Crybbe aka Curfew

CHAPTER I

Sometime – and please, God, make it soon – they were going to have to sell this place. And on evenings like this, when the sky sagged and the bricks of the houses across the street were the colour of dried blood, Fay would consider how they'd have to bait the trap.

On a fresh page of the spiral-bound notepad, she wrote:

FOR SALE

Bijou cottage in small, historic town amid spectacular

Welsh border scenery. Close to all amenities, yet with

lovely open views to rear, across pastoral countryside

towards Offa's Dyke. Reasonably priced at…

… what? You couldn't make it too cheap or they'd be suspicious – and with good reason.

She'd suggest to her dad that they place the ad in the Sunday Times or the Observer, under 'rural property'. These were the columns guaranteed to penetrate the London suburbs, where the dreamers lived.

They probably wouldn't have heard of Crybbe. But it did sound appealing, didn't it? Cosy and tucked away. Or, alternatively, rather mysterious, if that was what you were looking for.

Fay found herself glancing at the bookshelves. Full of illusions. She saw the misty green spine of Walking the Welsh Marches. The enigmatic Old Straight Track by Alfred Watkins. And the worst offender: J. M. Powys's The Old Golden Land, which suggested that the border country was full of 'secret doorways', through which you could penetrate 'ancient mysteries'. And lots of pictures taken through lenses coated with Vaseline and wishful thinking.

She would really hate doing this to somebody, selling the house and perpetuating the myth. But not as much as she'd hate having to stay here. And you couldn't let your conscience run away with your life, could you?

Anyway, there were some people – like, say, the Newsomes – who rather deserved what this town was doing to them.

'Off to the pub,' the Canon called merrily from the hall. 'Fay, can you hear me? I said, I'm off to the boozer.'

'OK, Dad.'

'Spot of social intercourse.'

'You'll be lucky.' Fay watched him stride past the window towards the town square. The old devil still looked deceptively fit for someone who, ever so slowly, was going mad.

He would put on a wonderful performance for the prospective purchasers, always assuming they caught him on one of his better days. That Santa Claus beard and the matching twinkle. They'd love him. More importantly, they'd trust him, the poor sods.

But before she could unleash this ample bundle of ecclesiastical charm on the punters, there was just one minor difficulty to overcome.

The Canon didn't appear to want to leave Crybbe. Ever.

This was the central problem in Fay's life. This was what kept her awake at night.

Christ, how could he? He didn't tramp the hills, wasn't much interested in peregrine falcons or otters or bog-orchids. How, for God's sake, could he bear to go on living in this no-hope town now that the woman who'd brought him here had been dead for nearly a year?

Other recent settlers kept saying what a little haven it was. Convincing themselves. A handful of retired people – most of them rather younger than the Canon – drifted into the town every year. The kind who told themselves they needed to be closer to nature. But nature, for them, amounted to a nice view. They came here not to die, but to fade out. To sit amid soft greenery until they grew frail and lighter than air and the wind blew them away like dandelion seeds.

What happened in reality was that an ambulance eventually took them off, rattling along the narrow lanes to Hereford General, twenty-five miles away. Taking too long to get there because all the roads were B roads, clogged with tractors and trailer-loads of sheep, whose milky eyes showed that they had no illusions at all about fading into a green heaven.

'Don't do it, Dad,' Fay said, just to create a new sound – three minutes' walk from the so-called town centre and all you could hear was the clock on the mantelpiece and the wheezing of the fridge. 'Don't leave your mind in bloody Crybbe.'

The Canon seemed, perversely, to revel in the misery of the town, to relish the shifty, suspicious stares he encountered in the post office and all the drinks the locals didn't buy him in the pub.

His mind was congealing, like a fried egg on a cold morning. The specialists had confirmed it, and at first Fay had refused to believe them. Although once you knew, the signs were pretty obvious.

Decay was infectious. It spread like yellow fungus in a tree stump. Fay realized she herself had somehow passed that age when you could no longer fool yourself that you were looking younger than you felt.

Especially here. The city – well, that was like part of your make-up, it hid all the signs. Whereas the country spelled it out for you. Every year it withered. Only the country came up green again, and you didn't.

Fay took a deep breath. This was not like her at all.

On the table in front of her lay a small, flat, square box containing fifteen minutes' worth of tape she'd recorded that morning. On the box was written in pencil:

Henry Kettle, dowser.

Later, Fay would create from the tape about six minutes of radio. To do this she would draw the curtains, switch on the Anglepoise lamp and the Revox editing machine and forget she was in Crybbe.

It was what kept her sane.

She wondered what kind of reaction she'd get if she told it like it was to the perusers of the property columns.

Fay picked up the pencil and wrote on the pad:

FOR SALE

Faded terraced house in godforsaken backwater,

somewhere in damp no man's land long disowned

by both Wales and England.

Fully modernized – in 1960.

Depressingly close to bunch of run-down shops,

selling nothing in particular.

Backing on to infertile hill country, full of dour farming

types and pompous retired bank managers from Luton.

No serious offer ignored.

In fact, she added, we'd tear your bloody hand off…

Chapter II

Close up, she was like a dark, crooked finger pushing out of the earth, beckoning him into the brambles.

When he looked back from the entrance to the field, she'd shrivelled into something more sinister: a bent and