Phil Rickman - The Lamp of the Wicked

She watched the smoke rise from Gomer’s ciggy, darkening the day, a signal of distress. Something was wrong. After he’d told Minnie, maybe he’d tell her.

When they reached the square, she said to James, ‘You going to come and discuss this thing in private? Tell me what on earth people are saying?’

‘I think not.’ James sniffed the air. ‘Never been a gossip. Anyway, told Alison I’d be back before one. I’ve said all I wanted to say. Question of watching your back, vicar. Watching your back.’

‘Thank you.’

James merely nodded and walked away with long strides. Merrily looked around the square, as if there might be small knots of people pointing at her and muttering. Maybe the angel sermon hadn’t been such a good idea. Maybe – if Jenny Box had told anyone else here about her vision – it was a very bad idea.

In fact, the square was empty except for Frannie Bliss leaning against one of the oak pillars of the little market hall, munching a Mars Bar.

Merrily sighed.

LOL TOOK THE call just before one on the kitchen phone at Prof’s. From the studio he could hear a playback of Moira’s ‘Lady of the Tower’, veined now with the seamless cello of Simon St John. Just Moira’s voice and Simon’s cello: experimental.

On the phone, he heard, ‘That you, boy? You know who this is?’

A warm voice, not quite American. Lol was momentarily baffled, before the voice threw up an image of the sepia sleeve of The Band’s second album, all beards and back porch.

‘Sam?’

‘Lol, I hope you don’t mind this intrusion. I got your number through talking to the cop… Bliss? Came over to see me a couple days back.’

‘Has he calmed down now?’

‘I guess you might say that,’ Sam Hall said, ‘though he doesn’t strike me as a man who can handle calm too well. Anyhow, we had a talk, and it, uh… it all came out about you and what you did when you weren’t up to your ass in mud.’

‘That Bliss,’ Lol said. ‘So discreet, it’s a wonder he never made the Special Branch.’ Behind him, Simon’s cello glided over the chasm left by Moira’s voice after the verse where the messenger climbed down from his horse and the night was in his eyes.

So in the afternoon I went on down to the village hall,’ Sam said. ‘They have a community computer room there, courtesy of Mr Cody, and I started to search the Web, and, hey, there you were, boy, all over the show – folks saying how come this guy is a footnote to so many other people’s careers? Where’d he go? Folks all over the world – America, Australia – asking questions about Lol Robinson.’

‘But you didn’t just ring up to scare me.’

Sam laughed. ‘Which, I concede, is the good side of the Web – people talking to each other, sharing enthusiasms. The payback, however, in phone lines, in power, that’s bad, bad, bad . But even a dangerous crank and a madman such as myself has to compromise sometimes… which is how I wound up at Ross Records, and they didn’t have the Hazey Jane albums, but they did have this collection by Norma Waterstone, with “The Baker’s Lament”. And… well, the up and down of it is, you’re good, boy. You… are… good.’

Lol was confused. ‘Thanks. That’s kind of you, but—’

‘I like how you write what are essentially new folk songs. “The Baker’s Lament”, that’s a new song sounds like it’s been around for ever till you really listen to the words, discover it’s a new take on an old theme, and it packs a strong message about what is happening to the countryside. So, the upshot, I wound up buying this Norma Waterstone album.’

‘Er… Waterson,’ Lol said.

‘Some voice, huh? Played it four times last night, used up all of my power ration. Listen, I’m gonna come to the point, Lol. You’re a guy feels strongly about the destruction of the country. You know my take on all that – and the power lines. But you don’t know it all. There is so… much… more.’

‘Well, I’m sure—’

‘And, listen, I don’t mean worldwide, I mean here. I’m talking Underhowle, I’m talking Lodge and I’m talking Melanie Pullman. I talk about this the whole time, and nobody listens to me ’cause I’m this old crank, this lunatic with a chip. I’m the fool on the goddam hill, man, and nobody listens. Wanna cut me off now?’

‘Go on,’ Lol said.

‘You wanna cut me off, you cut me off. Everybody cuts me off sometime . Anyhow, after the boy died the other night, I listened to all my neighbours walking home saying how it was all for the best, save the taxpayers having to keep him in jail for the rest of his miserable life, and I’m thinking, Hell, am I the only person in this whole village sees this as some kind of a tragedy? I’m always saying that – am I the only person in this whole valley knows what’s happening to us all? Anyhow, this time I went home and I started to write myself a poem. Sat up the whole night to finish it – a two-candle poem. And when Bliss told me about you, I started thinking, hey, this is more than coincidence. This is meant to be .’

Not one of Lol’s favourite phrases. Meant to be was a trap.

‘I’m gonna ask you straight out,’ Sam said, ‘I like to be direct. If there’s any way at all that you could find the time to turn this poem into a song – well, I don’t have the money to pay you, but you could keep the song, if you liked the idea. And the cause is good. It’s a world issue and a big one. It’s what my life’s been building towards.’ Sam paused. ‘You still there, boy? You hung up on me yet?’

When Eirion called, Jane was lying on her bed with Ethel the cat and a paperback. As soon as she heard his voice, she thrust the book under the pillow, as if he could see it down the line.

Eirion said, ‘I’m afraid I have to tell you she seems genuine, Jane. There is like no dirt at all on Jenny Driscoll – not on the Net anyway, and I searched hard. In fact, what I’ve read I rather like.’

Jane thought that, with this unnatural thing he was developing for once-good-looking old ladies, his opinion was hardly to be trusted, but she didn’t say anything.

‘Do you want to know now?’ Eirion said. ‘Or shall I print some of it out and fax it over or something?’

‘Can you give it to me potted? I’ll stop you if anything sounds interesting.’

OK.’ Eirion cleared his throat and started to enunciate like it was the voice-over on a TV biog. ‘She was born in County Wicklow into a respectable lower-middle-class family. Father was the manager of a small soft-drinks business. As a teenager, Jenny apparently got itchy feet and sent her picture to a model agency with an office in Dublin. It turned out she had the kind of looks that appealed at the time, and she wound up in London within a year. Someone said she “looked like a girl who bruised easily”. Evidently a famous quote. This was the post-punk New Romantic era, apparently. Terrible clothes, terrible music. And this element of sadomasochism.’

‘Mum was there – I’ve seen the pictures. She was briefly into Goth.’

‘Yes,’ Eirion said thoughtfully, ‘I know.’

‘ Lewis …’ Jane gave it serious menace. ‘Kill that fantasy right now .’

Eirion chuckled.

‘OK, so New Romantic.’ Jane knew some of this, but there might be something new.

‘But romantic in a kind of besmirched way,’ Eirion said. ‘Because she looked so vulnerable, they were putting her into these Vivienne Westwood type of things, so that she came across like some kind of teenage streetwalker. Smudged lip gloss and mascara with dribbles, like she’d been crying. Tarnished before her time, you know? It was all a little bit pervy, I suspect.’