The Fabric of Sin

implodes. I think you’re rather close to an ulcer. What’ve you been doing?’ Mrs Morningwood stood back, deep lines in her long face, all her features hard-focused in the sunless light. ‘You really weren’t aware of this? At all?’

‘No, I … God!’

‘It’ll get less painful after a while. At first, you know, I was thinking premature menopause.’

‘What?’

‘No stigma. Sometimes happens to girls in their twenties. Probably isn’t. Probably plain stress. Never had reflexology before?’

‘Well …’ Rolling her head in the pillow ‘… Not quite like this. Not the seriously painful kind.’

‘Some so-called practitioners are merely playing at it. Feelgood, massage-parlour stuff, bugger-all use to anybody. Sorry, darling, what was your question?’

‘De Molay. I was trying to ask you where he might have stayed. When he was here.’

‘You really need to rest. A holiday. When did you last have a holiday?’

‘Four years? Five? I don’t know, we weren’t living here then. Another lifetime.’

‘I can feel other people’s problems curled up tightly inside you, stored away in little sacks.’

The Stanley knife again, biting into the side of a big toe.

‘Sacks that swell,’ Mrs Morningwood said.

Merrily shut her eyes. This was not going the way it was supposed to. The plan had been to walk in, eyes wide open, go for some straight answers: Mrs Morningwood, you didn’t just accidentally bump into Jane and me the other day, you had an agenda and presumably still have. Why did you court Jane with your revelations about the four pubs and the heavenly bodies? Why were you so keen that we should check out the Master House while you buggered off?

The pain faded. She let her head sink into the pillow. With her usual uncompromising dynamism, she’d staggered up the path, under a wooden pergola still lush with vines. Still trying to find a doorbell or a knocker when the door had opened and she’d virtually fallen over the threshold.

‘I suppose you’re thinking of the Master House,’ Mrs Morningwood said. ‘It would make sense of the name, certainly. Doubtless the sort of grand celebrity occasion they’d have wanted to commemorate.’

‘Nobody know for sure?’

‘So little from that period was written down, Mrs Watkins. Not exactly known for their illuminated script, the Templars. Didn’t keep diaries or ledgers, far as I know.’

‘Being illiterate couldn’t have helped. No word-of-mouth, old wives’ tales about why de Molay came?’

‘He was presumably inspecting the preceptory. Why does it interest you?’

‘Trying to get a handle on the place, that’s all. To what extent it’s connected to the Templars.’

A log collapsed in the range, gases spurting, Merrily starting to sweat.

‘Good.’ Mrs Morningwood didn’t look up, working on a toe with both hands, like peeling a plum. ‘You’re probably full of toxins. I’d hate to even inquire about your diet.’

‘Mostly vegetarian. Bit of fish.’

‘Bit of this, bit of that, I know. A vegetarian diet needs to be carefully organized or there’ll be deficiencies. Looks of you, I bet you don’t even bother to eat at all half the time.’

‘You find life isn’t something that happens between meals.’

‘Life, my darling, needs to be battered into shape.’

‘Easier said than— Oh, for … I thought you said it’d get less painful.’

‘I expect I lied,’ Mrs Morningwood said.

When Merrily awoke, still on the chaise longue, the light in the two windows was blue-grey and the light in the cast-iron range was molten red, like the crater of a live volcano. Like the sun through the glass of red wine she’d been given. The sun had been out then, when she’d drunk it. Gone now, the sun and the wine.

Mrs Morningwood was rocking gently in the bentwood chair, smoking. Merrily raised herself up on her elbows.

‘What was in it?’

‘Nothing much. Valerian, mainly.’

‘What’s that do?’

‘A remedy for nervous debility. Unclenches the gut. Promotes sleep, quite rapidly sometimes.’

‘You didn’t tell me that.’

‘Of course I didn’t tell you that — you’d’ve buggered off.’

‘This wasn’t supposed to …’ Merrily’s head fell back. ‘How long have I been here now?’

‘Why are you so obsessed with time? You’ve been here as long as was necessary.’

‘Right.’

‘Don’t get up yet, Watkins, you might fall over.’

Couldn’t have if she’d wanted to. Merrily felt limp and disconnected and distinctly odd but not in a bad way. And not, as she’d feared, in a drugged way. Something seemed to be vibrating inside her, like a motor idling.

‘Where did you learn all this stuff?’

‘The basic herbalism — and it is basic — was from my mother and she had it from her mother and so on.’

Always be a Morningwood on Garway Hill, as long as badgers shit on the White Rocks.

Right. Merrily felt like someone abducted by aliens, taken away to the mother ship, physically investigated, brought back. Mrs Morningwood supervising the experiment.

‘Wasn’t complicated, darling. Bad diet, insufficient sleep and nervous stress. You’ll sleep well tonight, probably wee quite a lot first, mind. And after that it’s up to you. The reflexology, picked that up in London. Seemed to be something I could do, almost from the outset. Technique might go back to ancient Egypt — who knows that the Templars didn’t bring it back from the Middle East? Although it’s not, as far as I know, in the traditional repertoire of the nine witches of Garway.’

‘Garway’s loss. I expect.’

‘You feel better.’

Merrily eased herself up again, nodded slowly, very aware of the movements of her neck, the fulcrum of bones.

‘I feel — a bit worryingly — relaxed.’

‘Smoke if you want to. Why worryingly relaxed? You feel guilty about relaxation?’

‘Teddy Murray says it’s a function of the clergy to appear totally placid at all times. I realize that’s his excuse for spending hours strolling the hills, but maybe there’s something— How much do I actually owe you, Mrs Morningwood?’

‘Owe?’

‘It’s going dark, I’ve been here over half a day—’

‘Lots of other tasks were performed in between. You just didn’t notice.’

Mrs Morningwood arose from the chair, went over to the range. There was an earthenware teapot on the hob. She detached a brown mug from a hook.

‘But since you mention recompense, sadly from your point of view I’m not much of a Christian, so yes, I have every intention of extracting payment in kind.’

‘Oh.’

‘What brought you here — feeling of failure?’

‘Partly.’

‘What could you have done?’ Mrs Morningwood brought over the cup, steaming. ‘It’s only tea, weak as gnat’s piss, and I can assure you there’s nothing in it that will send you back to sleep. What do you think you might have done to save either of them?’

‘Could’ve believed her. Thank you.’ Merrily sipped, holding the mug in both hands, swinging her feet tentatively to the floor. ‘Although I had no reason to at the time.’

Drinking the weak tea slowly, telling Mrs Morningwood how Fuchsia had claimed to have been haunted by something which, it transpired, had been invented by M. R. James.