The Cure of Souls

As good as his word, Prof handed Gerard Stock a mug of lukewarm tea and jerked a thumb at Lol.

‘Gerry, this little guy is Laurence Robinson. He used to be in a minor band, way back. Now he’s a psychotherapist.’

Lol sighed. He was polishing his glasses on the hem of his T-shirt, so Gerard Stock was just a blue-denim blur, but he could feel the guy’s lazy gaze like a damp towel as Stock cranked out a laugh.

‘Guess we’ve all been down that road at some time.’

Lol put his glasses back on. Stock’s voice had surprised him: underneath the vague mid-Atlantic slur, it was educated, upper-middle-class, like Simon’s. He saw that the bloke had intelligent, canny eyes, a wet little rosebud mouth inside the oval of the beard and moustache.

‘I was in therapy for six months, in the States,’ Stock said. ‘It really fucked me up.’ He laughed again, eyes glinting with challenge.

Lol nodded. ‘It can happen. It isn’t right for everybody.’

Stock drank some tea. ‘And what kind of person isn’t it right for?’

‘Don’t get him going,’ Prof snapped. ‘He’ll bore the arse off you with his psycho-babble. What can we do for you, Gerry? I hate to hurry you, but we need to have this rig up and running. Time is money in this business, I don’t need to tell you that.’

‘You most certainly don’t, Prof,’ Stock said. ‘Actually, I wanted a word with the vicar.’

Prof said nothing, clearly thrown by this.

‘Me?’ Simon said, also thrown, obviously.

‘If you have a few minutes.’

‘Sure.’ Simon shrugged. ‘I was just leaving anyway. I should be out there ministering to my flock, but Prof’s still a novelty, made me self-indulgent. Would you excuse me one minute, while I pop off and have a wee? Then I’ll walk back with you.’

When Simon vanished into the passage, Lol went over to the sink and filled it with hot water for the washing up. When he turned round to find a teacloth, he saw that Gerard Stock was contemplating him, eyes screwed up like he was trying to figure out the species of a bird in the garden.

‘You were in a band? Laurence… Robertson…?’

‘Robinson,’ Lol said. ‘Lol, usually. But you probably wouldn’t—’

‘Ah,’ Stock said triumphantly. ‘Hazey Jane.’

Lol’s turn to be surprised. Maybe it took one loser to recognize another.

‘You did this Nick Drake-y thing,’ Stock recalled, ‘long before the man was rediscovered. All sensitive and finger-picking, when everybody else was crashing about on synths. Brave of you.’

‘Didn’t get us anywhere,’ Lol said lightly.

‘If ten years too early.’ Stock’s teeth were very white and even – Hollywood teeth. He couldn’t always have been a loser. ‘And now everybody’s discovered Drake, it’s probably too late. A hard and ungrateful business, my friend. You’re probably better off, even in psychotherapy.’

‘Unfortunately, everybody’s discovered that, too,’ Lol said. ‘Story of my life.’

‘Sad,’ said Gerard Stock, as Simon returned.

Prof and Lol followed the other two men down the passage and out through the back door, Prof seeming much happier now that he was seeing Stock’s back. The sun was a big white spotlamp, tracking them, and all around the countryside was surging with summer, the meadow lavishly splattered with wild flowers – Mother Nature flaunting herself, happy to be a whore.

Prof stopped in the yard, and sat a Panama hat on his bald head. ‘He piss you off, Laurence?’ he asked hopefully.

‘Not particularly.’

‘Give him time.’ Prof rubbed his beard. His baggy American T-shirt carried the merry message BABES IS ALL. ‘What’s he want with Simon, that’s what I would like to know. He strike you as a man who feels himself in need of spiritual absolution?’

Lol smiled. ‘You jealous?’

‘I shall treat that with the contempt it deserves,’ Prof said.

‘What does Mr Stock actually do? You never said.’

‘Nothing! Strolls about like the squire while the poor wife’s at work, temping for some agency in Hereford. She inherits the house, now she earns the money for them to live there. All right, he was some kind of a freelance publicist, a term that can mean whatever he wants it to mean on any particular day. He offers to handle my PR. I say, Gerard, watch my lips: I do not want any relations with the public.’

Lol watched Stock and the vicar crossing the river bridge at the bottom of the meadow, where the line of poplars began. Where he’d walked last night. He told Prof about the hop-kiln he’d seen, with its fairy-tale tower. Prof nodded.

‘Yeah, I expect that would be his place. It’s not a prime location, Stock maintains, on account of being blocked in on either side by these two enormous great metal barns. Same situation as this, with the land all around it owned by someone else. He should moan – like he paid a penny for it.’

‘They still grow hops there?’

‘Used to.’

‘Only there was this kind of hop-yard with no hops – well, a few shrivelled bits of bine hanging from the wires. I mean, hops had obviously been grown at one time, in quantity, but it was all barren now. Scorched earth and just these poles. It was… depressing.’

‘Hmm,’ Prof said. ‘This would be the wilt, I expect.’

‘What?’

‘Verticulum Wilt… nah, that’s wrong, but some word like that. It’s this voracious hop disease – no known cure. Wipes out your whole crop, contaminates your land like anthrax or something, throwing hop-farmers out of business. You want to know about this stuff, take a walk down to the hop museum by the main road.’ Prof smiled slyly. ‘You’ll like it there – check out the back room.’

‘Why?’

Prof winked. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘apparently that’s how these stables got split off from the farm. The owner has hard times, maybe from the wilt, sells his land bit by bit, flogs off what buildings he can, for conversion. Maybe that’s also how Stock’s wife’s uncle got his kiln, I forget. It’s an ill wind, Laurence.’

It was noon, the time of no shadows, but the sun was momentarily weakened by a trailer of muslin cloud.

‘What’s the, er… what’s the wife like?’ Lol asked.

Prof gave him a curious look. Prof had sensitive, multi-track hearing – sometimes even picking up tracks you hadn’t recorded.

‘Never met her, Laurence. Quiet, I’m told. Often the case with a guy like that – wants a listener.’

‘And what happened to the uncle?’

‘Ha! I’m detecting – forgive me – a burgeoning interest here?’

‘Well, not—’

‘The moment I mention hop-kilns! After our discussion, am I to conclude you went for one of your little strolls and you came back with – dare I suggest – the seed of an idea? I’m thinking of the song you did a year or two back for Norma Waterson – “The Baker’s Tune”?’

‘ “The Baker’s Lament”.’

‘About the slow fading of the old village fabric – a good one. Well, I’m not pushing it, but there are strong themes here, too. Change and decay. Visit the Hop Museum – in fact, I’m going to set that up for you.’

‘Prof, there’s no—’

‘Check it out. Reject it, if you want, but check it out first.’

Lol gave up. In an avalanche, lie down.

‘So what did happen to the uncle?’

‘Aha.’ Prof sat on an old rustic bench against the stable wall, tilting his Panama over his eyes. ‘Well, that, Laurence, was a very sick wind.’

Lol waited. Prof seemed to have a remarkably extensive knowledge of people he claimed he hadn’t ever wanted to meet.