The Buried Circle - Jenni Mills [135]
I’m used to John chucking the odd mysticism into conversation, but how seriously does Bryn take this Goddess stuff? He strikes me as a lost soul, casting about for a philosophy to make sense of his life. Last year it was Newcastle United, this month the Goddess. Next week he could move on to bodybuilding, computer gaming or creative writing.
But there’s something lovely about his devotion to simplicity. He pulls the blanket closer, not ashamed of his bare skin but sensitive to what I might think. ‘Washed a couple of T-shirts at the spring, didn’t dry quickly as I thought.’ He does the nature-boy bit well, knows how to look after himself, builds a neat fire.
He’s looking at me hopefully, an invitation in his eyes.
‘Cynon and me are well set-up here,’ he says. ‘Come and see.’
‘Bit spooky for me.’ I’m reluctant to go into the barrow. ‘At Tolemac, you’re not far from people. This…well, it’s a tomb.’
‘Told you, it’s beautiful,’ he says, clambering to his feet, and holding out his hand.
We step over the small fire that dances in the forecourt of the Long Barrow. Perhaps this is how it looked five, six thousand years ago. Fragments of what I’ve read, or Martin’s told me, come back. The stones guarding the entrance are later additions: someone decided that what happened in the forecourt and the tomb should be secret, hidden from uninitiated eyes. Both Bryn and I have to stoop beneath the massive stone lintel to enter the narrow passageway. Not all of it is constructed of sarsen. Some of the drystone walling between came from as far away as Bristol. They built the barrow of stones that meant something to them, stones they brought with them from their original distant home, or familiar stones used for generations to polish flint tools and axes.
To left and right are dark, empty chambers, two on each side. When Stuart Piggott opened the barrow, in the 1950s, he found the skeletal remains of more than forty individuals, children as well as adults. Many skulls and jawbones were missing, probably removed for use in rituals, and in some chambers the long bones of legs and arms had been neatly stacked together against the walls.
Piggott rebuilt the barrow, placing a porthole of thick glass in the roof of the passageway to let daylight in. Tonight the stone passage is illuminated by small flickering flames. On every ledge, in every cranny, Bryn has put tea-lights: Neolithic Fairyland. In the end chamber, glittering with candles, a black plastic groundsheet is spread over the muddy floor. On top he’s laid a worn Indian bedspread like a carpet, and unrolled a straw beach mat under his sleeping-bag to insulate it from the chill of the tomb’s earthen floor. The Gurdjieff book from the bender is open, face down, on the sleeping-bag.
He’s looking at me for a reaction, nervous pride in his eyes.
The light from the candles winks and shifts, as if the earth around us is breathing. The barrow insulates us from all notions of the real world outside: it’s another space, another time, a parallel universe, between worlds. The mothership, maybe. So when he touches my breast, it seems…
…natural.
CHAPTER 36
Shit, shit, shit. I come awake with a start, hoping to see the familiar walls of my room at Frannie’s, a sliver of charcoal sky through the curtains.
Instead there’s a star overhead, misty and wavering like it’s reflected in water. I’m lying on my back, looking up at Stuart Piggott’s glass porthole in the roof of the Long Barrow. Something underneath is digging uncomfortably into my shoulder.
The tea-lights are still burning, but Fairyland has lost its glamour. The chill of damp earth strikes up through the groundsheet. The air inside the tomb is cold, but thick and unpleasant, musty with baked-bean farts and the spillage of male seed. While my back is clammy against cold plastic, my hip and thigh are unpleasantly hot. Something warm and rough-haired is snuggled against me. It twitches, emits a low dreaming whimper. Cynon, who smells very doggy indeed, up close and personal.
Across the chamber, Bryn is curled in