Death is a Welcome Guest: Plague Times Trilogy 2 (21 page)

Father Wingate opened a door and ushered them into a small sitting room. ‘This used to be the butler’s pantry when I was a boy.’ The old priest’s youthful smile was at odds with his wrinkles. It added mischief to his face and Magnus was reminded of an old Shakespearean actor who had been the stalwart of Sunday dramas before becoming the unlikely star of Hollywood science-fiction blockbusters, wizened in Spandex. The memory prompted another stab of loss. All the multiplexes were empty, the hotdog and popcorn concessions silent and mouldering.

Jacob had seated himself in a winged armchair, but Father Wingate hovered uncertainly on the edge of the hearthrug, still talking.

‘Butlers are often rather magnificent creatures in literature, Jeeves and so on, but I’m afraid ours tended to be on the weaselly side. That’s not very Christian, is it?’ He turned the beam of his smile on Magnus. ‘Ironic that I ended up with this room as an office. The Lord’s way of quelling my ego perhaps.’

The room was austere. A desk sat at an angle with its back to a small window to avoid whoever was working there getting distracted by the view of refuse bins. A dark-wood bookcase, dreary with devotional hardbacks, stretched across one wall. A painting of a deserted lakeside, done in tobacco hues, hung opposite it. The obligatory crucifix loomed above the fireplace, as if someone had decided to add scorching to the list of Christ’s tortures.

Magnus said, ‘I would have expected God to delegate room allocations.’

Father Wingate lowered himself into a high-backed chair that looked like it belonged at a dining table. ‘God is all-powerful.’ The priest’s boyish smile was chastened. ‘But I accept your point. My ego is not yet entirely repressed.’

‘Take a pew.’ Jacob nodded at the armchair facing his.

Magnus glanced at the old priest hunched in the straight-backed chair, still dressed in his robes. The minister in Magnus’s mother’s Kirk had worn the same dark suit to the pulpit for over thirty years. He would be buried in it, if he was buried. Magnus could feel himself beginning to despise the old priest with his frilly frocks and pretensions. The sensation felt too much like giving a fuck. Magnus said, ‘You should have this chair. It looks more comfortable.’

Father Wingate’s smile flashed again. ‘My ancient spine won’t stand it. Sadly it’s the same when it comes to bedtime. It’s been hard boards for me for some years now. I was never one for mortifying the flesh, but it seems that the flesh has decided it is time to mortify me.’

There was a trace of bygone BBC in the priest’s accent, like a not quite mended speech impediment that returned at times of stress. The mention of hard boards put Magnus in mind of a coffin and the back of his neck tingled. He took the chair.

‘Thanks for all you’ve done for me. You saved our bacon.’ He would make his goodbye to Jeb short. ‘You’ve got the makings of a good community here.’ Magnus realised that he was glad to be leaving. There was something about the place that felt wrong. ‘If I didn’t have my family to think of I’d seriously consider joining you, but I need to be on my way.’

‘I’ll get straight to the point.’ Jacob leaned forward, his hands clasped. ‘The sweats have wiped out centuries of culture, learning and technology. Those of us who are left are still in shock, but we don’t have time to dwell on our grief. We need to assure our survival.’

It was an echo of what Belle had said in the room upstairs and Magnus wondered if he was about to receive a speech Jacob gave all his converts.

Father Wingate said, ‘The good Lord will—’

Jacob nodded impatiently. ‘The good Lord has set us a challenge. We need to meet it.’ He turned his stare on Magnus. ‘We want to create a community here—’

Magnus cut through his words. ‘It’s like I said, I can’t join you . . .’

Jacob shook his head. ‘We don’t want to interfere with your search for your family.’ There was a world unsaid, the slim chance of Magnus making it to Orkney, the slimmer possibility of finding his family alive. ‘But we have all been through . . .’ Jacob paused as if seeking the right words. It was a showman’s gesture, Magnus decided, one priests were probably taught in the seminary immediately before being instructed on how to angle the collection plate to the best advantage. ‘. . . an incredible trauma . . .’

Father Wingate nodded his ugly head. ‘Not since the time of Noah . . .’

Magnus remembered the words underlined in the Bible by Jeb’s bed. The old man had been reading about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Jacob touched Father Wingate’s wrist lightly and the old man stopped mid-sentence, smiling to show he understood. The soldier said, ‘We both think you need some time for reflection, to strengthen you for the undoubted trials ahead.’

Magnus was about to say that he had no time for reflection, no need of rest. Jacob anticipated his objections and held up a hand. ‘And we also need your help. We hope that more people will join us. If they do we will need the means to sustain them. This estate is surrounded by agricultural land. There’s a harvest waiting in the fields and livestock about to calve. There aren’t enough of us to do it properly and even if there were, we wouldn’t know how to. Jeb said you were brought up on a farm.’

Magnus had mentioned the croft one night, sad with memories. He silently cursed Jeb.

‘It was only a smallholding. We sold it after my father died. I left home soon after and my mother couldn’t cope with it by herself.’ The selling of the croft had shamed him. He had thought his mother capable of carrying on, had not fathomed the depth of her debt until it was all but lost to the bank. ‘I haven’t worked on a farm since.’

‘But you know about farming.’ Jacob’s voice was earnest. ‘It’s in your blood. You were brought up with it.’

Magnus shook his head. ‘There are supermarkets stuffed with food for the taking. You don’t need these crops.’

‘We have stores of tins and other non-perishables, but the supermarkets are also stuffed with disease. There’s something else.’ Jacob glanced at the old priest. ‘I didn’t share this before because I didn’t see any point in worrying you. The last time Belle and I went to gather supplies we came across the body of a man hanging on a lamppost outside a supermarket. Someone had strung a sign around his neck. It said,
Looter
.’

Father Wingate crossed himself. ‘They will come for our stores.’

The soldier’s voice was firm. ‘We will grow in numbers and be ready for them. But the only way we can survive long term is to become self-sustaining.’

The old priest leaned forward and took Magnus’s hands in his. ‘This is a chance for you to do something good; surely your family won’t object to your taking a little longer to reach them once they know you helped us to survive.’

The old man’s hands were dry and horribly alive. Magnus pulled away. He thought of Pete dying on the bunk beneath him in Pentonville and of the inmate he had hit with the fire extinguisher. He was fairly sure he had killed the man. He had done little to make his mother proud in the fifteen years since he left the island. She would want him to do this.

‘I’m sorry I can’t . . .’ He recalled the motorbike’s shredded tyre and said, ‘I’ll be taking the Audi.’

Jacob’s eyes were fixed on Magnus, too bright a blue for his tired face. ‘Help us bring the harvest in, show us how it’s done and then we’ll let you go on your way.’

‘You make it sound like the boy’s a prisoner.’ Father Wingate turned an anxious smile on Magnus. ‘You’re not a prisoner, but we would like your help.’

Jacob repeated, ‘We need your help.’

‘I can’t.’ Magnus rubbed a hand across his face. The crops were beginning to rot in the south, but they ripened later in the north. He could help and still be in time for the Orkney harvest.

Jacob said, ‘We’ve already lost two people. I haven’t shared this with the others, but I suspect that Henry may have chosen the same path as Melody.’ Father Wingate crossed himself. Jacob gave him an impatient glance and continued, ‘Belle is demoralised, Will depressed. Raisha keeps her own counsel, but it is obvious that she’s suffering. Who knows how many people are hiding in the woods and villages around here, tormented by grief? The sweats could be followed by an epidemic of suicide. We need to come together if we are to have any chance. A harvest is necessary for our survival, but it will also draw people to us and give them hope.’

Hugh was on the edge of his vision, just out of sight, but Magnus knew that no matter how quickly he turned his head, his cousin would be gone. He sighed and rubbed a hand across his face, defeated.

‘I’ll help you harvest three fields. That will be more than enough for your needs. Then I have to go.’

Jacob gave him a grim smile. ‘It’s a deal.’

‘God requires a harvest.’ Father Wingate smiled beatifically. ‘And we are all His children.’

The three of them shook hands. Magnus remembered his slashed tyre again and wondered if it mattered that the soldier had not repeated the old priest’s assurance that he was not a prisoner.

Raisha was standing in the hallway. There were fields waiting to be surveyed, equipment to find, jobs to be assigned, a harvest to plan. Raisha held out her hand, Magnus took it in his and she led him upstairs to his bedroom.

Twenty-Six

It was late by the time Magnus visited Jeb. He was surprised to find him propped up at a small table in his sickroom, a few pages of paper splayed in front of him, his injured leg set stiffly on a low chair. A single candle glimmered waxily from a saucer. Jeb looked up. His face seemed old and hollow by its dim light. He turned the pages face down.

‘Want to sign my cast?’

Jeb tapped his leg lightly with a pen and Magnus saw that it had been plastered.

‘I guess it’s important to keep the old traditions alive.’ Magnus took the pen from him and tried to scrawl his name on the plaster cast, but it was not quite set and the nib sank into it, leaving a shallow dent. He perched on the end of the bed. ‘Maybe later, when it’s dried.’

Jeb rested a hand on top of his papers. ‘You going to be around that long?’

The candle wavered in response to a faint breeze reaching in through the open window. Magnus stared into the blackness beyond. He could see nothing, except the reflection of the candlelight in the glass pane.

‘It seems so, since you told them I might be useful.’

‘What did I say you’d be useful at? Fucking their women?’

Magnus felt his face flush. ‘Helping them get the harvest in.’

‘Shit, I let slip about your croft, didn’t I?’ Magnus nodded and Jeb said, ‘Sorry.’ He grinned. ‘You’ve got to hand it to the religious. Not even a day off for the end of the world.’

‘I guess that’s the point. They don’t want it to be the end.’

‘Strange, when they believe they’re in for pie in the sky.’ Jeb scored a finger across his plastered leg and looked at the white powder caught beneath his nail. ‘Do you ever think what a stroke of luck it was for you and me? A shame millions died, but the sweats did us a good turn.’

‘I had a warm-up gig at O2 lined up.’ Magnus wished he had not been reminded of his big break. It belonged to another life.

Jeb glanced at the door and then said in a low voice, ‘You had a smashed-up face and an imminent rape trial. Entertainers have a bad rep. You could have been looking at a long sentence.’

This must be how long-married couples felt, Magnus thought. They had been over it before and there was no point in discussing it further. He said, ‘If you were a policeman, how come you ended up in prison?’

‘It’s old news.’

‘All the same . . .’ Magnus let the threat hang in the air.

Jeb stared at him. ‘You would, wouldn’t you?’

‘They have a right to know.’

Jeb sighed. He lifted the pages from the table and turned them over so Magnus could see the scrawled handwriting, the crossed-out lines and scribbled deletions. ‘I was trying to write it all down. I don’t know why. Scared I’ll forget who I am, or maybe just too much time on my hands. I wasn’t doing very well.’

‘Perhaps you need to say it out loud.’

‘To someone with a sympathetic ear?’ Some of the fight had left Jeb, but his voice still held a challenge. ‘Aren’t there enough priests in this house?’

Magnus grinned. ‘Too many.’

‘That’s the truth.’ Jeb reached beneath the table and brought out a bottle of whisky. He nodded to a shelf above the bed. ‘There’s another glass over there.’

Magnus got up from his seat. Things were easier between them now. Perhaps it was their shared experience and imminent parting, or maybe being newcomers to Tanqueray House had united them in a way that saving each other’s lives had not. A small stack of paperback novels sat beside the glass. He said, ‘Has Belle been looking after you?’

‘You’d make a good detective.’ Jeb poured himself a tot and passed the bottle to Magnus who did the same. ‘Belle’s a nice girl. She isn’t used to being on her own and she’s trying to be brave about it. Helping me helps her.’

There was truth in what Jeb was saying, but the convenience of it made Magnus uneasy. He picked up one of the paperbacks to look at its title and saw a revolver secreted behind the pile. He lifted it by the barrel.

‘Did Belle bring you this too?’

Jeb took another sip of his drink, hiding his expression behind the glass. ‘Like I said, she’s a nice girl. I told her I needed something to protect myself with and she gave me that. It’s okay for you, you’re heading into the blue yonder. I’ve no chance of running away if anything kicks off.’