The Chalice (14 page)

      
Jesus God. Juanita shivered under her Afghan. Something wrong
here. She remembered Jim saying what
purposeful
people they were, not the usual semi-stoned rabble, and became aware of shapes
on the edge of the candle-lit semicircle, closing in around him. She wanted to show
a warning, but suddenly her mouth didn't seem to work anymore.

      
Sensing movement behind him, Jim turned slowly and with
dignity. He snorted.

      
'I don't know - you call yourselves bloody Green pagans, but
you've really no idea what this place is all about, have you?'

      
For God's
sake
, how
long was he going to keep up this Colonel Fogey routine? How utterly stupid men
could be when forced into a confrontation.

      
'Well, I'll tell you. Tell you what it's
not
about, shall I? It's not about drugs and made-up bloody rituals
invoking lots of shagging. It's not about littering the place with belching
wrecks of buses. It's not about worrying sheep and ripping out fences for fires
and having a shit on the buggering grass and not even burying it. It's not
about contaminating a sacred site, and ruining all the ...' A fissure developed
in Jim's voice as it became personal, '... all the mystery.'

      
Juanita flinched as something slid past her and moved, with a
fleeting feral smell, through the circle of candles and into the lamp beam.

      
She flinched again when she saw what it was.
      
Saw Jim's mouth fall momentarily
open. Saw a man (?) with long, tangled hair secured by a metal circlet. Saw,
with a feeling like a kick under the heart, that the hair enclosed a face from
old, old nightmares, from those books she never really liked to sell, from
magical pornography.

      
An animal's face and a devil's face. Sculpted and textured,
harsh-haired around black eyes. And its body gleamed, well-muscled arms and
legs glistening with grease. She saw this because, apart from the animal mask,
the man (man? Oh lord, yes) was naked.

      
When he spoke it was not much above a whisper, but it carried
like a fast train in the night.

      
'You've said too much.'

      
Juanita was shocked to see the lips move, then realised that
the mask of hair and skin ended above the mouth but the beard below it was
real.

      
Over the top of the lower, there was a curiously unhealthy
glow in the sky. Juanita began to feel seriously scared. This was not your
routine New Age extravaganza, and some part of Jim had known it from the start.
You know what these characters are like,
drugged up to the eyeballs or swigging cider ... day trippers. Not these
buggers.

      
Jim looked up bravely into the bearded face.

      
Please God, Juanita thought, don't let him say anything inflammatory.

      
Below, the lights of Glastonbury had been doused by mist; the
Tor was an island again. It was no longer part of the world Juanita knew.

      
'And who the hell are you?' Jim demanded. 'Conan the buggering
Barbarian?'

      
She shut her eyes in anguish. Her head seemed to fill up with
cold mist. She felt the ominous nearness of other bodies, smelled the feral
smell again, like tomcats. This was all so futile. Diane wasn't here. She'd
have recognised Jim's voice by now, come dashing out to explain.

      
When Juanita opened her eyes it was to see the goat-face close
to Jim's, as though it was going to kiss him. Jim didn't move his head away,
but she saw his hands grip the flaps of his overcoat to stop them shaking.

      
That did it. Diane wasn't here and Juanita couldn't watch this
any longer. She pulled her Afghan coat together and marched through the crowd.

      
The goat man turned to her. Nothing moved behind the blackness
of the eyeholes. She felt horribly exposed, as if
she
were naked, not him. She pushed her hands hard into her coat
pockets.

      
'OK, look.' It came out as a croak. 'We made a mistake. Come
on, Jim, she's not here.'

      
'Bloody hell, Juanita.' Jim stood there like a bulldog.
      
'Why couldn't you just leave this
to me?'

      
He pushed irascibly past the goat-man-priest and advanced on
the boy held against the tower.

      
'You all right, sonny? Look, bloody well let him go, will
you?' Snatching at the wrist of one of the men holding the boy. 'He's been
sick. What's wrong with him? Drugs?'

      
Jim was pretty strong. The man's grip broke; the boy stumbled
away and then straightened up, swaying into the darkness. They heard him
slipping and rolling down the side of the Tor, into the mist.

      
'Jim, we're going.' Juanita took his lamp. 'Let them get on
with their ... religion.'

      
The goat-man moved under the archway, as if he needed to
think. Well. Juanita didn't Whatever they were doing they could get the hell on
with it. She grabbed the end of Jim's scarf and tugged him towards the path.
Still, nobody said a word, but the atmosphere was stiff now with menace. These
were the new hippies? Christ.

      
'Listen, we're sorry. Sorry to mess up your ritual, whatever,
OK? We were just looking for a friend.'

      
She heard Jim grunt, and his scarf came away in her hand.

      
'Jim!'

      
Her shoulder was gripped. She dropped the lamp in alarm. When
she turned, she fell into someone's arms, was swung round and looked up into a
stubbly, grinning male face. As she squirmed, she saw two men seize hold of
Jim, slamming him against the wall of the tower, where the boy had been, his
arms stretched above his head.

      
The naked man stooped to pick something up. When he stood
before Jim it was glittering in his left hand.

      
He whispered, 'I did not say you could go.'

He was bent over the bonnet
of Mort's hearse. His face was streaked with mud and blood from scratches on
his cheek and jaw. His eyes were big in the lamplight and sort of glazed.

      
Diane raised the Tilley lamp. 'Head ... Headlice?'
      
'Mol ...'

      
He stared up at her. In the white light, the swastika on his
head looked crude, like a knife wound. He smelled of sick. Why was he alone?
Where were the others?

      
He let her help him up and walk him over to the bus. He stood
on the little platform, framed in the doorway. Somewhere behind him was the
Tor, but there were no lights there now.

      
'We'll get those cuts bathed.' She found a plastic bottle of
water. The little woodstove in the bus was still going, just about.

      
'No time.' Headlice shook himself as if remembering something
then swung round, urgently scanning the dark.
      
'Gotta get the hell out, Mol '

      
The plastic bottle went slippery in her fingers. 'What
happened?'

      
They were alone. Hecate had disappeared, probably not wanting
to be around when Headlice found out what they'd done to his bus.

      
Diane had lit the Tilley lamp when the Tor went dark again.
She'd been afraid to leave the bus. She didn't know what she'd seen, but it had
left an atmosphere tainted with a brooding evil she'd never felt before. Not
here. Not anywhere. The blackness at its heart had seeped into the unnatural
spread of light until it was a night sky again. But it was a different kind of
night, as black and opaque as soot, with no moon any more.

      
'Shit.' Headlice glared down at his hands. 'Look at that. Shakin'
like a fuckin' leaf. Bad shit, Mol.'

      
'Listen,' Diane said. 'All I know is that sometimes you can't
trust your ... what your mind's telling you. It does awfully odd things to you.
Up there, I mean. On the Tor. Tell me what happened.'

      
'You're talkin' dead posh.'

      
'I
am
posh.
Frightfully posh, actually, For what it's worth.'

      
'I wanted you to be there. I wanted ...' He shrugged. 'Nobody
got laid, anyroad. There was a ... like ... holy water and chanting and stuff
in Latin. I don't remember. Don't fuckin'
remember
...'

      
The kettle began to whistle on the iron stove. Headlice pushed
it angrily away. 'I told you, we got no time! Gotta get this thing going, piss
off.'

      
'Headlice, you have to tell me. What did they do?'

      
Headlice picked up the kettle and emptied the hot water into
the stove's firebox, causing an explosion of hissing steam.

      
'Water. Holy water. Acid, mushrooms, some shit. Did me head
in. I'm not down yet. Not ... There was ' He stopped, as if he wasn't sure what
he remembered. 'This old man. And like a black chalice.'

      
Diane went very cold inside. Arms. Huge smoky arms in the sky,
hands cupped like a communicant's to receive ...

      
Headlice sprang to his feet. 'Get the bus goin' before the bastards
come back. You an' me, Mol. I'm trusting you, don't shaft me.' The Tilley lamp
spread its gassy, wobbly light over his face, mud and blood on it like
warpaint.

      
'Tuum Montem
...
Summat like that. That were part of it. He'd lift his arms - like that.'

      
'Lift his arms ... ?'

      
'Monum Sanctum
?'

      
'
Monum sanctum tuum,'
Diane said. 'Your holy hill. It's from the Mass. They have conducted me and
brought me unto thy holy hill?

      
She sighed. They sent me to a convent. Once.'

      
'Gonna write about this, Mol? Gonna write it up for the
papers?' He sneered and poured cold water from the plastic bottle into the
stove.

      
'Headlice, oh my God, listen. Gwyn. Had you ever met Gwyn
before?'

      
He shook his head, slammed the metal stove door.

      
'What about Mort?' Oh gosh, these people, she knew there was
something wrong with them.

      
'Yeah. Mort was the guy got me into this. He was in a pub,
back home. Salford. I told you before.'

      
Headlice was moving around the bus, throwing things on the
luggage racks. She remembered him saying he'd been unemployed, living with his
parents, devouring earth- mysteries
 
books, dreaming
 
of ley lines. And
Mort had introduced him to a man with an old bus for sale and Headlice had sold
his motorbike to pay for it. How he'd met Rozzie was a mystery.

      
'Look,' she said. 'When Gwyn joined us at Bury St Edmunds -
you remember? When Gwyn joined, the whole mood of the convoy seemed to change.
Some people left.'

      
'Con and Daisy.'
      
'What?'

      
'At Bury. Con and Daisy, Irish travellers. Con says to me, he says,
You wanna fuck off, man, this guy's heavy shit. I mean, come on man, heavy shit's
what I've
come
for. And he just
shakes his head. That's it, Mol, we're off'

      
He took out his ignition keys for the bus, threw them up in
the air, caught them.

      
'Me an' you then, Mol. Back on the St Michael Line. And no
more stopping at churches, goin' in backwards. No more shit.'

      
'What did you say ... ?'

      
But Headlice had leapt down from the platform to get into the
cab. He was probably right; they had to get out of here. She'd go with him, as
far as the town and then ...

      
She heard Headlice yell, 'Who the f... ?'

      
And then he screeched in pain and there was a bump.

      
'Headlice!'

      
Diane snatched up the Tilley lamp and stumbled down the deck to
the platform. She leaned out from the top step, holding out the lamp by its
wire handle.

      
'Headlice?'

      
She couldn't see anything at first, but she heard retching and
moaning. A dark figure moved unhurriedly aside.