Siren warbling, blue beacons strobing – violently beautiful over the snow – the ambulance broke the rules by cutting from Broad Street across the Cathedral Green.
Merrily stood outside St John’s door with Sophie. Feeling useless.
Even in his condition, Dobbs had reared up from the stones at the sight of her, one arm hanging limp, and his face like a waxwork melting down one side. George Curtiss had then taken charge, suggesting she and Sophie should phone for help from the office in the gatehouse.
Merrily had glanced back once before they hurried away, and had seen George fumbling at the wall under the aumbry light.
‘The sacrament.’ Sophie had started to shake. ‘Oh, dear God, he’s asked for the sacrament.’
Merrily wasn’t sure Dobbs had been in any condition, at the time, to voice a request; this was probably George’s own decision. Probably a wise one.
She and Sophie stood back while the paramedics brought the old man out. Multiple headlights creaming the snow and more people gathering – one of the vergers, a couple of policemen.
And the Right Reverend Michael Hunter loping towards them. The Bishop in a purple tracksuit.
‘Merrily, what on earth are you doing here?’
‘Michael, I sent for her,’ Sophie explained at once. ‘I thought-’
‘That’s good,’ the Bishop said. ‘That’s fine. Entirely appropriate.’
Summoned from his bed, no doubt, by the ambulance siren, he seemed neither cold nor tired. Merrily could almost see his athlete’s glow as an actual halo as he raised a palm over the two women, like a blessing.
‘Poor Canon Dobbs,’ Sophie said.
The Bishop nodded. ‘A good and distinguished servant of God.’
Huh? Merrily recalled their discussion in the Green Dragon. ‘ The old man’s ubiquitous. Hovering silently, like some dark, malign spectre. I’d like to… I want to exorcize Dobbs.’
Classic episcopal hypocrisy.
‘But he worked himself too hard – and for too long,’ the Bishop said. ‘A stroke, I gather.’
‘Yes,’ Merrily said, ‘that’s what it looks like.’
‘No!’ Cool, efficient Sophie started to cry. ‘ Two strokes. It must have been two, don’t you see? We thought he must be… must have been drinking. When we heard his voice all slurred, in fact he was simply struggling to speak after a first stroke – probably only a minor one. And then… I remember my father… Oh God, how stupid we were, how utterly thoughtless.’
‘Sophie,’ Merrily said, ‘if it wasn’t for you, he might still be lying there.’
‘Perhaps it was us shouting at him to come out… perhaps all the fuss threw him into some sort of confused panic and that was what brought on the second stroke.’
‘Sophie, listen.’ The Bishop took his secretary by both shoulders, then eased back her scarf so as to look into her eyes. ‘We all knew that Thomas was long, long overdue for retirement. His particular ministry put him under enormous pressure. Several of us, as you know, tried very hard to persuade him to give it up. I think it was becoming explicitly clear to everyone that this good man’s mind was breaking down. Hey, watch yourself…’
He guided Sophie out of the path of the ambulance as it started up, preparing to bear the stricken Dobbs to the General Hospital. George Curtiss appeared from behind it, breathing hard through his beard.
‘Bishop…’
‘Well done, George.’
‘I’m afraid I didn’t do enough.’
‘I’m sure you did everything humanly possible,’ Mick Hunter said – then, after a pause, ‘except to inform your bishop.’
‘Oh, yes. I, ah, thought… hoped… that it wouldn’t be necessary to involve you – or the Dean.’
‘I want to be appraised of everything, George. You won’t forget that again, will you?’
‘No.’ The big canon, a good ten years older than the Bishop, looked like a chastized schoolboy. ‘I’m sorry, Bishop.’
‘Get some sleep. We’ll talk about this tomorrow. Merrily-’
‘Bishop?’ She was annoyed at the way he’d spoken to George, who’d administered the sacrament to Dobbs, stayed with him, tried to make him comfortable, keep him calm.
The Bishop said, ‘What was Canon Dobbs actually doing when you found him?’
‘He was having a stroke, Bishop,’ Merrily said wearily.
Mick Hunter was silent.
‘I’m sorry,’ Merrily said. ‘It’s been a difficult night.’
‘Has it? I see. I’ll talk to you on Monday, Merrily. This is obviously going to have a bearing on your situation.’ He turned and walked towards the Cathedral.
‘I thought for a moment he was going to say something about God moving in mysterious ways,’ Merrily muttered, ‘to clear the way for the new regime.’
‘He’s wearing trainers,’ Sophie said absently. ‘His poor feet must be absolutely soaked.’
‘Wellies wouldn’t fit the image.’
‘He’s more than image, Merrily,’ Sophie said quietly. ‘I think you know that. He’s a very young man. One day he’ll be a great man, I should think.’
One day he’ll probably be an archbishop, Merrily thought. But I doubt he’ll be a great man.
But she’d said enough.
‘Thank you for coming,’ Sophie said, ‘though clearly it wasn’t a terribly good idea.’
‘Sophie…’ Merrily glanced over her shoulder at the Cathedral, which – although someone, probably the Bishop, had put on lights – was still not the imagined beacon of old Christian warmth, not now. ‘When George said Dobbs was talking to Thomas Cantilupe, what did he mean by that?’
Sophie appeared uncomfortable. ‘Does that matter now?’
‘Yeah, I think it does.’
‘That was George’s surmise. I thought he was talking to himself. Thomas, you see – both of them Thomases. It was as though he… perhaps he was already feeling ill and he was urging himself to hold on.’
‘What were his words?’
‘Well, like that. He did actually say that at least once: “Please God, hold on, Thomas.” And then he’d lapse into mumbling Latin.’
‘How did he get in? Does he have keys?’
‘He must have.’
‘Does he often come here alone at night?’
‘It…’ Sophie sighed. ‘So they say.’
‘What else do they say?’
‘They say he has rather an obsession with St Thomas Cantilupe. I do know he studied the medieval Church, so perhaps he sought some sort of deeper communion with the saint, on a spiritual level. I don’t like to-’
‘You mean because the tomb was lying open, for the first time in over a century, he thought the saint would be more accessible? You have to help me here, Sophie. I don’t understand.’
‘I don’t know what to say,’ Sophie said. ‘I don’t feel it’s right to talk about it now, with the poor man probably dying. I mean, George gave him the sacrament.’
‘Sophie, just let me get this right. Are you saying you called me in because you and George thought Canon Dobbs was attempting to make contact with a dead saint?’
‘I don’t know, Merrily.’ Sophie was wringing the ends of her scarf. ‘Look, I just wanted to protect… Oh, I don’t know who I wanted to protect. The Bishop? Canon Dobbs? Or just the Cathedral? In the end it all comes back to the Cathedral, doesn’t it? I…’ She stamped a booted foot on the snow as if to emphasize it to herself. ‘I work for the Cathedral.’
‘Is there something… is there a problem in the Cathedral? Is that what you’re trying to say?’
Maybe she should talk to George, who was still with the two policemen beside their car at the roadside.
‘Can we talk about this… again?’ Sophie said.
‘If I’m going to help, you’ve got to trust me.’
‘I do trust you, Merrily. That’s why I telephoned for you. And I feel guilty now – you look so awfully tired. Do you really have to drive back? The roads are going to be dreadful.’
‘No worse than when I came. I think the snow’s stopping anyway.’
‘But it’ll probably freeze on top. That’s rather treacherous – and it’s always a little warmer in the city. Look, why don’t you stay with us tonight? We always keep a room prepared, and Andrew will have hot chocolate ready.’
‘Well, thanks. But there’s Jane at home. And tomorrow’s services.’
‘I do feel so guilty about bringing you here.’
‘Don’t worry, I won’t fall asleep at the wheel. I’ll smoke.’
‘Hmm,’ Sophie said disapprovingly.
‘Good night, Sophie.’
Watching Sophie walk away towards warmth and hot chocolate, Merrily felt damp and chilled inside her thinning fake-Barbour. She saw the police car pulling away into Broad Street, and George Curtiss had already gone.
Fatigue had induced detachment. She didn’t want to be detached. She remembered how, when she and Sophie and George had first entered the Cathedral tonight, the urge to pray had washed over her like surf, a tide of need. Dobbs’s need?
That had gone now; her prayers weren’t needed – or not so urgently. She ought to have obeyed that call, fallen to her knees, and the whole bit.
Bloody Anglican reserve. The Church of the Stiff Upper Lip.
Abruptly, Merrily went back into the Cathedral, to pray for Dobbs, before it was all locked up again. Knowing she would make for the place where George had kicked down a partition door: the Cantilupe fragments.
What did she know about Cantilupe? Bishop of Hereford in the late thirteenth century. Born into a wealthy Norman baronial family. Educated for the Church. A political career before he came to Hereford in middle age, in the reign of Edward I. A row with the Archbishop of Canterbury which got him excommunicated. Reinstatement, then death, then sainthood. Then the miracles, dozens of miracles around the shrine: the tomb that no longer had a body in it, and that was now in pieces.
The aumbry light still shone: a relic of the medieval Church, seldom needed now. Tonight another medieval relic had required the last rites.
Merrily realized she very much did not want Dobbs to die. She went down on her knees, on the hard coldness, before the aumbry light itself. Let him live. Please God, let him survive. Build some kind of bridge between us. Throw down some quiet light. Let there be…
Useless, incoherent – she was just too tired. She couldn’t find the words to explain herself.
‘Merrily.’
She opened her eyes.
‘I’m sorry I was so abrupt, Merrily. It wasn’t you – it was me, I’m sorry. I felt excluded.’
The late-night DJ voice, resonant, burnt-umber. She should have realized he’d still be here. Perhaps she had.
‘Hello, Mick.’
The Bishop extended a hand. He was very strong, and suddenly she was on her feet again.
‘You look very tired,’ Mick said. ‘I hear you’ve been working hard tonight.’
‘ Finding it hard, that’s all.’
‘As you’re bound to.’ His lean face was crinkled by a sympathetic, closed-mouth smile. He surveyed her in the mellow light. ‘It’s a very taxing role: social worker, psychotherapist and virtuoso stage-performer, all rolled into one.’
‘Stage-performer?’
‘We’re all of us actors, Merrily. The Church is a faded but still fabulous costume drama.’
‘Oh.’
‘And, to survive, it has to be considerably more sophisticated these days. Poor Dobbs is strictly Hammer Films, I’m afraid. He should retire, if he recovers, to one of those nice rural nursing homes for ageing clerics. There to write his memoirs, don’t you think?’
‘I don’t know what I think.’
‘You’re overtired,’ Mick said. ‘Poor baby, I’m not going to let you drive home, you realize that.’
‘It’s only twenty minutes.’ He was offering to drive her?
‘In these conditions? At least an hour – and requiring rather more attention than I suspect you’d be able to summon. Consider this an executive ruling. Come to the Palace. We’ve lots of spare rooms I always feel guilty about. Perhaps we should make some available to selected homeless people, what do you think?’
‘I think it would be very much an unnecessary imposition on Mrs Hunter.’
‘What, accommodating the homeless? Or accommodating you? Either way, not a problem. Valentina’s away for a couple of days, visiting her ageing parents in the Cotswolds. Old Church, Val’s father – yesterday’s Church. We have endless and insoluble theological arguments, so these days I tend to plead pressure of work.’
Merrily smiled. ‘Look, it’s very kind of you, Mick. It’s just-’ She moved self-consciously towards St John’s door.
‘ You ’ – he followed her – ‘need all your strength. Just let others look after you sometimes. We can get you back in good time for tomorrow’s services, if that’s what you’re worried about. We have a wonderful old Land Rover at our disposal.’
‘There’s Jane, you know?’
‘Jane?’
‘My daughter.’
She thought he blinked. ‘She’s not a child any more, is she? She must be getting quite used to your nocturnal comings and goings.’
‘I suppose she is.’
‘Well, then…’
He put his hands on her shoulders, as he had on Sophie’s earlier. His hands were big and firm and warm.
‘Merrily, you have to stop shouldering the problems of the world. Besides, it would be a good opportunity for us to talk about the future. It’ll be impossible to keep this out of the papers, you know, especially if the old guy dies on us. We need to be ready, hmm?’
As Mick Hunter lowered his arms from her shoulders, his head bent quickly, and she was sure his lips touched her forehead just once, on the hairline.
‘This means we can stop quietly phasing you in and officially announce the establishment of a Deliverance consultancy. We need to discuss how we’re going to handle that.’
‘But not tonight.’
‘Oh no, not tonight. Tomorrow.’ He paused. ‘Over our breakfast, perhaps.’
The way he said our breakfast. The way he had his arms by his sides now, but had not stepped back. The way he seemed to be closer than when his hands had been on her. She felt an awful compulsion to fall forward, collapse into that strong, muscular episcopal chest.
‘Up to you, of course,’ he said. ‘Coincidentally, we’ve just had a guest suite refurbished. Bathroom with shower, small sitting room – that sort of set-up. You may find you have to overnight in Hereford quite often as your role expands. Consider it available at any time. As you’ll be reporting exclusively to me, it would seem like an arrangement with considerable… possibilities, you know.’
She stayed silent, giving him an opportunity to qualify that, but he didn’t. He just stood there gazing at her, and after a moment he calmly folded his arms – sometimes a defensive gesture, but not this time.
No, this couldn’t be? Couldn’t possibly be how it sounded.
‘Everything’s changing, Merrily,’ Mick said easily. ‘This is a time of transition when traditional values, old restrictions, should be allowed to drift away. We should stop presuming to know what God wants of us.’
Merrily backed against the door, needing cold air, space.
‘We should be prepared to experiment,’ Mick continued calmly, ‘until the waters settle and we know where we are again. For a while.’
He followed her out of the Cathedral, leaving the door for the verger to lock. Outside, an unreal mauvish mist was gathering around white roofs, over white pavements, the grey-white road. A Christmas-card Hereford, out of time. Mick Hunter, in his purple tracksuit, seemed part of the picture. Part of the illusion. Not real.
‘See, no traffic at all,’ he said. ‘Earlier, I believe, the TV and radio stations were warning motorists not to venture out unless it was absolutely vital.’
Time of transition? In the tingling mist, Merrily felt as though she was being drawn into a developing, lucid dream and had to go with it – some of the way, at least – to see if its destination could possibly be what she was half-imagining.
Or make a wild dash across Broad Street for her car. Or…
She heard Jane saying, It’s probably considered socially OK to fuck a bishop, and felt appalled.
‘Mick, look, I actually think it’s beginning to thaw. I can be home in half an hour.’
‘Nonsense. Merrily, you know you don’t really want to do that.’
‘I have to.’
She began to walk away from him towards the road, and then stopped and turned as the Bishop spoke again with quiet insistence.
‘You only have to do what you want to do.’
‘That’s not true…’
This was not the Bishop talking but the bulge in his tracksuit trousers. She closed her eyes briefly and wished him gone.
‘Oh… Excuse me, miss.’
A man stepped out from behind one of the trees like some accosting beggar – one of those homeless that Mick and Val would not be accommodating at the Palace.
‘Not now,’ the Bishop told him irritably.
‘Sorry, sir. Not you – the lady. Are you by any chance the lady whose daughter ordered a minicab?’
‘Huh?’
‘Mrs Watson?’
‘Watkins.’
‘Yeah, that’s it.’
Mick Hunter didn’t move. Merrily shrugged and gave him a bashful smile. ‘I didn’t know she’d done that. Kid does my thinking for me. Thanks anyway, Bishop. What time do you want to see me on Monday?’
‘Eleven o’clock,’ the Bishop said tonelessly, ‘in the Great Hall.’
She nodded.
‘Good night,’ he said.
‘It’s this way,’ said the cabbie.
Mick Hunter had vanished by the time she found out that the cabbie did not have a vehicle with him.