Why, why was whatever he said, whatever he did, whatever he tried to do, always the wrong fucking thing?
Four years he and Betty had been together and, sure, they were different people, raised in different cultures. But they’d previously come through on shared beliefs, a strong respect for natural forces and each other’s destiny.
And he’d thought the road to Old Hindwell was lit for them both.
All the portents had been there, just as soon as they decided they would look for a place in the countryside where they might explore the roots of the old spirituality. They’d let it be known on the pagan network that they were looking for something rural and it didn’t have to be luxurious. The Shrewsbury coven had worked a spell on their behalf and, before that week was out, they’d received – anonymously, but with a wellwisher’s symbol and the message ‘Thought you might be interested in this... Blessed Be!’ – the estate agent’s particulars of St Michael’s Farm. And – in the very same post – a letter from Al Delaney at Talisman to say that Kirk Blackmore was impressed with Robin’s work and would like him to design the new cover... with the possibility of a contract for the soon-to-be-rejacketed backlist of SEVEN VOLUMES!
Even Betty had to agree, it was like writing in the sky.
Robin joined the lane that led first past the Prosser farm and then on to the village. The farm was spread across the council roadway, like it owned it, sheds and barns on either side, mud from tractor wheels softening the surface of the road. A Land Rover was parked under an awning. It had a big yellow sticker in the back window, and even at night you could read ‘Christ is the Light!’ in luminous yellow. Robin gave a moan, stifled it. He hadn’t known about this. If Ellis denounced them, they’d have no support from their neighbours.
When he got clear of the farm he surveyed the night. Ahead of him, the moon lay on its back over a long hill bristling with ranks of conifers – a hedgehog’s back, a dragon’s back. Robin held out his arms as if to embrace the hill, then let them fall uselessly to his sides and walked on down the middle of the narrow lane, with ditches to either side and banks topped by hedges so savagely pleached they were almost like hurdles. Gareth Prosser was clearly a farmer who liked to keep nature under his thumb. His farm, his land. Robin wondered how Prosser had reacted to the team of archaeologists who’d moved in and sheared the surface from one of his fields to uncover postholes revealing that, four thousand years ago, the farm had been a key site of ritual pagan worship. Maybe Prosser had gotten Ellis in to sanctify the site.
Whatever, there was virtually nothing to see there now. Robin had sent off to the Council for British Archaeology for the report on the Radnor Valley dig. A couple of weeks ago, when he and Betty had driven down with a vanload of books, he’d checked out the site but found just a few humps and patches where the soil had been put back and reseeded. The team had taken away their finds – the flint arrowheads and axes – and hundreds of photos, and given the temple back to the sheep.
And to the pagans.
Well, why not? The night before they moved in, they’d agreed there should be a sabbat here at Imbolc – which Betty preferred to call by its old Christian name, Candlemas, because it was prettier. They’d agreed there should be the traditional Crown of Lights, which Betty would wear if there was no more suitable candidate. At the old church above the water, it was all going to be totally beautiful; Robin had had this fantasy of the village people coming along to watch or even join in and bringing their kids – this atmosphere of joy and harmony at Imbolc, Candlemas, the first day of Celtic spring, the glimmering in the darkness.
But that had not been mentioned since, and he was damned if he was gonna bring it up again.
Robin walked on, uphill now. Presently, the hedge on the right gave way to a stone wall, and he entered the village of Old Hindwell. As if to mock the word ‘Old’, the first dwelling in the village was a modern brick bungalow. A few yards further on was the first streetlight, a bluish bulb under a tin hat on a bracket projecting from a telephone pole. Older cottages on either side now. At the top of the hill, the road widened into a fork.
On the corner was the pub, the Black Lion, the utility bulkhead bulb over its porch clouded with the massed corpses of flies. It was an alehouse, not much more; the licensee, Greg Starkey, had come from London with big ideas but not pulled enough customers to realize them.
Tonight, Robin could have used a drink. Jacketless, therefore walletless, he dug into his pockets for change, came up with a single fifty-pence piece. Could you get any kind of drink for fifty-pence? He figured not.
‘Robin. Hi.’
‘Jeez!’ He jumped. She’d come out of an entrance to the Black Lion’s back yard. ‘Uh... Marianne.’
Greg’s wife. She moved out under the bulb, so he could see she was wearing a turquoise fleece jacket over a low-cut black top. Standard landladywear in her part of London, maybe, but not so often seen out here. But Marianne made no secret of how much she’d give to get back to the city.
‘Haven’t seen you for days and days, Robin.’
‘Oh... Well, lot of work. The house move, you know?’
The last time he’d seen her was when he’d driven down on his own with a vanload of stuff, grabbing some lunch at the Lion. She’d seemed hugely pleased that he was moving in, with or without a wife. Anything you wanna know about the place, you come and ask me; Wednesdays are best, that’s when Greg goes over to Hereford market.
Yeah, well.
‘Bored already, Robin? I did warn you.’
She was late thirties, disillusion setting up permanent home in the lines either side of her mouth.
Robin said, ‘I, uh... I guess I just like the night.’
‘Robin, love,’ she said, ‘this ain’t night. This is just bleedin’ darkness.’
She did this cackly laugh. He smiled. ‘So, uh... you still don’t feel too good about here.’
‘Give the boy a prize off the top shelf.’
Her voice was too loud for this village at night. It bounced off walls. She moved towards him. He could smell that she’d been drinking. She stopped less than a foot away. There was no one else in sight. Robin kind of wished he’d turned around at the bottom of the street.
‘This is the nearest I get to a night out, you know that? We got to work. We got to open the boozer every lunchtime and every bleedin’ night of the week, and we don’t get the same day off ’cause we can’t afford to pay nobody, and we wouldn’t trust ’em to keep their fingers out of the bleedin’ till, anyway.’
‘Aw, come on, Marianne...’
‘They all hate us. We’ll always be outsiders.’
‘Come on... Nobody hates you.’
‘So we take our pleasures separately. Greg whoops it up at Hereford market on a Wednesday. Me, I just stand in the street and wait for a beautiful man to come along who don’t stink of sheep dip.’
‘Marianne, I think—’
‘Oh, sorry! I forgot – except for this Saturday when I’m going to a funeral. Because it is potilic... what’d I say? Politic – that’s what Greg says: politic. I’m pissed, Robin...’ Putting out her hands as if to steady herself, gripping his chest. ‘And you’re very appealing to me. I been thinking about you a lot. You’re a different kind of person, aincha?’
‘I’m an American kind of person is all. Otherwise just a regular—’
‘Now don’t go modest on me for Gawd’s sake. I tell you what...’ She started to rub her hands over his chest and stomach. ‘You can kiss me, Mr American-kind-of-person. Think of it as charity to the Third World. ’Cause if this ain’t the Third bleedin’ World...’