The Shift Key (24 page)

Cedric chuckled; his amusement proved contagious, and even those of the audience who had been most inclined to get up and walk out rather than listen to this outsider decided it could be worth hearing him to the end.

‘But even though we were conned, we weren’t duped as badly as you lot!’ Chris thundered. ‘You see, at bottom, we were right! We believed the ancient forces were stirring …
and of course they are!’

There was a half-hearted objection from Mr Thummage, but no one seemed to notice except Steven and Nigel.

‘So it wasn’t the Devil, like your parson claimed? So it was actually a chemical that leaked from up the river?
So what?
It’s a manifestation of the ancient powers anyhow! This world we live in
is
a dream! Or maybe more of a nightmare! Isn’t it? It isn’t the neat and tidy world of seasons that are always how they should be – mild spring, hot summer, autumn harvests, white Christmases with everybody gathered round the fire and singing carols … No!

‘No, it’s a stinking, disgusting, horrible, loathsome world full of food that’s been tainted with chemical sprays and acid rain killing trees and lead from cars that poison your children’s minds and make them backward! It’s full of terrorists and hijackings and H-bombs and Doctor Xs making drugs to stop you telling truth from falsehood!’

He was shaking with the force of his tirade. For a second he seemed to be overcome, and there was a risk of the audience shouting back at him. Steven found himself clapping to forestall that; quick on the uptake, Don copied him, and others did the same. He thought the next was Ella Kailet, followed by the hippies, but almost immediately all the people who had been affected – no, make that ‘afflicted!’ – were applauding too.

They were not in the majority, but knowledge of what had happened to them made the rest of those present hesitate and defer. By this time, too, Mr Pipton and Dr Frass had resigned themselves to what was going on, even though their expressions were as thunderous as the archdeacon’s. The same applied to Chade. As for Joe Book –
poor Joe!
Steven thought – he had left his post and sought Yvonne’s company on a row-end near the middle of the hall, standing beside her and clutching her hand.

What training, in any police-force, could prepare a decent ordinary man like Joe for an invasion by the hideous outer world that had just been so graphically described?

‘Well, it sounds as though one sweet little racket has been torpedoed!’ Chris barked. ‘But how many others are there? How many hundreds, how many thousands? How many farmers like Mr Pecklow are secretly afraid of what the sprays they use may do to people? How many –?’

‘Yes! Yes!’

The shout came from near the fire exit. All eyes turned, and – amazingly – it was Mrs Judger who had spoken, returned from escorting Mr Phibson back to the parsonage.

‘Yes!’ she said a third time, not so loudly but nonetheless with force. ‘I’ve been with Mr Phibson since he came here, and I know. He’s a good man, kind and sensible even though – Never mind! Losing his wife must have been a dreadful blow … What counts is this!’

She drew herself up to full height.

‘I knew it couldn’t be the Devil at work in a righteous soul like his! Even if he thought it was, himself!
I
knew it was those blasted chemicals!’

Nigel had recovered sufficiently to try and regain control of the meeting. He said, Thank you, Mrs Judger. I’m sorry you had to miss the main – uh – thrust of the contribution from Mr Prosher, and also from Mr – uh –’

Steven whispered, ‘Pilgrim!’

‘Mr Pilgrim! But after these extraordinary revelations, and particularly in view of the fact that some among you have laid – uh – hands on two official visitors, an action I’m sure the rest of us greatly deprecate …’

He was floundering, and everybody knew it. He gazed round desperately for guidance. It came from Vic Draycock, who leapt to his feet, brushing back a lock of hair.

‘Mr Chairman! I’ve been as overwhelmed by these revelations as anyone! It isn’t exactly public knowledge, but I too was out late on Wednesday night – couldn’t sleep and took a walk along the river – and in the morning … Well, that’s not important. Suffice it to say I shared the strange experience so
many of us underwent, though luckily with relatively few after-effects …’

His listeners were growing restive. Realizing, Vic cut his confession short and came to the point.

‘But if you’re about to close the meeting, I’d like to move a vote of thanks to Dr Gloze, and Mr Prosher, and – uh – our last speaker, Chris, who put into words what so many of us feel and often can’t find the right way to express.’

He sat down.

Nigel was back in command of himself. He said, as by habit and reflex, ‘I feel we ought to add Mr Thummage to the vote of thanks. With that amendment I put the motion to the meeting. Seconder?’

There was a frozen pause. Mrs Judger broke it.

‘No!’

Nigel blinked at her, appalled.

‘No!’ she said again. ‘Mr Thummage wouldn’t take me seriously when I phoned him and asked for help for Mr Phibson! He was rude to me! He talked to me as though I was some giddy girl!
I
don’t want to thank him!’

‘I second the motion as originally put!’ shouted Tom Fidger. At once there was a chorus of approval.

‘Any further amendments?’ Nigel asked, for the sake of formality. But the objectors, including the chief inspector, Mr Pipton and Dr Frass, were voting with their feet and leaving the hall. The archdeacon, snapping his fingers at his companion, did the same. No one any longer tried to bar their way.

‘So moved … And passed by acclamation.’ Nigel drew a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his perspiring face. ‘I declare the meeting closed. Mr Prosher’ – in a lower tone –’what is it the Americans say about a can of worms? Was that all true, what you told us?’

‘All of it,’ Don answered grimly. ‘And if Chris hadn’t stepped in, I’d have gone on to say pretty much what he did.
Doesn’t it make you
sick?
’

Abruptly he slammed his fist on the table; people at the doors glanced round, but they went on filtering away.

‘Doesn’t it make you sick?’ he said again. This is one of the most beautiful villages in England! Lord, the times I’ve seen pictures of it in BTA brochures!

‘And even here you can’t escape the loathsome reality of modern times! That bastard Pipton would love to put me in jail! Thanks to Jenny, I got the story out before he could clamp a lid on it. Wallace must have done the same by now, praise be. Do you realize those idiots have squandered ten million quid on a project that can never work?’

He glared at everyone around, including the baffled parish councillors.

‘Even if they had made it work – well, wouldn’t it have been just another proof of how sick our society is?’

That was from Chris, whom Rhoda had come up to hug, and Cedric, while the rest of the hippies hovered in front of the platform.

‘Yes! Yes!’ Don turned to Chris and shook his hand warmly. ‘Your intervention was timely, to say the least. I’m much obliged … Cedric! You are Cedric, aren’t you?’

‘Uh – yes.’

‘I saw your photo all over the drawing-room at the Court when your parents invited me in. Lord, I wish you’d been there when I was! I’d have – No, forget it.’

He drew a deep breath.

‘I am wiped out. Not even when I was a war correspondent did I feel this exhausted … Ah, there’s Wilf!’

The red-haired photographer was pushing his way against the flow at the exit. Raising his hand, he made a ring of thumb and forefinger.

‘Did Jenny bring it off?’ Don called.

‘Yep! The story’s broken like a scrambled
egg!
It’s on the wire to
everywhere!’

‘Praise be,’ Don said softly. ‘Now let me depart in peace … Nigel, we have to rush back to London, but all of a sudden I’m starving hungry. Can we still get something to eat at your hotel?’

Nigel, who had been conversing with departing councillors, turned round. He said after a moment, ‘Of course. My chef’s a wonder. He proved it last night. I think you ought to be my guests – you and Wilf, and Steven, and … Chris, how about you? And – uh – your good lady?’

But Rhoda shook her head. She said, ‘We don’t live like that. You ought to know by now. And there are thirteen of us, a coven.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Cedric, hovering in the background, exploded. ‘Every night the hotel throws out enough to feed a bloody family! I’ve seen it! Give me the leftovers and I’ll carry them across the road myself!’

Stick was eavesdropping. He said nothing, but stretched out one long arm and tapped Cedric on the shoulder. When the latter turned around, he met a broad approving grin.

Then Stick was gone in the wake of Sheila and the girls who had imagined – as he had – that they were boys.

The parish hall was empty but for themselves and the volunteers responsible for tidying up.

Nigel said at length, ‘I only asked you, Chris, because I didn’t realize before that people like you could talk so much good sense. Will you and Rhoda come to dinner with us if what Cedric takes to your friends isn’t leftovers but – say – a good big pot of soup and bread and cheese?’

‘Not if the soup has meat in it,’ said Rhoda firmly.

‘Oh, hell … All right! I’ll see what Tim can do –’

‘Forget it,’ Chris interrupted with a sigh. ‘That’s what’s wrong with you. All of you. That’s why the world’s in such a stinking mess. It’s because of people who can say what you just did.’

‘What do you mean?’ cried Nigel, bridling.

‘You didn’t say: “I’ll see what
I
can do!” … Come on, Rhoda love. Let’s get our show on the road. Ella, want a ride to town?’

‘Yes please. If you’ve got room.’

‘We’ll make some if we haven’t. Come along.’

The night was dry and mild. But when they left the hall they might as well have walked into a whirlwind.

Weyharrow was fermenting like a brewer’s vat. A hundred parsons claiming to be possessed each by a thousand demons could never have created such a stir. Some of those who had been at the meeting were dashing from house to neighbours’ house to spread the news; others were on the phone, calling up friends outside the village; others yet had headed for the Marriage or the Bridge Hotel in search of drinks to calm their nerves and eager ears to pour their charge of gossip into.

A few of them even remembered how to spell Oneirin.

As for the police, they had vanished in the wake of Mr Chade and taken Mr Pipton with them, apart from Joe, who stood like an uneasy statue in the middle of the green, watching the hippies as they folded their tents and loaded them back aboard the bus. Prior to departure, Chris came over to him.

‘Nothing personal, man,’ he said. ‘You understand?’

Joe nodded miserably, and as soon as the bus had trundled off across the bridge he made for home. In the past he had been inclined to agree with Yvonne when she complained about the location of the police house they were obliged to occupy: why couldn’t it have been beside the river with a decent outlook? Tonight he was immensely glad it wasn’t.

What would a policeman have done who thought his dreams were real? Worse than a teacher or a schoolkid – worse even than a parson, maybe!

Lord, he might have gone around arresting people like Stick!

Shuddering at the notion, he closed the door and bent to hug his kids as they rushed towards him for a belated goodnight kiss.

Wallace Jantrey and Lisa Jopp had left for London; they had said goodbye to one or two people. The archdeacon and his driver had simply gone. Nobody seemed to have noticed when, or to care. The same applied to Dr Frass, while the Goodsirs had driven back to the Court, Basil in a filthy temper and Helen in a screaming tantrum. The only thing they seemed able to agree on was the need to sue Helvambrit.

‘Fat chance of beating bastards like that!’ was Cedric’s jaundiced view.

But of course it would make a field day for lawyers …

He had stood a long while in shadow near the churchyard wall, the metal of his cycle’s handlebars cold under his trembling hands. He was wondering whether he ought not to have asked Chris and Rhoda to wait while he went home and packed a bag, so he could join them on their pilgrimage.

At length, though, he had sighed and thrown his leg across the saddle, and set off up the steep and winding road for home.

Next year, perhaps. Next year …

But in his heart of hearts he knew what that meant.

Never.

Moira would have liked a drink. She was shaking from head to toe. But the cooking-sherry bottle was empty and she couldn’t face the people to whom she had accused Phyllis of all sorts of dreadful deeds. She retreated to the cottage, where she found Rufus waiting for his supper.

She didn’t like him much. She had never liked cats. But, mechanically, she poured milk into a saucer and shook dry catfood into his usual dish. When there was a ring at the front door she ignored it. When there was a knock at the back
door, she couldn’t.

It was Jerry Blocket, saying awkwardly, ‘Moira, I don’t know if I ought to say I’m sorry … Should I?’

Unable to answer, she shook her head.

‘Well – well, I don’t really want to. I’d rather say thanks … Look, I thought I might find you down at the Marriage –’

She had raised both hands by reflex before he uttered the next word, reaching in his jacket pocket.

‘– because after what you’ve been through I felt you might need a drink. I still do. Here.’

He set a half-bottle of whisky on the table, and turned to go.

A thousand images flashed through Moira’s mind. Was she being paid off, like a tart, for last night’s pleasure? Well, there hadn’t been much of that about it. Was Jerry trying to buy a lien on her future favours? If so, his standards couldn’t be very high …

But all these fugitive ideas evaporated, quick as dreams. She heard herself saying, ‘Don’t go away. Let’s drink to Phyllis. I want somebody to know how much I’m going to miss her,
and how much I hate myself!’

Grave, Jerry said (and how could she never have noticed him properly before, even last night?). He had a nice face, too young to be lined like hers, spared the bitterness of a disastrous marriage, spared the burden of knowing that a friend had taken her own life … he said, ‘After what you told us in the pub last night, I think we all began to understand you better.’