Phil Rickman - The Chalice

Who might paint her nude? Degas? Renoir? Modigliani?

Certainly not Battle.

No more. Spell broken. Done it himself, like crunching a delicate glass bauble in his fist. No going back to that shop today. Nor ever. Couldn't face her again, would never be the same. No laughter. No banter. Surely she'd realise that.

Jim had rolled sluggishly out of bed, peered out at the mist, couldn't see farther than the buggering ash tree.

Thinking, at first, that he would paint. In the very centre of the studio, the three old-fashioned black, metal easels were set up in a pyramid formation. His Works in Progress. The glorious dusk. Over the past few weeks, he'd digested so much dusk he should be able to summon its colours and textures at any time of day. Even on a lousy, damp morning, the lousiest dampest morning of his buggering lousy life.

But when he'd stood in front of the canvases there'd been a congestion in his head. It felt soggy, spongy, and he'd found himself wondering, absurdly, if it had been his hat which had held his creativity together, helped to contain the glowing dusk, keep it burning in his head. He'd inspected the paintings on the easels. Skies of clay, fields of carpet and lino. No mystery. No mystery there at all.

They were rubbish. He couldn't paint. What the hell had ever made him think he could paint?

Poor bloody Pat. Right all along, eh?

The sense of loss had settled around Jim like a grey gas. Like the first morning after the unexpected death of someone loved.

Which was one way of putting it. He'd gone back to bed, taking with him a bottle of Johnnie Walker.

Intermittently he'd awoken, feeling cold. Clouds obscuring the day, whisky obscuring his thoughts. What was left of life with his muse gone forever? What could even Glastonbury ever mean to him again.

Sometimes he'd hear a distant ringing as the rain rolled like tears down the windows.

'He isn't answering.'

'Perhaps he's out painting,' Diane said,

'In the rain?'

'Well, perhaps he's painting inside then. You know how he hates to be disturbed while he's painting.'

'He shouldn't be painting at all. He knows he always comes in on a Friday. He…" Juanita broke off, looked hard at Diane. 'You don't want to do this, do you? You don't want to go to the police'

Confusion was corrugating Diane's forehead. She'd been looking almost cheerful on her return from Sam Daniel's print-shop. Did Juanita know about this Glastonbury First meeting? No, Juanita didn't. Well, well. Griff and Archer obviously weren't letting the grass grow. A coincidence, too, that it should be held the same time as Woolly's road protest meeting. Or was it? They ought to keep tabs on this; perhaps she could go to one meeting and Diane to the other. Assuming they were back from the police station in time.

And then Juanita, looking at her watch, had said perhaps they really ought to be going soon, if only Jim would turn up. Diane hadn't answered, and that was when Juanita, not wanting to give her any more time to change her mind, had rung Jim.

And now Diane said, 'I've been thinking, Juanita. Perhaps I should talk to my father first, I can't just, you know, shop him.'

'You're shopping Rankin.'

'It's the same thing.'

'Listen, if you talk to your father, he'll stop you. Somehow he'll stop you. He'll convince you you didn't see what you know you did see…'

Juanita stopped, tried to hold Diane's eyes but Diane turned away.

'You really did see it, didn't you, Diane? You saw Gerry Rankin or his son or both of them kicking this boy's head. You saw the blood. Come on, I need to hear you say it.'

'Yes.' Diane stared hard at the counter. 'Yes, but…'

'Oh God, I knew it.'

'Why was he found miles away? The Rankins didn't take him to Stoke St Michael, they took me back to Bowermead. They left Headlice in Don Moulder's field.'

Juanita shrugged. 'So the Pilgrims found him, got scared

…'

Scared? Those bastards?

'…and…and…listen to me, Diane…and they loaded him into his bus and somebody drove it off and dumped it in that wood. Then they got the hell out of Somerset. It makes perfect sense to me. These people will avoid the police even if they've done nothing wrong.'

She had to change the subject then because a couple of customers came in, elderly teacherish types, the kind who browsed forever.

'Actually…' Lowering her voice. '… I can't help thinking I may have upset Jim. He was obviously leading up to saying what I didn't want him to say when Griff Daniel came into the bar and we all ran out into the street. I didn't see Jim after that.'

'He's a nice man,' Diane said.

'Yes,' Juanita carelessly dusted the counter. 'And only a few years older than Harrison Ford.'

This morning she'd contemplated what looked like a very sad and drooping face in the bedroom mirror and hadn't fallen into the usual routine of giving herself a what- the-hell consolatory grin before turning away.

Several of Jim's paintings hung in the flat. One showed a flank of the Tor below which the sun had set, the afterglow concentrated into a thin, vibrating red line, like a bright string pulled taut. It was clear that within a few seconds the line would have gone, and the earth was straining to hold and feel the moment.

Feel the moment. Jim had risen to feel the moment and she'd been horribly relieved when a force of nature called Griff Daniel had knocked him down. But that wouldn't have been obvious from her face, would it?

Verity put down her tea cloth and stepped into the middle of the kitchen, putting her hands together and closing her eyes as if about to pray. Then, very slowly, she opened them, like the arms of Tower Bridge.

Keeping her wrists joined together and raising her arms, bringing the cupped hands to face-level.

… like a priest presenting the chalice for High Mass, was how Dr Grainger had put it.

She opened her eyes and stared into the space between her hands. The light from the high window unfurled around her like a flag. She felt like a any Joan of Arc, the quilted body-warmer serving as a breastplate.

'Do this every hour,' Dr Grainger had instructed. 'And then when night falls and the window turns black – and this is the important part – you continue to do it.'

There was another exercise, which had to be done upstairs. It involved hugging an upright, perhaps the newel post at the top of the stairs, and at the same time feeling the walls closing around her, feeling the house hugging her.

She would assiduously practise both these exercises for a week, as instructed. She would embrace the dark.

She remembered the dramatic effects of the communal exercises led by Dr Grainger at the Assembly Rooms. It was not wrong. She would feel Colonel Pixhill beside her. And poor Major Shepherd. Abbot Whiting she was less sure about now, since the Dinner.

'That guy has a problem,' Dr Grainger had said when Oliver Pixhill had gone. 'He has a problem with his father. I don't buy what he was saying about the darkness in this house being down to the Colonel's essence. House this old, it shrugs people off. His problem is personal, I doubt it need concern you.'

'Oh, but it must, Dr Grainger. You see, he's a Trustee now. He has influence. The Old Guard, the people who knew the Colonel, they've all gone. All gone now. Major Shepherd was the last.'

'He can fire you, this Pixhill''

'It's not quite as simple as that, if I refuse to leave. Which I shall, most certainly. But… Oh, I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't know what I'm supposed to do, except stay here and wait. There's no one to advise me. Poor Major Shepherd.'

She'd put a drop of Dr Bach's Rescue Remedy on her tongue, Dr Grainger nodding approval.

'This major, he was the Colonel's right-hand man?'