There is another splintering crash from the saloon bar. Colin winces.
"You might as well let me try," says Darren reasonably. "By the time the police get here you won't have a pub left."
Colin sighs. "All right, all right, see what you can do."
"It's a deal then, the party?"
"Yes, yes, it's a deal."
Thurston, tiring of the bar-top, is starting to hurl chairs at the expensively engraved windows when Darren comes up behind him. One window is already shattered, revealing a glimpse of the quay and harbour. "That's right, mate, get it out of your system," he advises. Thurston stops mid hurl, and looks suspiciously down at him. "I don't blame you, frankly," says Darren. "If someone screwed my wife, I'd be mad too. Specially so soon after the wedding." Thurston frowns and thrusts his head forward, as if he must surely have misheard.
"That is what this is about, isn't it?" asks Darren, all innocence. "John Rook, screwing your wife? In the back of his Land Rover, out in the yard? I saw them myself, and heard. They weren't half making a noise about it. Course, I don't know if she actually wanted him to, if you know what I mean."
Thurston's eyes grow wide, as if he has been goosed with a bayonet. He begins to advance on Darren, who prudently backs away.
"If I was you," says the sous-chef, wonderfully holding his nerve, "I'd be taking it out on that Rook, not the saloon bar. That's what I'd do if someone had raped my missus. That's if he was raping her of course. Like I say, I couldn't tell."
Thurston seems to grow even larger. He also appears to have become entirely sober, only possessed of a cold rage. Without a further glance at Darren or the damage he has done, he marches out of the Ferryman. Darren hurries to bolt the door behind him, just in case.
"Okay, how?" asks Colin suspiciously.
"Told you, I hypnotise 'em. What about Saturday week?"
"What about Saturday-week?"
*
"Now remember," says Rat. "Try to cross the separation lanes as near as possible at right-angles. It'll be dark by then so you'd better motor-sail. No sense in taking chances. And never just rely on your GPS; it might fail. You can't beat dead-reckoning to give you a sense of what's going on. I wish we'd done more of that, but there you are, we haven't. You're a bright chap, you'll soon pick it up. Have you got your papers?" Thurston nods dully. "Have you got that packet I gave you?" Thurston nods again. "Right, you'd better get off. Good luck."
They shake hands, Thurston looking wistfully towards the shore. "Now then, jump to it," says Rat gruffly. "Or you'll miss the tide."
The Queen of Tenstone is moving fast, well heeled on the starboard tack and punching briskly through the short, untidy seas off the harbour mouth. Bella jumps from the Land Rover and runs along the beach, trying to keep up with her. "Wait for me," she cries, stumbling over the soft sand. "Please wait for me, I love you." But Thurston, if he sees her at all, does not change course or even wave, and having nowhere further to run, she falls to her knees and weeps bitter tears.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
"How is he?" asks Veronica. "Or shouldn't I ask?"
"Now let's get this right," says Miranda, counting on her fingers. "Both femurs, compound; left radius and ulna, simple; five cracked ribs, a tibia and a collar bone. I don't think I've missed anything. He's all in plaster of course and his legs are in traction. That's apart from the multiple contusions. He looks like one of those cartoons."
"He broke his legs?"
"With his bare hands, apparently. The IRA couldn't have done a better job."
"Will he be all right? Is he talking?"
"Oh yes, he's talking. Cursing, mostly. The nurses think it's a hoot. They said it'll be weeks before he's out. If I were Bella, I'd steer well clear of him in future. Avril too. She couldn't even manage to be civil to me and it's hardly my fault."
"What a pity. They've always been such friends. It's going to be terribly awkward with Doris."
"It's all right for you. At least you don't have to work with her."
"Work? Oh, you mean the church."
"We've got the maintenance committee on Thursday. I really don't think I can face it. I'll have to make some excuse. It was bad enough with Julius, but at least I wasn't supposed to know about that. Where is she, anyway? The Stones, I suppose. Or is she out seducing George's pigman?"
"She's still in her room. Hasn't budged since he left. You couldn't go and talk to her could you? I can't make anything of her. Neither can your Uncle."
"What do you mean, you can't make anything of her?"
"She's not making any sense. It's as if she's delirious, although she's not hot or anything, and she keeps on about someone watching her. I'm particularly worried that she's not eating. She can't afford not to eat, there's nothing of her as it is."
"Who? Who is watching her?"
"Nobody, obviously, though she does seem genuinely frightened. I did wonder if she might be having some sort of breakdown. I wanted to fetch Dr Snipe, but she wouldn't let me."
"Ugh! I'm not surprised. He's the last person I'd want to see; nasty, creepy little man. Anyway, she's in a permanent breakdown if you ask me." Miranda glances out the window, where Narcissus is dragging a screaming Primrose across the hard by her hair. She knocks crossly on the glass. "I asked after that Carol Emden, by the way, but she seems to have discharged herself. They were a bit cagey as I wasn't a relative."
"Oh well, she must be all right then. I'd forgotten about her, to be honest. Do go in and see Bella, dear. I'm sure she'll be pleased."
Miranda looks hunted. "Do I have to, Aunty? I'm terrible with upset people. I never know what to say."
"But she's your sister, Miranda!"
Miranda picks up her jacket. "It's not that I don't care. I just wouldn't be any use to her at the moment, that's all. I'll come and see her in a couple of days, promise. Give her my love, will you? And tell her Michael sends his."
When Bella finally ventures out, she sticks close to the water's edge: the slipway, the shingle bank, the foreshore. This, she has come to realize, is a cat-free zone. Indeed, it gradually dawns on her that they are never to be seen anywhere except on the heath. They don't, for example, bother her in town, or even in the village. Why just the heath?
But her favourite place is the jetty and in almost any weather she may be found at the very end of it, leaning on the rusty rail and gazing down the harbour. Here, between wind and water, she feels a little closer to Thurston. At first she expects daily to hear from him, or even see the Queen's familiar red-brown sails on the horizon, but no word comes. After an anxious few weeks Rat begins to make enquiries and establishes that he has been seen in Horta. Clearly he intends to follow his original plan and cross the Atlantic.
"He could have rung from there," says Bella, upset all over again. "They've got telephones in the Azores, haven't they? And envelopes and stamps, I daresay."
"You could go out and join him," suggests Veronica. "I'll lend you the fare if you want."
But Bella demurs. She yearns to be in his arms again but she has her pride. If he wants her, he can write and tell her so. She is not going all that way to be rejected and humiliated.
"Well someone's got to make the first move," says Veronica. "You're the one in the wrong, so it ought to be you."
John Rook, meanwhile, has tendered his second resignation, a decision greatly welcomed by everyone.
"I don't think we should replace him," says Miranda. "We were practically doing his job for him anyway, between us."
"You won't want to be mending fences and things, surely?" says Veronica. "Why don't you take on Jason, just for the heavy work?"
"Who's Jason?"
"He's been helping Rat around the place," says Veronica diplomatically. "He's been surprisingly useful since Thurston went. I daresay he'd share him."
*
Often when Bella is out walking she sees Pat, who irritatingly seems to favour the same lonely, windswept places. They studiously ignore each other's presence, slo
wly falling into the habit of taking turns to use the jetty: Bella on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays; Pat on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Sunday is a free-for-all. Neither will so much as mention the other. This hostility makes for a rather strained atmosphere among the little community behind the boatshed, but Bella doesn't care, preferring, in any case, to be alone. Only McNab sometimes calls in for a coffee and a 'wee blether', but he is mostly off on various projects of his own.
One day, Bella is wandering along the water's edge when she is accosted by a boisterous mongrel dog who promptly covers her in harbour mud. A bored-looking boy is sitting nearby, throwing stones at an empty Coke can.
"Is this disgusting creature yours?" demands Bella crossly.
"Not really, he just follows me about."
"Whose is it, then?"
The boy turns and points lazily towards the travellers' illicit encampment, now swollen by yet more arrivals. "The bloke in that caravan. He's got several."
The dog looks eagerly up at Bella, particularly at the piece of driftwood she is carrying. Bella throws it far out into the water. She is a good thrower. He rushes in and fetches it back, though he is not so keen on letting it go.
Bella suddenly has an idea. "Do you think I could borrow him?"
The boy shrugs indifferently. "Yeah, sure; just call him. His name's Scruffy."
"Come on Scruffy," says Bella, and for the first time in weeks sets off for the Stones. Scruffy dutifully follows her, sometimes casting across the heath in great circles, sometimes plodding amiably by her side. Unsurprisingly there are no cats to be seen. She knows they are still there of course, lurking at a distance among the heather, but she feels safe with her new friend.
Thereafter she always calls by the encampment on her way out and Scruffy joyfully comes to greet her. Sometimes he is even waiting patiently at the kitchen door. She is careful never to feed him – he is, after all, someone else's dog – but he doesn't appear to mind, seemingly glad just to have her company.
As soon as Bella is back among the Stones a strange thing happens. Her life with Thurston quickly becomes as unreal and indistinct as all her other memories of husbands and lovers, stretching back over the millennia. Any idea of having a separate life of her own now seems absurd. The Stones are her life.
"You're one of us now," says her mother; not triumphantly, just stating it as a fact, and Bella, though she would never admit it, reluctantly agrees.
It isn't long before Michael appears. "How are you? I've missed you," he says, full of concern.
"I've missed you too," says Bella, and finds she means it.
They snuggle together on the altar stone, watching the cloud shadows drive across the Bitterns, and Scruffy, his fur all ruffled in the wind, hunting for rabbits. "Fancy coming back with me?" asks Michael. "We haven't done the green room yet, or any of the east wing. Miranda's at a meeting."
"All right," says Bella.
*
In the half darkness Bella sits straight and still upon the dewy altar stone, her long legs twisted into the pose known as Siddhasana. The sleeping heath is so peaceful and quiet tonight that she can easily hear Scruffy, snuffling about in the furze. She realises she is happy. People might let you down, but the Ishwara never does. She will always have this if nothing else. She will always be a Priestess, her birthright. She will always have the Stones.
It is yawningly early, even for her, but this way there is at least a chance of completing her devotions without being disturbed. The Windy Pointers have long since learned to respect her privacy, but the newly arrived travellers have no such inhibitions. The Stones seem to hold an irresistible allure for them, and at almost any time of the day or night they can be discovered here, partying, copulating or performing silly little ceremonies of their own devising.
Emptying her mind of all worldly concerns, she is just beginning to contemplate the basal chakra or Muladhara (the lotus has petals of a crimson colour, bearing upon them, in gold, the letters v, sh, and s) when a shadowy figure suddenly lurches out from between Chokmah, which is Wisdom, and Chesed, which is Grace. He appears to be clutching something, possibly a beer can.
"Excuse me!" says Bella, crossly.
He turns and stares blearily in her direction, then comes and peers down at her. "Hey, cool man!"
It is the Red Indian. She has seen him around the encampment once or twice – he tends to hang out with the Womble – but not up here before. He has long since lost his headband and feathers but is still wearing the fringed buckskin and moccasins, both now shiny with dirt and wear.
Bella arranges her raven locks more modestly down her front and glowers at him. "This is a sacred place," she snaps. "If you can't treat it with respect, get out."
"Pardon?"
"Look at you man, you're drunk! Would you wander around Penchester Cathedral like that? Get out!"
The Red Indian considers this, swaying unsteadily. "Oh, right. Sorry."
Bella watches him stagger off, no doubt to spend the day unconscious somewhere among the heather. She closes her eyes, trying to regain her composure. When next she looks, alerted by some slight sound, he is sitting only a couple of yards away, facing her. He has stripped off his clothes and has taken up the exact same pose as herself, his youthful features bearing a comical approximation of trance-like serenity.
"I'm afraid you're in my way," she says; but not unkindly this time. Clearly he too is a seeker after truth, in his fashion. The Red Indian looks uncomprehendingly behind him. "The sun," she explains. "You're blocking the sun. It's just coming up, over there."
"Oh, right! You worship the sun, yeah?"
"No," says Bella, patiently. "The sun is merely a symbol, in this case of rebirth and regeneration. Through it I am daily made new."
"Cool!" enthuses the Red Indian. He comes and sits on the ground beside her, this time facing the right way. "Like this?"
"If you must," sighs Bella. She closes her eyes again, turning her face to the first, warming rays, then peeps to see if he is doing the same. He is, and for a while there is peace. Feeling it is unlikely to last, Bella is tempted to go straight to dirgha pranava, the long om, but this, though effective, always smacks of cheating and instead she begins once again the tiresome journey upwards through the chakras, working her way from Muladhara through Swadhishthana, and Manipuraka, almost to Anahata.
"Hi Bel!" This time it is the St. Trinian and Superman, the latter carrying on his shoulder an earthenware demijohn. Bella groans.
"Hey, silence man," admonishes the Red Indian. He points to the sun. "Can't you see we're re-birthing?"
"Wow! Gimme some!" cries the St. Trinian. She immediately strips down to her navy-blue woollen drawers and settles herself beside them. After a moment's reflection she stands up again and removes the drawers as well. Since she is blonde and not unattractive this immediately provokes the interest of Hester.
"Stop it, Mummy!" mouths Bella crossly.
"Stop what?"
"You know what."
Superman, who is not of a spiritual persuasion, declines to join them. Instead he leans indolently against Binah, which is Understanding, gazing incuriously about and taking the occasional swig from his demijohn. After a while the St.Trinian imperiously puts her hand out for it. She drinks for what seems a very long time, then passes it to the Red Indian who in turn offers it to Bella.
"No thank you," says Bella. She notices that it smells remarkably like McNab's hooch. Is he marketing it now? She wouldn't be surprised.
There is the merry sound of a flute and the Viking walks in, together with the Womble, the Pierrot clown and the belly dancer.
"Anyone got any weed?" says the Womble. The Red Indian leans backwards and grabbing his discarded buckskins, takes a small packet from the pocket.
The Pierrot gazes speculatively at the St.Trinian. Pulling her to her feet, he makes her do a little giggling twirl among the heather. Soon, everyone is either dancing or smoking, the Viking fluting gaily while wobbling authent
ically on one leg.
Bella gathers her things, calls Scruffy and leaves, apparently unnoticed.
"It's hopeless," she says. "I haven't been able to meditate properly for a week now. Today they're up there dancing about in the buff, would you believe?"
"Isn't that what you do?" enquires Veronica.
"That's entirely different! I'm a Priestess for goodness' sake!"
*
Bella swaying gently back and forth, back and forth and side to side, like a pretty flower in the soft breeze; back and forth, back and forth, all among the heather in the low October sunshine; a pretty flower on its pretty stalk, with her pretty new frock, such a lovely shade of softest mauve, spread out around her.
"Is that nice?" she enquires solicitously.
"Yeah, nice," agrees Michael. "Bit wet, but nice."
Bella feigns annoyance, tucking in her chin. "Humph, sorry, I'm sure."
"What? No, not that, that's fine. I mean the —"
"If you know of a better 'ole, go to it," snaps Bella, with the ready wit of the adept.
"I mean the ground. The ground's a bit damp, that's all. Don't stop, I like it."
Bella resumes her swaying. "Anyway, that's what you get for seducing me in the open."
"We can't risk the Manor, not after last time; it's too chancy. In fact, I've been thinking. How about if we get you a little flat? I'll pay for it, naturally . . . What's the matter?"
"Shush, I'm listening."
"For what?"
"I don't know. It sounds like shouting."
"It's just the travellers, I expect. There's no-one coming is there?"
Bella giggles and leans forward to kiss him. "Not unless it's you."
"Careful! You'll make it happen. What about it, then, if I get you a flat? A real love nest: en-suite shower, black satin sheets, the works. No more screwing on wet heather."
Isabella: A sort of romance Page 50
