Free The Lamp of the Wicked by Phil Rickman

Jane sniffed hard. ‘You asked for this, right? Big question: am I the only person of my age ever to realize that God, if God exists, is in fact some enormous, moronic, cosmic…
infant
who just, like,
sits
there, pulling the legs off spiders?’
    Eirion thought about it for some time.
    ‘Probably not,’ he said.
    Jane said, ‘Is there a longer answer?’
    ‘There undoubtedly has to be a longer answer,
cariad
, and probably a good reason why that concept is theologically unsound. Just don’t ask me what it is without giving me some kind of notice.’
    ‘And you’re
really
proposing to go to university next year?’
    ‘But not to read theology.’
    ‘Theology’s shit, anyway. I speak from insider knowledge.’
    ‘Jane, just tell me what’s wrong, could you do that? What’s happened?’
    ‘How do you know something’s happened?’
    ‘Because you didn’t ask me if I was naked.’
    ‘Right,’ Jane said.
    ‘That was a joke.’
    ‘I know.’
    ‘I’m not, anyway.’
    ‘Tonight, I don’t think I even care,’ Jane said.
    And she told him why she was alone in the vicarage at one a.m.
    It evidently knocked him back. He didn’t seem to know how to react. He knew Gomer; she couldn’t remember if he’d met Nev. ‘Shit,’ he said. ‘Oh bloody hell, that’s… The poor guy. Shit.’
    ‘Like, consider, OK? Nev. Consider that this guy was just put here – this human being was created – to be a digger driver… to live in the same valley all his life… to become overweight… to have a very bad marriage, to… to get humiliated, get drunk… and then get fucking
burned to death
. That’s it! I mean, that’s
it
, Irene – The Nev Parry Story. The whole incarnation! What was
that
about? What was it supposed to teach him? How is it going to help refine his immortal soul? And like don’t give me any of that Welsh-chapel bollocks about redemption through endless suffering.’
    ‘I don’t know,’ Eirion said soberly. ‘Maybe it’s not something we’re permitted to understand.’
    ‘Yeah, great. Either that, or it’s all complete crap. How often do you think of that? I find I’m thinking it a lot now: no God, only chaos.’
    ‘You’re an emergent atheist suddenly? What happened to paganism?’
    ‘Yeah,’ Jane said. ‘Paganism. What
did
happen to paganism? You want the truth? Sometimes I’m inclined to think modern paganism’s purely and simply about having fun – a reaction to the grey, studied bloody misery of Christianity. Dressing up, casting spells, cobbling together phoney rituals that
sound
heavy and significant, and kidding yourself you have like
exclusive access
to some arcane inner knowledge, which… I mean, somehow, it all just like… dissolves in the face of real life, the fucking savagery of it.’ Jane rubbed a wet eye with the heel of her palm. She felt cold and barren, nothing left to cling to except… ‘I wish you were here, Irene.’
    ‘Well, me too, obviously. I’m coming over tomorrow anyway… later today, would that be? Knight’s Frome? The session?’
    ‘Oh yeah.’ Lol had finally fixed it with Prof Levin for Eirion, the all-time rock-obsessive, to sit in on a recording session. ‘I don’t even know about
that
now. I don’t know how things are going to turn out. Life just comes at you, doesn’t it, like an axe? I was just thinking –
again
– Is Mum Living a Lie? It often comes back to that.’
    ‘Why don’t you have a proper talk to her?’
    ‘There’s never time. If it’s not trivial parish crap it’s Deliverance stuff. And how valid is that, really? I used to worry that she was in genuine spiritual danger from the
unseen world
… But how much crap is that? How often does the bloody unseen world destroy your—’
    ‘Jane, is this the time to talk about this stuff? I don’t think so.’
    ‘
Au contraire
, Irene, it’s the time when you can see the reality of it in all its stark… reality.’
    ‘What about your psychic experiences? You were