Phil Rickman - The Chalice

This certainly broke the ice with Headlice; he'd begun to tell her things, despite Rozzie's attempts to shut him up.

You print what you like, luv, we're not stoppin' here anyroad.

Where are you going next then?

Leave it, Headlice, she's only trying to…

Home, luv. Our spiritual home. It's a pilgrimage. Along the pagan way.

Shut it, shithead.

To the sacred Isle of Avalon. Know where that is?

Diane had gone weak. It was another sign, like a magic carpet unrolling at her feet, and the carpet went diagonally through the spine of England all the way back to Glastonbury. She'd felt almost sick with a combination of longing and dread.

Still holding the tin mug between her hands to stop the shaking she'd heard herself say,

May I come with you?

She didn't even remember deciding to say it; the question just popped out, as strange and spontaneous as a light over the Tor.

I could, you know, write about it for the paper – what it's really like, what you're trying to do, all the hassle you get and the abuse. Would that be possible?

And she'd told them her name was Molly Fortune and she came from Somerset, and her accent went even fuzzier.

In a complete daze over the following two days, she had drawn all she had out of the bank, paid?825 for the bus and spent half an hour spraying pink blobs on the side.

Absolute madness. Her father would have paled into one of his thin rages. In her father's Somerset, New Age travellers were the worst kind of vermin, the kind you weren't allowed shoot.

For wealthy, handsome Patrick (fortuitously away at the time on an editors' conference) embarrassment would be the worst of it. Embarrassment tinged, perhaps, with a certain relief. He was very good-looking, slim, two years younger than she. But he had affection for her; he would have been faithful. Perhaps.

Diane had sealed up her beautiful antique diamond ring in a registered envelope and posted it to Patrick, with a letter full of babbling incoherence. Sorry. I just can't. I'm so sorry, Patrick. It's out of my hands. I'll write properly soon. Please don't hate me.

It had been just a week before the widely publicised engagement party at the biggest hotel in Harrogate.

The worst of it for Diane was that, in spite of everything – in spite of Patrick's being virtually the Chosen Suitor – she could have loved him. Probably. But something so far inside that she couldn't reach it loved Glastonbury more.

'So we start going up now, and we wait quietly.'

Mort had with him his new floozie, a slinky little redhead with a muted Germanic accent who seemed to be called Viper. She was wearing a loose, white shift and Mort's hand was up one of the sleeves, carelessly cupping a breast.

Mort had dark, swarthy skin, high cheekbones; his hair was pulled back into a tight braid. He looked like he ought to be wearing a broadsword at his belt.

'Ain't a piece of street theatre.' It was as if he'd picked up on Diane's thoughts about play-acting. 'This is the real thing. The real place. The place.'

'What's with this quietness shit,' Headlice demanded. 'We're goin' to our church. We don't have to hide it.'

Mort sighed. 'This is your first time, init, Headlice? There's people don't like us being here. We don't want no Stonehenge situation.'

Even to Diane this seemed a little over-cautious. Stonehenge was a restricted area and the Tor was not. And this was the middle of November, not Midsummer's Eve.

'Also, we don't want local kids tagging along. So we go up in small groups.'

Headlice was right: this wasn't how it had been. Paganism was not against the law, and the whole ethos of the New Age travellers was a kind of defiant exhibitionism; why else have purple hair, lip-rings, nipple rings and luminous pentacles on the sides of your bus?

The vehicles in Don Moulder's bottom field were now in rough, concentric circles, the night beginning to join them together, like walls. It was strangely silent; no ghetto-blasters blasting, no children squealing.

'Idea being that we're up there by nightfall,' Mort said. 'And no lights. You and Roz first, OK? I'll show you the path.'

'No problem,' Headlice said. 'Mol's been up loads of times.'

'Mol ain't coming.' Mort's voice had tightened like his hair. He'd taken his hand out of Viper's sleeve.

Headlice stared at him. 'Huh?'

Mort turned to Diane. 'Don't take this wrong. We got nothing against you, Molly Fortune, but we ain't forgotten you're a reporter, and Gwyn don't conduct rituals for the Press. Sorry.'

'You got to be fuckin' kiddin', man!' Headlice was furious. 'That goes against everything we're up for! Like we're a frickin' secret society now? I mean, come on, what's paganism about, man? If you, like, worship the sun and the moon and natural stuff, you do it in the open.'

Diane wanted to tell him to calm down, it didn't matter, it wasn't right for her to be part of a pagan ceremony, certainly not the kind Headlice envisaged. But he straightened up, absurdly like a little war veteran.

'Listen, I'm proud of what I am, me.' He prodded Mort in the chest. 'I worship the earth, yeah? And that hill's not private land, so if nobody can stop us goin' up, what right got to tell Mol she can't come?'

Mort's face had darkened. He snatched Headlice's prodding forefinger, bent it slowly back. Headlice went white. Mort forced him to his knees, towered over him.

This is religion, Headlice,' Mort said. 'It's between us…'

There was a slight crack from Headlice's finger.

'And the gods,' Mort said.

'You fuckin'…' Headlice shoved his hand between his thighs. 'You've broken it.'

'I don't think so.'

'Oh look…' Diane thought she must be as pale as Headlice. 'You go. To be quite honest…' Inspiration came. She produced a hopeless sigh. 'It's a pretty stiff climb, and I'm not built… Sometimes I get sort of out of breath, you know?'

Rozzie twirled her black beads and dropped a tilted grin that was sort of, Stupid fat cow, why didn't you say so in the first place?

'I'll mind the camp,' Diane said. 'See the kids are OK.'

'Thank you,' Mort said quietly. He turned and walked down the field, his woman clinging to his arm. When he'd gone, Diane felt distinctly uncomfortable. A real journalist would have protested, been absolutely determined to go up the Tor with them.

'Who's that twat think he is?' Headlice struggled to his feet. 'We got a fuckin' hierarchy now?'

'It's, you know, it's all right. Really. I didn't want to cause any… I mean, it's not the same at night, anyway. You can't see the view, and it gets very cold.'

'What you sayin' here, Mol?'

Diane rubbed her goose-pimpled arms. 'I don't know.'

'Don't you?' She saw that Headlice was confused almost to the point of tears. 'I'm fed up wi' this. Everybody treating me like a fuckin' dickhead. And you…' Staring at her resentfully. 'Wi' your fancy accent slippin' through. You're a bit deep, Mol. You come on like fat and harmless. I reckon you're weirder than all of us. I reckon you're the weirdest person here.'

Diane was silent, biting her lip.

Increasingly, the dusk obsessed Jim Battle. He supposed it was due to his time of life: slipping away, as everyone must, into the mauve and the sepia.

But still it was endlessly challenging. Midges, for instance. How were you supposed to paint midges? In clouds, perhaps? A thickening of the air? Or just a dry stipple.

'Dry stipple,' Jim said aloud. One of those phrases that sounded like what it meant. There was a word for that; buggered if he could remember what it was.

With a thumb he smudged the sun. In the finished painting, it would be merely a hazy memory, a ghost on the canvas. Same with the Tor; you should be able to feel it in the picture, but not necessarily see it.