‘Very perceptive of you, vicar,’ Lol told him. ‘But I’ve learned how to psych myself now, thanks.’
Isabel leaned her head close enough for Lol to smell her shampoo. ‘Expecting trouble, he is,’ she murmured.
‘Simon?’ Lol wiped condensation from his glasses.
‘Needs you for back-up,’ Isabel confided.
‘Me?’
‘And me. Who’s going to assault a clergyman minding a short-sighted songwriter and a cripple?’
Lol grinned. He loved the way she said crip-pel and troubel. Now Isabel had turned away and was loudly advising a woman who didn’t look pregnant to get the christening booked before she missed the boat. The woman looked alarmed for a moment, then dissolved into giggles and tossed Isabel an oh you kind of gesture on her way into the toilets. Lol thought that maybe the vicar’s wife had already become more a part of this community than the vicar was ever going to be.
‘There’s a reason someone would want to assault him?’
‘Oh, always someone who’d like to.’ Isabel grimaced. ‘Some people here, they’d do anything for Simon. Others… well… Trouble is, he doesn’t care, see. Doesn’t give a toss, not about himself nor who he offends. One reason I had to marry him. Give him a reason to keep himself alive.’
‘Sorry?’
‘You’re not one of those men who says “sorry” all the time, are you?’
‘Sor—no.’
‘Good. Play well for you today, did he?’
‘It was almost spooky.’
‘You want to hear him on electric bass. Always be a fallback for him, when they chuck him out of the Church.’
‘There’s a danger of that?’
‘He tries,’ Isabel said.
Lol stood up to help Simon with the drinks: lagers and something golden-brown for Isabel. The atmosphere in the pub was like in the days before ventilators and smoking restrictions. Thin fluorescent bars glowed mauve between the beams, as Isabel jogged her neckline to and fro to fan the air on to her breasts. Lol tried not to look.
‘Stock’s over there,’ he remarked.
Isabel pushed her wheelchair back to see. ‘On his own, too, poor dab. She’s a funny one, his wife. Adapted to that dreary hole like a bloody barn owl. Invite him over, shall I?’
‘This woman is a liability,’ Simon said to Lol, then he turned to his wife, and spoke as to a child. ‘Isabel, Stock has probably been in here three hours, at least. Do you know how drunk that makes him?’
Lol said, ‘Why exactly are you expecting trouble?’
‘After a while, you learn never to ask him that,’ Isabel said. ‘Never tempt fate.’
Trouble came, just the same. It came with the arrival of Adam Lake and a lovely young woman with a wide, sulky mouth and short hair the colour of champagne.
‘His wife?’ Lol wondered.
‘Fiancée,’ said Isabel. ‘Amanda Rae. She’s got a discreet little chain of tiny fashion shops in Cheltenham and Worcester, places like that. Not Hereford, mind – they wouldn’t pay those prices for that tat in Hereford.’ She sipped her drink. ‘Don’t much in Cheltenham, either, I reckon. That’s why she’ll always need someone like him. Shallow, pointless people, they are, supporting each other’s public façades.’
‘My wife the social analyst,’ Simon murmured.
‘They’ll’ve come out for the first time today, I reckon,’ Isabel told Lol. ‘All these press people about the place, see, and the wrong kind of press. Rip off all their clothes for a centrefold in Horse & Hound, but the buggers’ll lie low till this one’s over.’ She smiled slyly at Simon. ‘Bit like him. Taking off before ten in the morning with his cello case.’
Simon glanced uncomfortably at Lol. Lol thought about the magical enhancement of the River Frome song. It was an ill wind.
It was getting very warm in the bar. He noticed that all the tables had been taken except for the one in front of Stock, who sat there motionless, still smiling. See, I don’t have to talk to people, if I don’t want to. It’s a rare skill and I’m good at it, man. I can be very relaxed, very cool, sidding quietly, saying nothing. The level of Stock’s pint had gone down a couple of inches, though, like he was taking it intravenously.
‘Lake usually come in on a Monday night, too?’ Lol asked Simon.
‘More often than not. Meets his friends from the hunt. He’s taken up the cause – a crucial part of the salvation of his birthright. Just become local organizer for the Countryside Alliance, so called. Leads demonstrations to London.’
‘Hypocritical bastards, they are,’ Isabel growled. ‘Still the Norman overlords, isn’t it? All the countryside’s their hunting ground. It is a class thing, whatever anyone says. But they also grow to enjoy killing. I’ve seen it. Doesn’t have to be like that.’
‘She means that, in the country, sometimes things do have to be killed, if they’re preying on stock,’ Simon explained. ‘But there has to be something questionable about people who simply love to do it.’
‘He said that in the pulpit one week,’ Isabel said proudly. ‘That old bugger complained to the Bishop.’ Lol followed her eyes to a fat man, seventyish, in a khaki shirt, at the centre of a group at the bar.
‘Oliver Perry-Jones,’ Simon said. ‘Former master of the hunt. Failed politician. Almost made it into Parliament once, until the true nature of his politics became apparent, thanks largely to revelations by Paul Foot in Private Eye.’ He swallowed some lager, leaned back and scanned the room. ‘Knight’s Frome’s like all rural communities: scratch the surface and you come away with all kinds of crap under your—’
‘Shhhh.’ Isabel’s warning hand on his wrist.
‘Good for you, vicar,’ Adam Lake said.
‘I’m sorry?’ Simon looked slowly up at him. Lake wore a light tweed jacket. His mutton-chop sideburns had been pruned and razored to sharp points. The whole style looked too old for him, too old for anyone of his generation, Lol thought. Lake was like a gangly mature student playing a spoof squire in the college review.
‘It won’t be forgotten,’ Lake said, and Simon was on his feet.
‘Oh shit,’ said Isabel.
‘What won’t be forgotten?’ Simon said quietly.
‘Your support,’ Lake said. He was taller than Simon, taller than anybody here. ‘Your support for the community, against potentially disruptive influences.’
‘Right, listen!’ The bar noise sank around Simon like it was being faded by a slide control on some hidden mixing board. ‘I support what my particular faith tells me is right. And you, Adam – you don’t represent the fucking community.’
Dead silence. Adam Lake smiled nervously, his girlfriend looked annoyed. ‘Fine language for a so-called minister,’ Oliver Perry-Jones muttered.
‘OK,’ Simon said. ‘As Adam’s raised the issue, is there anything anyone thinks I ought to know about?’
And Lol realized what this was about: the vicar making himself available for questioning about the Stock affair. Most clergy might have saved it for the pulpit, but that would leave no opportunity for argument. In pubs, though, arguments never lasted long before they turned into rows, and rows turned into fights.
This was Simon St John opening his arms to the accumulating shit.
Which was admirable, Lol thought. Also a little crazy.
Simon looked around, raised his voice. ‘Anyone here who thinks I’m under the thumb of what Gerard Stock likes to call the rural mafia? Anyone thinks I declined to assist Mr Stock purely for the purpose of currying favour with The Man Who Would Be Squire?’