Phil Rickman - A Crown of Lights

‘You don’t mean that. You did a terrific job tonight.’

‘I most likely looked a complete asshole. I just wasn’t gonna cringe in front of that creep in his monk’s robes, was all. I was gonna look as white as he was.’

And maybe less pretentious. He wasn’t gonna go out there swinging a gold pentacle. He’d wanted to handle the confrontation with simple human dignity. Because what he’d really hoped for was that Betty would be out there watching – that she’d gotten home OK, but had been unable to come through the gate on account of the march, so was out there watching her tactless, thoughtless, irresponsible husband handling a difficult situation with some kind of basic human dignity.

And then fucking Hermes had blown it all away.

If you were looking for omens, you sure had one there. What kind of headlines were they gonna get tomorrow? ‘Witches Hurl Shit at Man of God’. The perfect follow-through to Robin looking like a freaking cannibal that last time.

‘Robin...’ The motherly Alexandra smiled a tentatively radiant candlelight smile at him across the room.

‘Sorry?’

‘Robin, there’s a small car just come into the yard.’

‘Huh...?’

He shot to the window, the bath towel dropping to the flags. He shaded his eyes with his cupped hands, up against the glass, hardly daring to hope that he’d see...

A little white Subaru Justy.

Oh God. Oh God . Robin sagged over the big, wide window sill, staring down between his hands and working on his breathing until he no longer felt faint with relief.

He straightened up. ‘Look, would you mind all staying here? I have to do some explaining.’

The Black Lion was packed, the air in the bar full of damp and steam, coming off journalists, TV people, even a few of the Christian marchers – all wet through, starved, in need of a stiff whisky. Greg was run off his feet. No sign of Marianne yet.

Gomer fetched Merrily a single malt and one for himself. There was nowhere to sit except in a tight corner by the window next to the main door. Whenever the door opened, they had to lean to one side, but at least they weren’t overheard as Merrily told Gomer the plain truth about Marianne’s exorcism.

Gomer didn’t blink. He weighed it up, nodding slowly. He laid out a row of beer mats on the table – and, with them, Merrily’s dilemma.

‘Gotter be a problem for you, this, girl. Question of which side you’re on now, ennit?’

‘Yes.’ Merrily lit a cigarette. She’d taken off her wet coat, but still had the scarf wound round her neck. She was still seeing Robin Thorogood there on his own, vastly outnumbered, not wearing anything witchy, not countering Ellis’s talk of Satan and sacrilege with any pagan propaganda. It could have been an act, to appear ordinary in the face of all the cross-waving – and yet it was too ordinary to be feigned.

‘What you gonner do, then, vicar?’

‘Gomer, how could Judith Prosser and those other women sit there and watch it? Can they really believe in him to that extent?’

Gomer took out a roll-up. ‘Like I said, it’s about stickin’ together, solid. Ellis’s helped the right people, ennit? Judy and Gareth with their boy. And who knows what else he done.’

‘Oh my God.’

‘Vicar?’

Merrily drank the rest of her whisky in a gulp.

‘Menna,’ she murmured. ‘ Menna... ’

Robin turned on the bulkhead lamp. It was no longer raining, but the wind had gotten up. A metal door creaked rhythmically over in the barn; it sounded like a sailing boat on the sea making him wish he and Betty were alone together, far out on some distant ocean.

Still naked to the waist, he stood on the doorstep and watched her park next to one of the Winnebagos. She stepped out of the car and into a puddle. The whole of the yard was puddles tonight.

She didn’t seem to care how wet her feet got. Her hair was frizzed out by the rain, uncombed.

Oh God, how he loved this woman. He tried to send this out to her. I take thee to my hand, my heart and my spirit at the setting of the sun and the rising of the stars ...

He saw her standing for a moment, entirely still, taking in the extra cars in the yard, the two Winnebagos.

Then she saw him.

He came out of the doorway, walked towards her. She still didn’t move. If it was cold out here, he wasn’t feeling it yet.

‘Bets, I...’

He stopped a couple of yards from his wife. The back of his neck felt on fire.

‘Bets, I couldn’t stop them. It was either them or... or all kinds of people we didn’t know. It had all gotten out. You just couldn’t imagine... It was all over the Internet. We were getting hate faxes and also faxes from people who were right behind us – like, religious polarization, you know, over the whole nation? Or so... so it seemed.’

Betty spoke at last, in this real flat voice.

‘Who are they?’

‘Well, there... there’s George and Vivvie, and... and Alexandra. And Stuart and Mona Osman, who we met at some... at some sabbat, someplace. And Max and Bella... Uh, Max is kind of an all-knowing asshole, but they’re OK where it matters. I guess. And some other people. Bets, I’m sorry. If you’d only called...’

There was no expression at all on her face; this was what scared him. Why didn’t she just lose her temper, call him a stupid dickhead, get this over?

‘See, we always said there was gonna be a sabbat at Imbolc. Didn’t we say that? That we were gonna bring the church alive with lights? A big bonfire to welcome the spring? So like... maybe this was destined to come about. Maybe there was nothing we could do to get in the way of it. Like it’s meant to be – only with more significance than we could ever have imagined.’

Why did this all sound so hollow? Why was she taking a step back, away from him?

There was a splish in a puddle. Her car keys? She’d dropped the car keys. Robin rushed forward, plunged his hand and half his arm into the puddle, scrabbling about in the black, freezing water, babbling on still.

‘Look... Ellis was here, with his born-again buddies. Chances are they’re gonna be back tomorrow – only more of them. There was like this real heavy sense of menace. You and me, we couldn’t’ve handled that on our own, believe me.’

He hated himself for this blatant lie, but what could he say? He pulled out the dripping keys, hung on to them.

Betty said, ‘Give me the keys, Robin.’

‘Why? No! ’

‘I can’t stay here tonight.’

‘Please... you don’t know... Bets, it’s gotten bigger than us two. OK, that’s a cliché, but it’s true. What’s happening here’s gonna be—’

‘Symbolic,’ a voice said from behind him. He turned and saw Vivvie on the step. Vivvie had come out to help him. Vivvie alone.

The worst thing that could’ve happened.

‘Symbolic of the whole struggle to free this country from two millennia of religious corruption and spiritual stagnation. He’s right, Betty. We have to play our part. We have to reconsecrate the church and it has to be tomorrow night. It’s why we’re here.’

Betty started to shake her head, and the light from the bulkhead caught one side of her face and Robin saw the dark smudges, saw she’d been crying hard.

‘Bets!’ He almost screamed. ‘Look, I know things haven’t been right. I know you never connected with this place. Honey, please... once this is over we’ll sell up, yeah? I mean, like, Jeez, from what I’ve been hearing there’s gotta be about a hundred pagans ready to take it off our hands. But this... Imbolc... this is something we have to go through – together, yeah? Please let it be together.’

‘Give me those keys.’