The Mammoth Book of Irish Romance (54 page)

In four hours, the first of the staff would arrive. The smel of coffee would mingle with young voices, students grateful for the summer job, flirting and bantering. With a sudden sense of urgency, Tara ducked under the canopy that protected her demarcated soil squares from rain.

She cast a glance at the tent near the entrance to the dig. Thomas, Dr Dul aghan’s faithful sidekick, was stil asleep. There hadn’t been as much as a stir from inside the tent when she’d slipped a note through a smal gap in the tent flap:

I couldn’t sleep, so I started to dig. Call me when you wake up and I’ll make both of us tea.

Tara

She’d have been surprised if he wasn’t asleep. It was only four in the morning, a chil bite in the air belied the fact that summer was at the height of its power.

Tara opened her knapsack. With deft movements born of hours spent scraping soil away in search of the past, she first took out a smal square of canvas and laid it on the ground. On that, she placed a trowel, brush, metal dustpan, measuring tape, folding metre stick, clipboard and her camera. She checked the remaining contents: a flask of tea and a sandwich, in case she got thirsty or peckish before the rest of the staff arrived. These could stay in the pack.

Tara picked up the trowel and stil ed. There it was again. That same prickling feeling that often crawled up and down her spine when she met certain people. It wasn’t as intense as usual, but the feeling was unmistakably there. She’d felt it from the first day she arrived at the dig, but shrugged it off. It would soon disappear: it always did. This time, however, it had not settled into an almost pleasant buzz, it had become a constant irritation.

She clicked her tongue and stepped into the shal ow hole. Dul aghan had decided to let her choose her own square to excavate, with no supervisor peering over her shoulder. “Away from the rest of the dig, so you can have some privacy,” he’d said. But she’d sensed something else under his words, a kind of frustration. The man didn’t like her, she was sure of it. He’d appointed another worker, who also held a BSc Honours in Archaeology and Geology, to be square supervisor. Tara didn’t mind, but Dul aghan had insisted on giving her the option of working alone to “make up for it”.

The dirt made a scraping sound as she brushed it into the dustpan. She emptied it into a bucket beside her square to be sifted for possible relics later, and tackled the next layer of soil.

In the end, worried about Dul aghan’s attitude to her and feeling miserable at the prospect of being apart from the camaraderie that often developed on a dig, she’d picked her spot to dig at the exact place where the prickling feeling along her spine had been strongest. What a fool. The feeling had driven her to distraction over the last few weeks: invaded her dreams, stolen her sleep.

This morning she’d got fed up with tossing and turning. Sure, midnight had been an al too recent memory in the air, but the long summer day was already chasing darkness from the skies.

She’d given in to the sense of urgency and driven to the dig to start working. And now, three ful hours before the rest of the crew were due to arrive, she’d unearthed something . . . interesting.

Something round and beige was revealed when she careful y scraped away the next layer of dirt. It was about the size of her thumb. A river pebble, probably, though its mere presence here could tel a story. She brushed away more of the dirt, reached for her measuring tape and noted the pebble’s exact position on her clipboard. The temptation to dig just more and more ate at her tired brain, but Tara resisted. She removed another layer of soil with the trowel, leaving the dirt around the pebble for last. Then she took up her brush, excitement rising in her chest.

It was a face, probably a statue or a bust. Although, when she leaned closer, it didn’t look right for that. It seemed too real. Measure, note, photograph – with hands shaking from excitement.

Should she go and wake Thomas? But no, she wanted to unearth this alone. Tara set to work on the next layer of soil. It was more than just a bust. A body emerged as she careful y removed another layer of the earth that had hidden it. This was no statue. It was human remains.

This time, before she reached for her measuring tape and camera, she set her brush aside and stared at the man she’d uncovered. Something was seriously wrong here. She’d taken every grain of soil from the body herself, there was no indication of recent disturbance. From the settled state of the earth, she’d have guessed he must have been buried for at least 100 years, possibly more.

Yet the body looked fresh.

Soil and climatic conditions were not condusive to mummification, yet the corpse had not skeletonized. In any case, it didn’t
look
mummified. It looked as if life had animated the man’s long limbs and sensitive lips just yesterday. As if he’d open his eyes and lift an arm to scratch his one-week beard any moment now.

Another anomaly puzzled her: though there was no sign of as much as a scrap of clothing on him, a rusted belt buckle had emerged as she’d brushed away the dirt on his stomach. The rest of the belt, and the trousers it had held up, must have disintegrated. That meant a good few years’

underground.

Tara peered at his finely sculpted face, more that of someone asleep than long dead. The stil ness of early morning hung around her like a shroud. Rain started pattering on the canopy over her head. A deep sense of melancholy overcame her as she stared at the corpse, stil half encased in tight-packed soil.

She rose, picked up her camera and took photos of the find from every angle, circling him clockwise, then she retraced her steps to put the camera away again. Tara climbed back into the hole, grateful now that she’d given in to the impulse to excavate two squares side by side. Her man lay diagonal y across them.

What had he been like when this body was stil fil ed with life? she wondered as she crouched beside him. The little she could see of his face spoke of a handsome man with fine features. Only his face showed, his head was stil encased in soil. What colour was his hair? It was impossible to tel if his dirt-caked chin was covered with dark or light stubble.

His lips were perfect. Not too thick, not too thin. Made for smiling. For kissing. “Come back to life, sweet man, and tel me your story,” she whispered. She kissed her fingers and dared to touch them to his mouth.

His lips moved.

At the same moment, a shock of impressions flooded her mind. A feeling of pressure around her ribs, of an overwhelming desire to gasp a deep breath but no space for her chest to expand.

She snatched her hand away and scrambled from the hole with a suppressed yelp, fal ing on her backside.

The chil touch of sloppy mud seeping into her trousers brought her back to reality. What the hel had just happened? She rubbed the needles-and-pins feeling from her fingertips and shook her head as if to dispel her sil iness. For long moments she sat in the mud, rain tapping her head as if impatiently demanding she make a decision.

She’d touch him again, that’s what she’d do. Show herself there was nothing to it. Tara swal owed away her stupid fear and crawled closer to the corpse, into the shelter of the canopy.

She climbed into the hole. Gritting her teeth with determination, she reached out a shaking hand and rested it on the man’s forehead.

Suffocating, she was suffocating. Tiny, shallow breaths into a chest gripped tight by
something and she couldn’t move . . .

When Tara came back to her senses she was frantical y digging away at the soil around the corpse’s chest. She stopped herself, horrified with her carelessness. She’d flung the earth asunder without a thought to taking careful measurements, or checking for artifacts. God, she’d ploughed her way through dirt she would otherwise have taken days to remove.

Dul aghan was going to kil her.

A smal sound drew her attention and she fixed her eyes on the corpse’s lips. This time she had no doubt. They’d moved. In fact, his chest rose and fel with smal , gasp-like breaths as she watched. There was only one possible conclusion she could come to: she’d gone insane.

So insane, in fact, that the memory of that closed-chest feeling moved her to grasp her trowel once more and carry on digging. She hacked at the soil around the body with total disregard for long-learned principles of practical archaeology. Her only consideration was to free the man from his earthy prison. Anxious glances in the direction of the tent showed no movement, no sign that Thomas had woken and was about to discover her need for a padded cel and men in white coats.

When at last she was sure he could be lifted easily, no longer in the grip of his grave, Tara set her trowel aside and knelt next to him. She leaned forwards, peered intently at his handsome face.

He stil wore a soil halo, and only once she’d washed him would she be sure of the colour of his hair.

Once she’d washed him?
Where on earth were her thoughts going? She swiped a filthy hand over her face, heedless of the streak of dirt she probably left there. The best thing she could do now was to get away as fast as possible. That way she’d have a very, very slim chance of not being blamed for this travesty.

Except, she’d left the note in Thomas’ tent. Oh, God, she was so screwed, on so many levels.

And with that realization, Tara crossed a line. She was so far gone, so deep in trouble that nothing she did could make it much worse. Why not explore this experience to the ful , so that at least she’d not have unanswered questions eating away at her when she sat in her padded cel ?

Quickly, before she could change her mind, she placed her hand firmly on the man’s forehead again.

Able to breathe now, grit in my mouth, nose blocked, very cold. Broth. Warm broth.

This time she didn’t lose herself in his sensations. Was it because he was no longer panicked, suffocating? She stil ed, rubbed her tingling hand. What exactly did that thought tel her? It meant she believed she felt the man’s feelings. The corpse’s feelings.

Hel . This was no corpse.

Tara’s whole body started shaking. Shock. Her mom always swore by sweet, hot tea for calming one down. With nothing to lose, the decision was easy. Tara dug out her flask, poured half a cup of steaming tea and drank it down. Then she poured another half-cup and held it over the man’s parted lips.

Drip-drip-drip.

She watched, not sure if she dreaded or desired this supposedly lifeless body to show some reaction. Long moments passed. Then the lips pressed together, his Adam’s apple moved.

“Oh. My. God.” Tara dripped more tea into his mouth, watched as he swal owed again. And again, and again. At last he’d drunk half a cup of tea, and she couldn’t stop smiling. Bugger the dig, bugger Dul aghan. She was taking this man home.

With feverish haste, Tara screwed the lid on the flask, then tossed it into her knapsack with the tools she’d brought along. She peered through the now almost solid veil of pouring rain. There was stil no sign of movement from Thomas’ tent. That was normal enough. Though it felt to her as if ages had passed, it was stil an hour before the normal starting time for the dig. Furthermore, he wouldn’t even have to leave his camp bed to realize there would be no digging today because of the rain. Hopeful y, he’d take the opportunity to sleep in.

She got to her feet and ran past the tent, pushed open the never-locked gate and hurried to her car. The temporary fence was for keeping animals out – here, in the country, there was little if any chance of human interference with the dig. Once she was seated behind the wheel of her twelve-year-old hatchback, she flung her knapsack on the passenger seat. The engine purred to life at the first try and she drove careful y down the road, to the corner of the fence closest to her man. There was a bend in the winding, crumbly tarred path there, and she parked out of sight of the dig.

Quick as a flash, she opened the hatchback and put the rear seats down. Would he fit? How on earth was she going to carry him there? She’d make a plan, somehow.

It wasn’t difficult to undo the loosely twisted wire that kept the two sections of the fence together nearest her man. With more anxious glances towards Thomas’ tent, she stole to the former corpse’s side. This was it. From here, if she was caught, no explanation could possibly save her.

Tara took a deep breath, bent down and scooped up the soil she’d loosened away from his shoulders. She grasped the man under his arms.

She did her best to support his head as she struggle-dragged him through the mud. Her heart did its best to climb out of her throat and abandon the body and mind that had clearly lost al traces of sanity. Fear gave her strength, and the rain-soaked ground helped her slide the man’s body ever closer to her car.
God, he was heavy.
They had left a brown trail of mud over the bright green heather once they made it from the churned ground.

Oh-God-oh-God
. She was sure that at any moment Thomas would poke his head from the tent, stare straight at her and the game would be up. She was mad, mad to do this. And stil she fought to drag her man to her car.

She was exhausted by the time they made it to the little hatchback. The rain had washed away much of the mud from her man’s face. She saw him squinting against the sting of the pelting drops, saw him lick his lips. The last traces of doubt that he was very much alive were blown away when he sneezed a gob of mud from his nose, then spat weakly. He opened his eyes for a moment, looked straight into hers.

Tara froze. She was convinced she’d seen those bloodshot eyes somewhere before. They seemed as familiar as her own blue ones. His were light green, like the Mediterranean Sea when the sun caught it just so. From somewhere, bizarrely, relief flooded her heart, as if something that had been missing in her soul had been returned. He smiled, then his eyelids fluttered closed again.