'Mask of the Silvatici'

The next story in Tom Johnstone's Last Stop Wellsbourne is a full-on political piece. It begins with Murdoch, a Tory MP and committed Brexiteer, listening to a talk in Wells Cathedral about its famous Green Man or foliate head. Being a bit of an arsehole (surprise, surprise) our right-wing politician makes snide remarks, belittling the lefty intellectual 'expert'. Murdoch hopes to impress Cressida, the latest in a long line of posh interns he takes away for dirty weekends. However, things to not go as planned.

Murdoch has of course rigged the game by booking a double room for himself and the lovely Cressida rather than two singles. But she responds by insisting on a camp bed for her boss. Murdoch feels things are not going well and recalls, uncomfortably but with no hint of conscience, the one 'conquest' who actually loved him, got pregnant, and took her own life when he rejected her. Like I said, he's repellent. During the night he experiences a visitation that he at first takes for Cressida but which is clearly (to the reader) a very different person.

The story pivots on the idea of the wild men of the woods, sometimes supernatural beings, sometimes outlaws. These silvatici seem to be rising again, significantly glimpsed on Solsbury Hill among other places. The fate of Murdoch, which I won't reveal (and which is a little ambiguous, but clearly No Fun) conveys the author's contempt for nationalist nostalgia and bigotry and the kind of people who tap into it. An angry story, then, and one that couldn't be more timely.