The Wine of Angels

‘Well, if you’re sure ...’

‘Yes.’ She sat down at the table. ‘All of you. Please.’

‘You go to bed.’ Dr Kent Asprey gave her a shrewdly caring look. ‘I’ll call tomorrow.’

‘I’ll call you,’ Merrily said. ‘If it’s necessary. Thank you.’

‘I’ll tell the bishop you’ll be in touch,’ Ted said ponderously. ‘When you’re well.’

‘I’ll call him tomorrow.’

Thank God Dermot Child had been detained at the organ; he’d have been less easy to get rid of. Merrily let her head fall briefly into her hands as the door closed behind them and Jane came back alone. Peered through her fingers at the kid’s face, flushed with concern, or it might have been humiliation.

‘Go and change, flower. Get off to the party.’

‘You are joking,’ Jane said.

‘I need to do some thinking.’ Merrily raised her head. ‘All right?’

‘Mum, you’re ill. If you go to bed, I’ll bring you whatever you need ... hot-water bottle.’

‘I don’t need anything, and I’m not going to bed.’

‘Well, you can’t stay in here, it’s dismal. I’ll light the fire in the parlour.’

‘Just leave me, Jane.’

Jane hung on.

‘What was it? Something you ate?’

‘I didn’t eat anything all day, did I? I expect that was the problem. And getting uptight. Anyway, I feel terrible about everything, and I’m always better feeling terrible on my own.’

‘I’m going to stay,’ Jane said.

‘All right, you light a fire and we’ll sit and have a good old discussion. We’ll talk about Miss Devenish and what happened when you went to her aid that day instead of going to school and what you talk about together. All those things we’ve been meaning to discuss.’

‘I’ll get changed then,’ Jane said.

But she wasn’t too happy about it. Throwing up in church, when you were in Mum’s line of work, was not exactly a really brilliant thing to do, and since coming to Ledwardine Mum had been, for the first time, quite hot on keeping up appearances. This was going to damage her. Maybe, in the years to come, she’d be quite affectionately known as the vicar who tossed her cookies down the nave. But maybe there wouldn’t be years to come, not now.

How did she feel about that? Bad. Because coming here had put her on to like a whole new level of life. What Lucy called a new depth of Being. Whatever this meant, it wasn’t in the Bible, which was why it was unwise to even approach the subject with Mum. Particularly tonight.

In the solitude of her apartment, Jane looked up.

At what were supposed to have been the Mondrian walls. And the sloping ceiling between the beams. Into the blue and gold. Into the otherness. It was all so strange. Made her feel ... ooooh. She shook herself.

Clothes-wise, she didn’t overdo it. Black velvet trousers and silky purple top. Not a good night for making a spectacle of herself. Plus, if it turned out to be the kind of party Colette had in mind, a quick getaway might just be called for.

She’d gone ahead and lit the fire in the drawing room. Not so much because it was cold as because it might look halfway homely in there with a few flames. Before changing, she’d brought in some logs and filled up a bucket with coal. Kind of wishing she was staying in. But that invitation to a serious discussion left her no option. Jesus, Mum, she wanted to say, I don’t know what happened that day. Or that night under the apple tree. I’m not clear on it.

But I’m getting help.

Before she left, she stoked up the fire. Mum was down on the rug in a thick bottle-green polo-neck jumper and jeans, hugging her knees. It was a May night out there, but the vicarage remained in January. Except for the top floor.

‘I won’t be too late.’

‘I’ll wait up.’

‘You mustn’t. I’ll be annoyed if you do.’

‘OK, flower,’ Mum said.

With her face washed clean of make-up and her hair pushed behind her ears, she looked awfully young and vulnerable. Younger than me in some ways, Jane thought. And feeling there’s so much she doesn’t know.

24 Uh-oh ...

AT THE CORE of a bedlam of bodies, Colette Cassidy was mouthing at her.

‘What?’

‘... you been, Janey? It’s nearly midnight.’

Jane stayed where she was and let Colette come stammering towards her through the strobe storm, through a foundry of sound. The restaurant at Cassidy’s Country Kitchen was this square, attic space with irregular beams and white, bumpy walls. There was a stage area, where the Cassidys sometimes had a pianist, but tonight the piano, like most of the tables, had been taken away and the stage had become Dr Samedi’s spectacular sound- lab.

‘Sorry. Had problems.’

‘So I heard.’ Colette’s grin was lifted by the lights and put back intact. ‘Cool’

‘What?’

‘Give the Reverend Mummy my compliments. Bet the bloody bishop wasn’t expecting that.’

Gossip seemed to spread at more than the speed of sound in this village. Jane didn’t bother to explain that it hadn’t actually been all that funny at the time.

There must be eighty or ninety people here, mostly imports, Colette’s age and a year or two older. The flashing lights were reflected in a lot of sweat on faces. Jane recognized hardly anybody, suspecting she was the youngest here. Some of the dancers looked ... well ... out of it. There was nothing stronger than Coke and Dr Pepper on the tables pushed up against the walls, but she thought she’d seen the boy from her school called Mark, who seemed to be the fourth-form’s principal dealer in Es and speed.

‘All the same, Janey,’ Colette was saying, ‘you didn’t have to spend half the night with the old girl.’

‘Sorry. Something else came up.’

Colette didn’t seem to hear. Dr Samedi was squealing something over the industrial drum ‘n’ bass on tapes. He wore a top hat, with ribbons, and a black bow tie. No shirt. Jacket open to his shiny chest with a white necklace showing. It was a jacket from a morning suit, black, with tails, and strategically torn in several places like the jackets the punks used to wear in Mum’s day. It was a scarecrow’s jacket, and that was what Dr Samedi looked like, a scarecrow animated by lightning.

‘I said,’ Jane shouted, ‘something came up!’

‘You should be so lucky. Listen—’

Colette was wearing something black and shiny and daring, naturally. A gangly guy in a white shirt was hanging around behind her. Colette moved close to Jane.

‘OK, listen, that’s Quentin the Suitable.’

‘Who?’

‘Like, the parents always have to make sure there’s a Suitable One, you know what I mean? His old man’s some kind of exalted surgeon at the General. I just wish somebody would surgically remove him.’

Quentin was tall and looked about seventeen.

‘He’s not bad,’ Jane said.

‘Especially if you’re into vintage tractors. His hobby. He also dances like one.’