Phil Rickman - The Wine of Angels

‘But that’s—’

‘Miss Devenish.’

Mum sat up. ‘Oh no. You said properly. You’ll just get the Miss Devenish version, which may not ... And anyway ...’

‘Yes?’

Mum did one of her heavy sighs. She’d had this thing about Miss Devenish ever since the great Powell suicide. The old girl had made a scene about this wassailing scenario being all wrong and no good would come of it and ... bang! ... no good came of it. Spooky, yeah? Right. Jane was never going to forgive herself for missing all that. Of course, that was in her Ledwardine Denial Period; she was over that now.

‘Mum, look, that’s the only shop in the village where you can get real local history books. We’re going to have to get one sometime.’

‘All right, just pop in and grab a book.’

‘I won’t know which one it’s in, will I? You can’t stand there in a shop that size, going through all the indexes. I’ll have to ask her about it.’

Jane sat on a corner of the bed, searching out her mother’s eyes. People said they had the same eyes, dark and curious.

‘Got you,’ she said. ‘You don’t like me going in there, do you? Because people say she’s a bit of an old witch. Daughter of the priest-in-charge mustn’t be seen consorting with satanic forces, right?’

‘That’s cobblers, Jane. However, until we’ve got our feet under the table we’re going to have to tread carefully, walk on a few eggshells. Is that a mixed metaphor?’

‘No, spot on, actually. In an accidental sort of way. So. How do you want to play it? Do you want me to find out who Wil Williams was, or do you want to busk it with Coffey and Cassidy? Hey, you think Stefan might be there tonight?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘Can I come?’

‘Absolutely not. God forbid. Neither will you hang around the bar. You can stay up here and watch TV.’

‘It’s Saturday night.’

‘Look, flower, we’ll have a home in a week or so. We can start shipping all your clothes and your albums and books and stuff over from Cheltenham.’

‘Yeah.’ She supposed there had been cultural withdrawal symptoms, from the music especially. Weeks since she’d lain on a bed with her eyes closed in a room full of Radiohead.

‘You won’t have to be bored any more,’ Mum said. ‘We’ll be settled, for the first time in years.’

‘You think so?’

‘Actually, I don’t know. I don’t really know what I’m doing.’ Mum sighed. ‘Sod it, flower,’ she said wearily. ‘I suppose I could consult Ted, but I’ve been bothering him too much lately. Go on. Go and ask Miss Devenish who on earth Wil Williams is.’

THIS FRENZIED SLAM, slam slam, flat of a hand on the door panels, someone who’d given up with the bell, given up with the knocker.

Lol flailed out of unconsciousness. Must’ve fallen asleep. Did that so easily now in the daytime, result of spending evenings dozing in front of the stove, staggering miserably to bed and lying awake until it was light. Yet there was something different about today ... wasn’t there?

Now the door handle was being rattled, the letter-flap pushed in and out, his name being screamed.

Oh my God. The black cat sailed from his knees. He rolled out of the chair. Alison. She’s here.

Go carefully. Go slowly. You only get one chance. Be cool.

Yeah, I’m fine. I just needed to talk to you. No weeping, no pleading. Just the truth. Because I can’t believe it was some fast-flowering infatuation did this to us, nor a sudden realization that he was what you’d always wanted. I can’t believe you saw him in his tweeds and his gumboots and you thought, that’s what I need to give my life direction, a genuine old-style landowner in a damp old seven-bedroomed farmhouse with cowshit on the lino and—

‘Laurence! Are you there? Laurence!’

Close to the door, Lol sagged.

It was not Alison. No indeed. He opened up, and there she was under the big hat, elbows making batwings out of the poncho.

‘You dismal tripehound! What the fuck are you playing at?’ Striding into the living room, flinging back curtains. ‘Do you know what time it is?’

He looked at the travel alarm on the mantelpiece. It said 14.15. This had to be wrong; maybe it had stopped.

Christ, six hours?.

Lol looked sheepishly into Lucy’s hot, glaring face. ‘I ... fell asleep.’

He remembered that this was Saturday afternoon. He’d promised to mind her shop.

The Nick Drake album was still revolving on the turntable, the needle grinding it up. It would be ruined now. Like everything he touched.

‘Don’t know what happened, Luce. It was just like ... I got up this morning ... then like fell asleep in the chair. Just completely—’

‘You’re lying.’ She was advancing on him like a big policewoman. ‘Come on, hand them over.’

‘Huh?’

‘Pills.’ She held out a big, pink palm. ‘Don’t fart about with me, Laurence, I’m not in the mood. Pills. Want to see what they are.’

‘I haven’t got any pills.’ He spread his hands. ‘Honestly.’

‘People with a background like yours,’ Lucy said, ‘ always have pills.’

‘Oh God.’ He was far too ashamed to explain. ‘Doesn’t everything go pear-shaped?’

‘What you mean by that?’ Her eyes nail-gunned him to the wall. ‘Two days’ milk outside? All the curtains drawn? I won’t ask you again ... How many did you take?’

‘Lucy,’ Lol said, ‘would I leave a little cat to starve?’

She loomed over him. ‘Answer my question, damn you, or I’ll box your bloody ears.’

He stood back, both hands up. ‘I didn’t take any. No pills. All right?’

‘The milk? The curtains?’

‘See, I was lying awake all night. I’m thinking, you know, you’ve got to get your shit together, you can’t be a little wimp all your life, you’ve got to talk to her. And that ... I mean, that isn’t easy. I can’t go up to her in the street, I’m not ready to do that.’

‘Why can’t you simply phone her up?’

‘Because either he answers and I hang up, or she answers and she hangs up. She doesn’t want to talk to me. But she likes to know I’m all right, that I haven’t done anything really stupid. Like, what she really wants is for me to move out, but in the meantime she rides past the house every couple of mornings, presumably hoping she’ll see a For Sale sign but, failing that, some reassurance that I haven’t set fire to the place, cut my wrists in the bath, you know?’

‘How thoughtful,’ Lucy said.

‘I find that ... comforting.’

‘That she’s worried she might have driven you to take your own life? Ah ...’ Lucy took off her hat, tossed it on the chair. ‘One begins to see. You really are a sick, twisted little person, aren’t you, Laurence?’

He said nothing.

‘A silly charade. This was a silly, stupid charade. You wanted her to think you’d done it. You drew the curtains, made it seem as if you hadn’t collected the milk for two days, put on some mournful record. And then what? She sees you’re alive and falls into your arms?’

‘We just talk,’ Lol said. ‘Finally, we talk. See, I tried calling to her. She won’t get off the horse. She just turns around, trots away. You run after her. She—’

‘Pshaw!’ Lucy said. She was the only person he’d ever encountered who actually said this. ‘If attempted suicide is a cry for help, Laurence, this is, at best, a feeble squeak.’

‘Mmm.’ He nodded miserably.

‘Laurence!’ Lucy held his eyes like a hypnotist. ‘You’re letting me bully you! You aren’t even putting up a fight against an old woman with no business interfering in your affairs. We can’t have that, can we? Can we, Laurence?’