him to that extent?’
Gomer took out a roll-up. ‘Like I said, it’s about stickin’ together, solid. Ellis’s helped the right people, ennit? Judy and Gareth with their boy. And who knows what else he done.’
‘Oh my God.’
‘Vicar?’
Merrily drank the rest of her whisky in a gulp.
‘Menna,’ she murmured. ‘
Robin turned on the bulkhead lamp. It was no longer raining, but the wind had gotten up. A metal door creaked rhythmically over in the barn; it sounded like a sailing boat on the sea making him wish he and Betty were alone together, far out on some distant ocean.
Still naked to the waist, he stood on the doorstep and watched her park next to one of the Winnebagos. She stepped out of the car and into a puddle. The whole of the yard was puddles tonight.
She didn’t seem to care how wet her feet got. Her hair was frizzed out by the rain, uncombed.
Oh God, how he loved this woman. He tried to send this out to her.
He saw her standing for a moment, entirely still, taking in the extra cars in the yard, the two Winnebagos.
Then she saw him.
He came out of the doorway, walked towards her. She still didn’t move. If it was cold out here, he wasn’t feeling it yet.
‘Bets, I...’
He stopped a couple of yards from his wife. The back of his neck felt on fire.
‘Bets, I couldn’t stop them. It was either them or... or all kinds of people we didn’t know. It had all gotten out. You just couldn’t imagine... It was all over the Internet. We were getting hate faxes and also faxes from people who were right behind us – like, religious polarization, you know, over the whole nation? Or so... so it seemed.’
Betty spoke at last, in this real flat voice.
‘Who are they?’
‘Well, there... there’s George and Vivvie, and... and Alexandra. And Stuart and Mona Osman, who we met at some... at some sabbat, someplace. And Max and Bella... Uh, Max is kind of an all-knowing asshole, but they’re OK where it matters. I guess. And some other people. Bets, I’m sorry. If you’d only called...’
There was no expression at all on her face; this was what scared him. Why didn’t she just lose her temper, call him a stupid dickhead, get this over?
‘See, we always said there was gonna be a sabbat at Imbolc. Didn’t we say that? That we were gonna bring the church alive with lights? A big bonfire to welcome the spring? So like... maybe this was destined to come about. Maybe there was nothing we could do to get in the way of it. Like it’s meant to be – only with more significance than we could ever have imagined.’
Why did this all sound so hollow? Why was she taking a step back, away from him?
There was a splish in a puddle. Her car keys? She’d dropped the car keys. Robin rushed forward, plunged his hand and half his arm into the puddle, scrabbling about in the black, freezing water, babbling on still.
‘Look... Ellis was here, with his born-again buddies. Chances are they’re gonna be back tomorrow – only more of them. There was like this real heavy sense of menace. You and me, we couldn’t’ve handled that on our own, believe me.’
He hated himself for this blatant lie, but what could he say? He pulled out the dripping keys, hung on to them.
Betty said, ‘Give me the keys, Robin.’
‘Why?
‘I can’t stay here tonight.’
‘Please... you don’t know... Bets, it’s gotten bigger than us two. OK, that’s a cliche, but it’s true. What’s happening here’s gonna be—’
‘Symbolic,’ a voice said from behind him. He turned and saw Vivvie on the step. Vivvie had come out to help him. Vivvie alone.
The worst thing that could’ve happened.
‘Symbolic of the whole struggle to free this country from two millennia of religious corruption and spiritual stagnation. He’s right, Betty. We have to play our part. We have to reconsecrate the church and it has to be tomorrow night. It’s why we’re here.’
Betty started to shake her head, and the light from the bulkhead caught one side of her face and Robin saw the dark smudges, saw she’d been crying hard.
‘Bets!’ He almost screamed. ‘Look, I know things haven’t been right. I know you never connected with this place. Honey, please... once this is over we’ll sell up, yeah? I mean, like, Jeez, from what I’ve been hearing there’s gotta be about a hundred pagans ready to take it off our hands. But this... Imbolc... this is something we have to go through – together, yeah? Please let it be together.’
‘Give me those keys.’
‘I will not let you leave!’
‘You will not stop me,’ Betty said. ‘And
She turned away, walked across the yard toward the track.
Robin ran after her, managed four paces before the cold, suddenly intense, bit into his chest and his breathing seemed to seize up. But that was nothing to the pain right dead centre of his heart chakra.
His eyes flooded up.
‘Don’t follow me,’ Betty said. ‘I mean it, don’t take one more pace.’
36
The Atheist
‘YOU’RE BACK HOME?’ Eileen Cullen’s relief was apparent, even over hospital corridor echo and clattering trays.
Merrily switched on the engine, turned the heater up all the way and shook a cigarette into her lap. ‘I’m in my car on a pub car park in Old Hindwell, and wet and cold.’
‘You’re still
‘It doesn’t mean she’s dead, Eileen.’
‘It’s scary, Merrily. Civilized woman like that, if she wanted to do away with herself, why not a bottle of Scotch and a handful of pills?’
‘I still can’t believe she has.’
‘Aye, well, sometimes you...’ Cullen hesitated. ‘Sometimes there’s things you just don’t want to believe, no matter what. What are the alternatives, after all? It’s suicide, face it. And don’t you go feeling guilty. There’s nothing you could’ve done.’
‘How can you say that?’
‘Because, Reverend, that’s the official motto of the National Health Service. Listen, will you be in town tomorrow?’
‘Probably not tomorrow.’
‘I need to talk to you.’
‘Are we not talking now?’
‘What I want to talk about, you don’t on the phone. Well you don’t at all if you’ve got any sense. I could come and see you... at your home.’
‘Eileen?’ Jane was right; Cullen, hard as a hospital potato, had never sounded less assured.
