Well, that had got rid of the erection. Duncan closed his eyes and tried to go back to sleep. Rain was pattering lightly on the outside of the tent, promising another damp day on site, and he knew he had to get more trenches open despite the weather. That shale bracelet had been worn by someone and they’d lived close by; it looked like domestic refuse. Not something you carried miles away from your dwelling but something you shoved in a hole near the house, with the floor sweepings and the burned food. So close he could almost touch it …
There was a quiet sound behind him. A furtive unzipping, as though Grace was trying to let herself out of her compartment without waking him, a slow grinding of the fastening. He kept his eyes closed, but her shadow, vague in this just-breaking-dawnlight, fell across him as she stood up and he heard her tiptoe across the damp tarpaulin groundsheet towards the main entrance.
‘It’s raining,’ he said, still not opening his eyes, and heard her sharp gasp and the clatter as she jumped against the crate. ‘You’ll need your waterproofs.’
‘You sod,’ she half-whispered, and he didn’t know why, when he was so clearly awake. ‘You scared me.’
He opened his eyes now and half-sat, camp bed notwithstanding, his sleeping bag bunched up around his chest. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Is peeing illegal now?’
‘You don’t need to get fully dressed to go to the latrine. You look like you’re off up Ben Nevis. What on earth are you doing?’ She was, from the look of it, Duncan thought, wearing all the clothes she’d brought with her.
‘Look, it’s cold and it’s raining and I fancied a walk, so I’m wrapped up, is that a crime?’ And then she got it and her expression went from self-defensive and slightly embarrassed to wide-mouthed apologetic. ‘God, sorry, Duncan. No, I’m not running away to vanish into the night, I’m having trouble sleeping so I thought I’d just walk out along the dale to clear my head.’
He let out a breath. She understands. That panic I feel whenever someone walks out, the fact that it all comes crashing back and I can almost hear the sirens and the ‘just a little chat, sir’ and then the waiting and the Crime Scene team arriving and the swabs and …
‘I’m sorry. It’s not up to me what you do or where you go, even at this time in the morning.’
Grace stood at the tent flap, one hand on the zip. ‘It must be hell for you,’ she said, softly.
He leaned back on his elbows. ‘Sometimes. I usually try not to think about it, but it’s always here, you know?’ He tapped one hand against his forehead. ‘People … women, tend to take it the wrong way, they think I’m trying to check up on them all the time, like I’m some abusive bastard whose next step is going to be taking away their car keys and their bank cards.’ He lay back down and closed his eyes again. ‘Enjoy your walk.’
‘I’m only going along as far as that camp round the corner. I’ll be back for breakfast.’
‘You don’t need to report to me, Grace.’
‘I’m reassuring you.’
‘I’m reassured.’ He opened one eye. ‘Honestly.’
‘How do you handle it? I mean, you must be permanently on edge in case someone doesn’t come back. Is that why you are so bad-tempered all the time?’
‘I am not bad-tempered!’
‘QED.’ She unzipped the front flap and the wind gusted in, bringing little pebbles of rain with it that he heard scatter across her coat. There was a moment of breezy confusion and then she was gone out into the graphite grey of the dawn and order was restored as she rezipped the flap from the other side.
‘Bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger!’ He’d been aiming for ‘not bothered’ but had arrived at ‘knob end’. Annoyed with himself he tried to huff around into a comfortable position, but the camp bed rocked and then, with a sound like a bulldog grabbing a chicken leg, it threw him to the floor and snapped shut, trapping his ankle. ‘Bugger!’
Dawn arrived gradually over my head as I picked my way down the valley. Little ridges of rock protruded from the turf like knuckles and I had to keep my eyes on my feet as I walked so as not to trip. At least today I’d got the clothing right, I thought, as I snuggled into my hoodie over a sweater and under my cagoule, the weather was barely getting through to me. The wind yanked at my hair and threw passing handfuls of rain into my face, but I was warm and dry, and, if I kept my hands in my pockets, it felt almost pleasant.
Above, on the ridge, the barrow’s hump frowned down on the site and, with a quick whispered apology to Duncan, I stepped over the beck and headed up towards it. I’d spent the last few days hearing about how the burial mound must mean a settlement nearby, and how important it was, but I’d only seen it as a lump of earth on the skyline. As I waded uphill through the seas of heather with the breakers of little bushes running along the edge, the grassy hillock got larger and larger and more and more impressive until, when I crested the slope, I could see it in all its glory. White stones edged the base and there was a ditch around the outside. It looked a lot larger, close to, an impressive heap of grassed over earth, pitted and dimpled like a cellulitic buttock, and with a standing stone a little way away throwing a sentinel shadow from the just rising sun across the tumulus.
I walked out onto the flattened hilltop to the far side and felt compelled to lay a hand against the upright guardian stone. It was just a huge hunk of the same stones as jutted through the soil in the valley, a little bit taller than me. It felt slightly warm and in combination with the barrow, sheltered me from the weather now throwing itself up the hillside after me. Mindful of the wet ground, I pulled my cagoule down to cover my bum and sat down on the grazed-thin grass at the base of the stone, my back resting against its comfortable bulk.
The wind dropped and another shaft of sunlight forced its way between the heaped dark clouds, temporarily warm on my face, and I closed my eyes. Remnants of the rain trickled down the nylon of my coat, I could feel a damp rim forming around the top of my thighs, but I didn’t care. For the first time since I’d lost Jamie I actually felt properly happy, not the feeble little rising in my chest that had occasionally been trying to break through, but an actual wash of contentment. My muscles relaxed as I let the stone take the strain of carrying my body, the sun soothed my skin and beneath me the grass and moss was soft and yielding. I leaned my head back, felt the rough stone snag against my hair and smelled its dusty, chalky smell, gently comforting in a hard, gritty sort of way.
And I think I slept. How, I wasn’t sure, but when I opened my eyes again my cagoule was steaming itself dry, the sun had moved and was shining right in my eyes, and my first thought was ‘Duncan will be worried’. My boots dragged two parallel lines in the sandy soil as I struggled to stand up, pulling myself up with the help of the stone, and it was only when I got fully upright that I saw the woman.
She was picking wortleberries, the little dark blue berries that grew on the low level bushes dotted among the heather and grass, and I recognised her from the campsite down in the valley. Now I was closer I could see her face weathered into a look that could have been anywhere from thirty to seventy, but the way she moved showed she was younger. Her hair was a kind of copper beech auburn, darkened with a lack of washing, tied up in a fabric band. Her arms, where the bare skin showed, contrasted with her face, white and freckled. Her long tunic-dress was tattered around the hem but she didn’t seem to care, singing softly to herself as she stooped close to me to pick some berries, swinging the rough wool out of the way to give her more freedom to move. I could see her eyes now, the greenish hazel that often goes with red hair and freckles. She looked kind and she looked happy, content with her life, spartan though it may be.
‘Good morning,’ I called brightly, once I’d got myself upright and wiped my face with my hands. ‘Looks like it’s going to be a lovely day!’
She whipped around, berries spilling from her basket, and I realised I must have c
ommitted some awful sin by speaking to her, because her face paled dramatically under the weather-tan when she set eyes on me. There was one horrible moment of stasis, during which I didn’t know whether I should apologise or if that would just compound my error, so I stood with my mouth open, and she stared, eyes so wide that they looked as though they may fall out of their sockets. I saw her move her head, taking in my whole appearance, then her mouth stretched and deformed as though she was trying not to cry, and she was gone, leaping away through the ankle-deep growth like a deer. She flung the basket down and used both hands to grab her skirt, hauling it up above her knees so it didn’t impede her flight, glanced back over her shoulder just once, and then vanished where a copse of sickly looking trees held the remains of night as a shadow. I waited a few moments, but she didn’t come back out.
I prickled with embarrassed sweat inside my many clothes and tried to remember which religious sects had cut all ties with modern life to the extent of not being allowed to communicate with people from outside. There were the Amish, of course, but I’d not heard of any settlements being up here – surely Duncan, as dig director, would have warned us if we’d been that near a closed religious order? Wasn’t that part of his job? Unless he didn’t know, of course. Slowly, trying to make myself invisible in case there were any other members around who weren’t allowed to see me, I walked back around the barrow and began picking my way down the wet and slippery slope. The dig site was just around the bend in the dale so I couldn’t see it from where I walked down, although I could hear the sounds of early morning coughing and the slow chug of someone getting the generator started, which reassured me that I hadn’t slept for too long up at the stone. I kept my eyes open for any archaically dressed figures to avoid, but didn’t see anyone until I got to the bottom and walked along a bit, when I found a couple of the diggers arguing with Richard, who was wielding a tape measure. They all stopped talking when I came into view, and watched me as I walked past, then went back to arguing.
I headed straight for the catering tent, where Tabs was serving something like scrambled egg onto plates.
‘Hey! Hi, Gray! How was the first night in the new accommodation?’ She gave me a wink that could only be described as ribald, and tucked a stray hair up under the scarf she wore.
‘Stop it. It was fine, Duncan is a perfect gentleman I’ll have you know.’ I remembered his face when he’d shown me over the house yesterday, how each room had brought new, terrible memories, and how he’d not been able to go into the bedroom he’d shared with Anya during that last visit. ‘He’s really quite a sweet guy.’
From across the site came the sound of raised voices, one bearing the Scottish Aberdonian accent of Duncan, where ‘world’ came out as ‘warld’ and ‘head’ as ‘heid’. The other voice, I thought, was Richard, backed up by someone else.
‘For a big, shouty Scot.’ Tabs dolloped some egg onto a plate and passed it to me. ‘Toast is over there. Has he shown you his sporran yet?’
‘Tabitha …’
‘All right, I’m only teasing. But you know, the lovelorn widow thing only goes on for so long, Gray. What happens if you wake up and you’re really old, like, forty-five or something, and it’s all been too late?’ A flurry of something like bacon on top of the egg. ‘Jamie wouldn’t want you in a terminal decline, you know that. I think he’d have quite liked Duncan. They could have argued about devolution and the euro.’
I grinned at her. I could almost hear Jamie’s voice, with its careful vowels that his mother had just about managed to eradicate the Black Country from, asking Duncan if he fancied a pint and whether he thought Independence for Scotland was really a sound economic idea. ‘You’re right. He would.’
Tabs gave me a sideways nod. ‘Halfway there, Gray,’ she said, enigmatically.
‘Hey, I am not taking relationship advice from someone who won’t even take her girlfriend home to meet her parents.’
Tabs’s hand shook a little bit as a fried tomato made its way over the counter. ‘Yeah, well. Like I said, I’m not sure they’ll take me seriously. And I don’t want to pitch up with Mills and have them spend the whole weekend telling her how fond I was of Andrew and whatever happened to him? They can find out at the wedding.’
I gaped, ignoring the fact that a couple of diggers and Katrin were queueing up behind me. ‘You’re getting married?’
‘Why not? It worked for you, didn’t it?’
‘But that’s fabulous!’ I tried to hug her over the plate of breakfast, but someone dug me in the ribs.
‘Yeah yeah, fabulous news, now please can I have two bits of bacon, no egg and a sausage?’ Alex, a stocky bloke with short ginger hair, forced his plate between mine and Tabs’s doling out spoon. ‘If you want to talk dresses and shoes, just a hint, now is not the time. McDonald is shifting the whole site further along the valley and there is unrest in the grunt camp.’
Tabitha eyeballed him. ‘If the “grunt camp” wants to continue being fed, then perhaps it should let all talk of dresses and shoes carry on, wouldn’t you say?’ She withdrew her spoon and put her hands on her hips.
I left the scene and took my plate to a quiet table. Well, so Tabitha and Millie were thinking of getting married. I’d leaned pretty heavily on Tab, from Jamie’s diagnosis until, well, until fairly recently. In fact, my slight sinking feeling at hearing the news told me that I’d probably leaned on her too much and too recently, as though I’d been afraid to face life as a solitary being. And yet she wanted me to get something going with Duncan? Would that not just be switching from one shoulder to cry on to another?
Katrin swung into the chair opposite. ‘Heard the news?’
‘Dresses and shoes news or McDonald news?’
Katrin pulled a face. ‘Himself is after us all moving further down the dale, reckons we’re digging in the wrong place.’
‘I heard. And, apparently, the grunts are dissatisfied.’
She laughed. ‘Well, we’re all right. Can’t move the sieves, not and have any time left to dig. And it’s all down to your shale bracelet … If you hadn’t found that, we’d still be picking microflints out of the spoil heap and counting that a big success.’
She began shovelling egg and bacon in, while I tried to eat more decorously. In common with most batch-cooked food, it was a bit watery, but food was food.
‘Is there some kind of religious community in the valley here?’ I asked. ‘Only I’ve seen some people and their huts and today I met a woman up on the hill who freaked out at the sight of me.’
Katrin chewed. ‘You do look a bit … lumpy,’ she said. ‘Might she have thought you were some kind of experiment?’
‘Oy!’ I glanced down at my chest. Because of the clothes-layering thing, I did have some fairly stern boob-action and the sleeves of the cagoule were pulled tight by the sweater-hoodie combination, as though I had biceps of elephantine proportions. ‘I’m not that scary, am I?’
‘Might be a community of Prada nuns.’ She scraped her plate. ‘You are offending the fashion gods and must be punished. By wet sieving.’
‘So you’ve not heard about anyone we might have to stay away from?’ I kept going. It had shaken me more than I realised, that woman’s reaction to seeing me and I was hoping that there was a memo I hadn’t got or something.
‘Only Duncan. God, you should have heard him out there, he and Richard have been yelling at each other non-stop since first fag light up. You want to stay away from there for a bit, Grace.’ She glanced up. ‘Uh oh. Head down and we might get out alive.’
But Duncan was making a beeline for us. His hair was standing up as though he’d been raking it skywards all morning, and there was no sign of the sweet guy who’d shown me round his family house last night.
‘Katrin, I’m moving you down on site, we need all hands to open up the new trenches. Grace, you’ll have to sieve on you
r own, I’m afraid.’
‘Yes, boss,’ she said, and gave me an ‘I told you so’ look from under her dreadlocks.
‘Why are you moving the dig?’ I asked, trying not to sound too stupid.
Duncan sighed and perched himself along the edge of the table. ‘Surprised you haven’t heard, Richard’s been yelling it all morning. I think we’re digging in the wrong place. The spoil that had the broken shale bracelet in came from one of the test pits we had open further down the valley, and I think that’s where we might find something. I’m keeping the trench open that’s got the possible trackway in, but the rest …’ He shrugged.
‘Aren’t we going to end up right on top of that religious bunch?’ I laid my fork down on the plate. ‘I walked into one of them this morning on the hill and I thought she was going to go into meltdown. Surely hoiking an entire dig right into their territory is going to be a problem?’
He tipped his head on one side. ‘What community?’
‘Just around the bend in the dale. A bunch of mud huts and some very ascetic looking people. All hand woven clothes and grubby children. Your mother would probably love them,’ I added, and a spectral smile plucked at his lips for a second.
‘No idea. I’ll go down and check it out before we get everything moved.’ He carried on looking at me, still with his head tilted. ‘You can come if you want. It’s often good to have a woman along for the “persuading” angle, some people can feel a bit threatened by a grubby Scotsman, even if he does have the landowner’s permission. Even if he is technically the landowner. In fact, the landowner pitching up on someone’s illegal campsite is practically a recipe for everyone feeling threatened. Do they have any dogs?’
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