Crybbe (AKA Curfew)

by Unknown

  Powys closed the ledger and held it, with reverence, in both hands.

  'His journal. I doubt if anybody else has ever seen it.'

  'Well, you take it away,' said Mrs Whitney. 'Sometimes I had the feeling some of them things Mr Kettle was doing were - how shall I say? - not quite Christian.'

  'Science, Mrs Whitney. He was always very particular about that.'

  'Funny sort of science,' Mrs Whitney said. 'There's a letter, too, only gave it to me last week.'

  A pale-blue envelope, 'J. M. Powys' handwritten in black ink.

  'Oh, he was a nice old chap,' Mrs Whitney said. 'But, with no ill respect for the departed, he'd have been the first to admit as he was more'n a bit cracked.'

  For Fay, there would be no secret pleasure any more in editing tape in the office at night, within the circle of Anglepoise light, a soft glow from the Revox level-meters, and all the rest into shadow.

  For none of what dwelt beyond the light could now be assumed to be simply shadow. Once these things had started happening to your mind, you couldn't trust anything any more.

  That evening, she and the Canon watched television in what used to be Grace's dining-room at the rear of the house and was now their own sitting-room. Two bars of the electric fire were on - never guess it was summer, would you?

  Arnold lay next to Alex on Grace's enormous chintzy sofa. The dog did not howl, not once, although Fay saw him stiffen with the distant toll of the curfew. He'd be sleeping upstairs again tonight.

  She watched Alex watching TV and sent him mind-messages. We have to talk, Dad. We can't go on here. There's nothing left. There never was anything, you ought to realize that now.

  Alex carried on placidly watching some dismal old black and white weepie on Channel Four.

  Fay said, at one point, 'Dad?'

  'Mmmm?'

  Alex kept his eyes on the screen, where Stewart Granger was at a crucial point in his wooing of Jean Simmons.

  'Dad, would you . . .' Fay gave up, 'care for some tea? Or cocoa?'

  'Cocoa. Wonderful. You know, at one time, people used to say I had more than a passing resemblance to old Granger.'

  'Really?' Fay couldn't see it herself.

  'Came in quite useful once or twice.'

  'I bet it did.'

  Fay got up to make the cocoa, feeling more pale and wan than Jean Simmons looked in black and white. In one day she'd hung up on Guy, betrayed Rachel, demolished relations with Goff before she'd even met him. And caught herself about to give a blow job to a microphone in the privacy of the Crybbe Unattended Studio.

  What I need, she thought, is to plug myself into a ley-line, and she smiled to herself - a despairing kind of smile - at the absurdity of it all.

  The box files wouldn't all fit in the boot of the Mini. Three had to be wedged on the back seat, with the doctor's bag.

  But the ledger, the dowsing journal of Henry Kettle, was on the passenger seat where Powys could see it, Henry's letter on top.

  Just past the Kington roundabout he gave in, pulled into the side of the road and, in the thinning light, he opened the letter.

  Dear Joe,

  I'm doing this now, while I feel the way I do. If it all

  sorts itself out you'll probably never read this letter. None of

  it will make much sense to you at first and if it never does

  make any sense it means my fears will be groundless.

  What it comes down to is I've been working out at Crybbe

  for a chap called Max Goff who's bought Crybbe Court.

  The nature of the job is dowsing some old alignments

  where the stones and such have all gone years ago, and it's

  been giving me the shivers, quite honestly, that whole place.

  Don't get me wrong, there's nothing psychic or any of that

  old rubbish, but it's not right and as far as I can work out

  it's a long-term kind of thing. I intend to keep an eye on the

  situation in the weeks and months and, God willing, the years

  ahead and keep on revising my notes, but I'm not getting any

  younger and you could go any time at my age and I feel as

  how I ought to inform somebody. You have had some daft

  ideas in your time but you're a good boy basically and the

  only person I can think of who I can trust not to dismiss this

  out of hand as an old fool's rumblings.

  God knows, I'm not infallible and I could be wrong and

  I don't even know as yet the nature of what's up in Crybbe,

  only I get the feeling it's long-term, and I'd like to think there

  was somebody who could keep an eye on what that Goff's

  up to.

  Now my daughter, we've grown apart, no kidding myself

  any more. She's out in Canada and she's VERY WELL

  OFF. So I've written to my solicitor in Hereford informing

  him that as well as all the papers my house is to be left to

  you. Consider it as a token of my confidence.

  Yours sincerely,

  H. Kettle

  (Henry)

  'God almighty,' Powys said.

  He could see lights coming on in Kington, through the trees on the other side of the road, darkening hills. Somewhere, on the other side of the hills, Crybbe.

  Leaving him the house was ridiculous. He'd probably have changed his mind by now, anyway.

  But the letter was dated 19 June.

  Only two days before Henry's death.

  Powys opened the ledger at the last completed page. It also was dated 19 June.

  Quite a successful day. Located three more old stones.

  One of them would be eleven feet above the ground, which

  would make it quite rare for the Crybbe area, the nearest one

  as high as that being down near Crickhowell. I have been

  over this twice to make sure. It is very peculiar that there

  should have been so many big stones in such a small area. I

  tried to date this big one, but all I could come up with was

  1593 when it was destroyed. It seemed certain to me that this

  was done quite deliberately, the whole thing taken out and

  broken up. This was all quite systematic, like the burning

  down of monasteries during the Reformation.

  What intrigues me is how this Goff could have obtained

  the information about there having been stones here when even

  I had never heard of them. Sometimes I feel quite excited by

  all this, it is undoubtedly the most remarkable discovery of

  prehistoric remains in this country for many years, even if the

  archaeologists will never accept it. At other times, however,

  I do get quite a bad feeling that something here is not right,

  although I cannot put my finger on it. I have always disliked

  the Tump for some reason. Some places are naturally negative,

  although perhaps 'natural' is not the word I want. The Welsh

  border is a very funny place, but I am sure there is a good

  scientific explanation.

  The last entry. Neatly dated and a line drawn under it. Two days later Henry Kettle was lying dead in his car under Crybbe Tump.

  It was dark when Powys got back to Hereford. He lugged the box files up the stairs to his little flat above Trackways and left them in the middle of the floor, unopened. It would take months to explore that lot.

  Bui he was committed now.

  He went down to the shop and put on the lights. From his photograph, Alfred Watkins frowned down on the counter, Powys could see why: Annie had put the box of 'healing' crystals on display.

  He wrote out a note and left it wedged under the crystals box.

  Dear Annie,

  Please hold fort until whenever. I'll call you. Don't light

  too many joss-sticks.

  Feeling a need
to explain, he added,

  Gone to Crybbe.

  P.S. Don't get the wrong idea. It might be old, but it's

  not golden.

  When he put out the lights in the shop, he noticed the answering machine winking red.

  A woman's low, resonant voice.

  'J. M. Powys, this is Rachel Wade at Crybbe Court. I wanted to remind you about Friday. I'd be grateful if you could call back on Crybbe 689, which is the Cock Hotel or 563, our new office at Crybbe Court. Leave a message if I'm not around. Things are a little chaotic at present, but we'd very much like to hear from you. If you can't make it on Friday, we could arrange another day. Just please call me.'

  'I'll be there,' Powys said to the machine. 'OK?'

  He went upstairs to bed and couldn't sleep. He'd seen Henry barely half a dozen times in the past ten years. If the old guy really had left him his house to underline his feelings about Crybbe then they had to be more than passing fears.

  'What have you dumped on me, Henry?" he kept asking the ceiling. And when he fell asleep he dreamt about the Bottle Stone.

  CHAPTER VII

  The following day was overcast, the sky straining with rain that never seemed to fall. After breakfast, Jimmy Preece, gnarled old Mayor of Crybbe, went to see his son.

  He found Jack tinkering with the tractor in the farmyard, his eldest grandson, Jonathon, looking on, shaking his head.

  'Always the same,' Jack grunted. 'Just when you need it. Mornin', Father.'

  'I been telling him,' Jonathon said. 'Get a new one. False economy. This thing gets us through haymaking, I'll be very surprised indeed.'

  Jimmy Preece shook his head, then he nodded, so that neither of them would be sure which one he was agreeing with.

  'Got to take an overview,' said Jonathon, this year's chairman of the Crybbe and District Young Farmers' Club. 'Goin' from day to day don't work any more.'

  'Break off a minute, will you?' Jimmy said. 'Come in the 'ouse. I want a bit of advice.'

  He knew that'd get them. Jack straightened up, tossed his spanner into the metal toolbox and walked off without a word across the farmyard to the back door. 'Warren!' he roared. 'Put that bloody guitar down and make some tea.'

  In the kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil, Warren whipped the letter out of his back pocket and read it through again. He'd thought at first it might have been Peter, the drummer pulling his pisser again. But where would Peter have got hold of Epidemic headed notepaper?

  Dear Mr Preece,

  Thank you for sending us the cassette of FATAL

  ACCIDENT, which I return.

  Max Goff has listened with interest to your songs and

  believes then could be considerable potential here . . .

  It was signed by this Rachel Wade, the snooty tart Warren had seen driving Max Goff around. It had to be genuine.

  Well, fuck, what had he got to be surprised about? Max Goff hadn't got where he was today without he could spot a good band when he heard one.

  Have to get working, then. Have to get a few more numbers together. Get on the phone to the boys, soon as the old man and bloody Jonathon were out the way.

  Warren took their tea. They were sprawled around the big living-room, grandad getting his knackered old pipe out. Looked like the start of a long session, and the phone was in the same room. Warren was nearly grinding his teeth in frustration.

  Stuff this, he'd walk into town and use the phone box by the post office. He left the tray of mugs on a stool and cleared out quick, before the old man could come up with some filthy old job for him.

  Out in the hallway, though, he stopped, having second thoughts. Warren liked to know about things. He tramped loudly to the main door, kicked it shut, then crept quietly back and stood by the living-room door, listening.

  And soon he was bloody glad he had.

  Fay had decided that what she must do, for a start, was get her dad out of the town for a few hours so she could talk to him. Really talk.

  It seemed ridiculous that she couldn't do this in the house but that was how it was. Often, in Crybbe, you simply couldn't seem to approach things directly. There were whole periods when everything you tried to do or say was somehow deflected.

  In the same way, she felt the place smothered your natural curiosity, made the urge to find out - the act of wanting to know - seem just too much trouble.

  It wasn't that the air was in any way soporific, she thought unlocking the Fiesta. Not like the famous country air was supposed to be, or the dreamy blue ozone at the seaside that sent you drifting off at night on waves of healthy contentment.

  Here, it was as if the atmosphere itself was feeding off you, quietly extracting your vital juices, sapping your mental energy, so that you crawled into bed and lay there like a dried out husk.

  Had the air done this to the people? Or had the people done it to the air?

  Or was it just her, living with an old man whose mind was seizing up.

  Fay gave him a blast on the horn. Come on. Dad, you're not changing your mind now.

  In the local paper she'd found a story about people in a village fifteen miles away receiving some kind of conservation award for adopting their local railway station, planting flowers on the embankments, that kind of thing. Ashpole had agreed it would probably make a nice little soft package. End of the programme stuff, keep it down to four minutes max.

  From the back seat, Arnold barked. It was a gruff, throaty bark, and his jaws clamped down on it as soon as it was out. It was the first one Fay had ever heard him produce. He must be settling in. She leaned over and ruffled his big ears, pleased.

  Alex emerged by the front door at last. It had been far from easy persuading him to come with her, even though he did seem much better today, more aware.

  He sat with his hands on his lap as she drove them out of town, on the Welsh side. 'Hope you know a decent pub over there, my child.'

  'We'll find one.'

  The sky was brightening as she drove into the hills, the border roads unravelling through featureless forestry, then open fields with sheep, a few cows, sparse sprinklings of cottages, farm buildings and bungalows.

  The little railway station was on the single-track Heart of Wales line, which went on to Shrewsbury. It wasn't much more than a halt, with a wooden bench and a waiting room the size of a bus-shelter.

  Fay had arranged to meet the Secretary of this enthusiastic committee which existed to defend the unprofitable line against what seemed to be a constant threat of imminent closure by British Rail. He turned out to be a genial guy and a good talker, and he'd brought along a couple of villagers who spent their weekends sprucing up the station surrounds, cutting back verges, planting bulbs. They were friendly and self-deprecating.

  In Crybbe it would have to have been the newcomers who took the job on. But Crybbe didn't have a station, anyway. Only B-roads.

  Interviews done, she stood for a moment at the edge of the line, looking out towards the hills and thinking what a quiet, serene place this actually was. Untampered with. All the old patterns still apparent.

  A buzzard glided overhead, then banked off like a World War II fighter, flashing the white blotches under its wings.

  She thought, it's me. All this is wonderful. It isn't mean and tight and stifling at all. I'm just a sour bitch who thinks she's had a raw deal, and I'm blaming the poor bloody border country.

  Alex was in the car, white beard brushing his Guardian as he read, still managing without glasses at pushing ninety. He was wearing a baggy cardigan over his Kate Bush T-shirt. Fay thought suddenly, I wish I knew him better.

  . . . and Mrs Wozencraft's cottage - old Jessie Wozencraft - that's his as well, he's bought that.'

  'Good luck to him,' Jonathon said. 'Old place is near enough falling down.'

  'That's not the point, Jonathon,' said Jack Preece. 'Point your grandad's makin' is . . .'

  'Oh, I know what he's sayin' - and he's dead right. What bloody use is an acupuncturist in Crybbe?'
>
  'What do they do, anyway?'

  'They sticks needles in you, to cure things.'

  'Wouldn't stick any in me, boy, I hates them injections.'

  'It don't matter what they does!' Warren heard his grandad say, thumping the chair-arm. It's the principle. Retired folk I don't mind so much, give 'em a bit of bird watchin' and a library book and they don't bother nobody, and they always dies after a few years anyway. What I object to is these clever-arsed fellers as wants to change things to what they thinks they should be, if you know what I'm sayin'. Everything pretty-pretty and no huntin' the little furry animals. And no jobs either, 'cause factories spoils the view.'

  'Market forces, Grandad. You can't do nothin' about market forces.'

  'Nine properties, 'e's had so far, I counted. Nine! Everything for sale within a mile of town, he's bought it.'

  'Many as that, eh?'

  Warren didn't like the way this conversation was going. He fingered the crisp Epidemic notepaper in his pocket.

  Jonathon said, 'Well, nobody else'd've bought 'em, would they? Not with interest rates the way they are. All right, it's speculation . . .'

  'It's not just speculation, Jonathon. There's a purpose to it, and it's not right. You heard that woman on the wireless. New Age and psychic powers. I don't know nothin' about any of it and I don't want to, and I don't want him doin' it yere.'

  'Woken a lot of people up to it, that bit on the radio,' Jack said. 'Everybody talkin' about it in the Cock last night, the post office this morning. Lot of people's worried it's going to bring the hippies in.'

  'What are any of 'em but hippies? Quack healers, fortune- tellers . . .'

  'Who is she, Father? Somebody said it was that girl who lives with 'er dad, the old feller with the beard.'

  'Fay Morrison,' Grandad said. 'Nice enough girl. Comes to council meetings.'

  'Tidy piece,' Jonathon said.

  Warren knew who they meant. Seen her the other night, coming back from the Court with that dog. Followed her behind the hedge. Spying, most likely, she was, nosy cow.