Remains of an Altar

He led her inside and spread the paper on the counter, folded at an inside news page, and, Oh God, there it was: in Guardian terms, a big spread, although – Oh God, no – most of the space was taken up by the full-colour picture.

The photographer had been standing on the stile at the bottom of Cole Hill, focusing down on Jane, and now you could see why she’d done it from that angle: Jane’s face was in close-up, unsmiling, moody, with the path racing away over her shoulder, all the way to the church steeple. They’d done something to it with a computer, shading the edges so that the ley looked almost as if it was glowing.

Underneath, a second picture showed a section of Ordnance Survey map, with the ley points encircled, just like Alfred Watkins used to do it.

Altogether, not a story you could easily miss.

Village future on the line, schoolgirl warns

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Jeremy Isles

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A schoolgirl is fighting county planners to defend the legacy of the man whose discovery of ley lines has been causing nationwide controversy for more than eighty years.

Planning officials in Herefordshire were ready to accept an application for new housing in the historic village of Ledwardine in the north of the county, when the vicar’s daughter Jane Watkins, 18, accused them of destroying the sacred heritage of the community.

Ms Watkins says a proposed estate of 24 ‘luxury homes’ would obliterate what she insists is a prehistoric straight track, or ley, linking several sacred sites including her mother’s church and the summit of what she claims is the village’s ‘holy hill’. Ley hunters all over Britain are now set to join the protest.

The theory of ley lines was floated in 1925 by Alfred Watkins (no relation), a Hereford brewer and pioneer photographer, in his book The Old Straight Track, which is still in print and something of a bible for New Agers and ‘earth mysteries’ enthusiasts. The latest theories suggest that Watkins’s leys are lines of earthenergy or possibly spirit paths along which the souls of the dead were believed to be able to travel.

However, Hereford councillors and officials charged with implementing new government demands for more rural housing are taking a hard line on the issue.

At the end of the story, a council spokesman was quoted as saying, ‘It’s a storm in a teacup. We have consulted our county archaeologist who assures us that ley lines are simply a quaint myth. We applaud Jane Watkins’s interest in local traditions, but consider this would be a very silly reason to forsake our commitment to allow quality new housing to be built on suitable sites.’

However, they also had a quote from J. M. Powys, described as ‘an author specializing in landscape phenomena’, who said, ‘Although the concept of leys has been widely dismissed almost since Watkins first came up with it, he was definitely on to something, and his ideas have been powerfully influential. There’s a lot about the ancient landscape we really don’t understand, and I’d be interested in taking a look at this alignment – which looks like one that Watkins missed, even though it was virtually on his own doorstep.’

Earlier in the piece Jane had been quoted as describing council officials as…

‘Philistine morons?’ Jim Prosser said. ‘You actually said that, did you, Jane?’

‘Oh God, Jim.’ Jane covered up her face. ‘I thought we were just having like a preliminary chat? He was really sympathetic, you know? I thought he’d come out with the photographer to interview me properly – I didn’t realize that was it, he was doing it over the phone.’

Jim stood there, slowly shaking his head and smiling the smile of a man who couldn’t quite believe this. He held out the paper.

‘You wanner take this copy, show your mother before somebody else does?’

‘Christ, no … I mean, it’s OK, she’s going out early.’ Jane felt clammy under her school shirt. ‘Look … what do you think, Jim? What have I done? Is this, like, going to cause trouble?’

‘Hard to say, really. Twenty-four houses, that’s another twenty-four bunches of papers and magazines for me. On the other hand, disturbing the spirits of the dead…’

‘You don’t believe a word, do you? You think it’s all total bollocks.’

‘Well, you know us primitive, superstitious rural types, Jane…’

‘Do you think anybody here is going to agree with me?’

‘Tough question,’ Jim said. ‘Go on, take the paper, you might need one.’

‘Thanks.’

Jane went out and stood by the oak pillars of the medieval market hall. The brilliant sun was suspended over Cole Hill, as though it was either declaring its support or making some kind of ironic gesture. Jane screwed up her eyes and looked up, pleading.

It had been like a dream. Taking herself off to the end of the playing field yesterday lunchtime and sitting down and trying to see it from all sides. Mum’s position in the village – no conflict there, she was supposed to be responsible for the collective soul of the community. And Morrell, always on about liberal causes and free speech and Amnesty International and stuff like that.

Once the decision had been made, it had been like being on a speeded-up escalator. A call to the photographer and then to Eirion on his mobile, and he’d blagged some time off and been waiting, parked down the lane, just out of sight, when she’d slipped away from the school soon after one p.m. Eirion finally dropping her off at the church so that she could walk the ley from there on her own, just to be … sure. And she had been sure.

Yesterday, the high. Today, the cold turkey.

Jane was getting a mental image, now, of Morrell with the Guardian on his desk – it was his favourite paper, normally. Folding it neatly … and then instructing his secretary to have all copies removed from the school library and the sixth-form common room before any of the students arrived. Then maybe a smarmy, self-defensive call to the woman on the education authority before sitting back to devise a suitable form of retribution.

Bloody unfair, really. Another couple of weeks and the term would’ve been over and she’d have been immune until September.

A few villagers were wandering over to the shop. Jane slipped behind a pillar of the market hall and didn’t move. She felt disoriented and distanced from … from her usual self. Like she’d taken – beginning with that first small lie about her age to Jerry Isles – a decision to become a separate person, detached also from The School and The Sixth Form.

A slightly premature adult, in other words, and it felt lonely.

The sun was hot on her head and her arms. She felt as if she wanted to walk away and fade into the spirit path the way she almost had yesterday. Or was that … was she just going a little crazy, through stress and anxiety?

Across at the vicarage she could see Mum reversing the Volvo onto the side of the road. Looked like she was in a hurry. Well, good. But she wouldn’t leave before she’d seen her daughter.

Jane raised a hand and wandered over, hiding the Guardian in the hedge. Best not to burden her with this.

Or the migraine.

Oh yeah, there was definitely a migraine coming on today.

32 A Polka for the Loonies

There were no curtains at Lol’s bedroom window. When he’d awoken, not long after dawn, the sky was slashed with red, bringing up ugly thoughts of the dead man on the stone in the Malverns.

Something Lol had not seen, but Merrily had, and Lol was lying there under the reddening duvet, thinking