Remains of an Altar

It was the woman who’d given her the hard look. Short curly hair, dark suit. Possibly seen her somewhere before, but not here.

‘Jane, is this just a personal issue for you?’ the woman said.

‘Well, I’m also doing a project for school. On the interpretation of landscape mysteries?’

‘Ah. How old are you?’

‘Seventeen.’

Somebody started to laugh.

‘And which school do you go to?’ the woman asked.

‘Moorfield High?’

‘Robert Morrell,’ the woman murmured to Cliff. ‘Jane, does Mr Morrell know you’re here?’

‘Look … sorry … what’s it got to do with him?’

‘Quite a lot, I should have thought, as he’s the head of Moorfield High.’

‘Well, he doesn’t live here, does he?’ Jane felt herself going red. ‘Like, I care about this place. I don’t want to see it ruined. I don’t want to see the ancient pattern all smashed for the sake of a bunch of crap, bourgeois piles of pink brick like … like this. I mean, sod your new community centre, you should be having a public meeting about the annihilation of Coleman’s Meadow, don’t you think?’

‘I really don’t think we should be arguing about a plan that’s not yet come before the council,’ the woman said. ‘Certainly not with a schoolgirl.’

‘But if nobody says anything, it’ll just get quietly pushed through, won’t it, by people who don’t give a—’

‘I should be very careful what you say, if I were you,’ the woman said coldly.

‘Particularly to the vice-chair of the Education Committee,’ Cliff said.

A rock landed in Jane’s gut. This was, of course, the woman who’d been sitting next to Morrell on stage at the prizegiving ceremony.

Jane looked down at her wineglass; it was empty.

‘Well, I can see I’m not going to get anywhere with you guys. I think I need to get home to…’

She backed away to the nearest corner of the house called Avalon and then looked at each of them in turn.

‘… Work out how best to shaft you,’ Jane said.

And turned and ran through the summer-scented dusk, past the crooked, sunken, black and white cottages of Virgingate Lane.

14 A Dim and Bleary Light

Spicer led Merrily and Lol into his spartan kitchen, offered them seats at his table but no tea. The sun had dropped into a bank of cloud, and the conifers at the end of the garden were turning black.

Spicer switched off the radio.

‘I suppose it’s like people seeing Shakespeare’s ghost in Stratford-on-Avon.’

He joined them at the table but didn’t put a light on.

‘Or Wordsworth in Grasmere,’ Merrily said. ‘Brontes in Howarth. Yes, I do get the picture.’

Recalling once looking up a number under E in the Hereford phone book and noticing Elgar Carpets and Interiors, Elgar Coaches, the Elgar Coffee Shop, Elgar Fine Art … like that for about half a page.

In all these establishments, you’d be shelling out twenty-pound notes with an engraved portrait on the back of a man with neat grey hair, a generous moustache, faraway eyes.

‘See, in comparison,’ Spicer said, ‘Wordsworth and Shakespeare are remote figures. Elgar’s been dead barely seventy years. It’s like he still lives around here, with everything he’s come to represent. Go to the Elgar museum at Broadheath, they say you can see his betting slips.’

He had his back to the window bay, blocking more light from the room, which had three doors, all shut. One thing was sure: you’d never see Syd Spicer’s betting slips. Merrily wondered if visitors were confined to the stripped-down kitchen so they wouldn’t clock his books or his CD collection or pictures of his kids.

‘I should’ve realized. The soundtrack of the Malverns. The obvious spirit of the place.’

‘Maybe more obvious than you know,’ Spicer said. ‘Joseph Longworth, the quarry boss who built the church, as well as being a born-again Christian or however they put it in those days, was an Elgar fanatic. The church was built that size to accommodate an orchestra and choir able to perform the great man’s works. Elgar’s said to have attended the dedication.’

‘It’s all coming out, isn’t it?’

‘If Longworth could’ve called it St Edward’s he would have.’

‘But Elgar was a Catholic, wasn’t he?’

‘Yeah, he was,’ Spicer said, ‘and he wrote extensively for the Catholic Mass, as you … presumably heard. But, of course, his music was played in Anglican cathedrals, and cathedral sound was what Longworth was paying for.’

‘Sounds like he was getting it.’

‘Not for long. They held a few concerts here, but Longworth died and then Elgar died. And nothing much happened until Tim Loste arrived. Who thinks Elgar’s God. So this is becoming Elgar city again after many years. I’m sorry, maybe I should’ve told you.’

‘And should I have heard of Tim Loste in a wider context?’

‘Nah. Used to be a music teacher at Malvern College, now he’s a private tutor. Got an amateur choir drawn from miles around. At least, it started amateur; they’re making a bit of money now. From my point of view, the parish gets its cut, and if most of the music’s heavily Catholic, well…’

‘Fills the church.’

‘Yeah. Situation now is, we’ve a whole bunch of people in Wychehill and down the valley who’ve moved here solely because this is Elgar country. Listen to some of them, you start picking up this maudlin kind of patriotism. “Land of Hope and Glory.” Don’t you hate that song?’

‘Apparently, Elgar hated it, too,’ Lol said. ‘But then, he didn’t write the words.’

Merrily glanced at him. She didn’t know he knew any more about Elgar than she did, which, frankly, was not much.

‘Let’s deal with the bottom line, Syd. Who’s saying the supposed presence is Elgar?’

‘Out loud, nobody. It’s one of those situations where an idea develops. Can I tell you why I’m not happy about it?’

‘Please.’

‘Well, let me tell you about Tim. Good conductor, great teacher, they say … but would like to be a great composer and isn’t. Some part of him is deeply frustrated. He’s prone to depression. So this particular night he goes off the road, hits a telegraph pole. Nobody else involved, no injury, no need for police. Which was just as well, because Tim was pissed.’

‘Oh.’

‘Happened just across from the church. I heard the crash. I go over, help him out of the wreckage – this is about half-nine at night, month or so ago, getting dark. Bring him back here, administer the black coffee. He’s shaking all over. I was going down to Ledbury, he says, to buy a light bulb for my desk lamp. Trying to write, bulb blew. Going down to Ledbury for a light bulb – that tells you the state he was in. I’d’ve given him a bloody bulb, for God’s sake.’

‘Is he often … ?’

‘Drunk and incapable? Now and then. Couple of us had to go down the Oak one night, get him away from the bouncers. He’d broken a window. I didn’t tell you about the Oak, did I?’

‘I know about it.’