Crybbe

'Stone me.' He found this impressively cool and candid. And rather sad. He felt a faintly surprising tenderness coming on.

'I must say.' Rachel said, 'I was genuinely surprised to find out who you were. I was rather expecting]. M. Powys to be a vague, if benevolent old cove in a woolly hat and half-moon glasses. By the way, I think your book's a dreadful sham. Do you mind?'

'Golden Land?' He started to smile. He'd been right about Rachel. Nothing Arthur Rackham about this woman. 'Why do you think that? No, I don't mind at all. I don't bruise as easily is a cursory examination might suggest.'

'Well, let's not talk about that now.'

'No, go on. Talk about it.'

'Really?' Rachel faced him across the bed, not touching. OK. Well, the central premise, if I have this right, is that there's a hidden link between us and the earth, a link known to our remote ancestors, but which we've forgotten about.'

'The psychic umbilicus.' As time went on, Powys had grown less and less convinced he'd written this crap.

'And, by going to the various ancient shrines, stone circles, holy wells, places like that, we can unblock the doorways and find our way back, as it were, into the Old Golden Land. Which seems to be your metaphor, or whatever, for this kind of harmony with the environment, feeling a part of one's surroundings. Us and the earth feeding each other?'

Powys nodded. 'What's wrong with it so far?'

'Nothing at all,' Rachel said. 'Perfectly commendable. Except it's translated itself into all these old hippies staggering about with their dowsing rods and holding up their hands and feeling the Earth Spirit. I mean – let's be realistic about this – if these are the people with the keys to the cosmos, then God help us.'

Powys was impressed. 'I think you could be my ideal woman."

'Jesus,' said Rachel. 'You really are mixed up.'

After a minute or two, he said, 'I got a lot of it wildly wrong. It was nearly thirteen years ago, that book. I was too young to write it. I'd like to do it again. Or better still, I'd like not to have done it in the first place.'

'It's a bit late for that,' Rachel said. 'You do realize you're largely responsible for Max's very costly fantasies?'

'What does that mean?'

'It means he's going to be the first king of the Old Golden Land, and he wants you to be the Royal Scribe and tell the world about it.'

'Oh, my God. You think I should disappear?'

Rachel pulled his left hand to her breast. 'Not just yet. If you really have found the flaws in your own arguments, I can't help wondering if you ought not be the one person who can bring him to his senses.

Jocasta Newsome didn't know which was worse: spending a night in with Hereward or being alone.

She thought about lighting a fire, but, like most aspects of country life, it had lost its magic.

Could she ever have imagined there'd come a time when a log-fire in an open fireplace would not only fail to induce a small romantic thrill but would actually have become, a drag? In the end, she'd been forced to admit that logs were messy, time-consuming and not even very warm. The only one who got overheated was Hereward, chopping away and coming in covered with sweat – nearly as damp as most of his logs, which were so full of sap that when you threw them on the fire they just sat there for hours and hissed at you.

And the Aga, of course. Very attractive, very prestigious for dinner parties. But it wasn't made to run all the radiators one needed for a barn like this. If they wanted proper oil-fired central heating, they'd have to install a boiler – electric heating was, of course, out of the question with all the power cuts and Hereward turning white when the quarterly bill arrived.

It had now become Jocasta's ambition to make sufficient money out of The Gallery to sell it and acquire premises somewhere civilized. With or without Hereward, but preferably without.

This morning Rachel Wade had phoned to say Max Goff had been terribly pleased with the Tump triptych. And would they please look out for more pictures of ancient sites. Or any local landscapes by local artists.

Local artists! There were none. Even Darwyn Hall was Birmingham-born.

This afternoon, just before closing time – after school, presumably – another 'local' artist had called in. A girl of seventeen or eighteen. An odd, dark, solemn girl. Would they like to put on an exhibition of her drawings?

Well, God forbid it should ever come to that. Children's drawings!

The girl's portfolio was now propped against the antique pine dresser in the kitchen – 'Yes, of course we'll look at them my dear, but our artists do tend to be experienced professionals you know.'

She'd let Hereward examine them when he returned from his weekly attempt to become accepted in the public bar of the Cock by proving he could be as boring as the natives. If they only knew how far ahead of them in the boredom stakes he really was, he'd never have to buy his own drinks again.

Jocasta stretched like a leopard on the sofa.

She herself was bored out of her mind. Farmers were said to shag sheep in these hills. Maybe she should go out and find a ram.

'Sex magic.' Rachel was telling Powys the sordid story of her life as Goff's overpaid PA. 'That was the other thing that almost pushed me over the edge.'

'Isn't all sex magic?' Thinking, particularly, of tonight.

'Certainly not,' said Rachel.

'Yeah, I know. I do know what you're talking about. Aleister Crowley, all that stuff?'

Rachel said, 'Fortunately, it didn't last. Though Crowley was about the same build as Max, Max couldn't summon Crowley's stamina. Not too pleasant while it lasted, though. Lots of dressing up and ritual undressing. The idea appeared to be to build up the power and then direct it at the moment of orgasm. He was the Great Beast, I was

…'

The Scarlet Woman?' Powys vaguely remembered Crowley's autobiography, remembered not finishing it.

'Terribly tawdry,' Rachel said. 'Needless to say, it didn't work – or I presume it didn't. Point is, Max isn't a wicked man, it's just a case of what you might call Bored Billionaire Syndrome. You've got all the money you'll ever want, all the women and all the boys. But you're not… quite… God.'

'What can one do about this minor shortfall?'

Rachel said, 'He's doing it.'

And Powys nodded, resigned, as she told him about Goff's plans to restore the prehistoric legacy of Crybbe. 'Crybbe's Max's psychic doorway. His entrance to your Old Golden Land.'

'As identified by Henry Kettle.'

'And how reliable was he? Is dowsing for real?'

'It was in Henry's case. Henry was red hot.'

'The modern equivalent of the Stone Age shaman.'

'Who said that?'

'Max.'

'Figures,' Powys said. He sighed. 'Last night I went round to Henry's house to pick up his papers, his journal. Apparently he wanted me to have them. Anyway, it was pretty clear Henry had a few misgivings about what Goff was asking him to do – well, not so much that as what he was finding. He didn't like the Tump.'

'I don't like the Tump,' Rachel said.

'And leys – we don't really know anything about leys. All this energy-lines stuff is what people want to believe. Henry was quite impatient with the New Agers and their designer dowsing rods. He used to say we shouldn't mess with it until we knew exactly what we were messing with.'

Powys watched the lattice of light on the bedspread. 'A more plausible theory says leys are spiritual paths to holy shrines, along which the spirits of the ancestors could also travel. Evidence shows a lot of psychic activity at places where leys cross, as well as mental disturbance, imbalance.'

'Obviously the place to bring out the best in Max,' Rachel said drily. 'Excuse me, J. M, I need a pee.'

In the end, Jocasta had gone ahead and lit a fire, for what it was worth. The logs fizzed, the flames were pale yellow and the smoke seeped feebly between them, as she lay on the sheepskin rug enjoying, in a desultory way, a favourite fantasy involving the Prince of Wales in his polo outfit.