The Bishop smiled hard, talked fast, and wore purple as bishops do.
‘The Church, OK?’ His voice was public-school with the edges sanded off. ‘The Church is… hierarchical, conservative, full of rivalry, feuding, back-stabbing. And inherently incapable of ever getting anything bloody well done.’
The Bishop wore purple all over: a tracksuit and jogging gear. The Bishop jogged all over the city and its outskirts, usually in the early mornings and the evenings, covering, according to the Hereford Times, a minimum of thirty miles a week.
‘Now you’d think, wouldn’t you, that organizing an office in the Cathedral cloisters would be the easiest thing? Scores of cells and crannies and cubicles, but… all of them the Dean’s. And if the Dean says there isn’t an office to spare, I’m not even permitted to argue. Within the precincts of the Cathedral, even God bows to the Dean. So we shall have to look elsewhere. I’m so sorry, Merrily.’
‘It’s probably meant, Bishop.’
‘Mick,’ corrected the Bishop. ‘Meant? Oh it was meant, for sure. The bastard means to frustrate me. Who, after all, is the oldest member of his Chapter? Dobbs.’ The Bishop tossed the name out like junk-mail. ‘The old man’s ubiquitous, hovering silently like some dark, malign spectre. I’d like to… I want to exorcize Dobbs.’
‘Well, I feel very awkward about the whole thing.’ Merrily poured tea for them both.
‘Oh, why?’ The Bishop quizzically tilted his head, as though he really didn’t understand. He sugared his tea. ‘You know the very worst thing about Dobbs? He actually frightens people – imagine. You have what you are convinced is an unwelcome presence in your house, your nerves are shot to hell, you finally gather the courage – or the sheer desperation – to go to the Church for help. And what should arrive at your door but this weird, shambling creature dressed like an undertaker and mumbling at you like Poe’s doleful raven. Well, you’d rather hang on to the bloody ghost, wouldn’t you?’
The Bishop, Merrily had noticed, said ‘bloody’ rather a lot, but nothing stronger, always conscious of the parameters of his image as a cool Christian. She was determined to be neither overawed nor underawed by Mick Hunter this afternoon, neither bulldozed nor seduced. She wished he was more like Huw Owen, but men like Huw never ever got to be bishops.
‘Listen… Merrily…’ His voice dropping an octave – latenight DJ. ‘I realize how you must feel. If you were the kind of person who was utterly confident about it, I wouldn’t want you in this job.’
… not a fundamentalist, not a charismatic or a happy-clappy, you’ve no visible axe to grind and I can see why he was drawn to you. You’re in many ways almost exactly the kind of person we need in the trenches.
‘Do you know Huw Owen?’ she asked.
‘Only by reputation. Quite a vocal campaigner for the ordination of women long before it became fa… feasible.’
Fashionable, he’d been about to say. Until it became fashionable , Mick Hunter would have kept very quiet on the issue. Merrily was trying to see him as Jane saw him, but it wasn’t easy; Mick’s blue eyes were clear and blazing with a wild integrity. He had a – somehow unepiscopal – blue jaw. He smelled very lightly of clean, honest, jogger’s sweat and of something smokily indistinct which made her think, rather shockingly, of what a very long time it had been since she’d last had sex.
‘Your late husband was a lawyer, wasn’t he?’ he said, startling her upright, tea spilling.
‘Yes.’ She was blushing. ‘I… me too. I mean, I was going to be one too. Until Jane came into the picture, and a few other things changed.’
‘Shame,’ the Bishop said. ‘Road accident, wasn’t it?’
‘On the M5. He… he hit a bridge.’
They hit a bridge. Sean and Karen Adair, his clerk and girlfriend and accomplice in a number of delicate arrangements with iffy businessmen. Dying flung together in a ball of fire, at the time when Merrily was balancing an inevitable divorce against her chances of ordination, and Jane was just starting secondary school. How much of this did the Bishop know? All of it, probably.
‘Look,’ she had to say this, ‘the thing is, Huw’s position on the ordination of women doesn’t extend to Deliverance ministry – did you know that? He doesn’t think we’re ready for all that yet.’
His eyes widening. She realized he’d probably sent her on this particular course precisely because he knew Huw was sympathetic to women priests.
‘Not ready for all that?’ The eyes narrowing again. ‘All what?’
‘He doesn’t feel that we have the necessary weight of tradition behind us to take on… whatever’s out there.’
‘Which is a little bit preposterous’ – Mick Hunter leaned back – ‘don’t you think?’
‘It’s not what I think that matters.’
‘No, quite. At the end of the day, it’s what I think. The Deliverance consultant’s responsible to the Bishop, and only to the Bishop. And I think – without any positive discrimination – that, if anything, this is a job a woman can do better than a man. It demands delicacy, compassion… qualities not exactly manifested by Dobbs.’
‘I’ve… I’ve been trying, you know, to work out exactly how you do see the job.’
Mick Hunter stirred his tea thoughtfully. Two tables away, a couple of well-dressed, not-quite-elderly women were openly watching him. Beefcake bishop – a new phenomenon.
‘OK, right,’ he said. ‘While you were in Wales, we had some basic research carried out. Quick phone-call to all the parish clergy: a few facts and figures. Did you know for instance that in the past six months, in this diocese alone, there have been between twenty and thirty appeals to the Church for assistance with perceived psychic disturbance?’
‘Really? My God.’
‘And rising.’ Mick smiled. ‘If the Church was a business, we’d be calling this a major growth area.’
The Bishop then talked about apparent psychic blackspots revealed by the survey – the north of the diocese was worst – and Merrily thought about how fate pushed you around, all the unplanned directions your life took. Whether she would ever actually have become a lawyer had she not become pregnant while still at university. If she would ever have become a priest had Sean not died when he did and if she hadn’t discovered he was a crook. If she would ever have been drawn into the strange shadow-world of Deliverance, had her own vicarage in Ledwardine not been tenanted by an essence of something which no one else had experienced.
She felt targeted, exposed. She wanted to leap up from the table and run to the car and smoke several cigarettes.
Instead she said, ‘What exactly are we talking about here?’
The Bishop shrugged. ‘Mostly, I suspect, about paranoia, psychiatric problems, loneliness, isolation, stress. Modern society, Merrily. Post-millennial angst. We’re certainly not talking about the medieval world of Canon Dobbs. Nor, I think, should we be sending the local vicar along just to have a cup of coffee and intone a few prayers, which is what happens in most cases now.’
She began to understand about the office. He would want one that actually said DELIVERANCE CONSULTANT on its door. He wanted to bring the job out of the closet.
‘I’m glad the awful word Exorcism’s been ditched,’ he said, ‘though I’m not entirely happy with Deliverance either. A less portentous term would be “ rescue ”, don’t you think?’
Rescue Consultant? Spiritual Rescue Service? SRS? She raised her cup to mask a smile. He didn’t notice.
‘It would still be part of the parish priest’s role to deal, in the initial stages, with people who think they’re being haunted or little Darren’s got the Devil in him or whatever. But the public also need to know there’s an efficient machinery inside the Church for dealing with such problems, and that there’s a particular person to whom they can turn. And I don’t want that person to look like Dobbs. We need to be seen as sympathetic, non-judgemental, user-friendly. You’ve read Perry’s book on Deliverance?’
‘The set text, isn’t it?’
‘It’s a start. I find Michael Perry rather too credulous, but I like his insistence on not overreacting. The job’s about counselling. It’s about being a spiritual Samaritan – about listening. You notice that Perry seldom seems to advocate exorcizing a place?’
‘He suggests a Major Exorcism should primarily be focused on a demonically possessed person, and then only when a number of other procedures have proved ineffective.’
Mick Hunter put down his cup. ‘I never want to hear of a so-called Major Exorcism. It’s crude, primitive and almost certainly ineffective.’
Merrily blinked. ‘You don’t think that in the presence of extreme evil…?’
‘Evil’s a disease,’ the Bishop said. ‘In fact it’s many diseases. If we’re going to deal with it, we have to study the symptoms, consider the nature of the particular malady, and then apply the correct treatment with sensitivity, precision and care. The Major Exorcism, quite frankly, is the kind of medieval bludgeon which in my opinion the post-millennial Church can do without. Are you with me here?’
I don’t know, Merrily thought wildly. I don’t know…
‘It’s hard…’ She took a breath to calm herself. Mick Hunter’s enthusiasm picked you up and carried you along and then put you down suddenly, and you didn’t know where you were. ‘It’s hard to express an opinion about something you’ve really had no experience of. I don’t think anyone can possibly-’
‘Merrily…’ He put his hand over hers on the white tablecloth. ‘One of my faults is expecting too much of people too soon, I realize that. But I know from my predecessor that you’ve proved yourself to be a resourceful, resilient person. The appalling Ledwardine business – I know you don’t like your part in all that to be talked about…’
‘No.’
‘But you’ve shown you have nerve and wisdom and you can think on your feet. OK, I’m aware that we’re breaking new ground here, but it’s the direction I believe every diocese will be going in within five years.’ He paused. ‘I’ve had a word with Gareth, by the way.’
‘The Archdeacon?’
‘Under the reorganization, you were due to be awarded two extra parishes before the end of the year. I pointed out to Gareth that, under the circumstances, that would be far too much of a burden.’
‘You mean it’s either the Deliverance role or two more parishes to run?’
‘The two parishes would be a lot easier, Merrily – a quieter life.’
‘Yes.’
‘If it’s a quiet life you want?’
What she wanted was a cigarette, but she knew the Bishop hated them. What she wanted was for Huw Owen to have been proved wrong, but everything Huw had forecast had been dead right. She would wind up with her picture in the Hereford Times, although probably without the crucifix.
‘I’m going to have to play this slowly and diplomatically,’ Mick Hunter said. ‘Dobbs won’t go until he’s too shaky to hold a cup of holy water, and as long as he’s here he has the support of the Dean’s cabal. Well, all right, he can still be an exorcist if he wants. That doesn’t prevent me appointing a consultant to, say, prepare a detailed report on the demand for Deliverance services.’
Merrily said, ‘I don’t like this.’
‘Merely politics. I’m afraid I’m quite good at politics.’
She sighed. ‘You’ve given me a lot to think about, Bishop.’
‘Mick.’
‘Could I have some time?’
‘To pray for guidance?’
‘Yes,’ Merrily said, ‘I suppose that’s what I’ll do.’
‘Call my office if you’d like another meeting.’ Mick stood up, zipped his purple tracksuit top.
‘Er… if you can’t get an office in the cloisters, that means I’d be working from home then?’
At least she wouldn’t have to see the rather scary Dobbs.
‘Oh no.’ Mick grinned. ‘The Dean doesn’t screw me so easily. I told you I’m quite good at this. I’m going to put you in the Palace.’
In the car going home, Merrily put on Tori Amos’s From the Choirgirl Hotel because it was doomy and gothic and would keep Jane quiet. The kid would want to know what the Bishop had been so keen to talk about, but first Merrily needed to work it out for herself.
It certainly wasn’t what Jane had imagined, a clandestine return to witch-hunting, sneaky rearguard action by a defensive Church. There was no sign of New Age, Old Enemy paranoia in Mick Hunter. He was simply enfolding the Deliverance ministry into his campaign to project the diocese further into the new millennium as a vibrant, caring, essential institution. Was that so wrong? But what did he see as the enemy?
… paranoia, psychiatric problems, loneliness, isolation, stress, post-millennial angst…
Clearly, the Bishop’s liberalism did not extend to the supernatural. Merrily suspected he didn’t believe in ghosts, and that for him the borderline between demonic possession and schizophrenia would not exist – which was worrying. To what extent was healthy scepticism compatible with Christian faith? And what did he mean: Put you in the Palace?
‘… little record shop in Church Street?’
‘Huh? Sorry, flower.’
Jane reached out and turned down the stereo. Merrily glanced across at her. Jane turning down music – this had never happened before.
‘I said, who do you think I ran into in that poky little record shop in Church Street?’
It was almost dark, and they were leaving the city via the King’s Acre roundabout, with a fourteenth-century cross on its island.
‘Close. Lol Robinson.’ Jane said. ‘You do remember…?’
‘Oh,’ Merrily said casually. There was a time when she could have become too fond of Lol Robinson. ‘Right. How is he?’
Jane told her how Lol had just started renting this brilliant flat over the shop, with a view over the cobbles and two pubs about twenty yards away.
‘Belongs to the guy who owns the shop. His sister used to live there but she’s moved out. Her name’s Katherine Moon, but she’s just known as Moon, and I think she and Lol… Anyway, he looks exactly the same. Hasn’t grown, same little round glasses, still wearing that black sweat-shirt with the alien face on the front – possibly symbolic of the way he feels he relates to society and feels that certain people relate to him.’
‘So, apart from the sartorial sameness, did he seem OK?’
‘No, he was like waving his arms around and drooling at the mouth. Of course he seemed OK. We went for a coffee in the All Saints cafe. I’ve never been in there before. It’s quite cool.’
‘It’s in a church.’
‘Yeah, I noticed. Nice to see one fulfilling a useful service. Anyway, I got out of Lol what he’s doing now. He didn’t want to tell me, but I can be fairly persistent.’
‘You nailed his guitar hand to the prayerbook shelf?’
‘Look, do you want to know what he’s doing or not?’
‘All right.’
‘You ready for this? He’s training to be a shrink.’
‘What? But he was-’
‘Well, not a shrink exactly. He hates psychiatrists because they just give you drugs to keep you quiet. More a kind of psychotherapist. He was consulting one in Hereford, and the guy realized that, after years in and out of mental hospitals, Lol knew more -ologies and -isms than he himself did, so now he’s employing him a couple of days a week for sort of on-the-job training, and Lol’s doing these night classes. Isn’t that so cool?’
‘It…’ Merrily thought about this. ‘I suppose it is, really. Lol would be pretty good. He doesn’t judge people. Yeah, that’s cool.’
‘Also, he’s playing again. He’s made some tapes, although he won’t let anybody hear them.’
‘Even you?’
‘I’m working on it. I may go back there – I like that shop. Lots of stuff by indy folk bands. And I’m really glad I saw him. I didn’t want to lose touch just because he moved out of Ledwardine.’
Merrily said cautiously, ‘Lol needed time to get himself together.’
‘Oh,’ Jane said airily, ‘I think he needed more than that, don’t you?’
‘Don’t start.’
‘Like maybe somebody who wasn’t terrified of getting into a relationship because of what the parish might think.’
‘Stop there,’ Merrily said lightly, ‘all right?’
‘Fine.’ Jane prodded the music up to disco level and turned to look out of the side window at the last of the grim amber sinking on to the shelf of the Black Mountains. A desultory rain filmed the windscreen.
‘Still,’ Merrily thought she heard the kid mumble, ‘it’s probably considered socially OK to fuck a bishop.’
That night, praying under her bedroom window in the vicarage, Merrily realized the Deliverance issue wasn’t really a problem she needed to hang on God at this stage. Her usual advice to parishioners facing a decision was to gather all the information they could get from available sources on both sides of the argument, and only then apply for a solution.
Fair enough. She would seek independent advice within the Church.
She went to sit on the edge of the bed, looking out at the lights of Ledwardine speckling the trees. They made her think of what Huw Owen had said about the targeting of women priests.
Little rat-eyes in the dark.
She hadn’t even raised that point with Mick Hunter. He would have taken it seriously, but not in the way it was meant by Huw.
Merrily shivered lightly and slid into bed, cuddling the hot water bottle, aware of Ethel the black cat curling on the duvet against her ankles, remembering the night Ethel had first appeared at the vicarage in the arms of Lol Robinson after she’d received a kicking from a drunk. She hoped Lol Robinson would be happy with his girlfriend. Lol and Merrily – that would never have worked.
Later, on the edge of sleep, she heard Huw Owen’s flat, nasal voice as if it were actually in the room.
Little rat-eyes in the dark.
And jerked awake.
OK. She’d absorbed Huw’s warning, listened to the Bishop’s plans.
It was clear that what she had to do now, not least for the sake of her conscience, was go back to Hereford and talk to Canon Dobbs.
The Last Exorcist.
Merrily lay down again and slept.