Phil Rickman - The Chalice

And I can see why the natives still don't trust us, because they think we're trying to take over the town. And maybe we are, some of us. We say we're all for unity and the kindly pagans are getting into bed with the Christians and everything, but basically we have very different values and when some local issue arises it all erupts. Like the proposed new road linking central Somerset into the Euro motorway network. Most of the natives are in favour because it will relieve traffic congestion in the small towns and villages, but the incomers see it as an invasion of their rural haven, the destruction of miles of wonderful countryside. So whichever way it goes, half of us are going to be furious. It's not as if even the Alternative Community is united. We pretend to be, of course – old hippies, part of that great universal movement. But we're divided, factionalised: gay pagan groups, radical feminist pagans like The Cauldron. Everything in Glastonbury inevitably becomes EXTREME.

I lie awake, mulling over the old hippy thing – why CAN'T we all live in peace together on what's supposed to be the Holyest Erthe in all Britain? And then I go back and read Pixhill's Diaries, making myself doubly miserable because we 're the sole outlet for a book nobody want to buy on account of his Nostradamus-like warnings of impending doom, souls raging in torment, the rising of the Dark Chalice, etc., etc. Well, you just don't say things like that about Glastonbury. Because this is a HOLY town and must therefore be immune from evil. The people who settle here want to bathe in the sacredness like some sort of spiritual Radox – They want to be soothed. They don't want anything to dent the idyll.

Anyway, you should see a copy, as Carey and Frayne are the publishers. Let me know what you think. I'll go now. I think I can see Jim Battle, my best male friend these days, wobbling down High Street on what appears to be a new secondhand bike and looking, as usual, in need of a drink. Look after yourself, wish me luck with Diane and be glad your posh London outfit doesn't have to publish anything like the enclosed! Love,

Not knowing Archer Ffitch all that well, Griff Daniel decided on restraint.

'Dirty, drug-sodden, heathen bastards.' Griff scratched an itchy palm on his spiky- grey beard. 'Filthy, dole-scrounging scum.'

Attached to the wooden bars of the gate at the foot of Glastonbury Tor was a framed colour photograph of a lamb with its throat torn out. Over the photo was typed,

KILLED BY A DOG NOT ON A LEAD. DOGS WHICH CHASE SHEEP CAN BE SHOT BY LAW.

'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?'