Living in the Past

by Jane Lovering

  Copyright © 2018 Jane Lovering

  Published 2018 by Choc Lit Limited

  Penrose House, Crawley Drive, Camberley, Surrey GU15 2AB, UK

  www.choc-lit.com

  The right of Jane Lovering to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying. In the UK such licences are issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Barnards Inn, 86 Fetter Lane, London EC4A 1EN

  EPUB: 978-1-78189-391-3

  This book is dedicated to my mum and dad, who encouraged my curiosity, and wouldn’t have found me writing about the Bronze Age at all odd. My dad still spoke some Devon dialect (before he died, I mean, he’s been quiet since), and taught me about the connections to the past that we all carry with us. So this is for them.

  Contents

  Title page

  Copyright information

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Thank You

  About the Author

  More Choc Lit

  Introducing Choc Lit

  Preview of Little Teashop of Horrors by Jane Lovering

  Acknowledgements

  In common with many people, I was a huge fan of Time Team, the archaeology programme which featured Tony Robinson (on whom I have a deep and abiding crush, but am prepared to concede that it might just be me). So, when I started writing this book, I watched a LOT of archaeology programmes and read a lot of books on the subject. In consequence, I am in awe of all those people who are prepared to spend so much time in holes, hoping to find something that will rewrite our view of the past. I am particularly indebted to Francis Pryor, whose book Home first inspired me to think that people are people, whichever period of history they may live in.

  Oh, and Tony. Because, let’s face it, mentioning him in the acknowledgements has GOT to put me in with a chance, surely?

  Thank you also to the Tasting Panel readers who passed this book: Alison B, Joanne B, Isabelle D, Sue G, Ann C, Liz R, Margaret T, Heather B, Jo O, Hilary B, Linda T, Elisabeth H, Anne E, Kate A, Debbie M, Michelle D and Joy S.

  Chapter One

  ‘An archaeological dig is all mud and one hundred guys with beards. It’s like a folk festival, without the singing.’ Tabitha looked around at the room, empty now except for my suitcase. ‘But you should come with me, Grace. It’s better than sitting around being unhappy. Plus, you know, it’s history and stuff.’

  ‘I’m a history teacher, not a fetishist. Why on earth are you going on an archaeological dig anyway?’ I raised my eyebrows at my best friend.

  ‘That’s what Mills does. She’s a PhD student doing something … she did say, but it was all “Bronze Age settlement, barrows, Beaker culture” blah blah blah. I was watching Hollyoaks.’

  ‘Figures. You’ve never shown any interest in anything more historical than an out of date cheesecake before, and now you’re off to Yorkshire to grub about with a trowel? Thought it was a bit out of character for Miss Nail Art Twenty Seventeen.’

  Tabs sniffed and began picking at the already frayed knee of her jeans. ‘I’m a volunteer.’

  ‘Volunteer, right. You know that means “work without pay” don’t you?’

  I was grateful for the conversation. It delayed the moment when I’d finally have to walk out of that front door for the last time. When I’d have to shut it behind me and close off the last eight years of my life. Despite the packed suitcase and the SOLD sign on the window, I still wasn’t sure I was ready.

  ‘I’m under pressure. Millie wants me to tell my parents about us, and they still ask after Andrew. I’m not sure that they’re going to get the hang of “bisexual”. They haven’t come to terms with the Labradoodle yet.’

  ‘Ah. So you’re running away.’

  ‘And you’re running with me.’ Tabitha stood up and tried to tuck her unravelling ends back into the leg of her jeans. ‘Come on, Gray. You get free accommodation and food – look on it as a holiday.’

  ‘Up to my knees in mud?’

  ‘You and Jamie went to Glastonbury, didn’t hear you complain then.’ She looked again at my suitcase and her voice became softer. ‘He didn’t want you to put your life on hold forever, you know that.’

  I felt the familiar anger rise again. ‘Two years. It’s only been two years, Tab, that’s hardly “forever”, is it? I just need …’ My hands flopped aimlessly as I tried to sketch in the air that tiny little ball of pain that had shrunk down and shrunk down over those two years until it was a concentrated mass deep in my chest. ‘I need more time.’

  She sighed. ‘Honestly? A couple of weeks on those moors, wind, rain, sleet and probably Acts of God – it’ll feel like a lifetime. And you’re all history teacher and stuff, it’s the school holidays – I would have thought you’d be all over this like icing on doughnuts. Come with me, Gray, please. It was Mills’ idea, her being all “archaeologist” and, I dunno, something to do with her thesis but her aunt died and she’s gone home until after the funeral, so I’ll be up there all on my own otherwise.’ Tabs looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘Odd that. We’re going to help dig stuff up, she’s gone to help bury it. Wow.’

  I couldn’t raise the energy to fight Tab. Besides, it was like punching a marshmallow: whatever I said or did, she just sprang right back and thought of a new argument, and, really? What else did I have to do right now?

  ‘Okay. North Yorkshire. That’s like, what, York Minster and Whitby crab and stuff, yes?’

  Tab poked her head forward under her overlong fringe. She looked like a tortoise with an effective skin care regime. ‘Less culture, more bacterial cultures. Oh, leader of the dig is a guy called Duncan McDonald.’

  ‘Welsh, is he?’

  She gave me a stern look. ‘He’s a bit hair trigger, apparently. He’s on my list of “people to avoid”. Other than that, everyone seems like nice diggers, or whatever they call themselves. Millie took me to the meeting they had
last week,’ she answered the question that my eyes were asking as hard as they could. ‘Honestly, it’s all set up and everything. We just need to turn up. Some good hard physical work might be just what you need, you know. It’ll stop you thinking so much.’

  She walked around the little living space, stopping to look at the familiar view down the High Street from the window.

  ‘Jamie loved that view,’ I said. ‘He said you could see the pub, the betting shop and the cheque-cashing place without having to turn your head. I never knew why that was supposed to be a good thing.’

  ‘All human life, I suppose.’ Tab stayed leaning against the sill. ‘Or perhaps he liked the “whooshing” sound that money makes when it leaves your hand.’

  A shroud of quiet fell over us. Even the usual noises from outside seemed muffled, almost as if the world was holding its breath. ‘It’s not like I spend the school holidays just staring at my toes, you know, Tabs,’ I said. ‘I’ve got stuff to do for work, reading and lesson planning and things.’ My tone was apologetic already.

  ‘Give it a couple of weeks. Even teachers whose idea of a good time is polishing their whiteboards take a couple of weeks off, don’t they?’

  ‘Why does everything you say sound euphemistic?’

  ‘Practice.’ Tabitha came over and picked up my suitcase. ‘Look. You’ve sold the flat and sorted that house near your mum. You’re not back at work for six weeks … what is there to stay here for?’

  Memories, I wanted to say. This is the last handle I’ve got to hold on to, the flat Jamie and I bought together. Everything else of him is gone, but this is where we lay planning our future. This is where he proposed. When I walk out of that door …

  My expression must have given away what I was thinking, because Tabs patted my arm. ‘I know. But you physically cannot stay here, it’d just be peculiar, the new people would have to throw a rug over you at night, like a parrot.’ She gave a little tug at my shoulder. ‘Come on. It’ll be fun …’

  Chapter Two

  ‘Fun, you said.’ I looked around the little tent that Tabs and I had been allotted. The rain was drumming on the taut canvas like a demented jazz soloist and the entire place smelled of damp dog.

  ‘To be fair, I also said mud and beards.’ Tabs put her rucksack down on the groundsheet, down which little rivulets of water were already running. ‘So, points for accuracy on that.’

  We’d travelled to North Yorkshire in Tabs’s ancient Fiat, watching the weather worsen with every degree north we went, and we’d been pointed in the direction of the tent by a couple of girls wearing shorts, T-shirts and wellingtons. I didn’t know whether their clothing choices indicated extreme optimism or the exact opposite. The tent-village was pitched in a field at the bottom of a hill, from which moorland climbed as though it too wanted to get away from the damp. Beyond a dry-stone wall, in the next field, there were bigger tents, more people and a huge stretch of ground from which the grass cover had been stripped, leaving the soil exposed and shining wetly, like a person who’s just got out of the bath and had their towel ripped away.

  I shivered. ‘Why do I ever listen to you, Tabs?’

  ‘Thirty years back history, three years of university and a shedload of blackmail material,’ she answered without thinking. ‘Look, I’m going to wander around like the Ancient Mariner and try to find a mobile signal to call Millie, let her know we’ve arrived. Will you be okay?’

  I stared glumly down at the soggy tarpaulin. ‘Apart from mudslides and dissolving, I don’t think much can happen to me here, Tab.’

  ‘Great. See you in a minute then,’ and she pushed her way through the tent flap, mobile already held to her ear in what I considered to be a triumph of hope over technology. I hadn’t had a signal since Barnsley.

  I contemplated sitting down, but apart from a sort of crate thing in one corner of the tent there didn’t seem to be anywhere dry, so I just hovered uncertainly, until the tent flap flew open and a man burst through, rain dripping from every angle.

  ‘Millie, thank God you’re here. It’s all hell down … you’re not Millie.’ He stopped on an accusatory tone. There was a dark, wet sort of gleam about him and his hair was glued to his head so he looked like a skinny walrus with an Aberdeen accent.

  ‘No. Millie had to go to a funeral. She’s coming up later.’

  The man wiped a wet sleeve over an equally wet face. I wasn’t sure what this was meant to achieve. ‘Oh. Oh, you’re the girlfriend?’

  ‘Excuse me? The girlfriend?’ I felt myself going prickly. ‘What sort of a way is that to talk about anyone, like they’re some kind of possession? The girlfriend, as you so charmingly put it, has a name, you know.’

  The man stared at me. With his stuck-down hair and large brown eyes, it was like being eyeballed by an annoyed owl. Water was cascading from the waxed jacket he wore and forming a damp ring around the top of his trouser legs, which were tucked into wool socks and walking boots. I amended my mental description; it was like being eyeballed by an annoyed owl that’s just been on a long, damp walking holiday. Then he shut his eyes slowly and gave a long blink.

  ‘Aye, sorry, you’re right, that was rude of me. So. What is Millie’s girlfriend’s name?’

  ‘Tabitha.’

  ‘Okay.’ A hand extended from under the dripping sleeve. ‘Pleased to meet you, Tabitha.’ The hand was encrusted with mud, washed off in patches so I could see raw, red knuckles.

  ‘My name’s not Tabitha.’

  The hand retreated back up the sleeve and he made a ‘tch’ noise. ‘Well, who the hell are you, then?’ And now the hand came up and raked through the soaked hair, with a considerable amount of mud transfer, which he didn’t seem to care about. ‘Och, if Millie’s not here then I’d best be off, not chatting to nameless women.’ Now he shrugged, causing an extra dribble of water, turned around and went back out of the tent. A gust of wind replaced him and then Tabs was back, looking sodden.

  ‘See you’ve met the guy in charge then.’

  ‘That was Duncan whateverhisnameis? He came looking for Millie and seemed to get a bit confused when I wasn’t you.’ I didn’t mention his rudeness. Or the fact that he was covered in mud; now I thought about it this was an archaeological dig, in the rain, so dur.

  ‘And the accent didn’t give it away?’ Tab stared out of the tent flap, which was rippling in the breeze and spraying water inside.

  ‘I’ve no idea how many Scotsmen there may be on this dig. For all I know the whole of Edinburgh University is down here, taking advantage of our lovely southern weather conditions.’ The tarpaulin fluttered again and water seeped a little further inside.

  ‘Well, never mind. After I phoned Mills, I got us our placements. You’re up on wet sieves and I’m in the catering tent. Is that okay?’

  I stared around me. At the rivulets of water that were gradually approaching my holdall like snakes on a mission. At the beads of condensation forming along the ridge of the tent and the muddy footprints that Duncan whoeverhewas had kicked across the groundsheet. The term ‘wet sieves’ did not fill me with the kind of joy that was going to overcome any of that. ‘I am supposing that the reply, “No, please take me home now” isn’t what you want to hear?’

  Tabs gave me a stern look. ‘And let you sit around your new place all mopey? Nah. Fresh air and company is what you need, Gray, and, while I admit that the company might be a bit …’

  ‘Beardy?’ I suggested, even though so far the only people I’d met had been female, for whom beards weren’t an option, and Duncan, who’d been clean-shaven, if you could use the word ‘clean’ to describe a man dripping with mud.

  ‘… different, it’ll be better than the alternative.’ Tabs came over and put an arm around me. ‘We’ve been through this. Jamie wouldn’t have wanted you to spend the rest of your life in a darkened room sobbing over pictu
res of him, would he? He made me promise, Gray …’ And now she shook me lightly. ‘… when he knew … when they told him it was terminal, he made me promise not to let you shut yourself away.’

  I looked around the tent again. ‘I still don’t think that hypothermia and possible drowning were what he had in mind though, Tabs.’

  She gave one last shake. ‘You know what I’m going to say, don’t you?’

  ‘CTFU?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  It was our shorthand. When I became self-indulgent with my memories, when I faltered in my making of this new life without Jamie in it, ‘Cheer the eff up’ was wheeled out. Oh, not at the beginning, obviously, Tabitha had been as horrified by Jamie’s illness and subsequent death as I had, although she hadn’t had to live with the consequences – one income, once his life insurance ran out, hadn’t been enough to pay the bills; and the miserable depressions that would drop over me without warning, meaning I’d had to take six months off from my teaching job. But two years, Tabs considered, was enough mourning time. Now I needed to regroup, rediscover myself, get out there again.

  ‘And then I’m going to say “wet sieves” again,’ Tabs continued. ‘They’re using them at the moment up near the top of the dig. D’you want to go and suss it out?’

  ‘Wet. Sieves. I think I get the picture, actually.’

  ‘Well, you can’t just sit … stand … stay in here all day. I’m going up to the catering tent to find out what joy tomorrow holds in store for me. Why don’t you come?’

  ‘Because I don’t want to go rusty?’ But I was already pulling a cagoule – bought for a school field trip and never worn since – from my kitbag. There was simply no arguing with Tabs when she put that face on and, besides, maybe she did have a point. Doing something different, somewhere I’d never been before – all right, maybe most people might have gone on cruises or whale watching holidays, but this fulfilled all the criteria.

  I squelched after her as we headed for the gap in the wall, leading to the field in which everything seemed to be happening.