To Dream of the Dead

‘Bollocks!’ Eirion played a ringing C7th. ‘The heart of the village. Couldn’t be better, man. It was meant.’

‘You could almost think that,’ Lol said. ‘I came down this morning and the book of Traherne’s selected poems and prose was lying on the desk. The one Lucy gave me. Lying just there. No memory of getting it down from the shelf. Picked it up and it fell open at You never enjoy the world aright till the sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens…’

‘… and crowned with the stars.’ Eirion looked momentarily embarrassed. ‘Jane used to…’

Quote it when they were in bed, probably, Lol thought. Very Jane.

‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘if you’re just the bloke with a guitar in the corner on Christmas Eve, nobody listens, and I’ve realised I want them to. Want the incomers to know about this stuff — it’s a bit of a white-settlers’ pub, the Swan. Even if they say This is crap, I want them to listen. So… I was thinking I could use back-projection? They’ve got some kit at the Swan, and Jane has this collection of old photos of Ledwardine — and some new photos of Cole Hill, taken by you, I believe…’

‘I look at them often,’ Eirion said. ‘Too often, really. Especially the one of Jane with her blouse… but, you don’t need to know this.’

‘So would you be able to take care of that aspect? Make sure the right pictures come up on the screen behind me at the right time? Also, with one song, I need to use a recording of Elgar’s Cello Concerto. I’ll need fingers on mixers.’

‘Hey…’ Eirion put down the guitar. ‘Look no further, Lol. Jane, too? Me and Jane?’

‘Well… hopefully.’

Eirion stiffened. ‘Lol, she is OK, isn’t she? There’s not something about Jane you aren’t telling me?’

Lol went to the window. Dusk was forming. There were no lights upstairs in the vicarage.

‘Oh my God, there’s something wrong, isn’t there?’ Eirion said. ‘I felt it as soon as I walked on to the drive.’

‘Eirion…’ Lol turned round; he wasn’t good at this. ‘To be honest, I’m not sure.’

‘Listen, you might as well tell me.’ Eirion had gone pale. ‘Is it this fucking Neil Cooper?’

An hour or so later, with night wrapping itself around the village like an old grey coat, Jane and Eirion went down to the river with a lamp.

The air seemed to be throbbing with unshed rain. Merrily and Lol went back into the vicarage and sat in the kitchen.

‘I hope he gets more sense out of her than I did,’ Merrily said.

33 A Corridor

The river was in an angry world of his own, heaving himself up against the arch of the bridge. Jane tried to get into his mindset; sometimes anger was a lifeline.

‘You think there’s room for someone like me in journalism?’

They were heading for the riverside footpath which did a half circuit of the village before veering off and ending up, like all the Ledwardine paths did, in one of the old orchards. Despite the growing darkness, Jane was walking fast and hard.

‘Don’t like the sound of that.’ Eirion scrabbling after her, not really dressed for this, looking fairly respectable for Mum. ‘Why would you suddenly want to get into journalism?’

‘Because you get to…’ Jane didn’t stop, climbing over the stile leading to the riverside footpath ‘… shaft people?’

She heard Eirion sigh, glanced quickly back at him. She’d always been on at him to lose weight but now he had, it was wrong. His face was leaner, more streetwise, less vulnerable, less… manageable.

Jane held the lamp and watched him climb over the stile without stumbling. In the old days he’d have stumbled. She turned and started walking away, against the flow of the river. The other side of it, the lights had come on, the big red Santa plumping out like some gross cyst from the wall of a new bungalow on what Gomer Parry called the hestate.

‘See, I used to think that was a pretty shoddy thing to do, but now I realise some people deserve it.’

‘Well, yeah, obviously,’ Eirion said, ‘but—’

‘Really arrogant people? Bastards who destroy other people without a thought?’

The rushing river beside her was brown with churned-up silt and gassy like cheap draught bitter. Eirion stopped.

‘So we’re talking about Professor Blore, are we?’

Jane kept on walking, forcing him to come after her. She wished it would start raining, give her an excuse for looking messed-up. Bloody rain, always there except when you needed some.

‘Blore?’

Eirion shouting like maybe she hadn’t heard. A bit out of breath now, she noticed. So he wasn’t doing gym, just missing meals.

‘Why would it be?’ Jane said.

‘Because when you rang last night to set this up, it was like, Oh Bill Blore’s going to save the Meadow, Bill Blore and me, Bill Blore who’s like totally cool and—’

‘Shut up, you—!’

Jane spun and stumbled, one foot going down the river bank, Eirion trying to grab her but she reeled away, fell on her bum on the soaking grass.

‘Oh, Jane…’

‘I need to rethink my future, OK?’ Jane refusing his hand, refusing to get up, feeling sick and stupid. ‘It’s no big deal. There are loads of other careers. No big deal. The world’s my… hairball.’

Blinking back tears like some little kid, an auto-reaction to the unexpected.

‘It is, Jane.’ Eirion standing with his arms by his sides now, shaking his head. ‘It’s a bloody great mega-deal. You had it all sorted. You knew totally where you were going. You couldn’t understand why you hadn’t spotted the obvious.’

‘I can make a mistake.’

‘Yeah, but you usually can’t bring yourself to admit it, which is why this is so totally… What happened? What did Blore do? Is he still around?’

‘Dunno.’

‘I mean, I can go and ask him. Corner him in the pub. Get him up against a wall, like, what’ve you done to my…?’

Behind Jane, the river surged and frothed, pitiless. But Eirion had dried up. God, he didn’t know what to call her any more: My former girlfriend? My ex?

She was shocked.

Eirion came and sat down next to her on the sodden grass in what was clearly a new jacket — worse, new trousers.

‘Start at the beginning,’ he said.

The hestate behind them now, they were walking more slowly, hand in hand, like thirteen-year-olds on a first date. Or at least like thirteen-year-olds did when Jane was thirteen. Five years ago… hell, that was a long time ago. So much pressure to grow up fast, pressure to put your life into a Jiffy bag, tick the boxes, meet the targets. Pressure, pressure, pressure.

‘He did exactly what he said he was going to do.’ Jane took a steadying breath. ‘Shot me.’

Eirion looked at her, up and down, like for exit wounds.

‘Can’t say I wasn’t warned, Irene. Like, Coops had said he was probably going to be in a crap mood. He said it was best not to approach him afterwards.’

‘Coops.’