by Sarah Moss
Leaving the camp with Molly felt like sneaking out of school at break to buy sweets, before I joined the sixth form and we were allowed to leave the premises so all the glamour went out of the newsagent down the road. We hurried at first, feet quick over the sun-dappled twigs and leaves as if someone might call us back. Come and dismember small mammals after all, take this down to the stream and scrub it. Molly went first, the plaits bouncing and snaking on her brown tunic. I felt my own scalp itch; I supposed there wasn’t a lot of Iron-Age hair-washing. People used to use cow’s urine, Dad had said with satisfaction, though he couldn’t explain why. He would enjoy handing the two of us a bucket of cow piss and instructing us to put our heads in it. I stumbled over a branch, caught myself. Molly stopped. Sorry, I’m going too fast, I just somehow couldn’t wait to get away. She held out her hand. You OK? I gave the hand a squeeze and let go. Her fingers were warmer than mine, dry and strong. Yeah, I said, fine, I just tripped. So where are we going, I said, should we look at the book, if there’re any garlic greens left they’ll be in shaded hedgerows or maybe in sunnier bits of woodland. Nah, she said, fuck that, we’re going to Spar.
We set off again. The path was too narrow for us to walk side by side. But what about the foraging, I said, we can’t go back there with a pack of crisps and say hey, guess what we found under a hedge. What if we buy some veg, she said, and rough them up a bit, roll them in the mud. I scampered at her heels. Won’t work, you can’t forage farmed veg, it’s just stealing, Dad’d have a fit, they’re expecting wild plants. Well then, she said, we’ll find some, but after Spar, it’s not as if they can say it’s taken us too long or we didn’t find enough, the Prof keeps saying how it’s not like shopping and you can’t go out with a list knowing you’ll be back in time to cook to the six o’clock news, maybe today it takes a while and we don’t find much. OK, I said, but we can’t go back empty-handed, seriously, my dad would completely lose it. Mm, she said, does he do that often, Silvie?
Something lurched, as if I’d just gone too fast over a hill in a car. No, I said, it’s fine, I mean I know he was a bit short with us yesterday but he’s like that, he doesn’t mean it. Yeah, she said, I’m kind of more interested in what people do and say than what they mean, I learnt that after my dad left. I could sense the approach of a story I didn’t want to hear. One of my friends’ mums had tried the same thing when Claire and I were passing through her kitchen on the way out: Silvie, you know Claire’s Auntie Karen, my sister? Did our Claire tell you she’s left her husband now? He’d been hitting her, turns out, her and the kids, a few folk’d had their suspicions. No, I’d said, Claire didn’t mention that, how sad, anyway me and Claire were about to go out, if that’s OK.
Molly and I were coming to the edge of the wood. Beyond the trees the sun came down hard and I found myself covering my eyes with my forearm. Hey, Molly said, it’s not that bad, take a minute to get used to it. Must say, I didn’t think sunburn was going to be a problem up here, actually I brought jumpers and a coat, Jim said it’s always cold up north. Mm, I said. I had not understood until meeting the students that we lived ‘up north’, that we were ‘Northerners’. Up from where? It’s probably about the same as where you live, I said, you know there’s the whole of Scotland further north, we’re really about in the middle here. No, it’s definitely colder here, she said, it does feel different. And the nights are shorter. Now if we go along this track we’ll come to the road and then it’s all of ten minutes to the shop, only we’ll look right prats if anyone sees us. We look right prats whether anyone sees us or not, I said, and they’ve probably heard all about it by now anyway, round here.
Molly was right. The first car to pass slowed and two boys leant out and shouted at us, hey up love, bound for Sherwood forest are ya? Molly gave them two fingers, as if she didn’t care, as if there were no possible consequences for a girl making obscene gestures on the public highway. Fuckers, she said as they drove off, hope they drive into a bridge next time. Moll! I said, though I didn’t really think ill-wishing had power. What, she said, serve the bastards right. Look, there’s Spar, told you. I’m going to have an ice-cream, what about you? Dunno, I said, I’ll see what they’ve got. I’ll see what I can afford, I meant; even though I was in the sixth form and there was casual work going in town, Dad had forbidden me to get a Saturday job. No need for that, you’re fed and housed and there’s plenty wants doing at home if you’ve time on your hands, you get on with your school work and then you won’t have to spend your life in a shop like your mum. Either he wanted me to have a better life than his and Mum’s or he knew that money is power and didn’t want me to have any, or maybe – probably – both. Mum slipped me the odd couple of quid and didn’t always ask for the change when she sent me to the shops.
Sweat trickled under my arms and I wiped my upper lip on the back of my hand. The shop was on the horizon where the road went up hill, and behind it a mirage of the moor wavered and floated between tarmac and sky. High above, silently, a plane left no trail. We do have to do some foraging, I said, they’ll be wondering where we are. I do have to get something to eat, Molly said, something with some taste and energy in it, I reckon I’d rather live in the shadow of nuclear war with ice-cream and crisps and conditioner than in primitive purity with half-ground grains and rabbits’ guts. I decided not to say anything prissy about literacy, not to mention safe water and antibiotics, and anyway she was right. Do you think someone’s going to find a grassy mound in 2991, I said, and excavate it and conclude that we venerated drinking vessels and plastic packaging at the crossroads of our sacred ways? Well, she said, they’d be right, wouldn’t they.
I let Molly go in first. Hung back, would have waited outside except that I reckoned I’d look even more stupid hanging about out there on my own in tunic and moccasins than trailing Molly around three aisles of highly processed and over-packaged food. She held the door for me. Come on, she said, it’s fine, I’ve been here pretty much every day, they’re used to it. She took a basket and strode around, mirrored in the black and white CCTV over her head. A bag of apples, a multi-pack of Hula Hoops, a small sack of ‘fun sized’ Mars bars, though why it should be more fun to have smaller chocolate bars I have never understood. A pastel box of Fondant Fancies. Dan’s guilty secret, she said, his gran used to buy them and there’s something about watching a hairy six-foot bloke eating pink cakes that’s worth every penny.
The bell over the door rang and a woman came in, a woman wearing shapely grey linen and flat shoes like a version of our moccasins made by someone who knew how to make shoes. She looked me up and down. Good morning, she said. Red lipstick, bobbed hair with purposeful white streaks. Hi, I said. Er, good morning. Sorry. Why are you sorry, she said. I looked for Molly, who was leaning over the freezer by the till making a careful study of the ice-creams. I seemed to have forgotten how to behave in the presence of electric lights and painted walls. Don’t know, I said, sorry. You must be with the archaeologists, she said. Re-enactors, whatever they’re called. Yeah, I said, we’re living like Iron-Age Northumbrians, I mean, obviously they didn’t go to Spar and buy cake so we’re not, actually, but I mean that’s why we’re here, in these clothes. Right, she said, and how’s that going? Apart from the need for cake? Of course we heard about you, in the village, it sounds very interesting.
Erm, OK, I said, fine, we’re learning a lot, well, I’m not a student, I don’t have to, but I think they are. Anyway, my friend – I gestured towards Molly, who was studying a pack of Chorley cakes. I guessed they didn’t have Chorley cakes in the South.
Isn’t it much harder, the woman said, to find food now all the land is farmed, do you think it would have been easier for them with more wild plants and animals, greater what do you call it? Moll looked up. Biodiversity, she said. Yeah, probably. Plus they’d have known what they were doing and not been wandering round with some book with completely useless black-and-white photos to tell you which ones are poisonous. There are people in the village who’
d know which ones are poisonous, said the woman, my Aunt Edith would have known, retired civil servant but she knew her plants, you could probably ask any farmer.
Molly left her basket on the freezer and came over, still holding the Chorley cakes. You mean if the Prof was into asking people who know rather than looking it all up in books, she said, yeah, I know, but it’s like asking for directions, it’s one thing for a bloke to admit he doesn’t know something but acknowledging that someone else does know is a step too far. Moll, I said, they’re not all the same, I’ve definitely had men ask me directions, you don’t like it when Dan talks about women like that. They ask you ’cos you’re not threatening, she said, and I bet there’s been a five-act drama in that car first. The woman laughed. Maybe they’re just socialized that way and can’t help it, poor dears, she said. Maybe the drama is because they hate being like that and wish they were allowed to admit uncertainty. I’m Trudi, she said, Trudi Kelley, I’m a midwife and I live in the village, the little house just above the farm. If you ever find you need anything while you’re here, advice about plants for example or a cup of tea or maybe just a hot shower, you know where I am. Enjoy your Iron-Age food.
We walked down the road, Molly eating her Cornetto and me nibbling at a lemonade ice lolly that was already melting and making my fingers sticky. Anxiety was rising in me like water in a jug. The lolly had a bitter aftertaste. I let the bit in the middle that’s hard to bite without choking yourself on the stick slide onto the tarmac. Moll, I said, let’s at least get off the road with all this stuff, let’s just go behind the hedge and put that plastic bag away, and we must get on and find some proper food, something wild, it might take us a while. It’s fine, she said, calm down, we’ll finish these and then start looking, OK, we’ll have more energy and it’s not as if they’re expecting us back at a particular time, the day’s long enough. He’ll know, I said, he’ll know we’ve been mucking about, that woman might talk, please, Moll, let’s just hide what you bought and do what we’re supposed to be doing. He’ll know, she said, licking her ice cream. Your dad. Silvie, you’re terrified of him. I’m not, I said, really I’m not, but please can we just get on now, we’re going to get into so much trouble. I was starting to fight my breathing, could get air out but not in, as if my body was already full up, as if there was no space inside my ribs. Hey, Moll said, sure, come on, whatever makes you feel better. Are you OK? Look, I’m putting the plastic bag in the basket, see, no-one can see if that’s foraged – foraged gruel or Hula Hoops, and there, ice-cream all gone. Calm down, Silvie, it’s all right.
She agreed to hide her bag of ill-gotten goods in a hedge by the wood, and we went up along the edge of the trees and the moor. We found a wild plum tree covered in early small yellow plums, sour but edible, and then a whole lot of burdock. I know you can eat the roots, I said, I’m less sure about the leaves, though I think that’s what’s in dandelion and burdock. In what, asked Molly. The drink, I said, you know, but she didn’t know, maybe it was something else you could only get up north. Right, said Molly, but we haven’t got a spade. They probably didn’t have a spade in the Iron Age either, I said, we’ll make do, but of course in the end I made do while Molly read bits of the foraging book out loud to me. It says here, she said, roots are probably the least practical of all wild vegetables, being labour-intensive to gather and actually in many cases illegal. You can make a burdock and rabbit stew, I said, and we can look for more garlic greens and come to think of it dandelion leaves though I don’t think you’d want to cook them, best in a salad maybe with sorrel though I haven’t seen any sorrel. Plenty of dandelions any road. I’m sure you can make a burdock and rabbit stew, said Molly, there’s no law of man nor God stops you putting things in a pan if you’re so minded, question is—yes, I said, well, it’s exactly the kind of thing they want, isn’t it, Dad and Prof Slade? She shrugged. Suppose so.
I went on grubbing at the burdock with a flat stone, feeling the soil lodging under my fingernails. The smell of damp earth rose in the heat. I switched from kneeling to squatting although both hurt the backs of my legs, tried to edge into the shade of the trees. A wind ruffled through the leaves overhead but I barely felt it on my hot face. No birds sang, no creatures scurried. The sun didn’t seem to move in the sky. Slowly, I disclosed the root. Sweat trickled. The plant began to topple and I found myself feeling guiltier about killing it than I had about gutting the rabbits. The whole of life, I thought, is doing harm, we live by killing, as if there were any being of which that is not the case. Molly, I said, why did you come, if you don’t like Professor Slade, if you think the whole thing’s ridiculous? She bit a plum and puckered her lips. The field trip’s part of the course, she said, experiential archaeology, and I took that because I liked the idea that you can learn from doing things, that it’s not all books and speculation. Plus I thought it might be useful for getting into museum courses, ’cos that’s about actual things too. The burdock fell. I started digging through its roots. But now you’re here, I said, you’re not – well, you’re not exactly taking it seriously, are you? Well, she said, I’m joining in, I’m picking plums, I gathered mussels, I helped your mum wash tunics in the stream, I just think a lot of it’s boys playing in the woods. Your dad and Jim, have you noticed, they’re not much interested in the foraging and cooking, they just want to kill things and talk about fighting, why would I take it seriously? Because they are men, I thought, because they’re in charge, because there will be consequences if you don’t. I didn’t see how she could not know that.
We returned to the camp to find that only Mum was there. The fire was burning, flames almost invisible in the sunlight, steam rising from the cauldron balanced on its stones. Mum sat against the wall in the shade of the hut, not apparently occupied. Maybe this was ‘sitting down’. Hello, I said, look, we found burdock for your stew and more of those greens the Prof liked and loads of plums though I think ideally they’d want sugar, we can maybe dry them for sweetness. Hello, she said, hello Molly, that’s good, Silvie, your dad’ll be pleased. She started to get up, using her hands like a much older person. I put the rabbit on, she said, reckoned it could take a fair while, don’t think those were the youngest bunnies on the hill somehow. If we get those roots scrubbed they can go in now and we’ll leave the greens for later. Oh, now are you two hungry, only there’s nowt ready yet. No, we said, we’re fine, ate loads of plums, no bother to wait while the others get back. Could be a while, she said, warningly, as if she hadn’t just told us there was nothing to eat anyway. Not but what they’ll near to melt, rushing about up there, day like today. There’s water on the moor, I said, springs still rising, they’ll not parch, it’s the sunburn I’d be thinking of. Well, she said, they’re grown men the lot of them. Take these burdocks down the stream will you, give them a good wash. Molly, if you can stand the sun you could lay some of the plums to dry, it’s the right weather for it an’ all. Molly turned the sour plums in her basket with her fingers, picked out a caterpillar. Won’t they go mouldy, she said, that’s what happens to half the fruit at home. Not if they’re turned, I said, you want to turn them as they go dry and wrinkled before the underside gets mould, we’ll keep an eye on them. OK, she said, whatever you say, at least it’s not eviscerating rabbits.
I carried the burdocks down to the stream, the handle of the basket I’d woven cutting into my hands and the weight pulling on my shoulders. I bet they’d had some kind of backpack arrangement in the Iron Age, no-one would have wanted to lug stuff around in one hand. But Dad should be pleased, it was a good haul of food.
The stream was shallower and slower than it had been a few days earlier, but still the colour of whisky in a bottle, murmuring over the stones. I chanced it, didn’t take my tunic off but rolled it up and perched gingerly on a smooth rock in the stream while I rubbed soil off the burdock roots with my hands. Cold water wavered over my legs, stroked some of the soreness from my skin. I imagined the shame carried away like blood in the water, visible first in weed
y streams, curling and flickering like smoke and then dissolving, fading, until although you knew it would always be there you couldn’t see it any more.
I wondered what they were doing on the moor, the men, what they’d found that was keeping them baking under the sun with the heather and the insects. There was a rounded hummock up there on a rise not far above the trees, east of the track at a point where it was and would always have been visible on a clear day for miles on the rolling tops. The map marked it ‘prehistoric monument’ in the Gothic font that the Ordnance Survey uses to show respect for the traces of those whose maps did not survive, and according to the Prof there was a cup and ring mark that none of the rest of us could see incised on one of the big stones. Dad would be fascinated by it as he was by the standing stones and the outlines of the hill fort above the town at home, but the Prof wasn’t, so far as I could gather, that kind of archaeologist and he’d already explained to Dad that he wasn’t funded or equipped to dig this summer. That’s not what we’re here for, he’d said, I hope that was clear when we arranged for you to join us, I might get a paper out of this but it’s teaching, mostly, little more than a game. Aye, said Dad, I knew that, right enough, course I did.
The burdocks were clarted with clayey soil and even once I’d got the lumps off I had to rub every root with my fingertips. I flexed my feet, stroked the green waterweed growing over a stone with my toes. Slimy and soft. Dad would like to find a body up there, I thought, most of all he would like to be the one out gathering peat to see us through the winter, the one who, aching after hours of honest labour, leans on the spade once again, levers the clod that’s lain for centuries over the compacted prehistoric trees of the peat bog and sees among the roots and frantic worms a human face, a face last seen two thousand years ago by the neighbours who led their friend naked across the moor, who bound him hand and foot.