by Jason Foss
‘Burrell collection?’
‘…Yes, you’re right. It says, ‘Dear Ba…’’
‘She called you Ba?’
‘Yes. ‘Dear Ba, don’t worry about me, I’m okay. Love, L.’ Then she says ‘P.S. I hate the picture they used in the paper.’ ‘
Flint and Barbara were both silent for a few moments.
‘It’s good news,’ Barbara said with optimism.
‘Yes, yes. She telephoned me just now. She only said a few words, but I got the idea she wants us to leave her alone,’ Flint related.
‘Well, at least she’s safe, somewhere, whatever she’s doing.’
‘Yes.’
Silence fell again before Barbara said, ‘Look, thanks for ringing me, I’m terribly rushed here. You’ll tell me if you hear anything else?’
‘Sure, bye.’ The receiver went down.
Flint could not hide his growing anger.
Tyrone winced. ‘What do we do now?’
‘We stop pissing around and get back to doing some archaeology.’
Chapter 4
Summer term saw exams looming and college stood almost deserted. All the careful tutors had finished their lecture programmes by Easter, so only the occasional tutorial would interrupt research until the time came to scurry through exam scripts with the red biro. Easter had been its usual happy turmoil, with the first-years being taken on the annual ten-day crash course in fieldwork techniques. Southern Essex had taken the brunt of the offensive and the one casualty was a Greek student down with hepatitis. Otherwise the party had returned from two weeks of serious drinking and fumbling sex unscathed.
At Central College, the J. B. Stoat Library radiates from beneath a domed rotunda. In the archaeology section, Tyrone sat upright at the work desk filling in index cards amidst a pile of journals. Bunny was seated next to him, apparently asleep with his head on the heavily worn table top. He deserves to fail, Tyrone thought, then heard footsteps from behind.
‘Hi, how’s it going?’ Jeffrey Flint whispered, leaning his head close to Tyrone’s ear.
‘Fine.’ Tyrone sat back and shuffled his cards into a neat stack.
Bunny raised his head, recognised the lecturer, then drew himself upright.
‘Got a moment?’ Flint asked Tyrone, then turned to Bunny. ‘Don’t let me wake you.’
Tyrone followed the lecturer, and together they leaned over the iron guard rails and looked down on the circular chamber below. He had noticed a bulging blue wallet file clutched under Flint’s arm.
‘Do you know what day it is today?’ his supervisor asked. ‘Hooray hooray, first of May. Which is also Beltane, the holiest day in the Pagan calendar.’
‘Lucy?’ Tyrone guessed.
‘Yeah, I saw the date and it made me think about her again. Then I bumped into the Registrar this morning. He remembered I’d been interested in Lucy and told me a big fat grant cheque is sitting in his office getting lonely.’
Pagan or not, Lucy could not be immune to the single greatest need of a student: money.
‘Have you rung the big sister and told her?’
‘Yes – she’s had another postcard, Isle of Skye.’
‘Without a grant, Lucy must be living on air.’
‘Or she’s with someone.’
‘I thought you’d lost interest in her.’
Flint nodded. Tyrone waited to see what erratic thought his supervisor was about to come up with.
‘Sam Hanley rang in last week...’ Flint began.
‘What did she have?’
‘A boy, Easter Sunday, called him Tristram. Anyway, she’s Lucy’s supervisor, she’d heard all the hoo-hah and wanted to check whether Lucy had handed in her dissertation at the end of the spring term. Apparently, she claimed to have just about finished it over Christmas.’
‘That’s keen.’
‘Yeah, but Lucy was keen, that’s why her running off really doesn’t make sense. I talked to Sam and we agreed that if Lucy finally comes to her senses, she could re-sit her exams in October, and the department will stretch a point on the deadline for handing in her diss, but it’s a month overdue now. If she doesn’t hand it in during the next couple of days...’
‘…she fails?’
‘…she gets a third-class degree at best.’
Tyrone snorted, ‘Same thing.’
Flint pulled the blue wallet from under his arm. ‘I’ve asked just about everyone and hunted around in her stuff. I found the diagrams, so all we need now is the text. There’s a load of handwritten notes in here, but we know she’s typed at least one draft of the final text, because Sam saw it back in January.’
Tyrone thought for a few seconds. ‘I know which machine she uses.’
‘Word processor?’
He nodded. ‘It’s one of the PCs in the department. If I can get her password, I could hack into her files and run off a copy.’
Flint seemed pleased. ‘Go and see Brad in Computing, tell him I sent you for Lucy’s password. I’ll write him a memo if he gets stroppy. If we work fast, we might just save Lucy’s degree.’
Tyrone was happy to move off immediately. ‘I’ll go now. What’s her diss on?’
Flint adopted an ironic tone. ‘The Iconography of Earth Mother Figurines.’
‘I might have guessed.’
*
Beltane was not the happy, joyous celebration of spring that all had expected. Disquiet spread rumours of investigation, of scandal, of social approbation. Some feared for their jobs, others for their families and their friends in the real world. A real world which had suddenly edged closer to the intimate circles.
Devil’s Ring was what ignorant Christians had called the ancient site. Five beech trees clawed their roots into the remains of a stone circle. Nine chunks of sarsens had survived the enthusiasm of a nineteenth-century nobleman who had blown the monument apart with black powder. On a clouded evening, the Pagan circles convened at the lonely spot, placing their look-outs and taking their precautions against observation.
The Poet remained outwardly unmoved, but it was a sad and mechanical Oak who performed the ceremony in the cover of the trees. This time, there was no Maiden, no one to stand in for the Goddess. Rowan was fully conscious of the depression settling upon her circle. Time would fill the void, but for the moment, protection was what they needed. Sand would be flung in the faces of their persecutors, reporters and others. The name of Vikki Corbett was whispered and curses were raised against her, but not one pair of lips mouthed the name Lucy Gray.
A light rain fell as the group returned to their cars to dress and merge back into twentieth-century normality.
‘Something is wrong with Oak,’ The Poet remarked to Rowan, still clad in her white ankle-length robe.
She put aside a dripping blonde lock and watched the pathetic figure struggling to pack his altar and sacred implements on the slippery grass.
‘He isn’t well, and he misses Hazel.’
‘So do we all, myself more than most, but in Oak I sense hostility. Does he still resent me?’
‘More and more,’ she said.
‘He worries me, his feelings run too deep. He thinks too much, he asks too much about The Book. There are things ordinary men are not meant to know.’
Yes, she thought, how true.
*
The Pagans had made their sacrifices, but others, too, used May 1st to plan to save the Earth. Local elections loomed and Flint spent the evening seated on a stool in the kitchen shared by Chrissie and her flatmate. They talked as he helped her fold Green Party leaflets into recycled envelopes. He was no party member, considering their utopia as impractical as all other utopias on offer, but they won his vote on sheer imagination and novelty. Chrissie was the secretary of the college GreenSoc, and the spur behind his renewed interest in politics.
‘What I don’t understand is why you don’t join the Party,’ she was saying. Chrissie had an elegant, earnest manner to accompany her elegant, earnest face.
‘I’m an anarchist, Chrissie, you know that. I have a deep suspicion about political parties and pressure groups. No one is one hundred per cent right.’
‘No, but the other parties are one hundred per cent wrong.’
‘Well, if you don’t mind, I won’t sign the pledge. I reserve the right to choose.’
‘Apathy won’t get us anywhere.’
‘I was in Greenpeace when you were still a Girl Guide,’ he said, admiring the deep red of her freshly washed hair.
‘But you’re not any more. You’re selling out, Jeffrey.’
‘I got tired of protesting, I was becoming a walking cliché: CND, Ecology Party, Anti-Nazi League…’
‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of.’
‘No. I’ve run out, gimme another pile.’
Her slender hands pushed a box of leaflets across the wobbling nineteen-sixties-style table.
‘I managed to get a lead on Lucy Gray’s dissertation today; we may be able to save her yet.’
‘Did you know she was in the University GreenSoc?’ Chrissie said. ‘Someone mentioned her when I was at the biodiversity rally. He knew that I knew you and made the connection, and asked me about her.’
‘Didn’t you know her?’
‘Only vaguely. She only went to the meetings at Senate House, and only when we had a major speaker. She never came to the meetings at college; I think we were too reactionary for her.’
‘She always struck me as being committed to Green issues.’
‘Perhaps – saving whales and recycling bottles – but most of these kids have no real commitment, no concern about social issues, or nuclear weapons, or capitalist multinationals. To me, Lucy sounds as if she was rather right-wing.’
Flint had to smile; to be called right-wing in a university was the ultimate insult. As Chrissie continued to narrate, Flint realised how deep a gulf existed between them. One day he would tire of superficial relationships and risk something deeper again.
‘A lot of people who call themselves Green are just middle-class reactionaries looking for a cute hobby,’ Chrissie continued. ‘They live in expensive villages in Surrey and all they care about is keeping the rabble away. They form a protest group if a bypass is built in their back yard, but the rest of the week speed around in Range Rovers. If they use lead-free petrol they think it’s okay.’
‘And Lucy?’
‘…Is a green-welly Green, into thatched cottages and Merrie England, which is nothing to do with the real world at all.’
‘This person you were talking to, he hasn’t seen her?’
‘Not for months – that’s why he was asking me.’
‘Can you remember those meetings she attended? I mean she was fairly striking to look at – you couldn’t have missed her.’
Chrissie narrowed her eyes to indicate she had spotted a sexist observation. ‘She just hovered at the back, looking pretty. When we had Johnathon Poritt along to speak, she asked a really immature question, but otherwise she kept herself to herself. This chap I met said the same — he’d ask her out on weekend demos but she usually had to meet someone.’
‘Who?’ Flint pounced.
Chrissie shrugged. ‘I’d guess he’s not a student, we’re a bit too scruffy for her.’
Folding and packing continued until their paper resource was exhausted. Flint thought about Chrissie’s increasing coolness and whether he was expected to seduce her that night, and if he truthfully could with a clear conscience. When he thought about sex, or women in general, Lucy trespassed in his mind and only forced wider the emotional gulf between himself and Chrissie.
What Chrissie had told him about Lucy confused him even more. Up to then he had assumed Lucy had been sincere about her Green beliefs, but she had been playing games again, obviously. She had joined GreenSoc and the CC Dungeoneers, but he strained to think of other college societies which might have attracted her. An idea came to him after only a few moments.
‘Chrissie, do you remember anything about PaganSoc?’
*
The idea was ingenious, but short-lived. Throughout the week, Flint tried to contact an elusive physics postgraduate called Gavin who had moved to Imperial to work on semiconductors. An article in an old issue of the college paper had concerned the formation of PaganSoc. The union had been ambivalent about the proposed society, but as Gavin had found the obligatory twenty members, PaganSoc was awarded its grant, despite objections.
Tracing Gavin to his lair was a minor triumph, but visiting him in the functional junior common room of Imperial College was an anti-climax. Sure, Gavin had formed PaganSoc. The prospectus included witchcraft, moonlight masses, satanic rites, all a good pagan could wish for. It had been a joke perpetrated by a group of reactionary students, partly to irk the do-gooders of the college ‘God Squad’, partly in protest at the size of grant given to GaySoc. They had won the minimum society hand-out, blown it all on one bestial party, then quietly dissolved the society. There had been no serious intent. He had never heard of Lucy Gray.
Flint cycled back across town in his shirt sleeves, enjoying the May sunshine, but cursing the traffic every yard of the way. Perhaps he should re-join Greenpeace before it was truly too late. Chaining up his bike in the central rat-run, he was hailed from a third-floor window by Tyrone yelling.
‘Doc! I’ve found it!’
Flint walked into the department, and passed a few words with Professor Grant in the lobby before Tyrone came down. He followed his student into the computer room where two PC terminals displayed a mass of turgid archaeological text.
Tyrone sat before the right-hand terminal. ‘I’ve found Lucy’s dissertation. There are three drafts: cunningly numbered One, Two and Three.’
Flint toyed with the keyboard of his terminal. ‘This is?’
‘Version Three; it seems to be the most complete version.’
‘Is it any good?’
‘Good for a lower second if you felt charitable. It’s not really finished, there’s no key to the diagrams, no bibliography and no concluding chapter or appendix of data.’
‘So we’re still going to have to find her, or finish it ourselves.’ Flint scrolled through the introduction.
After a few moments, Tyrone asked, ‘Have you spotted it yet?’
‘What?’
Tyrone had a rogue’s grin. On his terminal, he scrolled Version Two to the introduction. ‘Spot the mismatch.’
‘Tyrone, I haven’t time. I’ve just seen Grant and he wants a meeting in ten minutes.’
‘Look at Version Two: it says ‘Grateful thanks to Piers Plant M.A., Curator, Darkewater Valley Museum’. In Version Three, he rates no mention. But it gets better: in Version Two she quotes him four times. In Version Three, she uses the same information without acknowledgement. That’s not very ethical.’
Flint insisted on being shown the facts, but of course, Tyrone was right. For a moment he thought that Tyrone had the versions in the wrong order, but soon spotted the word ‘Figrues’ in Version Two had been corrected to ‘Figures’ in Version Three. The acknowledgement of Piers Plant had not simply been omitted, it had been deleted.
Half to himself, Flint murmured, ‘I wonder why she did that.’
‘I think they fell out,’ Tyrone stated. ‘They must have had some sort of tiff – you know how awkward curators can get. They’re trained to defend their material.’
Flint hardly heard; he was rereading the text before him. ‘You print out hard copies of both versions and we can pick the best to hand in. I’ll go and see what Grant wants, then I’ll give this Plant character a ring, just for my own peace of mind.’
Whilst Flint was in his meeting, Sally found the telephone number of the Darkewater Valley Museum in Kingshaven. Still looking at the planned schedule of exam invigilators, Flint rang the number he had been given.
‘Piers Plant here.’
‘Hello, my name is Doctor Jeffrey Flint, from Central College London. I was ringing to ask you about Lucy Gray.’
For a moment, the curator was silent. ‘Lucy Gray? Are you sure you have the right number?’ The voice seemed hesitant.
‘I understand you gave her some information for her undergraduate project. Possibly just before Christmas.’
‘I get a lot of enquiries.’
‘Mother Goddess figurines?’
The man hummed, a thinking hum. ‘No, I’m sorry.’
‘You know she’s missing? You read the papers?’
Silence.
‘Have you seen her recently?’
‘I really couldn’t say.’
It occurred to Flint that this mode of enquiry was futile. ‘Could I arrange to come down and see you?’
The other made a few discouraging noises. ‘I’m very busy at the moment.’
Museum curators are always busy, thought Flint. Doing what is unclear.
‘Look, it won’t take long.’
‘I don’t have an assistant at the moment, you see. The post has been frozen for two years. I keep asking for a new one, but... ‘
‘It won’t take long.’
Excuse piled on excuse: meetings, school parties, a sick mother. Finally, an exasperated Jeffrey Flint put the telephone down, with an insincere ‘Thank you.’
He had a feeling of foreboding, a feeling that he had been simply coasting, skimming the surface of something more complex than a student flunking her exams. Immediately, he opened the Lucy box file and began to reread every note that he and Tyrone had made, all her essays, her letters, her notes and the confessions of her frustrated boyfriends. When Tyrone brought them up, he read both versions of her dissertation too.
Lucy was someone he was growing to know so well, even intimately, and the more he thought over her picture pinned to the memo board, the more empathy he felt for her. Romantic, gentle, caring, naïve, aware and confident in her own belief system. Wherever she had gone, it was down a path he could very easily have followed.
*
After a long evening and restless night, Flint cycled into college early. His first item of post was Lucy’s April bank statement, forwarded to him by Barbara. It confirmed that nothing had cleared through the account. The February cheque was the last. Reaching his office, stepping around Winnie the cleaner, he filed the blank statement with the others. Taking a moment to flick back through the folder, he studied the statement for January, when her society subscriptions were due. The only standing order entry was for ‘Darkewater Val 10.00’. It was enough to see him first through the library doors when they opened.