Midwinter of the Spirit

always sent a car for me. No, I knew what was going to happen, you see.’

‘What?’

‘They would use the Pod as – what do you call it? – a front. Anything from an innocent reception centre to a kind of spiritual brothel. Podmore already told me about your friend’s daughter – but I want to ask you something about that. This friend herself wouldn’t, by any chance, be Merrily Watkins?’

‘How did you know that?’

‘Ha! This clarifies certain small mysteries. Oh, what a target that woman must be for the Purefoys and their ilk. A female exorcist – and such a pretty girl.’

‘Yes.’ Lol began to fold the map.

‘Ah,’ said Athena calmly, ‘I see.’

‘Where’ve you been? I mean where have you been?’ The kid just staring back at her, and Merrily taking a deep breath, gripping the Aga rail. ‘I’m sorry. Christ, what am I saying?’

‘I don’t know, Mum.’

‘I close my eyes in church, I see that lime-green Fiesta reversing into our drive. I come back from church, and you’re not here. I’m sorry. There is no reason at all you have to be here all the time.’

‘No, you’re right,’ Jane said. ‘It was thoughtless of me.’

‘Ignore me, flower. I’m badly, badly paranoid. Previously, I see a stranger in the congregation, and I think: Yes. Wow. Another one! Now, when I glimpse an unfamiliar face, I’m watching for a little sneer at some key moment; I’m watching their lips when we say the Lord’s Prayer. I go round afterwards and sniff where they sat. Jesus, I shouldn’t be saying this to you – you’re only sixteen.’

‘Yes, I am,’ Jane said mildly. ‘And I’ve just been to see Danny Gittoes. Rowenna gave him, like, oral sex in return for breaking into the church and contaminating your cassock with Denzil Joy’s suit. Just thought you should know that.’

Merrily broke away from the Aga.

‘Also – and I’m not qualified to, like, evaluate the significance of this – but Rowenna’s been seeing – euphemism, OK? – seeing a young guy by the name of James Lyden. He goes to the Cathedral School and apparently tonight he’s going to be enthroned in the Cathedral as something called – vomit, vomit – Boy Bishop. Does this mean anything to you?’

47 Medieval Thing

SHE CALLED HUW, but there was no answer. She didn’t know his Sunday routine. Perhaps he drove from church to church across the mountains – service after service, until he was all preached out. If he had a mobile or a car-phone, it wouldn’t work up there, anyway.

She next called Sophie at home. Sophie, thank God, was home. Merrily pictured a serene, pastel room with a high ceiling and a grandfather clock.

‘Sophie, are you going to the Boy Bishop ceremony tonight?’

‘I always do,’ Sophie said. ‘As the Bishop’s lay-secretary, I consider my role as extending to his understudy.’

‘That’s not quite the right word, is it? As I understand it, the boy is a symbolic replacement – the Bishop actually giving way to him.’

‘Well, perhaps. Should I explain it to you, Merrily?’

‘Please.’

She listened, and made notes on her sermon pad.

‘Shall I see you there?’ Sophie asked.

‘God willing.’

‘I should like to talk to you. I’ve delayed long enough.’

An hour later, Merrily called Huw again, and then she called Lol but there was no answer there either, and no one else to call. When she put the phone down, she said steadily to herself, ‘I shouldn’t need this. I shouldn’t need help.’

Jane, coming into the scullery with coffee, said, ‘You can only ever go by what you think is right, Mum.’

‘All right, listen, flower. Sit down. I’m going to hang something on you. And you, in your most cynical-little- bitch mode, are going to give me your instinctive reactions.’

Jane pulled up a chair and they sat facing one another, sideon to the desk.

‘Shoot,’ Jane said.

‘It’s a medieval thing.’

‘Most of Hereford seems to be a medieval thing,’ Jane said.

‘In the thirteenth century, apparently, it was a fairly widespread midwinter ceremony in many parts of Europe. Sometimes he was known as the Bishop of the Innocents. It was discontinued at the Reformation under Henry VIII. The Reformation wasn’t kind to the Cathedral anyway. Stainedglass windows were destroyed, statues smashed. Then there was the Civil War and puritanism. In most cathedrals, the Boy Bishop never came back, but Hereford reintroduced it about twenty-five years ago, and it’s now probably the most famous ceremony of its kind in the country. The basis of it is a line from the Magnificat which goes: He hath put down the mighty from their seat and hath exalted the humble and meek.’

‘That’s crap,’ Jane said. ‘I don’t know anybody my age who is remotely humble or meek.’

‘How about if I tell you when to come on with the cynicism. OK, back to the ceremony. After a candlelit procession, the Bishop of Hereford gives up his throne to the boy, who takes over the rest of the service, leads the prayers, gives a short sermon.’

‘Would I be right in thinking there aren’t a whole bunch of boys queuing up for this privilege?’

‘Probably. It’s a parent thing – also a choir thing. The Boy Bishop is almost invariably a leading chorister, or a recently retired chorister, and he has several attendants from the same stable.’

‘So, what you’re saying is, Hunter symbolically gives up his throne to this guy.’

‘No, it isn’t symbolic. He actually does it. And then the boy and his entourage proceed around the chancel and into the North Transept, where he’s introduced to St Thomas Cantilupe at the shrine.’

‘Or, in this case, the hole where the shrine used to be.’

‘Yes, I understand this will the first time since the institution of the ceremony in the Middle Ages that there’s been no tomb.’

‘Heavy, right?’

Merrily said, ‘So you’re following my thinking.’

‘Maybe.’ Jane pushed her hair behind her ears.

Merrily said, ‘If – and this is the crux of it – you wanted to isolate the period when Hereford Cathedral was most vulnerable to… shall we call it spiritual disturbance, you might choose the period of the dawning of a millennium… when the tomb of its guardian saint lies shattered… and when the Lord Bishop of Hereford…’

She broke off, searching for the switch of the Anglepoise lamp. The red light of the answering machine shone like a drop of blood.

‘Is a mere boy,’ Jane supplied.

‘That’s the final piece of Huw’s jigsaw. Is that a load of superstitious crap or what? You can now be cynical.’

‘Thanks.’

‘So?’ Merrily’s hand found the lamp switch and clicked. The light found Jane propping up her chin with a fist.

‘How long do we have before the ceremony starts?’

‘It takes place during Evensong – which was held in the late afternoon until Mick took over. Mick thinks Evensong should be just that – at seven-thirty. Just over three hours from now.’