Phil Rickman - The Wine of Angels

‘OH, WOW,’ JANE said.

She was standing in the drawing-room doorway, fully dressed. Lol came up behind her from the kitchen, with tea things on a tray. Over Jane’s shoulder he could see Merrily, hurriedly propping herself up in the sleeping bag.

‘Flower, before you say a word—’

‘Well, well,’ Jane said. ‘So you got it together.’

It was nearly eight a.m. Substantial sunshine had collected in the bay window, coloured pale green by the trees.

‘You slept together,’ Jane said.

‘No!’ Merrily sat up in the sleeping bag. ‘I mean yes, but no.’

‘This’ – Jane ambled into the room, hands on hips – ‘is really quite seriously cool’ She turned, beamed at Lol. ‘And she looks so much better. Don’t you think she looks fantastic?’

‘Yes,’ Lol said honestly. ‘However—’

Merrily stood up. The sun shone through her white nightdress. Lol thought maybe he should close his eyes. Couldn’t quite manage that.

‘That’s it. That is just about enough.’ Merrily looked around for her sweater, failed to find it, covered herself with the sleeping bag. ‘Make some toast, child.’

‘Right,’ Jane said. ‘Anything you say.’

The phone rang. ‘ I’ll get that.’ Merrily gathered the sleeping bag around her. Jane giggled. Lol moved out of the doorway. Merrily passed him without a glance.

Lol shut the drawing-room door behind her, faced up to Jane.

‘Vicars don’t lie. Nothing happened.’

‘In which case’ – Jane frowned – ‘you ought to be bloody well ashamed. She doesn’t attract you?’

‘Well ... ye-es ... yes, she does.’

‘God.’ Jane breathed hard through her teeth. ‘She’s not quite a nun. She needs somebody.’

‘But preferably somebody stable.’

‘Oh yeah, somebody really, really stable.’ She glared at him. ‘Come on. My dad was stable. My dad was this like utterly focused individual who knew exactly where he was going the whole time.’

‘I thought he was bent.’

‘And getting away with it! Because he knew he could. Because he was stable inside. Focused. Balanced. Never worried about anything, not really. My dad thought a neurosis was ... was ...’

‘Something you can grow in a window box, with care.’

‘Yeah. Exactly. So, you know, screw stable. Life’s too short. Look, I know you’ve had your problems. I listen at doors sometimes, I’m not afraid to admit that.’

‘You do, huh?’

‘Those back stairs are very useful. You could go through life really ignorant if you didn’t listen at doors. Like, Colette always saying you were scared of her, like it was really cool having somebody who’s scared of you, but it wasn’t her at all you were scared of, I know that now, and I’m glad. And I’m glad Karl Windling’s dead. I mean not glad he’s dead, like if there was some other way he could be completely out of your face ...’

‘Well, I haven’t figured out how I should feel about that either.’

‘You should feel free. Hey, I forgot ... Did you get to see Alison last night?’

‘I have a problem with free,’ Lol said.

‘Just that I keep seeing people, twice, three times, Jesus, four times as old as me, and they still haven’t done anything. And then they die.’ Jane slumped into the sofa. ‘I don’t know what I’m trying to say. Everything’s peculiar. I’ve decided if I don’t want to believe things, then I won’t. So I don’t believe you and Mum didn’t sleep together and I don’t believe Lucy’s dead, OK?’

‘OK.’

‘And they haven’t found Colette. I had the radio on at seven. It was the same stuff, more or less, as last night.’

‘That’s starting to not make sense.’

‘Depends on how you look at it, doesn’t it? Suppose I don’t want to believe Colette’s dead either? Or gone off with anybody. Anybody human.’

‘That’s even more dangerous ground.’

‘Everything’s dangerous to you, isn’t it, Lol? Even Mum. What’s the matter with you? All I cut off was your ponytail.’

Stefan Alder on the line.

‘It’s sorted.’ He sounded very calm, very purposeful. ‘It’s on. I’m going to make it happen, Merrily.’

‘Well, good. That’s wonderful. I’ll put the word around.’

But what if nobody came? What if the church was empty save for Stefan and Coffey and the sick priest?

‘Come and see you, shall I, Merrily, after your morning service?’

‘No, that would be— I’m not actually doing the services today. But if you want to ... rehearse or anything, the church should be empty by twelve.’

She was calmer this morning. At least the villagers, old and new, would be given the chance. If nobody came, then it suggested nobody, except James Bull-Davies, was bothered, so the play could go ahead, in the church, whenever Coffey and his team were ready. It all seemed so simple now.

‘I hope this hasn’t caused problems between Richard and you.’

‘No ...’ Stefan hesitated. ‘Perhaps it’s resolved them. You see, Richard ... he won’t be having anything to do with this. It’s going to be entirely down to me.’

Oh God, Merrily thought. Sulks.

‘This is how it should have been in the first place. It was my idea. I discovered him.’

‘Wil?’

‘It’s a one-man show, Merrily. It comes from the heart, not the page. Some of it was going to be improvised anyway. I’m a performer. A stage, an audience, you know? Give me one and a half hours. Or more.’

‘Shall we say seven p.m.? We don’t have an evening service any more, so that’s not a problem.’

‘Could you make it half-eight? Nine? I’d prefer it to get gradually darker.’

‘All right.’

They agreed to meet in the church at one.

‘I’m bringing him home, Merrily,’ Stefan said.

Merrily put down the phone and stood for a moment, thinking about last night. She’d slept easily between the fire and Lol Robinson. Daylight had cancelled the fear.

Although there wasn’t any at the end; only sorrow.

She wouldn’t forget that.

When she came back to the drawing room, Lol and Jane had one of the Sunday tabloids spread out on the coffee table. ‘Oh well,’ Lol was saying, ‘it had to happen at some stage.’ The page two headline was,

FEARS GROW FOR PARTY GIRL COLETTE

There was a picture of a rather younger, more innocent Colette, with no nose-stud and an unfamiliar smile. The fact that it was quite small was a strong indication this was not the picture the paper had wanted, given the comments gathered from ‘neighbours’.

‘ Colette was a bit of a handful,’ one said. ‘A real wild child. ’

Most of the story was an innuendo-laden account of

... the steamy sixteenth birthday party which brought midnight chaos to a sleepy village.

Music was provided by notorious Voodoo DJ Dr Samedi, who has been banned from several clubs following claims of blood sacrifices.

The 29-year-old DJ, real name Jeff Mooney, said last night, ‘Compared with some of the gigs I do, this seemed like a really tame venue. But as soon as I met this chick, I knew she was trouble. ’

‘He’s actually OK,’ Jane said. ‘The blood sacrifice stuffs probably a bit exaggerated.’

‘Like, only small amounts of blood.’ Lol pointed to the end of the piece.

Police also want to talk to the owner of a cottage close to the orchard, songwriter Laurence Robinson.

‘ We think he may have information that could help us with our inquiries,’ DI Howe said.

Mr Robinson, who has been working on new songs with seventies rock-hero Gary Kennedy, was still not at home last night.