The Power

by Ian Watson

  Actually her fingertip straddled the edge of some airfield. That didn’t mean too much to her just then, beyond the possible prospect of aircraft noise. The country couldn’t be any noisier than city streets. If so, then Nancy and Gareth were stuck in the mud, not our Jeni.

  RAF Kerthrop was named – she peered – after a straggly hamlet to the east of Melfort, five or six miles short of Churtington itself. Melfort was some ten miles to the west of the market town, easy commuting distance. A largish village north-east of Melfort was called Thrushy; she found a tendril of river labelled the Thrush.

  Where she’d first touched the map closer inspection revealed tight contour lines around “Hobby Hill,” like her own fingerprint left on the page. Ah, so planes most likely took off to the east and landed from that direction. No bother.

  Jeni hadn’t lived long in the countryside before she realized that behind almost every other herd of cows there seemed to lurk some item of the next world war. A radar dish, a forest of aerials, a microwave relay tower. An airfield, or camp in mothballs, or storage depot, or maintenance facility, or American township. At the latest count there were an amazing one hundred and sixty US bases and facilities in this country which was tinier than most American states.

  To city dwellers the extent of doomsday packaging was virtually invisible. Not in the green and pleasant land, once you looked beyond the scenery. On the drive to school by that main road which bisected RAF Kerthrop, and in Churtington itself, Jeni often saw almost as many Pontiacs and Dodges as British cars. Presently she had also joined CND, which was swelling out of its doldrums of the Seventies thanks to the advent of Cruise. She marched to Molesworth through the mud, from the Embankment to Hyde Park. She organized.

  And the diabolus waited to be nudged.

  Seven

  “The Social Security?” enquired Gisela.

  “Stormtroopers, Kamerad! Never heard of those?” Nell didn’t seem entirely fond of the punky German; but then, it was often hard to tell what Nell was really thinking.

  “Ah, Schutzstaffen, yes. I thought you meant…. But I am not a comrade. I am a member of the Greens. You know that!”

  “She’s just kiddin’, pet,” said Jack. To Jeni he explained, “Wey, some reporter bugger came pokin’ roond yesterday durin’ the alert. Askin’ Jiz what side o’ the German border she comes from, an’ can she prove it? She showed him her borth cerifícate an’ aal. Put up to it by MI6, Aa’ll bet. Can’t ye see the headlines? ‘HOW MANY EAST GERMAN SPIES IN PEACE CAMPS?’ ”

  “But this might harm the Easter festival!”

  “Wey, that’ll be the notion.”

  “Maybe Gisela ought to take a trip for a few weeks.”

  “Had away!” Jack flushed indignantly. “She’s not gannin’ off. She’s me canny lass.”

  Was she? Had Gisela been having it off with Jack up Hobby Hill? The red draped over the green?

  “I do not wish to leave,” stated Gisela.

  “Though of course,” said Nell idly, “any decent spy would carry forged documents, wouldn’t she? Maybe only spies have their birth certificates in their back pockets.” Belying the innuendo, she grinned.

  “That is not true!”

  “Keep your sense of humour, love.”

  “Oh come along,” Andy broke in amiably, “she’s okay, she’s kosher.” He wrinkled his dainty snub nose like a rabbit sniffing for dandelions. “Listen, I came up with some hot new chestnuts for the guide.” Andy was compiling a satiric “Rural Survival Guide” full of off-beam definitions, aimed at urban activists who fancied taking up residence amongst the hedgerows and byways. Printed and sold through CND, it ought to raise funds for the camp.

  He pulled out a notebook. “How about this one? ‘Railways: Very long narrow fields used to store rotting straw and rusty machinery.’ ”

  Nell clapped.

  “‘Farmers: Always do better under a Labour government. Always vote Conservative. Thus usually in debt. Despised by Conservative governments.’ ”

  “It’s true, it’s true!” Nell shook with laughter.

  “Ja,” agreed Gisela.

  “Here’s one for you, Jeni. ‘Fox Hunt: Has absolute right of way across all fields or gardens. Farmers welcome it as an alternative to ploughing.’ ”

  Jeni had to grin. Quite a few small farmers hated the hunt because of the damage it did, compensation or not. They would only ever grumble quietly, and pocket the handouts. “One smashed gate, Mr Wilkins? Rotten old one; call it twenty quid? Two dead sheep; bolted in panic, stifled in a ditch? Seventy apiece, deadweight price? Chuck ’em in the back for the dawgs’ dinner.” After every meet a Land Rover toured the route handing out cash.

  Jack hawked in disgust. “Yer bugger!”

  “What’s up with you?” asked Nell. “We run out of vege-burgers?”

  Jack jerked a thumb. “Jeni brought us some readin’ matter.”

  Just then from up Hobby Hill way they heard a furious baying and yapping. Moments later a russet missile came streaking down the lane – and a large fox rushed heedlessly through their midst, almost hitting Bess. The labrador lurched about, barking excitedly, uncertain exactly what was happening since the fugitive had reached the main road already. Almost, the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

  Hot on the scent and the sight of the fox the hounds erupted down the bridlepath. Thirty, forty baying brown and white beasts; a slavering panting stampede of bared teeth and straining limbs. The campers scattered to the sidelines, ducking behind caravans and under trees – with Mal managing to grab hold of Bess’s collar; Bess was raving now. Mitzi had snatched up a spade; to do what?

  The avalanche crashed through the camp, toppling table and chairs. Jeni’s documents flew, to be trampled and shredded under clawed paws.

  And then the first riders came, heads ducked to avoid low boughs as their mounts thundered down the lane – massive mounts. Calls and halloos rang from the field to the west. Most riders had kept to the open ground. But four – no, eight – chased the pack down the bridlepath. Black hats, flushed red faces, boots and smart jackets and whips.

  “Out of our way!” as the first hunter smashed by.

  The next rider’s distorted features looked like a case of polar frostbite. The man who followed sported open duelling scars welling thinly with fresh blood where twigs had whipped his cheeks; he seemed oblivious of the wounds.

  And here came beef-faced Mrs Parkes – who glanced at Jeni with blank indifference as though she had never seen her before in her life; blood-lust blinded the woman.

  “Control that dog!” a rider bellowed at Mal, who was struggling with Bess.

  “Frigging bastards!” shrieked Mitzi. A stinging flick of a whip made her drop her spade.

  “You’re blockin’! Damn this tinker trash!” A caravan window shattered – thanks to whip butt or gloved fist.

  No more riders. The site was a churned-up wreck.

  “Damn well ought to pay” vowed Mal, reluctant to let Bess loose yet.

  Pay? Oh yes, thought Jeni. Paying peace campers for smashed glass and crocks and a buggered-up site might be a different kettle of fish from compensating farmers. Very likely!

  Pay.

  Pay.

  She and Jack – and Mitzi, Nell, and Andy – ran along to the road. Mal was left trying to shove Bess inside the rainbow caravan. Gisela had disappeared; she must be sheltering in one of the vans or the bus.

  Hardly quarter of a minute had passed since the last horse. A blue coupé with Idaho plates stood slewed across the mid-line. Other traffic was backing up – a milk tanker, cars – as the scarlet-coated MFH imperiously held up his whip while riders poured across the road.

  Two hundred yards down the field the fox was thrashing, tangled inside razor-wire. It must have despaired of outdistancing the hounds, had tried to burst through into the base. Was that torn fur, or its flesh in tatters? The red body squirmed, half-way in, contorting. Hounds seeking entry bounded, pawed, and nosed, and howled at
sudden wounds. The vanguard of huntsmen and whippers-in were trying to force the pack off the concertina of razors.

  Pay!

  Jeni experienced such a wash of hatred, as if she’d tapped some deep hot, foetid spring inside herself, or stuck a knife into a bag of boiling filth under pressure, which now splattered her, staining body and mind.

  Donna. Domination.

  Not a fresh-water spring! One reeking of sulphur, rotten eggs, foul farts. A well of bubbling blood-streaked mud. She felt giddy.

  A pit had opened at her feet. Her friends couldn’t see it. Mitzi was standing right upon it, staring over the ploughed furrows. But Jeni saw. Except that the pit couldn’t be there, otherwise Mitzi would fall deep down. Down there where something moved … but didn’t, couldn’t.

  “Jesus Christ!” yelped Andy.

  Along the concrete-staked wires where horses and hounds milled, suddenly soil erupted. Blinding phosphorus brilliance razed zig-zag among the coils, jaggedly along straight strands. The fence opened. A mass of razor-wire unravelled – sharp steel whips lashed out at the hunt.

  One black hunter tossed its rider under hooves. Mounts were hysterical, with blood-lines on buttocks and bellies. A bay mare collapsed, as if hamstrung. As its head jerked up, mouth wide open, little razor blades ripped right through, tearing out its tongue in a red gush. Whinnying, howls. Screams, cries!

  The MFH lashed his horse, shouting orders. Just as a whipper-in was hauling and booting his own blood-dripping horse away, a flail of steel blades wrapped around the man’s neck. When the fellow clawed at this noose with ribboning gloves and fingers, his mount bolted. The man’s body jerked back in the saddle. For a full twenty yards the horse carried … a headless rider, upright. His stump of neck spouted a mane of red liquid. Then the corpse fell backwards over the animal’s buttocks. His sliced-off head was being kicked to and fro. All at once the lashing wires collapsed inertly.

  “They electrified the fence!” Mitzi shouted at Mal, who had just caught up. “The Yanks or MOD electrified it! And it just popped off.”

  “Garn! Without any bloody warning notices?”

  “I’m telling you. The fox hit some live wire.”

  “Yor bletherin’, woman,” said Jack. “Where are your insulators, eh? Only a feul’d put volts through that tangle. Your current would short straight to earth.”

  “So what the hell flashed?” asked Nell.

  “Hell itself,” mumbled Jeni. It had looked as if the electricity came upwards from the soil itself.

  “Eh?”

  “I feel sick.” She held her head. What had made the earth boil? She felt as though some great malign snake had surged through her guts en route from the peace camp to the fence – by way of that pit in the road, which no one else had even noticed.

  The Thrushby Hunt blundered about the field, wounded and shocked – an ambushed band of cavalry. Two fallen horses screamed. Or was one cry of animal agony a man’s? Now that the wire lay lifeless, helpers were bending over the first rider who’d been thrown and trampled. The MFH dismounted. After a moment’s hesitation he stripped off his scarlet jacket and went to lay it over a blooded rugby ball, which was the whipper-in’s head. And then the Master vomited.

  Part Two

  Eight

  To Gareth’s sorrow the All Whites, playing at home at Swansea, thrashed Cardiff that afternoon. As soon as the rugby match was finished on ITV, he pecked Nancy on the cheek.

  “I’m just popping along to the Kuzkas. Occurs to me Ed’s bound to have a power drill.”

  Nancy wanted a pine shelf put up in the kitchen extension above the work top. Awkward angle for using a hand-drill; a right sod of a job if there were breezeblocks behind the plaster.

  No such modern stuff in the lounge, of course! The big wall had been stripped to the ironstone, which had been smartly repointed in relief. Ancient beams were exposed. An authentic inglenook nursed a smouldering wood fire next to a depleted mound of split logs. Furniture was new, on credit from John Lewis.

  Nancy looked dubious.

  “If it’s an American drill, you’ll need to lug a transformer back with you.” Behind her large round glasses – white-framed and slightly tinted – her weak blue eyes swam liquidly in a wide face like two small vulnerable bowl-dwelling fish.

  Gareth reached to pat her blue-jeaned rump. His lady with the yellow, strokable curls and full sensual mouth was putting on a spot of fat. Country air syndrome; he didn’t mind. All the softer; Gareth didn’t fancy bones digging into him.

  “Be faster, even so.”

  “The Kuzkas, though. And it’s snowing.”

  “So it is. Bloody hell, what a climate. Never mind, it’s only down the street. Look you, it’s neighbourly to borrow.” (And to lend, but other people were unreliable about returning your own things.) “It’s communal. Don’t want to go round putting people’s backs up.”

  He spoke as though the American had already volunteered to lend Gareth his power drill and would be offended if he wasn’t taken up on the offer.

  “Especially not if I’m going to be secretary of the village hall,” Gareth added. “That’s your Jeni’s whole trouble, to my way of thinking. She’s into socialism out of, well – venom, not love of your fellow man. I’d say the way to convert people is to rub shoulders, not dig elbows in. Charity: that’s the ticket. Don’t you think?”

  “Oh yes.”

  These was a meeting of the Village Hall Committee that evening, a pre-AGM get-together, and Gareth had been putting in spadework for months. Not that he needed to exert himself excessively, since anyone willing to lend a hand with village activities was quickly co-opted and soon liable to be proposed as an officer. Jeni was on the committee too, and Gareth hoped that she’d become his minutes secretary at the April AGM – an extra job which she insisted she could surely do without. He felt confident Jeni would succumb, since it was a good thing if Labour Party members were seen to be serving the village with a will.

  In his heart Gareth had his sights set beyond, upon the Parish Council, and here Jeni had offended him by dashing cold water. “Hardly a great putsch becoming V.H. secretary!” she’d said the other week at school in the common room. “If you imagine any of us will ever be elected as Parish Councillors just because we do the dog work, you’re deluding yourself.” “Oh I don’t know,” he’d temporized. “Journey of a thousand miles and all that? The cunning Chinese water-drip can wear away even Tories.” “After a thousand years?” she asked archly.

  Yes, it was a good idea to borrow something from the Yanks, and he’d keep his CND badge on too. Ed and Mary Kuzka had been in the village for years. Likewise Carol Kuzka, who was a sexy minx with just the right curves in the right places. The Kuzka daughter obviously “dug” the British, perhaps provided they were ten years Gareth’s junior. Maybe Carol Kuzka would answer the door; not that Gareth harboured any ideas there. A teacher was wise to immunize himself to nubile seventeen year olds. Otherwise, trouble! Still, Miss Kuzka was the other side of the coin to those English lasses who hung around Yanks in the Kerthrop and Churtington pubs, letting their bums be fondled as if they were Bangkok prostitutes. Carol was a Brit-groupie.

  Thought of Bangkok reminded Gareth that Ed Kuzka had served a stretch in South-East Asia before he joined the civilian side. Any of it spent visiting those famous massage parlours for R & R? Exploiting Thai girls? Knowing Ed, probably not. Still, appearances deceive. He might have. Serve him right if. The biter bit.

  “Right?” he asked Nancy.

  “Carry on, comrade.”

  He laughed, climbed into his wellies, and stepped out of Old Roses Cottage. Half an inch of snow lay on Jeni’s Mini, parked further along.

  The name – Old Roses Cottage – on an ornamental cast-iron oval – had been Nancy’s inspiration. Previously the place had simply been known as The Cottage, Green Street. Now it sounded as though some lovable village character called Old Rose had once lived there and was now memorialized. (“Should put another
grand on the price!” Gareth had excused Nancy’s notion to Jeni, whose address was being changed too. “Not that we go along with this godforsaken property exploitation, you realize? But where’s the sense in losing out?”) Actually, some woody old roses – Else Poulsons and Anne Poulsons – grew in the strip of front garden.

  As Gareth hurried down Green Street he whistled the pop song which, with one amendment to the words, had become a joking anthem of the common room back in Reading: When the going gets tough, the teachers get going….

  He’d certainly got going, to a saner and gentler billet. Not that some of the pupils at John Clare weren’t stroppy no-hopers in their own way – who could blame ’em nowadays? They were still a soft touch after Reading.

  He was glad of the excuse to wear the wellies. The green boots looked businesslike, like a farmer. Thick Fairisle sweater and old brown cords completed his image; a briar pipe stuck out of his back pocket. Gareth’s curly, coaly hair was receding prematurely just as his Dad’s had done. However, this only made a broad open face seem even friendlier and more guileless. And he knew that his dark eyes had a twinkle in them.

  Alas, only Ed was at home in Eagle House, his cream Saab Turbo outside; Mary and Carol had gone shopping in the Maestro. “Eagle” had nothing to do with the Kuzkas being American – the square, heavy building used to be a pub back in the days when even little villages could keep a number of pubs ticking over. Eagle House had nice gardens behind but presented a grim countenance to the street.

  Ed invited Gareth in, so he stepped out of his boots like a courteous countryman. On his feet, thick fisherman’s socks. Ed showed him into the Snug, which still kept its old half-panelled walls with a cushioned bench-seat along one of them. Otherwise the furniture was what Gareth thought of as gothic-colonial. Two massive dark armchairs faced a TV cabinet built like a mahogany safe. A huge oval mirror framed in ornate brass veneer attempted to buck up the light. These were ex the billeting quarters for transient officers, which was Ed’s pigeon, and were imported from the USA by the furbishments office in Germany. Elsewhere in the house less troggish, overbearing furniture made inroads. Mary collected Chippendale, real or copy, as well as Staffordshire figures.