She sat looking at him, saying nothing.
Christmas Eve… she’d made a point of not trying to influence him one way or another. He had a few friends — good friends — in Ledwardine, but she wasn’t sure if he had fans. A gig at the Black Swan could be a triumph; it could also be a disaster, especially on Christmas Eve. And he didn’t need it. He’d done Jools Holland, he’d been asked to do America. He’d seen Michael Stipe singing along with ‘The Baker’s Lament’. If he passed on the Swan, what was lost?
‘I’ve… said OK.’
‘Oh.’
‘Pushed it to the wire and then rang Barry and… he’s having posters done.’
‘What, erm… what decided it?’
‘Well, it…’ Lol looked uncomfortable. ‘I suppose it was Lucy.’
‘Oh God. Not you as well.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Talking to Lucy. Like Jane?’
‘Not quite,’ Lol said. ‘It was strange.’
Merrily said nothing; anything to do with Lucy Devenish usually was. Lol managing to acquire Lucy’s house — this house, his house now, for God’s sake — had meant, for him, a responsibility. The need to keep Lucy’s spirit sweet.
‘The lines of a song came to me. I’ve got a bunch of songs now — I’ve been putting them together for the second album.’
‘The risky second album.’
He rarely played his songs to her — and never, she suspected, to anyone else — until he thought they were as good as he could make them, and even then they were usually on tape.
‘Same theme as “Baker’s”,’ Lol said. ‘Rural change, rural decay. And other stuff with relevance to what’s happening here. I’ve also adapted three of Traherne’s poems.’
‘That’s a brilliant idea. Was it hard?’
‘Not as hard as I thought it would be. And then I was just sitting around, playing with ideas when these lines kind of came out of nowhere.’
He didn’t sing them, only spoke them in a whisper.
‘Miss Devenish… Would ever wish it so…’
There was silence. Almost immediately, Merrily heard the words again, in her head.
‘God, Lol. Lucy in a song? You’re actually writing a song about Lucy Devenish?’
The only song he’d ever written, specifically naming a real person, was ‘Heavy Medication Day’, the one about Dr Gascoigne, the psychiatrist big on sedation, who’d caused him problems in the psychiatric hospital. And look at the trouble that had caused.
‘It’s halfway there,’ Lol said.
‘You’ve got a song about Lucy Devenish, and you’re planning to play it for the first time at the Black Swan, in front of people who knew her?’
‘No, the first time, I’m going to play it here, in her house. And if I feel she doesn’t like it…’
‘You know she’ll like it,’ Merrily sighed. ‘Because, however it turns out, you’ll think she gave it to you.’
A chiming, tiny but strident, came out of the hall. Merrily jumped. It was her mobile, in a pocket of the waxed coat hanging where Lucy used to drape her poncho.
‘Won’t you?’ she said.
‘You’d better get that.’
She stood up and went out into the tiny hall. The rain was a muffled roar, like a big audience, as she fumbled out the phone.
‘Reverend.’
‘Oh.’
‘Where are you?’ Bliss said.
‘Does it matter? Where are you?’
‘I’m in the car. Outside your vicarage.’
‘Ah.’
‘I need to talk to you.’
Merrily went back into the living room, where Lol sat, looking down at his hands clasped together below his knees.
He looked up and smiled, but she sensed a thick wedge of anxiety behind it.
She bent and hugged him, the phone still at her ear.
‘I’ll come over,’ she said to Bliss.
21
Pebbles
There was a crack in the cast-iron guttering over Lol’s front door, and a cold stream of water sluiced into Merrily’s hair as she stumbled into the street, pulling on her coat. All down Church Street she saw gutters spouting and drains gulping vainly at the muscular coils of water pumping between the cobbles.
Bliss had seen her, his Honda pulling into the kerb, headlights on, the passenger door already swinging open. She grabbed it, slotting herself in, and he was off like a getaway driver.
‘God’s sake—’
‘Remarkable,’ Bliss said. ‘Don’t think I’ve ever known a woman get dressed that quick. I do hope Robinson appreciates what he’s got.’
‘What do you want, Frannie?’
‘Long term, a whole new life would be nice.’ He drove down Church Street towards the river bridge, waited there for a van to come across. ‘Meanwhile, have a listen to this.’
An MP3 player was wedged behind the gear lever and plugged into the sound system. They were halfway across the bridge, Merrily connecting her seat belt, when the man’s voice came through the speakers. A phone voice, close-up, muffled but precise.
‘You are a disgrace, Ayling. Like the rest of your stinking council, you are a disgrace to Hereford.’
‘Oh.’ She let the seat belt come apart. ‘This is Ayling’s answering machine?’
‘You have betrayed your heritage. You have tried to smother the Serpent, in the cause of naked, corporate greed…’
Bliss reached out a hand, put the player on pause.
‘You recognise the voice, Merrily?’
‘It’s local.’
‘Local varies.’
‘Hereford, rather than real border.’
‘That’s what I thought.’
‘Sounds like he’s reading it. Like an agreed statement.’
‘Through a handful of Kleenex.’
Bliss drove slowly past the village hall, where the puddles on the car park were starting to join together, forming a moat which continued, deepening, when Church Street became a country lane.
‘I’d turn round when you can, Frannie. Only the four-by-fours are risking it down here.’
‘Always defer to local knowledge.’ Bliss pulled into a passing place, began a three-point turn, the wipers on high speed. ‘And you’ve not answered me question yet.’
‘If it wasn’t for the bypass we’d be almost an island by now. Why are you asking me?’
‘I’ll give you the honest answer, Merrily. Your name was mentioned as someone whose work sometimes brings her into contact with religious eccentrics.’
‘Mentioned by…?’
‘The headmistress.’
‘Just that religious eccentrics didn’t sound like her kind of term.’
‘It wasn’t, I just didn’t want to offend you. In truth, her experience of you — can’t for the life of me think why — seems to be as someone who is generally hostile and unhelpful.’
‘That is so hurtful.’
‘Yet seems to have the impression that you and I have a certain rapport. Me being raised a lapsed papist and all.’
‘She instructed you to sound me out?’
‘In her way.’ Bliss put out a hand to the player. ‘Let me give you the rest.’
‘… But the Serpent is not dead. Your storm troopers cannot trample the Serpent underfoot. Under tarmac. The Serpent will not sleep, but will writhe in anger under the hill and grow a new skin. Do not imagine it’s over, Ayling. When your road is open and strewn with wreckage and blood… you will remember the Serpent. You will remember what you did.’
Pause.
‘We are the Children of the Serpent.’