A Crown of Lights

to the side door of the vicarage and Eirion was driving away on his manky silencer.

The phone went again. Mum? Had to be. Jane grabbed at it.

‘Ledwardine Vicarage, how may we help you? If you wish to book a wedding, press three. To pledge a ten- thousand-pound donation to the steeple fund, press six.’

‘Is that the Reverend Watkins?’

Woman’s voice, and not local. Not Sophie at the office. And not Mum being smart. Uh-oh.

‘I’m afraid she’s not available right now,’ Jane said. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘When will she be available?’

The woman sounding a touch querulous, but nothing threatening: there was this deadly MOR computer music in the background, plus non-ecclesiastical office noise. Ten to one, some time-wasting double-glazing crap, or maybe the Church Times looking for next week’s Page Three Clerical Temptress for dirty old canons to pin up in their vestries.

‘I should try her secretary at the Bishpal tomorrow,’ Jane said.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘The Bishop’s Palace, in Hereford. If you ask for Sophie Hill...’

Most of the time it was a question of protecting Mum from herself. If you were a male vicar you could safely do lofty and remote – part of the tradition. But an uncooperative female priest was considered a snotty bitch.

‘Look.’ A bit ratty now. ‘It is important.’

‘Also important she doesn’t die of some stress-related condition. I mean, like, important for me. Don’t imagine you’d have to go off and live with your right-wing grandmother in Cheltenham. Who are you, anyway?’

Could almost hear the woman counting one... two... three... through gritted teeth.

‘My name’s Tania Beauman, from the Livenight television programme in Birmingham.’

Oh, hey! ‘Seriously?’

‘Seriously,’ Tania Beauman said grimly.

Jane was, like, horribly impressed. Jane had seen Livenight four times. Livenight was such total crap and below the intelligence threshold of a cockroach, but compulsive viewing, oh yeah.

‘Livenight?’ Jane said.

‘Correct.’

‘Where you have the wife in the middle and the husband on one side and the toyboy lover on the other, and about three minutes to midnight one finally gets stirred up enough to call the other one a motherfucker, and then fights are breaking out in the audience, and the presenter looks really shocked although you know he’s secretly delighted because it’ll all be in the Sun again. That Livenight?’

‘Yes,’ Tania said tightly.

‘You want her on the programme?’

‘Yes, and as it involves next week’s programme we don’t have an awful lot of time to play with. Is she in?’

‘No, but I’m Merrily Watkins’s personal assistant, and I have to warn you she doesn’t like to talk about the other stuff. Which is what this is about, right? The Rev. Spooky Watkins, from Deliverance?’

Tania didn’t reply.

‘I could do it, of course, if the money was OK. I know all her secrets. I’d be very good, and controversial. I’ll call anyone a motherfucker.’

‘Thank you very much,’ Tania said drily. ‘We will bear you in mind, when you turn twelve.’

‘I’m sixteen!’

‘Just tell her I called. Have a good night.’

Jane grinned. That was all Eirion’s fault. Making her feel cool.

In the silence of the scullery, the phone went again.

‘Jane?’

‘Mum. Hey, guess wh—’

‘Listen, flower,’ Mum said, ‘I’ve got bad news.’

3 Loved Like That

‘SO, LIKE... HOW long will you be?’

‘I just don’t know, flower. We came here in Gomer’s Land Rover. It was all a bit of a rush.’

‘She was never ill, was she?’ Jane said. ‘Like really never.’ The kid’s voice was suddenly high and hoarse. ‘You can’t count on anything, can you? Not even you.’

Merrily sighed. Everybody thought she could pull strings. Gomer and Minnie’s bungalow had become like the kid’s second home in the village, Minnie the closest she’d ever had to an adopted granny.

‘Flower, I’ll have to go. I’m on the pay phone in the corridor, and I’ve no more change. As soon as I get to know something...’

‘She’s not even all that old. I mean, sixty-something... what’s that? Nobody these days—’

Jane broke off. Remembering, perhaps, how young her own father had been when his life was sliced off on the motorway that night. But that was different. His girlfriend was in the car, too, and the hand of fate was involved there, in Jane’s view.

‘Minnie’s strong. She’ll fight it,’ Merrily said.

‘She isn’t going to win, though, is she? I can tell by your voice. Where’s Gomer?’

‘Gone back in, to be with her.’

‘How’s he taking it?’

‘Well, you know Gomer. You wouldn’t want him prowling around in your sickroom.’

Gomer, in retirement, groomed the churchyard, cleared the ditches, looked out for Merrily when Uncle Ted was doing devious, senior-churchwarden things behind her back. And dreamed of the old days – the great, rampaging days of Gomer Parry Plant Hire.

‘He’ll just smash the place up or something, if they let her die,’ Jane concurred bleakly.

Meaning she herself would like to smash something up, possibly the church.

How many hours had they been here? Hospitals engendered their own time zones. Merrily hung up the phone and turned back into the ill-lit passage, teeming now: visiting hours. Once, she’d had a dream of purgatory, and it was like a big hospital, a brightly lit Brueghel kind of hospital, with all the punters helpless in operation gowns, and the staff scurrying around, feeding a central cauldron steaming with fear.

‘Merrily?’

From a trio of nurses, one detached herself and came across.

‘Eileen? I thought you were over at the other place.’

‘You get moved around. We’ll all end up in one place, anyway, if they ever finish building it, and won’t that be a fockin’ treat?’ Eileen Cullen put out a forefinger, lifted Merrily’s hair from her shoulder. ‘You’re not wearing your collar, Reverend. You finally dump the Auld Feller, or what?’

‘We’re still together,’ Merrily said. ‘And it’s still hot.’

‘Jesus, that’s disgusting.’

‘Actually, I had to leave home in a hurry.’ Merrily spotted Gomer coming out of the ward, biting on an unlit cigarette, for comfort. ‘I came with a friend. His wife’s had a serious heart attack – unexpected. You won’t say anything cynical, will you?’

‘What’s his name?’ Sister Cullen was crop-haired and angular and claimed to have left Ulster to escape from ‘bloody religion’.