‘Good for them.’ Susannah stared down at the yellow bones, trying to see them clothed with flesh, but failing. ‘So will these two soon be buried again?’
‘After I’ve made a photographic record.’ Janet reached for a folder. ‘We took loads of pictures of the others, especially of the lady with the stuff. Let’s see – yeah, this is it.’
Susannah looked at a picture of the skull. So could this really be the Lady Aelwyn, as Julius had suggested? ‘I wonder what she looked like?’ she said softly. ‘I suppose we’ll never know?’
‘Well, we can sort of work it out.’ Laying a sheet of paper on a picture of the skull, Janet began to sketch. ‘She has large eye-sockets, so that probably means she had big eyes. She has good, high cheek-bones, a smooth forehead, and a short, straight nose. As you can see, she had near perfect teeth.’
Janet continued drawing. ‘Give her some hair, and – well, it seems she must have been quite good-looking. Unless she had a lot of nasty scabs or warts or boils, she must have been a very pretty girl.’
‘Who’d had her face smashed in.’
‘Yes, there is that,’ said Janet.
‘How do you think it happened?’
‘It was a glancing blow, I’d guess, from a heavy weapon like a broadsword or an axe. Or if this was a domestic squabble, maybe her husband whacked her with a pestle or rolling pin. If the Anglo-Saxons had such things.’
‘But did it kill her outright?’
‘No.’ Janet looked at the picture of the skull. ‘You see these little marks, just here and here? That’s where the bone was starting to knit again.’
‘But then she died.’
‘It looks like it.’
‘Poor girl,’ whispered Susannah.
‘Well, I don’t suppose she lingered long. In those days, you either recovered very quickly, or you croaked.’ Janet closed the folder. ‘God, is that the time? Let’s go and have a pint of Parker’s special. I must owe you one.’
‘It’ll have to be a diet Coke for me.’ Susannah shrugged. ‘I promised Dr Russell I wouldn’t touch the sauce.’
* * * *
After lunch, Susannah walked back to the library. She found a copy of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and pored over the entries for the early years of the ninth century.
She knew there’d be no mention of anyone called Aelwyn. The entry for 825, however, did record that in this year the East Angles slew Beornwulf, King of Mercia.
Good for them, Susannah thought.
She turned to the index. There was just one Cenred, and he’d been King of Wessex, dying long before the Lady Aelwyn had been born.
If she’d been born at all.
David had gone to visit Francis Parker, and Dora was on holiday. ‘Speak to me,’ Susannah said, gazing round the empty chamber, willing Aescwin, Beorn and all the other ghosts to make their spectral presence felt. ‘One of you must know what happened, what she did and how she died. Please, give me a sign?’
Chapter 22
‘God, I’m so bloody tired,’ said Gavin, who’d driven down to Marbury that weekend.
‘Go to bed, then,’ said Susannah, crisply. She took his plate away. ‘You could have Aubrey’s room. He’s away this week, on a school trip to Germany.’
‘You’re saying you don’t want me in your bed?’
‘I don’t mean that at all.’ Susannah looked at him and thought, sometimes he’s such a baby. ‘You obviously need a good night’s sleep, so why not go and have one?’
‘I’d prefer to stay with you,’ said Gavin. ‘If that’s okay?’
‘Yes, of course,’ replied Susannah. ‘Go on, get your head down, I’ll do the washing up.’
As she lay squashed against the bedroom wall, with Gavin breathing deeply and one arm lying like a dead weight across her ribcage, Susannah wished she’d put her foot down, had made him go and sleep in Aubrey’s room. Gavin demanded far too much. He took up all her space.
On Saturday, they drove out of Marbury and went for a bracing walk on the North Downs, where the wind whistled past their ears and made it hard to have a conversation. Later, in a decrepit country pub, Gavin bought them curling sandwiches and two halves of sour, yellow liquid that he said was alcohol-free lager.
‘I’d have preferred a Guinness,’ said Susannah. She took a sip and gagged.
‘You don’t drink alcohol when you’re with me. God, this stuff is vile.’ Gavin went back to the bar and got two Cokes. ‘Be a good girl, sweetheart. Do as the doctor said.’
‘All the doctor said was that I should be careful not to mix alcohol with any drugs.’
‘Oh, Susie, don’t be such a pain.’ Gavin bit into his stale sandwich. ‘Eat your lunch, all right?’
Susannah chewed reflectively.
As they drove back to Marbury, Susannah was almost silent. But that didn’t matter, because Gavin wanted to talk about himself, his work, his mates, his prospects. ‘They’ll always need good engineers,’ he said. ‘I reckon that in a year or two, I should be on – ‘
‘Shall we go back along the motorway?’ Susannah interrupted, as the signs appeared for the M5. ‘It’s so much quicker than all those winding roads.’
So Gavin indicated left. ‘Do you feel all right?’ he asked, and glanced at her solicitously.
‘I’m a bit tired, that’s all.
They joined the motorway and drove along in silence. Ten or fifteen miles on, Gavin braked, pulled on to the hard shoulder. ‘Okay, what’s the matter?’ he demanded.
‘Nothing,’ said Susannah. ‘Gavin, you can’t stop here, it’s dangerous.’
‘But what have I done now?’
‘You haven’t done anything, don’t be so silly.’ Susannah forced a smile. ‘It’s like I said, I’m tired.’
‘Oh,’ said Gavin. ‘Susie?’
‘What?’
‘I – listen, will you marry me?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Come on, love, you heard me.’ Gavin pulled her round to face him. ‘Susie, will you marry me?’
Susannah suddenly felt very sick. Those disgusting sandwiches, she thought, they’ve poisoned me. ‘I don’t think so, Gavin,’ she replied.
‘You mean no?’
‘I mean – I don’t know what I mean.’
‘Look,’ said Gavin, earnestly. ‘I know what I was like at college. You didn’t want to know me then, and I can’t say I blame you. But I’m grown up now! I don’t chase women, don’t get legless, and I don’t get high.’
He took her cold hands in his and rubbed them. ‘Susie, you know I love you. I think you love me. So why don’t we get married?’
‘I don’t – I just don’t know.’ Susannah’s head was aching. She felt really nauseous, she was tired, she didn’t want a row. ‘Let me think about it, eh?’
‘What’s there to think about, for heaven’s sake?’
‘Plenty – and Gavin, I’m not deaf, so please don’t shout at me.’
‘I’m not bloody shouting!’ Gavin shouted. ‘You think you’re too good for me – is that it?’
‘Oh, Gavin! You sound like some Victorian clerk who’s fallen for his master’s daughter.’
‘And you talk like the master’s fucking daughter! Right then, tell me straight – why don’t you want to marry me?’
‘It isn’t anything to do with you. I mean, you’re not the problem. ‘
‘Oh, well, that’s something, I suppose.’
Susannah forced herself to look at him. ‘I need to think it through,’ she said, at last. ‘I mean, I can’t discuss it with my parents, I don’t have any brothers, sisters, cousins. Anything I do, it’s always down to me to take the consequences, pick up all the pieces. There’s no one to look after me.’
‘But I’ll look after you!’ cried Gavin. ‘Marry me, and you’ll have new parents, brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces – ‘
‘Yes, and I’ll be suffocated.’ Susannah thought, please try to understand. ‘I need time to myself,’ she said, at last. ‘I nee
d some space, and I don’t want to be a member of some family circus.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ demanded Gavin. ‘My mother really likes you. So do both my sisters, and my father thinks you’re lovely. But no one’s going to bloody smother you!’
Susannah sighed. She didn’t know what to say.
Gavin scowled morosely. ‘So I’m to get the silent treatment now?’
‘Oh, don’t be so childish.’
‘Sorry, sorry, sorry.’ Gavin rubbed his eyes. He was so tired that he could hardly keep awake. At work, he’d had a stinking week. Yesterday, his boss had sent him down to try to pacify a group of fitters, on the factory floor. They were in dispute with management over comfort breaks.
Gavin had listened to their boring arguments, and ended up admitting that he could see no reason why they shouldn’t go to the bog as often as they wished. But as the foreman walked off grinning, he knew he’d got it wrong. The men had had their own agenda. They’d been trying – and had managed – to swing the lead.
Later in the day he’d got a rocket from his boss. It was all round the factory by lunchtime, that some blokes in Spares had told the college lad where he got off.
He’d come to Marbury to have a break, to see Susannah, who knew nothing about factories and cared even less. But here was something else he simply didn’t understand, something that had resulted – most unfairly, in his opinion – in humiliation and defeat for him.
Mortification, anger, bafflement all combined with bone-weary exhaustion to make him lose his temper, and now he just let fly. ‘You always were a tight-arsed little bitch,’ he muttered, sourly. ‘You and those other condescending cows you went around with – you never had any fun, you didn’t know how!
‘I know I was an idle sod at college. I know I was a waste of space, I didn’t do any work, I spent three years just hanging out. But I got drunk, got stoned, got laid, I spent the vacs in Thailand, Greece or India, I saw a bit of life. I wasn’t in the stinking library, all day, every day! What the hell were you up to there, Susannah? Learning all the bloody books by heart?’
Susannah stared at him.
‘You say you need to be in control,’ continued Gavin. ‘All right, you didn’t use those actual words, but that was what you meant. You’re shit-scared of reality – that’s your bloody trouble. You prefer to spend your waking hours thinking about what could have happened a thousand years ago, stuff that doesn’t matter a fuck to anyone today!’
Gavin turned on the ignition, put his foot down, stalled then crashed the gears. ‘Okay, then,’ he muttered. ‘Go back to your Abbot’s Library. You’ll end up like that precious little faggot who runs the bloody place. But I suppose that’s your idea of heaven, sitting there with David every day, wanking over ancient manuscripts.’
‘Gavin, you can be such a shit,’ observed Susannah, quietly.
Gavin barged into the stream of traffic, swerved to avoid a lorry, then roared off down the motorway. ‘Yeah, that’s me!’ he cried. ‘I’m an ignorant, stupid, foul-mouthed shit. But come on, Susie. You’re the Anglo-Saxon scholar, you know more four letter words than I do. There must be something else you’d like to call me?’
‘I don’t want to speak to you again.’ Susannah was coldly furious with him now. ‘I’d be grateful if you’d take me home. But if that’s too much trouble, just dump me on the motorway, and I can hitch a ride.’
* * * *
Gavin stopped in the Cathedral Close. ‘Susie, I’m sorry,’ he began, as Susannah got out of the car and grabbed her bag. ‘I didn’t mean those awful things I said. May I come in?’
Yes, she thought, come in, we’ll go to bed, then talk things through. We’ll sort it out, and everything will be all right again. ‘I don’t think so, Gavin,’ she replied.
‘Okay.’ Gavin shrugged. ‘I’ll phone you, then.’
‘Do what you like.’ Susannah couldn’t look at him. Don’t leave me, love, she thought, you can’t just go, please don’t turn round and drive out of my life!
But she couldn’t speak to him, she didn’t know what to say. She walked towards the house, and as she willed him to follow her, to come inside and kiss her fears away, he reversed then drove off down the road.
There was nothing of Gavin’s littering her little room. That morning, just as usual, he’d collected up his clothes and shoved them in his bag, which he’d left lying in a corner by the bed. Contrary to what she’d thought and said, he hadn’t tried to invade her space.
It was quite the opposite, in fact – her own books and clothes lay everywhere in heaps and tangles, her make-up, dirty coffee cups and clutter lay on the window sills and on the desk and bedside table. But nobody would have known he had been there.
She unzipped his holdall. She found a shirt and sweater and hugged them, breathing in the lovely scent of him. Then she began to cry.
* * * *
That night, she had the dream again, she smelled the smoke, she heard the awful screams of people burning, she felt the crawling fear. She woke up sweating, sobbing, needing someone warm and human, and sobbing harder because he wasn’t there.
It was the same on Sunday, too. But on Monday morning, she went to work determined to behave as if everything was hunky-dory, ready to say she’d had a great weekend.
David didn’t appear to notice anything amiss, and by coffee time Susannah began to hope her heavy make-up and determined cheerful manner had him and Dora fooled.
But Janet was more gimlet-eyed. When she and Susannah met for lunch, Janet stared, then grinned. ‘What’s with all the slap?’ she asked, ‘and what’s wrong with your eyes?’
‘My eyes?’
‘They’re sort of peering out from a nasty mess of spider’s legs. You’d look like a Goth, except you haven’t got a leather collar round your neck.’
‘God’s sake, Jan, I always wear mascara!’ Susannah led the way into the saloon bar of the Lamb.
‘It’s your turn to get them in,’ said Janet. ‘I’ll have a pint of Parker’s Randy Monk.’
So Susannah bought a pint for Janet, thought about a bitter lemon, but then bought another pint of Parker’s for herself. ‘Janet,’ she began as she sat down, ‘do you think I’m a tight-arsed little bitch?’
‘How should I know, darling?’ Janet grinned, her blue eyes twinkling. ‘What did that gorgeous bloke of yours ask you to do to him? What did he want, a flogging, golden shower? Tell him, any time you’re not around or just don’t want to do it, call on me.’
‘Please, don’t make a joke of it! Janet, we’ve – ‘
‘Yeah, I know, you’ve had a row.’
‘How can you tell?’
‘The slap, the general meepiness, that disgusting gunk all round your eyes.’ Janet stood up. ‘I’ll go and get some sausage rolls, or do you want a poisonous pasty? I didn’t think you were supposed to drink?’
* * * *
‘He wouldn’t even let me have a Guinness,’ said Susannah, as she munched her probably salmonella-ridden Cornish pasty. ‘Everything I do, he’s watching me and breathing down my bloody neck.’
‘You have to talk.’ Janet took a long pull at her pint. ‘Sorry to sound like whatsername in Woman’s Realm, but if you want to keep this going, you’ll have to thrash it out.’
‘We do talk.’ Susannah sighed. ‘Well, I talk, and he shouts.’
‘But he doesn’t thump you, does he?’
‘No, of course he doesn’t!’ cried Susannah. ‘What an awful thing to say!’
‘All right, don’t get upset, I only asked.’ Janet met Susannah’s gaze. ‘I’d write him a letter, tell him it all got out of hand, you didn’t mean the things you said, and this weekend you’ll – well, whatever turns him on, and that should do the trick. Now, what else is bothering you?’
‘I don’t think there’s anything.’ Except I have these dreams, I smell the smoke, I hear the screams, and somewhere in my mind there’s all this stuff about a battle and there’s a man who looks like Gavin but
he isn’t Gavin, and I wonder if I’m going round the bend. ‘There’s nothing, honestly.’
‘Then tonight you write that letter, ask him to meet you somewhere neutral, like a village pub.’
‘God, not in a pub, that’ll just start him off again.’
‘All right then, Tina’s Teashop in the bloody market square, go where you like!’ Janet looked at Susannah. ‘There’s something you’re not telling me. I don’t want to pry or anything, but if you want to talk, I’m here, okay?’
‘Okay.’ Susannah managed a feeble grin. ‘Thank you, Janet,’ she said politely.
‘Not at all, you’re welcome. Did you ever hear from Julius Greenwood, by the way?’
‘No, did you?’
‘Nope, he just lost interest, I suppose.’ Then Janet shrugged. ‘He always struck me as a dilettante. An eternal mucker-about, in spite of all his publications and his precious fellowship at All Souls. Well, I suppose I should get back to work.’
Susannah went back to the library, where she found there’d been a second post. David had left a note to say he’d had to go out for an hour, and she should open it.
There wasn’t much – some catalogues, a parcel from a dealer enclosing early printed maps of Marbury and the surrounding district, and a padded envelope that had seen better days.
This came from a Mrs Violet Trueman and contained some odds and ends that Mrs Truman said had been up in her loft for years. She’d read about the Abbot’s Library in the local paper, and wondered if this stuff would be of interest? It had belonged to her late husband’s grandfather, Emanuel Parker Brown, who had been related through his mother to the brewing family.
If these bits and pieces were valuable at all, continued Mrs Trueman, the library might like to know she was an old age pensioner who didn’t have much money. So a few pounds towards her gas bill would be very welcome.
Elegy for a Queen Page 22
