A Crown of Lights mw-3

by Phil Rickman

  ‘No. Some local journalist must have picked it up and tracked us down.’

  ‘And sold us to the Mail.’

  ‘The paper that supports suburban values,’ Betty said.

  The phone rang. Robin went for it.

  ‘Mr Thorogood?’

  ‘He’s away,’ Robin said calmly. ‘He went back to the States.’ He hung up. ‘That the way to handle the media?’

  Betty walked over and switched on the machine. ‘That’s a better way.’

  ‘They’ll only show up at the door.’

  ‘Well, I won’t be here.’

  He saw that she was wearing her ordinary person outfit, the one with the ordinary skirt. And this time with a silk scarf around her neck. It panicked him.

  ‘Look,’ he cried, ‘listen to me. I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry about that picture. I’m sorry for looking like an asshole. I just... I just lost it, you know? I’d just had... I’d just taken this really bad call.’

  ‘From your friend?’ Betty said.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘From your friend in the village?’

  The phone rang again.

  ‘From Al,’ he said. ‘Al at Talisman.’

  The machine picked up.

  ‘This is Juliet Pottinger. You appear to have telephoned me over the weekend. I am now back home, if you would like to call again. Thank you.’

  ‘Look’ – Robin waved a contemptuous hand at the paper – ‘this is just... complete shit. Like, are we supposed to feel threatened because the freaking Bishop of Hereford finds it a matter warranting deep concern? Because loopy Nick Ellis sees us as symptoms of some new epidemic of an old disease? What is he, the Witchfinder freaking General, now?’

  He leapt up, moved toward her.

  Betty’s hair was loose and tumbled. Her face was flushed. She looked more beautiful than he’d ever seen her. She always did look beautiful. And he was losing her. He’d been losing her from the moment they arrived here. He felt like his heart was swollen to the size of the room.

  ‘We’re not gonna let them take us down, are we? Betty, this is... this is you and me against the world, right?’

  Betty detached her car keys from the hook by the door.

  ‘Please,’ Robin said. ‘Please don’t go.’

  Betty said quietly, ‘I’m not leaving you, Robin.’

  He put his head in his hands and wept. When he took them down again, she was no longer there.

  25

  Cyst

  LEDWARDINE SAT SOLID, firmly defined in black and white under one of those sullen, shifty skies that looked as if it might spit anything at you. Just before nine Merrily crossed the square to the Eight-till-Late to buy a Mail.

  A spiky white head rose from the shop’s freezer, its glasses misted.

  ‘Seems funny diggin’ out the ole frozen pasties again, vicar.’

  They ended up, as usual, in the churchyard, where Gomer gathered all the flowers from Minnie’s grave into a bin liner.

  ‘Bloody waste. Never liked flowers at funerals. Never liked cut flowers at all. Let ’em grow, they don’t ’ave long.’

  ‘True.’ She knotted the neck of the bin liner, spread the Daily Mail on the neighbouring tombstone and they sat on it.

  ‘Barbara Buckingham’s missing, Gomer. Didn’t show up for Menna’s funeral. Never got back to me, and hasn’t been in touch with her daughter in Hampshire either.’

  ‘Well,’ Gomer said, ‘en’t like it’s the first time, is it?’

  ‘She just go off without a word when she was sixteen?’

  ‘Been talkin’ to Greta Thomas, vicar. No relation – well, her man, Danny’s second cousin twice removed, whatever.’

  ‘Small gene pool.’

  ‘Ar. Also, Greta used to be secertry at the surgery. Dr Coll’s. En’t much they don’t find out there. Barbara Thomas told you why her was under the doctor back then?’

  ‘Hydatid cyst.’

  Barbara had talked as though the cyst epitomized all the bad things about her upbringing in the Forest – all the meanness and the narrowness and the squalidness. So that when she had it removed, she felt she was being given the chance to make a clean new start – a Radnorectomy.

  Gomer did his big grin, getting out his roll-up tin.

  Merrily said, ‘You’re going to tell me it wasn’t a hydatid cyst at all, right?’

  Gomer shoved a ready-rolled ciggy between his teeth in affirmation.

  ‘I never thought of that,’ Merrily said. ‘I suppose I should have. What happened to the baby?’

  ‘Din’t go all the way, vicar. Her miscarried. Whether her had any help, mind, I wouldn’t know. Even Greta don’t know that. But there was always one or two farmers’ wives in them parts willin’ to do the business. And nobody liked Merv much.’

  ‘Hang on... remind me. Merv...?’

  ‘Merv Thomas. Barbara’s ole feller.’

  ‘Oh God.’

  Gomer nodded. ‘See, Merv’s wife, Glenny, her was never a well woman. Bit like Menna – delicate. Havin’ babbies took it out of her. Hard birth, Menna. Hear the screams clear to Glascwm, Greta reckons. After that, Glenny, her says, that’s it, that’s me finished. Slams the ole bedroom door on Merv.’

  Merrily stared up at the sandstone church tower, breathed in Gomer’s smoke. She’d come out without her cigarettes.

  ‘Well, Merv coulder gone into a particlar pub in Kington,’ Gomer said. ‘Even over to Hereford. Her’d have worn that, no problem, long as he din’t go braggin’ about it.’

  ‘But Merv thought a man was entitled to have his needs met in his own home.’

  It explained so much: why Barbara left home in a hurry, also why she had such a profound hatred of Radnor Forest. And why Menna had invaded her conscience so corrosively – to the extent, perhaps, that after she was dead, her presence was even stronger. When Menna no longer existed on the outside, in a fixed place in Radnorshire, she became a permanent nightly lodger in Barbara’s subconscious.

  ‘But the bedroom door musn’t have stayed closed, Gomer. Barbara said her father was determined to breed a son, but her mother miscarried, and then there was a hysterectomy.’

  Gomer shrugged.

  ‘But then his wife died. Hang on, this friend of yours...’ Merrily was appalled. ‘If she knew about Barbara, then she must’ve known what might have been happening to Menna.’

  ‘Difference being, vicar, that Menna had protection. There was a good neighbour kept an eye on Menna, specially after her ma died. Judy Rowland. Judy Prosser now.’

  Judy... Judith. ‘Barbara said she had letters from a friend called Judith, who was looking out for Menna. That eased her conscience a little.’

  ‘Smart woman, Judy. I reckons if Judy was lookin’ out for Menna, Menna’d be all right. Her’d take on Merv, would Judy, sure to.’

  ‘She still around?’

  ‘Oh hell, aye. Her’s wed to Gareth Prosser – councillor, magistrate, on this committee, that committee. Big man – dull bugger, mind. Lucky he’s got Judy to do his thinkin’ for him. Point I was gonner make, though, vicar, I reckon Judy was still lookin’ out for Menna, seein’ as both of ’em was living in Ole Hindwell.’

  ‘You mean after her marriage?’

  ‘No more’n five minutes apart, boy at the pub told me.’

  ‘So if she also still kept in touch with Barbara, maybe Barbara went to see her, too, while she was here.’

  ‘Dunno ’bout that, but her went to see Greta, askin’ questions ’bout Dr Coll.’

  Gatecrashed his surgery. Made a nuisance of myself. Not that it made any difference. Bloody man told me I was asking him to be unethical, pre-empting the post-mortem.

  ‘What did Barbara want to know about Dr Coll?’

  ‘Whether he was treatin’ Menna ’fore she died, that kind o’ stuff.’

  ‘What’s he look like, Dr Coll?’

  ‘Oh... skinny little bloke. ’Bout my build, s’pose you’d say. Scrappy bit of a beard.’

  ‘
He was at Menna’s funeral. The private bit.’

  ‘Ar, would be.’

  ‘So where’s Barbara then, Gomer? Where is Barbara Thomas?’

  ‘I could go see Judy Prosser, mabbe. Anybody knows the score, it’s her. I’ll sniff around a bit more. What else I gotter do till the ole grass starts growin’ up between the graves again?’

  It was colder now. The mist had dropped down over the tip of the steeple. Gomer’s roll-up was close to burning his lips. He took it out and squeezed the end. He looked sadly at the grave, his bag of frozen pasties on his knees and his head on one side like a dog, as if he was listening for the ticking of those two watches under the soil.

  ‘I’ve got to go back there today.’ She told him about Old Hindwell seemingly metamorphosed into Salem, Mass. ‘You, er, don’t fancy coming along?’

  Gomer was on his feet. ‘Just gimme three minutes to put these buggers in the fridge, vicar.’

  Jane was not happy. Jane was deeply frustrated. She telephoned Eirion from the scullery.

  ‘They’ve found out where that church is! The pagan church? I had completely forgotten about it! The one that woman was going on about on Livenight? I’d forgotten about it. Like, you apparently lose all these brain cells when you have a bump, and I just didn’t remember that stuff, and then bits started coming back, and I knew there was something vital, but I couldn’t put my fing— Anyway, it’s all over one of the papers. It’s somewhere just your side of the border. And she’s just raced off over there... on account of there’s this major scene going down.’

  ‘Major scene?’ Eirion said.

  ‘And I’m, like, I have got to check this out! But would she let me go with her? Like, she’s even taken Gomer with her. But not me – the person who is profoundly interested in this stuff? And, like, because of the other night there is, of course, not a thing I can do about it. She just puts on this calm, sorrowful expression and she looks me in the eyes, and she’s like, “You’re going to stay here, this time, aren’t you, flower?” I am completely, totally, utterly stuffed.’

  Eirion said calmly, ‘So how are you now, Eirion? How’s the whiplash? Is there any chance your car isn’t a complete write-off?’

  ‘Ah.’ Jane sat down at the desk. ‘Right. Sorry, Irene. You have to understand that self-pity is, like, my most instinctive and dominant emotion.’

  ‘You OK?’

  ‘Yeah, slept a lot. Still feel a bit heavy when I first get up, but no headaches or anything. No scars at all. Like I said, some things I can’t remember too clearly. About that programme and stuff. But... yeah. Yeah, I’m OK.’

  ‘My stepmother spoke to your mother. I’ve been feeling I ought to ring her, too. Do you think she’d be OK about that?’

  ‘With you she’d be fatally charming. So is it a write-off?’

  ‘Interesting you should ask about the car before asking about me.’

  ‘I know you’re OK. Your stepmother told Mum you were OK.’

  ‘I might have subsequently suffered a brain haemorrhage in the night.’

  ‘Did you?’

  Eirion paused. ‘Yes, it is a write-off. A car that old, if you break a headlamp, it’s a write-off.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I loved that car. I worked all summer at a lousy supermarket for that little Nova. I should get just about enough on the insurance to replace it with a mountain bike.’

  ‘Irene, I’m really, really sorry.’ Jane felt tears coming. ‘It’s all my fault. Everything I touch these days I screw up. I don’t suppose you want to see me ever again, but one day – I swear this on my mother’s... altar – I’ll get you another car.’

  ‘What, you mean in fifteen years’ time I’ll come home one day in my Porsche and find a thirty-year-old Vauxhall Nova outside my penthouse?’

  ‘In my scenario,’ Jane said, ‘you’re actually trudging home to your squat.’

  ‘Let’s forget the car,’ Eirion said. ‘You can sleep with me or something instead.’

  ‘OK.’

  Silence.

  Eirion said, ‘Listen, I’m sorry. That just came out. That was a joke.’

  ‘I said it was OK.’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ Eirion said. ‘I don’t want it to be like that.’

  ‘You don’t want to sleep with me?’

  ‘I mean, I don’t want it to be like... like you shag first and then you decide if you want to know the person better. I don’t want it to be like that. It never lasts. Most of the time that’s where it all ends.’

  ‘You’ve done a lot of this?’

  ‘Well... erm, I was in a band. You get around, meet lots of people, hear lots of stories. It’s just not how I want it to be with us, OK?’

  ‘Wow. You don’t mess around on the phone, do you?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m good on the phone,’ Eirion said. ‘Listen... It’s been weird. I can’t stop thinking about that stuff. I’ve just been walking round the grounds and turning it all over and over—’

  ‘Oh, the grounds...’

  ‘I can’t help my deprived upbringing. No, I was thinking how close we came to being like—’

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘Well... yeah, it really bloody shakes you up when you start thinking about it.’

  ‘Brings your life into hard focus. Unless you’ve had concussion, when it seems to do the opposite most of the time.’

  ‘I started thinking about your mum, what that would’ve done to her, with both her husband and her daughter – and it doesn’t matter what kind of shit he was, he was still her husband and your dad – like, both her husband and her daughter wiped out on the same bit of road. And maybe her, too, if she hadn’t stopped in time – these pile-ups can just go on and on in a fog. And... I don’t know what I’m trying to say, Jane...’

  ‘I do. It was like when I said to you in the car – I remember this because it was just before it happened. I said, do you never lie in bed and think about where we are and how we relate to the big picture?’

  ‘I just don’t lie in bed and think about it, I tramp around the grounds and the hills and think about it.’

  ‘That’s cool,’ Jane said.

  ‘And I was thinking how, when we were talking to Gerry earlier... you remember Gerry, the researcher?’

  ‘Gerry and... Maurice?’

  ‘That’s right. You remember Gerry saying, before the show started, that he wouldn’t be surprised if one of them – one of the pagans in the studio – tried some spooky stuff, just to show they could make things happen?’

  ‘He said that?’

  ‘He said spooky stuff. And I said, “What? What would they do?” And Gerry said a spell or something, just to prove they could make things happen. It was just after he was going on about your mum, and how your dad was killed and maybe she felt guilty—’

  ‘Oh yeah – the bastard.’

  ‘And you jumped down his—’

  ‘Sure. I mean, where did he get that stuff?’

  ‘He got it from that guy Ned Bain.’

  ‘Ned...? Oh, the really cool—’

  ‘The smooth-talking git,’ Eirion said. ‘But that whole thing was getting to me. Because they didn’t do anything, did they? There was no spell, no mumbo-jumbo, no pyrotechnics; they were all actually quite well behaved. But somehow Gerry had got it into his head that they were going to pull some stunt. So, anyway, I rang him this morning. You know... how I’m that bloke who wants to be a TV journalist? So I’m writing a piece on my adventures in the Livenight gallery for the school magazine...’

  ‘You’re not!’

  ‘Of course I’m not. It’s just what I told Gerry to get him talking. I told him I was explaining in my piece how the programme researchers get their information, and there were things I didn’t have a chance to ask him there on the night.’

  ‘And where do they get it?’

  ‘Cuttings files, obviously. But they also talk to the guests beforehand. Like this Tania talked to your mum... and Gerry talked to Ned Bain an
d a few others. But Gerry reckoned it was Bain had provided all this detailed background on the Church of England’s first woman diocesan exorcist.’

  ‘Gerry just told you that?’

  ‘It took a bit of digging, actually, Jane. After which Gerry said how he thought I had a future in his profession; said to give him a call when I get through college.’

  ‘Wow, big time.’

  ‘Sod off.’

  ‘So he was genned up on Mum? Like know thine enemy?’

  ‘But is that sort of stuff about your dad going to be readily available from the Hereford Times or something?’

  ‘She won’t do interviews about herself.’

  ‘So where did he get it?’

  ‘It’s no big secret, Irene. Maybe it’s all floating around on the Internet.’

  ‘Exactly. I’m going to check it out, I think.’

  ‘Who told Gerry they were going to pull a stunt? That from Ned Bain too?’

  ‘Gerry claimed he’d never said that. He said I must’ve misunderstood. But he bloody did say it, Jane. He just didn’t want it going in a school magazine that they were happy for stuff like that to happen on a live programme.’

  ‘Stuff like what?’

  ‘I don’t know, it just—’

  ‘I mean, OK, let’s spell it out, bottom line. Are you suggesting the evil Ned Bain and his satanic cronies did some kind of black magic resulting in a fog pile-up which caused the deaths of several people? Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘Not exactly that...’

  ‘What are you, some kind of fundamentalist Welsh Chapel bigot?’

  ‘Unfair, Jane.’

  ‘So what are you suggesting?’

  ‘I don’t know, I just... I mean no, it would be ridiculous to suggest that those tossers in fancy dress could do anything like that, even if they were evil, and I don’t think they are. Not evil, just totally irresponsible. They’re like, “Oh, can we work hand in hand with nature to make good things happen and save the Earth?” How the fuck can they know that what they’re going to make happen is going to be good necessarily?’

  ‘You sound like Mum.’

  ‘Well, maybe she’s right.’

  ‘Don’t meddle with anything metaphysical? Throw yourself on God’s mercy?’