Phil Rickman - The Fabric of Sin

‘Not exactly. He’s a big businessman in Hereford now. He owns the Centurion on Roman Road.’

‘Do not go on your own.’

‘What’s he going to do, sacrifice me?’

‘You need a witness.’

‘I just want to invite him to a small service.’

God, was she still going to do that? A deliverance swansong?

‘You’re not going today, are you?’ Lol said.

‘I’ll call him, make an appointment.’

‘Get Sophie to do it. Makes it seem more official.’

Merrily said nothing. It would take too long to explain.

‘You’re OK, aren’t you?’ Lol said. ‘I mean, you’re feeling all right?’

‘I’m feeling surprisingly well. Surprisingly well. What time will you be home?

‘Gig’s at nine.’

‘Decent gig?’

‘Not bad.’

‘Do this one for Nick,’ Merrily said. ‘You know what I mean? And when you get in, come round. I don’t care what time.’

‘Well, then.’ Lol knelt down next to the grave. ‘Made it at last.’

Two blokes in the same business, one who went down, one who – having begun his career by shamelessly copying the other – had somehow come through.

This was silly. Embarrassing. Futile. Not only did he not know what to say, he wasn’t even sure who he was addressing. He was now over a decade older than Nick had been when he’d died alone in his bedroom in a big house in this village, from an overdose of antidepressants.

Having already overdosed on cannabis and commercial failure. The house was called Far Leys, and apparently was quite easy to find, but Lol had decided that he wasn’t going to.

If Nick Drake was alive now he’d be nearly sixty. What would he sound like now?

Now we rise and we are everywhere .

Could hear him breathily singing those words on the summery ‘From the Morning’, the last song on the last album released in his lifetime.

Like a prophecy.

The last one. His songs had always been full of dark prescience, if you wanted to hear it – as if he’d seen the design of his short life laid out in symbols. He was the fruit tree that would only flourish when his body was in the ground, when the pink moon had taken his life after the years of the black-eyed dog howling at his door, asking for more, giving nothing.

This man who could stand in silence for two hours on the periphery of a party, like a half-formed apparition. Some people had actually seen his possible suicide as part of a life-plan. Others thought he was just plain screwed up and smoking too much dope.

Maybe, it was often said, a woman might have saved him, if he’d been able to let a woman in. Or a man? Gay men liked to suggest that Nick – who, despite his elegance, his good looks and his profession, never seemed to have had a physical relationship – had been in the closet.

The most likely answer was that he was too well brought up in the careful, post-war Agatha Christie Fifties, too plain uptight middle English. I can’t really imagine Nick having sex with anyone – a friend, quoted in the latest biography – because he would have to take his clothes off and he was always far too shy .

This in the Seventies, when Jimmy Hayter, close to the same age as Nick, and actually far more upper-class, had been up to here with peace and lerve and ready to get steeped in the dirty stuff .

Jimmy Hayter, who was Lord Stourport, who hadn’t spoken to Lol again as Lol stood up, murmured ‘thank you’, nodded and walked away like he was walking on an open blade. Hayter’s body never moving, only his stare coldly following him to the door.

‘You’d have encountered people like him, right?’ Lol said. ‘I mean, you were just a little too late – especially with your background – to have been a real hippie.’

Lol picked up one of the plectrums, tortoiseshell, and then put it back, finding he’d rearranged them into a rough semicircle around the gravestone.

‘You came in at the wrong end of the dream. When everybody was waking up into the cold daylight, trying to pull the covers over their heads and it was … all going rancid under there.’

Those sublime albums bombing, one after the other. No reason for it; they were massive these days, the songs ubiquitous.

Now he had risen and he was everywhere.

The last prophesy fulfilled. There was nothing left to say.

Lol stood up. He had no plectrum to leave. Hadn’t used one in years, just his fingers and his nails on light strings.

As he walked away, a slow breeze passed through the brittling leaves on the oak tree, like a low sigh, and Lol turned and thought for a moment that a tall figure was shadowed under the tree. Slightly stooped. Raising a languid hand in a brief, shy salute.

Lol smiled and waved once and ran out of the churchyard, all the way back to where he’d left the Animal at the side of the road in a quiet lane with trees.

Only it wasn’t there.

Using the landline, Merrily rang The Centurion in Roman Road.

A woman said, ‘I’m sorry, Mr Gwilym’s in a meeting. Who shall I say called?’

‘When will the meeting be over?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t know. Can I take a—?’

‘I’ll call back,’ Merrily said, the mobile starting to chime at her elbow.

‘It’s Adam Eastgate, Merrily. About that call I warned you to expect.’

‘It hasn’t happened yet.’

‘Well, no. As it turns out, this is it.’

‘Sorry?’

‘I’ve been asked to make the call rather than somebody whose voice you wouldn’t recognize. Bottom line, Merrily, I have to ask you if you ever do any work … privately, like.’

‘ Privately? ’

‘You know what I’m saying.’

‘Independently of the Diocese?’

‘And on a confidential basis.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like the service in the Master House. Paul Gray says he’ll go along with it, though perhaps I’m not the best person to make an approach to Mr Gwilym.’

‘You want me to go ahead, despite the Bishop.’

‘It’s not seen as a confrontational thing. Just something we feel should take place, and if it’s done quietly there won’t be any of the problems Bernard was afraid of.’

‘Who else would be there?’

‘Me.’

‘Anyone else?’

‘It wouldn’t be wise for there to be … anyone else.’

‘This is a tough one, Adam.’

‘Aye. I can see that.’

‘If I did it,’ Merrily said, ‘and it got out … it could get me in a lot of trouble.’

Because there was a difference here. If she just went ahead with it on her own, it would be merely a small rebellion, out of conscience.

Where the royals are concerned – the royals and Canterbury – the smallest rumour can cause a seismic shift, and little folks like you can get dropped down the nearest crevice .

‘It won’t get out, Merrily. Nobody wants it to get out.’

‘And the idea’s been approved, has it, at the highest level?’

‘I referred it up. The suggestion came back.’

‘From?’

‘Just from higher up.’

‘When did they have in mind?’

‘Soon as possible. Soon as you can get the people together. What’s the earliest, do you think?’

‘I suppose …’ Merrily thought about it, counting days. ‘I suppose the earliest might be the day after tomorrow. That would be … Friday?’

She looked at the calendar and her gaze caught the sermon pad, propped up now against the computer, open to the list of names: PIERRE MARKHAM … MICKEY SHARPE … SIGGI—?

‘That would be Friday the twelfth?’ Adam Eastgate said. ‘I’m writing it down.’

MAT PHOBE?

‘Or Saturday, I suppose,’ Merrily said.