Phil Rickman: The Wine of Angels

‘You are kidding, aren’t you?’

‘Anyway, Garrod Powell’s insisting it was an accident. Came to consult me about it. He’ll be telling the coroner the old chap was simply going soft in the head. Can’t blame him. Who wants a family suicide? I suggested he have a word with young Asprey, get something medical. But it could even be an open verdict.’

‘What’s that mean exactly, Uncle Ted?’

Merrily turned to find Jane sitting on the top stair, elbows on knees, chin cupped in her hands.

‘Means they can’t be entirely sure what happened, Jane,’ Ted said.

‘Wish I’d been there.’

Merrily rolled her eyes. Having made a point of leaving Jane at her mother’s when she’d come to do her bit of undercover surveillance prior to applying – or not – for the post. The kid would’ve given them away in no time.

‘Do you get many suicides in the village?’ Jane asked.

‘Not with audience-participation,’ Ted said dryly.

Merrily was thinking, half-guiltily, how she’d scrubbed and scrubbed at her face that night and had to throw away the old fake Barbour.

They stayed the night at the Black Swan, sharing a room. On the third floor, as it happened, but it was different in a hotel. The Black Swan, like all the major buildings in Ledwardine – with the obvious exception of the vicarage – had been sensitively modernized; the room was ancient but luxurious.

Jane was asleep about thirty seconds after sliding into her bed. Jane could slip into untroubled sleep anywhere. She’d accepted her father’s death with an equanimity that was almost worrying. A blip. Sean had lived in the fast lane and that was precisely where he died. Bang. Gone.

Sadder about the girl in the car with him. She could have been Jane in a few years’ time. Or Merrily herself, ten years or so earlier.

Too many thoughts crowding in, Merrily upended the pillow behind her, leaned into it and lit the last cigarette of the day. Through the deep, oak-sunk window, the crooked, picture-book roofs of the village snuggled into a soft and woolly pale night sky.

Perfect. Too perfect, perhaps. If you actually lived here, with roses round the door, what was there left to dream of?

‘How are things financially, now?’ Ted had asked in the lounge bar, after dinner.

Jane had mooched off into the untypically warm April evening to check out the village. And the local totty, she’d added provocatively.

‘Oh’ – Merrily drank some lager – ‘we get by. Sean’s debts weren’t as awesome as we’d been led to believe. And a few of the debtors seem less eager to collect than they were at first. I think it was meeting me. In the dog collar. It was like ... you know ... dangling a sprig of garlic in front of Dracula. I’m glad I met them. I don’t feel so bad about it now I know what kind of semi-criminal creeps they are. Jesus, what am I saying, semi? ’

‘I won’t ask. But I did think he was being a little overambitious setting up on his own. Why didn’t you both come to me for some advice?’

‘You know Sean. Knew. Anyway, I blame myself. If I hadn’t got pregnant instead of a degree, it was going to be Super-lawyer and Lois-thing, defending the poor, serving the cause of real justice. Zap. Pow. But ... there you go. He was on his own, and with the responsibility of a kid and everything, he was floundering, and he got a little careless about the clients he took on. It’s a slippery slope. I wasn’t aware of the way things were going. Too busy being Mummy.’

‘You blame yourself for letting him get you pregnant?’ Ted raised helpless eyes to the ceiling. ‘Blame yourself for anything, won’t you, Merrily? Dangerous that, in a vicar.’

‘Priest-in-charge.’

‘Only a matter of time. Now Alf Hayden ... he never accepted the blame for anything. Act of God. Providence. His favourite words. Had us tearing our hair. But you can’t get rid of a vicar, can you? Once they’re in, they’re in and that’s that.’

‘Not any more. My contract’s for five years.’

‘Red tape,’ Ted said. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

‘Please, Uncle Ted. Don’t do anything ... anything else.’

‘You’re not feeling manipulated, are you?’

‘Of course not. Well ... maybe. A little.’

As if having a woman priest in the family wasn’t enough, her mother, from the safety of suburban Cheltenham, had been out of her mind when Merrily had gone as a curate to inner-city Liverpool, all concrete and drugs and domestic violence. Running youth clubs and refuges for prozzies and rent boys. Terrific, Jane had thought. Cathartic, Merrily had found.

While her mother was putting out feelers.

Good old Ted had come up with the goods inside a year. The vicar of Ledwardine was retiring. Beautiful Ledwardine, only an hour or so’s drive from Cheltenham. And Ted was not only senior church warden but used to be the bishop’s solicitor. No string-pulling, of course; she’d only get the job if she was considered up to it and the other candidates were weak ... which, at less than fifteen grand a year, they almost certainly would be.

‘You’ve had a stressful time,’ Ted said. He’d never asked her why she’d abandoned the law for the Church. It was evidently taken for granted that this was some kind of reaction against Sean going bent. ‘But you do feel right about this place now?’

‘I think so. And listen, don’t imagine I’ll be giving you an easy time.’

‘Ha. Alf was always far too apathetic to sustain a decent dispute. What did you have in mind?’

‘Well, you need toilets in that church for a start. I don’t care if it is Grade One listed with five stars, a lot of people won’t come to a place where they’re scared of being taken short. Especially on winter mornings.’

‘Shouldn’t be too much of a problem. If you can raise the money.’

‘I’m also into more streamlined services. No, streamlined’s not the word exactly. Shorter and more ... intense. Fewer hymns. Less meaningless ritual. I mean, we won’t be kicking people out afterwards. There’ll be tea and biscuits and all that, though I won’t ask for the espresso machine until I’ve been around for a while.’

‘What about the prayer book?’

‘Oh, strictly Book of Common Prayer. And no happy-clappy. Well, not much, anyway. Not for the grown-ups.’

Ted Clowes twisted his brandy glass around, as if contemplating something. ‘I shouldn’t really be saying this, but a few people were a little wary about you at first. Big parish for ... for ...’

‘For a woman?’

‘Well, yes.’ He looked uncomfortable. ‘But there were other considerations. It’s a mightily useful church, you see. Big. And with quite remarkable acoustics. Best concert hall for a good many miles.’

‘So I gather.’

‘And no shortage of people who recognize its qualities. People who’ve moved into the area. Dermot Child, the composer and early-music expert and your organist, of course. And Richard Coffey, the playwright.’

‘ He lives here?’

‘Well, some of the time. With his young friend. An actor, not one you’d have heard of. And the Cassidys are very, er, cultured. Well, that’s just the core of it, but there are lesser figures and acolytes and followers. And you have to take notice of these people because they bring bodies – and money – into the church. Into the diocese. And a certain ... cultural cachet. Can’t be cynical about this sort of thing, Merrily.’

‘Has the Church ever been?’

‘Perhaps not. And most of us realize the Church needs a kick up the backside, and if it’s delivered by a more prettily shod foot, fair enough. Alf was always a bit of an old woman, time for a young one. But, naturally, we have our traditionalists. People who may have tried to block the way.’