Phil Rickman - The Wine of Angels

‘And naturally you’re opposed to the ordination of women.’

James backed off a little. ‘There are some who say it strengthens the Church. Have my doubts about that, but there’s nothing I can do now. You’re here, and you at least seem like a reasonable sort of woman, head screwed on.’

‘Thank you very much,’ Merrily said acidly.

‘But you must understand my position, Mrs Watkins. Where my family stands. We have a role. That role, regardless of how we may feel as individuals, is to resist change. It’s what we do. We defend. And so I opposed your appointment, made no secret of it. Well, all right, that battle’s lost, it’s over. You’re here. Generally speaking, under most circumstances, you can now count on my support.’

Merrily said nothing.

‘So long,’ he said, ‘as you remain sensitive to the best interests of this village.’

‘I see. And if’ – Merrily prised herself painfully from the Aga – ‘on some significant and controversial issue, we don’t agree on what those best interests might be?’

‘I really don’t think,’ said James Bull-Davies, ‘that you would ever be so short-sighted.’

‘But say there was. Say there was an issue on which your idea of what was in the best interests of the village was in conflict with what I considered to be morally and spiritually right.’

He sighed. ‘You make it hard for me, Mrs Watkins. And perhaps for yourself.’

Merrily took a deep breath. ‘You haven’t answered my question. How would you react in a situation where we found it impossible to work out our differences?’

‘All right. Depending on the seriousness of the, er, matter under discussion, I should be obliged to use what influence I have. To get you out of the parish.’

Like your wretched ancestor did with Wil Williams? Merrily didn’t say it.

She didn’t say it.

‘Thank you for your honesty,’ she said.

He nodded to her and left before she could pour his tea.

When Jane came back with the fish and chips, she found her mother white-faced and furious, hands wrapped around the chrome bar of the Aga and twisting.

‘Mum ...?’ Jane stood in the doorway, holding the hot paper package. ‘What ...?’

‘Put them in the warming oven.’ Mum’s voice was a small, curled-up thing. ‘We’ll go and get the car.’

‘Car?’

‘And the sleeping bags, if you want.’

‘We’re staying the night?’

‘Yeah. We bloody are.’

‘Oh. What changed your mind? Something he said?’

‘We’re getting our feet under the bloody table. We’re letting the good folk of Ledwardine know we’ve arrived.’

Mum’s hands had stopped twisting on the bar. She was very, very still now.

‘No more shit.’ She’d never used that word to Jane before. ‘No more shit. ’

TRUST NOBODY.

OK, not a very Christian maxim, but ...

Merrily dragged a bulging suitcase through the Black Swan’s porch and out on to the steps.

Remembering being in this very spot on Saturday night, in the frozen moments before the James Bull-Davies drama, when Dermot Child had so confidently slipped an arm around her waist, shortly after explaining to her how Cassidy and Powell, politicians both, had nominated her for the role of parish scapegoat.

Stitched up, sexually patronized ... and now, openly threatened.

Stuff them all.

Even less Christian. What was this place doing to her? Were all rural parishes this stifling?

Jane had already carried down a bag full of toiletries and overnight stuff, a few clothes. Merrily had stopped at reception to leave a message for Roland, the manager, who, with the approach of the real tourist season, had been mildly indicating that he could use their rooms more profitably. As a tourist venue, Ledwardine was finally taking off.

Just at the moment, and for the first time, Merrily felt like taking off too. They’d been in Ledwardine over a month, and the only resident she’d felt entirely relaxed with had been Miss Devenish. Of whom the cautious Ted Clowes had once said, Delightful old girl, may be some sort of witch. Don’t be tempted to get too close.

Plaintive music drifted across the residents’ car park, in the yard behind the inn. It was coming from the Volvo, their onetime ‘family car later spurned by Sean for something smaller and faster and, as it turned out, less resistant to impact. The Volvo still had the eight-speaker stereo with built-in CD-autochanger presented to Sean, as such items often had been, by A Client. As Merrily got in, a wispy male voice sang low and breathy over an acoustic wash.

Walked her up and down the garden in the rain.

I called her name.

She didn’t know it ...

‘Turn it down, huh, Jane.’

‘Isn’t it great? It’s like really moving. His girlfriend’s a junkie and he doesn’t—’

‘It’s OK. Sounds like, what’s his name? He killed himself – Nick Drake?’

‘Nick Drake killed himself?’

‘We had all his albums when I was a kid, courtesy of your Uncle Jonathan in his morose phase. Listen, I said we wouldn’t be back tonight, but we’d get the rooms cleaned out by tomorrow night, so that Roland can charge twice as much for them. So don’t make any other arrangements, all right?’

‘Would I?’

‘No, flower,’ Merrily said. ‘You wouldn’t. You’re my very best friend.’

‘Oh please!’ Jane made a vomiting sound. ‘You can’t be that sad!’

Merrily turned on the engine for the first time in days. All she had to do was drive out of the yard, across the square and about thirty yards down Church Street to where the vicarage drive was overhung by a weeping birch. Although she didn’t even get out of second gear, it felt like driving across some distant frontier into another country. A foreign country where no one could be trusted.

‘Oh, I can, flower,’ Merrily said.

Through the eight speakers – on the dashboard, the rear parcel shelf and all four doors – the same voice sang another song, its muted chorus concluding,

... and it’s always on the sunny days

you feel you can’t go on.

Jane picked up the CD box from the dash, running her finger down the track list as the Volvo wobbled over the cobbles. The track was called Sunny Days, and it was followed by one called Song for Nick.

By nightfall, they must have walked all over the vicarage about four times, trying to make it seem smaller. And failing, as Merrily always knew they would.

Yeah, sure, it was a big mistake, coming to camp here – a futile gesture of defiance from Merrily, a silly adventure for Jane.

They were both overwhelmed. Even small houses looked enormous without furniture. Even small, new houses. This place – without a TV set, a microwave, even a bookcase full of paperbacks – was oppressive with age. In the light of naked bulbs, the walls looked grey and damp. Upstairs, where wardrobes had stood, there were great meshes of cobwebs, big as fishermen’s nets.

‘Before ...’ Jane said. ‘Before ... it just looked big. You know what I mean?’

Merrily nodded. Freshly vacated, the house was huge and naked and dead, its skeleton of woodwormed oak exposed – the shrunken remains of trees, killed half a millennium ago, embalmed and mummified in the walls. How, with their minimal furniture, their token pots and pans, could they possibly get its blood flowing again?

‘I wonder if I’m allowed to take in lodgers,’ Merrily said gloomily. ‘Maybe one of those guys who sit in the middle of Hereford with a penny whistle and a dog.’

‘Or four of them,’ Jane said. ‘All with dogs. Barking.’