The Chalice

'And then we need to talk,' he said. 'About what that policeman said. About Jim's cat.'

'Not his cat,' she said hoarsely. 'His hat.'

On his way out, Powys spotted on the table in the downstairs parlour, an ancient copy of The Avalonian. There was a drawing on the front of a woman looking up towards Glastonbury Tor.

He recognised her at once and felt an almost-aching sadness.

Despair made a cold compress on Verity's heart as she switched off the light and padded in her pom-pom slippers to the bed

Dr Grainger had said. Go to bed earlier in the winter, semi-hibernate like the animals. And, if sleep will not come, make use of the peaceful hours to commune with the dark. Listen to the night sounds, the conversing of owls, the creaking and shifting of the house. Listen to the ancient, beating heart of Meadwell.

Verity lay under the sheets with her eyes open, drawn to the windows, two chalky-grey rectangles like paving slabs. Like gravestones in the wall. There were no owls tonight. Occasionally she would hear traffic from the main road, half a mile away, but only the loudest lorries. She wished the road were close enough for headlights to flash on to the glass.

Dr Pel Grainger would wince at such defeatism.

What did Dr Grainger know?

Rolling over on her cold pillow, aware of that painful tug her left hip.

Arthritis.

Although it would be more comfortable that way, she could not lie on her back, remembering how her mother had eventually died in the night and Verity had found her next morning, eyes wide open to the ceiling like a stone effigy upon a tomb.

Verity felt utterly lost. Almost wished that she could See.

Powys said, 'Woolly?'

The little guy dropped his shovel in alarm, spilling fragments and splinters of wood. Under the lamp projecting from the wall, his scalp gleamed through sparse hair. Behind him was a hole where a window had been.

'I'm sorry. We haven't met.' Powys felt foolish. There were shards of broken glass on the cobbles and remains of what might once have been a guitar.

He was getting a bad feeling. If Arnold had been here, Arnold would have growled that particular growl.

'Who are you'' Woolly retrieved the shovel, brandished it like a weapon. Powys swiftly identified himself.

'J.M. Powys.' Woolly smiled the smile of a man for whom everything comes too late. 'Heard you were in town. Tried to find you once. Ask your advice. Sheesh.'

He lowered the shovel. 'Been a bad night, J.M. Bad as they get.'

'We picked up your message for Diane. On the answering machine'

'Where is she?'

'We thought she might be here.'

'We?'

'Juanita Carey and me'

'She's back?' Woolly ran a weary hand through his hair.

'Shit. She picks her nights, don't she? No, Diane's not here.'

'Has she been here?'

'I hope not. Spent the last hour walking. Got a taxi back from Street. Couldn't settle. That poor woman. Kirsty. I saw her face, you know, just before they sedated her. Gonner see that face forever, man. Wiped out. How do you even start to live with that?'

Woolly patrolled the square in circles, not looking up. 'So I left the message for Diane then took off. Walked along Wearyall. One of my places. Fetched up at the Thorn. Prayed a bit, you know? Prayed to anything that would listen. Know who I felt like?' He looked at Powys at last.

'Judas fucking Iscariot. The chosen instrument of death. The Thorn… it felt hostile. Never felt like that before, man, never. Then I came back and found some upright citizen had decided to, like, express the feelings of the whole town.'

'You told the police about this?'

'You kidding? If they'd set light to the damn place I wouldn't feel I had the right to call the fire brigade. It's over. man. Not gonner walk away from this one. Don't deserve to.'

Woolly kicked away the neck of the broken guitar. Powys bent and picked it up. The strings were still attached to the bent machine heads.

'Who did this?'

'Does it matter? Town's crawling with vigilantes now. Glastonbury First; I thought it'd blow over. Keep quiet, don't make a big deal out of it, let it bum itself out. Sheesh, everything that happens deals 'em another ace. Jim Battle. And now-'

'You said 'chosen'.'

'Huh?'

'You said 'chosen instrument of death'. What did you mean?'

'Ah, you don't wanner hear this.' Woolly wiped his forehead. 'Seminal book for me. The Old Golden Land. Somebody said you'd changed. Thought it was all balls now. Didn't wanner have anything to do with leys and location-phenomena.'

Powys said nothing.

'That being the case, you'll be saying to yourself. What a shithead – gets pissed, causes a truly horrible fatal accident and the best he can think of is to blame the paranormal. Get me outer here, you'll be thinking.'

Woolly was close to tears.

Powys thought about all the crazy stuff he'd heard tonight. He thought about Uncle Jack.

'Woolly,' he said, 'I think I'm changing back.'

Sam sat for a long time with his head in his hands.

'Take your time,' Juanita said.

Although she truly didn't think there was time. Too much happening too fast. It was like one of those Magic Eye pictures where there was a lot going on but it all looked like mush until your eye learned how to resolve the vibrating strands and then, in the centre of it all, was a shatteringly obvious symbol.

A very dark symbol.

'We had kind of a row,' Sam said. 'Diane said everything was real and everything was a part of everything else. Something like that.'

This was so close to Juanita's own thoughts that she had to drink some whisky very quickly, through her straw.

Sam had tried to clean himself up. He was wearing an old, torn army parka, camouflage trousers and walking boots.

'Where have you been, Sam?'

He sighed. 'Bowermead. Pennard's got a hunt coming off on Boxing Day. Thought I'd see how I could spoil the fun.'

'Rankin catch you?'

'No. Didn't see Rankin. I saw… I saw where hundreds of beautiful broadleaf trees had been destroyed. The ground all dug up and flattened. You know how poor old Woolly was saying they could start anywhere, at any time, clearing wood for the new road?'

'This is for real, Sam?'

'Swear to God.' His hair was stuck to his forehead where he'd splashed cold water into his eyes. 'What I figured… Pennard's worried about hundreds of protesters descending on his woodland like at Newbury and Batheaston… so he's got in first. Destroyed his own trees. Remains of bonfires everywhere, where they burned the branches.'

'The mind boggles,' Juanita said. Dynamite stuff, certainly. But why would that send Sam off to get crawling drunk?

Take it slowly.

'Sam, does Diane know about this?'

He shook his head.

'Did she know you'd gone to Bowermead?'

'No. What happened, look, after the crash the telly were interviewing Archer Ffitch. He's coming out with all this pious, hypocritical shit, trying to lay it all on Woolly. And then, when the camera's off, he puts the knife in for Diane with the reporter. How they've tried to help her but she's a lost cause. Very sick girl, all this. Discreetly planting the information that Diane's batty and anything she says should be treated accordingly. Which would include anything printed in The Avalonian.'

Black lettering on yellow started to roll across Juanita's brain like one of those advertisements on a belt in the Post Office: '…OONIAN IS HERE… THE AVALOONIAN IS HERE…THE AVAL…'

'I just went insane. I wanted to go off, fuck up the Ffitches any way I could.'

'And now you can,' Juanita said. 'You can blow it to the papers about all the trees they've destroyed prematurely. Where did you get pissed, Sam?'

'Down the Rifleman's. Four double Scotches and a pint. On an empty stomach.'

'I'm missing something. How did you get from Bowermead to the Rifleman's Arms?'