Phil Rickman - The Wine of Angels

‘No ... Please ...’ The thought of going back to the huge, empty, haunted vicarage suddenly terrified her. ‘This is my home.’

‘Just relax,’ Asprey said.

‘What am I going to do? What am I going to do? ’

‘You’re going home to bed and I’m going to come and see you in the morning.’

She stared at him, all crinkly eyed and caring, the stupid, fatuous sod.

‘Just get a good night’s sleep, Merrily.’

In Ledwardine vicarage? She wanted to laugh in his face. To scream in his face. To scream and scream.

Scream herself sick.

The small shadow became detached from the hedge in Blackberry Lane. Lol thought it was a rat, until it rolled on to his shoe.

When he bent down, it produced a tiny cry.

He went down on his knees, but when he touched her she hissed and slashed at him and rolled over and tried to stand up and couldn’t. He felt wet in his fingers. Blood.

‘Oh God.’

He’d left her shut in the kitchen, with food and water and a full litter tray. Hadn’t he?

She squealed when he picked her up and when he tucked her under his jacket he could feel her trembling. When he reached the gate and heard the music, she was purring, but he knew there were two kinds of purr and one was a sign of pain.

All the lights were on in the cottage. He saw the front downstairs window had been thrown open, and the music shivered out into the lane, the late Nick Drake singing ‘Black-eyed Dog’, the death song, the stereo cranked up beyond distortion level, fracturing the already tight, brittle splinters of guitar.

He could see Karl Windling’s wide-shouldered silhouette in the chair under the open window. Facing into the room. Facing the open kitchen door.

Nick sang that there was a black-eyed dog calling at his door and it was calling for more. It called for more and it knew his name. Nick’s voice was cut up and broken by the volume. Under Lol’s jacket, Ethel, the little black cat, quaked with pain. Beyond the kitchen door there was cat-litter all over the carpet, fragments of food dish.

In a high, scared, doomed voice, Nick Drake, at twenty-six, sang that he was growing old and he wanted to go home.

There was apple blossom all over the lawn, and the white petals were huge now. The song ended and Karl Windling’s shadow filled the window for a moment before the stylus was ripped across the record with a jagged whizz of puckered vinyl.

Lol saw that the white petals on the lawn were the torn and scattered pages of a book. He bent and picked one up and held it into the light from the window.

...to love all persons in all ages, all angels, all worlds, is divine and heavenly ...To love all ...

The house invaded, the book torn down the spine, the album ruined, the cat kicked half to death. Lol’s life smashed and the fragments scattered.

And there was me, getting all hyped up for a fight.

Karl would be well-stoned by now; that was his style – a satisfying surge of violence and then a nice, fat joint to make it feel doubly all right. Lol thought, I should go straight in there – it’s my house, for Christ’s sake, my own home – and ... and ...

I wanted you to hate, Alison had said, not half an hour ago.

But Karl knew Lol Robinson from way back. Knew he didn’t fight and lacked the nerve to hate. Knew that Lol’s speciality was fear.

All the lights on, the window open. Karl Windling standing in the centre of the room now, staring directly at the window, but he couldn’t see Lol in the darkness. Karl’s bearded face unsmiling.

Lol glanced at the empty drive, wondering for a second what Karl had done to the Astra before remembering he’d parked it in the village.

Under his jacket, Ethel had gone still.

He heard his own thin whimper on the air, as he turned and walked away from his home into the darkness of Blackberry Lane.

She felt like some child molester leaving court.

As the remaining congregation sang, watched over by the bishop, Merrily Watkins was escorted from the church wrapped in the rug, surrounded by Kent Asprey and Uncle Ted and Jane and Caroline Cassidy and Councillor Garrod Powell, their bodies hiding hers.

Hiding her from the eyes of villagers who’d left the congregation before the bishop had restored order but were still bunched in the darkness, like sightseers on the scene of a fatal road accident.

‘En’t a good sign,’ an old woman whispered too loudly.

Across the square, Merrily saw the softly illuminated hanging sign of the Black Swan, a beacon of stability in what was turning into an alien world. They’d been happy there. Now she was cold and confused and frightened and she didn’t know why, and none of the people with her said a word, not even Jane; it was like a funeral procession.

They took her into the vicarage. Ted still had keys, as if he’d known she was only on probation and it might not work out.

‘I’ll make some tea.’ Caroline Cassidy looked with distaste around the grim kitchen, still partly lit by unshaded, underpowered bulbs. ‘Where’s your kettle, my dear?’

‘No,’ Jane said. ‘I’ll do it.’

‘Look.’ Merrily struggled to keep her voice level. ‘You’ve done so much already and I’ve ruined it, but if you leave now you can still go ahead with your cider launch.’

‘Merrily, I wouldn’t dream—’

‘Yes, you would. You have to. Village life goes on. Anyway, I’d be less embarrassed if I thought it wasn’t all a total disaster.’

‘Well, if you’re sure ...’

‘Yes.’ She sat down at the table. ‘All of you. Please.’

‘You go to bed.’ Dr Kent Asprey gave her a shrewdly caring look. ‘I’ll call tomorrow.’

‘I’ll call you,’ Merrily said. ‘If it’s necessary. Thank you.’

‘I’ll tell the bishop you’ll be in touch,’ Ted said ponderously. ‘When you’re well.’

‘I’ll call him tomorrow.’

Thank God Dermot Child had been detained at the organ; he’d have been less easy to get rid of. Merrily let her head fall briefly into her hands as the door closed behind them and Jane came back alone. Peered through her fingers at the kid’s face, flushed with concern, or it might have been humiliation.

‘Go and change, flower. Get off to the party.’

‘You are joking,’ Jane said.

‘I need to do some thinking.’ Merrily raised her head. ‘All right?’

‘Mum, you’re ill. If you go to bed, I’ll bring you whatever you need ... hot-water bottle.’

‘I don’t need anything, and I’m not going to bed.’

‘Well, you can’t stay in here, it’s dismal. I’ll light the fire in the parlour.’

‘Just leave me, Jane.’

Jane hung on.

‘What was it? Something you ate?’

‘I didn’t eat anything all day, did I? I expect that was the problem. And getting uptight. Anyway, I feel terrible about everything, and I’m always better feeling terrible on my own.’

‘I’m going to stay,’ Jane said.

‘All right, you light a fire and we’ll sit and have a good old discussion. We’ll talk about Miss Devenish and what happened when you went to her aid that day instead of going to school and what you talk about together. All those things we’ve been meaning to discuss.’

‘I’ll get changed then,’ Jane said.

But she wasn’t too happy about it. Throwing up in church, when you were in Mum’s line of work, was not exactly a really brilliant thing to do, and since coming to Ledwardine Mum had been, for the first time, quite hot on keeping up appearances. This was going to damage her. Maybe, in the years to come, she’d be quite affectionately known as the vicar who tossed her cookies down the nave. But maybe there wouldn’t be years to come, not now.