Chapter 18: The Milk of Paradise
Conall woke after a few hours’ sleep, curled up under a couple of dew-covered blankets, at the base of the stone in the avenue. The sky was almost light with the last of the stars fading in the west, and a soft mist floated about the stones. A barn owl, silent as a spirit on its moth-like wings danced from stone to stone. Conall sat and watched the owl for a few minutes until it flitted out of sight down the avenue.
He stood and stretched, still wearing yesterday’s clothes. He was thirsty, but not hungover, and he felt strangely at peace. Part of him felt as if yesterday had not happened; only the alder-wood flute, wrapped in its cloth beside the blankets at the base of the stone, suggested otherwise. The owl reappeared a hundred yards down the avenue, hovering then swooping into the grass beside one of the stones. Conall’s mind turned to the camper, and its kettle. Something felt wrong, though. His hand went to his neck. The familiar weight of his yin-yang pendant hanging on his chest was missing. Searching around the foot of the stone where he had slept revealed nothing. Then he remembered spinning on Waden hill the night before while looking up at the stars.
Forgoing breakfast for a spell, he retraced his steps up the path through the meadow, and sure enough, there lay his pendant in an area of flattened grass atop the hill. Relieved Conall sat down once more in the same spot as his nocturnal visit, now able to discern the exact position of West Kennet long barrow on the opposite ridge where before there had been but rolling vistas of shadow.
He smiled to himself; there, further along the field, close to the road near the Swallowhead stood a new crop circle: a ring of 30 small circles with a larger circle two toned and split in half at their centre. He remembered the croppies giggling into their mobile phones; he wondered if they’d been there in the dark while he played his flute, spinning in the wheat as he span on the hill?
As he looked he saw something that seemed to be a man walking briskly alongside the mound.
The dark shape was moving swiftly along the edge of the barrow, but it was only when it had passed the end, and not turned back to walk along the other side as he would have expected a visitor to do, that he realised something was amiss. For a start the ‘man’ had traversed the length of the barrow, a good hundred and fifty feet in half a minute, about twice the speed of a walking man – but the shape wasn’t moving like man does when running. Then there was its height: it was shorter than the mound itself, yet the mound was only 5ft high. As it sloped away from the mound, continuing westwards towards the bottom of the valley Conall could see that the creature was only 3 or four feet tall, and actually long rather than tall. From the cows in the neighbouring field he estimated its size as that of a calf, yet it was jet black and moved fast – too fast for a cow, and with no deviations from its course… walking a straight line as if heading towards the new circle beyond the Swallowhead spring.
Conall tried to look harder but his eyes began to water with the effort. If he had to guess he would have said the creature was some huge black cat, like a puma, or perhaps a dog… but huge, and walking briskly in the one direction as if following an old long trodden path, not stopping to sniff, as dogs do. He watched it for two or three minutes until it entered the trees that bordered the field edge beside the Swallowhead spring.
The dog, or puma, or whatever it was did not re-emerge from the trees.
Conall felt odd; unnerved. He was glad he had been on this side of the valley. Clutching his pendant to him, realised that if he hadn’t dropped this he would never have seen the animal, whatever it was.
Walking back over the hill a few minutes later Conall noticed a van now parked behind his own, and on closer inspection realised, from the airbrushed wolves on its side, that it was Wolf Jones’s van. He looked at the clock on his phone – it wasn’t yet half past seven. Wolf could be seen knocking on the windows of Con’s camper. Con shouted and waved, and eventually Wolf heard him and looked his way, waving and smiling.
‘Breakfast?’ Wolf shouted.
Ten minutes later both men were sat in the avenue, using a large female stone to break the slight breeze, huddled over a small gas-stove on which a frying pan was set, in which butter was spitting. Wolf expertly cracked four eggs into the pan while Conall ripped open some rolls and buttered them.
‘Thought you’d appreciate this after a night al fresco!’ Wolf grinned.
Conall nodded. ‘I’m just surprised you’re up.’ He said, sipping the coffee he’d just brewed in his van.
Wolf shrugged.
‘I’m an early riser, me. Besides, Hayden was up for work early and I asked him to give me a shout – I wanted to get to the long-barrow early.’
Con decided not to mention the animal he’d seen, wanting, for some reason, to cast it from his mind.
Wolf lifted the eggs, dripping in butter, into the rolls, then sprinkled them with salt; the two men ate in silence, save for grunts of appreciation from Wolf. Once finished they sat drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes.
‘Damn fine way to start a day!’ Wolf smiled. Con was in agreement. What would today bring, he wondered? The sighting of the animal seemed to suggest some kind of auspicious occurrence was in the offing, and already the day promised to be fine and hot. Of course he had already resolved to text Shen and meet with her at some point, especially now he knew Hayden was off the scene; it might give him chance to talk, to explain.
‘Did you want another coffee?’ he asked. Wolf nodded.
‘That would be grand. Mind if I have a poke around your van?’ he added, grinning cheekily.
While Con set the kettle on to boil again Wolf sat on the sofa-bed, his head turned sideways looking at the books on the small shelf above the hob and sink.
‘Do you mind?’ he asked, taking down the PhD ‘unfinished’ file. Con shook his head, getting ready to try to explain exactly what he’s been studying.
‘You said you were a lecturer,’ Wolf said. ‘Is this the kind of stuff you taught?’
‘Kind of. I did a physics degree, and then an MSc in astrophysics but ended up lecturing in the history of astronomy, you know, Kepler, Hipparchus, Galileo, that kind of thing…’
‘What’s all this, though?’ Wolf asked, flicking through the loose pages of star-charts and plans of circular features.
‘I was looking at how far astronomy went back – I mean, my lectures went back to the Egyptians, but the more I looked into myths all around the world the more you got these shared images that suggested people knew about astronomy way, way back in prehistory…images that made no practical sense and were just bizarre until you interpreted them as astronomical images – constellations, eclipses, comets, stuff like that. Anyway – I did my Masters dissertation on Stonehenge – I was looking at the idea it was aligned on the summer solstice, and I wanted to see if it was true of the other henge sites, Avebury for instance…and it turns out it isn’t – it’s not even true for Stonehenge, I mean, there is evidence of an interest in the winter solstice – but not at all the sites; only a handful, really, so I started my PhD looking at what they were aligned on…’
‘Cool, man, sounds awesome. Why didn’t you finish it?’
‘I quit. I think they thought I was losing the plot; you see I came up with a theory, but then I started to look for proof of it in myth, and they said that myth was out of fashion....’
Wolf raised his eyes at that. ‘What was your theory?’ he asked.
Con hesitated for a moment. It was never easy knowing where to start. He paused, recalling his dream – the river being magically transformed into milk at the touch of the goddess’ wand, and the horse with the crescent moon between her brows appearing beside him on the bank – this was the real start… he wondered for a second whether he should tell Wolf, but decided against it. Instead, he fumbled through his notes and pulled out a plan; on it were two circles, each with a line drawn from the centre, out.
Conall woke after a few hours’ sleep, curled up under a couple of dew-covered blankets, at the base of the stone in the avenue. The sky was almost light with the last of the stars fading in the west, and a soft mist floated about the stones. A barn owl, silent as a spirit on its moth-like wings danced from stone to stone. Conall sat and watched the owl for a few minutes until it flitted out of sight down the avenue.
He stood and stretched, still wearing yesterday’s clothes. He was thirsty, but not hungover, and he felt strangely at peace. Part of him felt as if yesterday had not happened; only the alder-wood flute, wrapped in its cloth beside the blankets at the base of the stone, suggested otherwise. The owl reappeared a hundred yards down the avenue, hovering then swooping into the grass beside one of the stones. Conall’s mind turned to the camper, and its kettle. Something felt wrong, though. His hand went to his neck. The familiar weight of his yin-yang pendant hanging on his chest was missing. Searching around the foot of the stone where he had slept revealed nothing. Then he remembered spinning on Waden hill the night before while looking up at the stars.
Forgoing breakfast for a spell, he retraced his steps up the path through the meadow, and sure enough, there lay his pendant in an area of flattened grass atop the hill. Relieved Conall sat down once more in the same spot as his nocturnal visit, now able to discern the exact position of West Kennet long barrow on the opposite ridge where before there had been but rolling vistas of shadow.
He smiled to himself; there, further along the field, close to the road near the Swallowhead stood a new crop circle: a ring of 30 small circles with a larger circle two toned and split in half at their centre. He remembered the croppies giggling into their mobile phones; he wondered if they’d been there in the dark while he played his flute, spinning in the wheat as he span on the hill?
As he looked he saw something that seemed to be a man walking briskly alongside the mound.
The dark shape was moving swiftly along the edge of the barrow, but it was only when it had passed the end, and not turned back to walk along the other side as he would have expected a visitor to do, that he realised something was amiss. For a start the ‘man’ had traversed the length of the barrow, a good hundred and fifty feet in half a minute, about twice the speed of a walking man – but the shape wasn’t moving like man does when running. Then there was its height: it was shorter than the mound itself, yet the mound was only 5ft high. As it sloped away from the mound, continuing westwards towards the bottom of the valley Conall could see that the creature was only 3 or four feet tall, and actually long rather than tall. From the cows in the neighbouring field he estimated its size as that of a calf, yet it was jet black and moved fast – too fast for a cow, and with no deviations from its course… walking a straight line as if heading towards the new circle beyond the Swallowhead spring.
Conall tried to look harder but his eyes began to water with the effort. If he had to guess he would have said the creature was some huge black cat, like a puma, or perhaps a dog… but huge, and walking briskly in the one direction as if following an old long trodden path, not stopping to sniff, as dogs do. He watched it for two or three minutes until it entered the trees that bordered the field edge beside the Swallowhead spring.
The dog, or puma, or whatever it was did not re-emerge from the trees.
Conall felt odd; unnerved. He was glad he had been on this side of the valley. Clutching his pendant to him, realised that if he hadn’t dropped this he would never have seen the animal, whatever it was.
Walking back over the hill a few minutes later Conall noticed a van now parked behind his own, and on closer inspection realised, from the airbrushed wolves on its side, that it was Wolf Jones’s van. He looked at the clock on his phone – it wasn’t yet half past seven. Wolf could be seen knocking on the windows of Con’s camper. Con shouted and waved, and eventually Wolf heard him and looked his way, waving and smiling.
‘Breakfast?’ Wolf shouted.
Ten minutes later both men were sat in the avenue, using a large female stone to break the slight breeze, huddled over a small gas-stove on which a frying pan was set, in which butter was spitting. Wolf expertly cracked four eggs into the pan while Conall ripped open some rolls and buttered them.
‘Thought you’d appreciate this after a night al fresco!’ Wolf grinned.
Conall nodded. ‘I’m just surprised you’re up.’ He said, sipping the coffee he’d just brewed in his van.
Wolf shrugged.
‘I’m an early riser, me. Besides, Hayden was up for work early and I asked him to give me a shout – I wanted to get to the long-barrow early.’
Con decided not to mention the animal he’d seen, wanting, for some reason, to cast it from his mind.
Wolf lifted the eggs, dripping in butter, into the rolls, then sprinkled them with salt; the two men ate in silence, save for grunts of appreciation from Wolf. Once finished they sat drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes.
‘Damn fine way to start a day!’ Wolf smiled. Con was in agreement. What would today bring, he wondered? The sighting of the animal seemed to suggest some kind of auspicious occurrence was in the offing, and already the day promised to be fine and hot. Of course he had already resolved to text Shen and meet with her at some point, especially now he knew Hayden was off the scene; it might give him chance to talk, to explain.
‘Did you want another coffee?’ he asked. Wolf nodded.
‘That would be grand. Mind if I have a poke around your van?’ he added, grinning cheekily.
While Con set the kettle on to boil again Wolf sat on the sofa-bed, his head turned sideways looking at the books on the small shelf above the hob and sink.
‘Do you mind?’ he asked, taking down the PhD ‘unfinished’ file. Con shook his head, getting ready to try to explain exactly what he’s been studying.
‘You said you were a lecturer,’ Wolf said. ‘Is this the kind of stuff you taught?’
‘Kind of. I did a physics degree, and then an MSc in astrophysics but ended up lecturing in the history of astronomy, you know, Kepler, Hipparchus, Galileo, that kind of thing…’
‘What’s all this, though?’ Wolf asked, flicking through the loose pages of star-charts and plans of circular features.
‘I was looking at how far astronomy went back – I mean, my lectures went back to the Egyptians, but the more I looked into myths all around the world the more you got these shared images that suggested people knew about astronomy way, way back in prehistory…images that made no practical sense and were just bizarre until you interpreted them as astronomical images – constellations, eclipses, comets, stuff like that. Anyway – I did my Masters dissertation on Stonehenge – I was looking at the idea it was aligned on the summer solstice, and I wanted to see if it was true of the other henge sites, Avebury for instance…and it turns out it isn’t – it’s not even true for Stonehenge, I mean, there is evidence of an interest in the winter solstice – but not at all the sites; only a handful, really, so I started my PhD looking at what they were aligned on…’
‘Cool, man, sounds awesome. Why didn’t you finish it?’
‘I quit. I think they thought I was losing the plot; you see I came up with a theory, but then I started to look for proof of it in myth, and they said that myth was out of fashion....’
Wolf raised his eyes at that. ‘What was your theory?’ he asked.
Con hesitated for a moment. It was never easy knowing where to start. He paused, recalling his dream – the river being magically transformed into milk at the touch of the goddess’ wand, and the horse with the crescent moon between her brows appearing beside him on the bank – this was the real start… he wondered for a second whether he should tell Wolf, but decided against it. Instead, he fumbled through his notes and pulled out a plan; on it were two circles, each with a line drawn from the centre, out.
‘That’s Stonehenge…’ Con said; ‘you can see the entrance to the north-east – that’s the one aligned on the solstice, except it’s the winter, not the summer – they’re on the same alignment, but archaeologists have shown people were gathering there in the winter, standing outside the circle looking in – but that’s beside the point – look down here, here’s another entrance to the south and one to the south-south-west, that’s only on the first image, ok?’
Wolf nodded.
‘Now these entrances can’t be aligned on either sun or moon like the north-east one as they’re outside the rising and setting points of both; you never see the sun or moon rise exactly north or south, do you? So, I asked, if the north-east entrance was astronomical, why not these others, too? Were they pointing, say, at a star or group of stars…’
‘Fair enough.’ Said Wolf. ‘So, were they?’
Con paused; ‘Well…’ he gave a nervous smile ‘ – the first plan shows the orientation of the south-south-west entrance at about 3,100 BC, but this entrance was deliberately blocked a few hundred years later; then you get this corridor of posts being built that points through the southern entrance at nearly the same angle as the old south-south-west entrance… nearly being the key word: I wondered whether these two entrances were being aligned on the same thing, but something that had moved slightly over those few hundred years…’
Wolf was nodding, which Con took to be a good sign.
‘Now, there was a star, well, group of stars, that could be seen rising through the southern entrance, and setting through the south-south-west one, but which, after a few hundred years had moved so it could no longer be seen setting; that’s why that entrance was blocked, it had ceased to ‘work’. In its place the new avenue of posts was built pointing out of the south entrance towards the new setting point.’
‘Why did they move?’ Wolf asked.
‘Ever heard of the Precession of the equinoxes?’
‘Heard of it, but not looked into it.’ he said.
‘It’s a bit complicated to go into now, but basically the rising and setting points of the stars change slowly over time – so, for instance, the constellation against which the spring equinox sun rises these days is Pisces, it’s actually on the cusp of Aquarius, hence that song about the dawning of the age of Aquarius; but when Stonehenge was built it the spring equinox sun rose in Taurus, and before that Gemini… the position of the pole star changes too; it’s basically a wobble in the earth’s axis, and because of it the rising or setting point of a star changes by a degree every 72 years…so if you’ve aligned the entrance of your henge to a star, after a few hundred years it’ll no longer work…’
‘I’ll take your word for it – but which fucking stars was Stonehenge pointing at? Get to the bloody point man!’
‘It’s not just Stonehenge…’ Con was pulling A4 sheets from the folder and handing them to Wolf…
‘Avebury… Dorchester, Arbor Low, Thornborough, Woodhenge, the ring of Brodgar, Woodhenge…and loads more – about 60% of all the sites I looked at, and I looked at about 50 henges in detail, had some kind of alignment on this exact part of the sky…’
Con hesitated and took a pen from the shelf and drew a group of four dots on the one of the sheets of paper that Wolf was holding; a rectangle on its edge, with the bottom corner further from the centre than the rest, like a kite.
‘Join the dots’ Con asked, offering the pen. Wolf took the pen and drew a diamond.
‘Thank fuck for that.’ Laughed Con. ‘The stars are the Southern Cross – or Crux.’ He took out another sheet of paper that showed the constellation as part of a star-map ‘But as the name suggests, we tend to see the stars as a cross-pattern. But…’ Another flurry of printed sheets came Wolf’s way; all showing various diamond patterns inscribed on stones, on clay vessels; on carved and moulded figurines; pages and pages of the same… ‘the lozenge is a really important symbol in Neolithic art, and I think they would have seen it as a diamond, not a cross…’
‘I know 60% doesn’t sound a lot,’ he continued, ‘but just 5 of the 50 sites had midsummer alignments, so we’re looking six times as many with the Crux alignments, and that’s not the end of it…they’re part of a bigger pattern that increases the alignments to 85%...’ he began rooting through the folder, but in his hurry dropped the folder on to the floor.
‘Fuck’s sake…’ he muttered.
‘You need to write this down Con. You shouldn’t have stopped. Fook me – I can see why you were a lecturer; you’re like a different person when you’re explaining all that shit. It’s cool.’
Con played down the compliment.
‘But I don’t think I was in the right place to continue; it was only a few months after my sister…’ he said, dismissively, placing the roughly gathered sheets on to the sofa bed.
The kettle on the gas hob whistled and Con turned his attention to finishing the coffee.
‘If you don’t mind me asking – what happened? Shen just mentioned an accident…’ Wolf asked.
‘Did you ever hear of a band called Mellifluous? They were around in the nineties.’ Conall asked.
Wolf nodded; ‘Yeah, of course ’Damsel with a Dulcimer’ and all that? Electronic Folk-rock; well kooky. I’ve got that track on my Ipod in fact, and ‘Milk of Paradise’.’
‘Melissa Astor, the lead singer… she was my sister.’ Con said simply.
‘Fuck, man. God, I remember. She…’
‘Drowned.’ Con finished. ‘Last May. She went swimming when drunk,’ Con said blankly, pouring the contents of the cafetiere into their cups. ‘It was around the last time I was here. Coming back here is a bit of an exorcism, really.’
Wolf was nodding, slowly.
‘She was your sister? Fuck, man! Mellifluous; I see it now – the hair! God she had mad hair! I man, I was gutted. I mean everyone was; God, that is crazy!’
Con took a sip of coffee, then his eyes became fixed as he looked out of the windows to the mist on the horizon.
‘A damsel with a dulcimer, in a vision once I saw’…
Wolf, too, was singing from her song.
‘…For he on honeydew hath fed
and drunk the milk of Paradise’
‘Milk of Paradise was going to be the name of her next album…’ Con said.
‘She was a great singer, mate. I’m really sorry… I saw her at Glastonbury…when was that?’
‘Yeah – I was there, too. ’95... Want to see a bit of memorabilia?’
Wolf shrugged ‘Course!’
‘‘Damsel’ and ‘Milk’ were both based on Coleridge’s Kubla Khan;’ Con explained, rifling through the contents of the bookshelf, moving boxes of tea-bags, a phone-charger and cigarette-filters out of the way; ‘she was always very deep and, as you say, kooky!’ He tried to smile. He finally found, from where he had placed it the day before, the Collected Coleridge; he opened a particular page and handed it to Wolf. ‘There you go – the lyrics to Damsel with a Dulcimer.’
Wolf ran a finger down the heavily annotated page. ‘This is like music history, man!’ He said. Con nodded and took back the book, fumbling through some pages before finding what he was looking for:
‘This is where she was writing new lyrics;’ he said, matter of factly. Scrawled down one side of an already overly annotated page were two verses under a scribbled heading ‘Milk of Paradise’:
I seek for the Mother
To cry no more
to find where her cool white waters rise…
In the depths of the water
To sigh no more
Lie stones fallen from the skies
Wolf read them aloud and then went to turn the page but Con took it from him and closed the book, putting back in the gap on the shelf.
For a moment Wolf’s eyes remained on the creased spine of the volume and then he turned to Con.
‘Look – I’m meeting Ananda, you know, the barmaid from the Red Lion, up at West Kennet later to do some drumming. You’re free to come along.’
Con smiled. ‘I may wonder up later, yes, thank you. I’m probably going to try to meet Shen for lunch.’
‘Well, we’ll be up there this afternoon, I’d imagine.’ His eyes sparkled. ‘She’s a beauty, Ananda…’ Wolf smiled but then his expression turned serious.
‘I get a good vibe from you. I can see there’s life in you, deep down. Spring always follows winter, you know.’
Con held his gaze for a moment, but had to look away.
‘When’s the last time you laughed, properly?’
Con looked into space.
‘I don’t remember. Not since Melissa; I mean, I’ve laughed – but it’s like I’m kind of trapped behind this glass screen. I’m here but I’m not, if that makes sense? I am trying. Maybe part of me died when she did.’
Wolf nodded. ‘Courage, my friend – that’s what you need; the courage to be angry, to feel again. When you hide your feelings to stop being hurt, you hide all of them – joy, love, not just the painful ones.’
‘Like I said – I’m trying.’ Con repeated, staring into his coffee. ‘It’s almost as if I’ve forgotten how. I want to open up again, but it feels like I’ve a bellyful of lead; the words are there but they just won’t come out….’
Wolf put down his cup and placed a hand on Con’s shoulder.
‘Words can be overrated. We tend to try and verbalise what we think; but sometimes thinking itself is the problem. Come to the longbarrow later, promise me?’
Con nodded.
Wolf nodded.
‘Now these entrances can’t be aligned on either sun or moon like the north-east one as they’re outside the rising and setting points of both; you never see the sun or moon rise exactly north or south, do you? So, I asked, if the north-east entrance was astronomical, why not these others, too? Were they pointing, say, at a star or group of stars…’
‘Fair enough.’ Said Wolf. ‘So, were they?’
Con paused; ‘Well…’ he gave a nervous smile ‘ – the first plan shows the orientation of the south-south-west entrance at about 3,100 BC, but this entrance was deliberately blocked a few hundred years later; then you get this corridor of posts being built that points through the southern entrance at nearly the same angle as the old south-south-west entrance… nearly being the key word: I wondered whether these two entrances were being aligned on the same thing, but something that had moved slightly over those few hundred years…’
Wolf was nodding, which Con took to be a good sign.
‘Now, there was a star, well, group of stars, that could be seen rising through the southern entrance, and setting through the south-south-west one, but which, after a few hundred years had moved so it could no longer be seen setting; that’s why that entrance was blocked, it had ceased to ‘work’. In its place the new avenue of posts was built pointing out of the south entrance towards the new setting point.’
‘Why did they move?’ Wolf asked.
‘Ever heard of the Precession of the equinoxes?’
‘Heard of it, but not looked into it.’ he said.
‘It’s a bit complicated to go into now, but basically the rising and setting points of the stars change slowly over time – so, for instance, the constellation against which the spring equinox sun rises these days is Pisces, it’s actually on the cusp of Aquarius, hence that song about the dawning of the age of Aquarius; but when Stonehenge was built it the spring equinox sun rose in Taurus, and before that Gemini… the position of the pole star changes too; it’s basically a wobble in the earth’s axis, and because of it the rising or setting point of a star changes by a degree every 72 years…so if you’ve aligned the entrance of your henge to a star, after a few hundred years it’ll no longer work…’
‘I’ll take your word for it – but which fucking stars was Stonehenge pointing at? Get to the bloody point man!’
‘It’s not just Stonehenge…’ Con was pulling A4 sheets from the folder and handing them to Wolf…
‘Avebury… Dorchester, Arbor Low, Thornborough, Woodhenge, the ring of Brodgar, Woodhenge…and loads more – about 60% of all the sites I looked at, and I looked at about 50 henges in detail, had some kind of alignment on this exact part of the sky…’
Con hesitated and took a pen from the shelf and drew a group of four dots on the one of the sheets of paper that Wolf was holding; a rectangle on its edge, with the bottom corner further from the centre than the rest, like a kite.
‘Join the dots’ Con asked, offering the pen. Wolf took the pen and drew a diamond.
‘Thank fuck for that.’ Laughed Con. ‘The stars are the Southern Cross – or Crux.’ He took out another sheet of paper that showed the constellation as part of a star-map ‘But as the name suggests, we tend to see the stars as a cross-pattern. But…’ Another flurry of printed sheets came Wolf’s way; all showing various diamond patterns inscribed on stones, on clay vessels; on carved and moulded figurines; pages and pages of the same… ‘the lozenge is a really important symbol in Neolithic art, and I think they would have seen it as a diamond, not a cross…’
‘I know 60% doesn’t sound a lot,’ he continued, ‘but just 5 of the 50 sites had midsummer alignments, so we’re looking six times as many with the Crux alignments, and that’s not the end of it…they’re part of a bigger pattern that increases the alignments to 85%...’ he began rooting through the folder, but in his hurry dropped the folder on to the floor.
‘Fuck’s sake…’ he muttered.
‘You need to write this down Con. You shouldn’t have stopped. Fook me – I can see why you were a lecturer; you’re like a different person when you’re explaining all that shit. It’s cool.’
Con played down the compliment.
‘But I don’t think I was in the right place to continue; it was only a few months after my sister…’ he said, dismissively, placing the roughly gathered sheets on to the sofa bed.
The kettle on the gas hob whistled and Con turned his attention to finishing the coffee.
‘If you don’t mind me asking – what happened? Shen just mentioned an accident…’ Wolf asked.
‘Did you ever hear of a band called Mellifluous? They were around in the nineties.’ Conall asked.
Wolf nodded; ‘Yeah, of course ’Damsel with a Dulcimer’ and all that? Electronic Folk-rock; well kooky. I’ve got that track on my Ipod in fact, and ‘Milk of Paradise’.’
‘Melissa Astor, the lead singer… she was my sister.’ Con said simply.
‘Fuck, man. God, I remember. She…’
‘Drowned.’ Con finished. ‘Last May. She went swimming when drunk,’ Con said blankly, pouring the contents of the cafetiere into their cups. ‘It was around the last time I was here. Coming back here is a bit of an exorcism, really.’
Wolf was nodding, slowly.
‘She was your sister? Fuck, man! Mellifluous; I see it now – the hair! God she had mad hair! I man, I was gutted. I mean everyone was; God, that is crazy!’
Con took a sip of coffee, then his eyes became fixed as he looked out of the windows to the mist on the horizon.
‘A damsel with a dulcimer, in a vision once I saw’…
Wolf, too, was singing from her song.
‘…For he on honeydew hath fed
and drunk the milk of Paradise’
‘Milk of Paradise was going to be the name of her next album…’ Con said.
‘She was a great singer, mate. I’m really sorry… I saw her at Glastonbury…when was that?’
‘Yeah – I was there, too. ’95... Want to see a bit of memorabilia?’
Wolf shrugged ‘Course!’
‘‘Damsel’ and ‘Milk’ were both based on Coleridge’s Kubla Khan;’ Con explained, rifling through the contents of the bookshelf, moving boxes of tea-bags, a phone-charger and cigarette-filters out of the way; ‘she was always very deep and, as you say, kooky!’ He tried to smile. He finally found, from where he had placed it the day before, the Collected Coleridge; he opened a particular page and handed it to Wolf. ‘There you go – the lyrics to Damsel with a Dulcimer.’
Wolf ran a finger down the heavily annotated page. ‘This is like music history, man!’ He said. Con nodded and took back the book, fumbling through some pages before finding what he was looking for:
‘This is where she was writing new lyrics;’ he said, matter of factly. Scrawled down one side of an already overly annotated page were two verses under a scribbled heading ‘Milk of Paradise’:
I seek for the Mother
To cry no more
to find where her cool white waters rise…
In the depths of the water
To sigh no more
Lie stones fallen from the skies
Wolf read them aloud and then went to turn the page but Con took it from him and closed the book, putting back in the gap on the shelf.
For a moment Wolf’s eyes remained on the creased spine of the volume and then he turned to Con.
‘Look – I’m meeting Ananda, you know, the barmaid from the Red Lion, up at West Kennet later to do some drumming. You’re free to come along.’
Con smiled. ‘I may wonder up later, yes, thank you. I’m probably going to try to meet Shen for lunch.’
‘Well, we’ll be up there this afternoon, I’d imagine.’ His eyes sparkled. ‘She’s a beauty, Ananda…’ Wolf smiled but then his expression turned serious.
‘I get a good vibe from you. I can see there’s life in you, deep down. Spring always follows winter, you know.’
Con held his gaze for a moment, but had to look away.
‘When’s the last time you laughed, properly?’
Con looked into space.
‘I don’t remember. Not since Melissa; I mean, I’ve laughed – but it’s like I’m kind of trapped behind this glass screen. I’m here but I’m not, if that makes sense? I am trying. Maybe part of me died when she did.’
Wolf nodded. ‘Courage, my friend – that’s what you need; the courage to be angry, to feel again. When you hide your feelings to stop being hurt, you hide all of them – joy, love, not just the painful ones.’
‘Like I said – I’m trying.’ Con repeated, staring into his coffee. ‘It’s almost as if I’ve forgotten how. I want to open up again, but it feels like I’ve a bellyful of lead; the words are there but they just won’t come out….’
Wolf put down his cup and placed a hand on Con’s shoulder.
‘Words can be overrated. We tend to try and verbalise what we think; but sometimes thinking itself is the problem. Come to the longbarrow later, promise me?’
Con nodded.