Crybbe (AKA Curfew) (29 page)

   
With Arnold tight to her legs,
she turned away and began to walk back in the direction she'd come along the
silent street. It was nearly dark now, but there were no lights in any of the houses.

   
Because people would be
watching at the windows. The woman, the vicar and the dog. A tableau. A little
public drama.

   
She turned back. 'It's true,
though, isn't it? Apart from Arnold here, there aren't any dogs in Crybbe.'

   
'I don't know,' Murray said. It
was obvious the idea had never occurred to him. 'But . . . well, it's hardly
likely, is it?' She couldn't see his face any more, only his white collar, luminous
like a cyclist's armband.

   
'Oh yes,' Fay said, 'it's likely.
Anything's likely in this town.'

   
'Yes, well ... I'll just . - .
I'll just say what I've been asked to say before . . . before you go.'

   
There came a heavy metallic
creak from the church tower. The bell swinging back.

   
and . . .
Clangggg!

   
It had never sounded so Loud.
The peal hit the street like a flash of hard, yellow light.

   
Arnold sat down in the road and
his head went back.
   
Fay saw him and fell on her knees with
both hands around his snout. As the first peal died, Murray Beech said, 'I've
been asked ... to tell you to keep the dog off the streets.'
   
'What?'

   
'Especially at . . . curfew
time. People don't . . . they don't like it.'

   
Rage rippled through Fay. She
looked up into the vicar's angular, desperate face.
   
'What?'

   
Her hands unclasped. She came
slowly to her feet.

   
She watched as Arnold swallowed,
shook his head once and then quivered with the vibration from the tower as the
great bell swung back.

   
Clangggg!

   
Arnold's first howl seemed to
rise and meet the peal in the air above the square with an awful chemistry.
   
'Who?' Fay said quietly.

   
'Go home!' the vicar hissed
urgently. 'Take the thing away.'
   
'Who told you to tell me?'

   
There was a shiver in the night,
the creak of the bell hauled back.

   
Fay shrieked,
'Who told you, you bastard?'
   
The bell pealed again, like sheet-lightning.
Arnold howled. The old buildings seemed to clutch each other in the shadows.

And she was hearing the muffled clatter of his footsteps before she was
aware that Murray Beech was running away across the square, as if Hell was about
to be let loose in 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?'