Phil Rickman - Midwinter of the Spirit

‘I should’ve saved the other pieces, shouldn’t I? I didn’t think.’

‘That’s quite all right, Mrs… bleep … We’re not the police. Now, the ashtray was where?’

‘On the sideboard. Always kept on the sideboard.’

You could see the sideboard behind her. Looked like early sixties. Teak, with big gilt knobs on the drawers. On the oncewhite wall above it was a half-scrubbed stain. As though she’d started to wipe it off and then thought: What’s the bloody point?

‘So you actually saw it rising up?’

‘Yeah, I… It come… It just come through the air, straight at me. Like whizzing, you know?’

This was a very unhappy woman. Early thirties and losing it all fast. Eyes downcast, except once when she’d glanced up in desperation – You’ve got to believe me! – and Merrily could see a corona of blood around the pupil of the damaged eye.

‘Couldn’t you get out of the way? Couldn’t you duck?’

‘No, I never…’ The woman backing off, as though the thing was flying straight at her again. ‘Like, it was too quick. I couldn’t move. I mean, you don’t expect… you can’t believe what’s happening, can you?’

‘Did you experience anything else?’

‘What?’

‘Was there any kind of change in the atmosphere of this room? The temperature, was it warmer… or colder?’

‘It’s always cold in here. Can’t afford the gas, can I?’ Her eyes filling up.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. Tell me, where was your husband when this was happening?’

‘What?’

‘Your husband, did he see anything?’

‘Nah, he… he wasn’t here, was he?’ Plucking at the sleeve of her purple blouse.

Merrily wrote down husband on her pad.

‘He was out,’ the woman said.

‘Has he had any experiences himself? In this house?’

‘He ain’t seen nothing. Nothing come flying at him . I reckon he’s heard, like, banging noises and stuff, though.’

‘Stuff?’

‘You better ask him.’

‘Have you discussed it much between yourselves?’

Minimal shake of the head.

‘Why not?’

‘ I dunno, do I?’ A flicker of exasperation, then her body went slack again. ‘What you supposed to say about it? It’s the kids, innit? I don’t want nothing to happen to the ki—’

The woman’s face froze, one eye closed.

‘All right.’ Huw walked back to his desk pocketing the remote control, turning to face the students. ‘We’ll hold it there. Any thoughts?’

Merrily found she’d underlined husband twice.

They looked at one another, nobody wanting to speak first. Someone yawned: Nick Cowan, the former social worker from Coventry.

Huw said, ‘Nick, not impressed?’

Nick Cowan slid down in his canvas-backed chair. ‘Council house, is this, Huw? I don’t think you told us.’

‘Would that make a difference?’

‘It’s an old trick, that’s all. It’s a cliché. They want rehousing.’

‘So she’s faking it, is she?’

‘Well, obviously I can’t… I mean you asked for initial impressions, and that’s mine, based on twenty-five years’ experience and about a thousand reports from local authorities after that rubbishy film came out… Amityville whatever. It’s an old scam, but they keep on trying it because they know you can’t prove it one way or the other. And if you don’t rehouse them they’ll go to the press, and then the house’ll get a reputation, and so…’

Nick felt for his dog-collar, as if to make sure it was still there. He was the only one of the group who wore his to these sessions every day. He seemed grateful for the dog-collar: it represented some kind of immunity. Perhaps he thought he no longer had to justify his opinions, submit reports, get his decisions rubberstamped and ratified by the elected representatives; just the one big boss now.

‘All right, then.’ Huw went to sit on his desk, next to the TV, and leaned forward, hands clasped. ‘Merrily?’

He was bound to ask her, the only female in the group. On the TV screen the woman with one closed eye looked blurred and stupid.

‘Well,’ Merrily said, ‘she isn’t faking that injury, is she?’

‘How do you think she got the injury, Merrily?’

‘Do we get to see the husband?’

‘You think he beat her up?’

‘I’d like to know what he has to say.’

Huw said nothing, looked down at his clasped hands.

‘And see what kind of guy he is.’

Huw still didn’t look at her. There was quiet in the stone room.

There’d been a lot of that. Quite often the course had the feeling of a retreat: prayer and contemplation. Merrily was starting to see the point: it was about being receptive. While you had to be pragmatic, these weren’t decisions which in the end you could make alone.

Beyond the diamond panes, the horn of the moon rose over a foothill of Pen-y-fan.

‘OK.’

Huw stepped down. His face was deeply, tightly lined, as though the lines had been burned in with hot wire, but his body was still supple and he moved with a wary grace, like an urban tomcat.

‘We’ll take another break.’ He switched off the TV, ejected the tape. ‘I’d like you to work out between you how you yourselves would proceed with this case. Who you’d involve. How much you’d keep confidential. Whether you’d move quickly, or give the situation a chance to resolve itself. Main question, is she lying? Is she deluded? Merrily, you look like you could do with another ciggy. Come for a walk.’

THE MOUNTAINS HUNCHED around the chapel, in its hollow, like some dark sisterhood over a cauldron. You had to go to the end of the drive before you could make out the meagre lights of the village.

It was awesomely lonely up here, but it was home to Huw, who sniffed appreciatively at Merrily’s smoke, relaxing into his accent.

‘I were born a bastard in a little bwddyn t’other side of that brow. Gone now, but you can find the foundations in the grass if you have a bit of a kick around.’

‘I wondered about that: a Yorkshireman called Huw Owen. You’re actually Welsh, then?’

‘Me mam were waitressing up in Sheffield by the time I turned two, so I’ve no memories of it. She never wanted to come back; just me, forty-odd years on. Back to the land of my father, whoever the bugger was. Got five big, rugged parishes to run now, two of them strong Welsh-speaking. I’m learning, slowly – getting there.’

‘Can’t be easy.’

Huw waved a dismissive arm. ‘Listen, it’s a holiday, luv. Learning Welsh concentrates the mind. Cold, though, in’t it?’

‘Certainly colder than Hereford.’ Merrily pulled her cheap waxed coat together. ‘For all it’s only forty-odd miles away.’

‘Settled in there now, are you?’

‘More or less.’

They followed a stony track in the last of the light. Walkers were advised to stick to the paths, even in the daytime, or they might get lost and wind up dying of hypothermia – or gunshot wounds. The regular soldiers from Brecon and the shadowy SAS from Hereford did most of their training up here in the Beacons.

No camouflaged soldiers around this evening, though. No helicopters, no flares. Even the buzzards had gone to roost. But to Merrily the silence was swollen. After they’d tramped a couple of hundred yards she said, ‘Can we get this over with?’

Huw laughed.

‘I’m not daft, Huw.’

‘No, you’re not that.’

He stopped. From the top of the rise, they could see the white eyes of headlights on the main road crossing the Beacons.

‘All right.’ Huw sat down on the bottom tier of what appeared to be a half-demolished cairn. ‘I’ll be frank. Have to say I were a bit surprised when I heard he’d offered the job to a young lass.’