The Smile of a Ghost Read Online Free Page B

sharing.’
    ‘I’ll… tell Sophie at the Bishop’s office,’ Merrily said.
    ‘And in my case,’ Nigel Saltash said, ‘in these formative days, I do think it might be rather a good idea for me to tag along and observe some of the people you’re dealing with, Merrily. I mean, purely from an educational point of view?’
    ‘Sorry?’
    ‘I want to learn. See how you operate. Had more time on my hands since we sold half the land. Always thought I could settle down, in retirement, as a farmer, but I’m afraid that once a shrink… Would that be in order? I want to understand how you see Deliverance.’
    Merrily took a big breath. ‘Nigel, how I see Deliverance… I’m supposed to be a priest, right? I have to operate on the basis of there being a spiritual element – that we’ve got used to calling God – in everything. So I actually believe that things can happen on more than one level.’
    ‘Indeed,’ Martin Longbeach said. ‘The holistic approach is essential. All aspects of life are interconnected.’
    ‘And the fact that there are certain things that I’m never going to be able to explain scientifically or psychologically… that doesn’t bother me one way or the other. And I think we should be there to say to the people affected: no, you’re not necessarily going mad—’
    ‘But if you are’ – Nigel Saltash smiled hugely – ‘we can also help you with that.’
    Merrily sighed. ‘As I tried to say, when I was having problems the Church looked at me sideways and raised its eyebrows pityingly. I don’t want anybody out there to feel I’m writing them off as disturbed or deluded.’
    ‘And I’d absolutely hate to cramp your style, Merrily,’ Saltash said.
    Merrily stood up. Her legs felt weak.
    ‘We’ll see what we can work out.’
    ‘Of course we will,’ Saltash said.
    Dear God .

2
     
Vice-rage
     
    L OL HAD A bunch of new-home cards. He’d put them in the deep sill of the window overlooking the bathroom-sized garden and the orchard beyond. Jane began to read them, holding the first one up to the hurricane lamp hanging from the central beam.
    ‘Alison, eh? Wooooh!’
    The card had a pencil sketch of horses on the front. Alison Kinnersley, who bred them, had lived with Lol for a while before taking up with James Bull-Davies, whose family had once run this village before they ran out of money. Two years ago, even a struggling squire with holes in his farmhouse roof had been a better bargain than Lol.
    But now Lol had Mum and a career back on course, and the village more than accepted him, and even Alison was being generous.
    It’s definitely the right thing to do , she’d written. You can’t hide it for ever. Even James thinks that now, and I don’t need to tell you how conservative James is.
    ‘Wow,’ Jane said, ‘if it goes on like this, they’ll be inviting you to run for the Parish Council.’
    Lol looked down from the stepladder, the overloaded paint-roller in his hand dribbling burnt orange onto the flagstones. Jane had chosen the ceiling colour; it looked wrong now, but she was never going to admit that. Lol just looked uncomfortable. He had orange smudges down the front of his Gomer Parry Plant Hire sweatshirt, tiny spots on his round, brass-rimmed glasses.
    ‘Then again,’ Jane said, ‘maybe not.’
    There was a card from the Prossers at the Eight till Late and one from Gomer Parry and Danny Thomas – Welcome back, boy – with a sheep on the front driving a JCB.
    Finally, one from Alice Meek. God bless you in your new home, Mr Robinson . Big letters full of stroke victim’s shake. Alice was only alive because of Lol, and the village knew it, and that was why he was so welcome here now.
    And, of course, it was making him wary. Lol didn’t wear medals. Finding the old girl half-frozen over a grave in the churchyard, carrying her into the vicarage, and all the heavy stuff that had happened afterwards… he didn’t even like to talk about any of that. It could