A Crown of Lights

plates conspicuously on the draining board so that Mum would know she’d eaten and wouldn’t come up to ask about lunch and initiate the Long Talk.

She vaguely remembered awakening to see Mum standing by the bed in her clerical gear, like a ghost, but she must have fallen asleep again before either of them could speak. She kept half waking to hear the ting of the phone: a lot of calls. A lot of calls. Was this about the accident? Or Livenight – Mum apologizing to half the clergy for screwing up on TV?

For Sunday lunch, alone with Ethel the cat, Merrily had just a boiled egg and a slice of toast. Which was just as well because, before two p.m., the bishop was on the phone, enquiring after Jane and revealing himself to be a worried man.

The Daily Mail had phoned him at home. Did he know that a former church in his diocese had become a temple for the worship of pagan gods?

Well, of course he did. He’d seen the damned TV programme like everyone else, but he was hoping that either nothing more would be heard of it or it would turn out to be safely over the border in the Diocese of Swansea and Brecon.

Not that he’d told the Mail that. He’d told the Mail he was ‘concerned’ and would be ‘making enquiries’.

And this was one of them.

‘As it happens,’ Merrily said, ‘I was in Old Hindwell yesterday.’

Bernie Dunmore went quiet for a couple of seconds.

‘That’s an extraordinary coincidence,’ he said.

‘It is. But nothing more than that.’

‘Did you see the church?’

‘Only the tower above the trees. I didn’t see any naked figures dancing around a fire, didn’t hear any chanting. Is it really true? Who are they?’

‘Witches, apparently. People called Thorogood, ironically enough. Young couple, came from Shrewsbury, I think. But he’s American.’

‘In parts of America, witchcraft is awfully respectable these days.’

‘Merrily, this is Radnorshire.’

‘Er... quite.’

‘As for the church – well, strictly speaking it isn’t a church at all any more. Did all the right things when they let it go. Took away the churchyard bones to a place of suitable sanctity. Virtually gave it to the farming family whose land had surrounded it for generations. Stipulating, naturally, that relatives of people whose names were on the graves should be able to visit and lay flowers, by arrangement.’

‘Why did they let it go? It’s not as though the village has an alternative church.’

‘Usual reasons: economics coupled with a very convenient period of public apathy.’

‘You could dump half the parish churches in Britain on that basis.’

‘Also, this isn’t a building of any great architectural merit,’ Bernie said. ‘Old, certainly, but the only history it seems to have is one of more or less continuous major repairs and renewals, dating back to the fifteenth century or earlier. The dear old place never seems to have wanted to stay up, if you get my meaning. Close to a river or something, so perhaps built on ground prone to subsidence. Things apparently came to a head when the rector at the time actually suggested it should be decommissioned.’

‘Really?’

‘Anyway, all that’s irrelevant. The unfortunate fact is, if it’s got a tower or a steeple and a handful of gravestones, the general public will still see it as holy ground, and there’ll be protests.’

‘But there’s nothing you can do about that, is there? You can’t actually vet new owners.’

‘The Church can vet them, obviously, when the Church is the vendor. And the Church does – we’re not going to sell one to someone who wants to turn it into St Cuthbert’s Casino or St Mary’s Massage Parlour. But when it’s being sold on for the second or, in this case, third time, you’re right, it’s more or less out of our hands.’

‘So is there any reason for this to escalate into anything?’

‘Merrily, this is Nicholas Ellis’s patch. This is where he holds his gatherings... in the village hall.’

‘I know. I was there for a funeral. The congregation was singing in tongues over the coffin.’

The bishop made a noise conveying extreme distaste.

‘But the point I was about to make, Bernie, is that Ellis is Sea of Light. He doesn’t care about churches.’

‘Oh, Merrily, you don’t really believe the bugger isn’t going to start caring very deeply – as of now?’

‘You’ve spoken to him?’

‘Never spoken to the man in my life, but the press have. They didn’t tell us what he said, but I expect we’ll all be reading about it at length in the morning.’

‘Oh. Anything I can do?’

Bernie Dunmore chuckled aridly. ‘You’re the Deliverance Consultant, Merrily, so what do you think you could do?’

‘That’s not fair. Look, I’m sorry I messed up so badly on TV, if that’s what—’

‘Not at all. No, indeed, you were... fine. As well as being probably the only woman on that programme who looked as if she shaved her armpits. Was that sexist? What I’m trying to say... you’re the only one of us who officially knows about this kind of thing and is able to discuss it in a balanced kind of way. Not like Ellis, that’s what I mean. Obviously, I can’t forbid the man to speak to the media, but I’d far rather it were you...’

‘The only problem, Bishop—’

‘... and if all future requests for information could be passed directly to our Deliverance Consultant. As the official spokesperson for the diocese on... matters of this kind.’

Merrily felt a tremor of trepidation. And recalled the whizz and flicker, the crackle and tap-tap on the window of a room full of shadows.

‘But, Bernie, this job... deliverance—’

‘I know, I know. It’s supposed to be low-profile.’ He paused, to weight the punchline. ‘But you have, after all, been on television now, haven’t you?’

Ah.

‘I won’t dress it up,’ Bernie said. ‘You’ll probably have problems as a result. Extremists on both sides. The pagans’ll have you down as a jackboot fascist, while Ellis is calling you a pinko hippy doing the tango with Satan. Still, it’ll be an experience for you.’

She stripped off the plasters Sophie had bought from the pharmacy at Tesco on the way to Worcester last night – a fraught journey, from the moment she’d stumbled into the Saab’s headlight beams somewhere on the outskirts of the village.

She then changed out of her clerical clothes and went up to the attic to check that Jane was OK.

The kid was asleep in her double bed under the famous Mondrian walls of vermilion, Prussian blue and chrome yellow. Merrily found herself bending over her, like she hadn’t done for years, making sure she was breathing. Jane’s eyes fluttered open briefly and she murmured something unintelligible.

Merrily quietly left the room. They’d assured her at the hospital that her daughter was absolutely fine but might sleep a lot.

Downstairs, the phone was ringing. She grabbed the cordless.

It was Gomer. He’d just been to the shop for tobacco for his roll-ups and learned about the motorway accident.

‘Her’s all right?’

‘Fine. Sleeping a lot, but that’s good.’

‘Bloody hell, vicar.’

‘One of those things.’

‘Bloody hell. Anythin’ I can do, see?’