by Peter Helton
Next to me Cy shook his head disapprovingly. ‘Bloody piss artist. No wonder he and Guy hit it off so well last time we had the re-enactors round. Guy is public school and RADA and Morgan is a council-estate motorbike nut but they found instant common ground over a bottle of Scotch. Keep an eye on Guy today; they’re bound to booze all night, those two.’
‘Seriously? The fastidious Middleton and the hairy Briton?’
Cy walked off to join them. ‘I know. But they’re soul mates underneath. They’re both bloody barbarians.’
There seemed to be no better place to be right now than the verandah so I stayed where I was. Stoneking had the same idea. He appeared from inside, carrying two deckchairs. ‘Here, grab one of those and we’ll watch the battle in comfort.’ We set them up at the end of the terrace, closest to the impending action. ‘Looks like we’re the only two people here who are not working.’
‘Speak for yourself. I’m busy keeping an eye on Guy Middleton.’
‘Yes, I wondered about that. What are you, his PA or something? I used to have a PA but found what I really needed was a housekeeper.’
‘No, I’m just his minder, and only while he’s in Bath.’
‘And why does he need minding?’
‘You know what it’s like, being famous. I just make sure everything runs smoothly for him, keep the nutters off him, see he comes to no harm.’
‘Ha! You may have your work cut out. Right now he’s surrounded by heavily armed nutters.’
Stoneking had a point. Guy was doing a piece to camera with the Romans and Britons squaring up to each other behind him. ‘I’m not required to stop bullets for him. Or spears, in this case.’ I briefly wondered if I still got paid if anything did happen to Middleton. Not that I was the least bit mercenary about it. One day I’d really have to read that contract. Guy had now finished his PTC and walked towards us.
‘Looks like it’s about to start,’ Stoneking said. ‘This should be quite a good scrap. I’ve seen them do something like this before. On telly, of course, a couple of series back. I hope it won’t get rained off. Look at those clouds.’
Since early morning dirty rainclouds had begun to crowd the sky, becoming darker and more threatening by the hour. Down here not a breath stirred and the atmosphere was getting sweaty. ‘Presumably the real Romans didn’t stop for a bit of rain. And it might lend a bit of authenticity to the re-enactment.’
Guy had heard me. ‘Quite, I agree,’ he said, turning round to look at the battle ground. ‘Those bloody Romans could do with a bit of mud between their toes; they’re all too squeaky clean. It’s all that Roman efficiency and precision crap that attracted them to it in the first place, you know. They need to get their hands dirty if they want to be convincing. It’s what I told Brian, too: you’re a bunch of anal twits and need to loosen up, but he wouldn’t listen. I bet they all iron their bloody underpants before they come out. But those Britons, they’re as real as it gets. Half of them are hairy bikers like Morgan. And they really know how to throw a party, too. Ah, here goes. Any more armchairs around?’
Stoneking unclipped his mobile from his belt and started texting. ‘I’ll get Carla to bring one out for you.’
A battlefield had been staked out and the Britons and Romans had a last discussion about the scenes with Emms and Paul, the cameraman. The bald soundman, obviously a pessimist, was already protecting his recorder with clear plastic against the possibility of rain. The discussion seemed to get quite involved, with lots of arm waving and pointing. We heard Morgan’s braying laugh. Then Brian pushed Morgan. Morgan staggered briefly backwards, then charged forward, head lowered, and smacked Brian with his shield. Brian sat down heavily on his behind to a burst of laughter from the crowd of Britons who were standing in a huddle at the edge of the field of battle. I saw a plastic flagon of cider being furtively passed around. There was a brief, angry exchange as Cy helped Brian up but we were too far away to hear what was being said. Emms was making calming gestures. Eventually the commanders withdrew to their respective sides.
‘This should be good,’ said Guy. ‘Those two really do hate each other; they’re like cat and dog. Ah, thanks, Carla.’ The housekeeper had arrived with a deckchair and set it up for him. ‘Here we go, it’s started.’
Carla remained to watch. She positioned herself behind Stoneking, her hands resting lightly on the top of his deckchair. She seemed more interested in studying the rock star’s hair than watching the impending battle. At the Roman end of the battlefield military commands were shouted in Latin, with a definite West Country lilt. They were answered by an incoherent bellow from the rabble of Britons. The Romans advanced towards them in a tight line, shields touching, helmeted faces peering above them, like a row of riot police at a violent demonstration. This kind of formation would have allowed the real Romans to advance despite a hail of stones, arrows and other missiles raining down on them. Only our Cohort Italica (Bristol Division) had been too busy shuffling into position and shouting commands to notice that half a dozen Britons had separated from the rabble and stolen into their rear. When the shout to draw swords – gladium stringe! – was followed by the command to commence the attack, the legionnaires were concentrating on their front while six Britons fell on them from behind and kicked them in the back of the knees. At the same time the rest of Morgan’s rabble charged into the Roman front line. Brian’s battle plan fell apart. Now it was every man for himself. Cy monitored the static camera on the side lines, Paul got in close with a handheld camera. The bald sound recordist looked uncharacteristically happy between his headphones. The noise was impressive. There was much shouting, some of it in cod Latin, most of it pure Somerset. Steel clashed brightly with steel, thumped on wooden shields, shield bosses crashed into armour. Several warriors went down. Then, without warning, the character of the fight began to change. A kick in the shins here, a few bright drops from a bloody nose there. Mock sword fights were abandoned and shields used like battering rams. Fists swung and connected. Combatants, locked in hand-to-hand struggles, fell and rolled wrestling on the ground. Brian was sitting on the grass, looking dazed under a dented helmet. All around him noses were being butted and beards pulled. In the middle of it all I spotted something unexpected. The old lady I had seen inside the house the day before had appeared on the battlefield without anyone having noticed her approach. In a black high-neck dress Olive Cunningham was walking straight through the melee, swinging her walking stick across a Roman behind here, toppling over a pair of wrestlers there. She smote a Briton from behind who wheeled around to answer the blow. Confronted with the white-haired geriatric he made the mistake of hesitating and was rewarded with a firm poke in the solar plexus. The old lady carried on straight towards us.
Emms tried to guide her cameraman backwards to safety while he kept filming but herself stumbled over a defeated Briton trying to crawl off the battlefield. Both ended up on the ground. A flagon of cider was thrown and bounced off a Roman helmet. Cy was vainly shouting at everyone to stop, just stop.
Stoneking was on his feet. ‘It’s turned into Asterix in Britain!’
‘They definitely stopped acting,’ Guy said. ‘What’s the old lady up to?’
‘She’ll tell you in a moment,’ said Carla, ‘I’ve no doubt.’
Another two minutes and it was all over. The Romans withdrew from the battlefield, carrying one of their number but leaving much gear of war behind. The Britons appeared victorious, though none of them looked exactly unscathed. Several were limping and one of them was crawling on all fours. Morgan called to him: ‘Can’t you walk, Terry?’
The crawler didn’t look up. ‘I’ve lost a bloody contact lens!’
At the excavation trenches all pretence of work had stopped the moment the fight started and now cricket applause drifted across the lawns. Cy stared furiously at the old lady who had walked straight through his scene. For a moment he looked as though he thought of confronting her, then chose a simpler target. He stomped after the Britons
who had obviously started the brawl. Paul was examining his camera for damage and Emms sat on the grass crying with laughter.
The old lady reached the terrace without further incident. I got up from my deckchair and so did Guy, out of politeness as much as in recognition that the woman was furious and knew how to use a stick to make her point. Stoneking, who had been standing, sat down. ‘Can’t you see you ruined the take, woman? Did you have to totter straight through there? What do you want?’
Olive Cunningham was a tall woman but I doubted she had ever been beautiful. Noticeable, impressive, perhaps she had been called ‘attractive’ in her day. When exactly that day had been was hard to tell. I guessed she was at least eighty but her voice was as firm as her stick-swinging arm. ‘I am perfectly in my right to walk where I want, Mr Stoneking. But I am not at all sure you have the right to turn Tarmford Hall into an amusement park. I appeal – I was going to say to your better nature but you do not appear to have one – I appeal to you to send these people home and stop this, this . . .’ Her no doubt well-prepared speech faltered under the pressure of real emotion. ‘They are desecrating the place. Those dearest to me are buried in these grounds and the dead deserve respect. And peace. And what do they get? People digging holes everywhere, a campsite, drunken brawls. If Sam was here it would break his heart. He may be a villain but he understands the Hall. Tarmford Hall is more than just a pile of stones, Mr Stoneking. It is a living thing and you have been torturing it from the moment you took possession of it.’
Stoneking made an impatient gesture. ‘Look, we have had this talk, Mrs Cunningham, and there is no point going over it again. It’ll all be over in a week and peace, as you choose to call it, will return to the place, all right? In the meantime go away, turn on the radio and do some knitting. Come out again next Sunday – you won’t even know they’ve been here.’
Carla’s hand reached towards Stoneking’s shoulder but she withdrew it when he stopped talking. There was a heartbeat’s pause before the old lady said: ‘Oh, I’ll know they’ve been here. We’ll all know it. And we won’t forget it.’ She straightened up and walked off towards the house.
‘I’d best get back to the kitchen and organize tonight’s VIP dinner,’ said Carla. She quickly followed the old lady inside.
Stoneking impatiently crossed his legs and brushed imaginary fluff from his jeans. ‘Stupid old bat.’
‘Not too keen on us then, the old lady,’ Guy said.
‘You can say that again. She’s been on at me about it ever since I made the mistake of mentioning this thing to her. She even threatened me with lawyers. All piffle of course. Living in the granny flat doesn’t give her any rights. She has the right to totter about the grounds and through the house if she has to, but that’s about it. She can be a real nuisance. She always pops up where you least expect her. If you want to keep her out of a place you’ll have to padlock it.’
‘She must be quite old, though,’ Guy mused.
‘She should be seventy-nine or eighty now.’
‘You don’t exchange birthday cards then?’ I asked.
‘No, and I’m beginning to suspect she lied to me about her age. I mean who can tell with old people? She could be seventy-five. And live till she’s ninety-five. Hell, twenty years with her ghosting about! I don’t think I have twenty years left in me. In fact I’m sure I haven’t. My God, she could outlive me, what a thought!’
A rumble of thunder reverberated through the grounds, reflected back at us by the bulk of the house. The hall loomed behind us now against a sky the colour of wet slate. A certainty of heavy rain was in the air and everyone hurried in preparation for it. The archaeologists covered the enlarged trench with a movable khaki tent they had prepared for this moment, and everyone not involved in that made their way towards the house or the campsite in the woods, depending on their status. Delia shuttered the catering van. The Romans had already withdrawn into their camp but the Britons were still struggling to pitch their simple tents at the edge of the lawns, as far from the Romans as possible. The TV crew packed up and Cy came over, carrying laptop, scripts and a fistful of cables. ‘That was a total disaster; I doubt we can use any of it. We’ll have to re-shoot the thing. That bunch of pissheads were completely out of order.’
‘You hired them,’ Guy said quietly.
Cy ignored him and turned to Stoneking. ‘And that old woman ruined what was left of the shots. Who is she? Sorry, she’s not your mother, is she?’
‘The madwoman in the attic,’ Guy offered.
Stoneking launched into an impatient explanation as the first drops fell. We got out of our armchairs a little too nonchalantly because a few seconds later the heavens opened with a crack of thunder and by the time we had sprinted across the verandah and through the French windows our clothes were soaked. Raindrops hammered on to the terrace and bounced up again eight inches into the air. The storm was getting nearer, lightning and thunder following each other ever more closely.
‘Reminds me of the monsoon in Sri Lanka,’ Stoneking said.
Emms was the last of the privileged few to make it to the house. ‘I’m soaked to the skin,’ she said. ‘I’ll have to go and change.’ She splished across the carpets, her red hair clinging close around her head.
‘I hope those Roman tents are waterproof,’ Cy said.
‘I hope they’ll get a mudslide,’ was Guy’s contribution.
I stood by the window and watched the rain. I liked watching heavy rain. I liked listening to it thrumming the ground and washing the windows, as long as I was dry and cosy inside. But not everyone, I saw, minded being out in the rain. At the furthest edge of the lawn, barely visible through the curtain of raindrops, a hooded figure walked quickly in the direction of the hedge that screened the greenhouse, then disappeared from view among the trees.
EIGHT
‘I’ve no idea what half of them are. I’m not a great reader, I’d be the first to admit.’ Mark Stoneking gestured at the floor-to-ceiling shelves full of books of all sizes. Many of them were leather bound and the whole collection looked as though it had been amassed over the last 150 years. There were gaps on several shelves, some of them quite large.
Guy ran a dust-testing finger through one of the gaps. ‘Have you been flogging off the valuable ones?’
Stoneking frowned. ‘Things aren’t quite that desperate yet, Guy. The books belonged to the Cunninghams and came with the house, just like most of the furniture, the gloomy paintings and all the junk. If you see something weird, or utterly useless, then it came with the house. In fact, if it’s older than 1960, then it came with the house. But Olive took all the books she wanted first, as we had agreed. Actually I think she still comes in here and takes books – not that I care; I’ve not seen a single one I’d want to read.’
Tea was being served to us VIPs in the library while the rain drummed against the windows and the thunder rumbled on. I had the decency to spare a thought for the poor of the parish who were sheltering under canvas, though not a long one. Such is the anaesthetizing effect of luxury on the conscience. It was dark enough for the lights to be turned on in the large but gloomy room. The library was comfortably furnished, with several armchairs and side tables. The place looked like it had been kitted out by the props department of a 1950s B-movie company, with a selection of Indian religious statuary, faded photographs of the Raj and glass cases full of dried scorpions, skewered butterflies, giant bugs and birds’ eggs. There was a stuffed baby alligator on the mantelpiece, a muzzle-loading rifle on the wall above it and beside the fireplace several swords in an elephant’s foot. The books on the walls were mainly nineteenth-century tomes on obscure subjects with titles like The History of Magic, Islands of the Occult and On Sledge and Horseback to Outcast Siberian Lepers.
‘A place like this house should really have a ghost,’ Andrea said, examining the specimen on show with a fascinated disgust.
‘Oh, but it has,’ said Carla, who was serving tea and coffee. ‘And it’s right
over there in that glass case.’ She nodded at a mahogany display case between the windows.
‘What ever can you mean?’ said Emms, pulling a sceptical face, but both women rose to inspect the case, and so did I.
‘I don’t see any ghost,’ Andrea said.
Carla joined us at the case. ‘It was before the First World War. A ghost started appearing in people’s bedrooms at night and haunting the corridors. Usually accompanied by an eerie green glow. It was the ghost of a young woman. Eventually the Cunningham family brought in a priest to exorcize the spirit. The exorcist captured the ghost and imprisoned it in that little glass phial there.’
‘Tosh and nonsense,’ Emms said.
‘Quite hard on the poor ghost,’ I added.
‘That depends,’ said Andrea. ‘What’s the liquid in the bottle?’
‘It’s holy water,’ Carla said.
‘Let me see that.’ Guy pushed between the women and stared down at the little glass phial which was stoppered and heavily sealed with red sealing wax. It was resting on a prayer book in the centre of the collection of other curios like ivory-handled knives, pocket watches, dried beetles and small animal skulls.
‘Don’t tell me, Guy,’ said Andrea. ‘You’re scared of ghosts as well.’
Guy’s nose twitched. He turned to Carla. ‘It’s just a bit of nonsense, right?’
Carla shrugged. ‘One person’s nonsense is another person’s family legend,’ she said, throwing a look across the room where Stoneking was sitting unmoved. Then she went back to serving afternoon tea.