Phil Rickman - The Lamp of the Wicked

There was a hum in the studio, and Prof Levin was trying to track it down, lying underneath the mixing board, scrabbling about. Concerned about all the electricity under there, Lol offered to switch off at the master.

Prof’s howl came out boxy. ‘You crazy? How would I find it then? Why don’t you take a walk, Laurence? I can’t concentrate.’

Lol said thoughtfully, ‘Prof, you’ve spent whole decades in this kind of atmosphere. Has it… you know, affected you at all?’

‘Huh?’

‘All the electricity.’

Prof’s bald head came up, glowing with sweat. ‘It’s an electric world. What’s your problem?’

‘Just, is there too much of it? Are we killing ourselves?’

‘Nah,’ Prof said scornfully. ‘Our bodies adjust. One day we’ll become electric beings. Just light and sparks.’ He crawled out from under the mixing board. ‘This is about the mad guy wanted you to do his song, right? Moira told me. The guy who now wants urgently to meet the Reverend to discuss who-knows-what.’

Lol had driven up to Ledbury to collect supplies from Tesco and got back to find Merrily had left a message with Prof: she’d tried to see Sam Hall but he wasn’t there. She’d call Lol here again, early this evening. She hadn’t. He ’d called: answering machine. Then Gomer had called, asking if he was free tomorrow.

Prof stood up and laid his electrical screwdriver on the board. ‘You ever know Mephisto Jones?’

‘Mephisto Jones, the session guitarist?’

‘No, Mephisto Jones, the road sweeper, Mephisto Jones, the systems analyst. Jesus.’

‘He doesn’t seem to have been around for a while.’

Plays acoustic now. That’s all he plays. Acoustic.’

‘Well,’ Lol said, ‘if he’s happy…’

‘Happy? He’s fucking wrecked! Case, I suspect, of what your man’s talking about. Mephisto takes his headaches to the doctor, is referred to a neurologist. The neurologist invites him to have a brain scan. Mephisto says, “What, you wanna kill me now?” Brain scan – that’s how much they know about it, these neurologists. A brain scan involves the use of a massive electromagnetic field.’

‘Mephisto Jones was damaged by electricity? I always thought it was the drink.’

‘Drink would’ve been easier. And when I say that… No, this came out of nowhere, out of the ether. Headaches, weakness, pain in the joints, fingers swollen. Started with he couldn’t work in the studio, so he’d go home, lie on the sofa with a bottle of Jameson’s and the TV on. And feel even worse. It was a while before he put it all together that this was the TV, not the drink. By then, he couldn’t even listen to a Walkman. Mobile phones… goes without saying. He told me he felt so ill some nights, he couldn’t stay in the house, so he used to go and sit in the car – in the cold, because if he switched on the engine to power the heater…’

‘He became allergic to electricity?’

Prof tilted his hands. ‘Some people it just happens to. Like anything else, some people are more sensitive to it than others. Most doctors still don’t even accept it as a valid condition. Most doctors are arseholes: give you a choice of nerve tablets… red ones or blue ones. In the end, Mephisto found this international support group for electro-allergics or whatever the hell it is they’re called.’

‘So where is he now?’

‘Somewhere in Ireland, with no power to speak of and a bunch of acoustic guitars. Living on old royalties and looking fearfully out the window in case someone should decide to drag his valley into the last century. They’d have a lot to talk about, Mephisto Jones and your madman. If Mephisto’s in a mood to ‘answer the phone.’ Prof picked up his screwdriver. ‘Not a mobile, needless to say. Now will you leave me to my wires?’

‘That’s very interesting. Thank you, Prof.’

But Prof had already vanished, like a badger into its set. Lol went through to the kitchen and out through the stable door, trying to think what use a priest might be in this kind of situation.

Tendrils of fog were still ghosting the trees along the banks of the hidden River Frome, but the rooftops were clear. It was cold out here, colder than he’d expected. Presently, his own song came drifting out, as Prof tested the system. These Burt Bacharach kind of chords he couldn’t put names to, sounding better with distance.

Remember this one? The day is dwindling Down in Badger’s Wood, collecting kindling Smudgy eyes, moonrise… Golden.

Warm images. The toes curling by the electric fire.

The rather loathsome curling sensation in Moira’s gut. This bothered him. He’d heard too many shivery stories about Moira’s premonitions.

In fact, Lol shivered and was about to go back into the kitchen, out of the cold, when headlights lit the bushes along the track from the road.

The car came very slowly, mud sucking at its tyres, as the song went into its second short verse. At the end of it, streaked with cello, the chord change registered as bitter and paranoid in the dense air.

The camera lies She might vaporize…

The headlights splashed Lol’s eyes. The car stopped, the lights went down. He heard the driver’s door opening, feet on gravel, and then the door closing very lightly and carefully to make the most minimal of clinks. A visitor sensitive to studio hours.

Lol walked out and saw that it was young Eirion, on his own.

On the drive home, the fog was patchy. The road would be clear for up to a mile and then a sepia canopy would fall silently around the Volvo’s windows, muffling. Inside the car, a grey passenger was nestling beside Merrily all the way from Hereford to Ledwardine: anxiety.

Dead people. We’re talking about dead people.

For much of his life, Roddy Lodge seemed to have found solace in the dead, and now he was among them. Gone. Nobody could be damaged by him any more. Except, perhaps, his family.

And the community? Really?

On the way out, Sophie had regretfully handed her another e-mail, received by the Bishop’s office late this afternoon from the secretary of the Underhowle/Ariconium Development Committee asking for a meeting with Mrs Watkins. She could hardly say no.

But the anxiety came from something more amorphous. She was starting to feel spiritually darkened by the shadow thrown by Roddy Lodge and its merger with the even more monstrous shade of Fred West, a connection now strengthened by Huw Owen.

Skirting the square, slowing at the entrance to the churchyard, Merrily could see a light in the vicarage through the trees.

And then, to one side, another light – a tiny one, ruby splinters under the lych gate. A light she knew of old – its level above the ground, the speed it moved, like the landing light on a small boat: Gomer Parry following his ciggy to Minnie’s grave.

Merrily braked hard. Right.

Pulling the car half under the lych gate and sliding out. The cold was a shock, made her gasp. She left the car door hanging open and ran through the gate into the churchyard, spotting Gomer where the path forked by the first apple trees. He didn’t turn round. He knew who this was, was mumbling his response before she caught up with him.

‘… En’t your problem, vicar.’

How many times had he said that to her? She moved alongside him, walking on the wet and freezing grass. ‘Cold and nasty night, Gomer. Catch your death.’

‘That time o’ year, ennit.’

It was like she was interrupting some interior dialogue. The way Lol had described him on their night ride back from Underhowle. Like he wanted to catch his death.

‘Listen,’ she said, ‘I’m going home to cook something for Jane and me. It’ll be pretty basic, but we’ll be most insulted if you don’t join us.’