The Chalice (19 page)

      
'You have got to be kidding,' Ben said. 'I can name you at
least...'

      
Powys held up both hands to stop him. He was sitting on the
arm of the overstuffed sofa, his white T-shirt merging with the white wall so
it looked as if he was only semi-materialised, only half there. The wood-fire
was tucked away in an inglenook, books to the ceiling either side of it. Above
the fireplace, there was a framed photograph of an old man with a clerical
collar and a big, white beard and another one, full length, of a slender woman
with pale hair.

      
Something told Ben both of these people were dead.
      
He stared hard at Powys. 'So what
is it you don't believe in? Apart from ghosts, ley-lines, mysterious forces in the
landscape...'

      
On another wall was a framed print of an intoxicating Samuel
Palmer moonlit cornfield. The kind of scene you associated with
The Old Golden Land.
Ben remembered when
they were students and Joe Powys had discovered the enchanted world of standing
stones and mysterious mounds and beacon hills. Lighting up boring old Britain
for a whole bunch of them, even Ben for a while. The guy just had that gift.
Poet of the Unexplained.

      
'... Fairies, witchcraft, UFOs . .

      
Powys didn't reply. He went into his cupboard-size kitchen and
returned with a six-pack of Heineken Export. He detached a can from the pack
and passed it across to Ben, his face blank.

      
Ben remembered how this cottage had been left to Joe Powys by
Henry Kettle, the old water diviner, whose own motto had been
Nothing psychic, nothing psychic.

      
'This is not something you can talk about sober,' said Ben.
'Am I right?'

'Now I'm not trying to
advise you, don't think that. I don't want you to do anything goes against your
religion.'

      
Joe Powys saw that Ben was fairly pissed. Arnold watching him
with some disapproval; his late master, Henry Kettle had drunk only sparingly,
on the basis that you couldn't dowse under the influence. As far as Arnold was
concerned, this was still Henry's house.

      
Powys leaned down and patted him. 'It's OK, this man is a
publisher.'

      
Powys remembered sitting in a pub with Ben Corby, just after the
Max Goff organisation, Epidemic, had bought Dolmen Rooks, and Ben had said,
It's time for the New Age to grab the world
by the balls
. Business talk. Ben Corby had made a lot of money selling
books about healing rays and ancient wisdom. Had actually made a lot of money
out of Joe Powys.

      
'It's just you're a hero to these people,' Ben said. 'The tens
of thousands of decent, well meaning if totally humourless punters who buy
Dolmen books by the handful to stick on the shelf under sprigs of aromatic
herbs. And if their long-time guru starts telling them about seers who need glasses,
and not to trust their little bodies to spiritual healers, they're ... Hang on,
gotta have a slash.'

      
The stairs rose from the living room. When Ben had gone up,
Powys kneeled down and took Arnold's black and white head between his hands and
stared into the dog's eyes.

      
'What do we do, Arnold? He's going to dump me. No more Choice
Cuts. Back to the Tex chunks, economy size.'

      
But you kind of knew he
would, Powys, didn't you? You knew he was never going to publish a book which
proves crystals rarely work and the St Michael Line is a con.

      
'Yes, I did, Arnold.'

      
He wished Fay was here. Fay had this direct, broadcaster's way
of putting things. Fay would convey to Ben Corby precisely why this book was
not, as expected, another dollop of New Age blancmange. Because Fay had been at
Crybbe.

      
She was programme controller at Offa's Dyke Radio now. She
hated local radio but she needed people. Ordinary people who were concerned about
town planning, car-theft, more hospital beds and rail-cutbacks. Fay had a flat
in Hereford. She came back most weekends. But she didn't like it out here
anymore, he could tell. She'd gone right off the countryside.

      
Ben had said, 'Why the hell do you stay here? It's so bloody primitive.
If Henry left it to you, why don't you just sell it?'

      
'I can't sell it.' Powys said. 'It's Arnold's house, too. He's
a dowser's dog He has a feel for this place.'

      
'Now that,' said Ben delightedly, 'is a wonderfully New Age
thing to say.'

      
'I'm embarrassed.'

      
'But you don't believe any of it anymore.'
      
Powys sighed. This was it with
publishers. They never read anything properly, not after they'd made the
entirely arbitrary decision that it was going in the wrong direction.

      
Henry's old pendulum clock struck eight. The night was young.
He was going to have to go into this.

      
Look, he didn't not
believe
.
He accepted totally that there were ... things ...
out there
. But who was really equipped to mess with them? The
trance-mediums who'd call up your grandad so he could tell you about the
missing socks? The Kirlian photographers who'd do your etheric body for the
family album?

      
Or what about the dowsers? Not Henry Kettle. Henry had been
over-cautious, if anything. For years he'd dowse only for water, wouldn't get
into anything he was unsure of.

      
'But now you've got all these bastards, been at it for about
six months and they're claiming to feel the earth's pulse. Energy dowsing. Everybody's
a bloody energy dowser suddenly Everybody- can tune into the Earth Force, Sunday
ramblers. New Age travellers ...'

      
'Yeah, yeah.' Ben snapped his way into another can of lager.
'But it's all harmless. I mean, it can't hurt anybody...'

      
He stopped. Sensing the change in Powys's mood, Arnold got to
his three feet and began a low growl

      
'It's OK, Arnold,' Powys said. 'I can't kill a man when he's
pissed. '

      
Ben Corby looked warily at Arnold and then back at Powys.
'What did I say?'
      
'You said "harmless''.'

      
Powys tossed a log on to the fire, crushing the embers of the
last one and sending up a splash of red sparks.

      
'They go to Totnes. And they go to Glastonbury. And they're
like kids in Toys R Us. It's like they've been given a New Age credit card.
Think I'll have a go at that hypno-regressive therapy next week. Damn, really
must
have the old aura resprayed. And
it's all
natural
. No drugs, no artificial
sweeteners. Totally harmless.'

      
He held up the poker, its tip glowing with heat-energy.
      
'They'll stand in a stone circle on
Midsummer Night and call down the supreme atavistic power of the Horned God, right?
But you offer them a bag of crisps containing monosodium glutamate, and it's
like you pulled a gun on them. What's that tell us?'

      
'Jesus,' said Ben, 'it's a pitiful sight, an old New Ager who's
lost his life-force.'

      
'Yeah. Pass me another lager.'

      
'None left, old son. Got another pack in the fridge?'

      
'How many packs did we drink?'

      
'Three. And half a bottle of some filthy liqueur.'

      
'In that case, no.'

      
'Listen,' Ben said. 'If you insist on doing this, I'll show it
to the guy upstairs.'
      
'God?'

      
'No, you pillock. We belong to Harvey-Calder now, as you know,
since Goff's untimely demise. And being the smallest, least-credible part of
this big, faceless, mindless publishing conglomerate, we're naturally in the
basement and the literary guys treat us like shit.'
      
Powys smiled.

      
'Some joker hung wind-chimes outside our door,' Ben said
gloomily. 'Bastards. But there's this not bad guy upstairs in charge of Harvey's
general nonfiction called Dan Frayne. If he publishes it, it's no skin off
Dolmen's nose. I'll show it to him.'

      
'Oh.' Joe Powys stood up, feeling confused, and a little cool
air through the peeling patch in the left knee of his jeans 'Well, thanks. Thanks,
Ben.'

      
'Don't thank me,' said Ben Corby, who didn't believe in anything
you couldn't get into a wallet. 'Just because I don't want you to starve
doesn't mean I don't think you're a complete arsehole.'

Ben slept - or tried to -
in a spare room about the size of a double coffin. No soothing traffic noise,
that was the problem, no police and ambulance sirens en route to somebody
else's crisis.

      
It was very still and very dark. The panes in the little
square window were opaque, like slates. There was no noise at all from outside,
nothing, no owls, no wind through trees, no branches tapping on the glass. Only
the creak from the bed when he turned over.

      
It would have made no difference.

      
It would have made no difference if there'd been a force-ten
gale blowing or a fox had got into somebody's chicken shed. It would have made
no difference if a plane had crashed in the woods.

      
He'd still have heard it; he'd still have awoken around three
in the morning with a chill running up his back, from his arse to his fuzzed-up
brain.

      
No question: there was no sound quite like this for putting
the shits up you.

      
Ben didn't move again until he heard another door open across
the passage and Joe Powys's loud whisper. 'Arnold, no. Leave it.'

      
Ben rolled then from under his duvet, snatched up his bath-robe,
staggered to the door, crouching because of the thought of beams, the way you
did in the car going under a low bridge even though you knew there was plenty
of room.

      
As he felt his way out to the landing, the ceiling light blinked
on in its little pot shade, low-powered, but dazzling at first. The vibrating
dots resolved into Joe Powys in his T-shirt and briefs standing very still, a
hand on the switch on the wall at the top of the stairs.

      
Ben, his voice thick, said, 'What's up with him?'

      
But before Joe Powys could reply, another long, rolling howl
began welling from the foot of the stairs, went on and on, spooky as hell. '

      
'I didn't think dogs did that in real life,' Ben said stupidly.

      
Powys started to go downstairs into the living room, half-lit
from the landing, and Ben followed him because, shit, what if Powys went out of
the house and left him here on his own?

      
They were halfway down when the crash came.

      
A classic splintering crash of exploding glass. Ben was
clutching at Powys's arm, hissing, 'Fucking burglars.' Swivelling his head,
looking for a weapon, like he was going to find a poker in a stand at the top
of the stairs or a baseball bat hanging from the wall.

      
The crash seemed to go on and on, with a coda of rolling splinters.

      
The dog was silent.

      
'It's over,' Powys said.

      
Ben stared at him. Couldn't move. Powys padded barefoot down
the rest of the stairs.
         
'Mind the
glass,' Ben said weakly.

Half-light from the landing
was the best they could hope for. The paraffin lamp converted to electricity
had been converted to glass shards and dented tin. It was in the middle of the
floor, still rolling.

      
Ben looked fearfully around the room. Nothing seemed amiss,
apart from the lamp. In the grate, the fire was almost burned out, one ashy log
glinting like a red foil sweet paper. On the chimney breast over the inglenook,
the two pictures, of the old vicar-guy and the woman with ash blonde hair, were
perfectly in place.

      
So quiet now, Ben could hear his own nervy, staccato breaths. Trying
to convince himself this was another of Powys's scams. That he'd crept down in
the night, maybe balanced the lamp on the very edge of the table.

      
Joe Powys hadn't said a word. He was standing by the fireplace
looking at the two photos, Ben looked too and ...