Crybbe (AKA Curfew)

by Unknown

  She would fake it, he knew; she wouldn't want to let him down.

  But then Catrin started coming out with stuff that nobody in their right mind would fake.

  Hard against the streaming evening light, Jack Preece took the tractor into the top meadow and he could tell the old thing was going to fail him, that poor Jonathon had been right when he said it was a false economy.

  Nobody had open tractors like this any more. Tractors had changed. Tractors nowadays were like Gomer Parry's plant-hire equipment, big shiny things.

  Jack had sworn this old thing was going to see them through the haymaking, which would mean he could put off the investment until next year, maybe check out what was available secondhand.

  But Jonathon had been right. False economy. Especially if it failed him in the middle of the haymaking and he had to get one from Gomer to finish off.

  Jonathon had been right, and he'd tell him so tonight. Least he could do.

  Jack hadn't been in yet to see his son's coffin; couldn't face it. Couldn't face people seeing him walking into the church, the bloody vicar there, with his bank-manager face and his phoney words of comfort. The bloody vicar who didn't know the score, couldn't know the way things were, couldn't be any help whatever.

  But that was how vicars had to be in this town, Father said. Don't want no holy-roller types in Crybbe. Just go through the motions, do the baptisms and the burials, keep their noses out and don't change nothing . . . don't break the routine.

  And Jack wouldn't break his routine. He'd go into the church as usual tonight to ring the old bell, and he'd go just a bit earlier - but not so much earlier as anybody'd notice - so he could spend five minutes alone in there, in the near-dark, with his dead son.

  Jack urged the tractor up the long pitch, and the engine farted and spluttered like an old drunk. If it couldn't handle the pitch on its own any more then it was going to be bugger- all use pulling a trailer for the haymaking and he'd be going to Gomer for help - at a price.

  He'd be going to Warren too, for help with the haymaking this time, and the price there was a good deal heavier. All these years, watching Warren growing up and growing away, watching him slinking away from the farm like a fox. Jack thinking it didn't matter so much, only one son could inherit - only enough income from this farm to support one - and if the other one moved away, found something else, well, that could only help the situation. But now Jack needed Warren and Warren knew that, and that was bad because there was a streak of something in Warren that Jack didn't like, always been there but never so clear as it was now.

  'Come on, then.' Jack talking to the tractor like she was an old horse. Be better off with an old horse, when you thought about it.

  'Come on!'

  Could be tricky if she stalled near the top of the pitch and rolled back. Jack was ready for this happening, always a cautious man, never had a tractor turn over on him yet, nor even close to it.

  'Go on.'

  Bad times for the Preeces.

  Not that there'd ever been good times, but you didn't expect that. You held on; if you could hold on, you were all right. Farming wasn't about good times.

  He'd be fifty-five next birthday, of an age to start taking it a bit easy. No chance of that now.

  He saw himself going into the church to ring the bell in less than two hours time, and Jonathon lying there in his box. What could he say?

  You was right, son, was all he'd mumble. You was right about the ole tractor.

  When what he really wanted to say - to scream - was, You stupid bugger, boy . . . all you had to do was shoot the bloody dog and you winds up . . . bloody drowned!

  Father always said, You gotter keep a 'old on your feelin's, Jack, that's the main thing. You let your feelin's go, you're out of control, see, and it's not for a Preece to lose control, we aren't privileged to lose control.

  Bugger you, Father! Is that all there is? Is that all there'll ever be? We stands there in our fields of rock and clay, in the endless drizzle with our caps pulled down so we don't see to the horizon, so we don't look at the ole Tump, so we never asks, why us?

  Tears exploded into Jack's eyes just as he neared the top of the pitch and through the blur he saw a great big shadow, size of a man, rising up sheer in front of him. He didn't think; he trod hard on the brake, the engine stalled and then he was staring into the peeling grey-green paint on the radiator as the tractor's nose was jerked up hard like the head of a ringed bull.

  The old thing, the tractor, gave a helpless, heart-tearing moan, like a stricken old woman in a geriatric ward, and the great wheels locked and Jack was thrown into the air.

  He heard a faraway earth-shaking bump, like a blast at a quarry miles away, and he figured this must be him landing somewhere. Not long after that, he heard a grinding and a rending of metal and when he looked down he couldn't see his legs, and when he looked up he could only see the big black shadow.

  It was very much like a hand, this shadow, a big clawing black hand coming out of the field, out of the stiff, ripe grass, on a curling wrist of smoke.

  As he stared at it, not wanting to believe in it, it began to fade away at the edges, just like everything else.

  CHAPTER IX

  Although her eyes were fully open, she wasn't looking at anything in the room, not even at the microphone suspended six inches above her lips. There was a sheen on her face, which might have been caused by the heat from the single TV light. The only other light in the draped and velvety room was a very dinky, Tiffany-shaded table-lamp in the corner behind Guy Morrison and the camera crew.

  GRAHAM JARRETT: 'Can you describe your surroundings?

  Can you tell me where you are?'

  CATRIN JONES: 'I am in my bedchamber. In my bed.'

  They understood she was called Jane. She only giggled when they asked for her second name. But strangely, after a few minutes, Guy Morrison had no difficulty in believing in her. She spoke, of course, with Catrin's voice, although the accent had softened as if a different accent was trying to impose itself, and the inflection was altered. This was not Catrin, not any Catrin he knew.

  JARRETT: 'Is it night?'

  CATRIN: 'It is dark.'

  JARRETT: 'So why aren't you asleep?'

  CATRIN: 'I ache so much.'

  JARRRETT: 'Are you not well?'

  CATRIN: 'I'm aching inside.'

  JARRETT: 'You mean you're unhappy about something?'

  CATRIN (sounding distressed): 'I'm aching inside . . . inside.

  (Long pause and a mixture of wriggles, half-smiles and

  soft moans.) 'My sheriff's been to take his pleasure.'

  Strewth. This really was not shrill, plump, chapel-raised Catrin, from Bangor.

  Also, Guy realized, watching Catrin licking her lips suggestively, it was suddenly not useable footage.

  CATRIN: 'He watches me. Sometimes he comes in the

  night and I can see him and he watches me. I awake.

  The room . . . so cold . . .He is here . . . uurgh . . .

  he's . .His eyes. His eyes in the darkness. Only

  his . . . eyes . . .aglow.'

  Catrin was rolling from side to side, breathing in snorts. The tartan rug slipped from her legs. She dragged her skirt up to her waist and spread her legs.

  CATRIN (screaming): 'Is that what you've come to see?'

  'Wonderful,' Alex murmured, 'I think this is the only thing I live for these days.'

  The cool hands.

  'You,' Jean Wendle said, 'are an old humbug.'

  'That's Dr Chi's diagnosis, is it?'

  'Shush.'

  'Hmmph.'

  After the treatment. Jean made coffee but refused to let Alex have any whisky in his. 'Time you took yourself in hand,' she said.

  'No chance of you taking me in hand, I suppose?'

  Jean smiled.

  This dementia of yours,' she said, sitting next to him on the sofa. 'When I said the other night that you should relax and observe yourself, I think I was teachin
g my grandmother to suck eggs. I think you almost constantly observe yourself. I think you have a level of self-knowledge far beyond most of the so-called mystics in this town.'

  'Oh, I'm just a bumbling old cleric,' Alex said modestly.

  'This . . . condition. Unlike, say, Alzheimer's, it's far from a constant condition. Sometimes the blood flow to the brain is close to normal, is that right? I mean, like now, at this particular moment, there is no apparent problem.'

  'I don't know about that," Alex said. 'Some people would say consulting someone who communes with a long-dead Chinese quack is a sure sign of advancing senility. Oh hell …

  I'm sorry, Wendy, I've sheltered so long behind not taking anything seriously.'

  'It's Jean.'

  'Yes, of course. I ... I want to say you've made a profound difference to me. I haven't felt so well in a long time. I feel I'm . . . part of things again. That make sense?'

  'When precisely did you first suspect there was something wrong with your general health?'

  'Oh ... I suppose it would be not long after poor old Grace died. Feeling a bit sorry for myself. I'd had a spot of angina, nothing life-threatening, as they say, but my morale . . .'

  'Because Grace had died?'

  Alex sat back, said, 'You scare me, Wendy. Bit too perceptive for comfort. Yes, I was low because of the guilt I was feeling at being initially really rather relieved that she'd popped

  off.'

  He paused for a reaction but didn't get one.

  Jean stood up, went away and returned, looking resigned, with a bottle of Bell's whisky. 'Perhaps you can start taking yourself in hand tomorrow.'

  'God bless you, my dear.' Alex diluted his coffee with a good half-inch of Scotch.

  A silence. Alex thought he could hear a distant siren sound, like a police car or an ambulance.

  'I gather you've been talking to my daughter.'

  Jean rested a hand lightly on his thigh. 'I don't think she knows quite what to make of you.'

  Alex looked at Jean's hand, not daring to hope. 'And what about you, Wendy? Do you . . . ?'

  The siren grew louder. Jean stood up and went across to the deep Georgian window.

  She looked back at him over a shoulder, her little bum tight in pale-blue satin trousers. Coquettish? Dare he describe that look as coquettish?

  'Oh, I think I can make something of you,' Jean said.

  'Fire Service.'

  'Hello, it's Fay Morrison from, er . . . from Offa's Dyke Radio. Can you tell me what's happening in Crybbe? Where's the fire?'

  'You've been very quick, my girl. I don't think they've even got there yet. It isn't a fire. It's a tractor accident. Tractor turned over, one person trapped. The location is Top Meadow, Court Farm. One machine. No more details yet I'm afraid.'

  'Court Farm? Bloody hell!' Fay reached for the Uher. 'Thanks a lot.' She put the phone down. 'What do you want to do, Arnie? You coming, or are you going to wait here for Dad?'

  Thinking, what if he's here on his own when the curfew starts? Who's going to keep him quiet?

  Arnold was lying under what used to be an editing table before somebody smashed the Revox. He was obviously finding it easier to be down than sit. He wagged his tail.

  'OK, then, you can come. Need any help?'

  Arnold stood up very carefully, shook himself and fell over. Stood up again, seemed to be grinning, like he often did.

  Before leaving the office she forced herself, as she always did now, to look back from the doorway to the fireplace, the mantelpiece with its testicular clock, the armchair where the

  ghost of Grace Legge had materialized.

  She tried to avoid this room now, after dark.

  She wished she could talk to Joe Powys.

  Preferably on the ground? Away from any windows?

  Don't be stupid.

  She looked at the clock and saw it was nearly nine and realized she was worried about Joe and had been for over an hour; that was why she was sitting over the phone.

  She'd never once worried about Guy. Guy was always OK. In any difficult situation Guy would either find a way out or simply walk away from it as if it had never happened to him. Whereas Joe was vulnerable because, as anybody who'd read his book could deduce, he was a professional believer. Present him with a crackpot theory and he'd make it sound sensible - which was what made him so useful to Max Goff.

  She hadn't heard from him since he'd told her he was going to look for Andy Boulton-Trow.

  Joe was like a child in a dark bedroom where there's a monster in the wardrobe and a dwarf behind the dressing-table and the lampshade is a human head on a string and every deep shadow is alive, and he was out there now in a town full of deep, deep shadows.

  JARRETT: 'Do you live in a house?'

  CATRIN: 'At the inn. We all live at the inn. Me and my

  sisters and my father. My father is the . . .'

  JARRETT: 'The licensee? The landlord?'

  CATRIN (contemptuously): 'He'll never be a lord.'

  JARRETT: 'And what's the name of the inn?'

  CATRIN: 'The Bull. There's another inn called the Lamb,

  where Robert lived.'

  JARRETT: 'Robert? Who is Robert?'

  CATRIN: 'My man. He's hanged now. The Sheriff hanged

  him.'

  JARRETT: 'Jane, can I ask you this? The Sheriff had

  your. . . Robert. . . hanged. And now he sleeps with

  you? Is that what you're saying?'

  CATRIN (laughing, tears on her face): 'He doesn't sleep

  much!'

  Guy was transfixed. Something astonishing was happening here. No way had Catrin the imagination to conjure stuff like this.

  Unless Jarrett had broken through the inhibitions to a deeper layer of the girl . . . perhaps this was the real Catrin.

  But what about all the Crybbe references? Was it even conceivable that his production assistant was the reincarnation of a woman who had lived in this same town in the reign of Elizabeth I?

  Guy didn't understand; he was at a disadvantage; he hated that.

  Approximately fifteen minutes later he began to hate the situation even more. Jarrett had brought the character, Jane, several years forward in an attempt to discover how long the Sheriff's exploitation of her had continued, and the responses were becoming garbled.

  CATRIN: 'But I am the best of us all, he says, and he will

  never leave me, never . . . never. I'm stroking his

  beard, his hard, black beard. Never leave me . . .

  never, never, NEVER!'

  JARRETT: 'Jane, please listen . . .'

  CATRIN: 'I'll come down . . . I'll come down on you.'

  Catrin began to giggle and to roll her head again. She started to ignore Jarrett's questions. He looked vaguely puzzled by this and left her alone to squirm about for a few minutes. Larry Ember took the opportunity to change the tape and his camera battery.

  Then Catrin blinked, as if trying to focus on something, the giggling slowly drying up.

  And her lips went into a pout.

  CATRIN (with a new authority): 'Come here. I'm cold.'

  Her voice had changed again. It was affected, now, and petulant. And very English.

  CATRIN: 'Come on! For Christ's sake, Guy!'

  Guy froze. Larry looked up from his viewfinder, the camera still rolling.

  CATRIN: 'We are utterly alone and likely to remain so for

  two whole, wonderful days. How long have you got?

  Inches and inches, if I'm any judge.'

  A profound chill spread through Guy.

  CATRIN: 'There's a bathroom directly facing you at the

  end of the passage.'

  Catrin smiled. Guy thought he was going to scream.

  CATRIN: 'Don't be long, will you?'

  Guy Morrison strode erratically into shot, dragging a wire, nearly bringing the light down.

  'Fucking hell, Guy,' Larry Ember yelled.

  Guy ignored him, shook his shoe out of the lam
p wire, clutched at Graham Jarrett's cardigan. 'Wake her up. For Christ's sake, man, wake her up!'

  CHAPTER X

  It was cold in the wood.

  Still, he waited.

  The words in his pocket, scribbled in the pages of a pocket diary, kept appearing in his mind, as though the lines were rippling across a computer screen.

  'Alle the nyte came strange noyses and lytes and the dogges

  howled in the yarde and when he vysyted me in myne chamber he

  apered lyke a clowde and a yellow cullor in the aire.'

  By nine-thirty, the air was singing with tension, as if great pylons were carrying buzzing, sizzling power cables across the darkening sky.

  Joe Powys was standing by the new stone in the clearing, around the centre of the wood, a hundred yards or so from Keeper's Cottage.

  This stone, narrow, like a sharpened bone, would be on the line from the Tump, through the Court to the church.

  At either end of the clearing, undergrowth had been hacked away to form the beginning of a track. Or to reinstate an old one. He knew all about this track now. This was the legendary secret passage between the Court and Crybbe church, along which Sir Michael Wort was said to have escaped.

  Like most legends, it was a literal interpretation of something more complex.

  Something suggested by the notes he'd found in Keeper's Cottage, which had turned out to be a primitive kind of schoolhouse.

  Primitive in that there was no electricity, only candles, and it was not very clean. It smelled of candles and mould . . . and paint.

  There was a mattress and a duvet. Andy (or someone) had slept here. Like a monk might sleep in a little whitewashed cell with no worldly possessions. Or a rich philanthropist might feed the need to live like a squatter for a while to restructure his consciousness.