‘No,’ Merrily said. ‘I don’t think so.’
57
Difficult Times in Old England
‘The line,’ Lol said. ‘The line from here, from Whiteleafed Oak through all the hilltops and Wychehill Church … how does Winnie see that? An energy line or a … spirit path?’
There was silence, except for an owl somewhere. Lol was thinking about Jane and Coleman’s Meadow.
‘Where the dead can travel,’ he said. ‘I’m just trying to help you to remember.’
Tim began to rock backwards and forwards, his bulk alternately blocking out the moon and then exposing it. He’d gone soft and rambling again.
‘Exercises to do.’
‘Winnie gave you exercises?’
‘Breathing and meditation. Pretty hard at first, but I kept on. I persevered and then it … I had to visualize him walking. And Mr Phoebus. We had a photo enlarged to life-size and put it in the hall, so it looked as if he was there, waiting to … to ride out.’
‘And you visualized this…’
‘Yes. Sometimes, when I was walking the hills at night, I … felt I was able to hear what he could hear … the hidden themes in the whistling of the wind. I’d just start walking, and he’d bring me here. Come along, young ’un. He loved to come to Whiteleafed Oak. One of his favourite walks when he lived at Birchwood. When he was working on G—, on Gerontius. When his mind was hovering between life and death and … whatever comes. He was walking this path in his dreams. And he still does.’
‘Yes. So you visualized Elgar…’
‘Coming along the path, to and from Whiteleafed Oak. Or along the road with Mr Phoebus.’
‘To Wychehill Church.’
‘Or the other way.’
‘So, earlier on, when you were whistling the Cello Concerto … ?’
‘Sometimes, when you do it properly, all the way … it’s as if there are two of you whistling it. It’s … very weird. And thrilling.’
Lol succumbed to a small shiver.
‘And is that where you walk … along the spirit path, from hilltop to hilltop, by the Iron Age sites and the monastic chapels and shrines, from Wychehill … to the Beacon … Hangman’s Hill … Midsummer Hill … Whiteleafed Oak.’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s the way you came tonight?’
Tim’s face contorted.
‘To escape from the demons.’
‘I’m sorry … ?’
‘Just when you think you’ve come through it all, the demons are there.’ Tim swung round. ‘It’s the price you have to pay.’
‘For what?’
‘For daring to reach for the Highest. You have to get past the demons first.’
‘And who are the demons?’
Tim stood up, moved to the open front of the barn, holding on to one of the supporting uprights, began to beat his head against it.
In the end, Merrily had agreed to go out and move the car out of the yard into a space suggested by Spicer behind one of the barns. She’d just had to get out of there.
She took the opportunity to try again to get through to Loclass="underline" voicemail. Jane: voicemail. Gomer: endless ringing in an empty bungalow. And now it was late, getting on for eleven, surely. She didn’t try Bliss again.
As she stood in the yard, breathing in the soft, sweet summer air, a different countryside lay revealed. The moon was high now, and white and hard, less of a security lamp than a hunting tool. Owl sounds flickered through the woodland, a screen for shadowy slaughter. Owls hunting, talons out. Jets of blood and small lives taken, big lives too, and God looking diplomatically away, supervising the sunrise in another hemisphere.
Merrily felt numb, isolated. Cored by outrage and horror. Also, starved of light, starved of knowledge. A spectator who didn’t even understand the game.
When she went back, the atmosphere in the cellar was tight with a stripped-down harshness. Syd Spicer’s sleeves were rolled up.
The Reverend S. D. Spicer. Try to imagine him celebrating communion, visiting the sick, organizing a donkey for the church nativity play.
‘The gullet,’ he was saying, nodding. ‘Yeah, that makes sense. I should’ve thought of that.’
Syd and Hugo were sitting on upturned crates. Hugo looked up when Merrily came in, then looked away. Merrily noticed a new bruise just below his left eye. But, more than that, he looked emotionally beaten, dulled by defeat. He sniffed occasionally, his eyes watering, his thin face bony in the purply fluorescence. Resentment there, and self-pity. The sullen ugliness of corrupted youth.
She looked at Syd, at his still, small eyes.
The gullet.
‘Hugo is on his gap year, Merrily,’ Syd said. ‘He was going to spend it with the West Malvern Hunt, but of course the ban put a stop to that. They’re not even doing drag hunts, Hugo?’
‘What’s the point of that?’ Hugo said. ‘It’s a joke.’
‘A lot of disappointment in your family, then.’
Hugo snorted.
‘And a lot of rage,’ Syd said. ‘To understand this, you need to understand the rage, the way it ferments. The ingredients. Remember when the MP for Worcester was in the forefront of the campaign for a total ban? Must’ve seemed like a betrayal from within.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Betrayal upon betrayal. The hunting ban was just the final insult. Years before that they’d killed your grandfather, turned your dad’s life around. The government. The EC. The way the farmers in every other European country seemed to ignore the new rules, but Britain’s farmers got away with nothing. And then the great plagues: Mad Cow Disease and the ban on exports. Foot and Mouth. When the countryside smelled of smoke and burning flesh.’
‘It’ll never be the same,’ Hugo said. ‘We built this country. We made it what it was, and now they’ve giving it all away to the scum. Eating their cheap foreign meat from supermarkets owned by foreigners.’
‘And the one law they pass that isn’t crawling up the Euro-arse, it’s a ban on hunting. They’ll be coming for your guns soon. Land of hope and glory. Mother of the free.’
‘Joke.’
Syd said, ‘You know, sometimes – thinking back to the Regiment – it was hard to work out who you were fighting for. Had to come down to values in the end. You start thinking you’re doing it for Blair and Brown, it don’t work at all. Luckily, we still got Her Maj.’ Syd smiled. ‘Obviously it’s worse for an old family. Came with the Conquest, the Devereauxs? 1066?’
‘Bit later.’
‘Good long time, though. Longer than the Windsors. A long and glorious history going down the pan.’
‘We’re not the only ones.’
‘No, I appreciate that,’ Syd said. ‘Difficult times in Old England. Tell me about Wicklow.’
‘Came to my father for a job.’
‘Did he? Cheeky.’
‘It was a bit like … close to blackmail. Thought he was clever, but he didn’t know anything really. Thought he was hard and we were middle-class and soft. They don’t know what hard is.’
‘The city boys?’
‘Strip off all the bling and boasting, take their guns away, they’re weak. Thick as shit. It’s why they always get caught. You don’t need scum like that.’
‘And was I right?’ Syd said. ‘You waited for him in the cave.’
‘No, he was using the cave. Dealing out of there. Thought that was smart. We waited for him to come out of the cave. We were in the trees then the rocks behind the cave.’
‘You and Louis.’