by Jenni Mills
As we’re parking, someone blows a horn, and Michael disappears into the museum. The Druid with the camera is trying to film through the glass doors, though the sun’s too bright and he’ll only catch reflections.
John is leaning against the museum wall, chatting with a couple of white-robed women. When he sees us, he excuses himself and comes over.
‘Any trouble?’ I ask.
‘It’s all peaceful. Michael made it clear they couldn’t have any skeletons, but he’s allowed a few to go in and hold a ceremony of blessing over Charlie’s bones. They’re spinning it out as long as they can.’
The white bulk of the American, moving round inside the gallery, appears briefly through the glass of the museum door. ‘What’s he doing?’
‘Bread and salt. Feeding the spirit.’
‘Is that a good idea?’
John takes me seriously. ‘It’s safe if the American understands what he’s doing. I wasn’t too impressed with his technique at the Cove, though. Reckon he opened a vortex there and forgot to close it again. Magic’s only as good as its practitioner.’
‘Magic?’ It comes out as a snort from Ed. John gives him a sharp look, taking in the tousled dark hair, the hint of got-up-so-late-I-failed-to-shave stubble, and the expensive Gore-Tex jacket.
‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘John, this is Ed. New part-time warden, also, er, pilot.’
‘Welcome to Avebury,’ says John, who has worked out exactly who Ed is by now. Suspicion crackles between them. It’s a shock to realize there are not so many years separating them: Ed in his mid-to late-thirties, John not yet forty-five. ‘You from round here?’
‘Not really,’ says Ed. ‘I’m borrowing a friend’s place. At Yatesbury Near the airfield. He gives me work sometimes, and it’s quiet for studying.’
Only a mile or two away. My heart sinks.
‘New helicopter pad opened up there, I heard?’ John homes in for the kill. ‘You a family man?’
Ed bends to free the cuff of his jeans, caught up on his cowboy boot. ‘My situation’s a bit complicated at the moment,’ he says, to the cobbles.
The museum door opens and Mr Big and his white-robed cohorts sweep out. Michael is behind them, even more immaculate than usual in a tweed jacket with elbow patches and a striped tie. His brogues are blinding. He flaps a hand in a discreet shooing motion.
‘Let’s go.’ I give Ed a shove, glad of an excuse to escape John. ‘Coffee in the office.’
Wind Rose and Beech Tear are bringing up the rear of the procession.
‘Indy! Merry meet!’ Wind Rose gives me an enormous and faintly rancid hug. Beech Tear, who never washes on the principle that the body is cleansed by its own natural oils, embraces Ed with equal enthusiasm. He manages not to wince.
‘Was that a man or a woman?’ asks Ed. He reaches for the kettle, which is on the verge of boiling. ‘Is there any real coffee?’
The kitchenette next to the wardens’ office only stretches to a catering-size can of Nescafe. ‘You’ll have to bring your own,’ says Graham, wandering in on stockinged feet. ‘And if you’re referring to Beech Tear, none of us are sure. First time I was hugged I was inclined to think female, because of the faint trace of patchouli, but most of the time the predominant whiff is elderly badger.’
‘They’re very good-hearted,’ I say.
‘But smelly,’ insists Graham.
‘So are you when you take your boots off.’
‘Men’s feet are meant to smell. It’s part of our masculine allure.’
‘I’ll go for the hot chocolate,’ says Ed, quickly, to avert bloodshed.
‘Wouldn’t recommend it. Been there nearly as long as the stones.’ Graham frees a biscuit crumb from his blond beard and pops it into his mouth. ‘Those custard creams were tasty. Excuse me, Indy, can I squeeze past? Good, there’s another packet.’ He tears the wrapping with his teeth and offers them round. ‘No takers? You’re seeing it all today, chum,’ he says to Ed. ‘I think the men in frocks have gone away satisfied. Still want their skeletons back, of course. They asked Michael to account for how many we’ve got, and weren’t entirely happy he couldn’t say exactly. I mean, how do you add the bloody things up? Thighbone here, jawbone there, sliver of scapula in the ditch. Prehistoric man did rather scatter human bone about. Get her to show you the storeroom–all the boxes of bits we don’t put on display to Johnny Public’ He exits with a mug of builders’-strength tea and the packet of biscuits.
‘He’s very good with trees,’ I say apologetically.
It seems to be my day for embarrassing encounters. Walking back to the Land Rover we see Frannie, who waves enthusiastically and totters along the cobbles towards us.
‘Been to the post office. You heard these rumours it might close?’ She eyes Ed keenly, as if she suspects him of being responsible. ‘My granddaughter takes me shopping in the supermarket, but I tell her you have to support the local shop.’
So again I feel obliged to introduce him. She nods, not taking her eyes off his face. She looks tired today, her skin white and dry in the March sunlight.
Ed gives her a charming smile. ‘Lovely to meet you, Mrs Robinson.’
As he climbs into the front seat, Frannie grabs my arm. ‘He’s not so bad,’ she hisses, with a salacious and completely unjustified twinkle. ‘Lovely green eyes. Reminds me of that doctor chappie on Grey’s Anatomy!
‘Nothing like him. The eyes aren’t green. And he’s a colleague! Ed has started the engine, so I squeeze Fran’s hand and turn to climb into the passenger seat.
‘Greeny-grey, then. Go on with you. I’d be after him meself if I was fifty years younger.’
‘It was my fault,’ Ed says suddenly, as we jolt down a rutted farm track, after a round trip involving Silbury, the Long Barrow, the Sanctuary, and finally the barrows along the Ridgeway, to check out Graham’s theory that the beech trees on the Hedgehogs are dying because of climate change.
‘What was your fault?’
‘The helicopter crash, of course.’ He doesn’t look at me, keeps his eyes fixed on the track. At the time I thought a part had failed. Wrong. It was LTE–loss of tail rotor effectiveness. A problem with some choppers if you fly low and slow. Close to the ground, the main blades can create a vortex and there’s not enough air for the tail rotor to work. The machine goes into a spin.’ His hands tighten on the steering-wheel. ‘It’s in the training manuals–now. But it was my judgement call. I knew what Steve was asking was–well, on the edge. Shouldn’t have let myself be persuaded. Showing off His eyes narrow as if they hurt.
‘You are legal to fly, aren’t you?’ I ask. ‘You haven’t lost your licence?’
‘Not yet. That could happen after the inquest. The Air Accident Investigation Board has to file its report first.’ He chews a fingernail. ‘Probably should find a solicitor, but I can’t afford one. Flying’s kind of gentlemanly. The decent thing is to ground oneself.’
‘Which you haven’t done.’
‘I suppose I’m not a gentleman.’
He draws to a halt as we approach the end of the track, and I hop out to open the gate. The cowman is in the yard by the milking sheds; he waves as the Land Rover trundles through, and I clamber back in.
‘This takes us back into Avebury now?’ Ed asks, turning onto the metalled lane and changing gear with a grinding noise.
‘Yep. Past Tolemac–the wood coming up on the left–and then into the henge.’
‘Tollymack? That’s a weird old Wiltshire name.’ Ed slows as we draw level with the trees, peering through the windscreen into the thicket.
‘Nothing weird, old or Wiltshire about it. Spell it backwards.’
His face screws up with effort. ‘K…’
‘C’
‘Oh, I see.’ His mouth twists in a grin. ‘Is this where the visiting pagans camp? I can smell woodsmoke.’
‘Damn. Not again! Graham has been complaining since Imbolc about what he describes as ‘a couple of crusties’ refusing to move on. ‘They�
�re not supposed to be there, let alone light fires.’
‘Another chance to exercise my natural authority?’
‘That would be the natural authority that worked so well this morning on the Druids?’
‘Titter ye not.’ He pulls the Land Rover onto the verge by the side of the wood. The sun has dropped behind clouds while we’ve been driving and the day has a sharp grey edge. Tolemac is gloomy and forbidding.
Ed jumps down. ‘Can you manage to climb over the fence?’
‘Of course I can.’ Hanging onto the post for balance, I hook my foot onto the lower strand, and try for a contemptuous swing of the other leg over the barbed wire. There is a ripping sensation.
‘Hold on, you’re caught. Let me help you.’ His hands run over the back of my thigh. ‘There. All free now.’
He’s let go and is jumping the fence easily, but I can still feel the imprint of his fingers. The tear in the back of my new jeans is wafting cool air onto my bum, a mixture of horribly embarrassing and bizarrely sexy. I glare at his back as he strides ahead under the trees towards a grey, ghostly shape. The smell of woodsmoke is strong.
‘A bender,’ he calls. ‘Nobody home.’
It’s made of thick transparent polythene sheeting, strung between tree branches. Stones hold down the edges to stop them flapping in the wind. Ed lifts one and ducks into the shelter.
‘Hey, don’t…’ One of my earliest memories is Greenham, Frannie coming with Margaret and me to embrace the base. We camped, all three of us, in a bender like this, and then the bailiffs came and evicted us, chucking people’s possessions into the back of a dumper truck. Watching Ed stroll confidently into someone’s private space feels like a violation.
‘A rucksack…’ His voice is muffled behind the plastic. ‘Cooking gear. Couple of books.’ He lifts the sheet. ‘Bit smelly in here. Come on in.’
I follow him inside, feeling it’s an intrusion. The smell isn’t that bad, damp earth with a sour undernote of wet dog. Now it’s the outside world that’s ghostly, grey and distorted through the thick polythene walls.
‘We’re not supposed to take this down, are we?’ Ed asks.
‘No. Looks like they’ll be back.’ A muddy black plastic groundsheet is spread underfoot, wrinkled and rucked, a couple of blankets in one corner, a sleeping-bag in the other, navy blue quilted nylon, greyish with age. ‘The villagers would love it to be dismantled, but that’s not the way to do it. You ask them politely to move on. Unless it’s been abandoned.’
‘None of this is exactly valuable. No self-respecting earthquake victim would be caught dead under one of these.’ He prods the heap of blankets, meagre beige, so grubby and threadbare they do indeed look like Oxfam rejects, with the toe of his boot. A small rip in the sleeping-bag oozes filling. ‘But the rucksack’s a good one, brand new.’
Beneath its flap, the eyes of a small boy stare up at me from a creased photograph.
It’s Keir.
No, of course it isn’t. Keir’s hair was fairer, almost white-blond. This lad has a mass of freckles but Keir’s buttery skin tanned. For a moment, I was fooled by the smile, the chipped front tooth, like the one he broke coming off his skateboard going too fast round the corner into York Road when we lived in Bristol.
Fooled by Tolemac. The ghostly trees outside the bender suddenly seem dangerous. I drop the flap back on the rucksack. Ed has picked up the book that was lying on top of the blankets–a biography of Gurdjieff–and is leafing through.
‘Leave it. Graham can come back tomorrow and tell them to clear off It feels like we’re prying, and I want to be away before the owner comes back. ‘Let’s go.’
Ed tosses the book back but it misses the blankets, its pages flipping open on the dirty groundsheet. I pick it up, wiping a smear of mud off the cover. There’s a name on the flyleaf, inked in rounded handwriting that’s almost childish. Bryn Kirkwood. In charity shop pencil, ’1.99’. There was a Welsh lad at my school called Bryn. I thought it was such a pretty name, though everyone else called him Bryn the Bin because his dad worked for the council. I close the book carefully, not wanting to crease the pages, and lay it on the bedding.
Ed’s waiting outside.
‘We should track down the smoke before we go,’ he says. ‘I don’t like people leaving unattended fires under trees.’
‘Mr Backwoodsman, now?’
‘I was a Boy Scout,’ he says, with immense dignity.
‘Until you got kicked out for cheating on your Pathfinder badge, I bet.’
‘Actually, it was for smoking in the tent.’
Someone has built a ring of stones in a clearing a few yards behind the bender. There are turves banked over it, a thin stream of smoke escaping from the top. Ed kneels and peels one back. ‘Whoever built this has been watching too many telly survival series.’
‘Or he’s genuinely ex-SAS.’
‘Nah. Bender was too untidy.’ Ed lets the turf drop back into place. ‘Believe me, I’ve worked with some of the buggers. They’re borderline obsessive-compulsive.’
‘Come on, the fire’s safe,’ I say. ‘Let’s go.’ The sun’s dropped too low to penetrate the clearing and the trees are getting to me.
Ed straightens up, shooting me a suspicious glance. ‘You’re twitchy’
‘I need to be back.’
‘You’re behaving like the peasant in a Hammer vampire film. Any moment you’re going to whip out the garlic and crucifix. The sun is setting, Ma-a-aster, it is not safe to be out of doors. Go on, roll your eyes, that’s it. All you need is a baggy shirt and a big droopy moustache.’
That was why I slept with him. He made me laugh.
‘We should tell Graham,’ I say.
‘So get out your phone and do it. No, silly me, you’re a Transylvanian peasant. Long-distance communication by flaming arrow only.’
I explain about the mobile-phone black spot. He pulls out his handset, and looks at it, surprised. ‘Bugger me, you’re right. Hang on, two bars have just popped up–no, down to one now. What’s that supposed to be about–mystic vibrations? Magnetic resonance from the stones? I’m sure your pagan pals have a theory.’
‘Sorry to disappoint, but I think it’s more to do with the ethics of erecting mobile-phone masts within a World Heritage site. You get a signal now and then, but it doesn’t last long.’
‘I was wondering why mine hadn’t rung all day. Better check my voicemail while I can.’
And a sick, tired feeling washes over me. She’ll have been calling him. Love you, darling. When are you coming home? The weekend? That’s great. Missing you already.
I tug my cagoule down to hide the rip in my jeans and plod back through the trees to the Land Rover, leaving him in the clearing with the phone at his ear.
When I get home Frannie’s in bed.
‘You haven’t had supper yet, have you?’
‘Don’t feel like any’ A ghost of a smile twitches her mouth. ‘I liked your young man this morning.’
‘Are you ill?’
‘No. Tired.’
‘It’s only six o’clock.’
‘Leave me, India. I had a bad night last night, and wore meself out walking to Big Avebury. Just need a bit of sleep and I’ll be fine.’ She rolls over and pulls the bedcovers up to her chin.
There’s a frowsty, stale smell in here. The bedroom–dining room as was–is crammed with furniture. The drop-leaf dining-table is pushed against the wall, with a mirror hanging over it. As well as her bureau, there’s a wardrobe, a chest of drawers by her bed, and an open-fronted cabinet with what she calls her ‘knickknacks’–china figures I wouldn’t give house room to, but she seems to think they’re the last word in elegance, and a couple of really hideous pots I made for her at junior school. Everything seems to have accumulated a thick layer of dust since I was last in here, but Frannie insists she should be left to do her own cleaning.
I don’t like this ‘tired’, though. She’s been sleeping later and later in the mornings, and Franni
e always used to be out of bed with the lark. Maybe she is ill.
‘Let me take your temperature.’
‘No.’ Muffled, stubborn. All the same I open the top drawer of the bedside chest, where she keeps a variety of first-aid bits and pieces, to look for the thermometer.
My God. A nauseating smell pours out.
There’s a half-eaten sandwich in there, green with mould. It might once have been ham. ‘Frannie…’
‘Aren’t you gone yet?’ she grunts.
‘What’s this?’ My voice is sharper than I mean it to be.
‘What’s what?’ She rolls over to look at me. ‘Pooh, what’s that stink?’
‘There’s a mouldy sandwich in your drawer. No wonder you’re ill.’
‘I’m not ill. And I didn’t put it there.’
‘For Chrissake, Frannie, who else?’ I’m shouting now, I’m so angry. How dare she not look after herself? I’m always telling her to keep an eye on sell-by dates and chuck stuff out before it goes off–at her age food poisoning is serious, for God’s sake…
‘Oh, India, I don’t know. Chuck it out and leave me to sleep.’ Her eyes are watering, and now there’s a horrible choking lump in my chest because I don’t mean to shout at her, but I’m so frightened she’ll go away and leave me.
‘I’m sorry’ I reach out and stroke her hair. Her shiny eyes meet mine and there’s fear in hers too. Then she smiles at me, as sunny as she ever was.
‘My mam used to do that,’ she says. ‘You’re a good girl, India.’
CHAPTER 14
1938
I was a good girl. Mam always used to say that. You sometimes have the devil in you, Frannie, but you’re good-hearted.
I broke her heart, I know I did. She was in the hospital when I moved away from Avebury, later, and she knew why I was going.
There was only one conversation. ‘I’ve eyes in my head, Frances,’ she said. ‘Don’t think you can fool me, like you can your father. I won’t tell him, though. It would kill him. I know I can trust you to do the right thing.’