Remains of an Altar

Some guy said he wasn’t there, mostly he worked out of his offices in Worcester and Kidderminster, and what did she want and could he take a message?

Merrily said yes, he probably could. No hurry. She merely wanted to invite Mr Khan to a church service.

The emails came up. Piece of spam offering her guaranteed penis enlargement and – wow – one from Wychehill Rectory.

Dear Merrily

IN CONFIDENCE – you might find something here. Couldn’t scan it – too faded – so I’ve copied it, for speed. It’s in the parish records, a letter, dating back to 1926, apparently forwarded to Longworth, who seems to have preserved it as some kind of corroboration of his choice of site for Wychehill Church. I don’t know who it’s from or who he’s talking about – in fact, for all I know, it could be a forgery – but Winnie was certainly impressed, so I’m guessing one of them’s Elgar. Also note that Winnie changed the name of her house to Starlight Cottage.

Spicer hadn’t even signed the email. But then, what had she expected – love, Syd?

Merrily scrolled up the letter. It was something that he’d taken the trouble to send it.

My dear Sirius

How are you? We seem hardly to have spoken since the utterly devastating loss of poor Electra, and so I was delighted to receive your letter … and further delighted to confirm that your Hereford friend is absolutely right as regards the significance of the Wyche Hill site. My researches tell me this would be a most propitious place to build a church or temple. As we once discussed, there is a tradition of worship in the Malvern Hills long predating Christianity yet absorbed by the early Church, and also, as recorded in the Triads of Wales, a most inspiring, long-lost tradition of sacred music-making. It is my belief – and wonderful to think it could be so – that there may be no area of southern Britain more conducive to the creation and performance of music of the most exalted power than this. Your own work is surely ample testament to its extraordinary influence.

Please tell me if I can be of any further assistance to any of you, and I look forward to experiencing the church if ever it is built. But we must get together before that.

With every good wish,

Starlight

PS Some of my old, as Electra would say, ‘out of the world’ associates are inclined to think your friend’s interpretations of his remarkable discovery tend toward the prosaic, but I suppose his provincial background is a bit of a constraint!

* * *

That night, Jane went out with Eirion and Merrily went over to Lol’s. They set off to walk to Coleman’s Meadow, and she showed him the email.

‘If one of them’s Elgar, it’s probably going to be Sirius.’

It was a warm night, the northern sky still a shimmering electric blue. Lol said that the weather forecast had suggested tomorrow would be the hottest day of the year so far.

‘So Electra … ?’

‘Would be Alice, who’d died some years earlier.’

‘Music of the most exalted power,’ Merrily said. ‘What does that say to you?’

‘I think it says, even with a Boswell guitar don’t get any ideas.’

Coleman’s Meadow was empty. Lol said there’d been Hereford cattle last time he was here, but now only a few rabbits bobbed around on the eastern fringe, by the thorn hedge.

The path through the middle of the meadow was strikingly evident, even among the shadows. Even when it disappeared through the gate and into the undergrowth, you could feel it burrowing like a live cable to light up the summit of Cole Hill, which, at nearly ten p.m., was ambered by an almost unearthly sunset afterglow.

‘What do you think?’ Lol said. ‘Worth saving?’

PART THREE

‘From chanting comes the word enchantment and it was largely by chanting that the Druids kept up the spell of enchantment which they spread across each of the Celtic kingdoms.’

John Michell, New Light on the Ancient Mystery of Glastonbury (1990)

31 On the Line

No point in worrying. It probably wouldn’t be in today’s paper, anyway. After Jane had asssured him that no other media had been in touch, Jerry Isles had said they might well hold it over for a day. Later, media-savvy Eirion had explained that it was a soft story, therefore expendable.

Every time she’d awoken in the night, Jane had been hoping, increasingly, that they’d just dump it. After all, it wasn’t much of a story in the great scheme of things, was it? And what, in the end, was it likely to achieve, apart from dropping her in some deep shit with Morrell?

Still, she was up before Mum and outside the Eight Till Late not long after it opened, this horrible queasy feeling at the bottom of her stomach. Despite the shop’s name, Big Jim Prosser opened around seven, with all these morning papers outside on the rack – Suns, Mirrors, Independents.

No Guardians, however, this morning. Maybe not many people took it in Ledwardine, or they’d all gone for delivery.

The air was already warm, in line with the forecast on Eirion’s car radio last night that this would be the first really hot day of the summer. Ledwardine looked impossibly beautiful, quiet and shaded and guarded by the church, with its glistening spire, and the enigmatic pyramid of Cole Hill. Everything serene and ancient and … vulnerable. Jane felt as though she was carrying the weight of all that late-medieval timber-framing on her shoulders, and was about to duck away when Big Jim appeared in the shop doorway.

‘Lovely morning, Jane. Looking for anything in particular, is it?’

‘No, I—’

‘Daily Telegraph? Times?’

‘Erm, it was just a Guardian, but if they’ve all gone it doesn’t matter.’

‘Just a Guardian, eh?’ Jim Prosser had his hands behind his back, looking kind of smug. ‘Oh, they’ve gone, all right. Every single one. Last one got snapped up five minutes before you come in. ’Fact, I just had to turn one feller away.’

‘Oh.’ Jane edged towards the door. ‘Right. Never mind, then.’

This didn’t necessarily mean anything.

‘Lyndon Pierce, it was,’ Jim said happily, the words coming down like the blade of a guillotine. ‘I think he’s driven over to Weobley to try and get one there. Didn’t look a happy man, somehow. Can’t imagine why.’

‘Oh God.’ Jane went hot and cold. ‘They used it, didn’t they?’

‘Used what?’

‘Don’t make me suffer even more, Jim. What did it say?’

‘Well, seeing it’s you, Jane…’ Jim brought a paper out from behind his back. ‘I’ll let you have a quick glance at my own copy, if you like.’

‘You take the Guardian?’

‘I do today,’ Jim said.