Phil Rickman - The Remains of an Altar

‘’Cause he was on the council. Two councillors representin’ Ledwardine in them days, see – Garrod Powell and Percy Pierce. Then they had a big reorganization, and it was reduced to one, and Percy lets Rod have it uncontested, like. Real noble of him. Har! Amazin’ all the arrangements as went through after that, to the benefit of Percy. Had a dealership in farm machinery, see, and some interestin’ contracts comes his way, through the council, as wouldn’t have looked quite right if he’d still been on the council. Also – you know what agricultural occupancy’s about, Janey?’

‘That’s where there’s a house that nobody can live in unless they can prove they’re making a living from the land?’

‘More or less. Point bein’, a dwellin’ with an agricultural restriction, you can’t ask much money for him. So there was this bit of a jerry-built 1960s bungalow, bottom of Virgingate Lane, feller name of Ronnie Carpenter owned it, with fifteen acres, and he needed the money and he couldn’t find nobody wanted to buy this ole place on account of fifteen acres don’t give you much of a livin’ no more. So Ronnie tries to get the restriction lifted so’s he could flog it to somebody with the money to replace it with a proper house. Ronnie keeps applyin’, keeps gettin’ turned down… and then suddenly it goes through. Good ole Rod Powell, eh? What nobody knows is Ronnie Carpenter’s arranged to sell the bungalow and the land, provisional-like, to Percy Pierce for his son Lyndon, who’d just qualified as a chartered accountant.’

‘You’re saying they only got to build that piece of pseudo-Beverly Hills crap because of a dirty deal between Rod Powell and Percy Pierce?’

Gomer dropped his last millimetre of ciggy onto the tomb, crushed it out and reminded Jane how people had always quietly helped each other in the country. And Rod Powell was dead now and Percy Pierce had retired to Weston-super-Mare, and now his boy had his seat on the council.

Was Lyndon Pierce really going to abandon a family tradition of being bent?

‘So is it possible Pierce is tied up with this guy Murray, who owns the meadow?’ Jane asked.

Not that it would matter. No need for corruption when you had council planning guys who thought appalling desecration was acceptable infill.

‘Not many folk he en’t in bed with, truth be told,’ Gomer said. ‘Accountant by profession, specializin’ in smoothin’ things out between farmers and landowners and the ole taxman. Local accountant who’s also on the council? Popular boy, Janey. Popular boy.’

‘A boy who used to shoot blue tits off a nut dispenser?’

Jane looked up at the church steeple, a sepia silhouette against a clump of cloud like dirty washing. Was this the Herefordshire of Alfred Watkins, who led genteel parties of gentlemen in panama hats and ladies with sunshades to explore ancient alignments of stones and mounds and moats and steeples? Was this the Herefordshire of the mystical poet Thomas Traherne, who was clothed with the heavens and crowned with the stars?

She hugged herself, wishing she could be back in Eirion’s bed – and then wondering if she ever would be again.

‘Makes you sick,’ she said.

‘Ar, it do,’ Gomer said. ‘Evenin’, Lol, boy, ow’re you?’

Jane turned to see Lol, in one of his alien sweatshirts, leaning against the lych-gate and shaking his head.

‘You know how I hate to interfere, Jane,’ Lol said in his mild, tentative way, ‘but is it possible you’re avoiding your mum?’

‘Lol, she’s been busy. She’s out all the time.’

‘A situation you might just be… you know… exploiting?’

‘Not true at all. What I’m doing is, I’m actually trying to protect her, OK? She has a position in this village, obviously, and, like, how often have I done anything… OK, anything locally… that could cause her embarrassment? OK, don’t answer that, but listen… this is what Lucy would want.’

Jane looked at Lol and then at Gomer, hoping they would both understand this.

Not that it mattered. She could almost see Lucy Devenish rising above the lych-gate, the darkening sky woven into the shadowed folds of her poncho.

Playing Purgatory

Winnie Sparke looked past Merrily, out through the porch door into the waxy evening. Her white shawl was hanging loose like a priest’s stole.

‘You really shook things up in there, lady.’

‘Wasn’t me. I think something was just waiting to blow. You can’t just sit on something like this.’

Winnie Sparke walked out into the night, Merrily following her.

‘I don’t suppose you know where Mr Loste is?’

‘He isn’t here.’

‘I’d gathered that. But I would like to talk to him.’

‘Maybe I could fix that. It’s possible. Leave it with me.’

‘With you?’

‘Tim is… kinda fragile. Like a lot of people with huge talent, he needs someone to hold him together. Oops, mind you don’t-’

‘Oh my God, what’s-?’

It had risen up like a column of smoke in the dusk, its eye sockets black, its mouth hanging open and the wings half-extended behind its arms. Its shoulders were black against a slash of red in the sky like the bar of a burning cross. Hands reaching up, palms outwards as if they were awaiting nails.

‘Kinda weird, huh?’ Winnie Sparke said. ‘They say kids from the Royal Oak come in here and make out on the graves. But, hey, not on this one.’

The angel was standing on a tomb the size of a double-oven Aga, the lettering on the side big enough to read even in the ebbing light.

JOSEPH LONGWORTH, 1859 – 1937

‘All holy angels pray for him

Choirs of the righteous pray for him.’

‘Guy who built the church,’ Winnie Sparke said. ‘Found God and Elgar, not necessarily in that order.’

‘I’m trying to place the quote.’

‘You’re excused. It’s Roman Catholic. Newman – The Dream of Gerontius.’

‘I was listening to it on the way here.’

While she’d been trying to engage Elgar in conversation, an exasperated Sophie had gone out and bought her three CDs. Next to the spare and moody Cello Concerto, the fifty minutes of Gerontius that she’d heard seemed both complex and a little dreary, heavy on the deathbed angst.

‘Scary stuff,’ Winnie Sparke said. ‘All those layers of celestial bureaucracy. OK, you know how after the soul comes round on the Other Side, he gets a pep talk from his guardian angel and then these demons start messing with him? Then he gets just one tantalizing glimpse of God?’

‘I’m not sure I got that far.’

‘OK, well, between the demons and God he gets handed over to this guy.’ Winnie Sparke reached up and tapped the arm of the grotesque figure on the tomb. ‘The Angel of the Agony.’

‘I don’t know anything about him.’

Merrily looked up into the wretched marble face, grateful, on the whole, that there was nothing like this in Ledwardine churchyard.

‘His job is to plead with Jesus to spare the soul of Gerontius,’ Winnie Sparke said. ‘It’s a judgement thing. But you know what I think? I’m like, the hell with this guy, I think we can deal with purgatory right here.’

‘In Wychehill?’

‘On Earth, I meant. But Wychehill… yeah, sure. Wychehill’s as good, or maybe as bad a place as any for throwing off your demons. Maybe we can discuss this sometime.’ She flicked her shawl over a shoulder. ‘You’re gonna come back, now you won through?’

Merrily shrugged.

She lit a cigarette under the church lantern, one of its glass panes spider-cracked as if by a thrown stone or an air gun pellet. If Bliss was picking her up, she didn’t want to go back in there and get pulled into a discussion. Besides, if a requiem was going to be held, Syd Spicer would need to make the arrangements.