Bugger. Since the great Christmas flood, Ledwardine had seemed vulnerable in a way it never had before. Changing times, a climate in destructive flux. Jane… variable. Something not quite right, lately. She rang Jane’s mobile back, left a message: ‘ Just call me.’
Syd had a daughter, too, around Jane’s age and problematical. For once, he seemed to want to talk about her.
‘Em’s been clean for most of a year. Though we remain watchful.’
Stretching in his chair. Couldn’t seem to keep still. He’d shown no actual surprise when she’d turned up with Huw, but then he wouldn’t. But watchful, oh yes. He always would be, until his teddy bear’s eyes were closed by someone else.
‘Where’s she now, Syd?’
‘Back home. With Fiona.’
‘Which is still down south?’
‘For the present.’
Syd was from some part of London, his wife from Reading. He’d virtually promised her they’d go south when he came out of the army, but his ordination had changed everything, the way it often did. And, like so many SAS men, he’d grown fond of the place that he’d kept coming back to with his mission scars.
Only problem being that, by the time Syd had become a curate there, Hereford had developed its own little drug culture, and Emily was a born addict. No safer, as it turned out, in Malvern. In the end, Fiona Spicer had taken her back to Reading in manacles, while Syd, bound by his faith, had stayed on.
‘But it’s going to be all right.’ Syd sat with his hands clasped between his knees, staring into the fire, rocking slightly. ‘It’s working out.’
‘You’re finally leaving Wychehill?’
‘I’ve left.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘Not been gone long.’
‘So, erm…’
‘Oh God.’ Syd stretched his socks towards the flames. ‘I know what you want, Merrily, and I really can’t help you. Hands are tied. You know how it is.’
‘Not really.’
Huw sniffed, sank lower into his chair. In the poor light, its leaking stuffing was the colour and texture of his hair.
‘Bloody old Huw,’ Syd said, like Huw wasn’t there. ‘He’s a cunning bastard. Can’t say I wasn’t warned. Hasn’t explained, has he?’
‘What?’ Merrily didn’t look at Huw. ‘I’m not getting any of this, Syd. Either you’re taking over my job and they haven’t told me yet…’
‘I wouldn’t go near your job in a radiation suit, Merrily. It’s simply that where I am now makes direct consultation with anybody outside of certain circles… inadvisable, at best.’
‘You are still in the Church?’
‘To a point.’
‘Jesus,’ Huw said tiredly. ‘Weren’t for me to tell her. He’s gone back where he came from, lass.’
‘What, the…?’
‘Bit irregular,’ Syd said. ‘The Regiment doesn’t like old warriors crawling back. Nobody wants a loser who can’t cut it on the outside, with a yen to start jumping out of helicopters again, but the current guy did his back in on an exercise, and they needed a stand-in for a while.’
‘They’ve made you…?’
‘Temporary chaplain.’ Syd plucked his mug from the chair arm. ‘Saves sending a civilian on the Vicars and Tarts for the sake of a few months.’ He smiled. ‘That’s the course they have at Sandhurst for clergy new to the army.’
He leaned back, his eyes half-closed.
‘Interesting times. Not often commented on, but the growth of the secular society’s not good news as regards the Regiment. Especially when you’re dealing with an enemy that welcomes martyrdom.’
‘Taliban.’
‘Among others.’
Syd sat up, drank some tea, leaned back again, pushing out his feet to the fire. He’d once told Merrily that there was a harsh kind of mysticism at the heart of the SAS. Something to do with the miracle of survival against immeasurable odds. Ninety per cent training and preparation, nine per cent luck and one per cent something you’d call on at breaking point. The lantern in the storm.
‘I know what I’m doing,’ Syd said. ‘First rule – don’t throw the Big Feller in their faces.’
Merrily nodded. It made sense.
‘Always a surface cynicism about all things religious,’ Syd said. ‘Which is healthy. But, in the end, these are not ordinary soldiers. They live by a very strong faith. Faith in themselves, faith in their mates. There’s also what you might call a monastic quality, and if a particular kind of inner spark is allowed to go out, they’re open to a certain creeping disillu- Shit! ’
Syd jerked his feet back from the hearth. His socks were smouldering. He stamped his feet lightly on the edge of the hearth, then rubbed them together and carried on talking.
‘If you come over too evangelical, you’re well stuffed. But you do have to come over like a priest, not a mate. They’ll always respect an expert.’
‘This mean you sometimes have to go abroad with them, Syd?’
‘You make your own decisions on where you might be needed.’
‘I mean, how dangerous is it for a priest? Stupid question?’
‘Frustrating more than dangerous. If threatened, for instance, you must never resist or exercise violence. You go willingly into captivity. And no shooters. What’s kind of amusing, if you go on exercise with the boys, they don’t like to think you’re getting off with light kit, so they give you a cross to carry, size of an old Heckler and Koch nine- mil.’
‘And if it’s touch and go, lad,’ Huw said, ‘wi’ a crazed Taliban warlord?’
Syd let his chin sink into his chest, peered up, coy.
‘Every SAS chaplain worth his kit knows thirty-seven ways to kill with a wooden cross.’
There was a silence. The elephant in the room had a big D tattooed on its hide. Merrily sipped her tea, looking for an approach.
‘Why did you want to do it?’
‘It was the right time. Iraq, Afghanistan. War, but not the kind of war people care about. You hear a lot about the dead, but not much about the damaged.’ Syd put a thumb to his head. ‘Up here, you know? The NHS got no answer to that – not much of one, anyway.’
‘You think you can help?’
‘In a small way. Makes me feel more useful than… you know…’
‘A parish.’
‘It’s still a parish. Except this is one where I can see the point of it.’
‘You’re based at Credenhill?’
‘Army villa, fully equipped.’
‘On your own?’
‘For the present. However, Emmy’s no longer at college. On account of being four months pregnant.’
‘Oh.’
‘Nah…’ Syd sat up. ‘It’s good. This is the good thing. She gets married beginning of May – to a boy who’ll soon be a baby barrister, how perfect is that? Then Fiona moves back in and we get to think about a future.’
‘Well.’ Merrily smiled. ‘Things do turn around, don’t they?’
‘Told you it was OK to smoke in church.’
He wasn’t smiling, he was wearing a smiley mask. He didn’t seem frightened, though. He seemed in control.
Right, then…
