The Wine of Angels

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Oh, Janey ...’ Colette sighed in despair. ‘When they do get in, I want them to feel like gatecrashers. Unwanted. Resentful, you know? My dipshit parents have naturally gone over the guest list, so we have a lot of nice boys from good families, that kind of thing, plus a few like Lloyd Powell on account of his old man’s a councillor. I mean, you tell me, where is the tension in that?’

‘Tension?’

‘A party,’ Colette said with heavy patience. ‘Ain’t a party. Without tension.’

The evening was still and heavy with the scent of apple blossom, which clung to the orchard trees like hoar frost. Made Lol shudder as he got out of the rusting Astra in the drive.

As he let himself into the cottage, the phone began to ring, and his spirits collapsed like a card-house. It’s Lucy, he thought. Something’s wrong.

Around his trainers, on the doormat, he saw a pale confetti.

On the mat inside. Oh Jesus, oh Jesus. Examining the soles of his shoes to make sure he hadn’t brought them in himself. The orchard was coming in on him. There’d be petals all over the carpets, on the table, over the bed, in the bath. Jesus. Calling out, in his panic, to the stern, unforgiving God of his parents, collecting the usual stab of guilt – he’d once, aged sixteen, dropped a cup washing up and muttered Jesus Christ, and his mother had slapped his face with some ferocity, wouldn’t speak to him for two days.

The phone kept on ringing and Lol kept staring at the petals on the mat.

Maybe they just came in through the cat door. Maybe Ethel brought them in. That was it: Ethel had been hunting in the orchard and returned with her fur full of apple blossom. That made sense, didn’t it?

The phone went on ringing. Who would know he was back, except Lucy?

Lucy. Who had sent him away after the thing with Jane Watkins. Seeing at once that he was in no fit state to go back to the cottage. Go off somewhere for a few days. I’ll feed the cat. Go to a city. Somewhere not like this, do you understand, Laurence? We’ll talk when you return. When you’re in a more receptive state.

In Oxford, over four days, he hadn’t even seen Gary Kennedy. Just walked the touristy streets and the parks and gardens and the riverside, dipping into bookshops and record shops and pubs.

And reading Thomas Traherne and getting as much sleep as he could take and reading more Traherne – the poet who’d found the whole universe in the fields and woods and hills within a few miles of Lol’s cottage and was completely knocked out by everything he experienced out there.

He has drowned our understanding in a multitude of wonders. Lucy had underlined this in his copy of Traherne’s Centuries, and written in pencil in the margin. Just because it’s something you can’t explain, it doesn’t have to be bad. It doesn’t have to be ominous. It might just be wonderful.

But the old strength, the conviction, had been missing. It was a worried Lucy who’d waved him off in the rusting Astra. When he’d come down from the loft and said this was a nightmare she hadn’t contradicted him. It had a fuzzy dreamlike quality when it happened, when he saw Jane Watkins lying in the orchard, but the implications were nightmarish.

The living-room door was always left ajar for Ethel, and when Lol went in, she was weaving in and out of his ankles. He picked her up and she purred into his chest as he grabbed the phone.

‘Hello?’

‘You little fuck.’ The rasp distorting in the earpiece. ‘What you trying to do to me?’

Karl Windling, the old Karl Windling sounding cracklingly close. He’d spoken to Dennis; it had made him angry. Lol felt cold sweat on his forehead. Windling could be at the Black Swan. He could be in his car, in the lane.

‘Don’t shit me, son. Do not shit me.’

Lol said, ‘Where are you?’

‘Close enough. Now you fucking stay there. You understand? You go anywhere, I’ll find you. You don’t move the rest of the night. I’m coming over. I’ll have a nice, simple contract with me. Which you are signing, son. You won’t—’

Very gently, Lol put down the phone. Thought for a moment then unplugged the wire from the wall. Went to the window: just the Astra in the drive. And blossom in the orchard.

He carried Ethel into the kitchen where he put out a bowl of wet food, a bowl of dry food and more water. He got out the litter tray, filled it and laid it by the door. He stroked the little black cat and put her down.

Not knowing how long he would have to be away before Karl Windling gave up.

When the kid walked in, Merrily was at the kitchen table with a pot of tea and an ashtray full of butts.

Jane dumped her schoolbag. ‘You have to be at the church by seven, don’t you?’

‘Yeah,’ Merrily said glumly. ‘Sure do.’

Jane sat down opposite her. ‘Second thoughts? Bit late for that, isn’t it?

Merrily lit another cigarette. When Jane was away at school, she couldn’t wait for the kid to come back. Fooling herself that her daughter was entirely on her wavelength. But looking at her now ... there was a distance. In her eyes. This was not paranoia, not isolation. Whether she knew it herself or not, part of Jane was somewhere else.

‘I had a chat with Stefan Alder today.’

‘Cool,’ Jane said non-committally. Even a couple of weeks ago, her eyes would have lit up and she’d have wanted to know all about it because, even if he was gay, Stefan was really heavy-duty totty.

‘He was telling me about the play and how they came up with—’

Merrily paused. She’d have to explain this sometime, because there was going to be a fuss about it, but she wondered if Jane was really mature enough to understand.

She put down her cigarette. ‘It’s because of Stefan that Richard Coffey wrote the play. Stefan’s gay, right? Stefan’s a homosexual’

‘I do know what gay means,’ Jane said sullenly. ‘And I know they think Wil Williams was persecuted because of that. Even if he wasn’t.’

‘Right.’ Merrily was encouraged by the last bit. ‘Stefan is ... I don’t know if his relationship with Coffey’s going through a bad patch or if he only stays with Coffey because of his career—’

‘That’s a bit cynical.’

‘I said I don’t know, Jane. What I do know, what I strongly feel, is that Stefan Alder believes that he’s been – I don’t want to use the word possessed, because he didn’t use it – chosen, by the spirit of Wil Williams, to recreate the circumstances of his death, to reveal the truth.’

‘Wow,’ Jane said.

‘It’s become an obsession.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Stefan’s in love with ... a ghost.’

‘It’s a bit beautiful, isn’t it?’ Jane said.

‘No! It isn’t beautiful! It’s unnatural and it’s dangerous, and Coffey’s only going along with it because he’s a very warped individual. And I think it would be very wrong for me to let it happen in the church.’

‘What?’

Merrily picked up the cigarette and drew on it. ‘I’m going to suggest they put it on in the village hall. I’ll tell everybody tonight. I thought I’d tell you first.’

‘You can’t,’ Jane said.

‘I have to, flower.’

‘Jesus!’ Jane stood up; the chair clattered to the floor behind her. ‘You sad cow. And I really thought you were smart.’

Lol drove twice around the village, looking for somewhere discreet to park the Astra. There were far more cars in the village than usual; the square was packed, a few dozen people walking about. Something on in the