The Buried Circle

‘Never mind,’ said Mam. ‘Something’ll come up. You’re a clever girl, Frances. I was ever so proud when you came top in bookkeeping last year in school. Somebody’ll appreciate your talents.’

The Frigidaire gave a cough and fell silent.

‘See?’ said Mam. ‘It thinks you’re something.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘It says I’m useless. Too bloomin’ young, like they all keep saying.’

Then Ambrose came on again playing ‘Small Hotel’ and Mam started to cry.

What came up was Mrs Sorel-Taylour, who was Mr Keiller’s secretary.

Mind you, like the parson used to say, God helps them who helps themselves. I’d heard they was short-handed at the Manor, with the digging season to plan for and a museum being built in the stable block. I made sure I bumped into her in the high street, by accident as it’d seem, when I went for bread from the baker’s–oh, what a coincidence–at the exact time I reckoned she’d be on her way down the churchyard path to fetch some of Jack’s lardy cakes to go with Mr Keiller’s morning coffee. The sky was pale blue over the church tower, and a cloud of early midges danced over the drying puddles as I came up to her by the lich-gate, with the loaves under my arm.

‘Mornin’, Mrs Sorel-Taylour.’

‘Good morning, Frances. Shouldn’t you be in school?’

‘Left last year. Working for Mam and Dad, now, though I in’t sure what I’ll do when they move to Devizes.’

For a moment I didn’t think my plan would work. She looked at me as if she had no notion what I was blathering on about. She was a short lady, but very straight in the back, who sang in the Choral Society and gave lectures all over the county on etiquette. Her cream silk blouse with its Peter Pan collar was done right up to the neck, a carnelian brooch hiding the top button. I was a bit scared of her.

Then cogs began to whirr.

‘Rumour has it you’re good with numbers,’ she said, her large dark eyes fixed on mine.

‘Did well in arithmetic in school,’ I said. Won a prize, I did, and Mr Keiller presented it at speech day, which was how Mrs S-T remembered.

‘And you have a neat hand?’

I looked at my fingers. The nail varnish I’d put on last night for seeing Davey was already chipped.

I need someone who can write clearly,’ she said. ‘And shorthand would help.’

‘I’m enrolled on a Pitman’s course.’

‘You type, of course.’ I should have enrolled for that too, but there wasn’t the time as I was still helping most evenings at the guesthouse. ‘What speed?’

‘A hundred and ten,’ I lied. Her eyebrows shot up. Perhaps I’d overdone it. ‘On a good day,’ I added. She must have swallowed one of the midges, because she started to cough and turned away to find a hanky in her bag. ‘Is there a job for me at the Manor?’ I hardly dared hope.

‘Mr Keiller is bringing his collection down from London,’ she said. ‘We need help with cataloguing and typing up his notes on the finds. And there are his letters. He dictates several each day.’ She looked hard at me, not quite a glare but there was disapproval on her long, delicate oval face. ‘You’ll find typing easier with shorter nails. And hair off your face, please, not falling over your eyes. You could try Kirby-grips. Mr Keiller prefers his staff to have a modest appearance.’

What she really meant was that it was easier if Mr Keiller didn’t notice his staff’s appearance. I understood that when I told Davey I had the job. That gave him ants in his pants, all right.

‘Why on earth d’you want to work at the Manor?’

‘So I can stay in the village, not have to move away with Mam and Dad and sleep in that smelly boxroom. I’ll be able to see you more often.’ He had a room over the stables. I’d never dared go up there yet, but I thought of evenings, cosying up with him, the cars gleaming in the dark beneath us, maybe one ticking quietly after Mr Keiller had given it a long run to London.

‘Yes, but…’ He lit a cigarette, cupping his hand round the match. Its flare showed his frown in the darkness. We were sat in the lee of one of the stones, on a rug Davey always brought with him for our courting. I hadn’t yet done everything on that rug that he wanted me to do, but on a cold night we’d both found warm places for our hands.

‘You do want to see more of me, don’t you?’ Perhaps he had his eye on someone else. By now Mam had met him, but she said he was one of those quiet ‘uns, could never tell what he was really thinking. I thought I knew him, but maybe I didn’t.

‘It’s not that,’ said Davey. ‘It’s more…Well’ He looked down at the ground. ‘I’m away a lot, driving Mr Keiller.’

‘But when you’re there…’

‘No, Fran,’ he said. ‘At least…I never know when he’ll want me to do some job. Day or night. You have to jump to it when he has one of his whims, and his temper…’

‘I don’t understand you,’ I said. ‘I thought you’d be happy to have your girl a bit closer. So what if he makes demands? It’ll be all the easier to see me when we know each other’s comings and goings. I’ll be working late too sometimes, right across the yard from you…’

‘You never seen a temper like it.’ There was a desperate look in Davey’s eye. ‘Takes against people just like that. You don’t want to work for him–he’ll eat a little thing like you for breakfast. And they say he’s got a roving eye.’

‘I know how to deal with roving eyes,’ I said, bolder than I felt. ‘Get plenty of those at the guesthouse.’

‘Do you now?’ said Davey. He gave a sigh of defeat. ‘How about roving hands? Any good at dealing with them?’

* * *

‘Your young man,’ said Mam. ‘Can I just say this? Be careful, Frances.’

‘Don’t know what you mean.’

I’d brought Davey over for Sunday tea, and he’d arrived with his lavatory-brush hair oiled down and an eager smile on his face. Dad and he seemed to get on–there was a lot of man-to-man chat about horse-racing and cars. But Mam–I’d seen the way her eyes narrowed when she looked at him. I’d stopped telling her everything, and I knew that hurt her.

‘I’d like to see you settled,’ Mam said. She was looking out of the window at the line of hills beyond the stone circle. ‘One of these days. But…Don’t be a tease, Frances. Davey’s a nice boy and he don’t deserve it.’

‘Don’t know what you mean,’ I said, mutinous.

‘I mean he’s gentle and kind. Like I used to think you were. But I don’t know, seeing you together, strikes me to wonder which one wears the trousers, and I don’t think it’s him.’

‘He was on his best behaviour for you,’ I said, desperate not to seem mannish.

Mam’s eyes softened. ‘Maybe I don’t understand girls today, then. But–oh, I don’t know. Still waters, as they say. All the same, I worry he’s too quiet for you. I worry that you’ll set your sights on somebody more dashing.’

The minute it was out of her mouth, I knew she was right, but I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of pouring my heart out. Davey wasn’t girlish, but he had a soft side, and now we were seeing each other regular, he didn’t seem as exciting as when I’d noticed him first on the back of a tall bay horse stepping delicate-hoofed up the high street, his bony knees and wrists controlling that gurt explosive mass of muscle and power. But I had him, and as Mam used to say, whenever we passed one of the sad spinsters in the village whose sweetheart had died in the Great War, a woman counts herself fortunate to find a decent man and keep him. Mam always said she’d been lucky with Dad, and there weren’t anything exciting about him.

Fair to say, of course, that Mam didn’t tell me everything, and don’t I wish she had. I reckon she already knew it wasn’t right for her to be so tired at the end of every day. Blamed myself for not talking to her, once she was gone. But at that age you think everybody you know’ll be around for ever.

Then again, sometimes it’s right to keep your big gabby mouth buttoned, and if I had, the afternoon Davey took me to visit Mam in the hospital…But no use stirring over might-have-beens.

CHAPTER 11

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.’