The Lamp of the Wicked (44 page)

But, OK, if she was already being widely condemned as some self-publicizing clerical bimbo, she was going to sit this one out, very quietly.

There were two more computers in the headmaster’s high- ceilinged office, another red one and a more conventional model. It was central government’s declared aim, Fergus had told her, to provide one computer for every secondary school student in Britain. The primary kids here had two each, one at school, one at home.

There was a knock on the door and a boy of about eight stuck his head round it. ‘Would you and your visitor like some coffee, Fergus?’

‘Thanks, Barney, I think we probably would. And if you see Chris and Piers Connor-Crewe, send them through, would you, mate?’

The kid nodded, vanished. Merrily raised an eyebrow. ‘First- name terms?’

‘It kind of phased itself in.’ Fergus motioned Merrily to a green leather sofa under the window and settled himself on the arm at the other end. He was wearing jeans and a yellow tracksuit top. ‘Some of them were getting so enthusiastic I realized they were beginning to see us as friends.’

‘And is that, erm,
good
for discipline?’

Fergus tossed his stallion head. ‘Surprisingly so. After a while you find that most of the actual disciplining of antisocial elements is handled by their peers. They’re inclined to take a harder line with disruptive behaviour than the staff ever would. Disruptive behaviour being anything that gets between them and what they’re trying to achieve.’

‘You mean between them and having fun.’

‘Well, sure, having fun is how they see it at first. But by the time they get to nine or ten, it’s serious. I mean, we’re not regarded as teachers, we’re advisers… enablers. They want to know something, we’re here to help them. It’s simply a question of awakening that desire to learn, and that usually happens before they start school. If we put a computer into every home as soon as a child can walk, then another child, a bit older, shows the youngster how to operate it. And by the time they’re four, they can’t wait to get here to meet the people they’ve already seen on screen.’

‘Blimey,’ Merrily said. ‘How do you afford it?’

‘Chris – Chris Cody? – he’s been very good, starting us off. Which, of course, is paying off for him now, in orders from all over the country. Word of mouth so far, and I’ve got a book on the Underhowle experience coming out next year so it’s likely to rocket. I’ve also been on the scrounge. Part of a school- director’s job, nowadays, is to go out and involve the local community, and then the wider community… and also discover where the grants are.’

‘It all sounds… Utopian.’ And it did. The school at Ledwardine had just quietly closed because it was too small to survive. There hadn’t been much resistance; Ledwardine had an ageing population, and it was starting to show.

‘Look,’ Fergus said, ‘there are problems, of course there are. We’ve got a hell of a social mix here, from families where a book’s something you use to balance the table legs to the offspring of downshifting high-flyers who came here for the air quality. Sometimes I’m beating my head against a wall and saying, “Why the hell did I start all this?” But I have to tell you there are far,
far
more of those fist-in-the-air moments.’

His face burned with fervour. It was difficult, in here, not to feel the heat of progress, a community on the turn. Merrily wondered why she hadn’t read about this anywhere – possibly because Underhowle was on the extreme fringe of the circulation areas of most of the local papers, the
Hereford Times
, the
Ross Gazette, The Forester
. The way it was moving, it would soon be national press and TV.

‘Occasionally,’ Fergus said, ‘we’ll get some sniffy education officer coming over from Hereford, trying to put a wire in the cogs. If you’ve managed it without them, they hate you. But we’ve reached the stage where we don’t need those pygmies. Five years ago, they were ready to close the school down through lack of numbers. Now, if they tried to mess with us, we could go it alone, and they know it. Look there.’ Fergus pointed at a tray full of letters held down by a classical statuette on a plinth. ‘I actually get applications now from people in the cities prepared to move here just to get their kids into this school. I could probably fill it twice over… but I don’t want people like that. I want a proportion of those kids whose own parents can barely read. I want the
mix
.’

‘Except in the graveyard?’ Merrily said. It just slipped out.

A pause, Fergus frowning.

Then he grinned. ‘OK.’ He stood up, went over to his desk and switched on the red Cody computer. ‘Take a look at this.’ There was a tap on the door. ‘Yes, come in.’

It was the kid, Barney, with a tray of coffee things, and two men. Shouldn’t Barney be in class? Maybe the class system had become outdated here.

‘Perfectly timed,’ Fergus said. As if they hadn’t met before, he introduced Merrily to Chris Cody, the dark, shaven-headed twenty-something who’d made coffee for them at the village hall. Then he presented a bulky, cheerful-looking older man in a baggy cream suit. ‘And this is Piers – the scholar and gentleman who gave us
this
.’

They all turned to look at the computer which, Merrily noticed, had booted up in less than half the time it took hers and Jane’s. Kids liked
instant
. Fergus zapped an icon. A blue sky shimmered. A word formed out of white cloud, hardening up slowly.

ARICONIUM

The screen began to cloud again, around the word. ‘You heard about this, Merrily?’ Fergus asked, and she had the sensation of being drawn into the screen and what it represented, absorbed into this all-pervading enthusiasm.

‘Heard a
bit
about it. It’s a Roman town originally thought to be further down the valley, but new finds apparently have indicated it was actually… here?’

‘Bugger-all to see on the ground, unfortunately,’ Piers said, ‘although we think an excavation would be illuminating – and one day, not too far in the future, we’re going to have the money for it. Might persuade the Channel Four
Time Team
lot to start us off – that’s how we usually work… or Fergus does.’

‘The point
about
Ariconium,’ Fergus said, ‘is that it was as wealthy and successful – as
unified
– as this area’s ever been.’

On the screen a picture of Underhowle village had faded up – an overview, seen, presumably, from Howle Hill, with most of the pylons below the eye-line. There was a dull sky, duller than today’s, but it began slowly to lighten and the random scree of Underhowle’s architecture faded into a regular pattern of simpler buildings of stone and wood and a straight road along the valley.

Merrily said, ‘This is a vision of the future?’

‘You’ve got it, m’dear.’ Piers nodded, beaming. He had a football head, a loose-lipped smile. ‘Wealth. Growth.’

‘Out of iron in those days,’ Fergus said. ‘The Silures – the local Iron Age Celtic tribe – had it first. You can still see the sites of old iron workings and, of course, the hill forts above here and on Chase Hill above Ross, and into the Forest. Then the Romans crushed the Silures and Ariconium arose on the back of the iron industry, on the main road to Glevum – Gloucester – and Monmouth in the west.’

‘Iron was smelted here, big time,’ Piers said. ‘Big business. Plenty of work.’

Fergus levelled a forefinger at the screen. ‘I want the next generation to identify with
that
. Not with twentieth-century decay.’

We’re building this Website to chronicle the project,’ Chris Cody said in his quiet cockney accent. ‘And the school’s actively involved, along wiv the Development Committee’ – he bowed his head to the other two men – ‘in creating a visitor centre in the old Baptist chapel. There’ll be displays of the latest finds, plus reconstructions, models, computer enhancements.’

A menu had appeared. Fergus clicked on
finds
, and the screen filled up with a section of what looked like mosaic floor.

‘We’re expecting confirmation of a Lottery grant any day now. And then we’ll make a start. Building a tourist industry for the first time. New life, new blood, more jobs. There’s a fantastic surge of energy going through this place which you must have been able to feel.’

It certainly looked as if it was flowing through Fergus. He hit the mouse with the heel of a hand, bringing up shards of pottery, some coins, then turned to Merrily on the sofa. All three of them standing over her now, defying her to deny the energy.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I can see what you’re trying to do. It’s… exciting.’

‘Yes, it is,’ Piers Connor-Crewe said. ‘It’s
bloody
exciting. However, we had a taste, at the weekend, of a different kind of tourism.’

Fergus nodded grimly. He clicked on an icon bringing up the Ariconium homepage, clicked again and then the screen went blank. ‘I was about to get to that when you guys arrived.’

Of course, the point was that getting any kind of tourism here was a coup. Not only was Underhowle not a pretty place but it had the misfortune to be surrounded by places that
were
: riverside Ross and Symonds Yat, Goodrich with its medieval castle, Weston-under-Penyard with its hilltop Norman church. Underhowle wasn’t in the Wye Valley and it wasn’t, strictly speaking, in the Forest of Dean. There would be people over in Ledwardine who’d suggest Underhowle should be grateful for whatever it could get.

‘They’ve been coming down from Gloucester,’ Fergus Young said. ‘Over from Hereford. Up from South Wales, even. Unbelievable. Scores of them. Clogging the lane, parking on all the verges.’

‘Standing there like the morons they are,’ said Piers Connor- Crewe, ‘and just staring at the pylon, or taking photographs of their ghastly children with it in the background. Some of them
brought sandwiches
. Can you believe that? I mean, have you seen today’s papers?’ Piers turned to Chris Cody. ‘They’re linking Lodge with West now.
West!
Christ. What was that one… “Spawn of Satan”?’

‘“Devil’s Disciple”.’ Chris was smiling sadly, probably at the outdated excesses of the non-virtual world. ‘In the
Sun.
Or was it “Demon Seed”?’

‘Just doesn’t go away, does it?’ Piers said. ‘After all these years, that loathsome little man is still a household name. He’s won his place in the Black Pantheon now – the most famous murderer… God forbid, probably the most famous
man
– to come out of Herefordshire. And now Roddy Lodge. How many has Roddy killed? Could be years before they find them all. And the difference is that Gloucester Council was able to
remove
25 Cromwell Street. They turned the site into a walkway so nobody can tell any more where the house was. And, as far as I know, there’s no physical memory of Frederick West in Much Marcle either – I believe they scattered his ashes in the churchyard there, and that was it. Blown away. Gone.’

‘About half the children at this school were watching when Roddy Lodge died,’ Fergus said. ‘Listening to him screaming out all that filth. We’ve talked about it with them, we’ve analysed it, we’ve had individual counselling where necessary. So the children will forget, of course they will –
if
they’re allowed to. We all realize we’re never going to get rid of the pylon, but we can make sure the tourist trail ends there. Merrily, I beg of you, if you have any influence at all over the Lodges, persuade them to have him decently cremated, and let’s all try to forget he ever existed.’

Chris Cody said, ‘I don’t really have a personal angle on this, but a few of our people – down the factory – are saying they got relatives in that churchyard and they don’t like to fink of them lying in the same, you know, soil, as Roddy Lodge.’

‘It’s a point,’ Fergus Young said. ‘Would you want Lodge buried side by side with members of your immediate family? No, it’s all right, I know what you’re obliged to say.’

Piers Connor-Crewe folded his arms. ‘But if it comes to the crunch, the Church itself can say no – you obviously realize that.’

‘But the Bishop
hasn’t
said no,’ Merrily told him. ‘I suspect he takes the line that if we were to refuse to bury sinners, it might just contravene one of the basic tenets of Christianity. As well as leaving us with the problem of where exactly to draw the line, you know?’

Connor-Crewe looked pained. ‘I understand that, but I think we’re—’

‘And let’s not forget that Lodge hadn’t actually been convicted of anything.’

‘Neither had West,’ Fergus said, ‘but that didn’t prevent some forceful opposition in Much Marcle. Which I believe succeeded.’

‘In fact, I also think I’m right in saying Lodge hadn’t even been charged.’

‘Look,’ Connor-Crewe said, ‘what you’re dealing with here – that is,
us
– is the polite form of protest. I can assure you that some of the locals would be more inclined towards what we might call direct action.’

‘As in… what?’

‘Well, if there
is
a grave, it could well get vandalized,’ Fergus said. ‘And I have to tell you we’re not only talking about relatives. I’m told there are friends of Melanie Pullman already making dark threats. And it seems to me, without laying it on too heavily, that this is as good a reason as any to tell the Lodge family it really can’t be done.’

‘All right…’ Merrily got to her feet. She’d faced hysteria, she’d faced tears and rage; there was nothing worse than reason. ‘Maybe they haven’t thought about the vandalism aspect. I’ll put it to them. But you have to understand there’s family history here. Tony Lodge feels an obligation to his father.’

‘Whereas
we
merely have an obligation to the future,’ Fergus Young said.

‘
You have voice-mail
,’ the mobile told her when she switched it on.

Merrily put the phone on the dash, sitting for a while, gazing through the windscreen at Underhowle: late-autumnal, yet throbbing with the spring of its future.
Education, education, education
, Tony Blair or somebody had once said, when asked about New Labour’s priorities for a new Britain. She wondered what it would be like to have Underhowle as your parish: a kindergarten rather than a retirement home. Couldn’t see anything progressive in it for the Church, not short-term anyway. Not with the narrow and cynical Jerome Banks in place.