'Do you want me to put the kettle on?'

'Oh no. Of course not. Please sit down. Please.'

He indicated a chair and Polly sat down upon it. The prince lifted the telephone to order tea. But then thought better of it. The last time Leo had made him tea, the prince found he couldn't walk straight after the second cup. 'Perhaps later.' Charles folded his fingers before him on the desk and smiled at the stunning seventeen year old. He suddenly felt a bit lost for something to say, which was not really like him, as a rule.

Polly smiled back. She was fascinated. This man was a piece of living history, and she was sitting all alone in a room with him, sharing moments of his time, somehow possessing a fraction of history, just for a few short minutes. But really for ever. It was a curious sensation. And she felt suddenly stuck for words herself. Which was not really like her, as a rule.

'Do you like steam trains?' Prince Charles asked.

Polly considered the question and the eager look on the prince's face. 'Yes,' she said. 'Very much indeed. Only this morning I was talking to a friend about The Eureka. LNER pa.s.senger express. Cla.s.sic 4-6-2 wheel arrangement. Four-wheel bogie in front, six coupled driving wheels and a pair of trailing wheels. Perhaps you know of it.'

'I do,' said the prince. 'I mean, one does. Oh yes.'

Polly smiled some more.

Prince Charles took out his fountain pen. 'One must take up references,' he said in a manner which he hoped would imply an interest in such things. 'Who have you been with?''Been with?' Polly asked.

'Worked for,' said the prince.

'The police force. I was made redundant.'

'Oh dear,' said the prince. 'Have they closed down the police force?'

'Just my bit of it. If you want to take up a ref-erence, you must speak to Inspectre Hovis, at Scotland Yard.'

'Sherringford Hovis?' Prince Charles put his foun-tain pen back in his pocket.

'Do you know him, then?'

'One should say so. He sorted out a spot of bother concerning one of the brothers, a h.o.m.oeopathist named Chunky and a Dormobile named Desire. Sound chap.'

'He's been made redundant also.'

'That's a pity. He was up for a knighthood. Have to cancel that if he's been given the old heave-ho.'

Serves the nasty b.a.s.t.a.r.d right, thought Polly. 'That's a shame,' she said. 'He was a fine policeman.'

'Yes,' agreed the prince. 'He was. Can you start at once?'

'You haven't told me what you want me to do yet.'

Prince Charles considered the beauty sitting before him. I want you to bear my children and share my throne, he thought.

'I want you to be my personal a.s.sistant,' he said. 'And would this involve tea making?'

'No, not really.'

'Then I would be pleased to accept, sir.'

Back on the magic bus, and some little while earlier, Cornelius groaned dismally.

'Why are you heading for Brentford?' Tuppe asked b.o.l.l.o.c.ks.

'We're going to the festival.'

Tuppe scratched his head. 'There isn't any festival in Brentford. There was a bit of a do the night before last. We were there.'

'Good was it?'

'Not good. That's where Cornelius got his hair... you know.

'This is a rock music festival.' b.o.l.l.o.c.ks mimed a heavy guitar. 'Starts on Friday night. There's this big hill. You must know it.'

'Star Hill.' Cornelius groaned anew.

'It's a sacred site, but not one the cops know about. Gandhi's Hairdryer are going to play there. A freebie for the travellers.'

'A freebie for the travellers?' Tuppe whistled. Having grown up amongst fairground folk and lived his short life in a caravan, which, since his daddy's retirement, was hauled from the common land at the foot of Star Hill at least once a month at the behest of the Star Hill Preservation Society, a group of well-to-do worthies whose properties backed on to the golf course, the small fellow felt a certain warm glow inside at the prospect of a wagon train of travellers turning up on their doorsteps for a rock festival.

That would go down a real treat.

'How many of you blokes will be going to this gig, then?' he asked.

'All, I think,' said b.o.l.l.o.c.ks.

Tuppe rubbed his hands together in glee. 'Should be a gig to remember,' said he.

Anna Gotting was playing guitar at Minn's Music Mine. Mickey was on the telephone talking excitedly. The matter of Anna leaving the shop unattended the previous afternoon had, by mutual consent, been forgotten. Although Anna could hardly forget Cornelius Murphy and all that she had been through with him. But she intended to try.

Mickey put down the phone. 'That was Cardinal c.o.x,' he said brightly.

'Of Sonic Energy Authority? They're really good.'

'That's him. The Authority are playing support to Gandhi's Hairdryer, on the UK leg of their world tour.

'Nice one.''And then some. The Authority's bus just blew up on the M25. The Cardinal wants to hire all my old WEM Vendettas and amps for the gig on Friday.'

'Best get cash upfront, then. You know what they're like.'

I am a professional,' said Mickey Minns, hoisting up his jeans and tucking in his stomach. 'How would you like to be a roadie at the gig?'

'What, with The Hairdryer? Not half. When is it? Where?'

'They're playing a freebie on Star Hill. Friday night. Should be a gig to remember.'

And Mickey was certainly right about that too. It would be a gig that everyone would long remember.

And then some.

18.

The day moved on from afternoon to evening, touched midnight and vanished, never to return. The happy bus was parked in the middle of a crop circle, in the middle of a cornfield, in the middle of nowhere. The children were all asleep. The adults were all over the place. Bone had wandered off, in search of something or other. Louise danced all alone, to a music that only she heard. And b.o.l.l.o.c.ks made love to Candy in a field near by.

Tuppe lay on his back in the corn circle and gazed up at the stars. 'It's good here, isn't it?' he sighed.

'Splendid.' Cornelius lay beside him, chewing on a corn stalk. 'I could really get into this kind of life.'

'Oh could you?' Tuppe made a doubtful face. 'Really?'

'I could. Life on the road, you know, like Jack Kerouac. The sun never going down on you in the same place twice. The road beneath. The sky above.'

'Away with the raggle-taggle gypsies-oh.'

'That kind of thing, yes.

'A life of romance. And rheumatism. You'd hate it.'

'I would not.'

'I did. Listen, Cornelius, I spent my childhood on the road. If you've never done it, it seems like a good idea. If you have, it ain't. To quote your lost love, it sucks.'

'You were just little then,' said Cornelius.

'I'm still little,' said Tuppe. 'And it still sucks.'

'You're not little.' Cornelius touched his heart. 'Not in here you're not.'

'Oh please.' Tuppe mimed two fingers down the throat. 'You would hate a life on the road. Believe me. You would.'

'I know. But it's good for now.

'It's good for now, yes.

'They're good people.'

'They're great people.'

'Great people.'

'So what are we great people going to do?'

'We're off to see The Hairdryer'

'That's not what I mean and you know it.'

'I know it.' Cornelius raised himself on his elbows. 'Is this a real corn circle, do you think?'

'As opposed to what?'

'An unreal one, I suppose.'

'And what exactly would be the difference?'

'I don't know.'

'This one's a Thoroughgood,' said Tuppe knowl-edgeably.

'A Thoroughgood? What's that?'

'Tubby Thoroughgood. He's a wee man, like my-self. One of the Thoroughgood clan. They do most of the circles round here.'

'They what?'

'The Thoroughgoods do up here. The Rimmers do Wiltshire. The Dovestons do Wales.

I forget who does Suss.e.x. The McCartneys I think.'

'What? You mean they're all fake?'

'Of course they're not fake. It's all real corn.

'That's not what I mean and you know it.'

'I don't know what you mean,' said Tuppe. 'They are circles in cornfields. They're art. They mystify. They intrigue. They excite controversy and debate. They entertain. And above all, they are beautiful to behold.''But some people think-'

'Some people think that hedgehogs fall out of the sky - your dad for one. Whatever some people think, is up to them. As long as they pay the one-pound admission fee, that's all right with the farmer. He respects the artist's right to remain anonymous, and gives him ten per cent of the take. You can make more money exhibiting corn circles nowadays than harvesting the crop.

'That's outrageous,' said Cornelius.

'I know. In my opinion the artist should get fifty per cent of the take.'

'And that's not what I meant either.'

Big Bone appeared on the scene with two flagons of cider.

'I've got some scrumpy,' he said. 'Where's b.o.l.l.o.c.ks?'

'He's in the next field, s.h.a.gging your wife,' said Tuppe helpfully.

'We'll save him some for later then,' said Bone. 'He'll need it.'

'Outrageous,' said Cornelius once more.

'You haven't tasted it yet,' said Bone.