The Fabric of Sin

Amid the distaste, an unexpected fizz of excitement as Merrily put down her pen.

‘Lol, did Lord Stourport miss something when he was in London, do you think?’

‘I can’t help wondering if he even went to London,’ Lol said. ‘Or if, whatever happened towards the end, he was effectively dissociating himself from it. Giving himself an alibi. And the way he was stressing that he was only in it for the sex, wasn’t really involved in the ritual magic.’

‘Was that true, do you think, or just a blokey thing to say?’

‘Well, it was blokey, but … the sex, the magic, I don’t think you can divide them. I think he did get off on all that. You sensed a kind of pride. After a while, he was enjoying talking about it — his decadent youth, before he had the responsibility of property and a title dumped on him. I think he’d do it again tomorrow if there was another Mat Phobe around to set it up.’

‘But he never went into detail?’

‘No. You’d probably be looking at whatever rituals Crowley did in that context.’

‘Templars. He was always intrigued by the Templars.’

Thinking of the time, while she was waiting for the first deliverance course at Huw Owen’s chapel in the Beacons, when she’d been reading heavily about magic, and Crowley in particular. All the books came back to Crowley, his attempts to raise spiritual and demonic entities, representing various energies — sexual arousal going hand-round-cock with higher consciousness. His ambition to become godlike.

In a seedy kind of way.

She remembered once making the mistake of reading in bed about how, at his abbey in Sicily, Crowley had supervised a ritual which involved a woman having sex with a goat, culminating in Crowley cutting the goat’s throat so that the blood washed over the woman.

It was about the magical energy of blood. Crowley liked to call them Scarlet Women, and that was how they’d end up, the sick bastard.

‘The Welsh guy,’ Lol said. ‘He must’ve been there at the end.’

‘Yes. That’s your big discovery, Lol, and I’m truly grateful for this. I need to talk to the guy, don’t I? If it’s who I think it is.’

Was she going to talk to Sycharth, in defiance of the Bishop?

Oh yes. Oh God, yes.

Lol said, ‘You foresee him reacting with the same kind of half-suppressed glee as Jimmy Hayter?’

‘Not exactly. He’s a big businessman in Hereford now. He owns the Centurion on Roman Road.’

‘Do not go on your own.’

‘What’s he going to do, sacrifice me?’

‘You need a witness.’

‘I just want to invite him to a small service.’

God, was she still going to do that? A deliverance swansong?

‘You’re not going today, are you?’ Lol said.

‘I’ll call him, make an appointment.’

‘Get Sophie to do it. Makes it seem more official.’

Merrily said nothing. It would take too long to explain.

‘You’re OK, aren’t you?’ Lol said. ‘I mean, you’re feeling all right?’

‘I’m feeling surprisingly well. Surprisingly well. What time will you be home?

‘Gig’s at nine.’

‘Decent gig?’

‘Not bad.’

‘Do this one for Nick,’ Merrily said. ‘You know what I mean? And when you get in, come round. I don’t care what time.’

‘Well, then.’ Lol knelt down next to the grave. ‘Made it at last.’

Two blokes in the same business, one who went down, one who — having begun his career by shamelessly copying the other — had somehow come through.

This was silly. Embarrassing. Futile. Not only did he not know what to say, he wasn’t even sure who he was addressing. He was now over a decade older than Nick had been when he’d died alone in his bedroom in a big house in this village, from an overdose of antidepressants.

Having already overdosed on cannabis and commercial failure. The house was called Far Leys, and apparently was quite easy to find, but Lol had decided that he wasn’t going to.

If Nick Drake was alive now he’d be nearly sixty. What would he sound like now?

Now we rise and we are everywhere.

Could hear him breathily singing those words on the summery ‘From the Morning’, the last song on the last album released in his lifetime.

Like a prophecy.

The last one. His songs had always been full of dark prescience, if you wanted to hear it — as if he’d seen the design of his short life laid out in symbols. He was the fruit tree that would only flourish when his body was in the ground, when the pink moon had taken his life after the years of the black-eyed dog howling at his door, asking for more, giving nothing.

This man who could stand in silence for two hours on the periphery of a party, like a half-formed apparition. Some people had actually seen his possible suicide as part of a life-plan. Others thought he was just plain screwed up and smoking too much dope.

Maybe, it was often said, a woman might have saved him, if he’d been able to let a woman in. Or a man? Gay men liked to suggest that Nick — who, despite his elegance, his good looks and his profession, never seemed to have had a physical relationship — had been in the closet.

The most likely answer was that he was too well brought up in the careful, post-war Agatha Christie Fifties, too plain uptight middle English. I can’t really imagine Nick having sex with anyone — a friend, quoted in the latest biography — because he would have to take his clothes off and he was always far too shy.

This in the Seventies, when Jimmy Hayter, close to the same age as Nick, and actually far more upper-class, had been up to here with peace and lerve and ready to get steeped in the dirty stuff.

Jimmy Hayter, who was Lord Stourport, who hadn’t spoken to Lol again as Lol stood up, murmured ‘thank you’, nodded and walked away like he was walking on an open blade. Hayter’s body never moving, only his stare coldly following him to the door.

‘You’d have encountered people like him, right?’ Lol said. ‘I mean, you were just a little too late — especially with your background — to have been a real hippie.’

Lol picked up one of the plectrums, tortoiseshell, and then put it back, finding he’d rearranged them into a rough semicircle around the gravestone.

‘You came in at the wrong end of the dream. When everybody was waking up into the cold daylight, trying to pull the covers over their heads and it was … all going rancid under there.’

Those sublime albums bombing, one after the other. No reason for it; they were massive these days, the songs ubiquitous.

Now he had risen and he was everywhere.

The last prophesy fulfilled. There was nothing left to say.

Lol stood up. He had no plectrum to leave. Hadn’t used one in years, just his fingers and his nails on light strings.

As he walked away, a slow breeze passed through the brittling leaves on the oak tree, like a low sigh, and Lol turned and thought for a moment that a tall figure was shadowed under the tree. Slightly stooped. Raising a languid hand in a brief, shy salute.

Lol smiled and waved once and ran out of the churchyard, all the way back to where he’d left the Animal at the side of the road in a quiet lane with trees.

Only it wasn’t there.

Using the landline, Merrily rang The Centurion in Roman Road.

A woman said, ‘I’m sorry, Mr Gwilym’s in a meeting. Who shall I say called?’