The Buried Circle - Jenni Mills [115]
He shook his head in wonder. ‘Didn’t know that.’
We sat side by side, not saying much, the last of the rain dripping off the trees, his brown fleece hanging on a branch to dry in the gusty wind, his hair in damp ringlets. His skin glowed in the firelight. Eventually I stood up, stepped over the fire again and went home, not sure what had happened between us.
After clearing up in the caf, I set off again for Tolemac, to warn Bryn he’s about to be evicted from the wood. At least, my guess is he’s the mysterious Bryn Kirkwood, whose signature was scrawled in a book on Gurdjieff: the bender is in the same place under the trees as the one there at equinox. Names never entered yesterday’s conversation. Generous with information about the Goddess, he was sparing with what he revealed about himself. All I know is that he works on building sites, off and on, as a carpenter. Age, parentage, significant others: all a mystery. Not much small-talk, rather intense.
The bender’s still there, its sheeting scattered with wild white cherry blossom. No sign of Bryn. He has secured it by weighting down the front flap with a row of stones, as if to say ‘Private’, the fire banked with turves, emitting a thin trickle of smoke. He told me he spends most days walking with the dog, looking for crop circles; never becomes tired because the energy they give off is amazing.
I hesitate, unsure what to do. Sometimes the pagans abandon tents for no clear reason. Graham would have no scruples about dismantling the bender and dumping Bryn’s belongings in the skip.
…a handful of withered wild flowers on damp leaf-mould, a smell of burning, clothing scattered, a pair of torn jeans hanging off the bough of a birch tree, like the aftermath of an air crash…
At Greenham, the children screamed when the bailiffs came to evict the women camping there. Frannie threw our backpacks into someone’s car just in time, but we lost Margaret’s tent and the sleeping-bags.
Nothing I can do. I shouldn’t get involved. I jog through the wood to the lane and climb back over the barbed wire. In the distance, someone is on the chalk track coming down from the Ridgeway, a dog racing ahead.
Then the dog’s tangling with my legs, jumping up to plant muddy paws on my jacket.
‘Hey, hey–what’s his name?’
‘Conan,’ says Bryn, arriving in time to save me from being licked to death. The late-afternoon sun picks out golden lights in his caramel-coloured curls.
‘The Barbarian?’
‘No.’ Not a flicker of amusement. ‘Spelt C-y-n-o-n. Celtic name, means Divine Hound.’
‘Right.’ Spattered with mud and burrs, nose jammed in my crotch, Conan/Cynon looks about as divine as my left buttock. ‘Glad I caught you. I came to warn you you’re about to be evicted. The National Trust wardens are on their way.’
‘Are they now?’ He doesn’t ask how I know this. ‘Movin’ on tomorrow, anyway. Goin’ home to see my boy.’
‘Your boy?’
‘His mother and I aren’t together. If I don’t turn up for his birthday, day after tomorrow, she’ll try and stop me seein’ him altogether. Got my solicitor workin’ on it, though. I could look after him better than her. She’s all over the place.’ He snaps his fingers to call Cynon, who is quivering ecstatically as he sniffs a pile of horse droppings, and starts strolling towards the wood. ‘There’s an amazin’ crop circle appeared below Barbury. Like–spheres, with interlocking zigzags. Met a feller along the Ridgeway said it represented the diatonic scale of musical notes because that’s the way aliens can communicate with us.’
‘Wasn’t that the plot of Close Encounters?’
Bryn looks blank. ‘That the one set in the railway station? My foster-mother had it on video–made her cry every time.’ He hooks two fingers into the dog’s collar, to hold him safely as a vehicle comes trundling up the lane. ‘Hey, said I’d take you to the Goddess’s spring, didn’t I? We could go now.’
The vehicle is a National Trust Land Rover.
‘That’s not such a good idea,’ I say, as it parks on the verge by Tolemac. ‘I think you’re about to be evicted.’
‘Dawn, then? Best time. It’s amazing.’
I’ve