Phil Rickman - Midwinter of the Spirit

‘Don’t start.’

‘Like maybe somebody who wasn’t terrified of getting into a relationship because of what the parish might think.’

‘Stop there,’ Merrily said lightly, ‘all right?’

‘Fine.’ Jane prodded the music up to disco level and turned to look out of the side window at the last of the grim amber sinking on to the shelf of the Black Mountains. A desultory rain filmed the windscreen.

‘Still,’ Merrily thought she heard the kid mumble, ‘it’s probably considered socially OK to fuck a bishop.’

That night, praying under her bedroom window in the vicarage, Merrily realized the Deliverance issue wasn’t really a problem she needed to hang on God at this stage. Her usual advice to parishioners facing a decision was to gather all the information they could get from available sources on both sides of the argument, and only then apply for a solution.

Fair enough. She would seek independent advice within the Church.

She went to sit on the edge of the bed, looking out at the lights of Ledwardine speckling the trees. They made her think of what Huw Owen had said about the targeting of women priests.

Little rat-eyes in the dark .

She hadn’t even raised that point with Mick Hunter. He would have taken it seriously, but not in the way it was meant by Huw.

Merrily shivered lightly and slid into bed, cuddling the hot water bottle, aware of Ethel the black cat curling on the duvet against her ankles, remembering the night Ethel had first appeared at the vicarage in the arms of Lol Robinson after she’d received a kicking from a drunk. She hoped Lol Robinson would be happy with his girlfriend. Lol and Merrily – that would never have worked.

Later, on the edge of sleep, she heard Huw Owen’s flat, nasal voice as if it were actually in the room.

Little rat-eyes in the dark .

And jerked awake.

OK. She’d absorbed Huw’s warning, listened to the Bishop’s plans.

It was clear that what she had to do now, not least for the sake of her conscience, was go back to Hereford and talk to Canon Dobbs.

The Last Exorcist.

Merrily lay down again and slept.

‘OH YES,’ MOON said, ‘he was outside the window, peering in – his face right up to the glass. His eyes were full of this awful, blank confusion. I don’t think he knew who I was. That was the worst thing: he didn’t know me.’

‘He was in the… garden?’ How do I handle this? Lol thought. She’s getting worse .

‘I ran out,’ Moon said. ‘Then I saw him again at the bottom of the steps leading up to the camp. And then he wasn’t there any more.’

She was sitting on a cardboard box full of books. There were about two dozen boxes dumped all over the living area. Lol hadn’t been into the kitchen or the bathroom but, except for the futon in the open loft, it looked exactly the way it had been the last time he was here. She’d refused offers of help from Denny and Lol, and from Dick Lyden’s wife Ruth. You had to arrange your possessions yourself, she’d insisted, otherwise you’d never know where anything was.

But nothing at all seemed to have been put away, nothing even unpacked. It was as though she’d gone straight to bed when he left her on Saturday and had just got up again, four days later.

Sleeping Beauty situation, fairytale again.

The point about Moon was that she was utterly singleminded. Most of the time she had no small talk, and no interest in other people, although she could be very generous when some problem was put under her nose – like buying the busker’s balalaika.

But now she’d found her father, and nothing else mattered.

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘and he was wearing a flat cap which I recognized.’

Moon was wearing an ankle-length, white satin nightdress which had collected a lot of dust, a thick silver torc around her neck. She’d had on nothing over the nightdress when she’d opened the door to Lol. She didn’t seem cold. It was wildly erotic. Lol wondered how doctors coped with this.

‘It was this grey checked one with all the lining hanging out. Mummy always kept it – I mean for years, anyway. She talked about all the times she used to try and get him to throw it away. Denny threw it away in the end, I suppose. Now my father has it back.’

Delusional , Lol thought. Because she doesn’t seem scared. It has to be wishful thinking . But what did it mean, that she’d wished up a father who didn’t seem to recognize her?

The long nightdress rustled like leaves as Moon stood up, glided to the window.

‘When I was little, I used to wonder if that was the cap he’d worn when he shot himself, so that was why it was all torn. Of course, the gun would have made much more of a mess than that, but you don’t know these things when you’re little, do you?’

It occurred to him that this was the first time she’d spoken about her father.

Her father had killed himself when she was about two years old. Denny said she had no memories of him, but there was probably some resentment because his folly was the reason they’d had to sell up and leave the hill.

This fucking insane investment. Some mate of the old man’s had developed this sweet sparkling cider he reckoned was going to snatch at least half the Babycham market. Dad threw everything at it – sold off about fifty acres, left the farm non-viable .

They’d lost the farm. Which was said to have been in the family since at least the Middle Ages. Or much longer, if you listened to Moon.

Denny had said, The day we left, the old man took his shotgun for a last, short walk. It’s a thing farmers do when they feel they’ve let their ancestors down .

‘How, um…?’ Lol’s mouth was dry. He sat down on another box of books. ‘How do you feel about your dad now?’

Moon turned to Lol, her eyes shining. ‘I have to reach out to him. The ancestors have enabled me to do that, OK?’

The crow. By bathing my hands in its blood, I’m acquiring its powers .

‘They sent him back. He doesn’t know why, but he will. He has to know who I am – that’s the first stage. I have to let him know I’m all right about him.’

‘You’re not… just a bit scared?’

‘He’s my father . And I’m his only hope of finding peace. He knows he’s got a lot of making up to do. To Mummy as well, but that’s out of our hands now.’

She went silent, the fervour in her eyes slipping away.

‘Your mum… do you feel she’s at peace?’ Lol didn’t know why he’d asked that, except to get her talking again.

‘I don’t know. She was never the same afterwards. I mean, all my life she had problems with her nerves. It was lucky Denny was practically grown-up by then, and so he took charge. It was Denny who was always pushing me to do well at school, determined I should go to university because he hadn’t. Taking the father’s role, you know? He owes Denny too, I suppose.’

‘How can he make it up to you?’ Lol said softly. ‘How can your father help?’

She blinked at him, as if that was obvious. ‘With my book, of course – my book about the Dinedor People. He can help me with the book. He can make them talk to me. They sent him to me, so I must be able to reach them through him.’

‘Who?’

‘The ancestors.’

The barn was quite small: just four rooms. It had been converted initially as extra holiday accommodation by the present owners of the farmhouse, some people called Purefoy, who apparently ran a bed-and-breakfast business. But this had not been a very good summer for weather or tourism, and they’d presumably realized they could make more money with a longterm let. Not much ground, of course. No room for a garage, quite difficult access, but a beautiful rural situation.