Phil Rickman - A Crown of Lights

‘Mrs Watkins,’ the woman took Merrily’s arm, ‘may I talk to you?’ Not a request. ‘I rang your office, in Hereford. Sister Cullen gave me the number. She said you were probably the person to help me. The person who deals with possession .’

‘Oh.’

‘I rang your office and they said you were conducting a funeral here, so I just... came. It seemed appropriate.’ She broke off. She was attracting glances.

‘It’s a bit crowded, isn’t it?’ Merrily said. ‘Would you like—?’

‘I’ll come to the point. Would it be possible for you to conduct a funeral service for me?’

Merrily raised an eyebrow.

‘For my sister, that is. I suppose I mean a memorial service. Though actually I don’t. She should have... she should have a real funeral in church. A proper funeral.’

‘I’m sorry, I’m not getting this.’

‘Because I can’t go, you see. I can’t go to the... interment.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because... it’s going to take place in that bastard’s garden.’ Her voice rose. ‘He won’t let her go. It’s all about possession , Mrs Watkins.’

‘I don’t...’ Several people were staring at them now, over their piled-up plates.

‘Possession of the dead by the living,’ explained Barbara Buckingham.

‘I think we’d better go back to the vicarage,’ Merrily said.

‘OH MY GOD,’ Betty said. ‘The only time I go out on my own, in walks number one on the list of situations I wouldn’t trust you to handle.’

Robin couldn’t keep still. He was pacing the kitchen, touching walls and doors, the sink, the fridge – as if the permanence of this place in his life was no longer certain.

‘So he’s in this old green Cherokee, right? And he has on this well-worn army jacket with, like, camouflage patches. And it’s unzipped, and all the time I’m hoping what’s underneath is just gonna turn out to be some kind of black turtleneck. With, like, a thick white stripe around the neck.’

Betty took off her coat, hung it behind the door and came to sit down. It wasn’t the vicar that worried her – every newcomer sooner or later had a visit from the vicar. It was how Robin had dealt with him.

‘Pretty damn clear from the start he wasn’t just coming to ask the way to someplace.’ Robin went over to the kitchen table; there were two half-pint glasses on it and four small beer bottles, all empty. ‘Guy wanted to talk. He was waiting for me to ask him in.’

‘I don’t suppose he had to wait long.’

‘Soon’s we get inside, it’s the firm handshake. “Hi, I’m Nick Ellis.” And I’m wondering do these guys drink beer? So I offer him a Michelob from the refrigerator.’

‘Normal practice is to offer them tea, Robin.’

‘No... wait... Transpires he spent some years in the States – which became detectable in his accent. And then – what can I say? – we...’

‘You exchanged history. You drank beer together.’

‘I confess, I’m standing there pouring out the stuff and I’m like...’ Robin held up a glass with a trembling hand. ‘Like, all the time, I’m half-expecting him to leap up in horror, pull out his cross... slam it in my face, like the guy in the Dracula movies. But he was fine.’

She looked sceptical. ‘What did you tell him about us?’

‘Well... this was hard for me. I’m a straight person, I’ve no time for deception, you know that.’

‘What did you tell him?’ Clenching her hands. ‘What did you say about us?’

‘Fucksake, whaddaya think I said? “Hey, priest, guess how we spent Halloween”?’ Robin went over and pulled out a chair and slumped down. ‘I told him I was an illustrator and that you were into alternative therapy. I told him you were British and we met when we were both attending a conference in New England. I somehow refrained from identifying the conference as the Wiccan International Moot in Salem, Mass. And although I did not say we were married I didn’t mention handfasting either. I said we had gotten hitched .’

‘Hitched?’

‘Uh-huh. And when he brought up the subject of religion, as priests are inclined to do when they get through with football and stuff, I was quite awesomely discreet. I simply said we were not churchgoers.’

Betty breathed out properly for the first time since sitting down. ‘All right. I’m sorry. I do trust you. I’ve just been feeling a little uptight.’

‘Because you’re not being true to yourself and your beliefs,’ Robin said severely.

‘So what was he like?’

‘Unexceptional at first. Friendly, but also watchful. Open, but... holding back. He’s of medium height but the way he holds himself makes him look taller. Rangy, you know? Looks like a backwoods boy. Looks fit. He drank just one beer while I appear to have drunk three. His hair is fairish and he wears it brushed straight back, and in a ponytail, which is cool. I mean, I have no basic problem with these guys – as a spiritual grouping. As a profession.’

‘But?’

Robin got up and fed the Rayburn some pine. The Rayburn spat in disgust. Robin looked up at Betty; his eyes were unsteady.

‘But, if you want the truth, babe, I guess this is probably a very sick and dangerous example of the species.’

Robin had been anxious the priest remained in the kitchen. He would have had problems explaining the brass pentacle over the living-room fireplace. Would not be happy to have had the Reverend Nicholas Ellis browsing through those books on the shelves. He was glad his guest consumed only one beer and therefore would be less likely to need the bathroom.

And when Ellis asked if he might take a look at the ancient church of St Michael, Robin had the back door open faster than was entirely polite.

Still raining out there. The priest wore hiking boots and pulled out a camouflage beret. They strolled back across the farmyard, around the barn into the field, where the ground was uneven and boggy. And there it was, on its promontory above the water, its stones glistening, its tower proud but its roofless body like a split, gutted fish.

‘Cool, huh, Nick?’ Robin had told the priest about St Michael’s probably becoming disused on account of the Hindwell Brook, the problem of getting cars close enough to the church in the wintertime.

The priest smiled sceptically. ‘That’s your theory, is it, Robin?’

‘Well, that and the general decline in, uh, faith. I guess some people’d started looking for something a little more progressive, dynamic.’

The Reverend Ellis stopped. He had a wide, loose mouth. And though his face was a touch weathered, it had no lines, no wrinkles. He was maybe forty.

‘What do you mean by that, Robin?’

‘Well... uh...’ Robin had felt himself blushing. He talked on about how maybe the Church had become kind of hidebound: same old hymns, same old... you know?

The minister had said nothing, just stood there looking even taller, watching Robin sinking into the mud.

‘Uh... what I meant... maybe they began to feel the Church wasn’t offering too much in the direction of personal development, you know?’

And then Ellis went, ‘Yeah, I do know. And you’re dead right.’

‘Oh. For a minute, I was worried I was offending you.’

‘The Church over here has lost much of its dynamism. Don’t suppose I need tell you that in most areas of the United States a far higher proportion of the population attends regular services than in this country.’

‘So how come you were over there?’ Robin had grabbed his chance to edge the talk away from religion.

‘Went over with my mother as a teenager. After her marriage ended. We moved around quite a bit, mainly in the South.’