Encounters (52 page)

She smiled, biting her lip to stop it trembling. What did it mean, his being here like this? Suddenly she realized how much courage it had cost him to come at all.

She heard his voice again, as if from a distance. ‘I was determined not to contact you. I knew you must have the chance to find out what you wanted.’ He looked down at her with a wry smile. ‘If you knew how many times I’ve picked up the phone.’ Suddenly she felt his lips on her hair. His arms went round her, hard; hurting. Then he released her. ‘Come on,’ he said, taking her hand. ‘Let’s go to the beach …’

T
he bulldozers and JCBs were already there, lined up by the high chain-linked fence. The excavation was a sea of mud. Frances felt her eyes fill with tears. Only a few more hours and the machinery would begin its destruction; two thousand years of history would be shovelled aside to accommodate an underground car park beneath a store.

People were picking their way across the duckboards over the mud, staring at the markers being pointed out by the rescue diggers.

‘Don’t call us archaeologists,’ one woman had said bitterly to Frances. ‘This isn’t archaeology. All we can do now is throw things into boxes and run.’

She heard a child shriek with fright and excitement as it slipped off the walkway into a trench in the rain and her heart gave a lurch. It had sounded so like that other child. The child in her dream. She watched as a group of people gathered, retrieved it, wiped it down and moved on. Behind them the bottom of the trench filled slowly with water, the neatly cut layers of soil blending and turning a uniform mud colour, even the scorched red clay which showed the year the city had burned nearly two thousand years before obliterated now for ever.

She hadn’t meant to come again. She had seen the temporary exhibition a dozen times, talked to the men and women working there, read up the accounts of the ancient city which was losing yet another piece of its history for ever and wept for a past she couldn’t regain. She had tried to stop. Tried to beat the obsession, tried to control the need to return, but still she found herself walking through the gate and staring down at the neat square where two weeks earlier they had found the mosaic floor. It had gone now, rolled up like a carpet to be cleaned, relaid and set behind glass, never to be walked on or played on again.

‘Hello.’ The voice behind her startled her out of her reverie. ‘Good to see you again. I’m afraid it’s the last time, though, before the new precinct is finished.’

Frances turned. The tall, bearded man had been in the exhibition trailer last time she saw him, wearing boots and a waterproof coat, with his hands covered in mud.

She smiled. ‘No more mud for you, I see.’ He was wearing the same jacket but this time with clean cords and shoes.

‘No more mud. Not here.’

‘Even Boudicca’s effort must have looked feeble compared with this devastation.’ She tried to make her voice sound light and disinterested.

‘I doubt if she was as systematic as this in her destruction,’ he agreed. ‘She burned the place but she didn’t then bury it under a hundred million tons of concrete. On the other hand, I suppose we should be glad they’re not putting the population to the sword.’

Frances flinched, but she managed a wry smile. ‘You try standing in front of one of those diggers tomorrow,’ she countered. ‘You might find them just as bloodthirsty.’

He laughed. ‘I don’t intend putting it to the test. I couldn’t bear to see it happen. Do you want to come and have a cup of tea? The kettle is on in the trailer.’

He had noticed how often she came to the site. He was not normally attracted to redheads, but this slightly built, beautiful creature had a strange grace about her which fascinated him. And her interest had been so intense, so painful as she watched the men and women in the trenches that he had stopped and watched her and then spoken to her, caught by the poignant droop of her shoulders. It was the second time he saw her that he recognized her. Then he had understood. Then he had known that he must get to know her; must find out if the stories were true …

She had a friendly smile, but the sadness was always there in her eyes. ‘That would be nice,’ she said at last. ‘I should love a cup of tea.’

She followed him across the site to the exhibition van. It was closed today, exhibits already packed away. He unlocked the door and gestured her inside. ‘We have to clear the site by five. Then they’re putting in the security guards.’

‘Then only the ghosts will be left.’

‘That’s right.’ He glanced up as he put the kettle on the small Calor gas stove and lit the flame. ‘I’m Charles Wentworth, by the way.’

She smiled. ‘I’m Frances.’ No surname. No catch.

She sat down on the stool by the table. Boxes of shards still lay there, hastily labelled. The dust of the site lay over everything. It had a strange sharp smell which caught at the back of the throat.

‘Do you believe in them?’ she said suddenly.

‘Ghosts?’ He reached down a tin of tea-bags from a locker. ‘Sometimes.’

‘Sometimes?’

‘When a site is taken over by the developers like this, I’d like to think they’ll be chased screaming from the excavations.’ He kept his tone humorous.

‘Has it ever happened?’

‘Yes. But sadly never for long. Incentive payments usually overcome superstition.’

‘What a pity.’ She picked up a small square tile from a pile, stroking it with her fingertip to remove the dust.

‘Those are Roman tesserae. Probably from the Boudiccan period. You can have them if you want.’

‘Really?’ She stared at him. ‘Aren’t they important?’

‘Possibly. It’s too late. The markers are about to be ploughed in, remember? All this lot is more or less rubbish now.’ He sighed. ‘There was so much left to do, but we ran out of time. I suppose we were lucky to get so much, given modern day priorities.’

She glanced up at him, sympathizing with his helpless bitterness.

‘It is sad they couldn’t have incorporated all these remains into the development and used them to bring in tourists,’ she said cautiously. ‘Every town in England has a shopping precinct. Very few have a Roman city.’

‘They’ll think of it. When it’s too late,’ he agreed. ‘They’ll say, “let’s develop the town for tourists. Now what shall we show them.”’

They both laughed wryly. He watched her closely as she took two of the small tiles in her hand and closed her eyes.

‘I wonder who walked on these,’ she said dreamily.

‘Men, women, children. Much like us.’ His voice was very quiet. He held his breath.

‘I see a woman with a long blue gown, her hair bound up with ribbons,’ Frances said slowly. She frowned, frightened by the force of the picture which had come into her head. Please God, don’t let it happen here, not in front of a stranger. She gripped the tile till her knuckles whitened, trying to push away the images as they crowded in. But they came, as they always came, whirling out of nowhere, filling her mind.

He was watching her closely. He bit his lip, trying to conceal his excitement. ‘What else can you see?’ he prompted quietly, hardly daring to breathe.

Frances sat for a moment, holding the tile. ‘She’s afraid.’ It was too late to stop. She had to go on. Her voice strengthened and she began to breathe more heavily. ‘She’s lost Claudia! She’s lost her child!’

‘Claudia! Claudia!’ The woman’s voice rose to a scream. ‘Where are you?’

She stared round frantically. The streets were teeming with panic-stricken people. Near her a cart overturned and she heard a horse shriek with fear. From the distant suburbs the sound of the watchman’s horn echoed across the city again and again.

The child had been at her side only moments before, happily skipping down the gravel road between the shops, her new long red dress a small flame in the dullness of the misty morning.

Boxes of fruit fell from a stall near her as it overturned and the two men behind it vaulted over the planks which moments earlier had been their display area and ran. From the pouch of one fell a scattering of coins. He did not bother to stop and gather them.

‘She’s coming! The Queen of the Iceni is coming!’ a man near Julia shouted. ‘Save yourselves. Run!’

Run! How could she run without the child? Her daughter. Her little Claudia. Julia whirled round, confused and terrified.

Her husband, Claudius, had told them not to pull down the town walls. He had told them it was crazy. He had told them again and again. But no, it was the policy. This was a peaceful country now. This was a land of rich villas, wealthy retired men and their families. There was no danger, they said. No danger at all. That was before they had flogged the British queen.

At her side for a moment she recognized one of the servants from the villa. He was a tribesman, long Romanized. ‘Save yourself, Lady. They will spare no one,’ he shouted, momentarily sorry for the woman who had been kind to him. ‘This is the day we throw the Romans out of our island. Your only hope is to get away!’

‘I can’t go without Claudia.’ She was sobbing now.

‘Then you will die. They will spare no one!’ Already he had gone, running through the crowds towards the temple. In moments he was out of sight.

‘
Claudia
!’ She spun round desperately, trying to swallow the nausea which had risen in her throat. ‘Claudia! Claudia!’

‘Run!’ The shouts and screams echoed down the narrow street. ‘Run!’ And now she could smell the smoke, acrid and thick; the smoke which drifted across the city from the villas which had been fired in the wealthy western suburbs of the town, the area where she and Claudius lived.

Tears in her eyes she flung down her basket. ‘Claudia! Claudia, where are you?
Claudia
!’

The sound of racing hooves was coming closer. The echo of chariot wheels on the distant road.

‘Claudia …’ Her throat was dry, her stomach knotted with terror. She must run. But where? The crowds were panicking, screaming, milling in all directions. She tried to keep her balance as a man bumped into her, failed and fell on her knees on the tiled forecourt of a shop as he leaped across her and hurtled away up the road.

‘Mama?’

She was there! Suddenly the child was there, her little hands outstretched, her eyes huge with fright. ‘Mama! What’s happening?’

Julia threw herself at the little girl and hugged her, then frantically she set off, dragging her after her. In a second she and the child had disappeared into the crowded, panic-stricken streets.

Moments later the first of the wooden Iceni chariots hurtled around the corner, the driver carrying a burning torch which streamed flame and smoke in its wake …

Only the sound of sobbing broke the silence.

‘Here. Drink this.’ Charles folded her hands gently around a mug. ‘Are you all right?’

Frances sipped the scalding liquid and spluttered.

‘I put some brandy in it. We had some in the first aid cupboard.’ He sat down opposite her and smiled reassuringly. His heart was thumping with excitement.

Frances put down the mug and groped in her pocket with shaking hands for a handkerchief. The sobs she had heard were her own. She blew her nose shakily. In front of her, on the table, lay a heap of dusty tiles.

‘What did I say?’ she asked at last.

‘You described the sack of Camulodunum. It was as if you saw it all.’ He tried to hide his excitement.

She bit her lip. ‘You must think me such a fool.’ She drank some more of the tea, grateful for its biting warmth. She was still shivering violently.

‘No. I don’t think you’re a fool. I think you are a clairvoyant of some sort.’ Charles leaned across and picked up one of the little tiles, holding it experimentally in the palm of his hand.

‘No. Don’t be silly. I have an overactive imagination, that’s all …’ That was what the judge had said. That was what she clung on to. It sounded normal. Explainable.

‘Are you sure that’s all it was?’ He glanced up at her. ‘I’ve met someone who did something like this before. She came to the centre. We gave her various things to hold and she told us about them – their history. Who they had belonged to. Things like that. It was uncanny. But she stayed quite detached. Purely an observer.’

‘It was my imagination,’ Frances repeated stubbornly. To her chagrin she found her legs were shaking so much she couldn’t stand up. ‘I ought to go.’

Charles glanced at his watch. ‘We’ve half an hour before Tom comes for the trailer. There’s no hurry.’

She smiled wanly and sat back, still fighting the panic, remembering the fire, the screams, the flailing swords.

‘Did they get away?’

‘Who?’ She dragged herself back to the present with difficulty.

‘Julia and her little girl.’

‘I … I don’t know.’ She stared down at the tiles. ‘I can’t remember.’ Suddenly her eyes filled with tears. ‘I’ve never felt fear like that before – never in my whole life. Not even when –’ She broke off abruptly.

‘Not even when?’ he prompted gently after a few moments.

No, she mustn’t tell him. She had told her husband and look what had happened. She touched the small tile with her fingertip gingerly, then abruptly she pushed it away. She stood up. ‘I have to go.’

‘Are you sure you feel well enough?’ He didn’t want her to go. She was a link, a channel to the past which was his whole life.

She tried to smile. ‘I’m sorry. Have I shocked you?’

‘No. I’m not shocked. I’m interested. Do you want to take the tiles?’

She shook her head vehemently. ‘Put them in your museum.’

‘OK.’ He sat watching her for another few seconds. ‘I think they made it, don’t you? Julia and little Claudia.’ He picked up the tesserae and tipped them into a cardboard box. ‘I’m sure they hid somewhere until it was all over.’