The Lovers of Pound Hill

by Mavis Cheek

  If her grandfather was right it had been created at the end of the first century AD, when Julius Agricola finally quelled the British rebels. But he was not, from his notebooks, certain of this. After that Roman success things became a bit less primitive. But then again, it could be mediaeval and an attempt to dishonour the heathen past. Unlikely. The established Church was not known for its portrayal of manliness, round-bellied women being more in its line. So, earlier? Betwixt and between? But that still didn’t explain why whoever made it, made it and put it in such a local setting. If it was meant to be ridiculous like Greek satyrs and their Roman Mutunus Tutunus equivalents, was it just up there for a joke? Molly looked up at the Gnome, trying to see it with fresh eyes. It was hardly what you’d call bitingly funny. She shivered and found herself wishing for Freddy. Which was odd and unusual when she was on a dig. How long had she sat here? Too long. Hours. She walked around for a while swinging her arms to get the circulation going again.

  Below her, Winifred Porlock stood at her front door with a thoughtful look on her face. She was wondering about something. Donald had left her tidily indoors, which is how he seemed to prefer her nowadays, but she was drawn to the Hill, and to the girl. Such stillness and dedication in this cold weather. Oh it took her back, how it took her back. Along with most of the village she had enjoyed the experience of helping up there, but now Winifred wondered whether – if she could get up the courage – she might be able to offer more help. Which would probably be politely refused on the grounds of her being so old and dull, she thought gloomily. But she went on looking hopefully all the same.

  Molly was crouching again, this time at the very edge of the top of the phallus. Despite knowing it was soil and chalk and flint and sandstone and anything else that made up the Hill, she found it very hard to touch the shape and she must overcome this squeamishness. The rest of the figure caused her no problems but here there was a restraint. A feeling that it was holy? Sacred? Obscene? What? The cap of the corpus spongiosum, as hewn out of the soil, was quite dramatically – even unpleasantly – disproportionate. It occurred to Molly that if she could feel strangely superstitious about approaching and touching such a place, how much more difficult must it have been for those who lived in bygone times? This is pathetic, she told herself, and with the same enthusiasm she might feel at plunging her hand into a drain, she ran her fingers over the edge of the part first with one hand then with the other, and then both together.

  Whoever had cut out the figure had given the top of the phallus a slight incline, a cushiony curve, as if it were made of appliqué or quilted slightly – as if it were the real thing. Molly stood up again, brushed off her knees where the soil clung, and decided to begin. And damn and damn again, she thought, for not having anyone to help with the filming. She would have needed to be able to trust the person she used and they would have had to know how to wield a camera. It would be so miserable if any of her discoveries and theories should leak out before she was ready. ‘I’ll have to do it all myself,’ she said to the airy emptiness. ‘But before I do anything else, I must decide where to cut the trench.’ She was becoming quite skilled in using the auger, old-fashioned as the process was. Rather like bashing down on piano keys, it got rid of frustrations nicely. You put down your block of wood and then you bashed the mallet down on it as hard as you could – and hoped for a hollow sound. No wonder her grandmother said that Arthur Bonner was the mildest of men.

  Molly went down to the trailer and pulled back the covering tarpaulins. The weather in April was changeable and she did not want to be stopped by rain or even snow. She also wanted to keep the site from prying eyes so she had put in a good quantity of cloth protectors. Apart from these the trailer contained all the items she thought she needed: her trowel, her shovel, a hoe, wheelbarrow, pick, whisk broom, plumb bob and a great many rubber buckets. It also contained a large mallet, a very large mallet, the auger – which her supplier had handed over to her with an odd look on his face. Molly had not deigned to tell him what it was for. He would have laughed. Technology was all, nowadays. She lifted the mallet out, with some effort. It was wooden and not too heavy – but heavy enough. Good job she was fit. Then, as she prepared to pull the covers back over the trailer, she realised what she had lost. The little movie camera. She shifted things about, scrabbled under everything, threw the cloths out on to the grass – but it was not there. It must have bounced out somewhere. And then she remembered …

  The trailer had been brought up the Hill when the ground was slightly icy. The last part of the climb was just too steep for Peter Hanker’s Land Rover and the trailer had to be unslung and pulled by hand. On being asked, Nigel called stoutly that Yes, he had put the chocks under the trailer thank you very much, as Peter unhooked it from the back of the vehicle. Unfortunately, Nigel was not entirely competent in manly things, nothing like, and the trailer had rolled quite a way and half overturned before Molly saw what was happening and dived to catch it. While she and a couple of other helpers dug in their heels and held on for dear life, it crossed her mind that she had never seen a man go quite so red in the face as Nigel and kindness made her decide that it was from effort, rather than shame. ‘Everything is fine,’ she said, to placate his embarrassment and then felt embarrassed herself at the expression of gratitude which lit up his face.

  They managed to haul the trailer the rest of the way. Peter returned to the village with a cheery wave. She wished Nigel would not be quite so chivalric about everything. Telling her that she looked completely lovely in her brown waterproof and clunky, clay-clagged boots was hardly what she needed to hear at that particular time. Nor, she guessed, was it what the barmaid from the pub wanted to hear, if the expression on her face, fully made up beneath its cagoule hood, as they righted the trailer together, was anything to go by. It was with relief that Molly watched the barmaid take Nigel’s arm and go back down to the village.

  It must have been then that the camera rolled out. Molly walked back down the Hill to where the trailer had overturned. The clearance had not stretched this far as it was well below the figure. There were bushes and undergrowth aplenty where Molly began to search. Eventually she found it nestling in the centre of a gorse bush. Its case open, the camera was useless now from rain, sleet and ice. She shook it and tried it – held it to her eye, and shook it again – but to no avail.

  Molly stood for a moment holding the camera. Well, she would have to get another one – but, she reluctantly accepted, not today. Today she must really begin the work – how easy it was to keep finding other things to do. She gave the camera one last sad look and tucked it into her jacket. Enough of that, she told herself firmly, begin!

  She collected the mallet from the trailer, took it back up the Hill, lifted it high and brought it down on the ground several times, so hard that she panted with the effort. That felt better. Much better. Below Pound Hill, in the village, two pairs of binoculars were trained upon her. One pair belonged to Nigel, the other to Winifred Porlock. And for some reason Mrs Porlock, the doctor’s wife, observing the business with the camera and then the business with the auger, was nodding and smiling as she watched. ‘A little more gently, I think,’ she said to herself. ‘But I know what you are doing, and I know why. You old-fashioned little thing.’

  Nigel was neither nodding nor smiling but looking a little less than dewy eyed. That was not how damsels in distress should behave … They should sit down and look sweetly defeated until help, in the shape of a white knight such as himelf, came by. What Molly was doing looked alarmingly muscular. Nigal winced to see it. That mallet was extremely large and heavy and she, whom he had privately vowed to serve, was wielding it in a manner that looked considerably less than damsel-like. Thump, thump, thump, it went as she brought it crashing down on the ground. Thump.

  Three

  IT CERTAINLY MADE the adventure more interesting to come to Pound Hill and use the same tools as were available ninety years ago. There was something liberating about not havi
ng anything technical to worry about. And the auger did the job. It brought her closer to the place, she thought, as if there were nothing and no one between her and the site but a veil of misty unknowns. Field-walking was still a quiet pleasure to the archaeologist, a time to reconnect eye and brain with the land. When the light slanted a certain way you could often see what had gone before without the benefit of any technology. The eye was the most useful tool an archaeologist owned. Molly gave the ground another smite, and another, and another, walking in a straight line back to her site. And as she got into the rhythm of the bosing she felt more confident that she would find out the secret of the Gnome of Pound Hill. If there was one. And if there wasn’t? Well, there had to be something, those old notebooks told her that. This method was as good as any. Pitt-Rivers had great success with the bosing technique, so why not Molly Bonner?

  Dryden, having ordered Nigel back into the shop and removed his binoculars from him, was now looking up at the figure on the Hill. That girl was altogether too impressive. The village was impressed with her, the village aristocracy was impressed with her, even he was impressed with her. And Nigel was downright smitten, though when he removed the binoculars from his son he had looked less like a man in love than – frankly – a frightened schoolboy. Seeing the girl and the mallet Dryden was not surprised. It did look somewhat aggressive. All the same, the heart was on the filial sleeve again, or about to be. Nigel had chosen badly, when did he not? At least this one would not be remotely interested in his son – you could tell that at a glance – unless you were Nigel. He looked over his shoulder nervously. Time was cracking on. Something must be done.

  Dryden went back inside and closed the shop. Nigel pushed his way past him as if to leave. ‘No you don’t,’ said Dryden. And then more kindly, ‘Now listen, I want to talk to you about Sir Roger and that gun. I want you to have the opportunity to show your gunsmith’s skills to the Fitzhartletts – I want you to sell the gun to him. He already wants it so it shouldn’t be too hard, even for you. I’ll do all the necessary to the mechanism. You concentrate on making it look good. It’ll put you – us – in good odour up at the Manor. I think Lady Dulcima likes you already –’ He paused briefly as if a thought had just struck him: ‘Though she seems to like everybody … And Marion is just waiting to be wooed. You’ll just have to try to ride.’

  Nigel stared miserably at his father’s face. Nigel and horses were a three-act drama – you attempted to get on to the horse, you got on to the horse, you fell off the horse. It was hell. But his father smiled at him with just a hint of menace; there was no brooking the order.

  ‘And I shall have to think about making you a partner proper. That should speed things up a bit.’

  Nigel blinked. Now he really was sunk. His father was serious. He thought fondly, wistfully of that little lady with the bouncing scarlet hair and the bluest eyes and turned his gaze hillward. Just at that moment Molly lifted the mallet high above her head and brought it down upon the ground with yet another smash. Nigel winced and the thud of it echoed. Something was beginning to curdle in his brain: the mixture of a milk and water damsel, and that Russian athlete Tamara Press. He felt doubly upset. Even as he attempted to overcome the curdling, another thud made him wince.

  He nodded to his father. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’ll do it.’

  At least that was something, the gun. Nigel could show off his skills at last. He had always, always known he had a craftsman’s hands despite his father’s views, but his father never let him loose on anything. He put the other bit of the bargain out of his mind, the bit about Marion – and concentrated on considerations of mechanism, wood and silver, gun oil and polish. Above him came the sound of his father saying waspishly, ‘Well Lottie – is that acceptable to you?’ And it was not for the first time. Odd.

  Bosing works best on land that has never been ploughed or grazed. If land has been used for farming then thumping the ground with the mallet and block is less likely to show any hidden differences in underground solidity. But given the unusual nature of Pound Hill, the fact that it had not been used for agriculture, if there were any buried secrets on the Hill, bosing should be up to finding them. But Molly had drawn a blank. Now she was taking the mallet up to the top of the shaft of the Gnome’s member, bosing away – trying to be objective – and so far with nothing to hear but the dull sound of soil density.

  Molly stopped to rest for a moment. There was not a murmur up here. Not even a bird. Even the clear April sky had begun to cloud over. It was as if the world was holding its breath. She certainly was. For Molly and her mallet had reached the tip of the Gnome’s great member, the cushiony area. The very top of the shape. She brought her mallet down very hard, wincing as she did so, and the resultant sound brought a smile of satisfaction to her face. At last. She hit the ground once more, just to be sure. Now she knew exactly where she must dig. Yes. She stood there, leaning on the handle of the mallet, scanning the sky where the clouds had grown darker. A spot of rain fell, then another. Damn. Harder now. This would slow things down. She watched the course of the raindrops falling to the ground and she had her first reward. This was what happened sometimes, if you were lucky. For as the water splashed on to the earth, something embedded was wetted by it and went from dull to glossy – something that was not earth, nor grass, nor chalk. Another piece of the Kimmeridge shale?

  The mallet dropped from her hands. She fell to her knees in excitement, slipped off her glove and very delicately, with her smallest trowel, she lifted the little thing from the earth and held it in the palm of her hand. Kimmeridge shale it was, like the piece her grandfather wrote about. Another bead, perhaps? Or – was it a weaving weight? It was an aberrant, it was shale, and it was mysteriously up here. She watched the rain splash on the object in her hand, washing its surface, showing that it had, indeed, been drilled. A central hole, slightly off-centre, in an imperfect round shape. Whatever its original use it was proof that someone from the distant past had been here and dropped it. The link was tangible and encouraging. She raised her head and thanked the rain. This was where she must dig. But now the rain was lashing down, its torrents running down the Hill. Exactly as it had rained in that spring so long ago and doing exactly what it had done then. Stopping the work. And the clouds had darkened even more so that there was almost no light. Without cover it would be foolish to begin her trench. She ached to begin. She ached to start carefully lifting off the first layer of scrubby chalk and turf. But for now she must cover the place with the tarpaulins, protect it both from the elements and from any prying eyes – or creatures that might come in the night and poke about. She would get cold and wet enough doing that – and by the time the cloths were up and sufficiently secured to withstand a reasonable amount of wind it would be too dark anyway. The years had taught her patience. Tomorrow, whatever the weather, she would begin to cut.

  As she drummed the poles securely into the ground and stretched the cloths over them, struggling against the wind and the rain, she wondered, not without a twinkle in her eye, if this was why her grandfather had seemed slightly cautious – coy, even – about telling her grandmother more about the site and his find in his letters. For Molly, having completed her task, was now standing under the protective tarpaulins which were firmly stretched over the very tip of the Gnome’s priapus. Even a liberated Edwardian young lady might find it disturbing to be told about such a thing. Or a liberated Edwardian man might find it difficult to mention such a thing in any detail to that lady. She smiled as she skipped, dripping and red-cheeked from the wind and rain, back down the Hill to the warmth of the pub. Sunshine and dry weather willing, tomorrow she would begin.

  Winifred removed herself from the window. Even with the rain and the wind, she wished with all her heart that she could be up there, working away, involved. When Donald returned from the surgery, he found his wife sitting in the kitchen with what appeared to be a very small gardening trowel in one hand, and an old movie camera balanced in front of her. And n
o hot food in sight.

  It crossed Julie Barnsley’s mind that it would be very easy to poison Molly Bonner. All she had to do was slip something tasteless and deadly into her half-pint of Poacher’s Ale or her ham and chicken pie – and that would be that … For a moment she drifted away into these pleasant thoughts but the sound of Molly’s voice – sweet and kind – broke in saying, ‘And a packet of crisps, please, oh dreamer.’ Julie found herself saying automatically, ‘Cheese and onion, plain or smoky bacon?’ And that was that dream over. Molly, pink and wholesome again having showered and changed, was waiting for her supper in the bar. She was also waiting for Dorcas. Hence the crisps. A day out in the air with only a packet of sandwiches and an apple makes for a keen appetite. So does the excitement of discovery. Nothing was likely to take the edge off her longing for food though the butterflies dancing around in her solar plexus might hamper her input slightly.

  At the other end of the bar sat Pinky and Susie, happily slouched on their bar stools. They had been having such a jolly time of it, they told her, slurring a little, since she had put the Gnome out of bounds. There being no possibility of Susie being in the family way, Susie could enjoy a drink. And she was doing so. ‘That one’s on us,’ they chorused, as Julie went to take Molly’s money. ‘And put a short in it.’

  ‘Better not,’ said Molly. ‘Got an important day tomorrow.’

  ‘Does that mean you’ve found something?’ asked Julie eagerly. She was thinking, the Sooner She Finds the Sooner She Goes. But Molly merely shook her head, put her finger to her lips and went over to her table by the fire.