Phil Rickman - The man in the moss

Cathy Gruber had persuaded her to stay the night in the guest room. She'd slept surprisingly well, no awful dreams of Matt in his coffin. And awoken with – all too rare these days – with a sense of direction: she would discover Matt, trace the source of the inspiration. Which was the essence of the village.

Bridelow, last refuge of the English Celts.

A more pure, undiluted strain than you'll find anywhere in Western Europe.

She stopped in the church porch.

Who said that? Who said that?

The American said it. Macbeth.

Macbeth? Yeah, quoting somebody… some writer addressing the Celtic conference. Stanhope, Stansfield, some name like that… from the North of England.

Connections.

She felt like a small token in a board-game, manoeuvred into place by the deft fingers of some huge, invisible, cunning player.

And she knew that if she was to tap into Matt's imagination, she was also going to have to confront his demons.

As she walked – cautious now – out of the porch, into the body of the church, something whooshed down the aisle and collided with her at chest-level.

'Hey!' Moira grinned in some relief, holding, at arm's length, a small boy.

'Gerroff!' Kid was in tears.

'You OK? You hurt yourself?'

The child tore himself away from her, wailing, and hurled himself through the door, an arm flung across his eyes, like he'd been blown back by an explosion.

Moira's grin faded.

Something had changed.

The place looked bare and draughty. Even through the stained-glass windows, the light seemed ashen and austere. On a table near the entrance, next to the piles of hymn books, al1 the lanterns and candlesticks had been carelessly stacked, as if for spring cleaning. One of the slender, coloured candles had rolled off the edge and lay snapped in two on the stone flags.

She picked up the two halves, held one in each hand a moment then placed them on the table and wandered up the central aisle of a church which seemed so much bigger than yesterday at Matt's funeral, so much less intimate, less friendly.

Something was crunched under her shoe. She looked down and saw curled-up leaves and broken twigs, shrivelled berries and bracken and acorns and all the rustic rubble of autumn scattered everywhere.

Like a savage wind had blown through the nave in the night. Looking up, she saw what was missing, what the mess around her ankles was.

Somebody smashed the Autumn Cross.

'No accident, this,' Moira said aloud. Shivered and wrapped her arms around her sweatered breasts. It was still cold, but after what she'd learned last night, she'd left the black cloak at the Rectory. This was obviously not a place in need of a spare witchy woman.

She stood by the rood screen and looked back down the naked church. She looked down at the mess all around her, on the stone floor and the scratched and homely pews. Saw, for a moment, a scattering of bleached white skulls. But she knew almost at once that it wasn't the same.

Or at least that she was not to blame this time.

This was a rape.

She experienced a moment of awe. I walked into someone else's conflict.

But it was not quite someone else's conflict. There was a connection, and the connection was Matt Castle.

Last night, she'd said to Cathy, just as abrupt as the girl had been, 'Why did they open Matt's coffin? What was in that bottle?'

'Ah.' Cathy's eyes cast down over the steaming mug of chocolate. 'You saw that.'

'Don't get me wrong, I'm not normally an intrusive person, but Matt meant a lot to me.'

'Dic obviously thinks so.'

'Oh. You heard that. I wondered if maybe you had one of those pianos that plays itself.'

'Those pianos don't play bum notes.' Cathy looked offended. 'No, I didn't have my ear to the door. Dic and I went for a drink the other night. I drove, he got a bit pissed. He said his father…'

'The boy's way off. There was nothing more complicated than friendship between me and Matt. He never…'

He never touched me.

Moira stumbled and fell into a dusty pew. Sat staring into the vaulted ceiling where the cross had been, but seeing nothing.

He never touched me.

That was true. Never a friendly kiss. Never a celebratory hug when a gig had gone down well or the first album had gone into profit. Never touched me sexually. He never came near.

But he looked.

Often she'd feel his moody gaze and turn and catch his eyes, and she'd smile and he wouldn't, and then he'd look away.

She bent painfully over the prayer-book shelf.

Clink. From outside, the sound of a chisel on stone.

I was thinking, if we'd slept together, just once, to kind of get it over, bring down that final barrier…

No. Wouldn't have got anything over. Would have started something bad. You knew that really, just as you really knew what was going on inside Matt Castle and chose to ignore it. Just a crush; he'll get over it. He didn't. He couldn't. He made you leave the band, before…

The clinking from outside was coming harder. Maybe they were demolishing the joint entirely.

Too choked to think about this any more, stomach tight and painful, Moira stood up, made her way slowly down the aisle to the doors. But when she grasped the ring-handles, the doors wouldn't open.

'Owd on! You'll have me off.' Sound of someone creaking his way down a wooden ladder up against the doors.

She leaned her back against the doors, took a few deep breaths, and called out after a few seconds, 'OK?'

'Aye.' The porch doors opened, and there was a smallish guy in his sixties, flat cap and a boiler-suit. Big, soft moustache, like a hearth brush. 'Sorry, lass, dint know there were anybody in theer.'

He held a mallet and a masonry chisel. There were chips of grey stone and crumbly old concrete around the foot of the step-ladder.

'Storm damage?' Moira said.

'You what?'

'You repairing storm damage?'

'Summat like that.'

But then, looking up at the wall above the porch, she saw where the chippings had come from.

From the stones supporting the Exhibitionist. The Sheelagh na gig. Our Sheila.

'You're taking her down?'

'Aye.' He didn't sound too happy.

'Why?'

He gave her a level look. 'Alfred Beckett, verger, organist, dogsbody. Who are you?'

She grinned. Fuck it, she was here now, in the open, uncloaked. 'Moira. Moira Cairns. Used to work with… Matt Castle.'

The name felt different. A different, darker Matt Castle.

'Matt Castle, eh?' said Alfred Beckett. 'Right. 'Course.' He seemed to relax a little. 'How do.' He stuck out a stubby hand and Moira took it, stone dust and all. He had a firm grip; it pulled her back into what people took for the real world.

'So, Mr Beckett…' She glanced up at the ancient woman squashed into a stone plaque, fingers up her fanny. A few strokes of the chisel away from a serious loss of status.

'Aye,' Mr Beckett said, like a ragged sigh, and Moira saw he wasn't far from tears. He said he was following instructions. Didn't want to do it. Hated doing it. But he wasn't in an arguing position, was he? Vergers being a good way down the ecclesiastical hierarchy.

'And if I don't do it,' he said, 'he'll do it hisself. And he won't be as careful as me.'

'Mr Beard,' Moira said.

'Aye. He'll smash her, like…'

'Like the Autumn Cross.'

'I'll see she's all right,' Alfred Beckett said. 'I'll keep her safe until such time as…'

He sighed, fished a packet of Arrowmint chewing gum out of the top pocket of his boiler-suit. Moira accepted a segment and they stood together chewing silently for a minute or so.

Then Mr Beckett said, 'Aye. It's a bugger.'

A scrap of cement fell from Our Sheila.

Moira said, 'But isn't she – excuse me, I'm no' an expert in these matters – isn't she protected in some way?'