
‘Happen retire. Write me memoirs.’
‘That would explode a few comfort zones.’
Huw leaned back with his hands behind his head.
‘I’m starting to think we could be close to fucked this time, Merrily. I go into Brecon – even Brecon, and I can feel it. Apathy, scorn… even fear. Of what we might be underneath. Used to be the worst we were was irrelevant, now we’re taking the shit for militant Islam and a handful of kiddie-fiddling Catholic priests. We’re either naive and laughable or we’re part of a sinister old conspiracy to control people’s minds and have sex with their children. And all the time there’s Dawkins standing on his citadel of science, pissing on us over the railings.’
Merrily let the smile show.
‘Did I just hear a snatch of your fantasy final sermon?’
Huw’s eyes lit up for just a moment, like in the old days, and he laughed.
‘Bugger off to bed, you cheeky cow, or you’l
l be fit for nowt in the morning.’
She nodded and stood up.
‘Keep an eye on him,’ Huw said.
‘Syd? He’s a grown man.’
‘Credenhill’s no more than… what? Eight miles from you?’
‘You think this could actually be something at the SAS camp? Not going to get in there, am I?’
‘I never saw you as a defeatist,’ Huw said.
The room Merrily’d been given… she figured it wasn’t supposed to be a guest room. Syd would have the guest room. This was… a woman’s room? Nothing you could quite put your finger on. No frilly pink shade on the bedside lamp, no extra mirrors, no fleecy rugs.
The lamp had a parchment shade, making a pale sepia circle around two books: a hardback New Testament and an Oxford paperback edition of Aquinas’s Selected Philosophical Writings. The bed was a double bed. Merrily guessed this was the room where Huw had slept with Julia – a room that he didn’t use any more.
Wearing a sweater over bra and pants, Merrily switched off the lamp and walked over to the sash window. The view was down the valley towards the few remaining lights of the village of Sennybridge. The landscape looked disarranged, like rumpled bedclothes after a restless night.
The way the weather got inside the landscape. The way it got inside people. Even Huw.
New deliverance guidelines. Another generation of dull buggers appointed by careful bishops. She couldn’t lose that grainy mental video of Huw in the passage at the chapel heading the old stained light bulb, and she had a disturbing sense of disintegration: Jane leaving home for some university next autumn, Lol’s career reviving after the years of oblivion. Even though he only lived across the street, Merrily wasn’t seeing as much of him this year, now that Danny Thomas’s barn, over the border, had become his rehearsal room.
Well, that was wonderful, obviously. Life was good for Lol, good for Jane… if she could let go of Ledwardine.
Merrily stood at the window, arms wrapped around herself, watching the lights in the valley going out.
Part Two
…then my sight began to fail and the room became dark about me, as if it were night…
Julian of Norwich
Revelations of Divine Love
