Читать книгу The Buried Circle - Jenni Mills - Страница 19

Fran refuses point blank to discuss her time at the Manor. Doesn’t stop me trying at regular intervals.

‘My memory in’t what it was.’

‘You must remember something.’

She shakes her head stubbornly. ‘Nothing worth the telling. Read the books. They’d have it right, mostly, I ‘spec’.’

‘What about the letters you typed?’

‘Oh, Ind, you can’t expect me to remember those boring old things. Thought they were all in the files, anyway, and you’d read ‘em.’

‘Some of them were burned, apparently.’

Something glitters in her eyes, but she shakes her head again and clatters her spoon into her bowl, signalling it’s time to change the subject. ‘Don’t want any more of this porridge. Anyway, I was thinking in the night.’

‘Always a dangerous thing.’

‘Go on with you. Have me best ideas then. I thought, Why doesn’t our Indy find a job on Flog It? They make it in Bristol. You’d be good on that. Such an interesting programme, one of me favourites.’

‘Don’t worry,’ I tell her, scooping up the cereal bowls and dumping them in the sink. ‘Might have a television job already. I’m off to London, remember, today.’

‘By the way, Ind,’ she says, casually, ‘you in’t seen them buggerin’ lights lately, have you?’

Channel 4 is housed in a scary modern building on Horseferry Road. As we walk under the sheer concave glass sheet suspended above the doors, I keep thinking the whole lot will come crashing down and slice off my head like in The Omen. Even Daniel Porteus looks uncomfortable. He keeps running a hand through his white quiff, which is getting alarmingly spiky.

He’s invited me to help explain my idea to the commissioning editor in London, because Ibby is apparently not good in meetings. ‘Doesn’t butter them up properly,’ he told me on the train. ‘If the commissioning editor suggests something stupid, she can’t conceal her contempt. Tells them they’re wrong.’ As he said it, he shot me a doubtful glance. ‘Your job is to sit there and look fresh-faced. Leave the talking to me. Unless somebody asks you to say something, in which case be brief. And enthusiastic. Don’t argue!

He marches up to the desk and tells them who we are. We sign in and are given name badges. Then we sit on low, curved armchairs in the atrium. Above, a high glassy space is diced by steel cables.

Daniel shifts awkwardly on his seat. ‘They design these specially to make it impossible to get up gracefully,’ he mutters. ‘Puts you at a disadvantage from the start. Especially with dodgy knees.’

‘I suppose you come here a lot?’ I’m not sure how to make conversation with him.

‘I’m not well in, if that’s what you mean,’ he says. ‘The company’s too small, and you need to be London-based to do serious business. Channel 4 commissioners are much happier conjuring ideas off the tablecloth at the Ivy with their mates. They give work to bright young things who remind them of themselves. Doesn’t matter if we had the best concept in the world–’ He breaks off at the sight of a tall, gangly bloke bouncing lithely over the floor as if he had springs in his heels, boing boing, coming our way at a terrific pace.

‘Cameron!’ says Daniel, struggling to his feet. A fork-lift truck would be useful at this moment. The red plastic seat farts as he finally manages to lever his bum up from it. ‘Good to see you! Thanks for sparing the time!’ I can hear the exclamation marks.

‘Daniel!’ Cameron is exclamation-marking back. He’s wearing an oversized tweed jacket that suggests at first glance he bought it at Oxfam, though at a second you’re meant to recognize he paid a fortune for it brand new somewhere much classier. He claps the older man on the shoulder manfully, and kisses me–‘And lovely to see you again!’–like he knows me. Daniel sends me a fierce glance, warning me not to open my mouth and say we’ve never met before.

‘Now–I would have bought you lunch in the canteen, but I’m supposed to be at the Ivy in half an hour.’ Cameron makes it sound such a bore. ‘Come up to the office. You have passes?’ Even I find it hard to keep up as he leads the way at a gallop towards a glass barrier. A tarty brunette I recognize from the last series of Big Brother pushes between us as if she can’t be bothered with these lumbering provincials, but fortunately Cameron waits, cooling his smoking heels and drumming the backs of his fingers against the security gate.

‘You didn’t see that Michael Wood thing the other night on BBC4?’ puffs Daniel, as we hurtle through and head for the stairs.

‘Meant to but we had people round,’ says Cameron, to let us know what a sparkly social life he has. ‘Recorded it, of course–in case I ever have time to watch. Got a pile of DVDs this high. Not enough hours in the day to see our stuff, let alone what the opposition’s up to.’

‘You should try and make time. Brilliant.’ Surely a miscalculation, as now Daniel needs to justify why he liked it, although we’re halfway through a punishing stairs workout at Cameron-pace. ‘If the…rest of the series…is as…good…Did you see it, India?’

‘No. We haven’t–’ Another warning look silences me. Presumably admitting you don’t have digital telly casts you into outer darkness at Channel 4. But here we are at the top of the stairs and Cameron isn’t listening anyway. He sweeps us through a huge open-plan office and into a glass-walled cubicle overlooking a leafy courtyard. Daniel and I sit with our knees by our ears on armchairs that are, if anything, lower than the ones in Reception while Cameron swivels to and fro in a high-backed leather chair.

‘So,’ he says. ‘Archaeology, Daniel. What’s hot?’

‘Did you watch the DVD I sent you?’

‘DVD? My assistant must have it.’

‘Never mind. The point is, we’ve some original archive material, never been shown before. Keiller excavating Avebury’

‘Twenties?’ Cameron is cool, giving nothing away.

‘That’s when Keiller first started work in the area, at Windmill Hill, you’re right, but this film dates from ‘thirty-eight, when he was reconstructing the stone circle. The film was shot by one of the villagers–only a couple of reels, but there might be more somewhere–and I want to use it as the basis of a programme about Keiller remodelling Avebury to fit his idea of how it looked in the Neolithic’

‘New Stone Age,’ I chip in helpfully, because I can see Cameron is looking puzzled. ‘Avebury’s about five thousand years old.’

‘Viewers aren’t much interested in pre-history,’ says Cameron, witheringly. ‘We get better ratings on Time Team for digs that are post-Roman. More to see. Unless it’s an execution site, of course. People like skeletons, preferably mutilated.’

I can hear the faint grinding of Daniel’s teeth. ‘Ah, but this is a story with a double layer,’ he says. ‘Not just Avebury five thousand years ago, but Alexander Keiller, playboy archaeologist, four times married, a string of mistresses, fast cars, pots of money, so obsessed by his vision of the past he moved half the village out of their homes and destroyed a community’ He’s on a roll now. ‘He entirely ignored what would be an archaeologist’s approach today–the fact that monuments like these don’t simply exist at a single point of time but represent continuity. That a village grew up in the henge, perhaps for defensive reasons, that people tried to bury the stones or destroy them, perhaps because they feared them…The story of Avebury doesn’t stop with its abandonment in the Iron Age, or for that matter with Keiller. People are still using the monument as a sacred space today’

‘Pagans,’ says Cameron. He chews a thumbnail and looks out of the window. ‘We used to do a lot about pagans. Not sure…Though I did hear that one of the contestants in the next series of BB is going to be a practising Satanist.’

‘There aren’t Satanists at–’ But Daniel kicks me.

‘That isn’t the best of it,’ he says quickly. ‘Cameron, I brought this to you before I approached the BBC because I think it’s very much your thing, though I know they’d kill for it at White City. Keiller’s vision was never completed. The Second World War got in the way, he ran out of money. The climax of our film is our reconstruction of his reconstruction. We excavate and re-erect one of the fallen megaliths Keiller didn’t have time to raise.’

Cameron’s gaze snaps back from the courtyard. ‘Fuck me. Now that’s a good idea. Positively post-modern.’

I glare at Daniel.

‘India’s actually,’ he admits. ‘She works for the National Trust.’

‘Access?’

‘Sorted.’

‘Presenter?’

‘Narrated, not presented,’ says Daniel.

‘No way,’ says Cameron. ‘Needs a presenter. Someone authoritative but sexy’ He stares out of the window again in case he spots the right person swinging through the trees. ‘There’s this bloke who’s done a brilliant job for us on a Time Team. Hasn’t gone out yet, so you won’t have seen him. Came in as a guest expert, but I’d like to try him on something solo. It’s his field, too–he’s strong on ancient religion and mystery cults. Name’s Martin Ekwall. Big bloke, early forties, looks good on camera, though I’d like to get the beard off him.’

‘That went all right,’ I say, as we cross the concrete bridge back to Horseferry Road.

‘Maybe.’ Daniel Porteus doesn’t look happy. ‘He didn’t even offer us a coffee.’

‘Is that bad?’

‘The breaking of bread signifies membership of the clan.’

‘Oh.’

‘But he did suggest a presenter. They only do that when they’re interested. “Like to get the beard off him.’” Mimicking Cameron viciously. ‘Like to get the pants off him, more like.’ He roots in his canvas briefcase. ‘Look, here’s a list of stuff I’d like you to find in the archive–stills, mostly, Keiller’s own photographs of the excavations. I’m not going back to Bristol this afternoon–meetings lined up at the BBC, different project, though it won’t do any harm to mention this one and put the willies up Channel 4. They all know each other and gossip like mad. I’d buy you lunch at the Ivy just to show that wanker I can afford it, but we’d never get a table. You don’t mind making your own way back?’

He hands me the list, and embraces me with a double air kiss. Behind him, a vast black 4×4 draws up beneath the Omen-style portico. Out steps Steve’s father, the ITN foreign correspondent, wearing dark glasses.

Wyrd.

He stares straight at me, over Daniel’s shoulder, taking off the glasses, as if he recognizes me. He has Steve’s eyes. Then his gaze slides over me, and he turns away into the building, like I’m nothing after all.

As I run up the escalator to the concourse under the sooty vault of Paddington, after detouring via Oxford Street to dispel paranoia by buying myself new jeans, I’m sure I’ll miss the train. If I don’t make this one, I’ll be waiting hours because my cheap ticket isn’t valid in peak period.

Platform four. Three minutes. Can do it if I run…

The doors are slamming but I hop into one of the first-class coaches and wheeze my way down the train. The standard-class carriage beyond the buffet and the one after that are packed, but further down the train, passengers thin out and, joy of joys, there’s a table with only one person at it, head down and absorbed in a pile of printouts. I wriggle out of my coat, plonk it and my bags on the aisle seat, shuffle across towards the window and–

Something cold and liquid explodes in my chest. It can’t be.

My buttocks, hovering an inch above the seat, squeeze instinctively to lift me out of it and, if possible, off the train before it leaves.

He looks up. Fuck. It is. Fuck.

He looks, if anything, more shocked than I feel.

‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘I–I’ll–Just realized. Wrong train. Need the later one.’

‘Bollocks. We’re moving. Sit down. How the hell are you?’

Grey eyes, the North Sea. Too late. Drowned. Turned to stone. Lost.

And, dammit, Mr Cool, acting now like nothing happened, like we never shared a bed, let alone the experience of nearly dying in that helicopter. The train starts sliding out of the station. My bottom, with a will of its own, slowly sinks onto the seat opposite him.

‘Ed.’

The sun slants in through the train windows and sparks highlights in his dark brown hair. The cut’s shorter, though somehow messier: he must have tried gelling it into spikes but instead it appears unbrushed, and his eyes seem muddy and tired–or could I really have forgotten what he looks like?

‘You look…different,’ he says.

‘Do I?’ Renowned for my sparkling wit and ready quips.

‘More…substantial’

‘Fatter. Thanks.’

‘No. Actually I’d say you’re thinner. I meant, somehow tougher…’

‘Great. Older.’

‘More confident. Come on. Stop doing yourself down.’

‘Then stop paying me such overwhelming compliments.’

He looks older, too, than I remember. He must be ten years my senior, at least, in his mid-thirties, maybe knocking forty. As for the attraction between us–well, it’s a scent I dimly remember on the air, but now vanquished by a railway carriage reeking of microwaved baconburger and diesel fumes and frizzling brake linings as we slow for a signal on the track ahead. Or, at least, that’s what I tell myself.

‘You never returned my calls,’ he says.

‘I didn’t think it would be a good idea.’

An awkward silence, as we both mull over why it wasn’t a good idea. Apart from my not wanting to be involved again with a married man, any real chance of a relationship went down with the helicopter.

‘So what…’ he starts, same moment as I say: ‘Have you…’

‘You first.’

‘I was going to ask, what have you been doing?’ he says. ‘I mean–what have you been doing with your life?’

‘I’m back in television again. With a Bristol-based independent. Been up for a meeting with Channel 4.’

‘Great.’ He actually looks impressed.

‘You?’

‘Oh, various stuff. The MA, mostly. Did I tell you I’ve been doing a part-time master’s in landscape archaeology? On my way now to a job interview.’

‘You’re not working with Luke any more?’

‘No.’ He props his chin on his hand, looks out of the window. ‘He…well, not to put too fine a point on it, he let me go. Company went bust anyway.’

Dangerous ground. ‘I need a coffee,’ I say. ‘Can I fetch you one from the buffet?’

‘No, let me get them.’ He levers himself upright, feeling in his pockets for change. ‘Bugger. Meant to stop at the cashpoint…’

‘Here, I’ve a twenty needs changing.’ As he takes it from me, our eyes meet.

‘I kept calling you because I wanted to be sure you were OK…’ he begins.

‘I was fine. Well, maybe a bit wobbly to start with, but you know…’

‘Yes. Me too.’

He lurches away down the carriage, long-legged in a pair of neat black trousers and a fine wool jacket that seems absurdly formal next to my memories of him in T-shirt and khaki combats, at the controls of the helicopter.

Interview clothes. He said he was going for a job interview. He’s doing an MA in landscape archaeology.

No. Not that job. Please.

An impossible coincidence. Couldn’t be. Could it?

Wyrd. Never trust the bloody web of connectedness. ‘Ed!’

Several other people in the carriage peer round their seats to see what’s up. There must have been a note of panic in my voice.

He turns round and starts walking back.

‘Where are you getting off the train?’

‘Swindon.’

Where Heelis, the National Trust head office, is.

‘But didn’t you ask him?’ says Corey. She’s polishing the nozzles on the cappuccino machine again. Maybe it’s one of those neuroses, like constantly washing your hands. ‘Your roots need retinting, by the way. I mean, it might not be the assistant-warden job. You said he’s really a pilot, studying archaeology part-time.’

‘Of course I didn’t ask. I jumped off the train at Reading before he came back with the coffees. Sat in the buffet and waited two and a half hours until there was another I could catch with my cheap ticket. Arrived home so late Frannie had already put herself to bed.’

Two customers walk in, a middle-aged husband and wife, shaking raindrops off their parkas. They start a muttered argument beside the homemade cakes. I slide into place behind the till, and Corey flips the top off the milk carton ready to spring into barrista action.

‘So he doesn’t know?’

‘Know what?’

‘That you’re here.’

‘Why would he? It was a one-night stand. We didn’t exactly get around to exchanging life histories.’

‘Apart from him letting slip he was married.’

Out of the corner of my eye I watch the male customer stomping off to inspect the sandwiches and organic crisps. I haven’t been entirely straight with Corey. As far as she’s concerned, Ed is someone I had a fling with in London. No one in Avebury, apart from John, knows I was caught up in the helicopter crash.

What made me act so brazenly last summer? The short answer is too much drink. Steve and I were down from London, overnighting at a pub near the airfield so we didn’t have to wake too early. Very definitely separate rooms, though Steve would have liked it otherwise. Luke and Ed were already waiting in the bar when we arrived, Luke knocking it back like there was no tomorrow, Ed switching to Diet Coke after a couple of beers. Maybe I started flirting because I was nervous Steve might make a move on me. He’d been through most of the women under thirty at the TV company, and I was determined not to join their ranks.

‘Anyway,’ says Corey, ‘if he’s a flyboy, plenty of other places he could be applying for a job. Half a dozen small airfields round here on the lookout for drop-zone pilots or instructors.’

When I first saw Ed, I thought him good-looking in a neglected way: messy dark hair, a lived-in face, dangerously unshaven, deep lines scored either side of his mouth. He had on a crumpled linen shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and a leather coat was slung over the back of his chair. He wasn’t looking at me when we first came in. He was talking to the girl behind the bar. She was one of those snap-me-in-two blondes, like Corey, half my size with hair so straight she must have ironed it and a chenille jumper the colour of butter, beneath which her tits bubbled up in two perfect little spheres. I loathed her on sight.

‘How did you find out he was married?’ asks Corey. The woman in the parka is wielding the cake tongs with an unnecessary amount of clatter as she lifts scones onto a plate.

‘Post-coital confession.’ My fingers hover over the till buttons, as the customer moves on to the lemon drizzle cake. ‘“I should have told you earlier”: that sort of stuff. Marriage on rocks. Wife, she no understand me. Well, he didn’t actually say that last bit, but it was sort of hanging in the air, in the hope I’d fall for the oldest line in the book. They live in some bloody palatial farmhouse in Oxfordshire, no land as such but two socking great barns with it, ripe for conversion. My heart bleeds.’

‘Hot chocolate, please,’ says the woman in the parka, arriving in front of us with a carbohydrate-laden tray. ‘Ray?’

‘Do they do filter coffee?’

‘No, but we do an Americano, which is virtually the same. I should’ve told him at the time that if he was married he could forget it,’ I tell Corey, as she spoons hot-chocolate powder out of the tin. ‘But…you know how it is. You’re so anxious they shouldn’t be spotted leaving your room that you don’t get around to saying anything. I–well, I ignored all his phone calls and texts afterwards, except to tell him to go away’

‘I’m glad to say I don’t know how it is. Not from personal experience, anyway.’ Married to a Devizes policeman for two years, Corey is a devotee of women’s magazines that discuss this kind of thing.

‘Men are so full of shit,’ I say confidently ‘Their problem is they can’t tell the difference between sex and love.’

The woman at the counter snorts.

‘Or would he prefer a latte?’ I ask her.

‘In my book, he’s unfaithful even if he isn’t sleeping with someone else.’ Corey shoves the milk jug under the nozzle of the steamer. She has to raise her voice over the machine’s whoosh. ‘Which would you prefer–a husband shagging you and thinking of someone else, or shagging someone else and thinking of you?’

My creative studies BA had finished a few months and a lot of marks short of what I’d planned when my tutor’s wife started asking herself the very same question. Not that marks had anything to do with it. I’d fallen hopelessly in love with the sod. The exams were a wipeout; I only scraped a pass on coursework. Never again.

The customer’s eyebrows are jigging up and down in a demented dance. ‘Do him an Americano, dear. He doesn’t understand the difference.’

‘The real question is,’ says Corey, spooning froth into the hot-chocolate mug, ‘how do you feel about him now, supposing he had a job here?’

‘I told you. It’s over. I knew that the moment I looked at him and realized I didn’t fancy him any more. Can’t tell you what a relief that was.’

This time both Corey and the woman snort.

During my lunch hour, I cross the cobbles to the museum. Chris, at the till, raises his eyebrows. I hand him a mug of hot chocolate: bribery. ‘OK if I go upstairs?’ I ask. ‘More research for those telly people.’

‘Does the curator know?’

‘Checked with her this morning. She said to go ahead.’

He gives me the nod.

Upstairs, I pull on a pair of blue vinyl gloves to leaf through the photo albums. The first item on Daniel Porteus’s list is Destruction of Village. Doesn’t take me long to find the pictures at the start of the 1938 album: black-and-white stills of brawny workmen, braces and cloth caps, fragments of wall and thatch, homes that look as if someone dropped a bomb on them.

Grandfather or no, Keiller really was a bastard.