The Echo of Crows, page 3
Eirion held open the pub door for her.
‘Senior colleague,’ she muttered. ‘I do kind of like him, but he has to know everything about Mum, and if he thinks I’m hiding anything he’ll tell her.’
‘You’ve nothing to hide, have you?’
Jane said nothing. Sometimes she had. Sometimes she’d removed books from the shelves in the office so she could hear Mum talking on the phone about paranormal stuff she was supposed to be investigating confidentially. Not realizing how vital it could be for her daughter to be in the picture.
‘I think it’s important for her to have some back-up,’ she told Eirion out of the side of her mouth. ‘I’m more confidential than she thinks. I don’t talk about her extra job, which I think is important if she doesn’t get carried aw— Hello, Mr Owen, have you been to see Mum?’
‘Not yet.’ Huw Owen ran a forefinger under his dog collar. ‘Don’t know whether you’ve found this, Jane, but you can never trust weather any more. I forgot it were borderline November this morning. Sudden flood nearly wrote off me and the Land Rover. It’s thanks to Gomer we’re both here now. Anyroad… I thought I’d grab a quick half and a snack before I see your ma.’
No escape now. Jane sidestepped under Eirion’s outstretched arm to the oak door, as Huw followed her and asked a familiar question.
‘Still on her own then? No wedding plans yet?’
Jane tried not to frown.
‘She and Lol insist they’re moving that way,’ she murmured. Though she knew they couldn’t afford a big public celebration.
The bar was opening up in front of them, a dozen customers in there, none likely to approach Jane. Huw claimed a lonely table, taking a sidelong glance at her. Did he think Mum was wasting herself on a guy who thought writing songs was worthwhile?
‘And I reckon you won’t be around long, Jane, lass. Whether it’s college or a job.’
‘Hard to say. College can be restrictive. Er, I’ll just have a Coke, thanks, Irene.’
Huw said, ‘Think your mam’ll be all right completely on her own, way things are going in C of E?’
Well, that was a small concession: admitting that Jane’s suspicion of the people high up in the Church was not, like the fading of the Church’s future, without foundation.
‘It won’t happen yet,’ Jane said. ‘There’ll be… well, you, for a start.’
Huw said nothing. Eirion moved to the bar at the other end of the stone and timber-frame room, while Jane sat with her mum’s so-called spiritual adviser, and there was more hesitant chit-chat, quietly forming barbed edges with Huw’s questions for Jane: were Merrily and Lol really planning a future together? Was there any future here for him? Were his rock and folk music and her life in the Anglican Church remotely compatible? Wasn’t Lol in the same bag as the late owd witch, whose cottage he’d acquired when his music was on the up?
Eirion saw Jane’s questions, hanging in the air above her: what was Huw Owen after? Had he somehow concluded that it was time for her mum to give up the exorcism despised by so many bishops and get out of no-hope Ledwardine?
Eirion guessed Jane had felt the chill of unsettling times ahead. She was looking over the parking area into the roadside field where a few damp leaves had fallen.
No bodies, though, newly cut down from the gallows that were long gone. He looked thoughtfully at Jane as the first raindrops fell.
5
Slippery slope
HUW OWEN REALIZED he’d been talking to a different Jane, with a boyfriend who was actually a working man. She wasn’t totally grown up, but she was getting there. It made Huw think, as he left the pub with a bag of cheese and onion rolls, how life – any life – was shorter than you thought.
He’d keep in touch with Jane. He’d noted down her email address. She’d picked up on her mam’s job, both sides of it, knew the Bishop of Hereford wanted Merrily to be just a vicar with a parish, eventually, and didn’t want her messing with the paranormal in any overt way. Huw was convinced that, after a few years as diocesan exorcist, Merrily would never settle down solely to parish work again. He saw the problem and drove round to the vicarage to start tackling it.
But she was out. Probably had some vicar chores to deal with. He parked in the drive, unwrapped one pungent roll and sat back to wait with the still-damp copy of Apparitionism sent by his old friend from theological college days… and then finding another old mate in its pages.
‘Bugger me,’ Huw said. ‘Bloody Bakersfield!’
Stu Bakersfield had spent only a few months training to be a hard-up priest before switching to law studies with a view to making some real money. Spending an interesting holiday, it now appeared, near Clodock. Huw decided to track him down.
But first, Merrily. She’d been his first female deliverance minister… before the floodgates opened with the ordination of women. Already, women exorcists looked to be outnumbering men in England and Wales, but he felt that Merrily would soon be very much on her own in this somehow shadowy area.
On her own in other ways, too.
Was she up to being the Welsh border’s number-one or, God forbid, only exorcist or did she need somebody like him in the back seat? He resumed reading the magazine till a knock on the window and a wave of the hand beckoned him into the vicarage.
*
Merrily could tell by Huw’s faint smile that he wasn’t coming in with good news. The smile split a beard that always looked ragged and half-grown, and today she saw at once that this smile wasn’t reaching his eyes.
‘I’ll not keep you long, lass,’ Huw said. ‘But I didn’t want to just tell you what I’m doing over t’phone.’
‘Would have been safer, though, considering what you went through this morning,’ Merrily said, as she tried to revive the kitchen’s wood-burning stove with thick, dry kindling brought by Gomer. How many times had she and Huw sat here, discussing various interpretations of evil? How many more times would they do that with any sense of professional conviction? Not many if she listened to Huw, who tossed his greatcoat over a kitchen chair and sat down.
‘Wouldn’t ’ave got here wi’out that owd mate of yours being still in the rescue business. If he worked for t’Church he’d be on a slippery slope…’
‘Church, slippery slope?’ Merrily was suddenly apprehensive. Huw was not popular with the latest generation of senior British clergy, who were suddenly looking less senior than he was. ‘Huw, what are you saying?’
He was looking away, the phrase ‘slippery slope’ still echoing around him.
‘Huw?’
‘We both knew it were only a matter of time, lass.’
‘Not…?’
‘And nowt to do wi’ me age,’ Huw said.
‘Oh, bloody hell,’ Merrily murmured.
It had to come. She’d long known that, one day, the Christian Deliverance Study Group would decide he should retire from his post as its main adviser for rural Wales and the border. He’d become too much of a loose cannon, and she was now guessing that deliverance had finally been pushed to lean on Huw Owen. It would be making things increasingly uncomfortable for him, now it was backing away from the woo-woo, seemingly along with many others in dog collars.
‘I were thinking, could anybody else do this iffy job and make it work under the present regime?’ Huw said. ‘Apart from… well, you yourself, happen, in a few years’ time, but… not yet, I think. Do you, lass?’
She said nothing. She didn’t know. Not with a bishop she couldn’t count on for spiritual support, one of the many who simply didn’t believe in either exorcism or the harmful entities it tried to control, rejecting all so-called deliverance as clerical hocus pocus. Most of the people now appointed as bishops were signed-up proponents of good administration, who surrounded themselves with appointees of the same mindset.
She was unconvinced about her own future, with the sceptics in charge. Still young, in Church terms, but accepting, as few bishops seemed to any more, that there were more things in heaven and earth than found in social services.
‘But you… you’re irreplaceable, Huw,’ Merrily said, trying to smile. ‘I mean, where else would they find a Welsh-speaking Yorkshireman behind a dog collar?’
She sat back, realizing there actually were no smiles in this. He’d come to tell her he was retiring.
‘Do they say you have to go?’
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Huw said. ‘Still be ministering in Brecon diocese. Just be quietly told to stop doing all this officially as part of the deliverance movement. Because there won’t be a movement soon. All part of the Bishop’s attempt to show exorcism’s a mere formality, not a dangerous job – on account of evil spirits are imaginary and blokes like me who take it seriously are just delusional.’
‘Delusional is not a word that anybody would dare apply to you…’
He looked into his hands.
‘Fought ’em off as long as I could. I’ll still be an honorary member of the Deliverance Study Group, but that’s full of bloody sceptics now. Only a handful of us sees owt practical in it.’
‘More than a handful.’ Merrily threw another bundle of dry twigs into the stove, producing an energized crackle, a shot of flame.
‘Not at my level, lass. Who’ll support you? What about your private life, Merrily, can you even count on support there?’
‘Well…’ She wasn’t sure what to say. He was digging for something. ‘Jane has a steady boyfriend, somebody I like, and—’
‘Not what I meant.’
‘Oh.’ Slowly, she sugared her tea; she didn’t like the way this was going. ‘You mean… me and Lol?’
‘Happen I do. You and him were supposed to be gettin’ wed, unless I’ve got that all wrong. But you’re here and he’s still in that cottage th’owd witch had. She’s dead anyroad and it’s time he moved on from her influence and made a proper living.’
‘Lucy Devenish…’ Merrily let her mug clunk on the table, ‘wasn’t a witch.’
Huw did the smile again, only tighter. He’d always been suspicious of the late Lucy.
‘She was just a committed folklorist,’ Merrily said, ‘and her local knowledge flavoured several of Lol’s songs. Yes, with the state of the music business right now, things have been more promising for Lol but his music is what he does and he does it well, even if the rewards are small.’
‘Should’ve got himself a proper job,’ Huw said. ‘Done his bit of music on t’side. You need a bloke who can support you, not one who can’t support himself half the time.’
Merrily frowned. The music had been a proper job for Lol before the record industry had been virtually destroyed by streaming and other ‘developments’ in the business.
‘A proper job?’ Merrily’s question carried a steely thrust. ‘Like yours and mine? Gets more uncertain every day. And it looks like I won’t be getting another spiritual adviser any day soon, doesn’t it?’
She’d actually only known Huw for a few years, but it seemed like half a lifetime. Or maybe several lifetimes.
He was shaking his head and then broke into a long, long sigh.
‘You’re not far off right. Can’t see me being replaced, just forgotten. And you’re grown up now, Merrily.’ He drained his mug in two swallows. ‘You might get offered a programme of C of E re-education to disabuse you of clerical superstition. And don’t…’ tilting his chair back to glance out of the window, ‘don’t think I’m joking – it’s happening in some areas.’
‘Not here?’
She topped up his mug from the pot.
‘Happen not here for a while – superstition runs too deep along the Welsh border,’ Huw said. ‘But it’s best to be aware of the new secularism. It’s coming. Slow but sure. And nobody’s ever going to use that word for it.’
‘Was that meant to sound sinister, Huw?’
‘It’s about the interpretation of religion, lass.’ He grimaced. ‘Religion, as you know, is sinister.’
‘It’s a while since I encountered anything really sinister in this job,’ Merrily said.
‘You miss it?’
‘I think…’ she sighed, ‘…I think I need it.’
He didn’t reply, but he’d know what she meant. Mysteries and challenges were important in the spiritual world and he wanted to know if she was still committed to seeking out the Unseen.
Almost like a mind-reader, Huw said, ‘Sometimes the sinister seeks out us. Like me being drawn to Clodock today. I’ve never heard you even mention the place.’
‘And you’re the only person who’s mentioned that place to me in ages,’ Merrily said. ‘And all because you came a different way here, across the Black Mountains, and got stuck in a flash flood.’ She was widening her eyes. ‘It’s a tiny place, where nothing’s happened—’
‘Since the murder. Which is how it got its name, back in the Dark Ages. That murder’s never gone away, Merrily, lass.’
‘You think?’ She stared at him. ‘Huw, we’re not talking about the last millennium, we’re talking about the millennium before last! Of course it’ll’ve gone away. Are you really OK?’
Huw went to his coat, pulled some folded papers from an inside pocket and handed them to Merrily, who drew her chair nearer the table and slowly unfolded a thin, A4 periodical with a grey masthead:
APPARITIONISM
‘Looks like…’
‘The journal of the Apparitionists,’ Huw said. ‘A society consisting mainly of clerics and insisting it’s committed to serious, academic analysis of paranormal phenomena.’
‘Saw a copy of an early edition last year. Looked quite interesting but the subscription rates were a bit steep.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ Huw said, ‘but an old mate sent me this.’
At the bottom of the front page, someone had written:
See p. 17
‘It’s edited by a retired deliverance bloke in Oxford,’ Huw explained. ‘I were on a course with him. He’s sent me two or three pieces relating to Wales and the border. This is a proof of next quarter’s journal.’
Merrily found a half-page article about alleged church-linked phenomena that had continued for centuries. Clodock’s mention said, The king’s murder remains its most notable historic event.
‘Nowt much else stands out in that little place,’ Huw said. ‘I were thinking of calling in again on me way back, if the roads are OK.’
‘You could stay the night here at the vicarage, if you like,’ Merrily said, ‘and go tomorrow.’
‘No, I’ll get on t’road. That place needs attention. It’s like it’s calling me back. I’ll let you know how I get on.’
‘Well if you change your mind I’ve always got a spare room aired.’
She’d wondered if he was avoiding staying for another reason: today’s meditation session she’d introduced to replace the seriously declining Evensong. Maybe he thought the new conversational session before the meditation was potentially inviting people to question their faith and her authority as a priest. What if it was?
Huw picked up his greatcoat to leave, saying nothing else about his impending retirement or how and when it would begin to take effect. But she knew he was wondering about the intrusion of negative emotions and alien beliefs around her if he wasn’t in their path any longer… if she was on the verge of inviting a congregation to unload its secret night fears, thus allowing her village church to become a spiritual cauldron.
Was that such a bad thing? Was that not what she’d always wanted it to be?
She watched the Rev. Huw Owen taking his first strides out of Ledwardine Vicarage and officially, perhaps, out of her spiritual life. Then she had the comforting thought that neither of them slavishly bowed to ‘official correctness’, so surely they could find a way forward together. Phones were not tapped nor visits to the vicarage observed. Not yet or ever, God willing.
Outside, there was no sign of continuing rain, but it had begun to get chilly. Merrily slipped on a suitably warm, black cape and walked through the lychgate to where Ledwardine church was sitting heavily under a greying sky, with clouds wound around its tower as if to bandage cracks in the stonework.
She’d come early for the meditation gathering, not sure how many people, if any, would show up. Then she saw that someone was already here in the main doorway: a dark female silhouette that was still, hooded and momentarily sinister somehow?
Maybe someone in costume for Hallowe’en. A few houses in the village had windows adorned with spooky images and spray-on cobwebs. Later, there’d probably be some trick-or-treat groups of children gathering, Merrily thought, but this was a woman, alone and lingering on the first day of Allhallowtide. Three feast days together; the Days of the Dead.
6
Sinister
MERRILY STOPPED TO pull herself together. She’d learned that one of the first rules of ministry was the separation of sinister and church, so she pictured the friendly apples in the nave’s stained-glass windows and wooden screen, as the faintly ominous shadow was detaching itself from the stone doorway.
She padded across to the newcomer and asked quietly, ‘Have you come early for the meditation?’
‘Well, I… You’re… Mrs Watkins?’
A low voice. The close-fitting black hood was attached to a long, dark-grey woollen coat, which Merrily decided was more about concealment than the drop in temperature. Partly under it was a loose muffler covering mouth and throat. Hands in black gloves reached up and pulled it away, exposing a strikingly attractive face that took at least ten years off the impression conveyed by the voice. The face was no more than a few years older than Jane’s but shadowed by what seemed, at first, to be a sorrowful kind of apprehension.
Brown hair was now cascading around the young woman’s shallow shoulders. Her voice somehow brought to Merrily’s mind the word ‘sepia’, a word suggesting an earlier and quieter period.
‘Merrily Watkins – that’s me, yes. I don’t think you’ve been to one of these sessions before, have you, er…?’
A pause.
‘…Autumn.’
