Phil Rickman - Midwinter of the Spirit

It was what she wanted.

‘Merrily… Can I call you Merrily?’

‘Please do.’

‘Merrily, this began… I don’t know exactly when it began, but it did have a beginning.’

‘Yes.’

‘I started to hear him praying, very loud and… anguished. I would hear him through the walls: sometimes in what sounded like Latin – the words meant nothing to me. He would shout them into the night. And then, backwards and forwards from the Cathedral he’d go at all hours, in all weathers. I would hear his footsteps in the street at two, three in the morning. Going to the Cathedral, coming from there – sometimes rushing, he was, like a man possessed. I don’t mean that in the…’

‘I know.’

‘And this was when he began cutting himself off: from men too, but especially from women. Would not even see his own sister. He would put her off – I was made to put her off – when she wanted to visit. He would not even speak to her on the telephone. Or to his granddaughters – he has two granddaughters. One of them brought her new baby to show him. He saw her coming down the street and made me tell her he was away. It made no sense to me. He’d been married for forty years.’

‘Does it make sense now?’

‘I have been reading,’ Edna said, ‘about St Thomas of Hereford.’

‘Thomas Cantilupe?’

‘He would not have women near him, either.’

She fell silent.

‘But that was then ,’ Merrily said. ‘That was the Middle Ages. Cantilupe was a Roman Catholic bishop. They weren’t allowed to have…’

‘I know that, but where did the Canon go when he went into the Cathedral? Where did he have his stroke?’

‘Cantilupe’s tomb.’

‘I can’t tell you any more,’ Edna said. ‘You had better do what you came for.’

In fact, the routine for this kind of situation usually involved blessing the entire house, room by room, starting at the main entrance, the blessing thus extended to all who passed in and out. But Susan Thorpe was hardly going to permit that.

If you couldn’t tie down a haunting to a specific incident in the history of the house, then you at least should ask: What’s causing it to happen now ? Is it connected to the present function of the house, the kind of people living here? Old people feeling unwanted, neglected, passed-over? Confused, their senses fuddled…? Yet Susan Thorpe wouldn’t accommodate that kind of client. Any signs of dementia, they have to go. We aren’t a nursing home .

You could spend days investigating this, and then discover it was a simple optical illusion. Merrily moved a little closer to the dead bulb’s bracket.

‘I don’t know what your son-in-law expected, but—’

‘Stuffed-shirt, he is,’ Edna said. ‘I hope I die, I do, before I have to go into a place owned by people like them. Pretend-carers, they are.’ Out of her daughter’s earshot, Edna’s accent had strengthened. ‘Poor old souls. Grit my teeth, I will, and stay here until I can find a little flat, then you won’t see me for dust.’

‘Good for you,’ Merrily said.

It was quiet. No wind in the rafters. They stood in silence for a couple of minutes and then Merrily called on God, who Himself never slept, to bless these bedrooms and watch over all who rested in them.

HER HANDS TOGETHER, head bowed.

Even the piano was inaudible up here, and in the silence her words sounded hollow and banal.

‘… and ask You to bless and protect the stairs and the landings and the corridors along which the residents and the workers here must pass to reach these rooms.’

She was visualizing the old ladies gathered around the piano two floors below, so as to draw them into the prayer.

‘We pray, in the name of Our Lord, Jesus Christ, that no spirit or shade or image from the past will disturb the people dwelling here. We pray that these images or spirits will return to their ordained place and there rest in peace.’

This covered both imprints and insomniacs , although she didn’t really think it could be an insomniac . There’d surely be some sign, in that case, some pervading atmosphere of unrest.

‘Amen,’ Edna said.

Merrily held her breath. It had been known, Huw Owen had said, for the spirit itself to appear momentarily, usually at the closing of the ritual, before fading – in theory for ever – from the atmosphere.

Mind, it’s also been known to appear with a mocking smile on its face and then – this is frightening – appearing again and again, bang-bang-bang, in different corners of the room…

Although it was hard not to flick a glance over her shoulder, Merrily kept on looking calmly in front of her under half-lowered eyelids, her body turned towards the darkness at the end of the passage. From which drifted a musty smell of dust and camphor which may not have been there before.

She waited, raising her eyes to the sloping ceiling with its blocked-in beams, and the filigree pouches of old cobwebs over the single curtained window. She straightened her shoulders, feeling the pull of the pectoral cross.

It was darker – well seemed darker. As though there’d been a thirty per cent decrease in the wattage of the bulbs. Possibly something was happening, something absorbing the energy – something which had begun as she ended her first prayer. A mild resistance was swelling now.

Merrily began to sweat, trying not to tense against the ballooning atmosphere. She wondered if Edna was aware of it, or if she herself was the only focus, her lone ritual beckoning it. When she spoke again, her voice sounded high and erratic.

‘If there is a… an unquiet spirit… we pray that you may be freed from whatever anxiety or obsession binds you to this place. We pray that you may rise above all earthly ties and go, in peace, to Christ.’

That sounded feeble. It lacked something. It was too bloody reasonable .

Belt and braces , said the awful Chris Thorpe, stooped like a crane and sneering.

Yes, OK, there was something. Now that she was sure of that, there should perhaps be a Eucharist performed for the blessing of the house. It could be conducted by the local vicar, held under some pretext where all the residents could be invited. Those who were churchgoers would accept it without too many questions.

The atmosphere bulged. She felt a sudden urgent need to empty her bladder.

‘May the saints of God pray for you and the angels of God guard and protect you…’

Either the air had tightened or she was feeling faint. Resist it. She fumbled at the mohair sweater to expose the cross. As she pulled at the sweater, her palms began to—

‘Mrs Watkins.’

Merrily let go of the sweater; her eyes snapped open. Edna Rees was pointing to where, at the top of the three shallow steps, a figure stood.

‘Please, there’s really no need for this,’ it said.

Angela turned over six cards in sequence and then quickly swept the whole layout into a pile.

But not before Jane had seen the cards and recognized three of them: Death… The Devil… The Tower struck by lightning .

‘I can’t do this,’ Angela said. ‘I’m afraid it’s Rowenna’s fault.’

It was the same pub where the psychic fair had been held, but this time they were upstairs in a kind of boxroom. Pretty drab: just the card table and two chairs. Rowenna had to perch on a chest of drawers, her head inches from a dangling lightbulb with no shade.

‘I’m sorry, Angela,’ she said. ‘I really didn’t realize.’

Angela looked petite inside a huge sheepskin coat with the collar turned up. She also looked casually glamorous, like a movie star on location. But she looked irritated, too.