Crybbe (AKA Curfew) (60 page)

   
'Be my husband back.' Very
visibly relieved.

   
Damnation, Jean almost said
aloud. So close.

   
But it wasn't the Mayor. A thin,
streaky haired youth with an ear-ring shambled in without knocking.

   
'All right, Gran? I come to tell
you . . .'

   
'You stay outside with them
boots, Warren!'
   
'Too late, Gran.' The youth was in the
living-room now, giving Jean Wendle the once-over with his narrow eyes.

   
Ah, she thought. The surviving
grandson. Interesting.

   
'Hello,' Jean said. 'So you're
Warren.'

   
"s right, yeah.' From his
ear-ring hung a tiny silvery death's head.

   
'I was very sorry to hear about
your brother.'

   
Warren blew out his mouth and
nodded. 'Aye, well, one o' them things, isn't it. Anyway, Gran, message from
the old . . . from Dad. All it is - they brought Jonathon back and 'e's in the
church.'

   
'I see,' said Mrs Preece
quietly. 'Thank you, Warren.'
   
'In 'is coffin,' said Warren.

   
Jean observed that the boy was
somewhat less than grief-stricken.

   
'Lid's on, like,' Warren said.
   
Jean thought he sounded disappointed.
   
'But 'e's not screwed down, see, so if
you wanna go'n 'ave a quick look at 'im, there's no problem.'

   
'No, I don't think I shall,'
his grandmother said, 'thank you, Warren.' Tiny tears were sparkling in her
eyes.

   
'If you're worried the ole lid
might be a bit 'eavy for you, Gran,' Warren said considerately, 'I don't mind
goin' along with you. I got half an hour or so to spare before I got to leave.'
He turned to Jean. 'I got this band, see. We practises most Monday and
Wednesday nights.'

   
Mrs Preece said, her voice high
and tight, 'No, thank you, Warren.'

   
Warren watched his grandmother's
reaction with his head on one side. This boy, Jean registered with considerable
interest, is trying not to laugh.

   
'See, it's no problem. Gran,'
Warren said slowly and slyly. ' 'Cause I've already 'ad 'im off once, see, that
ole lid.'

   
He stood with his hands on
narrow hips encased in tight, leather trousers, and his lips were just the
merest twist away from a smirk.

   
Jean had been listening to the
tension in the air in the small, brown living-room, humming and then singing,
dangerously off-key, sending out invisible wires that quickly tautened and then,
finally, snapped.

   
'Get out!' Mrs Preece's big
face suddenly buckled. 'GET OUT!' She turned to Jean, breathing rapidly. 'And
you as well, if you please.'

   
Jean stood up and moved quietly
to the door. 'I'm really very sorry, Mrs Preece.'

   
'Things is not right,' Mrs Preece
said, sniffing hard. 'Things is far from right. And no you're not. None of
you's sorry.'

They'd stopped for coffee but hadn't eaten, couldn't face it.

   
Fay still felt a bit sick and more
than a bit alone. She badly needed someone she could rely on and Joe Powys no
longer seemed like the one. But while she felt slightly betrayed, she was also
sorry for him. He looked even more lost than she felt.

   
'All I can think of,' he said,
driving listlessly back to Crybbe, 'is that the stone near the cottage is the
actual one - the Bottle Stone.'

   
'You mean he had it dug up
under cover of darkness and . . .'

   
'Sounds crazy, doesn't it?'

   
'I'm afraid it does, Joe. Why
would Boulton-Trow want to do that, anyway?'

   
'Well, he knows that was the
worst thing that ever happened to me, and . . .'

   
'And he wanted to bring it all
back by confronting you with the stone again? That would make him . . . well,
you know . . . quite evil. I can't imagine . . .'

   
'I'm sorry. I'm asking too much
of you. Maybe I ought to stay out of your way for a while.'

   
Fay looked at him hopelessly.
'Maybe we'll take some time and think about things. See what we can come up
with.'

   
She decided she'd go, after
all, to Goff's press conference, in a private capacity, just to listen. See
what questions other people raised and how they were answered.

   
'I don't think we
have
much time,' Joe Powys said, 'I
really don't.'

   
'Why? I mean . . . before
what?'
   
'I don't know,' he said.
   
He looked broken.

Alone again, Mrs Preece shut herself in the living-room, fell into her
husband's sunken old chair and began to cry bitterly, her white hair spooling
free of its bun, strands getting glued by the tears to her mottled cheeks.

   
When the telephone rang, she
ignored it and it stopped.

   
After some minutes Mrs Preece
got up from the chair, went to the mirror and tried to piece together her bun
without looking at her face.

   
Out of the corner of her right
eye she saw the onion in its saucer on top of the television set.

   
Then Mrs Preece let out a
scream so harsh and ragged it felt as though the skin was being scoured from
the back of her throat.

   
The onion, fresh this morning,
was as black as burnt cork.

CHAPTER VII

Goff said, 'As you say, Gavin, it's been a hell of blow, obviously cast
a pall over things here. Rachel'd been with me nearly four years. She was the
best PA I ever had. But you ask if it's gonna dampen my enthusiasm for what we're
doing here ... I have to say no, of course it isn't. What we have here is too
important for Crybbe . . . and for the human race.

   
Gavin Ashpole, of Offa's Dyke
Radio, nodded sympathetically.

   
At the back, behind everybody.
Fay groaned. Nobody noticed her, not even Guy.

   
There were about a dozen reporters
and two TV crews in the stable-block, everybody asking what Fay thought were excruciatingly
banal questions.

   
But, OK, what else
could
they ask? What did they have to
build on? If it hadn't involved Max Goff, all this sad little episode would
have been worth was a couple of paragraphs in the local paper and an Offa's
Dyke one-day wonder. A small, insignificant, accidental death.

   
OK, Goff didn't want the
residue of anything negative hanging on him or the Crybbe project. But if
Rachel had been here, she'd have talked him out of this mini-circus; it wasn't
worth a press conference, which would only draw the wrong kind of attention.

   
But then, if Rachel had been
here . . . Fay fell the clutch of sorrow in her breast and something else less
definable but close to anxiety.

   
Joe had said, 'Got to sort this
out. I'm going to find him.'
   
'Boulton-Trow? Is that wise?'

   
'I want to take a look at this
place he's got, in the wood.'

   
'I saw it. Yesterday, when I
look the short-cut to church. It might be better inside, but it looks like a
hovel.'
   
'We'll find out.'

   
'I didn't like it. I didn't
like the feel of the place.'

   
Joe had shrugged. She'd felt
torn. On one hand, yes, he really ought to sort this thing out, even it meant
facing up to his own delusions. On the other hand, well, OK, she was scared for
him.

   
'You go to your press conference,'
he'd said, touched her arm hesitantly and then walked away, head down, across
the square towards the churchyard.

   
So here she was, sitting a few
yards behind Guy's stocky, aggressive-looking cameraman, Guy standing next to
him, occasionally whispering instructions. The chairs had been laid out in
three rows in the middle tier of the stable-block, so that the assembled hacks
were slightly higher than Goff.

   
And yet, somehow, he appeared
to be looking down on them.

   
Goff was at his desk, his back
to the window and the Tump, as if this was his personal power-source.

   
'Max,' one of the hacks said,
'Barry Speake,
Evening News.
Can I
ask you what kind of feedback you're getting from the local community here? I mean,
what's the local response to your plans to introduce what must seem to a lot of
ordinary people to be rather bizarre ideas, all this ley-lines and astrology and
stuff?'

   
Goff gave him both rows of
teeth. 'Think it's bizarre, do you, Barry?'

   
'I'm not saying
I
think it's bizarre. Max, but . . .'
   
'But you think simple country folk are
too unsophisticated to grasp the concept. Isn't that a little patronizing, Barry?'
   
There was a little buzz of laughter.

   
'No, but hold on.' Goff raised
a hand. 'There's a serious point to be made here. We call this New Age, and,
sure, it's new to us. But folks here in Crybbe have an instinctive understanding
of what it's about because this place has important traditions, what you might
call a direct line to the source . . . Something I'd ask the author, J. M.
Powys, to elaborate on, if he were here . . . Yeah, lady at the back.'

   
Fay stood up. 'Mr Goff, you're
obviously spending a lot of money here in Crybbe . . .'

   
'Yeah, just don't ask me for
the figures.'
   
Muted laughter.

   
Fay said, 'As my colleague
tried to suggest, it
is
what many
people would consider a slightly bizarre idea, attempting to rebuild the town's
prehistoric heritage, putting back all these stones, for instance. What I'd
like to know is . . .
why Crybbe?
' Who
told you about this place? Who told you about the stones? Who said it would be
the right place for what you had in mind?'

   
Goff's little eyes narrowed. He
was wearing, unusually, a dark suit today. Out of respect for the dead Rachel?
Or his image.

   
'Who exactly are you?' he said.
'Which paper you from?'
   
'Fay Morrison.' Adding, 'Freelance,'
with a defiant glance at Ashpole.

   
'Yeah, I thought so.'

   
He'd never actually seen her
before. He was certainly making up for that now, little eyes never wavering.

   
'I'm not sure how relevant your
question is today,' Goff said. 'But, yeah, on the issue of how we came to be
doing what we're doing here, well, we've been kicking this idea around for a
year or two. I've had advisers and people looking . . .'

   
'What kind of advisers? Who
exactly?' The questions were coming out without forethought, she was firing
blind. In fact, what the hell was she doing? She hadn't planned to say a word, just
sit there and listen.

   
Goff looked pained. 'Ms Morrison,
I don't see . . . Yeah, OK ... I have many friends and associates in what's
become known as the New Age movement - let me say, I don't like that term, it's
been devalued, trivialized, right? But, yeah, it was suggested to me that if I
was looking for a location which was not only geophysically and
archaeologically suited to research into forgotten landscape patterns and
configurations, but was also suited - shall we say atmospherically - to
research into human spiritual potential, then Crybbe fitted the bill.'

   
He produced a modest, philanthropic
sort of smile. 'And it was also clearly a little down on its luck. In need of
the economic boost our centre could give it. So I came along and looked around,
and I . . . Well, that answer your question?'

   
'Was it the late Henry Kettle?
Did he suggest you came here?'

   
'No, I sought advice from Henry
Kettle, in a very small way, at a later stage. We were already committed to
Crybbe by then. What are you getting at here?'

   
Goff leaned back in his leather
rock-and-swivel chair. He was alone at the desk, although Humble and a couple
of people she didn't recognize were seated a few yards away. Fay didn't think
Andy Boulton-Trow was among them.