Phil Rickman - The Chalice

He identified Verity as his 'patient'.

Verity burst into tears.

'Oh, have I been indiscreet?' Dr Grainger turned to Oliver Pixhill. I guess you knew nothing of this, right?'

'I certainly did not.' Oliver's deep voice was full of surprise and concern. He guided Verity through to the dining hall, hands on her quaking shoulders. I did not indeed.'

Oliver pulled out a chair for her at the long table. At which she hadn't sat since the Abbot's Dinner. He took the chair next to hers.

'Miss Endicott, this is utterly dreadful. None of us knew about this. I feel absolutely devastated. And guilty.'

'Please… it's my fault. I'm so…'

'I've been back in this house, Miss Endicott, for less than ten minutes and already I'm finding the atmosphere decidedly oppressive. We shall have to get you out.'

'No! You don't und-'

'Mr Pixhill,' Grainger said from the head of the table, where the Abbot sat. I can help this lady. I have got this…'

'I'm sure your therapeutic techniques are entirely creditable. What I'm saying is she should never have been left here alone and that is the responsibility of the Pixhill Trust. I'm going to make it my business to find Miss Endicott fully furnished accommodation in the short-term and then…'

'You don't understand!' Verity gripped the edge of the table. 'This is my responsibility. I made a promise to your father.'

He looked astonished. 'Good God, you really think my father was in a fit mental state to extract a promise from anyone?'

'Your father was a great man,' Verity whispered.

'My father?' Gently, Oliver took her hands in his. He hesitated. He took a breath. 'Miss Endicott, my father was a deeply unhappy man with a paranoid and obsessive nature. Who ruined his own and other people's lives through…'

'No!' Verity snatched her hands back. That's a… that's untrue.'

Oliver said, with compassion, I do know how you felt about him, you know.'

She stared at him through a blur of angry tears. Saw an unexpected pain in Oliver's eyes. His father's eyes.

'He was my father, and I'm frankly tired of having him venerated. It's time the truth was acknowledged.'

'What can you know of the truth?' Hard to get the words out, her throat was so tight.

'Verity, I've made it my business to find out the truth. You never wanted to. You loved him too much.'

Verity gasped.

Oliver held up a placatory hand. 'Oh, not in any physical sense, I don't suppose. I doubt he was interested in that side of things anymore.'

'Stop it.' Verity drew a handkerchief from her sleeve, wiped her eyes, I don't want to hear any more of this.'

Oliver shrugged. 'All I know is, the oppressive darkness I felt when I entered here was nothing to do with the age of the building. Nothing to do with the legend of Abbot Whiting. You know that.'

Verity rose and backed away from him.

'It's him. Miss Endicott. You know that too. You've always known it. Him and his obsessions. His delusions. His self-importance. His invented visionary experiences. His crazy, rambling diaries The darkness in here is him.'

'How can you say these things?' Verity wouldn't look at him.

'He destroyed my mother, he neglected his parental responsibilities. And he's left his stain on this place. Jesus, you can feel him. The self-inflicted misery of him.'

Verity covered her ears, but his voice was low and insistent.

'I asked you if you were afraid and you said you were used to it. Well, of course you are. Part of you wants to feel he's still here. That's what he left you. His stain.'

'No.' Verity began to beat her knuckles on the table. 'No!'

Oliver stood up. 'This is the source of your darkness, Dr Grainger. George Pixhill. Last and most pathetic of a long line of pseudo-mystics who've thrown away their lives in Glastonbury. You don't need to teach her how to wallow in it. She's been doing it for half her life.'

Verity said quietly, I think you should leave, Oliver.'

'I haven't told you why I came'

'I do not wish to know.'

'I think you do,' Oliver said softly. 'I came to tell you that Major Shepherd was rushed to hospital late last night.'

Verity went very still.

'And died early this morning, I'm afraid,' Oliver said, 'I'm so sorry.'

Mrs Whitney said, it's not my place to say it, Joe, but you are looking just terrible.'

She'd come round from next door with some of her homemade soup, leek and lentil. She'd done this once or twice a week since he'd been on his own.

'Sorry,' Joe Powys said shakily. 'Didn't get to bed until late. Bad habit to get into.'

He'd fallen asleep in the chair. Sat down to mull over his conversation with Brendan Donovan and just dropped off. Woken to Arnold whining softly beneath his chair and… thud.

It couldn't. Not in broad daylight.

'I don't know at all.' Mrs Whitney punched his arm in exasperation. 'Look at the size of them great black circles round your eyes. You look like one of them pandas. Didn't ought to be all alone out here, with just that dog. Isn't normal, young chap like you.'

She stood in the doorway, rising up in her bobbled slippers, trying to peer over his shoulder. Perhaps thinking she might be able to spot a syringe and bag of white powder. Unfair, Joyce was OK; Henry Kettle had thought so too.

'I'm fine,' Powys said. 'Honest to God.'

'Ho,' Mrs Whitney said scornfully and bustled past him.

She didn't get far. He heard her gasp.

'All it is,' Powys said, 'I was looking for something. A book. Got carried away, Joyce. You know how it is when you start moving things, you can't stop.'

Well. Yes. On the whole, about as convincing as a mad axeman in a pool of blood claiming to have had a small mishap clipping his toenails.

Mrs Whitney left very quickly, her face as white as the tops of the hills after this week's short lived snow.

It wasn't just the lamp this time. No indeed. Jesus.

Inside the house, the phone rang. He let it. It had rung several times, starting just as he'd opened his eyes to the sight of A Glastonbury Romance in the centre of the hearthrug. He'd picked up the phone and the line had been dead. Not the dialling tone, not the breathy echo of somebody with the wrong number or making a hoax call. Just dead: the sound you'd get if you were holding a banana to your ear.

About a minute later it happened again; he'd put it down and picked it up and there was a perfect, clear dialling tone, and this was when the whole shelf had collapsed and the books had come out horizontally, not falling, actually spraying into the room, taking the lamp and the radio with them, and Powys had thrown himself behind the sofa and screamed at the wall. At least, he'd intended to scream, but it came out like a whimper, and Arnold flew out from under the chair and began to snarl.

Which was when Mrs Whitney knocked on the front door. Mrs Whitney and the leek and lentil soup. 'Better come and have this in my kitchen, Joe. Be warmed up in ten minutes.'

Less than five minutes later, he came out, followed by Arnold. The air was chilly. The mist was a flimsy tent over the forestry, blotting out the hill farms so that there was just the two cottages, one of them occupied by a bloke who only had to close his eyes now for something to happen. Maybe when he went to sleep, some kind of energy escaped from him and…

Oh, come on, you know better than to start theorising. These things happen. Leave it alone, don't be afraid, don't respond and it'll stop. Sooner or later it will stop.

Next door, Mrs Whitney sat him down by the Rayburn, warmed up the soup and stood over him while he spooned it up. Arnold lying across his trainers.

'Mr Kettle, now, he had this trouble more than once,' she said conversationally, I remember when he was dowsing for a new well at the old Burton place, by Kinsham.'