The Once and Future Con (Nick Madrid)

by Peter Guttridge

  "Looks like he's the one shitting his pants!" a guy with an Elvis quiff, standing next to the one whose windpipe Genevra had crushed, said.

  "He does yoga," his friend mimicked. Genevra kicked that one in the balls and when he bent double kneed him in the face.

  I'm not a fighter. You guessed? I don't know how to punch. However, I know enough to know that if you can't punch, make sure you're nifty with your feet. Or look as if you are.

  I can bring my foot up straight-legged higher than my head, although the last time I tried it in a fight I looked like a Tiller Girl. This time I raised my knee to my chest.

  "Who do you think you are, Rudolph bloody Nureyev?" said Elvis.

  In answer I kicked out my foot and straightened my leg, catching him full in the chest. He fell back with a pleasing force, sending the fourth of them sprawling. Genevra looked beyond me. I followed her glance to see half a dozen more men, in donkey jackets and jeans, debouch from the transit van. They circled us.

  We went back to back, circling with them. I would have surrendered-I was always taught that if you hit someone there's always the chance they'll hit you back harder so why take the chance-but I could see Genevra was made of sterner stuff.

  That's when the pub door opened and the vicar and his friend led out the badger-baiters.

  "These men are trying to kidnap this woman," I shouted.

  "Look, stay out of this," the tallest of the gang before us warned in a strong Welsh accent. "We're Celts just like you. We're knights of King Arthur and this woman is a risk to the realm. You should join us, not oppose us."

  "A knight?" The vicar's friend leered. "I'm a five times a night man myself. Anyway, you're Welsh, not Celtic."

  "Knights of King Arthur?" the vicar said. "What, you're from that loony up in Wales? You're a long way from home, aren't you? What's your name, son?"

  The tall man looked slightly embarrassed.

  "Sir Bedevere."

  "Well, Sir Bedevere, I'm no Celt, I'm Cornish. Welsh, is it? Look you, boyo, rrrugby, eisteddfod, the valleys, singing, cha-pel, Tiger Bay. There you go that's Wales done for you."

  "Look, we don't want any trouble," Bedevere said. "Just let us take the woman and we'll be on our way."

  "Go get the dogs," one of the ferrety looking men said as the bald-headed, bare-knuckle boxer came out of the pub followed by the crop-circle makers. The boxer came forward and without warning punched Bedevere in the nose. Bedevere went down.

  The two opposing forces squared off but what followed was a massacre. The crop circle implements were fiendish, the dogs were up for tearing anything apart, the bareknuckle fighter loved a punch-up. It took about eight minutes before the Knights of the Round Table were stretched out in various states of disrepair.

  I went over to Bedevere, who was slumped against the white van, his jacket and shirt soaked with the blood that was still pouring out of his nose. He was holding his proboscis-steady now-as if it was about to fall off. Seeing the force the bareknuckle boxer had put into the punch I could understand that.

  "Who sent you?" I said to Bedevere.

  "King Ardur, who do you dink?" he said.

  I was wondering if these people were the ones who had killed Lucy, my serial killer theory notwithstanding.

  "What do you want with Genevra?"

  "A bargaiding chib," he said.

  "Say again?" I was aware that Genevra had come up beside me.

  "Leberage. King Ardur wants you to abandon the whole idea of publicizing the discovery of the false grave."

  "So you were going to kidnap Genevra? That's a major criminal offence."

  "So call the cops. I don't fugging care." He rummaged in his pocket for a handkerchief and, wincing, pressed it to his nose.

  "No, Nick," Genevra said quickly. "That won't be necessary. I'm okay. They've learned their lesson. Let them go on their way."

  I looked at her and shrugged. "If that's what you want."

  I looked across to where the badger-baiters were gathered with their dogs. I'd bought them all a drink by now. I walked over, thinking to try something James Bond had done in From Russia with Love to get the `Girl Fight' stopped.

  "Now that we're buddies, can I ask you a favor?" I said to the lead badger-baiter. "Call off the badger-baiting for the night."

  "Go fuck yourself," he said, without even pause for thought.

  It was getting dark as we reached the hills above Tintagel. I was driving. Genevra was asleep in the passenger seat, her long legs cantilevered, her face gentle and untroubled, although occasionally she gnawed at her lip unconsciously.

  The road took us past long lines of modern windmills, ghostly white, trooping off into the darkness. The narrow main street of Tintagel was deserted except for a tall man in a long, brown overcoat mooching around outside King Arthur's Great Hall, the folly built in the 1920s by an eccentric custard millionaire. It was the Japanese man again.

  We drove past King Arthur's Arms and a shop called Merlin's Cave. The centerpiece of its illuminated window full of astrological tat was a huge two-handed sword with an ornate gold handle. Fifty yards farther along, the Tintagel Toy Museum had plastic Excaliburs on sale-for a pretty reasonable price actually. The road curved past the Country Club, which didn't quite live up to its name: a coach was disgorging a slow queue of pensioners for the Bingo Night advertised on a poster on the outside of the unprepossessing building.

  "There isn't as much Arthur stuff as I thought there'd be." Genevra had woken up twenty minutes or so earlier. "Given it's all they've got."

  Until the 1920s Tintagel's economy had been based on agriculture and the quarrying of roof slates. Genevra was right. Once that had gone, what was left?

  "There's nothing other than Geoffrey of Monmouth's twelfth-century account of Arthur's magical conception and birth to link him to Tintagel at all," I said. "The castle is picturesque, it's ruined-but it was built six hundred years after Arthur is supposed to have lived and died there."

  "Another piece of tourism hype. Tintagel became a tourist destination in the late nineteenth century, when first Tennyson's poems about Arthur then the Pre-Raphaelite paintings of droopy Arthurian maidens and doe-eyed knights brought a revival of interest in him. And Geoffrey's statement that Arthur was conceived there got changed, first, into the claim that he was born there, then that he lived there. It wasn't even called Tintagel until relatively recently."

  "What do you mean?"

  "The village's real name is Trevenna. In 1900, when the telegraph arrived and the postal system was updated, it was quietly changed to Tintagel-a flash of marketing genius that modernday practitioners would be proud of."

  We followed the road onto Fire Beacon Cliff. William Taylor's enormous King Arthur Hotel lay before us. Visible for miles around, it's often mistaken for Tintagel Castle because of its imposing appearance. Taylor, a pioneer of Cornish tourism, built it in the 1890s. It looks like a railway hotel-it was intended to be. He'd hoped to get a tourist branch line of the London and South Western Railway run out between Canielford and Delabole. He even adapted a set of terraced medieval fields to make a golf course in anticipation of the arrival of tourists.

  "What about the latest find, though?" Genevra said.

  She was talking about a small piece of greenish-grey slate, 35 cm by 20 cm, inscribed with the word Artognov, which had been found at Tintagel in early August 1998. The stone was dated to the sixth century by the style of the inscription and the broken pottery and glass found with it. It was discovered on the edge of the cliff overlooking a cavern traditionally known as Merlin's Cave.

  The inscription reads: Pater Coliavi licit Artognov, which has been translated as `Artognou, father of a descendant of Coll, has had this made (or built)."

  "Everybody is excited by those first three letters, A-r-t," I said. "But Artognov is no variant of Arthur and the slate is no proof he was here. We know there was a large settlement in Tintagel-there are piles of Mediterranean pottery to prove it. It was either a tra
ding post or the palace of some important leader."

  "So why couldn't that important leader be Arthur?" Genevra said as we drew up in front of the hotel.

  I shook my head.

  "Nobody knows the identity of the leader who lived here. Me, I don't think it was Arthur."

  We checked in and had a look round. The dining room was hung with cardboard shields and heraldic banners.

  Several people waved at Genevra. The bar was full of people, many of whom greeted Genevra warmly.

  "Nick and I have just arrived," she said to the most effusive. "We're gonna get unpacked then we'll come back down."

  "How come you know so many people?" I said, as we lugged our baggage up the stairs.

  "I've been doing this kind of thing for a while," she said. `I used to work for the National Trust, then English Heritage. You get on the circuit."

  My room was first. Genevra paused by my door.

  "I've got a bottle of Scotch eager to be drunk," she said. "Do you want to drop off your stuff and come down to my room?"

  Ulp.

  I was there in two minutes.

  "That was quick," she said with a grin as she ushered me in.

  Her room was enormous, with long windows overlooking the sea and the ruins of Tintagel Castle. We sat side by side on a sofa beneath the windows. You know those sofa scenarios? Given our proximity there was a definite tension in the air and I, for one, was observing the body language closely. Her legs were crossed facing away from me. Not a good sign.

  "So you and Bridget never?" she said.

  "What?"

  "Had sex."

  I looked at her and shook my head.

  "Strange really because we've both been round the track a bit," I said.

  "Yeah, but she says you're useless in bed so she hasn't bothered getting excited about the prospect."

  "She said that?" I said, unable to keep the hurt out of my voice.

  Genevra leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. Her legs remained crossed the wrong way but her breath wafted gently against my ear as she murmured: "Only as a joke. Why-is it true?"

  I sighed.

  "I'm not sure this is the kind of conversation we should be having-can we talk about this conference? And why you're going along with this? You seem like you really care about archaeology and the truth of the past. How can you distort it like this?"

  She retreated to her half of the sofa.

  "It's all a story, isn't it? What does it matter what the truth is when people believe the legends? I know all the slogans-the past is another country, history is written by the victors, to understand the present you have to know the past, to plan the future you have to understand the past. But the one I believe is that history is the story of great men-and who is greater than Arthur?"

  "Er-Nelson Mandela?"

  "Good point."

  I took a big swig of my whisky. She sipped hers. Re-crossed her legs. Leaned over. Her voice was suddenly very throaty.

  "It's been a long, stressful day, Nick. What do you say to a bit of rumpy-pumpy? I want to see what Bridget's been denying herself all these years."

  For a moment I wondered what Faye was doing. But only for a moment. Then I leaned into Genevra's embrace.

  We never did get down to the bar.

  Next morning, while Genevra was still asleep, I stood by the window of her room and looked down on Tintagel Castle and the sea beating against the rocks in Tintagel Haven. The jumble of ruined buildings spread across the mainland and on Tintagel Island seemed to be clinging on, especially the perimeter walls plunging down to the wild sea.

  "Well, that wasn't so bad at all," Genevra said. I turned. She stretched under the sheet, her eyes fixed on me. "Ten out of ten for effort. One or two things to work on but not a bad start."

  "You sound like a school report."

  She sat up, the sheet dropping away from her. She grinned.

  "School's out."

  The conference had already been going for two days. Later that morning-much later-we reported in for the final day.

  Plenty had already happened, as we discovered talking to the gossipy person registering us.

  She was from the Florence Nightingale Theme Hospital somewhere in Northumberland so was dressed as a nurse of the mid-nineteenth century.

  "It's been chaos, dear, chaos," she said to Genevra as she adjusted her wimple. "There have been breakaway rnoveinents."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, Catherine Cookson Country, The James Herriott Highlands, The Bronte Moors, Heartbeat Hills and, er, Sabden Treacle Mines suggested forming their own Northern Chapter. But as for the rest, it's a bit like the Middle Ages. Except that instead of feuding warlords you have feuding theme parks disputing their right to titles on land. This is George Orwell Country. No, it's not, it's Ragged Trousered Philanthropist Land. That kind of thing."

  She handed us name badges.

  "And as for the gentlemen from the William Wallace Freedom Park, well!"

  "I don't know that one," Genevra said.

  "You do," the woman said. "There was all that controversy when the staff were accused of bullying English customers. It's the one where visitors start off pillaging a replica York-they use a model village they bought cheap-and end up hung, drawn, and quartered. Anyway, they formed a flying wedge with Rebus World and the Ettrick Shepherd theme pub and tried to take over the meeting yesterday. They didn't quite have enough clout, thank goodness."

  She shook her head.

  "Mark my words, there'll be a few sore heads this morning."

  "There was actual fighting, then?" I said, surprised.

  She looked at me pityingly.

  "I meant the drinking in the bar last evening. Went on well into the night. Although there was almost a scuffle on the first day when three competing Diana Worlds had a row."

  I was tutting appropriately when I heard a familiar voice call, without enthusiasm: "Madrid."

  I turned to see Buckhalter in loud check trousers and a gold pullover with the insignia of two crossed swords on his left breast. He was standing with Faye, who was wearing a neat black two-piece, at the top of the steps leading into the vast conference room at the rear of the hotel.

  Faye smiled at me. I felt guilty-but not that guilty. I resolved not to say anything to her about Genevra and me. I often do make the same mistake twice, but this time I thought I'd resist the temptation.

  "When are we on?" I said.

  "I'm on at the end of the day," said Buckhalter. `Then we're outta here."

  Buckhalter and Faye went through to set up. Genevra and I went into the bar where the delegates were having a coffee break. The Excalibar. Genevra and I were being discreet, determined not to give our relationship away by gesture or glance. We separated, therefore, although I looked over at her occasionally from across the room.

  I joined a group of people around a large coffee table. The person sitting to my right, a bloke with floppy blond hair and a too-tight suit, stuck his hand out.

  "Hi, you're the guy shagging Genevra, aren't you? I'm Jefferson from H. G. Wells World. Down near Piltdown? Here to talk about our new Time Machine ride. Can I introduce you to some of the conference's other Literary Experiences? Fred here is from Brighton Rock-simulated razor fights a speciality. Eamonn is from Joyceland-he manages the flower shop there, Leopold's Blooms. He started out at Finnegan's Funeral Parlours."

  Jefferson looked up as a pretty woman in slacks and a bright orange cardigan approached. She stopped between us.

  "Janet, how lovely." He turned to me. "Janet's from Canterbury Tails. That's T-a-i-l-s."

  "Hi," I said. "I'In-"

  "The guy Genevra is shagging," Janet said. "I know."

  "Has there been a public announcement or something?" I said, a little peevishly.

  "Well, if you could keep your eyes off her it might not be such a giveaway," Janet said, smiling sweetly.

  I sighed. Genevra was, I had to admit, intoxicating.

  "What's Canterbu
ry Tails?" I said.

  "Tableaux of scenes from Chaucer using stuffed animals."

  "Naturally," I said.

  Janet looked at a young man in a dark blue suit who was perched on the end of his seat clutching a big ring-binder file. "Sorry, I don't know who you are."

  He muttered something, hanging his head.

  "Sorry?"

  "I'm from Duck Land," he said, blushing.

  "Ali yes," Janet said. "Good slogan."

  "Go Quackers at Duck Land!" Jefferson declaimed.

  "It's my first job," the man said quickly. "I don't intend to be there long."

  "So what's with the Avalon theme park?" Jefferson said. "Sounds like a winner. Genevra was saying last time we met you've got added value. What is it?"

  "I can't say," I said politely. "You'll have to wait for the last

  "You're going to do ajorvik?"

  He was referring to the Jorvik Viking Center in York. Since it opened back in 1984 it had remained the standard by which other heritage sites were judged. It was a twelve-minute ride through the recreation of a tenth-century village, complete with smells of livestock, food, and, the big novelty, latrines.

  "Along those lines," I said.

  "Hi, guys." A sober-suited man in his fifties had joined us. He had a salesman's smile. "You heard the latest? The Cymru Center is planning to open up another of the Welsh pits. As a total mining experience."

  I said, "What, you mean visitors get emphysema, rickets, arthritis, and white finger?"

  He laughed. "The idea definitely has possibilities. You could have a great ride-it ends by crashing into eighty-five tons of nutty slack that slides down to smother a toy village." He moved away. "Crazy idea, crazy people."

  "What's the next session?" I asked Jefferson.

  "Economic benefits of heritage tourism-transport, accommodation, catering, and retail all benefit." He winked and got up to go. Genevra was standing beside me.

  "Buck tells me I have to go back tonight," she said. There was a gleans in her eye. She lowered her voice. "Why don't we skip this session?"

  "If you insist," I said.

  "You're squeaking again. I've just got to talk to Buck. Wait here until I get back."