Phil Rickman - The Fabric of Sin

Merrily saw Jane discreetly rolling her eyes.

‘First time I’d seen a dead ’un,’ Mrs Morningwood said. ‘The candle was in a saucer. Sitting in a mound of salt on a saucer placed on the chest of the corpse, which lay in its coffin on trestles in the centre of the room. The candle casting a quite ghastly light on the face. I remember – one of those frozen moments that resurface, for years, in nightmares – taking one look and being gripped by a horror that was physical , like a cramp in my stomach. Tried to run out, but then, from the shadows by the inglenook, a bigger shadow arose. Tessie Worthy, the Newtons’ housekeeper. A large and formidable woman. I remember, as clearly as if it was yesterday, Tessie Worthy, in her big white starched apron, rising up and intoning, in this low rumble of a voice, Everybody is to touch her .’

‘Gross,’ Jane said, hugging the wolfhound.

‘I remember my mother lifting me up and placing my hand on the withered cheek. I remember turning my head away when the smell wafted up at me – I’m sure if I went in there now I’d smell it again. Putrid. The faint but piercing stench of decay, mixed with the sickly smell of molten wax. I closed my eyes tightly. The face felt like the skin on a cold egg-custard.’

‘This is an old Celtic thing?’ Jane said, unfazed. ‘Like corpse candles?’

‘About keeping away evil spirits, m’ dear. A light must remain burning in the room where the corpse lies, up until burial.’

‘Until the funeral,’ Merrily said, ‘the spirit was supposed to be hanging around the house and shouldn’t be left alone. That was the belief, I think.’

She looked down at the house, some of its windows leaded and framed with rusted metal, others just holes, like the sockets of eyes which had been put out.

‘However, I do believe the Newtons used it as a kind of controlling device,’ Mrs Morningwood said. ‘Each hand on the dead cheek an unspoken gesture of allegiance. And, of course, almost everyone came – except, obviously, anyone called Gwilym.’

‘How often did that happen?’ Merrily asked. ‘These communal visits to the Newton dead.’

‘Twice? Three times? I don’t truly know. I left home in my twenties. Couldn’t wait to get out, to the big, exciting, non-superstitious city. By the time I returned, they’d moved out.’

‘Left the house?’

‘Built a new house, originally for a tenant, then improved and extended it, and then it became the family home. More convenient, easier to heat – or that was their story. The Master House was rented out, first to some people who tried to run a riding stables – and failed – and then to one of those 1970s good-life communes, posh kids with ideals but no morals. They’d gone, too, time I returned, and word was the Gwilyms were trying to buy it back. Gruffydd Gwilym, not a bad chap, actually, but the Newtons turned him away – rather see the house rot away than returned to the Gwilyms. And now, of course, there’s Gruffydd’s son. Suckarse .’

Merrily blinked, patting Roscoe, the wolfhound, who’d come to sit between her and Jane.

‘Sycharth, actually.’ Mrs Morningwood spelled it out. ‘Some of us do know our Welsh pronunciations but can’t resist taking the piss. Sycharth inherited earlier than expected, Gruffydd having been killed in one of those ubiquitous tractor accidents that occur on hill farms. Wouldn’t happen to Sycharth – man’s never even been on a bloody tractor. Big businessman, now, in Hereford. Property, restaurants. Latest is some abomination called The Centurion?’

‘I know it.’ Flash eatery on Roman Road. ‘ He owns that?’

‘A reversal of fortunes for both families. The Gwilyms back in the money, hard times for the Newtons. Suffered terribly during the Foot and Mouth of 2001 – which, of course, the despicable government allowed to spread, to shaft the farmers the way Thatcher shafted the miners.’

Merrily nodded. You heard this all the time. A conspiracy theory that would last for at least a generation.

‘All governments are the same underneath. Final straw, though, for the Newtons. Farm was like a concentration camp after the war – smoke and death. And the Newtons – hardly the powerful family I remembered, and it didn’t get any easier. The boys wanted out, and that might’ve been the end of it, had the eldest girl, Roxanne, not married Paul Gray. Young farmer with ambition and enough family funds to buy in. Actually started to turn it around … before he was diagnosed with MS.’

‘Ah. I saw him. Briefly. Trying to avoid his wheelchair.’

‘He’s fighting. Cursed, though. Farm was cursed. People still talk like that, as I’m sure you know.’

‘And the feud?’

‘Never went away. Like a live electric wire under the ground, and periodically someone would strike it with a spade. Sycharth pretends it’s all history. When the word leaked out about Paul’s illness, he immediately offered to help by buying back the Master House and surrounding land. Which might’ve been tempting if he hadn’t been a Gwilym.’

‘Didn’t want to know?’

‘But I think it did make them realize that this might be a good time to sell … to the right buyer.’

‘Ah.’ Merrily nodded. ‘Perhaps a respectable outside buyer with plenty of money and no possible link to the Gwilyms?’

‘I don’t know the details,’ Mrs Morningwood said, ‘but it was clearly the Grays who made the approach to the Duchy of Cornwall.’

‘Mmm.’

‘Knowing how keen the Duchy were on Herefordshire at the time, having recently bought Harewood Park, not a dozen miles away.’

‘Clever.’

‘Oh, they’ve always been clever, Grays and Newtons both. If rather unlucky.’

‘And how do the Gwilyms feel about the Duchy?’

‘One can only imagine. All right then, darling …’ Mrs Morningwood squeezed out her cigarette, tidily pocketing the stub. ‘If you want to go into the house, I won’t detain you any longer. But at least you know some of the background.’

‘Yes. Thank you, Mrs Morningwood.’

‘You have a key?’

‘A very big key.’ Merrily could feel its outline bulging her bag. ‘Only problem now is, I’ve a church service to take at seven-thirty, back in Ledwardine.’

‘Time for a peek, surely. I’m sure your God will protect you. Come along, Roscoe.’

‘You’re not coming?’

‘Hens to get in before nightfall. Besides, I think I told you – I never go there.’

‘Because you actually believe it’s haunted or for some other reason that you … maybe don’t feel able to share?’

For just a moment, Mrs Morningwood looked almost thrown. Then she smiled.

‘I trust the dog, Mrs Watkins. Once got carried away, in pursuit of a bunny, found himself within yards of the ruins. He froze for a moment – absolutely froze – then made the most extraordinary noise and came running back to me like the wind, tail well down. Walked pitifully to heel all the way home.’

She attached the leather lead to Roscoe’s collar and then held out the looped end, first to Merrily, then to Jane.

‘Go on – try him. See what happens.’

Jane looked at Merrily.

‘Wouldn’t be fair,’ Merrily said.

A YEAR OR so before moving to Ledwardine, Merrily had helped take the funeral of a youngish woman with psychiatric problems, wife of a local head teacher. Probably suicide but passed off, by a kindly coroner, as accidental death.

Up in Liverpool this had been, when she’d been a curate, and there’d been an open coffin, in the American tradition. And that had bothered her, and the fact that it bothered her was also worrying. Was she squeamish? Immature? Surely it was good to be as open as possible about death. Took away the fear. Touch a corpse, you’ll never be afraid again.