Jago Read online

  Maskell was right in front of him, talking. ‘…brings you here?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Danny, you were miles off. Somewhere cool, I hope.’

  ‘Uh, sorry.’ Danny drew breath, preparing to say it all over again. ‘Maurice, it’s about the—’

  He had to swallow his speech. Sue-Clare Maskell was back, with a tray. Maurice took a glass of thin green drink and forced it into Danny’s hand. The glass felt like a thick icicle. He took a swallow. It was bitter, not the sweet fizzy stuff he called lemonade. Maskell rolled his glass between his palms, then put his chilled hand to his forehead.

  ‘Wonderful, Suki. Just what I needed.’

  ‘Was it bad?’ she asked him, setting the tray down on a broad windowsill. The side of their house was thickly covered with none too healthy ivy.

  ‘Uh-huh. Donal thinks we’ve lost more of the herd. It’s not a virus, really. Just rotten grass, and the heat.’

  ‘Oh no…’

  ‘And I had to let Gilpin and Budge go. Budge hollered “union”, but there’s no case. We can’t keep them on the roster. There’s nothing for them to do. Still, it wasn’t any fun.’

  ‘Shit.’

  Danny flinched. It was wrong, a woman using language like that. A respectable woman. He opened his folder.

  ‘What about compensation?’

  ‘Nothing doing,’ Maskell said. ‘At least, not yet. It’s not a real disease, Donal says. Just the heat.’

  The woman frowned, brow wrinkles above her sunglasses.

  ‘By the way, he said to keep giving Fancy the horse pills, and hope for the best.’

  ‘Terrific,’ she said acidly.

  ‘It’s not his fault, Suki.’

  Sue-Clare Maskell drank her lemonade.

  From the house, Danny heard a dog whimpering and children arguing.

  ‘Stop it, you two,’ Sue-Clare shouted. ‘Hannah’s been frightening Jeremy again,’ she explained. ‘She keeps telling him Jethro’s got AIDS and is going to die.’

  Jethro was the dog.

  Maskell glowered. ‘We’ll have to see about that,’ he said. ‘Sounds like too much television.’

  Danny saw Jeremy, a large-eyed little boy of about seven, in the kitchen door, lurking. Realizing the visitor could see him, he vanished inside.

  ‘Maurice,’ said Danny, ‘I’m trying to put a stop to all the trouble.’

  Maskell stared again, as if looking at a madman. ‘What?’

  ‘The trouble. The hippies. The festival.’

  ‘Oh, that. Sorry, I thought you were going to do something about the drought.’

  Danny’s knee started to throb.

  ‘If you and your wife would sign this…’

  Maskell took the folder and cast his eyes down to the statement taped to it. Danny knew it by heart. He had spent a lot of time experimenting with different wordings.

  We the undersigned, year-round residents of Alder, take objection to the so-called festival organized by the Agapemone. We charge A.W. Jago with failing to properly keep order at said event, and protest the considerable hardship, nuisance and financial loss it causes us. We entreat the authorities to prevent the festival from taking place on the grounds of flagrant violations of the law.

  On an attached sheet, Danny had put details of the specific laws broken over the years. It was an impressive and frightening document, the upshot of long days in Bridgwater Library with newspaper files and law books, and an expensive half-hour with a Langport lawyer.

  Maskell took a long time reading the basic proposition. His wife leaned over, sunglasses up in her hair, and read too.

  ‘Maurice,’ she said, ‘we can’t.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘No. Suki’s right. I’m sorry, Danny.’ He gave the folder back. ‘This year, we can’t sign.’

  ‘But the noise, the litter, the damage…’

  ‘It’s the heat, Danny. It’s throttling us. If we harvest early, we’ll save something. But it won’t be enough. The animals are beaten. There’s no grazing, no hay to be had at any price. We’ve got insects, blight, everything.’

  ‘I don’t see what that has to do with it.’

  Maskell sighed, and put his arm around his wife’s waist. They were presenting a united front.

  ‘I’ve been talking to Jago’s people at the Agapemone. James Lytton, who does most of the organizing, is a reasonable man, not a religious loony. In the past, he’s made sure that everyone has been recompensed for everything. You know that.’

  ‘It’s not the same.’

  ‘No, but it’s something. The festival is very profitable. This year, it might just keep us all out of the poorhouse.’

  ‘But it’s a damned menace.’

  ‘It makes money. Lytton says Jago wants to put some of it back into Alder. The fields aren’t much good for anything this year. I’d rather keep going as a camp site than be broke as a farm. I’m letting them use the place for a lot of things. Camping, parking, a rec area. We’re even having some music.’

  ‘It’s a godsend,’ Sue-Clare said, resting her head on Maskell’s shoulder.

  ‘Sorry, Danny,’ Maskell said. ‘That’s the way it is. It’s the heat.’

  ‘The fucking heat,’ said Sue-Clare Maskell.

  3

  When they passed under the big WEST sign and started towards the motorway, Ferg slotted Easy Rider into the deck. It was great driving music, even if he had borrowed the tape from his hippie dad. ‘Head out on the highway, looking for adventure…’ By now, everybody else was already on their holidays. There was little traffic about, but what there was found it easy to overtake Dolar’s camper. Ferg put that out of his mind. If he put his foot down hard, he ought to be able to get this wreck of a Dormobile up to sixty. This should be a breeze.

  Then the player chewed up the cassette. It whirred, feeding tape into its workings.

  ‘Careful,’ Ferg said as Jessica stabbed Stop/Eject.

  She pulled out the tape. Brown spaghetti strings pulled taut.

  ‘Watch it.’

  The tape snapped, leaving a snarl inside the machine.

  ‘There goes the music,’ said Mike Toad from the back of the camper.

  Ferg glared sideways at Jessica, who was squirming, trying to shove the evidence into an overfull glove compartment. The catch sprang and the cassette fell between her feet. Plus half a bag of sweets, a fistful of tissues, a road map and some garage competition cards. She put her knees together, obscuring his view of the mess.

  ‘No music, eh?’ said Dolar. ‘You forget I’ve got my trusty guitar.’

  The first twangs filled the camper. And the first complaints.

  ‘Perhaps you should save it for the festival,’ suggested Syreeta.

  ‘Perhaps we could fix the cassette player,’ suggested Jessica.

  ‘Perhaps Dolar should consider a career in silent meditation,’ suggested Mike Toad.

  The twangs took on a tortured and hurt tone. ‘Come on,’ Dolar wailed. ‘You’re supposed to be my loyal roadies. Where’s the support I count on you mob for?’

  Mike Toad, who was always trying to be supercool and cynical but was usually only rude, had the answer. ‘We’re mainly your roadies so we don’t have to listen to your concerts.’

  ‘And we get into festivals free,’ Jessica added.

  Ferg thought they were pushing Dolar a bit far, but kept his mouth shut and his eyes on the road. Getting on to the motorway here could be tricky.

  ‘What smells of pork, fish and frog at the same time?’ asked Mike Toad, who knew lots of jokes. After a pause, he finished the riddle, ‘Miss Piggy’s cunt.’

  Dolar laughed, but he was the only one.

  ‘Hitchers ahead,’ Ferg said.

  They all looked. Just before the roundabout, a scraggy line of people stood by the road. Most had duffel bags and number plates. But one couple had a cardboard square with alder festival printed on it.

  Ferg slowed down. ‘Dolar?’

&
nbsp; ‘What?’

  ‘It’s your van. Do we pick them up?’

  ‘Sure. We’re on the road. And you’re road captain, remember?’

  Ferg pulled over, and Syreeta had the back doors open. She leaned out and called to the Alder Festival sign-holders. Bundles were thrown in and the hitchhikers hauled up. Ferg was off again before the doors were shut.

  ‘Batten that hatch,’ Dolar snapped.

  Someone saw to it. Everyone else turned to examine the new people. Ferg glanced up at the rear-view mirror to see what they looked like. They were teenagers, probably about his and Jessica’s age. He was Asian, and dressed in expensive jeans and a casual cardigan. She was a goth, small, red-headed, all in black.

  ‘I’m Pam and this is Salim,’ the girl said. She had white makeup and red lipstick.

  ‘Are you prepared to work your passage?’

  ‘We can pay,’ said Salim. He took something out of his bag. Ferg couldn’t see, but there was a commotion.

  ‘He’s got some gear,’ said Jessica.

  If it had been Ferg getting into a vanload of strangers with some dope, he would’ve waited a while before offering it round. Then again, he supposed not many undercover policemen had mohicans.

  ‘Welcome aboard, shipmates,’ said Dolar, enthusiastically. ‘I’m Dolar, and this is my crew. That’s Ferg up front driving, with his lady Jess by his side. This is Syreeta. She’s from Crouch End. And that’s Mike Toad trying to look macho, mean and moody like a Levi’s advert. Don’t mind him, he’s a prat.’

  ‘Are you a band?’ Pam asked.

  ‘No, I’m a solo act. These people are my combination road gang and claque.’

  ‘He was threatening to play,’ said Mike Toad, ‘so I’d roll a joint and quiet him down if I were you.’

  ‘Oh, wow,’ said Jessica, who could be very irritating when she tried.

  They hit the motorway, and Ferg put his foot down. He wanted to be in Alder well before nightfall.

  Dolar sucked the first puff out of Salim’s joint and passed it on. He started in on one of his joke songs, a version of Roy Rogers’ ‘A Four-Legged Friend’. Ferg sniffed sweet smoke, and tried to ignore the horrible noise. This could turn out to be a long drive.

  4

  Sister Jenny brought her a pot of Earl Grey and some fruit at three. It was one of the child’s duties to organize the afternoon tea break, and she was punctilious about it. She had the Agapemone divided into coffee-drinkers and tea-drinkers, biscuit-eaters and fruit-eaters, and knew who took milk and/or sugar with what. Most of the Brethren were with James down at the festival site, so the girl had an easy job of it today. She lingered, drinking her own tea. Susan gathered she and Jenny were the only ones left in the house.

  Apart from him. Beloved. Anthony William Jago.

  She could feel his presence always. Blocking him out was a constant struggle. And Susan found it increasingly difficult to hold back. The Brothers and Sisters of the Agapemone were all so wrapped up in their spiritual wrestling matches. It gave her headaches to be around their emotional fallout. She couldn’t be more than a few seconds in the company of Wendy Aitken without sensing the ghosts pressed around the large, energetic woman. Susan saw desperation behind all Wendy’s activities, felt all too deeply formless yearnings, dangerous desires. Something had happened to Wendy once, something that left her in a permanent fug of shame, anger and dread. Throw in the usual religious fanaticism, and you had a powerful mix. Bad vibes, Derek would have said. Susan knew better than anyone what that meant. And the others were as strange: Mick Barlowe, all ambition and barely leashed lust; Derek, trailing after Wendy like a wounded dog, rarely acting on his own; Sister Marie-Laure, ticking away inside her burn-out zombie shell; Gerald Taine, silently awaiting his Beloved’s orders, ready to die or kill for the fountainhead, flashing back to the Falklands. And the women, the Sisters: Janet, who’d been initiated at the same time as Susan; Cindy, Kate and Karen. All comely, to use Jago’s expression, all looking for love, all trailing ghosts. Groups like Jago’s were a lodestone for the neurotic, the disturbed, the disaffected.

  The library was the largest room on the second storey, an irregular octagon with a wide door, two thin windows and five floor-to-ceiling bookcases. There were as many colourful paperbacks on the shelves as dusty embossed books. When the Brethren had moved in, they removed most of the Winthrop-Kaye books and papers to a storeroom, which was why it had taken Susan so long to get to them. Valuable material had been replaced with an assortment of the expected: three different sets of Lord of the Rings, plenty of Carlos Castenada, T. Lobsang Rampa, Erich von Daniken, John Lennon and Love Is…; an odd selection of religious commentaries, mostly Christian and mostly cracked. There had been one shock, in with the books about psychic powers, astrology, druggy mysticism and flying saucers. The Mind Beyond had been remaindered shortly after publication and this copy had the tell-tale groove sawn across the top. Susan had looked with a frisson at the young girl on the cover, and made sure the book disappeared. It seemed unread, but she’d felt more than usually uneasy for days and still had moments of irrational panic. There was such a thing as being too bloody sensitive.

  Jenny ambled around the room, fingers brushing the spines of books. Susan wasn’t getting anything off the girl just now. Jenny was too simple to be readable most of the time. Too young to have many ghosts. That said, Susan got the impression of great strength, a great sense of purpose. Both were unusual among Beloved’s flock. The child, Jago’s latest Sister-Love, was relatively new to the Agapemone. Maybe she would change. Jenny was a focus, the calm in the heart of chaos. Susan hoped she could protect her somehow. At least, she could try to limit the damage. Jenny should be young enough, resilient enough, to come through in one piece. Unlike some of the others: Wendy, for instance, or Marie-Laure, or Taine. Susan saw death in their faces, smelled it on their breaths.

  Luckily, her duties kept her apart from the others, usually well shielded by the stacks of books. The Agapemone was like the army: they found you a job based on what you had done before. Her library and publishing experience made her the wordsmith. She supervised the Agapemone’s publications, its occasional press releases, its work with local evangelical and historical groups. Like James, she had a welcome excuse to get out into the real world. Otherwise, she would not be able to keep in touch with IPSIT, with David IPSIT, pronounced ‘eyesight’. So many masters, so many callings. No wonder she had trouble with migraines. She’d taken to using aspirin again. David claimed it should make no difference, but it seemed to cut down background noise. Probably a placebo effect.

  She swallowed two pills with her first mouthful of tea. They stuck briefly in her throat, then washed down. She drank more tea and licked the roof of her mouth to make the bitter taste go away. Jenny asked after Susan’s headache, and she gave a noncommittal reply. Sooner or later, she’d be called about her habit, but she’d deal with it then. Anything to stay sane.

  The girl hovered, waiting for Susan’s cup. Her long blonde hair was centre-parted, swept back behind slightly prominent ears. When she first came to the Agapemone, she had worn only black, with a gypsyish load of bracelets, earrings and bangles. Now she favoured white, and a small crucifix around her neck, usually under her dress. In her late teens, she looked younger. Susan remembered the fix she’d been in at that age. She had been Witch Susan, not Queen of the May. That was long gone now, and forgotten. Except by David. Jenny picked up a heavy book and stroked its binding. She opened it and paged through, looking for photographic plates. Susan bit a tiny hole in the bitter, purple skin of a plum, and sucked the sweet flesh.

  Almost nobody else used the library, which alone made it ideal for Susan. During the last few weeks, she’d spent most of her waking hours at the desk in the middle of the room, spreading books and papers on the broad expanse of aged oak. She read, made notes in shorthand, cross-referenced volumes that had gone unopened for half a century. She was supposed to be here to build up the big picture. David sho
uld never have let it go this far, should never have let the project get so out of IPSIT’s control. Now it was up to her to make him understand precisely what was going on out here in witch country. She rolled the sour stone around her mouth, tongue scraping away the last threads of plum. Finding nothing of interest in her book, a theological tract from the 1860s, Jenny put it down and looked at one of the Winthrop-Kaye scrapbooks. It had ‘1924’ scrawled in watery blue ink on a paper plate pasted on the front cover, but the brittle newspaper cuttings inside came mainly from forty years earlier. At first, Susan had thought it was just someone’s collection of juicy scandal.

  The first few pieces related to a gruesome murder spree of 1887. Jeremiah Gosmore, a farmer, had killed Martin, his son, and Jerrold Hogg, the local verger. He had also attacked his wife, whose name wasn’t recorded, and a Colonel Edward Winthrop before being captured, tried (incredibly enough before Winthrop, a magistrate) and hanged. The murderer’s pitchfork had been bought from the widow by Madame Tussaud’s waxworks for their Chamber of Horrors. Lurid, Susan supposed, but not very relevant.

  Jenny was absorbed. ‘Gosmore must have lived at Gosmore Farm. The Pottery as now is. The chief witness was called James Starkey. My nana was a Starkey. James must be some great-great relation. There’ve always been Starkeys in Alder. Funny how you never hear about these things. I thought Alder had a dead boring history. Year after year of harvests and floods. They must all be buried in the churchyard.’

  ‘Except Jeremiah. They don’t put murderers in hallowed ground.’

  Next came a tiny scandal: the birth on 3rd July 1888 of a daughter, Mary Elizabeth, to one Alice Frances Pym, aged fifteen, who would appear to have been unencumbered with a husband.