Phil Rickman - The Chalice

'What trouble exactly?'

'Oh, don't you go taking me for a fool, Joe. I lived next door to Mr Kettle for too many years. Magnet for it, that man.'

'So, what do you think I should do?'

'Well, it's not just the house, is it? Never is just a house, that's what Mr Kettle used to say. Just that house reacts quicker than most houses, on account of Mr Kettle, if anything comes in. I don't know where you could've picked something up though, Joe; you never goes anywhere much.'

'Maybe it was looking for me. God, I said I wouldn't do this again. If you respond to something, you just encourage it.'

'This is deep waters, Joe.' Mrs Whitney put the teapot on the Rayburn. I don't know what to say. Mr Kettle, now, he knew how to deal with this sorter business, but you, if you don't mind me saying so, you prob'ly don't.'

It could be deeply comforting having a neighbour like Mrs Whitney who had lived next door to Henry Kettle for many years and accepted dowsing (and everything it brought with it) as just another aspect of traditional country life, like blacksmithing and septic tanks.

'Get somebody in, you think I should do that?'

'Mr Kettle never liked to get nobody in. He was against all that. Nothing psychic, he used to say, nothing psychic.'

'Go away, then? Get myself sorted out?'

'I don't know what to say,' said Mrs Whitney. 'Your Fay – she's not coming back, is she?'

Through the wall they could hear the phone ringing in Powys's living room.

'Sooner or later you're going to have to answer that,' Mrs Whitney said.

'I think there's a fault on the line. No, I don't think she'll come back. Fay will probably go through life without anything happening to her again. If…'

He accepted a cup of strong tea.

'If she keeps away from you,' Mrs Whitney said. 'That what you mean?'

That probably was what he meant.

'That's no life, Joe.'

'She'll find somebody.'

Mrs Whitney sat down opposite him. 'I meant for you. No life at all, just you and that dog. Writing your books and walking the hills and trying to ignore stuff, and your hair going greyer and them circles under your eyes getting bigger. No life, Joe, that isn't.'

It took him nearly an hour to put all the books back and assess the damage. For instance, the radio wouldn't work. It had fallen face-down and now it was dead. Possibly, something had drained the batteries; this had been known to happen.

He stood looking at the shelves, an unstable cliff-face. He put his hands flat to the books, leaned in. Like you stop an avalanche.

The phone wobbled as if it was about to ring, but it didn't.

I can't stand this. But if I leave it'll go with me. At least, if I stay here, there's Mrs Whitney and the leek and lentil soup.

The phone rang.

He stared at it. He could see his own fingermarks sweat-printed on the white plastic. He contemplated picking it up, hurling it at the wall. Wanted to do some violence back, didn't want it to think he was spooked.

When he picked up the phone it wasn't dead any more.

'Hello, Joe Powys?'

He hadn't got the breath to reply.

'I'm sorry, is that J.M. Powys?'

No detectable threat here. Nothing untoward. The voice sounded quite agreeable.

'Yes.' He coughed. 'Sorry.'

'Joe, my name's Dan Frayne. At Harvey-Calder. I've been looking at your manuscript.'

What? This was bloody quick. Unbelievably quick. Even if Ben Corby had dashed straight into the office with the manuscript as soon as he'd got back, told this bloke Frayne it was wonderful, unmissable, and Frayne had read it immediately, it still didn't figure, this was not how publishers worked.

'Do you ever get up to London?' Dan Frayne asked.

'Hang on…' Powys changed hands, put the phone to his other ear. I don't understand. I mean, you can't have had time to read it, Mr Frayne.'

'Well, that's true,' Dan Frayne said. 'But I've read The Old Golden Land, which I thought was wonderful – at the time. And, uh, Ben Corby told me all about the new book. About the way your attitude had changed.'

'He tell you anything else?'

Dan Frayne laughed, I have to say that when Ben got back he, er, he kind of wanted to talk to somebody. Old Ben was a little bit shaken. Not himself. Amazing.'

Powys looked up at the big, fat novel on the top shelf. He'd put it back on the shelf rather than keep it on a table or locked in a cupboard; you mustn't respond.

'There's an idea I've been tossing around for some time,' Dan Frayne said. 'Book I thought an old friend of mine should write, though I've never mentioned it to her. Then I thought she was too close to it, maybe someone should do it with her. But it would have to be someone of a like mind because this friend of mine… Anyway, I'd like to talk to you.'

Powys was confused. 'Let me get this right. We are not now talking about Mythscapes, we are talking about another book entirely.'

'We're talking about adapting and expanding the ideas in Mythscapes in a way that would make it rather more publishable.'

'I don't like the sound of it.'

'Come down and discuss it, huh? We'll meet all expenses.'

Had Ben Corby told this bloke Joe Powys was financially challenged? So broke, in fact, that he would write stuff to order?

'Say, this weekend?' Dan Frayne suggested. 'Or… Hey, can you get a train tonight?'

Powys was about to say no way, piss off, when he looked up at the book again. He thought he saw it move. He had an alarming vision of it emerging from the shelf, as if someone had slotted a forefinger into the top of its damaged spine, and hurled it with hurricane force at his head.

The voice in his ear said, 'Look, OK, I'll tell you when it clicked. It was when Ben told me – and he hated telling me, he made me swear not to mention it to anyone upstairs – it was when he told me about the book. A Glastonbury Romance. That was when the little bell did this ping.'

'The little bell?'

'The little bell that only pings for publishers. Maybe once or twice a year.'

'That bell, huh?'

Powys looked up at the book again. It sat comfortably in its space, between John Cowper Powys's Weymouth Sands and Owen Glendower, neither of which Powys had read.

He got the feeling the book, like Frayne, was waiting for his answer.

Jim's living room was all studio now.

It had started as a gesture against bloody Pat, who he fervently hoped would never see it: the sofa pushed back to make space for the easels, the coffee table acting at first as a rest for the palette, then becoming a palette – colours mixed directly on to the varnish. Bloody Pat would have thrown a fit.

Gradually, the painting had crowded the rest of Jim's needs into corners: the cooker where he made his meals, the table where he ate, the TV he hardly ever watched, the armchair where he sometimes fell asleep pondering a composition problem, knowing that as soon as he awoke he could go for it, everything to hand.

Interior walls had been taken out, wherever possible, exposing the whole of the ground floor, where two pillars of ancient oak helped keep the ceiling up.

At the western end of the room, opposite the dingy little fireplace, half the wall had been taken out and replaced with glass, almost floor to ceiling. Most artists were supposed to prefer Northern light; not Jim. He called it his sunset window, and on good nights it had become a sheet of burning gold, as in

Bring me my bow of burning gold

Bring me my arrows of desire.

A bad joke now.

He'd fired off his pathetic arrows of desire. Shot his buggering bolt this time and no mistake.

Awakening to filthy grey light, he'd closed his eyes again in weariness, remembering he was supposed to be in the bookshop today. And at once had seen Juanita's lovely face with its gorgeously expansive smile, the tumble of heavy hair, the brown arms, those exquisitely exposed shoulders.