The Wine of Angels

And she’d seen him again. She’d been in his arms. Carried in his arms. Oh God, he’d brought her home last night!

And now she’d shopped him to this bastard.

The Reverend Mum was right, as usual. She’d got pissed and left a trail of disaster. She had a lot of apologizing to do.

12 Sympathetic Magic

A WISPY BREEZE plucking at her poncho, Miss Devenish climbed, without much effort, to the top of the knoll. With her back to the sun, the big hat pulled down, she loomed over Merrily like some ancient warrior chieftain.

‘You’re never alone in the countryside, Mrs Watkins. It’s the most intimate place. The poet Traherne knew that. When he walked out here, Traherne knew he was inside the mind of God.’

Below them, nearly a mile away down the long, wooded valley, the village of Ledwardine lay like an antique sundial in an old and luxuriant garden.

‘The core of the apple,’ Miss Devenish said. ‘The orb. Traherne was always talking about orbs and spheres. Understanding that he was at the very centre of creation.’

‘Suppose he’d lived in some filthy city.’ Merrily looked down on the lushness of it all. ‘Or a desert somewhere.’

‘Wouldn’t have mattered. The man was a natural visionary. He instinctively picked up the pattern, the design. Before Wordsworth, before Blake, he stood here and he saw.’

Merrily sat down on the edge of the green knoll, her legs dangling over a mini-cliff of rich, red soil. ‘How do you know he stood precisely here?’

‘I don’t.’ Miss Devenish smiled enigmatically. ‘And yet I do. He would’ve walked here with his friend Williams, to see the best view of the village.’

Because of the hedges, freshly greened, you couldn’t see the roads; you couldn’t see the cars and vans and tractors, only hear their buzzing.

‘So much country,’ Merrily mused. ‘Even inside the village.’

‘Still, thank God, an organic community. In spite of the best efforts of those who’d turn it into a museum full of horse-brasses and warming pans. And supposedly authentic ceremonies’ – darkness entered Miss Devenish’s voice – ‘which belong elsewhere.’

Merrily looked towards the church. The sandstone steeple stood proud, like the gnomon of the sundial, but the graves were all hidden by trees and bushes. The churchyard, more egg-shaped than circular, was partly enclosed by the orchard which, from here, had a deceptive density. Had the church once been entirely surrounded by apple trees?

‘Indeed. The heart, Mrs Watkins. And the blood it pumped was cider.’

Along the hidden road, a heavy lorry rumbled, the landscape seemed to tremble and her mind replayed the deepened voice of Dermot Child. Auld ciderrrrrrrrrrr ...

‘Yes.’ Merrily pulled herself together. ‘And talking of cider ...’

‘I can’t tell you what happened to the child.’ The old girl scrambled gracelessly down from the top of the knoll and came to sit beside Merrily. ‘And if I tell you what I think might have happened, I’m afraid our embryonic relationship might well be aborted.’

‘Don’t like the sound of that.’

‘Laurence phoned me,’ Miss Devenish said. ‘The Cassidy girl had arrived at his door.’

‘That’s ... Lol?’

‘I do so hate slovenly abbreviations. Gaz. Chuck. Appalling. Laurence Robinson helps me in the shop. His is the nearest cottage to that end of the orchard. The Cassidy girl was somewhat distressed – well, as close to distress as that madam’s capable of getting. Told Laurence your daughter had drunk too much and passed out in the orchard. The two of them brought her back to the cottage. Which was where I first saw her.’

‘She was conscious by then?’

‘I wonder,’ said Miss Devenish, ‘if she had ever been, in the strictest sense, unconscious.’

‘Meaning?’

‘She’d apparently been sick. Before she apparently passed out. My distant memories of such things tell me it’s usually the other way about.’

‘Was she coherent?’

‘Perhaps.’

Merrily took a deep breath. ‘Miss Devenish, she’s fifteen years old. She has no father, she’s had to change schools rather a lot, and ... well, she’s very intelligent, but rather less sophisticated than she thinks she is. Last night she was with a girl who seems to me to have been ...’

‘Been around. Yes.’

‘They seem to have been ... pursued ... by some boys. What I’m trying to get at is, when you found them, did you see any suggestion of ... of ...?’

‘Hanky-panky? No, Mrs Watkins. I don’t think you need worry on that score.’

‘Thank you. Next question. I don’t know how much cider she drank, but it was enough to knock her over. The first time I got drunk – not that much older than Jane – I spent most of the following day wanting to die. Jane slept like a baby and woke up with absolutely no trace of a hangover. So I wondered ... I mean, the word is, Miss Devenish, that you know a thing or two about herbal medicines. And things. I just wanted—’

‘My assessment of the situation tells me,’ said Miss Devenish, ‘that you wanted her to suffer.’

‘Well ...’ Merrily averted her eyes. ‘Let’s say I wanted her to regret it.’

‘Well, of course,’ said Miss Devenish, ‘you’re a Christian, and Christians are reluctant to believe that any significant lesson can be learned without suffering.’

‘And what are you, Miss Devenish?’

‘Labels!’ The old girl glared at her. ‘Why should one always have to be a something? Traherne was a Christian, but with the perceptions ... the antennae ... of a pagan. But I’ll not be drawn into that sort of argument. I’d prefer us to remain on speaking terms. You want to know how your daughter could get horribly inebriated on copious draughts of rough cider and come out of it without a king-size hangover, and I’m trying to give you a possible explanation without offending your religious sensibilities.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Merrily lay back against the knoll. ‘I’m not some fundamentalist bigot, honestly. Go on.’

‘What we used to call sympathetic magic. You’ll probably think this whimsical.’

‘I’ll try not to.’

‘All right. Like cures like. If you’re drunk on cider, what better place to sleep it off than an apple orchard? Crawl into the centre of the orb and curl up. Let nature do the rest.’

‘You’re right. That is whimsical.’

‘Wouldn’t work for everyone. The orchard’s a risky place, an entity in itself, a sphere. And this is a very old orchard. So it tells you – or rather it tells me – something about your daughter.’

‘I’m sorry, but what does it tell you about my daughter?’

‘I really don’t want us to fall out,’ Miss Devenish said. ‘But you would do well to trust the child.’

Wearily, Lol opened his front door.

In the brightness of the afternoon, the willow tree in the front garden dusted with gold, it was almost a relief to see Karl Windling there on the step. In person, in his denims, beaming through his beard. A moment of ridiculous anticlimax. No surprise; Karl would know Dennis would have warned Lol.

‘How the hell are you, son?’

‘I’m all right,’ Lol said tentatively. ‘How are you?’

‘Pretty good,’ Karl said seriously. ‘Pretty ... fucking ... good.’

And looked it. It was nine years since they’d last been face-to-face. Karl’s beard was evenly clipped like a