Phil Rickman - Remains of an Altar

‘Like Roman Wicklow? Did you know about him?’

‘Suspected.’

‘But you didn’t tell the police.’

‘One man with a rucksack?’ Spicer snorted. ‘Take Wicklow out of the picture and there’s another one in place by next week, in a different beauty spot. Better the devil you know.’

‘If they’d arrested him, he could’ve fingered others…’

‘His sort don’t finger people.’

‘What about Raji Khan?’ Merrily said.

‘Raji Khan –’ he looked almost amused ‘– is a very clever boy. Somebody like me says a word against him, it’s like the Crusades are back – I must be starting a holy war. Anyway, not your problem. Your problem’s more ethereal. It’s my problem too but … we’ve been into that.’

‘What are you asking me to do?’

‘Your requiem should be broadened. I was thinking a wider brief. For a start, you might give this place some attention.’

‘What are you trying to lose?’

‘Longworth, for a start. I don’t know what his problem was, but I reckon St Dunstan’s only compounded it. You look at the records, you find that what existed on this site could have been no more than a single monk’s cell. A Celtic hermit’s primitive stone hut. So he builds a pseudocathedral. Look—’

Spicer sprang up, walked into the nave, pointing out empty stone ledges, blank areas of wall.

‘When I first came, there were terrible pictures on these walls, of saints and angels … figurines in niches.’

Merrily looked around. Light oak furniture, a marbled font. He was right: there was little of the period clutter that even churches less than a century old accumulated.

‘They’re in storage. None of them great works of art. No treasure. Phoney High-Church iconography, reeking of … hierarchy. Grotesque, to me. Forbidding – like that hideous angel on Longworth’s tomb. When we had one small statue nicked, I talked the parish council – well, Preston Devereaux – into safeguarding the rest. He didn’t need much encouraging. His family always found Upper Wychehill an intrusion. His grandfather’s on record as having attempted to stop Longworth building.’

‘You’ve virtually … stripped the place?’

‘Best we could, bit by bit, over a period. They’re all newcomers here, nobody missed anything. But I didn’t get rid of it. It’s as if it’s built into the stone.’

‘What is?’

‘Longworth’s grandiose concept. Longworth himself. He brought something here that’s caused an imbalance. This church is disproportionate to its surroundings and to the community. It’s a big stone ego-trip, and it’s like the houses are hiding away from it … below the road,over the road, squeezing into the rocks. It explains a lot about Wychehill. I found a journal kept by one of my predecessors, thirty, forty years ago. Even then, the population was unstable, people buying and selling, coming and going.’

Syd Spicer’s voice was crisp and carried across the body of the church with hardly an echo. Whatever you thought about Joseph Longworth, he’d known who to consult about acoustics.

‘I know a bit about geology,’ Spicer said. ‘Rock-climbing used to be my specialist skill. I was an instructor some of the time, so I know about rock. There’s a small fault through Wychehill, did you know that? I mean, the whole of the Malverns, that was volcanic, but a long time ago. The shifts in this area – there’s been more recent action here. I say recent – eighteenth, nineteenth centuries.’

‘A history of earth-movement and then quarrying?’ Merrily followed him down the central aisle. ‘No wonder Winnie Sparke says the hills are in pain.’

‘She’s not a stupid woman,’ Syd Spicer said. ‘She gives you all this fey stuff, but that’s her screen. If you think she’s more gullible than you are, you start to lose your inhibitions, tell her more than you intended to. C. Winchester Sparke – former professor of anthropology, back in the US. Did you know that?’

‘Yes.’

‘Specializing in ancient history, comparative religion, philosophy, anthropology. Smart woman. Don’t be fooled. We had a serious talk about this once. Her theory is that the whole of the Malvern range was one huge ritual site … because it was so volatile. People didn’t live here, they came here to experience transcendence … to have visions. That’s the pagans and the early Christians.’

‘The hermits in their cells and their caves. Like in Tibet.’

‘Presumably. That’s not the point of Christianity, though, is it? That’s smoke. Smoke and … incense.’

‘Wasn’t Longworth supposed to have had a vision?’

‘I have a theory about that.’ Spicer sat down on the edge of a pew. ‘Well, it’s not my theory, but it fits. You mess around on volatile rocks, on operations or just on exercises, and you become aware of occasional phenomena, linked particularly to fault lines and places where the Earth’s crust has been been disrupted. Lights, usually. Balls of light.’

‘You’ve seen it?’

‘Couple of times. It’s like ball lightning. Might have been ball lightning. Gets people excited about UFOs, but it’s natural, I think. The Ministry of Defence knows about it. I think that’s what Longworth saw.’

‘Preston Devereaux says the story is that Longworth saw the Angel of the Agony in a blaze of light. Which, presumably, is why there’s a representation of it on his tomb.’

‘I’d go for just the blaze of light.’

‘Is there any actual record of what Longworth believed he saw? Did he ever describe it?’

‘If he did, it wasn’t around this locality. Maybe he told Elgar. It’s all smoke, Merrily. And I’d like to get rid of it. Starting with the music.’

‘I’m sorry – which music?’

‘Loste’s music. His lush, extravagant choral works. It’s become clear to me that that’s part of the problem. It’s not the place for music like that. And certainly not the place for experiments.’

‘I know what you’re saying…’ And it was odd, Merrily thought, that a man inclined towards a blanket rejection of the numinous should be saying it. ‘I think you’re saying that, for sacred music to be effective, it needs a strong, working spiritual foundation – an abbey, a cathedral. Like the difference between a puddle and a well.’

‘And if you’re being literal about that, the Wychehill well disappeared with the quarrying.’ Spicer shrugged. ‘I might be wrong. If I am … But I thought about it all the way back from Berkshire and it was the only conclusion I could reach. Which means that as from next week Tim Loste and his choir can go and look for a new home.’

‘You mean you’re … ?’

‘Evicting him. I’m within my rights, as priest in charge – I checked. What’s more, I think it’s for his own good. He’s being drawn into an unhealthy fantasy.’

‘When are you going to tell him?’

‘I’ve already told him, Merrily. I went in the back way from the rectory while you were talking to Winnie Sparke. I told him there were probably dozens of other churches and halls that would be overjoyed to have him and the choir. I said he might want to think about moving. That this place wasn’t good for his … health.’

‘That must’ve sounded like a threat.’

‘Not the way I put it, I assure you.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He said … he said he didn’t know how he was going to tell Winnie.’

‘Syd…’ God almighty, no wonder Spicer had needed a cigarette. ‘She’ll go completely bloody berserk. This – whatever she’s trying to reach through Loste – this has become the central focus of her life.’