The Smile of a Ghost (39 page)

‘Till the embryonic Jane delivered the first kick. About a year. I was also married to one who I thought was going to be a crusader for justice but turned out to be a crusader
against
justice. Like most of the greedy bastards.’

‘Could they get an injunction to keep you away from this woman?’

‘Unlikely. Anyway, they’d be shooting themselves in the foot, bringing it into the public domain.’ Merrily stood up, decided that she couldn’t face lunch after all. ‘Well, they can’t do a Mumford on me, accuse me of impersonating a priest.’

‘You’re going back, then?’

‘You’re glad?’

‘I hate to see you defensive and frustrated. Shouldn’t be too difficult. You going home now?’

‘I need to talk to Lol. And Jane. I’d hate her to find out about these rumours from anyone else.’

‘Quite.’

‘But first, I think I’ll pop into the Cathedral for a while. Some of the sensations I’ve been experiencing today could fall under the category of Unholy.’

‘As long as you don’t let Him talk you out of anything.’

Merrily blinked. ‘You’re very hawkish today, Sophie.’

‘Sometimes I feel the phrase “turning the other cheek” should come with a number of get-out clauses.’

‘Mmm.’ Merrily nodded, zipping her fleece.

It occurred to her, for the first time, that the level of anger behind Sophie’s cashmere calm might well exceed even her own.

She never made it to the Cathedral.

It was unavoidable. Cream suit, beard like it had been ironed on, he was following his smile in long strides across the green.

‘Merrily!’

‘Nigel.’

‘Tiresome meeting with the Dean and the Chairman of the Perpetual Trust.’

Challenging Merrily to explain what she was doing here when she was supposed to be on leave. Stuff it, why should she have to tell him anything?

‘And how is your poor aunt?’ Saltash said. ‘It
is
your aunt, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It is.’

‘Great pity you haven’t been available. I rather thought we might have discussed the difficulties over in Ludlow.’

‘I thought we’d drawn a line under that.’

‘We should, however, I think, decide where we stand on the issue. In case any of us is… approached.’

‘Approached?’

‘For assistance. Or advice.’

‘I thought you had been. By the police. And the media.’

‘Purely as a psychiatrist,’ Saltash said.

‘Special adviser on mental health to the diocese, as I recall.’

‘And, naturally, I cleared it with the Coordinator before making any comment.’

‘You mean Siân.’

‘It’s so important that we’re aware of what we’re all doing. Effective teamwork, acting in unison, speaking with one voice…’ Saltash looked Merrily in the eyes in a way that made it very clear he was looking at her glasses. ‘Crucial, wouldn’t you say? In such an unstable society.’

32

B
Y THE TIME
Merrily heard the school bus rattling onto the square, she’d been home two hours, doing a manic clean-up of the vicarage, not answering the phone. Going over the black-eye rumours situation, deciding how much to tell the kid. Conclusion: everything… almost.

She finishing hoovering the hall, and looked up into the wizened, thorn-tortured face of Jesus Christ in Holman-Hunt’s
The Light of the World
, the picture that said, with all its Pre-Raphaelite pedantry,
there are no short cuts
.

Jane first. And then, tonight, there would be Lol: a different approach.

Jane’s feeling of responsibility towards Lol sometimes verged, Merrily suspected, on the maternal. It had a long history. It was, unquestionably, Jane who had decided that this relationship needed to happen. Jane who had shielded the sparks from the wind, added twigs to the fire. Jane who, when it was going well, liked to bask in its glow. And, when it wasn’t going well, blame her mother.

Merrily touched her eye experimentally. It didn’t hurt.

Jane’s key turned in the lock.

This would hurt.

‘So who was it?’ Jane was gazing steadily into her mug of tea as if its surface would ripple and form into a face. ‘Who do we have to destroy?’

This was after she’d calmed down. Approaching seven o’clock, and the sun had come out to set and to mellow the kitchen in spite of everything.

‘I don’t do destruction,’ Merrily said. ‘I’m a vicar.’

‘I’m a pagan. We’re less squeamish.’

‘Not tonight, huh?’ Merrily said.

‘It’s clear you’ve got a good idea who in this village is trying to shaft you.’

‘Narrowed down the list of suspects, that’s all.’

Down to one.

‘Names?’

Merrily shook her head. ‘Not till I’m sure. I wouldn’t like innocent people to die. Eirion picking you up tonight?’

‘Eight o’clock. Maybe we’ll just go to the Swan.’

‘I think not. You’re still only seventeen. While I’m not naive enough to think you haven’t been going in pubs for the last couple of years, the rule is still
not in this village
.’

‘Irene’s eighteen.’

‘Anyway, the only reason you want to go into the Black Swan is to broadcast exactly what you’re going to do when you find out who’s been putting it around that Lol hits me.’

‘So? Something wrong with that? I mean,
you
won’t, will you? Because you’re the vicar. You have to take it on the chin.’ Jane pushed her tea away. ‘And in the eye.’

‘Look, when I first heard about it, I reacted just like you. Well, almost. It took Sophie to explain why that could only make things worse.’

‘Sophie exists to smooth things over. Sophie’s like human cold-cream.’

‘Whoever started the rumour wants us to react badly and, in the process, tell everybody who hasn’t already heard it. Thus doing their job for them. I think that makes sense.’

‘Doing nothing makes sense? Letting people think that Lol’s unstable again? You know where they’ll take it next, don’t you? They’ll think back to what happened last Christmas, and, like, where that used to be good – what a hero, saved Alice’s life – they’ll be like, yeah, but there was violence involved. OK, he never laid a finger… or did he?’

‘Don’t let your imagination—’

‘Mum, this is a bloody village.’

‘Jane, will you just…’ Merrily bit down on it. ‘What are you planning to do tomorrow?’

‘Go round the square, knock on a few doors, hold a kitchen knife to a few people’s throats. Dunno, really.’

Merrily thought about this. Contemplated the lesser of two potential evils. It would be unwise to leave Jane alone here, on a Saturday with the village crowded with locals and tourists and the whole day to consume.

‘You fancy coming over to Ludlow?’

‘Why would I?’

‘Meet a mad woman?’ Merrily said. ‘Make like a pagan?’

She could see the flaring of excitement in Jane’s eyes and how subtly it was extinguished.

‘Yeah, OK,’ Jane said.

Jane decided she didn’t want to do the clubs in Hereford tonight. Too expensive, even if Eirion was still living off the loot from his eighteenth birthday, and too loud to talk. And, naturally, she wanted to be home not-too-late and up early, nice and fresh, for the siege of The Weir House.

Belladonna. Oh boy… Couldn’t believe Mum was involving her to this extent. This was a major rites-of-passage situation. Not to mention a seminal event in Christian–pagan relations.

Between them, they would really nail this mad bitch to the wall.

So, in the end, she and Eirion ended up doing the old snog-walk through the white lights of Left Bank Village, down to the Wye, which some of the sad planning anoraks at Hereford Council were determined to see as like the Seine, only narrower and with just the one café.

She told Eirion about Operation Belladonna – how she was holding her breath in case Mum changed her mind. After which, it seemed legit to discuss the domestic-violence outrage.

‘The trouble is, Mum and Lol, they’re both so totally naive.’ Jane watched the white lights in the water, like a submerged birthday cake. ‘Plus the rock-bottom self-esteem problem. They won’t fight.’

‘Which means you have to fight on their behalf?’ Eirion said. ‘I’m sorry, Jane, but we’ve been through this before, and it doesn’t mean that. When you think of all the trouble you’ve caused in the past by acting first and thinking… well, not thinking at all.’

‘Ah, that old Welsh caution… as you cowards like to call it.’

‘It’s how we survived centuries of English imperialism.’

‘Nah.’ She searched his broad face, what she could see of it. ‘You’re too sophisticated to believe that crap.’

‘However,’ Eirion said, ‘from my humble Welsh perspective, I do tend to think that Lol is becoming less easy to damage. You only have to listen to the new music. The very fact that the music is now dealing with some of the bad things that people have done to him… like he’s absorbing it in a creative way.’

‘However, you’re a pretentious git sometimes, Irene.’

‘I’m right, though. I think he’ll absorb this, too.’

‘He’s emotionally vulnerable,’ Jane said stubbornly.

‘Well, so am I.’ Eirion going all pathetic. ‘And I have to carry the Welsh chip on my shoulder. And do you have sympathy for me?’ He slid his stubby Celtic fingers down her waist to the top of her thigh. ‘Lighten up, Jane. Your mother’s right, you’ll only make it worse. That’s why she’s taking you to Ludlow.’

‘Well, I prefer to think she needs an occult consultant with a pagan perspective.’

‘And you’re fascinated.’

‘Not by Belladonna. She was always crap. Now she’s crap and passé.’

‘She’s surely part of your mum’s essential history. Doesn’t that interest you at all?’

‘Goth frocks and fuck-me shoes? I don’t think so.’

‘I bet your mum looked—’

‘Don’t go there, Irene.’ Jane brandished a menacing finger. ‘Just… don’t.’

Eirion grinned.

‘Besides,’ Jane said, ‘if I’m generously putting my years of intensive pagan studies at the disposal of the bloody Church of England, even though it doesn’t deserve it… Where are we going?’

‘Isn’t there a nice, quiet bench somewhere along here where we can watch the play of light upon the river?’

‘And feel the play of hands inside the bra?’

Eirion moaned softly. Then this shout came from somewhere, like a stone skimming over the water.

‘Lewis!’

‘Oh no.’ Eirion stopped. ‘Who’s this?’

Two guys were strolling crookedly along the bank from the direction of the bridge.

Jane sighed. This was always a problem. On a Friday night, most of Eirion’s sad, rich mates from the Cathedral School seemed to hit Hereford in force. So much for the quiet bench.

They slunk over. One was about Eirion’s size, the other taller, kind of droopy and languid-looking, hair flopping over his eyes. They stood there gawping at Jane, total inane tossers clutching long cans of lager.

‘Hey, hey,’ the tall one said. ‘This must be the vicar’s daughter.’

‘She was only a vicar’s daughter…’ The other one struck this ridiculous pose, then swayed and stumbled. He steadied himself. ‘Der… she was only a vicar’s daughter, but she… Shit, I can’t think of one, what’s the matter with me tonight?’

‘You’re pissed,’ Eirion said. ‘Bugger off.’

‘I can’t be pissed, Lewis, it’s not ten o’clock yet.’

‘Well, go and get on with it,’ Eirion said. ‘You’ve only a couple of hours before it’s time to start vomiting in the gutter.’

Neither of them moved.

‘So,’ the shorter one said, ‘you two just sloping off for a shag?’

‘Don’t let us stop you,’ the tall, languid one said. ‘We’ve not had a good laugh all night, have we, Darwin?’

Darwin? Was that his first name? Jane looked at them and mouthed the word at Eirion.

‘Well, come on,’ Darwin said. ‘There’s a bush over there. Kit off, girlie, chop, chop.’

A fine rain was in the air, like the mist from an aerosol.

‘Oh dear.’ Jane looked at the two guys. ‘How embarrassing, Eirion. You didn’t tell me this was a gay meeting-place…’

‘Jane.’ Eirion gripped her wrist. ‘Don’t start.’

‘Little bitch,’ the tall one said, kind of surprised. He leaned forward, lager slurping out of his can, and one of the floodlights from somewhere splashed on his face, and Jane blinked.

Darwin spread his arms. ‘Hang on… hang on… it’s coming.’

‘That was quick,’ Eirion said, ‘and I never even saw you slide your hand in your pocket. Come on, Jane, let’s…’

‘She was only a vicar’s daughter,’ Darwin said. ‘She was only a vicar’s daughter, but he pulled out his dick and said… pulpit!’

They were both still laughing, while Eirion was dragging Jane away, along the bank and back up into the crowds and the lights of Left Bank Village, straight through and out into Bridge Street.