The Second Wish and Other Exhalations Page 11

  So Chylos took up his staff and went out into the central plain of the valley, where he found a great stone worn round by the coming and going of the ice; a stone half as tall again as a man above the earth, and as much or more of its mass still buried in the ground. And upon this mighty stone he carved his runes of fertility, powerful symbols that spelled lust. And he carved designs which were the parts of men and women: the rampant pods and rods of seed, and the ripe breasts and bellies of dawning life. There was nothing of love in what he drew, only of lust and the need to procreate; for man was much more the animal in those dim forgotten days and love as such one of his weaknesses. But when Chylos’s work was done, still he saw that it was not enough.

  For what was the stone but a stone? Only a stone carved with cryptic runes and symbols of sexuality, and nothing more. It had no power. Who would remember it in a hundred seasons, let alone years? Who would know what it meant?

  He called all the leaders of the tribes together, and because there was a recent peace in the land they came. And Chylos spoke to those headmen and wizards, telling them of his dreams and visions, which were seen as great omens. Together the leaders of the tribes decided what must be done; twenty days later they sent all of their young men and women to Chylos the Seer, and their own wizards went with them.

  Meanwhile a pit had been dug away from the foot of the great stone, and wedged timbers held back that boulder from tumbling into the pit. And of all the young men and women of the tribes, Chylos and the Elders chose the lustiest lad and a broad-hipped lass with the breasts of a goddess; and they were proud to be chosen, though for what they knew not.

  But when they saw each other, these two, they drew back snarling; for their markings were those of tribes previously opposed in war! And such had been their enmity that even now when all the people were joined, still they kept themselves apart each tribe from the other. Now that the pair had been chosen to be together — and because of their markings, origins, and tribal taboos, the greatest of which forbade intercourse between them — they spoke thus:

  “What is the meaning of this?” cried the young man, his voice harsh, affronted. “Why am I put with this woman? She is not of my tribe. She is of a tribe whose very name offends me! I am not at war with her, but neither may I know her.”

  And she said: “Do my own Elders make mock of me? Why am I insulted so? What have I done to deserve this? Take this thing which calls itself a man away from me!”

  But Chylos and the Elders held up their hands, saying: “Be at peace, be at ease with one another. All will be made plain in due time. We bestow upon you a great honour. Do not dishonour your tribes.” And the chosen ones were subdued, however grudgingly.

  And the Elders whispered among each other and said: “We chose them and the gods were our witnesses and unopposed. They are more than fit for the task. Joining them like this may also more nearly fuse their tribes, and bring about a lasting peace. It must be right.” And they were all agreed.

  Then came the feasting, of meats dipped in certain spices and herbs known only to the wizards and flavoured with the crushed horn of mammoth; and the drinking of potent ales, all liberally sprinkled with the potions of the wizards. And when the celebrant horde was feasted and properly drunk, then came the oiled and perfumed and grotesquely-clad dancers, whose dance was the slow-twining dance of the grossly endowed gods of fertility. And as the dance progressed so drummers took up the beat, until the pulses of the milling thousands pounded and their bodies jerked with the jerking of the male and female dancers.

  Finally the dance ended, but still the drummers kept to their madly throbbing beat; while in the crowd lesser dances had commenced, not so practised but no less intense and even more lusty. And as the celebrants paired off and fell upon each other, thick pelts were tossed into the pit where the great stone balanced, and petals of spring flowers gathered with the dew upon them, making a bower in the shadow of the boulder; and this was where the chosen couple were made to lie down, while all about the young people of the tribes spent themselves in the ritual spring orgy.

  But the pair in the pit — though they had been stripped naked, and while they were drunk as the rest — nevertheless held back and drew apart, and scowled at each other through slitted eyes. Chylos stood at the rim and screamed at them: “Make love! Let the earth soak up your juices!” He prodded the young man with a spear and commanded him: “Take her! The gods demand it! What? And would you have the trees die, and all the animals, and the ice come down again to destroy us all? Do you defy the gods?”

  At that the young man would obey, for he feared the gods, but she would not have him. “Let him in!” Chylos screamed at her. “Would you be barren and have your breasts wither, and grow old before your time?” And so she wrapped her legs about the young man. But he was uncertain, and she had not accepted him; still, it seemed to Chylos that they were joined. And as the orgy climbed to its climax he cried out his triumph and signalled to a pair of well-muscled youths where they stood back behind the boulder. And coming forward they took up hammers and with mighty blows knocked away the chocks holding back the great stone from the pit.

  The boulder tilted — three hundred tons of rock keeling over — in the same moment Chylos clutched his heart, cried out and stumbled forward, and toppled into the pit! — the rune-inscribed boulder with all its designs and great weight slammed down into the hole with a shock that shook the earth. But such was the power of the orgy that held them all in sway, that only those who coupled in the immediate vicinity of the stone knew that it had moved at all!

  Now, with the drumming at a standstill, the couples parted, fell back, lay mainly exhausted. A vast field, as of battle, with steam rising as a morning mist. And the two whose task it had been to topple the boulder going amongst them, seeking still-willing, however aching flesh in which to relieve their own pent passions.

  Thus was the deed done, the rite performed, the magic worked, the luststone came into being. Or thus it was intended. And old Chylos never knowing that, alas, his work was for nothing, for his propitiates had failed to couple …

  Three winters after that the snows were heavy, meat was scarce, and the tribes warred. Then for a decade the gods and their seasonal rites were put aside, following which that great ritual orgy soon became a legend and eventually a myth. Fifty years later the luststone and its carvings were moss-covered, forgotten; another fifty saw the stone a shrine. One hundred more years passed and the domed, mossy top of the boulder was hidden in a grove of oaks: a place of the gods, taboo.

  The plain grew to a forest, and the stone was buried beneath a growing mound of fertile soil; the trees were felled to build mammoth-pens, and the grass grew deep, thick, and luxurious. More years saw the trees grow up again into a mighty oak forest; and these were the years of the hunter, the declining years of the mammoth. Now the people were farmers, of a sort, who protected limited crops and beasts against Nature’s perils. There were years of the long-toothed cats and years of the wolf. And now and then there were wars between the tribes.

  And time was the moon that waxed and waned, and the hills growing old and rounded, and forests spanning the en­tire land; and the tribes flourished and fought and did little else under the green canopy of these mighty forests …

  Through all of this the stone slept, buried shallow in the earth, keeping its secret; but lovers in the forest knew where to lie when the moon was up. And men robbed by the years or by their own excesses could find a wonder there, when forgotten strength returned, however fleetingly, to fill them once more with fire.

  As for old Chylos’s dream: it came to pass, but his remedy was worthless. Buried beneath the sod for three thousand years the luststone lay, and felt the tramping feet of the nomad-warrior Celts on the march. Five thousand more years saw the Romans come to Britain, then the Anglo-Saxons, the Vikings, and still the luststone lay there.

  There were greater wars than ever Chylos had dreamed, more of rape and murder than he ever could have ima
gined. War in the sea, on the land and in the air.

  And at last there was peace again, of a sort. And finally—

  Finally …

  Two

  Garry Clemens was a human calculator at a betting shop in North London; he could figure the numbers, combinations and value of a winning ticket to within a doesn’t matter a damn faster than the girls could feed the figures into their machines. All the punters knew him; generally they’d accept without qualms his arbitration on vastly complicated accumulators and the like. With these sort of qualifications Garry could hold down a job any place they played the horses — which was handy because he liked to move around a lot and betting on the races was his hobby. One of his hobbies, anyway.

  Another was rape.

  Every time Garry took a heavy loss, then he raped. That way (according to his figuring) he won every time. If he couldn’t take it out on the horse that let him down, then he’d take it out on some girl instead. But he’d suf­fered a spate of losses recently, and that had led to some trouble. He hated those nights when he’d go back to his flat and lie down on his bed and have nothing good to think about for that day. Only bad things, like the two hundred he’d lost on that nag that should have come in at fifteen to one, or the filly that got pipped at the post and cost him a cool grand. Which was why he’d finally figured out a way to ease his pain.

  Starting now he’d take a girl for every day of the week, and that way when he took a loss — no matter which day it fell on — he’d always have something good to think about that night when he went to bed. If it was a Wednesday, why, he’d simply think about the Wednesday girl, et cetera …

  But he’d gone through a bad patch and so the rapes had had to come thick and fast, one and sometimes two a week. His Monday girl was a redhead he’d gagged and tied to a tree in the centre of a copse in a built-up area. He’d spent a lot of time with her, smoked cigarettes in between and talked dirty and nasty to her, raped her three times. Differently each time. Tuesday was a sixteen-year-old kid down at the bottom of the railway embankment. No gag or rope or anything; she’d been so shit-scared that after he was through she didn’t even start yelling for an hour. Wednesday (Garry’s favourite) it had been a heavily preg­nant coloured woman he’d dragged into a burned-out shop right in town! He’d made that one do everything. In the papers the next day he’d read how she lost her baby. But that hadn’t bothered him too much.

  Thursday had been when it started to get sticky. Garry had dragged this hooker into a street of derelict houses but hadn’t even got started when along came this copper! He’d put his knife in the tart’s throat — so that she wouldn’t yell — and then got the Hell out of there. And he’d reckoned himself lucky to get clean away. But on the other hand, it meant he had to go out the next night, too. He didn’t like the tension to build up too much.

  But Friday had been a near-disaster, too. There was a house party not far from where he lived, and Garry had been invited. He’d declined, but he was there anyway — in the garden of the house opposite, whose people weren’t at home. And when this really stacked piece had left the party on her own about midnight, Garry had jumped her. But just when he’d knocked her cold and was getting her out of her clothes, then the owners of the house turned up and saw him in the garden. He’d had to cut and run like the wind then, and even now it made his guts churn when he thought about it.

  So he’d kept it quiet for a couple of weeks before starting again, and then he’d finally found his Thursday girl. A really shy thing getting off a late-night tube, who he’d carried into a parking lot and had for a couple of hours straight. And she hadn’t said a word, just panted a lot and been sick. It turned out she was dumb — and Garry chuckled when he read that. No wonder she’d been so quiet. Maybe he should look for a blind one next time …

  A week later, Friday, he’d gone out again, but it was a failure; he couldn’t find anyone. And so the very next night he’d taken his Saturday girl — a middle-aged bag lady! So what the Hell! — a rape is a rape is a rape, right? He gave her a bottle of some good stuff first, which put her away nicely, then gave her a Hell of a lot of bad stuff in as many ways as he knew how. She probably didn’t even feel it, wouldn’t even remember it, so after­wards he’d banged her face on the pavement a couple of times so that when she woke up at least she’d know something had happened! Except she hadn’t woken up. Well, at least that way she wouldn’t be talking about it. And by now he knew they’d have his semen type on record, and that they’d also have him if he just once slipped up. But he didn’t intend to.

  Sunday’s girl was a lady taxi driver with a figure that was a real stopper! Garry hired her to take him out of town, directed her to a big house in the country and stopped her at the bottom of the drive. Then he hit her on the head, ripped her radio out, drove into a wood and had her in the back of the cab. He’d really made a meal of it, especially after she woke up; but as he was finishing she got a bit too active and raked his face — which was something he didn’t much like. He had a nice face, Garry, and was very fond of it. So almost before he’d known that he was doing it, he’d gutted the whore!

  But the next day in the papers the police were talking about skin under her fingernails, and now he knew they had his blood group but definitely, too. And his face was marked; not badly, but enough. So it had been time to take a holiday.

  Luckily he’d just had a big win on the gee-gees; he phoned the bookie’s and said he wasn’t up to it — couldn’t see the numbers too clearly — he was taking time off. With an eye-patch and a bandage to cover the damage, he’d headed west and finally holed up in Chichester.

  But all of that had been twelve days ago, and he was fine now, and he still had to find his girl-Friday. And today was Friday, so … Garry reckoned he’d rested up long enough.

  This morning he’d read about a Friday night dance at a place called Athelsford, a hick village just a bus-ride away. Well, and he had nothing against country bumpkins, did he? So Athelsford it would have to be …

  It was the middle of the long hot summer of ’76. The weather forecasters were all agreed for once that this one would drag on and on, and reserves of water all over the country were already beginning to suffer. This was that summer when there would be shock reports of the Thames flowing backwards, when rainmakers would be called in from the USA to dance and caper, and when a certain Government Ministry would beg householders to put bricks in their WC cisterns and thus consume less of precious water.

  The southern beaches were choked morning to night with kids on their school holidays, sun-blackened treasure hunters with knotted hankies on their heads and metal detectors in their hands, and frustrated fishermen with their crates of beer, boxes of sandwiches, and plastic bags of smelly bait. The pubs were filled all through open­ing hours with customers trying to drown their thirsts or themselves, and the resorts had never had it so good. The nights were balmy for lovers from Land’s End to John o’ Groat’s, and nowhere balmier than in the country lanes of the Southern Counties.

  Athelsford Estate in Hampshire, one of the few suburban housing projects of the Sixties to realize a measure of success (in that its houses were good, its people relatively happy, and — after the last bulldozer had clanked away — its countryside comparatively unspoiled) suffered or en­joyed the heat wave no more or less than anywhere else. It was just another small centre of life and twentieth-century civilization, and apart from the fact that Athelsford was ‘rather select’ there was little as yet to distinguish it from a hundred other estates and small villages in the country triangle of Salisbury, Reading, and Brighton.

  Tonight being Friday night, there was to be dancing at The Barn. As its name implied, the place had been a half brick, half timber barn; but the Athelsfordians being an enterprising lot, three of their more affluent members had bought the great vault of a place, done it up with internal balconies, tables, and chairs, built a modest car park to one side — an extension of the village pub’s car park — and now it
was a dance hall, occasionally used for weddings and other private functions. On Wednesday nights the younger folk had it for their discotheques (mainly teenage affairs, in return for which they kept it in good repair), but on Friday nights the Barn became the focal point of the entire estate. The Barn and The Old Stage.

  The Old Stage was the village pub, its sign a coach with rearing horses confronted by a highwayman in tricorn hat. Joe McGovern, a widower, owned and ran the pub, and many of his customers jokingly associated him with the highwayman on his sign. But while Joe was and always would be a canny Scot, he was also a fair man and down to earth. So were his prices. Ten years ago when the estate was new, the steady custom of the people had saved The Old Stage and kept it a free house. Now Joe’s trade was flourishing, and he had plenty to be thankful for.

  So, too, Joe’s somewhat surly son Gavin. Things to be thankful for, and others he could well do without. Gavin was, for example, extremely thankful for The Barn, whose bar he ran on Wednesday and Friday nights, using stock from The Old Stage. The profits very nicely supplemented the wage he earned as a county council labourer working on the new road. The wage he had earned, anyway, before he’d quit. That had only been this morning but already he sort of missed the work, and he was sure he was going to miss the money. But … oh, he’d find other work. There was always work for good strong hands. He had that to be thankful for, too: his health and strength.

  But he was not thankful for his kid sister, Eileen: her ‘scrapes and narrow escapes’ (as he saw her small handful of as yet entirely innocent friendships with the local lads), and her natural, almost astonishing beauty, which drew them like butterflies to bright flowers. It was that, in large part, which made him surly; for he knew that in fact she wasn’t just a ‘kid’ sister any more, and that sooner or later she …