by John Preston
I can’t say I was in any mood for more surprises. “What do you mean?”
She laughed. “You go and have a look for yourself.”
May was standing in my bedroom. There were red patches on her cheeks. Around the brim of her bonnet her hair was sticking out all over the place.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Old Middleton was coming into Woodbridge. He offered me a lift. You sounded so out of sorts in your last letter, Basil, that I was worried. I thought I’d better see how you were. And I’ve brought you some fresh clothes.”
“I’m all right,” I said. “I am now anyway.”
“Really?”
She lifted her chin and I gave her a kiss. Then we sat together on the bed. The bed is a metal-framed affair, set unusually high off the ground. So high that our legs hung off the sides. The sun was shining straight in through the window. We both had to shield our eyes from the glare.
“Are you pleased to see me, Basil?”
“Course I am.”
“You don’t show it much,” she said.
I gave her another kiss. When we’d finished, I said, “Why don’t you take your hat off?”
She pulled out the pins. As she lifted the hat, her hair sprang up all round her head in stiff corkscrews. “There, is that better?”
“Much better — even better,” I added quickly.
“That Reid Moir. Behaving like he’s Lord God Almighty. If I ever see him I’d like to give him a piece of my mind.”
“Luckily there’s not much chance of that.”
“You’re too trusting, Basil. Yes, you are. How big did you say this ship of yours is?”
“Sixty-four feet so far.”
“Sixty-four feet!”
“And I reckon there could easily be another fifteen to go.”
“Something like this, everyone’s going to want a part of it. You’ll need to watch your back.”
“I’ll be all right.”
“No, really, Basil. I mean it. Play this one properly and you could make quite a name for yourself.”
“I’ll be all right,” I said again, quite keen to change the subject. “So what happened with Potter and the rent?”
“He’s not come back. I think I saw him off. For the time being at least.”
“I hope so.”
“The cheek of it, really. Seeing how little he’s done for us.”
“Best keep him sweet,” I said.
“Don’t you go worrying, Basil.”
“Nothing we can do anyway, is there?”
“Nothing at all.”
The sun was sinking now, just a last few shafts coming in through the window. Downstairs, Billy and Vera were talking. I could hear the mumble of their voices coming up through the floorboards.
“What else have you been up to, then?”
“Nothing much,” she said. “This and that …”
Something about May’s voice made me ask, “What do you mean, ‘This and that?’ ”
“Nothing!”
“Tell me,” I said.
Her cheeks had turned even redder now. “I cleared out your books, Basil.”
“You did what?”
“I had to! I could hardly move. Let alone sit down.”
“What have you done with them?”
“I put some in the roof and others in the shed. The rest I stacked in piles. Don’t be angry with me.”
“I’m not angry,” I said, and almost meant it.
May pressed down in the middle of the bed.
“I don’t think much of this mattress,” she said. “It’s a bit soft, isn’t it? Especially here.”
“It does me well enough.”
She brushed her hand over the crocheted bedspread. “Does this remind you of anything, Basil?”
I laughed. “Course it does.”
Back when May and I were courting, we arranged to meet one evening on Rickinghall Common. We were going to catch the bus into Stowmarket to see the pictures. May had knitted a dress specially. It was in the latest fashion, just over the knee. But on the way there she had to walk across a hay field. The grass was wet and the moisture weighed down the wool. By the time she reached the common the dress was flapping round her ankles.
“What must I have looked like?”
“I didn’t complain, did I?”
“That dress, I don’t know what happened to it.”
“You probably cleared it out,” I said.
We sat on the bed as the light faded around us. The dusk was thickening. The air might have been rubbed with charcoal.
“How much longer do you think you’ll be here, Basil?”
“Could be another three weeks. A month even.”
“That long! I miss you when you’re not at home. Especially now.”
“Come here,” I said.
“I am here, aren’t I?”
“Closer.”
She shifted along the mattress towards me. I started rubbing her back. I could feel her bones poking through like buttons. Then I put my hand around her shoulder.
All at once she pulled away. “Oh, Basil, I can’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“Old Middleton said I had to be down at the Orford road at nine if I wanted a lift back.”
“But I don’t want you to go.”
“I don’t want to go either, Basil. But you know how it is.”
She stood up and started pinning her hat back on. After a while I stood up too. When she’d finished with her hat, she bent over and checked herself in the mirror.
“You be careful with old Middleton,” I told her.
“What do you mean?”
“You heard me.”
“Don’t be daft, Basil. They don’t call him old Middleton for nothing, you know. Why, you’re not jealous, are you?”
“No,” I said. “Maybe. Just a little.”
“Really, you do talk some rubbish sometimes, you know.”
“Do I?”
“Not that I mind, not necessarily. Makes a girl feel wanted.”
“You should do,” I said.
“Should do what?”
“Feel wanted.”
She laughed. Then she put the backs of her fingers up against my cheek. “You be sure to take care of yourself.”
“I will.”
“Don’t work too hard either. And remember, Basil, don’t you take any more nonsense from that Reid Moir.”
The next morning I finished uncovering the line of discolored sand I’d found the day before. It ran straight across the ship — almost from one gunwale to the other. An hour later, John Jacobs found another one. Again, there was a single discolored line running across the ship. This second line, though, was less regular than the first — it was more like a faint thread running through the earth.
We measured the gap between the two lines. It was eighteen feet. The more I thought about it, the more likely I reckoned these were the remains of the burial-chamber walls. When I told Mrs. Pretty, she insisted on having a look for herself. I held the bottom of the ladder with my foot so that it didn’t slide and guided her down rung by rung. She knelt on a piece of hessian and inspected both of the lines.
“You really think this might be it, Mr. Brown?”
“I don’t know,” I told her. “Not for sure. But it might be, yes.”
Throughout the afternoon we continued shaving down the area in the center of the ship, taking it off one thin layer at a time. As we were doing so, I found a third discolored line. This one was much shorter than the others — barely four feet in length and running downwards as well as outwards towards the position of the gunwale.
Sitting on the edge of the trench, I tried to work out what these lines could mean. The best theory I could fix on was this: the original burial chamber probably sat in the bottom of the ship with a pitched roof, much like a picture of Noah’s Ark in a child’s storybook. The Oseberg chamber seems to have been built like this — as far as I could tell from the
illustrations in Maynard’s book. But at some stage the roof must have fallen in. Most likely due to the weight of soil. The fall seems certain to have dislodged the contents of the chamber. Of course, there’s also a possibility it might have crushed them in the process.
I drew a sketch of how the chamber might have looked — as close to scale as I could make it. I was staring at this sketch when Maynard appeared. I could tell straightaway there was something wrong. He’s a real worry-guts at the best of times. Now, though, he looked more bilious than ever. Rather than ask what the matter was, I decided to wait until he told me. As expected, it didn’t take long.
“Basil,” he said, “I fear I have done a foolish thing.”
“How’s that, then?”
“I meant no harm by it, I swear. Quite the reverse. My intention was solely to make sure that we — that you were on the right track. I wrote to Megaw in the Isle of Man.”
“Megaw?”
“Yes, at the museum there. I knew that he had records of burials that had been found on the island. Records that could be very useful in determining the precise date of this ship. Well,” he said in a shriller voice than before, “how could I know that he had been at Cambridge with Charles Phillips? No sooner had Megaw received my letter than he contacted Phillips and read it out to him. Over the telephone,” he added, as if this made the whole thing even worse. “Now everyone seems to know about the dig. There’s already talk of the British Museum becoming involved. And the Ministry of Works.”
“Oh, Lord.”
“I know, Basil. I know … I never imagined a little thing would have such implications. As you can imagine, Reid Moir is furious. Apart from anything else, he can’t stand Phillips. It turns out there’s bad blood between them from way back. Apparently Phillips wrested control of the East Anglia Society from him in the most underhand fashion. You know how Reid Moir can be sometimes — far from reasonable, frankly. He spoke to me in the most — the most disparaging tones.”
I folded up the drawing and put it in my pocket. Maynard was still standing there, looking as if he’d swallowed a pound of worms.
“What do you think we should do, Basil?” he asked.
“Not much we can do, I wouldn’t have thought. Except wait and see. Whatever happens, I dare say we’ll be the last to know.”
When Robert appeared the next morning, he said that his mother wasn’t feeling well and might not come out today. Not unless we found anything significant. He also mentioned that she’d had a visitor the night before. He’d been about to go to bed, he said, when someone had rung the front doorbell.
I can’t say I’d been paying much attention to this. Not until Robert said that this visitor had been large. Then I did come to.
“How do you mean ‘large’?” I asked him.
“Fat,” he said, and giggled. “Although I’m not meant to say that.”
“What did he look like?”
“I’ve just told you, Mr. Brown.”
“Did you notice anything else about him?”
“He wore a bow tie.”
“Did he now?”
“It had spots on it.”
“Yes,” I said, “I thought it might have done. And had you seen this man before?”
He shook his head. “But Mama must have known him.”
“How do you work that out?”
“Because he called her his dear lady.”
“His ‘dear lady’? How did she like that?”
“I think she pretended not to notice.”
“You didn’t happen to catch this man’s name, did you?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Brown.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “Doesn’t matter at all.”
“But Mr. Grateley would know it,” he added. “He showed him in.”
“So he would.”
“I could run and ask him if you like.”
“No need to do that.”
“Shall I, Mr. Brown?”
“Go on, then, boy.”
He ran off, returning just a few minutes later. “Grateley said that he was called Phillips — Mr. Charles Phillips. Do you know him?”
“I know of him. He’s an archaeologist. From Selwyn College, Cambridge.”
“What do you think he’s doing here?”
“I’m not sure exactly. Although I reckon I can make a pretty good guess.”
Throughout the morning, we kept on digging in the middle of the ship — in the area where I suspected the burial chamber must be. For fear of disturbing the soil, I switched to a trowel, a brush and the bodkin. While this was sure to take longer, there was less risk of doing any damage. Yet despite being careful not to hurry, I felt more of a sense of urgency than ever before. It was like having a metal band round my head, growing tighter and tighter.
Meanwhile, I crept along, scraping and brushing. The three discolored lines went down a good fourteen inches without getting any lighter. Despite not finding anything, I could be sure of one thing — there were no signs of disturbance. That didn’t mean that the burial chamber was still intact, of course. On the other hand, it was hard to see how else any robbers could have got in. Not without leaving a trace. And if the chamber really hadn’t been touched — well, anyone with any degree of curiosity would have to wonder what might be inside. No matter how hard they tried to stop themselves.
At the end of the day, when Robert and I had finished covering over the center of the ship, he said, “Mr. Brown …”
“Yes?”
“I’ve been thinking.”
“You’ll give yourself a headache if you’re not careful. What have you been thinking about now?”
“If Mama has any more visitors, would you like me to keep my ears open and tell you what happens?”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” I said.
“It wouldn’t be any trouble for me.”
“I’m sure it wouldn’t. But even so …”
“I wouldn’t tell anyone either. It could be our secret.”
“Our secret, eh?”
“All I’d have to do was listen.”
“Listeners hear no good of themselves. That’s what they say, you know.”
There’s a bruised look that comes into Robert’s eyes sometimes. When he doesn’t understand what’s going on, or feels left out.
“All right, then,” I said. “Our secret. But just make sure you don’t get caught.”
“I won’t, Mr. Brown,” he said — he’d already started running back to the house. “I promise you.”
There was no sign of Mrs. Pretty the following day. I assumed that this was because she was still feeling poorly, but then Robert said she’d gone down to London. He seemed puzzled by this and when I asked why, he said that she normally went on a Wednesday and this was a Thursday.
He also had more information to pass on. The previous evening his mother had had a telephone call from the Ministry of Works. Apparently, they’d been making a lot of fuss about a roof, saying how an excavation of this importance shouldn’t be left open to the elements.
Already I could smell the busybodies gathering. Building a roof was bound to take several days, I would have thought — and no doubt all digging would have to be halted in the meantime. Mrs. Pretty, however, had not taken kindly to this suggestion. According to Robert, she’d told them to get lost. Or words to that effect anyway.
“She was very angry,” he said. “I could hear her talking on the telephone from my bedroom. And she was still angry when she came up to read to me. Afterwards, Mama went back downstairs to the sitting room and shut the door behind her … I’m afraid that’s all I was able to find out.”
“You’ve done well,” I told him.
“Have I?”
“Yes, you have, boy.”
Putting all this aside, as much as I was able to, I began to excavate the western end of the chamber. Within a few minutes, I came across something solid. Working outwards, I found the edge of this object and began to trowel my way around the out
side. After a couple of hours, I could see that the object appeared to be made out of clay. It was about three feet in length and eighteen inches wide. There was a dip in the middle. In this dip I found a number of stones and two small fragments of charcoal.
“Ever seen one of those before, Baz?” John asked after we’d cleaned it off.
I shook my head.
It was a big slab of clay. There was no telling if it had been made by hand. From where it was lying, it must originally have been placed on the roof of the chamber. Somehow the slab had remained in one piece when the roof collapsed.
The four of us prised it free. It was surprisingly light — much lighter than the butcher’s tray in the first mound. Underneath lay a square patch of earth. This patch was much darker than the sandy soil all around. Just like a trapdoor.
None of us said anything. We just stared down at the square of darkened earth. As we did so, that sense I’d had of a metal band tightening round my head — all of a sudden it was as if it had sprung apart and wasn’t there any more.
“Baz?” said Will quietly.
“Yes,” I said. “I think so …”
Taking the bodkin, I began scratching away. I scratched my way up one narrow strip of earth and then down again. The first chink was so faint I scarcely heard it. I tried again. There was another chink. With the brush, I swept the earth away. As I did so, a bluish-gray shape began to appear.
I told myself it was probably a pebble. I went on telling myself it was a pebble until I could be certain that it wasn’t. It was a coin, no bigger than a shirt button. Not entirely circular, but close enough and with sharp edges. I rubbed it down, cleaning off the earth. On one side of it was a plain cross. On the other what appeared to be the imprint of a head.
Everyone crowded round, keen to have a look. When we’d all finished doing so, I looked up to see Grateley walking towards us. His tail coat was swinging behind him.
He stopped at the entrance to the trench. “I have a message for you, Basil,” he said.
“What’s that, then?”
“It’s from Mr. Charles Phillips.”
“Yes?”
“He says you are to stop work immediately and to replace all the tarpaulins.”
“Stop work?” said John Jacobs. “What the hell do you mean ‘stop work’?”