'I suppose so, Arnold.'
Powys sighed. On the evidence of the Carey letters, the contrasts and tensions of Glastonbury hadn't actually altered much in the sixty-odd years since Uncle Jack had fluttered the dovecotes: commercial interests squeezing into bed with the spiritual, a lot of seriously screwed-up people and frustrated visionaries, endless petty disputes, and maybe a wriggling vein of kinky sex.
In the mid-eighties, after Matt Rutherford had left town to pursue his business interests in – where else? – Los Angeles, Juanita rarely referred to men.
The last letter – very recent – was a cool and cynical overview of New Age Glastonbury. It also discussed the problems of a scatty female of semi-noble birth called Diane Ffitch and the publication of the gloomy diaries of a certain Colonel Pixhill.
There was a copy enclosed. It was a dismal dark green with no picture on the front. Dan had said he really couldn't face reading it.
Joe Powys had another look at the photo of the girl in the white dress, Juanita Carey: iridescent, mesmeric… If you looked closely you could make out some kind of amulet around her neck. If you held the picture away from you you were even more dazzled by the wide, white smile and the laughing brown eyes.
More than all this, Powys had liked her style.
He was deeply sad that she couldn't help him now.
Part Four
Mr Powis (sic)… has fluttered our local dovecotes to a painful extent. Do we behave like that at Glastonbury? I must have missed a lot. I am afraid that if people make the Glastonbury pilgrimage expecting to find Glastonbury romance… they will be disappointed. We do not quite come up to Mr Powis's specifications.
ONE
The caller said, 'This is Lord Pennard. I wish to speak to my daughter. Now.'
No question, it definitely was him, voice straight out of the freezer compartment. Sam Daniel, the printer, had seen him around, as you might say, heard him ordering his huntsmen about. Very big man in these parts, and oh yes, this was definitely Lord P on the phone, no doubt about that.
'Sure it is,' Sam said. 'And I'm the Pope. Now piss off and stop bothering us or I'll call the police.'
Diane looked up from the oldest and simplest of Sam's office word-processors.
'Your old man,' Sam said. 'And not a happy old man, if I'm any judge. What if he shows up at the door?'
'He's left a couple of messages on the answering machine at the shop,' Diane said. 'I just wipe them off. He won't come here. He's always employed people to show up at doors for him.'
'Fair enough.' Sam turned back to his computer screen. He was laying out this illustrated feature piece by Matthew Banks, one of the five million local herbalists, about the Glastonbury Thorn. It listed all the Holy Thorn trees in and around the town, suggesting which was the oldest and examining the case for the various thorns being actual descendants of the staff of Joseph of Arimathea.
Complete load of old horseshit, in Sam's view, but Diane said the Thorn was a potent symbol which united the Alternative types and the locals. Local people were proud of the Thorn, Diane said. Well, Samuel Mervyn Daniel was about as local as you could get, and proud was putting it a bit strong.
Paul's digital clock said 8.20. Twenty past bleeding eight and they'd been at work for over an hour, marking up copy, transferring it to the computer, experimenting with layouts.
It hadn't even been light when he'd unlocked the print-shop. He hadn't had a shave for two days, nor a proper meal, nor seen any telly, nor been in any fit state to do much with Charlotte.
The upper classes. Always been good at getting the peasants working the clock round for a pittance.
Except Diane was always here too, head down, a woman driven. A lot of grief, a lot of upset inside. But she wasn't letting any of it out, not in front of Sam Daniel. She had guts, and you didn't expect that. Or else it was another aspect of her reputed insanity.
Diane pushed her chair back. 'I've got to go. Got to open the shop.'
'Bet you've not had any breakfast, have you?'
She was losing weight, too. Not that she couldn't afford to lose a couple of stone, but not this way. And her face was always pale. It was like somewhere behind her eyes there was always an image of what she'd seen that night.
'Oh, well, you know, I've got some carob bars at the shop.' Diane pulled her red coat from the peg. The kind of coat you'd think twice about donating to Oxfam in case the Third World sent it back.
Sam raised his eyes to the ceiling. 'Bloody carob bars. I'm not saying the humble carob hasn't got its place, look, but a slice or two of toast, soya marg, a dab of Marmite, nothing would've died to bring that to the table, would it?'
'Thank you so much for your concern, Sam.' Diane gathered her stuff together in a plastic carrier bag. 'Listen, could you let me see a proof, printout, whatever of the piece on the town-centre enhancement scheme when you've finished it? No hurry, but if I could have it by three at the latest…'
Strewth.
'Anybody, excluding family, wants to see you, Diane, what shall I say?'
'Oh, send them round to the shop. They'll have to join the queue. Bye'
He watched her through the window walking quickly, head held high, out of Grope Lane on to Magdalene Street. Gonna crack. Nothing surer.
After the fire, and no Juanita, Sam had figured the magazine idea would be straight down the tubes. But then, the day following the funeral, Diane had appeared, pale-faced, in the print-shop, a cardboard folder under her arm. Talking about getting started on The Avalonian. Like, pronto.
'I owe it to her, OK?' was all she'd say. Then they started work on the first dummy.'
How do we know, Sam read on the screen, that the thorn tree on Wearyall Hill is even in the same spot as what we like to think of as the Original?
Matthew Banks's original draft had been a sight more cumbersome. Diane had ripped into it, subbing it down to neat sentences, short paragraphs. 'The Alternative Community,' Diane had said firmly, 'have to learn from the outset that this is our paper, not theirs.'
Sam grinned, remembering that bloody tight-arsed Jenna – a 'Voice therapist' – coming in with a piece written by The Women of the Cauldron, with its own headline on top: WHY THE ANGLICAN CHURCH DENIES THE GODDESS MARY. Diane giving it back without even reading it, pointing out politely that The Avalonian would be doing its own headlines and any comment pieces would be specifically commissioned.
Suggesting they cut the piece by half and submit it as a reader's letter with actual names at the bottom. Jenna'd gone out with a face like an old shoe.
Sam was starting to warm to Diane. One thing about the upper classes, they knew how to put people down with style.
And slave-driving, they knew about that. Three weeks after starting from nothing – no design, not even a paper size – they now had almost enough for a respectable dummy, with real features, real news stones. Idea being they could take it around and show to people to stimulate advertising.
The plan was to start out as a monthly then come down to fortnightly. Anything beyond that, they'd need staff, which they couldn't afford. Diane insisted every contribution had to be paid for, even if it was just a token amount. Couldn't rely on volunteers like the guy with the three-legged dog.
You had to start out, Diane said, how you meant to go on: professional. Incredible. She'd seemed so soggy, that first time she came in.
Ah well. Sam stood up. Twenty to nine. Young Paul'd be in soon, then he could get some breakfast. No carob bars for Sammy, not after another dawn shift. Funny, everybody was up early this morning. Even Lord Pennard, who was obviously monitoring Diane's movements. Having her watched.