Phil Rickman - The Wine of Angels

Should have kicked me out when you had the chance, Vicar.

He looked around for Ethel, but she’d pattered off somewhere in the big, bare house in which they were both effectively trapped. Leaving him to walk round and round the kitchen in despair at what a really fucking small person he was, in every conceivable sense.

He thought of his suicide. All the care and logic he’d put into the scheme to bring Alison to his door. Which was, face it, an insane thing to do. As insane as going to Alison last night and asking her why she’d left him, like this was going to make her think, yeah, why did I leave the poor little guy, what kind of a bitch did I become? And then return. Which he didn’t want. He didn’t want Alison back. He didn’t want his cottage back. He didn’t want to pick up his car.

He was mad. Still very sick. He needed a small room and all his meals prepared. He needed his medication.

Lol walked round and round the kitchen like a mouse looking for a gap in the skirting.

Ascending the three steps to the wooden platform under the mirror sky, Merrily had this absurd vision of a scaffold, a beheading block. Or, even worse right now, the pulpit.

‘Oyez! Oyez!’ wailed the hired town crier, in his long red coat and three-cornered hat. ‘Villagers of Ledwardine! Be it known that ye festival will be commenced at three of the clock!’

Merrily waited for Lucy Devenish to come striding out condemning it as a ludicrous travesty because, in over a thousand years of recorded history, Ledwardine had never had a town crier.

‘Merrily.’ Dermot Child clasped her right hand in both of his. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ In a light-green polo shirt with an apple motif, he looked bright-eyed and excited. In the unfortunate absence of Terrence Cassidy, he appeared to have acquired a festival.

‘Just one of those twenty-four-hour satanic viruses,’ Merrily said tightly. ‘I’m told it’s going around.’

‘Oh, that .. ’ Dermot laughed. ‘Some semi-literate youngster. Don’t let it worry you.’

‘What?’

‘The posters, Merrily. Ignore it. It’s a joke, albeit a poor one.’

‘Posters plural? ’

‘Well, I did remove a couple. One from the market hall, one from the bus shelter in Old Barn Lane. Hey. ’ He squeezed her shoulders. ‘Kids. It’s kids.’

‘I don’t think so.’ Someone was broadcasting a sick, specious rumour. Somebody out to do damage. The hi-tech version of the anonymous letter. With a printer, they could turn out dozens, hundreds.

‘Anyway,’ Dermot said, ‘poor joke. How many would even understand it?’

And so she took her seat on the platform, at the opposite end to Bull-Davies, festival president, who nodded. Councillor Garrod Powell followed her up. ‘Sorry I’m late. Car accident out on the Madley Road.’

Dermot glanced at him. ‘Serious?’

‘Didn’t look much. Some young lunatic. Hadn’t no time to find out.’

Well over a hundred people had drifted on to the square, which wasn’t bad for a mere opening ceremony; opening ceremonies were for the organizers. There were quite a few strangers among the villagers, most of them either drinking outside the Black Swan, where tables and umbrellas had been set up, or gathered around the craft and refreshment stalls in the market hall. Or watching the police. The Ledwardine Festival providing the perfect cover for the curious.

‘Oh, shit,’ said Dermot Child. Wearing a dark suit and a pale face, Terrence Cassidy was crossing the cobbles. ‘What we don’t need is a spectre at the feast. Brave of him and everything, but bloody hell ...’

‘Give the man some credit, Child.’ Bull-Davies stood up. ‘Terrence ... any news?’

Cassidy mounted the platform, smiled stiffly at Dermot and sat down between Bull-Davies and Powell. He shook his head.

‘Never say die,’ Bull-Davies said thoughtlessly.

‘I had to come out,’ Terrence said sombrely. ‘Atmosphere’s so utterly oppressive in there. Merrily, I don’t suppose Jane ...’

Merrily said cautiously, ‘Jane has every confidence that Colette can take care of herself. But ... no. She doesn’t seem to have seen her after anyone else. I’m sorry.’

‘Terrence,’ Dermot said, ‘I was simply going to pay tribute, in my opening speech, to the tremendous amount of work you’ve put in. But is there ... I mean, the police presence is pretty obvious ... What do you want me to say about ...?’

‘Nothing, Dermot. It has absolutely nothing to do with the festival.’

Terrence stared straight ahead as a photographer took a picture of him on the platform. Dermot Child scowled – not at the intrusion of the Press for the wrong reason, Merrily thought, but because the silent, tragic, dignified Cassidy was going to upstage him.

‘All right, let’s get on with it.’ Dermot approached the microphone, tapped it. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, could we have your attention now, please?’

He handled it well. He’d become Mr Ledwardine, round and rosy and polished. He thanked the tourist board, English Heritage, the Marches Development Board. Then he talked, as a native, about his village.

‘A few centuries ago, we were a flourishing market town, as you can see from the beautiful little market hall behind me. In those days, like most country towns, we had half a dozen shops. We still have half a dozen shops. We remain as we were. But, like Pembridge and Eardisley and Weobley, we’re no longer a town. We are no longer famous for our orchards and our cider. Indeed, we were in danger of becoming famous only ... for what we were.’

Dermot paused. Merrily saw a police car, followed by another car, turning into Church Street from Old Barn Lane.

‘It would have been too easy,’ Dermot said, ‘to live in the past. To be a village of ghosts. To preserve our exquisite black and white buildings as no more than an open-air museum. But that would be to deny the power of the present.’

The police car pulled up a respectable distance from the square, the plain car behind it. Nobody got out. A policeman in the front was leaning over his seat, talking to people in the back. Merrily glanced at Terrence Cassidy. He was on the edge of his seat. Above his jaw, a muscle twitched.

‘... the wealth of creative talent in our midst which makes Ledwardine a unique centre of excellence, an excellence which, between now and September, we plan – throwing off our traditional Herefordshire modesty – quite shamelessly to show off!’

Mild laughter. The passenger door of the police car opened and a policewoman got out, moved to a rear door. ‘ Please, God, ’ Terrence whispered. ‘ Please. ’

‘Later, there’ll be concerts, exhibitions, morris dancing here on the square. But first,’ Dermot said, ‘we’d like to show off our very newest asset – our minister, our priest-in-charge, the, er ...’

God almighty, Merrily thought, He’s going to say, The lovely ...

‘ ... the Reverend Merrily Watkins.’

Behind the muted applause, as she stood up, Merrily distinctly heard a wolf whistle and at least two young male voices combining in a low, throaty, ritual ‘ phwoaw ... ’ As she moved towards the microphone, her calves felt weak. She saw the policewoman holding open the rear door of the police car.

‘Thank you, Dermot,’ Merrily said into the mike, the words slamming back from the twin speakers on the roof of a van parked in front of the Black Swan. ‘Bit early to call me an asset. My predecessor was here for over thirty years, so I

A woman Merrily didn’t recognize climbed out of the police car with a heavy-looking black case under her arm. At the same time, DI Annie Howe was emerging from the plain car. Followed by Jane.