'Well?' Jim glared belligerently at the shadowy travellers. 'What have you buggers got to say for yourselves?'
Oh, Jim.
Nobody replied. 'The only sound was a choking gasp from up against the tower. Juanita felt Jim's hand groping for the lamp and before she could think about it she'd let it go and he'd flicked it on, stabbing the beam at the tower.
The gasping person wasn't much more than a boy. His eyes, speared by the lamplight, were glazed. A man and a woman were holding his arms. Juanita realised, with distaste, that the smell on the air was vomit. And it lingered; the air up here was dense, like wadding.
'What's the matter with this lad, eh?' Jim tried to spread the beam over the other travellers, but they moved away. 'Well? Too bloody stoned to explain ourselves, are we? I really don't know what to think about you buggering people, I don't indeed.'
Juanita peered over his shoulder as he sprayed the light about, looking for Diane and not finding her or any recognisable face.
Actually, it was all a touch unnatural. Only the candle flames were in motion, burning in a semi circle of lanterns around the tower, the glowing buds magnified by glass. At Jim's feet, there was a chalked semi-circle around one of the entrance arches; inside it, metal bowl and cups and implements of some kind. Probably some sort of altar, Juanita recalled fragrant summer nights here with Danny Frayne and bottles of Mateus Rose. And laughter, lots of laughter. Why was nobody laughing? Why weren't they making fun of Jim, old guy in a silly hat. Have a drink, dad, Danny Frayne would have said. Have a joint. Be cool.
Jesus God. Juanita shivered under her Afghan. Something wrong here. She remembered Jim saying what purposeful people they were, not the usual semi-stoned rabble, and became aware of shapes on the edge of the candle-lit semicircle, closing in around him. She wanted to show a warning, but suddenly her mouth didn't seem to work anymore.
Sensing movement behind him, Jim turned slowly and with dignity. He snorted.
'I don't know – you call yourselves bloody Green pagans, but you've really no idea what this place is all about, have you?'
For God's sake, how long was he going to keep up this Colonel Fogey routine? How utterly stupid men could be when forced into a confrontation.
'Well, I'll tell you. Tell you what it's not about, shall I? It's not about drugs and made-up bloody rituals invoking lots of shagging. It's not about littering the place with belching wrecks of buses. It's not about worrying sheep and ripping out fences for fires and having a shit on the buggering grass and not even burying it. It's not about contaminating a sacred site, and ruining all the…' A fissure developed in Jim's voice as it became personal, '… all the mystery.'
Juanita flinched as something slid past her and moved, with a fleeting feral smell, through the circle of candles and into the lamp beam.
She flinched again when she saw what it was.
Saw Jim's mouth fall momentarily open. Saw a man (?) with long, tangled hair secured by a metal circlet. Saw, with a feeling like a kick under the heart, that the hair enclosed a face from old, old nightmares, from those books she never really liked to sell, from magical pornography.
An animal's face and a devil's face. Sculpted and textured, harsh-haired around black eyes. And its body gleamed, well-muscled arms and legs glistening with grease. She saw this because, apart from the animal mask, the man (man? Oh lord, yes) was naked.
When he spoke it was not much above a whisper, but it carried like a fast train in the night.
'You've said too much.'
Juanita was shocked to see the lips move, then realised that the mask of hair and skin ended above the mouth but the beard below it was real.
Over the top of the lower, there was a curiously unhealthy glow in the sky. Juanita began to feel seriously scared. This was not your routine New Age extravaganza, and some part of Jim had known it from the start. You know what these characters are like, drugged up to the eyeballs or swigging cider… day trippers. Not these buggers.
Jim looked up bravely into the bearded face.
Please God, Juanita thought, don't let him say anything inflammatory.
Below, the lights of Glastonbury had been doused by mist; the Tor was an island again. It was no longer part of the world Juanita knew.
'And who the hell are you?' Jim demanded. 'Conan the buggering Barbarian?'
She shut her eyes in anguish. Her head seemed to fill up with cold mist. She felt the ominous nearness of other bodies, smelled the feral smell again, like tomcats. This was all so futile. Diane wasn't here. She'd have recognised Jim's voice by now, come dashing out to explain.
When Juanita opened her eyes it was to see the goat-face close to Jim's, as though it was going to kiss him. Jim didn't move his head away, but she saw his hands grip the flaps of his overcoat to stop them shaking.
That did it. Diane wasn't here and Juanita couldn't watch this any longer. She pulled her Afghan coat together and marched through the crowd.
The goat man turned to her. Nothing moved behind the blackness of the eyeholes. She felt horribly exposed, as if she were naked, not him. She pushed her hands hard into her coat pockets.
'OK, look.' It came out as a croak. 'We made a mistake. Come on, Jim, she's not here.'
'Bloody hell, Juanita.' Jim stood there like a bulldog.
'Why couldn't you just leave this to me?'
He pushed irascibly past the goat-man-priest and advanced on the boy held against the tower.
'You all right, sonny? Look, bloody well let him go, will you?' Snatching at the wrist of one of the men holding the boy. 'He's been sick. What's wrong with him? Drugs?'
Jim was pretty strong. The man's grip broke; the boy stumbled away and then straightened up, swaying into the darkness. They heard him slipping and rolling down the side of the Tor, into the mist.
'Jim, we're going.' Juanita took his lamp. 'Let them get on with their… religion.'
The goat-man moved under the archway, as if he needed to think. Well. Juanita didn't Whatever they were doing they could get the hell on with it. She grabbed the end of Jim's scarf and tugged him towards the path. Still, nobody said a word, but the atmosphere was stiff now with menace. These were the new hippies? Christ.
'Listen, we're sorry. Sorry to mess up your ritual, whatever, OK? We were just looking for a friend.'
She heard Jim grunt, and his scarf came away in her hand.
'Jim!'
Her shoulder was gripped. She dropped the lamp in alarm. When she turned, she fell into someone's arms, was swung round and looked up into a stubbly, grinning male face. As she squirmed, she saw two men seize hold of Jim, slamming him against the wall of the tower, where the boy had been, his arms stretched above his head.
The naked man stooped to pick something up. When he stood before Jim it was glittering in his left hand.
He whispered, 'I did not say you could go.'
He was bent over the bonnet of Mort's hearse. His face was streaked with mud and blood from scratches on his cheek and jaw. His eyes were big in the lamplight and sort of glazed.
Diane raised the Tilley lamp. 'Head… Headlice?'
'Mol…'
He stared up at her. In the white light, the swastika on his head looked crude, like a knife wound. He smelled of sick. Why was he alone? Where were the others?
He let her help him up and walk him over to the bus. He stood on the little platform, framed in the doorway. Somewhere behind him was the Tor, but there were no lights there now.
'We'll get those cuts bathed.' She found a plastic bottle of water. The little woodstove in the bus was still going, just about.
'No time.' Headlice shook himself as if remembering something then swung round, urgently scanning the dark.