Phil Rickman - Midwinter of the Spirit

SHE CALLED HUW, but there was no answer. She didn’t know his Sunday routine. Perhaps he drove from church to church across the mountains – service after service, until he was all preached out. If he had a mobile or a car-phone, it wouldn’t work up there, anyway.

She next called Sophie at home. Sophie, thank God, was home. Merrily pictured a serene, pastel room with a high ceiling and a grandfather clock.

‘Sophie, are you going to the Boy Bishop ceremony tonight?’

‘I always do,’ Sophie said. ‘As the Bishop’s lay-secretary, I consider my role as extending to his understudy.’

‘That’s not quite the right word, is it? As I understand it, the boy is a symbolic replacement – the Bishop actually giving way to him.’

‘Well, perhaps. Should I explain it to you, Merrily?’

‘Please.’

She listened, and made notes on her sermon pad.

‘Shall I see you there?’ Sophie asked.

‘God willing.’

‘I should like to talk to you. I’ve delayed long enough.’

An hour later, Merrily called Huw again, and then she called Lol but there was no answer there either, and no one else to call. When she put the phone down, she said steadily to herself, ‘I shouldn’t need this. I shouldn’t need help.’

Jane, coming into the scullery with coffee, said, ‘You can only ever go by what you think is right, Mum.’

‘All right, listen, flower. Sit down. I’m going to hang something on you. And you, in your most cynical-little-bitch mode, are going to give me your instinctive reactions.’

Jane pulled up a chair and they sat facing one another, sideon to the desk.

‘Shoot,’ Jane said.

‘It’s a medieval thing.’

‘Most of Hereford seems to be a medieval thing,’ Jane said.

‘In the thirteenth century, apparently, it was a fairly widespread midwinter ceremony in many parts of Europe. Sometimes he was known as the Bishop of the Innocents. It was discontinued at the Reformation under Henry VIII. The Reformation wasn’t kind to the Cathedral anyway. Stainedglass windows were destroyed, statues smashed. Then there was the Civil War and puritanism. In most cathedrals, the Boy Bishop never came back, but Hereford reintroduced it about twenty-five years ago, and it’s now probably the most famous ceremony of its kind in the country. The basis of it is a line from the Magnificat which goes: He hath put down the mighty from their seat and hath exalted the humble and meek .’

‘That’s crap,’ Jane said. ‘I don’t know anybody my age who is remotely humble or meek.’

‘How about if I tell you when to come on with the cynicism. OK, back to the ceremony. After a candlelit procession, the Bishop of Hereford gives up his throne to the boy, who takes over the rest of the service, leads the prayers, gives a short sermon.’

‘Would I be right in thinking there aren’t a whole bunch of boys queuing up for this privilege?’

‘Probably. It’s a parent thing – also a choir thing. The Boy Bishop is almost invariably a leading chorister, or a recently retired chorister, and he has several attendants from the same stable.’

‘So, what you’re saying is, Hunter symbolically gives up his throne to this guy.’

‘No, it isn’t symbolic. He actually does it. And then the boy and his entourage proceed around the chancel and into the North Transept, where he’s introduced to St Thomas Cantilupe at the shrine.’

‘Or, in this case, the hole where the shrine used to be.’

‘Yes, I understand this will the first time since the institution of the ceremony in the Middle Ages that there’s been no tomb.’

‘Heavy, right?’

Merrily said, ‘So you’re following my thinking.’

‘Maybe.’ Jane pushed her hair behind her ears.

Merrily said, ‘If – and this is the crux of it – you wanted to isolate the period when Hereford Cathedral was most vulnerable to… shall we call it spiritual disturbance, you might choose the period of the dawning of a millennium… when the tomb of its guardian saint lies shattered… and when the Lord Bishop of Hereford…’

She broke off, searching for the switch of the Anglepoise lamp. The red light of the answering machine shone like a drop of blood.

‘Is a mere boy,’ Jane supplied.

‘That’s the final piece of Huw’s jigsaw. Is that a load of superstitious crap or what? You can now be cynical.’

‘Thanks.’

‘So?’ Merrily’s hand found the lamp switch and clicked. The light found Jane propping up her chin with a fist.

‘How long do we have before the ceremony starts?’

‘It takes place during Evensong – which was held in the late afternoon until Mick took over. Mick thinks Evensong should be just that – at seven-thirty. Just over three hours from now.’

‘Oh.’

‘Not very long at all.’

‘No.’ Jane stood up, hands in the hip pockets of her jeans. ‘Why don’t you try calling Huw Owen again?’

‘He isn’t going to be there, flower. If he is, it would take him well over an hour to get here.’

‘Try Lol again. Maybe he can put the arm on James Lyden’s dad.’

‘The psychotherapist?’

‘Maybe he can.’

‘All right.’ Merrily punched out Lol’s number; the phone was picked up on the second ring.

‘John Barleycorn.’ A strange voice.

‘Oh, is Lol there?’

‘No, he’s not. This is Dennis Moon in the shop. Sorry, it’s the same line. I’m not usually here on a Sunday, but Lol’s not around anyway. Can I give him a message if he shows before I leave?’

‘Could you ask him to call Merrily, please?’

‘Sure, I’ll leave him a note.’

‘Face it,’ Merrily said, hanging up. ‘This guy is not going to pull his boy out of the ceremony – thus forcing them to abort it.’

‘I suppose not. Actually, it does seem quite scary. What if something did happen and we could have prevented it? But, on the other hand, what could happen?’

‘Well, it won’t be anything like thunder and lightning and the tower cracking in half.’ She saw Jane stiffen. ‘Flower?’

‘Why did you say that?’

‘What?’

‘About the tower cracking in half.’

‘It was the first stupid thing I thought of.’

‘That’s the tarot card Angela turned up for me: the Tower struck by lightning. It’s just… Sorry, your imagination sometimes goes berserk, doesn’t it?’

‘Look.’ Merrily stood up and put an arm around her. ‘Thunder is not forecast, anyway. You don’t get thunder at this time of the year, in this kind of weather. That tower’s been here for many centuries. The tarot card is purely symbolic. And even if something like that did happen…’

‘It did in 1786.’

‘What did?’

‘We did this in school. They had a west tower then, and it didn’t have proper foundations and the place was neglected, and on Easter Monday 1786 the whole lot collapsed.’

Merrily moved away, looked down at the desk, gathering her thoughts. ‘Look, even if it was likely, it’s still not the worst disaster that could happen.’

‘You mean the collapse of spirituality,’ Jane said soberly.

‘Whatever you say about the Church, flower, there’s no moral force to replace it.’

‘OK,’ Jane said. ‘So suppose all the people jumping off the Tower Struck By Lightning are the ones, like, abandoning Christianity as the whole edifice collapses. Suppose the final disintegration of the Church as we know it was to start here ?’

Merrily said, ‘Would you care?’

THE CROW.

As the crow flies : a straight line.