The Buried Circle - Jenni Mills [61]
‘What’s this?’ My voice is sharper than I mean it to be.
‘What’s what?’ She rolls over to look at me. ‘Pooh, what’s that stink?’
‘There’s a mouldy sandwich in your drawer. No wonder you’re ill.’
‘I’m not ill. And I didn’t put it there.’
‘For Chrissake, Frannie, who else?’ I’m shouting now, I’m so angry. How dare she not look after herself? I’m always telling her to keep an eye on sell-by dates and chuck stuff out before it goes off–at her age food poisoning is serious, for God’s sake…
‘Oh, India, I don’t know. Chuck it out and leave me to sleep.’ Her eyes are watering, and now there’s a horrible choking lump in my chest because I don’t mean to shout at her, but I’m so frightened she’ll go away and leave me.
‘I’m sorry’ I reach out and stroke her hair. Her shiny eyes meet mine and there’s fear in hers too. Then she smiles at me, as sunny as she ever was.
‘My mam used to do that,’ she says. ‘You’re a good girl, India.’
CHAPTER 14
1938
I was a good girl. Mam always used to say that. You sometimes have the devil in you, Frannie, but you’re good-hearted.
I broke her heart, I know I did. She was in the hospital when I moved away from Avebury, later, and she knew why I was going.
There was only one conversation. ‘I’ve eyes in my head, Frances,’ she said. ‘Don’t think you can fool me, like you can your father. I won’t tell him, though. It would kill him. I know I can trust you to do the right thing.’
It killed her instead. My lovely little mother, dancing with the tea-towel to Ambrose and Henry Hall. She waited and waited for me to do the right thing, and I didn’t. I reckon I was what killed her.
The trees had gone and all our secret places was laid bare. It wasn’t only the blacksmith’s and the pigsties: no end of cottages came down, no end of people left the village. Why d’you want to work for that ol’ devil? Walter had said, the day we watched the blacksmith’s demolished. But there was plenty who would, a gang of maybe twenty local men already employed to start digging once the museum was finished, and others queuing behind for jobs, because Mr Keiller paid more than the farmers did, and sometimes he treated them better.
Mrs Sorel-Taylour had a cold, a real streamer. She was all pink round the eyes, and her voice was like a piece of cracked old pot. We were in the museum. Mr Keiller was in the back room talking to Mr Young about plans for the new season–I could see the brim of his Panama through the open doorway–and Mr Piggott and Mr Cromley were on their knees unpacking another crate from Charles Street.
‘Blow me down,’ said Mr Piggott. ‘Alec! I’ve found Felstead.’
Mr Keiller came through and knelt beside him. ‘Well, I’m damned. I thought I asked them to save the skeletons till last.’
The crate seemed awful small for a whole skeleton. There was a screeching sound as Mr Cromley wrenched out the last nails, and began pulling out the protective straw. Mrs Sorel-Taylour sneezed.
Mr Keiller looked up. ‘Mrs S-T! Would you kindly take your germs elsewhere. Any more explosions like that and Felstead will be dust.’ I was trying for a glimpse of what was in the box, but Mr Piggott’s big head was in the way.
‘It’s ody a head code,’ said Mrs Sorel-Taylour, trying for dignity through sinuses brimming with snot.
‘It sounds awfully bad,’ said Mr Keiller. ‘I’m serious. I’d rather you went home. I don’t want to delay the start of the excavation if everybody goes down with it.’
‘I really can’t justify–’
‘I can, and I will, Mrs Sorel-Taylour.’ Suddenly he was really angry, shouting at her. It was terrifying how quick he’d gone from joking to blind rage. I shrank back against the table, and Mr Piggott began edging the box of finds out of the way. ‘You work for me. At this moment, I would prefer you not to be working for me. Go home. You may come back when you’re well again.’
‘But…’
‘On your feet, Mrs Sorel-Taylour. Pick up your pencil and your shorthand pad, and walk!
Mrs Sorel-Taylour sniffed. Mr Keiller’s jaw clenched. She walked, unhooking her coat from the peg by the door.
They ignored