Phil Rickman - The Wine of Angels

‘Spooky,’ she said aloud, to show to herself that she wasn’t spooked by this. Not at all. Good heavens no.

From the pocket of her denim skirt, she brought out the second key. A little brass key. The box had a brass escutcheon over its keyhole.

The key fitted, of course. The lock glided open with a discreet pock.

Eerie.

She made no immediate move to lift the lid, remembering the story of Joanna Southcott’s box which could only be opened in the presence of about a dozen bishops and never had been because most bishops were too lofty or politically sensitive even to consider it.

She wondered if she should say a small prayer.

‘This was it?’ Lol picked up the hefty Lapridge Press paperback of Ella Mary Leather’s The Folklore of Herefordshire. ‘This was all there was inside?’

‘Lucy’s Bible. Careful, there are markers.’

Folded bits of paper had been placed between pages at intervals. Some had scrawled notes on them. When Lol put the book on the kitchen table it fell open at once to the section on wassailing the old girl had quoted on Twelfth Night.

‘I’m at a loss.’ Merrily sat down with a bump. ‘I liked her. I want to honour her last wishes. I’m trying to feel flattered that she chose me as the instrument. But ... you know ... what are we looking for? And in what context?’

Jane perched on a corner of the table. ‘It’s obvious that we have to work it out for ourselves. Because if she just wrote it down in black and white we – or you, especially – would be able to say like, Yeah, yeah, very interesting, but the old boot was completely out of it. But if you have to spend some time working it out, you’ll see the reasoning behind it.’

Merrily yawned. ‘Can we look at this tomorrow?’

‘Mum, it’s important. It’s vital!’

‘Sure, but vital how? Vital to what?’

‘Vital to Lucy? ’ Jane dropped her feet to the flagstones. ‘Isn’t that enough for you? It’s enough for me. And Lol.’

Merrily smiled wearily. ‘OK. You’re right. We have a duty. I have a duty. No idea where to start, of course.’ She plucked out one of the paper bookmarks, keeping her thumb in the place. ‘Hannah Snell, 1745,’ she read from the paper. ‘That’s all it says. What’s that mean?’

‘Mum, we can find out. You can find out anything if you put your mind to it.’

‘Sure.’ She pushed both hands through her hair. ‘There’re a few more obvious references to cider and apples. And this looks like a photocopy of a page from some other book, stuffed in here, something about Oxford University. Can’t think what that connects to. There’s a page marked here, lots of heavy underlining. Fairies again.’

It seemed to be a story told to Mrs Leather by an unnamed woman who got it from her mother who said it had happened to her first cousin and she remembered it well.

The cousin, a girl about eighteen, was very fond of dancing; she insisted on going to all the balls for miles around; wherever there was dancing going on, there was she. Her people told her something would happen to her some day, and one night when she was coming home just by the ‘Dancing Gates’ near Kington, she heard beautiful music. It was the music of the fairies and she was caught into the ring. Search was made for her and she appeared to her friends from time to time, but when they spoke to her she immediately disappeared. Her mother was told (probably by the wise man or woman) that if seen again she must be very quickly seized, without speaking, or she would never come back. So one day, a year after her disappearance, her mother saw her and took hold of her dress before she could escape. ‘Why, Mother,’ she said, ‘where have you been since yesterday? ’

Merrily looked up at Jane, now leaning over her other shoulder. ‘I know what you’re going to say. This girl’s a nineteenth-century Colette. But I see no mention, in this curious precedent, of clothing found several miles away, do you?’

‘What’s this written inside the back cover? Young Alison. 1965. With a question mark.’

‘It’s not an uncommon name,’ Merrily said. ‘But Alison Kinnersley did go to see Lucy this morning.’

‘Alison did?’ Lol came over.

‘This morning. Early. Just after I’d left the Country Kitchen. She asked me which was Lucy’s house, and I directed her. I wondered at the time why she wanted to see her that early. Did they know each other?’

‘Not that I know of. Young Alison? ’

‘It’s just a pencil scrawl.’

‘But, Mum, what if this was the last thing she wrote before she went out on her moped? The last thing she ever wrote?’

‘Well, we aren’t ever going to know that, are we, flower?’

The phone rang. Jane walked over to answer it. ‘You in, or what?’

‘Depends who it is. I’ll leave it to your judgement. I might be having a bath.’

‘Right.’

‘I’m very confused,’ Merrily said to Lol. ‘I’m not happy.’

‘And who’s that? ’ Jane said into the phone. ‘Oh. Right. Well, no, actually I’m her daughter, but if you tell me what it’s about I might be able to find her.’

Jane listened, expressionless, for over a minute.

‘Really,’ she said flatly. ‘And who told you that?’ She smiled. ‘No, I didn’t think you would. Hang on, give me a couple of minutes, I’ll wander over the vicarage, see if she’s around.’

She inspected the receiver and then put it down on the window ledge and signalled to Merrily to follow her into the passage. ‘Guy from The Sunday Times in London. Apparently, somebody’s rung to tell them there’s a row developed over you refusing to let Coffey do his play in the church. Looks like your chance to back off before they crucify you as a Philistine.’

‘Damn.’

‘You want to buy some time? How about if I tell them you’re out at a string quartet recital and then you’re going on to a fashionable village cocktail party?’

‘And then they print it anyway and say I was unavailable for comment. Sod it.’ Merrily went back into the kitchen, snatched up the phone. ‘Hello. Merrily Watkins.’

‘Mrs Watkins, hi. So sorry to bother you in the evening. Craig Jamieson at The Sunday Times newspaper. I’m just checking—’

‘Sure. To be honest, I can’t imagine why anyone should want to cause mischief by telling you complete lies about an issue on which no decision’s yet been announced one way or the other.’

‘Really? That is puzzling, isn’t it, Mrs Watkins?’ Craig Jamieson sounded about seventeen, but Merrily supposed he must be at least a PhD to be a hack on The Sunday Times. ‘You see, I’ve spoken to Richard Coffey and he told me he wouldn’t be in the least surprised to find that you’d turned against the play. Because of all the pressure you’d been under.’

‘Pressure?’

Craig Jamieson chuckled. ‘I gather certain ... well-established families are feeling threatened.’

‘Look, I don’t want to be cagey, but whoever told you this is going way over the top. There’s been no row. Have you spoken to the member of the well-established family?’

‘I was going to see what you had to say first.’

‘Well, I’m sure that if you spoke to him he’d tell you he was right behind the play. Good heavens, when someone as distinguished as Richard Coffey wants to put your obscure little community on the literary map, you don’t throw it back in his face, do you?’

God forgive me.

There was a pause. Then Craig Jamieson said, ‘So you’re going to let them do the play in your church?’

‘I ... Look, I can’t just tell you that, can I? When nothing’s been officially decided yet. I mean, there’s ... you know what the Church is like ... there’s protocol. I haven’t even talked it over with the bishop yet.’