Phil Rickman - Remains of an Altar

‘Trying to remember … where exactly are you from?’

‘Me? Led—’ Lol thought about it, changed his mind. ‘Knights Frome.’ He paused. ‘Mate of Dan’s?’

‘Dan?’

‘Dan from Much Cowarne?’

‘ Dan! Good Lord, yes.’ Tim made to clap his left knee, missed and clapped the hay, tumbling sideways, kicking over the lantern. Lol caught it. Tim pulled himself upright. ‘Super chap. Just … you know … went into it. Didn’t inter … inter … lectulise…’

‘Finest tenor in Much Cowarne,’ Lol said.

‘Absolutely. Wherever the fuck Much Cowarne is.’

They both laughed. Lol looked out of the open front of the barn across the moonlit landscape. It was like being in a grandstand. The field seemed luminous, and there was another oak tree with two dead branches, bleached like bones.

‘You on your own?’

Tim squinted up at the wooden rafters and the flaking galvanized roof. The light was fanning out from the circular lamp like a merry-go-round with moths riding it.

‘For the moment,’ Tim said.

‘Where is she?’

‘She?’ ‘

Winnie Sparke.’

Tim let his head fall forward into his big hands, began breathing hard into them, like some kind of exercise to head off an asthma attack. Lol saw dark stains between Tim’s fingers.

He said, ‘Are you…’

Tim’s shoulders were heaving.

‘Are you hurt?’

‘I’m…’ Tim peered out through his fingers. ‘I think I’m in a bit of a mess, frankly, old cock.’

‘You walked here?’

‘Don’t remember.’

‘Where’s Winnie?’

Tim looked at him silently through those discoloured fingers.

‘Winnie said you’d meet us here. She talked to my friend. On the phone. She said you’d meet us here.’

‘Winnie? I…’ His voice dropped. ‘I don’t remember.’

‘Did she walk over with you? From Wychehill?’

‘No. Just the two of us.’

‘But you’re alone.’

‘I think … think something happened.’

Lol felt a small abdominal chill. His glasses kept misting. He took them off, rubbed them on his sleeve, put them back quickly.

‘On the way here?’

‘Don’t remember,’ Tim said.

‘Look…’ Lol brought out his mobile, flipped it open. ‘I think we could do with some help here.’

‘Help,’ Tim repeated. Vaguely, like he was recalling something. ‘Help me.’ His voice melting into a wail, as he came to his feet. ‘ Help me, I’m — Who’re you calling, old cock?’

‘Just a friend.’ Lol brought up Merrily’s number. ‘She’ll get us some help.’

Peering at the keys through misting glasses, he sent the call, listened to Merrily’s phone ringing.

And then Tim lurched at him, ramming him off the bale, snatching the phone as it flew up. Lol leaping up, making a grab for it, but Tim was taller and fumbled it well out of his reach.

Lumbering out of the barn into the night, twisting around, his arm going back, this monstrous baby throwing something out of its pram.

Lol saw his phone disappearing into the night like a tiny silver spacecraft.

For a while, in the red-spattered white room, neither of them spoke.

Syd Spicer was in dark jeans, black clerical shirt, dog collar. His small eyes were flat and unmoving.

‘Well done,’ he said.

Merrily came shakily to her feet, her jeans damp at the knees. Didn’t even remember kneeling down.

‘Not many of us would’ve done that, Merrily. Not alone, in a situation like this.’

Neither of them spoke again until they were on the back lawn and the air was the kind you were prepared to breathe.

She waited while Spicer shut the back door. He was, she noticed, wearing black gloves.

‘I was once,’ he said, ‘in another life, given some crude medical training. I think what you need is a hot, sugary brew and a sit-down.’

‘I’m all right.’

‘Of course you’re not all right. Who could be?’

‘Can you get the police? I need to go somewhere. Right away.’

‘Merrily—’

‘I have to collect Lol. I’ll come straight back.’

‘Where is he?’

‘Just bear with me.’ She prodded Lol’s number into the mobile. It rang and rang. Christ . ‘Call the police.’

‘That’s in hand. Merrily, you can’t go anywhere.’ She walked away down the side of the house. It had gone too far, now. She was in over her head, just wanted to get over to Whiteleafed Oak, find Lol. Patch things together, make sure Jane was all right and then go to the police and, if necessary, answer questions until the sun came up. She looked back at Spicer.

‘What about Tim Loste?’

‘He can take care of himself, I hope.’

‘I mean, what’s he going to do now? Where’s he going to go?’

‘Merrily—’

‘He’ll have gone out on the hill.’ Stopping next to the brutalized oak, failing to prevent her voice rising to an unnatural shrillness. ‘He always does. He has a place he goes to. Where he went to with Winnie. Which is the place where I left Lol because Winnie said they’d meet us there. And Lol’s not answering his phone. And there’s a man out there fresh from…’ pointing wildly at the house ‘… that! ’

Spicer stepped back, shaking his head. Merrily walked down towards the road, feeling in her left-hand hip pocket for her keys, aware that he wasn’t following her. At the bottom of the drive, she realized the car keys weren’t in her pocket.

Must have left them in the ignition. She’d only got out to look at the sapling.

She stopped at the side of the road, looked from side to side. Couldn’t take it in at first. She turned on Spicer, bewildered. He shrugged.

‘I meant to tell you. That was why I came in. Only it got … superseded.’

‘Someone’s nicked my car.’

‘Yeah. I saw you drive past. About twenty minutes later, the car comes back the other way, couple of kids in it. I didn’t figure you’d have asked them to go down the shop and get you some cigarettes.’

She leaned against the railings. Closing her eyes.

‘A gift is a gift,’ Spicer said. ‘Sadly, for what it’s worth, I reckon you’ve just become the first genuine victim of the notorious criminal element frequenting the Royal Oak.’

Suddenly, without preamble, like a baby, Tim was howling. Crashing back and flinging himself face down into the rotting hay and straw, beating his fists into the broken bales. Lol ran past him into the open, saw how long the grass was and the nettles. Saw that the chances of finding the phone before the morning were remote, and even then…

Better to take off fast, get away, run back to the centre of the hamlet, wait there for Merrily. Bang on someone’s door and ask to use the phone. He started to walk away.

‘Don’t … go.’ Sour whisky-breath on the air. Tim Loste standing very close behind him. ‘Think I need help.’

It was as if throwing the phone out of the barn had expelled what remained of his energy. Blown out his candle. He went back and sat down meekly on his bale, looking at the baked mud floor, then up at Lol in the lamplight.

‘ I remember Dan. Dan’s got a beard. Tall as me. Bald.’

Lol stood in the open mouth of the barn, considering the options. He could probably walk out of here now and keep walking and Tim wouldn’t necessarily follow him. But what would that achieve?

‘You’re not Dan, are you?’ Tim said.

‘I’m Lol.’

‘Kind of name’s that?’

‘Short for Laurence.’

‘Lol.’ Loste sounding it like a bass note.

‘And who are you?’ Lol asked him.

‘Me?’ Tim Loste leaned back into the hay. ‘I’m the chap who’s come here to see God.’