Ruth Galloway (41 page)

The bonfire is apparently completed. As the light fades Cathbad and the other Druids join hands and encircle it, chanting and singing. The children join in too, running in and out of the adults, laughing and excited. Max, Ruth and the other non-Druids stand nearby, torn between self-consciousness and interest. There is something magnificent about the spectacle, thinks Ruth, the tiny dark figures silhouetted against the sky, the towering bonfire and the faint crash of the waves in the background.

Cathbad has some trouble lighting his symbolic firebrand. The wind keeps whipping out the flame and, eventually, Freya has to shield him with her cloak. But finally he raises aloft the burning brand. ‘Goddess Brigid, accept our offering!'

Flames lick around the base of the bonfire. The children run around, shrieking with excitement. The adults are chanting again but then someone starts to play the guitar and the chanting turns into something cosier, something more like a folk song. There is quite a crowd now. Ruth recognises lots of faces from the university and from the field team, including Ted and Trace. Slightly to Ruth's irritation, Max greets Trace enthusiastically. ‘She's been working on the Swaffham site. She's a good archaeologist. Very knowledgeable about the Romans.'

‘Mmm.' Ruth's appreciation of Trace's skills is not improved by the fact that she is looking rather stunning in a black T-shirt and black leather trousers. ‘Let's go and sit down somewhere,' she says. Her back is killing her.

They sit in the shelter of one of the dunes, eating vegetarian
hot dogs. Max has managed to annex one of the better bottles of wine and Ruth is drinking orange juice. Max doesn't comment on her abstemiousness. They talk about the two sites – the Roman excavation and the seventy-five luxury apartments – about the two decapitated bodies, about the Roman gods, particularly Janus, the two-faced God. ‘He's also connected to the spring and the harvest,' says Max. ‘He's not just the god of doorways but of any time of transition and change, of progression from one condition to another.'

‘Is that because he can look backwards and forwards at the same time?'

‘Yes, it also helped him pursue women, the nymph Carna, for example.'

‘Did he catch her?'

‘Yes, and in return for her favours he gave her power over all door hinges.'

Ruth laughs. ‘So, instead of WD40 we should pray to Carna?'

‘It's worth a try.'

Max pours more wine but Ruth has caught sight of a modern nymph, walking towards them across the sand. Shona, wearing a shawl and a flowing purple dress, accompanied by a very unwelcome acolyte – Phil.

‘Ruth! What are you doing skulking here?'

Skulking, thinks Ruth, getting to her feet, is really a very unattractive way of putting it. She had been feeling rather good, lounging on the sand beside a good-looking and intelligent man. Now she feels foolish and somehow rather disreputable.

‘Hallo, Ruth,' says Phil, too loudly. This is the first time Ruth has seen him in Shona's company. This evening must
represent some sort of ‘coming out' as a couple. No wonder Shona looks so triumphant.

‘Hallo, Phil,' says Ruth warily. ‘You remember Max Grey from Sussex? He's the archaeologist in charge of the Swaffham dig.'

‘Yes, of course. How are you? Glad Ruth's looking after you.'

This remark, like Shona's, serves to make the whole evening seem ridiculous. Who is Phil to say that Ruth is ‘looking after' Max? Why does he need looking after, anyhow?

‘I'm having a wonderful time,' says Max, making things slightly better.

‘I've got no time for all this hippie nonsense,' says Phil, ‘but Malone is a friend of Shona's.'

‘Malone?'

‘Catweasel or whatever he calls himself.'

‘Cathbad,' says Ruth between gritted teeth.

‘I hear he's an ex-archaeologist,' says Max.

‘Years ago,' says Phil dismissively. ‘He works as a lab assistant now. He's one of the airy-fairy type, believes in the symbolic landscape, ley lines, spirits of the ancestors, all that crap.'

Max says nothing. Ruth is pretty sure that he too believes in some of these things but it is in his interests to stay on the right side of Phil, who is partly funding the Roman dig.

It is nearly dark now. The Druids have planted burning torches in the sand and now the capering figures around the bonfire look monstrous and misshapen, their shadows black against the flames. The scent of wood smoke fills the air with acrid sweetness. Ruth realises that she is suddenly
very tired. More than anything she wants to be home, in bed, with Flint flexing his claws against the duvet. But she is sure that Max won't want to leave yet. How many more hours will she have to spend watching Cathbad throwing symbolic objects onto the fire? The last one was a University of North Norfolk sweatshirt; she dreads to think what this signifies.

She realises that Shona is talking to her, lowering her voice so that the men won't hear. ‘He's promised to leave his wife. What do you think of that?'

‘I've heard that one before,' is what Ruth thinks. Aloud, she says, ‘Do you think he will?'

‘I don't know,' says Shona, draining her plastic glass. ‘I gave him an ultimatum. Her or me. He says I'm the most important thing in his life.'

Hence his presence here, guesses Ruth. A conciliatory gesture, appearing with Shona in front of this significantly insignificant group of people. She is sure that Phil would never accompany Shona to a departmental social or the Dean's lecture. Equally, she is sure he will never leave his wife. Just as Nelson will never leave his.

‘Be careful,' is all she says.

‘What do you mean?' Shona tosses her hair, which glows as brightly as one of the torches in the darkness.

‘I've known Phil a long time. He says what he thinks you want to hear.'

Shona glares at her. Ruth is not sure what she would have said if Max hadn't come over, placing a hand on Ruth's arm. ‘Do you want to make a move?' he says. ‘It's getting a bit cold out here.'

Ruth agrees gratefully. With the disappearance of the sun, the night has got distinctly chilly. The wind is stronger too. Ruth pulls her jacket tightly around her but the Druids in their thin robes seem impervious to the cold. Their children too. As she and Max walk along the beach she can see them still playing in the near darkness. They have dug a deep hole and are chanting, ‘Ding Dong Dell, Pussy's in the well.'

‘Some things never change,' she says to Max as they make their way back to the path through the dunes. It is too dangerous to cross the Saltmarsh after dark; they must take the birdwatchers' trail, a raised shingle path that leads back to the car park. Max has left his car there. Ruth hopes he will give her a lift home and won't expect to come in for coffee.

‘Interesting rhyme,' says Max in his tutorial voice. ‘It's thought that Pussy refers to a prostitute.'

‘What are they doing, drowning her?'

‘Probably a version of a ducking stool.'

‘How does it go? “Who put her in? Little Johnny Green”.'

‘“Who pulled her out? Little Jimmy Stout”. Something like that.'

‘Who was Jimmy then? Her pimp?'

Max laughs. ‘I like you, Ruth,' he says.

There's no answer to that. ‘I like you too' would sound impossibly arch. Changing the subject would sound like a snub. And she does like him. How much, she doesn't really want to consider. It's all so
complicated
, that's the problem. She is pregnant with someone else's baby. That someone else is married and doesn't even know that she is pregnant. He will probably be furious when he finds out. Or will he maybe, just maybe, be pleased? Recently Ruth has been fantasising
that the baby is a boy. Perhaps Nelson has always wanted a boy, will be delighted, will leave Michelle … Hang on, though, does she even want him to leave Michelle? On balance, she doesn't. She would feel horribly guilty at breaking up the family and she is not sure if she ever wants to live with a man again. Especially a man as large as Nelson.

This is ridiculous anyway. Nelson doesn't love her and never has done. Their night together had been the result of a unique set of circumstances. They had just found the body of a dead child, Nelson had had to break the news to the family. For that one night it seemed as if Ruth and Nelson were alone in the world. Nelson had come to Ruth wanting comfort; the passion had surprised both of them. But Nelson has never, before or since, given any sign that he thinks of Ruth as anything other than a colleague, a fellow professional, perhaps even a friend. Why, then, is she thinking of him now, as Max takes her hand to help her over a stile? Does Max remind her of Nelson? He's a very different person; an academic, soft-spoken and courteous, but, physically, there is something. Like Nelson, Max has presence. It is not just that he is tall. It is more that, if he is in the room, you can't really look at anyone else. Phil faded into insignificance beside him and even Cathbad seemed several shades paler.

‘Listen,' says Max suddenly, ‘an owl.' They are passing the first hide. These wooden huts for birdwatchers are placed at strategic points on the marsh – this one is on stilts looking out over a freshwater lake. Ruth hears the wind whispering in the reeds and thinks for the hundredth, thousandth, time of that wild night on the Saltmarsh when an owl's call lured a man to his death. Around them lies water, dark and sullen,
interspersed with marshy islands. Ruth shivers and Max makes a gesture as if he is going to put his arm round her but thinks better of it. ‘Almost there,' is all he says.

The car park is pitch black and deserted apart from Max's Range Rover. Inside it is blessedly warm and Ruth almost cries with happiness at the prospect of sitting down again. Is it normal for a pregnant person's back to ache this much? Perhaps it's because she's overweight.

Max negotiates the turn into the narrow road that leads to the cottages. He's a careful driver. In this respect, at least, he's nothing like Nelson.

‘It was quite something, wasn't it?' he says. ‘The bonfire and the Druids and everything.'

‘Yes,' says Ruth, ‘you can't go wrong with a fire for spectacle. I suppose that's why people used to worship it. Fire wards off the dark.'

‘Like the cry of the cockerel,' says Max.

Ruth shoots him a curious look. ‘Why do you say that?'

For a second Max looks straight ahead, squinting at the dark road. Then he says, ‘Something that happened on the dig yesterday. I was just seeing off some sightseers. The Historical Society this time, I think. And I found a dead cockerel in one of the trenches.'

Ruth doesn't know what to say. She is dimly aware that the neighbouring farms might keep hens but she can't think how a bird can have wandered onto Max's site, isolated as it is behind its grassy bank.

‘Was it left there deliberately?'

He gives a short laugh. ‘I'd say so, yes. Its throat had been cut.'

‘What?'

‘Slit from side to side. Very neat job.'

For one awful moment Ruth thinks she is going to be sick. She takes a deep breath.

‘Why would anyone want to do that?'

They have reached Ruth's cottage. Max turns off the ignition. ‘Well a cockerel's a fairly traditional sacrifice. Because they crow in the morning, they're supposed to have power to hold back the darkness. That's what I meant earlier.'

Ruth's head is swimming. ‘A sacrifice? Why would anyone leave a sacrifice on an archaeological dig?'

‘I don't know. Maybe someone who believes that we're disturbing the dead.'

Briefly Ruth thinks of Cathbad and then shakes her head to clear it. Dead animals are not Cathbad's style.

‘Of course,' Max goes on, ‘cockerels have a Christian connection too. The cockerel is sometimes used to represent Jesus. It's the whole dawn rebirth thing.'

‘Someone killed a bird as a Christian sacrifice?'

Max's voice changes gear slightly. ‘Or an offering to Hecate.'

‘The goddess of witchcraft?'

‘She was the goddess of many things. The Greeks called her the “Queen of the Night” because she could see into the underworld. She's the goddess of the crossroads, the three ways. That's why images of her are often in triplicate. She is meant to haunt crossroads, crossing places, accompanied by her ghost dogs. Another name is Hekate Kourotrophos, Hecate the child-nurse. Women prayed to her in labour.'

‘Are cockerels traditionally sacrificed to her?' Ruth tries to keep the disbelief out of her voice.

‘Well, it was black and it was traditional to sacrifice black animals to Hecate. Usually dogs or puppies because of her sacred dogs. But birds too occasionally. She's sometimes linked to Athena and is depicted with an owl, the symbol of wisdom.'

‘We heard an owl earlier.'

Max smiles, his teeth very white in the darkness. ‘Maybe that was Hecate. She appears on marshland sometimes, shining her ghost lights to help you see your way.'

‘A will-o'-the-wisp,' says Ruth, remembering another legend of spectral lights.

‘Exactly. Marsh lights. Phosphorescence. There are lots of stories about them.'

Ruth shivers. The time on the dashboard says 22:32. ‘I'd better be getting in.'

Max does not try to detain her nor does he mention coffee but, when she starts to open the door, he says ‘Ruth' and, leaning over, kisses her on the lips.

*

Ruth goes straight to bed but as she lies cosily under her duvet with Flint purring loudly on her chest she finds that she can't sleep. Instead words and phrases chase themselves crazily around her head. She turns one way and then the other (much to Flint's irritation) but still can't escape them. It's a little like the half-waking dreams that you get when you've drunk too much, which is very annoying considering she only had one sip of punch and drank orange juice for the rest of the evening.