Chapter 3: An Argument In A Pub.
As we approached Avebury, Selkie put the map away and guided me from memory. We passed through A-roads, descending to B-roads, all hooded with a dark corridor of skeletal trees that reached over our heads as if ready to spring shut like a trap and wrench the tarmac road from the earth. It reminded me of skin softly healing a wound, the trees were scar tissue forming a canopy overhead ready for the real work to begin.
I pointed out the fact to Selkie, mentioning that the trees were shielding us from the rain but made it dark as night beneath. She grunted a disinterested agreement and steered me into a National Trust car park. Again there were cars there, when considering the weather you would have expected none, but not nearly as many as at Stonehenge. I noticed as we drove past that nearly every car had a solitary figure in it sitting at the driving seat watching the weather, waiting for the rain to stop. I glanced at the clock, it was about quarter past three, they only had five minutes to wait.
I pulled up right next to the Pay and Display machine and pulled my raincoat over my head, ready for a quick dash to and from the machine, when Selkie put a hand on my arm and stopped me.
'Listen,' she said, 'there may be things¦ people¦' She took her hand away and looked forward, finding it easier to speak directly if she was facing away from me. 'I haven't told you everything about myself,' she said, 'and I have not always been what I am now, but what I have told you is the truth. Please try and remember that.'
She turned back to look at me. Her eyes were big, and brown, and ever so slightly moist. At that point, she could be an escaped nazi war criminal for all I cared. I nodded, because I didn't trust myself to speak and not say something stupid and melodramatic.
Once I was out of the car, and safely out of earshot, I said it anyway. 'I don't care what you've done, I forgive you, I will always forgive you.' The rain fell unperturbed, the Pay and Display machine made no response to my emotional outpouring. 'God, I really think I love you,' I told it, it spat out a paper ticket as a response.
We waited till twenty minutes past before we moved because Selkie wanted to see if the rain still stopped here. It did. As we left the car and began walking, following the signs to Avebury stone circle, others got out of their cars and followed us. Most of them turned back again the moment the rain restarted. I wondered how long they had been here doing this dance, back and forth from the shelter of their cars, always driven back before they got out of sight of the car park. I wondered how many had noticed the regularity with which it happened, very few I suspected. If I was one of them I doubt I would have noticed.
We walked down a small muddy footpath out into Avebury village, as we emerged onto the road another small muddy footpath wound off to our right and followed the route of the stone circle. I asked Selkie why we were not following that.
'No point,' she said, 'who wants to stand out on a stone circle on a day like this.'
'I just assumed,' I said, 'isn't the stone circle the reason we are here?'
'The reason we are here is to look for my mother, the reason she might be here was to find out what's going on.'
'And she doesn't need the stone circle?'
'What can a stone circle tell her?'
'I have no idea, but there must be some reason she came to one.'
'Mother, if she still has an ounce of sense, will be in the very nice warm dry pub round the corner. There she can find out what's going on in the usual way, by asking.'
'Oh,' I said.
'You thought what, that we'd go out into the centre of the circle and sacrifice a chicken in order to summon a demon to tell us what's going on.'
'I didn't really think anything I suppose.'
'Well it doesn't work.'
'You say that in the manner of one who's tried.'
'I've tried a lot of things.'
'Maybe if you danced around the chicken naked by the light of the moon, I've heard that can be good.'
Selkie stopped and turned to me, with a face, as far as I could make out through the rain, that wasn't happy.
'Just trying to make a joke,' I said.
'Come on,' she said, 'it's just round here.'
We rounded a corner and turned straight into a large pub. Once inside we shook the worst of the water of our jackets and hung them up by the door. The pub was, as Selkie had described, very warm, very dry, and very nice. It was also very nearly empty.
'Selkie,' called the landlord when he spotted us, 'what brings you here?'
Selkie walked up to the bar and I followed. 'Looking for my mother,' she said.
'You're in luck,' he said,not dropping in volume a decibel now that we were standing right across the bar from him, 'she's just nipped out, should be back any minute. Now can I get you a drink.'
'Ooh,' exclaimed Selkie, 'pint of Guinness today I think.'
'That should warm you up,' said the landlord, and looked at me.
'Just a half,' I said, 'I'm driving.'
'Rightyho,' he shouted, and fetched the two glasses and began to fill them. He looked directly at Selkie and said very quietly, 'that the only reason you're here?'
Selkie nodded a very slight nod.
'Rightyho,' shouted the landlord again, and turned away from us to concentrate on pouring the drinks.
'Can you err¦' said Selkie, looking at me.
I took my wallet from my pocket.
The two of us sat in a corner near an open fire. Selkie took a long drink and then said 'I'm taking you a bit for granted aren't I?'
I took a sip from my own glass, noticing how half a pint was far less suitable for hiding your feelings behind. 'Maybe a bit,' I said, 'there's a lot you haven't told me.'
'The thing is,' she said, 'I'm part of an organisation¦'
'A secret society?'
'Well not secret as such, just that, it's generally easier not to mention it.'
'I think I know why.'
'Why?'
'Because nobody would believe you?'
'Something like that. You still don't believe in magic do you?'
'You said yourself, it isn't real.'
'It is and it isn't. What you call magic is the same as what you call science, is the same as ¦' she waved her hand in a circular motion searching for the right word, 'is the same as religion, is the same as that sort of earth mother spirituality thing. All those sorts of things, voodoo, astrology, tarot, that wiccan white witch that's big in America. In so much as they are not a load of bollocks, they are all the same thing.'
'Which is?'
Everything, the world, the universe. How the world works.'
I looked at her blankly.
She said 'you don't understand do you?'
'Not really.'
'Well the important thing to remember is it's all about people really. If something is not about people then it is almost certainly bollocks.'
'Like the thing you said about Stonehenge.'
'Exactly.'
'Okay¦' I said, mulling this over, 'you were telling me about an organisation.'
Before Selkie could say anything the pub door opened and her mother walked in accompanied by a bedraggled, long haired man I had not seen before. The two of them hung their coats up and shook themselves dry and looked over towards the bar. The barman gestured to us with his eyes and Selkie's mother turned to look at us.
'Selkie!' she shouted, sounding both surprised and alarmed, 'what are you doing here?'
'You didn't call,' said Selkie, 'I came looking for you.'
'I told you to stay at home.'
'You told me you'd call.'
'Uh,' interjected the bedraggled looking man. 'Do you want a drink Vinny?'
Selkie's mother thought for a moment and said 'just a cup of tea please Kenneth.' She came and sat down with us and shook my hand. 'Nice to see you again Mr Mitchell.'
'It's just Mitchell, Mitchell is my first name.'
'Oh,' she said, casting an accusing glare at her daughter, 'I'm sorry.'
'I'm afraid I don't know¦'
'Wilhelmina,' she said, 'and this is Kenneth.' She gestured to the bedraggled looking man who came over to the table with a cup of tea and a pint of cider.
'Stokes,' he said, extending a less than pristine hand, 'everyone but Vinny calls me Stokes.' His long hair hung in matted greasy wet strands over a well worn sweater that may once have been white, he was wearing a pair of combats that were more mud than trouser, and shoes I literally could not see beneath a layer of muck. Wilhelmina on the other hand was wearing an fashionable looking fleece top and utterly untarnished blue jeans. Only a few minor flecks of mud on her green wellies betrayed the fact she had been walking outside in the rain.
'Mitchel,' I repeated, shaking the mans hand, 'pleased to meet you.'
'Are you a friend of Selkie's then.'
'Oh yes,' I answered, 'we go way back, all the way to last week.'
He thought about that a moment. 'Oh right I see,' he said finally, 'you're the guy with the car.'
'Selkie's own private taxi service, yes.'
'So,' Selkie interjected frostily, 'what did you find out.'
'Not much I'm afraid,' said her mother.
'Oh I don't know,' said Stokes, 'we're definitely certain it's the black goat now.'
Selkie shot her mother a look that could have withered flowers and rotted fruit. 'The black goat mother?' she said very slowly.
'Well dear¦' said Wilhelmina, 'yes.'
'You knew?'
'We suspected.'
'So that's why you left me behind?'
'To protect you, yes.'
'For Christ's sake mother,' Selkie nearly shouted, 'you know perfectly well that I can look after myself.'
'Oh can you indeed, well what about what happened on the train last week.'
Selkie threw up her hands. 'I looked after myself.'
'You mean your knight in shinning armour rescued you,' said Wilhelmina sarcastically, shooting me a look of disdain.
'I used the tool s at my disposal,' hissed Selkie, 'just like you always taught me to, Mother.'
I did not like Selkie referring to me as a tool any more than I liked the sarcastic tone in Selkie's mother's voice, but I glanced sideways at Stokes and in a simple look and the slightest shake of the head he made it vividly clear that I should definitely keep my silence for the time being.
'I also seem to recall telling you to stay at home,' shouted Wilhelmina, 'but you seem to have decided to ignore me on that.'
'Well maybe if you trusted me enough to tell me what was going on,' Selkie shouted back, 'I might feel more inclined to believe a bloody word you say.'
'Are you calling me a liar?'
'You heard what I said.'
'You're just the same stupid wilful little girl you always were. I have never, ever, not once in your entire life, lied to you.'
'Well if you can't trust me how can you expect me to trust you.'
'I'm sorry dear but trust is something you earn, and you haven't.'
'Oh you bitch.' Selkie nearly screamed.
'What did you call me?'
Stokes gave me a sideways glance that meant something between 'wish me luck, I'm going in,' and 'flee, save yourself,' and said, 'calm down.'
Wilhelmina said 'you keep out of this Kenneth,' and Selkie was just turning towards him when two men in suits walked in the door.
The argument stopped short, all four of us turned and looked at the two men who turned and looked at us, for a moment nothing happened, if there had been a jukebox it would have shut up, if there had been a breeze it would have stilled, if there had been a pool table, balls would have skidded to a sudden impromptu stop. We looked at them. They looked at us. They were definitely, absolutely, positively, the same two men from the train.
Without moving my head I glanced sideways at Selkie, she was looking sideways at me and looking terrified. She made the smallest, quietist, nervous squeak, like breathing in through a whistle.
The two men moved, synchronised they both moved their hands underneath their jackets, one of them pulled out a badge, the other did not pull out anything, he kept his hand concealed by his breast. The one with the badge held it up for us to see.
'Selkie Pfinnenwinken,' he said, 'I'm arresting you under section twenty three of the thaumaturgy occult and sorcery act of sixteen ninety four.'
Sellie's eyes looked left and right but she did not move and she did not say anything. Her mother stood up.
'The hell you are,' she said.
'Step aside mam,' said the man still holding the badge.
'Make me,' said Wilhelmina.
The man not holding the badge pulled out a gun and aimed it directly at Wilhelmina.
'Mum,' said Selkie.
'You are not arresting my daughter,' said Wilhelmina, apparently undaunted.
'Mrs Pfinnenwinken,' said the man with badge, 'I am placing you under arrest for obstructing an agent of the crown.' He calmly put the badge back in his pocket and took a pair of handcuffs from another pocket. 'Hold her down Jim.'
The man with a gun took a step towards Wilhelmina before he was cut short by a shout.
'Hold it right there gentlemen.'
All heads turned towards the bar behind which the landlord stood holding a huge double barrelled shotgun.
'Sir,' said the man with the badge, 'we are special agents of the home office and these people are dangerous terrorists.'
'Dangerous terrorists my arse,' said the landlord, 'one of them is one my regulars, three of them is my personal friends I've known for years, and I'd wager you all the beer in this pub the fourth is exactly as harmless as he looks.'
'I have to advise you sir,' said the man, 'that it is a criminal offence to obstruct an officer of the crown in the course of his duties.'
'Well maybe you gents want to put that firearm away, and come over and allow me to inspect them badges you was so freely waving about a moment ago because I ain't never seen no policeman round here go about the course of his duties in a pin stripe suit.'
'I'm afraid we are under no obligation to justify ourselves to you sir.'
'In my pub you bloody are. Now before you arrest my friends you prove to me you are what you say you are.'
The men looked at each other, and looked at both barrels of the shotgun which lidless hollow eyes looked blankly back at them. They nodded to each other and slowly stepped towards the bar.
'Uh uh,' said the landlord, 'you put the firearm away first.'
The man without the gun looked to the man with the gun who carefully secreted it back in beneath his jacket. The landlord responded by pointing the shotgun away from them, off to one side. Both men walked up to the bar and placed badges down on it. They said something but I didn't catch it because at that moment I was grabbed by both Selkie and Stokes and pulled off my chair and straight out the door.
'Leg it,' shouted Selkie as we ran out into the rain, and she followed her mother who ran across the pub garden and vaulted over a fence into a field. The rest of us followed close behind her.
'Follow the stones,' shouted Wilhelmina, 'get to the standing tree.'
