Hallucinating (10 page)

CHAPTER NINE

...the Duck Race...

Because the Boscastle Village Council was started, and is largely run by the people of the Witchcraft Museum, there is now no week in the local calendar. The week is a Roman invention deemed unnecessary. Instead, the locals use only those natural cycles visible to the unaided eye: the day, the lunar month and the year. This allows them to come closer to Gaia, and it also means that, in the absence of the global network, they can still keep track of time. A village clock is attached to the Witchcraft Museum and modified so that it takes account of the lunar cycle.

As a consequence, the annual duck race, which in pre-invasion times was celebrated on the first Sunday in May in order to raise money for the village school, is not placeable. But Nulight, in collaboration with StrongGreyMan and WiseHattedWoman of the Witchcraft Museum, decides that old traditions should not die just because the Earth has been wasted by the blue bastards. In a move which mightily pleases the locals, it is decreed that the Duck Race will take place on the day after the next full moon, three nights away.

This idea arrives via a curious incident. The three lotuses upon which, cross-legged pixie style, the MaxNeefers have been travelling suddenly moult, as if in response to the warm weather. From their waxy sides fall small nodules, bulbous on one side, with a beaked projection on t'other reminding Nulight of the yellow plastic ducks that in former times bobbed and splashed down the Valency River to the harbour. The nodules are terracotta in hue. There are a couple of hundred of them. They float.

"Hey, ideal Duck Race material," says Nulight, pondering the objects.

It is this remark that inspires StrongGreyMan to suggest holding the Duck Race with the objects. They will mark each nodule with a number, let them loose, and, as in olden times, the first duck into the harbour will win a fabulous prize.

Nulight spends some time in the shrine at the entrance to the Witchcraft Museum thinking on this chance event. He does not like the lotuses. On the other hand, the idea has caught on. There is nothing he can do to stop it. He shrugs. Let it be.

The day dawns sunny and warm with not a cloud in the sky; the season is taking a most beauteous sun-stroll through the land, and all is well with Gaia. Even Nulight, muttering and shifty under the influence of his twitchy paranoia, is in a fair mood, festi-hat shading his eyes from the sun, a short-sleeved tie-dye and Tibetan leggings making him look a picture in blue and green. Every single local has walked down the hill or mooched on over from the Cobweb Inn and the Wellington Inn, where they had been eating plates of bread baked with wild garlic plucked from the verges, and where they had been drinking brews fermented from apples, pears and a surprising number of other soft fruits offered up as a heathen-tithe to the Witchcraft Museum by the owners of all the surrounding farms. Blessed be, it is a joyous day.

During an extended post-luncheon siesta upon the banks of the Valency, those wandering Cornish minstrels currently residing at the Wellington Inn make merry music. One, a tall man with a wizard's hat and strumming a flatback bouzouki, sings of earlier Duck Races and the large amounts of dosh raised. Another—a woman who claims to have walked all the way from Fowey and who plays a six-string Ovation—sings of the ultimate repulsion of the aliens from the fair shores of Earth. Nulight and Kappa shiver, knowing how close that dream might be.

Eventually, with the sun descending to the western hill, it is time for the weird lotus ducks to be released. They will be dropped en masse from a wire mesh cage, and the chattering water of the Valency will take them towards the sea. As is traditional, the children of the village prepare to help the ducks as they variously get trapped in eddies, stopped by rocks and stones, or caught up in thickets of vegetation. The children are wearing wetsuits and swimming costumes; some are barefoot, while others wear rotting trainers. Overhead, gulls keen and larks twitter. All is set.

Through a solar powered walkie-talkie owned by WiseHattedWoman, the news comes that the lotus ducks have been released and are hurtling down the rapids towards the main bridge over the river. Downstream, the crowds move towards the banks in anticipation of seeing them. Then the children begin to shout as they see the lotus ducks, and they start rescuing them from eddies and rocks, throwing them down the river regardless of number or size. Two pale lotus ducks are in the lead, jostling for position as if they were alive, bouncing over eddies and dodging rocks. The MaxNeefers are all positioned on the stone bridge opposite the entrance to the Witchcraft Museum, watching intently.

The two leading lotus ducks float towards them. Everybody is cheering and laughing and trying to see what numbers have been written upon their sides. It looks like 94 and 154. Nulight thinks 94 belongs to Grip Wolf Trevithick, but he can't quite remember. As for 154, who knows? But it is exciting: there is a vat of elderberry wine awaiting the winner.

But as the main group of lotus ducks approaches, a transformation occurs. It is as if the lead ducks, passing under the bridge, have been given a sign by some invisible presence, alien and malevolent, in the air like a thin smog of noxious chemicals. Each duck expands like a balloon inflated with one giant breath, and they arise from the bubbling surface of the water and grow dark, as if enshadowed by the night. There are a few screams at this point, but mostly folk watch with wide eyes and indrawn breath.

Nulight stares in horror. His paranoia comes alive. The lotus ducks are already a couple of metres across and look like a murder of bloated crows, with a protruberence to either side and a collection of white and sharp needles at the front. As en masse they ascend, the very sky turns dark. It is cold. People are running from the river, screaming and shouting. Kappa's parents and Zhaman follow suit, but Nulight, Kappa, Djo and Sperm are rooted to the spot, watching the appalling sight, listening as a hissing sound emerges from the now spiralling objects. But as they are buzzed by these unidentified flying artifacts, their nerves break as one, and they too run, heads bowed, glancing back over their shoulders, tripping over stones and taking great heaving breaths. 

The heavens lighten as the objects ascend. After a minute they are like dots in the sky, two hundred of them, every single lotus-born object, until the sun returns and the sky is pure pastel blue, and it is warm again.

Nobody knows what has happened. Probably it was some aspect of alien nature, like the bizarre transformations of Earth-bound chrysalides, but far worse. The event casts a pall across the village.

...Arthur...

For some days the Duck Race is discussed by the villagers. It is known that the seven MaxNeefers use the three lotuses for transport, and so representations are made to the effect that these vile objects must be destroyed. Kappa and Zhaman agree to do the deed. At St Nectan's Spring, the mangled and almost unidentifiable remains of the things can be seen, and although it seems to Nulight that the amount of debris is less than he would have thought, he does not bother to question the rite that led to the end of the lotuses. An unhappy episode is over.

After a few more sun drenched days, the fright is gone and the village returns to normal. Now it is time for Nulight to perform some serious thinking, after which he chats with the others.

"The lotus ducks," he begins, "were a message to us from the alien high command. Like, they were telling us to stop messing with Tru-Rah music. We know how it attracts them, that was the whole point of the Elephant Fayre, yeah? Okay. So we gotta take heed of this message. The Tru-Rah scene's gotta die, and soon. It's putting us in danger."

"You
would
say that," opines Kappa.

"What's that s'posed to mean?"

"You've got it into your head that Tru-Rah is bad. It isn't. It's good wholesome analogue music."

"No way," returns Nulight. "I see the truth of the whole thing. The global picture. It's Tru-Rah that attracted alien eyes to our part of Cornwall, and we don't want that. Remember, we were involved with the aliens, they know us, they'll remember us from Stonehenge, they abducted me and Chantal, they put an implant in me. They're damned well after me!"

"Ain't nuthin' to do with Tru-Rah," says Zhaman, shaking his head. "Tru-Rah's cool."

"Duck Race day was just alien biology," Kappa insists. "The aliens would be equally horrified if they watched a snake shed its skin."

"But you can't rationalise that kind of fear," Zhaman adds, shaking his head.

And Nulight can see that he isn't going to get past this melodic obsession.

Alone, later, drinking herbal tea, he decides what to do. Tru-Rah has got to go. It
has
to. It's too dangerous sitting right here on his doorstep.

This is the time, the time for action.

One dark and breezy night he makes the trip from Boscastle to Tintagel on a rusty ol' boneshaker taken from Kappa's garden shed. The tyres are low on pressure and the brakes are past it, but it is better than walking. On the edge of the new Tintagel village boundary he hides his mount, then creeps up to the nearest building. It is well past midnight. A few candles shine in a few windows, but other than that there is no sign of people, no chatter of voices, clink of glasses, no deep bass thrum of the Tru-Rah vibe. Folks are asleep. He sees a cat slinking around the corner of some distant building.

Making his way around Tintagel's edge to the rear of the old Victorian hall, he checks out the door and windows and the electrics before realising that the joint is not bugged. So he forces a way in—it's easy—and at last he is free to check out the focus of this new music.

He discovers a fact. There is no external feed, no external aerial that might imply a link to the outside world, specifically to the world of Master Sengel in Glastonbury. Tru-Rah really is based here. That both calms and scares him; the former because he can't stand the thought of Master Sengel manipulating everybody from his base at the Chalice Well, the latter because Arthur was born in Tintagel, and the place has a mythic aura, one that, now he thinks about it, chills him to the bone. Suppose Arthur really is about to come again in Britain's hour of need? That's what the legends say.

Bollocks! Christian blather retold. Utter nonsense.

Nulight tries to get a grip of himself. His feisty independence is making life difficult. Yes, he wants to sink into a group of like-minded friends, he wants their company, but, then again, he can't stand the feeling of being outwitted—out
lived
almost—by other people. He is his own man. Paranoid maybe. A naive never.

No village idiot he.

The front door opens. Lights blind him. Then voices cry out.

"There's somebody there!"

"Our gear!"

And a woman's voice. "Nulight! What the hell are you doing here?"

As a dozen Tintagel folk pile into the hall, Kappa runs forward and confronts him. Nulight is taken aback by the furious expression on the face of his beloved, and he totters a few steps backward, until his shoulders are pressed against the stage.

Kappa repeats her question.

"Just nosin' around," Nulight mutters in reply.

The Tintagel people surround him, and they are angry. He is bombarded with question after question while Kappa is reduced to a helpless bystander outside the semi-circle that they have formed.

"Don't hurt him!" she calls out.

"E's touched our gear!" someone says. "Look, there's a jack hanging out of its socket."

Nulight glances back at the mass of analogue keyboards, wires, percussion, drums and flutes that dominate the raised stage. "Man, I ain't touched no gear," he insists. "No way." He looks at his accusers. "No fucking way," he repeats, "'cos I respect all underground music, right? I'm Nulight, I founded Voiceoftibet Records—"

"You messed with our gear."

"Aye, it belongs to us. It was born here."

And suddenly all is clear to Nulight, all is revealed in a cosmic flash of inspiration.
Tru-Rah is Arthur.
This music scene is the resurgence of power meant to save Britain. Tru-Rah is an anagram of Arthur. These people love their music as the Celts loved their king, and they are not going to let some outsider contemplate assassination.

"You're Nulight the burglar," comes a deep voice. "You ain't from round here."

"But I'm from Boscastle!" Nulight replies.

"With that dark skin and them slitty eyes? Likely story."

"Lynch him!" somebody yells.

"No!" Nulight and Kappa shout in unison.

But a general alarum goes up. "Lynch the bugger! Lynch him now!"

Nulight is dragged like a common criminal to the front of the hall, then out into the street, where, in a matter of minutes, a mob of forty people gather. He is taken to the old post office, and there tied with farmers' twine to the wrought iron gate. He is spat upon by small boys. Others throw gunk at him. Kappa pleads for him to be released, but she is driven off, and disappears into the night.

Nulight is alone.

An ominous procedure then begins. The locals, now numbering a hundred or more, build what looks like a haystack, faggots of twigs and larger woody stuff spread around its base. In the centre of this stack is a pole of metal, formerly a road traffic sign, and this serves to steady the structure. Nulight is clear on what this signifies, and he struggles to pull himself free. But no luck. The twine cuts his wrists.

"Let me go!" he pointlessly shouts.

"You shut yer mouth," comes the reply. "Effin' burglar."

People begin to throw fuel on the kindling: old cans of olive oil, rescued car oil, anything they can get their hands on. Their plan could not be clearer. Then tall men appear dressed in sacks, antlers on their head Cernunnos style, greenery strapped to their muddy boots. A cheer welcomes them.

"No!" Nulight shouts.

The tall men begin a pagan chant, and Nulight is eerily reminded of the work of the Earth Singers of the Witchcraft Museum. This material is similar in style, almost plainchant, but the words are so different.
Kill the outsider, fertilise the soil, protect our own, burn, burn, burn, burn so bright the people on the moor can see, burn so bright the aliens in the sky depart.