Phil Rickman - The Chalice

Ah well. He was relieved, if anything. Couldn't sit here, after last night, and listen to Paul rabbiting on about megabytes and CD Rom.

The machine said. Click, whirr. That's the lot.

No word from Diane. His head throbbed. Where was she? Walked out of this door, very sad. It's all real. Everything is part of everything else and it's all real. An hour later it's all mayhem and chaos in Magdalene Street. Where was she?

It was nearly half past nine. Outside, the town was wrapped in dour grey-brown fog. Sam stood at his window watching people moving about, not laughing, not wishing each other Merry Christmas.

A sombre stillness settled around him and the world seemed a denser place. He caught himself wondering if any of the muffled passers-by were ghosts, his mind still squirming away from the dismal image of an old man who could not speak, only scream in silence.

Shit, Sammy. Too heavy, son. What he should be doing was getting on to Hughie, hanging it on him about Pennard and the new road. Calling in the eco-troops. Mass protest, mass trespass.

Wait till we find Diane.

Would he ever find Diane?

Did anything ever happen to you that you couldn't explain?

In the sky,' Powys said. 'Over the Tor. A cupped hands effect. Something very dark between them. And also in the fire. At the heart of the flames.'

'When Jim… '

He nodded. 'Or so she says.'

'Maybe she didn't tell me because she thought I'd dismiss it. She thinks I'm cynical.'

'Which you aren't, of course.'

'I've tried. God, I've tried.' She turned back to the mirror, shook her hair, winced, 'Look at that. Bloody hag. There was the residue of something before the fire. Funny, but that very night I got all dressed up for Woolly's protest meeting, saw myself in a shop window and I was quite cheered. I thought, there's something left, you know? Now I'm a hag. The last transition. Chilled by the draught of death.'

Powys saw the reflection of her eyes widen in panic, the crows' feet deepening. 'That's absolutely not true, Juanita.'

He stood up and came behind her, picking up a hairbrush from the dressing table. 'Tilt your head back.'

She closed her eyes. Brushing her hair, he felt the softness of the skin on her long neck. He thought of that yellowing cover of The Avalonian, the sylph in the nature-goddess headdress.

'There's something I haven't told you,' Juanita said.

Don Moulder waited until Mrs Moulder was out collecting the eggs and then he rang his neighbour, Melvyn Carter, and he said, 'That bit o' ground, Melvyn. 'I'm ready to talk, look. Now.'

Melvyn expressed surprise and deep suspicion on account of it was only two weeks since Don had refused to discuss. even the possibility of selling Melvyn a certain four and a half acres of pasture at any price.

'I'll be reasonable, Melvyn, I promise you. In return I need a particular favour and nothin' else will do. Your son-in-law, look, still in the police is he? Oh. Inspector now, is it? Well, I d'need his help and I d'need it fast. With regards to…'

Don's hand sweating on the phone.

'… with regards to a certain buzz.'

Feeling better now it was out. The Lord had thrown him into the heart of the Great Conflict, and. Yea, though he walked through the valley of death, he would turn his face unto the light and not be afeared to put his arse on the line.

'His hat? They took his hat?'

'They seemed to find that funny.' Juanita said, 'I was bloody terrified. Totally convinced we were both going to die. How could they chop off his head and let me go? You think New Age travellers are either young idealists pioneering a new way of life or else sad, urban refugees who need to be perpetually stoned. But these were very sinister. The guy in the mask, I can still hear him whispering. Didn't speak. Just whispered. I swore to Jim I'd never tell a soul.'

'Can't harm him now.' Powys stood up. 'How about I run you a bath?'

'The story's not over. I saw his hat, I… I've been blocking this out, OK. You're the first person to hear this. I'd virtually talked myself into believing I'd imagined it. Until that copper…'

'Jim's cat.'

'When they hold the inquest on Jim, early in the new year, I'm going to have to give evidence. I'm going to have to explain why I ran at the house, why I…'

'I know.' Powys gently squeezed her shoulders.

'You don't know. That's the point. Nobody knows. They all think I threw myself on the bonfire all trussed up like some Indian wife. Even I…'

The phone rang. 'Ignore it,' Powys said. 'They'll leave a message. Go on.'

'What if it's Diane?'

'Diane wouldn't phone. She doesn't even know you're out of hospital.'

The ringing was cut off, snatched away by the answering machine.

'All right,' Juanita said. 'There's an ash tree overhanging the cottage, one of the branches almost touching the window. His hat was hanging from it. I was standing there with Diane and Don Moulder, hoping to God Jim wasn't within a mile of that fire, and I saw his hat. No mistake. Not a bunch of dead leaves, not a piece of cloth. It was the damned hat. I was furious. The travellers were blocking the road. I thought, they've set fire to his cottage and they've left his hat. A message. A taunt. So I – I mean. OK, irrationally, I can see that now – I just went after it. I tore my skirt and wrapped it round my face and I just…'

'OK,' he gripped her shoulders. 'Was he very attached to that hat?'

'Inseparable. Wore it riding his bike. Wore it painting in his garden.'

'In Celtic magic,' Powys said, 'a man's soul is in his head. The Celts kept heads in streams and wells. They made stone heads. Sorry, I'm thinking aloud, you don't want to hear this crap.'

'No, go on.'

'I was just thinking that if they went through all the ceremony of an execution, a beheading. And then they just took his hat

…'

'He still died, didn't he?' Juanita said quietly. 'Within two days.'

'Possession of a man's hat, especially when that hat was such an essential part of what he was, would, they might think, give them access to his head. To his soul. To put thoughts there. To arouse certain feelings. Emotions. Sorry, I'm…'

Theorising. He felt very uncomfortable. This was the kind of theorising he'd sworn he was never going to do again.

'Emotions.' Juanita looked up at him. 'What did Diane tell you? About Jim and me?'

'That you just wanted to be friends.'

'OK. The situation was he'd left his wife. To come to the Vale of Avalon and paint. That was his dream. His Gauguin fantasy. Except the only vaguely dusky female he knew was me. And in all those years we just enjoyed each other's company. We had laughs. And he looked at me and he patted my bum, and that was as far as it went and as far as he wanted it to go. Sure, he'd say, "If only I'd known you when I was younger," that sort of stuff. He enjoyed all that, the banter, the what if… But the truth was he didn't want to get involved with a woman again. Certainly wouldn't have one in his cottage. She might've fractured the idyll, messed up his routine.'

She was looking at the painting of the thin, red, glowing line.

'He was an obsessive painter. Increasingly. Obsessed with the mystery. That night, he was absolutely outraged at what the travellers were doing on the Tor. Spiritual vandalism. Maybe he sensed more than I did. He'd certainly become very attuned to the dusk. To the ending of a beautiful day.'

Nine o'clock passed and, with it, that last small hope – that Diane would arrive to open the shop.

Powys and Juanita sat in the shop and didn't open for business.

Juanita told herself the girl was scatty, easily deflected and sometimes she would let you down. Also that Diane was a grown woman and could look after herself, that to think otherwise was patronising and insulting.