The Wine of Angels

painting about a dead, young poet. But oh God ... She had to stop herself banging on the window. When she stepped away from it, she could hear faint music from the rear of the cottage.

There was a small gate hanging from one rusty hinge, and the path continued round the back. Jane carefully lifted open the gate and went, half-fearfully, through. In the small back garden were about four apple trees, all of them bending away from the cottage, as if the garden were trying to join the orchard. Or the orchard was trying to draw in the garden. Sunlight was sprinkled through the fragile white blossom.

... and it’s always on the sunny days

you feel you can’t go on.

Trembling a little, Jane went to the back door and was about to knock gently when she became aware of the music again. It was behind her now and so not coming from inside the cottage but from the garden itself, or the orchard, separated from it by the narrow path she knew was a bridleway.

She wandered among the apple trees, and the music came and went in snatches. It sounded a little like the music on the album, Hazey Jane, far away and melancholy.

There was another old garden gate, leading to the bridleway and the orchard. Jane drifted towards it.

The side of the tomb was cold on her face. She crouched there in her cassock, furious – hiding in her own church! – as Dermot Child and Mr Watts walked out. The cassock felt soiled, as though Child’s fingers had already been up and down the buttons. She wanted to have another bath, to scrub herself like she’d done once, late at night, to remove the blood of Edgar Powell.

Dermot’s key turned in the lock, but she didn’t move from behind the tomb, in case they came back.

Silence in the chapel. Only inches between her and Tom Bull’s bones. She saw, with a twinge of unease, that part of the tomb, below the feet of the effigy, had been repaired, as though Tom Bull had stretched out in death and pushed out a couple of the sandstone bricks to make more room for himself. You could feel quite resentful at the way influential local families thought they could buy into Paradise with a fancy tomb.

Traherne had a lot to say about that. Tom Bull must have known Traherne. But Traherne had left for London by the time they were laying their accusations at the door of his friend, Wil Williams.

How did James know about his ancestor’s role in the persecution and his feelings at the time? Were there family documents?

How, in fact, had the Williams story been passed down? She was reluctant to ask the old guy who did the All Our Yesterdays bit for the parish mag. He was sentimental and unreliable, and he’d keep her talking all day. And, anyway, he would never have been given access to the Bull-Davies family records.

Merrily stood up, brushed herself down. ‘Smug bastards,’ she muttered to Tom Bull and his absent descendant. ‘Nothing changes, does it?’

‘Well, that’s true,’ a woman murmured behind her. ‘In this family, anyway.’

Merrily spun round.

She wore an ankle-length skirt, the colour of Ledwardine soil, and possibly the same black, cotton shirt she’d worn on the square that night, open to the gold pendant in the cleft of her breasts. She also wore a knowing smile.

‘You drop something?’

‘Just a key,’ Merrily lied. She hadn’t heard the porch door open, or footsteps. ‘Sorry. Have you been here long?’

‘Just this minute walked in.’ She had glazed, Marilyn Monroe lips, but the resemblance ended there, before the steep, regal nose, before the slanting, dark blue eyes. ‘Alison Kinnersley. I don’t think we’ve been formally introduced.’

‘Probably because I’ve never seen you here before. Merrily Watkins.’

‘I do come here sometimes,’ Alison said. ‘To look around. And think. But never with James.’ Her voice dropped into the Bull-Davies bark. ‘Not seemly, you know.’

Merrily raised an eyebrow. ‘Anyone care about seemly any more?’

Twenty-five, even fifteen years ago, Alison Kinnersley would have been a scarlet woman. Today, the villagers still gossiped, but not many would be scandalized.

‘James cares,’ Alison said.

‘Yes.’ Merrily walked away from the tomb. ‘I expect he would.’

Then why? she wanted to ask. Remembering Alison’s hands inside James’s sheepskin on the night of the wassailing. Why does he let you flaunt him in public and yet, when you’re not there, behave as if you don’t exist?

‘Poor guy ...’ Alison moved into Merrily’s place at the tomb-side. ‘Poor guy came home in a bit of a state last night. He’s convinced you’re going to shaft him over that play.’

‘That’s rich. He threatened to shaft me.’

Alison laughed. ‘James is full of shit. OK? I just thought I should tell you that.’ She looked down dispassionately at the effigy. ‘He’s gone to Hereford today. For the Powell inquest. Gone to do his duty and help Rod Powell convince the coroner his old man didn’t top himself. He’ll be gone most of the day. And so, I ...’

The dark blue eyes focused directly on Merrily, as though this was very important.

‘... I just got the feeling you’d had this horrendous scene with him and you might be feeling intimidated. So I thought I’d tell you he was full of shit and whatever he said you should disregard. I’m relying, of course, on your discretion. As a woman of the cloth.’

Merrily didn’t know how to react. As a woman of the cloth or, indeed, as a woman.

‘I really wouldn’t mind seeing that play,’ Alison said. ‘I think it could be quite interesting.’

There was the faint hint of a rural vowel there – quoit interesting – which showed she didn’t exactly share James’s background.

‘I’ll tell you one thing.’ She touched, with a pink, ovalled fingernail, the sandstone lips of Tom Bull. ‘There was more to this old bastard than James is prepared to admit.’

‘Like what?’

‘Frankly, I don’t know.’ Alison’s lips turned down. ‘If I knew that ...’ She pulled her hand away from the effigy. ‘Anyway.’

‘Excuse me,’ Merrily said. ‘I’m a bit baffled. You’re James’s ...’

‘Mistress,’ Alison said softly. ‘Mistress. Old-fashioned word, old-fashioned guy.’

‘I had that impression.’

‘So why would I want to do this to him?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Hmm.’ Alison nodded. ‘Well, you’ve met him. You’ve been exposed to the archaic, paternalistic balls.’

‘I’m still baffled,’ Merrily said.

‘Well, fine,’ Alison said lightly. ‘That’s all right. So long as you’re not unsettled about it.’

She began to walk away, half turned, wryly raised a hand and brought the fingers down twice, like a bird pecking.

‘See you, Vicar.’

Merrily went directly to the Black Swan. She had some pleading to do; couldn’t face another night in a sleeping bag.

‘Well, I’m sorry, Mrs Watkins,’ Roland said. ‘I was only going by your instructions. I’ve got a theatre director and his partner arriving for lunch tomorrow, and they’ll be taking the Woolhope Suite until the weekend.’

‘One more night?’

‘I’m so sorry. No reflection on you, of course, but it’ll require the full works tonight. We were allowing for you having all your things out by ... seven? Oh, and this came for you. Somebody dropped it through the letterbox.’

A white envelope addressed to The Vicar, The Black Swan.

‘OK,’ Merrily said wearily. ‘I’ll go up and get everything sorted out and when Jane comes home we’ll get it all moved.’

Up in the suite, she thought, sod it, and ran a bath in the creamy bathroom. Got out of the cassock, rolled it into a ball and threw it into a corner. So much for tradition. As the bath filled up, she went to the wardrobe and found a plain black sweater and a charcoal-grey jersey skirt. Too hot but probably less appealing to the fetishist.