The Chalice

This was a phrase Ben Corby had learned never to use to an author whose book he'd turned down. The bastards always wanted to talk about it. At length. But this one he did want to know about. What turns a wispy mystic into a hardened sceptic?

'Don't make me feel bad,' Powys said. 'You drive all this way to bring me a customised rejection slip-'

'Because we're old mates.'

'Right. Well, I'm sorry, old mate. But how can you write a book you wouldn't have the nerve to go out and promote and say you believe in it?'

'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 Everybodycan 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.'