An Affair to Remember (20 page)

Guilty children caught in the act, Sel and Clarrie break apart, simultaneously uttering apologies. Philippa, who is genuinely upset by the increasingly strange atmosphere in the house, graciously accepts their apologies. On cue and to everyone’s relief, the phone rings from next door and Sel hurries out to answer it.

Ron Head opens his eyes and stretches luxuriously. He feels refreshed; at peace; ready for anything. Perhaps he’d stroll along to the bath house before supper; Petronius has guests tonight, he remembers, so he mustn’t be late. Struggling to his feet, his wandering gaze encounters his own zip holdall half open and spewing a mixture of papers, underpants and spare socks over a distinctly modern looking bed, and with a jolt he’s back in the twentieth century. He looks bemusedly round the room, not sure what’s what; even, for a moment, who he is. Then all of a sudden it comes to him; it had happened at last! All those years of waiting and hoping and nothing, then, out of the blue, when he least expected it, for a few golden, fantastic moments he, Ron Head, humble archaeologist, had been the recipient of the greatest gift a man could have. He had been allowed to go back; really back, to that time he loved so much. Seen it, smelt it, lived it. For a moment the thought is almost too much; his eyes fill with unmanly tears, ridiculously he feels the urge to go down on his knees and thank someone – who; he has no idea. Christ, he’d better write some of this down before he forgets it; where the hell’s his notebook, the memory’s already fading. After a frantic hunt he finds it under the chair he’s been sitting on; it must have dropped on the floor while he was asleep, and starts scribbling.

‘Lady in blue seen through cloister arches supervising gardener (slave?). Smell of wood smoke and honey; some sort of incense. He’s a guest, not the owner, of the place, sure of that.’

What else? Putting down the notebook, he gazes out of the window, desperately trying to keep things in focus for just a little longer, but the memories, so vivid a few short moments ago, are receding fast, the twentieth century relentlessly taking over. The hill, though, the hill beyond the river, you can see through the window, that had been the same, more woods and on the top some huts… Then as the dream slowly fades, he becomes aware of a reddish brown figure hurrying across the river meadow towards the house. Was the figure part of then, or part of now? Hastily putting the notebook in his jacket pocket, after a quick look in the mirror he hurries downstairs to check out the latest developments.

Sam, walking up the field towards the house, is wondering whether he should try the front door, or the back. He decides, after thought, it is best to go to the front, this was after all, though somewhat bizarre in purpose, a social visit. He wonders too where Beatrice is; how will she react to his sudden appearance? Would she be Beatrice or her alter ego? He shivers, and as he enters the garden from the gate in the lane, tries ineffectively to tidy himself up. Grass and leaves adhere to his jacket, there’s mud on his trousers. Now he’s in the vicinity of the rookery he longs to visit the tree again and view the damage. He daren’t of course. God only knew what he might do once he got there. Hand in jacket pocket, he clears his throat, squares his shoulders and presses the bell. The door, somewhat to his surprise, is opened by Clarrie.

“Major Mallory, at last! We’ve been trying to contact you all day.”

“I hope it’s not too late for a call – I seem to have mislaid my watch…”

“Of course not, dear boy,” Sel appears, hands outstretched, “I’ve just been speaking to your wife, and –”

“My wife?”

“Yes, said she’d been delayed. An accident to a friend; she rang from the hospital.”

About to ask what friend, Sam thinks better of it. “I see,” he says, though he doesn’t.

Clarrie looks at him, surprises herself with a feeling of compassion; he seems so sad and lost, yet so determined to do the right thing. “Come in and have a drink,” she says, smiling at him, “and tell us all about it.”

“I don’t think I’d better, I seem to have had rather a lot of alcohol today as it is,” he says, following her meekly into the sitting room. “Actually what I’ve come for is to give you this.” Thrusting a hand into his jacket pocket he produces the tiny parcel, unwraps it, holds the cup up to the light.

“Holy mackerel!” Ron, wide awake now, stares mesmerised, as do the others.

Silence. Four figures in a tableau, frozen in a moment in time, enchanted by the perfect thing held up for their inspection.

“Dear Ron,” Philippa says at last, her voice trembling a little, “always ready with the apt expression…”

Sam, aware of their awe, a little awed himself, says he hasn’t cleaned the cup, just removed the outer casing of earth, as he’d seen the archaeologists do on TV; he hoped that was alright.

“Where did you find it?” Ron, unable to contain himself any longer, “Did you know where to look?”

“In a way, well, I must have. And I really am most frightfully sorry about the mess I must have made under your ash tree, I was asleep, you see, and I didn’t –”

“We know, old man, we know. Not your fault of course, these things happen.” Do they? What the hell was he talking about? Sel puts an arm round Sam, indicating with the other Ron should take the cup.

Ron does, trembling a little himself. “I’ll look after it, Major Mallory, there’s no need to worry.”

But Sam, at the loss of the cup, seems to be becoming increasingly uneasy. “It is essential you look after it,” he says, taking what can only be described as a menacing step towards Ron, who discreetly takes several steps back, “the cup belongs to my son. I should not have stolen it, but that is what the Guardians seemed to be saying and there was no choice.”

Sel, always the peacemaker, intervenes: “We understand absolutely, dear boy, and will guard the cup, if needs be, with our lives, you can be assured of that. Now why don’t you come and sit down, and Clarrie here will organise a cup of tea.” Sam does as he’s told, albeit reluctantly; sits himself down on a rather uncomfortable Conran chair and closes his eyes.

While Clarrie disappears in the direction of the kitchen, Ron, still holding the cup, slides unobtrusively out of the room and back upstairs to his bedroom. Once there, he holds the precious object up to the light, examining with something like awe the perfection and intricacy of its decoration. The tiny animals round the rim seem to be dancing their dance especially for him; the warm silver, in spite of the dirt still clinging to it, alive in his hands. He scrabbles in his holdall for a magnifying glass. As he thought, it’s there, the Chi-Rho monogram. The baby must have been Christian, or his father was. Perhaps… but he’d go into all that later. Meanwhile, what a day; what a splendid, fabulous day! Holding the cup above his head to catch the last rays of the setting sun, an inane grin on his face, Ron Head, TV presenter and archaeologist
par excellence
, dances a dance of pure, unequivocal joy.

Downstairs things are not quite so ecstatic. Sam appears to be becoming less sure of his identity by the minute: the act of giving away the cup had, it seemed to Sel and Pippa, anxiously watching, been some sort of catalyst. Philippa crouches beside him, his hand firmly in hers. “Mother,” he says, “the rooks commanded me, I had no course but to obey…”

Flushed with excitement, but reasonably calm, having wrapped the cup in a pair of clean underpants in a drawer in his bedroom, Ron returns to the fray. Sel meanwhile has another go at ringing the shop and this time strikes lucky. “Sel Woodhead here. Mrs Mallory, you’re back then. Just ringing to say your husband is now with us, and I have to admit not quite himself. I wonder –”

“Well that’s something I suppose, but as to him being not quite himself, perhaps you’d be good enough to tell me in what way. I’ve only just arrived back and was forced to break into my own home, as my husband went off with his key and our girl forgot to leave hers under the stone when she left at closing time. Quite frankly I’m in no fit state to listen to you talking in riddles.”

“What a chapter of accidents you do seem to have had, dear, and I’m truly sorry to be the bearer of more disturbing news. What I suggest is that you make yourself a nice cup of tea, or even a stiff drink, and when you feel a little more relaxed, drive over to us at Browns for a light supper and we can all put our heads together and try to sort this tangle out. How would that be?”

“Well… I don’t know…” Emmie is torn between gratification at being asked to supper by a TV personality, and fury at Sam’s strange and thoughtless behaviour, not to mention Karen’s stupidity forgetting to put the key under the stone when she locked up.

“Look, dear,” Sel tries to keep the impatience out of his voice, “I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t important. You must be tired after all your troubles and the last thing I expect you want is to have to go out again, but we do need to discuss the state of your husband. You see, dear, from time to time he seems to think he’s someone else. He talks of rooks and his mother, there’s a cup…”

Emmie closes her eyes. Let me wake up soon, she prays, please let me wake up soon. “Very well, Mr Woodhead, I’ll be over shortly, although what assistance I can be of I do not know…”

She’d better have a shower, get out of these clothes, put on something decent. In the kitchen, making a cuppa, she switches on the radio (permanently tuned to Radio Belchester; Sam has the one in his office on Radio 4).

“…And now for a message to Granny Bogg,” intones Tommy Thomson, “who, wait for it, will be ninety-two next week! Good on you Granny Bogg! The message is from her great great niece, Marlene Snokesbury – or is it Smokesbury, the writing here I have to say’s a tiny bit hard to make out – of No 2 Railway Villas, Frisbury, and reads: ‘Hullo Gran! All good wishes for next week; hope you make it, ha ha, of course you will. We won’t be round to wish you happy returns on the day as we’re off on holiday, but see you when we get back. All the best from Mar and Bimbo.’ Got that Granny Bogg? We’re all rooting for you out here…”

Emmie switches him off. She’s not in the mood, really she isn’t. She’s just sat down again when the front door bell rings. The front door bell never rings, people tend to use the shop… Could it be the police, because she had to break in? She only smashed the window in the outside pantry, but someone might have seen. Palpitating, she hurries into the hall and peers through the spy-hole in the front door. All she can make out is a smallish man in a hat – a detective in mufti perhaps? Trembling a little she pulls back the chain and opens the door.

“Yes?”

“Hallo, Em,” says Sidney Parfitt. “Long time no see…”

*

“Look,” says Clarrie in a not wholly successful effort to move things on, “we can’t wait any longer for Mrs Mallory; Juan says dinner will be ruined if we don’t have it now. He’s beginning to get upset again and the last thing I want to do with all this going on is to lose him. What can have happened to the wretched woman?”

“I could give her another ring, but I’m sure she’ll be along in a minute.”

“We’ll hold it for another ten minutes – no more. I’m sure Major Mallory must be getting hungry.” Clarrie smiles encouragingly at Sam, who smiles back.

“I had no choice Madam, no choice,” he tells her earnestly, “the rooks, you see, they –”

“Of course, dear boy, of course,” Sel, hastily intervening, pats him on the shoulder.

“Is he to eat with us?” Philippa whispers to Clarrie, “I don’t think he should be left.” They look at him doubtfully.

“Don’t worry,” Ron, himself again, steps into the breach. “Leave him to me. I’m going to try an experiment.”

“Well for Christ’s sake don’t mess up, if anything goes wrong we’ll all be in for it.”

“Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.” Oddly enough, he does. How he knows is a mystery: perhaps in some way he’s still attached to that other world, the world that for those few, glorious minutes he’d so briefly inhabited. God alone knew and who was he to argue? His ancient Irish, he had to admit, wasn’t up to much, but he’d have a go; tonight he’d have a go at anything. Sauntering over to the still seated Sam, he bows courteously. “You will share our bread tonight, Brother?” he asks, hoping he’s got the accent right, but doubting it. It seems, however, he has at least been understood, and Clarrie and Sel watch mesmerised as Sam, gently withdrawing his hand from Philippa’s grasp, rises to his feet, and although his words are unintelligible to three of those present, and only just intelligible to the fourth, it’s plain he has accepted Ron’s offer to dine with them. In the light of this latest development they decide not to wait for Emmie, and at a gesture from Sel, the party move off in stately fashion in the direction of the dining room.

*

Dark now; the moon not yet up. The fox from the Grove passes silently through the sleeping garden, under the monkey puzzle tree and along the path that leads to the barn; a farm cat eyes him warily as he slips by. He hurries across the yard into the paddock, pausing for a moment to sniff the various holes and mounds of earth under Tavey’s tree, before making for the field next door and commencing the night’s business.

Ron, at his bedroom window, notebook on knee, moths attracted by the light flapping about round his head, writes busily. “Silver, almost certainly third century AD, made for a child perhaps; decorated with animals – deer, fox, badger and so on. The Christian monogram I believe to have been added at a later date, probably some time in the fourth century, but cannot be sure until tests are made. From the evidence to date the vessel appears to be a ceremonial cup, possibly handed down from one generation to the next and perhaps when the family – presumably of Romano-British stock – in whose possession it was, became, partly anyway, Christianised, they employed a silversmith to add the Chi-Rho monogram. Tomorrow, I hope, will reveal more, as I plan to investigate the area where the cup was found. Unfortunately random digging has taken place and therefore to make a comprehensive investigation of the terrain will be virtually impossible.”

That’s it for now. He’s too tired and excited to write more tonight. He shuts the notebook and, drawing the curtains across the still open window, carefully placing the cup on the bedside table, climbs into bed. But before he switches off the light he allows himself just one more look at the tiny animals as they dance their interminable dance round the rim of the cup. A deer, a fox, a badger, possibly a hare although it looked a bit odd, but what on earth was that creature with the long nose? Might be an anteater, although surely it couldn’t be – could it? Switching off the light at last, Ron slept.