Living in the Past

by Jane Lovering

  The eaves sloped down to bring the roof-light to a height where I could just look out if I stood on tiptoe, to see the view of dark hills rising around the house like a protective barrier between us and the real world. A few sheep grazed aimlessly amid the bracken, heather coloured the sides of the hills with a wash of purple and the sun raised the smell of honey and peat from the ground. Timeless. With the bare boards warm under my feet from the shafts of sun slanting in through the glass, I padded across to the big pinboard behind the door, an obvious relic of Duncan’s student days, from the exam timetables and snippets of notes still pinned there. A postcard of Land’s End curled up at the corners to reveal a little bit of scrawled writing on the back, and I took it down to read a message from someone called Angus – a brother from the semi-insulting tone of the note. Taking down the card revealed a photograph that had been pinned underneath using the same drawing pin. The whole board was covered by this two or three layer effect, bits of paper covered by other bits of paper, making the whole thing look like a modern mosaic, and I smiled as I peered more closely at the photos, which were precariously pinned on top of a packing list for a trip to Peru.

  And then I stopped smiling. The photographs were a strip of four, the kind of booth photos everyone used to have in those days before everything was captured on a phone camera, people pulling daft faces, squeezed into a two by two inch square. I still had several of me and Jamie, tucked away in old diaries. Young, silly and wanting proof of our coupledom. These pictures were similar. A much younger Duncan, hair short and spiked unreasonably, clean-shaven, but indisputably Duncan. And beside him, mugging at the camera or alternately sticking her tongue out at Duncan, was …

  Lady Hen. Anya was the Lady Hen. If I hadn’t recognised the face, although she didn’t seem to have aged as much as I should have expected, I would have recognised the necklace. Very art-deco, blue and white triangles, I’d have recognised it anywhere. A near-death experience will do that to you, carve things deep into your memory so they hung there and assumed greater importance than the thing itself.

  Anya was Lady Hen.

  And she’d let me go. She must have recognised my clothes, she must have known that I came through the same way that she did. She could have just let Tor kill me, but she didn’t.

  I ran back to the bed. ‘Duncan, we need to get back on site.’ Couldn’t tell him. Didn’t know what to say, I mean, ‘your girlfriend is hiding in the Bronze Age, I know where she is’? Apart from being a sentence I could imagine had never ever been uttered in the history of language, what did it imply? That she had gone through, possibly the same way I had, and chosen not to come back. How would that make him feel?

  I became aware that I was bending over him and my breasts were virtually hitting him on the nose.

  ‘I don’t suppose …’ he began.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh. Okay. Just a thought.’

  ‘I’m not saying never again, just not right now. Like I said, we should get back, Richard will be wondering.’

  Duncan bit his lip. ‘A bit of wondering is good for him,’ he said, slowly, and a hand reached out, pushed my hair away from my face. ‘And we may not get another chance.’

  ‘I’m not saying never again Duncan. Just that I need to go back to the camp.’ I began inventing wildly. ‘I promised Tabs I’d give a hand in the catering tent first thing today, before I start on the sieves. They’re a bit short staffed and they need someone to help with breakfasts.’

  Duncan half sat up, propping himself on an elbow. ‘I think you might have shot your bolt on the “breakfast” thing, it’s a bit late now.’ His eyes were lazy, travelling over my body, warm as the sunshine that filtered through the window. ‘Or are you regretting the whole thing? Is it going to be another one of those “avoiding my eye for the rest of the dig” events? Obviously it’s your call, totally within your rights and all, I’d just like to know so I can castigate myself at my leisure.’

  I smiled. I didn’t really feel like it. I felt as though I was keeping something from him, something so important that it could change the whole nature of our relationship, but I didn’t know what else to do. ‘Don’t be bloody daft,’ I said, sounding like Tabitha at her best. ‘We’ll have other times, other chances. It’s more that I am imagining Richard’s face right now.’

  ‘Kinky.’ Duncan sat right up now. ‘As sexual fantasies go, that’s pretty much up there with dressing as a pony.’ But he was smiling now, a more relaxed look on his face. ‘And you’re probably right. Richard will be fretting.’ Then he frowned. ‘Are you sure you’re okay? You look a bit dislocated.’

  The desire to close my eyes and forget any of this had happened was enormous, even with the stinging pain still catching at my wrists whenever I bent them and the thought of that bloody great scythe hovering at the back of my memory.

  I had to go back. Duncan deserved that much. To know why she’d gone and why she stayed, how she could do that, and leave Duncan to pick up the pieces. And there was also a little bit of curiosity about what made us different? What was it that meant she and I were able to slip between times as easily as walking into another room, when people like Duncan and Richard, who could have benefitted from actually seeing the past, could not.

  Or maybe it was some huge, cosmic kind of joke?

  ‘I’m fine.’ I was more than half-lying. ‘But if you want me to stop fantasising about Richard’s face, you’re going to have to get up and get us back to camp.’

  Duncan gave a sigh. ‘Okay. Okay, I get it. Trousers on and back to digging stuff up. You’ll make an archaeologisit yet.’

  I hesitated. On the one hand there was my lie about having to hurry back, and on the other … ‘Did you say there were power showers here?’

  Duncan scratched at his head. ‘Three. And proper toilets. Although if thinking about toilets makes you fantasise about Richard’s face again, actually I wouldn’t be surprised.’

  ‘Well, maybe we don’t have to hurry quite that much, then.’

  He swung his legs up over the edge of the bed. ‘You are definitely starting to sound like an archaeologist now, y’know.’

  I gave him a grin. ‘Power shower, then camp. And then breakfast.’

  ‘Now you sound like me. Come on, I’ll show you.’

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  2000 BC

  Hen hid under the pile of blankets on her bed. Pulled them up over her head, tried to block out the world with the weight of wool, but dawn was shining in through the door now, the silver light of the day of the Ripening sliding past the curtain and covering her as the blankets did.

  ‘She is gone.’ Tor’s voice held no anger. A brief shadow blocking the light and then he was inside her hut.

  ‘Yes.’ Hen burrowed her way free of the blankets until she could see his face. His eyes held questions, but no wrath.

  ‘You released her.’ Not a question.

  ‘Yes.’

  His fingers were stained with the juice of the berries, as snagged as the wood they had heaped behind their homes, ready for winter. They caught at her hair, but not roughly. ‘She will bring others.’ Tor sat at the edge of the straw pallet, raised from the damp ground that formed the bed. ‘Do you not fear this?’

  Hen’s heart almost crushed her lungs with the weight of the longing it bore. This man she loved above all others, excepting their son. Yet she could not own to either. ‘Tor. Did you see the way she dressed? Hear her speech?’

  Tor sighed. He released his hold on her and leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and rubbed his hands through his hair. He looks tired. He cares so much for all of us, and now he fears I may have brought destruction upon us, yet he does not censure me. He takes the weight upon his own back.

  ‘Yes, Hen, I saw. She was from some far off tribe who know not our speech, but distance does not make them less than dangero
us to us. Men travel, at the Midsummer there was talk of visitors from over the seas bringing new items to trade, and my own father journied to the south to be part of the raising of a city of the ancestors …’ He trailed off.

  Hen struggled up under the blankets until she sat. ‘Tor. Remember the day we met? Remember how you found me wandering in the fog, unable to speak your language, wearing strange clothes and the necklace?’

  Tor stared at her. She watched his mouth thin as he pinched his lips together with worry, and his eyes flicker from her face to the necklace, its shapes proud against her throat. ‘You think this woman came from your tribe? A tribe that cast you out without food or shelter in an unknown land?’ He jumped to his feet and began pacing up and down, becoming a shadow when he passed the light filtering in through the doorway now. ‘Why did you not tell me of this when she came? I would not have cast a sister of yours away!’ And now he stopped, in front of her. ‘And why did you not address her in your tongue? You understood her speech but did not reply …’ His words fell away.

  Hen tried to keep her expression soft. He did not understand; how could he?

  ‘Tor. Did you never wonder why I gave up Drustan to you and Airwen? Why I never fought to keep my own child with me? It was because I did not know how to care for him here. I never told you where I came from. Back then I did not have the words and now …’ She shrugged. ‘… it did not seem to matter. But I should have explained. Should have told you how I could give up my son so easily, why I did not know what was good to eat and what may have killed us, why I sought the safety of your guardianship for our child.’

  And there, surrounded by the familiarity of her things, blankets she had woven from wool she had spun, meat she had prepared, spoons she had carved, she told Tor the story of her arrival at their camp, from a time that their language had no real way to describe.

  Tor paced as she talked. He gave no sign that she could see that he believed her tale, but no sign he thought she lied; his face was impassive. When she stopped at last, he paced two more strides, then threw himself down to sit on the carved log she kept by the fire for those evenings when it was too chill to be outside.

  ‘Do you believe me?’ She had to ask it.

  Tor sighed. Threw a lump of wood onto the fire and watched the bright sparks fly up then die into ash. ‘There are tales,’ he said, slowly, ‘passed down from the elders, of those who have come to us from other times. I never thought …’ A sigh. ‘And I wondered at your giving me the babe for Airwen to care for. Why did you never return?’

  Hen swung her legs from the pallet and went to him. ‘Do you need to ask, Tor?’ She laid a hand on his shoulder, felt the tension of him under his tunic. ‘I could not leave you, and I was not certain our son would be able to travel back with me. I feared for his life first, and then, he was happy here. He believes Airwen his mother. And there … there was no one to care for me except a man whose affection I could no longer return. Here …’ She turned, taking in the familiarity of everything in the hut. Everything she saw she had either gathered or made herself, and she recognised the sense of achievement, the feeling of pride. ‘Here I have a place. I have a use.’

  ‘You had a man there?’ Tor bristled, and she half smiled.

  ‘You know you were not my first, Tor. But, despite everything, despite you being given to the Lady Airwen, you have always made me feel loved. He … the man before … he was occupied with his own life. He could not care for me as I needed, back then.’ Hen took another look around her hut. ‘This life is better.’ She lay a hand across her belly, feeling the hope that grew with every passing day. ‘And our time was right when we coupled on the hillside, last half-moon. I may be with a child I can bring up as my own, now I know how to care for it. I shall tell a tale of a stranger in the night.’

  Tor looked at her, at first unknowing and then, as her words settled in his mind, he smiled. Then he laughed. ‘Another child? The elders were wrong when they said you were not a childbearing build! You birthed me Drustan, who makes me as proud as ever a son could, and now another?’ A sigh. ‘I may not own to this one, but I swear on the bones of the ancestors who watch that I shall care for you and the babe.’ He sighed again and used a stick to poke the fire into a brief moment of flame. ‘I am glad,’ he said. ‘You were ever my love, Lady Hen. But if this stranger from the other time returns? What then?’

  Hen smiled and pulled her woollen dress from its place across the bed and began putting it on. ‘I fear you frightened her too much, Tor. She ran, and I think we shall not see her again.’

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  ‘What on earth do you want it for?’ Tabitha held the chopping knife on the palm of her hand, as though it was some kind of exhibit. ‘Actually, we’ve all heard about you and the Prickly Prof. You’re not after some do-it-yourself castration, are you? ’Cos, if he’s that bad, just put it all over Facebook. And Twitter. With pictures.’

  ‘I just need to borrow it, that’s all.’ I kept my hands in my pockets, trying not to look desperate. My wrists were concealed under a long sleeved top, which, since the sun was finally putting in an appearance, was making me sweat ferociously. ‘For … chopping.’

  ‘Those wet sieves must be riskier than I thought.’ Tabs handed it over. ‘In danger of daily raids from the mud thieves, are we?’

  ‘Actually, I want to cook a dinner for Duncan.’ I felt quite proud of myself for that one.

  ‘Right. Because in no way could you just come to the catering tent.’ She had disbelief written all over her, and in quite large letters too, but I refused to give in and explain, because that would make me sound more bonkers.

  ‘Thanks, Tabs.’

  She regarded me with her mouth at an angle that indicated she was thinking hard. ‘You’ve lightened up a bit lately.’ She had her hands on her hips now, and I wasn’t sure if this was good or not. ‘Less of the school ma’am. More like you used to be.’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten Jamie.’ I felt the need to point this out quickly, in case she was about to accuse me of something. ‘He will always have been my first real love.’

  Tabitha laughed. ‘Jeez, Gray, it’s no bad thing you finally getting on with your life, y’know! No one was watching over you and thinking that you couldn’t have loved him if you moved on – anyone who knew you and Jamie could see that. But you’re allowed.’ She began wiping her hands on her apron. ‘Love isn’t rationed. You aren’t born with only so much to go round and once you’ve used that up, that’s it, bingo, you have to take up keeping cats and sucking lemons for that special pursed lip look. Come on, lighten up! It’s great that you and the Prof are getting it on, no arguments here, just watch out for his rep as a bit of a heart breaker.’ She leaned in over the counter. ‘Not too good at attachments, so I hear.’

  Hardly surprising, when every time he so much as looks at a woman he has to worry that, if anything happens to her, he’s going to be covered in police, like a dead horse is covered in flies. It’s going to put a bit of a damper on any relationship.

  ‘I’ll be careful.’ I gave her a bright smile. She was only doing what she had done for the past few years: looking out for me. While I’d not shown any previous signs of getting over my grief by leaping into bed with any available males, she might be wondering if that was going to be my next step forward in recovery, and I couldn’t blame her for urging caution. ‘Thanks, Tabs. I mean it. For everything.’

  ‘Whatcha cooking, botulism surprise? Sounds like you’re not planning on coming back from this dinner.’

  I laughed. ‘Don’t be bloody daft. I’m just showing gratitude. I don’t know what I would have done without you and Millie – I mean, without you two I wouldn’t even be here.’ I waved an arm to indicate the dig site. And maybe I won’t get back, but at least now if something dreadful happens to me over there, you know I appreciated what you did. Oh God, was I really thinking like
this? That I might not come back? Get a grip, Grace … ‘Even if “here” is wet sieves and listening to Katrin’s relationship problems, at least it’s not sniffing whiteboard cleaner and trying to find the elusive and probably mythical Lost Key to the stationery cupboard.’

  Tabs gave me a look that I couldn’t read. ‘That’s what friends do, Gray,’ she said, quietly. ‘But I’m really glad you’re feeling a bit more optimistic now, means me and Mills can lighten up on you and start, y’know, actually planning this wedding. Oh, and we’ll be wanting you to make a speech, so you might want to start thinking about that.’

  ‘Damn. I was hoping that it wouldn’t go any further than my prancing down the aisle wearing something supremely unflattering.’

  ‘Don’t push your luck. Could be both. Now bugger off, I’ve got ninety cauliflower cheeses to make and the cheese is already so lively that it’s asked me out twice.’ She turned away, pulling her hair up as she went.

  I grinned at her back and, tapping the knife against my hand, went down to the tent where I’d left my partly packed rucksack.

  Duncan was there, stripping off a mud-clotted T-shirt. ‘Hey. Sorry I had to pull Katrin off the sieving, needed her down on site.’

  ‘That’s fine. Morwenna is up there now with a couple of day volunteers, so I’m …’ I tried to think of a decent excuse. ‘I’m just sorting out my laundry. Thought I might make a run down to Pickering, see if I can find a laundrette.’

  ‘You are joking.’ Duncan dropped the filthy shirt and came in close. He smelled like a hot man who’d been working hard, an organic but not unpleasant smell, overlaid with tones of peaty mud. His hair was stuck down around his forehead and the nape of his neck where he’d taken off the bandanna, and there were patches of incipient sunburn on his cheeks. When he closed his arms around me I could see his muscles moving under his skin, not the bulked up artificial looking muscles of a gym addict but the long, strong muscles and gentle hands of a man whose job involves moving tonnes of earth using every implement from a shovel to a cotton bud. ‘There isn’t a laundrette between here and York.’ He moved a step back so that he could look me in the face. ‘Are you sure? You look a bit …’ His hands pinwheeled as he searched for a definition. ‘… pale,’ he settled on. ‘Not coming down with something, are you?’