The Chalice

FOURTEEN

She felt her anger like a bed of white-hot coals in her plexus. Her eyes, wide open, watched the mist weaving between the great pillars.

Diane watched the tendrils of cold steam interlacing the air above her, hearing Archer's politician's voice, dark old oak seasoned by his heritage.

All I need to know is, do you, the people of Glastonbury want it to happen?… damned hippies and squatters… turning this into a jungle…

Archer. Who, all through their childhood, had watched her from a distance. Which was frightfully easy to do at Bowermead. Archer's face, still as an owl's, amid the branches of a tree as she pushed her doll's pram through the wood, an enormous pine cone suddenly landing like a grenade on its blankets. Archer's petulant expression seen from a high chair across the table, a spoon at his big, meaty lips.

Diane bit the bedclothes.

Archer's finger at his lips. Shhhhh. Almost a man now, very strong as he lifted her out of bed and carried her in his arms down the stairs, Diane drowsy, half-hypnotised, aged seven?

Down through the grounds, sweet-scented in the summer night, and Oliver Pixhill waiting in the shrubbery. Almost dawn as they carried her, half-fascinated, mostly terrified, to the place where the Tor was a huge fairy castle.

Bring out the lights, Diane…

Diane felt starved and ill. She was drenched in the sort of spasmodic sweat which keeps congealing on your face, thick and sour as days-old milk. She was here because she was ill.

It was a hospital, wasn't it?

The old man had a big house now, self-built to a much higher standard than his usual crap, in an acre of ill-gotten ground set back from decently suburban Leg of Mutton Road. Far enough off the road to make it what Griff Daniel would call 'exclusive'.

But near enough to cause him serious aggro with his nice neighbours if there should be a high-decibel altercation resulting from the distinguished builder refusing to admit his prodigal son at half-past three in the morning.

Sam started politely. He rang the bell.

There was no response.

This time Sam kept his finger on the bell and at the same time battered his knuckles on the panel below the tasteless slab of bullseye glass.

Above the front porch, a bedroom window opened and a security spot bulb threw a circle of light around Sam.

'What the bloody hell you think you're doing?'

Sam stood openly in the middle of the circle of light.

'Well, I could do a tap-dance, Dad. Sing a couple of songs of a cabaret for the neighbours. Or you could just let me in and we'll have a little chat. And, yeah, I do know it's half past three.'

'Bugger off,' said Griff Daniel.'

'On the other hand, to save a bit of time I could just put that sundial through your lounge window.'

'And set the burglar alarm off, and I could have you banged up for the night. Now, for the last time… '

'I'd like that,' Sam said. 'I could sit in the station down at Street and keep the night shift entertained with your history, culminating in your arrangement with Davey, Len Whatsisname and Wayne Rankin. It's cold, Dad, I'm not gonner piss about…'

Three minutes later. Griff let him in. Paisley dressing gown and a face like a gargoyle with stone fatigue.

'You got a bloody nerve, boy.'

'Yeah, well, we'll skip over the pleasantries, if you don't mind.' Sam pushed past him, through the hall and into a split-level lounge with a floor-to-ceiling rainbow stone fireplace and a cocktail bar with mirrors. He didn't have time to laugh. 'Things I need to know now, or, by God, I'll put you under so much shit it'll take more than a JCB…'

'You got nothin' on me, boy.' Griff glanced back at stairs. 'No!' Waving a dismissive hand.

'Bring her down,' Sam said. 'Let's have a party.' He didn't want the old man's latest scrubber cluttering the place up, but anything to cause more disruption… However, when the woman appeared in the doorway clutching a white robe to her scrawny throat, she wasn't what he was expecting.

It was Jenna. From The Cauldron. Ceridwen's pipe-cleaner.

It didn't make sense. What was she doing here with the old man? Why wasn't she with Ceridwen and the rest of the so-called Inner Circle?

And Diane.

'Where's Diane?' Sam said weakly. 'That's all I wanner know.'

Griff Daniel sneered and dropped into a kingsize easy chair. 'You stupid little sod. Never did know when you were playin' outer your league.'

'And what about you?'

'I know my level.'

'And her?'

Jenna stared at him, her lips like a thin zip.

'Why aren't you with Ceridwen?'

'She knows her level, too,' Golf said.

'I thought you were a lesbian.' Sam said. 'I thought that was what the Inner Circle was about.'

'The Inner Circle isn't what you think,'' Jenna said. 'And I'm not in it. And not all feminists are lesbians – that's something he would say.'

This was weird. Sam shook his head in non-comprehension. It was kind of sick.

'Don't think this is no more than a loose sexual arrangement,' Jenna said haughtily. 'He isn't going to be wearing an earring.'

'Go away, boy,' Griff Daniel said. 'We don't know nothin'. Somethin' I've learned these past few weeks. Local politics is my pond, look. Local politics is knowing which people to help when they d' want you, and when to keep out of it. Some things, 'tis better to know nothin'.'

Sam clenched his fists. . 'Shut the door on your way out,' Griff said.

But when Sam was on his way out he thought of something the old man did know.

Mist, still rising around the bed like smoke. In a perverse way, Diane found this comforting. It suited her mood, enclosed her dark thoughts.

In the midst of it, she thought for a moment that she could see a very pale light ball.

When she was very young she used to go all trembly and run downstairs, and Father snorted impatiently and nannies said, Nonsense, child, and felt for a temperature.

Nannies.

There was a certain sort of nanny – later known as a governess – which Father expressly sought out. Nannies one and two, both the same, the sort which was supposed to have yellowed and faded from the scene along with crinolines and parasols. The sort which, in the 1960s, still addressed their charges as 'child'. The sort which, as you grew older, you realised should never be consulted about occurrences such as lights around the Tor.

And then there was the Third Nanny.

Her memories of the Third Nanny remained vague and elusive. She remembered laughter; the Third Nanny was the only one of them that ever laughed. And one other thing; she would sit on the edge of the bed, but never left a dent in the mattress when she arose.

The pale lightball hovered. Part of her wanted to clutch at it and part of her wanted to push it away.

In the end that was what she did, for lightballs belonged to childhood, and she was grown up now.

She wondered what day it was. Was it Christmas yet? Always hated Christmas. All those fruity voiced oafs smelling of drink and cigars, and then going stiffly to church.

'Merry Christmas, m'Lord, Merry Christmas. Thank you, m'lord, very kind, very kind of you…' And Boxing Days echoing to the horrid peremptory, bloodlusting blast of the hunting horn. 'Time we had you riding, Diane? 'Doubt if we've got a horse fat enough and stupid enough. Father, ha ha…'

'Time to wake up, Diane.' Ceridwen was at her bedside.

'It's still dark.'

'It will soon be dawn.'

Ceridwen no longer wore the starched uniform of the nurse or the nanny, but a long purple robe.

'This is not a hospital, is it?'

'It has made you well, however,' Ceridwen said. 'You've learned what you needed to learn. Without this knowledge you could never be free.'

'I… I suppose that's true.'

She had dreamed of blood. The blood around her birth, she had remembered her mother's cooling arms. She knew who had murdered her mother. She was, at last, approaching an understanding of who she was.

'You once came to me to ask if you were an incarnation of Dion Fortune. You always knew that, didn't you?'

'I…'

Ceridwen went down on her knees at the bottom of the bed. 'I honour you, Diane Fortune.'

And then there was a rustling all around her, and other people in robes emerged from behind the pillars, bearing candles. Among them, faces she knew.

Rozzie and Mort and Viper and Hecate, the girl who had been so rude to her and had made the children paint the bus black.

They all dropped to their knees.

And then Gwyn appeared, tall and bearded in a shroud of mist, and he held up his sickle before throwing it to the ground at the bottom of the bed. And all the people in the room said in unison, 'We honour you, Diane Fortune.'

Verity awoke into shrilling darkness and clicked off her travel alarm.

She had slept for four hours, after making Wanda's supper and mugs of calming cocoa. Wanda, who had drunk too much, had been in one of her unpleasant, resentful moods at being obliged to rise before dawn to put on a public relations sideshow with a bloody Christian.

The luminous hands of the travel alarm told Verity it was five thirty. She arose at once, against the tug from her hip, into the tainted luxury of her suite at Wanda's.

Tainted by guilt. She arose into guilt. She had deserted her post. She had allowed Mr Powys to guide her away from the 'grave and mortal danger' foretold by Major Shepherd.

And left little Councillor Woolaston in its path.

Perhaps that part was over. Perhaps the intruders had been caught and detained by the police.

And perhaps something horrible had occurred.

Verity washed in cold water, for the heating had not yet come on. She heard the first spatter of sleet against the window.

She felt sick to her soul.