Midwinter of the Spirit

frightfully cold night.’ Light seemed to gather in her glasses. ‘Far too cold for an exorcism.’

‘Perhaps you could excuse me,’ Edna said.

‘Oh, do you have to leave?’

‘I rather understand that I do,’ Edna said tactfully.

‘How did you guess?’ Merrily asked, feeling tired now.

‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous.’ Miss White handed her an inch of whisky in what seemed to be a tooth glass. ‘You were hardly here to conduct a wedding.’

Her room was an odd little grotto up in the rafters, with Afghan rugs on the wall, an Aztec-patterned bedspread. And a strange atmosphere, Merrily sensed, of illusion. Twin bottles of Johnnie Walker lurked inside an ancient wooden radio-cabinet. There were several free-standing cupboards, with locks. The room was lit by an electrified pottery oil-lamp on a stand.

Athena White went to sit on the high wooden bed, her legs under her in an almost yogic position, her dressing-gown unbuttoned upwards to the waist. No surgical stockings needed here. Merrily was sitting uncomfortably on a kind of camping stool near the door. It put her head on a level with Miss White’s projecting knees. Miss White seemed relaxed, like some tiny goddess-figure on a plinth.

‘Now then,’ she said. ‘What are you trying to do to Sholto?’

She let the name hang in the air until Merrily repeated it.

‘Sholto?’

A mellower light gathered in Miss White’s glasses. ‘Weren’t you able to see him?’

Merrily made no reply.

‘Come on, young Mrs Clergyperson, either you did or you didn’t.’

‘Let’s say I didn’t.’

‘That’s a shame. Perhaps you were erecting a barrier? That’s what your Church does though, isn’t it? Very, very sad – throwing up barriers, wrapping itself in a blanket of disapproval. And yet’ – Miss White’s head tilted in mild curiosity – ‘you are afraid.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Oh yes, I can always detect fear. You’re not afraid of Sholto, are you?’

‘Am I to understand Sholto is your ghost?’

‘How perceptive of you to apply the possessive,’ said Miss White. ‘I must say, it’s an awful job you have, Mrs Clergyperson. I never thought to see a woman doing it.’

‘Why not?’

‘Is it a specialist thing, or have you simply been commandeered as Thorpe’s prison chaplain?’

‘Miss White—’

‘Your Church is like some repressive totalitarian regime. Everyone has a perfectly good radio set, but you try to make sure they can only tune in to state broadcasts. Whenever the curtains accidentally open on some sublime vista, you rush in and snap them shut again. That’s your job, isn’t it?’

‘The soul police,’ Merrily said. ‘You should meet my daughter.’

‘Ye gods, are you old enough to have a daughter?’

‘Let’s drop the flattery, Miss White. What are you trying to tell me?’

‘What I am telling you’ – Miss White turned full-face to Merrily, and the light in her glasses became twin pinpoints – ‘is to leave him alone.’

‘Sholto?’

‘Have you any idea what it’s like in one of these places, where all is grey and faded, and romance resides solely in one’s memory?’

‘This room’s hardly grey and faded.’

‘You like my eyrie?’

‘It’s very cosy.’

‘Cosy!’ said Miss White in disgust. ‘Pah!’

‘But to get back to Sholto – that’s your name for him, is it?’

‘That, my dear clergyperson, is his name.’

‘You know his history? Some things about him?’

‘There’s nothing I don’t know about him. He’s a randy sod sometimes, and a frightful lounge lizard, but very, very charming. A look of Ronald Colman, but I suppose you’re too young—’

‘No, I’ve seen some of those old films. And you… have seen him, I take it.’

‘What a stupid question.’

‘And the other residents?’

‘Well, I can’t speak for all the hags. Sholto’s quite choosy – won’t pinch the flabbier old buttocks.’

‘What?’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, don’t look like that, girl. He was a man of his time. Men used to pinch bottoms.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Merrily was feeling cramped on the stool. ‘But what exactly are we talking about here? Who… what exactly do you think Sholto is?’

‘What do I think he is?’ A vaguely malevolent elf now, white light spearing from her glasses. ‘What do you think he is?’

An imprint? An insomniac? A volatile? This is the terminology of the Deliverance Age, Miss White.

‘I’ll tell you what he isn’t, Mrs Clergygirl.’ A finger wagging, the face narrowing, and the eyes almost merging behind the glasses. ‘He isn’t doing any harm. So you should go away and forget about him. In this museum of memories, Sholto is necessary.’

Merrily drank more whisky to moisten her mouth. ‘Would you mind if I had a cigarette?’

‘Certainly I would! Pull yourself together. If you don’t realize the importance of willpower in your job…’ Miss White’s neck extended, birdlike. ‘What is the matter with you, child?’

Willpower.

Merrily went cold. ‘It was you, wasn’t it?’

‘I beg your pardon.’

‘Something was trying to stop me administering the blessing. That was you, wasn’t it? Exercising your… willpower.’

‘Oh, what nonsense!’ Miss White sniffed, delighted.

‘Please,’ Merrily said wearily, ‘no more bullshit, Athena.’

A self-satisfied smile escaped beneath a little portcullis of teeth. ‘Why don’t you just ask yourself… What’s your name, by the way?’

‘Merrily.’

‘Well, ask yourself, Merrily, was what you were doing appropriate? Was it polite?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Did you ask permission? No, you didn’t. It was like a police raid: the way they always go in at dawn and bash someone’s door down. It’s disgraceful – we’re not criminals, even if we are in prison. And what has Sholto done wrong?’

‘Well, he… he’s dead. He shouldn’t be here.’

Miss White’s magnified eyes glowed.

She’s mad, Merrily thought. ‘Look,’ she said reasonably, ‘shouldn’t he be free to move on? That’s what matters. And what keeps him here – that matters, too. Because if what keeps him here is only—’

‘The undying pull of the flesh, one presumes. Perhaps we’re part of his karma. Broke a lot of young hearts in his time, I’d guess. Now all he has to amuse him is a bunch of raddled old bags with their tits round their waists. For him, that’s Purgatory, to use your terminology. But we’re all of us far too old to be corrupted. Sholto is needed here to feed people’s fantasies. He’s not only harmless, he’s essential, and that’s an end to it. I’ll keep him in order,