by Kim Fleet
Aidan didn’t answer immediately, but stared ahead through the windscreen and faked irritation at a youth dawdling across the street, texting on a mobile phone. He parked the car in a space behind the ladies’ college.
‘We’re here now,’ he said, and saw the shadow of disappointment flicker across her face. ‘You still like Italian, don’t you? You’ll love this place.’
It was too early in the week and too early in the evening for the restaurant to be full. Aidan wasn’t sure if he preferred it that way. An empty restaurant was less intimate than a busy one with its press of warm bodies, exhaled wine and shared secrets. Yet this table near the window felt exposed. He reminded himself he was only having dinner with a colleague; a respectful thing to do. They both knew that was a lie.
‘A bottle of house red,’ Lisa said, when the waiter came for their order.
‘I’m driving,’ Aidan said.
‘That’s OK. I’m not.’ She spoke in Italian to the waiter, who clamped her hand in his and chatted back to her effusively, something that sounded flirty. Lisa lapped it up. She’d been the same that summer they were on a dig together in Italy. Hot studs panting after her everywhere she went. They couldn’t get enough of this sunburnt rose with her dirty laugh and naughty eyes. He’d spent three months lousy with jealousy, his fists constantly balled, just in case. It didn’t change a thing.
‘Aidan? What’re you having?’
He snapped back to the present and cast his eye down the menu, ordering the duck special.
Lisa took a slug of wine and studied him across the table. ‘So why aren’t you married, Aidan? You’re well over thirty now.’
‘So are you.’
‘Yes, but I’m different.’
He tore open the paper wrapping on a breadstick. ‘I thought you were going to marry that journalist. What was his name?’
‘Luka, and that’s ancient history. There’ve been a couple of contenders since then. Anyway, don’t change the subject.’ She topped up his glass. ‘You’re not bad looking; sensible job; quite good in bed.’ She raised an eyebrow at him, making him strangely ashamed. ‘I’m surprised some woman hasn’t dragged you up the aisle a long time ago.’ She swallowed a mouthful of wine. ‘So?’
He shrugged. Lisa’s pupils were huge in the dim restaurant and her skin was flushed from the wine. Beneath that pixie exterior was a passionate, intelligent woman. A description that could fit Eden, he supposed. Except.
‘There is a woman, actually,’ he said.
‘That’s great.’ Lisa sat back in her chair. He glanced at her and looked away, knew she was regrouping and deciding on her new strategy; he wasn’t sure how he felt about it. ‘Tell me all.’
‘We’ve been going out for a while. She’s lovely. It’s great. That’s it.’ He wished he hadn’t said anything, wished he could suck all the words back in again. Too late, now, Lisa was in for the kill.
‘What’s she called?’
‘Eden.’ Saying her name, offering it to Lisa, felt like betrayal. Ridiculous.
‘Eden?’ He hated the quizzical way she said Eden’s name. ‘That’s … unusual. Eden and Aidan. There’s quite a ring to it, don’t you think?’
‘I’ve never thought about it.’
‘Eden and Aidan.’ Lisa’s voice took on a sing-song quality. She snuffled a laugh. ‘Eden and Aidan, sitting in a tree. K … I … S … S …’
‘Your antipasta, signorina.’ The waiter materialised with a plate of artichoke hearts which he swished in front of Lisa.
By the time she’d finished fluttering her eyelashes at the waiter and flirting in Italian, she’d moved on from Eden’s name. ‘What does she do?’ Lisa asked, spearing an artichoke and popping it in her mouth. A slick of oil glazed her bottom lip.
‘She’s a private investigator.’
Lisa leaned forward, her eyes sparkling. ‘A private dick? That’s … well! Does she carry a gun?’
‘No.’ Did she? For all he knew Eden toted a pistol in that leather messenger bag she used as a handbag.
‘What else?’
‘What else what?’
‘Tell me about her.’ Lisa brushed her fingers over the back of his hand. He slid his hand away, off the table. ‘Siblings? Where did she grow up? Where did she go to uni? How did she become a private eye?’
‘No siblings, I don’t think. Not sure where she grew up. Uni in London.’ Had Eden said London? He wasn’t sure. And why did she become a private investigator? It’d been a while before he even found out what she did for a living. Research, she’d said, for the first six months they’d known each other, until eventually she’d come clean. And she’d made it quite clear any further questions were unwelcome.
‘Right.’ Lisa had her face in neutral. He knew that look: it meant she was thinking a lot and was holding back. Trying to be polite. ‘As long as she makes you happy.’
‘Here’s our pasta,’ Aidan said, relieved, as the waiter approached again. There was the ritual of putting down the plates, the appearance of a block of parmesan and a grater, the wielding of an unfeasibly large pepper mill, then at last buon appetito and they were released to savour their meal.
‘Serious?’
Aidan didn’t understand what she meant. His fork hesitated, hovering above his plate as he frowned at her.
‘You and Eden?’ Lisa said. ‘Is it serious?’
‘Probably.’
The tide went out quickly on the wine bottle. He had one glass. After the pasta, Lisa put away a tiramisu, to the evident delight of the waiter, who brought them coffee for free. She ordered a limoncello to accompany it. When a pile of notes lay on top of the bill, Lisa yanked her coat from the back of her chair.
‘Where’s your place?’ she said.
‘I’ve got a flat in a Regency house.’
‘Nice. Let’s go, then.’
‘Aren’t you going back to Oxford?’
‘Tomorrow morning. Got to write my report first.’
She turned and called goodbye to the smitten waiter, then they went out on to the Promenade. The wind cut down the street and the pavement was splattered with pigeon droppings. Tree roots had lifted some of the paving slabs. Lisa tripped on them and caught his sleeve. He disentangled himself, ramming his hands in his coat pockets.
‘Still allergic to being touched,’ Lisa said, lightly, but there was an edge of steel underneath her words.
He didn’t answer, but walked further apart from her and was relieved the car was merely a step away.
He drove the short distance to his flat and parked in the only free space outside: always available because the ground dipped and formed a permanent puddle. Lisa crowded behind him, shivering as he found his key and opened the front door. Her boots clattered on the stone staircase as they toiled up to his flat.
‘This is me,’ he said, cracking open the door.
Inside it was clean and sparse. The sofa was a biscuit colour, well made and long enough for him to lie full stretch along it. A couple of scarlet cushions perched at each end, finely plumped and set at the same angle. The bookshelves, set into the alcoves either side of the fireplace, were crowded with books, arranged according to colour. A shelf of blue spines, one of old orange Penguins, a line of black paperbacks. Classic novels, mathematics, code breaking, Greek myths, architecture, poetry.
He watched her looking at the eclectic mix, at the old red Bakelite radio on the mantlepiece, at the perfect symmetry of the room.
‘Cup of tea?’ he asked.
‘Sure.’ Lisa wandered to the window and peered out at the mellow stone Regency buildings curving opposite. ‘This is lovely.’
‘I like it.’
‘The Cultural Heritage Unit is obviously paying you well.’
He didn’t answer, just placed a tray with teapot, cups, saucers and a jug of milk on the table. ‘I can’t remember if you take sugar,’ he said.
Lisa shook her head. ‘Or milk. Got used to having it black when I was abroad.’
The w
ar crimes case. She’d been determined to take it, even though it took her away from him; even though it signalled the end of their relationship. A long time ago now. Ten years.
He poured a cup of tea and carried it over to her, and stood beside her while she sipped her tea and gazed out at the church tower lit up against the night sky.
When he turned to say something, she kissed him. Suddenly, yet not unexpectedly. The scent of her skin was so familiar it was like coming home. The perfume on her hair sent him spiralling back through the years. She broke away to put down her cup, then gently put her arms about his neck and brought his lips down to hers. She tasted of wine and chocolate and the ghost of cigarettes. So easy to fall back in love with her.
Aidan pulled away, picked up the cup and saucer from the carpet and carried them into his kitchen. The toaster wasn’t quite parallel to the wall and he moved it back into place. A line of herbs, a present from Eden, sat on the windowsill. He plucked off a couple of leaves and crushed them in his fingers, releasing the scent of thyme.
‘I’ll walk you to your hotel,’ he said, coming back into the sitting room.
The county archives in Gloucester had a box of materials on the Cheltenham Park School. Aidan bagged a table in the corner of the study room and took everything out piece by piece, placing it in front of him like a giant jigsaw. Photographs of rows of pupils with serious expressions and nineteen-thirties haircuts. The school during the Second World War, the hockey pitches dug up for vegetables and Anderson shelters. A plan of the house when it was built; designs for the pleasure gardens and the Temple of Venus in the grounds. Account books: page after page of scrawly faded writing. At some point the books had been exposed to water – ink slipped across the pages in a slick, the words obliterated for ever.
Aidan peered into the background of the school photos. The formal gardens – clipped hedges and geometric paths – were there, in the swathe of land between the building and the Temple of Venus. The skeletons were found there, in the formal gardens, close to the original building, an area that had hardly been touched in the past two hundred years, not even by war, until now, the diggers had grubbed it all up for foundations for a gymnasium and science block. Progress.
Aidan ground the heels of his hands into his eyes. It had been a mistake to walk Lisa back to her hotel last night. He should have phoned her a taxi, waved her off and escaped, instead. He groaned. Instead of walking her along frost-sparkled pavements to her hotel, agreeing to have a drink at the bar, talking over old times. Staying too late; drinking too much; chewing over the past and raking it all up again. And then she’d leaned forwards, her eyes dark and huge, and looking more than ever like a sprite from another world, and asked him something so startling at first he assumed he’d misheard her. When clarification proved he hadn’t misheard, he recoiled, left in a hurry. And to make it worse, he realised he’d left his scarf in her room, handing her an excuse to be back in touch with him.
He groaned again, reaping a disapproving look from a dedicated genealogist occupying a study carrel opposite. It was a right fucking mess.
Aidan shuffled the papers around the desk until they formed a new pattern. In front of him were the plans for the building that was now the school: a massive Georgian residence of mellow stone, the Temple of Venus in the line of sight of the formal rooms on the first floor. A dotted line joined the house to the temple. He squinted at the diagram, struggling to make out the writing. What was that? It cut right across the formal gardens. Suddenly the pattern cleared. Pushing back his chair, he went outside, lurking by the fire escape to make a phone call.
‘Trev? Aidan. Can you and Mandy get a geophys survey of the school site? I think I’ve found something interesting. I’ll tell you where to focus.’
He sweet-talked the archivist into making copies of the diagrams for him. When she returned with the sheets, she also offered a leather-bound book which she carried in gloved hands.
‘This is a diary, written in Cheltenham in the 1790s, when the house was built,’ she said, handing him a pair of white cotton gloves. ‘It was originally called Greville House. Could be some mention of it in here, if you’re interested.’
‘Sure, I’ll have a look.’ Any excuse to delve into the past, he thought, relishing the familiar tremor of expectation as he handled the book and wondered what treasures it contained. Details of what people had for dinner, gossip about their neighbours, complaints about tradesmen: it all fascinated him. He could spare another hour in the archives to browse through this. And by the time he got back to the office, Lisa should be safely on her way to Oxford and it’d be another ten years before he saw her again. Hopefully.
Ezekiel Proudfoot, the diary’s author, was concerned with three topics: marrying off his daughters, the quality of the sermons he heard in church each Sunday, and his bowel movements. The last, it appeared, were not eased by the reputed health properties of Cheltenham waters, no matter how many gallons of the sulphuric brew he downed at the town spas.
Aidan settled in his chair for an hour’s entertainment in Ezekiel’s company. His descriptions of Georgian Cheltenham were diverting, and the acerbic comments about worthy Cheltenham personalities could have come straight from a contemporary gossip magazine. But what made Aidan sit up and reach for his notebook were the remarks Ezekiel made about one Mr Ellison:
Mr Ellison occupies the finest house in Cheltenham, Greville House, the largest villa in the whole district. It is a mixed honour to be invited there, though Mrs Proudfoot insists we should go. She, good innocent woman, thinks only of viewing the rooms and furnishings, perusing the pleasure gardens that have recently been planted, and of deciding which ideas she shall copy in our own much more humble home, at great calamity to my pocket, no doubt. But it is not the expense of new tables and curtains and paths that stays my hand. It is the reputation Mr Ellison is unhappy to own in Cheltenham, the rumours of the company he keeps and of a secret society that meets in his own home, in Greville House!
I am not one for idle gossip, as any who knows me will testify, but when I hear from our own parson that Greville House is linked in infamy with the Hellfire Club, then it becomes a place where I cannot let my dear wife and daughters pass a minute. No matter how grand the wallpapers nor how piteously they cry to be allowed to go.
It is rumoured that there is a society, the so-called Paternoster Club, that meets in Greville House, attended by many a fine gentleman and many a woman of low morals. Alas, even here in Cheltenham we have such women. Actresses, and worse. I cannot divine the purpose of the club, only that it is closed to any who are not of sufficient means, and any who are not of appropriate temperament. By which is meant, I infer, debauched, depraved, corrupt and dissolute.
No, I told Mrs Proudfoot firmly. We shall not accept the invitation to go to Greville House to see the rooms and gardens and the Temple of Venus now it is all finished. We shall stay at home, and count our blessings.
She was not cheered by this.
Lisa was outside his office, sucking deeply on a cigarette, when Aidan got back to Cheltenham.
‘Thought you’d be back in Oxford by now,’ he said, kicking himself for sounding churlish.
If she noticed, she didn’t react. She ground the cigarette out with her heel and kicked the stub into the gutter. ‘I’ve finished my report but thought we could add in whatever you got from the archives, and anything else the team have turned up.’
‘Not your job to do this, surely?’ They both knew it wasn’t. Go in, look at the bones, make a pronouncement, go home, write a report. That was how it worked.
‘I know, but it’s nice to be working together again. It’s been far too long. We don’t see enough of each other.’
She held the door open for him, and they went into the office together.
‘Ah, you’re back,’ Trev greeted him, a tea-stained mug clamped in his nicotine-stained mitt. Aidan experienced a rare sensation: being pleased to see Trev.
‘Everyone in the meeting room
?’ Aidan asked.
‘Just grabbing a cup of tea. Mandy’s found a packet of biscuits!’ Trev sloped off to the meeting room, evidently happy with life.
Aidan followed him, aware of Lisa close on his shoulder. Mandy and Andy were already in the meeting room, in deep discussion over a printout spread in front of them. Today Mandy’s hair was an even more virulent shade of red than normal, making her skin jaundiced. She wore a silver ring on each finger, each set with a different semi-precious stone. Andy was young, strong and tattooed, his blond hair gelled into a quiff. Andy, Mandy and Trev. They sounded like children’s TV presenters. Looked like it too, in their bright, stripy sweaters. Aidan sighed, seeing his team through Lisa’s eyes.
Mandy and Trev were seasoned archaeologists who’d worked at the Cultural Heritage Unit for years. He’d inherited them when he took up the post of director. Andy was fresh out of university, hardworking and enthusiastic, and surprisingly tolerant of Trev’s habit of referring to him as the YTS boy.
Lisa took a seat next to Mandy. She glanced at Aidan and announced in a stage whisper, ‘Cute, isn’t he?’
‘Who? Aidan?’ Mandy asked, her eyes round with disbelief.
‘All right, my lover?’ Trev said, huffing into the chair on Lisa’s other side. He was a galumphing bear of a man in his forties, his hair a grizzled halo. A frowsty, stale wool odour hung over him like a miasma.
‘I’m fine, thanks,’ she said, quirking an eyebrow at Aidan as if to say ‘quaint staff you’ve got here’. Aidan ignored her, drawing a black notebook from his coat pocket. It was fastened with an elastic band, and had a fountain pen clipped to the top. The notebook was expensive, an indulgence: Eden had bought him a stash of them for Christmas. Seeing it now brought a faint twinge of guilt.
Aidan cleared his throat to mark the start of the meeting. ‘So,’ he said, declining the biscuit packet as it circulated. How long had those biscuits been around? They looked prehistoric. ‘Did you excavate those with the skeletons?’