Phil Rickman - Midwinter of the Spirit

‘Stage-performer?’

‘We’re all of us actors, Merrily. The Church is a faded but still fabulous costume drama.’

‘Oh.’

‘And, to survive, it has to be considerably more sophisticated these days. Poor Dobbs is strictly Hammer Films, I’m afraid. He should retire, if he recovers, to one of those nice rural nursing homes for ageing clerics. There to write his memoirs, don’t you think?’

‘I don’t know what I think.’

‘You’re overtired,’ Mick said. ‘Poor baby, I’m not going to let you drive home, you realize that.’

‘It’s only twenty minutes.’ He was offering to drive her?

‘In these conditions? At least an hour – and requiring rather more attention than I suspect you’d be able to summon. Consider this an executive ruling. Come to the Palace. We’ve lots of spare rooms I always feel guilty about. Perhaps we should make some available to selected homeless people, what do you think?’

‘I think it would be very much an unnecessary imposition on Mrs Hunter.’

‘What, accommodating the homeless? Or accommodating you? Either way, not a problem. Valentina’s away for a couple of days, visiting her ageing parents in the Cotswolds. Old Church, Val’s father – yesterday’s Church. We have endless and insoluble theological arguments, so these days I tend to plead pressure of work.’

Merrily smiled. ‘Look, it’s very kind of you, Mick. It’s just—’ She moved self-consciously towards St John’s door.

‘ You ’ – he followed her – ‘need all your strength. Just let others look after you sometimes. We can get you back in good time for tomorrow’s services, if that’s what you’re worried about. We have a wonderful old Land Rover at our disposal.’

‘There’s Jane, you know?’

‘Jane?’

‘My daughter.’

She thought he blinked. ‘She’s not a child any more, is she? She must be getting quite used to your nocturnal comings and goings.’

‘I suppose she is.’

‘Well, then…’

He put his hands on her shoulders, as he had on Sophie’s earlier. His hands were big and firm and warm.

‘Merrily, you have to stop shouldering the problems of the world. Besides, it would be a good opportunity for us to talk about the future. It’ll be impossible to keep this out of the papers, you know, especially if the old guy dies on us. We need to be ready, hmm?’

As Mick Hunter lowered his arms from her shoulders, his head bent quickly, and she was sure his lips touched her forehead just once, on the hairline.

‘This means we can stop quietly phasing you in and officially announce the establishment of a Deliverance consultancy. We need to discuss how we’re going to handle that.’

‘But not tonight.’

‘Oh no, not tonight. Tomorrow.’ He paused. ‘Over our breakfast, perhaps.’

The way he said our breakfast. The way he had his arms by his sides now, but had not stepped back. The way he seemed to be closer than when his hands had been on her. She felt an awful compulsion to fall forward, collapse into that strong, muscular episcopal chest.

‘Up to you, of course,’ he said. ‘Coincidentally, we’ve just had a guest suite refurbished. Bathroom with shower, small sitting room – that sort of set-up. You may find you have to overnight in Hereford quite often as your role expands. Consider it available at any time. As you’ll be reporting exclusively to me, it would seem like an arrangement with considerable… possibilities, you know.’

She stayed silent, giving him an opportunity to qualify that, but he didn’t. He just stood there gazing at her, and after a moment he calmly folded his arms – sometimes a defensive gesture, but not this time.

No, this couldn’t be? Couldn’t possibly be how it sounded.

‘Everything’s changing, Merrily,’ Mick said easily. ‘This is a time of transition when traditional values, old restrictions, should be allowed to drift away. We should stop presuming to know what God wants of us.’

Merrily backed against the door, needing cold air, space.

‘We should be prepared to experiment,’ Mick continued calmly, ‘until the waters settle and we know where we are again. For a while.’

He followed her out of the Cathedral, leaving the door for the verger to lock. Outside, an unreal mauvish mist was gathering around white roofs, over white pavements, the grey-white road. A Christmas-card Hereford, out of time. Mick Hunter, in his purple tracksuit, seemed part of the picture. Part of the illusion. Not real.

‘See, no traffic at all,’ he said. ‘Earlier, I believe, the TV and radio stations were warning motorists not to venture out unless it was absolutely vital.’

Time of transition? In the tingling mist, Merrily felt as though she was being drawn into a developing, lucid dream and had to go with it – some of the way, at least – to see if its destination could possibly be what she was half-imagining.

Or make a wild dash across Broad Street for her car. Or…

She heard Jane saying, It’s probably considered socially OK to fuck a bishop , and felt appalled.

‘Mick, look, I actually think it’s beginning to thaw. I can be home in half an hour.’

‘Nonsense. Merrily, you know you don’t really want to do that.’

‘I have to.’

She began to walk away from him towards the road, and then stopped and turned as the Bishop spoke again with quiet insistence.

‘You only have to do what you want to do.’

‘That’s not true…’

This was not the Bishop talking but the bulge in his tracksuit trousers. She closed her eyes briefly and wished him gone.

‘Oh… Excuse me, miss.’

A man stepped out from behind one of the trees like some accosting beggar – one of those homeless that Mick and Val would not be accommodating at the Palace.

‘Not now,’ the Bishop told him irritably.

‘Sorry, sir. Not you – the lady. Are you by any chance the lady whose daughter ordered a minicab?’

‘Huh?’

‘Mrs Watson?’

‘Watkins.’

‘Yeah, that’s it.’

Mick Hunter didn’t move. Merrily shrugged and gave him a bashful smile. ‘I didn’t know she’d done that. Kid does my thinking for me. Thanks anyway, Bishop. What time do you want to see me on Monday?’

‘Eleven o’clock,’ the Bishop said tonelessly, ‘in the Great Hall.’

She nodded.

‘Good night,’ he said.

‘It’s this way,’ said the cabbie.

Mick Hunter had vanished by the time she found out that the cabbie did not have a vehicle with him.

THEY WALKED IN silence a short way along Broad Street until Merrily was sure the Bishop had returned to the Palace. Then Lol Robinson hurried her discreetly across the whitened green and into Church Street.

‘Little Jane called me, about half an hour ago. Said you were heading this way and you might be able to use a cup of coffee at some stage. I’ve just been… hanging around.’

‘So intuitive, that kid.’ God, she was pleased to see him. Although, under the circumstances, anybody at all would have been a serious blessing.

‘I think she was worried about you,’ he said.

Merrily smiled. ‘I’m sure.’ She felt light-headed – glad, for the first time she could remember, to be out of the Cathedral.

‘Who was that guy in the tracksuit?’ Lol unlocked a recessed door in the alleyway next to the little music shop.

‘That, Laurence, was the Bishop of Hereford.’

‘Oh, I see.’ Lol wore nothing over the familiar black sweatshirt with the Roswell alien face printed on it in flaking grey. He must be freezing. ‘I had him down as some late-night jogger, who… I don’t really know.’