by Kim Newman
He strode towards a Portakabin marked administration, where a bank of temporary telephone and fax lines had been connected. It was ironic: the Agapemone so limited contact with the outside world that it had to set up special facilities to keep running during the festival. Inside, telephones were ringing and printers chattering. Temporary staff were beavering away.
A troupe of bikers cruised by, booted feet kicking dusty turf, engines snarling. They were all in black trews and jackets with skull, sword, demon and swastika emblems. Lytton felt a shudder creep up his back. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought Badmouth Ben was in the parade somewhere, stringy skeleton body under leather, tattooed bones gripping handlebars, growling to match the engine of the machine he’d brought back from Hell. The bikers were through the gates, touring the fields in search of a prime parking space to set up their own enclave, a mini-camp where they could listen to their own music and build their own fires. There’d been occasional trouble with the bike boyos, but usually they proved to be a damp squib, emptying crate after crate of beer and keeping to themselves, swapping stories and joints. The hassles came from ‘nice’ kids who freaked out on too much booze or dope, aggressive Rastas demanding free admission, or the increasingly tribal and crusty travellers.
All roads to the festival site were clogged with slow-moving traffic. At least the lines were moving.
‘Oink, oink,’ said Gary Chilcot, popping up, ‘the pigs are here, James.’
Lytton tutted. ‘Only to be expected.’
‘They got a couple of cop cars out on the main road, and they’re settin’ up a tent.’
‘Checkpoint Charlie.’
‘Yurp.’
‘I’d best be neighbourly.’
The narrow side road to the site was passable on foot. Lytton ambled through the gates, passing the booth where a Sister of the Agapemone and some fairly together staff were taking gate money and passing out badges to those who had not prepaid. He checked with Beth, a girl from the village, and she told him not to worry. Hourly, she was locking up the take in a cashbox and having it sent over by a trustworthy gopher to the administration cabin, where Mick would be putting it in a safe. That way, there was no temptation. This year, people could even pay by plastic. A youth with temporary flower tattoos on his cheeks and hair down to his arse was fishing under his tie-dye poncho for a credit card. As the turn-of-the-millennium hippie wondered whether to use Access, Barclaycard or Amex Gold, James reflected that the Sixties had been a long time ago.
He made his way past the line of vehicles. At the main road turn-off, where he had stationed Kevin Conway and a large sign, there were two police officers in shirtsleeves and helmets, standing by a marquee tent. A burly chap in plain clothes drank tea from a thermos.
This was routine. The festival had an agreement with the police that they were not to come on site unless especially requested. But they usually turned up at the perimeter to keep an eye on things. Relations had been strained in the past, mainly thanks to an incident four years ago when the force had been especially requested on the site to investigate some minor vandalism against a car. It had turned out the complainant was a plain-clothes constable with about as much impartiality as the pro-Soviet regime who had ‘especially requested’ that Russia invade Afghanistan, and, once on site, the police had taken the opportunity to round up the usual suspects, hauling in nuisance-value drugs and drink offenders. Since then, Lytton had been careful to toe official lines and make sure the right local councillors were invited to the opening and closing ceremonies. He had even tried to get the bishop of Bath and Wells, since the Agapemone was officially a Christian community, but the Anglican Church had a long memory and was still wary of the formerly Reverend Mr Anthony William Jago.
‘Good afternoon,’ he said to the tea drinker. ‘I’m James Lytton, from the Agapemone.’
The policeman spat warm, brown liquid on the dead grass.
‘Detective Sergeant Ian Draper,’ he said, extending his hand.
Lytton shook. ‘Drug squad?’
‘We don’t call it that.’
‘But…?’
‘Yes,’ Draper said, ‘obviously.’
He snapped at a blond constable with an Aryan jawline, ‘Erskine, what’s our mobile-phone number?’
Erskine coughed it out, and Draper wrote it down with a biro on the back of a business card.
‘Here,’ he said, handing the card to Lytton. ‘If you need us, we’re here.’
‘Sergeant,’ said the other constable, pulling Draper aside, whispering in his ear. He was black, doubtless a delight to the police-recruitment people and a neatly ‘political’ choice for this duty.
Draper grinned. ‘Oh, is he now?’
The constable did a brief aye-aye salute, and left the tent-erecting to signal a battered van to pull over.
‘PC Raine informs me an old friend just arrived,’ Draper told Lytton. ‘Possession with Intent. A hundred hours’ community service. Repeat offender.’
Lytton shrugged. The van driver, who was about James’s age, complained about being harassed again, but went along with the procedure. While the policemen made a cursory search of the van and Draper patted the driver’s pockets, ten or fifteen cars took the turning undisturbed. A lot of people would be passing this way on foot, too. Checkpoint Charlie usually pulled out faces they recognized, then took a flyer on about one in fifty people. Sometimes they were even useful to the festival. Every year they scooped in quivering seventeen-year-olds with a plastic bag of marijuana or a couple of pills, and the poor sods spent the festival in holding cells while their mummies and daddies got long-distance bad-news calls. But Checkpoint Charlie also turned up not a few Carrying a Concealed Weapon cases, confiscating its share of knives and chains. Meanwhile, someone respectable-looking always turned up with a bootload of the drug of the month and spread it around unhindered. Personally, Lytton felt very few illegal substances caused as much trouble as Douggie Calver’s perfectly legitimate but lethal cider.
The van passed the inspection, and Draper told his former catch to have a good time.
‘See,’ he said, ‘no trouble.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘This should be a pleasant holiday for us,’ Draper said. ‘If the wind blows the right way, we should even hear a little nice music.’
‘What wind?’
Draper grinned again, and wiped his sweaty forehead with a meaty, sparse-furred wrist. Draper was ten years younger than Lytton, in his early thirties, but he was already bloating around the neck and belly. He was missing the second button up on his white shirt, the torn hole testifying that it had been popped by his expanding gut. He didn’t look like a drug-squad hard nut or a war-on-crime crusader.
A couple of young men in pink and orange shorts and vests sauntered by, arm in arm, whistling the Dixon of Dock Green theme.
‘Comedians,’ Draper said. ‘Let’s have ’em in the tent, shall we.’
Lytton shrugged.
‘You,’ Draper said, ‘Claude and Cecil, over here…’
Erskine, the tallest of the constables, let his hand stray to the handle of his truncheon.
‘Good afternoon,’ Draper said to the gay couple, flashing a laminated identity card, ‘we are police officers and we’d like you to cooperate in a search. If you’ve got nothing nasty, you’ve got no problems. Would you care to step into this tent and Constable Erskine will see to you.’
One of the young men swished and said, ‘You don’t get an offer like that every day.’
Erskine flushed deep red, but held the marquee flap up. The gays, giggling, stepped in.
‘Do you tell fortunes?’ one of them said in a high-pitched, high-camp voice. ‘Madame LaZonga Sees All?’
Erskine followed.
‘See,’ Draper said, ‘perfectly civilized.’
5
In videos, Daddy got annoyed when people being chased went upstairs in tall buildings. ‘That’s stupid,’ he always said, ‘when he gets to the top, he�
��ll be trapped.’ Jeremy had been stupid. The office was a good hiding place, but the only way out was the floor trapdoor he had come through. There was a wooden door in the wall, for tossing bales, but it was bolted from the outside, because Mummy was worried about Hannah or him falling out of it. If Daddy followed him up here, he’d be trapped. And Daddy would get him.
Something had happened to Daddy, and he’d got Jethro and Mummy and Hannah. Jeremy didn’t really understand, but he knew something had been done to Jethro and Mummy and Hannah. If he was caught, it’d be done to him too. It’d be more than a quirting.
The trapdoor had been left open to let draught into the loft. Otherwise Jeremy couldn’t have got in. He wasn’t strong enough to push it up by himself. Usually, he had to ask Mummy or Daddy to lift the heavy weight if he wanted to go up. He scrunched behind Daddy’s desk, trying to be as small as possible. He gripped the trowel he’d taken from the bench in the workspace below. He could see the open trapdoor from where he was. If Daddy came after him, he’d know.
There were no windows and it was dark. Not much light came through the trapdoor. He’d been so frightened of Daddy he’d forgotten to be frightened of the dark. Now, alone under the desk, more familiar fears came back, chewing the edge of his mind. He knew Daddy was outside looking for him. But Jeremy didn’t know whether he was truly alone in the dark. The Evil Dwarf could be around somewhere. After all, the Evil Dwarf lived in the dark. Whatever had happened to Daddy must be the Evil Dwarf’s fault. Daddy wouldn’t change on his own.
His father had put his arm through Jethro as if the dog were made of Plasticene. He had seen Daddy stab Mummy between the legs with his stiff dickybird. Penis. He didn’t use baby words now. It wasn’t a dickybird, it was a penis. Jeremy had been surprised by his father’s penis. He’d seen Daddy in the shower, and his penis had never looked like that before. It had been a length of sausage, not a tree branch.
Jeremy closed his eyes and tried to keep out the dark. He heard planks creaking in the barn, but didn’t know whether the noises were natural, the wood noises he’d heard all his life, or signs of the presence of the Evil Dwarf.
The only thing his daddy was afraid of was stupidity. Usually, Jeremy was clever. Now, he felt stupid. Perhaps the Evil Dwarf had started on him while he was asleep, licking the surface of his brain, sampling the icing of his intelligence the way you might lick hundreds and thousands off an ice cream.
He opened his eyes, and saw Daddy’s hand resting on the floor, gripping the edge of the trapdoor hole. Jeremy saw in the gloom that Daddy’s fingers were long, with wispy vines wound around them. The hand got a better grip, vines shifting, and Daddy pulled himself up into the loft. His head came up first, larger than it had been, antler branches standing out of his forehead, and then his weighty body. Daddy got a knee on the loft floor and rose entirely through the trapdoor.
‘Jerm?’
Jeremy’s heart was hammering, and he was afraid he’d pee in his shorts. He held his tool up, hoping it was sharp.
‘Jerm-eee?’
Daddy’s voice was high and whining, cartoon-nasty. Like Lisa’s, when she was picking on Jeremy. Daddy knew he was in the loft but was playing a game.
‘Now, where can that blasted child be?’
Daddy stuck a stick-finger to his lips, and posed thoughtfully with a fist on one hip.
‘Perhaps he’s…’
Daddy stepped into the dark.
‘…behind the filing cabinet!’
Daddy pulled the cabinet over. Metal screeched as drawers came out, the whole thing crashing to the floor. Jeremy pressed tight against the desklegs. Daddy kicked the filing cabinet, putting a dent in its side with his bunched-together bare toes.
‘Nope,’ Daddy said, ‘no Jerm here. Tut tut tut. What a mess.’
Daddy looked around.
‘Maybe Jerm-Jerm-Jerm-Swallowing-Sperm is…’
He pulled a shelf away from the wall. Nails wrenched and books thudded around Daddy.
‘…up on that fucking shelf!’
Daddy had said a bad word.
His father held the plank that had been a shelf, and twisted it, dumping more books. Finally, it came free, and he tossed it into the dark. It crashed against something. Jeremy heard glass breaking.
‘Obviously not,’ Daddy said. ‘Not behind the filing cabinet, not up on the shelf. What an elusive little Jerm. Daddy’s proud of his piglet.’
Jeremy cried silently, fighting the heaves in his chest. He wanted to bawl and sob but knew it was important to be quiet.
‘Maybe Jethro can find his little master, eh? Here, boy. Good boy.’
There was a strangled barking, and the tail stuck out of Daddy’s wrist wagged obediently. Daddy hung his head, and talked to his arm.
‘Here, Jethro. Go find Jerm.’
Daddy swallowed his tongue and made woof-woof noises. Jeremy was sure the Evil Dwarf was in the dark with them. Dopey must be enjoying his victory. Daddy took a grip on his own shoulder, and snapped his arm off. It came away like a dead branch being wrenched from a tree.
‘Go get ’im, Jethro.’
Daddy tossed the arm into the dark, and Jeremy cringed. The arm hit the floor with a thump, then ran towards Jeremy, scraping across planks. Jeremy tried to cram himself against the wall, head bumping against the underside of the desk. Jethro squeezed into the gap and sank his teeth into Jeremy’s ankle.
Jeremy screeched, and dropped his tool. Jethro or Daddy’s arm or whatever it was couldn’t bite deep, but its sharp teeth ripped his sock and scraped skin. It growled, and slobbered into his shoe.
‘Aha,’ Daddy said, ‘looks like we’ve found us a Jerm, boy.’
Daddy ripped the desk away and threw it across the loft. Still plugged into the wall, the computer thudded down beside Jeremy, plastic and glass cracking.
Jeremy took the dog thing by what should have been its neck, and tried to squeeze the life out of the fur-covered meat and bone tube. Teeth grated against his ankle as he wrenched the thing free. It squirmed in his two-handed grip and felt disgusting. Jeremy threw it at Daddy, and he caught it.
Daddy stuck his arm back on, slightly skewed, and made a fist, gripping Jethro’s tail. Even in the dark, Jeremy could see Daddy was changing more.
‘Go for the throat, Jethro,’ Daddy said. ‘Woof fucking woof.’
Beneath the loft was the garage space where Daddy stored the farm’s tractor and kept a lot of tools. On the way up, Jeremy had grabbed something from a wall rack. A large trowel, with a foot-long diamond-shaped blade, dusty with dried cement. In his hiding place, he’d been gripping the chunky handle as if it were a magic sword. He scrabbled on the floor for the trowel, and snatched it up again.
‘Come to Daddy, Jerm-features,’ Daddy cooed, lurching over Jeremy.
Jeremy held up the trowel, blade before his face.
‘It won’t hurt.’
Daddy bent over, reaching for Jeremy. His long hard penis got in the way, and he had to stand back, fingertips latching on to Jeremy’s shoulders, barbs wriggling through his shirt into his skin. Silhouetted against the light from the trapdoor, Daddy’s head was changing. His antlers sprouted, developing like the sped-up plant films in TV nature programmes.
Drawing in breath through his teeth, Jeremy angled the trowel so that it pointed outwards and upwards.
‘It won’t hurt at all.’
Jeremy yelled and thrust, standing up and throwing himself against Daddy. The trowel stabbed against the underside of Daddy’s penis, pricking through the green bark, and Jeremy shoved, gouging a curl of skin from the shaft, slicing shallowly into the white wood flesh.
Daddy bellowed and held out his arms to steady himself. Jeremy pushed, and the trowel shuddered out of his father’s penis, leaping at his double-fist-sized hanging balls, sinking about two inches into his hard-shelled but mushy scrotum. Shouts filled the loft. There was blood all over Jeremy’s hands, green and sappy, not red and slippery. Daddy staggered back, yanking the trowel out
of Jeremy’s hands, and tripped over the trapdoor. For a moment, he was hung in space over the gap, then he fell bum-first through the hole. Jeremy heard him landing badly, heard things breaking.
It was time to run, to get past Daddy. He bolted to the trapdoor hole, and looked down. Daddy had fallen on the steps leading up to the office. One of his antlers had snapped off, and green stuff was squirting out, dribbling down his face. He was still alive, but he wasn’t going to get up soon.
Jeremy stepped down the stairs, one at a time, and edged around his father, speeding up when he was past him. He felt Daddy reaching for his ankle, and ran, hearing his father’s fist closing on the nothing where his foot had been. He ran round the tractor, leaving a handprint on its dusty red cowling, into the barnyard. Behind him, Daddy was roaring and struggling.
He looked at the house and saw Mummy and Hannah standing by the door. Behind them was the spindly wreck of a patch of ivy Mummy had encouraged to sweep up over the side of the house. Jeremy thought Mummy and Hannah were leaning against the ivy, letting its creepers twine about their legs and arms to hold them up. Earlier this summer, the ivy had gone from rotten brown to brittle grey, but now it was deepening green, its colour reflected in the faces of his mother and sister.
Mummy waved. He ran away from the house, towards the road. There was a steady flow of traffic being directed by young men in armbands into the fallow field. Daddy had said cars from the festival would be using some of the dry pastures. If Jeremy could reach the traffic, he’d be safe for a while. If there were people, he’d be safe.
6
When Hazel woke up, she felt different. The comfort of sleep carried over into consciousness. Her pains were eased, her head clear. It was pleasantly cool inside the alcove. High up on the wall was a stained-glass slit window. Coloured shapes hung on the purple curtains, a smudgy back-to-front picture. She tried to remember how she’d got here, but swiftly realized it didn’t matter. Everything before the Agapemone, before the Beloved touch, was a fading dream. She’d been born on the steps of the Manor House. What was important was now.
