Living in the Past

by Jane Lovering

  To his surprise, she reached out a hand, so weathered and scarred that it looked much older than the rest of her, and touched his wrist. ‘Duncan.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  They spoke together and he was aware of something leaving the air; some tension he’d never really noticed that he carried flowed from his body, along the current of her arm. Tears blurred his view of her for a moment, and when they cleared he saw she was smiling through her own tears. ‘I am so, so sorry, Anya.’ His fingers closed around hers, rubbing almost unthinkingly against the roughness of her knuckle. ‘I know now, I should have comforted you, not left you alone so much.’ So familiar and yet so strange. Like a bad copy of someone he’d once known. His voice bent and flexed. ‘I really am sorry.’

  She nodded, hair he remembered tangling his hands in falling under a weight of damp and lack of washing. She has more to think about than vanity now. Duncan berated himself for even noticing, for letting his mind remark on the ingrained lines of her hands, the puckering of years around her eyes, her mouth.

  ‘I should have … I could have asked for your comfort. I tried not to need you.’ There were tears on her cheeks now and her words were slow. ‘I tried to remain … unchanged. Yet I was changed. Death …’ And he saw her glance over towards Grace now. ‘… death changes us.’

  He dropped his gaze, unable to meet her eyes now. ‘Please forgive me.’

  ‘We were young. It was never meant to hurt you.’ She spoke as though she considered each word carefully. ‘I loved you then, but I have another love now. My life is good.’

  ‘I—’ He wanted to tell her he understood. That what he was beginning to feel for Grace was showing him that he knew how it must be. But what he found his mouth blurting out was, ‘The stuff in the river – is it ritual? Ancestor worship?’

  Now Anya glanced over at Grace and the pair of them exchanged a smile that could only be described as complicit. Then Anya leaned in closer, until he could smell the cold of clean air on her, the smell of animals and life. She pressed her mouth against his ear and he held himself rigid, the answer to this question could form the basis of a whole new school of research.

  ‘Spoilers!’ she whispered and drew herself back.

  Grace has coached her! Is she right? And then Duncan wondered if anyone would believe him anyway – how could he tell the entire academic community that he’d had first hand information without coming over as a complete madman? – and he laughed. To his surprise Anya laughed too, and her laugh was unchanged by the years, still a high chuckle that he’d always teased her was the dirtiest thing about her.

  ‘We have to go.’ Grace was there, beside him. ‘The longer we’re away – well, it’s weird, but the more time seems to pass – in that community. And I promised Anya a hot shower before she goes back.’ She needn’t have bothered, Duncan thought; Marcus Sunley, with the slightly baffled air of one who has thought they’d guessed the end to a ‘Whodunnit’ only to find that the real culprit was someone who wasn’t even in the book, was allowing Richard to lead him back towards the ridge where he’d left the police car. No apology then? Ah well, I can live with that.

  ‘Yes. I mean, of course. Thank you for coming.’ Duncan had to restrain himself from shaking Anya’s hand, as though she was a guest speaker at a lecture.

  She gave him a look so direct that it was startling. Along with her laugh, her eyes hadn’t changed either, he thought. Still hazel-green, still steady. I loved her once. An echo of that emotion ran between them, a ghost of a feeling in her gaze. ‘Be happy, Duncan,’ she whispered.

  ‘Be safe,’ he whispered back.

  Another smile and a shrug that told him more about the Bronze Age acceptance of uncertainties than an entire reference library, and he found himself already planning a series of talks based upon it as Grace led Anya away.

  He sat suddenly on one of the folding chairs; a weakness crept over him and he began to doubt what he’d seen as he dropped his head into his hands. His body was beginning to catch up with events now and seemed to have picked on shock as an appropriate response. All real. It was all real. Anya is three thousand years in the past and yet she was here …

  He didn’t know how long he sat there, only that a patch of sun warmed him then moved off, mooching like an elderly cat into another corner. She was here. Anya came. It’s over.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  I watched Anya walk through the barrier, into the shiver of mist that was forming in the dale, like fog rising from an invisible river. She looked back over her shoulder at me, just once, with an inscrutable expression, and then raised the bag of medicines with a small smile. I’d added a few other things that I thought she might like while she was in the shower. A couple of books I’d had lying about, one of those towels that folds up really flat. I hoped that none of it was going to change the course of history in any way, but I’d rationalised to myself that it would all rot in the ground. Nothing left to find. Ephemeral. Was her wave thanks? Or just acknowledgement? I had no idea.

  Instinctively, wanting answers, I stepped forward after her, as her shape was sucked into the swirling air, only to find myself on the other side of the rock barrier, amid the sliced earth of the trenches and the bare patch where exposed threads of wood shone wetly against the crumbled chocolate of the earth. No sign of the huts, the river or Anya. I continued to walk in the twenty-first century.

  First came a feeling of loss, and then peace. It was over. I’d done whatever it was that past and future had combined for. Laid the shade of Anya in Duncan’s mind. And, the thought whispered on the wind, laid Jamie to rest in your own mind. You’ve let go of the anger, channelled it all into what happened between Anya and Duncan and worked it out that way. You couldn’t do anything about him leaving you, but you could sort those two out.

  I left the site and picked my way back up through the strangely deserted camp. I didn’t know what Richard had done, but since I told him I’d managed to make contact with Anya in her isolated commune, he’d made things happen. Got the site cleared, collected the drugs – I told him that Anya had to atone for her presence by sending a donation to a country without medicines – and persuaded Marcus to come to the dig. But the cider festival had been well timed, and the place was eerily quiet. Even Richard’s car was missing now, he must have decided to join them in a light carousing and a potential headache.

  Duncan was sitting alone in the tent, pretty much where I’d left him. Just sitting. Two ridges up the sides of his face showed that he’d had his head in his hands for most of that time, and his dark eyes weren’t seeing the folding chairs and trestle tables.

  ‘Duncan?’

  He moved slowly, as though my voice thawed a frozen state. ‘She was here, Grace.’

  ‘I know. I brought her. I can only hope that she got back before too much time passed and she has to explain away the world’s longest pregnancy.’

  ‘I don’t know how to let it go. For fifteen years my default state has been looking over my shoulder, and now …’ He made a flappy sort of motion with both hands. ‘It’s like I’ve lost my identity. Och, this is just weird.’

  I prickled, and felt ‘teacher’ mode switch on. ‘Well, I’m terribly sorry that I’ve disturbed fifteen years of self-pity and introspection, but I thought I was doing you a favour.’ There was a small undercurrent of tears running beneath my words. ‘And, by the way, if Tor had been there when I went back, I could have been chopped into little pieces and left round the land boundaries as a warning, so, you know, a teeny bit of gratitude might be appropriate here.’

  His chair fell over as he stood, and in a moment he was in front of me, pulling me against his archaeologically-slogganed T-shirt, bought for him by one of the digging teams. It said, ‘If in doubt – it’s ritual.’ The smell of mud and heat and hard work felt like coming home. ‘Aye, I’m sorry, I’m still a crabbit bastard.�
�� His arms tightened into a hug that made my ribs creak. ‘I’m so sorry, Grace.’ A pause, while I relaxed into his grip and felt the rise and fall of his chest against my cheek, as though life had restarted. Then, ‘You say, chopped up and left at the boundaries? Is that what they did with their enemies?’

  ‘Oy. Less of the research, more of the reassurance, digger-man.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Tension began to leave his body, his shoulders relaxed and I felt his heartbeat start to slow away from a state it must have been in for a decade and a half. ‘You realise,’ he began, slowly, ‘you don’t have to go back to teaching. We could write a book about what you saw, you know, over there.’

  I made a face he couldn’t see. ‘For one thing, I like teaching. For another, what’s this “we”? I could write a book, you mean.’

  His shoulders shook for a moment, and then the laugh erupted, rolling from his chest in a sound I liked. ‘Of course. Sorry. I just meant …’ He took a half step back, so that now I could see his face. His eyes had lightened up, his eyebrows were no longer pulled over them in that scowl and even the sunburn had mostly come away. He was better looking than I’d realised, now he’d relaxed a bit. ‘I just want there to be a “we”, Grace. That’s all. I don’t know how we get it to work, but I’m willing – I can travel. I can live anywhere. I can write anywhere.’

  ‘Swindon?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know about Swindon, but pretty much anywhere.’ The grin was new too, wider and carrying more humour, now it had lost the weight of scepticism and mistrust in the world that it had carried for so long. ‘Can we do it? Can we at least try?’

  I stepped back into his embrace, so unlike Jamie’s and yet so right for me now. ‘Oh, I should think so, Duncan. Besides …’

  ‘Besides?’

  I looked up and grinned back. ‘Besides, I am going to need a date for Tabs and Millie’s wedding, and I want to see you in a kilt.’

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  2000 BC

  The birth was thrice blessed. Attended only by the gentle Vast, Hen had given birth as the sun rose on the Midsummer Day. An easy birth, to identical twin girls, who cried lustily and fed well. And now, standing at the edge of the wooden platform, where land met water, past met present and ancestors met the living, Hen held her girls close for their naming.

  Everyone else stood on the land. This was for them to observe, to ensure the ancestors had been correctly informed of the birth and that dues were paid for the arrivals. They stood silent, even the younger children. Hen could feel Tor’s eyes on her as she carefully laid the girls on the woven blanket at her feet, and held aloft the first symbol. She’d carved it herself, as was expected, during the last few weeks of the pregnancy – a stone representation of a child. A signal to the ancestors that she sought their protection for the infant. She already had Tor’s protection, that was certain. They may not be able to live together, to share a bed at night, but they were bound together by their son, by these daughters, and perhaps, in the future, if the ancestors willed it, they would live together. But for now – this was enough. She had his regard, his love. His children.

  With the sun warming her back and the water gurgling the babies into sleep, she broke the worked stone figure on a chunk of flint to send it to the land of the ancestors then raised an arm and flung the image downstream. Then she lifted the second symbol. The one she’d had to find hastily, when she’d realised that both girls would need to be seen to have the ancestors to watch over them. She’d considered giving her necklace to the ancestors, breaking its string and letting those plastic triangles fall into the water, taking her thanks with them, but she couldn’t do it. It was her one last link with who she’d been. Her reminder of Duncan, her first love, that time before and yet to come. So she’d found something else.

  She felt the tiny weight in her hand; the little plastic stem pricked against her palm as she bent it, and then she flung that too, the earring curving a lesser flight before it landed safely, barely breaking the water’s surface.

  ‘I name these children, before the ancestors.’ She picked up her babies and held them close, their hair soft against her cheek. ‘Grace. And Anya.’

  We would love to hear how you enjoyed Living in the Past. Please leave a review on the eBook store where you purchased this eBook. Reviews on retail sites really do help the author. Thank you!

  Find out more about Jane and her novels next …

  Thank You

  Hello. Yes, you, sitting there, flipping through the pages to see if there’s anything interesting further on – there is. There’s this. Me, saying thank you. Thank you for picking up this book and reading it. Thank you for being the sort of person who reads right to the end – I bet you sit in the cinema and watch the end credits to films too, don’t you? Anyway. Thank you for choosing my book and I hope you enjoyed reading about Duncan and Grace. If you liked this one, I’ve written lots of others, why not go and try one of those too? Or another Choc Lit book – they are all equally fabulous, and there’s all different types and genres to choose from. If you’d care to leave a review on the retail site where you purchased this ebook, I would further be convinced of your total awesomeness. Thanks again.

  Jane

  X

  About the Author

  Jane was born in Devon and now lives in Yorkshire. She has five children, four cats and three dogs of variable sanity. She works in a local supermarket and also teaches creative writing. Jane is a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and has a first-class honours degree in creative writing.

  Jane writes comedies which are often described as ‘quirky’. Her UK debut, Please Don’t Stop the Music, won the 2012 Romantic Novel of the Year and the Romantic Comedy Novel of the Year Awards from the Romantic Novelists’ Association.

  Read about Jane’s novels next …

  For more information on Jane visit

  www.janelovering.co.uk

  www.twitter.com/janelovering

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