To Dream of the Dead

‘Holy sh— Irene, that means Lyndon Pierce would be…’

‘Stuffed.’ Eirion put an arm round her. ‘Totally. But just take it slowly, huh?’

‘Slowly?’ She looked up at him, pulling away. Her face felt flushed, she was trembling. ‘Are you crazy? Irene, this is mega.’

‘Only if it’s true.’ He put his hands on her arms, like he was fitting a straitjacket. ‘Only if there really is a henge. Jane, look, time’s getting on. We need to get across to the Swan, make sure the visual stuff’s all set up for Lol.’

‘Yeah. That’s part of it, you know? It’s all coming together.’

‘I’m sure it is.’

‘I’m not mad, Irene.’

‘I never thought you were.’

‘I just need to go to Lucy’s grave now. Tell her about this.’

Eirion sighed the long-suffering sigh of a much older guy.

‘Of course you do.’

When Merrily came back from the phone, Gomer had left to get himself cleaned up and Lol was looking up at the clock.

‘I think I need to be getting over to the Swan.’

‘No!’ Merrily froze. Pressed him back into the chair. ‘You can’t go. Not yet.’

‘Who was on the phone? Is something wrong?’

‘A lot’s wrong, but I want to keep the lid on it until after Christmas. That was… that was Bliss. Wants me to ring Sophie for him. He wants a number for Helen Ayling.’

‘Why can’t he ring her?’

‘Because Sophie, like a lot of people, is suspicious of him, and he says he’s got no time to deal with that. I’ve said I’ll ring her for him and then… just give me twenty minutes. Can you do that? It’s important.’

He looked at her, his head tilted. He was still wearing the Gomer Parry Plant Hire sweatshirt. He’d insisted he’d be wearing it for the gig, wiping some of the mud off with a damp cloth but not all of it.

Ledwardine red mud. For luck.

She loved him beyond all reason, but sometimes he irritated the hell out of her.

‘Stay,’ she said, like to a dog.

Back in the scullery, she took her last cigarette out of the pack and sniffed it as she dialled.

Wasn’t the same. She’d been across to the shop and bought four packets of extra-strong mints, had already eaten two and a half. She was sure they were making her want to go to the toilet.

‘I tried to ring you twice,’ Sophie said. ‘As soon as I heard about the bridge. You really can’t get out of there?’

‘Not in a car.’

The past two years she’d gone into Hereford on Christmas Eve, when it was quiet in the late afternoon, and she and Sophie had drunk tea together, reviewed the year, exchanged small gifts.

‘What are you going to do?’ Sophie said.

‘What can we do? Sit it out. Almost a third of the population’s left the village, to spend Christmas with relatives or at hotels. Some people’s furniture’s in storage in case the worst happens.’

‘What about your meditation service?’

‘Still on. I’ve been over to the church, set up the usual circle of pews and chairs at the top of the nave. Maybe it’ll mean more this year. Or maybe people won’t have the heart to turn out. Or maybe I should just offer the midnight Eucharist.’

‘You sound exhausted.’

‘I’m OK. There’ve been one or two problems which I’ll tell you about when we get liberated.’

‘They’ll put a temporary bridge in?’

‘Bailey bridge, yeah. Sophie, listen, do you have a phone number for Helen Ayling that I can pass on to Frannie Bliss?’

‘You’re using it,’ Sophie said. ‘However—’

‘She’s still there?’

‘In the end, she didn’t want to leave until she was allowed to have a funeral. Much calmer now, but I’d very much take exception to her being upset on Christmas Eve by your friend Bliss.’

‘He’s got problems. Domestic problems.’

‘Not, I’m sure, on Helen’s scale. What does he want?’

‘Well,’ Merrily said, ‘I do actually know what he wants.’

Suspecting something like this, she’d told Bliss she’d be prepared to talk to Helen Ayling herself.

‘It relates to drugs. Bliss wants to know about Clement Ayling and drugs.’

Sophie said sharply, ‘What about them?’

‘Anything.’

Sophie said, ‘Are you serious?’

Merrily tried to call Bliss back at once, but his mobile was engaged. She brought the Boswell guitar in its case through from the back hallway, laid it on the scullery sofa. Then she went back to Lol.

He was standing by the window. She went over and found herself clinging tightly to him, feeling flimsy as an insect, breathing in the unfamiliar smell of the earth on him, and they were kissing for too long.

‘It’s only another gig,’ Lol whispered.

‘No, it’s not.’

When they finally separated, she pulled a rusted flake of dried mud from the shoulder of his sweatshirt. He bent and kissed her again, on the side of her mouth.

‘Look… if you really want me to change I’ll go home and do it. I don’t want to—’

‘No. Keep the luck. Just… you know… don’t take that sweatshirt to America with you. They won’t understand the reference.’

‘Doesn’t arise,’ Lol said. ‘I hadn’t thought it out. I wouldn’t even get a visa or whatever you need.’

‘Huh?’

‘I have a conviction for indecent assault on an underage girl.’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake…’ She pulled away, stared into his eyes. ‘Everybody knows that was a gross miscarriage of—’

‘No, they don’t. In the eyes of the law, I’m a sex-criminal.’

‘Lol, you can get it waived.’ Merrily was almost shouting. ‘If you apply to the American Embassy for a visa and tell them the circumstances, you’ll almost certainly get it waived.’

‘There’s no certainty at all, and anyway—’

‘Lol… look… What happened twenty years ago… it’s now very widely known that you were set up. Wrongly convicted. Been in various papers… floating round on the Net. Nobody in their right mind…’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘It does matter.’

Not going to America because it might not be such a brilliant career move at this stage, that was one thing, but not going because America might refuse him entry as a convicted felon…

‘And besides…’ God, she needed a cigarette. ‘We also know the identity of the real offender.’

‘Who’s untouchable,’ Lol said. ‘Who will never be convicted. On account of being dead.’

‘Your conviction’s discredited. I’m telling you they’ll waive it.’

‘Mud sticks.’ Lol looked down at his sweatshirt. ‘You know that. Look, I’ll have to go.’

‘Wait.’ She was backing towards the door. ‘There’s… I was going to give you this tomorrow, but it’s important you should have it tonight. You need to have it tonight. Just… stay there. Stay.’

The churchyard was bloated and squelchy, like walking on an old mattress, pools of water everywhere, headstones and crosses looking like groynes at the seaside.

Jane ploughed through it in her red wellies, looking up at the church, its steeple edged with amber from the