Midwinter of the Spirit

‘Jane said you were training to be a psychotherapist.’

‘Wild exaggeration. I’ve been helping my therapist. Former therapist, hopefully. That means I help a bit with other clients – as a kind of therapy. Well, one other client mainly: the woman who used to live in this flat.’

‘Oh,’ Merrily said, ‘that would be this, er… Moon? Just that Jane implied—’

‘I’ve got a vague idea what Jane implied.’

‘That kid could start wars.’ Merrily stretched. ‘I don’t want to move.’

‘So don’t move.’

‘I have to. Anyway, I think you’d make rather a good psychotherapist.’

‘Being an ex-loony?’

‘Not only that.’

‘Thanks.’

‘You know what I mean. You’ve been swallowed by the system once. You could be good at keeping other people out of the system.’

Lol said, ‘Maybe there are too many therapists and counsellors around already, all talking different kinds of bollocks.’

‘Is this Dick paying you?’

‘Kind of. There’s no big problem with money: the song royalties trickle in. And I might have another album – sometime.’ Lol stood up. ‘I, er… I was thinking of ringing you sometime, actually. What do you do if someone insists they’ve seen a ghost? I mean, not just any old ghost – a close relative. And so maybe they want to see it. To see more of it.’

‘Well… I’d try and find out if it was a real ghost. Maybe I’d ask a psychiatrist – or a psychotherapist – for some advice.’

‘And say this psychotherapist – or somebody else who knew this person well – was fairly convinced that there was something… unusual happening here.’

‘Well…’ Merrily lit a cigarette. ‘I’d probably try and explain to the person that this was not a very good idea. It’s not uncommon, actually, seeing relatives who’ve just passed on.’

‘Twenty-five years ago?’

‘That’s more uncommon. A visitor is the loose term we, er, we tend to use for this kind of… phenomenon.’

‘And it’s a bad thing, is it? Even if the person is not scared by it.

‘Any prolonged contact with a… spirit, or whatever, is unhealthy. It can lead to all kinds of problems. Mental problems obviously, and also… Well, you might think that what you’re seeing is your old mum, but it might be something else. I take it we’re talking about this Moon?’

‘Possibly.’

‘Lol, you only have one client…’

‘OK, it’s Moon.’

‘Who’s she been seeing?’

‘Her father. He died when she was two.’

‘Any complications?’

‘Shot himself.’

‘Oh.’

‘That’s not good, is it?’

‘That’s not good at all,’ Merrily said. ‘Would she see me, do you think?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe if you weren’t wearing… you know?’

‘A dog-collar.’

‘And I introduced you as a friend.’

‘Sounds like a good idea.’

‘She’s working in the shop down below all week.’

‘Maybe I’ll call in on Monday, then,’ Merrily said. ‘I don’t know what time yet. I’ll be in the gatehouse if you want me – except mid-morning when I’m having discussions with my friend the Bishop.’

‘Pity you can’t see her house, really – a barn she’s leasing up on Dinedor Hill. She’s quite obsessive about the hill. It’s where she was born, where the family have lived since the Iron Age – or so she claims.’

‘This sounds awfully complicated, Lol.’ Merrily yawned and forced herself out of the chair. ‘Where’d I put my coat?’

‘All I can say is that she’s different when she’s up there. A different person – half… half somewhere else.’ He unhooked her waxed jacket from behind the door. ‘I don’t suppose… No, never mind.’

‘I hate it when anyone says that.’

‘Just that she left her bike here and I drove her home last night, because of the snow. So I have to pick her up on Monday morning, fetch her in to work.’

‘Early?’

‘Ish.’

‘If you could get me back to the gatehouse by eleven, I can come up with you. What’s my excuse, then?’

‘Your car wouldn’t start, so I’m giving you a lift somewhere? She’ll buy that. This is really good of you, Merrily.’

‘It’s my job. We’re told to work with shrinks. The Bishop would approve.’

‘The shrink doesn’t know,’ Lol said. ‘The shrink must never know.’

‘A non-believer, huh?’

‘Of the most intractable kind,’ Lol said. ‘You want me to drive you back now?’

‘No, Lol,’ Merrily annunciated carefully, ‘you’re – not – really – a – minicab – driver. That was for the benefit of the Bishop.’

She went smiling into the snow. She must be overtired.

At least the roads were no worse. Back in the vicarage just before five, she called the General Hospital. She gave them her name and they put her through to the ward. She just knew which one it was going to be – there was an ironic inevitability about it.

‘Reverend Watkins? Not the biggest surprise of the morning, to have you ring.’

‘What was the biggest?’

‘The biggest, to tell you the simple truth,’ Eileen Cullen said, ‘is that the auld feller’s still with us.’

‘Would that be an indication he might be coming through this?’

‘Ah, now, I wouldn’t go taking bets on that. He knows when you’re talking to him – his eyes’ll follow you around the room. But he’s not talking back yet.’

‘Mr Dobbs is not a big conversationalist, in my experience. The room? You haven’t got him—’

‘Christ no. We have this other wee side ward at the far end of the main ward. If Denzil was still with us, Mr Dobbs wouldn’t even be able to smell him.’

Merrily shuddered.

‘So, collapsed in the Cathedral, they say?’ Cullen said nonchalantly.

‘Yes, that’s what they say.’

‘Well, I’m off home in a while, but I’m sure they’ll keep you posted on any developments. I’ll mention it.’

‘Thanks.’

A pause, then Cullen said, ‘Funny, isn’t it, how things come around. Mr Dobbs arranging like that for you to have a mauling from Denzil in his death-throes, and now… You ever find out why he did that to you?’

‘I never did,’ Merrily said. ‘Maybe never will now.’

‘Well,’ Cullen said, ‘a patient’ll talk about all kinds of things, so he will – in the night, sometimes. I’ll keep my ears open.’