Binscombe Tales - The Complete Series (14 page)

‘Is there some problem?’ said Mr Disvan.

‘Problem? No,’ she replied, ‘we’re almost there, drive on.’

I duly covered the few hundred yards to the campsite and halted the car on a reasonably level piece of ground.

‘Thank you very much,’ said Ellie, ‘it was most kind of you. Come on over and meet the other full-timers. I’ll rustle up a cup of cocoa or coffee for you.’

‘That’d be nice,’ said Mr Disvan, ‘we’ll take you up on that offer. Follow me, Mr Oakley, don’t be shy.’

Up to that point, I’d been thinking in terms of a swift trip back down Binscombe’s answer to the slalom in order to resume my interrupted visit to the Argyll. However, since we’d made it this far it seemed reasonable to accept the offer, even though Disvan’s habit of speaking for me irked as before.

We followed Ellie to what was obviously the focal point of the camp: a large hearth of stacked bricks with a covering of corrugated iron over its top. Here, presumably, was where the meals were cooked and consumed. While Mr Disvan and I tried to make ourselves comfortable on the tree trunks which served as seats, Ellie put a kettle on to boil over a primus.

‘It’s humble, but it’s home,’ she said. ‘At least for a while.’

Then, while we were sipping the resultant black coffee out of plastic cups, Ellie gave the hearth’s iron roof several hard blows with a stick. The clanging noise thus produced caused a curious head to peer out of one of the nearby tents and look about to find the source of the disturbance. Obviously our arrival by car and subsequent chat had not been sufficient to rouse him or her.

‘Visitors,’ shouted Ellie, and the head nodded and then withdrew back into the tent.

‘You’ll have to excuse them—they’re preoccupied,’ she said.

‘Them? I only saw one.’

‘There’s more.’  She smiled as if at a private witticism. ‘In every sense of the word.’

‘It’s a fine outlook you have here,’ said Mr Disvan.

It was indeed. Below us the ridge fell away sharply and we had a clear and panoramic view of the rolling fields and lanes which led up to the start of Binscombe and the orderly, close packed streets beyond. A light mist was rising over the old glebe lands by the school and, in the distance, the sheen of Broadwater Lake was visible. The bird’s farewell evening chorus from the trees on the slope provided a pleasing soundtrack, and we carried on silently taking in the scene set out before us for several moments.

Then the low roar and rumble of a forty-tonne juggernaut coping with the twists and turns of the Compton Road eventually reached us and broke the spell, dragging us back to the mundane world.

‘ “All the kingdoms of the world and the glory thereof”,’ Ellie said, smiling pleasantly and waving her arm towards the horizon.

‘Pardon?’

‘A joke. A quote I learnt at school.’

‘It’s Biblical, Mr Oakley,’ said Mr Disvan as if to a slow but favoured child. ‘Mr Oakley is the product of a strictly secular upbringing, Ellie. He’ll not understand your allusion, I’m afraid.’

‘Should I know it?’ I asked.

‘Probably not necessary,’ Ellie replied. ‘More coffee?’

‘No thanks.’

‘Hello,’ said a soft voice from behind. Mr Disvan and I turned rapidly to see that Ellie’s colleagues had silently joined us. She had been correct in saying that there were more—three in fact.

‘Hello,’ they repeated in unison.

‘Dave, Ros and Jayney, I’d like you meet Mr Disvan and Mr Oakley from the village. You two, please meet Dave, Ros and Jayney.’

‘Nice to meet you,’ said Mr Disvan, rising and shaking hands with each.

‘Likewise,’ I added.

‘Be careful,’ said Ellie to her friends. ‘Mr D and Mr O know a frightening amount about our trade.’

In Binscombe circles the three arrivals stood out somewhat. Dave had shoulder length, slicked back hair and wore a sizeable amount of make-up. Ros and Jayney were petite earth mother figures on whom the fashions of the sixties counter culture and a future post apocalypse age struggled for ascendancy. Heavy rings of eye shadow gave them a friendly, panda-ish look.

Even so, our greetings were none the less warm or genuine, for I had perforce gone beyond judging books by their covers, and Disvan was seemingly never disconcerted by anything or anyone.

Hand in hand, the three came to join us on a nearby tree trunk-cum-bench.

‘Do you want to eat?’ said Ellie.

‘Maybe later,’ replied Jayney.

‘I’ll get a fire going in the hearth then,’ said Dave, and proceeded efficiently to do so.

In the event we stayed far longer than initially envisaged and shared the archaeologist’s meal of beans and rice. Sitting round the blazing fire, with the barrow above us and the lights of Binscombe below, ultimately seemed very agreeable to me, and I relinquished any thoughts of returning to the Argyll. Mr Disvan got into a deep debate with the
ménage à trois
about the evidence for post-Roman social systems that could perhaps be derived from early Welsh legal codes and land deeds. Then he became even more popular when his meerschaum pipe was produced and shared round. The peculiar aroma it produced wafted over the hillside in competition with the wood smoke and added its dubious charms to the pleasant fragrance of the evening.

Since I could add nothing to the discussion described above and Ellie did not seem minded to join in, our little gathering split into two groups, one silent and one not. I noticed that whereas my gaze was relaxed and more or less undirected, Ellie was staring fixedly into the woods that surrounded the encampment on all sides other than that occupied by the barrow. She seemed more tense than the situation demanded or merited, and I assumed that some unpleasant recollection had occurred to her. In order to dispel this, and—okay—perhaps with some idea of establishing more intimate relations, I decided to strike up a conversation.

‘I had no idea it was this pleasant on the ridge,’ I said. ‘It must be very easy to get to feel at home up here.’

‘That’s the whole problem,’ she replied, her mood obviously unchanged by having her thoughts interrupted. ‘It’s far too easy to feel at home here.’

Mr Disvan appeared to have caught this answer and had broken off his talk, mid-sentence, to look intently at her.

‘I don’t suppose,’ I asked, with little confidence in obtaining a positive response, ‘that you’d care to clarify that remark?’

‘You’re right, Mr Oakley,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t care to even if I could.’

Mr Disvan swiftly
rose to his feet.

‘I think we’d best be going. Time is moving on and Mr Oakley has to work tomorrow, don’t you? Doubtless we shall all meet again.’

*  *  *

In the event, Mr Disvan’s prediction was fulfilled in very short order. The very next evening I noticed, upon my arrival, that once again Ellie and he were sitting out in the Argyll’s garden. I fetched a drink and hastened to join them.

‘Oh, hello, Mr Oakley,’ she said. ‘Nice to meet you again.’

‘My sentiments exactly.’

‘Be careful of Mr Oakley,’ said Disvan, ‘he’s something of a charmer when he wants to be.’

‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ Ellie replied, unimpressed. ‘Incidentally, talking of charm or the lack of it, you two left very suddenly last night, didn’t you? I hope it wasn’t something I said.’

‘No, of course not,’ I replied.

‘Not especially, no,’ Disvan agreed—or at least partly agreed.

‘Good. The thing is that I’m more of a city person myself, and being out in the country, amidst the trees and fields so to speak, tends to make me a bit broody—even anti-social sometimes. Hence my behaviour at the end yesterday.’

‘How awful for you,’ said Mr Disvan. ‘Can’t you get professional help to cure it?’

‘Well,’ Ellie replied, a little taken aback, ‘it takes all sorts to make a world.’

‘Oh yes, there is that saying.’

I decided to intervene before this exchange became barbed.

‘Rest assured, Ellie, you gave no grounds for offence. As Mr Disvan said, I had to be up early for work and I’d forgotten. Anyway, have you made good progress today?’

‘Not in archaeological terms, no, but in terms of my career, yes, I think I have.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘My study supervisor came down from the university to see me and visit the dig today. He’s heard the word that, together with what I’ve already submitted and the results that this excavation will produce, my Ph.D. should sail through without a problem.’

‘Congratulations, you must be very pleased.’

‘Pleased and relieved, yes I am. I’ve invested five years hard work, not to mention the attendant poverty, in that doctorate, and the only alternative to having it passed that I’d be prepared to accept is death! Don’t look so shocked Mr Disvan; I’m only joking. Probably.’

‘What next?’ I asked.

‘Oh, the usual limbo, I should imagine. The dole in between odd archaeological commissions. Pouring over
The Times
and
Guardian
university appointments columns for years on end. Possibly a lectureship at the end of it if I’m lucky. So long as I d
on’t have to get married and/or settle down I don’t really mind.’

Disvan obviously didn’t like this line of questioning and wanted to keep things specific.

‘Is the entire doctorate to do with cemeteries, Ellie?’ he asked.

‘Yes, Romano-British ones to be specific, the later the better. Mind you, I’ve often dabbled back into the Iron Age if there’s the slightest evidence for continuity.’

‘As there is in the case of Binscombe.’

‘Like there is here, as you say. Only here there’s continuity to an extraordinary degree, which is pleasing. A sort of crowning glory to my researches, if you like.’

‘Why did you choose cemeteries in particular?’ asked Mr Disvan.

‘Dunno—that’s the honest answer. I just got interested in them early on, I suppose, had a few ideas, and felt like following them up. It’s not everyone’s idea of paradise when your foremost companions are the dead and gone, but it’s better than filling in forms in a office. At least I think so.’

There seemed to be, at heart, a lot of truth in this, not least in relation to my own life, and I pondered on it as I went to fetch a fresh round of drinks from the bar. When I returned I found that, in my absence, the conversation had remained on much the same topic, shifting only slightly in location to the subject of the barrow on the ridge.

‘No,’ said Ellie in answer to a question of Mr Disvan’s that I did not catch, ‘we’ve left the burial alone. From what we saw when it was first revealed, the level of disturbance is so low, and the preservation of the remains so good, that I felt justified in leaving it so a specialist could do the full works. The original clothing, if any, may have left very subtle soil staining, for instance, which we mightn’t pick up—things like that. I’ve got the evidence I want from the main cemeteries, so I won’t be too disappointed if the barrow burials aren’t up to expectations. If they are—if they’re late Roman, say—it’ll just be the cherry on the top.’

‘Well then,’ said Disvan, ‘we wish you luck.’

‘You can do better than that even. The specialist from the Institute in London is coming down on Friday. Why don’t you both take the day off and come up to the dig? You can keep your fingers crossed for me and see what turns up at the same time.’