by Phil Rickman
The Local People? He’d found he was beginning to think of ‘the local people’ the way the Irish thought of ‘the little people’: shadowy, mischievous, will-o’-the-wispish. A different species.
Robin had established that the box did originally come from this house. Or, at least, there were signs of an old hiding place inside the living-room inglenook – new cement, where a brick had been replaced. So was this the reason Betty had resisted the consecration of their living room as a temple? Because it was there that the anti-witchcraft charm had been secreted?
Betty’s behaviour had been altogether difficult most of the weekend. George Webster and his lady, the volatile Vivvie, Craft-buddies from Manchester, had come down on Saturday to help the Thorogoods get the place together, and hadn’t left until Monday afternoon. It ought to have been a good weekend, with loud music, wine and the biggest fires you could make out of resinous green pine. But Betty had kept on complaining of headaches and tiredness.
Which wasn’t like her at all. As a celebratory climax, Robin had wanted the four of them to gather at the top of the tower on Sunday night to welcome the new moon. But – wouldn’t you know? – it was overcast, cold and raining. And Betty had kept on and on about safety. Like, would that old platform support as many as four people? What did she think, that he was planning an orgy?
Standing by the barn door, Robin could just about see the top of the tower, atmospherically wreathed in fog. One day soon, he would produce a painting of it in blurry watercolour, style of Turner, and mail it to his folks in New York. This is a sketch of the church. Did I mention the ancient church we have out back?
And ancient was right.
This was the real thing. The wedge of land overlooking the creek, the glorious plot on which the medieval church of St Michael at Old Hindwell had been built by the goddamn Christians, was most definitely an ancient pagan sacred site. George Webster had confirmed it. And George had expertise in this subject.
Just take a look at these yew trees, Robin, still roughly forming a circle. That one and that one... could be well over a thousand years old.
Red-haired, beardy George running his hands down the ravines in those huge, twisting trunks and then cutting some forks of hazel, so he and Robin could do some exploratory dowsing. What you did, you asked questions – Were there standing stones here? Was this an old burial place, pre-Christianity? How many bodies are lying under here? – and you waited for the twig to twitch in response. Admittedly, a response didn’t happen too often for Robin, but George was adept.
No, there’d been no stones but perhaps wooden poles – a woodhenge kind of arrangement – where the yews now grew. And yes, there had been pre-Christian burials here. George made it 300-plus bodies at one time. But the area had been excavated and skeletons taken away for reburial before the Church sold off the site, so there was the possibility that some pagan people been taken away for Christian burial. The arrogance of those bastards!
What happened, way back when the Christians were moving into Britain, was some smart-ass pope had decreed that they should place their churches on existing sites of worship. This served two purposes: it would demonstrate the dominance of the new religion over the old and, if the site was the same, that might persuade the local tribes to keep on coming there to worship.
But that was all gonna be turned around at last. Boy, was it!
Robin stood down by the noisesome water, lining up the church with Burfa Hill, site of an Iron Age camp. He couldn’t remember when – outside of a rite – he’d last felt so exalted. Sure, it only backed up what he’d already instinctively known from standing up top of the tower the other night. But, hell, confirmation was confirmation! He and Betty had been meant to come here, to revive a great tradition.
It was about repaganization.
They hadn’t talked too much about long-term plans, but – especially after the weekend’s discoveries – it was obvious these would revolve around in some way reinstating the temple which had stood here before there ever was a Christian church. Physically, this process had already begun: the church had fallen into ruins; if this continued, one day only the tower would remain... a single great standing stone.
Beautiful!
So why wasn’t Betty similarly incandescent with excitement? Why so damn moody so much of the time? Was it that box? He’d wanted to tell George and Vivvie about the box and what it contained, but Betty had come on heavy, swearing him to silence. It’s no one else’s problem. It’s between us and them. We have to find our own way of dealing with it.
Them? Like who? She was paranoid.
And also, he knew, still spooked about what had happened to Major Wilshire, from whose widow they’d bought this place.
The Major had died after a fall from a ladder he’d erected up the side of the tower. Hearing the story, George Webster – who’d drunk plenty wine by then – had begun speculating about the site having a guardian and maybe needing a sacrifice every so many years. Maybe they could find out if anyone else had died in accidents here...
At which point Robin had beckoned George behind the barn and told him to keep bullshit ideas like that to himself.
Besides, if there was any residual atmospheric stress resulting from that incident, Robin figured the best answer would be to do something positive on the tower itself to put things right, and as soon as possible.
Some kind of ritual. Betty would know.
Back in the house, he placed the oak box on the kitchen table. Betty’s sea-green eyes narrowed in suspicion.
‘We have to deal with this, Bets,’ Robin told her. ‘Then we forget about it for ever.’
‘But not necessarily now,’ Betty said irritably.
But Robin was already reading aloud the charm again, the parts of it he could decipher. He suspected Betty could interpret some of those symbols – as well as being more psychically developed, her esoteric knowledge was a good deal deeper and more comprehensive than his own – but she was not being overhelpful here, to say the fucking least.
‘OK,’ he conceded, ‘so it’s probably complete bullshit. I guess these things must’ve been real commonplace at one time – like hanging a horseshoe on your gate.’
‘Yes,’ Betty said with heavy patience. ‘I’m sure, if we make enquiries, we’ll find out that there was a local wise man – they called them conjurors in these parts. They were probably still going strong in the nineteenth century.’
‘Like a shaman?’
‘Something like that. Someone who dealt in spells and charms. If a couple of dozen lambs went down with sheep-scab or something, the farmer would start whingeing about being bewitched and call in the conjuror. It was usually a man – probably because farmers hereabouts didn’t like dealing with women. The conjuror would probably write out a charm to keep in the fireplace, and everyone would be happy.’
‘There you go. We just happened to be exposed to this one when we were overtired and stressed-out and ready to leap to gross conclusions.’
Betty nodded non-committally. Against the murk of the morning, she was looking a little more vital, in her big, red mohair sweater and her moon talisman. She’d already gotten sweating piles of pine logs stacked up both sides of the Rayburn. Yesterday, she and Vivvie had hung Chinese lanterns on the naked bulbs and called down blessings. But when George had suggested consecrating the temple in the living room itself, Betty had resisted that. Not something to be rushed into. Give the house spirits time to get to know them. Which had sounded unusually fey, for Betty.
‘You know, if I’d followed my first instinct when I spotted that guy from the tower, I’d’ve run down directly and caught him dumping the carrier bag.’
Betty shook her head. ‘If whoever it was had come face to face with you on the doorstep, he’d just have made some excuse – like seeing lights in the house, coming over to check everything was OK. He’d have pretended the bag was his shopping and just taken it away with him.’
He didn’t argue; she was usually righ
t. He put his hands on the box, closed his eyes, imagined other hands on the box – tried for a face.
‘I did that already,’ Betty said, offhand. ‘Nothing obvious.’
Robin opened his eyes. If she’d tried it and gotten nothing then there was nothing to be had. He had no illusions about which of them was the most perceptive in that way. He didn’t mind; he still had his creative vision.
‘Put it back, now huh, Rob?’
‘In the fireplace?’
‘In the barn, dickhead! Let’s not take any chances. Not till we know where it’s been.’
‘Ha!’ He sprang back. ‘You just have to know, dontcha?’
‘I’d quite like to know,’ Betty said casually.
‘Bets...’ He walked over, took her tenderly by the shoulders. ‘Look at me... listen... What the fuck’s it matter if someone does know we’re pagans? What kind of big deal is that these days?’
‘No problem at all,’ Betty said, ‘if you live in Islington or somewhere. In a place like this—’
‘Still no problem is my guess. Bets, this is not you. It’s me does the overreacting. Me who won’t leave the house if there’s only one magpie out in the garden. I’m telling you, this is a good place. We’re meant to be here. We came at the right time. Meant, right? Ordained. Making the church site into a sacred place again. All of that.’
Betty gently disengaged his hands. ‘I thought I might go and see Mrs Wilshire. The note says, “The previous occupant preferred not to keep it and gave it away.” So presumably they’re talking about Mrs Wilshire. Or more likely her husband.’
‘He was an old soldier. He’d have thought this was pure bullshit.’
‘Before he died,’ Betty said.
‘Whooo!’ Robin flung up his hands, backed away, as if from an apparition. ‘Don’t you start with that!’
‘They didn’t even get to live here, did they? They get the place half-renovated and then the poor old Major is gone, crash, bang.’
Robin spread his arms. ‘Bets, it’s like... it’s an ill wind. It’s a big pile of ifs. If the Wilshires had gotten all the renovation work done, everything smoothed out and shiny, and then put the place on the market, it’d’ve been way out of our price league. If people hereabouts hadn’t been put off by the tragic reasons for the sale, there might’ve been some competition... If it hadn’t gone on sale in November, all the holiday-home-seekers from London woulda been down here. If... if... if... What can I say? All the ifs were in our favour. But, if it makes you feel better, OK, let’s go see her. When?’
‘What?’
‘The widow Wilshire.’
‘Oh. No, actually, I thought I’d go alone. She struck me as a timid kind of person.’
‘And I would spook her?’
‘We don’t want to look like a delegation. Anyway, you’ve work to do.’
‘I do. I have work.’
The Kirk Blackmore artwork was complete, and would now be couriered, by special arrangement, not to the publishers but to Kirk himself. But the idea of producing a painting of the church, fog-swathed, had gotten hold of Robin, and if he mentioned it to Betty she’d be like: If you’ve got time for that, you’ve got time to emulsion a wall. But while she was gone, he could knock off a watercolour sketch of the church. He was already envisioning a seasonal series... a whatever you called a triptych when there were four of them.
‘Besides...’ Betty walked to the door then turned back with a swirl of her wild-corn hair. ‘I’m sure there are lots of new things you want to play with, without me on your back.’
Robin managed a grin. With Betty around it was sometimes like your innermost thoughts were written in neon over your head. Sometimes, even for a high priestess, this broad was awesomely spooky.
And so beautiful.
Face it: if he really thought there was an element of risk here, any danger of it turning into an unhappy place, they would be out of here, no matter how much money they lost on the deal.
But that wasn’t going to happen. That wasn’t a part of the package. How they’d come to find this place was, in itself, too magical to ignore: the prophecy... the arrival of the house particulars within the same week, the offer of the Blackmore contract along with the possibility of a mega-deal for the backlist.
It was like the road to down here had been lit up for them, and if they let those lights go out, well that would really attract some bad karma.
The Local People?
Assholes. Forget them.
5
Every Pillar in the Cloister
‘PAGANISM.’ THE BISHOP spooned mustard on to his hot dog. ‘What do we have to say about paganism?’
‘As little as possible?’ Merrily suggested.
The bishop put down his spoon on Sophie’s desk. ‘Exactly.’ He nodded, and went on nodding like, she thought, one of those brushed-fabric boxer dogs motorists used to keep on their parcel shelves. ‘Absolutely right.’
The e-mail on the computer screen concluded:
The programme will take the form of a live studio discussion and protagonists will probably include practising witches, possibly Druids, and ‘fundamentalist’ clergy. Would you please confirm asap with the programme researcher, Tania Beauman, in Birmingham?
‘So, it’s a “no”, then. Fine.’ Merrily stood up, relieved. ‘I’ll call them tonight. I’ll say it’s not a debate to which we feel we can make a meaningful contribution. And anyway, it’s not something we encounter a particular problem with in this diocese. How does that sound?’
‘Sounds eminently sensible, Merrily.’ But the bishop’s large, hairless face still looked worried.
‘Good. Nobody comes out of an edition of Livenight with any dignity left. The pits of tabloid TV – Jerry Springer off the leash.’
‘Who is Jerry Springer?’ asked the bishop.
‘You really don’t want to know.’
‘One finds oneself watching less and less television.’ He brushed crumbs from his generously cut purple shirt. ‘Which is wrong, I suppose. It is, after all, one’s pastoral duty to monitor society’s drab cavalcade... the excesses of the young... the latest jargon. The ubiquity of the word “shag” in a non-tobacco context.’
‘I’ll get my daughter Jane to compile a glossary for you.’
The bishop smiled, but still appeared strangely apprehensive. ‘So this...’ he peered at the screen ‘... Livenight is not current affairs television?’
‘Not as you know it. How would you describe Livenight, Sophie?’
‘Like a rehearsal for Armageddon.’ A shudder from the bishop’s lay secretary, now permanently based in Merrily’s gatehouse office. Sophie tucked a frond of white hair behind one ear and used a tissue to dab away a blob of English mustard which the bishop had let fall, appropriately, on the head of the burger-gobbling Homer Simpson on the computer’s mouse mat. ‘They begin with a specific topic, which is loosely based on a Sunday paper sort of news item.’
‘Say you have a suburban husband who pimps for his wife,’ Merrily said, ‘is she being exploited, or is it a valid way of meeting the mortgage premiums?’
‘Invariably,’ Sophie said, ‘they contrive to fill the studio with loud-mouthed bigots and professional cranks.’
Merrily nodded. ‘And if you’re insufficiently loud-mouthed, bigoted or cranky they just move on to the psycho sitting next to you who’s invariably shaking at the bars to escape onto live television. Whole thing makes you despair for the future of the human race. I don’t really think spreading despair is what we’re about.’
‘No,’ the bishop said uncomfortably, ‘quite. It’s just that if you don’t do it, we... we have a problem.’
Merrily stiffened. ‘What are you saying exactly, Bernie?’
Bernie Dunmore had taken to wandering down to the Deliverance office on Tuesdays for a snack lunch with Merrily. He always seemed glad to get away from the Bishop’s Palace.
Which was understandable. He was not actually the Bishop of Hereford although, as suff
ragan Bishop of Ludlow, in the north of the diocese, the caretaker role had fallen to him in the controversial absence of the Right Reverend Michael Hunter.
In the end, though, Mick Hunter’s disappearance had not detonated the media explosion the diocese had feared, coinciding as it had with the resignation of two other Church of England bishops and the suicide of a third – all of this following calls for an outside inquiry into their personal expenses exceeding £200,000 a year, and the acceptance of unorthodox perks.
Questions had also been asked about Hunter’s purchase of a Land Rover and a Mercedes, used by his wife, and, as neither the press nor the police had been able to substantiate anything more damaging, the diocese had been happy to shelter behind any other minor scandal. Now the issue had been turned around: four bishops had spoken out in a Sunday Times feature – ‘Keeping the Mitre on C of E Executive Stress’ – about the trials of their job in an increasingly secular age. There was, inevitably, a picture of Mick Hunter in his jogging gear, ‘escaping from the pressure’.
Was it better, under the circumstances, that the truth had not come out? Merrily wasn’t sure. But she liked Bernie Dunmore, sixty-two years old and comfortably lazy. Prepared to hold the fort until such time as the search for a suitably uncontroversial replacement for Mick Hunter could begin. No one, in fact, could be less controversial than Bernie; the worst he’d ever said about Hunter was, ‘One would have thought the Crown Appointments Commission would have been aware of Michael’s personality problems.’
As Mick’s appointee, Merrily had offered Bernie her resignation from his Deliverance role, citing the seasoned exorcist Huw Owen’s warning that women priests had become a target for every psychotic grinder of the dark satanic mills who ever sacrificed a cockerel.
