The Chalice (22 page)

      
... There
were
questions to be asked, and pretty urgent ones. Like, what was she going to do,
with no money, no job and the kind of family that was probably worse than having
no family?

      
Why
had
she been
called back? What were they trying to tell her, the lights and symbols in the
sky, the pungent scent of old Avalon and, most disturbing of all, last night's
dark and horrific exhibition in the night sky while the Pilgrims performed what
sounded horribly like a Satanic ritual?
      
Where had the Pilgrims gone? And,
most worrying of all, what had happened to Headlice?

      
She'd half thought of going to the police. Which would
immediately implicate Rankin and her father and cause the most awful fuss,
possibly for nothing.
Hippies and gypsies
are like dogs. Give one a good kicking and it'll simply limp off into the
undergrowth until it's recovered.
      
Worse than having no family at
all.
      
Back home. And a stranger - the golden-haired
woman had thought she was a stranger. The town seemed different: Juanita's
weariness appeared to be general; there was that atmosphere of torpor you found
during the Blight, the period towards the end of summer when stagnant heat seemed
to stick like toffee to the Somerset Levels. Except this was November and it
wasn't heat so much as a lack of cold. No breeze, no vigour. The people she recognised
as they walked past the window seemed conspicuously older.

      
The shop door pinged open then, and Diane looked up in alarm,
half' expecting to see Gerry Rankin with a chloroform pad.

      
'Diane!' the customer yelled. 'Sheesh! Wow! It's true! You
are
back.'

      
He was wearing this awful, home-knitted, baggy scarlet sweater
that stopped just above his knees - which you could see through the splits in
his jeans. His beard was a little more grey, a little more wispy. His hair had
all but vanished from the front, making his pony-tail look pretty silly. But his
smile was still as wide as his face.
      
'Oh gosh, Woolly, it's so good ...'

      
'Please ...' Woolly drew himself up to his full five-foot-five,
assumed a dignified expression. 'Councillor Woolaston, if you don't mind.'

      
Diane gasped. A hand went to her mouth 'Oh no! Gosh! Really?'

      
'You didn't hear? Last May, my love. Old Hippy Shakes the
Establishment. Electoral Shock Rocks Glastonbury As Longest-Serving Councillor
Bites Dust. Pretty wild, huh? I'm on three committees: Planning, Environmental
Health and ... er, I forget the other, but it's really heavy and influential.'

      
Diane hugged him. She could quite easily get her arms all the
way round, 'I can't believe it!'

      
'Yeah, well,' said Woolly. 'Neither can Griff Daniel. If one
of his lorries is tipping out a load of bricks these days, I stand well clear.'

      
Diane was thrilled. Over the years, three candidates from the
Alternative Sector had stood against their old enemy and been heavily beaten by
the local votes. Whoever had thought of putting Woolly up, it had been truly
inspired. He might be an old hippy, but he was a
local
hippy. The natives sometimes despaired of him, but they
couldn't help liking him, and they knew he was ever so honest.
      
'It's just incredible,' said Diane.

      
'It's not that incredible' Woolly tried to look hurt. 'But yeah,
if Griff hadn't had this bit of hassle over jerry-building, over Somerton way.
And if it hadn't, like, found its way into the
Gazette
... whoops! Aw shit, man, all's fair in love and politics.
How long you been back?'

      
'Since yesterday. Didn't you hear about it?'
      
'Yeah,' Woolly admitted, with a
crooked smile. 'Course I heard about it. Just us politicians got to be a bit
guarded. Nothing wrong with the travellers, most of 'em. That your van, with the
pink spots? Nice one. Pity they've all gone, mind. I'd like to've seen Archer's
face. And your old man.'

      
'What?' Diane said. Had it got out about her being snatched
from the camp?

      
'Aw, come on. You're saying you really don't know?'
      
'Don't know what?'

      
'Sheesh.' Woolly dragged a stool across to the counter. 'What
a fucking family. He didn't tell you about Archer being put up as Tory
candidate for Mendip South?'

      
'Oh gosh. I didn't know. Woolly, I really didn't. I didn't know
he was even in the running.'

      
'Clever the way they're timing it,' Woolly said. 'Idea being,
presumably, that he stands in for old Bowkett at
this
dinner and
that
garden fete and soon he's so well integrated that, come election-time, half the
voters'll think he's already the serving MP. Geddit?'

      
'Ah.' It was all falling into place. This was a crucial time
for Archer. Her father would have been picturing the headlines: CANDIDATE'S
SISTER IS NEW-AGE- TRAVELLER. A picture of Archer shaking hands with the Prime
Minister and another one of Diane in her moon skirt standing in front of a
white van with big pink spots. No wonder they'd acted so ruthlessly. No wonder
Rankin hadn't cared who got hurt.

      
It was also no wonder they'd handed her over when Juanita
started threatening them with the Press and TV. Handed over! Good God, what
sort of hostage had she become?

      
'I'm not gonner ask what went wrong up in Yorkshire, look,'
Woolly said. 'Not any of our business. But I'm glad you're back, Diane, man.
Gonner need all the support we can get over this road business, if the public
inquiry goes against us.'
      
'Is that likely?'

      
'A sham, that inquiry. They won't admit it, but this is the first
stage in linking Somerset into the Euro superhighway. Biggest environmental
threat in Britain today. Nightmare. Some of the finest countryside in the world
sacrificed to the juggernaut. Once they've started, there'll be no end to it.
Be nowhere to walk except from your house to your car, and no garden in
between.'

      
Woolly laughed, embarrassed. 'Sorry. When you get on the
council you stop talking to people normally, you just make speeches. What you got
here?' He started turning over the pages of
Shadow
of Angels
, a glossy, new book about the St Michael Line, mainly pictures, handsome
but
superficial.

      
'Hey, I heard this thing was out. Let's see if I'm in the index.'

      
Woolly was Glastonbury's biggest expert on leys and earth-forces.
Which said quite a lot, as there was no town in Britain with more ley-lines or,
indeed, ley line experts per square yard.

      
'Yeah,
Woolaston E. T.,
pages 171-173. Three pages? Sheesh. I shoulda charged this lady. Specially as
she's rubbished it, apparently. They dress it up in a lovely jacket with
romantic photos and a little bit of text that ends up saying the Line probably
don't exist anyway.'

      
'We followed it,' Diane said. 'The convoy. We went from church
to church all the way from the abbey at Bury St Edmunds, stopping at the Avebury
circle and all those places and ...'

      
She stopped, suddenly remembering something Headlice had said
last night in his manic, mud-splashed, let's-get-out-of-here state.

      
'Who? The Pilgrims?' Woolly spread his hands. 'Well, that's
good, innit? Travelling the Line, near as you can, it helps keep the energy
flowing. Here, listen to this ...
A
resident of Glastonbury, Edward "Woolly" Woolaston walks the full
length of the line from St Michael's Mount to Bury every five years in what has
become a personal ritual. "When I'm too old to walk, I'll find somebody to
push me," says Woolaston, who has been studying linear configurations in
the West Country landscape for over twenty-five years'

      
Woolly closed the book and sighed. 'Picture of me, too. She
made me wear the woolly hat and the long scarf. The full sixties throw-back
bit. I don't mind. I just wish these clever gits would try and understand that
while the line might not work out exactly on the map, it does... in here.'

      
Woolly patted his chest and Diane thought at once of Headlice
looking up the Tor from Don Moulder's meadow and announcing,
I can feel it ... here
, punching his
chest through his pitifully torn clothing.

      
And later, minutes before he was attacked in Moulder's field,
he'd said.
And no more stopping at
churches, goin' in backwards...

      
They'd made a point, on Gwyn's direction, of stopping at every
church on the St Michael route as well as many of the old stones and burial
mounds. They'd made Headlice go in backwards?

      
'Hey, don't worry'. Woolly was wearing one of his huge grins,
patting her arm. 'We're not gonner let 'em deport you this time. You got Councillor
Woolaston behind you now, kid. Not going back with the Pilgrims, are you?'

      
'I don't even know where they are. It was just a way of ...
getting here, I suppose.'

      
Woolly didn't question it. To Woolly, everything in life was
about Getting Here. 'So you're OK, then? I mean, in the shop?'

      
'Oh, yes.' But Diane wasn't too certain. She couldn't help
imagining another unsuitable headline: CANDIDATE'S SISTER WORKS IN OCCULT
BOOKSHOP; Not quite so detrimental to Archer's prospects. But Archer didn't
like anything at all in his way. Not if it could be removed.

      
'You know, I think I'm gonner buy this book, after all,'
Woolly said. 'How much?' He turned the book over. 'Sheesh, that's a bit steep.'

      
'I'm sure Juanita would want me to knock a pound or so off,'
said Diane, but Woolly looked stem.

      
'Councillor Woolaston never trades on friendship. I'll pay full
whack.' Woolly pulled out a pink and blue canvas wallet, searched through it,
looked up, did his grin. 'Er ... slight cash flow problem. I can give you a
tenner, bring the rest tomorrow?'

      
Diane smiled and put the book in a paper bag for him.

      
"Tis good to have you back, my love,' said Woolly sincerely.

Verity loved Dame Wanda Carlisle's
house. It was everything Meadwell was not - spacious and airy, with sumptuous sofas
and deep Georgian windows letting in lots of glorious light.

      
It was also surprisingly close to the heart of the town, tucked
into a discreet mews behind St John's Church, quiet but convenient for
attending talks at the town hall and the Assembly Rooms.

      
'I'm totally convinced this will help you.' Wanda, large and
strong and scented, placed a reassuringly regal hand on Verity's wrist. 'My
dear, the man is said to be wonderfully charismatic'

      
Verity raised a hesitant eyebrow. Most of Wanda's pronouncements
were couched in similarly extravagant superlatives. All great actresses, Verity
supposed, were long conditioned to project, project and project.

      
'I suppose, all the same, that I shall have to consult Major
Shepherd.'

      
'Nonsense, darling.' Wanda reached for the gin bottle. 'This
Major Shepherd, it's all very well for him, he doesn't have to live in the
blessed house. So he has no right to pontificate. Now. I'll tell you what we
shall do. Dr Grainger is appearing at the Assembly Rooms on ... when? Wednesday.
Oh ... that's tonight!'

      
'What a coincidence,' Verity observed, covering her wineglass
with a hand. 'No more for me, thank you. I shall be quite tiddly.'

      
'In Avalon ...' Wanda mixed herself a large gin and tonic.
'... I have found that coincidence does tend to be the norm.' She had come to
Glastonbury last spring for
my soul's
sake
. Retaining the Hampstead villa, naturally, because while London might
be unbearable it did remind one of the need for the sanctity of Avalon.

      
Verity raised her eyes to the sculpted ceiling and the cut-glass
chandelier which threw hundreds of beautiful light-splinters into the farthest
corners. She thought of the soiled bulbs of Meadwell struggling against the
shadows and supposed a similar comparison could be made between her and the
incandescent Wanda.

      
'I don't know,' she said. 'I don't know at all.'
      
She was still flattered that such a
distinguished person, well-known from the theatre and the television, should
have so much time for her. Although, she suspected Wanda did prefer to be with
people who were rather in awe. In the presence of someone manifestly powerful,
like Ceridwen, the feted actress tended to wilt into a sort of compliant vagueness.