A Crown of Lights

Jane wanted to haul him from his swivel chair and wrestle him to the ground among the snaking wires. But then, thank Christ, Mum started talking.

It just wasn’t her voice, that was the problem. She sounded like she’d just been awakened from a drugged sleep. Well, all right, it was going to be a tough one. Ned Bain was a class act, a cool, cool person, undeniably sexy. And Jane admittedly felt some serious empathy with what he was saying. Like, hadn’t she herself had this same argument with Mum time and again, pointing out that paganism – witchcraft – was a European thing, born in dark woodland glades, married to mountain streams. It was practical, and Jane didn’t even see it as entirely incompatible with Christianity.

The camera was tight on Mum – so tight that, oh no, you could see the sweat. And she was gabbling in that strange, cracked voice about Christianity being pure, selfless love, while paganism seemed to be about sex at its most mechanical and... feelingless.

Feelingless? Jesus, Jane thought, is that a real word? Oh God.

‘This is bloody trite crap, especially after the pagan guy,’ Maurice told John Fallon. ‘Let’s come back to her when, and if, she gets her shit together.’

‘All right.’ John Fallon spun away, a flying smirk. ‘That’s the, ah, Church of England angle.’

Someone jeered.

Oh God! When she was sure the camera was away from her, Merrily dabbed a crumpled tissue to her forehead, knowing immediately what she should have said, how she could have dealt with Bain’s simplistic generalizations. Now wanting to jump up and tug Fallon back. But it was, of course, too late.

From halfway up an aisle between rows of seats, she caught a glance from Steve Ewing, the producer, his mouth hidden under a lip-microphone as used by ringside boxing commentators. It was as if he was ironically rerunning his pre-programme pep talk: ‘... you’ll be kicking yourself all the way home because you missed your chance of getting your argument across on the programme.’

From the adjacent seat to her left, a hand gently squeezed her arm: Patrick Ryan, the sociologist who was supposed to have shagged half the priestesses in the southern counties while compiling his thesis on pagan ritual practice. ‘You’ll get used to it,’ he whispered.

She nodded. She sought out the eyes of Ned Bain, but they were in shadow now; he seemed to be looking downwards. He appeared very still and limp, as though his body was recharging. She thought, He was staring at me the whole time. And afterwards I couldn’t do a thing.

‘... gonna talk to Maureen now,’ John Fallon was saying, back on the other side of the studio floor, just across the aisle from Ned Bain. ‘Maureen, your teenage daughter was into all this peaceful, New Age nature worship. But that was only the start, because Gemma ended up, I believe, in a psychiatric unit.’

Oh, sure... blame Bain for your own deficiencies. Merrily shook herself, furious. Blame poor dead Sean.

‘She’s still attending the unit, John.’ Maureen was a bulky woman, early fifties, south London accent. ‘Apart from that, she won’t hardly leave the house any more, poor kid.’

‘She became a witch, right?’

‘She became a witch when she was about seventeen, when she first went to the tech college. There was a lecturer there like... him.’ Maureen jerked a thumb at Ned Bain, who tilted his head quizzically. ‘Smooth, good- looking guy, on the make.’

Ned chuckled. Really nothing like Sean. How could she have—

‘But let’s just make it clear,’ Fallon said, ‘that this was not Ned Bain here. So this other man recruited Gemma into a witch coven.’

Maureen described how her daughter had been initiated in a shop cellar converted into a temple, and within about six months her personality had completely changed. She’d broken off her engagement to a very nice boy who was a garage mechanic, and then they found out she was into hard drugs.

‘But I never knew the worst of it till her mate come to see me one day. This was the mate she’d joined the coven with, and she told me Gemma had got involved with this other group what was doing black magic. She said Gemma went with the rest of them to St Anthony’s Church – and I know this happened, ’cause it was in the papers – and they desecrated it.’

‘Desecrated, how?’

‘Well... you know... did... did their dirt.’ The big face crumpled. ‘Things like—’

‘John, let me say...’ Ned Bain was leaning forward. The camera pulled back, the boom-mic operator shifted position. ‘This is satanism, and satanism is a specifically anti-Christian movement. It is entirely irrelevant to Wicca or any of the other strands of paganism. We do not oppose Christianity. We—’

‘The hell you don’t!’ Merrily was half out of her seat, but well off-mic.

‘We are an alternative to Christianity,’ Bain stressed. ‘And also, I should perhaps point out at this stage, a precursor, of the tired, politicized cult of Jesus. And I say precursor, because there’s evidence that Christianity itself is no more than a fabrication, a modification of the cult of Dionysus, in which the story of the man-god who dies and is resurrected...’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Fallon stopped him. ‘Fascinating stuff, Ned, but I want to stay with satanism for a moment.’

‘As you would,’ Merrily muttered.

‘Now, Ned, you would say that satanism is as much anathema to pagans as it is to the Christian Church. And yet young Gemma graduated – or descended – to some kind of devil worship after being initiated as a witch. I want to come back...’ Fallon wheeled ‘... to Merrily Watkins...’

Merrily’s hands tightened on the arms of her chair. Please God...

‘Now, what we didn’t say before about Merrily is that, as well as being one of the new breed of female parish priests, she’s also the official exorcist – I believe Deliverance Minister is the correct term these days – for the Diocese of Hereford. That’s right?’

‘Yes.’ Ignore the camera, the lights. Don’t look at Bain’s eyes.

‘So what I want to ask you, do people like Maureen often come to you with this same kind of story?’

‘I...’ She swallowed. How could she say she hadn’t been in the job long enough to have accumulated any kind of client base. ‘I have to say... John... that what you might call real satanism is uncommon. What you have are kids who’re playing old Black Sabbath albums and get a perverse buzz out of dressing up and doing something horribly antisocial. Quite often, you’ll find that these kids will join a witch coven in the belief that it’s far more... extreme, if you like, than it actually is. That they’re entering a world of sex rites and blood sacrifice.’

‘Which is your fault!’ one of the pagans shouted. ‘Because that’s how the Church has portrayed us for centuries.’

‘She’s saying,’ Maureen shrilled, extending a finger at Merrily, ‘that my daughter only joined the witches because she thought they were evil?’

‘No, what I’m—’

‘She’s sitting on the fence!’ A heavy man bounded down one of the aisles. ‘That’s what she’s doing.’

Two security heavies moved in from different directions. Fallon blocked the man’s path. ‘You are?’

‘The Reverend Peter Gemmell.’ He was grey-bearded and big enough to take on either of the two security men. ‘You won’t find me on your list. I’m an industrial chaplain, and I came with the factory group from Walsall. But that’s beside the point. What I want is to tell you all the truth that my colleague here is too diplomatic, too delicate, too wishy-washy to introduce. And that is to say that Satan himself is present in this studio tonight.’

‘Oh hell,’ Jane said glumly, ‘a fruitcake. Just when I thought she might be really cooking.’

‘Lovely.’ Gerry leaned back in his canvas chair with his hands behind his head.

Voice-crackle from Maurice’s cans. He nodded, scanning the monitors to make sure Gemmell was alone. ‘OK, Steve, thanks, will do. John, let’s see where this one goes, OK?’

Eirion looked shell-shocked. ‘Anything could happen down there, couldn’t it? Suppose that guy had a gun?’