Phil Rickman - A Crown of Lights

‘Why not?’

‘Siddown... please.’ Marianne picked up a cigarette packet from the sofa. ‘Ain’t taken everything away, mind. I still need these. Don’t suppose you do?’

‘Actually...’ Merrily slipped off her coat, let it fall to the carpet. She sat on the edge of an armchair beside the TV, and accepted one of Marianne’s menthol cigarettes.

‘Blimey, you’ll go to hell, love. In spite of it all.’

‘I prefer to think I’ll just go to heaven a bit sooner. How do you feel now, Marianne?’

‘Bit weird. Bit hollow.’

‘All happened kind of suddenly, hasn’t it?’

‘Can’t believe it. I feel like a little girl. All nervous. Need me hand held.’

Probably why she’d been so glad to see Merrily. A lady priest. Someone who would know, would understand.

‘I mean, you shouldn’t be feeling like that at someone’s funeral, should you?’ Marianne said. ‘Ain’t right.’

‘You mean feeling good?’

‘Yeah.’

Merrily lit their cigarettes. ‘Finding yourself joining in the singing?’

‘The singing. Sure.’

‘Mmm. I know what that’s like.’

‘I should think you do, Reverend.’

‘Merrily.’

‘Nice name. Yeah, that’s what happens, Merrily. I only went along for a laugh. No, not a laugh, I was hacked off with everybody, with this place, with Greg. Like, Greg’s sayin’, one of us oughta go, put in an appearance. It’s the way they are, the locals, innit? God-fearing? So, yeah, OK, I’ll do it – ’cos they all reckon I’m a slapper – I’ll be down that hall with me hat on and I’ll put on a real show for ’em.’

Merrily smiled. ‘And in the middle of the show... wow, it turns into the real thing.’

‘Cloud nine, love. Like after half a bottle of vodka? Nah, not really. I mean, I was so ashamed. Joyful, yet ashamed. Ashamed of me . I was horrified at me – what I was, what I’d been. I wanted... what’s the word...?’

‘Redemption?’

‘That’s a bleeding big word.’

‘Big thing.’

‘Do you know, I went out the back afterwards, and I was sick over the fence? Sick as a dog, with all that hating of meself pouring out. After that, I felt very... light, you know? Cut loose. Then this lady come over, I don’t know her name, but she lives in a bungalow on the road out of here, and that’s where we went. Some other ladies come too, and they was all really kind. I cried most of the time.’

Merrily smoked and nodded. It was difficult to believe it could happen so quickly until you encountered it, but it did happen. It happened particularly to people in crisis, depressed people and – unexpectedly – to angry, cynical people.

‘Found I could talk to them. Talked about stuff I never talked about since I left London. Personal stuff, you know? One of the ladies, she says, “I knew you was in trouble when I seen you and that feller.” ’

‘Robin Thorogood.’

Marianne shivered. ‘I thought it was me invited him . But he was playing with me. He’s a dark person, he is, Merrily. He brought out the bad and lustful part of me.’

‘Who told you he was a dark person?’

‘In the paper, wannit? They come round with the paper... yesterday.’

‘Who did?’

‘Eleri, from the post office. And Judy Prosser. I’d been to church – to the hall – on Sunday, and it was wonderful, I was blown away all over again, really. And afterwards I was introduced to Father Ellis, and he’s like, “I can tell you been deeply troubled. I feel you been exposed to a great evil.” And it sets me off crying again, and he takes my hand and he says, in this lovely soft voice, he says, “You come back to me when you feel ready to have the disease taken away.” And the next day Eleri come round with the paper, and there he is, that Robin, his face – like I never seen it before, I mean you could see the evil in him, snarling, vicious. I went a bit hysterical when I seen that picture. He was like they said he was.’

‘What happened then?’

‘They took me up the hall. Father Ellis was there.’

‘Did they tell you why you were going to the hall?’

‘What?’

‘Doesn’t matter. Father Ellis...?’

‘He was dressed all in white, as usual. He was like a saint, and I felt so comforted. I felt I was in the right hands, the hands of a living saint. And we sits down and Father Ellis explains about the demon what Robin had put inside of me.’

‘Those were his words?’

‘Once he’d given me the demon, he didn’t wanna know me no more, he just pushed me away.’

‘Robin?’

‘Pushed me away, and I fell down in the street. The demon did that. That was the demon. After the pub closed, Greg and me, we had this terrible ding-dong. I’m insulting him, I’m like belittling him, you know what I mean? I’m screaming, “Go on, do it to me, you got any bottle.” Poor Greg. Turns him off like a light, you talk dirty. But that wasn’t me . I know now that wasn’t me. That was the demon .’

‘Is that what Father Ellis said?’

‘He said he could take it away, but it wouldn’t be easy, and it was not to be gone into lightly and I would have to understand that I would be giving myself to the Holy Spirit. He said it was a foul entity, the demon, and it was gonna have to come out... like a rotten tooth.’

Merrily said. ‘You mean... out of your mouth?’

Marianne’s eyes narrowed, lines appeared either side of her mouth. She looked accusingly at Merrily. ‘Judy said you come to spy on Father Ellis.’

‘I was sent to support him,’ Merrily said. ‘From the bishop, remember? The bishop thought he needed some help.’

Marianne looked confused. ‘That Judy, she took you outside, din’t she? I was glad when she did that.’

‘We hadn’t met before. I think she was a bit suspicious of me.’

‘She took you outside,’ Marianne said. ‘I was very glad.’

‘We had a good chat,’ Merrily assured her. ‘We worked things out. Marianne, do you remember what Father Ellis did... to exorcize the demon of lust?’

Marianne blinked, affronted. ‘He said the Church has strict rules about the exorcizing of demons. They don’t just do it. You could wind up exorcizing someone who was mentally ill, couldn’t you?’

‘Er... yes. Yes, you could.’

Ellis told her this ? Merrily’s heart sank a little. This was established Deliverance procedure. You didn’t even contemplate exorcism until all the other possibilities, usually psychiatric, had been eliminated.

‘Don’t get me wrong, love, he could’ve done what he liked without a word, the way I was feeling, long as he took it away. But he explained it was a disease . I needed checking over by a doctor, and what he was doing should be medically supervised.’

‘He said that?’

‘Dr Banks-Morgan was there for the whole thing,’ Marianne said. ‘That’s the kind of man Father Ellis is.’

The male figure in the doorway.

She sat in her car for a while.

Then she rang Hereford Police, asked for Mumford. He was out, so she rang Eileen Cullen at home, hoping she wasn’t asleep. A man answered; Merrily realized she knew nothing about Cullen’s domestic situation. When she came on the line, she sounded softer, a bathrobe voice.

‘Before you say a word, Merrily, there is one incident I will never talk about again, not to you, not to anyone.’

‘Angina,’ Merrily said.

‘Ask away,’ Cullen said.

‘The pills you take for angina. Tri-something?’

‘Trinitrin. You feel it coming on, you stick one under your tongue.’

‘Becomes automatic?’

‘Long-term sufferers, they practically do it in their sleep.’