The Bottle Stone, the Bottle Stone,
Johnny goes round the Bottle Stone,
And he goes round ONCE.
And the Big Mac went round and round the toilet bowl, and Joe Powys watched it and felt queasy.
He'd walked back to the Centre in a hurry and picked up the mail box. He hadn't looked at the mail, even though it seemed unusually profuse. Just ran into the shop and dumped it on the counter. Then he'd gone into the lavatory and thrown up.
The Big Mac had been everything they'd promised it would be. Well, big, anyway. Never having eaten – or even seen at close hand – a Big Mac before, he'd decided on impulse this morning that he should go out and grab one for breakfast. It would be one more meaningful gesture that said. Listen, I am an 'ordinary' guy, OK?
Not a crank. Not a prophet. Not a hippy. No closer to this earth than any of you. See – I can actually eat bits of dead cow minced up and glued together.
But his stomach wasn't ready to process the message.
He washed his hands, stared gloomily at himself in the mirror. He actually looked quite cheerful, despite the prematurely grey hair. He had a vision of himself in this same mirror in ten years' time, when the grey would no longer be so premature. In fact, did it look so obviously premature now?
He flushed the lavatory again. Felt better. Went through to the kitchen and made himself a couple of slices of thick toast.
Fifteen minutes before he had to open the shop. He put the plate on the counter and ate, examining the mail.
There was a turquoise letter from America. It might have been his US agent announcing proposals for a new paperback reprint of The Old Golden Land.
It wasn't; maybe he was glad.
'Dear J.M.,' the letter began.
Laurel, from Connecticut, where she was newly married to this bloke who ran a chain of roadside wholefood diners. Laureclass="underline" his latest – and probably his last – earth-mysteries groupie, once lured spellbound to The Old Golden Land. Writing to ask for J.M. for a copy of his latest book,
What latest book?
Then there was an unsolicited shrink-wrapped catalogue from a business-equipment firm. It dealt in computers, copiers, fax machines. The catalogue was addressed to,
The Managing Director,
J. M Powys Ltd.,
Watkins Street, Hereford.
In the head office of J. M. Powys Ltd., the managing director choked on a toast crumb. The head office was a three-room flat in an eighteenth-century former-brewery, now shared by an alternative health clinic and Trackways – the Alfred Watkins Centre. The business equipment amounted to a twenty-five year-old Olivetti portable, with a backspace that didn't.
Powys didn't even open three catalogues from firms with names like Crucible Crafts and Saturnalia Supplies, no doubt offering special deals on bulk orders of joss-sticks, talismans, tarot packs and cassette tapes of boring New Age music simulating the birth of the universe on two synthesizers and a drum machine.
The New Age at the door again. Once, he'd had a letter duplicated, a copy sent off to every loony New Age rip-off supplier soliciting Trackways' patronage.
It said,
This centre is dedicated to the memory and ideas of Alfred
Watkins, of Hereford, who discovered the ley system – the way ancient people in Britain aligned their sacred places to fit into the landscape.
Alfred Watkins was an archaeologist, antiquarian, photographer, inventor, miller and brewer. He doesn't appear, however, to have shown any marked interest in ritual magic, Zen, yoga, reincarnation, rebirthing, primal therapy, Shiatsu or t'ai chi.
So piss off.
He'd realized when he sent it that Alfred Watkins's work, had he lived another fifty years, might have touched on several of these subjects. Perhaps the old guy would have been at the heart of the New Age movement and a member of the Green Party.
The recipients of the circular obviously realized this too and kept on sending catalogues, knowing that sooner or later Joe Powys was going to give in and fill up Trackways with New Age giftware to join the solitary box of 'healing crystals' under the counter.
Because if he didn't, the way business was going, Trackways would be closing down within the year.
There were only two envelopes left now. One was made from what looked like high quality vellum which he'd never lave recognized as recycled paper if it hadn't said so on the back, prominently.
A single word was indented in the top left-hand corner of the envelope.
EPIDEMIC
Powys finished his toast, went to wash his hands, came back and turned the envelope over a couple of times before he opened it. It contained a letter which didn't mess around.
Dear J. M. Powys,
As you may have learned, Dolmen Books, publishers of
The Old Golden Land, have now been acquired by the
Epidemic Group.
Shit, Powys thought, I didn't know that.
I am writing to you on behalf of the Group Chairman,
Max Goff, Powys thought, aghast. I've been acquired by Max bloody Goff.
Mr Max Goff, who has long been an admirer of your work and would like to meet you to discuss a proposition.
… And from what I've heard of Max Goff s propositions to personable young blokes such as myself…
We should therefore like to invite you to a small reception at the Cock Inn, Crybbe,
… I may have to invent a prior engagement… on Friday, 29 June at 12.30 p.m. I'm sorry it's such short notice, but the acquisition of Dolmen was only confirmed this week and I obtained your address only this morning.
Please contact me if you have any queries.
Please contact me anyway.
Yours sincerely,
Rachel Wade,
PA to Max Goff
Powys sat and looked around the shop for a while, thinking about this.
He could see on the shelves, among the dozens of earth-mysteries books by Alfred Watkins and his successors, the spine of the deluxe hardback edition of The Old Golden Land and about half a dozen paperback copies, including the garish American edition with the Day-Glo Stonehenge.
On the counter in front of Powys was a token display stand: dowsing rods and pendula. Mr Watkins might have been able to dowse, but he didn't have anything to say in his books about 'energy dowsing'. Or indeed about earth energies of any kind.
But all that was academic; the dowsing kits were selling well. Soon wouldn't be able to visit a stone circle without finding some studious duo slowly circumnavigating the site, dangling their pendulum and saying 'Wow' every so often.
Under the counter, because Powys hadn't had the nerve to put them on sale, was the box of 'healing' crystals which Annie – his new assistant with the Egyptian amulet – had persuaded him to buy. 'Got to embrace the New Age, Joe, and let the New Age embrace you. Mr Watkins wants you to let the New Age in, I can feel it. Sometimes I even think I can see him standing over there by the door. He's holding his hat and he's smiling.'
Wow!
Powys reached into the crystals box and helped himself to a handful of Sodalite (for emotional stability and the treatment of stress-related conditions).
Max Goff, he thought.
Max Goff!
Clutching the crystals, he discovered he was holding in his other hand a small, creased, white envelope, the last item of mail.
Mr J. Powys,
The Alfred Watkins Centre,
Hereford.
Handwritten, not too steadily. Inside, a single sheet of lined blue notepaper.
Cwm Draenog,
Titley,
Kington
Dear Mr Powys,
If you have not already heard I am sorry to have to inform you of the death of my neighbour Mr H. Kettle.
What…?
He was killed in a road accident in Crybbe where he was working and did not suffer.
Jesus Christ!