Midwinter of the Spirit

don’t worry. You can tell Thorpe you’ve got rid of him. Now… let’s examine your own problem, which I would guess is a good deal less benign. What are you carrying around with you?’

‘What?’

‘Look at you, all hunched up against the cold. You’re cowering.’

Merrily instinctively straightened as best she could on her camping stool.

‘Oh, stop it! You’re cowering inside. You can’t hide that from me. Come here.’

Merrily found herself standing up.

‘Come and sit on the bed. Come on, I’m not going to touch you up!’ Athena White slid from the bed and leaned, in her tubular robe, over Merrily, peering closely into her eyes. ‘Ye gods, you are buggered up, aren’t you?’

Merrily’s legs felt suddenly quite weak.

‘Don’t struggle,’ Miss White said.

‘This is not right.’

‘It’s not right at all. Look at me – no, focus on me, girl. That’s better. I want to see the inner person. I feel you’re normally quite strong, but he’s certainly depleted you.’

‘Who?’

‘You tell me. Go on. Tell me his name.’

‘I don’t know what you—’

‘Tell me his name: that ball of spiritual pus that’s attached itself to you. What is his name?’

‘Denzil Joy.’

‘That’s better,’ said Miss White.

36 Crow Maiden

BY 9:30, JAMES Lyden and his band had been ejected from the cellar studio in Breinton Lane. Lol got out of there, too, before Denny’s rage could do some damage. By the time the band had been packed into their Transit in the driveway, he was making his excuses – there was someone he needed to call.

Which was true.

‘You can do it from here, man.’ Denny’s bald head was shining with angry sweat.

‘I can’t.’ Lol was backing away out of the drive, pulling on his army-surplus jacket. No way he wanted to discuss this with Denny until he had some background.

‘You…’ Denny was stabbing at the fog. ‘You know more than you’re letting on. Where’s this come from? What’s this crow shit?’

‘I’ll call you tomorrow.’

‘And you can tell that fucking Lyden he’s finished!’ Denny bawled after him down Breinton Lane.

The Transit van had reversed, and was alongside Lol now, James’s Welsh friend, Eirion, at the wheel. It stopped.

‘Mr Robinson,’ Eirion shouted, ‘for heaven’s sake, what have we done?’ He sounded shocked and frightened.

‘Get your cocking head back in here, Lewis,’ Lol heard James say lazily. ‘The old man will sort it.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Eirion said, as the van pulled away. Lol wondered what his chances were of talking to Dick before James did.

‘How old are you, Merrily?’

‘Thirty-six.’

She sat at the bottom of the bed, feeling a little unconnected, slightly not-quite-here. She felt guilty because that was not unpleasant. Maybe the whisky…

Or not?

‘When I was your age, I knew nothing,’ Miss White said. ‘Indeed, I knew very little even when I retired from the Civil Service. You would have been only a child then. I, however, was very high-powered in those days, or so I thought. In reality I knew nothing. It was only when I left London that I began to study in earnest.’

She unlocked one of the cupboards, threw open its double doors.

Merrily thought: Oh… my… God…

Books. Hundreds of books – many stored horizontally on the shelves, so as to stuff more in. Madame Blavatsky, Rudolph Steiner, Israel Regardie, Dion Fortune: recent paperbacks wedged against yellowing tomes on meditation, astrology, the Qabalah. If the other cupboards were similarly stocked, there must be several thousand books in this attic.

A lifetime’s collection of esoteric reading. A witch’s cave of forbidden literature. You wouldn’t have prised Jane out of here this side of breakfast time.

‘They know I have books in my cupboards,’ Miss White said, ‘but I rather imagine they consider me a subscriber to the lists of Messrs Mills and Boon.’

Merrily thought how wary she herself used to be of Jane’s guru: the late folklorist, Lucy Devenish. God only knew what this old girl got up to when the lights were out.

One thing puzzled her.

‘Miss White, I can’t… What are you doing in a place like this?’

‘Ah, yes… why not the bijou black and white cottage? Why not the roses round the door and the Persian cat in the window?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Because then, my little clergyperson, one would be obliged to prune the roses and feed the cat, to shop for food and employ workmen to preserve the ancient timbers. How much more space there is here… inner space, I mean. As well as beautiful hills to walk in, should one be overtaken by the need to commune with nature.’

‘But how can you…? I don’t know how to put this.’

‘Be surrounded by twittering biddies, patronized by the dreadful Thorpe? That is simply the outer life. The Thorpes suspect I have enough money to buy the whole place, so they don’t pressure me. All right, when one gets very, very annoyed with them, one can be… mischievous…’

‘I bet.’

‘… while at the same time’ – Miss White smiled almost seraphically – ‘giving one’s fellow inmates a welcome, nostalgic frisson once in a while.’

His name drifted serenely in the air between them.

‘Sholto,’ Merrily said eventually.

‘A-ha.’

‘How did you do it?’

Miss White selected from the bookshelves what turned out to be a stiff-backed folder, and took out a yellowing photograph pasted on card.

‘This is him?’

He wore a pinstriped suit with wide lapels. His hair was dark and kinked, his moustache trimmed to a shadow.

‘I bought him in a print shop in Hay,’ said Miss White. ‘I liked his little twist of a smile. No idea who he is or where he came from – there’s no name on the photo. I thought he rather looked like a Sholto.’

Merrily said, ‘I’m not going to ask you how you did this.’

‘Good, because I should refuse to tell you. You could find out easily enough, if you studied. It’s a very well established technique.’

‘He isn’t a ghost at all.’