by Laura Elvery
This trip I’ve turned up in Leicester. Again. For my sins. We’ve got a good enough football team, the Foxes, and I watch them on telly – Mum can’t take me to a game because we’re poor. Sid’s mum bought him a team scarf from the Oxfam on the high street. She thinks this should satisfy him, but he can’t explain that getting someone’s dirty old Foxes scarf is worse than not having one at all.
The Foxes play at King Power Stadium. Other places people visit in Leicester include the Abbey Pumping Station, which used to pump sewage. We went there last year with Dad when he was in town for the day. It’s free, which is why he chose it. All he’d brought for us were two sandwiches from the off-licence. Dakota was teething and Dad had forgotten the gel.
Not every reincarnation is a thrill.
In 1520, I was working the shipyards in Hull. Hard work, very dangerous. One night I met a woman named Anne. She’d come from York to find her brother who’d gotten into trouble gambling. We drank at the Rose and Turtle, eventually moving out to the street. Anne told me that forty years earlier her grandmother had created a scandal. A beautiful woman, she’d been summoned in secret to become the mistress of a very powerful man. He turned out to be Plantagenet, the future King Richard III of England. Five years later, he died in battle.
Anne had a crooked nose and huge bug eyes. Still, one thing led to another and we slept together before daybreak. I left her before she woke – I’m not proud of that. I’m hazy on the details but I may have emptied her purse too.
Right now, Leicester is exciting – the university thinks they’re going to find Richard III’s body buried beneath a council car park. Dr Nicole Lacey is the osteoarchaeologist on the dig. Last night on TV, Dr Lacey only got to answer one reporter’s question (‘How does this compare with other archaeology projects you’ve worked on?’). Sid reckons Dr Lacey would knock me back if I asked her on a date, because she looks like Megan Fox dressed as a scientist. If I looked like Channing Tatum maybe she’d say yes, but reincarnates don’t get to select our bodies or where we end up. I didn’t choose my mum or how much money she makes, or her boyfriends who leave their greasy takeaway containers on the floor. I’ll bet Dr Lacey lives in an apartment with a great view. Everything is clean. The furniture is brushed metal and frosted glass. There are paintings of Venice and girls picking wildflowers. Apple TV and an Xbox. And the milk in her fridge is never off.
In History class, Mr Purcell leans on the ledge beneath the whiteboard, gnawing on a marker. ‘Ricky, it’s your turn. Answer what you’re up to.’
Each trip my eyesight worsens. Reading is hard.
‘Evidence suggests Richard III was buried at Greyfriars after the Battle of Bosworth in 1485,’ I say. ‘The church was demolished by Henry VIII and built over many times.’
Mr Purcell nods but he’s surveying the class. They rip paper and tip back in their chairs and slip headphones into their ears.
‘Year 10, listen, please. This is happening right here in Leicester.’
I’ve never come back as a teacher, which is lucky. Not all reincarnations are from birth – most people don’t know that either. This time round was. I emerged back when my mum and my grandparents were still speaking. In the maternity ward, Nanny and Pop hooked their fingers into mine. They’d brought a stuffed blue rabbit for me and a bag of Starburst for Mum even though she’d asked for Minstrels. Reincarnations that aren’t birth-beginning occur after a near-death experience – it’s like you’ve been tagged in for a wrestling match. I’ve opened my eyes on a Mexican beach, water in my lungs, gasping, my throat like a salted fish. Brown eyes searched my face and voices called, Hola! Hola!
‘Mouths closed, please.’ Mr Purcell caps and uncaps the whiteboard marker. ‘Eyes to the front. This is on the exam.’
At lunch, Sid and I sit on the edge of the oval. The girls’ hockey team blurs navy and white like Prussian soldiers bolting from the trenches. Sid passes me a cigarette.
‘So you never met him yourself, then?’ he asks.
‘No, I met Anne. But her grandmother was Richard’s mistress.’
‘Like a prostitute?’
‘More like a girlfriend on the side.’
Sid pinches the cigarette and sucks with his thumb and forefinger against his lips. Puh, puh, puh, like the cigarette is a joint. I’ve said before that marijuana is a disaster for people like him.
‘But you saw the bones of Richard III?’
‘Absolutely,’ I say.
‘Cool.’
We head into town. These days most of the shops are food places like Greggs and Pret. There’s at least one Boots, and a Costa Coffee where Mum and Aunty Jude meet once a month. They grew up here, but it was safer back then, they say. Not as many angry drunks roaming the streets. Not as many people high late at night who might wander in front of your car.
Sid tries to puncture an empty Coke can with two sticks. A pair of arms for a tin snowman.
‘It won’t work.’
‘Why not?’
‘The can’s too tough,’ I say. It should be obvious.
‘We’ll see.’
The stick slips and pierces Sid’s wrist. He devours his blood. ‘Cool. Looks like I tried to kill myself.’
‘Kind of.’
‘It might scar,’ Sid says.
‘You got any money?’
‘Five quid. You?’
In one of my past lives I ran a travelling magic show: Babette’s Caravan of Mystical Wonders and Magical Encounters. This was the east coast of America, 1925, and although Babette was long gone, her name still had traction in certain circles. The governor of Virginia invited us to his mansion, where Bart Brueghel cut out stars in the palms of his hands that healed before the politicians’ eyes. Kitty Lee balanced her twin sister, Lulu, on her head, and Lulu’s feet dirtied the governor’s ceiling. We swallowed waves of gin cocktails and slept on monogrammed sheets.
I tell Sid, ‘Nah. I got nothing.’
We slouch on the corner of New and Peacock. The workers at the council offices have less space to park now – that was in the newspaper. Three weeks ago, they photographed the digger plunging into the bitumen and I wondered if the operator had ever done his job in front of cameras before. I’ve never worked with heavy machinery, unless you count a primitive helicopter in southern Spain.
Everyone was hoping for a body straight away: brushed bright bones showered with champagne under floodlights. But there’s just been days of waiting. People talking, pointing, adjusting their University of Leicester hard hats.
How do I tell Dr Lacey it’s all futile? They’re not going to find the King.
The last time I was in Leicester, I did something shifty, although Sid thinks it’s awesome. Two dozen of us were rambling and red from drinking, roaring in the moonlight to the sound of shovels on dirt. Turner, the innkeeper, came along and we loaded the bones into a barrel he’d brought. I sensed drums at my back, a grand and valiant march, and momentum in the frosty air. We rolled the barrel through town and up Bow Bridge. Turner thought I should speak so he called for the cheers to die down.
I began: ‘Hear that, lads? Inside this barrel, the bones of Richard III! A nasty bugger, he was. And now His Majesty can float in purgatory and pray for forgiveness until such time as the wood gives way and his sins sink to the bottom.’
I saw my gathered brethren clearly, at a time when my eyesight was far sharper than it is now. The tomb splashed and bobbed on the River Soar.
Now, all I care about is seeing Dr Lacey and hearing her laugh, which is difficult since the trench is taped off from visitors. She wears white work overalls and a mask over her mouth and nose. She rests on her heels in the pit and brushes the ground with tiny movements. Dr Lacey is the youngest member of the dig. In an interview on YouTube she says the best thing about the archaeology department is being part of an amazing team of historians. Sid always pauses the video
at 4:29. Dr Lacey wears glasses, like me. At four-and-a-half minutes, her eyes are closed behind her lenses. With hair whipped out by the wind, she’s a divine scholarly mermaid. Her accent reminds me of a wife I had in Cardiff, but her eyes remind me of someone else.
University people gather with iPads. Dr Lacey is helped out of the trench. She places her hands on the small of her back and bends. Then she notices us, smiles to her colleagues, and heads our way.
‘Aw shit,’ Sid says. ‘Here’s your chance.’
‘I’m thinking,’ I say.
‘Of what?’ He glances over at Dr Lacey and grins. ‘Oh, wait. I know.’
I sigh. ‘They’re never going to find him.’
‘Tell her.’
‘Depends. She’ll want to know how I know.’ I swing myself up onto the brick wall and Sid follows.
‘Nah. They just want to find the body. And if you’re right, then – bam. You’ll be famous and we get to hang out with Dr Lacey.’
In this life, I am a virgin. I think about my former sexual encounters at least sixty, seventy times a day. Teenage hormones. But it’s important to be disciplined. Reincarnates have to move past what they used to have. I employ the obvious strategies, and hope for an early encounter in this life. It’s been a long time between innings, and Dr Lacey has lips like Clara Bow’s.
‘Mate, she’s coming over.’
We’ve never seen her up close in person. She’s a nuclear scientist. She’s a disease control expert. She’s the starship commander in a science fiction movie. She’s something else, too, but I can’t figure it out. I rub my eyes.
Dr Lacey says, ‘Gentlemen,’ and my groin pulses.
‘Hi,’ I say.
‘Hey, Dr Lacey,’ Sid says. ‘We saw you on telly.’
She rests a gloved hand across her forehead and squints. ‘You boys interested in this? You’ve been here a few times.’
‘Have we?’ says Sid, bold and chuckling. I want to beat him around the head and push him into the pit.
‘We’re interested,’ I say.
‘What’s your name?’ Dr Lacey stares at me, sweat on her upper lip.
‘He’s Sid. I’m Ricky.’
‘Is that so? We’re looking for a Ricky in there too, although I doubt he was ever called that.’
I tell her what I know about the King, but I stick to the facts that Mr Purcell says will be on the exam. Dr Lacey nods when I mention Greyfriars and Henry VIII.
Sid can’t sit still any longer. ‘Ricky thinks you’re wasting your time. The bones aren’t there.’
Dr Lacey glances at me.
‘You wanna know how he knows?’ Sid continues.
I don’t try to stop him. It’s a harmless thing to tell people – I’ve been reincarnated thirty-four times.
‘Ricky’s been reincarnated.’
As if released from her freeze in Sid’s YouTube video, Dr Lacey tips back her head, and lets out a glorious laugh. ‘Reincarnated, hey?’
Sid thinks I’m in. ‘Yup.’
I notice a tiny mole beneath her left eye. I could kiss that spot. I could find others, too, our bodies stretched out on the Persian rug in her apartment. I forget Sid is here. Dr Lacey is still and silent, and we study each other. In her face, I see lives I can almost count. I grow tired as centuries whip past and thirty-four journeys burst into life. Icy mountains and a crossbow in my fist. A wooden weather deck lurching on the waves. Fields of poppies crushed beneath my knees.
Last year, I got chatting with a man in the library. After a bit, I told him that I knew him, I really did. He shelved his book and looked away and said, ‘I’ve got nothing for you, kid,’ and Dakota was playing up, tearing into the books, so we had to go anyway. I have to remind myself that not all reincarnates feel their lives as strongly as I do. Mine are like engravings.
‘Reincarnated? As in, you’ve been here before?’ Dr Lacey asks. ‘Like, in a past life?’
I nod.
She smiles. ‘Well, I’m a scientist. Scientists don’t believe in reincarnation. Sorry.’
‘That’s okay,’ I say. ‘I understand.’
‘It’s great you’re interested. But we’ve done our research and there’s a good chance we’ll find something.’
Sid’s expectations have been dashed. He rises above us on the brick wall. ‘But Ricky says the bones are long gone. Don’t you want to know where they are?’
Dr Lacey checks around for signs of her colleagues. ‘Looks like a good view up there, Sid. Be careful.’
‘But then you’d be the one who found him,’ Sid yells. ‘You’d be famous.’
Sid’s used to being ignored. My pasts are the most concrete part of his life. Who cares if you can’t see the Foxes play live when your best friend helped draw up the rules for association football in 1863?
I drop off the wall and polish my glasses with my jumper. ‘It’s cool. Let’s go.’
I bring the washing in for Mum from the clothesline that we share with the rest of the flats. Last week someone stole Dakota’s pyjamas. I play blocks on the carpet with my sister and tell her a story about a princess who believed she’d swallowed a glass piano. The princess tiptoed around the castle and couldn’t bring herself to dance or touch the walls or climb the stairs. She was petrified the piano would break and she’d be filled with broken glass. It was my job to carry the princess from her bed to the garden while she took short breaths in my arms. Dakota loves princesses. She can say Mum, bubble, ball and milk. My name comes out like Icky.
I slice sausages and pumpkin and switch on the news. Dakota bobs up and down when the opening song comes on.
‘Dance, baby.’ I reach for her. ‘That’s it. Dance.’
The first local news item is about the Leicester dig. The camera pans to the car park – probably the most watched piece of bitumen in Britain. Mum thinks the find will generate new pride in Leicester, make the city go back to the way it used to be. I turn off the sound and lift Dakota. I point out the scientists.
‘See the people wearing helmets?’ I tap her head. ‘They’re digging in the ground.’ How to explain a skeleton without scaring her? Dakota squirms and spills from my arms. She picks up a crust from the floor and puts it to her mouth.
‘Yucky,’ I tell her.
Mum will be home at ten o’clock. She said Kevin could come round and watch us, but he smells of smoke and Dakota doesn’t like him, which isn’t Kevin’s fault. Things are just easier if I cook dinner for us and do my homework after my sister’s gone to sleep. Mum’s boyfriends avoid me; they never try anything with her when I’m around. Careful, they think. They can see in my eyes that I’m not just some kid.
Dakota palms the television glass. At a press conference, the mayor gestures and the university staff grin.
‘That’s Dr Lacey,’ I say. ‘I know her.’ Details of past lives slip away so easily; it’s impossible to know which parts of a journey I’ll need later.
But I get it now. It’s her.
That’s why she’s familiar. That’s why Dr Lacey thinks she knows where Richard III’s body is buried.
Anne had mentioned her grandmother, but the night at the Rose and Turtle was so long ago, and maybe I’d covered Anne’s lips as she spoke. A sister looking for her brother in Hull. A lover I robbed. Her grandmother, the King’s beautiful mistress, who had revealed where her beloved was buried. The osteoarchaeologist with the thick, strong lenses.
I knew I’d kissed Dr Lacey before.
The phone rings. On the other end of the line, someone slurps from a can. ‘Ricky?’
‘Sid, oh shit,’ I say. ‘Guess who Dr Lacey is?’
‘What? She’s on the news now.’
I focus on the TV screen. Of course it’s her, almost five hundred years later, and she’s so beautiful. Dr Lacey’s lips move and her glasses reflect the flash of the cameras. May
be the bones made it downriver to Nottinghamshire. Perhaps we can look for them together.
‘Ricky, you can’t have thrown the bones in the river.’
‘Yes, I did, Sid. Listen, she’s Anne—’
‘They found the skeleton in the car park. It’s Richard III. Dr Lacey was right.’
But I had climbed the bridge and watched the body fall.
‘Ricky?’
I was there with Turner the innkeeper and the drunks who hushed themselves while I spoke. It was my first time in Leicester, when people were quieter and things weren’t as busy and police never went to schools and asked to see inside kids’ bags. Back then people meant what they said. You could have a cottage with a garden and a dog that licked you on the cheek. Fathers went out to work, and when they came home, the house was warm again.
Yes, I was there. I was. I pushed the barrel up Bow Bridge and heard the bones rattle inside.
For What We Are About to Receive
State Route 18 has the best roadkill. Alison gave me directions, giggling down the phone line like she did when we were teenagers.
‘Go past the Lions Club,’ she said. ‘It’s on the left-hand side. Just before you get to that little school, the one with the mural out the front. Of the emus.’
‘And it’s off the road?’
‘Yep. Buster found it on our walk this afternoon. But I shooed him away before he did any damage,’ she said.
‘Great,’ I said. ‘Thanks.’
‘Don’t you want to know what it is?’
‘Is it a possum?’
I am Alison’s strangest friend.
While Pete rubs his eyes and turns pages on the train home, I cross our driveway and lower myself into the Barina (bum first, breathing evenly, pretending my legs are pressed together like a mermaid’s tail). The steering wheel nudges my belly. I rearrange the cushion for my back, and the bath towel that’s folded on the seat. Jane, the midwife, said that a good many car seats have been ruined with amniotic fluid, though Pete wouldn’t care if I stained the upholstery. The last time I used this towel was to cover my shoulders while I dyed my hair strawberry blonde.
