The Prayer of the Night Shepherd

‘You can tell me. If you want to.’ Greta sat down next to him, in her old pink towelling robe. Danny remembered a seventeen-year-old rock chick in a kimono, and how he used to picture her with him in a beach house overlooking the Pacific Ocean, knowing — totally bloody knowing — that one day that was where they’d be, him and Gret. And here they still were, after thirty years, and it was too cold for kimonos and always would be now.

‘Tell you what?’

‘The rest of it,’ Greta said. ‘There’s more to it, en’t there?’ Mabbe years since her’d spoken to him like this — this quiet.

‘Dunno what you mean.’

‘Look at me,’ Greta said.

He did. Always looked good with her hair down, but it was only ever down in the mornings. Danny felt a sense of loss and sadness.

‘He’s different is what it is, Gret. You know that. Different from the rest of ’em, different even from me. But at least I can see it.’

‘Different how?’ Greta said, holding his gaze with her big brown eyes. You, my brown-eyed girl. The young Van Morrison. How long ago? God.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry what I said about you gossipin’. I was distraught.’

‘You don’t tell me things n’more, Danny. Think I’m gonner spread everything round Kington market. It’s like Gomer’s your wife now.’

‘Don’t be daft.’ And yet he knew this was partly right. There was things that Gomer understood, though you wouldn’t think it to look at him with his ciggy jammed in and his glasses alight. You’d think Gomer was a bit touched. But mabbe that was it — you needed to be a bit touched to understand some things. Greta and him, folks used to say they was both touched, back in the wild ole days.

‘You were right about one thing,’ Greta said. ‘Mary Morson was never the one for Jeremy. No sensitiveness there at all.’

‘No.’

‘Jeremy’s mother used to say he had the Sight.’

‘Even his mother did? You never told me that before.’

‘Din’t wanner set you off. Visions and stuff.’

‘That was acid. I wouldn’t do that now.’

‘Wouldn’t you?’

Danny smiled. Greta continued to sit there. Bugger, Danny thought, it’s too early for this.

‘Never loses a lamb, do he?’ Greta said. ‘Never loses a lamb to the fox. It’s like he’s come to an agreement with the foxes. His mother used to say that, too. When he was real little, he’d creep out at night and they’d find him sitting with the sheep. Catch his death, his mother used to say.’

Funny phrase that, Danny thought. Catch his death. Funny how a familiar saying could sound new and full of meaning, if it caught you in the right mood. Aye, if death was coming, Jeremy would see it, mabbe have a chance to catch it in both hands, his eyes wide open.

‘He’s part of that farm,’ Danny told Greta. ‘The land, the stock, Jeremy. A whole organism, see, and he’s the part as thinks. And he keeps it all balanced, and in that way I always feel the boy’s good for this whole area. Balance — don’t ask me to explain it. It’s the way he works, goes quietly on… if they’d leave him alone.’

‘People?’

‘He just en’t good with people. They don’t get to know him easy, and he don’t know them. Hard to go quietly, nowadays.’

‘Mary Morson made all the running,’ Greta said.

‘Her’d have to.’

‘He was a catch. A good, sound farm.’

‘Mary Morson’s a cold-hearted little bloody gold-digger.’

‘And this Natalie?’ Greta said. ‘Where’s the difference there? Got it made now. Single parent in need of a home. Where’s the difference?’

Danny drained his mug. ‘There is a difference. All I can tell you is, the first time they met, it was in the air. Like some’ing he’d been waiting for all his life. I can’t explain it. It didn’t seem right, but then it did — later. I don’t know why.’

‘She’s beautiful, Danny, how else would he be?’

Danny bowed his head. ‘This is gonner kill him, Gret.’

‘It’ll kill him if he gets it from somebody else.’

‘Mary.’ Danny sighed. ‘Aye, Mary’ll spread it.’

‘Only thinks of herself.’

‘Shit.’ He stared at the light on the stereo, a little red planet. ‘See, the rest of it… I can’t figure it out, but some’ing’s gone unstable. Sebbie Dacre feels it, I’m sure of that. Sebbie feels threatened — big farmer, big magistrate, Master of the fucking Hunt, and he feels threatened. By Jeremy? How’s that possible? Lived side by side with Sebbie all his life, no trouble — no pally-pally either, but that’s a class thing. Yet here’s Sebbie sending his Welshie shooters to terrorize the boy. Why?’

Greta put a hand on Danny’s thigh. ‘You got a job today, with Gomer?’

‘Nope.’

‘Then you better go talk to him, en’t you? You go this morning. Get it over.’

‘Aye.’ Danny put his mug on the floor and then he put his arms around her, his eyes full of tears that he couldn’t have fully explained.

Around mid-morning, it finally started to snow. Real snow, the kind you knew wouldn’t stop. Flakes the size of two-pound coins, and it was already an inch deep on the vicarage drive when Merrily opened the front door to Gomer Parry.

‘Vicar.’ The end of Gomer’s ciggy was the only warmth out there. He had his old cap on and his muffler. When you looked up, the snow was almost black against the sky.

‘You must’ve heard the kettle.’

‘Ah,’ Gomer said, ‘that’s what it was.’

He sat down at the kitchen table, with his cap, his muffler and his ciggy tin in a little mound by his elbow, and she made him tea and put out chocolate digestives for him to dunk. When the phone rang, she let the machine take it.

‘You talked to Jane last night?’ She switched on the lamp on the dresser.

‘Difficult,’ Gomer said.

‘Goes without saying.’

‘Don’t wanner break no confidence.’

‘You’re not the first to say that, in relation to Jane.’ Merrily came and sat down opposite him. ‘Vicars aren’t good for much these days, but we’re good at keeping confidences. Take it all with us to the grave.’

‘I know that, vicar. ’Sides, this prob’ly en’t confidential.’ He glanced around. ‘Her’s at school?’

Merrily nodded. ‘Last day of term tomorrow. If it carries on snowing like this, she may not even make it tomorrow.’

‘So this…’

‘This could be our last chance to talk about her behind her back, yes.’

‘See this—’ Gomer broke a chocolate digestive in half. ‘Her’s likely told you about it already, but if her en’t…’ He stared up at the snowy window.

Merrily said, ‘It isn’t about spiritualism, is it?’

‘Eh?’

‘Contacting the dead?’

Gomer blinked. ‘No, it’s about this Ben Foley beating seven bells out of this feller the other night.’

‘What?’