The Welsh Border
It was a moody frontier town squashed between dark English hills and even darker Mid Wales hills. The stone cottage was at the end of a deep-sunk dirt track, two, three miles beyond the huddled town of Kington.
Locating the place by car had been a problem for publisher Ben Corby, who hadn't travelled much outside London for a couple of yean now, except on planes. And who had always – despite his enthusiasm for The Old Golden Land – found the countryside basically hostile.
So this place immediately gave him the creeps.
It was a low cottage, barrack-block long, the last of the light making its windows opaque and sinister, like Mafia sunglasses. No sooner had he switched off the ignition than something came rushing out at his car: a black and white dog or maybe a big cat. Something disturbing about it, the way it moved. Ben nervously wound his window down as a shadow edged around a door at one end of the long cottage.
'OK, Arnold.' Was the voice familiar? Was it him?
Ben's headlights showed that the animal was, in fact, a dog.
And that it had only three legs.
Uncanny, The disabled dog was just sitting there in the headlights, not barking, not even blinking. Ben didn't get out; a three-legged dog was probably a dog with a grudge.
'It's a friend,' the dog was told by the shadow. 'Possibly.'
Possibly. He'd come to the right place then. And the author of The Old Golden Land was evidently prepared for the worst.
Half an hour later, relieved to be out of the wild country and by a warmish wood-fire with a can of lager on the arm of his chair, Ben came, in his blunt Yorkshire fashion, to the point.
'Be suicide, mate. For all of us.'
The dog lay on his intact side, eyes open and a furry stump pointing at Ben as if it was his fault, the dog having only three legs.
'If we go with this, we might as well pulp our entire back-catalogue. Britain's premier New Age publisher does not put out a book advising people to hang up their dowsing rods and trade in their tarot cards for a pack of Happy Families.'
The dog lay on a sheepskin rug under a table with a converted paraffin lamp on it. Next to this Ben had dumped Joe's manuscript: Mythscapes: The Old Golden Land Revalued.
Joe Powys stared into the fire. Ben thought, Where's his woman? Why just him and a three-legged dog?
He'd been on at Joe to write a book about what really happened at Crybbe and Joe had said nobody would believe it. He'd agreed finally to produce a follow-up to his New Age classic, The Old Golden Land, and here it was… and the bloody thing was anti-New Age. Not to say anti meditation. Anti-fortune telling. Anti-ghost-hunting.
But only as much as Hitler had been anti-Semitic.
'So, Joe. How do you propose to live?'
Powys raised his eyebrows. Hair fully grey now (prematurely, just about). But the face on the back of the book could still help unload a few thousand copies on wispy, wistful ladies.
'You're still a young… youngish guy. And almost – you can't deny it – a cult figure, once, an icon. So, OK, you've had a change of heart, unfortunately a seriously uncommercial one. You want to talk about it?'
This was a phrase Ben Corby had learned never to use to an author whose book he'd turned down. The bastards always wanted to talk about it. At length. But this one he did want to know about. What turns a wispy mystic into a hardened sceptic?
'Don't make me feel bad,' Powys said. 'You drive all this way to bring me a customised rejection slip-'
'Because we're old mates.'
'Right. Well, I'm sorry, old mate. But how can you write a book you wouldn't have the nerve to go out and promote and say you believe in it?'
'You have got to be kidding,' Ben said. 'I can name you at least…'
Powys held up both hands to stop him. He was sitting on the arm of the overstuffed sofa, his white T-shirt merging with the white wall so it looked as if he was only semi-materialised, only half there. The wood-fire was tucked away in an inglenook, books to the ceiling either side of it. Above the fireplace, there was a framed photograph of an old man with a clerical collar and a big, white beard and another one, full length, of a slender woman with pale hair.
Something told Ben both of these people were dead.
He stared hard at Powys. 'So what is it you don't believe in? Apart from ghosts, ley-lines, mysterious forces in the landscape…'
On another wall was a framed print of an intoxicating Samuel Palmer moonlit cornfield. The kind of scene you associated with The Old Golden Land. Ben remembered when they were students and Joe Powys had discovered the enchanted world of standing stones and mysterious mounds and beacon hills. Lighting up boring old Britain for a whole bunch of them, even Ben for a while. The guy just had that gift. Poet of the Unexplained.
'… Fairies, witchcraft, UFOs..
Powys didn't reply. He went into his cupboard-size kitchen and returned with a six-pack of Heineken Export. He detached a can from the pack and passed it across to Ben, his face blank.
Ben remembered how this cottage had been left to Joe Powys by Henry Kettle, the old water diviner, whose own motto had been Nothing psychic, nothing psychic.
'This is not something you can talk about sober,' said Ben. 'Am I right?'
'Now I'm not trying to advise you, don't think that. I don't want you to do anything goes against your religion.'
Joe Powys saw that Ben was fairly pissed. Arnold watching him with some disapproval; his late master, Henry Kettle had drunk only sparingly, on the basis that you couldn't dowse under the influence. As far as Arnold was concerned, this was still Henry's house.
Powys leaned down and patted him. 'It's OK, this man is a publisher.'
Powys remembered sitting in a pub with Ben Corby, just after the Max Goff organisation, Epidemic, had bought Dolmen Rooks, and Ben had said, It's time for the New Age to grab the world by the balls. Business talk. Ben Corby had made a lot of money selling books about healing rays and ancient wisdom. Had actually made a lot of money out of Joe Powys.
'It's just you're a hero to these people,' Ben said. 'The tens of thousands of decent, well meaning if totally humourless punters who buy Dolmen books by the handful to stick on the shelf under sprigs of aromatic herbs. And if their long-time guru starts telling them about seers who need glasses, and not to trust their little bodies to spiritual healers, they're… Hang on, gotta have a slash.'
The stairs rose from the living room. When Ben had gone up, Powys kneeled down and took Arnold's black and white head between his hands and stared into the dog's eyes.
'What do we do, Arnold? He's going to dump me. No more Choice Cuts. Back to the Tex chunks, economy size.'
But you kind of knew he would, Powys, didn't you? You knew he was never going to publish a book which proves crystals rarely work and the St Michael Line is a con.
'Yes, I did, Arnold.'
He wished Fay was here. Fay had this direct, broadcaster's way of putting things. Fay would convey to Ben Corby precisely why this book was not, as expected, another dollop of New Age blancmange. Because Fay had been at Crybbe.
She was programme controller at Offa's Dyke Radio now. She hated local radio but she needed people. Ordinary people who were concerned about town planning, car-theft, more hospital beds and rail-cutbacks. Fay had a flat in Hereford. She came back most weekends. But she didn't like it out here anymore, he could tell. She'd gone right off the countryside.
Ben had said, 'Why the hell do you stay here? It's so bloody primitive. If Henry left it to you, why don't you just sell it?'
'I can't sell it.' Powys said. 'It's Arnold's house, too. He's a dowser's dog He has a feel for this place.'
'Now that,' said Ben delightedly, 'is a wonderfully New Age thing to say.'
'I'm embarrassed.'
'But you don't believe any of it anymore.'
Powys sighed. This was it with publishers. They never read anything properly, not after they'd made the entirely arbitrary decision that it was going in the wrong direction.
Henry's old pendulum clock struck eight. The night was young. He was going to have to go into this.
Look, he didn't not believe. He accepted totally that there were… things… out there. But who was really equipped to mess with them? The trance-mediums who'd call up your grandad so he could tell you about the missing socks? The Kirlian photographers who'd do your etheric body for the family album?
Or what about the dowsers? Not Henry Kettle. Henry had been over-cautious, if anything. For years he'd dowse only for water, wouldn't get into anything he was unsure of.
'But now you've got all these bastards, been at it for about six months and they're claiming to feel the earth's pulse. Energy dowsing. Everybody's a bloody energy dowser suddenly Everybodycan tune into the Earth Force, Sunday ramblers. New Age travellers
…'
'Yeah, yeah.' Ben snapped his way into another can of lager. 'But it's all harmless. I mean, it can't hurt anybody…'
He stopped. Sensing the change in Powys's mood, Arnold got to his three feet and began a low growl
'It's OK, Arnold,' Powys said. 'I can't kill a man when he's pissed. '
Ben Corby looked warily at Arnold and then back at Powys. 'What did I say?'
'You said "harmless''.'
Powys tossed a log on to the fire, crushing the embers of the last one and sending up a splash of red sparks.
'They go to Totnes. And they go to Glastonbury. And they're like kids in Toys R Us. It's like they've been given a New Age credit card. Think I'll have a go at that hypno-regressive therapy next week. Damn, really must have the old aura resprayed. And it's all natural. No drugs, no artificial sweeteners. Totally harmless.'
He held up the poker, its tip glowing with heat-energy.
'They'll stand in a stone circle on Midsummer Night and call down the supreme atavistic power of the Horned God, right? But you offer them a bag of crisps containing monosodium glutamate, and it's like you pulled a gun on them. What's that tell us?'
'Jesus,' said Ben, 'it's a pitiful sight, an old New Ager who's lost his life-force.'
'Yeah. Pass me another lager.'
'None left, old son. Got another pack in the fridge?'
'How many packs did we drink?'
'Three. And half a bottle of some filthy liqueur.'
'In that case, no.'
'Listen,' Ben said. 'If you insist on doing this, I'll show it to the guy upstairs.'
'God?'
'No, you pillock. We belong to Harvey-Calder now, as you know, since Goff's untimely demise. And being the smallest, least-credible part of this big, faceless, mindless publishing conglomerate, we're naturally in the basement and the literary guys treat us like shit.'
Powys smiled.
'Some joker hung wind-chimes outside our door,' Ben said gloomily. 'Bastards. But there's this not bad guy upstairs in charge of Harvey's general nonfiction called Dan Frayne. If he publishes it, it's no skin off Dolmen's nose. I'll show it to him.'
'Oh.' Joe Powys stood up, feeling confused, and a little cool air through the peeling patch in the left knee of his jeans 'Well, thanks. Thanks, Ben.'
'Don't thank me,' said Ben Corby, who didn't believe in anything you couldn't get into a wallet. 'Just because I don't want you to starve doesn't mean I don't think you're a complete arsehole.'
Ben slept – or tried to – in a spare room about the size of a double coffin. No soothing traffic noise, that was the problem, no police and ambulance sirens en route to somebody else's crisis.
It was very still and very dark. The panes in the little square window were opaque, like slates. There was no noise at all from outside, nothing, no owls, no wind through trees, no branches tapping on the glass. Only the creak from the bed when he turned over.
It would have made no difference.
It would have made no difference if there'd been a force-ten gale blowing or a fox had got into somebody's chicken shed. It would have made no difference if a plane had crashed in the woods.
He'd still have heard it; he'd still have awoken around three in the morning with a chill running up his back, from his arse to his fuzzed-up brain.
No question: there was no sound quite like this for putting the shits up you.
Ben didn't move again until he heard another door open across the passage and Joe Powys's loud whisper. 'Arnold, no. Leave it.'
Ben rolled then from under his duvet, snatched up his bath-robe, staggered to the door, crouching because of the thought of beams, the way you did in the car going under a low bridge even though you knew there was plenty of room.
As he felt his way out to the landing, the ceiling light blinked on in its little pot shade, low-powered, but dazzling at first. The vibrating dots resolved into Joe Powys in his T-shirt and briefs standing very still, a hand on the switch on the wall at the top of the stairs.
Ben, his voice thick, said, 'What's up with him?'
But before Joe Powys could reply, another long, rolling howl began welling from the foot of the stairs, went on and on, spooky as hell. '
'I didn't think dogs did that in real life,' Ben said stupidly.
Powys started to go downstairs into the living room, half-lit from the landing, and Ben followed him because, shit, what if Powys went out of the house and left him here on his own?
They were halfway down when the crash came.
A classic splintering crash of exploding glass. Ben was clutching at Powys's arm, hissing, 'Fucking burglars.' Swivelling his head, looking for a weapon, like he was going to find a poker in a stand at the top of the stairs or a baseball bat hanging from the wall.
The crash seemed to go on and on, with a coda of rolling splinters.
The dog was silent.
'It's over,' Powys said.
Ben stared at him. Couldn't move. Powys padded barefoot down the rest of the stairs. 'Mind the glass,' Ben said weakly.
Half-light from the landing was the best they could hope for. The paraffin lamp converted to electricity had been converted to glass shards and dented tin. It was in the middle of the floor, still rolling.
Ben looked fearfully around the room. Nothing seemed amiss, apart from the lamp. In the grate, the fire was almost burned out, one ashy log glinting like a red foil sweet paper. On the chimney breast over the inglenook, the two pictures, of the old vicar-guy and the woman with ash blonde hair, were perfectly in place.
So quiet now, Ben could hear his own nervy, staccato breaths. Trying to convince himself this was another of Powys's scams. That he'd crept down in the night, maybe balanced the lamp on the very edge of the table.
Joe Powys hadn't said a word. He was standing by the fireplace looking at the two photos, Ben looked too and…
'Oh, fucking hell…' His leg muscles turned to porridge. 'You just did that. Didn't you?'
Powys just looked sad.
Ben went up close. Peered, horrified, at the pictures. And then backed off with his hands out, like he'd opened a door and a blast of winter had hit him full in the chest. He fell back on the sofa, hands on his knees as if glued there 'Tell me they aren't,' he said.
Joe went over to the pictures and carefully turned each one the right way up.
'It's OK. It's happened before. '
Ben said, 'You have to get out of here, Joe.'
'No.' Powys smiled. 'I know where I am with this.'
'Who are they? Those people.'
'The old bloke with the beard is Fay's dad, Canon Peters.'
'Dead?'
'And the woman was called Rachel.''
'Girlfriend? She's dead too?'
'I didn't know her long enough to put a label on it. We keep the pictures up there to remind us. In case we get blase about certain things.'
Ben put his hands over his face, rubbed his eyes. 'Where's the dog?'
'Under the table, on his rug.'
'Maybe he upset the table, knocked the lamp off.'
'Could be,' said Powys.
'No it fucking couldn't.' Ben found himself breathing hard again, closest he could remember ever being to hysteria. 'And, anyway, why was he howling? He often howl like that?'
'Sometimes.'
'Why d'you say, It's over? Just now, on the stairs.'
He still felt too weak to get up from the sofa.
'Hang on,' Powys said. 'What's Arnold got?' He got down on all fours, scrabbled about under the table, and came up with something.
A book. A big, fat, heavy book.
'Now this is new,' he said (nervously? Was that a quiver of nerves under the voice?).
'This never happened before.'
He looked up and Ben followed his gaze to the very top bookshelf under a big, black beam-end to the left of the fireplace. There was just enough light to show up a gap in the middle of the shelf, the other books apparently stiff and firm to either side.
'It fell off,' Ben said. 'It fell on to the lamp.'
'Yeh, looks like it.' Powys's voice was dry and flaky like the ash in the grate. He held out the book for Ben. It was a real doorstop, about three inches thick, probably over a thousand pages.
Ben couldn't prise his hands from his knees to take it.
But he could see the title, in faded gold down the spine, the author's name across it, the surname in big capitals.