A Novel

by Sean Pidgeon

  ‘Look, Dad!’ he says. ‘Guess what sword this is?’

  His father speaks to him carefully, as if confirming a difficult point of history. ‘Yes, Charlie, that’s Excalibur, that is.’

  The lane next to the bookshop runs steeply down beneath high stone walls overgrown with ivy. At the bottom of the hill, Donald crosses a bridge over a small stream and joins an old medieval track that climbs up to a low summit where a tall, tapered stone stands half-buried in the hedge. Ahead of him, Tintagel Island rises steeply from the slate-grey Atlantic breaking white at the base of the cliffs. A rocky isthmus joins the island to the mainland, the sea surging and foaming into narrow inlets on either side. High above, white dots of gulls and fulmars hover and swoop across the crumbling ramparts of a medieval castle, sending their mournful, avaricious cries along the westerly sea-breeze.

  Earl Richard’s famous castle at Tintagel is now forever entwined with the popular mythology of Arthur. Richard, the younger brother of Henry III, acquired the manor of Bossiney, including Tintagel Island, in 1233, and there established his stronghold. He was certainly familiar with Geoffrey of Monmouth’s history of the British kings, which was by then well known throughout Europe. According to Geoffrey, it was in an ancient fortress on the island that the future King Arthur was conceived. This was the fanciful story that inspired Richard to build his own Arthurian citadel.

  In Geoffrey’s tale, Uther Pendragon sought the love of the fair Ygerna, wife of Duke Gorlois of Cornwall. The duke, who was then at war with Uther, hid his bride at Tintagel, thinking her perfectly protected from the Pendragon’s assault by the great ramparts of the keep and by the steep and narrow approach to the castle gate. But Uther’s love was not to be thwarted by mere walls of stone.

  He called to him Ulfin of Ridcaradoch, one of his soldiers and a familiar friend, and told him what was on his mind. ‘You must tell me how I can satisfy my desire for her, for otherwise I shall die of the passion which is consuming me.’ ‘Who can possibly give you useful advice,’ answered Ulfin, ‘when no power on earth can enable us to come to her where she is inside the fortress of Tintagel? The castle is built high above the sea, which surrounds it on all sides, and there is no other way in except that offered by a narrow isthmus of rock. Three armed soldiers could hold it against you, even if you stood there with the whole kingdom of Britain at your side. If only the prophet Merlin would give his mind to the problem, then with his help I think you might be able to obtain what you want.’ Merlin was summoned, and he used his black arts to transform Uther into the image of Gorlois. Queen Ygerna, thinking this was her duke returned unexpectedly from the war, spent that night with Uther in the castle, and there conceived Arthur, the most famous of men.

  In the 1930s, Professor C. A. Ralegh Radford excavated extensively on the island, unearthing many artefacts from the post-Roman period. Most impressive of all were the fragments of giant amphorae, jars for wine and olive oil imported from the Mediterranean. All of this, Ralegh Radford said, was evidence of an early Celtic monastery dating from the fifth or sixth century AD, the time of Arthur. Later generations of archaeologists would modify their distinguished predecessor’s version of events: this was not, they said, the retreat of ascetic monks, but the stronghold of Celtic chieftains, a line of British warriors whose exploits, captured in local folklore and heroic verse, were picked up by Geoffrey of Monmouth and transformed by his prodigious imagination into a legend of Arthur’s birthplace.

  Something soft is nudging at Donald’s calf. He looks down to find a large tabby cat staring back at him, bright green eyes wide with curiosity. It has a collar around its neck with a name-tag attached: Galahad, Glebe Hill Farm, Tintagel. He strokes it under the chin, and with this encouragement the cat begins purring loudly, meanwhile performing a complicated figure-of-eight loop through his legs. When Donald continues on his way, Galahad trots ahead of him.

  There is a fork in the path ahead, the right-hand branch leading down towards the narrow approach to Tintagel Island. Donald’s first thought is to cross over for a closer look at the ruins; but now he sees something that stops him in his tracks. At the nearer end of the isthmus, perhaps a hundred yards below him, a dozen or more people are gazing up at the castle walls. They are archaeologists, fellow attendees at the symposium, many of them people he knows. There amongst them is the tall, graceful, unmistakable figure of Lucy Trevelyan.

  The cat has meanwhile continued to the left, in the direction of Glebe Cliff. Donald follows in its footsteps, picking his way up the steep track to the clifftop, sure that Lucy will have seen him by now; he can only hope that she will not try to come after him. When the path divides again, he takes the southerly branch towards the church standing alone in the fields to the left. Galahad, meanwhile, continues on his own secret quest, stepping purposefully through the rough grass without so much as a backward glance.

  The Parish Church of St. Materiana, in its solitary location on an exposed promontory scourged by Atlantic storms, seems remote from modern Tintagel, a throwback to some former pattern of village life. Numerous low grassy mounds close to the church, identified as early Christian burials, confirm that the site has been sacred ground for at least fourteen hundred years. Donald enters through the lych-gate and makes his way across the churchyard, conscious of stepping on centuries of anonymous Cornish people, hundreds, perhaps thousands of them laid out beneath him, head to the west, feet to the east. Someone has laid fresh flowers, white and yellow and red, on one of the newer graves.

  Turning the latch on the heavy oak door of the church, Donald steps into the dimly lit interior and drops a few coins into the collection box before continuing along the nave, footsteps echoing on the flagstones. He stops for a while in front of one of the more striking memorials, a tall brass plaque set into the floor near the entrance to the chapel.

  HERE LIES JOHN ANSELL, BELOVED SCHOOLMASTER IN THIS PARISH, AND WORTHY POET, WHO DIED THE 20TH DAY OF DECEMBER, 1842. ALSO HIS WIFE MERRYN, WHO DIED THE 19TH DAY OF JUNE, 1843, FROM THE WEIGHT OF SADNESS THAT WAS IN HER HEART. MAY THEY BE REUNITED AT LAST IN PEACE.

  The words of a poem are inscribed beneath, an oblique ode to Thomas Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard; perhaps the work of Ansell himself, penned in anticipation of his own demise.

  A sleeping churchyard finds the muse

  Of England’s poet, framed by death

  He rhymes unknown an epitaph

  Of silent dust and fleeting breath.

  Along this path in dreaming-space

  Treads phrase world-weary, hopeful, wise

  A life, unmourned, has dimly passed—

  Grey stone recalls where cold bone lies.

  His mind’s eye in the future spies

  Fair wand’rer chanced upon his tomb

  She stops to read, then shake away

  Chill-fingered pledge of coming doom.

  What if one day such lyric gaze

  Should glance across his perished lines?

  How would she speak, what history tell

  Fond thought regale, or truth divine?

  What says the wind in yew tree’s bough

  Or raindrops darkening the pane?

  How sings the grass grown high above

  The thick black earth that bears his name?

  The tale’s forgot, the time long spent

  The clock heard striking on the tower

  All traded now for passing grace

  In transient year, by vanished hour.

  Let grandchild’s child forget those days:

  A summer’s eve, a hand held fast

  The skylark’s song above the field

  Must wane, and fade, ’tis gone at last.

  Something of John Ansell’s mournful valediction stays with Donald as he heads back through the lych-gate and on down a long grassy slope towards the top of Glebe Cliff. There he sits for a while on a rock near the cliff’s edge, close-cropped turf beneath his feet, wind and sea enclosing him in walls of rushing sound. The sky
has cleared from the west, bringing to the foam-flecked sea a dark steely hue that calls to mind the grim depths of the cold ocean. Feeling suddenly nervous, he looks at his watch. It is much later than he thought. He gets to his feet, makes his way back along the clifftop into the teeth of the rising gale.

  It is only a short drive from Tintagel village to a place called Rocky Valley where a rough driveway descends steeply from the road towards a narrow, heavily wooded ravine still showing a long sweep of autumn leaves in shades of red and yellow and russet-brown. At the end of the track is a solid grey stone building next to a stream running vigorously down through the trees. Once a functioning water-mill, the building has long since been converted into a substantial guest-house. Mrs. Ennor Carwyn, the owner of this establishment, comes to meet him at the door. She is an unsmiling woman with dark watchful eyes, grey hair drawn back from her face and tied in a narrow braid at the back.

  ‘We’re glad to have you back, Dr. Gladstone.’ She speaks guardedly, as if he should be careful not to make too much of her familiarity.

  Having stayed at Trevethey Mill on two previous visits to Cornwall, Donald knows a little of its history. The oldest parts of the building date back to 1472, and the mill has been in the Carwyn family for at least four hundred years. There is something here of Cold Comfort Farm, an eccentric edge to the place that he finds obscurely pleasing, never a trace of sycophancy or misplaced courtesy. He also has hopes of avoiding the symposium attendees, who are more likely to put up at the conference hotel down in Tintagel village.

  ‘Dinner is at seven,’ Mrs. Carwyn says. ‘Will it be just yourself?’

  ‘I’m expecting a colleague, Julia Llewellyn. Has she checked in yet, by any chance?’

  Now there is a fleeting curious look in the landlady’s eye. ‘No, she has not. I’ll be glad to let you know when she does.’

  Donald writes Julia a note, proposing a short walk along the Rocky Valley to the sea, then goes to his room and lies down for just a moment on the bed. He closes his eyes, falls into a fitful sleep in which he is tumbling in slow motion from a precipice, watching curiously as the tumultuous, wave-torn seashore rises to meet him.

  When the knock comes at the door, he is saved from a certain death on the sharp-edged rocks. ‘Dr. Gladstone? Your colleague is downstairs.’ It is Mrs. Carwyn’s voice. ‘She said you had suggested going for a walk. Shall I ask her to wait for you?’

  He looks at his watch, forces his brain to comprehend the orientation of the hands. Quarter-past six. Half-past three. Half an hour late. He jumps to his feet, calls back through the door. ‘Yes, please ask her to wait. I’ll need just a couple of minutes.’

  There is a wash-basin in the corner with two thin towels and a small mirror hanging on the wall above. Donald splashes water on his face, hurriedly brushes his teeth, throws more water on to his bed-spiked hair. He digs clean clothes out of his bag, tossing aside books, a crumpled newspaper, assorted Ordnance Survey maps. When he looks in the mirror, he sees dark rings beneath his eyes, the beginnings of a reddish stubble on his chin. The frown-lines between his eyebrows seem more than usually pronounced. He takes a deep breath, lets it out again, more slowly; then picks up his jacket from the bed and makes his way downstairs.

  Julia is sitting next to the reception desk in an upright wooden chair, radiant and smiling, as if some secret is about to be shared. ‘I almost went without you,’ she says.

  ‘Sorry about that. I was dreaming of falling off a cliff.’

  They head out of the back door of the mill to a bridge across the stream that hurries noisily down the narrow wooded valley towards the sea. Once they are in the trees, the sound of the wind in the branches seems to merge with the rushing of the water, the late-afternoon sunlight dappling the woodland floor in a bright shifting pattern of light and shade. Donald has an almost surreal sense of having stepped outside the ordinary world, of sharing this space with Julia alone. As he leads the way down the narrow winding path, he feels a strong urge to reach out and take her by the hand.

  Soon enough, they are out of the trees again and climbing on to a craggy outcrop that offers a view down the valley to the place where the stream battles out to meet the ocean. They stand there for a while looking out at the Atlantic now in the full flood of high tide with the breakers crashing against the seaward rocks.

  ‘How’s the book coming along?’ Julia says, raising her voice above the booming of the surf.

  ‘Slowly, as usual.’ Donald smiles in an offhanded way. Significant phrases from Felicity’s letter are etched into his memory. ‘I went to see Caradoc Bowen, by the way.’

  Something in Julia’s expression makes him regret having raised this subject. ‘I didn’t think you would go,’ she says. ‘What did you make of him?’

  ‘He’s quite a character, very clever and a little eccentric. More or less as I expected, really.’

  ‘It sounds as if you took a liking to him.’

  ‘Yes, in a way I suppose I did.’

  Julia turns away, scuffs at the loose rock with the toe of her boot. She bends down to pick up a tiny white cockle shell, turns it over in the palm of her hand. ‘What did he have to say about Devil’s Barrow?’

  ‘I’m afraid he didn’t think much of the idea that there might be a connection to the Song of Lailoken. He thought the parallels were no more than coincidental. But you said you had a new idea about the poem?’

  ‘I’ll tell you about it later, OK?’

  They walk back mostly in silence to Trevethey Mill, Julia apparently lost deep in thought, Donald meanwhile trying to decipher the conversation they have just had. She stops at the bridge over the stream, within sight of the mill, turns to him with not a hint that anything is amiss.

  ‘What will you do tonight?’ she says.

  ‘There’s a group reception down at the conference hotel in Tintagel, but I wasn’t planning to go to it.’ Donald would rather be struck dead by a thunderbolt than be forced to endure Lucy this evening, least of all in Julia’s company. He recites a silent prayer. ‘I was thinking we could have dinner here instead?’

  THE OLD WOODEN stairs creak unpredictably beneath Julia’s heels as she makes her way down from the top floor. She has dressed with particular care, well enough to feel good about herself but without going too far. Persistent, awkward questions keep whispering themselves to her, but she leaves them unanswered as she comes expectantly down the last flight to the reception. Donald is waiting for her there, freshly scrubbed and very good-looking, it seems to her, in a shirt with a fraying collar and a well-worn pair of jeans.

  ‘I have something for you,’ she says, handing him a faded old foolscap envelope she has brought down with her. ‘I found it in a box of old things my mother sent, and it made me think of you.’

  Donald opens the envelope, takes out a finely rendered pencil sketch of a dramatic tilted cliff-face set in a rugged Welsh landscape. Craig-y-Ddinas, the caption reads. ‘For me to keep?’

  ‘Yes, I’d like you to have it,’ Julia says. ‘Arthur and his knights are sleeping in a cave underneath that cliff. That’s what my father told me, anyway.’

  He seems surprised, but genuinely pleased. ‘I’ll hang it above my desk, for inspiration.’

  Mrs. Carwyn has meanwhile reappeared at the reception desk. ‘It’s French beef casserole, if that will suit?’ She ushers them into a broad open space with chipped old flagstones underfoot, the original working heart of the mill. Except for a young couple in the far corner speaking together in hushed, self-absorbed tones, they have the place to themselves. They sit down at a wooden trestle table next to a row of old millstones standing propped up against the wall.

  ‘The main course will be fifteen minutes,’ the landlady says. ‘I’ll bring you some wine to start with.’ She soon returns with a modest bottle of Côtes du Rhône, pours about half of it into two large glasses. ‘There’s bread here too, if you like,’ she says, leaving them with an entire loaf on a board at the end of the table.

/>   ‘Well, cheers,’ Donald says, lifting his glass.

  ‘Here’s to Cornish hospitality.’ Julia takes a long sip of wine. ‘I’m sorry about this afternoon, by the way. I was a little grumpy with you.’

  ‘I didn’t notice,’ Donald says, and she finds herself liking the look on his face, the irony perfectly outbalancing the earnestness. ‘Did I say something wrong, though?’

  ‘No, it wasn’t your fault. When you mentioned your meeting with Bowen, it brought back some bad memories, that’s all.’ Julia has an urge to tell Donald everything, to explain to him the corrosive effect that Caradoc Bowen is still having on her marriage, fourteen years after she last set eyes on him. But this is not a conversation she is ready to have with him. ‘Why don’t you tell me what to expect at the symposium tomorrow?’

  Donald leans back in his chair, wine glass in hand. ‘Honestly,’ he says, ‘I’m worried you might find it very boring. You’ll witness a roomful of scruffy archaeologists debating over dislocated skeletons. Maybe a few arguments about the colour and consistency of certain kinds of mud.’

  ‘It sounds perfect,’ she says. Listening to Donald talk in his wry, self-deprecating way, Julia feels a surge of affection for him. She tries to imagine how she would paint his picture, something solid and strong but full of a subtle kind of light, deeply rooted to the earth, like a spreading oak tree in a forest clearing.

  ‘By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask you, how does someone get to work for the OED?’