The Chalice (30 page)

      
'You really are a martyr.' Wanda swept her black and white
chequered cape stiffly across her shoulder. 'And you know what happens to
them.'

      
The hall had nearly emptied Only half the usual lights were on
but it seemed to Verity that most people would have been happy to grope their
way out in complete darkness. They had discovered an exciting new environment.
Within it, they had meditated, they had touched each other's features the way
blind people did, reinventing themselves and their partners by discovering what
Dr Pel Grainger had identified as their 'shadow selves'. There had been some very
effective visualisation exercises and it seemed that everyone's world-view had,
for tonight at least, been subtly altered.

      
Verity had been aware, at one stage, of someone coming in and
muttering about some problem on the street, and one person - she thought it was
Councillor Woolaston - had left quietly. But the interruption had been soon
forgotten as Dr Grainger's audience moved towards First-stage Tenebral
Symbiosis.

      
Now Dr Grainger was sitting on the edge of the platform talking
to a couple who'd stayed behind. 'Why, sure,' he was saying nonchalantly. 'just
take out the bulbs first then you won't be tempted to rush for the switches.'

      
'Let's go,' said Verity. Who, precisely
because
it had all been so seductive, was wishing she hadn't come.
Dr Grainger was a very persuasive person, especially in the dark, but there was
darkness and darkness, and she couldn't help feeling that Meadwell's dark was
not the kind one might 'bond' with.

      
'Fine,' said Dr Grainger. 'Good luck.' He raised a hand to the
departing couple, slipped down from the platform, and then - to Verity's horror
- Dame Wanda was upon him. She didn't bother to introduce herself, assuming, as
she assumed with everyone, that he would recognise her and be flattered by her
attention.

      
'Dr Grainger, I should like you to meet a friend of mine who
is, desperately,
desperately
in need
of your help.'

      
The man in black smiled patiently.

      
Verity backed away. 'Oh no, really...'

      
'Verity, do not dare move.' Wanda turned again to Dr Pel
Grainger and said apologetically, 'I am afraid my friend needs saving from
herself.'

From where Jim stood, leaning
on his bike, the lights of Glastonbury were too bright tonight, harsh with
instability.
      
At the tree-hung entrance to Wellhouse
Lane, he paused, feeling cold without his overcoat. Without his hat.

      
Go on.
It'll be all right after the first few hundred yards, there's nothing to be
afraid of. They've gone. The travellers have all gone.

      
Never thought this would happen to him. Never thought he could
feel fear in this place of ancient spirit. But there was nothing to be brave
for now. Not anymore.

      
He kept thinking back to yesterday - only yesterday, it seemed
like another life, another incarnation - when he was sitting in Juanita's
parlour, looking through his Laphroaig (the colour of dusk) at the woman whose
skin was like the warmest, softest dusk you could imagine.

      
There was so much hope then. Well, not really, but you could
kid yourself. You could believe in miracles.

      
And now there was no hope, and he had only himself to blame,
doing what he'd always sworn to himself he would never do (stick to the banter,
keep it light, never, never let her know for sure).

      
His hands felt clammy on the rubber of the handlebars. He'd
seen what had happened in High Street, briefly assessed the situation - wouldn't
have raised an eyebrow- in Bristol - and edged quietly out of the picture.
Hated rubberneckers and voyeurs and all this counselling nonsense.
      
You should never interfere in
people's private tragedies.
      
Private tragedy.

      
His own had come in the very second that Griff Daniel had
burst back into the bar to spread the good news about the man smashing the
windows of the hippy shops.

      
He hadn't meant this to happen. Hadn't come out tonight with
the least intention of making a suicide flight.

      
But something had got to him. Something - whatever had made
Griff Daniel so manic - set Jim off.

      
He'd been watching Juanita's eyes so closely. He knew
precisely what he was doing, feeling strangely detached - in reality, probably
as unstable as young Tony. And he knew that she knew where it was leading: Jim
Battle burning all his boats, with a ninety-nine to one chance of total
annihilation.

      
But that one per cent. The intoxication of running a wild,
death-or-glory bet, the odds almost too high, for she was so beautiful and he
was nearly twenty years older, twenty buggering years, and never bad been what
you'd call much of a catch, as bloody Pat would point out every other week.

      
Juanita, Juanita.

      
If he'd been a knight he'd have swum the moat for her, scaled
the buggering tower. If he'd been a young man he'd have simply swung her on to
the back of his bike and pedalled for the border. If he'd been a dog, he'd have
lain down at her feet, rolled over and wagged his tail.

      
Better to be a dog than poor, buggering Jim Battle. Better a
dog and get the occasional tickle, have his fur brushed.

      
He pushed his bike past the last house in Wellhouse Lane. The
Tor was on his right. Somewhere. He couldn't see the bastard thing. Maybe - God
forgive him for even considering this - maybe Griff Daniel was right about the weird
little hill, the hill of dreams, the hill of obsession. Maybe they'd all be
better off without it.

      
And he would rather ...
      
Jim swallowed this thought and went
on pushing, feeling cold sweat in the small of his back, as though he was
leaking like an old and rusting sump, listening to the tick, tick of his bike
chain, following the bleary beam of his battery-powered bike lamp.

      
Only the mystery. Only the mystery could save him now.
      
And yet mystery could betray you.
He remembered the heat of bodies around him, the strength of the hands holding
him down, exposing his throat. And he would rather…

      
Jim squeezed his eyes shut, trying so hard to summon the dusk,
bring the old mellow warmth into his chilled, sagging body. No good. It
wouldn't come.

      
He would rather…

      
…rather have had that moon-bright sickle slice slowly through
the skin and the sinew and the bones in his neck than to have seen the quick flickering
of relief in Juanita's eyes when Griff Daniel burst into the bar.

SEVEN

Synchronicity

Don Moulder had been up late
doing his VAT return, last minute as usual, and it was while he was locking up
for the night that he heard it.

      
Would've figured it was no more than his imagination - doing
his VAT always made him a bit paranoid about people coming after him - if both
sheepdogs hadn't heard it as well and started to whimper.

      
'Lord preserve us,' muttered Don Moulder.

      
It came again: the echoey groaning and grinding of a clapped
out old gearbox, some distance off. One of the dogs crept between Don's legs.
'Oh aye, that's right,' Don growled. 'You go'n hide yourself, bloody ole
coward.'

      
When Shep joined Prince under the table, Don scowled at then
and went to the boot cupboard where he kept the twelve-bore. 'Got to protect me
own stock, then?' He glanced up at the plaster between the beams. 'Forgive me, Lord,
but I knows not of a better way to deal with these devils.'

      
Don decided to say nothing to the missus, who'd been in bed an
hour and was most likely well asleep by now. Shots'd wake her, mind, if it came
to that.

      
Warning shots only, more's the pity. You blasted away at the
beggars these days, professional rustlers or not, and they'd be straight down
the police station, figuring to nobble a God fearing farmer for damages, due to
the trauma they'd suffered. Bloody ridiculous; got so's a man couldn't defend
his own property no more. Well, Don Moulder played by the old rules: thou shalt
not pinch thy neighbour's ox, nor his ass nor his best Suffolk ram, and if thou
triest it thou gets what's coming to thee, mister, and no mistake.

      
Shrugging on his old Barbour, Don let himself out. He was
halfway across the yard, gun under an arm, lamp in hand but switched off. when
he had another thought.

      
Knackered
ole gearbox noise. Lord, suppose it's…Them…?

      
They'd paid him for three, four nights - via the Hon. Diane,
bless her - then cleared off halfway through the first. All right, their
decision, no pressure from Don Moulder. But what if they'd come back to claim
the rest of their time? How did he stand there? Hadn't given 'em no money back,
not a penny; still he hadn't been asked, and there was nothing on paper.

      
So what you did was you brazened it out. Only Godless hippies,
they got no rights. And Miss Diane, nice enough girl but a few bales short of a
full barn, so no problems there.

      
Don Moulder shouldered his gun like Davy Crockett and followed
the hedge towards the bottom field.

The lights were still out
in the shop when the door opened before Juanita could even get her key in the
lock and Diane hissed, 'Quick,' and pulled her inside. She was so glad to find
Diane still on the premises that she didn't say a word until she arrived in the
parlour and discovered the source of all the night's excitement sitting coolly
in her rocking chair looking like Arthur Rackham's idea of a page-three girl.
      
'Oh,' Domini said. 'Hello, sister.'

      
'Bloody hell.' Juanita stood in the doorway. 'You've got a
nerve.'

      
'I was in need of sanctuary and Diana took me in.'
      
'Diane,' said Diane.

      
Juanita said to Diane, 'Is she pissed or what?'
      
'I certainly am not. If you must
try to explain everything, I think I'm probably in a state of heightened
consciousness.'

      
'While your husband', said Juanita sweetly, 'is in a state of
heightened stress, heightened bewilderment and heightened likelihood of being
nicked for criminal damage. Plus he's cut his hand rather badly breaking
somebody's window.'

      
Domini sniffed. 'Not a
terribly
inventive response, all told. But not bad for a boring little turd of' primary
school teacher.' She uncrossed her legs and sat up. 'Hey, come on, this is what
it's all about, Juanita. Change. No, don't look at me like that. This is what
Avalon does for us. Challenges all our preconceptions Forces us to change.'

      
'Get her out of here,' Juanita said wearily.

      
'Oh,' said Domini. 'It was different for you then, was it?'

      
'What?'

      
'When you threw
your
man
out. When Carey and Frayne lost its Frayne.'

      
Diane said, 'That's not awfully fair...'
      
And then the phone rang.

      
'Excuse me,' Juanita said. Perhaps it was Jim. Perhaps he'd
gone straight home. She hoped it was Jim. 'I'll take it upstairs.'

      
Juanita's sitting room was directly above the shop and overlooked
High Street. It appeared much quieter down there now. Nobody seemed to have
called the police. She could see a light on over the restyled Holy Thorn
Ceramics.
      
Tony must have gone home. Well,
there was no room for bloody Domini to sleep here.

      
She picked up the phone from the windowsill. 'Hello, Carey and
Frayne.'

      
All she could hear was some awful wheezing. Oh please, not a
breather.

      
Through the window, she saw a large group of people drifting
up the street from the Assembly Rooms where this utter dickhead Pel Grainger
had been promoting his tenebral therapy. He'd been in the shop a couple of
weeks back, suggesting she should place a major order for his forthcoming book.
Embracing the Dark
. Maybe she should,
if he'd pulled a crowd that size.