Phil Rickman - The Chalice: A Glastonbury Ghost Story (Glastonbury Ghost Stories)

Prologue

I had received seriousinjury from someone who, at considerable cost to myself, I had disinterestedlyhelped, and I was sorely tempted to retaliate ...

DionFortune

Psychic Self-Defence (1930)

September, 1919

There she was, lying acrossthe bed, stretched out corner to corner, as though this could relieve the crampinside caused by the way she'd been used ... trifled with and slighted, yes,and humiliated ... as if, as a young woman, she was natural prey, just anotherlittle hopping bird in the hawk's garden.

Oh! She might have felt better beating her fists into thepillow, but she'd never have excused herself for that. Not the behaviour of a trained psychoanalyst.

All the same, she would remember telling herself that if shedidn't do something about it she'd quite simply implode. So perhaps that waswhat started the process.

It must have been going on, somewhere, while she waspersuading her body into the relaxation procedure - not easy when her stupid mindinsisted on re-enacting the appalling business, over and over.

Beginning with his proposal of a small adventure for her. Thatboyish grin through the bristly little moustache, the kind which all the men sheknew seemed to have brought back from the Great War. The bantering baritone,smooth and slick as freshly buffed mahogany. 'Didn't you know, Violet? Mygoodness, didn't you know - that we still had it here?'

The question causes, as he knew it would, a veritable flutterin her breast.

But Violet, still suspecting some prank, says lightly that shetrusts he's speaking metaphorically, as anybody with even a perfunctoryknowledge of such matters is aware that the Holy Grail does not exist and neverdid.

At which he puts down his wine, spilling some. 'The hell itdoesn't, you arrogant minx!'

'Except, of course, as a symbol. Doubtless a sexual one.'

It's a numbingly dull and sultry afternoon, summer seepingsluggishly into autumn, and she's tired of his games.

'And what would youknow about symbols?' His lips twisting in amusement. 'Or sex, for that matter.'

The room is gloomy: tiny windows and those monstrous blackbeams. They have not discussed sex. Only violence and pain.

'As much,' she informs him casually (although she's stung byhis manner and intimated by his blatant smirk), 'as any advanced student of the methods of Dr Freud.'

'Freud? That ghastly charlatan?' He laughs, oh so confident,now that his own demons are quiet. She decides not to react.

'A passing fad, Violet, you'll see,' leaning back behind hisdesk, handsome as the devil 'But please - I'm intrigued - define for me thissymbolism.'

What's his game now? Oh, she must not give in to the wellinghostility. Or, worse, to that other undignified stirring which has made theleather seat feel suddenly hot where she sits. Most humiliating and hardly the response of a trainedpsychoanalyst.

'So ...' He trails a finger through the spilled wine. 'Let's lookat this. Joseph of Arimathea ... uncle of Christ, provider of his tomb ... begsfrom Pontius Pilate the cup used at the Last Supper and perhaps to collect theblood from the Cross ...'

'Yes, a pretty legend, I accept that.'
'And then carries it with him onhis missionary voyage to a place in the west of Britain, where a strange,pointed hill can be seen from the sea.'

'Yes.' She's seen it herself - in dreams - as if from the sea:the mystical, conical Tor on the holy Isle of Avalon.

And although she would never admit this to him, she's still secretlythrilled by the legend and has been many times to the place where Joseph wassaid to have buried the Grail, causing a spring to bubble up, the Chalice Well,which to this day runs red. Chalybeate, of course. Iron in the water.

'Obviously,' she says, 'I would not dispute that Joseph and hisfollowers came to Avalon as missionaries. Or, indeed, that he was responsible forbuilding the first Christian church in England. This is historically feasible.'
'How very accommodating of you.Violet.'
'Although I rather suspect thestory that Joseph had once brought the child Jesus here is no more than aromantic West Country myth illuminated by the poet Blake.'
He says nothing.

'And surely, what Joseph introduced to these islands was afaith, not a ... a trinket.'

That came out badly, sounding, even to her own ears, more thana little churlish. He smiles at her again, looking replete with superiorwisdom.

She rallies. 'The symbolism is clear. The idea of a chalice is well known in Celtic mythology - the Cauldronof Ceridwen, a crucible of wisdom, a symbol of transformation.
Upon which, the legend of the Holy Grail, seen from a twentieth-centuryperspective, is obviously no more than a transparent Christian veneer.'

'In which case,' he says, musingly, after a pause, 'the Grailwould be even more significant, carrying the combined power of two greattraditions, Christian and Pagan. Would it not?'

'If there was such a thing, no doubt it would.'

'If there was such athing ' He considers this for a while, hands splayed on the desk, eyesupraised to the blackened beams. 'If there was such a thing, and it had been secretlyheld by the monks of Glastonbury until the Reformation ' He stops.

His eyes are suddenly alight with zealot's fire.

'Oh, really.' Violet almost sniffs. 'Monks were always forgingrelics to improve the status of their abbeys. Anyway ...' Pushing back her chairand standing up. 'I'm a psychologist. Not an historian.'

He also stands, but remains behind the desk. He seems to beconsidering something. 'Very well. What if I were to show it you? What if Iwere to show you the Grail itself?'

He's still wearing his uniform. Some of the men wear theirsbecause they have nothing else. But hiswardrobe could hardly be bare or gone to moth. No, he continues to sport hiscaptain's uniform because he knows its power. Over women, of course.

'Ha,' Violet says. Uncertainly.

In spite of herself, in spite of the teachings of Dr Freud andwhat he has to say about the all consuming power of sex, she is beginning, asshe follows this man out of the study and down a dark, low passage, to feelquite ridiculously excited.

In those days, Violet hadn'tbeen terrifically good at containing emotion. Well, she was still a youngwoman, somewhat less experienced than her confidence might suggest.

She knew she was not what most people would call beautiful andthat some men were intimidated by her direct manner. But, others - and quiteoften the better-looking ones, the ones whose arms might have been aroundslimmer waists - would seek her out. Faintly puzzled about why they found herattractive.

There had always been two sides to her, which she equated withthe Celtic and the Saxon: the airy feyness and the no-nonsense earthiness.Although she'd been born in north Wales, she considered herself (because of herYorkshire steel-working family) to be chiefly Saxon, as suggested by her flaxenhair and her solid, big-boned body. But she'd always needed the phantasmal fireof the Celts, their inbred cosmic perspective.

These two aspects had fallen unexpectedly into harmony overthe past few years, during the Great War; all Europe might have been inroiling, smoking turmoil, but Violet had been curiously at peace.

Not that she was any great pacifist. She'd have quite liked tohave been at the Front. To be tested. But the only women's work there was nursing,and she was the first to admit she didn't have the patience for it. Not then.

But staying at home had been a revelation. Elements of whatshe was had come together in an unexpected way. Serving in the women's landarmy, raising the crops, feeding the troops: fulfilment in a healthy, practicalway, but also wonderfully symbolic. With all the young, strong men away in theforces, England - the essential England, of holy hills and fertile meadows -was at last in the care of women. The girls of the land army had taken on thetraditional role of Mother Goddess.