The Chalice (40 page)

      
An anxiously overweight man in his fifties, Mr Pike began by
saying that his business had been established in this town for three
generations.

      
'I can see among you many of my clients, past and ... and
present. Among the, er, present clients are ...' Stanlow Pike was pressing the
tips of his fingers into the table, his body leaning back then forward like a
large bird on a perch.
      
'... Are several who have had
properties for sale for more than a year and been unable to find a satisfactory
purchaser. This is, to an extent, a national problem as you all must be aware.
And a problem shared by every other agent in this town. However, it is worse
here. Worse than Somerton, worse than Street, worse than Castle Cary. Because
this most beautiful and historic town is no longer ... no longer considered
such a desirable place to live. And ... and we all know why.'
       

      
One after another, they arose. The chemist, who had suffered
two drug-related burglaries. The local official of the National Farmers' Union,
whose members had been obliged to blockade their land against the thieving,
trespassing travellers.

      
Griff Daniel's own speech was brief and, at first, restrained.
He was a local man. He remembered a time when these mystical types were just a
handful of harmless cranks. When they wore suits and ties like everyone else. When
they did nothing more threatening than picnic on the Tor.

      
Which brought him to the point of this gathering.
      
'It's a pretty place, the Tor, on a
summer's morn,' Griff said lyrically, 'But after dark ...'

      
He thumped the table once with his fist.

      
'... after dark, 'tis a threat and a menace to us all.'
      
Griff's face broke into a grim
smile.

      
'But they also know the law, these scum. They know they're
legal. Now don't that make you sick?'
      
'Disgraceful!' someone shouted.

      
'Indeed. But that's a public place, and if there aren't more'n
six vehicles, they can do pretty much what they like there. And I know that most
decent people in this town do not want these layabouts and are deeply, deeply
frustrated that we cannot keep 'em out altogether. Now I'm not a lawyer and not
a politician, except in the most amateur way, look… '

      
Diane was pretty glad at this moment that Juanita was not
here.

      
'... so I took my problem to a man whose roots in this area go
back farther than mine and probably farther than anybody else's in this room tonight.
Now he's a new boy in the political game ...'

      
'Oh really!' Diane exclaimed crossly. A woman in a hat turned
and gave her a hard look.

      
'... but he's got his head screwed on and he knows how people
in this town think and feel. Ladies and gentlemen, we are pleased and honoured
to have with us tonight, the Hon. Archer Ffitch, MP-elect for Mendip South.'

      
In the midst of the applause a lone voice was raised. 'Just a
bloody minute!' Five rows in front of Diane, a man had shot to his feet. I object!
If you're gonner do your arse-licking in public. Dad, at least get it right.'

      
Oh gosh, Sam Daniel.

      
Griff's eyes bulged like a frog's. He strode angrily towards
the edge of the platform, as though ready to jump down and attack his son.

      
Archer arose easily and put a large, firm hand on Griff's' shoulder.

      
'Thank you, Mr Daniel. And thank you, also, to the gentleman
who pointed out that understandable error. I am, of course, not quite MP-elect.
The term, at this stage, is Prospective Parliamentary Candidate. Although,
perhaps I - who can tell, strange things happen in Glastonbury - perhaps
exposure to the atmosphere at the bottom end of High Street has bestowed upon
Mr Daniel the gift of prophecy...'

      
This caused an immediate eruption of mirth. Diane raised her
eyes to the plaster mouldings.

      
Sam Daniel sat down. The young woman next to him looked
furious. Diane recognised her at once. Charlotte Lovidge: dark-haired,
undeniably chic, a trifle haughty.
      
Diane saw Sam try to take
Charlotte's hand, whereupon she turned pointedly away from him.

      
They were an item? Gosh. Charlotte, who couldn't be more than
twenty-four, worked for Stanlow Pike, possibly training to become a valuer and
auctioneer. It seemed an unlikely liaison for Sam. Diane supposed it came down
very much to basics: Charlotte was extremely attractive.

      
Diane huddled into her coat, feeling fat and frumpish, as her
brother Archer began to speak.

Against the greystone walls
of the Assembly Rooms, they looked a fairly joyless bunch tonight, Juanita
thought.
      
They'd shelved the quest for the
Grail for the present. They were here to plan a crusade to protect their holy
land from the infidels.

      
'My information,' Woolly was saying from the makeshift black
box stage, 'is that they'll be making a start pretty soon after Christmas.'

      
There was a rumble from the more committedly Alternative types
sitting cross-legged on the carpet below the stage.

      
'They've learned a few lessons from other road-protests - use
the bad-weather months, don't make it easy, don't let the protest turn into a
holiday camp with open-air music, stuff like that, don't attract tourists.
Anyway, they'll start by clearing woodland. Chainsaw gangs.'

      
'Savages,' a woman yelled. Road-construction seemed to have
taken over from nuclear power as the number one eco-menace.

      
'Do we know where?' another woman asked. A strong voice,
Juanita noted. A voice with a sort of cello effect.
      
Dame Wanda. Just what the campaign
needed. Ha.
      
Woolly shrugged 'You tell me.
That's what we got to organise. Intelligence. People on the ground who'll
report anything suspicious. But this is a preliminary meeting, and there's things
we can't very well discuss in a public place, so I suggest we form a Road-rape
Action Committee. For which we need an office. Got to get it together under one
roof. Somewhere we could have manned round the clock.'
      
'Staffed?'
It was Jenna, the wire-thin Cauldron member, 'Staffed around the clock.'

      
'Staffed,' said Woolly wearily. Jenna sat down amid a cluster
of women in the centre of the room. To her left, Juanita saw the free-floating
blonde hair of Domini Dorrell-Adams. To her right the grey coils of Ceridwen.
      
Ceridwen whispered something lo Jenna,
who was back on her feet at once.

      
'I propose Wanda Carlisle as a kind of president or something,
because… because she's a famous person and will attract publicity to the cause.'

      
And because you can control her, Juanita thought.

      
'All right,' Woolly said without enthusiasm, doubtless realising
he wasn't going to be running the campaign much longer. 'You all wanner take a
vote on that one?'

      
And when the hands rose, Juanita rose too and left. It was all
so predictable. Anyway, she wanted to ring Jim again, maybe go up there and
drag him out to the pub.

      
She wasn't prepared to lose a friend.

Funny, all those evenings
outside on the hill, the stage all set, the sun primed like the canvas. All
those evenings, summer and winter, vest and overcoat. Never realising that on the
other side of the dusk was an intensity of energy he'd never dared dream of.

      
And when he was at last closing in on the mystical vanishing
point, when he'd finally found - so to speak - the burial plot of the Grail, it
was happening inside his cottage on a grey and sodden evening in no-hope
November.

      
Jim had come through. He lurched from canvas to canvas,
pushing the paint before him, as the bronze heat gasped from the fireplace, turning
his studio into an alchemist's laboratory, a cave ... a cave within the Tor
itself.

      
He felt like a god. The god of the cave. The old god Gwyn ap
Nudd, Celtic lord of the dead, in his chamber at the heart of the Tor.

      
The thought of the other Gwyn ap Nudd, the pagan goat-priest,
no longer made Jim shrivel inside. What the priest had taken from him, he had summoned
back. He'd seen it. In the ash tree. It was a sign; he was in control again.

      
Well into the bottle of Chivas Regal now, he thought about
Juanita with her heavy, dark hair, her big Spanish mouth, her breasts, like
brown, freckled eggs.

      
He lunged with his brush and was only half aware of it tearing
the canvas. He thought he saw faces in the sunset window, but he didn't care.

      
He was close to breaking through to the Grail. The ash tree
stroked the wall, something hanging from it.

FIFTEEN

A Beautiful Dusk

The rain was easing as Juanita
walked quickly along High Street. She'd made up her mind: she would ring Jim
once more and then take a drive up there.

      
She caught sight of her reflection in the darkened window of the
veggie-bar. From a distance of five feet, in an almost sophisticated ensemble,
under an umbrella, backlit by the golden streetlamp, she could almost be a
refined version of the sylph with the headdress on the front of that long-ago
Avalonian
.

      
Maybe she ought to change before going to Jim's.
      
The door of the former Holy Thorn
Ceramics - its sign had gone - opened
suddenly
,
making her heart race, some primitive part of her
quite ready to see the goddess standing there in all her dark glory.

      
But it was only Tony Dorrell-Adams and a suitcase.
      
'Tony?'

      
He scowled at first, then saw her, the way she was dressed.

      
'Oh. Hi, Juanita. You look ... normal.'
      
'Thanks.'

      
'You know what I mean.' She could almost feel the accumulated
sorrow and the bafflement vibrating around him.

      
'Yes. I do. I'm sorry, Tony, I really am.'
      
'I bet you are.'

      
His car was parked by the kerb, an old Cavalier hatchback. He
put his suitcase on the wet pavement, released the rear door.

      
'Look,' Juanita said. 'I'm not part of this, you know.'

      
'You're a woman. That makes you part of it.'

      
'Why don't you come over to the shop, have a cup of tea? Talk
about it? You can't leave like this. Can't just give up.'

      
'Watch me,' Tony said. 'I've been given the car. Wasn't that
kind? I get custody of the car so I've got the means to remove myself. It would
be appreciated if I do this quietly, while everybody, including my wife, is in the
protest meeting.'

      
Tony threw the suitcase into the boot and slammed the door,
lamp-lit drops ricocheting into the night like angry sparks.

      
'This stinks, Tony.'

      
'Oh, no. This is Glastonbury. It's too holy to stink.'
      
Tony wiped rain out of his eyes.
Probably rain.
      
'Where will you go?'

      
'Back to teaching, I expect. I'll find something. Naturally,
I'll fight the cow for everything I can get. She wants to keep this place open,
she'll have to get some money from her precious Sisters of the fucking
Cauldron. Not that anybody's going to want to buy pot goddesses with big ... I'm
sorry, I'm sorry. OK, maybe you weren't involved. In which case. I'd watch my
back if I were you.'

      
'They can't touch me.'

      
'No?' He looked her in the eyes, half pitying. 'They can touch
anybody, destroy anything. Christ, I used to think we were ultimately
inseparable, Domini and me. Meeting of minds, spiritually attuned. Good sex.
Bit of a blip, stupid fling that meant nothing, but this was going to be where
we got it all together again. That chap who works in your shop...'
      
'Jim.'

      
'Jim, yeah. He said last night that this was the last place you
should come to repair your marriage. Wise man. There should be barbed wire
around this town.'