The Buried Circle - Jenni Mills [33]
There’s a photo of Davey in the back of the drawer in the dressing-table, in the box where I keep all me bits and pieces. It was taken later, in the war, after he’d enlisted with the Raff. He’s grinning at the camera with his forage cap at a jaunty angle; somewhere out of view there’ll be a cigarette between his fingers, because he smoked something terrible after he joined up, but they had them for free, or near as, at the NAAFI. Perks of the job. Blowing smoke rings into the face of Death, hoping she’d squint her eyes and not see him. It’s black-and-white, so you can’t see them golden-green eyes of his that never seemed to match right with his thick brown hair. That hair stood up like a lavatory brush if he didn’t cut it every couple of weeks, but after he joined the air force he Brylcreemed it flat, with a little finger-wave at the front, curly as Mam’s marcel. It used to creep forward over his eye when he was hot and bothered. Me wayward tendril, he called it.
He’s grinning at the camera in that photograph, but what I sees now is the hurt in his face. Frannie, he says to me, what did you want to go and do that for?
Yes, I say, but you wasn’t exactly whiter than whatsit, was you? Didn’t understand then, but I reckon you had your secrets too, up on Windmill Hill on that motorbike. How was it you caught Mr Keiller’s eye so he give you a job? But no good asking: he and Mr K never come back, for all I go looking in the moonlight.
Percy Lawes had set up his movie camera on the bit of green opposite the Red Lion when I got off the Swindon bus coming home after my Thursday-afternoon shorthand class. There was a group of kids hanging round him as usual.
‘Back down the high street,’ he was saying to Heather Peak-Garland and her pals. ‘Go on. You were too quick for me last time. I didn’t get you all in the picture.’
They trooped down the road towards the shop.
‘Further.’
Back they went again, almost to the school.
‘Further.’
I left them to it and crossed the road. I had decisions to make, about what I was going to do with my life–didn’t intend spending it all being a skivvy for Mam and Dad–and the best place to think was in among the stones. There was a big old lad fallen on his side that I liked to curl up on when I needed time and space to myself. The Rawlins boys used him as a sliding stone, tobogganing down his polished flank to land with a splash in the puddle at the bottom, then clambering back on over and over till they near wore out the seat of their pants. But today they were dancing round Percy having their pictures took on that camera of his, so I had the stone to myself.
Except no sooner had I settled myself, pulling up the collar of my wool coat and shoving my hands in my pockets, than the breeze blew the sound of voices my way.
It was two of the archaeologists that worked for Mr Keiller. You could tell they was archaeologists because one was carrying a tall measuring pole painted black-and-white, and the other had some sort of survey equipment on folding legs. They were over by one of the few stones that was still standing in this part of the field. One had his back to me, bending over his tripod. The other, holding the pole, was the same tall, languid fellow with sloping shoulders and floppy hair I’d seen in the Manor gardens. They’d either not seen me or thought me not worth the noticing.
‘Keep the flaming pole steady, Cromley,’ shouted the shorter one. He had darker, wavy hair, and a thick tweed jacket. ‘You’re waggling it about like a wog with an assegai!
‘It’s too bloody cold to stand still,’ yelled the other. ‘This’ll have to be the last one. The light’ll be going soon.’
They were both young men, in their twenties, with carrying