'No messages?'
'None at all.' He paused. 'You aren't feeling unwell again, you?'
'I'm fine.' Her left hand found the guitar case, clutched at it. She had that feeling again, of being touched. She shivered. She felt cold and isolated but also crowded in, under detailed examination. Too many impressions: the hollow chime, the eyes, the touch – impersonal, like a doctor's. Too much, too close. She had to get out of here.
'It's none of my business, of course,' said Malcolm, who believed in the Agent's Right to Know, 'but what was it exactly that made you think someone wanted to contact you?'
'Just a feeling.'
'Just a feeling?'
'Aye,' she said wearily. There was nothing touching her now. The room was static and heavy, no atmosphere. The furniture lumpen, without style. A museum. Nothing here.
Nothing… right?
He said, 'You are a strange, witchy woman, Moira.'
'Malcolm,' Moira said. 'Go fuck yourself, huh?' From Dawber's Book of Bridelow: RELIGION (i)
Bridelow is dominated by the ancient church dedicated to Saint Bride and built upon a small rise, thought to be the remains of the 'low' or burial mound from which the village gets the other half of its name.
The tower is largely Norman, with later medieval embellishments, although there was considerable reconstruction work to this and to the main body of the church in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The clock was added to the tower following a donation by the Bridelow Brewery in 1889 and was subsequently illuminated, enhancing the role of the tower as a 'beacon' for travellers lost on Bridelow Moss.
The churchyard offers a spectacular view over the Moss and the surrounding countryside, which, to the rear, gives way to a large tract of moorland, uninhabited since prehistoric days.
CHAPTER IV
During evensong, though he still didn't know quite what had happened with Matt, the Rector said a short prayer for the dying landlord of The Man I'th Moss.
Holding on to the lectern, eyes raised to the bent and woven branches of the Autumn Cross, he said carefully, 'Grant him strength, O Lord, and… a peaceful heart.'
Not quite sure what he meant, but he felt it was the right thing to say; you learned to trust your instincts in Bridelow. Sure enough, several members of the congregation looked up at him, conveying tacit approval. Briefly, he felt the warmth of the place again, the warmth he'd always remember, a quite unexpected warmth the first time he'd experienced it.
Unexpected because, from the outside, the church had such a forbidding, fortress-like appearance, especially from a distance, viewed from the road which traversed the Moss. He remembered his first sight of the building, close on thirty years ago. Not inspiring, in those days, for a novice minister: hard and grey-black with too many spiky bits and growling gargoyles. And Our Sheila perpetually playing with herself over the porch.
This was the 1960s, when what the young clergyman dreamed of was a bright, modern church with a flat roof and abstract stained glass (after ten years it would look like a lavatory block, but in the sixties one imagined things could only get better and better.)
'Amen,' the congregation said as one. The old schoolmaster, Ernest Dawber, glanced up at the Rector and gave him a quick, sad smile.
The warmth.
Sometimes it had seemed as if the church walls themselves were heating up under the pale amber of the lights – they were old gas-mantles converted to electricity, like the scattered streetlamps outside. And at Christmas and other festivals, it felt as though the great squat pillars either side of the nave had become giant radiator pipes.
But the warmth was rarely as apparent now. The Rector wondered if it would even be noticeable any more to a newcomer. Perhaps not. He'd gone to the expense of ordering more oil for the boiler and increasing the heat level. Knowing, all the same, as he went through the motions, that it couldn't be that simple.
There'd been a draught in the pulpit today; he certainly hadn't known that here before. The draught was needle-thin but it wasn't his imagination because, every so often, the Autumn Cross would sway a little over his head, rustling.
It rustled now, as he read out the parish notices, and something touched his hair, startling him. When he reached out, his flingers found a dead leaf. It crackled slightly, reminding him of the furious flurry of leaves blasted against his study window at dusk, like an admonishment: you must not watch us… you must turn your face away.
A strikingly cold autumn. October frost, nearly all the trees were bare. His arthritis playing up.
Giving him a hard time tonight. Difficult keeping his mind on the job, wanting only to get it over and limp back to his study – even though, since Judy's death, this had become the loneliest place of all.
'… and on Wednesday evening, there'll be a meeting of the morrismen in the Function Room at The Man, that's 7.30…
The congregation numbered close on seventy tonight, not a bad turnout. A few regular faces missing, including several members of the committee of the Mothers' Union, but that wasn't too surprising, they'd been here this morning. Couldn't expect anyone to attend twice, even the Mothers.
He rounded off the service with a final hymn, accompanied as usual by Alfred Beckett on the harmonium – a primitive reedy sound, but homely; there'd never been an organ In Bridelow Church, despite its size.
'Well done, lad,' Ernie Dawber said at the church door patting his shoulder. 'Keep thi chin up.' Fifteen years his senior, Bridelow born and bred, Ernie Dawber had always called him 'lad'. When the Rector had first arrived, he'd expected a few problems over his name. It had still seemed too close to the War for the locals not to be dubious about a new minister called…
'… Hans Gruber,' the schoolmaster had repeated slowly rolling it round his mouth like a boiled sweet.
'Yes.'
'That's German, isn't it?'
Hans had nodded. 'But I was actually born near Leighton Buzzard.'
Ernie Dawber had narrowed his eyes, giving the new minister a very hard look. 'Word of advice, lad. Keep quiet about that, I should. Thing is…' Glancing from side to side '… there's a few folks round here who're not that keen on…' dropping his voice,'… southerners.'
The Rector said now, thinking of his lonely study, 'Come back for a glass, Ernie?'
'I don't trunk so, lad.' Ernie Dawber pulled on his hat 'Not tonight.' 'I'll never forgive you for this.'
He was gripping the stiffened edge of the sheet like a prisoner clutching at the bars of his cell, his final appeal turned down.
'We should never have let you go home, Mr Castle,' the nursing sister said.
'Matt, please…' Lottie put her cool hand over his yellowed claw. 'Don't say that…'
'You never listen.' Feebly shaking his head, inconsolable All the way here in the ambulance, Lottie holding his hand, he'd been silent, away somewhere, still on the Moss perhaps.
His eyes shone with the tears that wouldn't come, no moisture left in his body.
The nurse said, 'I think he should have some sleep, don't you, Mrs Castle?'
'Sleep?' Matt was bleakly contemptuous. 'No real sleep in here. Comes out of the bloody… drug cabinet… only sort sleep you can get in here.' He looked past the nurse, 'Where's Dic?'
'I told you, Matt,' Lottie said gently. 'He wouldn't come in. He's too confused. He's probably walking round the grounds, walking it off. He'll come in tomorrow, when he's…'
'Might be too late, tomorrow.'
Lottie smiled at him. 'Don't be soft.' There was a small commotion behind her, a nurse and a young porter putting screens around a bed opposite Matt's.
