CHAPTER 11

Mulled Wine

 

 

‘He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still …’ Cass read out to the crowd assembled on the quayside, their faces lit by candle lanterns and the glow of mobile phones. There must have been hundreds of people there, waiting in the darkness. ‘Then they are glad because they be quiet, so he bringeth them unto their desired haven.’

She finished her reading and stepped to the back of the little platform in front of the harbour, taking care not to topple off it and over the harbour wall into the water below as her surplice billowed in the light breeze. Gideon Steele, the retired vicar of Rawscar, stepped forward to take her place for the rest of the ceremony. He read out the blessing, and then led the crowd in singing I saw three ships with the help of the assembled Saddleton and District Brass Band. They had been invited to play for the Blessing of the Boats and had already spent much of the afternoon in the Ship Inn “getting ready”.

The Reverend Gideon Steele had reluctantly agreed to share the words of the brief service with his successor - Gideon performing the actual blessing, of course, and Cass permitted to read the psalm. It was probably for the best – at least God would be listening to Gideon; if she asked for a blessing she’d probably doom the harbour full of boats to a year of misfortune.

The carol ended, and the microphone crackled into life again.

‘And now, we turn our attention from the sea to the land,’ intoned Gideon. He had the kind of deep sing-song voice which made even the most trivial of statements sound loaded with portent - like Call-Me-Ken who managed to make a list of maintenance jobs sound like the ten commandments: Thou shalt repair the broken hinge on the vicarage gate at thine own cost. Thou shalt make sure that an adequate supply of hymn sheets is provided in large print for the infirm of sight amongst thy congregation. Thou shalt NOT permit the flower rota to contain inaccurate information, to the consternation of thy Parochial Church Council ... Her mind had drifted away from what Gideon was saying and she wrenched it back again.

‘And as we prepare for the coming of Jesus, the Light of the World, we look to light in this darkest time of year as a symbol of hope. I ask for God’s blessing on this place, and as we sing together the Christmas carol, Away in a Manger, we will see the town come to life and light.’

This place he had called it, like a stranger passing through.

Away went the brass band, and as they began to play, the Ship Inn which had been in total darkness lit up, its windows and doors surrounded by sparkling golden-white fairy lights and strings of tiny bulbs stretching out over the little beer garden like a star-bedecked spider’s web. Then all the way up the steep main street the bulbs began to go on, just as the crowd were singing about the stars in the bright sky. Above their heads, ropes of multi-coloured lights criss-crossed up the street, dancing in the breeze, and windows glowed golden. Up on the cliff above them all, a single star shone out from the church tower, symbolising the light that had once shone there to guide the sailors home to port, just as the star had guided the wise men to Jesus; Stella Maris Our Lady, Star of the Sea: in the absence of electricity, the ever-resourceful Graham had rigged up the light to run from a car battery.

There was a murmur of approval from the spectators, and Cass turned around to look at the harbour behind her where the gathered boats were illuminated and their reflections sparkled in the calm waters of the harbour, green and red and gold ripples on the water.

It was beautiful. Sometimes, just sometimes, something about Christmas did stir her heart. This was one of those moments; the crowd around her murmuring their appreciation with frosty breath, the familiar faces amongst the crowd creating that feeling of community, the lights on the water and the stars sharp above her in the cold, clear sky. She took a deep breath and reached out with all her might, searching for God in the beauty of the moment, but above her she found only the stars.

Just as she was starting to feel the fear that was beginning to stir in her whenever she failed to find God there was a voice beside her.

‘It’s a fine sight, isn’t it?’

Hal. Immediately she was cheered up by his presence and turned towards him.

‘It couldn’t be more perfect; the sea looks so beautiful tonight.’

For a moment, silence hung heavy in the air between them, a silence so thick that she could almost touch it. Instantly she realised she had said the wrong thing.

‘I can’t see anything beautiful about it; not now, not ever.’

His voice was as cold as the winter’s night. He offered her a hand down from the platform and beneath his sleeve she caught a glimpse of that neat little blue anchor on his forearm. The crowd were starting to disperse through the town with their cameras and phones flashing off in the darkness, in search of mulled wine and mince pies from the pubs and cafes that had opened for the evening.

‘How are things going with you and Anna?’ He changed the subject abruptly.

‘Fine. I don’t see much of her – she spends hours working on her jewellery. But she hasn’t seen or heard anything else, and she did say she was sleeping better.’

‘Is she eating much?’

‘I can’t say that I’ve been paying much attention to what she eats. Should I be worrying?’

‘No, no. Nothing to worry about, I’m sure. Where is she now?’

‘She stayed up at the cottage on her own to switch on our lights.’ They both glanced up the alley towards Maidensbower where the red and gold light glowed warm in the window.

‘You’ll have to watch out, Vicar, hanging a red light in your window like that – people might get the wrong idea!’

‘You mean like your Dad and my red crotchless knickers?’ she grinned.

He gave her a strange, lingering look that she couldn’t quite interpret and then changed the subject back again to Anna. Always Anna.

‘So, no more ghosts?’

‘No. No more ghosts. Since Graham sorted the drains, the mysterious voices seem to have gone.’

‘I thought they might. Look, why don’t you and Anna come back to the pub? It’s usually a good night, after Blessing of the Boats, have some mulled wine. It’ll do you both good to get out.’

‘I’ll see what she says. I’m going back to the cottage to change out of my surplice as soon as I’ve had a quick word with Reverend Steele.’

‘See you later, then!’

‘See you later,’ she echoed, watching him climb the steps to the pub easily, two at a time, away from her.

 

To Cass’s surprise, Anna had already made plans to go to the pub; tonight she seemed more excited and animated than Cass had ever seen her before, because some of her friends who had moved away when they had all left school were back to see the Blessing of the Boats. So Anna did have some friends after all. Cass, who was in two minds as to whether drinking mulled wine in the Ship Inn was really what the church would consider suitable behaviour for a vicar on a Sunday night, was soon swept along by her enthusiasm. Before she had time to consider it more carefully, they were making their way beneath the criss-crossing strings of lights, across the quay and up the steps to the pub. Inside the fire roared in the hearth, the smell of mulled wine spices was heavy in the air, and every possible item in the bar was bedecked with holly, ivy and tinsel, standing out in bold colour against the dark wooden panels of the walls.

Cass found herself a safe corner where she could watch what was going on as she drank some of Marian’s home-made mulled wine.  It was good to be there watching, in amongst the life of her parish, while Anna came and went, catching up with some of her old friends, animated and luminous in dark green velvet.

‘It’s the real start of Christmas, isn’t it?’ she heard more than one of them say, and Cass restrained her theology-college instinct to give them a lecture on why Christmas itself didn’t start until the 25th December and this was advent, a time for solemn reflection and preparation. But that was the kind of thing that Bishop Call-Me-Ken would do, subduing the exuberance of youth with the sensibilities of established religion. She also heard more than one of Anna’s friends use that tone of voice. The one that concerned but distant relatives use at a funeral.

‘And how are you?’ they would say, and it was in just that way that Anna’s friends were asking her how she was.

And she would reply in the same tone of voice as one of the bereaved, with a sigh and a wan smile: ‘I’m doing a lot better these days.’

If the way she was now was better, how brittle and miserable must she have been the last time they saw her? What was wrong with Anna Dawnay? And why would nobody talk about it, most of all Anna herself?

Cass sipped her mulled wine, and watched Hal behind the bar, smiling and chatting with everyone. He knew most of the people in the pub, and those he hadn’t known at the beginning of the evening were his friends by the time it passed eleven o’clock. Nobody seemed in a hurry to go home.

‘Get your guitar out, Hal!’ One of the returning locals called out. Hal didn’t need asking twice, almost as if he had been waiting, and Cass kept her eyes fixed on him. She was curious to hear him play, to hear how good he really was, considering that he had been a professional musician. He took a seat in the centre of the room; the crowds moved aside to let him sit down, legs astride the low stool on which he sat, head bowed over the neck of the guitar. She watched those strong hands gently fine tune the strings of the guitar, striking a chord firmly and truly. She knew even before he began to play that he was a real musician; something in the way the single chord resonated perfectly through the noise of the bar, a chord in D minor that seemed to bring the bitter cold of the winter’s night right into the pub. He thought for a minute, glancing in her direction as if he knew how the chord was resonating right through her.

‘What about The Wild Rover?’ somebody suggested.

‘No, give us Chiming Bells for Christmas!’ somebody else asked, but Hal seemed to be oblivious to everything around him except that haunting chord still humming in the air. He began to play. He was very, very good. His fingers moved quickly over the strings, drawing an intricate tune from them and when he began to sing, though his voice wasn’t as good as his playing, Cass had to listen to what he sang.

In the storm you can hear the lovers cry

In the waves and the darkness they are lost

And we stand on the shore, waiting,

We who love and are lost in the sea.

He was singing about the Maiden’s Ghost, it was a folk song, simple and haunting, and utterly at odds with the way he had been smiling and chatting with the customers all evening, and utterly at odds with what she had expected to hear. This was the same man who had told her earlier how he found nothing beautiful about the sea. This was the man who hated to live here, but couldn’t leave. This was the man who had lost a younger brother to the waves. This was the truth of him; she knew it in an instant. He was lost in the music, and his audience listened even though it wasn’t what they wanted to hear; they wanted jolly Christmas songs and choruses to join in with. At the corner of her vision she was aware that Anna had got up and left the room, but she didn’t want to have to think about Anna right now, she wanted to listen to Hal.

He was utterly lost and she knew how it felt to be so swept away in a piece of music that the world around simply faded away, the music became everything for just those few moments. It was how she felt when she sang. His eyes lost their focus; the song was all that mattered to him. With the final chord, he opened his eyes and looked straight at her, and she found she could neither look down nor pull away from his gaze. He had been singing to her, and her alone, in a room full of people and she understood entirely how he felt in a way that words on their own could never have conveyed. For a long, long moment, in silence, they looked at each other and Cass saw tears start to form in his eyes. Without thinking she half rose to go to him, to hold him, to comfort him. She wanted to take him in her arms and -

Good grief, what was she thinking?

The pub applauded as Anna came back into the room and she went straight over to speak to Hal, casting a brief glance at Cass, who sat back down, shaken by the song. The crowd were polite in their applause but they hadn’t heard what she had heard; he hadn’t been singing to them. All they wanted was The Wild Rover and Chiming Bells for Christmas. And that’s what Hal gave them for the rest of the evening. The moment was broken, and the chatting, laughing Hal was back, as if he had never been away.

 

At the end of the evening, she and Anna tottered out of the pub, almost the last to leave. Whatever had been in that mulled wine, it was potent and the cold air hit them hard. Anna was still more animated than Cass had ever seen her.

‘Here, hold on to me!’ Cass offered, though she was no steadier than Anna on the icy fish-quay, and Anna took her arm. Most of the lights were still glittering, though some of the shops and cottages had turned theirs off for the night now, the boats were still aglow in the harbour and the star still shone out from the church. Strangely, in the dark sky above where the vicarage had once been on the cliff, somebody had turned on some green lights.

‘Where’s that coming from?’ Cass asked.

‘I don’t know.’

Anna stopped, looking up into the sky. ‘There’s nothing at all for miles in that direction. Maybe at sea – a boat or something?’

The green beams of light were pulsing, stretching serenely up into the starry sky. They watched in silence for a moment, until they heard the pub door open behind them.

‘Are you two going home? Or do you need me to help?’

Hal’s voice on the still night air. He must have been watching them from the pub, making sure they got home safely.

‘Look,’ Cass said, pointing towards the lights as he came down the steps to them.

‘The northern lights,’ he said. ‘I’ve only ever seen them once before.’

‘The northern lights? Really?’ Cass asked, feeling a thrill of excitement, wanting Hal to share that excitement with her. But he was looking down at Anna.

‘Oh, Hal,’ Anna said, and her voice choked with emotion as she reached out for him.

‘I know, Anna, I know,’ he said, and he took her hand in his as they looked upwards to the waves of green in the sky.

Cass could tell that she was intruding on something unspoken between them. The thrill of excitement that she had felt at seeing the northern lights instantly faded. The moment she had shared with Hal when he sang was forgotten. She felt awkward and in the way, and more than anything else she felt jealous; piercingly jealous of Anna. She didn’t want Hal to hold Anna’s hand like that, she wanted it to be her hand in his, her body leaning against him and she wanted him to look at her again, the way he had looked right into her when he sang.

She couldn’t deny it any longer; in the most un-vicar-like of ways, she wanted Hal.