Midwinter of the Spirit

‘Compulsory retirement age for rock musicians,’ Eirion explained. ‘We argue about it a lot.’

‘Personally, I think semi-voluntary euthanasia’s probably the best answer,’ Lol said. ‘When they stop playing, their health goes or they take too many drugs and become a burden on the state.’

Eirion considered this. ‘They could surely afford BUPA or something, couldn’t they?’

Lol heard rumbles from underneath the mixing-board. Detected sounds resembling fucking, little and shits. He was beginning to enjoy this. In fact, he felt much better today about… well, most of it. This morning the disparate pieces of a song which had been lying around for most of a month had fallen exquisitely into place.

‘So how many songs you actually got, James?’

‘How many, Eirion? Twenty, twenty-two?’

‘Well, yes, but some of them are fairly embarrassing now, actually – things we did over a year ago.’

‘That old, huh?’ said Lol.

James looked sullen. ‘Dad says he’s only paying for four. But he can cock off. That would be a pure waste of time and manpower. Besides, we’ve worked seriously hard and we’re pretty fucking efficient. It wouldn’t take that much longer to lay down the other six.’

‘An album in fact?’

‘Anything less isn’t worth the hassle,’ said James, ‘don’t you think?’

‘We’ll see how it goes,’ Lol said. ‘It’s this bloke’s studio.’

Denny came up, red-faced, from underneath the board, his big earring swinging furiously. ‘Sorted,’ he announced.

‘Oh, I get it.’ James tucked his rugby shirt into his jeans, and strapped on his guitar. ‘You’re the engineer, too.’

‘And the cleaner,’ Denny said menacingly. ‘And the teaboy.’

‘No, I mean… to be tactful about this, we don’t mind you guys hanging around. We do want to be produced, but we need space to experiment, yeah? We’re only into being… guided, up to a point. I mean, you know, I don’t want to sound arrogant or anything.’

‘Perish the thought,’ Lol said.

He kept wondering how he would be feeling now if, instead of meeting Merrily Watkins again, he’d spent last night in Moon’s barn – in Moon’s futon.

But it hadn’t worked out like that, and he was so glad.

Merrily lay awake, tasting the formless dregs of a dream. With the feeling of something wrong – of loneliness. And the recurrent domestic agoraphobia of two small women sharing seven bedrooms.

You’re never really alone, you know. How often had she said that to a bereaved parishioner? Whichever way you looked at Him, God was never another warm body in a cold bed on a winter’s night.

The luminous clock indicated 5.40 p.m. Time to leave for Evensong – except they’d dropped it last September because so few people liked turning out in winter darkness.

She remembered the essence of her dream. Oh God, an image of the lithe and tawny Val Hunter astride Mick under some high, moulded ceiling, with all the lights on. Merrily standing in the doorway, shocked to find herself wearing a very short black nightie. Cold legs, cold feet. Come on, Merrily! the Bishop had shouted impatiently. Don’t be nervous. This is a time of transition. We have to experiment! The king-size bed, a four-poster, had shiny purple sheets.

But that confrontation under the aumbry light now seemed no less unlikely than the dream of the purple sheets. Merrily slid out of bed.

Downstairs there was no sign of Jane. Ethel eyed her sleepily from the basket beside the Aga, as Merrily made herself some coffee. She thought of the night Lol had first arrived with Ethel, after the cat had been savagely kicked by a drunk. They’d examined her on the kitchen table, just there –

Where a note lay, neatly printed from the computer.

MUM: Rowenna turned up. Didn’t want to wake you, so left machine on. Back by ten… swear to God.

Here’s list of phone calls so far.

1. Emily Price, from Old Barn Lane, wanting to firm-up a date for wedding rehearsal.

2. Uncle Ted, in Churchwarden Mode. Didn’t say what it was about – probably usual pep talk about not neglecting parish for glamour of Hereford.

3. Sister Cullen. Can you ring her at home?

That’s it. Love J.

* * *

Eileen Cullen said, ‘Don’t worry, the auld feller’s not gone yet.’

‘I was thinking of visiting him. Is he allowed visitors?’

Cullen laughed. ‘Well, it’s funny you should say that, Merrily. Mr Dobbs has had a visitor. That’s why I called you. I thought you’d maybe want to know. Just the one visitor.’

‘Someone I know?’

‘You’ll be on your own if you do.’

‘You’re going to spin this one out, aren’t you?’

‘All right,’ Cullen said, ‘I’ll tell you. First off, I wasn’t there. Young Tessa was there – you remember Tessa? Sunday-school teacher – the plucky kid holding Denzil’s other hand?’

‘I remember.’ Like you could forget anybody there that night.

‘This afternoon, all right, a man in an overcoat carrying an attache case. A minister, he says, come to pray with Mr Dobbs. But Mr Dobbs can’t speak, Tessa tells him. Doesn’t matter, the priest says. They would like some peace and quiet and nobody coming in.’

‘What was his name?’

‘He didn’t give his name. I told you Dobbs was in another wee side ward, all on his own? Well, the priest’s drawn the curtain across the glass in the door. Except it’s not possible to block the window fully. If you’re nosy enough, you can stand on a chair and look down through the top. Which Tessa did, after she caught the light from the candles.’

‘Candles?’

‘We’re always a bit careful, the range of religious fellers show up these days – and all quite legit, you know? Only Sister Miller’s on her break and Tessa’s a wee bit unsure about this, so she takes a peep. He’d about finished by then, so he had. He was picking up his wee bottles of holy water, scrubbing out his chalk circle.’

‘Chalk circle?’ Merrily sat down hard at the scullery desk.

‘Me telling you like this, it sounds like a joke, but the child was terrified. He’d drawn a circle round the bed, if you please! Yellow chalk. Making a bit of extra room by pushing the visitor’s chair under the door handle, the cheeky sod, so anyone’d have a job getting in even if they wanted to. And some bottles of water, with stoppers, placed around the circle. He also had a black book – very eerie, very frightening.’

‘What did she do?’

‘Went to find Sister Miller. Time the two of them got back, your man had gone. She rang me here during her break.’

‘Well…’ Merrily drew erratic circles on a pad. ‘I’m lost. I don’t understand this.’

‘All I can say is that I was raised a Catholic, and it isn’t one of our… things… our rituals.’

‘Doesn’t even seem like proper religion, Eileen. More like… magic. You sure this was a real priest?’

‘I didn’t see him. Tessa says he was wearing a dog-collar. He had a hat and scarf, so she couldn’t see much of his face.’

‘Did they check Dobbs over after he’d gone?’

‘No change. He lies there still as corpse, so he does. Sometimes his eyes’ll be open, but you never see it happen. What’ll we do? Call the police, you reckon?’

‘I don’t know what the police could do, to be honest. But if he shows up again… would you mind calling me?’

‘Merrily,’ Cullen said, ‘if it’s me that’s on when he shows, I’ll be on to you before the divil’s got both feet on