Midwinter of the Spirit

some pervading atmosphere of unrest.

‘Amen,’ Edna said.

Merrily held her breath. It had been known, Huw Owen had said, for the spirit itself to appear momentarily, usually at the closing of the ritual, before fading – in theory for ever – from the atmosphere.

Mind, it’s also been known to appear with a mocking smile on its face and then – this is frightening – appearing again and again, bang-bang-bang, in different corners of the room…

Although it was hard not to flick a glance over her shoulder, Merrily kept on looking calmly in front of her under half-lowered eyelids, her body turned towards the darkness at the end of the passage. From which drifted a musty smell of dust and camphor which may not have been there before.

She waited, raising her eyes to the sloping ceiling with its blocked-in beams, and the filigree pouches of old cobwebs over the single curtained window. She straightened her shoulders, feeling the pull of the pectoral cross.

It was darker – well seemed darker. As though there’d been a thirty per cent decrease in the wattage of the bulbs. Possibly something was happening, something absorbing the energy – something which had begun as she ended her first prayer. A mild resistance was swelling now.

Merrily began to sweat, trying not to tense against the ballooning atmosphere. She wondered if Edna was aware of it, or if she herself was the only focus, her lone ritual beckoning it. When she spoke again, her voice sounded high and erratic.

‘If there is a… an unquiet spirit… we pray that you may be freed from whatever anxiety or obsession binds you to this place. We pray that you may rise above all earthly ties and go, in peace, to Christ.’

That sounded feeble. It lacked something. It was too bloody reasonable.

Belt and braces, said the awful Chris Thorpe, stooped like a crane and sneering.

Yes, OK, there was something. Now that she was sure of that, there should perhaps be a Eucharist performed for the blessing of the house. It could be conducted by the local vicar, held under some pretext where all the residents could be invited. Those who were churchgoers would accept it without too many questions.

The atmosphere bulged. She felt a sudden urgent need to empty her bladder.

‘May the saints of God pray for you and the angels of God guard and protect you…’

Either the air had tightened or she was feeling faint. Resist it. She fumbled at the mohair sweater to expose the cross. As she pulled at the sweater, her palms began to—

‘Mrs Watkins.’

Merrily let go of the sweater; her eyes snapped open. Edna Rees was pointing to where, at the top of the three shallow steps, a figure stood.

‘Please, there’s really no need for this,’ it said.

Angela turned over six cards in sequence and then quickly swept the whole layout into a pile.

But not before Jane had seen the cards and recognized three of them: Death… The Devil… The Tower struck by lightning.

‘I can’t do this,’ Angela said. ‘I’m afraid it’s Rowenna’s fault.’

It was the same pub where the psychic fair had been held, but this time they were upstairs in a kind of boxroom. Pretty drab: just the card table and two chairs. Rowenna had to perch on a chest of drawers, her head inches from a dangling lightbulb with no shade.

‘I’m sorry, Angela,’ she said. ‘I really didn’t realize.’

Angela looked petite inside a huge sheepskin coat with the collar turned up. She also looked casually glamorous, like a movie star on location. But she looked irritated, too.

‘I suppose you weren’t to know, but it’s one of my rules in a situation like this to know only the inner person. I don’t like to learn in advance about anyone’s background or situation, because then, if I see a problem in the cards, I can know for sure that this information comes from the Source and is not conditioned by my personal knowledge, preconceptions or prejudices. I’m sorry, Jane.’

Jane heard the rumble of bar-life from the room below.

‘Angela,’ she said nervously, ‘that’s not because you turned up some really bad cards and you don’t think I can take it?’

Angela looked cross. ‘Cards have many meanings according to their juxtaposition.’

‘Looked like a pretty heavy juxtaposition to me,’ Rowenna said with a hint of malice. Angela had already done a reading for Rowenna – her future was bound up with a friend’s, needing to help this friend discover her true identity – something of that nature. Rowenna had seemed bored and annoyed that the emphasis seemed to be on Jane.

Jane said, ‘What was it Rowenna told you?’

‘I told her what your mother was, OK?’ Rowenna said. ‘On the phone last night. It just came out.’

Priest or exorcist? Jane was transfixed for a moment by foreboding. ‘That reading was telling you something about me and Mum, wasn’t it?’

Angela straightened the pack and put it reverently into the centre of a black cloth and then folded the cloth over it. ‘Jane, I’m not well disposed towards the Church. A friend of mine, also a tarot-reader, was once hounded out of a particular village in Oxfordshire because the vicar branded her as an evil infuence.’

‘Vicars can be such pigs,’ Rowenna said.

‘However,’ Angela looked up, ‘I make a point of never coming between husbands and wives or children and parents.’

‘Please, will you tell me what—?’

‘Jane.’ Angela’s calm eyes held hers. ‘When I look at your inner being, I sense a generous and uninhibited soul. But if your mother’s burden is to be constrained by dogma and an unhappy tradition, you really don’t have to share it.’

‘Well, I know, but… mostly we get on. Since Dad died we’ve supported each other, you know?’

‘Admirable in principle.’

‘Like, she’s pretty liberal about most things, but she’s got this really closed mind about… other things.’

‘All right, my last word on this…’ Angela began to exude this commanding stillness; you found you were listening very hard. ‘It might be wise, for both your sakes – your own and your mother’s – for you to keep on walking towards the light. Don’t compromise. Don’t look back. Pray… I’m going to say it… pray that she follows in your wake.’

‘You mean she needs to get out of the Church.’

‘These are your cards, Jane, not hers.’

‘Or what? What’s going to happen to her if she stays with the Church?’

‘Jane, don’t put me in a difficult position. Now, how are things going at the Pod?’

The shadow on the stairs spoke in a surprising little-girly voice.

‘Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend, Mrs Rees?’

‘This,’ Edna said with an overtone of resignation, ‘is Miss Anthea White.’

‘Athena!’

‘Miss Athena White. Why aren’t you at the party, then, Miss White?’

‘At the piano with all those old ladies? One finds that sort of gathering so depressing.’ Miss White moved out of the shadows. She was small, even next to Merrily, wearing a long blue dressing-gown which buttoned like a cassock.

Very tiny and elflike. Not as old as you expected in a place like this – no more than seventy.

‘This is Mrs Watkins,’ Edna said.

Miss White inspected Merrily through brass-rimmed glasses like the ones Lol Robinson wore, only much thicker. ‘Ah, there it is. You keep the clerical collar well-hidden, Mrs Clergywoman. I say, you’re very very pretty, aren’t you?’

‘Thank you,’ Merrily said.

‘One had feared the new female ministers were all going to be frightful leather-faced lezzies. Come and have a drink in my cell.’

‘Now,’ Edna said, ‘you know you’re not supposed to have alcohol in your rooms.’

‘Oh, Mrs Rees, you aren’t going to blab to the governor, are you? It’s such a