The Chalice

'What they wanner do, look,' said Griff Daniel, 'is extend that bloody ole law. Tisn't as if any of the bastards'd be missed by anybody. Double barrel up the arse from fifty yards. Bam.'

'Appealing notion.' Archer Ffitch was in a dark suit and tie and a pair of green wellies, even though it was pretty dry underfoot for November. Not natural, this weather, was Griff's view. Too much that was not natural hereabouts.

'Destroying this town, Mr Archer. Every time they come there's always a few stays behind. Squatting in abandoned flats, shagging each other behind the church, nicking everything that's not nailed down, and you say a word to 'em, you gets all this freedom-of-the-individual baloney. Scum.'

'Quite, quite.' Archer with that bored, heard-it-all-before tone. But Griff knew he'd have all Archer's attention in a minute, by God he would.

'And the permanent ones. Alternative society? Green-culture? What's alternative 'bout pretending the twentieth century never bloody happened? Mustn't have a new road 'cause it means clipping a few crummy trees down. Can't have decent new housing 'cause it leaves us with one less bloody useless field.'

'I hear what you're saying.' Archer nodding gravely, like he was being interviewed on the box. 'I'm appalled we lost a man like you from the council, and I agree. A few changes in this town are long overdue.'

Griff sniffed. 'What they all say, with respect. Your gaffer, he's been spouting 'bout that for years.'

'My father?'

'No, lad, the MP. Sir Larry.'

Archer went silent. He'd changed a lot. Gone into his thirties still lanky, overgrown schoolboy-ish, suddenly he'd thickened up like His Lordship, jaw darker, eyes steadier: watch out, here comes another Pennard power-pack. Griff wished his own son was like this; it pained him to think of the difference.

'What have you heard?' Archer's heavy eyebrows all but meeting in the middle, like a mantelshelf, with the eyes smouldering away underneath.

Griff smiled slyly. 'Not a well man, our Sir Larry. Might be stepping down sooner than we thinks? Make way for someone more… vigorous? That be a suitable word?'

'Radical might be a better one,' Archer said cautiously. 'In the Thatcher sense, of course.'

'Ah.' Griff gave his beard a thoughtful massage. 'Could be what the place needs. Depending, mind, on what this… radical newcomer is offering to us in the, er, business community.'

'I understand.' Archer was gazing past Griff, up the Tor to where the tower was. Erected by the old monks back in the Middle Ages, that tower, to claim the hill for Christ. Dedicated to St Michael, the dragon-slayer, to keep the bloody heathens out. Pity it hadn't worked.

'Can't see a soul up there,' Archer said. 'You are sure about this. Griff?'

'Ah.' Griff decided it was time to dump his manure and watch the steam. 'Got it a bit wrong when I phoned you, look. They're not here. Yet. All camped down in Moulder's bottom field. Clapped-out ole buses and vans, no tax, no insurance. Usual unwashed rabble, green hair, rings through every orifice.'

'Sounds enough like mass-trespass for me.' Archer pulled his mobile phone out of his inside pocket, flipping it open. 'OK, right. Why don't I get this dealt with immediately, yah? Invoke the Act, have the whole damn lot charged.'

'Aye.' Griff nodded slowly. 'But charged what with?'

The phone had played what sounded like the opening beeps of Three Blind Mice before Archer's finger froze, quivering with irritation.

Griff leaned back against the gate and took his time re-reading the National Trust sign: Please avoid leaving litter, lighting fires, damaging trees.

'Bastards are legal, Mr Archer. In Moulder's field with Moulder's permission. In short, Moulder's been paid.'

'These vagrants have money?'

'One of 'em does. Young woman it was stumped up the readies, so I hear. One as even Moulder figured he could trust.'

Griff leaned back against the gate, gave his beard a good rub.

'Quite a distinctive-looking young lady, they d'say.'

'Spit it out, man ' Archer was going to have to deal with the tendency to impatience with the lower orders. MPs should be good listeners

'Of… should we say generous proportions? And she don't talk like your usual hippy rabble.'

Archer was hard against the light, solid and cold as the St Michael tower.

'What are you saying, Mr Daniel?'

Looking a bit dangerous like he could handle himself, same as his old man. Don't push it. Griff decided.

'Well, all right. It's Miss Diane. Come rolling into town with the hippies. In a white van. Big pink spots on it.'

Archer said nothing, just loomed over him, best part of a foot taller. Moisture on his thick lips now.

'Your little sister, Mr Archer.' Little. Jesus, she must be pushing thirteen stone. 'She come in with 'em and she rented 'em a campsite so they wouldn't get arrested. Don't ask me why.'

'If this is a joke, Mr Daniel… Because my sister's…'

'Up North. Aye. About to get herself hitched. Except she's in Moulder's bottom field. In a van with big pink spots. No joke. No mistake, Mr Archer.'

Archer was as still as the old tower. 'How many other people know about this?'

'Only Moulder, far's I know. Who, if any, like, action happens to be taken, requests that he be kept out of it, if you understand me.'

No change of expression, no inflexion in his voice, Archer said, 'I'm grateful for this. I won't forget.'

'Well,' Griff said. 'Long as we understands each other I think we want the same things for this town. Like getting it cleaned up. Proper shops 'stead of this New Age rubbish. Cranks and long-hairs out. Folk in decent clothes. Decent houses on decent estates. Built by, like, decent firms; And, of course, the new road to get us on to the Euro superhighway, bring in some proper industry. Big firms. Executive housing.'

Archer nodding. 'You're a sound thinker, Griff. We all need a stake in the twenty-first century.'

'Oh, and one other thing I want…'

Archer folded his arms and smiled.

'I want my council seat back off that stringy little hippy git Woolaston,' said Griff.

Archer patted the leather patch at the shoulder of Griff's heavy, tweed jacket. 'Let's discuss this further. Meanwhile, I have a meeting tonight. With a certain selection committee. After which I may be in a better position to, ah, effect certain changes.'

'Ah. Best o' luck then, Mr Archer.'

'Thank you. Er…' Archer looked away again. 'Diane's

…illness… has caused us considerable distress. It's good to know she has chaps like you on her side.'

'And on yours. Archer,' Griff Daniel said. 'Naturally.'

As Archer drove off in his grey BMW, Griff looked to the top of the unnaturally steep hill, glad to see there was still nobody up there, no sightseers, no joggers, no kids. And no alternative bastards with dowsing rods and similar crank tackle.

He hated the bloody Tor.

Not much over five hundred feet high when you worked it out. Only resembled some bloody green Matterhorn, look, on account of most of the surrounding countryside was so flat, having been under the sea, way back.

So nothing to it, not really.

But look it the trouble it caused. Bloody great millstone round this town's neck. Thousands of tourists fascinated by all that cobblers about pagan gods and intersecting lines of power.

If it wasn't for all that old balls, there'd be no New Age travellers, no hippy refugees running tatty shops, no mid-summer festival and women dancing around naked, no religious nuts, no UFO-spotters. Glastonbury Tor, in fact, was a symbol of what was wrong with Britain.

Also the National Trust bastards hadn't even given him the contract for installing the new pathway and steps.

Griff Daniel went back to his truck. G Daniel amp; Co. Builders. It would maybe have said… amp; Son. If the so-called son hadn't disgraced the family name.

When it came down to it, the only way you were going to get rid of the rift-raff was by getting rid of the damn Tor. He imagined a whole convoy of JC'Bs gobbling into the Tor like it was a Walnut Whip, the hill giving way, the tower collapsing into dusty, medieval rubble.