Marrying Up

by Wendy Holden

  Aurelia, Polly thought, as she watched the headmistress steer her charges decisively down the path. Latin for gold. She wouldn’t have expected the forthright Mrs B to have so elaborate a name. Another example of the surprises archaeology revealed.

  It was quiet in the gardens, almost deafeningly so now the children had gone. Together with their forceful headmistress, they seemed to have taken the energy with them. Polly felt suddenly listless, and thinking of the long cycle ride home only made her feel worse. She had only herself to blame; Dad had offered to drop her off on his way to work and pick her up on his return. But she had insisted on making the daily journey to Oakeshott and back on Mrs Pankhurst, her ancient, doughty university bike. Mrs Pankhurst had no gears, weighed a ton and bore the relationship to a normal bicycle that a medicine ball does to a football. She was, however, the best possible defence against Mum’s irresistible syrup puddings.

  Polly closed her eyes and breathed in the perfumed air from the flowers around her. Dozy bees, their back legs thick with pollen, buzzed in heavy, desultory fashion. Even now, at the end of the afternoon, the sun still blazed from a cloudless blue sky. It was hot. Too hot to be thinking of cycling off just yet.

  Now the little ones were gone, she could remove the white shirt she wore over her vest top. As the cotton peeled away, she felt the warm air settle deliciously on her exposed skin.

  Slowly she began to gather together the tools the children had used. Occasionally she glanced up. Afternoon was the most beautiful time of day at Oakeshott, and today was lovelier even than usual. On the lawns behind Polly, dazzling stripes of sunlight and the long shadows of trees stretched across shimmering grass. Before her, the afternoon sunshine blazed on to the front of the magnificent house, picking out the ripe fruit in the horns of plenty, the heaving breasts of the goddesses and the muscled thighs of the gods. From the centre of the private knot garden to the side of the house rose a great fountain, its spume sparkling in the light.

  What was that? A scrabbling noise. A panting. Something big. Something behind her.

  Polly twisted round. To her horror, a large brown Labrador dog, apparently materialising from nowhere, had jumped down over the edge of the lawn into her pit, and was frantically digging with big, swift paws right in the middle of her neat excavation. Soil flew over its heaving shoulders; the stakes and string, uprooted, lay tangled in the dirt.

  ‘Stop it, you beast!’ Polly stumbled towards the animal. ‘Stop it!’ She tugged with all her strength on the dog’s collar, but he proved immovable as a block of stone. He was a big creature to start with; the muscles moved smoothly under his shiny chocolate coat, and to his size and weight was added the extra force of sheer determination. ‘Stop it, you horrid dog!’ Polly yelled, further enraged by the sun in her eyes, feeling the sweat bead her brow as she continued yanking to no effect.

  The strong light was suddenly blocked; Polly heard a thud and the crunch of heels on soil. Someone else was in the pit.

  Looking up, she was fixed by a gaze from two deep-set dark eyes, and felt a searing sensation through her lower insides like the passage of a bullet. She had a strange feeling of things slowing down. Realising that her mouth was slightly open, she shut it. She felt winded somehow.

  ‘Sorry about the dog,’ he said. He was, she estimated, a good foot and a half taller than her and about the same age. He wore an ancient check shirt and torn jeans, and his dark hair had a wild and undisciplined look, as if he often raked it deep in thought, or clutched it in despair or excitement. Polly was suddenly, hideously aware of her tiny vest top, exposing cleavage and midriff, and the fact that she wore no bra.

  ‘Your dog has made a complete mess of this site,’ she snapped. In her agony of self-consciousness, attack was the only defence.

  ‘I know. Sorry.’

  He had thick lashes, she noticed, irrationally. His nose was long and straight and his mouth was wide and curved upwards at the ends, as if it smiled a lot.

  The dog had not stopped for a moment. His nose remained on the ground and his paws continued as a scrabbling blur. Polly glared at him, exasperated.

  ‘He must have buried a bone there,’ the stranger suggested. His words sent a blinding flash of light through Polly. She dived for her rubbish bag and dragged out the bone, to which a banana skin from Poppy’s lunch adhered.

  ‘This one?’ She chucked it at the dog, who fell on it with a growl of delight.

  ‘Looks like it.’ The stranger was smiling. ‘Unless it’s someone you dug up earlier?’

  ‘It’s a cow bone. The children found it.’ Polly seized her rake and scraped agitatedly at the ground. What was the matter with her? She frowned and stared at the earth, unable quite to pinpoint why, suddenly, she felt as churned up as it looked.

  ‘Let me help tidy up,’ he was offering.

  Polly shook her head. ‘I’m fine on my own.’

  ‘But . . .’

  She looked him in the eye, finally. ‘Just take your dog away,’

  she said in a low, steady voice. ‘Please.’

  He shrugged shoulders that were wide but not bulky. His build was tall, rangy, slim-hipped. ‘OK. If that’s what you want.’

  Was it what she wanted? She tore her glance away, feeling a churning in her breast. A warmth that had nothing to do with the sunshine burned in her cheeks. What she definitely didn’t want, under any circumstances, was another good-looking, arrogant, brilliant, self-confident bastard like Jake.

  Chapter 2

  It had been a sunny summer morning by the river in Oxford; the trees were full of light and shimmered gently in the slight breeze. The dew made the grass dance with colour, tiny glassy drops of pink, blue and yellow, as if someone the night before had carelessly let fall a shower of diamonds.

  ‘I’m going to miss you,’ Jake had said, looking down on her from his towering height and swinging her hand as they walked along.

  ‘Sure you are.’ Polly had grinned. Jake, in the year above her and his course’s star student, was going on a prestigious Roman dig in the South of France for the summer, unearthing the foundations of what promised to be a temple. What was probably unearthable, undiscoverable, Polly thought, was how Miranda had managed to land a place on it too. Miranda, in Jake’s year, was celebrated less for her grasp of Roman worship sites than for turning up to digs in pink Hunter wellies and a leopardskin bikini.

  Jake had been outraged when, teasingly, tacitly, Polly had suggested that Miranda might try to seduce him. ‘I’m only warning you,’ she had protested. Beneath the tumble of golden hair Jake’s fine blond brows had drawn together in annoyance. Miranda, he explained, was a mere site bunny, the sort who infuriated the serious archaeologists by getting hand cream all over the digging tools. How could he ever be interested in someone like that?

  Polly had been reassured. Until that evening, when she had gone round to Jake’s college rooms unannounced and found an unscheduled piece of field work in full swing. Jake had been too occupied, groaning ecstatically as Miranda worked on an exposed site between his muscular legs, to notice Polly’s white face as it stared, appalled, through the half-open bedroom door.

  Too shocked to make a scene, she had reeled away down the narrow, twisting stairs. Next day, the university term over, she had gone home. After leaving messages – unanswered – on her mobile, Jake had called her at her parents’, only to receive an indignant earful from Dad, who had gathered the gist, if not the details, of what had happened. After that, all communication had ceased. The relationship was buried for ever. Archaeologist though she was, Polly had no intention of raking over this particular bit of the past. None of which, of course, meant that what had happened had not hurt.

  And still did. The initial storm of misery had passed, but Jake had ebbed ever since at the edge of her consciousness, ready to break in at unguarded moments and twist her bruised heart anew. Now, however, as she heaved Mrs Pankhurst along, Polly realised that for the first time in weeks, another man was filling her though
ts. The stranger with the dog, whom she had snapped at.

  From the park at Oakeshott, the road home ascended through fields of hilly lime-green pasture scribbled with pale grey limestone walls. At the top were the moors, where a spectacular carpet of heather, purple as an emperor’s robe, stretched away to the horizon. This was bordered by a grey stone wall supporting great javelins of willowherb, bright pink against the soft amethyst behind. A honeyish, herby scent was borne on the fitful breeze; Polly’s ear caught the fizzing chatter of larks.

  The stranger was still there in her mind’s eye, dark eyes looking apologetically into hers. Polly felt a twist of guilt followed by a ripple of shame. Should she have been quite so cantankerous? The damage had been minimal after all; five minutes with a rake and the place looked as good as new, or rather, old.

  She tried to push the uncomfortable thought away, but another, equally uncomfortable, immediately rushed in to replace it. This evening, and what lay ahead.

  It was all Mum’s fault. ‘You’ll never guess who I ran into today,’ she had said when Polly, exhausted, collapsed through the door the night before.

  ‘Brad Pitt, Angelina and the kids?’

  ‘Janet Donald!’

  Polly, puffed out, had slumped on to a kitchen chair. ‘Janet Donald?’ The only Janet Donald Polly could think of was the mother of a girl she had known at school, a girl from the same village. But she had never been friends with Allison Donald, or even liked her very much.

  ‘You’ll never guess!’ Mum had continued excitedly from the stove. ‘Allison’s home from university as well! Isn’t that a coincidence?’

  Only in as far as all universities tended to break up for the summer, Polly had thought, moodily contemplating the pepper and salt pots.

  ‘We thought it would be lovely to get you two together,’ Mum had trilled as she tipped boiled potatoes into a drainer. ‘Do you good to catch up with an old friend.’

  Friend! Polly had frowned. Among those who had taunted her about her childhood squint Allison Donald had been one of the ringleaders. She had straight black hair, a self-satisfied smile and hooded eyes reminiscent of a snake’s.

  ‘You’ll have a lovely time,’ Mum had said confidently, pounding away with the masher. ‘Allison’s very keen to meet you again, Janet says.’

  ‘Really? Why?’ Allison had never been keen before. But perhaps it was odd that she was even at home. Allison had always regarded the village as rather beneath her.

  Mum, spreading the mash over the top of a shepherd’s pie, had not seemed to hear the question. ‘We arranged that you should meet in the Shropshire Arms at eight o’clock tomorrow. They’ve done it up there – the Duchess designed it all herself, apparently – and it’s very nice, they say. Oh, and by the way –’ She had looked up from making swirly patterns with her fork – ‘she’s changed her name, apparently.’

  ‘The Duchess?’

  Mum had chuckled. ‘Allison. She calls herself Alexa.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Janet’s not sure,’ Mum had reported over her shoulder as she bore the finished shepherd’s pie to the oven. ‘But you remember Allison. She always was – well – different. Between you and me, I think she thought she was a bit better than the rest of us.’

  Now Polly dragged Mrs Pankhurst up the last few hundred yards to the top of the hill. Chest heaving with the effort, she slumped, clinging to her handlebars for support and trying to draw breath into her overstretched lungs. After a few moments admiring the view, she swung a leg over Mrs Pankhurst’s wide, cracked yet supremely comfortable leather seat and pushed herself off.

  After the agony of ascent, whizzing downhill was delightful. A breeze in every sense of the word.

  Mrs Pankhurst descended at first in dignified fashion between the dry-stone walls. With the slopes of twisting bracken stretching beyond on each side, it was like travelling down a grey parting in a great head of curly hair.

  The road became steeper and the bracken gave way to slopes of brilliant sunlit green. Mrs Pankhurst, whose great weight meant that downhill she was a force to be reckoned with, now dramatically picked up speed. The sunlight, dazzlingly bright, streamed through the branches of the overhead trees. Mrs Pankhurst went faster and faster.

  Polly tore round a bend and, unable to avoid a large, sharp stone in the middle of the road, went straight over it. Immediately the road beneath her felt hard and rattly through the wheel rims. A tyre had gone. Mrs Pankhurst had had a blowout.

  Screeching to a halt, Polly pulled the heavy iron frame on to the grassy verge and stared in despair at the previously fat rear tyre now hanging limply from the wheel. Damn. Damn. Damn. It would be a push of at least an hour from here.

  Nor was that her only problem. She now felt a tiny shock on her hot forearm. Something had dropped on it; a bead of water. She had hardly noticed that the sun had suddenly gone; looking up, she saw that the hot blue sky was bunched with angry dark clouds. One of the storms summer was famous for was clearly about to do its worst.

  Another tiny shock, and another. The beads of water became large spatters. Within seconds, it seemed, the landscape around became first blurry, then completely obliterated by a solid sheet of grey water. The black tarmac rippled with streaming wet, its edges a mass of muddy bubbles.

  Polly huddled against the wall, taking what shelter she could from a somewhat sharp and inhospitable thorn bush. Salt water was running down her hair and dripping in her eyes. Her jeans clung wet and heavy to her thighs. Her shirt stuck to her breasts and back. It was like sitting under a power shower, only she was fully dressed and outside.

  She waited, head bent, for the pounding of the rain on her skull to be over. She hooked dripping hanks of hair back over her ears with hands that were red and shiny with wet. Meanwhile, on the verge, Mrs Pankhurst was slowly sinking into the softening mud.

  She cocked an ear. Through the fizz of rain on the road and the drip of it in her ears, she could hear something. An engine, coming over the summit, grinding down the hill. It got closer, halted opposite her and she heard the yank of the handbrake.

  ‘Are you all right?’ someone shouted. Polly peeped through her streaming hair at an exceptionally dirty Land Rover, its tyres thick and shiny with mud, spatters of the same decorating the doors. The windows were down, although she could not see the driver. It was difficult, through the rods of rain between her and the vehicle, to see at all, and anyway, a large dark-coloured dog, turning round and round in the passenger seat, was blocking her view of anyone else.

  ‘Fine,’ she shouted back. The storm would end as soon as it had begun; in any case, did she want to accept a lift from a stranger? The Land Rover did not drive off, however. She heard the driver’s door bang and someone’s feet on the wet road.

  As a tall, dark shape approached through the rain, a thrill as unexpected as it was violent shot through Polly. It was him. The man with the dog from the dig.

  ‘It’s you,’ he said softly.

  A powerful wave of self-consciousness had followed the thrill. She could feel her breasts sticking to her vest. If she stood up, her nipples would protrude like coat pegs. And so she remained crouching despite the cramp in her calf.

  ‘You’re very wet,’ he remarked, a hint of a smile in his voice.

  ‘So are you,’ she replied, although awkwardness gave it the quality of a retort. ‘Yes,’ he agreed, laughing. The ferocious rain had turned his hair into a shining black slick. His checked shirt clung to his chest and shoulders. Polly felt suddenly breathless. She stared at the dripping grass.

  He was examining Mrs Pankhurst, sprawled in an undignified fashion across the verge. ‘This yours?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Wow. It’s quite vintage.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’ve got a flat tyre.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Let me help you up,’ he said decisively. She tried to demur but his grip was strong. Pulled gently over the streaming ground, Polly struggled to maintain her
bent posture.

  ‘Have you hurt your back?’ he asked her.

  ‘Yes,’ Polly lied.

  ‘Where do you live?’ He sounded concerned. ‘I’ll take you home.’

  He led her round to the passenger door. The dog, who evidently bore no ill will despite all the names she had called him, revolved excitedly on the passenger seat barking with delight. ‘In the back, you,’ his master commanded, hurriedly brushing the worst of the mud off the seat and gesturing to Polly to get in.

  From the window, she watched him heave Mrs Pankhurst out of the mud – a compliment the bicycle repaid by liberally smearing his clothes. Straining under the weight, he glanced up, saw her looking and grinned.

  He was being so cheerful, despite being soaked through and filthy on her account. She had, Polly realised as he finally swung himself into the driver’s seat, caused him far more trouble than his dog had ever caused her.

  ‘I’m sorry I was so rude to you earlier,’ she blurted at the exact moment the Land Rover engine started up. ‘I’M SORRY I WAS SO HORRID,’ she shouted, just as a gear change quietened the roar down. From the rear, the dog barked in alarm.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said lightly. His voice was level and warm. That he was well-spoken she had noticed before, although there was, she now detected, a hint of something else there too, a slight accent, possibly.

  They drove the first few miles in silence. Polly could not think of anything to say and he, apparently perfectly relaxed, did not even seem to be trying. They rattled along, the tyres hissing through the wetness of the road.

  ‘I’m Max,’ he told her eventually.

  ‘Polly.’

  ‘You like being an archaeologist?’