'Tis slipping away from me, Diane. I can feel it. They're taking over.'
He pulled a stool to the counter.
'Daft to complain. On one level, 'tis a wonderful job she's doing.'
'Dame Wanda?'
'Knows more famous folk than I even heard of, that woman. Actors, artists and such.'
'Yes, but Woolly, the sad fact is that when it comes to infrastructure, I'm afraid it's the kind of people Archer and my father know who really count.'
'Infrastructure. There's a clever word. You gonner use words like that in The Avalonian?'
'Certainly not,' Diane said. 'It's going to be simple and direct.'
'It's really gonner happen?'
'Of course it's jolly well going to happen.' Diane lowered her eyes. 'I think.'
She worked on The Avalonian every waking hour, even when she was in the shop, with the little laptop she'd borrowed from Sam. Studied the customers for people who might be recruited as correspondents. Preferably straight people. Well, as straight as you could find among customers at an Alternative bookshop.
'You know I'll help all I can,' Woolly said.
'I know. And don't think I'm not grateful, but there's a limit to how much you can help. Or at least be seen to help. You're a politician now.'
'Sheesh, do I look like a politician?'
'We have to be seen to be independent.'
In the window, a sign Sam had printed said, COMING SOON – THE AVALONIAN. She'd been a little worried about that; suppose people remembered the old hippy magazine and thought it was going to be the same sort of thing.
The phone rang. Diane never answered the phone in case it was her father. She waited for the answering machine to cut in, Juanita's voice still on it. There was silence, the caller not sure whether to leave a message.
'Er… 'tis Miss Diane I wanted.'
'I know that voice,' Woolly said. 'It's…'
'Tis Don Moulder here. I, er, I needer talk to Miss Diane .. 'bout… 'bout them hippies, look. I… right.'
The line was cut.
'Well, there's a man really at home with the new technology,' Woolly observed. 'You gonner call him back?'
'I might actually go and see him,' Diane said. 'I keep hearing rumours that he's gone sort of strange.'
'That's no rumour, my love'
'Apparently he's put up a huge cross on his land. I thought it might make a piece for The Avalonian. For the dummy. I mean he's not an Alternative person, is he?'
'You mean he's like a straight religious maniac. Yeah, I suppose so. I do admire what you're doing, you know. The way you've thrown yourself into it. At a time like this.'
'It's because it's a time like this,' Diane said.
TWO
Standing under the swinging sign of The George and Pilgrims, Joe Powys watched Diane Ffitch walking down from Carey and Frayne, hands plunged into her coat pockets, a beret plopped on tangled brown curls, a stiff-backed folder under her arm.
She smiled shyly. 'This is awfully good of you. Although, I mean, it might actually be OK. It might just make the journey.'
'Then again, it might fall off.' He went to unlock the Mini.
'Well. Yes. I suppose so.'
Returning to the inn tonight, Powys had encountered her in the car park. Sitting in her pink-spotted van with the engine running; it was making a noise like a small aeroplane.
Diane had said, Does this mean it's sort of broken?
It was only a hole in the silencer, but it looked like a very old exhaust system. Not safe to drive it to Bristol, especially at night.
Diane squeezed into the Mini, put her folder behind the seat. 'At least, there's a place at the hospital where you can go and get a cup of tea or something. While you're waiting.'
'Or,' Powys said, 'perhaps I could pop in and see her for a couple of minutes. Just so I can tell Dan something.'
'Oh gosh.' Diane fluttered, embarrassed. 'Bit of a prob, there, actually. She won't see anyone. Well, you know, except me. She's in quite a bad way. I mean emotionally, too.'
'Yeh, I can imagine' Powys drove up High Street. The headlights of an oncoming car flash-lit a yellow poster in the window of an empty shop. It said, LET'S TAME THE TOR.
'She's feeling a lot of guilt about Jim's death. One way and another. I mean, she was sort of… sort of close to him. But I think not as close as he would've liked, if you see what I mean.'
'Oh. Right.'
'I mean, no one's saying he… you know…'
'Killed himself?'
'No one's saying that. He just seems to have got rather drunk and careless. People have been muttering about the Artistic Temperament. Meaning drink. But he actually wasn't like that. He was terribly balanced, really. Ever so stoical. Even after a few drinks.'
Diane went quiet for a while, a big girl squashed on to a tiny bucket scat in a car so small that she and Powys were almost touching.
'I do find it easy to talk to you,' she said at last. 'So I'm going to say it. I think…' She took a deep breath 'I think this was, you know… meant.'
They were leaving town. Powys saw, in his rear-view mirror, the sign that said:
GLASTONBURY
Ancient Isle of Avalon
He felt a tingle of unreality at the very base of his spine. This is a town ruled by legend, secretly governed by numinous rules.
Bollocks.
He glanced at Diane. She was looking directly at him. He could see her face very clearly. Its openness seemed to belie everything he'd read about her in the letter from Juanita Carey to Dan Frayne.
Lady Loony. Arnold was sitting placidly on her knee, her arms around him.
Let it go, said his Wiser Self. Don't react. Change the subject
Joe Powys sighed. His Wiser Self had quit years ago, disillusioned.
'Meant?' he said. 'How exactly do you mean, "meant"?'
Dan Frayne had said, 'I've rung the hospital and she won't speak to anyone. I've rung this Diane Ffitch, can't get a word of sense. Just goes on about this fucking Pixhill. Jesus, Joe, all I want is to know what's going on. Christ, forget the book if you like, go for a winter bloody break at Harvey-Calder's expense. Just help me.'
Powys had driven down a week ago under deep, grey skies, the famous Tor looking passive, disconnected. As though this crazy plan to have it fenced off had already diminished it.
He'd booked into The George and Pilgrims, into a dark room with an uncurtained four-poster bed and Gothic windows edged with richly coloured stained glass. From his window, if he leaned far enough out, he could see the bookshop, Carey and Frayne.
On the first day, Powys had walked Arnold round the streets, buying flimsy, small imprint books on the Grail, the Goddess, King Arthur and Joseph of Arimathea.
On the second day, he'd led the dog halfway up the Tor and then carried him to the top, where mist over the levels obscured the views and a man with a red beard and two pigtails played a tuneless tin whistle into the wind battering the empty, hollowed-out church tower.
On the third day, he'd driven up through a housing estate to Wearyall Hill, where no signpost marked the path to the Holy Thorn. It proved to be a wind-thrashed little tree, absolutely alone on the hillside, protected only by a wire-netting tube. There were views to both the Tor, to the right, and the Abbey ruins behind the town centre. Of all the places he'd been in Glastonbury, this was somehow the most moving. He'd wished Fay had been here to share the moment and then, feeling as lonely and exposed as the Thorn, he had blinked away tears.
On the fourth day, he'd planned to visit the Abbey which was totally hidden from view until you went under a medieval gatehouse in Magdalene Street and paid your admission fee. He'd left it until last, maybe worried he'd be disappointed. This would be an unfortunate reaction to the holyest erthe in all England.
Finally he'd decided to save it, and gone into Carey and Frayne.