The Anathema Stone

by John Buxton Hilton

  ‘You know her?’

  ‘I’ve seen her. In the pub.’

  ‘Which pub?’

  ‘The Recruiting Sergeant. The couple seemed to command a measure of respect, which surprised me.’

  ‘It doesn’t surprise me. That’s the Brightmore pub.’

  She mixed the salad. The hard-boiled eggs had the rich orange yolks produced by hens that foraged in rick-yards.

  ‘The things you have dug out in Spentlow,’ he said.

  ‘And about the Beaker Folk.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘They are anarchists, promiscuous, drug-addicts.’

  ‘What drugs?’

  ‘I don’t know: drugs. They play rock music late into the night, so loud you can hear them at the bottom of the village. They danced naked one night at Hob’s Kitchen.’

  ‘Some of these hippies are hardier than you’d think.’

  ‘They live on Social Security – all except this man Horrocks, who teaches. They spend hardly anything in the village, and that only piecemeal – a tin of this and a packet of frozen that. They have no order for milk and appear to live on black instant coffee. That is why the village has christened them the Beaker Folk. The first thing they did when they arrived was to clear the village shop’s stock of those blue souvenir mugs with Spentlow on the side, about their only possessions, except for bedrolls and guitars. People can see those beakers standing on the window-sills, always there; never washed up. Pretty well the only furniture, except for Horrocks’s books and stereogram. They haven’t curtained the windows, and their lights are burning half the night. Anyone can see all that goes on.’

  ‘If my memory of the map serves me correctly, it would be a stiff climb, and an otherwise fruitless one, just to put oneself in a position to be shocked. Any children?’

  ‘Hordes of them. And not living in families. Everybody seems to be everybody else’s property – in more ways than one.’

  ‘And everybody else’s responsibility, too?’

  ‘Don’t be exasperating, Simon. You know you’ve no room for such goings-on.’

  ‘I’ve come across such set-ups before. Utterly misguided. I’d go as far as to say utterly revolting. But not necessarily criminal. You can’t prosecute them for trying something different. I’ll bet there’s as much wife-swapping in the Pack Horse at week-ends as there is at the Grange. So what’s the charge going to be? Corrupting the youth of the neighbourhood? Like Socrates?’

  ‘The village children are scared stiff of them. Some of the women have formed their own vigilante committee – they meet even the older ones from school.’

  ‘Don’t the Beaker children go to school?’

  ‘They run their own free school. The education committee have an attendance order in the pipeline. And one child is certainly in danger; your Davina Stott has been spending a lot of time up at the Grange.’

  ‘She’s not my Davina Stott. I just peeped in through the door of the Hall in time to be thrown into her arms. And she’s evidently a bright child with an enquiring mind. She wants to know what’s going on.’

  ‘I do wish you’d take this seriously.’

  ‘You really think that a squalid experiment in dropout living is worth an assignment for a DS in another force’s territory?’

  ‘You were quick to seize upon the Beaker Folk this morning, when we were at the Anathema Stones.’

  ‘Those aren’t the Anathema Stones. There’s only one Anathema Stone – the one that the eighteenth-century farmer carted away, and which the vicar of the day told him would be anathema to him and his dependants, because even pagans are entitled to their rest. I know I did mention the Beaker Folk. They are the ones who put up the stones in the first place. And I’m sorry, Elspeth, you haven’t established the faintest pointer to any serious law-breaking.’

  ‘But this commonplace drop-out stuff – the weird costumes, the aggressive music, the moral depravity – it would make an excellent camouflage. It’s probably better cover these days than a respectable exterior.’

  ‘Elspeth, you fascinate me. Better cover for what, do you think?’

  ‘You ought to know better than I do. Planning some crime on a big scale? Drug-running? Sabotage? Terrorism? Simon – if it’s an official secret, don’t of course tell me. But I’m dying to know. It was the Yard you rang this morning, wasn’t it?’

  ‘So much I can’t deny.’

  ‘And that’s all you’re telling me?’

  ‘No. As a matter of fact, I rang because I’d heard a name mentioned. In canteen talk. A man that Bill Clingo is anxious to chat with. I honestly don’t know why.’

  ‘Simon – I can tell you what that name was.’

  ‘Do, then.’

  ‘Kevin O’Shea?’

  ‘You’re a clever girl, Elspeth. And you have some clever friends. This man O’Shea – a big, red-headed Irishman, do they say?’

  ‘That’s right. But he’s no longer here. He disappeared some weeks ago, and it had something to do with the Stott girl. Nobody knows exactly what. But he must have written for some of his things, because a parcel was sent to him. Shirts and things, the woman in the post office says, from the feel of it; and sent to Nuneaton, but she didn’t make a note of the address.’

  ‘Well done! Bill will be delighted to know. I’d just happened to hear him mention the chap, and say he wanted to interview him very badly indeed. I’ll slip out and ring him at home. And that is the beginning and end of my involvement.’

  He let himself out to the call-box. The drizzle was persisting. Over at the Hall he could see that the lights were only now being switched off. Bill Clingo was out, so he passed the Nuneaton tip to Bill’s wife. And then, as he stepped out of the kiosk, a waiting figure bore down on him out of the shadows. He found himself entangled in a fold of the vicar’s cloak.

  ‘Mr Kenworthy – may I come indoors with you? It’s too wet to talk out here, and I need your help urgently.’

  ‘But of course. You couldn’t have chosen a better time. Coffee’s on the trivet.’

  Dunderdale looked round the shabby decoration. ‘And what sort of rent has Jesse Allsop dared to ask you for this?’

  Kenworthy told him.

  ‘He has a nerve.’

  Elspeth made a fuss of the vicar. They put his cloak on a clothes-horse near to the boiler. He settled himself in one of the fireside chairs, huge limbs monopolizing the hearth-rug, compelling eyes burning over the Assyrian beard.

  ‘I’ll come to the point. I’ve just been down to see the Colonel. I thought I’d better, since it’s so unlike him to default from parade. And a good job I did, or he’d have lain where I found him for the rest of the night. Took a nasty fall, not fifty yards from his cottage. Fractured a femur for certain, and I don’t feel too sanguine about his pelvis. Taking that Labrador of his for a walk, which he does in all weathers. He must have slipped on a stretch of greasy stone and come down heavily. I rang for an ambulance and they’ve carted him off. I don’t suppose we shall get a report before morning.’

  ‘Nasty.’

  ‘Very nasty indeed.’

  ‘It was sporting of him to have taken on the Gabbitas part.’

  ‘Especially since not one of us could pretend that he was anything but wooden in the part. Just this side of hopeless – that’s how he put it himself. But the men of this village! They’ll help the play in any way they can – short of acting. That’s what I’m coming to. You’re here for three weeks?’

  A silence fell on the diminutive room. The ticking of the mantelclock asserted itself. A piece of wood spluttered in the boiler. Steam was beginning to rise from the vicar’s cloak.

  ‘We all thought you were sensational at rehearsal tonight.’

  ‘Stage terror. It seems that that was all that was needed for the scene. I don’t even look the part. I’m long past a newly-fledged curate’s years.’

  ‘You’re a good-looking man, Kenworthy. A touch or two of fresh complexion out of a pot – the odd wrinkle shaded out
–’

  ‘Really, I’m sorry,’ Kenworthy said.

  ‘Without your help, it’s hard to see how the show can go on.’

  ‘It’s hardly fair to throw that responsibility on to me, Mr Dunderdale.’

  Kenworthy looked at Elspeth, but she was taking care not to influence him.

  ‘I don’t know whether you’ve seen the thirty-day forecast,’ Dunderdale said. ‘It’s pretty dismal.’

  ‘They’ve been known to be wrong.’

  The cloak was beginning to give off an aroma. Outside, a cat knocked over an empty bucket.

  ‘I’ll make a bargain with you, Vicar.’

  ‘Anything within reason.’

  ‘Straight answers to three straight questions. No limit to the number of supplementaries.’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’

  Kenworthy got up and moved about the room. But Dunderdale was a difficult man to dominate by a mere stance.

  ‘Main question one: was this injury to Colonel Noakes an accident?’

  ‘Difficult to tell, under cover of darkness.’

  ‘But you examined the terrain with that in mind? That’s a supplementary, by the way.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘And it would not have surprised you to find that he had been the victim of a trap?’

  ‘I fear not.’

  ‘Further supplementary: what other accidents have there been?’

  ‘The blowing of the footlights fuse tonight. Thefts of players’ scripts – or, rather, unaccountable losses of same. I’ve had to have a whole new set run off.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Pin-pricks almost too insubstantial to be worth mentioning: loss of stage properties; false messages passed, to keep players away from rehearsal; loss of the Hall key at a crucial moment.’

  There was lamentably little space for Kenworthy to perambulate. He leaned with one elbow on the mantelpiece. There was no scope to do that with dignity, either.

  ‘Main question two, then. In your list of mishaps, why didn’t you mention the theft of an antique cloak-tree from the Hall?’

  ‘Because that is a separate issue. There is no doubt who is the culprit, and I shall deal with that situation dramatically.’

  ‘And legally?’

  ‘Within the law.’

  ‘You have not reported the theft?’

  ‘I do not regard it as a theft. Rather as a gesture.’

  ‘And you had not thought of consulting the police about any of your suspicions?’

  ‘They have all been too flimsy.’ Dunderdale laughed; not with his usual heartiness; a touch of embarrassment.

  ‘And I must confess that the thought had occurred to me that with our own favourite policeman an interested party –’

  ‘Not on,’ Kenworthy said. ‘Just not on. Anything off-square is the responsibility of the county force.’

  ‘If you say so, Mr Kenworthy.’

  ‘Third and final main question, then: there are people in Spentlow who would sleep easier if The Anathema Stone were not going to be staged?’

  ‘No one is afraid of the play.’

  ‘But they are of your book?’

  ‘Some people are.’

  ‘And you can name those who have most to fear?’

  ‘That is difficult, Mr Kenworthy.’

  ‘But not so difficult that you propose to be evasive?’

  A phenomenally big man, there was artificiality in Dunderdale’s character, theatricality at more than one level of consciousness. Perhaps he was constantly striving to compensate for the ingredients of caricature in his appearance. But his next answer sounded as if it were stripped of pretence.

  ‘The difficulty lies not in what is in the book, but in what people think might be. Some people are afraid who have no need to be.’

  ‘You are wielding a formidable weapon, Vicar. But you can name your main enemies.’

  And Dunderdale suddenly resigned, like a consummate chess-player, his position of apparent superiority.

  ‘There are some who might see red: Jesse Allsop, Barton Brightmore – but it is not fair to throw suspicion on them. There are others, fringe characters, whom I do not greatly fear, but who might nevertheless have an exaggerated notion of what they stand to lose.’

  ‘I would like to see an advance copy of Hob, Mr Dunderdale.’

  ‘You shall have it first thing in the morning.’

  ‘And I have one further question.’

  ‘You are certainly making the most of your supplementaries.’

  ‘I hope this is the last. Do you in any way associate the hostility to Gabbitas Week with the society that is known locally as the Beaker Folk?’

  ‘Emphatically not.’

  ‘Good. Then I will play Wilbur Gabbitas for you. Though I heartily regret the casual curiosity that brought me within lethal distance of your Hall.’

  Dunderdale handed him the script, which he had been nursing ever since he came in. Elspeth said that she was glad that Simon had made the decision. He would make local history in the part.

  He sat for an hour and read the play through. Wilbur Gabbitas was on stage almost throughout, and there were one or two speeches of daunting length – and syntax. Once when he looked up he saw that Elspeth was sitting at the table with a writing pad from which she had already torn off several pages. He looked at her enquiringly.

  ‘Just something I’m doing for the Women’s Institute. Their next week’s speaker has let them down, so I’m talking to them about what it’s like to be the wife of a London detective.’

  ‘Let me know if you need any help.’

  ‘It’s a subject you know very little about.’

  ‘Come here.’

  ‘Simon – I’m busy.’

  It was a shabby little room. Seven or eight years ago, the wallpaper had come with the trade name Sunshine Yellow. Light was from a single forty-watt bulb, shaded under cracked imitation parchment.

  ‘This sofa is two bales of straw. The boiler can be the pump. The cooker can be an old Soyer stove used for boiling pig-swill. Mind how you tread amongst the cow pats. I need a lot more practice in this scene. Now – can you remember how she knelt?’

  ‘Only a stage kiss,’ she said. ‘I’m not having you mess up my make-up, dear Wilbur.’

  Chapter Five

  A fuller picture of Wilbur Gabbitas emerged from the play. It was pure theatre, village theatre at that, but Dunderdale had boldly established his central character; Wilbur Gabbitas had been a diffident young man, yet intense, on fire within. He soon gave up hope of making much headway with Pennine farmers. But then he met Gertrude Allsop, the spitfire hill spirit, the alleged heathen. And she for her part harboured secret envies of that world of society that she glimpsed from the nightmare precincts belonging to her bereaved and demented father. The Reverend Aloysius Carrow expostulated in vain with the young man.

  Gabbitas obstinately announced their intention of marrying; Dunderdale had written a scene of pleading and reasoning, had made heavy weather of the pharisaical disciplinarians of the diocese. The couple honeymooned in Scarborough. (The story told in the Recruiting Sergeant was that Gertrude had three times thrown him out of the bedroom window into the soft earth of a flower-bed below, before he had consented to get under the sheets and accept her instruction in the facts of life.)

  When the Gabbitases returned to Spentlow their lives changed. Dunderdale staged Gertrude dressed and coiffured for a social round in which she did not know what a comic figure she was cutting; Wilbur returned to his pastoral duties with fresh confidence. He began to be noted for his knowledge of the secrets of those whom he visited; it was clear that Gertrude was passing on much that she had learned from the years that the locusts had eaten; but she also began to coach her husband in the pagan lore of the region. Much of it superstitious nonsense, it was all rooted somehow, somewhere, in things so old that their reality had been forgotten. Then, one morning, during a visit to the school, in search of an analogy to clear up some point, he told
the children a story about the antics of the sprite who was supposed to have inhabited Hob’s Kitchen.

  Its success was explosive. On his next visit he was compelled to repeat the tale (the point to be illustrated now thoroughly forgotten), and for his third visit he had a new Hob story ready. Hob tales, tailored to the issue of the moment, began to feature in the Sunday schoolroom, too. Hob’s clans re-enacted the Good Samaritan – a wounded Glitter-Better tended by a Sopall – the time had to come when a Hob tale supplemented the scriptures in the pulpit of St Giles.

  The Reverend Carrow was uneasy. This was more than mere secularization of holy writ. Unable to ignore the gluttony of the Spentlow congregation for Hob stories, he made his curate ration them to one a month. They filled the pews. A visiting stranger saw commercial possibilities and eased the way to the publication of the book, with the pictures of little men whose ankles were all lost in grass.

  The end, though, was pathos: an evening’s laughter, ending with wet hankies. Acceptable social comedy had a stinging tail of stark tragedy. And in a Christian play, by a Christian priest, with intended Christian impact, there were strong undertones of more ancient, less reputable, nonetheless inescapable forces: Hob’s Kitchen and the Anathema Stone.

  The next morning Kenworthy woke at the upright minute-hand of six. He let himself out of the cottage without disturbing Elspeth. It was no longer raining, but the world was still damp: finger-ends reaching out from unkempt hedges, and the lane-breadth strands of Herculean spiders. The meanest tinge of ashen light in the sky behind the eastern trees presaged another grey day. He crossed to a far corner of the Green from which he could hear, and shortly hoped to see, the gate of the vicarage. He had not been there more than two or three minutes when the latch clicked and the cloak came forth, a form rather than a man, and struck out towards where he was waiting. They had made no arrangement to meet, but neither man showed surprise at the encounter.

  ‘You know where Sidi Barrani is?’

  ‘No. But it doesn’t surprise me that that’s what he calls it.’

  Dunderdale guided him into a narrow lane with a concealed entrance and a cul-de-sac sign. The surface seemed to be of buried boulders, chosen mainly because they were handy when the road was made. They passed a modern bungalow with its curtains drawn in sleep (‘The Stotts, mother and daughter’), two or three cottages at irregular intervals, the yard frontage of a mud-stranded farm (‘Brightmore territory’), and after a desert of rough fields, populated by uneasy beef cattle and deserted summer caravans, came into sight of a low limestone house with a wicket gate and smokeless chimney.