Friends of the Dusk (8 page)

He smiled.

‘You mean until you settle down and have kids.’

‘Piss off, Coops, I’m never going to have kids. Overpopulation – biggest problem facing the world. Which the short-sighted pondlife we call politicians never seem to notice. Can’t be long before they lower the voting age to ten.’

‘OK.’ He nodded. ‘I’ll ask around. I take it you got on with them OK? The guys at the dig?’

‘They were… fine.’

‘Tend to drink a lot of beer. Probably just as well your boyfriend…?’

‘Eirion.’

‘Of course. Just as well he was with you.’

‘Yes.’

For the first month, anyway, until he had to go back to uni. Which was when she’d started going to the pub with the guys who really knew how to put away the booze. Not all of it happy booze. Maybe it was seeing so many dead bodies, evidence of cheap life. They were like,
Fuck it, this is how we all wind up, so let’s just get hammered.

And have sex,
oh God.

‘You OK, Jane?’

‘Fine.’

Jane turned away.

‘Anyway, leave it with me,’ Coops said. ‘No promises, and if you do get something there might not be much money in it.’

‘No. Whatever. Thanks.’

Coops walked away up the bank to the path that led to the huddle of narrow old murky-brick streets below the Cathedral. The sky was turning salmon, the sun coming out only to set. The atmosphere was all wrong.

Blinking back tears, she walked up the bank on to the footpath, looking down over the filled-in, empty grave. A chainsaw started up somewhere, then another, echoes multiplying across the Castle Green, sounding airborne, like a dogfight from one of those ancient Battle of Britain movies. Jane thought she’d shuddered, but it was the mobile in her jeans.

She pulled it out – still nervous every time the phone went, scared the screen might say SAM.

It said EIRION.

Jane switched off the phone, walked rapidly away towards what used to be the centre of the city. Coming out of narrow Quay Street, she saw Mum in her best coat, pale blue silk scarf wrapped across the dog collar. On her face an expression Jane had seen before, but not often.

Christ…

12

Purple haze

O
UT THROUGH THE
Cathedral’s back entrance, past the school buildings into old Hereford: the quiet grey-brown streets of offices and terraced houses. The direction you walked if you didn’t want to bump into anyone you might know. Or anyone at all.

Thinking,
Bloody hell… bloody hell, bloody hell.

But this was a small city and Merrily almost walked into Jane, in her green Gomer Parry Plant Hire T-shirt, fleece over an arm, looking desolate. A job-seeker on the barren streets.

They’d arranged to meet around half-four in the Cathedral café; they were both early.

‘I thought you were over at the council,’ Merrily said. ‘Looking for Neil Cooper.’

‘Got redirected to Castle Green. They found some— Anyway, I’ve seen him. Says he’ll find out if there are any openings. Not holding my breath.’

Evidently not. Oh God, there really was something wrong here. You spent so much time worrying about your own problems you could miss the obvious. She looked into Jane’s eyes. Please God, don’t let her be pregnant.

‘Jane, you really don’t have to rush into anything, you have lots of—’

‘I do, actually. Have to cram in everything I can get. Have to collect experience. Any kind. And money.’ Eyes glittering with something bafflingly close to anger, Jane nodded towards the hidden river. ‘And you’re going…?

‘Nowhere.’

God, that sounded… not as she’d intended. Jane’s eyes came back slitted.

‘I meant I was just walking,’ Merrily said. ‘To think about things.’

There was suddenly quite a few people about. The Cathedral School was letting kids out. They were in a public place, looking at one another in dismay.

Jane said, ‘You met the Bishop?’

‘Kind of.’

Certainly been in his presence. Like Sophie said, he tended to fill a room.??stluda ekiL ?rehtona eno htiw yltcerid etacinummoc nac ew erehw egats eht hcaer yllautca thgim ew ytilibissop a s?ereht kniht uoy oD? ,yldlim dias enaJ .tnomleB ot pu gnilwarc dna hguorht erew uoy litnu noitartnecnoc deriuqer tI .adsA ssecca ot erised a yb desuac elgnat ciffart tnenamrep eht rof gnidaeh ,teertS egdirB fo tuo denrut ylirreM ?.doG hO? ?.em was uoy erofeb uoy was I .ereht kcaB? ??nehW ?eM? ?.slian gnittips ,ekil ,erew uoY? .neercsdniw eht hguorht derats dna pal reh ni delpmurc eceelf eht revo dessorc sdnah reh htiw tas enaJ .rorrim weiv-raer eht ni lardehtaC eht htiw teertS gniK nwod gnivird saw ehs litnu niaga kaeps t?ndid enaJ dna ehS ?.ylbaborP? ??emoh rof noitcerid gnorw eht yllatot taht t?nsi tub ,muM ,gnorw m?I fi em tcerroC? .tennob eht revo reh ta gnirats enaJ ,rednaleerF kcalb eht dekcolnu ylirreM ?.yellaV nedloG eht aiv seog taht eno eht s?tI? ??taht s?yaw hcihW? ??kcab yaw gnol eht ekat ew t?nod yhW? ?ton yhW .edoctsop dna sserdda na htiw ,gab reh ni teleton a dah ehs ,elihwnaeM .thginot emoh ta eihpoS llac d?ehs ebyaM .nit ekil ,neehs llud a dah ecalap kcirb-der eht revo yks ehT .eciffo eht ta pu kool t?ndid ylirreM ,esuohetag eht dehcaer yeht nehW .lausu sa ,dray ecalaP s?pohsiB eht ni rac eht tfel d?ehS ?doog taht saw tub ,ekila erom gniworg erew yehT .owt ro hcni na tsuj ta ,ylluficrem ,delttes dah ecnereffid thgieh eht tub ,rellat tib a etiuq eb ot gniog saw enaJ fi sa dekool dah ti nehw emit a saw erehT .edis yb edis ,lardehtaC eht sdrawot kcab deklaw yehT ?.KO? ?.nwot fo tuo teg rehtar d?I knihT? ??uoY .ylralucitrap toN? ??gnihtynA ?sekaC ?aet fo puc a teg ot tnaw uoY? ,enaJ ot yletarepsed dias ehS
‘Bishop, this is Merrily Watkins.’

‘Ah yes. Vicar of….’

‘Ledwardine.’

‘Of course. Ledwardine. “Heart of the New Cotswolds”. Didn’t I read that somewhere?’

Merrily nodding. Everybody had read that somewhere.

‘Though not entirely true,’ she’d said.

Wanting to say something halfway eloquent. Failing, through nerves; she hadn’t realized, until the moment came, how nervous she’d be. Now, trying to recall Bishop Craig Innes, what he looked like… she couldn’t. Just a strong, square face, high forehead with hair like curls of grey fuse wire, above a purple cassock. Purple haze. Nothing clear. Except she realized she’d seen him before and not just in photos. Just couldn’t think where. Not then.

‘Merrily’s your Deliverance Consultant,’ Sophie had said helpfully.

‘So I understand,’ Bishop Craig Innes said.

And never mentioned the D word again.

Just other things.

12

Cutting edge

S
OMEONE
–
IT MIGHT
’
VE
been Gomer Parry – had once said to Merrily that, in the old days, people used to look west from the city and say,
That en’t Herefordshire, that’s Wales.

Maybe it was, once. Now, apart from the broken nose of the Skirrid mountain to the south, there was nothing of today’s Wales to be seen. Even the flank of the Black Mountains, lying like grounded cloud on the western horizon, that was still England. A half-forgotten England of hybrid place names, of wooded hills and hidden villages of rusty stone and crouching churches. A dark, poacher’s pocket of England.

Merrily followed a tractor and trailer into the potholed B-road that was the valley’s main thoroughfare. No hope of overtaking, and you knew from experience that when two big container lorries met on this road it was rural gridlock.

‘I’m still never quite sure why they call this the Golden Valley.’

‘More to the point,’ Jane said, ‘what are we doing here?’

‘Some people say it’s from the name of the river. The River Dore. Like French.
D’Or.
River of gold?’

‘Mum, the Dore is a ditch. Makes the Wye look like the Mississippi.’

Merrily slowed for a small signpost.

‘I’d try the satnav but Mr Khan said that, in these parts, it adds an hour to your journey.’

‘Ah,’ Jane said. ‘So you’re finally going to tell me what you were cooking up with a guy who frightens Dean Wall.’

It had come out in the pub, over the sandwiches, about what Jude Wall had done to Khan’s car and Dean Wall had done to Jude. Jane telling it like a funny story, but you could see how badly it had shocked her, happening in Ledwardine. Strange, strange night. Merrily had felt strange in her posh glittery frock. Men had kept looking at her. At one stage she’d fooled herself into thinking Lol’s eyes were moist with longing and she’d wished they were alone. At the top of Church Street, they’d gone their separate ways.

‘Have you seen Dean since?’

‘He’s probably in the river attached to a concrete block,’ Jane said. ‘Not this river, obviously.’ She turned to look out of her side window at a stocky church next to a loaded barn. ‘It does sometimes look golden in the sunset, the valley. A proper sunset, not like this. But so much of it’s…’

‘In shadow.’

‘Yeah. Eirion says—’

‘Sorry, flower? Eirion?’

This was the first time since she’d come home that she’d spontaneously mentioned him. Eirion’s family lived near Abergavenny. To get there you often passed through the Golden Valley. It was how she knew so much about it.

‘Eirion…’ Jane took a breath, as if she’d needed help to get the name out. Another thing – normally she’d call him
Irene
. ‘Eirion says that’s bollocks about the Dore, it’s probably from
dwr
, Welsh for water. There you go. That was kind of adult, wasn’t it?’

‘You heard from him since you got back?’

‘Don’t like to bother him at the start of a university year.’

It came out a mumble, Jane was huddled into her fleece, arms folded. Definitely something amiss. When she was first in Pembrokeshire she’d phoned every couple of days, full of stories about what she’d been doing, the people she was working with. The other night, during the storm, she’d just talked, a touch bitterly, about how they struggled to find enough paid work,
much of it coming from local authorities obliged to fund the examination of landscapes they hoped to despoil. But she’d known all this before, surely?

‘Is there something you haven’t told me, flower?’

‘Lots I haven’t told you.’

‘Something else that might affect… the future?’

‘There
is
a future in it. Though it’s all hand-to-mouth, even according to Coops. Not that I
mind
that. I never really want, you know, security and all that crap.’

Merrily nodded. What could you say? Nobody wanted security at Jane’s age. At Jane’s age, she’d been listening to vintage goth rock and wearing black lipstick. No, actually that was when she’d been a few years younger than Jane. At Jane’s age she’d been about to get herself…

She stopped to let another tractor haul its trailer into a field.

‘I’m not pregnant,’ Jane said.

‘I didn’t—’

‘You were working up to it. I keep telling you, I’m never going to get bloody pregnant. We’re choking the planet.’

‘Right,’ Merrily said.

You got this increasingly from Jane who was even cooling on her beloved paganism because so much of it was based on rituals to promote the kind of fertility we didn’t need any more.

She was peering out at a tilting signpost.

‘What’s the name of this place you’re looking for?’

‘Cwmarrow.’

‘Valley of the Arrow? Are you
sure
it’s round here? Because, obviously, the River Arrow—’

‘Is miles away, yes.’

She’d wondered about this herself. The River Arrow was one of their own rivers, to the north. It didn’t come anywhere near this far down.

‘And this is from Raji Khan, right?’ Jane said.

Merrily leaned back, loosened her grip on the wheel. Adults. Communicate like adults.

‘A long-time friend of Khan’s – so close he likes to call him his cousin – lives at Cwmarrow in a house he believes is badly haunted. The guy, like Khan, is a Muslim, but imams don’t mess with infidel ghosts. So they’ve come to me. That’s it.’

‘Wow. Cutting edge, or what?’

‘And, because I don’t want to go there tomorrow entirely unprepared, I’d like to see where the house is, before it goes dark. How old, et cetera. Essentially, I don’t want to be surprised by something I ought to have known.’

‘A recce?’

‘Something like that.’

‘And, erm…’ Jane’s arms had unfolded. ‘What’s happening there?’

‘I don’t really know. Khan was being reticent. I mean, all this work needs to be fairly discreet, but this, for various reasons, is more so. So, no I was
not
to tell the new Bishop of Hereford. And you know what, flower? Suddenly I’m quite
glad
.’

Glancing sideways, she saw eyebrows going up.

Adults.

Sod it. She told Jane about this afternoon and felt better.

Turning left into the village of Vowchurch, they passed a little church with a squat-spired timbered tower, and then, in the adjacent hamlet of Turnastone, another church. She remembered an old story explaining why these two had been built so close together: two sisters, rivals, one saying,
I vow to build my church first
, and the second one sniffing.
I’ll have mine built before you can turn a stone of yours.
Something like that. In this area it was hard to find a church without a foundation myth.

They also passed a shop with ancient petrol pumps outside, the kind that needed someone to work them for you. Sloping fields, sheep, the carcass of a pickup truck with bricks instead of back wheels, all below a lowering sun, light bleeding between fleshy clouds.

‘Obviously, I’ve no right to expect him to pay me any more attention than any parish priest. It was just that Sophie had told me he’d done a deliverance course, so I thought maybe… you know, I
was
asked to
be
there when he called in at the office. Which he said, by the way, that he loved because he could look out of the window and see his flock milling around on Broad Street. He’s sitting in my chair, I’m perched on the side of a table near the other window, nodding and smiling, the way you do, and waiting for him to talk about… something he wasn’t going to talk about.’