Remains of an Altar

‘He says it’s up for discussion next week.’

‘They’ll make a decision then?’

‘The impression I got is that there’ve been no objections. The site being fairly secluded, inside the development line as laid down in the local plan, and not visible from the village centre. Perfect housing site.’

‘But it’s on a … Why didn’t you tell him it’s on a crucial—?’

‘Jane—’

‘Yeah, yeah, the council doesn’t believe they exist. Anywhere else with, like, a really major figure like Alfred Watkins, there’d be a statue in High Town, and all the key leys, like Capuchin Way, would be marked by brass plaques. But this bunch of crass, self-serving tossers—’

‘Jane, the government’s demanding new housing all over the country. And there is a case for Ledwardine needing … starter homes?’

‘And like, luxury executive dwellings fit into that category?’

Lol sighed. They’d called in at the Eight Till Late to quiz Big Jim Prosser on the ownership of Coleman’s Meadow. Jim had identified a farmer called G. J. Murray, who lived at Lyonshall, about seven miles away. This Murray had inherited Coleman’s Meadow from his aunt and had been touting it to development companies ever since.

Which was the way of it. People wrote to the Hereford Times, moaning about all the locally born young people being driven out of the county because they couldn’t get onto the housing ladder, but when they had a chance to develop some field for housing, it was usually luxury executive dwellings. Where the safe money was.

‘And, like, even with starter homes, most of them just go to people from outside,’ Jane said. ‘All the guys in my class who were born around here, they just can’t wait to get the hell out … rent an inner-city apartment near some cool shops. Or emigrate. We’re a nomadic race.’

‘Unfortunately, the council can’t operate on that basis.’

Didn’t you just hate playing the responsible adult? Especially when she was right. They really needed more executive homes, another two dozen SUVs clogging the village?

‘Anyway, it’s not going to happen, is it, Laurence? We’re going to get it stopped.’

‘We?’ Lol said. ‘We?’

‘Either you’re for me or against me.’

‘Jane, I am one hundred per cent for you. It’s just that we’re not talking about protecting an ancient monument, are we?’

‘Of course we are … sort of.’

Jane sat down and drew a diagram on Lol’s lyric-pad. Cole Hill … Coleman’s Meadow track … tumulus … market place … Ledwardine Church … ancient crossroads … standing stone.

‘… Six, seven points if you include the market place. It’s beyond dispute. If I had a big enough map, I could probably trace it all the way to the Neolithic settlements in the Black Mountains. It’s a living ancient monument.’

‘Still be there in essence, though, won’t it, even if they build on it?’

‘It won’t be visible. This is a genuine, existing old straight track, probably an ancient ritual route, right? By the time they’ve finished, the way the land slopes, you probably won’t even be able to see Cole Hill from the church any more for all these identical luxury homes with their naff conservatories. It’s a crime against the ancient spirit. It’ll sour the energy!’

‘Energy,’ Lol said. ‘That’s not something you can easily see, is it?’

‘It’s something our remote ancestors were, like, instinctively aware of.’

Jane went into lecturer mode, telling him things he already kind of knew: how the old stones had been erected on blind springs and the leys had energized and sustained the land and the people who lived on the land. How the oldest churches had also been built on ancient pagan sites because even in medieval times the people still remembered. And, of course, the leys were also lines of contact with … the ancestors.

‘The dead. Burial mounds. Circular churchyards growing up on the sites of Neolithic stone circles. The spirits of the dead were believed to walk the alignments so, in the old days, a coffin would have to be carried to the church along a particular track to prepare the spirit for the afterlife. It was a crucial thing. We should get Mum to reinstate it.’

‘It’s a theory,’ Lol said, nervous.

‘Ties in with folklore the world over, Lol. What it means is that the path through the church to the holy hill is the village’s link with its ancestors … its origins. You obliterate the path, you sever the link, and Ledwardine loses its … its soul!’

Jane sprang up, as though the ancient energy was surging underneath the cottage floor.

‘Who do I complain to? Who do I lobby?’

‘The MP? Downing Street?’ Where it would go into the shredder marked fruitcakes. ‘Maybe best to start with the local councillor.’

‘Gavin Ashe?’

‘Gavin Ashe resigned, Jane. New guy is Lyndon Pierce. Lives at the end of Virgingate Lane.’

‘Which party?’

‘Non-party. He’s an independent.’

‘Well, that’s good, isn’t it? That means he doesn’t have to follow any party line on housing, right? It’s a start.’

Lol said nothing. ‘Independent’ also meant you were free to jump into anybody’s pocket.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I suppose you could approach him on a preservation-of-heritage basis. If you show him the picture in The Old Straight Track.’

‘Erm … yeah,’ Jane said. ‘I could…’

‘Because I’d guess that area hasn’t changed at all since Watkins was around in the 1920s?’

‘No. Probably not.’ She looked uncertain, suddenly. ‘Right. So that’s Lyndon … ?’

‘Pierce. He’s a chartered accountant. Jane…’ Lol didn’t really want to ask this. ‘Coleman’s Meadow is shown in the book, isn’t it?’

‘Look, Lol, you couldn’t…’ Jane frowned. ‘Obviously Watkins couldn’t include every ley in the county.’

‘You mean, no picture?’

‘Well, no, but that doesn’t—’

‘The most perfect, visible ley and he didn’t take a picture of it?’

‘Maybe he just didn’t use it.’ Jane was backing awkwardly towards the door. ‘Maybe it didn’t come out, I don’t know. Don’t look at me in that sorrowful, pitying—’

‘So, basically, this is not an Alfred Watkins ley, this is … a Jane Watkins ley.’

Lol thought he saw a glitter of tears. This was about more than just a ley line and the soul of the village. It was also about being nearly eighteen and the realization that you were entering a world where changes were seldom for the better.

‘Jane, did … did Watkins even mention this line, or even Ledwardine?’

‘No.’ Jane looked down at her feet. ‘It’s the one thing I can’t understand.’

‘Oh.’

‘It’s the real thing, though, Lol.’ She looked up, defiant again. ‘I mean you thought it was. You weren’t just—?’ ‘Well, I suppose it doesn’t necessarily mean he didn’t find it.’

‘Now you’re humouring me. Don’t do that.’

‘No, really. He might have discovered it too late to get it into the book.’

‘You think?’

‘It’s possible. And I mean, I’m no kind of expert, but it does seem like a perfect ley.’

Jane looked him in the eyes. ‘So you think I’m doing the right thing.’

A weighty moment. For a second or two, Lol felt the presence in the room of the cottage’s last owner, Lucy