‘And who is this Weal?’ he said. ‘Was the plan that they might have to lean on this old broad legally?’
‘She wouldn’t have been an old broad then. She was probably quite a young broad.’
‘Whatever, this smells of real redneck intrigue. Prosser Senior – that would be Gareth Prosser’s old man?’
‘Sounds like it,’ Betty said. And then came to the point. ‘But the main issue is, what happened to the Reverend Penney? What did he do that day that scandalized the community so much that he had to resign on so-called health grounds?’
‘Didn’t the widow Wilshire know any of this?’
‘She’d never even seen the letter. Bryan would not have wanted to worry the little woman.’
‘Well,’ Robin said, ‘it’s clear that the Reverend Penney was under a lot of pressure and it drove him a little crazy. She talks about him feeling isolated. Maybe he came from some English city, couldn’t cut it in the sticks. And the Local People resented him, gave him a hard time.’
‘To the extent of vandalizing his church? Starting a fire? You don’t think that sounds a little inner-city for a place like this?’
‘Sounds like he was getting some hassle. Sounds like there could be something the Local People are a tad ashamed about, wouldn’t you say?’
He looked pleased about this. He would make a point now of finding out precisely what had happened and what, if anything, the community had to hide. Betty, on the other hand, could sympathize with Juliet Pottinger’s low-profile approach. Yes, it would be necessary to find out what had happened on what was now their property – but not to go about this in a conspicuous way. They were incomers and foreigners. And had a different religion, which may somehow have become known to certain people. Unspoken opinion might already be stacked against them; they must not be seen to be too nosy or too clever. They must move quietly.
‘After Penney left,’ she said, ‘the church appeared to “lose heart”. It was in full use until nineteen seventy-eight and now it’s a ruin. In just over thirty years. Not exactly a slow decay.’
‘Aw, buildings go to pieces in no time at all when they’re left derelict. She implies in the letter that it was already falling apart. And maybe in those days the authorities weren’t so hot on preserving old buildings. I’m more curious about what the Local People did to this Penney. Where’s he now?’
‘I don’t know. And we’re the last people to know anyone in the clergy who might be able to find out. We—’
‘Look, I’ll go find out the truth tomorrow. I’ll go see Prosser. We’re gonna need more logs – real logs. I’ll go find out if Prosser knows a reputable log dealer and at the same time I’ll ask him about Reverend Penney. See if he tries to lean on me, do the rural menace stuff.’
‘I’ll go, if you like,’ Betty said, without thinking.
Robin put down his cocoa mug. ‘Because I will rub him up the wrong way? Because I will be gauche and loud and unsubtle? Because I will say, you can’t touch me, pal, I got the Old Gods on my side?’
‘Of course not. I’m sorry. You’re right. You should go. Men around here prefer to deal with other men.’
‘What I thought.’ He looked at her and grinned. ‘This is nothing to worry about.’
‘No,’ Betty said.
Far from representing her and Robin’s destiny and the beautiful future of the pagan movement in this country, she was now convinced that the old church of Michael was a tainted and revolting place that should indeed be left to rot. But how could she lay all this on him now, after his crushing disappointment over the Blackmore illustrations?
‘Let’s go to bed,’ she said.
14
Armageddon
NO WAY COULD she ever have imagined it was going to be like this.
She’d thought that it could never be worse than the pulpit that first time, up in Liverpool, when those three creaking wooden steps were like the steps to the gallows.
And may God have mercy on your soul.
She’d drunk very little of the spring water on offer in the green room, never once thinking of the fierce heat from the studio lights and what it might do to the irrigation of the inside of her mouth.
With ten minutes to go, she’d popped outside for a cigarette, sharing a fire-escape platform with two sly-smiling New Age warriors and their seven-inch spliff, shaking her head with a friendly, liberal smile when they’d offered it to her.
Never really imagining that the nerves wouldn’t just float away once they were on the air. Because... well, because this was trivial, trash, tabloid television, forgotten before the first editions of tomorrow’s papers got onto the streets.
This really mustn’t be taken too seriously.
Merrily froze, two thousand years of Christianity setting like concrete around her shoulders. The light was merciless and hotter than the sun. She was in terror; she couldn’t even pray.
‘Merrily Watkins,’ he’d said, ‘you’re a vicar, a woman of God. Let’s hear how you defend your creator against that kind of logic. Isn’t there really a fair bit of sense in what Ned’s saying?’
He was slight, not very tall. His natural expression was halfway to a smile, the lips in a little V. He was light and nimble and chatty. He earned probably six times as much as a bishop – the shiny-suited, eel-like, non-stick, omnipotent John Fallon.
‘Well, Merrily,’ he said. ‘Isn’t there?’
And yet, there were no tricks, no surprises. It had started, exactly as Tania Beauman had said it would, with the parents Jean and Roger Gillespie, goddess-worshippers from Taunton, Somerset, who wanted their daughter’s religion to be formally accepted at her primary school. They’d have a second child starting school next year; later a third one; they wanted new data programmed into the education machine, respectful references to new names: Isis, Artemis, Aradia. Roger was an architect with the county council; he maintained that his beliefs were fully accepted on the executive estate where the Gillespies had lived for three years.
They were both so humourless, Merrily thought, as Jean demanded parity with Islam and boring old Christianity, and special provision for her family’s celebration of the solstices and the equinoxes, the inclusion of pagan songs, at least once a week, at the school assembly.
Fallon had finally interrupted this tedious monotone. ‘And what do you do exactly, Jean? Do you hold nude ceremonies in your garden? What happens if the neighbours’ve got a barbecue going?’
‘Well, that’s just the kind of attitude we don’t get, for a start.’ Jean’s single plait hung like a fat hawser down her bosom. ‘Our rituals are private and discreet and are respected by our neighbours, who—’
‘Fine. Sure. OK.’ John Fallon had already been on the move, away from Jean, who carried on talking, although the boom-mic operator had moved on. Fallon had spun away through ninety degrees to his next interviewee: the elegant Mr Edward Bain, nothing so vulgar as King of the Witches.
‘We’re here to talk about religious belief,’ Fallon had read from the autocue at the beginning of the show, ‘and the right of people in a free society to worship their own gods. Some of you might think it’s a bit loony, even scary, but the thousands of pagan worshippers in Britain maintain that theirs is the only true religion of these islands, and they want their ceremonies – which sometimes include nudity, simulated and indeed actual sex – to be given full charitable status and full recognition from the state and the education system...’
When he had his back to Merrily, she saw the wire to his earpiece coming out of his collar, like a ruched scar on the back of his neck. Relaying instructions or suggestions, from the programme’s director in some hidden bunker.