Crybbe

CHAPTER X

You really didn't have to go to all this trouble,' J. M. Powys said. 'Chicken in the basket would have been fine.'

Rachel said, 'Care to send down for some?'

'Forget it.' He was remembering how she'd massaged the bruises on his stomach with her lips. What happened? How did this come about?

The room, overlooking the cobbled square, bulged from the Cock's aged frame above an entryway. Once, they'd heard footsteps on the stones directly underneath.

Lights shone blearily from town houses, and the room's leaded windows dropped a faint trellis on the sheets.

They lay in complete silence for a long time before he turned to her and said, 'Er… well…'

'Don't look at me' Rachel said. 'I certainly didn't intend it to happen. I know I'm hardly the person to claim she isn't a whore, but we didn't even know each other until a couple of hours ago. And I'm not actually promiscuous. Most of the time these days I can take it or leave it.'

It had been the curfew which had seemed to shatter the idyll. They'd fallen apart, Powys feeling bewildered, Rachel looking almost perturbed.

He didn't even remember getting into bed. They hadn't drunk anything, or smoked anything and it was not yet ten-thirty. He'd quite fancied her, certainly, but there'd been other things on his mind. Like serious pain.

He thought she was smiling. It felt like she was smiling. In her deep and opulent voice, she said, 'Perhaps we should think of it as one of those whirlwind passions.'

'Well, I'm glad you're not annoyed,' said Powys. He couldn't remember much until the curfew, crashing in like an alarm clock hauling him out of a hot dream. 'That curfew,' he said. 'Kind of eerie, don't you think? Did you hear a dog howling at the same time, at one point? Or was that me?'

'No, it was a dog all right. Really rather spooky, J.M.'

'Why do people keep calling me J.M.?'

'It sounds classier than Joseph Miles.'

He remembered the circumstances in which she'd seen his driving licence. Suddenly his stomach was hurting again.

Tell me,' she said. 'Are you really a descendant of John Cowper Powys?'

I wouldn't entirely rule it out.' To take his mind off the pain, he flicked aside a few strands of fine, fair hair to admire the curve of her long neck. 'Hey, look, what would Max Goff say if he found out I'd been in his bed with his…?'

His… what, exactly?

'Don't worry about that, he'd be honoured. I'm only a minion; you're his inspiration. But he isn't going to find out.' Rachel turned her face towards him. I won't even tell him you were trespassing on his property.'

'I wasn't trespassing. It was what you might call an exploratory tour.'

'Quite,' said Rachel. 'You were snooping.'

'Well, probably. Look, I really am sorry about…'

'J.M., I'm not a virgin. The unwritten part of my job description includes ensuring that the boss goes to sleep fully relaxed.'

'What?' He was shocked.

'Routine,' Rachel said dismissively. 'Like winding up an alarm clock.'

'Stone me.' He found this impressively cool and candid. And rather sad. He felt a faintly surprising tenderness coming on.

'I must say.' Rachel said, 'I was genuinely surprised to find out who you were. I was rather expecting]. M. Powys to be a vague, if benevolent old cove in a woolly hat and half-moon glasses. By the way, I think your book's a dreadful sham. Do you mind?'

'Golden Land?' He started to smile. He'd been right about Rachel. Nothing Arthur Rackham about this woman. 'Why do you think that? No, I don't mind at all. I don't bruise as easily is a cursory examination might suggest.'

'Well, let's not talk about that now.'

'No, go on. Talk about it.'

'Really?' Rachel faced him across the bed, not touching. OK. Well, the central premise, if I have this right, is that there's a hidden link between us and the earth, a link known to our remote ancestors, but which we've forgotten about.'

'The psychic umbilicus.' As time went on, Powys had grown less and less convinced he'd written this crap.

'And, by going to the various ancient shrines, stone circles, holy wells, places like that, we can unblock the doorways and find our way back, as it were, into the Old Golden Land. Which seems to be your metaphor, or whatever, for this kind of harmony with the environment, feeling a part of one's surroundings. Us and the earth feeding each other?'

Powys nodded. 'What's wrong with it so far?'

'Nothing at all,' Rachel said. 'Perfectly commendable. Except it's translated itself into all these old hippies staggering about with their dowsing rods and holding up their hands and feeling the Earth Spirit. I mean – let's be realistic about this – if these are the people with the keys to the cosmos, then God help us.'

Powys was impressed. 'I think you could be my ideal woman."

'Jesus,' said Rachel. 'You really are mixed up.'

After a minute or two, he said, 'I got a lot of it wildly wrong. It was nearly thirteen years ago, that book. I was too young to write it. I'd like to do it again. Or better still, I'd like not to have done it in the first place.'

'It's a bit late for that,' Rachel said. 'You do realize you're largely responsible for Max's very costly fantasies?'

'What does that mean?'

'It means he's going to be the first king of the Old Golden Land, and he wants you to be the Royal Scribe and tell the world about it.'

'Oh, my God. You think I should disappear?'

Rachel pulled his left hand to her breast. 'Not just yet. If you really have found the flaws in your own arguments, I can't help wondering if you ought not be the one person who can bring him to his senses.

Jocasta Newsome didn't know which was worse: spending a night in with Hereward or being alone.

She thought about lighting a fire, but, like most aspects of country life, it had lost its magic.

Could she ever have imagined there'd come a time when a log-fire in an open fireplace would not only fail to induce a small romantic thrill but would actually have become, a drag? In the end, she'd been forced to admit that logs were messy, time-consuming and not even very warm. The only one who got overheated was Hereward, chopping away and coming in covered with sweat – nearly as damp as most of his logs, which were so full of sap that when you threw them on the fire they just sat there for hours and hissed at you.

And the Aga, of course. Very attractive, very prestigious for dinner parties. But it wasn't made to run all the radiators one needed for a barn like this. If they wanted proper oil-fired central heating, they'd have to install a boiler – electric heating was, of course, out of the question with all the power cuts and Hereward turning white when the quarterly bill arrived.

It had now become Jocasta's ambition to make sufficient money out of The Gallery to sell it and acquire premises somewhere civilized. With or without Hereward, but preferably without.

This morning Rachel Wade had phoned to say Max Goff had been terribly pleased with the Tump triptych. And would they please look out for more pictures of ancient sites. Or any local landscapes by local artists.

Local artists! There were none. Even Darwyn Hall was Birmingham-born.

This afternoon, just before closing time – after school, presumably – another 'local' artist had called in. A girl of seventeen or eighteen. An odd, dark, solemn girl. Would they like to put on an exhibition of her drawings?

Well, God forbid it should ever come to that. Children's drawings!

The girl's portfolio was now propped against the antique pine dresser in the kitchen – 'Yes, of course we'll look at them my dear, but our artists do tend to be experienced professionals you know.'

She'd let Hereward examine them when he returned from his weekly attempt to become accepted in the public bar of the Cock by proving he could be as boring as the natives. If they only knew how far ahead of them in the boredom stakes he really was, he'd never have to buy his own drinks again.

Jocasta stretched like a leopard on the sofa.

She herself was bored out of her mind. Farmers were said to shag sheep in these hills. Maybe she should go out and find a ram.

'Sex magic.' Rachel was telling Powys the sordid story of her life as Goff's overpaid PA. 'That was the other thing that almost pushed me over the edge.'

'Isn't all sex magic?' Thinking, particularly, of tonight.

'Certainly not,' said Rachel.

'Yeah, I know. I do know what you're talking about. Aleister Crowley, all that stuff?'

Rachel said, 'Fortunately, it didn't last. Though Crowley was about the same build as Max, Max couldn't summon Crowley's stamina. Not too pleasant while it lasted, though. Lots of dressing up and ritual undressing. The idea appeared to be to build up the power and then direct it at the moment of orgasm. He was the Great Beast, I was

…'

The Scarlet Woman?' Powys vaguely remembered Crowley's autobiography, remembered not finishing it.

'Terribly tawdry,' Rachel said. 'Needless to say, it didn't work – or I presume it didn't. Point is, Max isn't a wicked man, it's just a case of what you might call Bored Billionaire Syndrome. You've got all the money you'll ever want, all the women and all the boys. But you're not… quite… God.'

'What can one do about this minor shortfall?'

Rachel said, 'He's doing it.'

And Powys nodded, resigned, as she told him about Goff's plans to restore the prehistoric legacy of Crybbe. 'Crybbe's Max's psychic doorway. His entrance to your Old Golden Land.'

'As identified by Henry Kettle.'

'And how reliable was he? Is dowsing for real?'

'It was in Henry's case. Henry was red hot.'

'The modern equivalent of the Stone Age shaman.'

'Who said that?'

'Max.'

'Figures,' Powys said. He sighed. 'Last night I went round to Henry's house to pick up his papers, his journal. Apparently he wanted me to have them. Anyway, it was pretty clear Henry had a few misgivings about what Goff was asking him to do – well, not so much that as what he was finding. He didn't like the Tump.'

'I don't like the Tump,' Rachel said.

'And leys – we don't really know anything about leys. All this energy-lines stuff is what people want to believe. Henry was quite impatient with the New Agers and their designer dowsing rods. He used to say we shouldn't mess with it until we knew exactly what we were messing with.'

Powys watched the lattice of light on the bedspread. 'A more plausible theory says leys are spiritual paths to holy shrines, along which the spirits of the ancestors could also travel. Evidence shows a lot of psychic activity at places where leys cross, as well as mental disturbance, imbalance.'

'Obviously the place to bring out the best in Max,' Rachel said drily. 'Excuse me, J. M, I need a pee.'

In the end, Jocasta had gone ahead and lit a fire, for what it was worth. The logs fizzed, the flames were pale yellow and the smoke seeped feebly between them, as she lay on the sheepskin rug enjoying, in a desultory way, a favourite fantasy involving the Prince of Wales in his polo outfit.

There was a crack from the logs and something stung her leg. Jocasta screamed and leapt up. A smell of burning – flesh probably – made her beat her hands against her thigh in panic.

She switched on a table-lamp with a green and yellow Tiffany shade and stood next to it, examining her leg.

Nothing visible, except a tiny smudge, Jocasta licked a finger and wiped it away, pulled down her skirt and was swamped by a sudden mud-tide of self-disgust.

From the living-room window she could see the lights of the town through the trees at the end of the paddock. The paddock itself was like a black pond. She fetched from the kitchen the portfolio of drawings brought in by the girl. If the kid was any good at all, she might sell them very cheaply. Not in the gallery itself, of course, but in the small gift section they were setting up in a little room at the side.

Jocasta sat on the sofa and opened the portfolio by the light of the Tiffany lamp.

At first she was simply surprised. She'd expected landscapes and she'd expected an immature hesitancy of touch.

So the things that surprised her were the strength and vigour of the drawing in Indian ink, spatters and blotches used for effect, boldly controlled in the manner of Gerald Scarfe and Ralph Steadman.

And the fact that they were not landscapes, but interiors with figures.

An old man shaving.

The eyes, wide open, magnified in a shaving mirror to alarming effect. The chin tilted, the throat uplifted to the razor.

A tumbler on a window-ledge collecting the blood.

At first she was simply surprised.

Then the shock set in. The realization, with a rush of bile to the throat, of what was depicted in the drawing. She tore her gaze away, covering the drawing, in horror, with her hands.

Then the lights went out.

Through the window, she saw that the lights of the whole town had gone out, too.

Jocasta didn't move. She was sitting there on the sofa staring into the sputtering half-dead logs in the grate, but seeing, swimming in her mind, the image of the thing on her knee, still covered by her hands, an old man cutting his own throat with a razor.

She thought she was sweating at first.

Under her hands the paper felt wet and sticky and, like the sap oozing from the green logs on the open fire, something warm seemed to be fizzing and bubbling between her fingers.

Jocasta let the portfolio fall to the floor and shrivelled back into the sofa, almost sick with revulsion.

J. M. Powys stood by the window, bare feet on bare boards. Looking down on the street, at a few customers emerging from the main entrance of the Cock directly below. The last he saw before all the lights went out was a couple of men stumbling on the steps and clutching at each other, obviously drunk but not conspicuously merry.

He'd been here several times, but never at night. Never heard the curfew before. And now, as if the curfew had been a warning that the town would close down in precisely one hour, somebody had switched off the lights.

Such coincidences were not uncommon on the border.

He remembered manufacturing the phrase The Celtic Twilight Zone as the title for Chapter Six of Golden Land.

The border country – any border country – has a special quality. Two cultures merging, two types of landscape, an atmosphere of change and uncertainty. In such places, it used to be said, the veil between this world and others is especially thin. Border country: a transition zone… a psychic departure lounge…

Rachel returned, slipped out of the robe, joined him at the window, naked. The moon was out now, and her slender body was like a silver statuette.

'You get used to it,' Rachel said, 'living in Crybbe.'

The electricity?'

'It seems we're on the end of a power line, or something. So whenever there's a problem elsewhere it trips a switch and the whole valley goes off. Something like that. It'll be back on in a few minutes, probably.'

Powys put out a hand to her then held back and put the hand on the cool window-ledge. Things to sort out first, before he allowed himself to forget.

'Henry Kettle,' he said. 'His car went out of control and crashed into the wall around the Tump. Freak accident. What did Goff have to say about that?'

Rachel said, 'You don't want to hear that. Come back to bed,