Hallucinating (18 page)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

...the joy of permaculture...

Spring is in the air and the pentuple-song-carrying quartet are making south, and they are in Wales now, approaching the small town of Llangollen on the River Dee.

Nulight is becoming just a little nervous. The year of the quest is now at the three-quarters mark, and Midsummer is approaching. British culture is giving up its most heartfelt songs, and soon they will have to stop collecting and do something. Action! Buddah, action can be a frightening concept.

Cue the Space Goats: "All of us can get together and
do
something."

Yeah, that's not wrong—but it's scary.

And again: "Arise, arise, the leaves are burning; Arise, arise, the sun is turning."

But anyway, to Llangollen. And this is a strange place, though beautiful. The quartet walk along the route of the old A5, and already they have an inkling of what delights they are soon to witness, for the winding old road is cracked and damaged, yet lined with the most wonderful cherry trees that are in blossom already; for it is mild. This has got to be new, they decide. This cannot have been here before the alien invas-

"Buddah!"

It is Nulight who shouts out. A man clad in green has jumped down from one of the cherry trees.

Nulight stands statue-like. The man is tall, smiling, strong and healthy. He wears pixie boots and has a necklace of African beads around his neck, friendship bands and a silver bangle upon his wrist. He does not seem aggressive.

"Yeah?" Nulight says. "Er, hi man."

The man walks over and shakes Nulight by the hand. "I'm Robin Goodfellow. Welcome to Llangollen. Is this your first visit?"

Kappa pipes up here. "No," she says. "I know the town well."

"My mum would have," Nulight adds.

"Follow me," Robin says.

"So long as people don't jump out at us again," quips Nulight.

"We're peaceful, don't worry. I've heard talk of you four, and I want to show you something."

"What," Nulight says, "man—you've really heard of us?"

"Oh, yes. You're getting a bit of a following. Not mobile, of course."

"You mean, people, like,
here,
have heard of our quest?"

"Of course," laughs Robin. "How could I not tell them?"

So Robin Goodfellow takes them into the heart of Llangollen, where they see a strange, green glamour. The centre of the place, the gardens, paths and roads set with slate and precipitous alongside the river, are a mass of green; all kinds, from pale and new to dark and coniferous. It is as if a long and winding forest has been planted through the body of the town.

Perched on a boulder at the top of the main street, Robin gestures at the scene. "You see," he says, "we were here years and years ago, trying to build a community on permaculture principles. But then—the invasion, and we had to survive, or die. So we offered ourselves to the people of Llangollen, we told them that they had to grow and build according to our principles, or die, because Western technology wasn't going to save them this time. And because alot of them knew about our work, and had bought our vegetables and fruits, they weren't too reluctant. So we expanded. Pretty good, eh? We expanded and we saved the community of Llangollen from starvation."

Nulight gestures at the green swathe and says, "Yeah, great man, but what
is
that?"

"A huge permaculture garden. Everything you see is either a fruit or a vegetable producing plant, or a companion plant designed to work with nature but against pests. You see, it all follows natural laws—it's organic, fertile, and, frankly, we produce so much food that we also export to communities up to five miles away."

Nulight nods. "Well done, man."

"Follow me inside the garden!"

Nulight and the other three follow the Goodfellow dude, until they are underneath the canopy. It is a wild and fabulous place. There is no order here, no straight lines, nothing neat—it is all as nature intended. A diversity of plants all supporting one another, planted with insight and precision to supply a community with food. They do not believe in weeds here; weeds are an outdated concept created by over-methodical gardeners.

The rock-strewn river runs through this garden, full and fast after winter, and there are even aquatic plants at the banks, providing still more food. The great bridge over the river is decked in green and there are faces all over it; all the same face, a man wreathed in leaves with two twigs growing out of the sides of his mouth. A green man to follow, when other leaders have failed.

"So this was all here before the invasion?"

"Many of the trees were, yes—I was responsible for a fruit initiative in about 2030 that changed the face of these gardens—but after the invasion we laid the foundation of fast-growing species, and we transplanted many of the saplings and bushes from our experimental gardens just up the road at Valle Crucis."

Kappa walks a few steps forward. In the dappled dim light she looks cool and at peace. "There's a cult of the green man here, isn't there?" she asks.

"Yes."

"And you're at its head."

Robin grins. "We don't have high priests, exactly."

Kappa nods, then gestures at the forest garden. "This is the intermediary of the Green Man."

Robin nods once in reply. "Madam," he says softly, "it is at your service."

But Nulight is worried. "Hey, look dude, don't take this the wrong way, but I hope you haven't, you know, got a song waiting—"

"Ready for you? I haven't. But knowing the Shrewbury area I have heard Samhain Memories, and I understand the power of that tune. I understand, Nulight, and I'm here for you all. Your quest is at one with me. I am Robin Goodfellow, a trickster, yes, but also something else."

Nulight is only half convinced. "You give yourself a good write-up," he remarks.

"I didn't write it. The reactionaries that I and my colleagues tricked into living green named me the trickster."

Kappa places a conciliatory hand on Nulight's shoulder. "We're just freaked out by what's happened to us recently," she tells Robin. "We're suspicious of good things."

"I'm only suspicious of bad things." He takes four wooden brooches from his pocket and hands them over. "Wear these for as long as you remain in Llangollen. They symbolise the majesty and righteousness of the Green Man, whom we all love. They do not symbolise me. I am a mover here, as are a handful of others, but I do not claim divinity."

"Just as well," Nulight says, "'cos we ain't no respecters of divinity."

"Respect nature. That is all we can do."

...the music at the end of the rainbow...

At the eastern end of the forest garden, Robin's handfasted partner Marian de Musica has created a zone of sine waves after the fashion of La Monte Young, and there Nulight, Kappa and Jo find peace, while Sperm is with Robin choosing a clearing in which to set up a few tents and tie their ponies and dogs. The sine waves are produced by digital oscillators powered by the river, with speakers hidden in the branches. This environment of slowly changing frequencies has a calming effect on them all. It is, Marian explains, a place of rest for all those who live in the Llangollen community. Though it is sacred to the Green Man, it is also sacred to Pythagoras.

Jo is intrigued. "He was the man who discovered the mathematics of music," she explains, "the exact divisions of halves and thirds and so on that create musical intervals."

Marian nods in agreement, and her dark hair falls about her shoulders. "But there is so much more," she says. "Mathematics is the heart of the universe, of physics."

"What's all that got to do with music?" Nulight asks.

"Light and music are related," Marian explains. "The longest wavelength in the visible spectrum is about 75 micrometres, deepest red, while the shortest, violet, is at 38 micrometers—in other words, an octave higher. There are seven notes in the Western scale, A, B, C, D, E, F and G, just as there are seven colours. It is an example of the fundamental importance of mathematical syzygy to our universe."

Now Robin and Sperm and a few other individuals (all curious about the newcomers) arrive in the sine wave zone. Robin kisses his partner and says, "Explaining maths again, darling?"

"As ever," she replies with a grin.

"It's interesting," Jo says, as if to defend Marian.

"It is," Robin agrees.

A picnic is then laid out by Robin and his friends. Nulight studies with some interest the contents of the blue-and-white bowls that are placed before them. It is all vegetarian fare, with the exception of some dairy produce, butter, milk and eggs; he sees potatoes and many other root vegetables, plus legumes, and then a variety of obscure vegetables such as chinese leaves and okra. There are nuts, honey, and a wide range of fruit, from apples through strawberries to peaches. All these are grown locally, some under glass, others wild, all according to permaculture principles. Nothing is imported. Nothing is doused in chemicals. Nothing—and this is remarkable—is eaten by pests.

"We make carrot pyramids," Robin explains, "in order to store them outdoors without the use of preservatives. We stack the carrots in a pyramid shape, then cover them with straw, and then earth."

"Don't they get eaten?" Nulight asks.

"Nature forbids it. It's an old Victorian technique that we borrowed from an old gentleman who sadly died recently. The old techniques are the best, you see."

Nulight nods. Gesturing at the nearest speaker, he asks Robin, "Do these sine waves change according to some principle?"

Robin smiles. "The CPU is hidden away in my house, which is powered by a windmill set high on the top of the southern hills. I programmed it according to Marian's mathematical analyses, using local source material present in the Welsh culture."

Nulight nods. He has already detected a few themes running through the notes used. "Do you have many musicians here?"

"A few. Not as many as we'd like."

Nulight nods once at Sperm, who in reply departs the picnic area, then returns ten minutes later with musical instruments.

"Nothing serious, man," Nulight reassures Robin. "It's just that these sine tones are making me think of a trumpet riff." He turns to Sperm and adds, "Start with an E minor, then C, then D."

For a while he improvises on his trumpet, as Sperm strums away on the Sony 25EK-X. Then Jo starts clapping, others joining her, Kappa included. A most pleasant acoustic vibe is set up, underpinned by the ever-mutating frequencies of the sine waves. Later, the music dies, in a natural rallentando. 

"Man, nice zone," he says.

"You're most welcome," Robin replies.

...spring has sprung...

Next day it is the spring equinox, Alban Eilin, night and day of equal length. People are up and about from early morning, and there are games and poetry and song. In the zone of sine waves the quartet take up their musical instruments and again improvise over the mystical sound of pure frequencies merging into one another. It is rather like weaving with cords made up of musical notes, cords that cross over and under one another, yet which always, because they are underpinned by the sine waves, conform to the same design. When the root note changes, there is a new design to appreciate.

Nulight takes Robin to one side at about noon, to the shade of an old apple tree, where the spring sunshine, weak not warm, creates grey shadows.

"Tell me more about our fans," he asks Robin.

"This I know to be true. Now that a couple of years have passed since the invasion, people are beginning to wonder about more distant communities. Like here—first of all we thought about nothing other than ourselves. Would we survive, would there be starvation, fights, murder. Winter was only a few months away, you see."

"Hey, was there murder?"

"No. The techniques of permaculture allow us to make a surplus. Anyway—the first year we were focussed on ourselves, and we forgot about the world. We even forgot about St. Martins and Chirk and Ellesmere—all nearby. Then, slowly, we became aware that many other small communities had survived in this part of Wales. Nobody in big cities, of course, because they were supported by artificial conglomerates. But country people survived. We began to contact some of them. And now, just this spring, I've been hearing tales of your quest—and of the movements of other people, for you aren't the only British travellers."

Nulight is intrigued. "What do people say about us?"

"They sense that you're building something. Word of mouth is an amazing thing. There are Celtic bards around who will sing news if they're fed well. These days, it's a living. I know one who came here all the way from Aberdovey. And then there's a first hint of machines coming back to help us communicate."

Nulight scowls. "Fucking
machines.
"

"My sentiments exactly. Well, perhaps not exactly. Being of Machynlleth extraction, I'm keen on sustainable energy production—you notice I don't call it alternative energy, it not being the alternative to oil any more. But it's my hope that the machines I'm testing here will spread across Britain during the next decade. By 2060, I'm sure, Britain will be back on its feet."

"Not in the same pose as before, if I have anything to do with it."

"I'm sure you will have something to do with it. The symbolism surrounding your quest is illuminating. Bards talk of your group as a quartet of knights on a quest for—"

"Aaaagh!" Nulight wails. "No Christian symbols,
please.
We're the New Pagan Troubadours, man, and that's final."

"You didn't let me finish. Yes, there is an Arthurian quality—"

"That interfering Master Sengel! He thinks he's bloody Merlin. I bet he's behind all this... but how does he know what we're doing?"

Robin grimaces, though gently. "Now, you don't actually know that he's—"

"Hey, hey. What, you
know
Master Sengel?"

"I know of him. I've never met him. But you mentioned him first, Nulight."

Nulight curses, then says, "He's got spies everywhere, that man—I've met them, so I know."

Robin tries to calm Nulight by continuing, "All I'm saying is that a few communities in Britain, a minority obviously, are aware of your existence and of the quest. It's generating its own publicity, you might say. That's good. I wouldn't worry about it. In fact, I'd build on it, and when Midsummer comes, well, that'd be the perfect time to state your manifesto. Somewhere striking, I'd suggest, so that people never forget it."