Phil Rickman - Midwinter of the Spirit

‘Bishop…’

‘Well done, George.’

‘I’m afraid I didn’t do enough.’

‘I’m sure you did everything humanly possible,’ Mick Hunter said – then, after a pause, ‘except to inform your bishop.’

‘Oh, yes. I, ah, thought… hoped… that it wouldn’t be necessary to involve you – or the Dean.’

‘I want to be appraised of everything , George. You won’t forget that again, will you?’

‘No.’ The big canon, a good ten years older than the Bishop, looked like a chastized schoolboy. ‘I’m sorry, Bishop.’

‘Get some sleep. We’ll talk about this tomorrow. Merrily—’

‘Bishop?’ She was annoyed at the way he’d spoken to George, who’d administered the sacrament to Dobbs, stayed with him, tried to make him comfortable, keep him calm.

The Bishop said, ‘What was Canon Dobbs actually doing when you found him?’

‘He was having a stroke, Bishop,’ Merrily said wearily.

Mick Hunter was silent.

‘I’m sorry,’ Merrily said. ‘It’s been a difficult night.’

‘Has it? I see. I’ll talk to you on Monday, Merrily. This is obviously going to have a bearing on your situation.’ He turned and walked towards the Cathedral.

‘I thought for a moment he was going to say something about God moving in mysterious ways,’ Merrily muttered, ‘to clear the way for the new regime.’

‘He’s wearing trainers,’ Sophie said absently. ‘His poor feet must be absolutely soaked.’

‘Wellies wouldn’t fit the image.’

‘He’s more than image, Merrily,’ Sophie said quietly. ‘I think you know that. He’s a very young man. One day he’ll be a great man, I should think.’

One day he’ll probably be an archbishop , Merrily thought. But I doubt he’ll be a great man .

But she’d said enough.

‘Thank you for coming,’ Sophie said, ‘though clearly it wasn’t a terribly good idea.’

‘Sophie…’ Merrily glanced over her shoulder at the Cathedral, which – although someone, probably the Bishop, had put on lights – was still not the imagined beacon of old Christian warmth, not now. ‘When George said Dobbs was talking to Thomas Cantilupe, what did he mean by that?’

Sophie appeared uncomfortable. ‘Does that matter now?’

‘Yeah, I think it does.’

‘That was George’s surmise. I thought he was talking to himself. Thomas, you see – both of them Thomases. It was as though he… perhaps he was already feeling ill and he was urging himself to hold on.’

‘What were his words?’

‘Well, like that. He did actually say that at least once: “Please God, hold on, Thomas.” And then he’d lapse into mumbling Latin.’

‘How did he get in ? Does he have keys?’

‘He must have.’

‘Does he often come here alone at night?’

‘It…’ Sophie sighed. ‘So they say.’

‘What else do they say?’

‘They say he has rather an obsession with St Thomas Cantilupe. I do know he studied the medieval Church, so perhaps he sought some sort of deeper communion with the saint, on a spiritual level. I don’t like to—’

‘You mean because the tomb was lying open, for the first time in over a century, he thought the saint would be more accessible? You have to help me here, Sophie. I don’t understand.’

‘I don’t know what to say,’ Sophie said. ‘I don’t feel it’s right to talk about it now, with the poor man probably dying. I mean, George gave him the sacrament .’

‘Sophie, just let me get this right. Are you saying you called me in because you and George thought Canon Dobbs was attempting to make contact with a dead saint?’

‘I don’t know , Merrily.’ Sophie was wringing the ends of her scarf. ‘Look, I just wanted to protect… Oh, I don’t know who I wanted to protect. The Bishop? Canon Dobbs? Or just the Cathedral? In the end it all comes back to the Cathedral, doesn’t it? I…’ She stamped a booted foot on the snow as if to emphasize it to herself. ‘I work for the Cathedral.’

‘Is there something… is there a problem in the Cathedral? Is that what you’re trying to say?’

Maybe she should talk to George, who was still with the two policemen beside their car at the roadside.

‘Can we talk about this… again?’ Sophie said.

‘If I’m going to help, you’ve got to trust me.’

‘I do trust you, Merrily. That’s why I telephoned for you. And I feel guilty now – you look so awfully tired. Do you really have to drive back? The roads are going to be dreadful.’

‘No worse than when I came. I think the snow’s stopping anyway.’

‘But it’ll probably freeze on top. That’s rather treacherous – and it’s always a little warmer in the city. Look, why don’t you stay with us tonight? We always keep a room prepared, and Andrew will have hot chocolate ready.’

‘Well, thanks. But there’s Jane at home. And tomorrow’s services.’

‘I do feel so guilty about bringing you here.’

‘Don’t worry, I won’t fall asleep at the wheel. I’ll smoke.’

‘Hmm,’ Sophie said disapprovingly.

‘Good night, Sophie.’

Watching Sophie walk away towards warmth and hot chocolate, Merrily felt damp and chilled inside her thinning fake-Barbour. She saw the police car pulling away into Broad Street, and George Curtiss had already gone.

Fatigue had induced detachment. She didn’t want to be detached. She remembered how, when she and Sophie and George had first entered the Cathedral tonight, the urge to pray had washed over her like surf, a tide of need. Dobbs’s need?

That had gone now; her prayers weren’t needed – or not so urgently. She ought to have obeyed that call, fallen to her knees, and the whole bit.

Bloody Anglican reserve. The Church of the Stiff Upper Lip.

Abruptly, Merrily went back into the Cathedral, to pray for Dobbs, before it was all locked up again. Knowing she would make for the place where George had kicked down a partition door: the Cantilupe fragments.

What did she know about Cantilupe? Bishop of Hereford in the late thirteenth century. Born into a wealthy Norman baronial family. Educated for the Church. A political career before he came to Hereford in middle age, in the reign of Edward I. A row with the Archbishop of Canterbury which got him excommunicated. Reinstatement, then death, then sainthood. Then the miracles, dozens of miracles around the shrine: the tomb that no longer had a body in it, and that was now in pieces.

The aumbry light still shone: a relic of the medieval Church, seldom needed now. Tonight another medieval relic had required the last rites.

Merrily realized she very much did not want Dobbs to die. She went down on her knees, on the hard coldness, before the aumbry light itself. Let him live. Please God, let him survive. Build some kind of bridge between us. Throw down some quiet light. Let there be …

Useless, incoherent – she was just too tired. She couldn’t find the words to explain herself.

‘Merrily.’

She opened her eyes.

‘I’m sorry I was so abrupt, Merrily. It wasn’t you – it was me, I’m sorry. I felt excluded.’

The late-night DJ voice, resonant, burnt-umber. She should have realized he’d still be here. Perhaps she had.

‘Hello, Mick.’

The Bishop extended a hand. He was very strong, and suddenly she was on her feet again.

‘You look very tired,’ Mick said. ‘I hear you’ve been working hard tonight.’

‘ Finding it hard, that’s all.’

‘As you’re bound to.’ His lean face was crinkled by a sympathetic, closed-mouth smile. He surveyed her in the mellow light. ‘It’s a very taxing role: social worker, psychotherapist and virtuoso stage-performer, all rolled into one.’