‘Oh, he loves all that, doesn’t he?’
‘The Man? It’s his number one, and it influences us all, naturally.’ Eastgate shook his head. ‘I’m going, come on, Felix, what is this really about? You sick? Domestic problems? Adam, he says to us, maybe this is an old place that doesn’t want to be restored. His words. Hostile. That was another. One of his team had a powerful feeling they were not wanted.’
‘He pulled out of the whole project because one person thought he—?’
‘It’s a she, Merrily.’
‘Oh.’
The sun had gone, leaving a raspberry hue on the room, but you could still make out the shapes of the fields and the fuzz of hedgerows on the side of Garway Hill.
‘I’m going to leave it in your hands, all right?’ Eastgate gathered up the plans into a black cardboard folder. ‘You take these, they’re only copies. See what he’s putting in jeopardy.’
‘The bottom line being you’d like him back on the job ASAP.’
‘Only if he’s normal. Look, if you want to ask a few questions locally, go ahead. We’ve nothing to hide. Bought in good faith, and what we have in mind is going to be good for the community. I’d just say exercise a bit more discretion than usual.’
Merrily nodded.
‘My watchword, Adam.’
She had a headache.
They walked into the forecourt, deeply shadowed now. Not quite six, and everyone seemed to have gone home. Maybe Adam Eastgate had timed their meeting for the tail-end of the working day so he wouldn’t have to explain any of this to the staff.
All the leaves were still on the trees and it was still warm – too warm. A long, flooded summer and the planet in the condemned cell. At least the nights were drawing in now, the tindery musk of autumn on the air as Eastgate walked with Merrily to the old Volvo. It had been nicked last summer – in the dark, obviously – and then swiftly abandoned, presumably after they’d heard the engine.
‘So – just to get this right – what exactly will you do at the house, Merrily, to, ah …?’
‘Depends what it is.’
‘You work on your own?’
‘I … like to think not.’ She smiled wearily; he didn’t get it. ‘OK, there are a few advisers I can call on, if necessary. Usually when there are people involved who might have particular problems – psychological … psychiatric? When you’re looking at an empty … that is, a house not lived in, as such …’
Oh, the way you shaped and trimmed your glossary of terms when addressing ingrained scepticism. Adam Eastgate cleared his throat.
‘Only I didn’t think you’d be so …’
‘Small? Female?’
‘I was going to say, matter-of-fact about it.’
Meaning, like it’s real.
‘I don’t do it all the time. There’s also a parish – weddings, funerals, rows with the churchwardens.’
‘I suppose medieval was the word I was groping for.’
‘I’m medieval?’ She looked up at him through the fast-thickening air. ‘You’re working for an institution dating back, if I’ve got this right, to thirteen—?’
‘Thirty-seven. Duchy was created by Edward III, to provide an income for his son, the Prince of Wales. The king’s father having been the first to hold the title.’
‘Well … the first Englishman.’
‘And by that you mean … what, exactly, Merrily?’
‘Well, they …’ Flinching at the sharpness of Eastgate’s glance. ‘They had their own, didn’t they? The Welsh. For a long time.’
And even after the princes of Wales had become English there was Owain Glyndwr, in the fifteenth century, still trying to get it back. But maybe mentioning this would not be very tactful.
‘Not my subject, Welsh history. Thank God.’ Eastgate straightened up. ‘Anyway, you’ll keep us up to speed, I hope.’
‘Obviously tell you what I can. Without, you know … breaking any confidences that might arise.’
Not that this was likely. It didn’t seem to be any more than what Huw Owen would call a volatile or a delinquent: the wonky fuse box, the dripping tap – Deliverance-lite.
Merrily unlocked the car.
‘It’s an empty house. If anything’s happening, nobody has to live with it day-to-day. So we’re looking at … probably, prayers, a room-by-room blessing. Or, if a particular and persistent personality is identified, maybe a Requiem Eucharist involving the people most closely involved, present and – where possible – past. Nine times out of ten, this is enough to restore a kind of calm. Adam, why’s it called the Master House?’
‘If anybody was able to explain that,’ Eastgate said, ‘they didn’t want to. Maybe the main house when there were subsidiary farms. Or the local schoolmaster used to live there?’
‘Mmm.’
She had a last look at the hill, where isolated white lights had appeared, its big sisters, the Skirrid and the Sugarloaf fading, uninhabited, into the dried-blood sky.
Adam Eastgate said, ‘Ever get scared yourself, Merrily?’
‘Me?’
Merrily laughed, an unconvincing hollow sound in the stillness. An early owl picked it up, or seemed to, and flew with it as she got into the car.
2
Lament
‘THEN HE WAS back on the phone,’ Merrily told Lol in the pub. ‘Soon as I got in. Barely had time to put the kettle on.’
‘The Duchy guy?’
‘No, the Bishop. Must’ve rung several times already. I don’t think I’ve ever known him this jumpy. I just … I don’t get it.’
She took a drink. Serious decadence: a house-white spritzer in the Black Swan – oak beams, low lights – with one’s paramour. How long had it been before she’d felt able to do this comfortably? Six months? A year?
Seemed stupid now; nobody glanced at them twice – although this was probably because almost nobody knew them. Thursday night, and most of the drinkers in the lounge bar were from outside the village, having drifted in for dinner. Some probably responding to the dispiriting Daily Telegraph travel feature identifying Ledwardine as the black-and-white, timber-ribbed heart of the New Cotswolds.
Like, when did that happen? Couple of years ago, the village was still on the rim of the wilderness. Now there was talk of the Black Swan chasing a Michelin star.
‘The Cotswolds are coming.’ Merrily listened to the brittle laughter at the bar. ‘Ominous. Like a melting ice cap. Rural warming. Feels suddenly claustrophobic, or is that just me?’
Final confirmation of the county’s new economic status: the major investment in Herefordshire by the old Cotswolds’ most distinguished resident.
Charles Windsor, Highgrove.
‘Does he know about this?’ Lol said.
‘Well, that’s what I asked. Didn’t get an answer.’
‘He’d probably be fascinated. Has his other-worldly side.’
‘Only, he keeps quieter about it these days.’ Merrily looked around, making sure nobody could overhear them in their corner, well back from the bar. ‘Since the tabloids labelled him as a loony who talks to plants. Maybe they’ve been advised not to tell him, just get it quietly disposed of. As for the Bishop …’