The Chalice (21 page)

      
So what was he still doing here?

      
'Hiding,' he said aloud. 'Hiding out.'

      
But had something found him?

      
He had Arnold's ball in his jacket pocket, and Arnold knew it.
Usually, Arnold would race about after it, proving he'd never really needed four
legs anyway. Today he stuck close to Powys.

      
It was Fay who'd rescued Arnold from the dog pound after Henry
Kettle, the dowser, died in the car crash. Fay was small, like a terrier. She'd
held on as long as she could. Now, in taking the London job, she had, in
theory, cut Powys loose as well. He'd told Ben he was still here because it was
Arnold's home, and Ben had said that was a wonderfully New Age thing to say.

      
But it wasn't really true.

      
He looked back down at the cottage. Mrs Whitney next door was
hanging out towels on her washing line. Mrs Whitney had known Fay wasn't coming
back; he could tell by her expression.

      
'Let's go, Arnie. Home.'

      
Home?

      
When they got back to the cottage, Arnold stood in the doorway
and growled. Powys made his senses go dead and uncaring, or, at least, that was
the message he sent to himself. It's nothing, it doesn't matter, it's
irrelevant.

      
The big black book lay in the centre of the hearth this time,
its spine split.

Part Three

 
On Wearyall Hill, the long, low spur jutting out
into the marshes, the first firm ground between Avalon and the sea in those
days, Joseph set foot on English land, and he drove his staff into the warm,
red, Westland soil as he took possession of our islands for the spiritual
kingdom of his Lord, a realm not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

Dion
Fortune
Avalon of the Heart

ONE

Mystery

Avalon Out, Says Candidate

A bitter attack on the 'New Age subculture' of Glastonbury has been made
by the man chosen by South Mendip Tories as their next Parliamentary candidate.

       
The Hon. Archer Ffitch, son
of local landowner Viscount Pennard, says the town will become a national joke
unless it 'stops encouraging cranks'.

       
Mr Ffitch won a standing
ovation from constituency party members when he told them, 'We must seize the
future and stop mooning about our mythical past.'

       
He said the town had become
saturated with pseudo mystics, many of whom were blatantly pagan, and had
become a Mecca for New Age travellers.

       
As a result, local house
prices had dropped and businesses were reluctant to invest in the town.

       
Even
 
the
 
boundary
 
signs identified Glastonbury
as The Ancient Isle of Avalon in acknowledgement of
 
'a probably bogus legend'.

       
Mr Ffitch said, 'If the
local authority wants a new slogan, I'll give them one: Glastonbury FIRST,
Avalon OUT.'

       
Mr Ffitch's remarks
followed his formal acceptance of...

'You bastard,' Jim Battle
muttered, as dusk settled like mud around the red roofs.

      
His first thought was to screw the
Evening Post
into a ball and ram it into the nearest litter bin.
Instead, he folded it into his saddle bag. He would show it to Juanita. If he could
face her.

      
He'd waited until the end of the day before cycling into town,
Nothing to do with not wanting to show his face in daylight for fear of people
pointing at him
: That's him, that's the
bloke who was executed last night, ho ho. Where's your hat, Jim?

      
Nobody would, of course. Nobody knew and nobody would find
out. Even the buggering travellers had spirited themselves away. He wouldn't
have to face anyone. Except for Juanita and his own hatless head reflected in
shop windows.

      
Perhaps his humiliation on the Tor had been a small payback
for his self-indulgence in fleeing the city to reside amid ancient mystery. How
bloody Pat would have enjoyed it: the invasion of Jim's little idyll, a
barbarian's blade over his throat.

      
As it turned out, nobody commented even on the premature
departure of the travellers. The report of Archer Ffitch's speech had greater
implications.

      
'This is the kind of chap we need,' said Colin Border in the
off-licence, pointing to the
Post
's
picture of Archer looking severe but dynamic. 'What I've been saying for years.
How can you hope to attract new industry to a town where half the potential
workforce appear to be pot-smoking sun worshippers? Fourteen pounds 49p,
please, Jim,' wrapping Jim's bottle of Scotch in brown paper.

      
'Won't be terribly popular down the street, though.' Jim put
his money on the counter. 'Lot of New Age types running quite profitable
businesses now.'

      
'What, vegetarian sandwich bars and poky shops specialising in
bloody overpriced gimcrack jewellery that's supposed to have healing powers?
Give me a Marks and Spencer any day. Not that Archer'll be losing any support
in that direction. Most of these halfwits throw away their votes on the Green
Party and the rest are bound to be Labour, the odd one or two Lib-Dems. What's
he got to lose? Nailing his colours to the mast from the outset. I like that.'

      
'Hmm,' Jim said. Because of the way he dressed and his
disapproval of thieving travellers, people like Colin assumed he must be as
reactionary as they were.

      
'I like this bit, Jim. Listen to this, "Glastonbury
enshrines the idea of a strong English and Christian tradition within an
established, solidly prosperous country town. It stands for the Old Values.
Whereas Avalon, said Mr Ffitch, is a place which exists only in legends and
folklore. It has been adopted by those who choose to turn their backs on the
real world, to inhabit a drug-sodden cloud-cuckoo land where no one has to work
for a living and traditional family values are laughed at.'"

      
'Yes,' said Jim. 'Quite.' He picked up his bottle and got out
of there before he exploded.

      
Outside, he looked down the street to where the lights of the
New Age shops began. He saw a twinkling display of assorted crystals. He saw tarot
cards and dreamy relaxation tapes and a lone twilight candle burning in the
window of The Wicked Wax Co.

      
Well, all right, one or two of the windows were rather lurid;
some of the owners a little, erm, eccentric. But that candle, for instance, symbolised
something important, something close to the essence of it all. Something Archer
Ffitch wouldn't understand and many of his supporters wouldn't realise until it
was too late.

      
Jim folded the evening paper, jammed it under his arm and
mooched off towards The George and Pilgrims. He needed a couple of drinks.

      
'You bastard, Ffitch,' he murmured. 'Why must you murder the
Mystery?'

The woman with hair the colour
of old gold was drifting around the shop with her hands out - palms down, like
a priest vaguely searching for children to bless.

      
'I don't quite know,' she said. 'I don't quite know what I'm
looking for.'

      
Diane thought that went for an awful lot of people in this
town.

      
The woman was frightfully beautiful, in an ethereal sort of
way. Must be wonderful to be ethereal. Being slim and elegant would, of course,
be a start.

      
'Juanita would know.' The woman had a long, slender nose; she
looked down it at Diane. 'Juanita would know at once.'

      
'Well, she'll be back in a short while,' Diane said.

      
Juanita had tramped wearily off to see her reflexologist, leaving
Diane in charge of the shop. Just like old times, really. Except that Juanita's
weariness used to be feigned and after a glass of wine she'd be fine again,
full of ideas and energy. Last night she and Jim had seemed bowed and burdened
and today Jim hadn't been round. Juanita had glossed over how they just
happened to be walking up Wellhouse Lane when the Range Rover went past. She
said that awful split lip had been caused by a flying log chip when she was
chopping wood for the stove.

      
Whatever really happened, Diane thought, it's all my fault.

      
She gestured hopelessly at the shelves of books; the
arrangements had changed a lot since she was last here.
      
'Perhaps if you gave me an idea.'

      
The woman whirled on her. She was about thirty, with a lean,
peremptory Home Counties accent that didn't go with her appearance at all.

      
'Celtic manuscripts.'

      
'What, sort of Book of Kells?'

      
The woman looked horrified. 'That's Christian, isn't it? No,
no, no no, no ... what I need, urgently, are the very earliest images I can
find of the Goddess. You haven't been here long, have you?'

      
What a nerve, Diane thought. You live here all your life and
someone who moved in maybe six months ago ...

      
'I'm helping out,' she said tightly.

      
Which goddess
? she
wanted to ask. A decision seemed to have been taken that all the goddesses, from
Artemis to Kali to Isis, should be combined into a single symbol of woman power.
For this woman, perhaps, it wasn't so much about spirituality, as a kind of
politics. Just like the Pilgrims, really, wherever they were now.

      
The woman pirouetted again, hands exploring the air, as if she
could somehow divine the book she wanted. Her rich golden hair was a tangle of
abandoned styles, rippling waves and ringlets. Did she always behave like this,
Diane wondered, or was she
on
something?

      
As though she'd picked up Diane's thoughts from the ether, the
golden woman leaned across the counter and smiled widely. Her eyes were
somewhere else.

      
'I'm the artist,' she declared.

      
And then stepped back. As though this was some sort of epiphany,
a moment of wondrous self-discovery.
      
'And
you
are?'
      
'I'm Diane.'

      
'Do you acknowledge the Goddess? You should, you know. She can
help you.'

      
With what? With her weight problem? As though spiritual
development was just another aspect of health and beauty

      
'What are you doing tonight?' the woman demanded, homing in on
promising raw material. 'Come with me. I'm in Holy Thorn Ceramics across the
street. Domini Dorrell- Adams. Come with me and meet the Goddess.'

      
Gosh, was this an order? The woman leaned sinuously across the
counter again. 'I'll call for you, shall I? At seven?'

      
'Oh, well,' Diane said. 'I've a sort of, you know, commitment
tonight.'

      
'You should make a commitment to the Goddess. The very
landscape of Avalon is shaped in her image, did you know that? There's just no
place better in the world to learn how to be a woman.'

      
She drifted to the door. 'Remember The Cauldron,' she sang
carelessly, as though she was dropping a pamphlet behind her.

      
'Right,' Diane whispered, as the door got into the mood and
glided shut. She actually did remember The Cauldron. Formed, not long before
she'd been dispatched to Yorkshire, by a rather dominant woman calling herself
Ceridwen, who used to be a witch and had a Divination Consultancy (fortune-telling
booth) somewhere at the rear of the Glastonbury Experience arcade.

      
Juanita, never the sisterly type, didn't like her at all.
      
Diane wished Juanita would come
back. She felt exposed and nervous when anyone came into the shop, and yet she didn't
want to leave it, imagining Gwyn and his sickle among the freaks outside St
John's, imagining a cream Range Rover screeching into the High Street kerb, a
gloved hand over her face.

      
She'd slept last night in Juanita's spare bedroom - it had
been rather blissy, actually, being in a soft bed again after that sleeping bag
in the van. Juanita had said she could stay as long as she liked. Awfully kind,
but...