by Mike Crowson
Chapter 11
When Steve went to turn on the generator next morning, he had his waterproof on and the hood up to keep off a steady downpour. The ground squelched beneath his feet and water gathered in the hollows of the tarpaulin sheltering the generator.
Alicia knew there was no hope of any outside work when she woke to the drumming of rain on the caravan roof. She could, of course, find plenty of work to do herself and she could usefully employ several of the university team, but the volunteer labour represented something of a problem because there wasn't much to do on Hoy in the rain. Correction. There wasn't anything to do on Hoy in the rain.
Alicia needn't have worried too much, in the short term anyway. After breakfast most of the volunteers seemed to be more than happy to settle down with Trivial Pursuits and the radio, while Frank, Alan and Manjy helped Alicia with the cataloguing of finds and Gill went with Steve to meet the ferry.
Alicia was mildly surprised when Gill announced that she was going to meet the ferry and was that okay but, as Steve showed no surprise, Alicia assumed that he had already agreed and didn't give the matter much further thought. She had already turned her attention elsewhere before the Landrover oozed carefully out of the field and onto the road.
Manjy was one of those people for whom computers seemed to jump through hoops. Alicia, of course, had used them extensively before and Gill too was reasonably conversant with them as a tool, but Manjy was a natural. Alicia was thinking about her doctorate and the need to be exact about everything, so she was happy to let Manjy handle the computer and simply direct the recording of data and locations.
In the Landrover the windscreen wipers slapped steadily as it rained equally steadily. Gill shook her wet hair and flicked it aside with her hands.
"So we slept on it," she said, "Now what do you think? Is it reincarnation or psychometry?"
"Hmm," replied Steve. "I can't quite make up my mind, but I certainly felt that I was that person. On the other hand I have to say that Alicia's right about the chances of three people connected with the ring coming together at any one time. Even if you believe in reincarnation in the first place," he added.
"And you don't?"
"I don't know. Before the last few days I hadn't given much thought to death and what might happen after it. Since the business with the ring and my story ... Well." He left the sentence unfinished. The engine rumbled, the road wheels splashed and the wipers still slapped rhythmically.
"I was almost jealous of the girl in your story," said Gill. "It was just as if she was real."
"I know what you mean on both counts. However, I don't think the storyteller was doing anything other than following a ritual. I don't think there was anything personal in it."
"Making love to someone's pretty personal," Gill objected.
"You're the expert in the Bronze Age, of course, but I didn't feel that there was much commitment other than a religious one. Until the end maybe, and even then it was more 'survival of the group' than a personal commitment. Anyway, I felt you were untouchable as the priestess." He paused. "I could understand that bloke wanting you on his last night on earth. If I had to go too, I think that's what I'd choose ..."
"To make love to someone?" she asked.
"To make love to you," he answered.
"Oh well ..." she said, carefully not looking at him to cover her confusion. "It's not actually necessary to wait until your last night on earth. Not in this incarnation, anyway."
Steve considered this. He thought it was probably an invitation, though this wasn't exactly the time or place. He both admired and desired Gill but he didn't want to get his face slapped. Nor did he want her to feel rejected by what amounted to a refusal, especially as he didn't feel like refusing.
"Well," he said, picking his words with some precision, "the girl you seem so worried about isn't around in this incarnation and there isn't anyone else, so I'm ... shall we say ... available."
"Pull over a minute." Gill suggested. "I may have been untouchable in that story, but I'm not untouchable here and now."
Steve stopped the Landrover in a gateway at the crest of a low hill overlooking the sea. There was no traffic, nobody about and no sound but the rain on the roof. Since there was little wind it ran almost silently down the windscreen, now that they had stopped.
"We have a few minutes to spare. We're early for the ferry, but not that early," he said, and put an arm round her, drawing her nearer.
"I didn't mean pull over and screw me right now," she said, possibly hiding her self-consciousness in bluntness and uncertainty behind a need to make a fresh start. "Tempting though that might be as an idea. I mean, I know we haven't got much time and, although this is a quiet spot, it's still a bit public for me." She really did feel a growing attachment to the reformed hooligan.
"In this incarnation," she added, "I'm quite a shy girl."
But she wasn't too shy to respond to Steve's kiss.
"What did you do for a living, before all the trouble?" Gill asked when the passion had eased a little. She felt an urgent need to know more about him.
"I was a mechanic in my father's garage," he said. "I trained as a cook when I left school, but I went into the garage when I couldn't find work."
"Man of many parts."
"Some of them not very useful to society," Steve commented.
"But some of them very useful to me." said Gill with a grin. She leaned against him listening to the rain. "I wish we'd met before ... " She was going to say 'before I met Tony' but stopped.
"Before I got into trouble on the terraces?"
"No. I don't think that matters to me. It isn't the real you." She paused. "Why didn't you go back to you father's garage?"
She was expecting him to make some remark about getting away from trouble. Instead he said, "My father died while I was inside and my mother sold the business. Then she died as well. A lot can happen in seven months, as I discovered. It all left me well off but jobless, which is not a desirable state of affairs for an ex-con."
There was a touch of bitterness in his voice warning Gill not to press him any further. Instead she kissed him again.