The Fabric of Sin mw-9

by Phil Rickman

  ‘Good question,’ Mrs Morningwood said.

  Obviously any question unrelated to her having been viciously assaulted was going to be a good one.

  ‘Like, the first time I went up there,’ Jane said, ‘I was noticing things. But maybe if you grow up in a place you take it all for granted.’

  ‘In this case, Jane, I think not. Even people who profess no interest at all in the Templars are, I think, affected in some way. It’s one of those areas that seems to … I don’t know … condition the way people think and behave. It somehow imposes its own rules and strictures. You noticed yourself the names of the pubs. I’ve never worked out how far they go back, but I don’t think it matters. They might simply be echoes from memory. The people are the memory cells of the hill.’

  ‘Cool.’

  ‘My mother, for instance. I don’t think she once mentioned the Templars to me as a child, but she knew about the Nine Witches. I can name them, she used to say. Every one.’

  ‘So who were the other eight?’

  ‘I never asked, she never told me. Of course, when I was a child, a witch meant an old woman in a pointed hat, stirring a cauldron. They were probably all around me and not all of them women.’

  ‘Are there nine now?’

  ‘Probably. It’s not a coven or anything, Jane. It simply suggests that there are always going to be nine people who, whether they know it or not, have been entrusted with the guardianship of the hill and its ways. Whenever an issue arises which might damage us, certain people will project … a certain point of view. I can’t explain it any better than that.’

  ‘People with Garway in their blood?’

  ‘Nothing so prosaic as blood, Jane. It’s in their very being. I really do believe that. It conditions how one does what one does.’

  ‘Like your herbalism? Healing?’

  ‘Or dowsing. Water-divining. Or painting, sculpture, gardening, furniture-making. Everything somehow relating to the place and its relationship with the heavens and infused with … a special energy. Sometimes.’

  ‘As above, so below. Paracelsus?’

  ‘I’m not aware that Paracelsus was ever in Garway, or even if someone so loud and demonstrative would have been welcome here. We’re very low-key. Which is why I’ve always felt that Owain Glyndwr, as depicted by Shakespeare, would have been unlikely to have fitted in either.’

  ‘Archetypal Welsh windbag?’ Jane figured she had a good working knowledge of Shakespeare, the big ones, anyway. ‘I can call spirits from the vasty deep.’

  ‘Anyone who goes around telling people he can call spirits is usually bugger-all use at it,’ Mrs Morningwood said. ‘Do you mind if I smoke, or are you like most kids, indoctrinated by the fascists in Westminster?’

  ‘Are you kidding? In our house?’

  ‘Thank you. I’ll open the window. You see, that’s why I suspect Glyndwr was not such a windbag. Although the wind does appear to have been important to him in other ways.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Vast amount of mystery and superstition attached to the man — the wizard, who could manipulate the elements, alter the weather, leaving opposing armies drowning in Welsh mist. A very Templar thing to do. I can’t believe that, coming here a mere century or so after the dissolution, he wasn’t exposed to the full blast of residual Templarism. Some of them would still have been here, undercover now, sitting on their secrets.’

  ‘But he only came here towards the end of his life, didn’t he?’

  ‘Who says that was the first time? I think not. Besides, the Templars may have favoured Welsh independence, just as they supported the Scots at Bannockburn. I’ve even heard it said that they included among their number Llewelyn ap Gruffudd, the last official Prince of Wales, in the thirteenth century. His dates certainly fit.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘The Templars seemed to like governments being fragmented, Jane. Made it easier to sustain their own international power-base.’

  ‘Right.’

  Jane slowed at the single-lane Brobury Bridge over the Wye, waiting for every possible oncoming car to come across before chancing her arm. Dorstone Hill, narrow, winding and wooded, wasn’t going to be easy. When she and Eirion had come last summer he’d had to keep reversing to find somewhere to pull in to let other cars get past. And she was … well, crap at reversing.

  She’d stopped talking, to concentrate, but Mrs Morningwood seemed to want to talk, as if she was afraid of where her own thoughts might lead her.

  ‘OK,’ Jane said. ‘So, like, is Garway the way it is because of the Templars? Or did the Templars only come here because Garway was already, you know, this really charged-up landscape? Maybe back into Celtic times?’

  ‘Mixture of the two. Whatever was here, they certainly enhanced it. It’s an unstable area, too. Has a major geological fault line. Climatic anomalies are often noted. We used to talk about gusts of wind from The White Rocks, which are supposed to be a Celtic burial ground. And then, of course, there’s M. R. James.’

  ‘We must …’ Jane’s hands tightened on the wheel. ‘… have offended someone or something at Garway … ’

  ‘My God, Jane, for a child you’re remarkably well informed.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Anyone under forty’s a child to me now. It’s the wind again, you see. Why did James have this chap discover a whistle that could arouse the wind on the site of a Templar preceptory? It’s never explained in the story.’

  ‘But you think the Templars … and Owain Glyndwr …?’

  ‘And farmers in this area, at one time. John Aubrey refers to the winnowers of Herefordshire who believed they could arouse a wind to blow the chaff from the wheat, by whistling. Whistling up the wind. That’s undoubtedly where Monty James got the idea from.’

  ‘You reckon?’

  ‘It’s the only possible connection.’

  ‘But M. R. James didn’t even come here until years after he’d written that story. He didn’t come until this Gwen McBryde came to live here with her daughter. Erm … Jane.’

  ‘Well we don’t know for certain that he hadn’t been here before that. But, as an antiquarian, it’s most unlikely that he hadn’t heard of Garway.’

  ‘I keep thinking of Jane MacBryde,’ Jane said. ‘How old would she have been?’

  ‘When they came to Garway? About thirteen. You know her father was the artist who illustrated some of the early stories?’

  ‘And Jane also … drew things.’

  ‘Jane had a macabre imagination. Clawlike hands emerging from tombs.’

  ‘Do you know what she looked like?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t. Nobody ever described her to me.’

  At the turning to Dorstone Hill, Jane snatched a quick look sideways. Mrs Morningwood had her old Barbour on and the sunglasses, her cigarette arm on the open window, a small smile on her still-swollen lips. Roscoe’s head next to hers, his grey fur flattened in the slipstream.

  ‘Do you want to know the story?’

  Jane McBryde had known in advance about the visit to Garway Church. Although it wasn’t more than a few miles from their home and she’d probably been before, visiting somewhere with Uncle Monty was always a joy. He was kind and he was funny and full of good stories — well, everybody knew that now, and Jane McBryde had read them all.

  Uncle Monty, of course, could spend all day poking around old churches and Garway Church, with all its Templar relics, was a special treat. One of his most famous stories — Jane found it deliciously terrifying — had been about a Templar preceptory and what a solitary sort of professor had found there … and came to wish he hadn’t, or at least had left it well alone.

  Monty didn’t really notice — he was probably safely in the tower or the vestry or somewhere, bent over something, his glasses on his nose — when Jane slipped out of the church and started looking round the outside walls, feeling along them with her hands.

  ‘What you after?’

  The girl was a few years you
nger than Jane, maybe eight or nine. She had blonde hair and a wild look. The year was 1917.

  Jane McBryde said, quite open about it, ‘I’m looking for a hole in the wall. I want to play a trick on my uncle.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’ Jane said. ‘I mean, you’re not making it up or anything?’

  ‘I am telling it,’ Mrs Morningwood said, ‘just as my mother told it to me.’

  ‘So the blonde girl …’

  ‘Norah. My mother was quite a forward child. Not many of the local kids would dare approach a stranger. My mother, knowing every stone in the tower below her own height, was able to show her one quite close to the ground — perhaps in the area where the circular nave would be excavated just a few years later — which could, with the aid of a stick or a small knife, be eased out of the wall.’

  Mrs Morningwood began to smile for real, shaking her head.

  ‘Imagine the scene an hour or so later when Monty and his ward are strolling around the tower, perhaps planning to take in the famous dovecote, and Jane says, “Why’s that stone sticking out, Uncle Monty?” and Monty gets down on his hands and knees, the stone pops out and so does … a very old and grimy whistle.’

  ‘Oh … cool.’

  ‘Nothing engraved on it, of course, but you can imagine the look on Monty’s face. Perhaps, after the initial shock, he has an inkling that he’s been set up, but he’s very fond of Jane, realizes all the trouble the girl’s taken over this, and goes along with it.’

  ‘Did he blow it?’

  ‘My mother, watching from behind a gravestone, reported it as follows: Better not blow it, Monty says. Who knows what might happen? And young Jane’s hopping up and down. Oh do blow it, Uncle Monty! Do! But Monty pockets the whistle, saying, Perhaps I’ll blow it later. Let’s continue with our exploration.’

  ‘And did he?’

  ‘Well my mother, despite having no idea what any of this was about, never having read the story, was fascinated to find out. And so she followed them, through the churchyard, along the footpaths, and all the time Jane McBryde’s pulling Monty’s arm and saying, When are you going to blow it? Please blow it now!’

  ‘My mother remembers Monty stopping at the top of a rise which is very well known to me, and he takes out the whistle. Should I? Gives it a good wipe with his handkerchief, puts it in his mouth, puffs out his cheeks … nothing happens. Takes it out of his mouth, bangs it on a stone to get the dried mud out of the hole at the end. Back in the mouth, young Jane jumping up and down, nothing happens at first and then … peeeeep!’

  ‘You’re like … not making this up, are you?’ Jane said, changing smoothly down through the gears.

  ‘I’m telling it to you exactly as it was told to me by my late mother. Monty blows the whistle once, pops it back in his pocket. Couple of minutes later a gust of wind comes in — probably from the White Rocks — and down comes the rain.’

  ‘You’re kidding …’

  ‘My personal theory is that Monty knew there was a good chance of a change in the weather and wanted to wait until it was imminent to blow the whistle — to turn the tables on Jane. However, it rains harder and harder, and they run to some trees. But, with the wind, the trees are offering precious little in the way of shelter, and Jane’s dress is getting soaked and Monty’s rather concerned now that she’ll catch cold. Her poor father, of course, having died very young. Possibly the last of his drawings being, in fact, the “Whistle” ghost with its intensely horrible face of crumpled linen.’

  Jane stayed in second gear for the descent, the road like a tunnel through the trees. It wasn’t raining, but it was dark enough to put on the headlights, dipped.

  ‘Monty’s perhaps very concerned now that his own joke is going to backfire and Jane will catch pneumonia — usually fatal, remember, in those days, before antibiotics. And then, through the trees, he spots a house … grabs Jane by the hand and they go dashing down. Monty’s banging on the front door, shouting, “Hullo! Hullo!” but no answer. My mother follows them to the edge of the yard. She sees Monty turn the handle … and the door opens. My mother’s hand goes to her mouth because … well, because she knows what’s in there.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The force of the wind … slams the door wide, exposing a dim room, with the curtains drawn across the small, high window. Monty calls out, the rain thrashing down behind them. No answer. A small lamp is burning. He sees a long trestle table with a sheet covering something, just as a sudden gust of wind from outside blows the sheet away. And there, awaiting its coffin, lies the corpse of Naomi Newton, above which the white sheet is dancing in the wind before collapsing to the floor in a twitching sort of heap.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ Jane said. ‘Newton. The Master House?’

  So caught up in the story that she’d driven up one side of the treacherous Dorstone Hill and down the other, round a seriously nasty left-hand band and into the broad sweep of the Golden Valley, where the oddly graceful fibreglass steeple of Peterchurch church was embossed on the low cloud mass like some downmarket Salisbury Cathedral.

  ‘A year later,’ Mrs Morningwood was saying, ‘M. R. James returned alone to Garway and got into conversation with my grandmother, who had her own reasons to be fearful of the Master House. He was a touch embarrassed. As if my own imagination was punishing me, he said. Perhaps I’m haunted by my own ghastly creations.’

  ‘Right. Wow.’

  Jane drove on, in silence, still not sure whether or not Mrs Morningwood had made the whole thing up.

  But remembering something.

  Before they’d left, taking the spare car keys from the rack in the key cupboard at the end of the hall, she’d noticed something missing. The outsize key to the Master House had been hung on the rack by Mum, who was probably fed up with the weight of it and the memories it evoked every time she opened the bag.

  The fact that the key was no longer there could mean one of two things — that Mum had put it back into her bag in case she had to go there at short notice. Or …

  56

  Bevvie

  What was most unexpected was the aggression.

  ‘Oh, let’s not waste time,’ Beverley said. ‘All that false bonhomie. All this, “Let’s help old Teddy out of his fix.” You’re not a bonhomie sort of person, are you, Merrily?’

  Under the halogen lights in the stainless steel kitchen. Beverley’s hair down around her shoulders. A Chardonnay bottle half full on the chopping board, with two glasses, Beverley rapidly draining one, a different woman.

  One who wanted to talk. Had maybe wanted to talk for a long time, to somebody. Building up to this, flushed and brimming now.

  Oh God, how you could miss the signs …

  ‘As if you didn’t know, Merrily, exactly why you couldn’t do that service.’

  The dusk was dropping like a roller blind. Merrily had gone into The Ridge on her own, leaving Lol in the truck with her phone, in case Jane or somebody rang.

  ‘Well, I think,’ she said, ‘that he could’ve told me about it.’

  ‘Told you about it? He doesn’t even tell me about it. Lodge nights, out comes the black case. Off to the Boys’ Club, Bevvie, don’t wait up. Like an old-time gangster with a violin case. Never yet seen the inside of that little black case.’

  ‘That seems to be the way it goes,’ Merrily said. ‘Except on Ladies’ Evenings, of course.’

  ‘Never been to one. I’m going to sit there with a bunch of old biddies dripping jewellery, smiling fondly at my husband and listening to endless self-congratulatory speeches? All rise for the provincial grand almighty … whatever.’

  ‘Yes, that could be very trying.’

  ‘My first husband played golf. A golf bore. Golf Club social events. Merrily, is it something about me? Safe, practical, reliable … and, above all, blatantly incurious.’

  Merrily said nothing. Beverley poured more wine. Merrily left hers alone, wondering how best to play this, remembering something.

  ‘These
guests — the ones coming tomorrow.’

  ‘Germans. Have you ever met German Masons? Last year it was Americans. Sold to me as a hiking group, but they never seem to hike further than the church, with their video cameras and their calculators and their … set squares.’

  ‘Why was it changed from Saturday?’

  ‘I think they were afraid that, on the actual day, it might be too crowded with, you know, normal visitors. That ordinary people might actually want to go to the service. Whereas Friday, as a working day, they’ll be left to get on with it … especially at the time it’s being held.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Straddling midnight. So that, come the dawn on Saturday …’

  ‘The time of the original raids in France in 1307.’

  ‘The church draped with Templar banners. They’re all rolled up in the tower. It’s going to be the highlight of his … his life, probably.’

  ‘Sad?’

  ‘No, it’s not sad. Quite frightening, actually. Do you want to sit down?’

  ‘Where is Teddy now?’

  ‘Hereford. Little Boys’ Club. Won’t be back much this side of midnight. Don’t you like this stuff? Shall I open a bottle of red or something?’

  ‘I’d rather you made it coffee,’ Merrily said.

  Lol had never used this phone before, and the first time the call came in, he accidentally killed it. He was fiddling around for some way of recovering it, when the church-bell noise it made started up again.

  ‘Merrily?’

  ‘She’s not around at the moment,’ Lol said. ‘Can I take a—?’

  ‘Lol Robinson?’

  Lol froze. For a second he thought it was Hayter’s man again.

  ‘Frannie Bliss, Laurence. Where is she?’

  ‘Talking to somebody. Not far away. There a problem?’

  ‘Yeh, there is. I expected to have heard from her by now. When last we spoke, she seemed … I don’t like it when she’s quiet.’

  ‘I’ll get her to call you.’

  ‘Why’s she quiet, Laurence?’

  ‘Maybe she likes to think things out.’ Lol looked down from the parking area across to the darkening hills of east Wales. No lights anywhere. ‘I thought it was a wrap from your point of view. All sorted.’