Phil Rickman - Remains of an Altar

‘Oh.’

‘So you can imagine what it was like for them when the Royal Oak changed hands.’

‘Sorry?’

‘And that’s very much part of it, if you ask me. The evil.’

‘Evil … ?’

‘Ingrid said you weren’t the kind to dismiss it like so many of the modern clergy do.’

Mrs Aird looked out of her wall-to-wall picture window across the valley with its pastures and orchards.

‘Expect I’ll have to go, soon. You wouldn’t believe how often the houses change hands up here. It’s like Mr Walford says – he’s disabled but a very intelligent man, we do crosswords together – and he often says, This is what I always wanted, a place up here, and then when you get it you suddenly wake up one day and realize you’re too old for it . This is not a place to be old, Mrs Watkins, though I’ll miss my sunsets.’

Merrily looked around the room, everything modern and convenient and sparkling in the sunshine.

‘The Royal Oak,’ she said. ‘Is that a pub?’

‘ Pub? ’ Mrs Aird said. ‘It’s the gateway to hell. I don’t even want to talk about that , if you don’t mind. I’ve had all the locks changed and I shut myself away at weekends, go to bed with my mobile phone in case they cut the wires. And unfortunately it’s not something you can do anything about.’

‘Is there anything I can do for you while I’m here?’

‘No, I’m quite self-sufficient really. I’ve been a widow nearly twenty years, and I can cope with most things.’

‘Everybody needs help,’ Merrily said.

Mrs Aird looked down into her lap for a moment; when she looked up she seemed, in some way, younger, her expression more focused.

‘If you don’t mind me saying so, Mrs Watkins, you seem a nice girl. But you don’t look very much like my idea of a … you know.’

‘Yes, I’m sorry.’ Merrily looked down at her sweatshirt. ‘The Rector asked me to … I don’t think he wanted to draw attention to me being here.’

‘No, I ’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Ingrid says you know what you’re doing. It’s just that I don’t have many friends in Wychehill, and this girl … that’s what worries me most.’

And there might be another one , Syd Spicer had said, which is … a bit weird. Joyce Aird can tell you. They won’t talk to me about it .

‘She’s a single mother, Mrs Watkins. She’s on her own in that house. And she’s had the worst of it. She’s … this is why something needs to be done.’

‘I’m a single mother, too. I have a daughter of seventeen.’

‘ You can’t be old enough for…’ Mrs Aird’s eyes lost their focus. ‘Oh, you lose touch at my age. Everybody under fifty looks like a child.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘Hannah.’

‘She lives in Wychehill?’

‘Thinks she’s possessed,’ Mrs Aird said. ‘It’s not good, is it?’

Lol let Jane into his terraced cottage in Church Street. In the living room, the sunlight jetted through the window-hung crystals – Jane’s house-warming present – making quivering rainbow balls on the walls and the face of the Boswell guitar. Making the guitar seem to vibrate with possibilities which would vanish like the rainbow balls as soon as he picked it up.

‘Well, go on.’ Jane planting herself next to the writing desk. ‘Ring them.’

‘I don’t know the—’

‘I have it here. Copied it from the notice.’

Jane consulted her right wrist, read out the row of numbers biroed on it. She was left-handed. Sinistral. Therefore dangerously unpredictable. How was he supposed to handle this? Encourage her to go ahead with what seemed like a valid protest? Or, bearing in mind Merrily’s situation in the village, do what he could to talk her out of it?

‘And the code, of course, is 01432,’ Jane said.

Lol rang the council’s planning department, Jane drumming her fingers on the desk the whole time. What he eventually learned, from a guy called Charles, was in no way likely to wind her down.

‘He says it’s up for discussion next week.’

‘They’ll make a decision then?’

‘The impression I got is that there’ve been no objections. The site being fairly secluded, inside the development line as laid down in the local plan, and not visible from the village centre. Perfect housing site.’

‘But it’s on a … Why didn’t you tell him it’s on a crucial—?’

‘Jane—’

‘Yeah, yeah, the council doesn’t believe they exist. Anywhere else with, like, a really major figure like Alfred Watkins, there’d be a statue in High Town, and all the key leys, like Capuchin Way, would be marked by brass plaques. But this bunch of crass, self-serving tossers—’

‘Jane, the government’s demanding new housing all over the country. And there is a case for Ledwardine needing … starter homes?’

‘And like, luxury executive dwellings fit into that category?’

Lol sighed. They’d called in at the Eight Till Late to quiz Big Jim Prosser on the ownership of Coleman’s Meadow. Jim had identified a farmer called G. J. Murray, who lived at Lyonshall, about seven miles away. This Murray had inherited Coleman’s Meadow from his aunt and had been touting it to development companies ever since.

Which was the way of it. People wrote to the Hereford Times , moaning about all the locally born young people being driven out of the county because they couldn’t get onto the housing ladder, but when they had a chance to develop some field for housing, it was usually luxury executive dwellings . Where the safe money was.

‘And, like, even with starter homes, most of them just go to people from outside,’ Jane said. ‘All the guys in my class who were born around here, they just can’t wait to get the hell out … rent an inner-city apartment near some cool shops. Or emigrate. We’re a nomadic race.’

‘Unfortunately, the council can’t operate on that basis.’

Didn’t you just hate playing the responsible adult? Especially when she was right. They really needed more executive homes, another two dozen SUVs clogging the village?

‘Anyway, it’s not going to happen, is it, Laurence? We’re going to get it stopped.’

‘We?’ Lol said. ‘ We? ’

‘Either you’re for me or against me.’

‘Jane, I am one hundred per cent for you. It’s just that we’re not talking about protecting an ancient monument, are we?’

‘Of course we are … sort of.’

Jane sat down and drew a diagram on Lol’s lyric-pad. Cole Hill … Coleman’s Meadow track … tumulus … market place … Ledwardine Church … ancient crossroads … standing stone.

‘… Six, seven points if you include the market place. It’s beyond dispute. If I had a big enough map, I could probably trace it all the way to the Neolithic settlements in the Black Mountains. It’s a living ancient monument.’

‘Still be there in essence, though, won’t it, even if they build on it?’

‘It won’t be visible . This is a genuine, existing old straight track, probably an ancient ritual route, right? By the time they ’ve finished, the way the land slopes, you probably won’t even be able to see Cole Hill from the church any more for all these identical luxury homes with their naff conservatories. It’s a crime against the ancient spirit. It’ll sour the energy !’