Phil Rickman - A Crown of Lights

Merrily stiffened. What?

She leaned further out to watch Nick Ellis standing amongst all the women, brandishing his cross like a sword in the light, brandishing words which surely belonged originally to the Roman Church, to Jewish mysticism, to...

The candles lowered again, to reveal a single woman crouching.

More like cringing?

Ellis laid the cross on the tall table and bent down to the woman.

‘Do you embrace God?’ His voice had softened.

The woman looked up at him, like a pet dog.

‘You must embrace God,’ he explained, gently at first. ‘You must embrace God, embrace Him, embrace Him...’ His right arm was extended, palm raised, the loose sleeve of his robe falling back. ‘Embrace Him !’

Shadows leaping. A short expulsion of breath – ‘Hoh!’ – and a sound of stumbling.

Merrily saw he’d pushed the woman away; she lay half on her back, panting.

‘Say it!’ Ellis roared.

‘I... embrace Him.’

‘And do you renounce the evil elements of this world which corrupt those things God has created?’

‘Yes.’ She came awkwardly to her feet. She was wearing a white shift of some kind, possibly a nightdress. She must feel very cold.

‘Do you renounce all sick and sinful desires which draw you away from the love of God?’

She began to cry again. Her London accent said this had to be Greg Starkey’s wife, Marianne, the sometime sufferer from clinical depression, not a nympho in the normal sense, but tempted by the dark glamour of the witch Robin Thorogood. Was that it? Was that really the extent of her possession?

And, oh God, even if there was a whole lot more, this was not right, not by any stretch.

‘Say it!’

Her head went back. She started to sniff.

‘Say, “I so renounce them”!’

‘I s... so... renounce them.’

‘And do you, therefore, wish with all your heart to expel the lewd and maleficent spirit coiling like a foul serpent within you?’

Her head was thrown right back, as if she expected to be slapped, again and again.

‘I ask you once more...’ Softly. ‘Do you wish, with all your heart...?’

‘ Yes! ’

‘Then lie down,’ Father Ellis said.

What ? Merrily moved away from the pillar. She could see now that Ellis was pointing at a hessian rug laid out on the boarded floor. Marianne drew an unsteady breath and went to stand on the rug. The watching women kept still. But she caught a movement from a darkened doorway, with a ‘Toilets’ sign over the top, and moved back behind her pillar.

There was a man in that doorway, she’d swear it.

Ellis said, ‘Don’t be afraid.’

He turned to the table and took up another cross from a white cloth. Merrily saw it clearly. About nine inches long, probably gold-plated. He held it up to the candlelight, then lowered it again. One of the women leaned forward, handed him something.

Involuntarily, Merrily moved closer. The woman held up her candle for Ellis. Merrily saw a yellow tube, then an inch of pale jelly was transferred to Ellis’s forefinger. She saw him smearing the jelly along the stem of the crucifix.

What ?

Ellis nodded once. Marianne Starkey crumpled to her knees then went into an ungainly squat, holding the nightdress up around her thighs.

‘Be calm now,’ Ellis said. ‘Sit. Relax.’

The woman sat still. Ellis raised his eyes from her. ‘O God of martyrs, God of confessors, we lay ourselves before Thee...’ He glanced at Marianne, whispered, ‘Lie back.’

Merrily watched Marianne’s body subside onto the rough matting, her knees up, the nightdress slipping back. Ellis knelt in front of her.

‘I ask you again,’ he whispered. ‘Is it your heart’s wish that the unclean spirit might be expelled for ever?’

‘Yes.’

‘And do you understand that a foul spirit of this nature may effectively be purged only through the portal of its entry?’

‘Yes...’ Marianne hesitated then let her head fall back over the edge of the mat and onto the boarded floor with a dull thump. She closed her eyes. ‘Yes.’

Ellis began to pray, a long, rolling mumble, slowly becoming intelligible.

‘Let the impious tempter fly far hence! Let thy servant be defended by the sign...’ Ellis rose and put the cross swiftly on Marianne’s forehead. ‘... of Thy Name.’ He placed the cross against her breast. ‘Do Thou guard her inmost soul...’

Merrily thought, He won’t. He can’t. It isn’t possible, not with all these women here.

Ellis reared over Marianne. ‘Do Thou rule...’ Then he bent suddenly. ‘... her inmost parts.’

Marianne gave a low and throaty cry, then Ellis sprang up, kissing the cross, tossing it to the table, and it was over. And women were hugging Marianne.

And Merrily was frozen in horror and could no longer see a man in the doorway.

THE CONVERGING LANES were filling up with vehicles – like last Saturday. When Ellis and the women – but not Marianne – came down the steps, they were joined by more people. By the time they all reached the road there were about thirty of them, with Ellis seeming to float in their midst, glowingly messianic in his white monk’s habit.

The sick bastard .

Merrily turned away, found her hands were clenched together. Shame. Fury. When she could stand to look again, she saw that someone was bearing a white wooden crucifix aloft, in front of Ellis. At the apex of the village hall roof, the neon cross became a beacon in the rain. Like it was all a crusade.

She didn’t recognize anyone in Ellis’s group, but why should she? She guessed they were not locals anyway. A couple of the men wore suits but most others were casually but warmly dressed, like members of a serious hiking club. Nobody was speaking. Shouldn’t they be singing some charismatic anthem, swaying, clapping?

Killing the shakes, Merrily walked erratically along the lane to the corner where a bunch of reporters stood under umbrellas and Gomer was waiting for her in the rain, an unlit ciggy drooping from his mouth.

‘Vicar... you all right, girl?’ Following her behind a Range Rover parked under some fir trees, he regarded her gravely. ‘You looks a bit pale.’

‘Don’t fuss, Gomer.’ Merrily dropped a cigarette in the process of trying to light it.

Gomer straightened his glasses.

‘Sorry.’ She touched his arm. ‘It’s me . I’m furious with me, that’s all.’

‘Happened in there, vicar?’

‘Exorcism – of sorts. I ought to have stopped it. I just’ – she thumped her thigh with a fist – ‘stood there... let it happen.’

‘Hexorcism?’ Gomer said, bewildered. ‘This’d be Greg’s missus?’

‘Must’ve been.’

‘The bugger hexorcized Greg’s missus for fancyin’ a feller?’

‘For embracing the dark,’ Merrily said, with unsuppressible venom. ‘For letting herself become possessed by most unholy and blasphemous lust.’

‘Load of ole wallop. You gonner tell Greg?’

‘Perhaps not.’

‘Boy oughter know,’ said Gomer, ‘whatever it was.’ He nodded towards a man getting into the Range Rover. ‘Dr Coll,’ he observed.

The cameramen were backing away down the street ahead of Ellis and his entourage. Dr Coll drove away in his Range Rover, leaving Merrily and Gomer exposed.

‘I can’t believe I let it happen,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t believe it was happening. I can’t tell Greg. You saw the state he was in. He’d go after Ellis with a baseball bat. That... bastard .’

Ellis walked without looking to either side. When a couple of the reporters tried to get a word with him, his anoraked minders pressed closer around him – the holy man. Merrily and Gomer walked well behind, Merrily turning things over and over.