The Bentley crept through the busy car park of the Red Lion Hotel spitting gravel from under its fat tyres.
‘There is a space over there,’ observed Michael, pointing.
Russell parked the car and alighted to peruse the scene. The hotel or pub, located in this small village somewhere in the rolling fields of Wiltshire, radiated an otherworldly bucolic ease; an impression helped along still further by incessant birdsong. A swollen sun hung in the western sky, still high enough to produce a pleasant heat, but low enough to have lost some of its earlier power. The skies remained cloudless with not even a wisp of cirrus to interrupt the unbroken cobalt blue.
‘So this is Crop Circle Central, is it?’ he remarked.
‘You could say that,’ replied Ceres: ‘crop circle enthusiasts, new-agers, neo-druids, scientists, pseudo-scientists, documentary makers and..,’ turning to Michael: ‘scan the boots for pallet boards, would you?’ – ‘…crop circle makers. They all come here.’
‘To argue mainly,’ added Michael, ‘four vehicles contain pallets, another four contain ancillary stuff for making crop circles.’
‘Good, sounds like one or maybe two crews are here now. They’re probably in the bar, come on.’ Ceres led the others to the front door of the hotel.
‘What’s with him!?’ asked Russell, pointing at Mr. Waterstone. The cat was prancing forwards like a dressage horse.
‘There’s a lot of Earth-love in these here parts,’ replied Michael, ‘at least he’s happy! Let’s leave him be.’
Ceres, Russell and Michael entered the hotel and left Mr. Waterstone to gambol through the fields and meadows. They soon located the large bustling bar. The din was testament to Michael’s earlier assertion that this was a place to come for a heated argument. Several seemed to be occurring at the moment. Russell tried to listen in on the nearest but lost interest when he realized the participants were arguing about politics.
‘Who wants what?’ asked Russell, pointing at the bar counter.
‘Pint of cider for me, please, Russell,’ requested Michael. Ceres nodded in agreement.
‘Three pints of cider, cheers,’ Russell instructed the barman.
‘Would that be the Strongbow or the scrumpy?’ enquired the barman.
‘Is it supermarket scrumpy?’ asked Russell.
The barman pointed to a huge wooden hand pump: ‘Local brew, pokey stuff!’
‘Yes, three of your fighting scrumpies, please,’
‘It’s more than fightin’ young’un, you sure?’ asked the barman with a cynical expression.
Russell conferred with the others: ‘Yes, three of those.’
‘Alright, on your heads be it.’ The barman grappled with the wooden pump and struggled to transfer a cloudy yellow liquid into three pint glasses.
The trio took their drinks to the only set of three seats available – part of a long table that was otherwise occupied by a group of five scowling locals, their unwelcoming demeanour possibly explaining why the seats were available. This all appeared to go over Michael’s head: ‘Budge up, fellas, we’re a bit cramped over at this end.’
The five locals looked as though they’d rather hog the available space but were forced to make room by Michael’s invasive encroachments.
Russell tasted his cider: a soft apple juice flavour and only lightly sparkling. But very cold and extremely refreshing; when he replaced his glass on the table it was almost empty.
‘Boy, that was good!’ he said, wiping his lips with the back of his hand.
‘Steady, friend,’ said one of the locals, a large man with a clean-shaven head, ‘round here we use that stuff to degrease the engines.’ His companions all laughed. ‘It’s not meant for human consumption!’ More laughs.
Ceres sampled her drink, and then quickly downed it all with a complementary medley of groans and grunts. This made the locals laugh all the more.
‘Better contact Salisbury A&E department, Danny – let ’em know to expect three more admissions this evening,’ giggled the bald man. The locals were now crying with laughter. Michael took a dignified sip of his cider and replaced it on the table. The spider almost looked uncomfortable.
Russell drained his glass and asked Ceres if she wanted another: she nodded but kept her eyes on the men.
‘Two more, please, barkeep!’
The barman rolled his eyes: ‘There’s no telling some folks.’ He began once again to wrestle with his oversized pump.
When Russell returned to the group he decided to just leave his drink untouched, on the table. Ceres did the same and glared at the men. Michael continued awkwardly sipping at his.
‘Are you gentlemen crop circle enthusiasts, by any chance?’ enquired Ceres.
‘Who, us? Nah! We just come here to wind that lot up. We know it’s all just a load of bull,’ replied the bald man, who was obviously the group’s only spokesman.
‘So you think the crop circles are all made by humans?’ Ceres asked, taking a swig from her second pint.
The locals smirked at each other. ‘We don’t think, love, we know! It’s just a swindle to extract cash from gullible tourists… like yourselves… no disrespect.’ There were more muffled and echoing sounds as the locals all sniggered directly into their glasses. ‘Look at this pub!’ the man continued, ‘middle of bloody nowhere and yet it’s as busy as the bar at Old Trafford on a Saturday afternoon. Why? Crop fucking circles!’
‘So why do you make them?’ asked Ceres, casually knocking back more of her cider.
That stopped the men’s laughter in its tracks.
‘I guess you’ve been viewing some of our YouTube vids. We don’t hide the fact that we make the circles, in fact we point it out to this shower every time they announce that one of our creations is “the real thing”. They just never believe us!’
‘Numpties!’ said another man, finally finding a voice that was capable of more than derisive laughter.
Ceres nodded. ‘Do you have any pictures of your recent work?’
‘Err, yes,’ said the bald man retrieving a tablet from his rucksack. ‘We made this last night.’ He showed the group an image on his tablet. It was rather small and indistinct: ‘What you’re seeing here is only the first part of a planned set of three – if we manage to finish it all before the harvest. It’s a complex design overall, our most ambitious yet, I’d say!’
The other men nodded in agreement.
‘We’re waiting for it to be endorsed by one of their “scientists” and be featured on a documentary. There’s a German film crew and “research team” at large at the moment.’ The man craned his neck to view the packed bar: ‘I don’t think they’re in right now, but they’ll turn up.’
‘Why do you bother?’ asked Russell.
‘Duh! Packed bar! And some of the local farmers charge for access to view the circles. It all helps to keep the local economy ticking over, if ya get me.’
Ceres smiled conspiratorially at the bald man and pointed at his tablet: ‘Is this the only image you have of the new one?’
The bald man stood up and pointed to the far side of the bar: ‘See that door there, next to the gents’ bogs? Try there. It’s a sort of communal hall and it’s been taken over by the croppies; they use it for meetings and shit and they also display the most recent pictures on the walls, along with their grid references. We’re not welcome in there but you will be – they like tourists! You know.., sometimes I think we’re all in this together, us and the croppies: honourably extracting cash from the naïve and the bewildered… no disrespect.’
More spluttered sniggering into pint glasses.
Ceres rose and indicated to Russell and Michael that they should follow her into the “communal hall”. ‘Catch ya later, gents!’ she said as she departed.
‘You were very patient with them, Ceres, I thought you were going to slap that bald fucker!’ said Russell, once they were safely out of earshot.
‘Maybe later,’ replied Ceres.
The three stepped into the communal h
all taking their drinks with them. As promised, the walls had been given over to large high-resolution photographs of crop circles. More pictures, charts and maps etc covered most of the huge conference-style table that dominated the centre of the hall. Approximately twenty people fussed over the table or studied the pictures on the walls.
‘Who’s in charge here!?’ demanded Ceres in a booming voice that could not be ignored. Every head turned to look, then most turned to look at a woman with short greying hair.
‘No one’s “in charge”, dear, but maybe I can help you? Celia Browning,’ replied the woman, offering her hand.
‘Thank you, Ceres,’ replied Ceres, shaking the woman’s hand. ‘We’d like to see images of all the crop circles that have appeared since Monday, please.’
The woman studied Ceres with an unreadable expression and after a deliberate pause pointed to a wall: ‘Certainly! The most recent are on the wall there: the dates of discovery are indicated, along with their locations. May I ask what your particular interest is?’
‘She thinks we could be crop circle makers, ma’am,’ stated Michael.
‘No, we’re not that!’ replied Ceres looking at the woman, ‘we’re just naïve and bewildered tourists!’ She winked at Celia.
Celia Browning smiled and frowned: ‘Excuse me?’
‘We were talking to the local crop circle makers in the bar,’ replied Russell, by way of explanation.
‘Oh! You mean that reprobate Gerry and his gang. Don’t pay any attention to anything they say. They are not creating all the circles as they would have everyone believe. Just some of them – and they’re obviously manmade! We can tell the moment we step into a circle whether or not it is a genuine one or not.’
‘How?’ asked Russell.
‘The artificial circles show disturbed soil, snapped stems, footsteps. Even the occasional discarded Mars Bar wrapper!’
‘And the genuine ones?’ asked Ceres.
‘Blasted nodes, bent but undamaged stems, undisturbed soil, elaborate weaving of the flattened crop and atmospheric and electrical anomalies.’
A stocky man stepped forward to join the conversation: ‘Perversely a lot of the anomalous features we encounter are manifest in both the genuine and the manmade circle.’ The man had a continental accent.
‘This is Gunter Bosman,’ replied Celia, ‘he heads a research team that is currently studying the circles.’
‘A pleasure, madam, sir,’ replied Bosman.
Ceres, Celia and Bosman continued to chat for a while and Russell gradually drew away to study the pictures on the wall. One quickly caught his eye:
‘What about this?’ he asked pointing at his own and Mr. Waterstone’s creation from Monday night. This image was a daytime shot which rendered the circle even more striking.
‘Yes!’ replied Bosman, ‘a genuine masterpiece, but also a genuine fake. Human-made, unquestionably, but an example of that to which I referred: many who enter that circle report of feeling faint and their phones and cameras begin to malfunction.’
Two pictures to the left was another similarly dramatic image, although this one was a wedge rather than a full circle. It closely resembled Gerry’s image:
‘And this?’ asked Russell.
‘Another high-quality human-made formation, but, nonetheless, one that attracts orbs of light to it, and screws up recording equipment,’ replied Bosman.
‘That’s Gerry’s,’ murmured Michael to Russell, ‘let’s take a closer look at it…’
Russell nodded and moved on to study some of the other photographs: ‘So where are the real ones?’ he asked Bosman.
Everyone in the hall began to crowd around the wall-mounted pictures. Various people pointed to various pictures to pronounce them real with Bosman occasionally contradicting them by insisting that some were in fact of human construction. The crop circles that everyone agreed were genuine tended to exhibit a simpler design. In time, interest in Ceres and the others began to wane and they were left alone to study the pictures.
‘Ma’am, Gerry’s here, the 120 degree segment, mimics some of the design features of our original circle. I suspect it is the response,’ reported Michael, rather breathlessly.
‘Are we not looking for one of the so-called “real” ones?’ asked Russell. ‘We know this one is manmade.’
‘This is a human issue we’re dealing with, Russell, ergo: we’re only interested in human-made circles,’ replied Michael.
Ceres came over and studied the image: ‘Hmm, it is very detailed…’ she remarked.
‘Indeed, but this detail appears to be random,’ replied Michael. ‘The pictogram looks in fact to be nothing but gibberish! Can you divine meaning from it, ma’am?’
Ceres studied Gerry’s creation for several minutes before finally admitting that she could make no sense of it.
‘Maybe it’s not the one we’re looking for,’ suggested Russell.
‘It is,’ replied Ceres, ‘but obviously not all of it.’
‘Yes, we still need to see two other parts, right? Maybe only then will it will become “interpretable”,’ suggested Russell.
‘Yes, I suppose,’ replied Ceres, but she looked tense. Russell had never seen that before.
***