The Lives She Left Behind

by James Long

  ‘Nothing? That’s a sad word. Me, at your age I liked bikes too but only if they had engines for pedals.’

  ‘Motorbikes?’

  ‘Yeah. If God had meant us to pedal he wouldn’t have invented the four-stroke motor. I got my first BSA when I was twelve – a knackered old two-fifty. Put it straight with some help from my dad. Thrashed it round the fields. Then it was Velocettes and more BSAs and Enfields and still more BSAs. Never Triumphs. You were a BSA man or a Triumph man – it was like the Beatles or the Stones.’

  The boy listened without really understanding, enjoying the enthusiasm in Dozer’s voice.

  ‘Got the tattoos, got the leathers. Finally got a Norton Atlas.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Back in those days it was the quickest bike you could buy, which makes it lucky I was only doing eighty-five when I came off it on the Keynsham road. Six months in hospital then six more months’ recovery. That was when I got into digging. Had to fill up my time. My physio was a digger. He got me along on one. Never looked back. So come on, there must be something in your life like that?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘That won’t do. I know there’s something. Football?’

  ‘No, I don’t get football.’

  ‘Another sport then?’

  ‘I’m not interested in heroes.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t need superhumans.’

  ‘Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings. Come on then – I’m not stopping until you tell me one single thing you really like to do.’

  ‘I like to walk round the fields where I live.’

  ‘Come on. I need more than that. Unless you mean you’re a poacher.’

  ‘No. I just like . . . imagining. I like to look at old houses and woods and churchyards and think about how they used to be. I like to read books. Old books are best. I like to sit in the evening and watch the sun set and think how many times it has set before.’

  ‘Wow, that’s deep. Not exactly sex and drugs and rock ’n’ roll. You like being alone?’

  ‘No, but I’m not a very popular person.’

  ‘You seem a nice enough bloke to me.’

  ‘I like talking to people who know stuff. You know stuff. People my age don’t.’

  ‘It’ll come out all right if you just wait then. You see, there’s someone out there for you.’ Dozer looked across at him. ‘Whoops! I didn’t mean to upset you.’

  Luke wiped his face fiercely. ‘I’m all right.’

  ‘You just haven’t met them yet, that’s all.’

  ‘Maybe. So what happened back there? What was it all about, the grenades and all that?’

  ‘Well, I guess it was all about the British Resistance Organisation. Ever heard of that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Neither had I but I have now. You know about Dunkirk?’

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘1940? Hitler pushed our poor old army out of France. All the little ships went across to save our lads and we thought the Germans would be across the Channel any minute. They talked about fighting them on the beaches but they knew we wouldn’t stop them there so they set up the BRO. Lots of hidden bunkers with a network of wireless stations to rally the resistance. Code name for the local network round here was Chirnside and it seems our hole was part of it. Funny really, same old reason that the old guys chose their hill forts – good view, hard to surprise people. So anyway, they had a big hole as their bunker with generators and an emergency exit with a nasty booby trap to make a huge bang if the Jerries found it. They just forgot to take it all away afterwards. Turns out there were no records this one was ever there.’

  ‘So everyone went home?’

  ‘Like I said, everyone except me and the students.’

  ‘And all the girls too?’ Luke had to ask. If any of the girls were still there with Rupert, he needed to get out of the truck before it took him any further away.

  ‘The girls again, eh?’ Dozer gave him a sudden sharper look. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Cherchez la femme, as they say in Scotland.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means I think I’ve rumbled the nature of your sudden interest and the reason why your bicycle looks so tired. Now, do you mean the students or the other three?’

  The boy squirmed in silence and Dozer chortled. ‘I reckon you mean the other three. They’re your age. No, they’ve gone. So, which one is it? Let me guess now. There was Jo – she’s the quiet one. There’s Ali – she’s the dumpy, bossy one, and oh yes, there’s the blonde. Now then, what was she called? Lucy, that was it. My money’s on Lucy. But hang on a mo. I was with you the whole time. You never even got to talk to her, did you? Blimey, she must have made an impression.’

  ‘I thought maybe I knew one of them, that’s all. Do they come from round here?’

  ‘No. Nowhere near. Down west somewhere. Exeter maybe? They were really hacked off when they found out they had to go.’

  ‘So they have gone?’

  ‘Oh yes, they’ve gone.’

  Luke was silent. ‘Funny thing, though,’ said Dozer, ‘they made quite an impression on me too. Shall I tell you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, when they turned up I thought they didn’t know their arses from their elbows apart from Ali, the dumpy one. We all know her mum, you see. Christine Massey. She’s led loads of digs. You don’t mess with Christine, so I guess Ali’s been brought up eating with a trowel. They were mucking about like school friends do and Ali was getting cross cos she wanted to take it all a bit more seriously and Lucy, the blonde one, she was getting up to all sorts of stuff.’

  ‘What sort of stuff?’

  ‘Boy stuff. Those students of Rupert’s from the uni. She fancied one of them – Andy, the big, gormless one. Anyway, then the girls told this story round the campfire. Oh boy, what a surprise that was. You should have heard it.’

  So he told the boy his version of Jo’s story, altered a little in the retelling as all stories are, and at the end Luke asked him the question that was racing round his head. ‘Which one told the story?’

  Dozer frowned. ‘I dunno for sure,’ he said. ‘They were dressed up. It wasn’t the little one, Ali. I could tell which one she was. She went first. I was the other side of the fire. Must have been Jo or Lucy. Anyway, her story got through to old Rupe. He told them it fitted this next place we’re digging.’

  ‘Who’s we?’

  ‘Me and him and the students. Anyway, that was just Rupert making two and two equal ninety-eight and a half. I don’t think those girls had any idea there really was such a place. It was just a made-up story to them.’ A thought struck him. ‘You must know it, matey, this place? If it’s Wincanton way, it must be near where you live.’

  ‘What’s it called?’

  ‘Pen Selwood,’ said Dozer. ‘Whoa there! What’s wrong?’

  Luke had jerked up in his seat and was trying to control a vast excitement. ‘Yes, I know where it is,’ he said as calmly as he could. ‘It’s right by my turning. You’ll see the sign. You’re all coming to dig there?’

  ‘When we get this one done, yes. Another Norman castle site. Just a quick look at the earthworks.’

  ‘Why did he think that was the place?’ Of course it would be the place, he was thinking to himself. If she had started to tell a story from the depths of her long, long memory, where else would it be?

  Dozer told him about the three castles and the conversation afterwards.

  ‘It certainly tickled everyone’s fancy. We sat round until the wine ran out trying to guess why any village needed three castles. One of the girls reckoned they were guarding the Holy Grail. Conrad – that’s the bloke Ali was leaning against – said it must have been the headquarters of the Norman College of Advanced Castle Building and they were all that was left of the students’ final-year projects. Rupert got all serious and said the ridge had strategic importance but that was reckoned to be far too boring. Anyway, I’ve volunteered.’r />
  ‘Volunteered for what?’

  ‘To go and dig with them when they get there. He said I could come along to set an example so they know how not to grow up. It’ll be a week or two yet.’

  ‘At Pen?’

  ‘Is that what they call it round your way? Saves time, is that it? Mustn’t waste that extra second.’

  ‘So who exactly is going?’

  ‘You haven’t been concentrating, have you? Rupe and his lads are doing a quick dig there for English Heritage. There’s some problem with erosion.’

  ‘Is anybody else going?’

  ‘Not apart from the girls.’

  ‘The girls?’

  ‘Well, maybe. They weren’t sure.’

  ‘What did they say?’

  ‘I heard them arguing about it. One of them wanted to go there, the others had different ideas. I reckon you put those three in a room and you’ll always have four opinions, maybe five.’

  ‘Which one wanted to go to Pen?’

  ‘Blimey, junior! I wasn’t paying that much attention. What’s got into you?’

  ‘I’d just like to know,’ he answered vaguely, but he was burning up with the urgent need to know exactly which one.

  Dozer thought hard. ‘I saw them looking at the map. They were still arguing. Wherever they were going, they had to walk there on account of not having much cash. Oh, I remember. Lucy, the blonde, said she’d never walked that far in her life and Ali, the bossy one, said it was just a matter of putting one foot in front of the other and then Lucy asked her how many times she would have to do that and it went on like that.’

  ‘But they might be going to Pen?’

  ‘They might be going to Timbuktu for all I know. Come on, kid. Which one of them’s got her hooks into you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Luke. ‘I can’t tell.’ He was staring out of the window avidly, thinking he might see them walking along the roadside or crossing a field.

  A gurgling noise which was a chuckle filtered through years of smoke and beer made its slow way out of Dozer’s throat. ‘Can’t tell? They’re not exactly identical triplets. If it was me, I’d go for Lucy. I was always one for the blondes. Second choice, Jo. Third choice, Ali. Mind you, if you picked Ali you’d get fed regular plus you wouldn’t have to worry about other blokes. Anyway, Ali’s mad keen on the digging – has to be with a mother like that. I think the others just came along for the ride, plus the chance of boys maybe. They definitely had an eye for Rupe’s students.’ Dozer chose his words deliberately. He could see something desperate in the boy next to him. He feared some sort of puppy love was stirring and it was clear to him that the students had a few years’ head start on the road to manhood. His words washed past Luke. The warning was irrelevant. The feeling inside him was based on some utter and inexplicable certainty.

  CHAPTER 9

  Before you ever love, you can dream of love. Jo was in the delight of such a dream, held by a vibrant boy who laughed and whispered poetry in her ear. She woke with two lines running through her head.

  Our halves are nothing on their own but half and half make one,

  And halves, divided, stand alone when the adding’s done.

  Someone had shaken her and the poem had run away, leaving a warm residue which turned to waking disappointment as she saw dawn light filtering through the tent, ancient bugs crawling across the damp nylon just above her. She rolled over, thinking Lucy or Ali had woken her, but they were curled up asleep.

  ‘It wasn’t them, it was me,’ said Gally’s voice clearly in her head. ‘Come with me.’

  Gally led her up the hill as if they were hand in hand. Jo stared ahead, wondering if the police were up there, if they had stayed all night, or whether they had trusted to their tape barriers in the darkness. They followed a narrow trail, shunning the path – a way made by deer or badgers or foxes that snaked up the steeper contours and brought them to the terrace. There, just ahead, were the brown stripes of the two trenches. Jo walked to the place where she had been working, knelt and reached tentatively down with her fingertips extended, holding back just short of the earth as if afraid. She thought this must be why she had been brought here. Driven by a craving for that feeling which had come to her the day before, she touched her fingers to the dry surface but there was just the crumbling earth, inanimate with the anticlimax of finding absolutely nothing there.

  ‘No,’ said Gally to her. ‘That was not why. Sit down. Breathe easily. Breathe deeply.’ Jo sat on a tree stump, did what she was told, slowed her breath, searching the landscape.

  ‘Do not try so hard,’ said the voice. ‘Look slowly. Clear away the trees.’ And she found to her surprise that she knew how to do it. She used her eyes like a brush, swinging her gaze slowly around, wiping the trees away to let in the dawn sky and the bright east off to the left. As the trees faded, something obstinate remained – plants in rows, lower. When she let them stay they grew a crop of golden green globes and she knew them for vines, and Gally nudged her to a brief vision of men stooping to tend them – men in monks’ robes.

  ‘Now leave it to me,’ Gally whispered inside her. ‘Watch.’

  The vines had withered. Young trees grew again, little more than saplings, and the sun moved back on its course, sinking just below the eastern rim so that only dawn’s fingers were in the sky. Men were busy all around her, men she could not see to start with, but then she could smell their sharp sweat, see the dark blades of shovels arcing back and forth in the dim light, see the shrinking earth pile as they laboured to bury it out of sight, hurrying to leave this dangerous place. She turned to stare back down the slope, hair prickling, a lookout, watching for the enemy: And behind her, watching at the other side, she felt the vast comfort of his presence – the other half who made her whole.

  ‘You were here,’ Gally said quietly. ‘More than once. Long ago.’

  Then she heard voices below, saw other men moving up through the trees, men in uniform, and opened her mouth to hiss a warning before reality intervened and she knew she was back among the modern trees, on the edge of the terrace where she should not be, where the old explosives oozed danger in the bunker below and these men were coming to deal with it. Love abandoned her again as sadly as in waking from her earlier dream, and she crept down the hillside, picking her way through the cover, anxious to avoid discovery.

  Around the corner of the contour, safely away from them, she stopped to address with the swirl of sensation and memory in her head and found Gally with her. ‘You know what this is,’ said Gally.

  ‘No I don’t.’ She said it out loud.

  ‘Of course you do. Last night, round the fire, you told our story. How else did that happen?’

  ‘It was the darkness and the woodsmoke.’

  ‘Yes, but you opened your mind and remembered and you told them all around the fire. Why would you remember if not for love? Love is the fuel that fires memory. Now you must find him.’

  ‘I can’t remember him,’ she wailed.

  ‘You can. He was here,’ said her voice.

  ‘But that was long ago. You said so.’

  ‘That was yesterday,’ said the voice. ‘He touched the earth as you touched the earth and you felt each other.’ And Jo gasped as she understood the full meaning of that moment. ‘Go to him. You know where to go.’

  Jo shook her head.

  ‘Yes you do,’ Gally insisted. ‘Do it by yourself. You will find me there too.’ And she seemed to walk away.

  Left alone, Jo climbed down the hill on the far side to the camp and circled around through the fields. She sat in the empty marquee which slowly filled in ones and twos of quiet and disappointed diggers until Lucy and Ali joined her.

  ‘Where have you been?’ Lucy asked.

  She didn’t want to say. ‘I got up early.’

  ‘I can’t bear this.’ Ali was looking around. ‘It’s like everyone is already halfway home in their heads.’

  ‘Real life is leaking in,’ Lucy said. ‘Our isla
nd is crumbling.’

  Andy and Conrad came into the tent and heaped bowls full of cereal as if to emphasise that they, at least, still had work to do.

  ‘So what about you three?’ Conrad asked Ali, staring at her intently.

  ‘We’ll go back home, I suppose.’

  Conrad frowned and that was when Jo sowed the seed of the plan that had come to her on the way down the hill. ‘I don’t see why,’ she said. ‘My mother’s away. Ali, your parents are in Ireland, aren’t they?’

  ‘Yes. Mum’s digging, Dad’s painting – if she lets him.’

  ‘Lucy, where have yours gone?’

  ‘Who knows?’ Lucy said theatrically. ‘I’ll tell you when the postcard comes,’ although she knew perfectly well that they were in Tuscany.

  ‘So there’s no point in going home, is there?’ asked Jo.

  Ali looked uncomfortable. Jo knew she was worrying that her mother would be cross if she found out the dig had ended and they had stayed away. She also knew Ali didn’t want to admit that in front of Conrad.

  ‘It’s a pity there isn’t another dig we could go to,’ Jo said, and Conrad picked it up, just as she had hoped he would.

  ‘But there is,’ he said eagerly. ‘There’s this next one we’re going to when we’ve finished here – the place Rupert was talking about last night. What’s it called? I could ask him. I bet he wouldn’t mind if you came along. That would be really super.’

  ‘Would it?’ said Ali cautiously, but her face was shining.

  ‘Yes,’ said Jo quickly, ‘and you might say that the dig hasn’t ended. It’s just moving somewhere else. That sounds a really good idea.’

  ‘Why not?’ said Andy, putting his arm round Lucy’s shoulders. ‘We should be there quite soon. I can’t see this one taking more than another week. Come on, guys, let’s go and ask him.’

  Jonno went with them and the girls saw them standing at the other end of the tent waiting for Rupert’s attention. He was talking to an army officer.

  ‘A week?’ said Lucy. ‘What are we going to do for a week? Hang around waiting for them?’

  ‘We could go there.’