The Lifers' Club

by Francis Pryor

  ‘Please, everyone calls me Harry.’

  She didn’t give him a chance to reply.

  ‘I joined PFC just after he’d set it up, back in January 2004, but I’d already been working for Reference Collections since the autumn, September, I think.’

  This puzzled Alan.

  ‘I gather Reference Collections specialises in faunal remains – and that’s Paul’s own field. Why on earth would they want a human bones person there?’

  ‘In those days there was quite a big market in human material, especially for hospital and medical school reference collections.’

  ‘Really? Actual human skeletons? Where on earth did you get them from?’

  ‘Mostly, I gather, paupers from China and people who’ve willed their bodies to science. But now various disease scares have finished that off. And not before time.’

  ‘So what happens now?’

  ‘Oh today it’s entirely plastic replicas. We do over two or three dozen: male and female, various ages from babies to old men. We’re importers from most of the big replica companies, mainly based in the States and increasingly in China and the Far East.’

  ‘I didn’t know that. Is it profitable?’

  ‘You bet. Paul adds a two, sometimes a three hundred per cent mark-up. It’s a nice little earner.’

  ‘And your role in all this?’

  ‘Very minor, which is why I spend nine tenths of my time over at the Archaeology Centre. Over here my job is to check through what the replica factories send back to us, to make sure it’s what we – or rather our clients – ordered. And very often it isn’t.’

  ‘Doesn’t say much about their quality control, does it? What, someone orders a baby girl and they send over an eighty-year-old man?’

  ‘No it’s rarely as obvious as that. Maybe a twenty-five-year-old woman is sent instead of a twenty-year-old man.’

  ‘And you can spot that?’

  Alan was impressed.

  ‘Yes, although sometimes it can be quite difficult, especially if they get parts of the skeleton mixed up…’

  ‘What, like a young man’s legs with an old ladies’ fingers?’

  ‘Yes, that sort of thing. I certainly earn my keep when I’m checking replica bones.’

  Alan nodded, quietly impressed. He could think of graduate students who’d have trouble distinguishing the skull of a twenty-year-old man from an eighty-five-year-old woman, let alone their finger bones.

  They finished their teas. The radio in the corner started the 8 a.m. news bulletin. At the sound of the Greenwich pips, Harriet had leant over and wiped condensation off the inside of the window. She was looking out intently. Then she sat back.

  ‘Ah, good, she’s on time,’ she said.

  ‘On time?’ Alan was puzzled. ‘Who?’

  ‘This month’s work experience girl. I’d thought I’d give her a quick tour while I showed you over the place…’

  ‘I didn’t know I was getting a site tour first.’

  ‘Yes, Paul phoned me last night. Thought it would be a good idea. And I agree.’

  ‘So you decided to kill two birds with one stone?’

  ‘Yes, but it shouldn’t take long, I’ve done it dozens of times.’

  Harriet turned to the door, which a young woman was now rapidly approaching:

  ‘We’ll do a quick tour through the hangar. Then you and I can nip round and see Paul in his office, about nine thirty. OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  Harriet looked at a note on her iPad.

  ‘Her name’s Sheelah, by the way.’

  * * *

  Most of the young people who Alan worked with were intelligent, but sadly Sheelah was an exception. As she walked towards them, he could see her body language was flat. And it wasn’t just that she was a bit overweight, and was chewing gum. Her eyes were listless. He guessed her attention span was short. He could see at once she wasn’t even slightly interested. He glanced across to Harriet, who raised her eyes to heaven.

  ‘Oh no, not another one…’ she muttered under her breath, while smiling a greeting.

  They headed across the concrete apron towards the hangar. The white van, now loaded up, was slowly reversing out, and as it did so, another one, with a seemingly identical pair of young Asian men, drove across to take its place.

  ‘They’re busy today?’ he asked Harriet

  ‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘a big order for one of the Gulf States, I forget which. They’re setting up a vast air-conditioned museum somewhere out in the desert. Part of a huge new leisure complex, aimed at tourists.’

  ‘Why on earth would they want reference collections?’

  Harriet smiled.

  ‘No,’ she replied, ‘it’s nothing to do with the Reference Collections side. It’s a big contract for The Museum Shop. Twenty large display cases. Plus lighting, the works. I think we even did some of the designs. Paul’s very excited. It’s a big feather in his cap. He’s already been out there half a dozen times. Word has it he’s going to make a mint.’

  Sheelah was looking more than usually lost. Alan turned to her.

  ‘The Paul we’re talking about is our boss. He’s the man who set this place up. He’s a specialist in the study of animal bones from archaeological sites.’

  ‘What? Dinosaurs?’

  It was Alan’s turn to stifle a groan.

  ‘No,’ he replied brightly, ‘mostly more ordinary domestic animals, like cattle, sheep and pigs. Then back in 2003 Paul had the bright idea of providing material for people setting up reference collections.’

  Sheelah still looked blank. Then she asked her second question.

  ‘What’s a reference collection?’

  Alan was visibly flagging. It was Harriet’s turn to shoulder the burden.

  ‘I look at human bones, mostly from old churchyards and I use collections – we call them reference collections – of bones from known people.’

  ‘What, you know their names?’ Sheelah was horrified.

  ‘No, that would be horrible.’ Harriet continued, ‘these collections are mostly in universities, museums and hospitals and the bones are from people who have given their bodies to science. The point is, we know the age and gender of the individuals in these reference collections and also what disease killed them, if, that is, they died early. This helps me if, for example, the site I’m working on has produced a bone with signs of leprosy.’

  ‘Yes,’ Alan cut in helpfully, ‘but you can do much more than that. If you find, say, a hip bone you can tell if the person was male or female and in certain cases whether they’d had children.’

  ‘And if you find other bones,’ Harriet added, ‘bits of skull and teeth, in particular, you can work out, to within about five years, when that person died.’

  They both looked at the girl. Nothing had sunk in. Harriet gave a barely perceptible shrug of her shoulders.

  They entered the hangar through the main door, which was slowly rolling back to let the second white van enter. It had started to drizzle outside. A powerful arc light, high in the hanger roof, cut in automatically as the cloud cover increased.

  They stood aside while the van backed in. Alan was impressed by what he saw: there must have been over a dozen large Portakabins stacked two, and in places three high, arranged along each side of the vast building. At the centre was a loading dock, stacked with pallets and stout wooden cases. Two forklift trucks were collecting more from somewhere at the far end of the building.

  ‘Are all these… these…’

  ‘Portakabins,’ Alan suggested.

  ‘Yes,’ Sheelah continued, ‘are all these Portakabins full of human bones?’

  ‘Good heavens, no,’ Alan replied, ‘most of the Reference Collections business is actually animal bones and small botanical samples.’

  ‘Seeds, pollen
grains, that sort of thing,’ Harriet added. ‘Just think of anything a working university or museum might need, like samples of rocks, crystals, and of course fossils. Lots of fossils.’

  Before Harriet could finish, Sheelah had started to wander off. It was as if she had no control over her legs. Maybe the brain-to-leg nerve had atrophied through lack of use. Somehow they had to keep her under control. Harriet caught her up, gently took her shoulder and pointed.

  ‘And there’s a vast storeroom at the back, as well.’

  By this point they had passed behind the right-hand stack of Portakabins and were walking past a series of doors which led to further rooms along the main outer wall.

  Harriet pointed at the doors.

  ‘These are where the samples are prepared, catalogued and stored.’

  Alan was surprised Sheelah hadn’t asked what a sample was.

  As they continued towards the back of the building, it started to grow much darker, and a lot colder. To their relief Sheelah shivered. Her legs took command again: they didn’t like the atmosphere back here. So they headed her back towards the main doors. This time Alan and Harriet let her lead the way. They’d given up the unequal struggle. As they walked, Harriet kept up a running commentary.

  ‘These Portakabins are where our museum display company, The Museum Shop prepare manikins, scale models and other things to go in display cases. Interactive graphics are the current big thing and they’re prepared in that Portakabin up there.’ She pointed at a smart, noticeably newer Portakabin perched right at the top, near the front. ‘And over the back there,’ she continued, indicating behind the Portakabins, ‘is the Innovations Space where we do most of the development work for new products. Would you like to take a look?’

  Sheelah was miles away. Harriet took a deep breath. It was Alan’s turn to take up the burden. He tapped the girl on the shoulder to get her attention and pointed to a door set back in the outer wall and largely obscured by darkness.

  ‘That’s the BCA, the Biological Cleansing Area. It was the first thing Paul established when he moved in. It’s where bones are cleaned for both reference collections and eventual display.’

  His words tailed off. Sheelah was completely oblivious to everything they were saying. And now she was also doing something with a bright pink phone. She could have stepped into a snake pit without noticing. Then something snapped. He bent down and hissed in her ear:

  ‘Please put that thing away and listen to me.’

  Even Sheelah could see he meant business. She put her phone away and asked:

  ‘What did you say it was called?’

  ‘The Biological Cleansing Area. It’s where we remove the flesh and fats from the bones.’

  Her eyes were large now.

  ‘What, like my mum, with sharp knives?’

  ‘No, we can’t use knives, as they’d cut and scrape the bones. So we put them into special tanks which we fill with maggots…’

  Somehow Alan was determined to get through to this girl, even if it meant being blunt.

  ‘What, live ones?’ Sheelah asked, horrified.

  ‘Yes, they have to be alive or else they wouldn’t eat the flesh.’

  ‘That’s disgusting!

  She was now backing towards the main hangar doors, towards the light. Alan could see she was about to run.

  ‘I’m only here because the college said I had to. They never said I’d have to work with live maggots.’

  Alan started to explain that she’d be in another building entirely, but she refused to listen. Her brain had closed down. She turned on her heels and ran headlong towards the doors.

  They watched her flee in silence. Then Harriet turned to Alan.

  ‘Thanks a lot. She was going to be our assistant. And you don’t need brains to wash bones.’

  Alan tried to apologise, but Harriet wasn’t having it.

  ‘So now we’re screwed. Thanks a bundle, Alan. I do hope you feel better.’

  * * *

  Alan knew he had screwed up, and no, he didn’t feel any better. Harriet was walking alongside him, head down and frowning, as they entered the Archaeology Building and headed down the long corridor to Paul’s office.

  They knocked on the door and waited. Even though he felt cowed, Alan had never been a patient man. He was about to open the door, when Harriet restrained him.

  ‘Oh come on,’ he said under his breath, ‘we haven’t got all day to hang around in the corridor. Let’s go in. He’s probably just on the phone.’

  ‘No, Alan,’ she insisted, ‘don’t. It’s not worth it. You’ve done enough for one day. Just wait till he says “enter”.’

  Alan would probably have ignored her, had the door not suddenly opened wide, and Paul stood before them. Alan was shocked. It had been nearly a decade since he had seen Paul, but he looked as if he aged much more than seven years. He was still two or three inches taller than Alan, but had grown, if anything thinner. His hair was receding quite markedly now, and his pale neck seemed scrawny. But if he noticed Alan’s startled reaction, he didn’t show it.

  ‘I’m so sorry to keep you waiting, but that was Piers Gabbit from Heskell Makepiece, and you know you can’t trifle with him – or them.’

  Neither name meant anything to Alan. He glanced at Harriet who for a fraction of a second seemed equally at a loss. Then they both nodded, sagely.

  Paul shook Alan’s hand.

  ‘Good to see you again, Alan, glad you could come on board.’

  ‘It’ll be just like old times,’ Alan said breezily.

  ‘Well, yes and no,’ replied Paul in somewhat formal tones.

  ‘I’m kept rather busy by the demands of managing the company nowadays. I simply don’t have time for the physical labour side of things anymore.’

  The way Paul said it he made Alan and Harriet’s job sound more like digging a drain than the highly skilled work of an archaeological excavation. But this wasn’t altogether unexpected. Alan realised that Paul was pulling rank. Best to play along.

  ‘Of course, but you’re a natural manager, Paul. Your grasp of the admin and the funding issues at Flax Hole saved the dig, as I recall. I’d have been useless without you.’

  It was a bit blatant, but Paul lapped it up. Harriet, however, only just managed to conceal her distaste.

  ‘Well,’ Paul continued, plainly more than a little pleased with himself, ‘we all have our weaknesses, and our strengths of course. Talking of which, what do you make of this?’

  On the table were maps and a geophysical plan of the churchyard at St Guthlic’s. Alan immediately leant forward to examine the resistivity printout. The printout showed a wealth of detail below the churchyard’s surface: he could see the outline of graves, pits and post-holes; also the foundations of the church and its tower’s wall-footings.

  ‘Phew,’ he muttered half to himself, ‘it’s far more crowded than I’d expected. It’s a good plan. Did you do it in-house?’

  ‘Yes, six weeks ago, during a dry spell.’

  Alan was impressed. It was a good piece of work.

  ‘I like the look of that small group of graves there, near the tower.’

  ‘Why’s that?’ Harriet asked.

  ‘I’ve been doing a bit of reading,’ Alan replied. ‘The lower part of the tower’s Saxon and I reckon there’s a good chance that group might well be early burials. The graves are quite compact and they’re all aligned precisely the same – just a degree or two south of true east-west.’

  Alan knew that this sort of thing really impressed Paul, whose grasp of field archaeology wasn’t very strong. He’d acquired a PhD from Cambridge, but it was all about animal bones: their nutrition, physiology and pathology. He could tell you everything about a pig femur, but ask him how it related to other aspects of the site and he’d be at sea.

  Harriet was equally excited.<
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  ‘The thing is, Paul,’ she added, ‘that it’s incredibly rare to find earlier Saxon graves stratified within a later medieval cemetery. And it’s even more unusual to get to dig them. With luck, we’ll be able to get some fascinating data on the origins of the earliest population.’

  ‘How fascinating,’ said Paul. Alan noticed that he sounded genuinely enthused. It was good to see that the archaeologist in Paul still remained, despite all his commercial success.

  Paul glanced up at the large and rather showy Victorian clock on the mantelpiece.

  ‘And now to business,’ he began briskly. ‘First: budgets.’

  He then mentioned a sum, slightly under thirty thousand pounds, which seemed to Alan improbably small because he also suspected that Paul would be looking for a high public profile, with plenty of press interest – and that could only be bought through expensive research techniques. Still, he knew better than to protest at this point. He glanced across at Harriet who was staring hard at him, and he knew he’d already said more than enough for one day. He remained silent.

  Harriet, however, had no reservations in speaking her mind.

  ‘That’s very tight, Paul.’

  ‘I’m aware of it; but if we’d bid any more, the job would have gone to someone else. I know that for an absolute fact.’ At that he tapped the side of his nose, just like on television. Alan could see Harriet almost laughed. ‘So we’ve got to make do with what we’ve been given. I’ll sniff around for other sources of funding, especially when it comes to post-excavation. I’m sure we’ll be able to raise some cash for radiocarbon dates, for example.’

  Alan didn’t share Paul’s confidence and was starting to feel depressed. He’d held out high hopes for St Guthlic’s and this was starting to turn into yet another routine cemetery excavation: a bone bash. A coffin chase. Call it what you like. But Paul was still speaking:

  ‘OK. That’s it. I’m afraid I’ve got a lot on my plate at this moment. I suggest you work on a detailed costed timetable and come back to me later.’

  And with that, they were dismissed.

  They headed down the corridor, back into the entrance hall, then turned left into Harriet’s office.