Phil Rickman - A Crown of Lights

Robin wrenched from the altar the great ceremonial sword. No toy this, no lightweight replica, but three and a half feet of high-tensile steel.

Robin raised it in both hands, high above his head. He heard Vivvie screaming.

MERRILY SAID, ‘YOU really did look after her, didn’t you? You really took care of her.’

Judith Prosser adjusted a fold in the corpse’s shroud. ‘I was the only one ever took care of her.’

‘Could we close the lid now?’

Judith didn’t touch the lid. ‘Why don’t you conduct your ceremony, Merrily? Take off your coat, make yourself into a priest.’

Taking control again.

Merrily moved to the head of the coffin, looking down towards Menna’s feet. Her airline bag, with the Bible, the prayer texts, the flask of holy water, stood by the door.

‘Why don’t you finally leave her alone? Why don’t you just accept that maybe you’ve done enough harm?’

‘Meaning what precisely, Mrs Watkins?’ Judith said briskly. She went to stand at the foot of the coffin, from where she could observe the faces of both Merrily and Menna.

‘You had her on the Pill from an early age. Dr Coll’s good like that, isn’t he? Ministering to the real needs of the local people? Dr Coll understands these things.’

‘She’d have been pregnant by fourteen if we hadn’t done something.’

‘Mmm, her father really was abusing her, wasn’t he? Maybe over quite a long period.’

Judith shrugged.

‘And, of course, you knew that.’

‘We didn’t talk about such things then. Other people’s domestic arrangements, that was their own affair.’

‘Yeah, yeah, but also because... whenever it happened, she would come to you.’

‘Oh, well, yes. Almost a mile.’ Judith smiled. Incredibly, it looked like a smile of nostalgia. ‘Almost a mile across the fields to our farm. To my parents’ farm. In tears, usually – or you could see where the tears had dried in the wind.’

‘And you would comfort her.’

Judith breathed in very slowly, her black coat flung back, breasts pushing out the rugby shirt. Merrily thought of her in the toilet at the village hall, tenderly ministering to Marianne. Always victims: always vulnerability, confusion, helplessness, terror, desperation. Like Menna, alone on that remote hill farm with her beast of a father.

‘What a turn-on that must have been,’ Merrily said.

Judith’s face became granite. ‘Don’t overstep the mark, Mrs Watkins.’

‘Why didn’t you just take her to the police?’

‘To give evidence against her own father? Apart from the fact that, as I say, such things were not done yere in those days, not talked about, how would she have managed on her own, with her father in prison? How would she have coped?’

‘Probably have been taken into care. And that’s probably the best thing that could have happened, in Menna’s case.’ Merrily paused. ‘If not in yours.’

‘You don’t know anything about this area!’ Judith snapped. ‘Social services? Pah! We have always managed our own social services.’

‘I’m sure. Especially after you got married and you were operating from the perfect, secure social platform.’

Marriage to Gareth Prosser. Councillor, magistrate, on this committee, that committee. Big man. Dull bugger, mind. Lucky he’s got Judy to do his thinkin’ for him.

A very satisfactory arrangement that, in almost all areas of life, Judith needed Gareth for the framework, the structure, the tradition: a facade, and a good one. What did sexual orientation have to do with it? Fancy, meaningless phrase from Off. Self-sacrifice was sometimes necessary – for a while.

‘The foundations of rural life,’ Merrily said. ‘A husband, a farm and sons – preferably two of them, in case something happens to one of them, or the other grows up strange and wants to live in Cardiff and be an interior designer.’

Judith smiled thinly. ‘Oh, you’re such a clever little bitch. What about your life, Mrs Watkins? They say your husband died some years ago. Does the love of God meet all your needs?’

Merrily let it go. ‘When you’re married to a man like Gareth, nothing needs to change. You go to Menna, she comes to you. And then, when her father dies, you have the contingency plan for her: Jeffery Weal. Good old J.W., the solid, silent family solicitor. A local man, and discreet.’

He was too old for her, yes. Too rigid in his ways, perhaps. But it was what she was used to, isn’t it? She was a flimsy, delicate thing. She would always need protection.

What could be more perfect? His clothes smelling of mothballs, and little or no experience of women. And living just a few hundred yards down the hill from the Prosser farm.

‘ You arranged that ideal marriage, Judith. You probably coached Menna in what would be expected of her. But she was used to all that, anyway, poor kid. She’d always been a kid – a sad, pale little girl. He must have frightened her a bit, at first, the size of him. He frightens me . But that would be no bad thing either, for you, if she needed a lot more comforting.’

Judith’s hands were on her hips. ‘Now you have overstepped the mark.’

‘And of course she must continue to take her Pill because children would not be a good thing at all . Having a child can make someone grow up awfully quickly.’

‘She was not strong enough for children,’ Judith said sullenly.

‘Was that how Weal eventually found out about you and Menna? Because he wanted children – with the family business to pass on to them. “Pills – what pills are these, Menna?” ’ She put up a hand. ‘No, all right. I reckon he did find out, though, didn’t he?’

‘You reckon ,’ Judith sneered, ‘you guess , you theorize .’

‘Is that why you wanted me to come here tonight? To find out what direction the speculation was taking? I’d guess the answer is that you don’t really know for sure whether Weal knows about you and Menna, or not. But if he does, he wouldn’t say a word to you. It’s not the local way. Besides, I suppose you were useful to him. I expect there were aspects of Menna he couldn’t deal with. Maybe she’d finally changed – becoming a woman.’

‘You don’t know what you’re—’

‘But that wouldn’t be awfully good for you either, would it? To have Menna becoming a bit worldly-wise as she reached middle age? What actually was her mental state? I wouldn’t know but, my God’ – Merrily pointed into the tomb – ‘look at her now. Look at her face. It’s all coming out now, isn’t it, in that face? God Almighty, Judith, it’s almost turning into your face.’

Judith Prosser stood very still, seemed hardly to be breathing. Merrily moved away, back towards the door.

‘You know what I think? What I’d bet big money on?’ She was aware of her voice rising in pitch, more than a bit scared now of where this was inexorably leading. ‘When Weal had Ellis exorcize his wife, that was nothing to do with her father at all. Ellis seemed to be able to demonize anything and then get rid of it. He stopped your boy from nicking cars, didn’t he? So maybe Weal thought that Nicholas Ellis could purge Menna of the demon... the demon that was you .’

Merrily was shattered. She hadn’t quite realized what she had been about to say. But the evident truth of it was explosive.

Judith took a swift step towards her, then stopped, and said brightly, too brightly, ‘You are off your head, Mrs Watkins. You do know that?’ She laughed, her eyes glittering with rage.