Mystical Circles (30 page)

“Quite right, Juliet. Leave it to them to decide. Back to your own situation, then.”

“My
situation
?”

“Yes,” said Toby. “It’s plain you’ve got a special reason for wanting to stay on.”

“Just need to sort unfinished business, that’s all.” She wouldn’t allow herself to say more. Fortunately she didn’t need to for he changed the subject.

“This material had better be brilliant.”

Relief flooded her. “It will be,” she laughed.

“What you do next week is up to you, of course, Juliet. But take care. That’s my advice.”

“Yes, Toby. Understood. Over and out.” The call ended.

She took several deep breaths. She’d managed it. She still had a few more phone calls to make, to postpone other appointments.  But she’d made her mind up. She was staying another week. Better go and tell Zoe, and Don. And Craig.

Llewellyn looked up as Juliet passed through the sitting room, Nagra slung over her shoulder, microphone in hand, in search of her sister. He was alone, apart from Groucho the parrot, and relaxing in an armchair with a cup of tea, studying a flyer. His eyes glowed at sight of her. He seemed to have forgotten about that incident at his bedroom door.

She turned her mike on and held it up.

“Did you get a voting slip, Juliet?” Llewellyn asked.

“Voting slip?” she said. “What voting slip?” She stared at him, challenging him with her eyes.

“Ah. Sorry, must have missed you out. Before I go on, one question. This is your last day with us. Am I right?”

“In fact no,” she said.

He jumped up, nearly knocking the mike to the floor, and gave her a big hug. She fell back, startled, and checked the mike was still OK and set to record.

“Great,” declared Llewellyn. “How long will you stay?”

“Probably another week. I’ll cancel my appointments.”

“Excellent.”

“So what’s this about a voting slip?” she asked.

“I put one under every door last night,” the Welshman said. “Collected them up this morning.”

“Oh, Llewellyn, I cannot believe this...”

“You’d better.”

She sighed.  “Shame you missed me out.”

“No problem. I have a spare. I’ll go to my room to get it.”

“Don’t bother,” she said. “I can guess the choice. My answer’s
Craig
. But what’s the point of all this, Llewellyn? What do you hope to achieve?”

For reply, he showed her the flyer. Garishly coloured and presented in a variety of fonts, it announced:

Poetry as Therapy.

Speaker:  Llewellyn Hughes.

(Right of admission reserved)

The date on the flyer, she noticed, was the following Saturday. The place, a central venue in Cirencester. As she took all this in, her attention was disrupted by the sound of Groucho shredding a new apple-tree branch in his cage.

“But you can’t just take over, Llewellyn.”

“Yes I can,” he insisted, “if it saves the community.”

“Is it up to you to save it?”Juliet asked.

He didn’t reply. She noticed he’d unhooked one of Craig’s stringed instruments from the wall, and had placed it beside him on the cushion. He now started toying with it.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“A balalaika. Craig brought this back with him from Russia.” He stroked the strings. “Groucho likes to listen. He’ll be out in a minute, once he’s finished stripping that branch. Want a go?”

“No thanks,” she said, then began again. “Llewellyn, you do respect Craig don’t you?”

Groucho began loudly cracking nuts. Llewellyn looked cryptic, and Groucho noisily shook his plumage. The Welshman laid the balalaika down on the sofa beside him. “Come and sit beside me, Juliet.”

She did as he asked, mike still in hand, and on record. He studied her for a few moments. Was his mind wandering again, straying into areas best left untouched? Was he about to ask her to turn the mike off? “We were speaking of Craig,” she reminded him.

“Yes,” said the poet. “Craig’s trouble is his father. Not long ago, I suggested Don try and look for what binds him and Craig together, rather than what tears them apart.”

“Very wise,” she said.

“And the same goes for you and your sister,” he remarked.

“Me and Zoe?” She sat up abruptly. “Nothing tears
us
apart – other than Zoe’s tendency to fall for the wrong man.”

Groucho took off from his branch, and landed on the layer of sharp sand at the bottom of his cage. He began to strut around.

Then Llewellyn said, “Who makes the decision about the right and the wrong man? You, Juliet? Here’s my advice: don’t. Zoe and Theo are so keen on each other. I know of course that Theo still has much to sort out in his own life.”

“As does she,” snapped Juliet. “
And
you, Llewellyn, so don’t try and distract me.”

He threw her a quizzical glance. Then he reached for the balalaika again. “Let me play you some music.” He began to pluck at the strings. Groucho made a low soft purring sound.

“Are you serenading me, Llewellyn?” she asked.

He laughed. “Well, I certainly have your full attention.”

“And Groucho’s.”

“Oh yes. He loves music.” The Welshman continued to play. “
Follow your instincts,
Juliet
. That’s where true wisdom manifests itself
. That’s what I’m doing.”

“I don’t think you are, Llewellyn,” she insisted, “I think you’re following an impulse that comes from somewhere else. And it’s not the right one either.”

Llewellyn stopped playing. Groucho hopped out of his cage and onto his perch. The poet got up, and went to stroke the macaw’s feathers. Then he turned again. “May I show you a book, Juliet?”

“Of course,” she said.

“One of my favourites.” He picked the volume up from the armchair he’d been sitting in.

“Is that from Craig’s library?” Juliet asked.

“No. My own,” said Llewellyn.

“A Welsh poet?”

“You guessed. Listen to this.”  And he began to read:

The white waves of the breath of peace

On the mountains,

And the light striding

In the distances of the sea.

He kept the book open, and looked at her. She could hear Groucho shuffling on his perch. Was it safe to return Llewellyn’s gaze? Or would he believe he’d succeeded in tempting her beyond her professional boundaries again? Not for the first time, she noticed the intelligent, appraising quality in his eyes. Yet the folly of what he was doing seemed to give the lie to that.

“Beautiful,” she said. “And of course there’s not much peace in this community, but you’re unlikely to change that.”

“I disagree, Juliet. Just consider the scene at dinner last night. Al knows all about bears that come into houses, in the foothills of western Massachusetts. Last night, a bear came into this house.”

“And rampaged round the dining room, in the guise of Rory,” she said. “But I still don’t see how you’re going to improve things.”

With a soft laugh, he picked up the balalaika and began to brush his fingers across the strings once more. “Perhaps you’ll feel more confident about it all if you join me in the barn later, at nine thirty.”

“Why? Is Craig going to announce the results of the vote? And if it’s you, what can we expect to happen next?”

“Ah. Something very new. I can’t tell you the details now. But please do come, Juliet. You’ll have a far clearer picture of what will be going on here from now. I’d love to know what you think.”

Exasperation took hold. “You already know what I think, Llewellyn. The question is whether you’ll give me any good reason to change my mind.”

“Precisely,” smiled the poet. “And perhaps you will change your mind when I tell you I first got the idea from Don.”

The door burst open. Llewellyn turned. Craig stood framed in the doorway.

“Very dangerous, Llewellyn. I wouldn’t advise that at all.”

17

Pretender to the Throne

Lunchtime provided Juliet with her first opportunity to start Theo’s book. She’d persuaded Patrick to pass it on to her rather than burn it. She was anxious to know what a dodgy book written by a clergyman might be like; especially one that had a conservative evangelical bishop breathing fire, but an archbishop asking for signed copies. Also she wanted to know what Don had said, to give Llewellyn his idea for takeover. Had he set him up for this? Was it all part of a devious plan to separate Craig from this community? She must confront him about it the very next time she saw him.

But meanwhile she concentrated on Theo’s book. It was compulsive reading.
Synchronicity
, it was called:
Chance, Coincidence – or the Will of God?
She couldn’t understand why the bishop had been so upset. There was a lot about Carl Jung, certainly, and the collective unconscious, and universal archetypes. But this was hardly heresy… Theo just questioned everything, like she did. But perhaps they didn’t yet come to the same conclusions.

Despite this, she found his style racy and engaging, with lots of amusing anecdotes. Even with her prior ignorance on the subject, she loved the book. She hadn’t expected to feel like that about it. Theo had produced a good read. Did this alter how she saw him? Yes, she supposed it did in some respects; but not enough, perhaps, to change how she felt about him adoring her sister.

Even so, she could hardly tear herself away from the book after lunch. Slipping a bookmark in, however, she set off for a walk with her Nagra. She needed to find someone to tell her about Llewellyn’s plans, and how much of a threat they posed to Craig. She left the house, crossed the forecourt and on an impulse unlatched the gate into the vegetable garden.

The sight of all those precise boundaries and regimented vegetable plots, well tended by the group members according to their rota under the supervision of Patrick, would be exactly the thing to marshal her thoughts. Patrick maintained a strict regime here, she’d noticed, in sharp contrast to the emotional anarchy breaking out elsewhere in the community.

One hand on the strap of her Nagra, the other holding the mike, she set off past the runner beans, paying attention to the rhythm of her own footsteps. Somehow, the repetitive movement helped her to process the situation.

Passing the frames, she swung left and took the east-facing pathway. As she reached the south-eastern corner of the vegetable garden, and turned to face north, she saw Rory on his hands and knees weeding under the hedges. She stopped short. Her heart pounded. She and Rory were alone together. Should she turn and flee?

Juliet felt a pang of annoyance at herself. How long was she going to be afraid of him? As long as she remembered his skinny fingers round her neck; and at least until she found out why he behaved as he did.

He’d seen her. She couldn’t escape without looking cowardly. She turned her mike on and held it up. “Ah, Rory,” she said in a tone which belied how she felt.

She noticed, to her concern, that his face was highly coloured and his eyes held a wildness that reminded her of last Wednesday afternoon in the sitting room. She took a deep breath. It was OK. She had an escape route if necessary. Even so, she drew back, wary and alert. “Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt your work duty. Shall I leave you to it?”

He scrambled to his feet, and snatched her hand. She jerked violently away from him, holding on tight to the mike. “Don’t touch me, Rory.”

“OK, OK.” He managed to look slightly offended. How dare he? She now stood a couple of metres away from him, but still holding the mike out.

“Juliet,” Rory said. “You heard Llewellyn’s announcement?”

“Last night? Of course I did,” she replied.

“And?”

“And what? It didn’t make sense at all.”

“No? Then I’ll explain,” said Rory. “A big change is about to take place here.”

“Which is?” she asked.

“Craig’s no longer top dog. Llewellyn’s in charge.”

“Llewellyn?” Juliet stared at him. How did Rory know? The result of the votes hadn’t been announced yet.  She decided to keep her questioning non-controversial.

“What does he offer that’s an improvement on Craig?” she queried.

“Poetry Therapy for a start,” declared Rory. “He plans to scrap Craig’s Dynamic Meditation sessions.”

“Oh really? I thought you all enjoyed them.”

“Not at all. They disgust
me.
And most of us have voted to overrule Craig.”

So that was the result. The group members had made their choice.
 Llewellyn over Craig
. How disloyal. For a few moments she was speechless.

“I think this will work much better. Craig’s methods were a disaster. And…” here Rory allowed a pregnant pause, “I’ve begun work. Epic saga. Llewellyn will love it.”

“Indeed?” Juliet withheld comment. What was she to make of such a turn of events? A direct challenge to Craig. He’d fight, of course.

“I’ve told Llewellyn I’ll perform tonight in the barn,” continued Rory. “You’ll come, won’t you, Juliet? My debut reading. You can’t miss it. Celebratory drinks will follow.”

“Well, Rory, I don’t know what to say…”

“Don will man the bar,” added Rory.

Whilst still digesting this, Juliet took the opportunity to question him further. “You truly feel Llewellyn’s methods will work better than Craig’s?”

It sounded outrageous. He was a good poet, certainly, but she’d seen no evidence to suggest he could trump Craig on the healing and wholeness stakes.

“Of course,” said Rory. “This is quite out of Craig’s league.” And with that, he plunged to his knees again to continue weeding.

Juliet turned her mike off and quickly walked on. What had inspired Llewellyn to such disloyalty? Don? She couldn’t believe he’d encouraged him to stage a coup. And what did this say about Craig’s leadership skills? It was bad news. A power struggle between Llewellyn and Craig would split the group.

Then she spotted Theo ahead of her. He was following the path along the eastern boundary, head down, hands clasped behind his back, deep in thought. She raised her voice. “I need your help, Theo.”