The Buried Circle

by Jenni Mills

  Afterwards there was a Thermos of hot, bitter coffee. Mr Piggott took his cup away with him, wandering round the other end of the mound to look at the massive stones blocking the entrance. The barrow was all stopped up with earth, always had been, and I wondered what he found so fascinating about it.

  I had forgotten my drawing, but Mr Keiller hadn’t. When I opened the clasp of my handbag to look for a handkerchief, he spotted my sketchbook. ‘Let’s see it, then,’ he said. ‘Doris, Miss Robinson has been working up her picture of the Barber Surgeon. I asked her to visualize what he might have looked like.’

  Miss Chapman’s face froze. I was usurping her skill, laying flesh over bone.

  ‘No,’ I said quickly. ‘It’s not finished. I’m not at all happy with it.’

  ‘Not how it looked to me this morning,’ he said. ‘You seemed pretty pleased with yourself, told me it was almost done. No need to be modest–’ and he lunged to snatch the sketchbook.

  I grabbed the bag closed against my chest.

  ‘Donald,’ said Mr Keiller, ‘pin Miss Robinson’s arms to her sides, will you?’ He had a wicked smile on his face. Miss Chapman’s lips were so tight I thought they’d bleed.

  ‘Happily,’ said Mr Cromley, and I felt his long slender fingers on my arms, digging in hard, pulling me off balance, though I still held onto the bag. I wriggled against him as Mr Keiller came forward on hands and knees across the rug, a stalking tiger. As he seized the bag, his fingers slid under it and against my breast. His eyes met mine.

  ‘Alec,’ said Miss Chapman, from the other rug, ‘for God’s sake, leave the child alone.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think she’s a child,’ said Mr Keiller. ‘She’s a very determined young woman.’ He took a firmer grip of the bag, his knuckles rubbing against my nipple, hard as a little cherry pip through the thin material of my blouse. ‘She doesn’t want to let her employer have what is rightfully his.’ His eyes were on fire, burning into me. ‘I might have to chastise her.’

  I tightened my grasp on the bag. Mr Cromley’s breath was hot on my ear.

  ‘I think you should let go, Miss Robinson,’ he said, ‘or neither of us shall be answerable for the consequences. Shall we, Alec?’

  ‘Hold her firmly,’ said Mr Keiller, teeth parted, a glimpse of his tongue running against their edge, back and forth, like it always did when he was absorbed in something. ‘Very firmly. I’m going to have to…’ He moved his hand again, sending an electric thrill through me, and I could tell it was deliberate–he knew all right what it was doing to me.

  ‘I’m going to have to slowly…very slowly…prise her fingers away, one by one…’ He winked at me. ‘Maybe with my teeth’.

  ‘No,’ I said, giggling now, as Mr Cromley hauled me backwards until I was almost lying flat on my back on the ground. Mr Keiller straddled my legs, looming over me, blocking out the sun. The material of his trousers was stretched tight over his thighs, his crotch in shadow. ‘You wouldn’t dare. I can bite too…’

  ‘Oh, wouldn’t I just?’ His strong fingers were lacing with mine, pulling them away from my bag. ‘You’d be surprised what I’d dare do, Miss Robinson…’

  ‘Alec!’ Miss Chapman’s voice was ice splitting. ‘I said let the girl alone!

  Mr Keiller wrested the bag from me and rocked back on his heels, breathing hard. ‘Success, Doris,’ he said. ‘The sketchbook is mine.’ Never taking his eyes from my face, he pulled it out of the bag with a flourish, and shook it so the drawing fell onto the tartan rug.

  It was good: the best I’d yet done. I’d drawn the Barber Surgeon still alive under the massive stone, his leg pinned, pain streaked into the deep creases either side of his mouth, his eyes pleading through the long, straggly hair that fell across his face. He was stretching out one hand, and you’d almost swear that if you’d reached out to him, his fingers would have come up from the paper and seized yours.

  Fingers tipped with paint-rimmed, bitten nails snatched up the drawing and crumpled it. Miss Chapman, standing over us, was white with anger. ‘How dare you?’ she hissed. ‘How dare you flaunt her in front of me?’ She gripped the balled picture with both hands and pulled, digging her fingers in so the paper tore, and my heart tore with it.

  ‘Doris,’ said Mr Keiller, in a surprisingly quiet, dangerous voice, ‘you are a first-class fucking bitch. Get out of here.’

  ‘I’m going,’ she said, throwing the destroyed drawing onto the wet grass. ‘For Christ’s sake, Alec. She’s young enough to be your daughter. Who do you think you are? The lord of the Manor, exercising his seigneurial rights? You and your bloody pimp there–do the pair of you both fuck her together?’

  Mr Piggott appeared round the corner of the barrow. ‘Are we going home now?’ he said, in a surprised tone.

  ‘Stuart,’ said Miss Chapman, ‘would you mind driving me back?’

  Mr Piggott looked uncertainly at Mr Keiller. ‘Alec?’

  ‘I’ll drive her back.’ He stood up, frighteningly tall, face like thunder. ‘Doris, get in the Caterpillar. I’m not going to ask you to apologize to Miss Robinson immediately, while you’re still overwrought, but you will. She has nothing to do with this, and I certainly have not fucked her, as you so charmingly put it. Stuart, you and Donald look after the girl. She doesn’t need to come back into the office this afternoon, and I’d be grateful if you’d see her home. I’m sorry for the language, Miss Robinson.’

  He climbed in and slammed the driver’s door shut. Miss Chapman’s face was white and terrified. The three of us watched the Kegresse bump away down the slope. Why couldn’t he have let Stu Pig go with her?

  ‘What was all that about?’ asked Mr Piggott. ‘Why is Miss Robinson crying?’

  ‘Stu, why don’t you carry on measuring your bloody barrow?’ said Mr Cromley. ‘I’ll see Miss Robinson safely home.’

  ‘I’m not crying,’ I said, setting my jaw tight so my mouth wouldn’t tremble and more tears spill out of my brimming eyes, ‘and I don’t need either of you to see me home. I’d rather be on my own, if you don’t mind.’ I stood up; my legs were shaking. Beside the path, where Miss Chapman had flung it, lay the crumpled drawing. I bent to pick it up, then changed my mind and left it on the grass, all shredded and smeared. Don’t know what happened to it. I suppose Mr Piggott and Mr Cromley threw it away when they cleared up the rugs and the plates from the picnic.

  CHAPTER 19

  Driving through intermittent, hammering showers, I keep wondering what happened to Frannie’s picture of the Barber Surgeon. It came as a surprise that she was considered a good enough draughtswoman to work as an artist for Keiller. She used to sketch clever little doodles for me when I was a child, but I haven’t seen her draw for years, her fingers now too arthritic to hold a pencil comfortably. The rosewood watercolour box in the drawer where I found Davey’s photo looked as if it had been retired half a century ago.

  Unable to find Ed to tell him about the YouTube footage–it’s his day off, the office said–my only option is to track him down in Yatesbury. He probably goes home to his wife in Oxfordshire at weekends, but I guess he spends time off midweek studying in his friend’s place, wherever that may be. All I know is that it’s somewhere ‘near the airfield’. I bypass the main part of the village, and the church where Davey Fergusson is buried, and drive along the airfield’s perimeter road, past the microlight centre, looking for clues.

  Little is left to show that this was once a bustling RAF training base, apart from a few skeletal hangars that might be contemporary with its heyday between the wars, when Guy Gibson of the Dambusters learned to fly there. The far end of the field has a sad, neglected feel, the perimeter road not so much a lane as a collection of loosely assembled potholes. Midges dance over the puddles. Wincing at the likely effect on what’s left of the Peugeot’s shock absorbers, I bump slowly down the track towards a pair of mock-Tudor semis, faced in grubby white plaster cladding. A man comes round the side of one of the houses, a shotgun crooked over his arm, a J
ack Russell at his heels. The dog starts barking as soon as it sees the car.

  ‘Sorry.’ I wind down the window, trying not to feel intimidated by the gun. ‘I’m looking for Ed Raleigh.’

  The man jerks his head towards a clump of beeches. ‘Down there. Shut up, Bingo.’ He starts up the road in the opposite direction, but the dog stands his ground, waiting to see me off his territory. As I put the car into gear, the man calls over his shoulder, ‘I’d walk if I were you. The potholes get worse.’ He whistles to the dog. It bares its teeth at me in a soundless snarl, then trots after him.

  The beeches are about five minutes’ walk away, at the lane end. On the opposite side of the road a cluster of hangars stands behind a rusting chain-link fence with a notice hung on it: Yatesbury Helicopters. Private Charter, Pilot Training. Positively NO admittance to unauthorized visitors. Premises patrolled 24 hours. The last sentence is printed under a picture of a ferocious Alsatian. But the gate is sagging open, and Ed’s Land Rover is parked on the cracked concrete forecourt between the buildings. He can’t be living here, can he?

  There’s no sign of anyone, and all the doors are padlocked. I call Ed’s name. No one comes. Somewhere in the distance music is playing. It sounds like Radiohead.

  I walk behind the hangars, and find myself looking out across an apron of concrete and a flat, empty field. Wrong direction: the music has disappeared. Going back round the other side, it’s audible again: definitely Radiohead. Someone’s turned it up. Now I see what I missed before–outside the fence, under the trees on the far side of the road.

  Close up, the caravan is distinctly seedy, even by the generous standards of a childhood spent moving from festival to festival in a convoy of travellers’ vans. It was probably once a smart two-tone cream and brown tourer, but a layer of algae and grime has painted it a dull greenish-grey all over, like camouflage. There are no wheels: it’s propped on bricks. It seems to have suffered a road accident, its skin buckled and creased at one corner like crumpled paper. At the grubby window, curtains printed with Thomas the Tank Engine are drawn closed. ‘Creep’ thunders through the thin walls.

  I bang on the door. ‘You there, Ed?’

  No answer. I hammer on the door again. Eventually it opens. Ed stands there, swaying, blinking, bemused, stubble darker than ever.

  ‘You look awful,’ I tell him, as ‘Creep’ finishes.

  ‘How did you know where to find me?’

  ‘Mystic pagan powers. Aren’t you going to invite me in?’

  He steps back, stumbling a little, catches the side of the door and rights himself. On the stereo, the Smiths strike up ‘How Soon Is Now?’.

  ‘Boy, we are feeling cheery this evening.’ I mount the steps into the caravan, catching a whiff of stale beer, damp carpets and a thick, chemical odour. Are you drunk?’

  ‘Wish I was.’ Ed runs a hand through tousled hair. ‘Only just out of bed. I’ve the mother of all hangovers.’ He disconnects the iPod from its docking station. ‘“Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now”, etc’

  ‘What the hell did you drink last night?’

  ‘Don’t ask.’

  No need. The evidence is piled in the tiny sink: a sandcastle heap of lager cans. Sticking out of the top, like a flagpole, is a vodka bottle. At one end of the van there is a rumpled double bed, at the other a narrow fold-down table between two bench seats.

  ‘Is that Pot Noodle on the table?’

  He has the grace to look ashamed. ‘Didn’t actually eat it. I only thought about it, like you do when you’re drinking.’

  ‘Christ, Ed, you must have put away enough to knock you out for a week.’

  ‘Take your pick of my excuses.’ He gestures towards the table, and a scatter of letters and torn envelopes next to the Pot Noodle. The top sheet of paper has a Barclays Bank logo. ‘On second thoughts, don’t look. I’d prefer you not to know the extent to which my life is falling apart. Sorry, it’s a pit in here. I probably stink, too. Let me get showered.’

  ‘I’m not staying long.’

  ‘Can hardly blame you.’ He wrinkles his nose. ‘No, even I can smell me, so unless you want one of us to stand outside and conduct this conversation at a safe distance through the open door, I’m going to have to insist you give me two minutes in the shower. Don’t panic, it’s perfectly private–you won’t have to see bits of me you’d rather forget.’

  Can’t help a smile. ‘Really, Ed, no need…’ But he’s already pulling closed the sliding door that shuts off the bedroom end. I immediately start thinking about all the bits of him that I actually wouldn’t mind seeing again: what he looks like pulling his T-shirt over his head…

  No. To distract myself, I concentrate on the utter squalor around me.

  The caravan would smell sweeter if the lager mountain in the sink was levelled. There’s a Waitrose carrier bag on the floor so I scoop into it as many empty cans as will fit, and drop it into the overflowing dustbin outside the door. From the other end, creaks and the sound of trickling water announce that Ed’s ablutions are under way. I don’t mean to pry into the pile of papers on the table, really, but I can’t help noticing–

  Oh, my sweet lesus. How much?

  …would point out that you also already have an unsecured loan for seventy thousand pounds, the repayments on which are in default, and therefore on this occasion we are unable to advance any further monies…

  Seventy thousand pounds? No wonder the poor bastard’s in a caravan. And it’s not the only letter with a bank logo.

  ‘Don’t rub my nose in the shit I’m in, will you?’

  I spin round, guilty. ‘Sorry, I–’

  ‘Kinda leaps out at you, doesn’t it? It’s been leaping out and twisting my balls for the last three months.’ Ed towels his hair, in damp black ringlets from the shower, releasing the clean scent of coal-tar soap. His shirt’s hanging open, revealing low-slung jeans, a flat stomach, a sparse fuzz of dark chest hair. Another cloudburst starts to hammer on the caravan roof.

  ‘How–’

  ‘–did I get into this mess? Nothing too dreadful, honest, guv, no gambling habit, no cocaine addiction, no drink problem, despite the evidence to the contrary in the dustbin. Costs roughly fifty thou to train as a helicopter pilot, more if you get a commercial licence for fixed wing as well, as I did. The idea is to pay off the loan with the fabulous wages we earn from our difficult and dangerous trade, and eventually take out another to buy our own chopper. Reality is that most of us lurch from financial crisis to financial crisis, and in my case to ultimate disaster.’

  ‘So the crash was the last straw?’

  ‘Give the lady a coconut. I was keeping up repayments until Luke sacked–sorry, let me go, as he so politely put it. The euphemisms people use. Lost the Bell, couldn’t afford to have it repaired, insurance people wouldn’t pay out until after the accident report, etc., etc. Only way I’m earning anything is because the guy who runs the show here took pity. Not that’s he’s doing so well himself at the moment.’

  ‘You’re an instructor? Teaching people to fly helicopters?’

  It sounds more like a spit than a laugh. ‘Oh, I could. I’m qualified. But he thinks it’s better I don’t for the moment. I’m the fucking night security guard.’

  Light dawns. ‘I saw the notice on the fence. Where’s the dog?’

  ‘It’s the Jack Russell at the cottages along the road.’

  Can’t help it, I burst out laughing. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Ed, it’s just–’

  ‘I know, I know. It is bloody funny, when you think about it. I’m being paid for doing nothing–there’s never been a security guard here before, not much need. I suppose somebody might come along and steal a chopper, but good luck to them–they’d have to know how to fly it, and there’s an alarm system in the hangar that’d wake the bloody dead, let alone old Alan at the cottages. He’s up half the night anyway, killing small inoffensive creatures.’

  ‘I met him.’

  ‘Yeah, well. Man of few words, but gener
ally to the point.’

  ‘Don’t you fly at all?’

  ‘Occasionally. My boss had great plans to run an executive air-taxi operation, as well as the flying lessons, but he hasn’t really pulled it together. There are a few charters flying rich gamblers to and from race meetings, and a couple of dodgy businessmen and the odd pop group have used his services, but there’s hardly enough work for him, let alone me. If it’s a weekend or a night-flight and he can’t be bothered, then it’s mine.’

  A silence falls. The rain has stopped as suddenly as it started. Ed puts down the damp towel–on top of the letters, to block my prying eyes–and starts to button his shirt. In the corner, a fat droplet of water oozes through the metal roof-seam.

  ‘I hesitate to offer you a drink,’ he says, ‘but would a cuppa do?’

  ‘Lovely.’

  While he’s putting on the kettle, I look round at Ed’s private world. There isn’t much of it, and what little there is is untidy. To sit down I have to shift a pile of box files onto the floor, next to a black bin-liner of washing–clean or dirty, impossible to tell. There are no books, no television, only the iPod and dock on a shelf, and a laptop computer, hiding under the papers. A half-open cupboard door reveals a tangle of boots and shoes.

  But, of course, this isn’t the whole of his private world. Somewhere else, there’s a wife and a farmhouse. Although, if he’s in debt, maybe the farm and barns have already been sold. Or repossessed. Perhaps his wife is in a council house on the outskirts of Slough.

  He flashes a bruised grin over his shoulder. ‘Sorry, have to rinse the mugs. There’s only two. Helpful in that it simplifies washing-up, but makes entertaining challenging. What brought you here?’

  It hits me in the gut like a fist. I’d completely forgotten. For a moment I can’t find breath to speak.

  Ed catches sight of my face. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Maybe you’d better break out the vodka again.’ Then to my horror my eyes start to fill with tears. ‘Bloody vultures. Voyeurs. Sick. Don’t know how they got hold of–’