Lovers and Newcomers

by Rosie Thomas

  This chimes precisely with my own thoughts.

  ‘All that time, while the land was being settled and farmed, then bought and sold, plague coming and going, the crops growing, cattle grazing, Jake’s highwayman ancestor sticking his pistols in his belt and galloping off on his black stallion, those two were lying there. Ancient, invisible.’

  ‘Even though we’ve dug them up again they are still inscrutable,’ he says.

  ‘I expect the osteologist and the Iron-Age man from Oxford will soon be able to tell us everything about them,’ I sigh.

  Colin glances at me.

  ‘Do you mind that?’

  ‘Not exactly. It’s more on their behalf that I regret the disturbance. Two thousand years of unbroken peace, then along comes Amos with his ground source heating system.’

  ‘From my own completely detached and therefore selfish point of view,’ Colin offers, ‘I rather appreciate the contrast of scale. Looking back a couple of millennia does put one’s personal, short-term problems into perspective.’

  I turn my head to look at him. Polly and Katherine and I, now that we are living so closely together, have taken to describing versions of our problems to one another. But it’s unusual for Colin to touch even this lightly on his feelings.

  I say, ‘Talking your problems over with your friends might achieve the same result, without the archaeological intervention.’

  Unfortunately this comes out sounding like a criticism, which I didn’t intend at all.

  ‘Mirry, you’re a sympathetic ear, I know that. But I’m not much good at soul-baring. What can you really say to anyone, even your closest friends, about personal loss? Or about the individual slow decline, or sudden end, that’s lying in wait for us all?’

  I blurt out, ‘Because that is part of the human condition. And to share the grief and the fear, those things we’ve all known by the time we get to our age, as well as the picnics and birthdays, isn’t that what we’re put here for? At the very least, to ease each other’s loneliness?’

  He says very gently, ‘I’ve no idea why we’re put here. To me there seems less of a reason for our existence than there probably did to the Warrior Prince and his cup-bearer over there.’

  Across the fields and floating tree tops we watch a sudden flurry of activity on the site. A large open crate is borne out of the tent and laid on the grass, and every one of the distant figures lays down their tools and crowds around to look. Colin stands up, brushing leaves and moss from his coat.

  ‘What’s happening, I wonder?’

  I can’t help reflecting aloud, ‘Wouldn’t Jake have been fascinated?’

  ‘He would.’ Colin puts his arms around me and holds me close against him. He has always found non-sexual touching easy and natural, unlike a straight man.

  Jake died after only a short illness, here at Mead, with me beside him. He was twenty years older than me; I can’t even say that he was snatched away before his time. Not like Colin’s Stephen, who was murdered. Almost casually, for money for a fix, by a boy he had taken up with after he and Colin broke up. Without it ever having been discussed, I know that Colin blames himself. If he and Stephen had still been together there would have been no casual sex with dangerous young men.

  I’m trying to find a way to acknowledge that my loss is painful to a lesser degree than his, but it’s too clumsy a sentiment to put into words. Colin probably reads my mind in any case. I ask abruptly, ‘Tell me, how are you? What about the illness?’

  To my surprise he laughs. ‘Polly wants me to get off with the luscious chef at the Griffin.’

  ‘Well, why not?’

  It’s nice being held by Colin. I’m not cold, but the warmth our bodies hatches between us is welcome. Not for the first time I reflect what a shame it is that he’s not interested in women.

  ‘Dearest. I don’t need a chef in my life.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind one.’

  ‘You could cope with it, Mirry. More than cope. Look at you.’

  He strokes my hair back from my face. ‘Listen. I had the radiation therapy. I chose that rather than surgery, and it works in quite a high percentage of cases, but not in mine. It’s testosterone that fuels the cancer growth, did you know that? Mine’s an aggressive one. Mucho macho. When I first met my specialist I thought he was a patronizing little fart, excuse me, but I’ve warmed to him lately. He tells it straight. The radiation treatment didn’t do the trick. I can still opt for surgical removal of the tumour, but it’s in a ticklish spot. There is the risk of a little slip with the blade, can you imagine? Whoops, I’m suddenly incontinent. Rubber knickers, absorbent pads, worrying about how strongly I might smell of piss when I’m sitting in the theatre.’

  ‘No. Don’t do that.’

  ‘Exactly. So instead of going under the knife, my friend the specialist gives me injections of female hormone. It works, but there’s a payoff. It makes me completely impotent. However much I might want to, these days I couldn’t get it up for a whole chorus line of chefs. Not even individually basted in virgin olive oil and served with side dishes of oysters and rhino horn.’

  ‘I see. That’s difficult.’

  ‘In a way it is. But, you know, it’s not the worst thing in the world. Thirty years ago, even ten years ago, it definitely would have been.’

  ‘Does Polly know?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes, she does. She came to some of the treatments with me.’

  Polly would never betray a confidence. She is the most discreet person in the world. Thinking about Polly’s goodness makes me feel ashamed to have been the one who was grappling with her husband between the coats and on the bathroom floor, for all the world like a pair of pensionable teenagers at a party.

  ‘So, why’s she…?’

  ‘Promoting the chef?’ Colin laughs again. ‘Because she’s like you, and like all women. You and Polly would both say, wouldn’t you, that there’s more to sex than in and out? There’s kissing, touching, holding. There’s intimacy.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Exactly. You’re not men. And you don’t know anything at all about gay sex.’

  I slide my elbows under his jacket and lock my arms around him. Beneath his ribs I can feel his heart thumping.

  ‘Poor Colin. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Thanks. But I am managing. And for touching and holding I’ve got you, haven’t I?’

  I can’t look at him, because there are tears in my eyes.

  I don’t want to think that he might die: there has been more than enough death already, it’s as though the Iron-Age skeletons are there to remind us of what waits around every corner. And then my thoughts fly onwards in an urgent arc to Selwyn, as if there is only a whisker between contemplating death and wanting sex.

  Now, without a second’s warning, sexual longing floods through me. The heat and urgency of it take me utterly by surprise. It is all wrong to be clinging to Colin, and I disentangle myself and hastily step aside.

  He looks curiously at me. ‘Are you all right?’

  I straighten my hair, pull my collar up around my throat, and I can feel the blood pulsing in my face and throat.

  What’s happening to us all?

  The quick surge of lust is like helium in my lungs. It makes me feel light, disconnected, as if I might bob into the air and sail away over the trees.

  Down in the field, the archaeologists have turned back to their prayerful work.

  To anchor myself to the ground I take Colin’s hand and turn him to face back down the hill. I have to move, to disperse the pressure.

  ‘Come on,’ I call out.

  Towing Colin behind me I set off down the slope, moving faster until we have to let go of each other and start running. We gallop all the way down to the end of the path, where it emerges on the bend of the Meddlett road. As we come out of the trees, panting and elated, the sun suddenly appears from behind thin, high cloud.

  Out of the corner of my eye I catch a brief glimpse of erratic movement, two blurred patches of it
, then comes the blare of a car horn. Colin shouts a warning.

  The cyclist swerved on to the verge to avoid an oncoming car and toppled into the grass. A dog started yapping and bounding in circles around the tangle of limbs and turning wheels.

  A girl’s voice yelled, ‘Fuck you! Stupid fucker!’

  The Jaguar had stopped, half on and half off the road.

  Amos leaped out and strode back to where the cyclist lay.

  To his relief the girl reared up. ‘You could have killed me,’ she screamed.

  Amos’s shock and relief discharged themselves as anger. ‘You were in the middle of the bloody road. And your damn dog ran straight in front of me.’

  ‘Rafferty, be quiet.’ The dog subsided a little. ‘You come around the corner doing ninety in your big old car, and you expect everyone else to take avoiding action, don’t you? People like you don’t own the world, whatever you might think.’

  ‘If I hadn’t been the one to take avoiding action, I’d have hit either you or the dog.’

  As he calmed down Amos suddenly became aware of Colin and Miranda.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Having a walk,’ Colin said. ‘You know. Travelling on foot?’

  The girl struggled with her bike. It was a very old, rickety one. She glowered up at Colin.

  ‘Are you stalking me or something?’

  It turned out that the bike’s front wheel was too buckled for the girl – Colin introduced her as Jessie – to ride it any further. She had grazed one hand in the roadside grit and after inspecting it Miranda told her that Amos could either drive her home now, or she could come back to Mead where Miranda would clean up her injury and then take her home.

  The girl grinned. ‘I’ll come back to yours. Ta very much.’ The dog was still barking and waving its tongue and tail. ‘Shut up, Raff. Count yourself lucky you’re not dead in the ditch.’

  Colin wheeled the bike behind the hedge. He and Miranda squeezed into the cramped leather scoops in the back of the Jag and Jessie sat up front with the dog between her knees. She leaned forward to run her finger along the walnut dashboard, then rocked backwards in the leather embrace of her seat.

  ‘I don’t blame you, really. If I had a car like this I’d probably drive it at ninety and scare the shit out of the plebs as well,’ she said to Amos.

  ‘I was doing thirty-five, if that.’

  He looked sideways at her, his gaze settling for half a second too long. He saw a good-looking young woman, pierced and tattooed, in ripped jeans and a band T-shirt stretched tightly over healthy breasts. He had to swerve again, this time to miss a tractor and trailer loaded with muck coming around the last bend before Mead. Miranda recognized a farming neighbour and sank lower in her seat, as if anyone could spot her in the back of a speeding car.

  ‘Yeah. And that was David Furnish driving the tractor,’ Jessie sniffed.

  ‘Who is David Furnish, may I ask?’

  Colin leaned forward. ‘He is a homosexual, m’Lud, who is married to Mr Elton John, a popular singer.’

  ‘I don’t imagine he’s interested in the speed limit on rural roads, is he?’ Amos said pleasantly.

  The car turned in at the stone gateposts and bowled up the drive to the house.

  Miranda took Jessie up to the bathroom and sponged the grit out of her grazes, then dabbed them with antiseptic.

  ‘Ow. That hurts.’

  ‘It won’t last long.’

  The girl looked about her with interest.

  ‘This is a nice house. Really old, but still nice.’

  ‘Thank you. It was my husband’s, but he died a couple of years ago. Where do you live, Jessie?’

  ‘Rented place. It would look like a bit of a dump to you, but it’s not that bad. Between here and Meddlett.’

  ‘Are you from around here?’

  ‘Yeah. ’Course. I wouldn’t be here otherwise. I’ve not met you before, though, have I? I remember Mr Meadowe, of course,’ she added rather hastily, ‘from the church fête and that. Was he really your husband?’

  ‘Yes, really. Are your parents in Meddlett?’

  She looked at Miranda. ‘My mum.’

  ‘Would you like a plaster on this?’

  Giggling, Jessie withdrew her hand. ‘No. It’s all right. I’m grown up now.’

  In the kitchen, they found Amos sitting over his laptop and Colin making tea.

  ‘Two months suspension of work, they’ve asked for. To conduct a full and proper investigation,’ Amos snorted. ‘It’s a farce.’ He leaned back and tilted the lid of the machine to hide the screen from Jessie’s glance.

  Rafferty was slobbering up water from an enamel pie dish placed on the floor next to the range. As soon as he saw Jessie he leaped at her, dragging the cable connection out of the computer.

  ‘I wish I had run over that dog,’ Amos muttered and then he caught Jessie’s eye. There was no rancour in the exchange of looks. In fact they seemed to recognize each other. Colin put four mugs of tea on the table.

  ‘Cheers,’ Jessie said. She spooned sugar into hers. ‘Get down, you.’ Rafferty slouched off, his toenails clicking on the tiles. He flopped on the floor with his spine close up against the warmth of the range.

  ‘Damon didn’t get his half of him, then?’ Colin said, nodding at the recumbent animal.

  ‘Of course not, the loser.’

  ‘Damon’s my ex,’ Jessie explained to Amos and Miranda.

  ‘And also the brother of…’ Colin stopped himself.

  Like some adolescent whose nose had been put out of joint he wanted to counter Amos’s casual appropriation of Jessie by demonstrating his local knowledge, and by doing so he’d almost given away the secret of the excavation. He frowned at himself.

  ‘Dame’s brother is Kieran. How do you know him, then?’ Jessie asked smartly.

  ‘I just met him,’ Colin said. ‘They’re very alike.’

  ‘Not if you know them, they aren’t. Kieran’s got a job, for a start. He’s an assistant archaeologist. Dead keen on it, he is.’ Jessie tilted her head. ‘He’s working on a big job somewhere around here, actually. He won’t say anything about it though, even to his mum. I saw her in the shop, picking up her paper, and she told me. Did he mention that to you, at all, when you just met him?’

  She was very quick, Colin thought ruefully. Too quick for him.

  ‘No.’

  There was a small silence.

  ‘I think there is some cake. Would anyone like a piece?’ Miranda asked.

  ‘Yes please,’ Amos called.

  Miranda went to the larder for the cake tin. On her way back she glanced out of the window and saw two men picking their way across the yard. They were Chris, the bearded field supervisor, and Kieran himself. An AAS Land Rover was parked close to the gate at the far end. The men were carrying a crate between them, as gently as if it contained nitroglycerine.

  Selwyn emerged from the barn in his ragged coveralls and work boots. He headed off the archaeologists and peered down into the crate. Chris seemed to warn him, but Selwyn tweaked a cloth covering off whatever lay within.

  She saw how Selwyn straightened up and gazed in astonishment. He called over his shoulder and Polly came out to join them. Her hair was wrapped in a scarf and she pulled a dust mask from over her mouth. Polly’s reaction was the same.

  ‘Where’s that cake?’ Amos asked.

  ‘We’ve got visitors,’ Miranda said.

  It was too late to head them off. Selwyn rushed in first, tramping the dust off his boots, then Chris and Kieran with the crate, followed by Polly unwinding the scarf from her head.

  ‘Just look at this,’ Selwyn cried.

  Kieran stopped short when he saw Jessie, colour flooding his face.

  ‘Jess? What you doing here?’

  ‘Nice to see you too, mate,’ she said loudly. ‘Hi,’ she nodded to Polly. ‘It is a commune, this place, isn’t it?’

  Chris placed the crate at the opposite end of the table, and
tucked the cover more closely over its contents.

  ‘Mr Knight?’ he said. ‘Maybe we could have a few moments in private?’

  ‘Certainly.’ Amos got to his feet.

  ‘This the big job your mum was telling me about, is it?’ Jessie asked Kieran.

  ‘Shut up, Jess, will you? I dunno what you’re doing here.’

  ‘Knocked off my bike, wasn’t I?’ She waved her grazed hand at him.

  Amos interjected, ‘You were not. You fell off your bicycle when your dog almost caused a serious accident. Mrs Meadowe brought you back here to patch you up.’

  Jessie nodded. ‘Yeah. She’s been really nice.’ She grinned at Amos as she spoke then darted a last look at the crate. ‘Anyway. Looks like I’d better make myself scarce, doesn’t it? Only I haven’t got my bike, that’s the problem.’

  Kieran glanced at his boss, and stepped forward. ‘My van’s here. I can give you a ride.’

  Jessie whistled and Rafferty lurched to his feet.

  ‘Cheers. Bye then, everybody. Thanks for the tea and medical aid, Mrs Meadowe.’ She bestowed another of her smiles upon Colin as she passed by. ‘Be seeing you around again, no doubt.’

  The rest of them waited until the back door was closed and Jessie and Kieran with the dog at their heels had passed out of the yard gate.

  ‘Quite a self-possessed young person,’ Amos said. He turned back to Chris. ‘So, what have you got there?’

  ‘Show them,’ Selwyn urged.

  The archaeologist wouldn’t be hurried, Miranda noticed. If you were used to measuring time in thousands of years you were unlikely to be moved by the various urgencies specific to Amos or even Selwyn.

  Chris explained, ‘We thought you might want to see what we have found, before the items go to our finds specialist for preliminary examination.’

  ‘Yes please,’ Amos prompted.

  ‘Isn’t Mrs Knight here?’

  Amos stared at him. ‘No. She’s in London. Why?’

  ‘She would be interested to see our discovery too, I imagine.’

  Amos had the grace to look slightly discomfited by this.

  Chris finally lifted the folded cloth. He gave it a magician’s flourish. Miranda warmed to him. He probably did have a sense of humour, buried like his artefacts.