Remains of an Altar mw-8

by Phil Rickman

He must have heard Merrily catch her breath.

  ‘Did I surprise you there, Mrs Watkins?’

  ‘Well, I—’

  ‘Could it be that you didn’t know about Jane’s recurrent migraine?’

  ‘Migraine.’

  She shut her eyes against the sun. Even with all the windows down it was getting unbearable in here. Migraine?

  ‘I gather your curious job keeps you away from home quite a lot these days.’ Morrell’s voice was plumped out with satisfaction. ‘But you must know this is not something I can be seen to overlook. Yes, I value my reputation as a liberal, even radical school director, but if I allow students to come and go to pursue their whims I’m undermining my own authority. So I have to tell you that what I’m looking for now is Jane Watkins outside my room on Monday morning, with a full explanation, an abject apology and a readiness to accept whatever retribution I consider necessary.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘And if that isn’t forthcoming, I also have to tell you I don’t expect to see her at all.’

  ‘You’re talking about suspension?’

  ‘Oh, I’m talking about a bigger word than that, Mrs Watkins. And also, in line with the usual procedure, I’m talking to the governors about it. I’m sorry, you’ll have to excuse me, I have another call waiting.’

  ‘No,’ Merrily said. ‘If you hang up on me now, I’m—’

  Jesus, what? She was sweating. He’d have the governors in his pocket.

  Dead noise. He might have gone; you could never tell with a mobile. Or he might just want her to think he’d gone.

  ‘If you hang up on me, Mr Morrell … or take any extreme action against my daughter until I’ve had a chance to sort this out … Heaven’s sake, you’ve got kids dealing drugs, assaulting teachers, here’s one, all she’s doing is making a stand against something in her own village – not even in the school – that she feels is wrong? OK, something that you, as an atheist and an arch-sceptic, probably wouldn’t understand. And, yes, she’s never exactly tactful, and she gets up people’s noses. But if you go to the governors with this – some of whom are bound to be on the bloody council – I’m going straight to the national press, and I’ll make it my business to ensure that everybody knows what a pompous, smug, self-seeking, hypocritical prick you’ve become.’

  Merrily cut the line, dropped the mobile on the passenger seat.

  She was shaking. Her sweat was turning cold. She fastened her seat belt, fumbling with it, started the car and drove down to the church parking bay. Stared for a moment through the windscreen, past the church entrance to the gables of the Rectory, its windows smoky-black against the sun.

  Not many people left to antagonize.

  Spicer wasn’t answering the bell and she couldn’t hear it ringing inside the Rectory. Merrily banged on the front door, stepped back, scanned all the windows for movement.

  Nothing. She went round the side of the house – like her own rectory, too damned big – and hammered on the back door, then walked away onto the lawn that rose into the forestry, a screen concealing quarrying scars and who knew what else.

  So many screens in Wychehill, but the afternoon sun was high and hot and relentless and drove her back into the shade of the open back porch, where she stood beating one last time on the back door. Leaning on the lever-handle in frustration – and the door opened.

  It swung back with no creak, and she was looking into a utility room with a Belfast sink, a pair of Wellingtons standing underneath it, a balding Barbour on a peg.

  Merrily said, ‘Syd?’

  No reply.

  ‘Syd, are you in?’

  She was experiencing an unseemly urge to search the house, find the secret photos in the drawers, uncover Syd Spicer’s hidden history. The door at the end might not be locked, but she was reluctant to approach it. Afraid to? Maybe.

  For reasons that she was reluctant to examine, she backed away, closed the porch door and went down the drive to the roadside.

  Back in the car she rang Rajab Ali Khan’s office in Kidderminster, returning his call to her answering machine.

  ‘If that’s Mrs Watkins,’ a woman said, ‘Mr Khan said to tell you he’ll be at the Royal Oak for the rest of the day. He says if you can spare the time he’d like to see you.’

  38

  Local Democracy

  Jane had found Redmarley D’Abitot church on the OS map, ringing it in pencil.

  ‘This is interesting. Look…’

  ‘One second…’

  Lol peered around the curtain. Mid-afternoon, and the tourists were out on Church Street, the camera-hung carousel with its tape-loop of soundbite conversations. Only today, some of the visitors would be media and they knew, from the Guardian, what Jane Watkins looked like.

  ‘Go on…’

  He polished his glasses on his T-shirt, put them back on to examine the map folded on the desk. Redmarley, on the other side of the M50 motorway, just over the Gloucestershire border, was almost due south of the Malvern range.

  ‘I know I’m obsessed with leys at the moment,’ Jane said. ‘But it’s almost like there is one, going up from Redmarley, interlinking the three counties, the full length of the Malverns. See?’

  Jane had drawn in the line. It wasn’t connecting ancient sites as much as hilltops. Lol counted five: Midsummer Hill, Hangman’s Hill, Pinnacle Hill, Perseverance Hill, North Hill.

  ‘And look at this…’

  She’d also marked the two major Iron Age hill forts, Herefordshire Beacon and Worcestershire Beacon. But the line didn’t go through the middle of either – it skirted the first to the right and the second to the left.

  ‘That’s not a problem, it’s how it seems to work,’ Jane said. ‘Alfred Watkins noticed that leys almost always cut along the edge of a hill fort rather than through the middle. If you look on the map, it’s the same with Cole Hill – although when you’re actually on the line it looks as if you’re looking directly towards the summit.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Lol said. ‘Cutting to the sides.’

  ‘Simple. Iron Age people lived in the middle of those hill forts. There were huts and things. You don’t want powerful spiritual energy in your actual home, do you? You’d go slowly insane with the intensity of it. So you live to the side of the ley. Churches built on sites of ritual worship are something else, obviously.’

  ‘Being places you actually go to for a spiritual buzz?’

  ‘Uh-huh. So Redmarley Church is right on the line. Now, the other church where they had a choir going, Little Malvern Priory, that’s not on the great north–south ley. It is on a ley, though, another one that’s cutting left to right, across the north–south line. Now here’s Wychehill…’

  ‘Where the two lines cross.’

  ‘Cool, huh?’

  ‘You may be on to something here,’ Lol said. ‘I just wish I knew what.’

  ‘We’re looking at a whole range of holy hills. That would make this a massively important area, geopsychically.’

  She looked up at Lol and sighed softly.

  ‘You know, I love this. It reinforces your sense of … I dunno … Like, you just put your pencil on the map, and it’s like the choir guy said, you’re suddenly at the centre of something immense. Almost like you’re making a personal connection with…’ Jane shook her head rapidly ‘… bollocks.’

  ‘Maybe all great ideas start off as bollocks,’ Lol said. ‘It’s the way—’

  ‘Oh hell, who’s this?’

  Jane snatched a quick glance around the curtain and then moved away from the window, her head down. Someone was knocking on the front door.

  ‘Go upstairs,’ Lol said.

  ‘Mr Robinson, is it? Sorry to bother you, but I understood you might know where the vicar is.’

  He was wearing a suit and a wine-coloured tie which – first thing Lol noticed – matched his plump lips. Swaying a little, rattling small change and keys in his pockets. It seemed so not his generation, rattling your keys. He could
n’t be more than thirty.

  ‘Sorry,’ Lol said. ‘I’m not really sure where she is. Her work takes her all over the diocese.’

  ‘Daughter with her, do you know?’

  ‘Wouldn’t imagine so. It’s, um, Mr Pierce, isn’t it?’

  ‘Lyndon Pierce, that’s right.’ Gelled hair glinting in the sunlight like the roof of a black cab. ‘Sure we must’ve met sometime or other. Been trying to get around to see all the newcomers to the village, one by one.’

  ‘I’ve been here a few years now, actually,’ Lol said. ‘You probably didn’t notice me. Is there … anything I can do? Any message I can pass on?’

  ‘That’s very possible, Mr Robinson, yes.’

  Lyndon Pierce’s local accent seemed to have acquired a transatlantic roll. He glanced meaningfully over his shoulder at a Japanese dad photographing his family on the edge of the square.

  ‘You want to come in?’ Lol said.

  ‘Thank you.’ Pierce rubbed his hands. ‘Won’t keep you a minute, Mr Robinson, but there are some things that I think Mrs Watkins should know about, if you happen to be in … contact with her.’

  Letting him into the living room, Lol felt unexpectedly nervous. The guy represented aspects of life he’d avoided: never needed to consult a local councillor, never earned enough to need an accountant.

  Pierce was standing on the hearthrug, taking in the orange ceiling that Jane had recommended, the crystals that Jane had positioned in the window, the Boswell guitar. No doubt thinking, neo-hippie.

  ‘Lot of people’re looking for Mrs Watkins today, Mr Robinson. And … Jane, of course. Girl seems to have started something she’ll likely live to regret. Her mother, too, mabbe.’

  He must have figured, from the contents of the room, that the chances of ever getting the occupant’s vote were remote enough for him to skip the niceties.

  ‘Unfortunate, but people do tend to blame the parents for the behaviour of the child, don’t they, Mr Robinson?’

  ‘You’d call Jane a child?’

  The door to the hall and the stairs was not quite closed. Please don’t let her be behind it.

  ‘Likely not to her face.’ Lyndon Pierce laughed. ‘Look, all right, Mr Robinson, I’ll come directly to the point. We got quite a serious problem yere. I was phoned up a few hours ago by Gerry Murray – owner of Coleman’s Meadow? Not a happy man, as you can imagine. I went to check out the situation for myself and then I gave him my suggestion, which was to get the police in.’

  Lol blinked. ‘To arrest Jane?’

  ‘I’m sure a lot of folk would think that wasn’t a bad idea, actually, Laurence.’

  Using Laurence now, in the power-trip way of young policemen when they pulled you over for speeding.

  ‘I’m sorry, Lyndon,’ Lol said. ‘I don’t get out much. Something’s happening in Coleman’s Meadow?’

  Pierce sniffed. ‘All look the same to me – green activists, animal liberationists, ragbag of scruffs from God knows where. They say it’s a demonstration … we might consider it threatening behaviour.’

  ‘You mean … there’s a protest?’ Lol was fighting a smile. ‘About the ley line?’

  ‘You’re telling me you didn’t know? Very, very stupid people, Laurence. ’Bout a dozen of ’em. Posters, placards. Trying to protect something we all know don’t exist.’

  Lol saw Pierce taking in the OS maps on the desk with the ancient sites ringed and the pencil lines connecting them. He began to fold them up as Pierce smirked.

  ‘Yes, I can see you didn’t know a thing about it.’

  ‘It was in the Guardian.’

  ‘And who put it there, Laurence? I’ll admit I’m having difficulty with this, see. Why you and that girl and those cranky sods out there wanner put the mockers on a much-needed development in an otherwise useless, derelict area.’

  ‘But … isn’t there a statutory notice posted at the site for the actual purpose of inviting objections?’

  ‘Aimed at local council-tax payers with a legitimate viewpoint, not sad buggers with nose rings who come from miles away ’cause they feel lost if they en’t got a protest to go to. And not adolescents getting above themselves and trying to cause trouble. In fact…’ Pierce looked down at his shoes and then back at Lol. ‘I think I should tell you that people are beginning to feel it’s time that girl’s mother did something to curb her behaviour before—’

  ‘Before the community does? A curfew? Court order banning her from going within half a mile of Cole Hill?’

  ‘Don’t get silly, now.’

  Lol raised both eyebrows. ‘All because she feels strongly about preserving the village heritage?’

  ‘Laurence, that’s balls. One of our experts says it en’t even in that feller’s book. She made it up. It don’t exist. It never existed. It’s a bloody joke. It’s … flying-saucer stuff. Me, I’m simply trying to be reasonable, here, see both sides of it. When she’s a bit more mature, she’ll likely realize that, like all these villages, Ledwardine has to grow or die.’

  ‘Grow into what?’

  ‘All I’m saying … if people consider we’re now within commuting distance of London, then we got to run with that. Home Counties overrun with asylum seekers, decent hard-working folk gotter move somewhere. If they wanner sell up and bring their money here, who’re we to—?’

  ‘Grow into an extension of London suburbia? Three hours is now commuting distance?’

  ‘Or quicker, with a fast car.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Lol said.

  ‘You people…’ Lyndon went back on his heels. ‘You really make me laugh. You’re living in the bloody past. I’m an accountant, boy, we’re the first to see the signs. I see the farmers’ profits going on the slide, year after year. It’s patently clear that agriculture can’t sustain the county any longer and the county can’t sustain agriculture. If cheap imports are killing farms and the government don’t want ’em growing food n’ more, there en’t nothing we can do about that. Farmer wants to survive, he sells what ground he can for quality housing at the best price he can get. Our job’s to support the farmers.’

  ‘That’s a very twisted kind of logic, Lyndon.’

  ‘And I’ll give you some more. City people, weekend folk, are used to more sophisticated facilities than we’ve been able to provide, and if they wants ’em on the doorstep we gotter give them that in Ledwardine itself – more shops, proper supermarkets, and at the same time—’

  ‘Jim Prosser know about that?’

  ‘Jim Prosser’ll be retired soon. And we can catch up on what the rural areas’ve been missing all these years. You don’t think local people should have sophisticated facilities, Laurence? Decent leisure centre?’

  ‘Has anybody asked them?’

  ‘Laurence…’ Lyndon Pierce blew air slowly down his nostrils. ‘That’s why you elect councillors. It’s called local democracy.’ He beamed, case proven. ‘Anyway, if you do hear from Mrs Watkins, put her in the picture, would you? If she wants to speak with me about this matter I’ll be available.’

  ‘Are these … ?’ Lol heard the stairs creak. ‘Are these protesters still there?’

  ‘Not for long. New legislation’s made it easier to deal with time-wasting scum. Likely we’ll have it sorted before teatime without any arrests.’

  ‘What with, water cannon? Rubber bullets?’

  ‘People like you worry me,’ Pierce said. ‘Vicar be back home tonight, will she?’

  ‘Far as I know.’

  ‘Only, folks keep saying to me as how she spends so much time out of the parish these days we might as well not have a vicar at all.’

  ‘Who would that be, specifically, Lyndon?’

  ‘Pretty hard, seems to me, for a parish vicar to win back support once it starts to slip, Laurence. Specially if her daughter’s setting a bad example to other kids, skipping school, making trouble. I’ll leave you to think about the implications of that.’

  Pierce placed a hand on the living-room doorknob, then
turned back to Lol with a minimal smile.

  ‘Oh … and if certain people who en’t local don’t like the way we do things around yere, seems to me they might think about moving on? Knowing they can always get a good price for their period cott—’

  The door opened, pushing Lyndon Pierce back into the room. Jane was standing there, face as white as her school shirt, gazing at Pierce with all the warmth of a November twilight.

  ‘You mean if people don’t like things being run by bent councillors?’

  Pierce’s smile was history. Lol watched, with a horrified kind of fascination, as the man tongued his full lips as though he was trying to tease it back.

  ‘Or maybe,’ Jane said, ‘maybe if they don’t like bastards who used to shoot blue tits off the nut-containers with their airguns?’

  ‘You…’ Pierce’s forefinger came up ‘… had better watch your mouth.’

  ‘Lyndon,’ Lol said softly. ‘She’s just a child.’

  Pierce spun round at him.

  ‘As for you … vicar know you’ve had her daughter upstairs? ’Cause it looks like she’s gonner find out, ennit? But don’t you worry, Laurence, it won’t be from me. Not directly, boy, not directly.’

  Lol had to grab Jane and hold on to her to stop her going for Pierce. Or maybe it was the other way round.

  Whichever, them holding one another like this, he knew as soon as Pierce stepped briskly outside and all the heads began to turn that it wasn’t going to look good from the crowded street.

  39

  Temple of Sound

  In the copy of the Malvern Gazette open on Raji Khan’s ebony desk, there was a hole where the face of Leonard Holliday used to be.

  Mr Khan stabbed it again with his gold Cross pen.

  ‘Why are they doing this to me, Mrs Watkins? Can you tell me that?’

  He was wearing a cricket shirt and cream slacks and white shoes. His black hair hung beyond his shoulders, cavalier style. In his left ear he wore what might have been an emerald. Merrily sat on the other side of the desk in a dark wood chair which was meaningfully lower than his.

  ‘Probably just that … this is not what they expect to find,’ she said carefully, ‘in a place like this? Have you tried inviting the Wychehill Residents’ Action Group up here to discuss it?’