The Wine of Angels

where you’re at. That’s your situation. Your husband’s there, your past, all your problems, your insecurities, your fears, your guilt. That’s where you keep opening doors and they lead nowhere, except into the past. That’s where you saw Sean. And when it gets too stifling, just when you feel there’s no escape, you wind up at the stairs leading to the third floor.’

Psychological claptrap. She needed a cigarette.

‘But, up there, Merrily, is the Unknown. It could be Enlightenment. But it could also be madness. You’re afraid of what you might learn.’

‘I didn’t learn anything. I’d fallen asleep in the praying position and woke up feeling really low and beaten and hopeless. But until I went up into that attic, I didn’t know what sorrow was. Or felt like, because I still don’t know what it was. Why I felt so bad.’

‘And it was different.’

‘I wasn’t frightened. I had this freedom up there. The freedom to cry for ever. And I knew I couldn’t. I couldn’t make a sound. Mustn’t be heard.’

‘By Jane?’

‘Jane wasn’t there. Nobody else was there. It was a different time, Lol. It was a time of indescribable unhappiness.’

Merrily wept.

The sorrow she was giving off was so profound, he had to blink back his own tears.

He wanted to hold her.

He didn’t touch her.

He went to make tea.

Later, he lay on the sofa and watched her sleep in front of the fire, curled up in the sleeping bag there like a child, the orange coals and the wire fireguard making glowing, crisscross patterns on her face. The cigarettes and Zippo lighter on the rug, a few inches from her nose, Ethel by her feet.

Never had got around to telling her about Alison. He’d wanted to ask her, How will this end? What can we do about it? He’d asked Alison. She said she had no idea.

But it’ll be on my terms. When I tell him.

You still hate him?

How can I hate him? My own flesh and blood.

Alison had laughed.

Yesterday morning, she’d told most of this to Lucy and then Lucy had died, bequeathing the responsibility to Merrily Watkins.

Lol was back in the alien sweatshirt, the vicar’s clothes neatly on hangers behind the door. Merrily had not told him what had happened when she and Jane had gone to Richard Coffey’s place.

Lol looked at Merrily, sleeping. He thought of Lucy on her back on a mortuary table in Hereford, cold and hatless and awaiting her post-mortem. This made him anxious, too anxious to sleep.

Ethel, the cat, wasn’t sleeping either. She lay at the bottom of the sleeping bag, where Merrily’s ankles were, and she watched Lol, golden-eyed and purring gently.

Merrily’s face was flushed by the firelight. He couldn’t stop looking at it.

Twice in the night, he got up to put more coal on the fire to keep her warm.

40 Bad Year for Apples

‘OH, WOW,’ JANE said.

She was standing in the drawing-room doorway, fully dressed. Lol came up behind her from the kitchen, with tea things on a tray. Over Jane’s shoulder he could see Merrily, hurriedly propping herself up in the sleeping bag.

‘Flower, before you say a word—’

‘Well, well,’ Jane said. ‘So you got it together.’

It was nearly eight a.m. Substantial sunshine had collected in the bay window, coloured pale green by the trees.

‘You slept together,’ Jane said.

‘No!’ Merrily sat up in the sleeping bag. ‘I mean yes, but no.’

‘This’ – Jane ambled into the room, hands on hips – ‘is really quite seriously cool’ She turned, beamed at Lol. ‘And she looks so much better. Don’t you think she looks fantastic?’

‘Yes,’ Lol said honestly. ‘However—’

Merrily stood up. The sun shone through her white nightdress. Lol thought maybe he should close his eyes. Couldn’t quite manage that.

‘That’s it. That is just about enough.’ Merrily looked around for her sweater, failed to find it, covered herself with the sleeping bag. ‘Make some toast, child.’

‘Right,’ Jane said. ‘Anything you say.’

The phone rang. ‘I’ll get that.’ Merrily gathered the sleeping bag around her. Jane giggled. Lol moved out of the doorway. Merrily passed him without a glance.

Lol shut the drawing-room door behind her, faced up to Jane.

‘Vicars don’t lie. Nothing happened.’

‘In which case’ – Jane frowned – ‘you ought to be bloody well ashamed. She doesn’t attract you?’

‘Well ... ye-es ... yes, she does.’

‘God.’ Jane breathed hard through her teeth. ‘She’s not quite a nun. She needs somebody.’

‘But preferably somebody stable.’

‘Oh yeah, somebody really, really stable.’ She glared at him. ‘Come on. My dad was stable. My dad was this like utterly focused individual who knew exactly where he was going the whole time.’

‘I thought he was bent.’

‘And getting away with it! Because he knew he could. Because he was stable inside. Focused. Balanced. Never worried about anything, not really. My dad thought a neurosis was ... was ...’

‘Something you can grow in a window box, with care.’

‘Yeah. Exactly. So, you know, screw stable. Life’s too short. Look, I know you’ve had your problems. I listen at doors sometimes, I’m not afraid to admit that.’

‘You do, huh?’

‘Those back stairs are very useful. You could go through life really ignorant if you didn’t listen at doors. Like, Colette always saying you were scared of her, like it was really cool having somebody who’s scared of you, but it wasn’t her at all you were scared of, I know that now, and I’m glad. And I’m glad Karl Windling’s dead. I mean not glad he’s dead, like if there was some other way he could be completely out of your face ...’

‘Well, I haven’t figured out how I should feel about that either.’

‘You should feel free. Hey, I forgot ... Did you get to see Alison last night?’

‘I have a problem with free,’ Lol said.

‘Just that I keep seeing people, twice, three times, Jesus, four times as old as me, and they still haven’t done anything. And then they die.’ Jane slumped into the sofa. ‘I don’t know what I’m trying to say. Everything’s peculiar. I’ve decided if I don’t want to believe things, then I won’t. So I don’t believe you and Mum didn’t sleep together and I don’t believe Lucy’s dead, OK?’

‘OK.’

‘And they haven’t found Colette. I had the radio on at seven. It was the same stuff, more or less, as last night.’

‘That’s starting to not make sense.’