Crybbe (AKA Curfew) Read online

  There was a delicate-looking tarot-reader called Ivory with a wife old enough to be his mother and big enough to be his minder. A feminist astrologer called Oona Jopson, in whose charts, apparently, Virgo was a man. She had cropped hair and a small ring through her nose.

  After Goff sat down, Powys listened idly to the chat. He heard an experimental hypnotist talking about regression. 'I've got an absolute queue of clients, mostly, you know, from London, but what I'd really like is to get more of the local people on the couch . . .'

  Apart from Andy Boulton-Trow, the only person he'd actually encountered before was the spiritual healer, Jean Wendle, from Edinburgh, who was older than the rest, grey-haired with penetrating eyes.

  'This really your scene, Jean?'

  'This? Heaven forbid. Crybbe, though . . . Crybbe's interesting.'

  'You reckon?'

  'Well, goodness, Joe, you said it. If you hadn't revealed what a psychically charged area this was, none of us would be here at all, would we?'

  'You're very cruel.'

  She narrowed her eyes. 'Come round one night. We can discuss it. Anyway. . . She smiled at him. 'How are things now?'

  He looked around the room for Rachel, couldn't see her.

  'I think things are finally looking up,' he said.

  Later, Goff took him into a corner of the dining-room and lowered his voice.

  'Confidentially,' he said, 'I need somebody who understands these matters to make sure this arsehole Morrison doesn't screw it up. Part of the deal, he uses you as script consultant. No J. M. Powys, no documentary. J. M. Powys disagrees with anything, it doesn't go out.'

  That'll be fun.'

  Goff put a hand on Powys's arm. 'Hey, you know when I first knew I had to have you write the book?'

  Powys smiled vacantly, beyond embarrassment.

  'See, when I first came to Crybbe, the very first day I was here, I look around and suddenly I can see this about the border country being a spiritual departure lounge. I'm standing down by the river, looking over the town to the hills of England on one side and the hills of Wales on the other. And that other phrase of yours, about the Celtic Twilight Zone, I'm hearing that, and I'm thinking, yeah, this is it. The departure lounge. It just needs a refuel, right? You know what I'm getting at here? You can feel it in this room right now. All these people, all reaching out.'

  'Maybe they're reaching out for different things.'

  'Ah shit, J.M., it's all one thing. You know that. Down to generating energy and throwing it out. What you put out you get back, threefold. Jeez, pretty soon, this town is gonna glow'

  'Seems to me there are things you need to work out, Joe,' Andy Boulton-Trow said. 'Maybe this is the place to do it.'

  Those lazy, knowing, dark-brown eyes gazing into your head again, after all these years. I can see your inner self, and it's a mess, man.

  Andy was probably Goff's role-model New Ager. He had the glow. Like he'd slowed his metabolism to the point where he was simply too laid-back to be affected by the ageing process.

  'Let's talk,' Andy said, and they took their wine glasses into the small, shabby residents' lounge just off the dining-room.

  Andy lounged back on a moth-eaten sofa, both feet on a battered coffee-table. Somehow, he made it look like the lotus position.

  He said, 'Never got over it, did you?'

  Powys rolled his wine-glass between his hands, looking down into it.

  'I mean Rose,' Andy said.

  'It was a long time ago. You get over everything in time.'

  Andy shook his head. 'You're still full of shit, Joe, you know that?'

  'Look,' Powys said reasonably, trying to be as cool as Andy. 'We both know I should never have gone round the Bottle Stone. And certainly not backwards.'

  'Bottle Stone?' Andy said.

  'And certainly not backwards. I should have told you to piss off.'

  'I'm not getting you,' Andy said.

  'What I saw was . . Powys felt pain like powdered glass behind his eyes. 'What I saw was happening to me, not Rose.'

  'You had some kind of premonition? About Rose?'

  'I told you about it.'

  Andy shrugged. 'You had a premonition about Rose. But you didn't act on it, huh?'

  'It was me.'

  'You failed to interpret. That's a shame, Joe. You had a warning, you didn't react, and that's what's eating you up. Perhaps you've come here to find some manner of redemption.'

  Andy shook his head with a kind of laid-back compassion.

  If it was a big job, Gomer Parry worked with his nephew, Nev. Today Nev had just followed him up in the van and they'd got the smaller bulldozer down from the lorry, and then Nev had pushed off.

  No need for a second man. Piece of piss, this one.

  Unless, of course, they wanted him to take out the whole bloody mound.

  Gomer chuckled. He could do that too, if it came to it.

  He was sitting in the cab of the lorry, listening to Glen Miller on his Walkman. The bulldozer was in the field, fuelled up, waiting. Not far away was a van with a couple of loudspeakers on its roof, such as you saw on the street at election time. Funny job this. Had to be on site at one o'clock to receive his precise instructions. Seemed some middle bit had to come out first. Make a big thing of it, Edgar Humble had said. A spectacle. No complaints there; Gomer liked a bit of spectacle.

  With the Walkman on, he didn't hear any banging on the cab door. It was the vibrations told him somebody was trying to attract his attention.

  He took off the lightweight headphones, half-turned and saw an old checked cap with a square patch on the crown, where a tear had been mended. Gomer, who was a connoisseur of caps, recognized it at once and opened his door.

  'Jim.'

  'What you doin' yere, Gomer?' the Mayor, Jimmy Preece, asked him bluntly.

  'I been hired by that Goff,' Gomer said proudly. 'He wants that bloody wall takin' out, he does.'

  'Does he. Does he indeed.'

  'Some'ing wrong with that, Jim? You puttin' a bid in for the stone? Want me to go careful, is it?'

  Jimmy Preece took off his cap and scratched his head. Even though it was still drizzling, he didn't put the cap back on but rolled it up tighter and tighter with both hands.

  'I don't want you doin' it at all, Gomer,' he said. 'I want that wall left up.'

  'Oh aye?' Gomer said sarcastically. 'Belongs to you, that wall, is it?'

  The Mayor's eyes were watery as raw eggs. 'You're not allowed, take it from me, Gomer, that's a fact. Been there for centuries, that wall. He'll have a protection order on 'im, sure to.'

  'Balls,' said Gomer. 'I was told he was Victorian, no older'n that.'

  'Well, you was told wrong, Gomer. See, I don't want no argument about this. No bad feeling. Just want you to know that we, that is me and Jack and several other prominent citizens of this area, includin' several farmers and civic leaders, would prefer it if the wall stayed up.'

  Gomer couldn't believe it.

  'Just 'ang on, Jim, so's I gets this right. You're sayin' if I falls that thing, then . . .'

  Jimmy Preece tightened his old lips until his mouth looked like a complicated railway junction.

  'You bloody well knowed why I was yere, di'n't you?' said Gomer. 'You knowed exac'ly.'

  'I been invited,' the Mayor said sadly. 'That Goff, 'e phoned me up and invited me to watch. Silly bugger.'

  'So what you're sayin', if I brings him down, that wall you'll . . .'

  'I'm not sayin' nothin',' the Mayor said firmly. 'I got no authority to order you about, and I don't intend . . .'

  'Oh no, Jim, you're only bloody threatenin' me! You'n sayin' if I starts workn' for Goff, then I don't get no work nowhere else around yere. Right?'

  Gomer levelled a grimy forefinger at the Mayor. 'You bloody stay there! Don't you bloody move! I'll get a witness, an' you can say it again in front of 'im.'

  The Mayor said calmly, 'You won't find no witnesses in this town as'll say I threatened you,
Gomer, 'cause I 'aven't. You can do what the hell you likes for Mr Goff.'

  ' "Cept pull that wall down, eh?'

  ' "Cept pull that wall down,' the Mayor agreed.

  CHAPTER V

  What have you got to lose?' Rachel had asked him, and he wondered about this.

  The cottage was on a little grassy ridge, overlooking the river. Rachel told him Max had been so taken with the little place he'd thought of spending nights here himself until work on the stable-block was finished. But, with extra builders, overtime, bonuses, it looked as if the stables would be habitable within the next few days. And Max had to spend a long weekend in London, anyway.

  'So it's yours,' Rachel said, if you want it.'

  It had only four rooms. Kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and this small, square living-room, with a panoramic, double-glazed view downstream.

  'A writer's dream,' Rachel said non-committally.

  'Furnished, too,' Powys said.

  'It was a second home. The first thing Max's agent did was acquire a list of local holiday homes and write to the owners offering disproportionate sums for a complete deal, basic furniture included. Just over a third of them said yes within two days - boredom setting in, wouldn't it be nice to have one in Cornwall instead? Then, out of the blue, here's Fairy Godfather Goff with a sack of cash.'

  'And you say he's in London for the weekend?'

  'That's the plan,' Rachel said. 'But - you may be glad to hear, or not - I'm staying.'

  Powys kissed her.

  'Mmm. I'm staying because there's a public meeting to organize for next week. The people of Crybbe come face to face with their saviour for the first time and learn what the New Age has to offer them.'

  'Should be illuminating. You think any of them know what New Age means?'

  'J.M., even I don't know what it means. Do you?'

  'All I was thinking, if it involves having big stones planted in their gardens, country folk can be a tiny bit superstitious, especially stones their ancestors already got rid of once.'

  Rachel perched on the edge of a little Jotul wood-burning stove. She licked a forefinger and made the motions of counting out paper money. 'Rarely fails,' she said. 'And if they're really superstitious, they can always move out and sell Max the farm for . . .'

  'A suitably disproportionate sum,' said Powys. 'It's another world, isn't it? So, er, you'll be on your own this weekend.'

  Rachel moved a hip. She was wearing tight wine-coloured jeans and a white blouse. Max suggests I move out of the Cock and into the stables.'

  'But nobody'll be there to know one way or the other, will they?' Powys had been quite taken with the reproduction brass bed upstairs.

  'There's Humble, in his caravan. He doesn't like me.'

  'Does he like anybody?'

  'Debatable,' said Rachel.

  'I'm sure we can work something out. What's the rent on this place, by the way?'

  'I think it's part of the advance against royalties. There'll be an agreement for you to sign. This gives you a small - small to Max, but not necessarily to you - lump sum as well. If you don't finish The Book of Crybbe he gets the cottage back. He also reserves the right to install standing stones or other ritual artefacts on your lawn.'

  'Rachel, luv, help me. What do I do?'

  'My advice? Take it, but ask for a bigger lump sum. He won't double-cross you. He's a very determined man. The town does not know what's hit it. Not yet. I'd feel better if you were here as some sort of fifth column. He'll listen to you.'

  Powys shook his head, bemused.

  Perhaps you've come here to find some manner of redemption.

  Perhaps.

  All he had to do was make one phone call and Annie would dive on the chance of taking over Trackways for an unspecified period. Just her and Alfred Watkins and an ever-broadening selection of New Age trivia. It might even start making a reasonable profit.

  Rachel said, 'One more thing. If you'd like a word processor, please specify the make and model, to match your existing software.'

  Powys thought about this, chin in hands, patched elbow on the pine dining-table. 'New ribbon for the Olivetti?'

  When they reached the Tump, they split up, for the sake appearances. It was 7 p.m. The rain was holding off, but the evening was very still and close, the sky hanging low, looking for trouble.

  Rachel looked around and saw quite a big semi-circle of people, many more than had been at the lunch.

  Word had got around that something was going to happen. Word very soon got around in this town, she'd found.

  'What's going on, Ms Wade?' Jocasta Newsome was posing dramatically against the lowering sky in a glistening new ankle-length Barbour, conspicuously more expensive than Rachel's.

  'Max is going to get rid of the wall around the Tump.'

  'Oh,' said Jocasta, disappointed. 'That's all?'

  'It's a major symbolic gesture,' Rachel said patiently.

  'Is that a television camera?'

  'They're making a documentary about Max.'

  'Oh.' Jocasta brightened. 'That's ... er ... oh, Guy Morrison, isn't it? I think he's rather good, don't you?'

  'Yes, excellent,' Rachel said absently. 'Excuse me.'

  She'd seen Fay on the edge of the field, with the dog still on the end of a clothes-line. Fay looked forlorn in a royal-blue cagoule that was too long for her. She wore no make-up and her hair was damp and flattened.

  'I know,' she said. 'Don't tell me. He's here.'

  'Do you mean Guy? Or the Offa's Dyke man?'

  Fay raised both eyebrows. 'Surrounded, am I?'

  'I'm sorry about this. Fay, I really am.'

  'They rang me,' Fay said. 'Offa's Dyke rang and said, don't bother with it, we're covered. I think they're trying to edge me out.'

  'Ashpole's a tedious little man.'

  'Poisonous,' Fay said.

  'Fay, look, perhaps there's something . . .' If she could somehow turn Max round, fix it so he'd only talk to Fay. Most unlikely.

  'Not your problem, Rachel, if I can't function here. Tempted to blame it on the town, but that's the easy answer, isn't it?' Fay grinned, if you really want to do something, I suppose you could suggest Ashpole might get some terrific actuality of the wall coming down if he stood directly beneath it . . .'

  She wound the end of the clothes-line more firmly around her hand. 'Come on, Arnold, we'll go down by the river.'

  Max Goff was on the summit of the Tump. He had a microphone on a long lead. The dripping trees were gathered around him.

  Crouched under a bush, Guy Morrison's cameraman was shooting Goff from a low angle. It would look very dramatic, this apparition in white against the deep-grey sky and the black trees. On his knees next to Goff, as if in worship, Guy's soundman held a two-foot boom mike encased in a windshield like a giant furry caterpillar.

  There were two big speakers on the roof of a van at the foot of the mound.

  'This has been a dramatic and tragic week,' said Goff.

  'Yeah, not too bad for level,' the soundman said.

  'It fucking better be, pal,' the assembly heard, 'I'm not saying it again.'

  Behind the speaker van, Powys smiled.

  Guy Morrison said, 'I'm not pleased with him, Joe. He dropped this on me without any warning at all. A spontaneous idea, he said. He's got to learn that if he wants spontaneity we have got to know about it in advance.'

  I have always disliked the Tump for some reason.

  Powys thought, What does the wall mean, Henry? Why is there a wall around it?

  He scrambled across the field, away from the crowd, unable to shake the feeling that perhaps getting rid of the wall was not the best thing to do - but wondering whether this feeling had been conditioned by Henry's misgivings about the mound.

  Halfway across the field he saw the hub-cap from Henry's Volkswagen, glinting in a bed of thistles. It reminded him that his own car was still parked in a layby alongside the road at the end of this field.

  Henry's journal was in
the car.

  Bloody stupid thing to do. Anybody could have nicked the car, gone off with the journal.

  Behind him Goff's voice boomed out of the speakers. 'I'm glad-ad that-at so many of you were able to come today-ay.'

  Powys moved swiftly through wet grass towards the road. He reached it at a point about fifty yards from the layby. The white Mini was there; it looked OK.

  'Is that your car?'

  A lone bungalow of flesh-coloured bricks squatted next to the layby, and at the end of its short drive stood a stocky, elderly woman in a twinset and a tartan skirt, an ensemble which spelled out: incomer.

  'Yes, it is,' Powys said, taking out his keys to prove it; unlocking the boot.

  'You arrived just in time, dear, I was about to report it to the police.'

  'Yes, I'm sorry, I got delayed.'

  Actually, I was beaten up and then went to bed with a woman I'd never seen before but whose voice I'd heard on my answering machine, but you don't want to hear about all that.

  Henry Kettle's journal lay where he'd left it, on top of the spare tyre.

  'What's going on over there?' She had a Midlands accent.

  'They're pulling down the wall around the mound.'

  'Why are they doing that?'

  Did she really want to know this? 'Well, because it's a bit ugly. And out of period with the Tump. That's what they say.'

  'I'll tell you one thing, dear, that wall's never as ugly as the thing in the middle. I don't like that thing, I don't at all. My husband, he used to say, when he was alive, he used to say he'd seen prettier spoil-heaps.'

  'He had a point,' Powys said, opening the driver's door.

  'I'm on me own now, dear. It frightens me, the things that go on. I'd leave tomorrow, but I wouldn't anywhere near get our money back on this place, not the way the market is. It wouldn't buy me a maisonette in Dudley.'

  Powys closed the car door and walked over.

  'What did you mean, it frightens you?'

  'You from the local paper, dear?'