by Phil Rickman
‘This is the gateway to hell?’
Maybe there had once been a tiered garden in front; now it was this huge parking area with walls of natural rock, partly curtained with conifers. Merrily pulled onto its edge, under the discoloured swinging sign on a pole in the entrance: an archaic-looking painting of a squat tree and Royal Oak in faded Gothic lettering. Below, another sign, plain white, pointing at the pub.
Inn Ya Face >>>>
Nine or ten vehicles on the car park but no people around. She wound her window down. No sound other than birdsong. No visible litter. No smell of moral cesspit.
‘If the gateway to hell was jammed with people burning, nobody would be tempted into sin,’ Lol said.
‘That a new song?’
‘Not yet.’
‘OK, let’s go and talk to people about a ghost on a bike.’
The Volvo jangled on the long incline.
It was half a steepish mile further on, towards the top of the hill. Coming in from the south-west, you could see how the community had been constructed on the ravages of quarrying, houses and bungalows forming alongside new forestry, on their separate levels.
More than half hidden, it was like the shadow of a village.
But tonight it was sprinkled with gold dust.
Both their windows were down as they drove in, and, on the cusp of evening, the warm air around Wychehill was glistening with the moist and luminous soundtrack of medieval heaven.
12
Nearness
A ribbon of road under hunched, conifered shoulders. Like Spicer had said, no evidence of community or enclosure: no shop, no pub, no kids on bikes, no dog-walkers. Only on the top of Herefordshire Beacon, maybe two miles away, could you see figures moving, like flies on a cow-pat.
At just after seven p.m. Merrily pulled into a long bay in front of the church behind five other cars.
The church was set well back from the road but the distance was reduced by its size. At the end of an aisle-like path from the bay, its porch door was closed, its squat tower had no window slits. It stared sightlessly towards the road and couldn’t see the lushness of the valley which opened up below it on the other side.
And yet this unpromising, sullen hulk – post-Victorian-Gothic, built of still-unmellowed stone blocks – was … exalted.
Merrily shut her car door as softly as she could.
‘It’s got to be a record … a CD.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Lol said.
He stood in the church entrance by the black sign with gold lettering: St Dunstan’s. Above it, a heavy lantern on a wrought-iron bracket, one of its glass panels shattered.
The voices, male and female, poured down like a slow fountain.
‘It’s … Gregorian chant?’ Lol said.
‘I don’t know. I mean, that’s…’
‘Something like that, maybe. It’s certainly Latin.’
‘But that’s … I know things aren’t as hard and fast these days … but this is an Anglican church.’
Lol shrugged.
‘You want to go in?’
‘Better deal with what we came for.’
Merrily unfolded the order-of-service for a funeral, on which Syd Spicer had written the names and addresses, beginning with Tim Loste, Caractacus Cottage. Down the road, past the Rectory.
‘He’s got to be conducting it, hasn’t he?’
‘Hell of a choir for a village this size,’ Lol said.
‘A village where, according to the Rector, people don’t even talk to each other much. So, like, they just sing? Why didn’t Spicer tell me Loste wouldn’t be available tonight?’
‘I don’t suppose he knew you were coming. How far away are the others?’
‘Chairman of the parish council has a farm about half a mile away. I was going to save him till last, as he apparently hasn’t yet claimed to have seen anything. The other’s a Mrs Cobham. Converted barn. Two minutes’ walk, according to Spicer. Call that ten for the likes of us.’
‘He was in the SAS?’
‘Mmm.’
‘Is it common for an ex-SAS man to go into the Church?’
‘Church welcomes hard men. Good for the image. Bit of balance.’
They walked through the cutting, past Hannah Bradley’s cottage. No sign of Hannah. Although there was nobody about, Merrily felt conspicuous and zipped up her thin black fleece over her dog collar. Now the road was curving away around a hill defined by ascending houses and bungalows, several of them hidden behind conifer walls.
‘How about for him?’ Lol said. ‘Not a bit tame?’
‘We have people in the C of E make the Taliban look like a tennis club.’ Merrily stopped, looked up the hill. ‘Do you think that’s it?’
The barn-conversion was set back from the lane, its bay filled with plate-glass panels, mirrors of gold in the early-evening light. Expensive. The new gravel driveway had been given a curving route to make it seem longer, maples planted in careful stockades either side of it. A white Mercedes 4×4 sat at the top, outside the oak front door.
‘This is the woman whose car apparently went out of control and hit a camper van.’
But, again, there was nobody in. Merrily felt that, even before Lol let the knocker fall twice against its steel plate, the clunks echoing inside the barn like footsteps in an empty ballroom. She stepped back.
‘Not my night, obviously.’
‘Maybe it’s the wrong house.’
‘So which other one couldn’t we miss?’
Lol knocked again.
‘Maybe they’re in the choir.’
‘A whole village of brilliant, classically trained singers?’
Merrily moved back towards the lane which, beyond the barn, became a dirt track.
‘It’s like someone we can’t see is laughing at us.’
Maybe Syd Spicer. Maybe the Rector of Wychehill was laughing at them. Laughing silently, lying in some ditch, covered with branches, his face streaked with dark mud, like in the old days.
He should be here, as back-up. The protocol was that the local priest came with you, the first time, didn’t just throw the addresses at you and leave you to get on with it.
Merrily went to the edge of the lane and looked down into a bucolic kaleidoscope: swirls of woodland and cider-apple orchards and maybe vineyards, around sheep fields which glowed like emerald and amber stained glass as the sun began its scenic dive into the Black Mountains forty miles away.
By the time they’d walked back towards the church, the chant had stopped.
‘Maybe the whole community turns out to listen.’ Lol walked into the entrance, along the gravel path bordered with yew trees, turning to look back at Merrily. ‘You’re allowed.’
‘I don’t know that I am, to be quite—’
‘Pardon me?’
A blur of movement. Merrily turned slowly. A woman had appeared out of the trees by the entrance. She wore a pale sleeveless dress so long that it completely covered her feet, and it seemed somehow as if she’d risen from the ground.
‘You’re looking for someone?’
‘Well, we—’
‘Is there a concert on?’
Lol had wandered back. The woman smiled at him.
‘Choir practice, is all.’
She had a loose, wide mouth and big, deep-sunk eyes that seemed swirlingly aglow.
‘You’re in the choir?’
‘I don’t sing, although I have an interest. I was taking some air during the break. I live in a cottage back there. Wyche Cottage? Like the Wyche in Wychehill, which means salt, only, the real-estate guy in Ledbury, when he told me the name on the phone, I thought it was witch, and I’m like … woooh.’
She shook her tumble of brown curls.
‘Disappointing, really,’ Lol said.
‘How so?’
‘That it just means salt.’
‘Yeah. I guess. I changed it, anyway. Starlight Cottage now. Look—’
She came forward, stumbling over the dusty
hem of her dress, coming up very close to Lol and peering at him. Contact lenses, Merrily thought.
‘Pardon me,’ the woman said to Lol, ‘I don’t want to appear … but I think I know who you are?’
He took a pace back. Occasionally he was recognized, usually by someone who’d bought a Hazey Jane album nearly twenty years ago and was mildly pleased that he hadn’t killed himself like Nick Drake. He never relished it.
‘OK…’ The woman gazed hard at Lol. ‘Listen, I may have this totally wrong, but see, I’m not so stupid. I was expecting an old guy in a big hat with like a black bag, and it’s no business of mine, really, but you should know that some people in this place are just a little crazy.’
‘How so?’ Lol said.
‘Not so simple. Like, you’re talking about something, you know, sacred?’ She looked down and brushed a leaf from her dress. ‘I’m sorry. This is not my place. But there’s something here that must never be parted, you know what I’m saying? Like, you can walk out on the hills at twilight and you can sense his nearness. It’s a strange and awesome thing.’
‘Yes,’ Lol said. ‘I can imagine it would be.’
‘So, like, you know, I mean no disrespect here, but the whole idea of exorcizing this … wonderful, magical thing – from the Malvern Hills, of all places – that’s gotta be a bone of contention, right?’
* * *
This was the third time they’d stood outside a front door getting no response, but Merrily had heard the radio playing inside the house and she kept her finger on the bell.
It was still more than a minute before the door opened and Spicer stood there, unsmiling, in jeans and a black clerical shirt.
‘A word, Syd.’
He stared at her without expression, then looked at Lol. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up, as if he’d been dealing with one of those household tasks he performed privately to prove he had no need of outside help.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
She’d pulled down the zip of her fleece to reveal the collar, show him she was kitted out this time.
Spicer said, ‘Who’s your friend?’
‘I realize local loyalty is a good thing,’ Merrily said, ‘and crucial for a parish priest, I accept that. But there’s also the question of loyalty between people who share a … a calling? So you give me half a story, set me up to appear in front of the entire parish—’
‘It won’t be the entire parish. It won’t even be half the parish. Who’s your friend?’ he asked again.
‘This is Lol Robinson. He’s standing in as witness, back-up, second opinion. All the roles normally filled by the particular parish priest who’s requested assistance. If the parish priest can be bothered.’
‘I’m sorry, Merrily, I just assumed you’d prefer to check things out on your own.’
‘No, you didn’t. You just didn’t want, for some reason, to reveal the alleged identity of the alleged presence.’
‘Look,’ Spicer said. ‘The people out there who wanted an exorcist called in, I thought it was down to them to explain exactly why. I just went through the motions. I told you I had reservations, but I didn’t think it was right to spell them out to you before you’d had a chance to check out the situation for yourself.’
‘Maybe you wanted me to come back this evening to hear the music, just to underline it a little?’
‘I didn’t know you’d be coming back at all before the meeting. That’s why I set it up. For God’s sake, Merrily—’
She turned away in frustration. The evening sun threw an unearthly light on Herefordshire Beacon so that it looked like a cake aflame on a hot-plate.
‘I mean … Elgar?’ She swung back to face him. ‘That Elgar?’
13
Another Sphere of Existence
Oh shit, surely not this one? Please don’t let it be this one.
The late sun was bleeding into a false horizon of cloud, an old tractor coughing and retching across a field somewhere.
Jane standing in Virgingate Lane, radiating dismay.
She’d looked up Councillor Pierce in the phone book. The address was given as Avalon, which had been kind of promising: anyone who’d named his house after the legendary land of apples in the west, where King Arthur had been laid to rest, must have some kind of a soul.
Yeah, well…
There obviously had been apple trees here, in the days when Ledwardine was almost entirely surrounded by productive orchards. In fact, you could see a few of their sad stumps in the shaven piece of former field through which a tarmac drive cut like a motorway intersection, all the way to the triple garage.
Half a dozen cars were parked along the drive, which was actually wider than Virgingate Lane itself, where all the cottages were old and bent and comfortably sunk into the verges.
The extensive dwelling at the top of the tarmac drive was built of naked, glistening bricks, the colour of a Barbie’s bum. It had a conservatory, a sun-lounge, three fake gaslamps.
Jane could hear music and faint laughter from the house.
Great.
The plan had been to maybe encounter Councillor Pierce in his garden, casually ask him about the Coleman’s Meadow project and then perhaps educate him a little on the subject of leys and natural harmonies. He couldn’t turn her away, could he? He was a politician. She’d be able to vote for him next time. Or not.
It was clear from all the cars, however, that Councillor Pierce was hosting a dinner party or something. Bollocks.
Stupid idea, anyway. Jane felt deeply self-conscious now, standing there in her white hoodie like some shameless stalker. Unlikely that she’d gone unobserved from inside.
As if in confirmation of this, security spotlamps came blasting on below the broad pink patio which surrounded the house like a display plinth. Jane saw the hulk of a plundered cider-press with a slate plaque attached to the stone wheel. The plaque said – inevitably – AVALON.
Maybe it was irony. Sod it, anyway. She turned away from the horror. Maybe she’d just write a letter of protest to the planning department, with a copy to the Hereford Times who wouldn’t print it. Sod them all.
‘Excuse me!’ A man behind her. ‘Excuse me … you looking for anyone in particular?’
Jane turned. Two guys in middle-aged leisureware – polo shirts, chinos, golfing shoes kind of kit – were strolling down the drive towards the nearest car, a gold Lexus. One of the guys beeped open the car doors and balanced a beer can on the roof.
Jane was starting to shake her head, walk away, when one of the pinkening clouds over Avalon reminded her, somehow, of the bird-of-prey profile of Lucy Devenish. She sighed.
‘You’re not … Councillor Pierce?’
The guy with the car keys grinned, opening one of the rear doors.
‘How far would it get me if I said I was?’
‘Excuse my friend, he’s an oaf,’ the second guy said. ‘Did you want to see Lyndon?’
‘Erm … Well, you know, not if he’s like, you know, busy.’
Both of them laughed. The guy with the keys pulled a black leather briefcase from the Lexus.
‘You think Lyndon will be too busy to see this lovely young thing, Jeff?’
‘Lyndon is a man always mindful of his civic duties,’ the other guy said. ‘Follow us, if you like.’
‘No, really,’ Jane said, ‘it’s not urgent or anything. I can—’
‘No, no, you can at least come and have a drink. You’ll be quite safe. My colleague’s in Social Services.’
They laughed. The cloud formation that had looked for a moment like Lucy Devenish had broken up.
It wasn’t exactly a pool party or a barbecue. That is, there was a pool and a barbecue behind the house, but neither was in use. However, one of those extraterrestrial-looking patio heaters was working, and seven people – four men, three women – were spread over a couple of hardwood tables, with drinks. Papers on the table seemed to be architect’s plans.
‘So what would you expect
of a new community centre, Jane?’ Lyndon Pierce said.
He handed her a glass of white wine. He didn’t seem to recognize her, which was probably a good thing. He’d asked her name, and she’d just said Jane and left it at that.
New community centre?
‘So, like, what’s wrong with the old community centre?’
‘That’s precisely what’s wrong with it.’ Lyndon grinned. ‘It’s old.’
Lyndon was quite a lot less old than she’d imagined. Maybe thirty. Gelled black hair and a plump mouth. Tracksuit bottoms and a Hawaiian shirt open over a red T-shirt. Not too gross yet, but he probably would be in a couple of years.
‘Chance of a National Lottery grant, you see, Jane,’ one of the chino guys said. ‘We’ll be holding a public meeting to let the people of Ledwardine have their say. We’re drawing up a list of options for them.’
‘What if the people of Ledwardine don’t want a new community centre?’ Jane said.
Lyndon Pierce looked at her like he didn’t understand the question. Beyond the swimming pool, the view was across a couple of darkening fields towards Ledwardine square. Lights were coming on in the Black Swan, the church steeple fading back into the evening sky like another sphere of existence.
‘I’m sorry,’ Lyndon said. ‘Cross purposes, I think. We were just all having an informal chat about the new community centre, look, but you wanted to talk about … ?’
‘Coleman’s Meadow,’ Jane said.
‘Oh. Right. Actually, Jeff’s in Planning, he might be able to help you on that one.’
Jeff said doubtfully, ‘Well, I’m afraid they’ll probably be fairly pricey, if you’re…’
Jane could tell he was trying to work out if she was old enough to be getting married or setting up home with someone. It was almost flattering. She took a sip of wine, thinking hard. She’d just stumbled, unprepared, into what seemed to be an out-of-hours gathering of top council people. When would she get another chance like this? Probably never.
OK.
‘I think you’ve … got this wrong…’ Trying to keep her voice steady. ‘I wouldn’t live in Coleman’s Meadow, if the alternative was, like, a cardboard box in Jim Prosser’s shop doorway.’
