Crybbe (AKA Curfew)

by Unknown

  There was the sound of a radio from downstairs.

  '. . . local news at nine o'clock from Offa's Dyke Radio, the Voice of the Marches. Here's Tim Benfield.

  'Good morning. A farmer is critically ill in hospital after his tractor overturned on a hillside at Crybbe. The accident happened only days after the tragic drowning of his son in the river nearby. James Barlow has the details. . .'

  Barlow? Should have been Fay, Alex thought. Why wasn't it Fay?

  Alex found a robe hanging behind the door and put it on. Bit tight, but at least it wasn't frilly. In the bathroom, he splashed invigorating cold water on his face, walked briskly down the stairs, smoothing down his hair and his beard.

  He found her in the kitchen, a sunny, high-ceilinged room with a refectory table and a kettle burbling on the Rayburn.

  'Good morning, Alex.' Standing by the window with a slim cigar in her fingers, fresh and athletic-looking in a light-green tracksuit.

  'You know,' Alex said, 'I really think it bloody well is a good morning. All thanks to you, Jean.'

  Jean. It struck him that he'd persisted in calling her Wendy simply because it was something like her surname which he could never remember.

  He went to the window, which had a limited view into a side-street off the square. He saw a milkman. A postman. A grocer hopefully pulling out his sunblind.

  Normality.

  Harmless normality.

  He thought about Grace. Perhaps if he left the house then what remained of Grace would fade away. Fay had been right; there was no reason to stay here. Everything was clear from here, a different house, not two hundred yards away - but not on a spirit path.

  Spirit paths. New Age nonsense.

  But he couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so happy.

  Hereward Newsome was seriously impressed by the painting's tonal responses, the way the diffused light was handled - shades of Rembrandt.

  'How long have you been painting?'

  'I've always painted,' she said.

  'Just that I haven't seen any of your work around.'

  'You will,' she said.

  He wanted to say, Did you really do this yourself? But that might sound insulting, might screw up the deal. And this painting was now very important, after the less than satisfactory buying trip to the West Country. An item to unveil to Goff with pride.

  Hereward had returned the previous afternoon, terrified of facing Jocasta, with two hotel bills, a substantial drinks tab and a mere three paintings, including a study of Silbury Hill which was little more than a miniature and had cost him in excess of twelve hundred pounds.

  To his surprise, his wife had appeared almost touchingly pleased to have him home.

  She'd looked tired, there were brown crescents under her eyes and her skin seemed coarser. She'd told him of the terrible incident at the Court in which Rachel Wade had died. Hereward, who didn't think Jocasta had known Rachel Wade all that well, had been more concerned at the effect on his wife, who looked . . . well, she looked her age. For the first time in years, Hereward felt protective towards Jocasta, and, in an odd way, stimulated.

  He'd shown her his miserable collection of earth-mystery paintings.

  'Never mind,' she'd said, astonishingly.

  He'd trimmed his beard and made a tentative advance, but Jocasta felt there was a migraine hovering.

  This morning they'd awoken early because of the strength of the light - the first truly sunny morning in a week. Jocasta had gone off before half past eight to open The Gallery, and Hereward had stayed at home to chop logs. On a day like this, it was good to be a countryman.

  Then the young woman had telephoned about the painting and insisted on bringing it to the house, saying she didn't want to carry it through town.

  He thought he'd seen her before, but not in Crybbe, surely. Dark hair, dark-eyed. Darkly glamorous and confident in an offhand way. Arrived in a blue Land Rover.

  She wore a lot of make-up. Black lipstick. But she couldn't be older than early-twenties, which made her mature talent quite frightening.

  If indeed she'd done this herself; he didn't dare challenge her.

  It was a large canvas - five feet by four. When he leaned it against the dresser it took over the room immediately. What it did was to draw the room into the scene, reducing the kitchen furniture to shadows, even in the brightness of this cheerfully sunny morning.

  The painting, Hereward thought, stole the sunlight away.

  He identified the front entrance of Crybbe Court, the building looking as romantically decrepit as it had last week when he'd strolled over there out of curiosity, to see how things were progressing. Broken cobbles in the yard. Weeds. A dull grey sky falling towards evening.

  The main door was open, and a tall, black-bearded man, half-shadowed, stood inside. Behind the figure and around his head was a strange nimbus, a halo of yellowish, powdery vapour. The man had a still and beckoning air about him. Hereward was reminded in a curious way, of Holman Hunt's The Light of the World, except there was no light about this figure, only a sort of glowing darkness.

  'It's very interesting,' Hereward said. 'How much?'

  'Three hundred pounds.'

  Hereward was pleased. It was, in its way, a major work, lustrous like a large icon. This girl was a significant discovery. He wanted to snatch his wallet out before she could change her mind, but caution prevailed. He kept his face impassive.

  'Where do you work?'

  'Here. In Crybbe.'

  'You're ... a full-time, professional painter?'

  'I am now,' she said. 'Would you like to see the preliminary sketches?'

  'Very much,' Hereward said.

  She fetched the portfolio from the Land Rover. The sketches were in Indian ink and smudged charcoal - studies of the bearded face - and some colour-mix experiments in acrylic on paper.

  He wondered who the model was, didn't like to ask; this artist had a formidable air. Watched him, unsmiling.

  And she was so young.

  'Does it have a title?'

  'It speaks for itself.'

  'I see,' Hereward said. He didn't. 'Look,' he said. 'I'll take a chance. I'll buy it.'

  She'd watched him the whole time, studying his reaction. She hadn't looked once at the painting. Most unusual for an artist; normally they couldn't keep their eyes off their own work.

  'Could I buy the sketches, too?'

  'You can have them,' she said. 'Keep them in your attic or somewhere.'

  'I certainly won't! I shall have them on my walls.'

  The girl smiled.

  'One thing.' She had a trace of accent. Not local, 'I might be doing more. Even if it's sold, I'd like the painting in the window of your gallery for a couple of days. No card, no identification, just the picture.'

  'Well . . . certainly. Of course. But you really don't want your name on a card under the picture?'

  Shook her head. 'You don't know my name, anyway.'

  'Aren't you going to tell me?'

  She left.

  It was not yet ten o'clock.

  The Mayor of Crybbe was seeing his youngest grandson for the first time as a man.

  An unpleasant man.

  He'd patrolled the farm, checking everything was all right, collected a few eggs. Then noticed that something, apart from the tractor, was missing from the vehicle shed.

  When he got back to the house, he saw Warren landing hard on the settee, like he'd been doing something else, heard his grandad and flung himself down in a hurry.

  'Where's the Land Rover, Warren?'

  'Lent it to a friend.'

  'You . . . what?' Mr Preece took off his cap and began to squeeze it.

  'Don't get excited, Grandad. She'll bring it back.'

  'She?'

  'My friend,' said Warren, not looking at him. He hadn't even shaved yet.

  When Mr Preece looked at Warren, he saw just how alone he was now.

  'Come on. Warren, we got things to do. Jonathon's funeral tomorrow
and your dad in hospital. Your gran rung yet?'

  'Dunno. Has she?'

  'She was gonner phone the hospital, see what kind of night Jack 'ad, see when we can visit 'im.'

  'I hate hospitals,' said Warren.

  'You're not gonner go?'

  "Can't see me goin' today,' said Warren, like they were talking about a football match. 'I'll be busy.'

  Jimmy Preece began to shake. Sprawled across the settee was a hard, thin man with a head shaved close until you got right to the top when it came out like a stiff shaving brush. A sneering man with an ear-ring which had a little metal skull hanging from it. A man with flat, lizard's eyes.

  Before, it had been an irritation, the way Warren was, but it didn't matter much. You looked the other way and you saw Jonathon, you saw the chairman of the Young Farmers' Club. You saw Jimmy Preece fifty years ago.

  Now this ... his only surviving grandson.

  He tried. 'Warren, we never talked much . . . before.'

  Warren's laughter was like spit. 'Wasn't no reason to talk was there? Not when there was Dad, and there was good old reliable old Jonathon.'

  'Don't you talk like that about . . .'

  'And now you wanner talk, is it? What a fuckin' surprise this is. Fair knocks me over with the shock, that does.'

  Jimmy Preece squeezed his cap so tightly he felt the fabric start to rip.

  This . . . this was the only surviving Preece, apart from himself, with two good legs to climb the stairs to the belfry.

  'Now you listen to me, boy,' Jimmy said. 'There's things you don't know about . . .'

  'Correction, Grandad.' Warren uncoiled from the couch, stood up. 'There's things I don't care about. Big difference there, see.'

  Jimmy Preece wanted to hit him again. But this time, Warren would be ready for it, he could tell by the way he was standing, legs apart, hands dangling loose by his sides. Wouldn't worry him one bit, beating an old man.

  Jimmy Preece saw the future.

  He saw himself prising Mrs Preece out of her retirement cottage, dragging her back to this old place. He saw himself running the farm again, such as it was these days, and ringing the old bell every night until Jack was out of hospital, and then Mrs Preece caring for her crippled son, and what meagre profits they made going on hired help as he, Jimmy Preece, got older and feebler.

  He knew, from last night's ordeal, how hard it was going to get, ringing that bell. Jack must've sensed it, but he hadn't said a word. That was Jack, though, keep on, grit your teeth, do your duty. You don't have to like it but you got to do it.

  Going to be hard. Going to be a trial.

  While this. . . this thing slinks around the place grinning and sneering.

  Going to be no fall-back. A feeble old man, and no fall-back.

  'Why don't you just let it go, Grandad,' Warren said, with a shocking hint of glee. 'What's it worth? Think about the winter, them cold nights when you're all stiff and the old steps is wet and slippery. Could do yourself a mischief, isn't it.'

  Jimmy Preece seeing his youngest grandson for the first time as a man.

  A bad man.

  He wanted to take what Goff had told him this morning and hurl it in Warren's thin, snidey face.

  Instead, he turned his back on his sole remaining grandson and walked out of the house, across the yard.

  Warren went back into the fireplace and lifted out the old box.

  He set the box on the hearth and opened the lid.

  The hand of bones looked to be lying palm up this morning, the Stanley knife across it, the fingers no longer closed around the knife.

  Like the hand was offering the Stanley knife to Warren.

  So Warren took it.

  CHAPTER III

  . . . an did bnnge out hys bodie and shewde hym to the

  crowde with the rope about hys necke . . .

  Joe Powys lay on the floor still wearing last night's sweatshirt, flecked with mud and stuff from the woods and some blood from later. He was alone; she'd slipped quietly away a few minutes ago.

  The hanged man was obviously the High Sheriff, Sir Michael Wort, displayed by his frightened servants to the angry townsfolk to prove that he really was dead. So if they'd seen his body, how did the legend arise that Wort had perhaps escaped down some secret tunnel?

  Only one possible answer to that.

  It had been in his head almost as soon as he woke, half-remembering copying out the material and half-thinking, it was part of some long, tortured dream. But The Ley-Hunter's Diary I993 was there, in his jacket on the floor by his pillow, and it was still throwing out answers. Not very credible answers.

  The door was prodded open and Arnold peered round. Powys beckoned him, plunged his hands into the black and white fur. It felt warm and real. Not much else felt real.

  Arnold licked his hand.

  Powys looked around the room, at the dark-stained dressing-table, the wardrobe like an upturned coffin, the milk-chocolate wallpaper. Not the least depressing room he'd ever slept in.

  'Don't blame me for the decor.'

  She stood in the doorway.

  She was in a red towelling bathrobe, arms by her sides, hands invisible because the sleeves were too long.

  'It's certainly very Crybbe,' he said.

  Fay nodded. 'And I'm never going to sleep here again, that's for sure.'

  He'd awoken several times during the night on his makeshift bed of sofa cushions laid end to end.

  Once it was Arnold licking his forehead. And once with an agonizing image arising in his mind: an exquisitely defined, twilit image of Rachel's broken body, both eyes wide open in a head that lolled off-centre, the perfect, pale, Pre-Raphaelite corpse, Ophelia, 'The Lady of Shalott' . . .

  Lady cast out upon a Rubbish Heap.

  He'd stood up, hearing Fay moaning in the bed. 'Oh God.' Twisting her head on the pillow, 'it hurts. It really hurts. It was just numb for a while, now it really hurts.'

  'Let me take you to a hospital.'

  'I'm not leaving this room.'

  'And I thought Arnold looked a mess,' she said. 'What's the time? There's only one reliable clock in this house and I couldn't bear to look at it.'

  Powys consulted their two watches on the bedside cupboard. 'Half nine. Ten. Mine's probably right, yours is cracked. So it's ten.'

  'Even my watch has a cracked face.' Fay smiled feebly. 'I was lying there, thinking, you know, it can't be as bad as it feels, it really can't. Then I staggered to the bathroom mirror. . . And it was. It really bloody was.'

  The cut ran from just below the hairline to the top of the left cheek. The left eye was black, blue, orange and half-closed.

  'The bitch has scarred me for life.'

  He remembered all the blood on the linoleum and thought she actually looked a good deal better than the quaking thing he'd found curled up on the kitchen floor, incapable, for a long time, of coherent speech.

  'It's never going to heal,' Fay said bleakly.

  'It will.' But she was probably right. There'd be a long-term scar. This town was good at leaving scars. He swung his legs out of bed; quite decent, still wearing his boxer shorts, but he doubted she'd have noticed if he'd been naked.

  'She's back now, all right. It's her house again.'

  'Grace?'

  'She's repossessed it.' Fay shivered and held her robe together at the throat, it's like . . . When she was alive, there was this thin veneer . . . of gentility, OK? Of politeness. Now she's dead there's no need to keep up appearances, it's all stripped away, and there's just this . . . this rotting core . . . Resentment. Hate. Just don't let anybody tell me the dead can't feel hatred.'

  'Maybe they can just project it. Maybe we're not even talking about the dead, as such.'

  Fay's right profile was all white. She turned her head with a lurid, rainbow blur and her mouth lightened with the pain.

  'And don't let anybody tell me again that they're harmless. Joe, she flew at me. She was hovering near the floor - everywhere this icy stillne
ss - and then she sprang. There was a perfumy smell, but it was a kind of mortuary perfume, to cover up the rotting, the decay, you know?'

  Powys said helplessly, 'I've never seen a ghost.'

  Then what did you see last night? What in Christ's name was that? The raging black horror in the wood. He was sure the girl at the stone would be killed or die of fright, but the bitch knew what she was doing.

  'So I'm backing out of the office,' Fay said. 'Thinking, She can only exist in there. Jean Wendle said I should blink a couple of times, close my eyes and when I opened them she'd be gone, she's only a light effect, no more real than voices on quarter-inch, fragments of magnetic dust, and I hit the pause button and the voice cuts out in mid-sentence. So I took the advice, closed my eyes - and I got out of the room fast because she can't exist outside there, can she? That's her place, right?'

  Fay's fingers were white and stiff around the collar of the red robe.

  'And I'm in the hall. I've closed the door behind me. I've slammed the door. In its ... in Grace's face. And suddenly just as I'm . . . She's there too. She's right up against me again in my face. Grace has . . . had . . . has these awful little teeth like fish-bones. And, you know, the kitchen door's opposite the office door, and so I just threw myself across the hall and into the kitchen, and I . . . that's all I remember.'

  'You hit your head on a sharp corner of the kitchen table. She's right, he thought. She can't stay here tonight. Any more than I can spend it with the Bottle Stone. It was too dark to see much. I thought you were . . .'

  'Thanks.'

  'What would you think . . . ?'

  'No, I mean . . . thanks. You keep rescuing me. That's not the way it's supposed to be any more.'

  'Arnold waylaid me at the top of the street and dragged me down here with his teeth.'

  The dog wagged his tail, staggered to the edge of the bed and looked down dubiously.

  'Good old Arnie,' said Fay. 'I'd just virtually accused him of exacting some awful psychic revenge on the Preece family for trying to shoot him. Come on, I'll make some breakfast. We have to eat.'