Treasures of Time Page 4

  ‘ICI?’ he had said to Bob, incredulous – incredulous and furious. ‘You mean it, do you? Well, well, well. What do they pay? A good whack, no doubt.’

  Bob said, ‘Look, the money is not the main thing, though I’m never going to convince you of that, I daresay. The main thing is that I’ll be doing something, or so I fondly believe. One might actually be able to affect what happens somewhere, for better or for worse. I got to the state where I just couldn’t any longer see myself, for the next forty years or whatever, sitting around trying to…’

  ‘Well, send us a food parcel from time to time, won’t you, up here in the world of make-believe.’

  ‘Oh, come off it, Tom, for Christ’s sake.’

  They glared at each other. This is my best friend, Tom had thought, this is my best friend, in whom I was well pleased.

  He would drop Bob a line, he thought now – ask how things were going, tacitly say sorry, suggest they got together at some point.

  And of course he was going to get as far as writing the thesis, just as he had always seen things through, be they O-levels or A-levels or the production of the school magazine or the assimilation of a libraryful of information about the course of British history over the statutory period of three years allotted by a generous government for the (higher) education of its (brighter) citizens. He would learn everything there was to be learned about William Stukeley, reflect upon the implications of his career, pronounce upon the matter, and hope something came of it all.

  And, prowling around Danehurst with an interested eye upon the life-style suggested by its contents, the academic grind did not seem to Tom that bad. Plenty of books (not just archaeology either), nice pictures, tasteful comfort, and a particularly pleasant bit of England outside the windows. He admired some early engravings of Avebury and Stonehenge, laid an envious hand on a second edition of Fielding, and stood at the drawing room window where on a table beside him lay a cutting from a newspaper which he read (such is the instinctive response to print induced by a prolonged education): ‘… this valuable book fully bears out the now widely held belief of specialists that the improvement and ultimate recovery of stroke victims owes as much to environmental factors as to any kind of treatment, and above all to the encouragement and optimism of those around them. Convince the patient that he can recover the use of his faculties, and the greatest hurdle is overcome. Of invaluable practical use to the relatives of patients, Dr Samson’s suggestions concerning the day-to-day…’

  Hmn. Well, well. Suggestive, that, but in different ways, depending on who cut it out and left it there. And out there, moving slowly down the garden path, doing something to roses from her wheelchair, was Nellie, Aunt Nellie, reaching with slow frustration for an evasive stem. Should one offer to help? Or not?

  The garden consisted of a large rectangular lawn, approached across the stone terrace onto which the french windows of the drawing room opened, and a further area beyond, screened by a high yew hedge with an opening in the middle. The lawn was walled on the other two sides, with herbaceous borders against the walls. In one corner was a decaying rustic summer house with thatched roof. Beyond the yew hedge was a further flower garden, a more arranged affair of paved paths and beds of low cushiony plants, a bright section of which was visible through the opening in the hedge. This, in turn, led via a low wooden gate to a vegetable garden, now almost completely uncultivated. The whole garden, indeed, suggested decline from better days: there was an uncontrolled air about trees and shrubs, a furriness of hedges and lawn, the flowerbeds were choked with growth. In photos in that album, the place had looked spick and span. Now, it seemed to have settled into a state of resigned recollection.

  Like people, Tom thought, pleased by this piece of anthropomorphism, still watching Nellie, who was passing, now, through the opening in the yew hedge into the flower garden beyond. Very like people.

  These two, her and Mrs P. – living on here like this – photo albums, cupboardsful of Hugh Paxton’s stuff, Mrs P. – Laura – bored to tears. Why not go out and find a job? But of course ladies like that don’t. The odd morning in the Oxfam shop; a bit of organized indignation about threats to the environment – those would be the only options open. Aunt Nellie, of course, seems to be a different kettle of fish, from what one hears.

  And he set off now across the lawn, propelled by guilt and a heave of curiosity, to see if help mightn’t be acceptable with this pruning or whatever it was she was up to.

  And Nellie, intent on a battle with the suckers of a Madame Butterfly in which most advantages were held by the rose, and in her thoughts not present at all, but busy with the reconstruction of this same spot on an afternoon some thirty odd years ago, turned at the sound of movement and saw a man standing in the dark frame of the yew.

  And there surges that exquisite tide of pleasure, of excitement, of fear.

  And I say quickly, to cover my feelings because I am very unsure, as yet, what his might be, ‘It’s a lovely garden, Hugh – or at least it will be when you can get it going again, of course it’s all in a dreadful mess now.’

  It has been blighted by the war, as we all are… Five years older, gathering ourselves together, starting out again. Hugh does not look five years older; his hair is as thick and black as ever and he has the remains of a Far Eastern tan still: he is recently back from India.

  I have not seen him since 1939, that Hampshire dig. Though one has thought – oh yes, thought a great deal, through long dreary hours at the Ministry, or firewatching, or sorting evacuees.

  And the actuality is up to the expectation, and beyond, and here, now, am I with him on a visit to this house that he is almost certainly going to buy. And this afternoon we shall go up to West Kennet to take some measurements he needs and then back to London, hours of time with him, hours and hours, and beyond that there stretches ahead the whole amazing unbelievable prospect of the Lillington dig. I shall see him, on and off, all summer.

  Beyond the garden, the landscape blazes; it reflects my feelings; it glows and beams and all is right with the world. I should like to sing. Instead, I say in what comes out as a governessy voice, ‘I suppose you would be wise to find out about main drainage – I believe cess pits can be an awful bother.’

  Tom said, ‘Hello. Can I give a hand?’ and she looked startled, guilty even, as though caught out in something she shouldn’t be at. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Could you – that bit there…’ And together they worked their way along the path, Tom grabbing at indicated growths of rose, and conversation took place, in mutual defiance of Nellie’s difficulties, and assessment of one another. Nellie thought: yes, I like him, a bit over-confident maybe, but perceptive with it, a serious person. I think he will do very well for Kate. And he could be a match for Laura. I hope it all goes all right… And Tom thought: she’s a nice old thing, sharp too, when she can get out what she means to say, it’s a hellish way to try to talk to someone you’d really rather like to talk to, like trying to fight your way through some language you can’t manage properly, French or whatever.

  They came back across the lawn towards the house, to Laura on the terrace calling, ‘Tea! Oh, there you are, Tom, Kate has been rushing round like a cat on hot bricks, I do believe she thought you might have walked out on her, poor darling! Come and have some tea, anyway.’

  Seeing them into the car that evening, she kissed Kate and then turned to Tom, leaning forward so that, confused, he also proffered a cheek only to see her step back and hold out a hand, neatly wrong-footing him with a relegating smile. A remarkable performance; the most experienced actress would be impressed.

  ‘Well, Tom,’ she said, ‘it’s been lovely to see you at last – the myth made flesh as it were. Come again soon, both of you – next time I must see about laying on some social life for you. And Tom, thank you for being so awfully kind to Nellie – I saw you from the window, being sweet in the rose garden – it does mean a lot to her to have people take a bit of notice.’

  Laura st
ood on the steps, waving, as Kate drove out of the gates and into the lane, abusing the gears in her agitation.

  On the A4, headed for London, she said, ‘Phew!’ and Tom burst out laughing. ‘Well, it’s all very well for you…’ Kate complained, and then laughed too, and in hilarity they drove into the rushing Wiltshire darkness, where the shafts of light from juggernaut container lorries blazed down the Old Bath road (from which Charles II made a detour, once, to visit Avebury and Silbury Hill in company with John Aubrey) and where Yamaha and Suzuki motorbikes buzzed between Stukeley’s survey lines of the West Kennet Avenue.

  And where, much more recently, Kate Paxton rode in a car behind the familiar, sustaining, enriching back of her father, a hairy tweed back, leaning forward to get the warm tweedy smell of it and to hear him properly.

  He says he is going away to dig up something in Spain and I say can’t I come too? and he says, sorry, Katie, I’m afraid not, not this time. And I say, is Mummy going? and he says nothing for a minute and then, no. And I say, is Aunt Nellie going? And he is busy with driving the car for a minute and then he says, I’m not sure yet. I want to go, I say, in a whiny voice, I don’t want to stay here with Mummy.

  And then he begins to tell me a story, a silly story about a dog that lived here a long time ago, a dog that belonged to the people then, the Stone people, the people he digs. The story makes me laugh, and I am happy suddenly; we fly through the dark and I smell his smell and listen to his voice and everything is all right, there is only now, there is no more what has happened or what is going to happen.

  Chapter Three

  ‘I am going to Marlborough,’ Laura said to Mrs Lucas. ‘I have the library to do, and the supermarket, and – oh, and a thousand things, I shall be in a dreadful rush, I daresay I won’t be back by lunch-time. So would you please be kind and see to something for my sister, there is a tart that could be heated.’

  She cashed a cheque, did the supermarket, bought expensive bath stuff from the chemist, looked in the window of the bookshop and met, in the doorway, a literary acquaintance who confided shyly that her book had found a publisher. Laura laid a hand on her arm, ‘My dear, that is the most marvellous news! You must be so relieved!’ She moved on to the library in company with this woman, meeting another mutual acquaintance on the way to whom she was able to say, quickly, to forestall her companion who would be too modest for further confidences, ‘Mary has at last found a publisher for her book, isn’t that lovely for her! It just shows what perseverance will do.’ At the library she changed her books, and Nellie’s, saw with sudden depression that it was only eleven-thirty, and the morning yawned ahead, looked round for Mary to suggest a cup of coffee, and found her unaccountably vanished. She went outside, and stood in fretful uncertainty, looking down the wide market street, that pleasant county town landscape of brick and timber-frame, of centuries juxtaposed, of the good and the vernacular and the deplorable in architectural confusion. Down the centre, a herring-bone formation of parked cars flashed in the sunshine, Marinas and Fiats and Volvos where, in the old days, and with greater ease, she had used to park the Ford.

  She stood on the pavement, in her Jaeger wool suit (years old now, but cheered up with a new silk shirt) and the unspent morning hung on her like a weight. She looked at the street, and saw, not change or stability, not the new meters nor the faded nineteenth century lettering that advertised a Corn Chandler and Fuel Merchant on the side of a building, but the lamp-post against which, once, she had clipped the shining new wing of the Ford.

  It is not my fault, of course, I am the most careful driver and it would never have happened if I had not been upset like this. I am trembling still, that is how it has happened.

  It is their fault, they made me get in a state like that, lose my temper, make a scene, which is not like me, I am not that kind of person.

  I am all on edge, I have been on edge all day. Am I pregnant, is that it? If I am pregnant then upsetting me like this will make me have a miscarriage, and that will be their fault.

  I feel silly, that is the worst thing of all. I can see them still, all standing there with croquet mallets in their hands – ridiculous stupid game – staring at me. Hugh saying ‘Laura, what the hell…’ Nellie on the far side of the lawn, Hugh’s dig notebook in her hand. Kate screaming. The Sadlers and the rest of them gawping.

  All week it has gone on. They have been there in the study together, working on the Charlie’s Tump stuff, by themselves, heads together over the desk, talking, not talking.

  Oh, I know Nellie had a thing for Hugh, way back, before he met me, but that was over ages ago, and in any case Hugh…

  He must not look at her like that. When he looks at her there is something in his face that only otherwise is there when he looks at Kate.

  My head aches and I am on the edge of crying, and now the car is scratched, the new car.

  She turned and walked briskly to the present car, a small Renault. She put her books and shopping into the back seat and re-locked it. Then, still purposefully, although she had not in fact decided what to do next, she continued down the length of the High Street, arriving eventually at St Mary’s.

  Here, she hesitated a moment and then went through the porch, past the notices inviting her prayers for the Third World, for the victims of the Indian floods, for the homeless and the starving. Inside the church, she stood for a moment in the nave, looking at the flower arrangements by the pulpit and on the window-ledges. They were the usual tasteless affairs of ill-assorted stuff sprouting in a fan from some rather nasty containers: Laura inspected them with contempt. In the village, she had started a few years ago to do the church flowers herself, now that she had more time, replacing the stiff jam-jar bouquets with pretty trailing arrangements, lots of silvery leaves and foliage effects and imaginative combinations. The church looked heaps better now, though admittedly there had been a bit of resentment, one sensed, from the Vicar’s wife and old Mrs Binns and the people who had been doing the flowers for years. One had had to be tactful – explaining how one had after all done a Constance Spry course years ago, had a bit of an eye for interior decoration and so forth.

  She stepped into a pew and sank to her knees, giving the dusty hassock a little shake first. She did not know, really, how it was that she had come more and more to religion. Of course, they had been raised in a Christian home, she and Nellie, and on and off, over the years, she had been a church goer, but infrequently. Hugh, of course, never was. Nor Nellie. Now, though – quite apart from the flower arranging – she found herself regularly in the village church. She had her special seat, out of the draught from the door, no one else now would dream of sitting there. And she had got into the habit of praying in privacy, most days, just a few words as she went to bed, it was a nice ritual, in some way settling.

  She bent her head and murmured the Lord’s Prayer. Then she looked up at the light shafting dustily down on the altar and considered. Help the unfortunate, she prayed, the sick and the poor and the old. Please may the motorway plans come to nothing, the ones that might affect the Kennet Valley. May that tiresome sinus trouble I’ve been getting go away.

  She raised her eyes, noticing a particularly barbaric arrangement of purple anemones on the altar. Overhead, the church clock hummed and struck twelve; the building crouched emptily around her; outside, cars bustled by. And please, she prayed, make something happen, make things more interesting. She got up, and tugged her skirt straight again. And as she did so it occurred to her that she could call on that new couple who had bought a house in West Overton, on the way home, on the pretext of suggesting membership of the Wiltshire Historical Association: people said he was something rather high up in the civil service, and one would probably be offered a sherry…

  It was nearly two before she got home. As she made herself a snack for lunch the telephone rang. ‘Mrs Paxton?’ a man’s voice, an agreeable voice, its tone suggesting a desire to please, an expectation of further relationship – ‘This is Tony Greenw
ay, from the BBC. Thank you so much for your letter, I can’t tell you how delighted I was to hear that you feel enthusiastic about our plans for the programme on your husband – that really was the most encouraging news. Now, the thing is, would there be any chance of my coming down to see you in the near future?’

  ‘Well, yes,’ Laura said. ‘Yes, I think I could manage that, I…’

  ‘What I thought was, could I take you for lunch some day soon? I expect you’ll know the local restaurants to suggest somewhere, and then perhaps I could give you a general picture of the project and see what your feelings are?’

  Laura said she thought that sounded a nice idea. The Ailsford Arms in Marlborough, she suggested, wasn’t too bad.

  ‘Lovely,’ said Tony Greenway. ‘Now, let’s see… Is there any possibility of next Thursday?’

  Laura said, ‘Just let me check my diary – next week is a bit hectic, I seem to remember.’ She stared out of the window for a few moments and then said, ‘No – isn’t that lucky, Thursday as it happens is clear.’

  ‘Super. Can I come and pick you up about twelve-thirty, then, would that be all right?’

  Tony Greenway put the receiver down and scrawled across a pad: ‘Paxton widow 12.30. Locations. Colleagues and relations. Slant on personality. Check career details, background data. Photos, private collection, papers?’

  Laura, humming, went back to her scrambled eggs and added a pinch of herbs.

  Tom, as a child, had been taken once by his parents to some stately home. Which it was, he no longer remembered: the day had compacted in the mind to a series of sensations and incidents – a long car ride, Kevin being sick, a picnic by a road roaring with traffic, an interminable tree-lined avenue like an exercise in perspective with, at the end, a doll’s house mansion. And, with great clarity, the portrait of an armoured, probably seventeenth century, gentleman posed besides a marble-pillared fireplace – the same fireplace, as the hectoring guide pointed out, before which the conducted tour now stood. And Tom, confronted with this simple piece of information, this juxtaposition of the vanished and the extant, had looked at the strong-featured face in the portrait and seen, suddenly, a real man, albeit no longer here but none the less real for that. The past, he had realized, is true.