The Chalice (39 page)

      
'Broke me up, leaving her, but I wouldn't go back. I didn't
trust myself. You know?'

      
'Because you might have stayed,' Powys said. 'Tried again.'

      
Dan Frayne nodded rigorously, I'd've stayed, and after a few
months it would've been exactly the same. I've never been back. She stayed.
She's stubborn. And, all credit to her, the shop's grown and it's a good
business now. We've kept in touch. Not so much now. I'm married, three kids, you
see the problem.'

      
Powys glanced at the photograph of the girl in the doorway

      
Dan said. 'The only way I'd have gone back to Avalon was with
the family- as insulation, and how would she have felt then? Don't get me
wrong, she wasn't always alone - you know, this and that, over the years.'

      
Dan began to unpack the brown envelope. It was full of letters,
some hand-written, some printed.

      
'When you look like her, there's no shortage of suitors. But it
was clear - you can read this stuff - that she'd built a wall around herself.
Maybe that's how you do it. Survive. You know, mentally.'

      
'And this is the woman you wanted to do the book? The definitive
Glastonbury expose.'

      
Dan Frayne finished his beer.

      
'I'm worried about her,' he said. I get a feeling, I ... nothing
like that, I'm about as psychic as a microwave oven. I'm just worried. Maybe a
little latent guilt. I'm sorry, this isn't what you expected to hear.'

      
'You want to commission a book because you're worried about a
woman you left in Glastonbury?'

      
'Urn ...' Dan Frayne considered. 'Yeah.' He put his glass
down. 'Yeah, I suppose that's the size of it. Amazing.'

FOURTEEN

Something Hanging from It

It was a Gothic-shaped
doorway six steps up at the end of an alley framed by High Street shops. Over
the door a sign said: ASSEMBLY ROOMS.

      
The alternative town hall, in fact. On occasion, Juanita could
be induced to admit a certain affection for the place.

      
Diane said, 'I'll let you know what happens, then.' With her
usual fashion flair, she was wearing an old and patched red woollen coat over a
baggy turquoise sweatshirt and jeans.

      
'Er ... slight misunderstanding.' Juanita smiled innocently.
Diane had got away with enough today; because of Jim not showing up they hadn't
made it to the police station. 'I kind of thought you might go to the other
one. Would you mind?'

      
'Glastonbury First? But I thought...'

      
Diane was looking at Juanita's outfit, which comprised a plain
charcoal-grey formal jacket with a skirt, a creamy silk top and a pink chiffon
scarf'. Not very Assembly Rooms.

      
'Would that be a terrible imposition, Diane? I thought you
might recognise a few of the people I wouldn't.'

      
Diane looked resigned. 'Do you want me to take notes?'
      
'I don't think so. Let's not make
your
Avalonian
role too obvious at
this stage. Try and blend into the background.'

      
Some chance of that,
Juanita thought, watching Diane drift down the street, as inconspicuous as a
pheasant in a chicken run. But at least she wouldn't be in the same meeting as
the predatory Ceridwen.

      
The church type wooden doors of the Assembly Rooms had been
thrown back to reveal yellow walls, more steps inside and a stand-up poster
reading; RESIST ROAD-RAPE.

      
Woolly wandered up to stand with Juanita at the entrance to
the alleyway, watching the punters going in, shaking his head in
disappointment.

      
'Two real locals, maybe three.'

      
'And the rest we know,' Juanita said.

      
It was a shame; Woolly had also tried to give the meeting an
element of conventional respectability. He was wearing a suit, had his hair
pulled tightly back and bound with a fresh rubber band, looked almost like a
regular person.

      
'That bastard Griff Daniel. You reckon he had advance warning
about the road?'

      
'Well, the word is some posters went out yesterday. But they
only went up this morning. Archer?'

      
'Bastard.' Woolly shook his head.

      
Still, he couldn't have been exacting a vast crowd. Apart from
the easing of traffic congestion and rush-hour hold-ups, most people would be
thinking about all the extra jobs the road would bring, how it would open up
central Somerset to Euro-money.

      
Trouble is, the Government's got the bloody moral high
ground,' Woolly said. 'Take the juggernauts off the village roads, make the towns
safer for the kids, you got the mums and dads on your side before you start.
But it's all bullshit - you put this bloody road in and traffic expands to fill
it, as traffic invariably does, and the lorries start hitting the village lanes
again and kiddies still get mown down, and then you need another new road, and
so it goes, until the whole of the West is a sea of metal.'

      
'That's what I love about you old hippies,' Juanita said. 'You
never lose that dewy-eyed optimism.'

      
'Unless we stop it now.' Woolly pulled Juanita into the
shadowy doorway of a picture-framing shop, I got this leaflet through the post
the Other day. Offering the support of the eco-guerrillas.'

      
'God,' said Juanita. 'I'm not sure I like the sound of that.'

      
'They got a point. Public inquiries and stuff, 'tis no more than
a charade. But if contractors find their diggers getting vandalised, the
bosses' fancy cars getting scratched ...'

      
'Oh, Woolly, that's not you.'

      
'Yeah, I know. I hate that stuff. Man of peace. But what d'you
do, Juanita?'

      
'Well, you don't do anything undemocratic. You're a councillor.'

      
'Sure,' said Woolly. 'But when you get on the council, you
find out pretty soon how helpless local authorities are. Thing is, with this
bunch in there and no
local
locals,
you're gonner get demands for the extreme option anyway. Not counting the ones
who'll recommend curses and laying out the runes and stuff.'

      
'Ceridwen's there, then,' Juanita said.

      
Woolly grinned. 'Least you done me proud, Juanita. You look
... sheesh.'

      
'Well, thank you, Woolly. I decided to pass up on the pearls.'

      
'Anyway.' Woolly straightened his tie, it was actually a kipper
tie,
circa
1974, featuring Andy
Warhol's Marilyn Monroe. 'I better get in there, strut my stuff.'

      
'Just don't go over the top, there'll almost certainly be Press
there.'

      
'Yeah,' said Woolly dismally. They're the ones not smoking
joints. Sheesh, I can't even see Jim Battle. He'll be coming, surely?'

      
'Yes.' Juanita said tightly. 'I'm sure he will.' She glanced over
her shoulder and went into the meeting.

He poured another Scotch,
pulled three bristle brushes from the sink, putting aside the linseed oil; time
for neat turps.
      
Got to work fast. Get this down
while the energy's there.

      
The three paintings on their easels were all part of the same
picture. He could see it now. The afterglow, usually close to the centre of the
canvas, should in fact be on the perimeter, a
before
glow. The paint burning through from the edges, to the heart
of the experience, the core of the pyramid.

      
Where lay the Grail.

      
Why had he never seen this before? To reach the inner light,
you had to pass through darkness. Every experience, no matter how negative, was
a force for progress. Even the worst humiliation - the sickle over your head,
rejection by the woman you'd yearned for ... all part of a rite of passage, through
the deepest darkness, to the core of it all.

      
He was feeling so much better now he was painting. He'd been
hoping for a good dusk to fire him, but the rain had kept on. Only when a bough
of the ash tree tapped on his window, awakening him - and he saw something hanging
from that bough, yes, yes - did he realise he could ignite his own.

      
Inside
, he'd poured
more whisky, finishing off the Johnnie Walker, starring on the Chivas Regal
he'd been saving for Christmas. Arousing a glow in his gut and feeling it spread.

      
And
outside,
he'd
pulled out the dog grate and lit a fire on the stone hearth, building a pyramid
of oak logs, watching the sparks shoot out until the logs began to turn red,
and then he'd wedged more logs around them, making a hard, hot tunnel.

      
By the time it got dark, the whole room was glowing with a
roaring, red energy.

      
Never lifting his gaze from the canvas, Jim Battle rummaged
like a blind man among the tumble of tubes on his worktable to find a fat, full
one he rarely used.

      
It would be labelled
Lamp
Black.

The association calling
itself Glastonbury First was clearly not a sham after all. For a start, you had
to be seriously confident to hold your inaugural public meeting at the Town
Hall.

      
The building was next to the Abbey gatehouse and a little
taller - nineteenth-century officialdom overseeing ancient sanctity. The town
hall was lit up, the gatehouse an archaic silhouette.

      
The worrying part was that the main hall was nearly full. Must
be close to four hundred people. Diane sat at the back, near the doors, as a
sober-looking band filed onto the stage, among them Griff Daniel, discreetly
followed by her brother Archer, and a wave of spirited applause from the floor.

      
She hadn't seen Archer in months. He'd put on a little weight,
the chest-expanding, shoulder-widening kind she supposed heavyweight boxers like
to acquire before a fight. Archer's hair was coiled and springy; he looked
well. Would Archer chair the meeting? Couldn't, surely, be Griff Daniel; he didn't
have a terrific reputation for integrity.

      
It was neither or them. A bulky figure in a pinstriped double-breasted
suit stood up at the table, perusing his notes through half-glasses. Oh gosh,
Mr Cotton, Quentin Cotton MBE, noted charitable fundraiser and the Ffitch family
solicitor.

      
Credibility. Mega credibility.
      
Mr Cotton coughed for silence.

      
After thanking everyone for coming, he said, it saddens me
that such a gathering as this should even be necessary.
      
One might reasonably have thought
that everyone in this town would put Glastonbury first. But this, regrettably,
is not the case.'

      
Oh well; obvious what was coming.

      
'An increasing number of persons in our midst - although I
doubt that any at all is here tonight - appear to give higher priority to
bizarre beliefs of a quasi-religious nature, which for various tar-fetched
reasons, they appear to consider appropriate to our pleasant old country town
... a town which, let me say at the outset,
has
no use for this nonsense.'

      
An awful cheer arose. Mr Cotton smiled grimly and nodded.

      
'Where once we attracted the more discerning visitor, we now
draw, on one level, the lunatic fringe and, on another, what I can only
describe as the dregs of the inner-cities. Those who exist on state benefits
and prefer to steal from our shops rather than expend any of their hard claimed
money, which they prefer to go on drink and drugs.'

      
Clapping, general noises of affirmation, and a dusting of bitter
laughter

      
'But you're not here to listen to my opinions. You want facts.
And behind me is a distinguished panel of experts ready and waiting to supply
them. First, may I introduce a

local businessman, well known
to most of you - Mr Stanlow Pike, of Pike and Comer, estate agents and valuers,
who will outline for you precisely how the value of the very fabric of this
town has declined. By the fabric, I mean your homes. By decline, well, I think I
am talking - and Mr Pike will confirm this - in the region of twenty per cent.
Calamitous. Mr Pike...'