Crybbe (AKA Curfew) (38 page)

   
In the river now, almost up to
the tops of his Wellingtons, Jonathon Preece bellowed, 'I know your face,
Mister. I'll 'ave you!'

   
'Oh, piss off,' Powys said,
weary of him. He heard Mrs Seagrove wailing, 'You must've seen it. It was
coming right at you. It went
through
you.'

CHAPTER VII

Jean Wendle was living in a narrow town house on the square. Inside, it
was already quite dark. She put on a reading lamp. Its parchment shade made the
room mellow.
   
Gold lettering on the book spines, the
warm brass of a coal-scuttle in the hearth. It reminded Alex of his first
curate's house in Oxfordshire, before he'd been promoted into an endless series
of vast, unbeatable vicarages and rectories. She'd certainly brought the warmth
of her personality into the place.

   
Jean Wendle made him sit in a
smoker's bow chair, his back to the fireplace, with its Chinese screen, facing
a plain, whitewashed wall.

   
'Some days,' Alex said, 'it
seems fine. I mean there might be nothing wrong. Or perhaps that, in itself, is
an illusion. Perhaps I think I'm all right and everybody else sees me as stark,
staring . . .'

   
'Shush.' Touch of Scottish in
her voice, he liked that. 'Don't tell me. Don't tell me anything about it. Let
me find out for myself.'

   
Yes, he really rather fancied
her. Sixtyish. Short, grey hair. Still quite a neat little body - pliable, no
visible stiffening. Sort of retired gym-mistress look about her. And nice
mobile lips.

   
Cool fingers on his forehead.
Moving from side to side, finding the right spot. Then quite still.

   
Quite sexy. Would he have let
himself in for this if he hadn't fancied her a bit?

   
Not a chance.

   
'Don't talk,' she said.

   
'I wasn't talking.'

   
'Well, don't think so loudly.
Not for a moment or two. Just relax.'

   
Taken him a few days to arrive
into the cool hands of Jean Wendle. Well, a few nights - tentative approaches
in the pub. Not a word to Fay. Definitely not a word to Grace.

   
And why shouldn't he? What was
there to lose? The GP in Crybbe was a miserable beggar - hadn't been much to
poor old Grace, had he? Drugs. Always drugs. Drugs that made you sleepy, drugs
that made you sick. And at the end of the day . . .

   
Gradually, he and reality would
go their separate ways. Rather appealing in one sense - what did reality have
to commend it these days? But not exactly a picnic for anyone looking after
him. Alex knew what happened to people who lost their minds. It sometimes
seemed that half his parishioners had been geriatrics. They remembered having a
wash this morning, when it was really days ago. They peed in the wardrobe by
mistake.

   
Fay, now - that child was
suffering a severe case of misplaced loyalty. If he couldn't get rid of her, it
was his solid intention to pop himself off while he could still count on
getting the procedure right. She'd thank him for it one day. Better all round,
though, if he could make it look like an accident. Fall off the bridge or
something.

   
Would have been a pity though,
with all these alternative healing characters swanning around, not to give it a
try first. What was there to lose?

   
The first chap he'd been to,
Osborne, had not been all that encouraging. Almost as depressing as the doc.
Alex got the feeling old age was not what the New Age was about.

   
And all this 'like cures like'
stuff. A drop of this, a drop of that. Little phials of colourless liquid,
touch of the medieval apothecary.

   
'How long before it starts to
work?'

   
'You mustn't expect dramatic
results, Alex,' Osborne told him. 'You see, holistic medicine, by definition,
is about improving the health of the whole person. Everything is
interconnected. Obviously, the older one is, the more set in its ways the body
is, therefore the longer . . .' He must have seen the expression in Alex's
eyes. 'Look, my wife's an acupuncturist, perhaps that might be more what you .
. .'

   
'All those bloody needles. No
thanks.'

   
'It isn't painful, Alex."

   
'Pain? I don't mind pain!'

   
Just the image of himself lying
there, an overstuffed pincushion.

   
This
kind of healing was a good
deal more dignified, if you concentrated on those cool hands and didn't think
too hard about what was supposedly going on in the spirit world.

   
He'd grilled her, naturally.

   
'Dr Chi? Dr bloody Chi? You
don't
look
like a nutter, Wendy. How
can you seriously believe you're working under the supervision of some
long-dead Chinky quack?'

   
'My name's Jean,' she'd
corrected him softly.

   
'Dr Chi!' Alex draining his
Scotch. 'God save us.'

   
'Do you really want to know
about this, Alex, or are you just going to be superior, narrow-minded,
chauvinistic and insulting?'

   
'Was I? Hmmph. Sorry. Old age.
Senile dementia.'
   
'Are you really old enough to be
senile, Alex? What are you, seventy?'

   
'I'm certainly way past
flattery, Wendy. Way past eighty, too. Go on, tell me about this Peking
pox-doctor from the Ming dynasty.'

   
He'd forced himself to listen
patiently while she told him about Dr Chi, who, she said, she'd once actually
seen - as a white, glowing, egg-shaped thing.

   
'The name is significant. Dr
Chi. Chi is the oriental life force. Perhaps that's the name I've
subconsciously given him. I don't know if I'm dealing with a doctor from the
Ming dynasty, the T'ang dynasty or whenever. He doesn't speak to me all
sing-song, like a waiter serving chicken chow mein. All I know is there's a
healing force and I call him Dr Chi. Perhaps he never was a human doctor at all
or perhaps he's something that last worked through a Chinese physician. I'm not
clever enough to understand these things. I'm content to be a channel. Good
gracious, don't you believe in miracles, Alex? Isn't that the orthodox Anglican
way
any more
?'

   
Regarding the Anglican Church,
he wasn't entirely sure what he believed any more.

Powys found the page, ran his finger down the column headed Veterinary
Surgeons. 'OK, D. L. Harris. Crybbe three-nine-four.'

   
Mrs Seagrove dialled the number
and handed him the phone.

   
The woman in the bloodstained
blue cagoule sat in the hall. The dog lay on Powys's jacket on the woman's
knee, panting.

   
'Have a cup of tea while you're
waiting,' Mrs Seagrove said.

   
She shook her head. 'No. Thank
you..We may have to take him somewhere.'

   
The number rang for nearly half
a minute before a woman answered.

   
'Yes.'

   
'Mr Harris there, please?'
   
'What's it about?' Local accent.

   
'We've got a very badly injured
dog. Could you tell me where to bring it?'
   
A silence.

   
'Dog, you say?' Shrill. As if
he'd said giraffe or something.
   
'He's been shot.'

   
'I'm sorry,' the woman said
flat-voiced. "But Mr Harris is out.'

   
'Will he be long? Is there
another vet?'
   
'Sorry.' Cool, terse. 'We can't help
you.'
   
A crackle, the line broke.

   
'I don't believe it,' Powys
said. 'She said the vet was out, I asked when he'd be back or was there anyone
else, and she said she couldn't help me. Can you believe that? This was a
vet's, for God's sake.'

   
'Wrong,' Fay Morrison said
bitterly. 'This was a
Crybbe
vet's,'

'What the fuck was happening up there?' Max Goff lay on his bed in his
room at the Cock.

   
'You tell me,' said Andy
Boulton-Trow.

   
'I never felt so high. Like, at
first I was really angry, really furious at the inefficiency. Why weren't they
bringing the flaming wall down, why was nothing happening, why was the sound
failing?'

   
'And then?'

   
'Then I felt the power. The
energy. I never felt anything so heavy before. It took off the top of my skull.
That ever happen to you?'

   
'Once or twice,' Andy said.

   
'Come to London with me,' Goff
said. 'Stay at my place.
   
'I have things to do here.'

   
'Then I'll stay here. We'll
stay in this room. You got things to teach me, I realize this now. We'll stay
here. I'll get rid of Ms Wade. I'll send
her
back to London.'

   
Andy placed a hand on Max's
knee.

   
'You go back to London, Max.
There's such a thing as too much too soon. You'll get there. You'll make it.'
   
Andy didn't move his hand. Max
shivered.
   
'Took off the top of my skull. And
then the curfew started.'
   
'Yes,' Andy said. 'The curfew.'

'I don't think I like that curfew,' Jean Wendle said, pouring Earl Grey,
after the treatment. 'I don't know whether it's the bell or what it represents.
I don't like restrictions.'

   
'Oh, quite,' Alex said.
'Couldn't stand it if it was a
real
curfew. But as a bit of picturesque traditional nonsense, it's all right, isn't
it?'

   
'I think it
is
a real curfew, in some way,' Jean
said, 'I don't know why I think that. Well, yes, I do - people
do
stay off the streets while it's being
rung, have you noticed that? But I think there's something else. A hundred
times a night is an awfully big tradition.'

   
'I suppose so.'

   
Alex would give her the benefit
of the doubt on anything tonight. He didn't remember when he'd last felt so
relaxed, so much at peace. And him a priest. Best not to go into the
implications of all this.

   
'It's a very odd little town,'
Jean said. She drew gold-dusted velvet curtains over a deep Georgian window.

   
'Aren't they all.'

   
'No, they aren't. This is.
There are - how can I put it? - pockets of strange energy in this town. All
over the place. People see things, too, although few will ever admit it.'

   
'See things?' Alex was wary.

   
'Manifestations. Light effects.
Ghosts.'

   
'Hmm,' said Alex. 'Good cup of
tea.'

   
'Being on the border is a lot
to do with it. When we make a frontier . . . when we split something physically
asunder in the landscape, especially when we build something like Offa's Dyke
to emphasize it, we create an area of psychic disturbance that doesn't go
away.'

   
Alex stirred his tea, wishing
she'd talk about something else.

   
Jean said, 'Do you think
they've taken on more than they can handle? Max Goff and the New Age people?'

   
'I thought you were one of
them.'

   
'I like to keep a certain
distance,' Jean said, 'I like to watch. Can they control it, I wonder? Or is it
too volatile for them?'

   
'Oh, we can't control
anything,' Alex said. 'That's something everybody learns sooner or later. Least
of all control ourselves.'

It was well after midnight by the time they came out of the vet's.

   
Without Arnold.

   
'I couldn't stand the way he
was looking at me,' Fay said, it's not been his week, has it? He's in a car
crash, sees his master die. Saved from the clutches of the Crybbe constabulary,
finds he's become a kind of pariah in the town. Then he gets shot.'