Phil Rickman - The Smile of a Ghost

Problems here, and nobody would challenge Saltash’s assessment.

When she was putting the pad away, light from the front window showed how she’d misinterpreted the drawing. It wasn’t a hole in the wall, it was a white figure in the foreground, a vaguely female figure with the charcoal smudged around it to suggest a glow, a halo. It was two-dimensional, without contours, featureless.

It seemed to be the only figure in any of Robbie’s drawings.

Merrily closed the sketch pad, put it away in the drawer, went back to plump up the cushions on Mrs Mumford’s chair and spotted the white envelope that had fallen from the sketch pad.

It seemed legitimate to open it.

Inside the envelope was a picture postcard, an atmospheric filter photo of Ludlow Castle in a pink and frosty dawn light, the message written in black fibre-tip across the full width of the card.

Dear Marion,

I am in Ludlow again as I told you and it’s brilliant here even on my own altho when I am walking through the castle I feel you are there with me and then I feel really happy .

Sometimes I pretend you are walking next to me and we are holding hands and it’s brilliant!!!! Everything is all right again, and I never want to leave cos this is our place.

I was so miserable I didn’t think I could stand it till the end of term. Its worse than ever there. I hate them, they are stupid and ignorant and they are trying to wreck my whole life. The nearer it gets to the end of the holidays the sadder I feel and don’t want to go back there and I wish I could stay here with you for ever.

Please come like you promised you would.

Please, please, please come.

I’ll be waiting.

On the way back, in Mumford’s car, coming down from Leominster towards the Ledwardine turning, Merrily said, ‘I did a brief house blessing, no fuss, a prayer for Robbie to be at rest, and the Lord’s Prayer.’

‘She even realize what you were doing?’

‘She’s not that far gone, Andy. Although I don’t think she quite got the point that I was a priest. Hard to say. Erm… look, I’m going to talk to the Bishop, OK? I mean, she asked for him, right?’

‘All that was…’ Mumford looked embarrassed. ‘They both knew him quite well, the Bishop, Mr Dunmore, back when they had the paper shop. Hardly ever went to church, mind, certainly not the ole man, but it didn’t seem to bother him. But, hell, he’s Bishop of Hereford now. We can’t just get the Bishop of Hereford to an old woman who—’

‘What… like, if it was the dowager Lady Mumford it wouldn’t be a problem? Of course we can get him. You got me – I mean you were concerned enough to think it might be something we could help with.’

‘Wish I’d never bothered. The ole man, he don’t give a toss.’

‘He’s not making her feel any better, is he? Do you think he even notices?’

‘Mrs Watkins, the fact is he’s been treating her like she’s daft for half a century.’

A stray spatter of rain landed on the windscreen. Merrily took a breath.

‘Well, I’m not sure she is.’

‘What’s that mean?’ He almost turned at the wheel, but the old Mumford set in and he kept on looking at the road.

‘It’s a feeling. Based on this and that. Who’s Marion?’

‘Who?’

‘Did Robbie have a girlfriend?’

‘Too shy.’

‘That’s what your mother said. But there was an unfinished message on a postcard. In an envelope in Robbie’s sketch pad. Begging someone called Marion to meet him at the castle. He said it was their special place. He said he was imagining them holding hands.’

‘Written by Robbie?’

‘He hadn’t signed it yet, but the handwriting matched the titles he’d put on some of the drawings. Also, was he having a bad time at home?’

‘Not according to his mother, but that don’t mean a thing. If I had a home like his, I’d’ve been having a bad time.’

‘Perhaps you should read the card,’ Merrily said. ‘I put it back in the sketch pad, next to a rather strange drawing.’

‘Strange how?’

‘Difficult to explain.’

Cole Hill came up in the windscreen, and the church steeple, and rain came on for real. Two o’clock in the afternoon, and it felt like dusk.

‘Marion,’ Mumford said. ‘Don’t mean a thing. You ask the ole girl?’

‘I didn’t mention it. She was already upset, so I just did the prayers.’

‘She seemed calmer.’

‘Final point,’ Merrily said. ‘The mirror turned to the wall.’

‘Couldn’t fail to notice that, could you?’

‘I thought it was a picture, so I had a quick look while she was in the loo – thinking maybe it was a picture of the castle or something.’

‘Mirror.’ Mumford sighed. ‘Dad wouldn’t let her take it down. Nothing to straighten his tie in.’

‘I’m not happy with this, Andy.’

‘No,’ Mumford said.

Sermons: every week another one hanging around your neck like a penance, supporting the traditional assumption, from the days when the priest was the only person in the village who could read, that you could stand up there in the pulpit having universal truths channelled through you, when all you really had were questions.

An hour after Merrily got back to the vicarage, the computer in the scullery was still switched off, Ethel the cat curled up in the tray next to it. On the sermon pad she’d scrawled a number of questions, including: old people – why have we stopped listening to them?

Maybe, one day, something unexpectedly profound would get pushed between the lines, a surprise parcel in the spiritual letter box. One day.

The phone rang.

‘Merrily, this is Siân. Just a very quick call. Nigel and I had lunch – apparently, you were late with your sermon.’

‘Well, I always like to leave it till the last minute. Keeps it fresh, like… like a salad.’

God, why does this woman always make me talk bollocks?

‘Anyway, Nigel was impressed with your handling of a rather difficult situation.’

Huh?

‘Inevitably, when people we’ve known for years, like ex-Sergeant Mumford, are involved, we feel we have to go through the motions, don’t we? But I do think this case underlines the usefulness of having someone like Nigel who can confirm our own suspicions with some authority.’

‘Suspicions?’

‘He tells me he’s already given ex-Sergeant Mumford his own initial assessment, along with suggestions on how it should be followed up with his mother’s GP as early as possible next week. He’s also going to write up a short report for Sophie to keep on our database. And I think that concludes our involvement.’

‘That’s what you think, is it?’

‘Except, of course, as a discussion point amongst ourselves. I’ve given this a lot of thought, and I have to say there’s a danger that, by our very existence, we may, ahm, sometimes be actively encouraging people to inflate their feelings of paranoia or persecution, or their reactions to sudden and shocking bereavement, into something altogether more fanciful.’

By our very existence?

‘You’re suggesting we shouldn’t exist?’

Siân laughed. ‘Essentially, I’m merely saying that we – the Deliverance Ministry – if we are to lose the unsavoury aura of medievalism, should not be seen to bolster people’s protective fantasies. Encouraging them to deny personal responsibility by projecting it into something separate and amorphous over which they have no control. I’ll put this on the agenda for our next meeting, shall I?’

‘Erm…’

‘But thank you, all the same, for going to Ludlow with Nigel – although I gather he did the driving.’