The Chalice (34 page)

      
'Resign,' Powys said.

      
'I might go to Glastonbury and open myself to all the wonderful
earth-forces in the hope that my Grail awaited me there.'

      
'No, you wouldn't.'

      
'
I
wouldn't. I'm
explaining what I might do if, perish the thought, I were you. Forget it, I probably
had Glastonbury on my mind in a negative context, having received this very
morning a review copy of a book even more foolish than your own revered opus.
By an American, of course, one W. Pelham Grainger, PhD, who wants us all to
enrich our lives by bonding with the living darkness. Absolute tosh. He lives
near Glastonbury, as it happens. My, my, I must remember to record this coincidence
in my Arthur Koestler Appreciation Society Diary.'
      
Powys shook his head.

      
'Away with you,' Donovan said. 'Away to your Avalon.'
      
'Thanks very much,' Powys said. 'I'll
expect your bill in the mail.'

      
'My meter records ... let me see ... twenty five minutes!'

      
'Prove it,' Powys said. 'Laboratory conditions.'

TEN

His Stain

'Bastards.' Woolly threw the
Daily Press
on to Juanita's counter.
'Bastards, bastards,
bastards
''

      
His roughened elbow poked through a hole in his shapeless orange
sweater. The rubber band securing his stringy ponytail had snapped. He looked
like an ageing Dickensian street urchin. There were tears in his eyes.

      
'I'm so sorry. Woolly,' Juanita said. 'But it's hardly a surprise,
is it?'

      
She could see in his face that, no, it hadn't been a surprise.
But there'd still been that final strand to be snipped before the rope broke
and dropped him into the black pit.

      
She turned the paper around on the counter. The story was
front-page lead.

Green Light for M-way

The controversial Bath-Taunton expressway is to go ahead - despite
furious protests from environmentalists.

       
The report of the two-month
public inquiry, published today, rejects claims that the proposed route would
be a 'savage rape of Central Somerset'.

       
But a leading opponent of
the plan said last night, 'We'll fight them to the last tree.'

       
The Government claims the
road is the only way to end crippling congestion in several small towns and
villages, especially during the holiday season.

       
It will also link the
county firmly into the trans-European road network, opening up major industrial
and commercial possibilities, according to local authority chiefs who have
welcomed the decision.

      
'Got a call from the paper late last night asking for a quote,'
Woolly said. 'Too choked to give a reasoned response, just wanted to get it
over that we'd be re-forming the action committee, only it come out a bit
stronger, like.
      
'Sheesh.'

Mendip Councillor Edward Woolaston. one of the original protesters,
said, No way are they going to get away with this. This is going to be a
nationwide issue, even a world issue, and we'll fight them to the last tree.'

      
Juanita didn't know what to say. The thought of an enormous
public protest with the police and armies of security men guarding the site and
people getting hurt made her feel faintly sick.

      
'The thing is, Woolly, it just never works. There've been so
many full-scale road protests and it just leaves everyone beaten and bitter.
Look at Newbury ... Batheaston ... Twyford Down ... If the Government decides a
road's going through, it goes through.'

      
She stared despondently through the window. All the shards of
pottery had disappeared from the gutters, which streamed now with dark rain.
Apart from Holy Thorn Ceramics being closed, you'd think nothing exceptional
had occurred in High Street. Last night's spark in the air had fizzled out.
There was no sign of either Tony or Domini.

      
'And the thing is. Woolly, if you organise a militant protest
to stop the road, all it does is split the community even more because most of
the locals think it's a good thing. They don't like the idea of the countryside
being ripped up, but if it prevents traffic snarl-ups and children being run over
and heavy lorries shaking their foundations ... oh hell, you know all this
better than I do, a lot of those people voted for you.'

      
'And won't vote for me again if I'm behind this protest,' said
Woolly soberly. 'But I got to go with my conscience. We're fighting for the West
Country's right to breathe. We're fighting for green hills, places to walk,
places to be. We're fighting to stop them selling Britain for scrap. Sorry. There
I go again. Councillor bloody Woolaston. It's all a sham, being a councillor. There
is no democracy.'

      
Juanita pushed the newspaper away. 'So you want me to tell
people ... what?'

      
'Tell 'em there's an emergency meeting tonight. Put it round.
Seven-thirty. Assembly Rooms. Now they've made a decision they won't hang around.
It'll be bulldozers and chainsaw-gangs on every horizon before we know it.
Still, you know how
you
could help.'

      
'Mmm?'

      
'Well don't sound so excited, my love.'
      
'I'm sorry. Lot on my mind.'

      
The idea of putting Rankin in the frame for murder seemed less
straightforward than it had last night. You could never be sure what Diane was
going to say, how much of her statement would include what she might consider
normal but the police would see as the ravings of a certifiable psychiatric
case.

      
'The Avalonian
, I
mean,' Woolly was saying. 'You get
The
Avalonian
on the streets, we'd at least have a reliable mouthpiece to
counter all the propaganda.'

      
'I have to tell you, Councillor,' Juanita said severely, 'that
The Avalonian
isn't going to be anybody's
mouthpiece'

      
'Well, yeah, I accept that, but...'

      
'But it will be fair and maybe consider certain viewpoints that
the regular Press would be a touch queasy about.'

      
'Fair enough, fair enough. What's your schedule?'

      
'I don't know. February maybe. Things are moving. As it
happens, I've just sent Diane to the print-shop to get acquainted with Sam
Daniel. She's a little nervous, having heard that Sam thinks all upper class
people should be placed against a wall and shot.'

      
'He's a good boy, is Sam. You only got to listen to his old
man to know that.'

      
'I thought Griff Daniel hated the ground Sam walks on.'

      
'Exactly,' said Woolly. 'A good boy.'

In the square entrance
hall, he stood on the flagstones, under one of the high, deep-sunk windows
either side of the front door, and nodded approval.

      
'See, Verity, the old Tudor guys built this place, they had it
right. They understood the importance of luminary-control. Hence the restrictive
fenestration. Everybody says this was down to defence, but that was only part
of the calculation.'

      
Dr Pel Grainger wore a formal black jacket over black jeans and
black trainers. In daylight, he looked shorter and rather less imposing. As she
supposed he would, given that the night was his chosen environment. Seeing him
at the door so early had been quite a shock, rather like seeing an owl perching
on one's bird table.

      
'Verity, you are just so lucky to have this place to yourself.'
Dr Grainger smiled, showing small, rather stumpy teeth, their whiteness enhanced
by the blackness of his close-mown beard. 'Which is how you got to look at the situation
from now on in. Lucky.'

      
Cornered by Wanda last night, Dr Grainger had expressed - to
Verity's dismay - immediate interest in Meadwell. It sounded the kind of place,
he said, where just being there could virtually put you into Second-stage Tenebral
Symbiosis.

      
When Verity had tried to explain to Dr Grainger that even in
her time here Meadwell had not always been as dark as this, the American had
nodded indulgently; he could explain this. Or maybe, he told her, when his
therapy programme began to take effect, she wouldn't need to have it explained.

      
Well, perhaps it would work. Perhaps, after tenebral therapy,
there would be more than the usual few precious moments of clarity when she
first awoke, before her thoughts began to contract under the pressure of the
house.

      
Dr Grainger moulded his body to one of the oak pillars, ran
his hands up and down it. Verity had heard, at the Assembly Rooms, of people who
liked to hug trees to share their life-force. But hugging centuries-old
long-dead oak?

      
'And here's another thing ...'

      
He stepped away, giving the oak a fraternal sort of pat, as if
they had already established a rapport.

      
I have been
horrified
,
since I came here, to see how many owners of old houses kind of bleach their
beams, to make them lighter. Can you believe that? See, oak is wonderful wood because
it absorbs darkness so well. So ... three, four centuries of storing the dark
and these people want to take it all away. Can you believe that?'

      
'Perhaps they ...' Verity swallowed. 'Perhaps they just want
to make it more ... cheerful.'

      
Dr Grainger almost choked on his own laughter. 'That's a joke,
right?'

      
'Right,' said Verity weakly.

      
'You know. Verity, I could really use this house. It's hard to
find one of these late medieval homes that hasn't been tampered with - windows
enlarged, all this. Maybe I could hire it? Maybe a weekend seminar here in the
summer, or around Christmas?'

      
He stood on tiptoe and slipped a hand into a dim space between
the Jacobean corner cupboard and the ceiling.

      
'Yeah,' he said with satisfaction but no explanation. 'Tell me,
why's it called Meadwell?'

      
Verity explained about the well in the grounds, is old as the
Chalice Well and similarly credited with great curative powers. But unfortunately
sealed up now because of a possible pollution problem.

      
'Uh huh.' A knowing smile. 'Uh huh. Now I begin to understand
your problem here.'

      
How could he? This was utterly ludicrous.
      
'Seems to me that what may have
happened is the house has become repressed because people have been afraid of
it. Yeah? So what we got to do. Verity, I' we got to alter the house's self-image.
And yours. Remember, when you learn to embrace the dark, the darkness will embrace
you back.'

      
'Yes,' said Verity. 'Thank you. You've made me feel better
about it.'

      
But he hadn't. He'd made her feel worse. And when they went
upstairs and Dr Grainger began to peer into the bedrooms in search of deeper
and denser shadows, Verity could almost hear the voice of Major Shepherd,
Oh Verity, Verity, why didn't you tell me
about this?

      
Dr Grainger was crouching in a comer of the landing, both
hands moving in empty air, trying to locate what he called 'the crepuscular
core' of the house. 'This is commonly the place where most shadows meet. The
repository of the oldest, the least disturbed darkness, you following me?'

      
I
don't want to know.
Verity almost
panicked.
I don't
want to know where this place is.

      
And she was so grateful when there was a rapping from below.
'The front door. Excuse me, please, Dr Grainger.'

      
She almost ran downstairs to the hall, where a little light pooled
on the flagstones. Probably the postman; it was his time. She unbolted the
door.

      
'Oh.'

      
It was not the postman.
      
'Well, well. Miss Endicott.'