‘Sounds like it.’

‘Just that it should’ve all been done years ago, that’s the trouble. Give the women time to build up a weight of tradition, some ballast, before the Millennial surge.’

‘And how long does it take to build up a weight of tradition? How long, in your estimation, before we’ll be ready to take on the weepers and the volatiles and the hitchhikers?’

‘Couple of centuries.’

‘Terrific.’

‘Look…’ Silver-rimmed night clouds were moving behind Huw. ‘You’re 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.’

‘And I would keep a very low profile.’

‘With Mick Hunter wearing the pointy hat?’ Huw hacked off a laugh. ‘He’ll have you right on the front page of the Hereford Times brandishing a big cross. All right – joke. But you’ll inevitably draw attention. You’re very pretty, am I allowed to say that? And they’ll be right on to you, if they aren’t already. Little rat-eyes in the dark.’

Merrily instantly thought about Dermot Child, the organist in the monk’s robe. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘I think you do, Merrily.’

‘Satanists?’

‘Among other species of pond life.’

‘Isn’t all that a bit simplistic?’

‘Let’s pretend you never said that.’

A string of headlights floated down the valley a long way away. She thought of Jane back home in Ledwardine and felt isolated, cut off. How many of the other priests on the course would agree with Huw? All of them, probably. A night-breeze razored down from crags she could no longer see.

‘Listen,’ Huw said, ‘the ordination of women is indisputably the most titillating development in the Church since the Reformation. They’ll follow you home, they’ll breathe into your phone at night, break into your vestry and tamper with your gear. Crouch in the back pews and masturbate through your sermons.’