Phil Rickman - The Remains of an Altar

Oh God, was that some kind of sacrilege?

The day replayed itself in her memory: one of those wild, hazy days when you weren’t aware of how magical it had been until it was nearly over.

She’d persuaded Eirion not to go to school – school hardly mattered at his stage of the game, A levels over, future in the lap of the gods. They’d gone back to his dad’s place at Abergavenny and compiled the Coleman’s Meadow document on his computer, with the photos and quotes from The Old Straight Track. Eirion had rewritten Jane’s rant, draining off some of the vitriol, and, she had to admit, it now seemed more rational and convincing. And then, with his dad and his stepmother safely away at the same conference in North Wales, they’d gone to bed.

Afterwards, she’d tried to ring Mum at the vicarage to imply subtly, without actually lying, that Eirion was picking her up from school. But Mum wasn’t there, and the mobile was switched off most of the time. And then she’d remembered that Mum was going to be at a meeting over on the other side of the county for most of the evening, which left her and Eirion whole hours to go in search of the old straight track.

Eirion, in his post-coital whatever mood, had been cool about it, so they’d started off by looking for Alfred Watkins himself. First and foremost a Herefordshire man, it had said in his obituary in the Hereford Times in 1935, as native to the county as the hop and the apple.

Jane had found that in the Watkins biography by Ron Shoesmith, which had taken them in search of Vineyard Croft, the house near the River Wye, on the edge of the city, where Alfred had lived for about thirty years with his wife, Marion. But they couldn’t find it; they found a Vineyard Road, but it seemed all suburbs around there now. It was much easier to locate the house the Watkinses had moved to, just off the Cathedral green. It actually had a plaque on it, identifying its importance – probably the nearest thing to a monument to Alfred in the entire county.

‘There ought to be an official Watkins memorial ley,’ Eirion had said. ‘Where you can stand and have the whole line pointed out for you.’

‘So that even councillors could see what it was about?’

‘They’d only be able to follow it if it was marked out in new branches of Asda and B amp; Q.’

We really understand each other, don’t we? Jane thought. And in a few weeks he’ll be gone.

She felt very close to tears and climbed down from the stone before she was tempted to throw herself into the horizon.

In the normal way of things, you were consulted by worried individuals whose world-view had been jogged out of focus – frightened people mugged by skewed circumstance. Since yours was the only hand reaching out they switched off their scepticism and clasped it.

Always individuals. Never a community, a society, a committee. In any random group, scepticism ruled.

‘I’m confused, Mr Chairman,’ Merrily said.

‘Can’t have that.’ Preston Devereaux peered into the growing gloom. ‘I pride myself on clarity. May we have your name, madam?’

‘I’m, erm, Merrily Watkins.’

‘Are you indeed?’

‘I’m a consultant to the Diocese of Hereford on matters… paranormal. And…’ she saw Joyce Aird had turned, looking both grateful and worried ‘… the Rector asked me to come tonight.’

‘He must’ve forgotten to mention it to me,’ Devereaux said. ‘And as that particular item has now been dealt with-’

‘It hasn’t really been dealt with, though, has it? It’s just been pushed under the table.’

Lot of heads turning, some muttering. No going back now.

‘Mrs Watson-’

‘Watkins. And I’m not a big conspiracy theorist, but I’ve encountered enough cover-ups in the past couple of years to recognize-’

‘Madam!’ The gavel came down with a crack that must have dented the table. ‘Let no one accuse me of that.’

‘I’m not accusing-’

‘I think you’d better forsake the shelter of your back pew and attempt to justify it, Reverend.’

Preston Devereaux pulled out the chair next to his, calling out to the back of the church.

‘Can we have some decent light on the proceedings?’

Unload It

Merrily stood up in the brittle, glassy light. She felt weak with fury.

Moved into the aisle, reaching into her bag to switch off her mobile. Would have felt better about this if Jane had called. In the end she’d gone round to Lol’s, asked if he’d mind staying behind and trying to find her. OK, she was seventeen, for heaven’s sake, nearly an adult. And yet…

Oh God, get me through this.

She stepped behind the table next to the chairman, looking out at twenty or thirty people, widely spaced, Winnie Sparke standing out in a crocheted white woollen shawl.

Lights came on, as if to dispense with the possibility of anything beyond normal occurring here. They were theatre-type spotlights, directed at the chancel, presumably for use during the choral concerts. The lights put the congregation into shadow and hurt your eyes when you looked up.

Merrily looked down.

‘The main qualification for this job is, I’ve discovered, a high embarrassment threshold.’

Nobody even smiled.

‘I was told – by the Rector, who doesn’t seem to be here tonight – that at least four people had had experience of an inexplicable light, sometimes accompanied by a figure, in the road outside. Each sighting preceding an accident of some kind.’

She paused. Were they out there now? Tim Loste, Stella Cobham? Or had they been persuaded, by whoever had gagged Joyce Aird, to stay away? She thought about all the hours she’d spent, dragging Lol out to Wychehill, fruitlessly knocking on doors, needlessly infuriating the uniquely invaluable Sophie.

‘The message spelled out tonight by Mr Holliday is that it’s all superstitious rubbish. And he was thoughtful enough to put all that on my answering machine earlier today, when he phoned to advise me not to bother coming.’

A few murmurs at last. She could see Holliday, stiff-faced, in a left-hand pew, second row.

‘Now what I’m gathering from what’s been said is that Mr Holliday had earlier considered that the alleged phenomenon might have been useful as a publicity gimmick… to focus attention on his campaign against what’s happening at the Royal Oak. Get the protest into the national papers. Maybe on TV.’

Merrily paused again, looking over to where she’d last seen Holliday, giving him a warm smile – the pompous, duplicitous git.

‘You can see the TV reports now, can’t you? Long shot of the hills at sunset, overlaid with some suitably serene pastoral music written by… the cyclist.’

Preston Devereaux’s chair creaked.

‘Mrs Watkins, I think-’

‘And then it goes dark,’ Merrily said. ‘And we see the Royal Oak throbbing with purple strobe lights and a blast of drum-’n’-bass all over the forecourt. And then Mr Holliday steps into shot with a grim face and a petition to the council.’

‘ Mrs Watkins.’

‘All right… I’m sorry.’ Putting up her hands, turning to Preston Devereaux. ‘Mr Chairman, I take it that you were tacitly informing us a few minutes ago that in the moments before that horrific crash you did not see a strange light or a strange cyclist. But where are the people who insist that they did? Is Mr Loste here tonight, for instance? Because I’d’ve thought if this meeting was to make a decision it ought to hear all the evidence. Mr Loste? ’

She peered into the lights. Silence.

‘Well… thanks, Mr Chairman. That’s all I wanted to say, really. Just didn’t want anyone to think that, having been invited, I’d failed to show up. Thank you.’