The Chalice

SIXTEEN

There was the sound of a key in the shop door below Juanita's bedroom window.

She called out, 'Come on up, Diane.'

Was the Glastonbury First meeting over already? Maybe it had been a total flop, about four people in the audience.

Sure. And maybe a UFO had come down on Wearyall Hill and Joseph of Arimathea had strolled out with his staff and the teenage Christ in tow.

'Juanita, I'm frightfully sorry.' Diane appeared, puffy-eyed and flustered, in the bedroom doorway. 'I sort of… I couldn't stand to hear any more.'

'That bad, huh?' Juanita sat up and swung her legs from the bed.

'Juanita,' Diane sank down, making the mattress howl. 'You can't imagine just how bad.'

'They couldn't do it.' Juanita walked to the window. High Street looked damp, detached and faintly hostile. 'There's no way they could get that through.'

'They got away with it at Stonehenge when all the hippies and travellers and people went to worship the sun at midsummer and started having festivals and things and causing chaos. They got a special Act of Parliament to make it into a restricted area.'

'Yes, but…'

'And now nobody can get in at all. You have to look at the stones from behind a fence or through binoculars from across the road or something.'

'But the Tor isn't an ancient monument, apart from the tower. I mean, it's an ordinary hill… Well, OK, an extraordinary hill, but you can't fence off a hill.'

'Juanita, they've got it all worked out. It begins with a complete parking ban in Wellhouse Lane. The next step would presumably be some kind of tasteful wire-mesh fence, with metal gates, and no access to anyone after dark.'

'That's impossible. Anyone wants to get in, they'll do it.'

'It worked at Stonehenge. They say it's a completely sterile place now. The great temple of the sun where nobody can go in and watch the sun rise any more or feel the rays on the stone. And now if Archer gets his way, nobody'll be able to see it set, looking out from the top of the Tor to Brent Knoll and Bridgwater Bay. There'd be security patrols at the solstices, they'd have…'

Juanita blinked. 'People supported this in there?'

'They loved it. No more hippies. No more pagan rituals. The farmers were ever so excited. There were all these muddy Mendip growls of approval. "You're one of us, zurr," this sort of thing.'

'God,' Juanita said. 'Woolly will blow a fuse. I mean, the Tor would, you know, lose all its magic, all its mysticism, if you had to buy a ticket or something.'

'Oh yes, rather, and Archer was absolutely up-front about this. The undesirables don't come to Glastonbury to see the Abbey ruins or the Tribunal building, they come for the Tor, and if the Tor's no longer accessible, Glastonbury will lose its magnetism and we'll get "decent" tourists and "decent" shops and local people will be able to walk the streets without tripping over drug addicts and if they want to go to the Tor they'll be able to go at a "civilised" time without having to tread in faeces and vomit and, oh Juanita, it's just awful, awful, awful…'

She saw that Diane's eyes were full of tears. Stains all down her cheeks Which didn't seem as plump as they used to. Was she losing weight?

'It's terribly personal for me, you see,' Diane said. 'I've loved the Tor all my life.'

'It won't happen, Diane. There'll be an outcry.'

'There was an outcry over the new road, but that's going to happen. It all depends on who's crying out…'

She stopped, fingers at her mouth. Sitting on the edge of Juanita's bed, she began to sway.

'You OK, Diane?'

'Oh gosh.'

'Diane?'

'Crying out. That explains it. It was the Tor crying out.'

'What?'

The visions. The vinegar bottle… the salt pot… the washing-up liquid. Don't you see?'

'I'm afraid not.' But Juanita was awfully afraid she actually did.

'It knew! The Tor knew! The Tor was crying out. Something bad was coming and the Tor knew, Juanita!'

Suddenly, Juanita was rather glad she hadn't taken Diane to the police station.

'It was calling out,' Diane whispered. 'To those who are close to it.'

'Diane, listen to me' Juanita sat down next to her on the bed. 'I hate what Archer and Griff are planning as much as anyone. And I'll fight it on freedom of access grounds. We can't have them putting Britain behind bars. But if you start putting two and two together and getting sixteen…'

'Juanita, I know this in my heart. It called me back.'

Juanita said gently, 'Colonel Pixhill thought it had called him back too, and he wasted the rest of his life trying to work out why and never did, just went bonkers.'

But Diane wasn't even listening. She wouldn't even look at Juanita. just gazed at the walls, at Jim's picture, anything.

'I was thinking, Why me? I'd concluded that it wasn't me at all it wanted, it was Nanny Three. Violet. Dion Fortune. I thought Ceridwen could perhaps explain it, if… you know… if they could get through to her. But now I know it is me.'

'No, Diane…'

'Because Archer's the threat. To the Tor and all the magic of Glastonbury. Avalon out. Don't you see? It wants me because I'm Archer's sister. It wants me to stop him.'

'Sure. Fine. As long as…'

'And you were right, Juanita. With The Avalonian. It was meant. You have a purpose too.'

'Well thanks. Thank you very much, Diane.'

There was a long, fraught silence, Diane staring hard at the picture on the wall. Then she said, 'That's the same picture, isn't it? The one you've had for ages.'

Diane had gone pale. She looked close to fainting. It was ridiculous. She shouldn't go dashing about, working herself into a state. People carrying too much weight around, there was always a danger.

'I'll make some tea,' Juanita said.

'No.' Diane didn't move. 'Why's it gone dark? 'The sun-line in the picture. Why's it gone dark, Juanita?'

'I'll ring him again.' Trying to sound calm, but her too-thin, nervous fingers prodding at the wrong numbers. She held the phone up to the light, began again.

And the phone rang and rang and the old bastard didn't answer.

Juanita pulled feverishly at her cigarette. There was a time when she didn't actually need to smoke. Didn't need the wine. Never over-reacted.

The breeze tossed some rain at the window like a handful of pebbles.

'OK. How did you mean?' Her voice limp. 'How did you mean it had darkened?'

Diane swallowed. 'That red fine. Like a red-hot wire. It had gone black. It was a black line. It was like a thin cut bleeding… black. All over the painting.'

'Why can't I see it?'

'I can't see it now. These things don't last.'

Juanita started to shake her head, wrapped her arms around herself, began to pace the room, staring down and rocking.

'Diane, you'd… OK, listen, you'd come in off the street, into a darkened shop, darkened hallway, and then you burst into a lighted room…'

'Juanita, sometimes you've got to trust me.'

Juanita blinked. 'Look, OK, 'I'll go over to Jim's. Check him out. You stay here. Stay by the phone, just in case.'

'You're not going on your own.'

'Well, you're not coming.'

'Juanita, I can be frightfully stubborn. You are not going on your own. If I have to get the van going and follow you.'

Juanita told her why it was impossible. She told her that her friends, the Pilgrims, were back. Not all of them. Maybe half a dozen. But back. They'd be spread all over the hill.'

'Oh.' Diane became very still. 'In that case, there're a few things I need to ask them. About Headlice.'

Juanita's calves ached: varicose veins, was it, now?

Your time is close, woman. It'll happen sooner than you dread.

Diane said, 'I'll get the van.'

'No. OK. We'll take the Volvo.' Juanita was sweating. Her posh, grey jacket felt like rags.

Hot sweat, cold sweat, menopause, hag.

St John's church tower was watching them from above, unfeeling behind its lagging of rain and night.

Juanita pulled car keys from her shoulder bag, gripped them until the jagged edges bit into her palm.

'Listen. OK. Just listen.' Facing Diane over the bonnet of the Volvo. 'We go directly to Jim's. We don't stop for anybody. Is that understood?'

Diane nodded; Juanita didn't trust her. She pulled the old Afghan coat out of the boot, dragged it on. The rain was relentless as they drove into Chilkwell Street – a few cars parked, a little light traffic. Small town, rainy night.

Halfway up Wellhouse Lane, they came to the first vehicle. The old Post Office van. 'You agreed,' Juanita snapped. 'You agreed we don't stop. I don't care who you recognise, we keep going.'

Then the hearse.

'Mort,' Diane breathed.

'Shut up.'

Dim lamplight in some of the buses and vans. A few people plodded from one to another. Metallic music rattled the Volvo's windows.

'It's them, it's Mort's hearse.'

'I don't care if it's Storming Norman's bloody tank, we're not stopping.'

'I don't think I want to anymore.' Diane actually seemed a little scared.

'Good.' Juanita trod on the gas, eased forward past the hearse. And then collapsed on the brake…

'What the hell?'

… as a grey cliff-face arose in their path.

The motor coach was in the middle of the road. Not moving. No lights. The Volvo stalled. Juanita wound down the window in rage, and screamed at anybody, 'What do you think this is, the municipal dump?'

Laughter came like breaking glass.

'Stay!' Juanita hissed at Diane. 'Just don't move an inch.'

She slammed out into the road. There was a group of people, or it might have been people and bushes; it didn't move.

What if he's here? With his sickle. Gwyn ap Nudd. In his animal mask. Juanita tasted oil and wanted to run away, but she made herself speak to them.

'Excuse me. We need to get past.'

'Can't be done, lady.' A calm voice, unhurried. 'You're gonna have to turn back.'

All she could see was a tall grey figure and a cigarette end too small to fizz in the rain. Did whoever it was recognise her from the other night? Did they all recognise her?

'Mel's bus broke down, OK? We can't fix it tonight. You gotta go back. There's another way. Wherever you're headed, there's, like, always another way, lady.'

'Not to where we're going. I don't get this. What are you guys doing back here?'

'Lady, we are the army for Avalon. Public meeting, yeah? About the road? We're the public.'

'Can't you just reverse it down the hill?'

'It's fuckin' clapped. Don't you listen? We'll get it seen to when the morning comes.'

'I do like your coat.' A cruel, female cackle. 'My granny had one like that.'

Juanita was preparing an acid reply when she saw that Diane was at her side.

'Mort? Are you there?'

'For Christ's sake, what did we agree, Diane? The road's blocked, anyway. One of their buses broke down.'

'Mort!' Diane cried out shrilly. 'Where's Mort?'

'Shiiiit,' one of the female travellers drawled from the darkness. 'We got bleedin' Fergie?'

'Rozzie? Is that you? It's me. Di… Molly. It's Molly F-f-Fortune.'

'She on about?'

'Interbreeding, it is,' the man said. 'Been poking their cousins for centuries. All got brains the size of fuckin' walnuts.'

The mild rain between them was as dense and muffling as a velvet curtain. Diane shouted, 'Mort, we have to talk. I know you're there, I've seen the hearse.'

'It's my hearse, darlin'. Paul Pendragon at your service. There's nobody called Mort. And, listen, you shouldn't be here hassling us, you should be down at that meeting. Got to stop this fuckin' road, ladies. You come down with us, we'll look after you.'

'Diane, come on.'

'She yours, lady?'

'Diane, will you…?'

'Why did you leave?' Diane screamed. 'Why didn't you take poor Headlice to hospital? Why did you let him die? Why'd you leave him?'

Silence. Juanita had a horrible sense of deja vu. She tensed, snatched at Diane's arm.

Somebody laughed and held up a hurricane lamp that passed from face to face, and there were beards and plaits and dreadlocks and face-paint, and Juanita didn't recognise, thank God, anyone.

'Sweetheart,' Paul Pendragon said, 'we took every case of headlice to hospital the Health Service'd grind to a bleeding standstill.'

Diane was all fuzzy and bewildered.

'They aren't the same. They're different.'

Well, they had to be. No way the last lot would return after the death, the possible murder, of one of their tribe.

Juanita was entirely relieved, if you wanted the truth. They got back into the car and she reversed about twenty yards, pulled into the side of the lane, half in the bushes, switched off the engine and the lights.

'I think what we do is we walk from here. But we let them go past first.'

Juanita leaned across Diane, pulled a torch from the glove compartment as a bunch of them came down the hill with the hurricane lamp. The army for Avalon marching to something mournful played on a tin whistle. She opened the driver's door and stood in the bushes until all she could hear was faint music and the echo of laughter.

She and Diane moved past the vehicles. Six, Juanita counted, including the bus blocking the road.

It was still raining, but they were less than half a mile from Jim's. A stupid exercise, really.

When, after nearly ten minutes' walking, a light appeared ahead of them and there was the sound of solid footsteps, Juanita was convinced it was Jim himself and started thinking of an excuse. It would have to be the Headlice issue: they wanted Jim's opinion before going to the cops. Tried to ring…

The footsteps stopped immediately in front of them, like a soldier coming to attention, and he turned the beam of his lamp on himself, lighting up a Barbour so old and worn it could have been Mr Barbour's prototype, and a face like a round of rough Cheddar.

'Is it the fire of hell, Mrs Carey? Or is it the wrath of God? Cursed, it is, this place. The devil in a black buzz and now the fire of hell.'

'Don.' Juanita wondered if she'd ever squeezed more disappointment into one syllable. 'I think we can do without the evangelism tonight.'

'She thought you were Jim Battle,' Diane said.

'Oh.' Don Moulder let his lamp arm fall to his side, the beam trailing in the road. 'Mr Battle. Aye, When I heard your voices, I did hope as he were comin' up with you. I called 'em already, look. Soon's I seen it, went back up the house, called 999. Told 'em to get their fingers out.'

Juanita felt herself go limp.

'Now don't you start worryin' nor nothin'. He couldn't be in there, no way, my love. When I seen it, I thought it were them hippies an' their paraffin again. I mighter smelt it and went down there earlier, look, but for this rain, and… and things.'

'Oh God,' Juanita howled. She pushed past Don and tore blindly down the little lane which led to Jim's track.

She could smell it herself now, sour and acrid.

'I wouldn't go there,' Don Moulder shouted out, corning after her. 'Mrs Carey, you wait for me.'

She ran down through the trees. Her skirt snagged on some brambles and she ripped it free, feeling the material tearing under the Afghan coat.

Don Moulder stumbling behind. 'You won't get no nearer than I could, Mrs Carey.'

The air grew bright around her, rosy as dawn, but no dawn ever smelt like this.

'You wait for the fire brigade. They d'have machines as'll get down that track, no trouble. You'll get trapped down there, look.'

Juanita found the track at last, ran across the turning area where she'd parked the other night. On to a grassy hump, stumbling over a root and sinking to her knees.

'…'s far enough, I tell you! Don't be s' damn stupid, woman!'

When she stood up, it was like thrusting her head into an enormous blow drier. She couldn't breathe, her mouth filled up with fumes and she fell back into the wet grass, Don Moulder screeching,'… Godzake, woman!'

She crawled on hands and knees around the grassy mound until she came to the little wooden gate leading into the tiny, square cottage garden where Jim would erect his easel on warm evenings, a high hedge protecting his privacy.

She stood up by the remains of an old trellis, where roses had once hung. Her eyes were already sore and streaming and she had to blink four, five times before she could see the whole picture.

The whole terrible bloody picture.

Jim's cottage and the garden were in a little flat-bottomed bowl with a bank rising up behind it and the enormous ash tree, one and a half times as high as the cottage.

The bowl looked like a frying pan, with a straight piece of track forming the handle, although she'd never seen it that way before.

But, then, she'd never seen it all lit up like this.

The lower windows of Jim's cottage were bright and warm, like the welcoming windows of a storybook cottage.

Especially the floor-to-ceiling studio window, the sunset window. Looking now as if it had stored up all those thousands of liquid red sunsets and was starting one of its own.

The November night was as warm as a kitchen. The air carried the breathless rise and fall of distant sirens.

Diane and Don Moulder came to stand on either side of Juanita.

'That's far enough, Mrs Carey. Brigade's here now, look.'

The fire-sirens went on and on and got no louder.

'He's surely out here somewhere.' Don Moulder was wiping his eyes with a rag. 'He's not daft, isn't Mr Battle.'

The roof timbers of Jim's cottage produced a cheerful, crackling as fierce little impish flames began to poke through like gas-jets. And still the sirens went on and on and got no louder. In a gush of panic, Diane realised.

'Oh, gosh Mr Moulder, they can't… the fire brigade won't get through! The whole lane's clogged with buses and wagons, we couldn't even get the car past!'

'Whazzat, Miss?'

'Travellers. There's a bus broken down right in the middle of the road.'

'A buzz?'

'It's blocking the road'' Diane was aware of Juanita pulling open her Afghan coat and ripping at her skirt.

'Oh my God.' Juanita said. 'Oh my God. Look!' Pointing at the ash tree, something hanging from it.

'Aye,' Don Moulder was saying. 'A buzz. Maybe you seen it. But were it a real buzz? That's the big question, Miss Diane. Were it a real… Christ, are you mad, woman?'

Beside Diane, a muffled, ragged figure, cloth-raced like a scarecrow, began to run towards the inferno.

The sunset window cracked first, like a gunshot, and then it exploded, a thousand fragments of hot glass blown out at Juanita, muffled like a Muslim woman, a torn -off length of her skirt wound around her face as she threw herself at the cottage.

Diane rushed forward, squealing like a piglet, but Don Moulder grabbed her, both arms around her waist, and held her back.

A huge gush of fire lunged out of the cottage and hit the ash tree with a lurid splash of sparks, like a welding torch in a foundry. Whatever was hanging limply from a branch was lit up very briefly before the flame pounced like a cat on rat and consumed it.

Diane screamed wildly inside Don Moulder's arms.

Juanita had disappeared.

Brittle, burning dead leaves from the ash tree danced like frenzied fireflies to the futile warbling of the trapped fire-engines.

As out of the shattered sunset window toppled a frightful thing, a monstrous shape… a fossil tree with rigid projecting branches, a twisted, blackened pylon.

Coughing and retching, with Don Moulder's leathery farmer's hands clasped over her spasming stomach, Diane saw just about everything.

She saw that the tree was something entangled and kept upright by a metal artist's easel. Or maybe two easels, or even three, entwined, fused together into a single, horrific fire-sculpture, all black and flaking.

At the top of this twisted creation was spiked a charcoal ball, like a Hallowe'en pumpkin which had fallen into the bonfire. When the construction teetered, the ball twirled to display…

It was impolite to be sick on someone. Diane found the strength to pull away. Vomiting into the grass, she could still see it.

The grisly twinkle of teeth as the charred remains of Jim Battle toppled into Juanita's flung-open arms and the cottage roof collapsed into a gush of pumping blood-orange smoke.

Before she fainted on Don Moulder, Diane glimpsed something at the very centre of the billowing.

Obscenely like the hands of a conjuror letting loose a black dove, it was a smoking cup of shadows, a dark chalice.