Phil Rickman - Remains of an Altar

‘What happened … I thought about what’d become of Robin if I was in an orthopaedic bed for six months, so I decided that if I ever again got the feeling there was somebody cycling next to me I’d have to stop looking to one side.’

‘Did you … ever think what it might be?’

Hannah shook her head.

‘I didn’t think too hard. You’d go daft, wouldn’t you? What I was really afraid of, to be quite honest, was that it might be a brain tumour or something. When you’ve got a child, these things…’

‘I know.’

‘So it was almost a relief when it…’

‘What was the bit you didn’t like?’

‘Well, like I say, if you keep on and you don’t look, it just becomes more and more real. And close. I didn’t like that. It was a day like this, maybe not quite so hot, but I could smell his sweat. And yet it was cold. Very cold, suddenly.’

‘It was a man, then.’

‘Oh yeh. I could smell his sweat. There’s something about a man’s sweat, i’n’t there? And his tobacco . Tobacco breath. Not like cigarettes – I used to smoke till I had Robin – this was real strong tobacco breath. And after a while – I’m just concentrating on pedalling as fast I can, see, just gripping the handlebars and gritting my teeth, no way was I going to stop – I was feeling his thoughts. Just look at my arms, Merrily, I’ve got goose bumps thinking about it. Feeling his thoughts! Not – don’t get me wrong – not what he was thinking , exactly. It was more the colour of his thoughts. The texture. The feeling of his thoughts. I’m not putting this very well, am I?’

‘You’re putting it brilliantly well, actually. You must’ve been very scared by now.’

‘I was afterwards. When I got to work the first time they thought I must be ill. My colleague at the information centre, she wanted to send me home in a taxi, but I needed to work. Talk to people. Get over it. I did go home by taxi that night, mind. Had to go back next day on the bus to pick up the bike.’

‘Anything happen then?’

‘No. It never does when you’re afraid it might.’

‘When you say you weren’t scared till afterwards…’

‘Because you’re too much like … too much like a part of it to be scared. That’s what I meant by possessed. He was there. He was breathing all over me. I was wearing shorts – this was a week or so ago, this was another time. I was wearing shorts like these, only a bit tighter, and he – I swear to God, I felt his hand on my thigh, and I was angry, instinctively, you know? Gerroff! And he bloody chuckled. He chuckled .’

‘You heard him chuckle?’

‘I felt him chuckle. And that’s worse. You feel him chuckling inside your head. That’s what I meant by being possessed.’

‘How long did it last, usually?’

‘Probably no more than a few seconds, but a lot can happen in a few seconds when it’s something that’s never happened before.’

‘And how many times?’

‘Three. No, four. Until I realized what was happening and just … got off.’

‘When you got off the bike, it was all right?’

‘I realized then that it only happened when I was on the bike. As if I was actually generating it by pedalling.’

‘And there was nothing wrong with you physically. Unlike the others, though, you never actually saw anything.’

‘Never.’

‘When did it last happen?’

‘Earlier this week.’

‘Same man?’

‘Oh, yeh.’

‘ What happened?’

‘Bugger-all, ’cos I jumped off quick this time and wheeled the bike along till I got on the main road.’

‘Just to get this right, this is the hill where you come out of this lane, at the church, and then go past the Rectory … down past there.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Could you just tell me … when you were feeling his thoughts, what were they like?’

‘Dark, usually,’ Hannah said. ‘Angry.’

‘Angry with you?’

‘No. He doesn’t know me. I’m sure he doesn’t. He just gets into my space. It’s like he just needs somebody’s space to get into, and it doesn’t matter who you are.’

‘So who was he angry at?’

‘Something bigger than me. Everything. God? I couldn’t say.’

‘And the time something touched your leg…’

‘You’re thinking it might’ve been a leaf or something, aren’t you? That’s what I thought. And I’m not going to insist it wasn’t. I just know what it felt like. Are you married, Merrily? You are allowed to, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, you are. And I used to be.’

‘Join the club. All I’m trying to say … when you’re in bed with a bloke, right? And you wake up and he’s still asleep … but his hand’s sliding up your nightie? Like that. Shall we have a cup of tea? Tea’s better on a hot day, sometimes.’

Merrily smiled. ‘Love one.’

Hannah stood up and opened the sliding door into a kitchen that must once have been part of the same room.

‘Blokes, eh?’ She looked over her shoulder at Merrily. ‘Hand up your nightie and dead to the world.’

Walking out of Hannah’s gate into the warmth of the afternoon, Merrily felt mixed emotions circling her like bees: primarily, a certain wild excitement that was close to the edge of fear. You realized how much time you spent coasting the safe surf between the hard sandbank of scepticism and the unfathomable deep blue abyss.

She stepped down through the cutting, with the church on her left and the sun in her eyes and the phone chiming in her bag. Aware of the layers of Wychehill. The layers of experience.

‘The Royal Oak,’ Sophie said, as she reached the Volvo. ‘Some things you might want to know.’

‘Go on.’

‘I have some information from the Internet which I can send to you at home, if you aren’t coming back to Hereford. However, I ran into Inspector Bliss and took the liberty of mentioning it. He said he’d be most interested to talk to you.’

‘About the Royal Oak?’

‘Discreetly,’ Sophie said.

It was probably worth going back. Merrily had a christening in Ledwardine tomorrow afternoon; if she dealt with parish business in the morning she could probably come back here on Wednesday and talk to Tim Loste and Preston Devereaux before the public meeting.

Feeling tired now. Up before six a.m. and two trips to Wychehill, and she hadn’t eaten yet.

Still … She smoked half a cigarette, then turned the car around and drove down past Ledbury … Trumpet … Stoke Edith. Midsummer in a couple of days, the first hard little apples like green nuts on the twisty trees and the hops on the wires. A potent landscape of cider and beer.

She felt light-headed. It was humbling and slightly shocking when, amongst all the self-delusion and the wishful thinking and the mind games, you encountered someone as guilelessly direct as Hannah Bradley.

Sophie said, ‘My attempts to log on to the Royal Oak’s actual website were frustrated by the inadequacy of our software. Apparently, the Diocese has failed to provide us with something called Flash Seven .’

‘Anything to save a few quid.’

‘From what I’ve been reading about the Royal Oak elsewhere, I’m quite grateful we don’t have it. There you are. You may understand some of this.’

Merrily went round the desk to peer at the screen over Sophie’s shoulder.

HIP-HOP … RAGGA … GARAGE … HOUSE…

DRUM’N’BASS … BHANGRA …

… IN THE MALVERNS?

Believe it!!! A big old country pub – used to

be all darts matches and Rotary Club –

has mutated …