Phil Rickman - A Crown of Lights

Barbara would have tea. She took off her gloves.

Like her late sister, she was good-looking, but in a sleek and sharp way, with a turned-up nose which once would have been cute but now seemed haughty. The sister’s a retired teacher and there’s no arguing with her , Eileen Cullen had said.

‘I didn’t expect you to be so young, Mrs Watkins.’

‘Going on thirty-seven?’

‘Young for what you’re doing. Young to be the diocesan exorcist.’

‘Diocesan deliverance consultant.’

‘You must have a progressive bishop.’

‘Not any more.’ Merrily filled the kettle.

Mrs Buckingham dropped a short laugh. ‘Of course. That man who couldn’t take the pressure and walked out. Hunt? Hunter? I try to keep up with Church affairs. I was headmistress of a Church school for many years.’

‘In this area? The border?’

‘God no. Got out of there before I was twenty. Couldn’t stand the cold.’

Merrily put the kettle on the stove. ‘We can get bad winters here,’ she agreed.

‘Ah... not simply the climate. My father was a farmer in Radnor Forest. I remember my whole childhood as a kind of perpetual February.’

‘Frugal?’ Merrily tossed tea bags into the pot.

Mrs Buckingham exhaled bitter laughter. ‘In our house, those two tea bags would have to be used at least six times. The fat in the chip pan was only renewed for Christmas.’ Her face grew pinched at the memories.

‘You were poor?’

‘Not particularly. We had in excess of 130 acres. Marginal land, mind – always appallingly overgrazed. Waste nothing. Make every square yard earn its keep. Have you heard of hydatid disease?’

‘Vaguely.’

‘Causes cysts to grow on internal organs, sometimes the size of pomegranates. Originates from a tapeworm absorbed by dogs allowed to feed on infected dead sheep. Or, on our farm, required to eat dead sheep. Human beings can pick it up – the tapeworm eggs – simply through stroking the sheepdog. When I was sixteen I had to go into hospital to have a hydatid cyst removed from my liver.’

‘How awful.’

‘That was when I decided to get out. I doubt my father even noticed I was gone. Had another mouth to feed by then. A girl again, unfortunately.’

‘Menna?’

‘She would be... ten months old when I left. It was a long time before I began to feel guilty about abandoning her – fifteen years or more. And by then it was too late. They’d probably forgotten I’d ever existed. I expect he was even grateful I’d gone – another opportunity to try for a son, at no extra cost. A farmer with no son is felt to be lacking in something.’

‘Any luck?’

‘My mother miscarried, apparently,’ Mrs Buckingham said brusquely. ‘There was a hysterectomy.’ She shrugged. ‘I never saw them again.’

‘Where did you go?’

‘Found a job in Hereford, in a furniture shop. The people there were very good to me. They gave me a room above the shop, next to the storeroom. Rather frightening at night. All those empty chairs: I would imagine people sitting there, silently, waiting for me when I came back from night classes. Character-building, though, I suppose. I got two A levels and a grant for teacher-training college.’

It all sounded faintly Dickensian to Merrily, though it could have been no earlier than the 1970s.

‘So you never went back?’ The phone was ringing.

‘After college, I went to work in Hampshire, near Portsmouth. Then a husband, kids – grown up now. No, I never went back, until quite recently. A neighbour’s daughter – Judith – kept me informed, through occasional letters. She was another farmer’s daughter, from a rather less primitive farm. Please get that phone call, if you want.’

Merrily nodded, went through to the office.

‘As it happens’ – closing the scullery door – ‘she’s here now.’

‘Listen, I’m sorry,’ Eileen Cullen said. ‘I couldn’t think what else to tell her. Showed up last night, still unhappy about the sister’s death and getting no co-operation from the doctor. I didn’t have much time to bother with her either. I just thought somebody ought to persuade her to forget about Mr Weal, and go home, get on with her life. And I thought she’d take it better coming from a person of the cloth such as your wee self.’

‘Forgive me, but that doesn’t sound like you.’

‘No. Well...’

‘So she didn’t say anything about holding a special service in church then?’

‘Merrily, the problem is I’m on the ward in one minute.’

‘Bloody hell, Eileen—’

‘Aw, Jesus, all the woman wants is her sister laid to rest in a decent, holy fashion. She’s one of your fellow Christians. Tell her you’ll say a few prayers for the poor soul, and leave it at that.’

There was an unexpected undercurrent here.

‘What happened with Mr Weal after I left the other night?’

‘Well, he came out. Eventually.’

‘Eventually?’

‘He came out when she did. And he chose to accompany her down to the mortuary.’

‘Is that normal?’

‘Well, of course it isn’t fockin’ normal. We’re not talking about a normal feller here! It was a special concession. Merrily, I really have to go. If the sister’s tardy, how can you expect the nurses—’

‘Eileen!’

‘That’s all I can tell you. Just persuade her to go home. She’ll do no good for herself.’

‘What’s that supposed to—’

Cullen hung up.

It was dark outside now, and the thorns were ticking against the scullery window.

When Merrily returned to the kitchen, Barbara Buckingham was standing under a wall lamp, her silk scarf dangling from one hand as if she was wondering whether or not to leave.

‘Mrs Watkins, I don’t want to be a pain...’

‘Merrily. Don’t be silly. Sit down. There’s no—’

‘I try to be direct, you see. In my childhood, no one was direct. They’d never meet your eyes. Keep your head down, avoid direct conflict, run neither with the English nor the Welsh. Keep your head down and move quietly, in darkness.’

The woman had been too long out of it, Merrily thought, as the kettle boiled. She’d turned her spartan childhood into something Gothic. ‘Tell me about the... possession.’

‘In essence, I believe, your job is to liberate them. The possessed, I mean.’

Merrily carefully took down two mugs from the crockery shelf. ‘Milk?’ Through the open door, she could still hear that damned rosebush scratching at the scullery window.

‘A little. No sugar.’

Merrily brought milk from the fridge. She left her own tea black, and carried both mugs to the table.

‘It’s a big word, Barbara.’

‘Yes.’

‘And often abused – I have to say that.’

‘We should both be direct.’

‘And I should tell you I’ve yet to encounter a valid case of possession. But then I’ve not been doing this very long.’

‘It may be the wrong word. Perhaps I only used it to get your attention.’ Looking frustrated, Barbara tossed her scarf onto the table. ‘I’ve attended church most of my life. Much of the time out of habit, I admit; occasionally out of need. I have no time for... mysticism, that’s what I’m trying to say. I’m not fey.’

Merrily smiled. ‘No.’

‘But Menna has been possessed for years. Do you know what I mean? Weal suffocated her in life; now he won’t let her go after death.’

Cullen: He asks for a bowl and a cloth and he washes her. Very tenderly, reverently you might say. And then he’ll wash himself: his face, his hands, in the same water.

And followed her down to the mortuary. Did Barbara know about that?

Merrily heard a key in the side door, beyond the scullery, and then footsteps on the back stairs: Jane coming in, going up to her apartment.