Phil Rickman - The Remains of an Altar

Winnie Sparke hung there, no less dead. It was not Winnie Sparke who was breathing, who said, ‘Amen,’ softly from the doorway behind her.

Snaps Batons

‘Shouldn’t have done that,’ he said sternly. ‘You broke the vibration.’

Looming over Lol, nodding his head as though it was too heavy for him. He wore baggy grey sweatpants and a white singlet with dark stains and smudges on it.

‘Percussive noises…’ Clapping his hands clumsily; sometimes they missed. ‘… Break the connection. Gone.’

He moved in his bent, shuffling way over to a half-collapsed bale of straw, flopping down on it with his legs apart, his hands clasped between them, his body rocking slowly.

‘Take a pew, old cock.’

Lol found another damaged bale to sit on. There was a lamp on the floor between them, one of those battery-powered lanterns with a blue plastic shade, spraying a light like watered milk over the long shed that was either an open-fronted barn or a horse shelter.

Whatever, it was a walk of only a minute or so from the oak, and he’d come wading out of it soon after Lol had started clapping. Staggering behind his lantern, dazed survivor of some Iron Age tribal skirmish. Lol had recognized him at once from Merrily’s brief description and his accent and the way his words came blustering out as if his lungs were organ bellows.

‘Wasn’t working anyway, tell the truth. Ran out of puff. You need to do the whole jolly thing. All the way through until you become-’

He stopped, blinking slowly. Sliding back along his bale, bringing down a straw-storm from another, his mouth slack.

‘Really don’t know… wassa matter with me tonight.’

What was obviously the matter was coming sickly sweet and sour off his breath. Lol didn’t get too close. It was as well to remember this guy was only here because of a shortage of evidence.

His weighty, ragged moustache hung down either side of his mouth, more Mongol warlord than Victorian composer, his stomach overhanging his sweatpants, like a bag of sugar under his singlet.

‘I look all right to you?’

‘I suppose,’ Lol said.

Aware of Tim Loste really looking at him now, trying to focus over the moist pink bags under his eyes.

‘Trying to remember… where exactly are you from?’

‘Me? Led-’ Lol thought about it, changed his mind. ‘Knights Frome.’ He paused. ‘Mate of Dan’s?’

‘Dan?’

‘Dan from Much Cowarne?’

‘ Dan! Good Lord, yes.’ Tim made to clap his left knee, missed and clapped the hay, tumbling sideways, kicking over the lantern. Lol caught it. Tim pulled himself upright. ‘Super chap. Just… you know… went into it. Didn’t inter… inter… lectulise…’

‘Finest tenor in Much Cowarne,’ Lol said.

‘Absolutely. Wherever the fuck Much Cowarne is.’

They both laughed. Lol looked out of the open front of the barn across the moonlit landscape. It was like being in a grandstand. The field seemed luminous, and there was another oak tree with two dead branches, bleached like bones.

‘You on your own?’

Tim squinted up at the wooden rafters and the flaking galvanized roof. The light was fanning out from the circular lamp like a merry-go-round with moths riding it.

‘For the moment,’ Tim said.

‘Where is she?’

‘She?’ ‘

Winnie Sparke.’

Tim let his head fall forward into his big hands, began breathing hard into them, like some kind of exercise to head off an asthma attack. Lol saw dark stains between Tim’s fingers.

He said, ‘Are you…’

Tim’s shoulders were heaving.

‘Are you hurt?’

‘I’m…’ Tim peered out through his fingers. ‘I think I’m in a bit of a mess, frankly, old cock.’

‘You walked here?’

‘Don’t remember.’

‘Where’s Winnie?’

Tim looked at him silently through those discoloured fingers.

‘Winnie said you’d meet us here. She talked to my friend. On the phone. She said you’d meet us here.’

‘Winnie? I…’ His voice dropped. ‘I don’t remember.’

‘Did she walk over with you? From Wychehill?’

‘No. Just the two of us.’

‘But you’re alone.’

‘I think… think something happened.’

Lol felt a small abdominal chill. His glasses kept misting. He took them off, rubbed them on his sleeve, put them back quickly.

‘On the way here?’

‘Don’t remember,’ Tim said.

‘Look…’ Lol brought out his mobile, flipped it open. ‘I think we could do with some help here.’

‘Help,’ Tim repeated. Vaguely, like he was recalling something. ‘Help me.’ His voice melting into a wail, as he came to his feet. ‘ Help me, I’m – Who’re you calling, old cock?’

‘Just a friend.’ Lol brought up Merrily’s number. ‘She’ll get us some help.’

Peering at the keys through misting glasses, he sent the call, listened to Merrily’s phone ringing.

And then Tim lurched at him, ramming him off the bale, snatching the phone as it flew up. Lol leaping up, making a grab for it, but Tim was taller and fumbled it well out of his reach.

Lumbering out of the barn into the night, twisting around, his arm going back, this monstrous baby throwing something out of its pram.

Lol saw his phone disappearing into the night like a tiny silver spacecraft.

For a while, in the red-spattered white room, neither of them spoke.

Syd Spicer was in dark jeans, black clerical shirt, dog collar. His small eyes were flat and unmoving.

‘Well done,’ he said.

Merrily came shakily to her feet, her jeans damp at the knees. Didn’t even remember kneeling down.

‘Not many of us would’ve done that, Merrily. Not alone, in a situation like this.’

Neither of them spoke again until they were on the back lawn and the air was the kind you were prepared to breathe.

She waited while Spicer shut the back door. He was, she noticed, wearing black gloves.

‘I was once,’ he said, ‘in another life, given some crude medical training. I think what you need is a hot, sugary brew and a sit-down.’

‘I’m all right.’

‘Of course you’re not all right. Who could be?’

‘Can you get the police? I need to go somewhere. Right away.’

‘Merrily-’

‘I have to collect Lol. I’ll come straight back.’

‘Where is he?’

‘Just bear with me.’ She prodded Lol’s number into the mobile. It rang and rang. Christ. ‘Call the police.’

‘That’s in hand. Merrily, you can’t go anywhere.’ She walked away down the side of the house. It had gone too far, now. She was in over her head, just wanted to get over to Whiteleafed Oak, find Lol. Patch things together, make sure Jane was all right and then go to the police and, if necessary, answer questions until the sun came up. She looked back at Spicer.

‘What about Tim Loste?’

‘He can take care of himself, I hope.’

‘I mean, what’s he going to do now? Where’s he going to go?’

‘Merrily-’

‘He’ll have gone out on the hill.’ Stopping next to the brutalized oak, failing to prevent her voice rising to an unnatural shrillness. ‘He always does. He has a place he goes to. Where he went to with Winnie. Which is the place where I left Lol because Winnie said they’d meet us there. And Lol’s not answering his phone. And there’s a man out there fresh from…’ pointing wildly at the house ‘… that! ’

Spicer stepped back, shaking his head. Merrily walked down towards the road, feeling in her left-hand hip pocket for her keys, aware that he wasn’t following her. At the bottom of the drive, she realized the car keys weren’t in her pocket.

Must have left them in the ignition. She’d only got out to look at the sapling.