Breaking and Entering (46 page)

Daniel froze. ‘Listen,' he said, distracted now from Sayers. ‘You and Corinna …' What could he say without sounding jealous or offensive, or even slightly paranoid? He said nothing, in the event, since Penny had jumped in again.

‘Oh, Corinna adored the whole thing! In fact, she and I did a lot of the initial work building the Medicine Wheel. You have to find these special stones to mark out the circles on the grass, so you go on what's called a power-walk and ask Great Spirit for help. Circles are terribly important, Robin says.'

Yes, he thought, and so is our relationship: it's falling apart, and you seem blithely unaware.

‘We'll be doing circle dances tonight. You must come, Daniel, and meet the Robins for yourself. And there's another super couple who arrived today. You'll really like them – I know you will. She's an aromatherapist and he's …'

‘Look, I'm sorry, Penny, but I don't feel up to a party.'

‘But we've just had a whip-round to pay for all the food and stuff, and I chipped in a fair bit – enough for the three of us. In any case, it'll make you feel much better, darling. Drumming changes the energies. Robin says it's been scientifically proved. It actually influences the biochemistry of the brain, so if you're feeling down, it can alter your whole mood.'

Daniel blew his nose with unnecessary force. Already he disliked the Robins for no other reason than their hold over his credulous wife, who was parroting their every word. ‘Where's Pippa?' he asked abruptly. It seemed unlikely in the extreme that his unsociable daughter would want to attend some raucous party, notwithstanding Penny's contribution towards her share of food and drink.

‘She's gone to the coast with Judith and Tony. The dog's much better, apparently, so they're having a little jaunt, to celebrate.'

So everyone was celebrating on what for him had become Black Tuesday. His bitter thoughts of Sayers had seeded a new worry over Pippa. ‘Do you think she's … you know … safe with them?' he asked.

‘What d'you mean?'

‘Well, we don't really know them from Adam.'

‘
I
do! I've spent ages talking to them. They're absolute darlings, and solid as a rock. In fact, we're jolly lucky they're here. They've done more for Pippa than I thought anybody could. I must admit I'm a little disappointed that Stephen hasn't done his stuff and given her a private session. But then I suppose he's frightfully busy – not just with the people here, but being called out to all and sundry in the area. And anyway perhaps he's wise enough to know that Pippa can be helped best through the dog. I mean, we've seen it for ourselves, darling. It's really taken her out of herself and given her more confidence. Tony even suggested that she's got such a way with animals she should train to be a vet.'

Daniel made no comment. Secretly he had often hoped that Pippa would follow in his footsteps by going up to Cambridge, but he had never expressed the idea in so many words, being always very careful to leave her options open. Tony, clearly, had no such scruples, and had now added career-adviser to his role of substitute father. He fidgeted on the groundsheet. The tent was claustrophobic, and seemed to be sweating as they were themselves; the air inside stale and over-breathed. Noises drifted through the flaps – voices, laughter, the yelping of some other dog – but he felt cut off from that outside world; cut off even from Penny. She was sitting so close he could smell her flowery talc and the wood-smoke in her hair; could see the outline of her nipples pushing against her tee-shirt, yet it was impossible to touch her, to lean down and kiss the cleft between her breasts. He was so preoccupied with her body – the bare expanse of thigh where her full skirt had rucked up – that he was startled when she spoke again, returning his attention to Pippa and the problems.

‘Actually, they should be back quite soon. They've only gone to Aberystwyth. Pippa liked the name! And tomorrow they're taking her to see a Roman gold mine. It's much better for her to be out and about. When she's here all day, she gets very edgy, especially with Rick.'

‘There's nothing wrong with Rick.'

‘Maybe not, but Pippa seems … well, frightened of him.'

‘That's stupid. He's just a harmless boy. And anyway he's desperately shy – I bet he's more frightened of
her
.' He heard the tetchiness in his voice, decided not to pursue the matter. He was sick and tired of arguments, and was also beginning to realize that he'd never be able to leave the camp before the end of August – an eternity away. It would be cruel to sever Penny from her Robins, or to deprive Pippa of her pleasure-trips and her bond with Judith and Tony. So once again he was trapped.

‘Look' – he tried again – ‘why don't
we
go out, the three of us – say the day after tomorrow? I've hardly seen anything of you or Pippa, and this is meant to be our holiday. I wouldn't mind a trip to the coast myself. Or we could drive north to the mountains.'

‘Listen, Daniel, darling,' Penny put her arm round him. ‘It's good for us to have a break from each other – and that goes for Pippa too. We hardly ever do, you know, and the nuclear family can be awfully sort of stifling.'

So Corinna says, he muttered under his breath. Or maybe Rob or Robin. ‘Nuclear family' wasn't an expression Penny used.

‘What did you say?'

‘Nothing.' He didn't trust himself to speak again. He had given up his own holiday plans and come to Wales for his daughter's sake, and now both Penny and Pippa were going their separate ways. Yet he was uncomfortably aware that it was partly his own fault. From their first or second day here, he had noticed Penny slipping back into that gregarious and carefree lifestyle she had enjoyed before their marriage and which
he
had selfishly stopped. She was obviously so gratified to have her happy anarchy restored, he could understand her desire to escape the restrictions of a much narrower family life. He shook off her encircling arm, interpreting her embrace as a mere clumsy attempt to mitigate the harshness of her words.

‘I don't know what's got into you, Daniel. You really seem down in the dumps. Which is all the more reason for you to come tonight. Drums are fantastically powerful. Rob says they're alive – living creatures like ourselves. They can heal us and transform us, connect us with the rhythm of the earth. And he's brought this marvellous rattle – a genuine native one, with bird feathers on top. You see, the sound of the rattle wards off evil spirits, so …'

‘Oh, Penny, for God's sake! You can't expect me to swallow that.'

‘Hold on a minute. You don't even understand. Rob says evil spirits can mean simply hatred or depression. You don't have to take it literally.'

‘Rob says a lot of things.'

‘Yes, he does. And some of them are brilliant. He really makes you think. If only you'd open your mind for once, instead of being so suspicious …'

He snatched up the tortoiseshell hair-comb, clenched it in his hand. He hated being labelled suspicious – Penny and Corinna condemning his closed mind (as JB had done already), then taking advantage of his absence.

‘You can even play the drum yourself, if you like. Rob let me have a go. He told me in private that the rhythm works like an orgasm – a huge release of pent-up energy, then peace and relaxation.'

‘Right,' he said through gritted teeth, ‘I
will
come.' He gripped the comb so fiercely its teeth dug into his palm. If his only prospect of an orgasm was to be via Rob's libidinous drumming, well, he'd better seize his chance.

‘
Hey-ya Hey-ya We-ya, Hey-ya Hey-ya We-ya,
Hey-ya-ya Hey-ye-ya, Hey-ya-ya Hey-ye-ya,
Hey-ya Hey-ya We-ya, Hey-ya Hey-ya We-ya,
Hey-ya-ya Hey-ye-ya, Hey-ya-ya Hey-ye-ya.'

‘Now howl like wolves,' Rob instructed.

Daniel's howl was the loudest and the longest, braying from his throat and ripping through the darkness. He was enjoying this, most definitely. He'd been several different animals in turn – a buffalo, a leopard, a bull, and now a wolf. Rob had taught them the Wolf Chant and was providing an accompaniment with native drum and rattle. Penny was quite right – the sound was immensely powerful and
did
change the energies. He hadn't understood her jargon at the time, but now he felt the change at some deep instinctive level. All the heavy head-stuff (as Rob called it) had disappeared entirely, and he had discovered a new self – supercharged, dynamic, and located in his body, not his inhibited mind. Of course, it could be connected with the contents of his glass. He had no idea what was in it (except it was something extremely potent), nor why indeed they were allowed alcohol at all. JB was still absent, so perhaps what the eye didn't see … Or maybe the Robins had different rules, or there were special dispensations for parties. He took another generous swig. Anyway, who cared about the reasons? The brew was tangy and full-bodied – exactly what he needed to get out of his head. Even his cold had improved dramatically. He was no longer so bunged up and had hardly needed to blow his nose in the last couple of hours.

‘
Hey-ya, Hey-ya, We-ya, Hey-ya, Hey-ya
!'

He gave every ‘ya' a yodelling trill, drumming on his knees in time with Rob. He envied Robin his wolf-skin, though Penny had told him he looked pretty good himself. He had kestrel feathers in his hair, and Claire had painted his face for him, really taken trouble with it. Some of his fellow revellers were in full-scale fancy dress, improvised from rugs or bath-towels, or had borrowed each other's clothes – Tony in Jeanette's nightgown, Dylan in Happy's sari, and Happy herself looking quite spectacular in another animal-skin (presumably loaned by the Robins, who had also brought body-paint and feathers, various exotic headdresses and a second drum, wielded by a triumphant Rick).

Impulsively, Daniel pulled Happy to her feet, whirling her into a Dionysian dance, inspired by the rhythm of the rattle and the drum. Claire and Penny immediately joined in, then Corinna, Gerard, Dylan, Len – all cavorting round the fire and still whooping out their wolf-cries. Daniel watched their silhouettes crossing and re-crossing, converging in a flickering haze. He seemed to be fusing with the other dancing bodies, losing his own boundaries, merging with the night itself. The whole atmosphere was magical – the moon silvering the field, the flames casting leaping shadows, the smell of burning sage – and yes, the sense of being one with the spirit of the earth, as Penny had explained. Daniel had never felt so close before to the sky, the clouds, the stars; could touch them if he leapt a fraction higher; just as he could feel each blade of grass beneath his jouncing feet.

‘We've lost touch with our roots,' Claire had told him while she was painting his face, ‘which means we're cut off from the ground of our being, the dark eternal earth.' He had dismissed her words, like Penny's, as just more mumbo-jumbo, but again he'd been mistaken. He was aware now of those roots, anchoring him, supporting him; was experiencing that healing bond with the whole enchanted universe. He longed to do more than dance; to leave the confines of the circle and break free into the countryside. Robin had helped each of them to find their totem animals, and his was the Plains Buffalo, imposing and immense. He could see it pawing the ground, flicking its tail, snorting out great bison-breaths, in response to the wild drumming.

Suddenly, he
was
the beast – hooves pounding, nostrils flaring – charging across the field. And the field itself was changing – no longer bounded by a fence, no longer in mid-Wales, but expanding into the vast untrammelled prairies of primitive America, when buffalo were safe still from the white man's deadly rifles and roamed the plains in thousands. He was part of a vast herd, those majestic thousand thousands stampeding along behind him, throwing up the dust. The wild rhythm of their thundering hooves was combining with the frenzy of the drumbeat to pound away the horrors of his day. The harsh crack of the rattle was rooting out evil spirits, who were then demolished by those mighty crushing hooves – Sayers trampled into nothing, gored by ruthless horns. He could feel his own horns, curving from his massive head; the long shaggy hair heavy on his neck; the sheer power of his huge flanks. He bellowed in excitement as he plunged faster, faster, faster; swept along from Missouri to Dakota, from exhaustion to elation, until he was exploding in a tumult of sound and speed – release.

He stumbled to a halt, flung himself panting on the grass; gazed up at the stars. He was buffalo and white man; Indian and eagle; star and stone and tree. Grandfather Sky watched over him; Grandmother Earth enfolded him, and his racing heart was beating to her rhythm. He was united with the cloud-people, the winged people, the stone-people, and somewhere in the distance his own two-legged people were singing a new chant; their voices like a summons and a spell.

He walked slowly back to join them, still marvelling at his new-discovered world; the tender grass beneath his feet, the mysterious clouds above, the blaze of lamps and torches mastering the darkness. He slipped into the circle, Penny one side, Claire the other, Rob right opposite; the words of the chant now rising all around him:

‘
Air moves us
Fire transforms us
Water shapes us
Earth heals us.'

He was intensely aware of each element as they created it in song – the night air on his face, the convulsive crackling flames, the rippling water in the stream, the strong heartbeat of the earth.

‘
And the circle of the wheel
Goes round and round
Goes round and round.
The circle of the wheel goes round.'

He gazed round their own circle, feeling a deep bond with every person there; even with Corinna, who no longer seemed a threat; even with the new arrivals, Andrew and Anita, who had struck him on first meeting as weird in the extreme. They had spent the earlier part of the evening semi-naked, engaged in their own mini-orgy underneath the trees. Now they had returned, however, Andrew hand in hand with Gerard, Anita next to Doris. Pippa had also kept her distance from the mêlée, and been sitting with Judith in another part of the field, but they too had joined the circle. Pippa seemed miraculously normal, actually singing with real verve, and exchanging smiles with Tony. Even Rick was transformed; no longer sullen or rebellious, but an enthusiastic shaman pounding his incantatory drum.