The Wine of Angels

they’d had; must be the fourth, good job it was only sweet cider. She mopped her mouth and then the table with her handkerchief. The table seemed quite a long way below her and wobbling, and she kept missing the puddles.

She remembered something important. ‘Hey, what did that bloke say to you this afternoon?’

‘What bloke?’

‘In the sports car?’

‘Oh, yeah, right. Not bad, was he? Bit old. He just said was it too late to get some lunch, and I said it was and he said maybe he’d come back for dinner, would I be there, the way guys do. What were you doing with little Lol?’

‘Oh. Just, like ... checking out the shop. Weird.’

‘Sad. Lol’s mega-sad. Lucy doesn’t need anybody to look after the shop on a Saturday, she’s just trying to bring him out, introduce him into the community. Gives him nice poetry to read.’

‘Huh?’

‘Like with mental patients? They don’t lock them away any more, they let them out on the streets. The way there used to be village idiots?’

‘You’re saying he’s mental?’

‘Sort of. He had a breakdown. Actually, he used to be a sort of pop star, way back. Well, very minor. I mean, like, tiny.’

‘Pop star ...?’

‘Like, he was in this band and he wrote songs for other people.’

‘Like what?’

‘I don’t know, do I? It’s way back. I’m not interested. I only listen to dance music’

‘Why’d he have a breakdown?’

‘I don’t know. He lost his girlfriend, but I’m not sure whether that was before or after or maybe the reason she walked out on him. They never looked right together, she was taller than Lol for a start. And then she left him for ... Oh ... in fact, for him.’

Colette nodded towards a big guy in a tweed jacket, with leather patches, and khaki-coloured trousers. Jane recognized him at once, course she did. Why, it was ... it was ... Jesus, what was up with her?

‘James,’ Colette said. ‘The anachronism. Hey, anachronism. Not bad after six glasses.’

Six? ‘What?’

‘Bull-Davies. He’s this kind of throwback. Family used to be lords of the manor. They say he’s got a seventeen-inch ...’

‘What?’

‘Maybe it was seven. Oh, shit. He’s on the bloody festival committee, isn’t he?’

Jane blinked blankly.

‘Means they’re out, Jane. Yes? Got it? Committee-meeting over? Reverend Mumsie on the loose?’

‘God, wazza time?’ Where was the clock? Didn’t seem to have one at the Ox. Hadn’t been here that long, had they? Then again, it seemed like hours, days ... ‘Oh, shit. This is the problem when you have to share a suite with your mother. Can’t sneak in, can’t sneak out. We’d berrer go.’

‘Finish your drink first. You paid for it.’

Jane didn’t really feel like it, but at least it was only cider and went down quite easily. Trouble was that when she stood up, she couldn’t. Well, couldn’t stay up. Sank back into the settle and didn’t want to move again. All the little red and green and orange lights dancing like the fairies on wires in Ledwardine Lore.

‘Oh no,’ Colette said. ‘I can’t believe it.’

‘Wassup?’ Over the other side of the bar she saw Dean Wall and his mates nudging each other in a kind of soupy haze.

Colette wore a big, ice-cream grin. ‘You are completely pissed.’

‘I’m not! You can’t get pished on cider.’

‘I can’t believe it. You poor little sod. Come on, Janey, we’ll make a discreet exit. Just like hold on to my arm.’

Jane raised herself up again and Colette threw a surprisingly capable arm around her waist. She was already a good mate, Colette. You needed a good mate in a new place.

‘Don’t look at Jimmy Bull, Jane. Don’t look at anybody. And for Christ’s sake don’t throw up on me.’

Silence hung over the four of them for quite a while. The festival chairman, the musician, the councillor, the new vicar.

‘Well,’ Garrod Powell said slowly. ‘If he wasn’t a witch, what was he?’

He looked genuinely puzzled.

Richard Coffey opened out his hands. ‘I shall let you deliberate at your leisure. Suspect I’m overdue for an early night. Country air rather hits one after a couple of weeks in town. I’d ask you, of course, to keep the details to yourselves until we’re ready for the publicity.’

‘Of course. Thank you for coming, Richard.’ Cassidy’s face was glazed. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow, if I may.’

‘Make it Monday.’

‘Of course.’

‘Well,’ Dermot Child said when they heard Coffey’s tyres spinning brusquely on the gravel. ‘It’s quite funny, really.’

‘Is it?’ Cassidy said weakly, covering his eyes with the fingers of both hands. ‘Is it funny, Dermot? I don’t think it is. I think it’s going to cause a lot of trouble. I think it’s going to split the village and I don’t see what we can do about it.’

James Bull-Davies had not returned. Perhaps, Merrily thought, that was as well.

‘He could, of course, be right,’ she said hesitantly. ‘About Wil Williams. It makes a lot of sense.’

‘It makes perfect sense,’ Dermot said. ‘But it doesn’t make it into a happier story with which to climax the festival and put Ledwardine on the national tourism map.’

‘I suppose it might become more of a ... a sort of shrine. To a certain kind of martyr. If you see what I mean.’

‘And how would the Church take that, Vicar?’

Merrily shrugged uncertainly. ‘These days, no problem. I suppose. It’s politically correct. Plus, it removes the ancient stain of Satanism or whatever.’

‘Just, just ...’ Councillor Garrod Powell beat a small, agitated tattoo on the tabletop, ‘just let me get this absolutely right. What our friend Mr Coffey is suggesting is that he uses the church for a performance featuring his ... companion ... Mr Stephen ...’

‘Stefan Alder, Rod,’ Cassidy said through his fingers. ‘Alder, as Williams, will appear in the pulpit before a capacity congregation to formally defend himself against the charges of witchcraft levelled by his parishioners.’

‘The delegation of local bigwigs will lay out the various charges, one by one,’ Dermot Child said. ‘Witnesses will be called, including the drunken tanner, Silas ... Monk? Monks? And Williams will reject all the accusations of consorting with sprites, giving the simple explanation that, although he is a fully committed Christian and renounces the devil and all his works, he is also ...’

‘A homosexual,’ said Councillor Powell. His voice was flat. ‘That’s right, is it?’

Child sighed with mischievous pleasure. ‘Yes, it is, Rod.’

Councillor Powell thought about this for nearly half a minute before he said, ‘So what this play’s gonner be implying is that the people of our village – that’s our ancestors ... our ancestors, not Mr Coffey’s ancestors – drove this young man to his death ...’

‘... in a frenzy of post-Restoration queer-bashing,’ Child said. ‘Also – I wasn’t entirely sure about this, but the impression I gathered was that the slender persons shining palely in the moonlight will turn out to have been not necessarily local youths corrupted by Williams, as much as—’

‘Careful,’ Cassidy said.

‘Sorry, did I mean converted? Not so much having been converted by Williams, as