A Crown of Lights

profession; said to give him a call when I get through college.’

‘Wow, big time.’

‘Sod off.’

‘So he was genned up on Mum? Like know thine enemy?’

‘But is that sort of stuff about your dad going to be readily available from the Hereford Times or something?’

‘She won’t do interviews about herself.’

‘So where did he get it?’

‘It’s no big secret, Irene. Maybe it’s all floating around on the Internet.’

‘Exactly. I’m going to check it out, I think.’

‘Who told Gerry they were going to pull a stunt? That from Ned Bain too?’

‘Gerry claimed he’d never said that. He said I must’ve misunderstood. But he bloody did say it, Jane. He just didn’t want it going in a school magazine that they were happy for stuff like that to happen on a live programme.’

‘Stuff like what?’

‘I don’t know, it just—’

‘I mean, OK, let’s spell it out, bottom line. Are you suggesting the evil Ned Bain and his satanic cronies did some kind of black magic resulting in a fog pile-up which caused the deaths of several people? Is that what you’re saying?’

‘Not exactly that...’

‘What are you, some kind of fundamentalist Welsh Chapel bigot?’

‘Unfair, Jane.’

‘So what are you suggesting?’

‘I don’t know, I just... I mean no, it would be ridiculous to suggest that those tossers in fancy dress could do anything like that, even if they were evil, and I don’t think they are. Not evil, just totally irresponsible. They’re like, “Oh, can we work hand in hand with nature to make good things happen and save the Earth?” How the fuck can they know that what they’re going to make happen is going to be good necessarily?’

‘You sound like Mum.’

‘Well, maybe she’s right.’

‘Don’t meddle with anything metaphysical? Throw yourself on God’s mercy?’

‘Unless you know what you’re doing, maybe yes. And they don’t, they can’t know what they’re doing. How can they, Jane?’

‘It never occurred to you that by working on yourself for, like, years and years and studying and meditating, you can achieve wisdom and enlightenment?’

‘But most of those people haven’t, have they? It’s just, “Oh, let’s light a fire and take all our clothes off...” ’

‘That is a totally simplistic News of the World viewpoint.’ Jane’s head was suddenly full of a dark and fuzzy resentment. ‘You haven’t the faintest idea...’

‘At least I’m not naive about it.’

‘So I’m naive?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

There was a moment of true, sickening enlightenment. ‘You’ve been talking to her, haven’t you?’

‘Who?’

‘My esteemed parent, the Reverend Watkins. She didn’t just speak to your stepmother on the phone, she spoke to you as well, didn’t she?’

‘No. Well only at the hospital. I mean you were there some of the time.’

‘That’s why there’s been no big row. Why she hasn’t asked me what the hell I was doing on the M5 at midnight. Why she’s so laid-back about it.’

‘Look, Jane, I’m not saying Gwennan didn’t also fill her in on some of the details, but I’ve never even—’

‘I’ve been really, really stupid, haven’t I? It really must have destroyed some of my brain cells. While I’m sleeping it off, you’re all having a good chat. You told her how I’d rigged the whole trip, making you think she knew all about us going. Then she’s like, “Oh, you have to understand Jane found it hard coming to terms with me being a priest, has to go her own way.” This cosy vicar-to-cathedral- school-choirboy tete-a-tete. Gosh, what are we going to do about that girl?’

‘Jane, that is totally—’

‘And you’re like, “Oh, I’m trying to understand her too, Mrs Watkins. If you think I’m just one of those reprehensible youths who only want to get inside her pants, let me assure you—” ’

‘For Christ’s sake, Jane—’

‘That is just so demeaning.’

‘It would be if it—’

‘You are fucking well dead in the water, Irene.’

‘J—’

26 Demonstration of Faith

MERRILY PULLED THE old Volvo up against the hedge.

‘I’m sure that wasn’t there on Saturday.’

A cross standing in a garden.

‘Mabbe not,’ Gomer said.

It wasn’t any big deal, no more than the kind of rustic pole available from garden centres everywhere, with a section of another pole nailed on as a horizontal. It had been sunk into a flowerbed behind a picket fence in the garden of a neat, roadside bungalow about half a mile out of Walton, on the road leading to Old Hindwell. There were three other bungalows but this was the only one with a cross. Although it was no more than five feet high, there was a white light behind it, leaking through a rip in the clouds, and the fact that it was out of context made you suddenly and breathlessly aware of what a powerful symbol this was.

The bungalow looked empty, no smoke from the chimney. Merrily drove on. ‘You know who lives there?’

‘Retired folk from Off, I reckon.’

‘Mmm.’ Retired incomers were always useful for topping up your congregation. If the affable local minister turned up to welcome them, just when they were wondering if they were going to be happy here among strangers, they would feel obliged to return the favour, even if it was only for the next few Sundays. But if the friendly minister was the Reverend Nicholas Ellis, drifting away after a month or so could be more complicated.

This was what Bernie Dunmore had been afraid of. She’d received a briefing on the phone from Sophie before they left.

Apparently there was something of a record turn-out at the village hall yesterday. The bishop understands that a number of people were out delivering printed circulars last night, and bulletins were posted on Christian websites, warning of pagan infestation. Today there’s to be what’s been described as ‘a Demonstration of Faith’, which the bishop finds more than a little ominous.

‘I wonder what he said to them in his sermon. You know any regular churchgoers in the village, Gomer?’

‘We’ll find somebody for you, vicar, no problem.’

The bishop’s in conference all day...

Unsurprisingly.

... but what he wants you to do initially, Merrily, is to offer advice and support to the Reverend Mr Ellis. By which I understand him to mean restraint.

What was she supposed to do exactly? Put him under clerical arrest?