Midwinter of the Spirit

‘Of the Cathedral being contaminated.’

‘Tell me, Merrily, who would conduct this major exorcism?’

‘That would be your decision.’

‘Ah,’ he said, ‘of course.’ He shifted position, looking out through the long windows to the floodlight beams across the lawns, turned to milk chocolate by the fog. ‘May I list once again your items of evidence? From the felling of Thomas Dobbs in the North Transept, to the apparently supernatural extinguishing of two votive candles.’

‘I never said any of that was evidence.’

‘Of course you didn’t. You were merely reporting to me. The decision must be mine – on the advice of my female exorcist, the appointment of whom I was strongly advised against.’

‘At the time, I didn’t know that.’

‘You didn’t? You really didn’t? Oh come, Merrily…’

‘Silly of me. Arrogant, perhaps.’

‘Yes,’ the Bishop said, ‘that’s certainly how it’s going to look when someone leaks to the media that, within weeks of your appointment, you advised me to have my cathedral formally exorcized.’

‘I know.’

‘If you want to go the whole hog, why not have the ceremony conducted entirely by – and in the presence only of – women priests? Obviously, that wouldn’t offend me, being a radical.’

‘Mick, you know there’s nothing political—’

‘Nothing political? Are you quite serious? Tell me, Merrily, do you want to become the subject of a hate campaign in the diocese, as well as receiving an unflattering profile in the Observer and any number of politely vitriolic letters to the Church Times? Do you want to move, quite quickly, to a new and challenging ministry on the other side of the country?’

‘No.’

‘And do you want to damage me?’

Silence. A dismal, head-shaking silence.

Merrily said, ‘So you’d like me to resign?’

Mick Hunter grinned, teeth as white as the Doric pilaster behind him. ‘Certainly not. I’d far prefer you to go home, have a good night’s sleep, and forget this ill-advised visit ever occurred. It isn’t the first time something like this has happened to me, and it won’t be the last time it happens to you. Let it serve to remind you that people like us will always have opponents, enemies, within the Church.’

‘Mick, don’t you think this is far too complicated and too… bizarre to be a set-up?’

‘Oh, Merrily, I can see your experience of being set up is really rather limited. My advice, if you’re approached again by the source of this insane proposal, is that you tell him you questioned the wisdom of informing me and decided against it.’

‘Making it my decision to say no to an exorcism.’

‘It’s a responsible role you now have, Merrily. Learning discrimination is part of it. Or you could go ahead with it, without informing me – which would, of course, were I or anyone else to find out, be very much a matter for resignation. But I don’t think you’d do that, because you don’t really believe any of this idiocy any more than I do. Do you, Merrily?’

‘I don’t know.’ She put her face in her hands, pulling the skin tight. ‘I don’t know.’

Mick stood up and helped her to her feet. ‘Get some sleep, eh? It’s been a difficult week.’

‘I don’t know,’ she repeated. ‘How can I know?’

‘Of course you don’t know.’ He put an arm around her shoulders, peered down into her face, then said, as if talking to a child, ‘That’s what they’re counting on, Merrily, hmm? Look, if I don’t go back and be pleasant to the awful councillors, Val will… be very unhappy.’

At the door, she sought out and held his famous blue eyes.

‘Will you at least think about it?’

‘I’ve already forgotten about it, Merrily,’ he said. ‘Good night. God bless.’

The fog seemed to be lifting, but the grass was already stiff with frost. The Cathedral was developing a hard edge. She crossed the green and walked into Church Street. The door in the alleyway beside the shop called John Barleycorn was opening as she reached it.

‘Hi.’

‘Hello, flower.’

Jane stood outside in the alley, no coat on, her dark hair pushed back behind her ears. Face upturned, she was shivering a little.

‘I lied.’

They stood about five feet apart. Merrily thought: We all lie. Especially to ourselves.

‘I don’t have anywhere else to sleep,’ Jane said. ‘I don’t actually know many people at all. I, uh, don’t even know the people I thought I knew. So… like… the only friends I have are Lol and you. I… I hope…’ She began to cry. ‘I’m sorry, Mum. I’m really, really, really…’

Merrily’s eyes filled up.

‘I think there must be a whole load of things,’ Jane snuffled, ‘that I haven’t even realized I did, yet. Like all the time I was doing this stuff – selling you up the river. I told the bitch everything. I told her about everything. And when I said that to you about selling my—’

‘You didn’t,’ Merrily said very firmly. ‘I didn’t hear you say anything, flower.’

As they clung together on the already slippery cobbles, she thought: This is all that matters, isn’t it? This is all there is.

46 The Turning

SHE WAS LIKE an elderly bushbaby in some ankle-length mohair thing in dark brown. She was waiting for him in the residents’ lounge, where they were now alone – all the others at church, she said, ‘bargaining for an afterlife’. She did not want to know anything about him.

‘Waste of time at my age, Robinson; it’s all forgotten by lunchtime.’

Lol didn’t think so. Her eyes were diamond-bright behind round glasses a bit like his own.

‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘I prefer to make up my own mind.’ And she peered at him, eyes unfocusing. ‘Oh, what a confused boy you are. So confused, aren’t you? And blocked, too. There’s a blockage in your life. I should like to study you at length, but you haven’t the time, have you? Not today. You’re in a frightful hurry.’

Lol nodded, bemused.

‘Slow down,’ she said. ‘Think things out, or you’ll land in trouble. Especially dealing with the Purefoys. Do you understand me?’

‘Not yet.’ Presumably Sorrel Podmore had given her the background over the phone. Which was good: it saved time.

She’d collected all the cushions from the other chairs and had them piled up around her. She was like a tiny, exotic dowager.

‘What do you know about the Purefoys?’

‘Virtually nothing.’

‘That’s a good place from which to start. It’s a very, very unpretty story.’

Jane had stood at the bedroom window for a long time, still feeling – in spite of everything – an urge to salute the Eternal Spiritual Sun.

Without this and the other exercises, without the Pod, there was a large spiritual hole in her life. She wasn’t sure she was ready for Mum’s God. Although part of her wanted to go to morning service, if only to show penitence