he can still be an exorcist if he wants. That doesn’t prevent me appointing a consultant to, say, prepare a detailed report on the demand for Deliverance services.’
Merrily said, ‘I don’t like this.’
‘Merely politics. I’m afraid I’m quite good at politics.’
She sighed. ‘You’ve given me a lot to think about, Bishop.’
‘Mick.’
‘Could I have some time?’
‘To pray for guidance?’
‘Yes,’ Merrily said, ‘I suppose that’s what I’ll do.’
‘Call my office if you’d like another meeting.’ Mick stood up, zipped his purple tracksuit top.
‘Er… if you can’t get an office in the cloisters, that means I’d be working from home then?’
At least she wouldn’t have to see the rather scary Dobbs.
‘Oh no.’ Mick grinned. ‘The Dean doesn’t screw me so easily. I told you I’m quite good at this. I’m going to put you in the Palace.’
In the car going home, Merrily put on Tori Amos’s
It certainly wasn’t what Jane had imagined, a clandestine return to witch-hunting, sneaky rearguard action by a defensive Church. There was no sign of
Clearly, the Bishop’s liberalism did not extend to the supernatural. Merrily suspected he didn’t believe in ghosts, and that for him the borderline between demonic possession and schizophrenia would not exist – which was worrying. To what extent was healthy scepticism compatible with Christian faith? And what did he mean:
‘… little record shop in Church Street?’
‘Huh? Sorry, flower.’
Jane reached out and turned down the stereo. Merrily glanced across at her. Jane turning down music – this had never happened before.
‘I said, who do you think I ran into in that poky little record shop in Church Street?’
It was almost dark, and they were leaving the city via the King’s Acre roundabout, with a fourteenth-century cross on its island.
‘Close. Lol Robinson.’ Jane said. ‘You do remember… ?’
‘Oh,’ Merrily said casually. There was a time when she could have become too fond of Lol Robinson. ‘Right. How is he?’
Jane told her how Lol had just started renting this brilliant flat over the shop, with a view over the cobbles and two pubs about twenty yards away.
‘Belongs to the guy who owns the shop. His sister used to live there but she’s moved out. Her name’s Katherine Moon, but she’s just known as Moon, and I think she and Lol… Anyway, he looks exactly the same. Hasn’t grown, same little round glasses, still wearing that black sweat-shirt with the alien face on the front – possibly symbolic of the way he feels he relates to society and feels that certain people relate to him.’
‘So, apart from the sartorial sameness, did he seem OK?’
‘No, he was like waving his arms around and drooling at the mouth. Of course he seemed OK. We went for a coffee in the All Saints cafe. I’ve never been in there before. It’s quite cool.’
‘It’s in a church.’
‘Yeah, I noticed. Nice to see one fulfilling a useful service. Anyway, I got out of Lol what he’s doing now. He didn’t want to tell me, but I can be fairly persistent.’
‘You nailed his guitar hand to the prayerbook shelf?’
‘Look, do you want to know what he’s doing or not?’
‘All right.’
‘You ready for this? He’s training to be a shrink.’
‘What? But he was—’
‘Well, not a shrink exactly. He hates psychiatrists because they just give you drugs to keep you quiet. More a kind of psychotherapist. He was consulting one in Hereford, and the guy realized that, after years in and out of mental hospitals, Lol knew more -ologies and -isms than he himself did, so now he’s employing him a couple of days a week for sort of on-the-job training, and Lol’s doing these night classes. Isn’t that so cool?’
‘It…’ Merrily thought about this. ‘I suppose it is, really. Lol would be pretty good. He doesn’t judge people. Yeah, that’s cool.’
‘Also, he’s playing again. He’s made some tapes, although he won’t let anybody hear them.’
‘Even you?’
‘I’m working on it. I may go back there – I like that shop. Lots of stuff by indy folk bands. And I’m really glad I saw him.
Merrily said cautiously, ‘Lol needed time to get himself together.’
‘Oh,’ Jane said airily, ‘I think he needed more than that, don’t you?’
‘Don’t start.’
‘Like maybe somebody who wasn’t terrified of getting into a relationship because of what the parish might think.’
‘Stop there,’ Merrily said lightly, ‘all right?’
‘Fine.’ Jane prodded the music up to disco level and turned to look out of the side window at the last of the grim amber sinking on to the shelf of the Black Mountains. A desultory rain filmed the windscreen.
‘Still,’ Merrily thought she heard the kid mumble, ‘it’s probably considered socially OK to fuck a bishop.’
That night, praying under her bedroom window in the vicarage, Merrily realized the Deliverance issue wasn’t really a problem she needed to hang on God at this stage. Her usual advice to parishioners facing a decision was to gather all the information they could get from available sources on both sides of the argument, and only then apply for a solution.
Fair enough. She would seek independent advice within the Church.
She went to sit on the edge of the bed, looking out at the lights of Ledwardine speckling the trees. They made her think of what Huw Owen had said about the targeting of women priests.
She hadn’t even raised that point with Mick Hunter. He would have taken it seriously, but not in the way it was meant by Huw.
Merrily shivered lightly and slid into bed, cuddling the hot water bottle, aware of Ethel the black cat curling on the duvet against her ankles, remembering the night Ethel had first appeared at the vicarage in the arms of Lol Robinson after she’d received a kicking from a drunk. She hoped Lol Robinson would be happy with his girlfriend. Lol and Merrily – that would never have worked.
Later, on the edge of sleep, she heard Huw Owen’s flat, nasal voice as if it were actually in the room.
And jerked awake.
OK. She’d absorbed Huw’s warning, listened to the Bishop’s plans.
It was clear that what she had to do now, not least for the sake of her conscience, was go back to Hereford and talk to Canon Dobbs.
The Last Exorcist.
Merrily lay down again and slept.
