A Crown of Lights

‘Actually’ – Kinsey was a plump, shrewd-eyed guy in his thirties – ‘if we don’t do it now, I suspect we could be overtaken by events. Nick Ellis is over there in the hall, having a meeting with some people. We’re expecting him to come out and announce plans for a march to St Michael’s Church, probably tonight.’

‘That’s what he’s doing in there, is it?’ The cross was lit up for a policy meeting? I don’t think so.

‘Isn’t that going to be too late for your programme?’

‘Oh sure – much too late. We might get a piece in the half nine slot, though that’ll be only about forty seconds. But I think it’s going to be a damp squib anyway, with no one there to protest at. The Thorogoods have been smart enough to vacate the premises.’

‘You’ve not been able to speak to them?’

Kinsey shook his head. ‘That’s why we’re going to have to make do – if you don’t mind me putting it like that – with people like you. Just tell us where the Church stands on this issue. A straightforward response. Won’t take more than a couple of minutes.’

Of course, it wasn’t straightforward. And, with the positioning and the repositioning and the cutaways and the noddies, it took most of twenty minutes. Kinsey asked her if the diocese was fully behind Ellis; Merrily said the diocese was concerned about the situation. So would she be joining in tonight’s protest? Not exactly; but she’d be going along as an observer.

‘So the diocese is actually sitting on the fence?’

Merrily said, ‘Personally, I don’t care too much for witch-hunts.’

‘So you think that’s literally what this is?’

‘I just wouldn’t like it to turn into one. The Reverend Ellis has a perfect right – well, it’s his job, in fact – to oppose whatever he considers evil, but—’

‘Do you think it’s evil?’

‘I haven’t met the Thorogoods. I wouldn’t, on face value, condemn paganism any more than I’d condemn Buddhism or Islam. But I would, like everyone else, be interested to find out what they’re proposing to do in Old Hindwell Church.’

‘You’d see that potentially as sacrilege?’

‘The significant point about Old Hindwell Church is that it’s no longer a functioning church. It’s been decommissioned.’

‘What about the graveyard, though? Wouldn’t relatives of dead people buried there—’

‘There never were all that many graves because the proximity of the brook caused occasional flooding. What graves there were are quite old, and only the stones now remain. Obviously, we’re concerned that those stones should not be tampered with.’

‘What about the way the village itself has reacted? All the candles in the windows... how do you feel about that?’

Merrily smiled. ‘I think they look very pretty.’

‘What do you think they’re saying?’

‘Well... lots of different things, probably. Why don’t you knock on a few doors and ask?’

Kinsey lowered his microphone, nodded to the cameraman. It was a wrap. ‘Out of interest, Martyn,’ Merrily said, ‘what did people have to say when you knocked on their doors?’

‘Sod all,’ said Kinsey. ‘Either they didn’t answer or they backed off or they politely informed us that Mr Ellis was doing the talking. And in some cases not so politely. Off the record, why is Ellis doing this? Why’s he going for these people – these so-called pagans?’

‘You tell me.’

‘I can’t. He’s not your usual evangelical, all praising God and bonhomie. He’s quiet, he chooses his words carefully. Also he gets on with the locals... which is unusual. They’re canny round here, not what you’d call impressionable. Anyway, not my problem. You going to be around, if we need anything else?’

‘For the duration,’ Merrily said.

‘Well, good luck.’

‘Thanks.’

She ran all the way to the village hall, meeting nobody on the way, bounding up the steps and praying she wasn’t too late, because if it was all over... well, hearsay evidence just wasn’t the same.

At the top, she stopped for breath – and to assess the man in the porch, obviously guarding the closed doors to the hall. Slumped on a folding chair like a sack of cement. He was an unsmiling, flat-capped bloke in his fifties. She didn’t recognize him.

He didn’t quite look at her. ‘’Ow’re you?’

‘I’m fine. OK if I just pop in?’

‘No press, thank you. Father Ellis will be out in a while.’

‘I’m not press.’

‘I still can’t let you in.’

Merrily unwound her scarf. He took in the collar, his watery eyes swivelling uncertainly.

‘You’re with Father Ellis?’

‘Every step of the way,’ Merrily said shamelessly.

He ushered her inside. ‘Be very quiet,’ he said sternly, and closed the doors silently behind her.

Suddenly she was in darkness.

She waited, close to the place where she’d stood at Menna’s funeral service, until her eyes adjusted enough to reassure her there was little chance of being spotted. Here, at the end of the hall, she stood alone.

All the window blinds had been pulled down tight, and it seemed to have a different layout, no longer a theatre-in-the-round. Whatever was happening was happening in a far corner, and all she could see of it was a white-gold aura, like over a Nativity scene, a distant holy grotto.

And all she could hear was a sobbing – hollow, slow and even.

Merrily slipped off her shoes, carried them to the shelter of a brick pillar about halfway down the hall. It was cold; no heating on.

She waited for about half a minute before peering carefully around the pillar.

The glow had resolved into two tiers of candles. The sobbing had softened into a whispery panting. Merrily could make out several people – seemed like women – some sitting or kneeling in a circle, the others standing behind them, all holding candles on small tin or pewter trays, like the ones in the windows of the village.

Women only? This was why the guy on the door had let her in without too much dispute.

The scene, with its unsteady glow and its umber shadows, had a dreamlike, period ambience: seventeenth or eighteenth century. You expected the women to be wearing starched Puritan collars.

‘In the name of the Father... and of the Son... and of the Holy Ghost...’

Ellis’s voice was low-level, with that transatlantic lubrication. User-friendly and surprisingly warm.

But only momentarily, for then he paused. Merrily saw him rise up, in his white monk’s robe, in the centre of the circle, the only man here. Next to him stood a slender table with a candle on it and a chalice and something else in shadow, probably a Bible.

His voice rose, too, became more distinct, the American element now clipped out.

‘O God, the Creator and Protector of the human race, Who hast formed man in Thine own image, look upon this Thy handmaiden who is grievously vexed with the wiles of an unclean spirit... whom the old adversary, the ancient enemy of the earth, encompasses with a horrible dread... and blinds the senses of her human understanding with stupor, confounds her with terror... and harasses her with trembling and fear.’

Merrily’s feet were cold; she bent and slipped on her shoes. She wouldn’t be getting any closer; from here she could see and hear all she needed. And she was fairly sure this was a modified version of the Roman Catholic ritual.

Ellis’s voice gathered a rolling energy. ‘Drive away, O Lord, the power of the Devil, take away his deceitful snares.’

At some signal, the women held their candles high, wafting out the rich and ancient aroma of melted wax.