by Jenni Mills
‘Sarsen, Mrs Robinson,’ he said. ‘Mind if I take a closer look?’
Well, he’s the landlord, she couldn’t very well say no. Next thing, he’s out of the door saying he’ll be back in a tick. Came back trailed by the dark-haired young archaeologist with the pointed nose and prominent teeth, the one I’d watched surveying the stones, and introduced him as Mr Stuart Piggott. Close up, I didn’t like the look of him. He had sly eyes, which peered into our inglenook and up our chimney while Mr K looked on approvingly. Then they put their heads together and eventually declared that the house was built around one of the stones used to be in the circle, broke up into bits.
‘Well, isn’t that nice?’ said our mam, uneasily.
Mr Keiller looks at her like she’s some insignificant species of small brown bird, interesting maybe to some but not to him; he’s a man for hawks. ‘I’d like to get a closer look at it,’ he says. Standing in our parlour, he was even more handsome than he’d seemed that night in the Manor garden. ‘See those grooves on your lintel? It looks like it may have been a polissoir! Powerful clever, too, knowing all them foreign words.
‘A polly-what?’ says Dad, who’s come in from the garden where he’s been digging up a load of taters for the guests’ dinners.
‘A polishing stone. Where Neolithic people smoothed stone axes. There are several up on the Downs.’ Mostly he sounded like any posh toff, but occasionally his voice took on a soft Scottish lilt; the rs sounding more like ws, but not in a pansyish way. ‘They were probably considered sacred.’
But he’s lost our dad. He has a polite, bemused look on his face, muddy boots dangling from his hand.
‘Don’t see how you’ll get a closer look without climbing the chimney like Santa Claus,’ said Mam, trying for a laugh. And getting your lovely suit all sooty.’
Mr Keiller was looking thoughtful. ‘How much did you say you wanted for that cow-creamer, Mrs Robinson?’
‘Not for sale, Mr Keiller.’
A week after, we had our notice.
Mr K was generous, though. He said if we could be out by the autumn, he’d give Mam and Dad the money for the first year’s lease on their new place. Dad thought that was a good deal. Mam said she didn’t see why they should be bought. Dad said they didn’t have much choice, really, so better take what they could, and we didn’t have hardly any bookings past August anyway. So they cancelled what there was, and found a tobacconist’s shop in Devizes. Dad said he’d be glad to see the back of guesthouse-keeping, and Mam said she was sick to death of changing sheets for Mr Keiller’s snooty friends who were no better than they ought to be, and some of them a lot worse.
That left me. There was a second bedroom in the flat over the tobacconist’s. Bedroom? Boxroom, more like. It was where the old tobacconist stored surplus stock, and it stank–be like sleeping rolled up in a cigar box. You didn’t need three to run a tiny shop like that. I had to find a job. Seemed an opportunity, at first. But now it looked like I was aiming too high.
‘Never mind,’ said Mam. ‘Something’ll come up. You’re a clever girl, Frances. I was ever so proud when you came top in bookkeeping last year in school. Somebody’ll appreciate your talents.’
The Frigidaire gave a cough and fell silent.
‘See?’ said Mam. ‘It thinks you’re something.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘It says I’m useless. Too bloomin’ young, like they all keep saying.’
Then Ambrose came on again playing ‘Small Hotel’ and Mam started to cry.
What came up was Mrs Sorel-Taylour, who was Mr Keiller’s secretary.
Mind you, like the parson used to say, God helps them who helps themselves. I’d heard they was short-handed at the Manor, with the digging season to plan for and a museum being built in the stable block. I made sure I bumped into her in the high street, by accident as it’d seem, when I went for bread from the baker’s–oh, what a coincidence–at the exact time I reckoned she’d be on her way down the churchyard path to fetch some of Jack’s lardy cakes to go with Mr Keiller’s morning coffee. The sky was pale blue over the church tower, and a cloud of early midges danced over the drying puddles as I came up to her by the lich-gate, with the loaves under my arm.
‘Mornin’, Mrs Sorel-Taylour.’
‘Good morning, Frances. Shouldn’t you be in school?’
‘Left last year. Working for Mam and Dad, now, though I in’t sure what I’ll do when they move to Devizes.’
For a moment I didn’t think my plan would work. She looked at me as if she had no notion what I was blathering on about. She was a short lady, but very straight in the back, who sang in the Choral Society and gave lectures all over the county on etiquette. Her cream silk blouse with its Peter Pan collar was done right up to the neck, a carnelian brooch hiding the top button. I was a bit scared of her.
Then cogs began to whirr.
‘Rumour has it you’re good with numbers,’ she said, her large dark eyes fixed on mine.
‘Did well in arithmetic in school,’ I said. Won a prize, I did, and Mr Keiller presented it at speech day, which was how Mrs S-T remembered.
‘And you have a neat hand?’
I looked at my fingers. The nail varnish I’d put on last night for seeing Davey was already chipped.
I need someone who can write clearly,’ she said. ‘And shorthand would help.’
‘I’m enrolled on a Pitman’s course.’
‘You type, of course.’ I should have enrolled for that too, but there wasn’t the time as I was still helping most evenings at the guesthouse. ‘What speed?’
‘A hundred and ten,’ I lied. Her eyebrows shot up. Perhaps I’d overdone it. ‘On a good day,’ I added. She must have swallowed one of the midges, because she started to cough and turned away to find a hanky in her bag. ‘Is there a job for me at the Manor?’ I hardly dared hope.
‘Mr Keiller is bringing his collection down from London,’ she said. ‘We need help with cataloguing and typing up his notes on the finds. And there are his letters. He dictates several each day.’ She looked hard at me, not quite a glare but there was disapproval on her long, delicate oval face. ‘You’ll find typing easier with shorter nails. And hair off your face, please, not falling over your eyes. You could try Kirby-grips. Mr Keiller prefers his staff to have a modest appearance.’
What she really meant was that it was easier if Mr Keiller didn’t notice his staff’s appearance. I understood that when I told Davey I had the job. That gave him ants in his pants, all right.
‘Why on earth d’you want to work at the Manor?’
‘So I can stay in the village, not have to move away with Mam and Dad and sleep in that smelly boxroom. I’ll be able to see you more often.’ He had a room over the stables. I’d never dared go up there yet, but I thought of evenings, cosying up with him, the cars gleaming in the dark beneath us, maybe one ticking quietly after Mr Keiller had given it a long run to London.
‘Yes, but…’ He lit a cigarette, cupping his hand round the match. Its flare showed his frown in the darkness. We were sat in the lee of one of the stones, on a rug Davey always brought with him for our courting. I hadn’t yet done everything on that rug that he wanted me to do, but on a cold night we’d both found warm places for our hands.
‘You do want to see more of me, don’t you?’ Perhaps he had his eye on someone else. By now Mam had met him, but she said he was one of those quiet ‘uns, could never tell what he was really thinking. I thought I knew him, but maybe I didn’t.
‘It’s not that,’ said Davey. ‘It’s more…Well’ He looked down at the ground. ‘I’m away a lot, driving Mr Keiller.’
‘But when you’re there…’
‘No, Fran,’ he said. ‘At least…I never know when he’ll want me to do some job. Day or night. You have to jump to it when he has one of his whims, and his temper…’
‘I don’t understand you,’ I said. ‘I thought you’d be happy to have your girl a bit closer. So what if he makes demands? It’ll be all th
e easier to see me when we know each other’s comings and goings. I’ll be working late too sometimes, right across the yard from you…’
‘You never seen a temper like it.’ There was a desperate look in Davey’s eye. ‘Takes against people just like that. You don’t want to work for him–he’ll eat a little thing like you for breakfast. And they say he’s got a roving eye.’
‘I know how to deal with roving eyes,’ I said, bolder than I felt. ‘Get plenty of those at the guesthouse.’
‘Do you now?’ said Davey. He gave a sigh of defeat. ‘How about roving hands? Any good at dealing with them?’
* * *
‘Your young man,’ said Mam. ‘Can I just say this? Be careful, Frances.’
‘Don’t know what you mean.’
I’d brought Davey over for Sunday tea, and he’d arrived with his lavatory-brush hair oiled down and an eager smile on his face. Dad and he seemed to get on–there was a lot of man-to-man chat about horse-racing and cars. But Mam–I’d seen the way her eyes narrowed when she looked at him. I’d stopped telling her everything, and I knew that hurt her.
‘I’d like to see you settled,’ Mam said. She was looking out of the window at the line of hills beyond the stone circle. ‘One of these days. But…Don’t be a tease, Frances. Davey’s a nice boy and he don’t deserve it.’
‘Don’t know what you mean,’ I said, mutinous.
‘I mean he’s gentle and kind. Like I used to think you were. But I don’t know, seeing you together, strikes me to wonder which one wears the trousers, and I don’t think it’s him.’
‘He was on his best behaviour for you,’ I said, desperate not to seem mannish.
Mam’s eyes softened. ‘Maybe I don’t understand girls today, then. But–oh, I don’t know. Still waters, as they say. All the same, I worry he’s too quiet for you. I worry that you’ll set your sights on somebody more dashing.’
The minute it was out of her mouth, I knew she was right, but I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of pouring my heart out. Davey wasn’t girlish, but he had a soft side, and now we were seeing each other regular, he didn’t seem as exciting as when I’d noticed him first on the back of a tall bay horse stepping delicate-hoofed up the high street, his bony knees and wrists controlling that gurt explosive mass of muscle and power. But I had him, and as Mam used to say, whenever we passed one of the sad spinsters in the village whose sweetheart had died in the Great War, a woman counts herself fortunate to find a decent man and keep him. Mam always said she’d been lucky with Dad, and there weren’t anything exciting about him.
Fair to say, of course, that Mam didn’t tell me everything, and don’t I wish she had. I reckon she already knew it wasn’t right for her to be so tired at the end of every day. Blamed myself for not talking to her, once she was gone. But at that age you think everybody you know’ll be around for ever.
Then again, sometimes it’s right to keep your big gabby mouth buttoned, and if I had, the afternoon Davey took me to visit Mam in the hospital…But no use stirring over might-have-beens.
CHAPTER 11
Fran refuses point blank to discuss her time at the Manor. Doesn’t stop me trying at regular intervals.
‘My memory in’t what it was.’
‘You must remember something.’
She shakes her head stubbornly. ‘Nothing worth the telling. Read the books. They’d have it right, mostly, I ‘spec’.’
‘What about the letters you typed?’
‘Oh, Ind, you can’t expect me to remember those boring old things. Thought they were all in the files, anyway, and you’d read ‘em.’
‘Some of them were burned, apparently.’
Something glitters in her eyes, but she shakes her head again and clatters her spoon into her bowl, signalling it’s time to change the subject. ‘Don’t want any more of this porridge. Anyway, I was thinking in the night.’
‘Always a dangerous thing.’
‘Go on with you. Have me best ideas then. I thought, Why doesn’t our Indy find a job on Flog It? They make it in Bristol. You’d be good on that. Such an interesting programme, one of me favourites.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I tell her, scooping up the cereal bowls and dumping them in the sink. ‘Might have a television job already. I’m off to London, remember, today.’
‘By the way, Ind,’ she says, casually, ‘you in’t seen them buggerin’ lights lately, have you?’
Channel 4 is housed in a scary modern building on Horseferry Road. As we walk under the sheer concave glass sheet suspended above the doors, I keep thinking the whole lot will come crashing down and slice off my head like in The Omen. Even Daniel Porteus looks uncomfortable. He keeps running a hand through his white quiff, which is getting alarmingly spiky.
He’s invited me to help explain my idea to the commissioning editor in London, because Ibby is apparently not good in meetings. ‘Doesn’t butter them up properly,’ he told me on the train. ‘If the commissioning editor suggests something stupid, she can’t conceal her contempt. Tells them they’re wrong.’ As he said it, he shot me a doubtful glance. ‘Your job is to sit there and look fresh-faced. Leave the talking to me. Unless somebody asks you to say something, in which case be brief. And enthusiastic. Don’t argue!
He marches up to the desk and tells them who we are. We sign in and are given name badges. Then we sit on low, curved armchairs in the atrium. Above, a high glassy space is diced by steel cables.
Daniel shifts awkwardly on his seat. ‘They design these specially to make it impossible to get up gracefully,’ he mutters. ‘Puts you at a disadvantage from the start. Especially with dodgy knees.’
‘I suppose you come here a lot?’ I’m not sure how to make conversation with him.
‘I’m not well in, if that’s what you mean,’ he says. ‘The company’s too small, and you need to be London-based to do serious business. Channel 4 commissioners are much happier conjuring ideas off the tablecloth at the Ivy with their mates. They give work to bright young things who remind them of themselves. Doesn’t matter if we had the best concept in the world–’ He breaks off at the sight of a tall, gangly bloke bouncing lithely over the floor as if he had springs in his heels, boing boing, coming our way at a terrific pace.
‘Cameron!’ says Daniel, struggling to his feet. A fork-lift truck would be useful at this moment. The red plastic seat farts as he finally manages to lever his bum up from it. ‘Good to see you! Thanks for sparing the time!’ I can hear the exclamation marks.
‘Daniel!’ Cameron is exclamation-marking back. He’s wearing an oversized tweed jacket that suggests at first glance he bought it at Oxfam, though at a second you’re meant to recognize he paid a fortune for it brand new somewhere much classier. He claps the older man on the shoulder manfully, and kisses me–‘And lovely to see you again!’–like he knows me. Daniel sends me a fierce glance, warning me not to open my mouth and say we’ve never met before.
‘Now–I would have bought you lunch in the canteen, but I’m supposed to be at the Ivy in half an hour.’ Cameron makes it sound such a bore. ‘Come up to the office. You have passes?’ Even I find it hard to keep up as he leads the way at a gallop towards a glass barrier. A tarty brunette I recognize from the last series of Big Brother pushes between us as if she can’t be bothered with these lumbering provincials, but fortunately Cameron waits, cooling his smoking heels and drumming the backs of his fingers against the security gate.
‘You didn’t see that Michael Wood thing the other night on BBC4?’ puffs Daniel, as we hurtle through and head for the stairs.
‘Meant to but we had people round,’ says Cameron, to let us know what a sparkly social life he has. ‘Recorded it, of course–in case I ever have time to watch. Got a pile of DVDs this high. Not enough hours in the day to see our stuff, let alone what the opposition’s up to.’
‘You should try and make time. Brilliant.’ Surely a miscalculation, as now Daniel needs to justify why he liked it, although we’re halfway throu
gh a punishing stairs workout at Cameron-pace. ‘If the…rest of the series…is as…good…Did you see it, India?’
‘No. We haven’t–’ Another warning look silences me. Presumably admitting you don’t have digital telly casts you into outer darkness at Channel 4. But here we are at the top of the stairs and Cameron isn’t listening anyway. He sweeps us through a huge open-plan office and into a glass-walled cubicle overlooking a leafy courtyard. Daniel and I sit with our knees by our ears on armchairs that are, if anything, lower than the ones in Reception while Cameron swivels to and fro in a high-backed leather chair.
‘So,’ he says. ‘Archaeology, Daniel. What’s hot?’
‘Did you watch the DVD I sent you?’
‘DVD? My assistant must have it.’
‘Never mind. The point is, we’ve some original archive material, never been shown before. Keiller excavating Avebury’
‘Twenties?’ Cameron is cool, giving nothing away.
‘That’s when Keiller first started work in the area, at Windmill Hill, you’re right, but this film dates from ‘thirty-eight, when he was reconstructing the stone circle. The film was shot by one of the villagers–only a couple of reels, but there might be more somewhere–and I want to use it as the basis of a programme about Keiller remodelling Avebury to fit his idea of how it looked in the Neolithic’
‘New Stone Age,’ I chip in helpfully, because I can see Cameron is looking puzzled. ‘Avebury’s about five thousand years old.’
‘Viewers aren’t much interested in pre-history,’ says Cameron, witheringly. ‘We get better ratings on Time Team for digs that are post-Roman. More to see. Unless it’s an execution site, of course. People like skeletons, preferably mutilated.’
I can hear the faint grinding of Daniel’s teeth. ‘Ah, but this is a story with a double layer,’ he says. ‘Not just Avebury five thousand years ago, but Alexander Keiller, playboy archaeologist, four times married, a string of mistresses, fast cars, pots of money, so obsessed by his vision of the past he moved half the village out of their homes and destroyed a community’ He’s on a roll now. ‘He entirely ignored what would be an archaeologist’s approach today–the fact that monuments like these don’t simply exist at a single point of time but represent continuity. That a village grew up in the henge, perhaps for defensive reasons, that people tried to bury the stones or destroy them, perhaps because they feared them…The story of Avebury doesn’t stop with its abandonment in the Iron Age, or for that matter with Keiller. People are still using the monument as a sacred space today’