The Chalice (65 page)

      
'What's the problem with Verity? I thought you were friends.'

      
'Lord above,' said Wanda, I'm a fucking
actress.
' She leaned her head back into the sofa's gold-brocaded
cushions. 'D'you know what I've to do today? Have to invite her for Solstice tomorrow.
Gawds, up at dawn to join the fucking bishop on the Tor and then Verity for the
duration. You imagine that? Verity for Solstice? Stringy old bird, no breast.'

      
Wanda cackled. She adjusted herself on the sofa, picked up an
imaginary phone.

      
'Oh, but darling, you simply
must
come. No way you can spend Solstice alone in that dreary,
dreary house. And the other point, you see, is Dilys - my housekeeper - has
gawn down
with this awful
bug
. Verity
would
you,
could
you ...
I've a lovely room, overlooking St John's ...'

      
Wanda beamed. Lecturing Juanita now, pleased with herself. She
seemed to have forgotten all about Powys.

      
'Double whammy, darling. You see, she'll be desperate to come,
but she'll feel it her duty to stay in that hellhole - so the clincher will be
the housekeeper line. Housemaid mentality, that woman. Got to be
doing
for people or she doesn't feel jus
... justified. In living.'

      
Powys nodded to Juanita and moved quietly to the door.

      
'Piece of cake,' Wanda was saying. 'Putty, that woman. Dear little
parcel under the Solstice tree. Set of naff hankies with a monogrammed V.
Basket of pot-pourri ...'

      
Powys slipped out of the room and back down the thickly carpeted
stairs.

He entered Cauldron
country. There was a huge drawing room and library, perhaps two rooms knocked
into one. A lecture room now, with about thirty chairs in rows. Shelves around the
walls held about twice as many books as you could find in Carey and Frayne, but
the same kind of stuff. Alphabetically arranged. Under Fortune, he found about
forty volumes, some different editions of the same book, under Powys, nothing.

      
Choosy. Or maybe no male authors.
      
On a plinth at the far end of the
room sat an enormous, rude goddess-figure, not unlike the thing in the Goddess
shop window but carved out of oak with bangles and necklaces of mistletoe.

      
It was all very tidy. No smells of herbs or incense. But for the
goddess, it might have been a conference suite in a hotel. There was another
door, between bookshelves.
      
Powys found himself in Wanda's Home
Temple.

      
'It didn't make sense,' he told Juanita outside, it was done up
like Tutankhamen's tomb, only more comfortable. Sofas, drapes, nice coloured
pillars. A stone altar, fat candles. It felt as phoney as that woman looks. Why
did she come here?'

      
'Fell in love with the whole Avalon bit,' Juanita said. 'That's
the official story. The truth is, she went to dry out at a discreet New-Agey
sort of health hydro a couple of miles out of town. Ceridwen's friend Jenna
worked there, realised that here was a woman with unlimited wealth in need of a
Cause. The reason I know this, my reflexologist, Sarah, was doing sessions
there two days a week. Jenna wasted no time introducing Wanda to Ceridwen. Who
administered a little psychic psychotherapy. Next thing, Wanda's bought this house
and is spending a bomb on it.'

      
'I don't claim to be heavily attuned to this kind of thing,' Powys
said. 'But if there's ever been a heavy ritual in that house—'

      
'It's somewhere else, isn't it? This place is a front.'
      
Juanita shivered. She looked ill
now; Powys was very scared for her.

      
'When Wanda set up here, this was when The Cauldron really
surfaced.' Over her scarf, Juanita's nose was blue. 'It became
the
goddess group virtually overnight.
All kinds of women who'd never been seen at the Assembly Rooms, attended
Cauldron meetings and lectures because of Wanda. Including Verity.'

      
'The lady with the Pixhill papers. I think we need to collect
them, don't you?'

      
'What about Diane?'

      
'She's not here, Juanita. She may have been brought here last
night, but they've taken her somewhere else. Where does Ceridwen live?'

      
'Tiny little flat near the Glastonbury Experience arcade. She
won't be there. Too obvious.' Juanita walked to the end of the mews, where it
led into High Street. 'Time is it?'
      
'Nearly ten-thirty.'

      
'Diane's been missing for over twelve hours.'

      
'We could tell the police.'
      
'She's twenty-seven. We can't say she's
missing from home.'

      
Juanita's teeth were chattering. Her brown eyes were full of
sickness.

      
'You're going home,' Powys said. 'Now.'

      
The sleet had eased, but it was very cold and the sky behind
the tower of St John's foamed with purplish cloud.

FOUR

Pixhill's Grave

For the first time, Pel Grainger
had his partner with him, the psychotherapist and sociologist Eloise Castell, a
slender; blonde with a mid-European accent who never seemed to smile. Verity
had seen her at gatherings of The Cauldron, but they had not spoken.

      
Shivering, despite her body-warmer, Verity followed the two of
them up the garden under a hard sky which sporadically spat out sharp, grey
fragments of itself. Verity felt an ominous tug on her hip with every step. It
could not simply be arthritis; it had come too suddenly.

      
It felt like Colonel Pixhill's ghost. Urging her to stop them,
bring these foolish people back.

      
But Dr Grainger was jovial and bulging with confidence. He
hadn't even knocked at the door; she'd just seen them both walking briskly
through the garden gate.

      
'See, just because people can't drink this water. Verity,' Dr
Grainger called back cheerfully, 'that is no reason to seal the well.'

      
Against the weather, he wore a thick black cloak like the ones
church ministers wore for winter funerals.

      
'But surely,' Verity ventured, hurrying to keep up, 'if anyone
was ill, they could then sue us for some enormous amount.'

      
'Not if there's a sign specifically warning them not to drink.
Hell, you seal off an old well, you're blocking an ancient energy flow. Water -
and darkness - must not, not ever, be stifled.'

      
The garden, extending now to little more than three-quarters
of an acre, was well tended by Verity close to the house, a small area of lawn
which she kept mown and its hedges neatly trimmed. Then it narrowed, a rockery
began and so did the wilderness.

      
'Do be careful, Dr Grainger. Unfortunately, there are thistles
and nettles. We did once have a part-time gardener. But when the well had to be
sealed and people no longer came to it...'

      
'You know. Verity, the more I think about this, the more incredible
... See, it's clear from the name that this house was built in this location,
all those centuries ago, precisely because of the well. No wonder it lost its
identity, turned in on itself. You have a scythe or something?'

      
'I'm sorry, no.'

      
'That an old spade over there? Would you pass it to me? Thanks.'

      
He began to slash at the brambles, laying bare what used be a
narrow path. Verity, who hadn't been to this end of the garden in many years,
seemed to remember there once being cobblestones.

      
Ms Castell made no attempt to assist - indeed seemed
uninterested in what her partner was doing. She paid no heed to Verity either,
but gazed beyond the boundary of Meadwell's land to where Glastonbury Tor hung
above them, its base bristling with trees, its church tower black as a roosting
crow.

      
Dr Grainger, his back to Verity, looked disturbingly Neanderthal
as he swung the spade like an axe, smashing through a clump of tall thistles.
Verity clutched her body warmer to her throat. She saw that Ms Castell was
watching her now, with a crooked little smile.
I don't like you,
Verity thought suddenly. She was not one to make
snap decisions about people and wondered if this was another warning communicated
to her by the Colonel.

      
Dr Grainger let out a small yip. 'Hey, I think we found it.'
He stepped back. 'Goddam, is this a crime or is this a crime?'

      
They had emerged into a circle of concrete surrounded by a low
wall, bramble-barbed and overhung with twisted brittle bushes, most of them
clearly dead or dying.

      
'Yeah,' said Dr Grainger, 'I feel it. All is cool.'

      
At the centre of the circle was a raised concrete plinth about
four feet in diameter. He stabbed at it; the spade rang dully on the concrete.

      
Chalice Well, where the Holy Grail was said to have lain, was
at the top of a lovely garden by the foot of Chalice Hill, which flanked the
Tor. Below the well were circular pools of red-brown water. It was owned by the
Chalice Well Trust, and on summer days people would pay an entrance fee and sit
or lie on the grass, eyes closed, in meditation.
      
Verity had always wanted to think
the Meadwell had been like this once, a place of ancient peace.

      
It looked harsh and desolate now, and, in truth, she had never
seen it otherwise. When she'd arrived to take up the post of housekeeper, the
Meadwell had already been partially scaled and Colonel Pixhill never spoke of
it.

      
'You have a pickaxe someplace?'

      
'Oh!' Verity stumbled, feeling a sudden, intense glow of pain
at her hip. Almost immediately it began to fade. 'Dr Grainger, I really don't
think ...'

      
'Hmmm. There may be too much light. There a metal cover under
here? Like with the Chalice Well?'

      
'I believe so, but...'

      
'Yeah,' he said thoughtfully. 'See, you hit it with harsh sunlight
after all these years, the shock could completely negate the effect. Am I right
here, Eloise?'

      
Ms Castell stood back. 'I sink the well should certainly be in
shadow when the cover is raised. The emanations will be powerful after all
these years of confinement.'

      
'And the energy goes kind of ... whoosh. Whereas we seed a
gentle, subtle ... mingling.'

      
He made sinuous, snaking movements with his hands. Verity felt
herself begin to tremble.

      
Ms Castell said, 'Maybe first we put over it a tent. To subdue
the light, ya?'
      
Verity grasped the stump of a dead
tree to steady herself.
      
'Dr Grainger, are you a Christian?'
      
'What?' The question seemed to
throw him.
      
'I'm sorry, it's just that the type
of clothing you habitually wear makes you seem rather like a priest, so I ...'

      
'Well.' He gave it some thought, pursing his little round
lips. 'I guess I think of myself as a scientist first. My life's a search for
understanding. I don't like to be too much in awe. And also there's the
tenebral conflict. 'Out of the darkness and into the light. I can't buy that.
Christianity makes too many naive assumptions, I guess. That answer your
question?'

      
'Yes. I'm sorry.' Verity turned back to the old house
crouching in the shadows of the grey morning, 'I don't think I can let you do
this.'

      
Dr Grainger froze, the spade in mid-air. 'Whaaat?'

      
'I cannot let you expose the Meadwell.'

      
'Verity?' He peered at her as though he thought she might have
been replaced by someone else and he hadn't noticed.

      
'I'm very sorry, Dr Grainger.' She rose up in her tiny shoes.
'The Colonel would not wish it.'

      
'The Colonel?' Dr Grainger was hall-grinning in amazement. 'We
are talking here about Pixhill? The
late
Pixhill?'

      
'I sink,' said Ms Castell in her somehow unconvincing mid-European
murmur, 'zat Colonel Pixhill felt himself to be in a defensive position as
regards the world in general. He wanted to close himself in, to seal up all
points or access. The well permits water from the hill, maybe from under the Tor,
to enter his domain, and so ...' She shrugged.