Tell.'
She looked up in alarm as something fell against the shop door like a heavy refuse sack. Powys moved across and lifted up the blind.
'Diane, for Chrissake let me in. We've got to talk.'
'God,' Juanita said, 'it's…'
'Diane, listen…' the voice still slurred but low and urgent now. 'I know this isn't the best time. But I love you. I love you Diane.'
'… Sam Daniel?'
TWELVE
They' took Sam upstairs. He was certainly pissed. But Juanita suspected there was more to it than that. Some imbalance, something which had toppled him from his comfortably cynical, nonchalant perch.
The sudden perception of a slow-burning desire for Diane?
Devastating, but not enough to do this to him. There was a kind of desperation here.
'Juanita? Is that Juanita?' Sam peered at her, eyes wide and blurred. A tremor went through him. 'I need to be sick.'
Powys showed him the lavatory and shut the door on him.
'I'm quite shocked,' Juanita said. 'I don't think I knew about this. I don't think that even in my wildest…'
'I may be wrong,' Powys said, 'but I don't think Diane knows about it either.'
'Christ,' said Juanita. 'The perfect suitor. A drunken, left-wing anti-bloodsports-campaigner. If only Pennard were here.' She collapsed into the sofa. 'OK, let's call Woolly.
Ask him to keep her there for a while. Some things need to be put into perspective.'
Powys held the phone to her car and called the number.
There was no answer.
Juanita swallowed. Her throat felt very dry. She found herself looking at one of Jim's pictures, was flung brutally back into the moments when she was ringing Jim and ringing and ringing, and he didn't answer, kept on not answering, that was when they went to the cottage.
'Juanita?'
Staring at the picture. Was it going dark? She must have told Karen, the nurse, about that when she was feverish. Karen had said next day, 'That happened to my gran the night before Grandad died.' It used to be well known. The pictures in the room go dark before a death.
'Come on…' Powys on his knees in front of her. 'Calm down, huh? Just tell me where he lives. I'll go and check this out. As soon as we make sure Sam's OK.'
'Powys, you think something's happened to her, don't you?'
'I'm more worried about you. You're not well. You're very pale.'
'I'm OK. Leave Sam to me. You go.'
'I'll leave Arnold. He's a dowser's dog.'
'What on earth does that mean?'
'Pray you never have to find out.' Powys produced his enigmatic earth mystery-guru's smile, but she could tell it was a struggle.
There was the sound of the lavatory flushing.
'And then we need to talk,' he said. 'About what that policeman said. About Jim's cat.'
'Not his cat,' she said hoarsely. 'His hat.'
On his way out, Powys spotted on the table in the downstairs parlour, an ancient copy of The Avalonian. There was a drawing on the front of a woman looking up towards Glastonbury Tor.
He recognised her at once and felt an almost-aching sadness.
Despair made a cold compress on Verity's heart as she switched off the light and padded in her pom-pom slippers to the bed
Dr Grainger had said. Go to bed earlier in the winter, semi-hibernate like the animals. And, if sleep will not come, make use of the peaceful hours to commune with the dark. Listen to the night sounds, the conversing of owls, the creaking and shifting of the house. Listen to the ancient, beating heart of Meadwell.
Verity lay under the sheets with her eyes open, drawn to the windows, two chalky-grey rectangles like paving slabs. Like gravestones in the wall. There were no owls tonight. Occasionally she would hear traffic from the main road, half a mile away, but only the loudest lorries. She wished the road were close enough for headlights to flash on to the glass.
Dr Pel Grainger would wince at such defeatism.
What did Dr Grainger know?
Rolling over on her cold pillow, aware of that painful tug her left hip.
Arthritis.
Although it would be more comfortable that way, she could not lie on her back, remembering how her mother had eventually died in the night and Verity had found her next morning, eyes wide open to the ceiling like a stone effigy upon a tomb.
Verity felt utterly lost. Almost wished that she could See.
Powys said, 'Woolly?'
The little guy dropped his shovel in alarm, spilling fragments and splinters of wood. Under the lamp projecting from the wall, his scalp gleamed through sparse hair. Behind him was a hole where a window had been.
'I'm sorry. We haven't met.' Powys felt foolish. There were shards of broken glass on the cobbles and remains of what might once have been a guitar.
He was getting a bad feeling. If Arnold had been here, Arnold would have growled that particular growl.
'Who are you'' Woolly retrieved the shovel, brandished it like a weapon. Powys swiftly identified himself.
'J.M. Powys.' Woolly smiled the smile of a man for whom everything comes too late. 'Heard you were in town. Tried to find you once. Ask your advice. Sheesh.'
He lowered the shovel. 'Been a bad night, J.M. Bad as they get.'
'We picked up your message for Diane. On the answering machine'
'Where is she?'
'We thought she might be here.'
'We?'
'Juanita Carey and me'
'She's back?' Woolly ran a weary hand through his hair.
'Shit. She picks her nights, don't she? No, Diane's not here.'
'Has she been here?'
'I hope not. Spent the last hour walking. Got a taxi back from Street. Couldn't settle. That poor woman. Kirsty. I saw her face, you know, just before they sedated her. Gonner see that face forever, man. Wiped out. How do you even start to live with that?'
Woolly patrolled the square in circles, not looking up. 'So I left the message for Diane then took off. Walked along Wearyall. One of my places. Fetched up at the Thorn. Prayed a bit, you know? Prayed to anything that would listen. Know who I felt like?' He looked at Powys at last.
'Judas fucking Iscariot. The chosen instrument of death. The Thorn… it felt hostile. Never felt like that before, man, never. Then I came back and found some upright citizen had decided to, like, express the feelings of the whole town.'
'You told the police about this?'
'You kidding? If they'd set light to the damn place I wouldn't feel I had the right to call the fire brigade. It's over. man. Not gonner walk away from this one. Don't deserve to.'
Woolly kicked away the neck of the broken guitar. Powys bent and picked it up. The strings were still
