Women of the Dunes

by Sarah Maine

  Given her the wrong impression, indeed! He’d made no attempt to correct her after her first obsequious sir but had let her toady on. Wretched man! She watched him disappear through the gate, imagining the smile still lingering. And so it was him that Declan had been dealing with, and the Sturrock signature had been his own, not that of the baronet after all. And judging from his manner, Declan was probably right in believing that the boss himself had had little involvement.

  That thought brought her sharply back to Declan himself and to what he might be up to. There’d never been any discussion about the church, beyond the agreed recording work. Hector Sturrock, it appeared, was not the only one being kept in the dark.

  Libby left the dunes and walked back across the soft sheep-cropped turf towards the church, rerunning the conversation in her mind, puzzled, and annoyed with both men. She stepped over the shallow stream to enter the little graveyard which encircled the church. It was picturesque, certainly, with broken stubs of mossy stones marking burials drowning in clumps of nettles and sorrel, long forgotten, while fresh daffodils and clutches of primroses brightened more recent graves. The church might have lost its congregation along with its roof, but the burial place still served the community, binding the generations together, transcending the dimension of time.

  But what was so special here? She ducked under the stone lintel to cross a threshold raised by blown sand and entered the roofless nave, and found that there was a stillness there, a sense of a space set apart, defined by the four stone walls, and a pervasive earthy smell of soil and moss. The simple nave had been extended by an early-nineteenth-century chancel, and she glanced quickly around, reckoning the time needed to survey and record it. In all likelihood there had been an earlier building on the site, an idea supported by the fragments of associated sculpture, but Declan had never suggested that they excavate there to find out.

  A patch of primroses lit a sheltered corner beside an ancient grave slab, its lettering obscured by lichens. What looked like a recent crack had split the corner off, detaching the carved stone hilt from the blade of a warrior’s sword. Ideally all the stones would be lifted and conserved, though it would be a shame to move them, a sacrilege almost. Perhaps that was what Declan wanted to discuss—

  She sensed movement behind her and turned. Nothing. A rabbit, no doubt, she’d seen plenty.

  At the back of the nave, up against the wall, was the ornate nineteenth-century tomb of the third baronet and his lady, a lavish pastiche of classical and Celtic styles, displaying wealth rather than taste. She had taken a step forward when again she sensed movement behind her, and this time she saw a flash followed by sounds of a scuffle, then a giggle, and the two boys who had left the pub with their father jostled each other in the doorway.

  “Stalkers!” she said.

  They were dressed in jumpers, jeans, and wellingtons, free spirits by the look of them. The younger boy giggled again, but his brother stepped through the doorway, his hands thrust into his pockets. “Are you the lady who’s coming here to dig this summer?” he asked.

  “Yes, I am.”

  He nodded, satisfied. “Well, we’ve found stuff too.”

  “Really! What have you found?”

  “All sorts.”

  The younger boy (Charlie, wasn’t it?) stepped forward. “It’s up at the house. We’ll show you. Dad says you’re to come.”

  Did he, indeed.

  His brother frowned at him. “No, he said to ask nicely if you would please come up to the house, and said he’s putting the kettle on.”

  Tea. That universal cure-all. An olive branch, perhaps.

  “And then we can show you what we’ve found.” There was, of course, no way she could refuse, so she smiled her agreement. “We’ll spread it out on the kitchen table, while you drink your tea.”

  The boy turned towards the entrance, clearly expecting her to follow; his father’s son. Libby cast another quick look around the church, no nearer knowing what Declan had hoped to do there, then allowed herself to be escorted back across the stream.

  The older boy said his name was Donald and he walked companionably beside her, asking her what they hoped to find in the summer, while his brother leapt from one grassy tussock to another, arms outstretched for balance, loudly proclaiming each successful landing. Uncomplicated, engaging boys. They led her to the wrought-iron gate through which their father had earlier disappeared and stood aside to let her pass. Well-trained too— The path divided inside the gate; one half headed off into the garden, but they took the other route along the inside line of the wall, through a dark tunnel of overgrown rhododendrons, until it reached an arch which led them into a cobbled courtyard flanked by what had once been stables and out-buildings. Sturrock House was some place.

  “This way,” Charlie said, gesturing to a back entrance and pushing open the door. He went ahead of her, down a short passage, and she heard him call: “We got her, Dad! She was in the church.”

  “Boots off!” The roar shot him back out like a cannonball and both boys grinned at her, obedient but unabashed as they kicked their boots off against the step. “I don’t think he meant you—” said Donald kindly.

  “But dare I risk it?” she asked, smiling back at him as she placed her shoes next to the two pairs of muddy boots.

  He led her down the short passage where coats hung from a row of pegs competed with an array of fishing rods, shrimping nets, shooting sticks, and the like, and through a door into a large square kitchen. The black Labrador came over to inspect her, tail thumping, but was called to order by Donald.

  Rodri Sturrock was lifting a kettle off the Aga. “Hello again,” he said, glancing to where she stood in the doorway before turning back to fill a brown teapot. “Come in and have some tea.”

  The boys crossed the stone-flagged floor and vanished through another door, and she could hear their voices off in another room. “You sent for me,” she said, risking a dry tone.

  He looked up sharply. “Is that what they said?”

  Not quite, but it had been implied. “They said you were putting the kettle on.”

  He grunted. “Good. Milk and sugar?”

  “Just milk.”

  “I owe you an apology. I was unfriendly.”

  “Duplicitous rather than unfriendly, I’d have said,” she replied.

  He glanced at her again, an eyebrow raised, then seemed to consider, weighing the kettle in his hand before replacing it. “No, I simply said my name was Sturrock; the rest was your assumption, which I chose not to correct. You were a stranger, you see, and wouldn’t know any better.” He pulled up a stool and gestured her to a chair. “Have one of these by way of reparation.” He pushed a plate of shortbread towards her. “Alice made them yesterday. They win prizes, you know.”

  She took one, considering the man. “Do you often impersonate your brother?” she asked.

  He took back the plate and chose the largest piece. “I don’t often have the opportunity,” he said, biting into it. “But if strangers come poking about where they’ve no business, I let them draw their own conclusions. You did have business here, of a sort, but I couldn’t have known that, could I?”

  Not initially, perhaps, but she wouldn’t split hairs. She still needed him on-side.

  He raised his mug and regarded her over the rim with that same appraising look he had given her out by the mound. “So your brother lives in Norway, and you live here?” she said, feeling that she should say something and looking around the sunlit kitchen. The scrutiny was unnerving. “Very nice too.”

  “I look after things for Hector.”

  Like keeping archaeologists at bay, accosting visitors, seeing off nighthawks. A gatekeeper. And had he been here, looking after things, when the Ullaness chalice had been stolen? It would be insensitive to allude to it but she decided she would anyway, to balance the score. “And I suppose you’ve had trouble with strangers in the past,” she said.

  He took another drink. “If you mean the bu
rglary, that actually happened during one of Hector’s visits. But since then we’ve had a van-load of likely lads with metal detectors sniffing around, treasure-hunting. So yes, we’ve had trouble.”

  “And is that what you thought I was?”

  “A likely lass?” He looked amused, briefly. “You were studying the mound very carefully, you know.”

  Fair enough, but she pursued him. “I understand your brother’s gamekeeper has a more direct way of seeing people off. Will he take potshots at my students if they wander around at night?”

  The single-line frown reappeared smartly. “I wonder where you heard that. Angus did not fire at them, he was ten miles away at the time visiting his mother, so I’d be grateful if you’d scotch that rumour.” He set his mug down. “You saw him last night in the pub. A lovely man.”

  Benign he certainly appeared, but Libby imagined the bearded giant might have a steelier side, and the glimmer in her host’s eye gave confirmation. At that moment the boys reappeared, one carrying bulging carrier bags, the other a pile of shoe boxes. “Good God,” said their father. “What’s all that?” The Labrador lifted its nose but decided to stay put.

  “Where’s my tea?” demanded the younger boy, obliquely eying the shortbreads.

  “You don’t like tea.”

  “I do!”

  “Wait. What are you doing?” Having deposited their burdens on the table, the boys were starting to tip out the shoe boxes. “Stop!”

  “But she said she’d like to see it.”

  Wordplay seemed to run in the family, but she couldn’t withstand the appeal in the boys’ expressions. “Of course I would. But maybe some newspaper on the table first—”

  “Good idea. Go and get some.”

  “And I do like tea.”

  “Alright.” The man rose. “Spread out some newspaper and keep all your loot on it, and I’ll get you both some tea. And it’s one shortbread each.”

  These conditions met, the boys tipped out the contents of the first box and began spreading it over the table with wide sweeps of robust arms, cascading sand onto the floor. “Give me strength,” said their father, turning back to watch, “you’ve collected half the beach.” The boys ignored him, their eyes fixed hopefully on Libby.

  It was a motley collection comprising mostly rusty metal, broken china, and animal bones, but she felt that she must rise to the occasion. “Let’s group them first,” she suggested, “stone with stone, bone with bone, metal with metal, and so on.” They set to, a couple of bright boys, she guessed, keener than many of her students. Her eye fell on two very fine chert blades, which she rescued from further abuse and set aside.

  “Leave ’em to it, and have some more tea,” Rodri Sturrock said, refilling her mug. “They’ve been out collecting stuff ever since they heard about the dig.”

  “And before!” The older boy was examining a third chert blade, which he put with the others; a quick learner. “There’s been treasure found here already, you know,” he said, glancing shyly up at her. “Real gold and stuff.”

  “A very long time ago,” said his father.

  The dampening remark earned him a frown. “But there might be more. Like the dish thing that was stolen.”

  The dish thing. Libby looked across at their father. Would she have to explain to this man about the cross? It was a daunting thought; he had an uncompromising air. “There’s been no news about it, I suppose—?” she asked, and he shook his head, drinking his tea and watching the boys. She’d have to grasp that nettle sometime, but it could wait, at least until she heard back from Nan.

  While his attention was elsewhere, she looked around the kitchen. It was old-fashioned and rather spartan but attractive nonetheless. An ancient Aga stood under the original fireplace arch with a tall coal scuttle beside it, filled to the brim. The cupboards and shelves were wooden, painted a pale grey and chipped, probably 1920s or earlier, while the long free-standing dresser looked older and the table bore evidence of scrubbing by generations of cooks and kitchen maids. The sink too was of the old Belfast type, with tall taps and wooden draining boards. There was a dishwasher, she noticed, and an electric hob but, other than an espresso machine, barely a nod towards modernity. The drying rail above the Aga was empty of clothing and a bleached tea-towel had been neatly folded beside the sink, while a striped butcher’s apron hung on the back of a closed door. The room was almost severely uncluttered, with not a thing left out that had no purpose, testament to a formidable housewife. Alice the shortbread maker, and presumably his wife, must be a paragon.

  “Is that what you’re looking for?” Charlie asked, bringing her back to the moment as he cheerfully snapped together the mandibles of two different sheep, crocodile-style. “The rest of the treasure?”

  “Not treasure, as such . . .” She sensed his father’s eyes on her. “But the sea is starting to wash away that big mound, so we need to record what there is before—”

  “Other people came looking for treasure,” the boy interrupted, “with metal detectors, but someone shot at them and they haven’t come back.”

  “Charlie—” said his father.

  “It’s true!” the boy insisted.

  “You know perfectly well that Angus was with Jennet that night.” The two boys exchanged grins and dropped their heads back to their task. Libby helped them sort while she drank her tea, glancing across at their father, who returned her a bland smile.

  Eventually the boys stood back, indicating that their part in the exercise was complete, and she surveyed the results. They had done a good job but there was, at first glance, little of interest. Nails of all sizes, rusted and bent, the corroded spout of a metal teapot, a heavy iron cog from some sort of farm machinery, a bed or car seat spring, fragments of old china, and more chips of chert that she would need to examine more closely. Lots of animal bone, teeth, sheep horn cores— Then her eye was caught by a small dark stone, elongated and thin. It had a hole pierced in one end, like a pendant, and she rescued it, putting it to one side. Rodri Sturrock reached out his hand and picked it up to examine.

  “Do you know the legend of Ullaness?” the older boy asked her, dusting the sand off his hands. “It’s really famous.”

  “Only bits of it,” she replied, and sat back again. How had the legend survived here, she wondered, in the place of its conception? “So tell me.”

  And she felt a sort of wonder as she sat in the old kitchen and listened while the boys, their eyes large with conviction, told her much the same story that she had learned when she was their age, two thousand miles away. It was an erratic but drama-filled telling as the boys spoke over one another, squabbling about some details and backtracking as they remembered others; but in the telling they were continuing a tradition which stretched back over the generations, unconsciously doing their bit towards the legend’s preservation.

  “And years later Erik came back to find the treasure—”

  “No! He came to find Pádraig.”

  “Who’s Pádraig,” she asked quickly, before the squabble moved the story on.

  “The boy.”

  “Which boy?”

  “Ulla’s son!”

  They spoke in unison, in the same belittling tone, as if this was surely common knowledge; but here was a detail—a name—which had not survived the transatlantic journey, and she thrilled at the thought of what other nuggets might have been retained. “And who was his father?” she asked, curious to hear their take on this disputed point.

  “Harald, of course. The Viking.”

  “Not Odrhan?”

  Charlie looked at her. “He was a monk!”

  “Ridiculous suggestion,” agreed their father, leaning back in his chair.

  “And not Erik?” she asked, ignoring him.

  Donald answered this time. “She was running away from him.”

  “Ulla and Harald were lovers, you see,” his brother explained patiently, to his father’s evident amusement.

  “Yes, I do see,” Libby r
eplied, not looking at him. “Of course.” And so to them at least that detail of the legend was unambiguous, and she wondered who had passed the story on. Women were usually the keepers of tales. “How do you know all this?” she asked.

  They misunderstood the question. “Because Pádraig was hiding when Erik came and he saw what happened to Odrhan, so he ran away and grew up somewhere, and then he came back with lots of treasure himself and built the church, and told people what—”

  “And that’s how the legend started, you see,” Donald informed her gravely, “and why the church is St. Oran’s, because of Odrhan and what he did for Pádraig.”

  Odrhan. Pádraig. The names tripped off the small boys’ lips as if they were discussing their neighbours, and, in a curious sort of way, they were. Neighbours separated from them only by time and made immortal by a story. She found the continuity deeply satisfying. They pronounced Odrhan with a lovely soft roll to the r, but her grandmother had said it differently, emphasising the flatter, broader o sound whereby Newfoundlanders made oxen into aaxen. And they pronounced Pádraig in the Gaelic way, not as its modern equivalent, Patrick. So Ulla’s child had been named for Ireland’s patron saint, had he, giving credence to the idea that the monk had, after all, converted her—or had he had the naming of the boy himself? In her grandmother’s telling, Ulla’s son had been a shadowy figure, while here both he and Odrhan had substance, kept alive by the retelling of the story.

  Libby urged them to continue, but they’d lost interest, just as she had done, at the point where the legend morphed into a sort of biblical tale of a feral boy who had been taken in by good Christian souls, and who had returned as a man to build a church.