by Phil Rickman
No bulges here. Just a park now, Castle Green, featureless under a grey foil sky.
‘That’s where it was,’ Tris said, pointing. ‘Where Neil’s standing. They had the tree sawn up and cleared away within a day.’
‘And the bones?’
‘Safely removed. Couple of days. Wasn’t a proper excavation, though it doesn’t mean there won’t be one in the future. For now, they’ve just filled it in and returfed.
‘So what’s Coops doing?’
‘Dreaming, I suppose,’ Tris said.
When she’d asked for Neil Cooper at his office, Tris had insisted on bringing her over here. She’d never seen Tris before; he’d introduced himself as Neil’s assistant, and he was very charming, lithe and fit and floppy-haired and, like, incredibly good-looking. Even if you could’ve found Castle Green with your eyes shut, how could you not let Tris take you?
Pack it in. Stop testing your responses, it’s not going to change anything.
‘Sadly, he probably won’t be able to offer you anything,’ Tris said. ‘Things are really, really tight. We’re just a planning footnote nowadays. Way things are going, there might not even be a county archaeologist’s department in a year or so. Everything else has gone to the private sector.’
‘Are you… permanent?’
‘Thought I might be. I understood the county archaeologist might not return when his leg was out of plaster, and if he took early retirement, Neil might get his job, leaving a vacancy.’
‘He’s coming back?’
‘So it seems.’
He sounded quite bitter, and she might have asked him more if Coops hadn’t seen them and come over.
‘Jane.’ He didn’t sound excited to see her. ‘You get days off?’
‘All over,’ Jane said. ‘The work ran out. The Pembrokeshire highways department were doing this road improvement scheme close to an Iron Age camp. One of those situations where the archaeologists get to go in first to see if there’s anything interesting. And if there is, the council still builds the road.’
‘It’s called Rescue Archaeology, Jane.’
‘I know. Anyway, we found signs of a couple of hut circles, but no strong reason to hold off the bulldozers. We had like twenty-eight days before the road-building guys moved in? And that was it. Nothing. Anticlimax. So I’m home.’
‘Oh dear.’
‘Hoping I can get something local. I mean, sooner or later they’re going to have to check out the Ledwardine Henge – either it is or it isn’t.’
‘Sooner rather than later, Jane, only if the supermarket scheme goes through.’
‘I thought those bastards were going bust.’
‘If that happens, it might actually slow things up for you.’
‘What a trashy world,’ Jane said.
Coops didn’t seem like the same guy. Certainly not standing next to Tris. Not so long ago, he’d still seemed fairly young and cool; now he had that family-man look, his hair too cleanly cut, his jeans too functional.
Nothing lasted. Jane felt this unexpected tear-pressure. You went away and everything changed. It was like the space she’d made for herself over the years had closed up behind her and wouldn’t reopen for her now.
‘Well, then,’ Tris said. ‘See you around, Jane.’
As if he knew he wouldn’t. She watched him walk away, up the bank to where part of the moat remained as an extended duckpond below the Castle House Hotel.
‘Tris is temporary,’ Neil Cooper said.
‘Too good-looking to last?’
‘Nothing lasts. Although everything does. In some form.’
‘There’s philosophical.’
‘There’s experience. Sorry, Jane, don’t mean to be depressing.’
‘You found some bones, then.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘Should he have kept quiet about it?’
‘Tris? No reason to.’ But his expression had darkened. ‘Anyway… you enjoyed it while it lasted.’
‘Well, I got to do bits. Under supervision, obviously.’
Second week in Pembrokeshire, she’d found this metal artefact and they’d let her excavate it herself. Took an hour of intimate trowelling to bring up what could have been part of a gold torque. If it hadn’t been the end of a towing chain from a tractor. She’d still kept it – gap-year souvenir.
Coops said, ‘And you’re still committed to becoming one of us?’
Jane was gazing across Castle Green, this grassy space bordered by the river and the benches where people sat in summer to eat sandwiches and check their phones, or just get pissed. In Pembs, she’d been reading this thick book by the archaeologist Francis Pryor, who could walk into a modern landscape and tell you in minutes what used to be there, by the colour and texture of the soil, the positioning and content of hedges, field boundaries, ditches and field drains, the stones under your feet. A touch of the visionary about Francis Pryor, who had written that walking into a strange landscape was like meeting someone for the first time. Asking yourself if this was a place you could trust.
This place must’ve been seriously trusted to get the castle and the Cathedral. The castle was all gone, every stone of it, but if you half closed your eyes you could almost see cold, etheric walls. And underneath…
‘You have found some bones, right?’
‘Some old human remains were exposed, yes,’ Coops said. ‘When the tree came up.’
‘A tree had grown on top of an old grave?’
‘So it seems.’
‘So you put a quick trench in.’ Which she could see, over the temporary fencing, had now been filled in. ‘How old were they?’
‘Probably medieval. Look, Jane, I—’
‘Well preserved?’
‘Not bad.’
‘What do they suggest?’
‘Suggest someone was buried here.’
‘Just the one person?’
He had his phone out, body language for bugger off, Jane.
‘No, like, grave goods or anything?’
Coops shook his head, finger-scrolling on the phone.
‘Jane, I need to get back.’
‘Got pictures of the bones on there, Coops?’
‘No, I haven’t. He palmed the phone. ‘I’ve a meeting that’s been brought forward, OK?’
‘Could it be someone important?’
‘What?’
‘The bones.’
‘Jane—’
‘Well, obviously not that important. Sorry. Just some monk, then.’
‘Look.’ He lowered his phone. ‘It’s not exactly unusual for bones to be found here. It’s an historic place – castle, ancient churches, holy well, et cetera. Behind the Cathedral we’ve turned up graveyard on top of graveyard. It would be wonderful to have a huge, definitive excavation, but that’s not going to happen any sooner than digging up your village to see if it was built inside a neolithic henge.’
‘Can I see them?’
‘No! We’ve put them into store. In our… municipal ossuary.’ Probably meaning some old shed. ‘Jane, this is routine. It’s not… not the start of something. I’m sorry.’
If it was routine, what was he doing here, the head guy, when it was all over bar the chainsaw massacre?
‘So no jobs here then,’ Jane said. ‘No making tea for archaeologists, emptying barrows, sieving soil. Listening to them moaning about all the false starts, lack of money, backbiting, constant competition for work…’
‘Are you sure this is what you want to do?’
‘I want…’ Jane’s fists were tightening in frustration. ‘… to have seen enough sides of the job to make a firm decision about whether that’s how I want to spend my working life till I’m too stricken with arthritis to pick up a bloody trowel.’
He smiled.
‘You mean until you settle down and have kids.’
‘Piss off, Coops, I’m never going to have kids. Overpopulation – biggest problem facing the world. Which the short-sighted pondlife we
call politicians never seem to notice. Can’t be long before they lower the voting age to ten.’
‘OK.’ He nodded. ‘I’ll ask around. I take it you got on with them OK? The guys at the dig?’
‘They were… fine.’
‘Tend to drink a lot of beer. Probably just as well your boyfriend…?’
‘Eirion.’
‘Of course. Just as well he was with you.’
‘Yes.’
For the first month, anyway, until he had to go back to uni. Which was when she’d started going to the pub with the guys who really knew how to put away the booze. Not all of it happy booze. Maybe it was seeing so many dead bodies, evidence of cheap life. They were like, Fuck it, this is how we all wind up, so let’s just get hammered.
And have sex, oh God.
‘You OK, Jane?’
‘Fine.’
Jane turned away.
‘Anyway, leave it with me,’ Coops said. ‘No promises, and if you do get something there might not be much money in it.’
‘No. Whatever. Thanks.’
Coops walked away up the bank to the path that led to the huddle of narrow old murky-brick streets below the Cathedral. The sky was turning salmon, the sun coming out only to set. The atmosphere was all wrong.
Blinking back tears, she walked up the bank on to the footpath, looking down over the filled-in, empty grave. A chainsaw started up somewhere, then another, echoes multiplying across the Castle Green, sounding airborne, like a dogfight from one of those ancient Battle of Britain movies. Jane thought she’d shuddered, but it was the mobile in her jeans.
She pulled it out – still nervous every time the phone went, scared the screen might say SAM.
It said EIRION.
Jane switched off the phone, walked rapidly away towards what used to be the centre of the city. Coming out of narrow Quay Street, she saw Mum in her best coat, pale blue silk scarf wrapped across the dog collar. On her face an expression Jane had seen before, but not often.
Christ…
12
Purple haze
OUT THROUGH THE Cathedral’s back entrance, past the school buildings into old Hereford: the quiet grey-brown streets of offices and terraced houses. The direction you walked if you didn’t want to bump into anyone you might know. Or anyone at all.
Thinking, Bloody hell… bloody hell, bloody hell.
But this was a small city and Merrily almost walked into Jane, in her green Gomer Parry Plant Hire T-shirt, fleece over an arm, looking desolate. A job-seeker on the barren streets.
They’d arranged to meet around half-four in the Cathedral café; they were both early.
‘I thought you were over at the council,’ Merrily said. ‘Looking for Neil Cooper.’
‘Got redirected to Castle Green. They found some— Anyway, I’ve seen him. Says he’ll find out if there are any openings. Not holding my breath.’
Evidently not. Oh God, there really was something wrong here. You spent so much time worrying about your own problems you could miss the obvious. She looked into Jane’s eyes. Please God, don’t let her be pregnant.
‘Jane, you really don’t have to rush into anything, you have lots of—’
‘I do, actually. Have to cram in everything I can get. Have to collect experience. Any kind. And money.’ Eyes glittering with something bafflingly close to anger, Jane nodded towards the hidden river. ‘And you’re going…?
‘Nowhere.’
God, that sounded… not as she’d intended. Jane’s eyes came back slitted.
‘I meant I was just walking,’ Merrily said. ‘To think about things.’
There was suddenly quite a few people about. The Cathedral School was letting kids out. They were in a public place, looking at one another in dismay.
Jane said, ‘You met the Bishop?’
‘Kind of.’
Certainly been in his presence. Like Sophie said, he tended to fill a room.??stluda ekiL ?rehtona eno htiw yltcerid etacinummoc nac ew erehw egats eht hcaer yllautca thgim ew ytilibissop a s?ereht kniht uoy oD? ,yldlim dias enaJ .tnomleB ot pu gnilwarc dna hguorht erew uoy litnu noitartnecnoc deriuqer tI .adsA ssecca ot erised a yb desuac elgnat ciffart tnenamrep eht rof gnidaeh ,teertS egdirB fo tuo denrut ylirreM ?.doG hO? ?.em was uoy erofeb uoy was I .ereht kcaB? ??nehW ?eM? ?.slian gnittips ,ekil ,erew uoY? .neercsdniw eht hguorht derats dna pal reh ni delpmurc eceelf eht revo dessorc sdnah reh htiw tas enaJ .rorrim weiv-raer eht ni lardehtaC eht htiw teertS gniK nwod gnivird saw ehs litnu niaga kaeps t?ndid enaJ dna ehS ?.ylbaborP? ??emoh rof noitcerid gnorw eht yllatot taht t?nsi tub ,muM ,gnorw m?I fi em tcerroC? .tennob eht revo reh ta gnirats enaJ ,rednaleerF kcalb eht dekcolnu ylirreM ?.yellaV nedloG eht aiv seog taht eno eht s?tI? ??taht s?yaw hcihW? ??kcab yaw gnol eht ekat ew t?nod yhW? ?ton yhW .edoctsop dna sserdda na htiw ,gab reh ni teleton a dah ehs ,elihwnaeM .thginot emoh ta eihpoS llac d?ehs ebyaM .nit ekil ,neehs llud a dah ecalap kcirb-der eht revo yks ehT .eciffo eht ta pu kool t?ndid ylirreM ,esuohetag eht dehcaer yeht nehW .lausu sa ,dray ecalaP s?pohsiB eht ni rac eht tfel d?ehS ?doog taht saw tub ,ekila erom gniworg erew yehT .owt ro hcni na tsuj ta ,ylluficrem ,delttes dah ecnereffid thgieh eht tub ,rellat tib a etiuq eb ot gniog saw enaJ fi sa dekool dah ti nehw emit a saw erehT .edis yb edis ,lardehtaC eht sdrawot kcab deklaw yehT ?.KO? ?.nwot fo tuo teg rehtar d?I knihT? ??uoY .ylralucitrap toN? ??gnihtynA ?sekaC ?aet fo puc a teg ot tnaw uoY? ,enaJ ot yletarepsed dias ehS ‘Bishop, this is Merrily Watkins.’
‘Ah yes. Vicar of….’
‘Ledwardine.’
‘Of course. Ledwardine. “Heart of the New Cotswolds”. Didn’t I read that somewhere?’
Merrily nodding. Everybody had read that somewhere.
‘Though not entirely true,’ she’d said.
Wanting to say something halfway eloquent. Failing, through nerves; she hadn’t realized, until the moment came, how nervous she’d be. Now, trying to recall Bishop Craig Innes, what he looked like… she couldn’t. Just a strong, square face, high forehead with hair like curls of grey fuse wire, above a purple cassock. Purple haze. Nothing clear. Except she realized she’d seen him before and not just in photos. Just couldn’t think where. Not then.
‘Merrily’s your Deliverance Consultant,’ Sophie had said helpfully.
‘So I understand,’ Bishop Craig Innes said.
And never mentioned the D word again.
Just other things.
12
Cutting edge
SOMEONE – IT MIGHT’VE been Gomer Parry – had once said to Merrily that, in the old days, people used to look west from the city and say, That en’t Herefordshire, that’s Wales.
Maybe it was, once. Now, apart from the broken nose of the Skirrid mountain to the south, there was nothing of today’s Wales to be seen. Even the flank of the Black Mountains, lying like grounded cloud on the western horizon, that was still England. A half-forgotten England of hybrid place names, of wooded hills and hidden villages of rusty stone and crouching churches. A dark, poacher’s pocket of England.
Merrily followed a tractor and trailer into the potholed B-road that was the valley’s main thoroughfare. No hope of overtaking, and you knew from experience that when two big container lorries met on this road it was rural gridlock.
‘I’m still never quite sure why they call this the Golden Valley.’
‘More to the point,’ Jane said, ‘what are we doing here?’
‘Some people say it’s from the name of the river. The River Dore. Like French. D’Or. River of gold?’
‘Mum, the Dore is a ditch. Makes the Wye look like the Mississippi.’
Merrily slowed for a small signpost.
‘I’d try the satnav but Mr Khan said that, in these parts, it adds an hour to your journey.’
‘Ah,’ Jane said. ‘So you’re finally going to tell me what you were cooking up with a guy who frightens Dean Wall.’
It had come out in the pub, over the sandwiches, about what Jude Wall had done to Khan’s car and Dean Wall had done to Jude. Jane te
lling it like a funny story, but you could see how badly it had shocked her, happening in Ledwardine. Strange, strange night. Merrily had felt strange in her posh glittery frock. Men had kept looking at her. At one stage she’d fooled herself into thinking Lol’s eyes were moist with longing and she’d wished they were alone. At the top of Church Street, they’d gone their separate ways.
‘Have you seen Dean since?’
‘He’s probably in the river attached to a concrete block,’ Jane said. ‘Not this river, obviously.’ She turned to look out of her side window at a stocky church next to a loaded barn. ‘It does sometimes look golden in the sunset, the valley. A proper sunset, not like this. But so much of it’s…’
‘In shadow.’
‘Yeah. Eirion says—’
‘Sorry, flower? Eirion?’
This was the first time since she’d come home that she’d spontaneously mentioned him. Eirion’s family lived near Abergavenny. To get there you often passed through the Golden Valley. It was how she knew so much about it.
‘Eirion…’ Jane took a breath, as if she’d needed help to get the name out. Another thing – normally she’d call him Irene. ‘Eirion says that’s bollocks about the Dore, it’s probably from dwr, Welsh for water. There you go. That was kind of adult, wasn’t it?’
‘You heard from him since you got back?’
‘Don’t like to bother him at the start of a university year.’
It came out a mumble, Jane was huddled into her fleece, arms folded. Definitely something amiss. When she was first in Pembrokeshire she’d phoned every couple of days, full of stories about what she’d been doing, the people she was working with. The other night, during the storm, she’d just talked, a touch bitterly, about how they struggled to find enough paid work, much of it coming from local authorities obliged to fund the examination of landscapes they hoped to despoil. But she’d known all this before, surely?
‘Is there something you haven’t told me, flower?’
