Mythology Abroad (3 page)

O O O

“Michaels here, sir. We caught sight of him on his way through Immigration: Danny O’Day.” The mustachioed man in the nondescript tweed suit spoke into a telephone at the front of the airport. He sent a suspicious glance around, watching out for illicit listeners, but no one seemed interested in a middle-aged man who looked like a retired mathematics professor lately returned from a fishing holiday. “Aye, it had to be him. Face like the very map of Ireland and a midget with him pretending to be a kid, on a plane from the States. Oh, yes, big bill-cap and all. Cool as you please. They came through the Red Channel, if you like. Yes, incredible. No, no one on the floor saw them. I got word from the operator minding the security cameras. The bloke got all excited when he watched those two trot unmolested through the channel, and made me a phone call. Left here with a tour group led by an old bag. Wondering what he’s smuggling in this time. Whatever it is would have to be light. They have no sizable luggage. The airline said there’s nothing in ’em but clothes and books. A lot of books.”

“No idea, Michaels,” said the Chief of Operations. “Might be disks or microfilms of classified information hidden away, like the last time, but it’s just as likely to be diamonds. We’re fortunate you spotted him. The gen was that he’d be entering from the U.S. either here or Manchester.”

“Shall I have him stopped?”

There was a pause on the other end of the telephone line. Michaels eyed a woman who was waiting impatiently for him to finish, and then turned his back on her. “No,” the Chief answered reluctantly. “They’ll laugh themselves sick at Scotland Yard at our expense if we stop him, and he’s here empty to make a pickup instead of a delivery. Keep an eye on him, will you? Report anything he does that looks suspicious.”

“I will, sir.” Michaels pushed the Follow-On Call button, and punched 100, requesting Directory Inquiries to tell him what it could about a company called Educatours.

Miss Anderson shepherded them into the waiting motor coach, painted a natty silver and blue with “Educatour” blazoned in white across the sides and front of the vehicle. “Keith Doyle and Holl Doyle,” she said formally, indicating the other passengers with a sweep of her hand, “meet your classmates for the next six weeks.”

The group assembled on the coach was a mixed one. A cluster of college-age male students huddled together at the back of the bus. They stared blankly through a haze of acrid cigarette smoke at Keith when he was introduced to them. Max, Martin, Charles, Edwin, Matthew, and Tom came from the same college at Edinburgh University. Alistair was one of Miss Anderson’s own pupils at Glasgow University. In spite of their casual insouciance, they were dressed in button-down shirts with identical ties. Keith was glad he hadn’t given in to the temptation of comfort and worn a tee shirt. Two middle-aged women, Mrs. Green and Mrs. Turner, whom Keith guessed to be teachers, sat together in the second seat behind and to the left of the driver. They gave him polite, shy smiles, but positively beamed at Holl. Miss Anderson dashed off and returned with a petite Indian girl dressed in a sari.

“There. With Narit’s arrival, we have our full complement.” Miss Anderson plumped herself into the seat in front of the pair of teachers. “Open the windows, extinguish cigarettes, thank
you
!
It’s too nice a day not to take the air.”

Keith and Holl took a seat on the left side halfway back, between the Scottish students and the English teachers. Even though he had seen the driver seated on the right when he got on, Keith still did a double take when the bus pulled out to the right, with apparently no one driving it. They left the one-way system in front of the airport, and pulled onto the motorway.

“Now, now!” Miss Anderson clapped her hands at Keith. He had just settled back with his head on his rolled-up jacket. “No naps yet. We’ve too much to do!”

“I can hardly stay awake,” Keith pleaded.

“Nonsense!” cried Miss Anderson. “Today is your first day of class!” There was a chorus of groans from the back of the coach. “Now, pay attention, and I will begin. The area of the island of Great Britain known as the Highlands had a surprisingly rich Neolithic culture, which was during the period between 4400 and 2400 B.C. In the ensuing millennia, the population in many of these centers has declined. As a result, a number of the Stone Age and following Bronze Age sites have remained relatively undisturbed, because until air transport and surveillance became a reality, they were unknown. That feature which our ancestors have left for us in the greatest abundance is the tomb. It was the custom for most of these ancient peoples to bury substantial goods with the dead, and from these goods, we are able to deduce as much about the way they lived as we can from the remains of the people themselves.

“The first site we will explore is just southwest of here in the portion of the county of Strathclyde which was known as Renfrewshire, in which Bronze Age settlements were common. Alas, this area has been heavily settled through the ages since the beginning, so we are hard pressed to discover undisturbed sites near here. In this case, we’re immediately in front of the bulldozers. There will be construction on the site in ten months’ time unless something of significant cultural or historical importance is unearthed, so time is precious. The team does not expect such a find, so they are working quickly to document the site while they still can.”

“Do they hope that they’ll find something that will save the site?” Keith sat up, remembering Gillington Library on the Midwestern campus and how he had worked to prevent its demolition.

Miss Anderson shook her head. “Indeed, no, not really. In this case, we’re merely record takers, making notes of what was where, and when, for future historians. We can’t hope to preserve all the sites where our ancestors lived—we’d soon run out of places to live! Most of what we find will be reburied
in situ.
The second and third digs, both in the ancient province of Alban, now known as Inverness-shire and the Islands, are much better. Neither is immediately subject to development.”

She went on with her lecture. Keith strained to comprehend and remember what she was saying, but realized, hopelessly, that the words were bouncing off his jet-lagged ears. Holl had dozed off miles back. Maybe one of his fellow classmates could help fill him in later.

The coach turned in off the main street and passed by an arched stone gate. Keith glimpsed relief carvings on the archway and a square surrounding a grass sward, banked by solid walls of buildings inside of the same soot-darkened stone as the arch. He was awed by the antiquity of the University buildings, compared with those of Midwestern University. What they offered here was Education, with a capital
E
, tried but untroubled by the passing ages. He was enormously impressed, and couldn’t wait to explore.

“That is the MacLeod Building,” Miss Anderson pointed out. “We’ll have seminars in the Small Lecture Room once a week, where those of you taking this tour for credit will present weekly essays, which I’ll explain later. The University is not in session during the summer, so we’ve got the place pretty much to ourselves. You’ll all be staying in rooms in the Western Residence Hall just along this road for the next two weeks. Meals are in the refectory. Your names are on the doors of your dormitories.”

The party clambered out of the coach before a gray granite building with no windows on the ground floor. Checking Miss Anderson’s chart, Keith and Holl found they were sharing a suite with Martin and Matthew on the second floor, which, translated for them, meant that they had to climb two flights of stairs to get there. “We’re on the ground floor, now,” the teacher explained, as they pulled into the car park next to the gray stone building. “First is just above us.”

“Miss Anderson,” Keith began apologetically, “can I get a review sheet or something of the lecture you gave on the bus? I don’t think I absorbed very much of it.”

“Never mind, lad,” the teacher smiled brightly. “I was talking simply to keep you awake on the coach, though it won’t hurt if you retained some of it. We’ll be reviewing the same information tomorrow morning before we go out. Wear old clothes; we’ll be getting a bit mucky.”

Keith enkindled instant admiration for the wiry instructor. “Yes, ma’am!” He pulled a smart salute. Holl groaned.

With a smile, she shooed them away. “Get on with you before your room-mates bag the best beds!”

***

C
HAPTER FOUR

The accommodations were comfortable enough. Holl and Keith shared a tiny bedroom that bore a striking resemblance to Keith’s dormitory room at Midwestern. “Even the dressers are in the same place,” Keith pointed out with amusement. “I bet they stamp them out of a mold in Hong Kong.”

“Keith Doyle,” Holl spoke up suddenly from behind him. “I’ve been meaning to ask—those rows upon rows of houses in Illinois and those we saw on the way from Glasgow Airport? Are there really molds large enough to make houses?”

Keith, turning around to face Holl, tried to stifle a grin, but was unable to do anything about the twinkle in his eye. “They don’t stock much in the way of architecture texts in Gillington Library, do they?”

“No …,” Holl admitted thoughtfully, turning red. “They’ve a subscription to Architecture Quarterly, but that deals mostly with unique structures. Not the mass-produced ones we saw.”

“It’s just an expression,” Keith assured him, going back to unpacking his suitcase, “although they sometimes make them out of prefabricated sections. It would save a lot of time if they could cast a whole block’s worth of houses at once.”

Holl’s jaw dropped. “Do you mean those identical, cheap-looking boxes are constructed one by one? On purpose? There are frauds passing themselves off as craftsmen, then.”

A rap sounded at the door, cutting off further exclamations of outrage. Holl sat down on the bed with his cap pulled down over his forehead, and yanked a half-whittled stick and his knife out of his jacket pocket.

“It’s open,” Keith called over his shoulder.

Matthew and Martin leaned in. “Are you settled now?” Matthew asked. He was about Keith’s height and build, but his face was sharper in outline. His hair was black and smooth, but his pale skin seemed curiously thin, showing pink through it over the cheekbones.

“Just about,” Keith said, shutting a drawer full of tee shirts.

“If you do’ mind it, we can show you about the town. Maybe nip into the pub for a quick one. It’s well on into lunchtime, though they’ll serve meals until two,” Martin grinned, exposing crooked, white teeth. His hair was taffy-colored, similar to Holl’s, cut short in the back, but long enough in front to droop over his eyes. “We know where to find the best cider in Glasgow.”

“Cider? Sounds good. I’m thirsty,” Keith said.

“It gets dry on those jets,” Holl added, sliding the cap’s bill further back on his head with the point of his knife.

“Um, he’s your nephew?” Matthew asked the American youth, aiming a shoulder at Holl. The lilting cadence made it a question, though he had none of the broad accents of the Customs officer or his roommate. “We’ve got legal age limits in the pub. How old is he?”

“Twelve,” said Keith.

“Fourteen,” said Holl at the same time. With a long-suffering look at Keith, he handed over his passport. The date of birth bore him out. Keith looked at it curiously, but said nothing.

“You certain he’s a relative?” Martin joked.

“Well, I suppose he could have aged while I wasn’t looking,” Keith defended himself lamely. “It seems such a long time since he was born.”

“Small for your age, my lad. Still, that’s old enough to get in, though not to drink cider,” Matthew affirmed cheerfully. “There’s squashes and other things for you. Come on, then.”

“What made you come to Glasgow for the summer?” Matthew asked when they plumped into a booth in the Black Bull pub on Byres Road, just outside the grounds of the university. Glasgow was a city of four-hundred year old golden sandstone and gray granite buildings standing alongside new glass and chromium-tube constructions. The whole seemed to fit together fairly well. The walking tour had taken them over an hour. They had been on and off the cylindrical orange trains of the Underground transportation system three or four times at different points around the city. Keith was ready for a snack and a drink.

“Curiosity, I guess,” he admitted. “My best excuse is that I get college credit for this tour, while getting to know another country.”

“The same for me,” Holl put in. “I’ve never been away from home before.”

“Well, we don’t have the endless money you Americans do, so we have to get our education at home,” Martin said darkly. “No jollicking off for us.”

“Hey, I work for my tuition,” Keith retorted. “My family isn’t rich. You’ve been watching too much American television.”

“What’s your job?” Matthew asked, hurrying to make peace and defuse the argument.

Keith, always eager to talk about the success of Hollow Tree Industries, began to explain. “I sell handmade woodcrafts to gift shops, made by some friends of mine. Holl, here …” his voice dropped when he realized what he might have been about to say. “Holl here has seen some of the items. Shortbread molds, toys, boxes, jewelry like necklaces, and so on. They’re pretty nice. Very good workmanship. I get a commission on the sales so my craftsmen don’t have to go out and find buyers themselves.” Holl nodded approval, and Keith beamed.

“That can’t be easy,” Matthew acknowledged. “I work in a bakery near my home half days, starting early in the morning. I’m on holiday for the next month. Two weeks’ pay I’m losing at the end of this course, but like you, it’s credit toward graduation.”

“You get four weeks’ vacation a year?” Keith gawked. “Wow. We only get two weeks.”

“Have you ever had cider?” Martin inquired, getting up to put in their order at the bar. Hanging signs under the inverted bottles behind the counter advertised Tennant’s Ale and Strongbow.

“Oh, sure. There’s lots of orchards near where I live,” Keith said. “You can get fresh cider every fall.” The two Scots exchanged glances, and Martin chuckled.

“I’ll get the first round. We can order from the bar menu for lunch while we drink it.”

“This is a St. Clements for you, lad,” Martin said, returning with a small round tray full of glasses. “Fizzy lemonade and orange, nothing toxic.”

Holl took the light orange drink, and sipped cautiously. He nodded happily and ran his tongue across his lips to catch the thin foam. “That’s refreshing. Thank you.”

“I got you a mild cider, Doyle,” Martin continued, innocently passing him a large glass of a cloudy, burnt gold fluid.

Grinning at Holl’s watchful gaze, Keith drank. The other boys sat back nonchalantly, only their eyes alert and mischievous, waiting. “That’s good!”

Martin did a double-take. “You knew it was alcoholic, did you?”

“I do live near orchards, I told you.” Keith lifted the glass happily, and studied the color against the light. “This is the smoothest applejack I’ve ever tasted.”

“Well, watch it,” Matthew warned him mildly, holding no grudge for being cheated of his fun. “You may think you know your capacity, but don’t trust cider. It sneaks up on you. You get apple-juice palsy well before you know you’ve had a drop too much.”

“No problem,” Keith assured him. “Next round’s on me.”

Holl took an interested sniff of the cider. Pity about the drinking laws, but he didn’t want to cause a fuss and draw attention to himself. Still, he felt the need for a calming drink after the trauma of plane travel. When the second round of St. Clement’s came to the table, he concentrated quietly on his glass,
enhancing
the sugars until they fermented into alcohol. He took an investigative sip. Not as good as one of Marm’s brews, but passable. The others, deep in their conversations, took no notice of him.

They talked about their homes, comparing the differences between their early lives, and exclaiming over the many similarities. Keith found his two roommates to be outgoing and curious, and thankfully, less reticent than he’d been warned. He didn’t press them for details, and found that once the boys relaxed, they told him all about themselves without urging.

“You’re not like we thought Americans would be,” Matthew admitted candidly. “I was sure you’d be posing us for pictures in front of every stone building and bobby. You know.” He pantomimed frantic snapping with an invisible camera.

“I probably would have, but I haven’t got any film left,” Keith confessed, putting on an abashed expression, and the others laughed.

“You’re a friendly lot, you Yanks,” Martin said. “If you’d been English, we’d probably not have talked to you.”

“Too shirty and superior,” agreed Matthew, hoisting his nose in the air with a forefinger.

“With a name like Doyle, there’s not much chance of that, is there? I don’t want to be offensive, but you sound almost English to me,” Keith continued apologetically. “You don’t have a burr in your voice. You talk like the BBC announcers. Cultured.”

“We’ve gone to English day schools and colleges,” Martin explained. “I come from a wee place near Edinburgh.” He pronounced it ‘edin-burra,’ and Keith marked it for future use. “My dad’s in finance, and if I want to follow him, I can’t keep my old regional, even if I wanted to.”

“Speak for yerself,” Matthew said, dropping into a thick burr. “Hey, Keith, hae you ey’r heard o’ Billy Connolly?”

They chose their meals from a long list of entrees, each of which came with chips—French fried potatoes—and peas. Keith looked down the menu for fish and chips, but to his surprise, it wasn’t listed. “Have plaice, if you want good fish,” Matthew said, answering his tentative question. “It’ll be fresh, at least. Fresher than the cod.”

“Why does everything come with peas?” Keith asked. “Was there a bumper crop this year?”

The other two laughed uproariously. Baskets of greasy chicken and chips and peas, fish and chips and peas, and, to Keith’s amusement, lasagna with chips and peas, were set down before them. They washed down their lunch with more cider. The other youths seemed in no hurry to leave, and the bartender ignored them as long as they were relatively quiet.

“Everyone comes into the pub. If you don’t know anybody in a town, you can wander into a pub for society. There’s not much else for young people without a lot of money to do in Glasgow, unless you want to skate at St. Enoch’s Center,” Martin explained.

Holl chuckled, sharing the joke with Keith in an undertone. “I’ll certainly pull his leg hard when we get home. Saint Enoch.”

“Though they’re all not as friendly in the wee places,” Matthew corrected his friend. “We’re in the local pub at home almost every evening. You’d like it, if you care for old places. The building is a restored inn, over 350 years old. You ought to come home with us some time at the weekend for a visit.”

“You bet! Thanks,” Keith exclaimed.

“But leave your camera at home,” Martin warned. “It’s not Trafalgar Square. Start making a place a tourist attraction, and the locals stay away. It defeats the whole point of a pub.”

The Black Bull was a companionable place. Keith felt very much at home, surrounded by dark brown wooden paneling and beveled mirrors. No yuppie plants in the windows; this place was functional, not just for show. The only thing he couldn’t identify were designs cut out of circles of brass that hung on leather strips over the stone fireplace and from the ceiling beams. The colorful machines in the corner with whirling wheels and strips of lights that read “10p” had to be the local equivalent of arcade games. Matthew and Martin began to discuss Rugby football, which sounded more brutal even than American football. They explained the British game to Keith, who listened closely and offered comparisons.

“What’s this apple juice palsy like?” Keith put in, setting down an empty pint glass. He was starting to feel a little light-headed, but put it down to jet lag. According to his watch, it was just after noon at home, but it felt as though he’d been awake for days. Holl reclined limply under his cap in the corner of the booth, offering a word or two when one of the others spoke directly to him.

“Ach, you know,” Martin gestured, trying to conjure an image out of the air with his hands. “You go weak at the knees, and you see things like little pink lizards.”

“Lizards?” Keith exclaimed, squinting impishly at the table. “Pink ones?”

“Aye.” The boys’ cultured voices were sliding into homier dialects as their blood-alcohol ratio went down. “Snakes and bugs, too. And then you feel like your head wants to come off.”

As Holl watched in horror, a finger-long pink lizard rose out of one of the spilled puddles of cider on the table and scooted toward Martin. It made a run of about a foot before it reached a dry place on the table and popped. Martin jumped, and Keith grinned.

“Did you see that, Matt?” the youth demanded, clutching his friend’s arm and pointing. “Lizards!”

“Nae. Just a bit of reflection from the street,” the other reassured him distinctly. “Maybe from a lorry. I saw a little flash of pink in the slop. This table wants wiping. What a clumsy lot we are.” He rose unsteadily and went to the bar to borrow a towel.

“You’re probably hallucinating,” Keith added. “This cider is insidious stuff, isn’t it?”

Holl wasn’t fooled by Keith’s innocent expression, and eyed him as the other lad blotted up the spills. Enoch, the Master’s son, had been trading driving lessons in Keith’s car for magic instruction over the last few months. Evidently, the Big Person was getting good at simple tricks like cohesiveness and shaping. Holl was surprised and dismayed by his proficiency. Maybe there was something after all in the boy’s insistence that he was related to the Little Folk. But the red-haired student was losing all his inhibitions as he got more drunk. In a moment, he’d do something stupid, and expose them. Holl had no wish to wind up a museum exhibit in a foreign country thousands of miles from home, doing charms and tricks for a lot of scientists. The “extraterrestrial” movie Keith had brought once for the Folk to see had opened their eyes amazingly. Holl had had nightmares for weeks.

“I’ve got to get some sleep, or I’ll be sick,” he spoke up suddenly, as the others were discussing another round of drinks. “My head’s pounding, and
I
haven’t had any cider.”

“He can’t be sick here. You’d better take him back to the Hall,” Matthew told Keith worriedly.

The American youth looked at Holl almost as if he’d never seen him before and shook his head to clear it. “Right. C’mon, Holl. I wouldn’t mind an hour’s nap either.” He slid out from behind the table and attempted to stand. His knees buckled, and Holl sprang to catch him as he clawed at the dark wooden walls of the booth for support.