He said eventually, ‘Who is this?’
‘Shit, it’s Chris the Pilgrim, man! You gave me my name, man – and I let you hump my old lady Rhoda in exchange!’
‘Oh, wow,’ Cedric said softly. It was coming back to him now: a bonfire dying to embers at dawn., someone singing softly to a guitar, a passionate and sweaty body under his … and a visit to the Special Clinic at Chapminster Hospital when he remembered what he’d been up to.
Fortunately the verdict was: no harm done.
But that night he must have been – a term that Rhoda had come up with, that made him laugh anew – silver-tongued! He had not only talked the dowsers out of invading the estate; he had lured them away to a spot he himself had thought of as magical when he was a kid, a cup of ground concealed by sloes and hawthorn bushes, and persuaded them that this was a proper place for celebrating rituals. Into the bargain he had conned a burly, bearded man called Chris into accepting a new name and conceding that an act of love between the giver of the name and his own mistress would be right and fitting …
A twinge of conscience penetrated Cedric’s foggy mind. He sought for proper words of apology. But before he found them, the phone was saying anxiously, ‘Hey, man, it’s nothing bad I’m calling up about! I mean, Rhoda isn’t pregnant or anything!’
Whoops! That was something Cedric hadn’t considered, though the interval was about right for paternity to have been ascribed.
‘No, I just been trying to raise Stick, and when he didn’t answer the third time, I remembered you gave us your number too, and I know you’re close, so …’
‘What exactly can I do to help?’ said Cedric, choosing his question with care.
‘Well, like …’ A helpless and confused pause. In the background someone prompted Chris, and there was a muttered exchange too faint for Cedric to hear. Then: ‘Yeah, that’s right. See, there was this bit on the TV news. Some woman with a coachful of American tourists stopped near Weyharrow last night because the bus broke down. When she got to Stonehenge she started telling the truth, man! She said all about visitors from space in flying saucers, following the ley lines –’
An interruption. He resumed angrily, ‘Okay, she didn’t say ley lines! But she said pretty near the same thing! And there’s this guy we know, works for one of the papers. He says they had this weird call tonight saying the vicar’s telling everyone the Devil is playing tricks on him, right? You hear about that?’
A dreadful sense of inevitability had come over Cedric. He felt he knew precisely what he had to say, in order to disgrace his hateful father, in order to discomfit his loathsome mother, in order to shock into his grave old Marmaduke, regardless of how likeable he might be. The conversion of Weyharrow Court into a pilgrims’ refuge was predestined. When he inherited …
He said slowly and clearly, ‘Chris, you’re right. But of course it doesn’t mean what most people mean.’
‘What?’
‘I mean when most people say the Devil what they mean is … Shit, man, you know what I mean, don’t you?’ He had run out of logic partway through.
‘You mean they mean the powers that go back all the way, the powers of the Old Religion. Right?’
‘Yes, I do!’ cried Cedric gratefully. ‘And they’re breaking out all over! Why, in court today my own father called for people to be hanged for stealing sheep!’
‘Hey, we heard about that …’ A muted discussion away from the mouthpiece. Cedric waited in frantic impatience.
‘You still there, man? We best get off this phone – we borrowed it kind of unofficially … But what you said made up our minds. Doesn’t matter what kind of power it is, we want to be there when it happens. We’re taking to the road right now!’
‘Fantastic!’ Cedric breathed. ‘I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.’
‘Same here, man. And same from Rhoda. She says you’re a great lay and if you ask again she won’t say no … Hey, just one more thing.’
‘Yes?’
‘Does Stick still grow that fine grass?’
‘Man!’ – in a properly reproving tone. ‘Don’t you know better than to say that on the phone?’
‘Ah, shit. You’re right. But I’m pretty stoned … You too?’
‘Me too,’ said Cedric solemnly. ‘See you tomorrow. And – hey!’
‘Yes?’
‘Spread the word! Get everybody here you can!’
‘Sure, man! Think we’d keep this kind of news to ourselves? See you tomorrow!’
‘See you!’ Cedric echoed.
And set down the phone, his whole being atingle with a sensation like an electric charge.
Oh, when Chris and his pilgrims got here … and the other people they would undoubtedly rope in … Weyharrow was going to be shocked out of its genteel rubber boots!
As for the impact on his family –!
‘Wasn’t that Marge Grewsam?’ His mother was looking out of the dining-room door.
‘No. It was a wrong number,’ Cedric said composedly.
‘A wrong number? And you were on the phone that long?’
‘Some wrong numbers,’ Cedric murmured, ‘are more interesting than right ones … I think I’ll call it a day. Good night!’
8
Save for the squalling of Rufus the tomcat, who fell silent in the end, the zone around Weyharrow Green was quiet during the early hours of Friday. Several lights stayed on late, because a good few unemployed teenagers saw no reason to get up before noon despite the trap of habit their parents were caught in. Thanks to them, whispers of the BBC’S all-night radio broadcast competed with but failed to outdo the clatter of raindrops. For the most part affairs seemed to have returned to normal.
It was about four, just after the rain moved eastward and a warmer drier belt of air replaced it, that a slow and smoky bus crossed the bridge and halted beside the green.
Cries of ‘Shush!’ and ‘Keep your voice down!’, plus the noise of luggage being disembarked, ensured that local residents were roused. Some peered through their curtains; seeing a bus, perhaps they remembered that another such had broken down nearby last night, as reported on the TV news, and went back to bed under the impression that Tom or Fred Fidger would turn out and fix it when called for.
Dawn therefore broke – dry and bright like yesterday – before anyone paid serious attention to the change that Jenny Severance had wrought on the fortunes of Weyharrow … thanks to that reporter in London who had heard about her call and remembered that Chris and Rhoda knew the place.
Producing, to the horror of most of the villagers, who had imagined themselves free until next spring of the folk whom Vic Draycock had nicknamed pilgrims, a mushroom-like copse of tents on the green, followed within the hour by campers with sleeping-bags and ground-sheets on the river-bank beside the Marriage, and during the morning by a further influx that at noon exceeded sixty.
It was around six-thirty that the visitors began to rap on local doors, begging for water because they’d tried the village pump and found it no more than a memorial. Many of them had been to Weyharrow before, if only for the last summer solstice, and they remembered who then had or had not made them welcome. The ‘nots’ were the more numerous.
One door the visitors tried, behind Miss Knabbe’s cottage, proved to be unlocked. Two of them entered circumspectly and filled plastic canisters at her kitchen sink.
On their departure, they let in a cat who came purring round their ankles. It looked as though he must belong here, for he headed straight for a waiting saucer of milk.
Leaving a window ajar so he could get out again, they shut the door carefully behind them and rejoined their friends. By then, other volunteers had built a bonfire. It so happened that Friday was the day for rubbish collection, so there was plenty of fuel. Mr Jacksett’s shop in particular supplied many wooden fruit-boxes and cardboard cartons.
After breakfast, which was basically porage, Chris the Pilgrim suggested that they check out the time of morning service at the churc
h, and sit in on the deal just in case. The proposal met with general approval. On the way, the visiting congregation encountered sundry friends and strangers who had hitchhiked from London and therefore taken longer to get here. All of them said that there were many more on the way; some were dripping wet because of the rain blowing eastward and preferred to head for the fire and dry out and maybe share the last of the porage; a few were far past caring about food and wanted only to find the pagan temple site at which enlightenment would come to them …
That handful among the visitors (and later Chris the Pilgrim admitted it was a mistake) were turned away and told to find their own salvation. But what the hell could you expect when nobody in charge had had any sleep worth mentioning?
Besides, Chris was expecting to meet Stick and Cedric, and neither had as yet shown up.
The person who did was Constable Joe Book, furious at having to turn out before breakfast. But he’d met Chris and Rhoda before, last summer, and remembered them as being among the least troublesome of the visitors. He took a tight grip on himself as he addressed them before the churchyard’s lychgate.
‘All right, what brings you lot back?’ he said at last. ‘It isn’t the solstice, it isn’t the equinox – not according to my diary, anyway – so what’s the excuse this time?’
‘Your vicar thinks the Devil is at work here,’ Chris said, keeping an absolutely straight face. ‘We know better. We’ve come to tell him so.’
‘Really?’ Joe sighed. And then, in a different tone: ‘Really! Going to kick up a fuss in church, are you? Don’t try it, or I’ll have you for breach of the peace.’
Rhoda butted in. ‘Of course not! We may not believe in the vicar’s religion, but we’re not intolerant, you know. If that’s the creed he wants to follow, we’re not going to try and stop him.’
By this time a dozen or more young men and women had assembled, some – of both sexes – wearing papoose-carriers with babies in. Under their combined gaze Joe felt more than a little nervous. He was still in mild shock as a result of what had happened to poor Mrs Ellerford. He’d never seen anything like the way she’d just frozen in her chair, with her eyes tight shut. The doctor said he hadn’t either, but then he was, for a doctor, very young. Worse still, though, the ambulance men had said the same. They hadn’t even been able to get her to lie down on the stretcher; they’d had to carry her out of the door chair and all, and lift her into the ambulance sitting up.
Weird!
And now this lot had come to plague him …
But he couldn’t very well prevent them from going into the church, and the bell for morning service was chiming from the tower. He stood back and let them mingle with the local folk who now were also approaching the gate, dismayed to see who would be joining in their act of worship.
Most appalled of all was Mrs Judger, who confronted the policeman with a glare.
‘Joe, you’re not going to let this lot plague Mr Phibson, are you? You know how he feels about these – these ruffians!’
There’s no way I can stop them,’ Joe said helplessly. ‘But I’m on my way to phone the station. There’ll be a couple of cars here before the service is over.’
‘You make sure of that!’ she snapped. They’ve started making a nuisance of themselves already, you know, what with the smoke of that fire they’ve lighted, and banging on people’s doors and begging –’
Chris had paused to eavesdrop on the exchange. He called out, ‘We’ve only been asking for water!’
‘You can help yourselves from the river!’
‘We would if it was safe. But we’ve seen the way the farmers spray their fields with poison all round here. The streams are full of chemicals, you know!’
Mrs Judger had no answer to that charge. She herself had doubts about modern farming. Instead, sniffing, she clutched her umbrella as though prepared to wield it like a club and pushed past him up the path to the church door.
At some time during the night Mr Phibson had become convinced that among his congregation this morning there would be a spy sent on the orders of his bishop to report whether he uttered any further heretical statements. Accordingly, while the worshippers settled into their pews – to judge by the noise, they were far more numerous than at any time since Easter Sunday – he peeked through the vestry door to see whether he recognized any of the diocesan staff.
He didn’t. But the sight that met his eyes horrified him. He was prepared to welcome a lot of local folk whom he hadn’t seen in church for months – Harry Vikes was here, for instance, dragged along by Joyce. Indeed, over breakfast he had mapped in his mind a short address, reminding them of what could happen to a community when its citizens neglected their religious obligations and hoping that they wouldn’t stay away until there was another example of Satan’s meddling to frighten them back.
His carefully thought-out words evaporated like frost in sunlight. What were these disgusting strangers doing here? He’d tried talking with people like them, last summer and the summer before, wanting not to be prejudiced, and found out that they were shameless pagans – amoral, drug-using, promiscuous to the point that some of the mothers couldn’t say for certain who their children’s fathers were …
Rage claimed him. He slammed wide the vestry door and, as the startled congregation rose to their feet, strode out before the altar, shouting.
‘What are you doing in a Christian church? You’re not Christians! You’re not even heretics! You’re servants of Satan, and you have no business in a temple of the One True God! Leave us in peace!’
One of the babies, startled by his outcry, began to wail. In a moment, the three others joined in. But the ‘pilgrims’ made no move to depart.
Spotting Chris, whom he remembered as a kind of spokesman for last summer’s visitors, the parson advanced on him. ‘Didn’t you hear me? Tell these – these cronies of yours to go away! If you don’t, I’m sure the decent God-fearing people of Weyharrow will drive you out, as Jesus did the moneychangers!’
Chris glanced around. Several men were nodding grimly.
‘It’s always struck us as peculiar,’ he said in a loud clear tone, ‘that nowadays your Church finds plenty of room for money-changers – bankers and financiers, leeches and parasites on our society. And professional murderers, as well. You can always find a blessing for a soldier! Yet you hate people like us, who lead our lives and hold our goods in common like the early Church. That’s why we aren’t Christians – because Jesus and the disciples weren’t! Come on, you lot. Next thing you know, they’ll be blaming us for all the people here who went crazy yesterday, even if we were a hundred miles away.’
‘The power of evil knows no limits!’ Mr Phibson roared.
Chris looked him deliberately in the face. ‘So I see,’ he answered calmly. ‘It’s got a grip on you all right, hasn’t it?’
A hand seized his arm and swung him around. A fist smashed into his face, jolting his head back and cutting his lower lip against his teeth. Rhoda screamed in terror.
Panting, a man with a sort of tent of sticking-plaster on his nose confronted him. ‘You got no call to say that to Parson!’ he rasped.
Chris touched his mouth gingerly and looked at the blood on his finger. He said after a moment, ‘Why not? Wasn’t he saying the same himself last night? Wasn’t he saying in so many words that he’d fallen into the power of the Devil?’
Mr Phibson snatched at Harry’s arm before he could launch another blow. Alarm at the violence that had exploded in his church had driven away his rage.
‘God forgive me,’ he said in a broken voice, ‘but he is right. I was possessed of the Devil at this time yesterday. Wasn’t I, Mrs Judger?’ – rounding on her.
She licked her thin grey lips, glancing around for advice. None was forthcoming; she had to make up her own mind. Eventually she admitted, That was what you said.’
And turned to Chris with an accusing glare.
‘How come you knew that? You weren’t here. You said you we
re a hundred miles away.’
‘I was. Thanks’ – to Rhoda who had passed him a hand-kerchief. kerchief. Pressing it against his lip, he went on, ‘But you don’t think that sort of thing can be kept secret, do you? We heard about it from a friend, a journalist. Have any of you seen the morning papers?’
A unison gasp of horror went up from the local folk. Mr Phibson groaned aloud.
‘Probably not,’ called another of the newcomers. ‘I remember from last summer. The papers get here late.’
‘Well, there may be a nasty shock in them for some of you. May even be some reporters dropping by in a few hours’ time. Of course, that means some of you may have the chance to make a bit of money on the side, selling your account of how a fight broke out in the church whose parson claims to be a victim of the Devil … Please be honest enough to say, at least, I didn’t try to hit back! Come on, let’s get out of here.’
He took Rhoda’s hand and led the way. The congregation parted to let them by.
Outside, Rhoda flung her arms around him. ‘Chris, you were wonderful!’ she exclaimed. Two or three other voices joined in, saying things like, Terrific, man! Outasight!’
But Chris’s expression was lugubrious.
‘I don’t like the vibes around here. Not at all. If they’re wound up enough to act like that in church, what are they going to do tonight, after dark? Weyharrow never felt so bad before. Did it, Rho?’
She shook her head. ‘We’d better try and track down Stick,’ she suggested.
‘Right. And Cedric, soon as possible. We just been following a lot of rumours up to now. We need to get some solid facts. Anyone remember how to find Stick’s place?’
‘Isn’t his,’ someone pointed out. ‘It’s hers.’
‘Anyone recall the name of his old lady?’
‘Sheila,’ Rhoda said at once.