Phil Rickman - The Wine of Angels

Uncle Ted was widowed and seemed to have an arrangement with a widowed lady in Church Street. Ledwardine was really quite liberal and sophisticated. Perhaps the country had always been like that.

To Jane’s horror, the local paper had been along, to get a picture of her and Mum outside the pub. Mum had insisted on wearing the clerical clobber, and the photographer had made them both sit on the pub steps, smiling like idiots. B and B Vicar Holds the Fort, it said. Yuk!

Mum’s only objection was to the word vicar. Priest-in-charge was the correct term. It was a temporary thing; apparently there was going to be this big reorganization and Mum could wind up with about four extra churches, making her a kind of flying minister. That was when they’d give her the official title; meantime it was just the one church, which should have been a piece of cake. Would have been to anyone but Mum, who seemed determined to become some kind of spiritual doormat: people cornering her in the pub all the time, emergency meetings of the Church Council, articles to write for the parish magazine (Dear Friends ... yuk!), four trips to Hereford to see parishioners in hospital.

And three funerals inside a fortnight: mega-depressing, or what?

Well, obviously you’d get used to that – be like planting bulbs after a while. Except, if you were Mum, you felt obliged to spend most of a day and a night quizzing relatives and neighbours about what kind of person the prospective interee was prior to being dead. It’s a life, Jane. You can’t just dismiss a life with a handful of cliches and a couple of jam scones in the village hall. She wasn’t even getting bloody overtime. And she was starting to look seriously knackered.

‘Ah. Merrily. Might one perhaps have a word?’

Jane looked up from her lunch. Yeah, she thought. The word is tosser.

‘Sure,’ Mum said. ‘Take a pew.’

‘Thank you.’

Mr Cassidy, of Cassidy’s Country Kitchen – naff, twee, or what? – parked his tight arse, in pristine stonewashed jeans, on the edge of a stool. He held a glass of white wine. He smiled indulgently down.

‘And how are you, Jane?’

‘Getting by.’

‘We really must arrange for you to meet Colette.’

His snotty daughter, who went to the Cathedral School in Hereford. You saw her posing around the square in the evenings. Sixteen (nearly) and sultry. Jane kept her distance.

‘Super,’ she said.

‘Got a problem, Terrence?’ Mum said briskly.

Mrs Fixit. Why didn’t she just tell him to sod off until she’d finished her lunch?

‘No ... No ...’ Cassidy said airily. ‘It’s simply ... Are you doing anything special tonight?’

Is she ever?

‘Depends which part of the night, really, Terrence.’

‘Mum hates to miss Homicide, Life on the Street. ’

The vicar frowned at her daughter. Mr Cassidy smiled thinly. Everything about him was thin, which told you all you needed to know about his bloody awful restaurant.

‘This would be about eight,’ he said. ‘It’s an impromptu meeting of the Festival Committee.’

‘Am I on the Festival Committee?’ Mum wondered.

‘Well, Alf Hayden wasn’t. But we rather thought you should have a say. Especially as we were hoping this year to make more use of the church itself in other than musical areas. To be specific: drama.’

‘Oh, I’m sure it’s seen plenty of that in its time.’

‘Quite. In fact, it’s about that ... You see, Richard’s over from London for the weekend ... Richard Coffey.’

‘With his boyfriend?’

‘Shut up, Jane,’ Mum said.

‘As you may have heard,’ Cassidy said, ‘Richard has agreed to write a short play especially for the festival, to illustrate a lesser known aspect of local history.’

‘Gosh,’ Mum said. ‘There’s prestigious.’

‘We originally had in mind something social. Perhaps showing how the trade in high-quality cider was almost irrevocably damaged in the eighteenth century by the growing fashion for French wines.’

‘Yeah, you could invite the Euro-MP—’

‘ Jane ... ’

Jane retired behind a smirk.

‘However,’ said Cassidy, ‘Richard’s apparently become fascinated by the story of Wil Williams. Which I suppose also has a social aspect, in its way.’

‘Mmm,’ Mum said.

‘Obviously, it’s not something the village nowadays is particularly proud of.’

‘No,’ Mum said. ‘Quite.’

‘Although I suppose it has its tourist possibilities, in a lurid sort of way. Point is, Richard’s drawn certain conclusions which appear to have quite excited him. The case itself is not well documented, as you know – probably some sort of kangaroo court. But this, of course, gives Richard considerable artistic licence.’

‘Right.’ Mum nodded.

‘And as he’s even talking about bringing in some professional actors, which would be wonderful, especially if the play went on to London. Be rather super, wouldn’t it? Premiered in Ledwardine Church, and then conquers the capital.’

Mum nodded again. Her eyes had acquired a guarded look.

‘I’d have to talk to the bishop.’

‘Of course.’

‘And, er, Richard’s going to be revealing his plans at tonight’s meeting, is he?’

‘We hope so.’

‘Eight o’clock, you said.’

‘At the village hall. We normally meet in the restaurant, but Saturday is our busy night. You’ll be there?’

‘Well ... all right.’

‘You haven’t met Richard, have you?’

‘We’ve seen him in the bar, though,’ Jane said. ‘With his b—’

‘Look forward to it, Terrence.’

Mum laid her knife and fork neatly down the middle of her half-full plate. Another aborted lunch. You could get quite worried about Mum sometimes. She wasn’t getting any younger. Past the age when you should be eating like a supermodel.

‘Splendid.’ Cassidy wove off through the crush, holding up his wine like some sort of sacrament.

Jane grinned.

‘I thought you didn’t.’

Mum tossed her bag on her bed.

‘How the hell should I be expected to know who Wil Williams was. I’ve been too busy to even think about local history.’

‘Never mind, you’ve got hours yet.’

‘No, I haven’t. I’ve got to meet Gomer Parry at four. The digger man. Wasn’t for him and the gardening club, the churchyard’d be some kind of nature reserve.’

‘What a great idea.’

‘Don’t start!’

Mum flopped back on the bed, covered her eyes. The sun blared in through the old leaded window and turned her into a tableau: the exhausted saint.

‘And it’s Saturday afternoon, so the libraries are closed in Hereford and Leominster.’

‘Mum, this is ridiculous, nobody expects you to know absolutely everything. ’

‘Yes, they do! That’s the whole point. Jane, I’m the bloody priest-in-charge. I’m supposed to have done my homework. I suppose I could go round and see ... who’s that old bloke who does the all-our-yesterdays bit for the parish mag?’

‘God, no. I heard him in the post office once. Great queue of people and he was on about how you could send a three-piece suite through the post for less than a shilling in 1938. You’d be lucky to get away in time for the meeting. Look, OK ... I’ll find out who he was.’

Mum took her hands away from her eyes.

‘How?’

‘Don’t look at me like I’ve never done anything for you ever !’

‘I mean ... properly?’

‘No, I’ll make it all up. Of course properly. And I’ll keep you out of it. I’ll say it’s for a school project.’

‘Where will you go?’

‘Ledwardine Lore.’