Before All Else Read online

  There seems to be a stand-off. No movement from the car. Should he approach? Slowly, after an anxious minute or two, the darkened window lowers. In place of a rifle barrel, the glossy, impossibly smooth face of Major Welding’s oppo appears. “Be with you in a minute,” he shouts over the road, waving a mobile phone in his hand.

  Relieved to see a face he recognises, but still intriguingly none the wiser as to what this is all about, Marcus waits while Chris Eveans struggles into his outdoor attire. “Got something to show you. Follow me.” Mr Eveans’s boots seem far too large an impediment for him as he struggles over the gate. Marcus doesn’t know whether to offer to heave him over or let him get on with his unsteady progress. He decides, as every Englishman would, to leave well alone.

  They set off at a diagonal over the field, Chris Eveans talking unintelligibly into his mobile all the way. Marcus follows Eveans as he jumps down into a gully and effetely bushwhacks his way towards the very corner of the field. Marcus can’t remember being in this part of the field the day before and begins to feel an uneasy concern that he might be about to be reprimanded or nobbled.

  “Had a phone call last night from a chappie in the village. Says he found a buried chamber. Thought you’d be the man to take a squizzle at it. Tell us if it’s somehow important, like.”

  Marcus ducks his head down and peers into the cavern.

  Marcus had always had a feel for history. He assumed it was inherited from his school teacher parents and born of endless holidays spent exploring the steam heritage of the Isle of Man, trundling over sturdy Victorian viaducts in locomotives and flying the flag on the castles of the Welsh borders. There is security in history; it has a known end. It doesn’t matter who won the wars, all truly was well in the end. Maybe his love for History at school came from the fact that the history books had the best pictures; History as well as RE. He couldn’t quite believe in the balls of fire rolling down the mountainside, the slender basket plucked from the reeds by an almond-eyed maiden. But he could believe in the glint of the sword raised in the new dawn; he could believe in the long march to the edge of civilisation; he could believe in unlocking the bonds of treachery. He’d seen the evidence. There was the blood on the altar steps. There was the peace treaty, repeal and abolition, the Magna Carta. There was the clipped coin. Put against algebra, algorithms, ohms, amo, amas, amat, his heart would always skip a beat when a king took a new queen, when the balance of power shifted between supporters of the crown and supporters of the commonwealth, when the rose changed colour, for he knew there would be bravery, honour, derring-do, tests of strength and endurance, as well as duplicity and intrigue and bargaining.

  “So, what do you think?”

  “Well, I’m not too sure really.”

  The structure, as far as Marcus can see, is strangely positioned, in the corner of a field, facing due east, surrounded by more and more fields. Why had it been buried, albeit within the purlieus of the village but yet hardly at hand’s reach? It is possible, he contemplates, that its use or purpose could be linked to structures long since disappeared. A gaol perhaps, although it would have been a long walk from the village for a gaoler to attend to his charge. And what is the point of incarceration if, by being at one remove from civilisation, you can’t see the fruits that lack of freedom denies you?

  Marcus peers at the rim of the opening for any tell-tale holes where posts or metalwork might have been inserted, might have formed some type of barrier. He can find none.

  “It just seems stuffed in this odd corner.” Marcus’s eye takes in the gully and the hedge-line. It will be interesting to look into the village records to see if any mention is made of a cell. “Ah, now, there’s a thought. Perhaps it was a hermit’s cell.” Eveans looks at him blankly. “Where a monk would go to live in isolation to pray and ponder his God.”

  “Ah.”

  That might well be an explanation. Hadn’t he read of Abbeyclere, the nearby buried ruins of a monastic church with its cloisters and ranges of domestic buildings – kitchens, piggeries, sluice rooms – surrounded by a high wall and gateway? In this case, removal of self from the fruits of freedom would be a desired outcome. Although, from what he recalls, hermits tended to be bricked in, food and drink brought by conscientious supporters. Bit of a risk of being forgotten about, out here.

  “What about an ice house?” Eveans offers.

  “Mmmm. Interesting proposition but they tended to belong to grand houses and, as far as I know, there wasn’t one in the immediate vicinity. Also, I don’t think this is submerged enough, and they tended to be of brick construction and of a more conical shape.”

  A look of weariness flickers across Eveans’s face. “Listen, mate, I gave up tramping across the countryside when Shep was a lad. If this is just a mouldering heap of nothing much in particular, let’s get out of here. I’ve got more important things to do.”

  A low-throated threat issues from the deep recess and the two men turn on their heels to leave the nursing feline alone.

  Making their way back across the field, Eveans tells Marcus that he wants a clear judgement on the find. Is it significant? If it is significant, then in what way? What is its unique selling point? Marcus rather wonders if historical artefacts have no USP other than their own intrinsic beauty but presumes that all things within Major Welding’s keep have to serve a purpose. Nothing unnecessary or deleterious will be harboured.

  Marcus, now back at his desk in front of the sitting room window, ponders on the curious relationship between Major Welding and his oleacious sidekick. He has the sense of Mr Eveans as a frontman, interpreter and mouthpiece. Very few people have been privileged enough to see the Major, let alone meet him. He is a shadow figure, a puppet-master concealed behind an impenetrable blackout. A man of influence but not presence. Why is he so disconnected from the community but sufficiently engaged to send Eveans to mastermind the summer fair? If Eveans is a public relations bod, what is there about the Major that requires a PR makeover? Could this historical find be part of this reinvention?

  He had agreed to conduct some research and to report back on his findings as quickly as possible. Time is pressing. Needless to say, he was sworn to secrecy.

  “By the way,” he’d asked Eveans as they made their way back across the newly shorn field, “what made you ask me? I’m not a local. I don’t have any local knowledge.”

  “Precisely. You’re not going to give us any horse shit about dragons’ lairs and fairy dells.”

  Marcus thought back to his brief encounters with Eveans. Perhaps it was his impromptu discourse on the significance of the swan in heraldic imagery that he’d offered the swiftly thinning crowds one night at the Red (previously known as the Duke of Wellington, incidentally, at the 1820 Census) after one of those committee meetings. His eyes had alighted on a wooden carving recessed into the wall. Cecily’s eyes had followed his.

  “It’s a chained swan, rumoured to have been scavenged from Abbeyclere,” she’d offered.

  “Ah, well, that’s interesting, because I do know a little bit about this.” He’d fidgeted in his seat. This was going to be a far more positive line of intercourse than any of the previous conversational gambits he had tried. So far he had failed to find out very much at all about this enigmatic lady, Cecily. Possibly he could interest her in what he knew of the Mortimer family and their claim to the Plantagenet throne.

  As he gathered his facts and his courage, a familiar voice vibrated in his ear. “Oh, get over yourself,” Velda scoffed. But he hadn’t been able to stop himself. “My knowledge of this is rather sketchy but it is a rather interesting tale of late fourteenth, early fifteenth-century dynastic rivalries, rebellions and plots by the landed nobility for control of the throne occupied by Richard II. Although it is not entirely clear why Henry IV’s badge, this chained and crowned swan, would appear in local architecture, for it was Henry who kept the heir presumptive – Mortimer �
�� within gilded imprisonment in various castles up and down the country, yet the connection with Mortimer to this part of the world is very clear, given that he endowed the religious college and is buried therein.”

  He had paused to gauge Cecily’s reaction. How could he possibly convey some of his supreme excitement at the tale of civil wars, ransoms, allegiances, conspiracies and beheadings? Did she thrill at the heady names of Hotspur, Percy, Holland, Glyndwr? Was it possible that she was stifling a yawn? Yet, she did seem fairly absorbed by his tale of monarchical misdemeanours. And even Chris Eveans looked vaguely impressed. Or was he simply bemused? Distracted? Biding his time till he could clock off?

  It was that unrehearsed, ad hoc five minutes that had undoubtedly earned himself this commission as historical sleuth to find out what he could about this unexpected find in the Town Field.

  The Village

  By midday the following day, a contractor’s van pulls up in the lay-by opposite the Town Field entrance. Two yellow-clad men are sitting in the cab, staring fixedly ahead. They’d caused a stir in the post office moments earlier by asking for the Town Field. Madge assumed they had been charged with setting up a Lions Treasure Hunt, one of those crazy escapades where people drive madly round the countryside screeching to a halt to jump over brooks or shimmy up road signs looking for clues. Sort of thing that her estranged and his new squeeze were into.

  She persuaded them to leave with a packet of mini sausage rolls, sell-by date covertly covered by her thumb, a packet of Eccles cakes that were reverting to their original flakiness and three black bananas. “Better for you when they’re like this. Slow-release sugars and all that.”

  “Aw, bloody hell,” one of the workmen exclaims as, unzipping an overripe banana to find that it has lost any tensile strength, it releases itself slowly into his lap. “What are we waiting for, anyway?”

  “Mister Wilding, I think his name is. Said he’d meet us here.”

  A car beeps behind them. The two workmen jump down as a man emerges from a Bentley. They both look at his burgundy snakeskin shoes, his skinny burgundy trousers leaving an expanse of un-socked ankle on show and tweed puffer jacket. They had worked as a gang of two for long enough to know precisely what the other is thinking without needing to exchange a glance. “Good afternoon, gentlemen. Chris Eveans. Pleased to meet you.” They both shake the proffered hand – cautiously. “I represent Major Welding.”

  “Jacko.”

  “Wacko. Pleased to meet you, mate.”

  They wait while Eveans pops up the boot of his car and takes out a boot bag, fussing with oversocks before putting on a pair of pristine wellies. “This way.”

  By late afternoon, the entrance to the Town Field, normally served by a simple, rickety wooden five-bar gate, is protected by a seven-foot wire-mesh gate with chains and padlocks. Similar ironmongery protects the entrance to the newly found excavations.

  “What’s that all about, Madge?” visitors to the post office enquire. It grieves Madge not to be able to provide an answer, so she feigns a knowing mien, saying that all will be revealed in due course.

  Cecily

  “I can’t help but feel that Major Welding is making a mountain over what is, admittedly, quite a substantial molehill.” She had bumped into Marcus as they were both stocking up on provisions at the deli. They stand outside on the warm July street, reviewing the events of the last couple of days.

  “Well, it is quite a significant find.”

  “I know. I know,” Cecily hurriedly cuts in, anxious not to offend Marcus who is, now, a bit of a local hero. “And it’s great what’s been discovered and what you’ve found out. Changes the whole village really. It’s just that, oh, I don’t know. Something about Chris Eveans that sits uncomfortably with me. That ghastly piece that he put on YouTube! Have you seen it?”

  Marcus pulls a face to suggest that a history buff with a special interest in fifteenth-century heraldry is not likely to be watching web videos.

  “I know what you mean. It’s as if the whole thing is being managed like the launch of a major new product. First it’s only hush-hush, under wraps. Nobody’s allowed access. Then bit by bit, we find out more. There’s reporters, local TV. Even somebody from that Sunday farming programme’s supposed to be interested.

  “I just get the feeling that there’s a bit more than the unearthing of a medieval relic at stake here.”

  “We-ell.” Marcus lowers his voice and lowers his head towards Cecily’s. She feels herself immediately torn between being given privileged access to some restricted information and a reluctance to come too closely within Marcus’s purlieus. “I have found something out,” he whispers con-spiratorially.

  “But you’re under embargo not to reveal anything?”

  “Yes. To do with the find. But, there’s more. About the Major.”

  Cecily questions internally whether she is that interested. Really, the whole thing has gone on far too long. Is anyone that interested? It seems that the whole discovery is being manipulated. History as celebrity. Shouldn’t it just be sealed up and left to moulder in peace? Instead, Major Welding and his PR agents appear to be gifting something that didn’t belong to them back to the village, which doesn’t really know what to do with it, and to the nation, who couldn’t give a monkey’s stuff.

  “I did sort of wonder whether it would turn out that the land didn’t even belong to the Major in the first place.”

  “There is that. All property being theft and that. No, that’s not what I mean. Something altogether a bit more sinister. It’s not for general release, you understand?” Marcus whispers sotto voce.

  Is Marcus getting drawn into the whole charade of back stories, press releases, sequels, expert opinions, media, intrigue? Is he making a giant leap over half a millennium into the twenty-first century?

  “Do I understand it’s not something you can discuss on the street?”

  “Exactly!” Cecily’s fears are confirmed. Is this a pretence, a pretext? The last time Marcus had just ‘popped round’, it had been bloody difficult to get rid of him, to shift him off the doormat.

  “Pub?”

  “Too public. Give me a couple of minutes to get my laptop. On your way home, aren’t you? I’ll pop round in a few minutes.”

  Cecily turns homewards with an anguished sigh. No, she hadn’t been on her way home. But now it seems she is.

  Ned

  Mandy has gone, technically missing again. This time in broad daylight. It is of course perfectly reasonable for a person in full control of their faculties to steer themselves as they see fit through the maelstrom of a day. But Mandy isn’t in full control.

  Ned had come home to another farewell note. He had quite a collection of them in his sock drawer. All along the ‘gone to get a life’ theme. Goodness knows why he keeps them. Maybe, at the final reckoning, he could stand there with them bunched up in his fist, shaking it at whichever figure of justice he comes up against, just to prove that he wasn’t such a bad guy after all. That he did have stickability. That he was married for life. That there might be an answer as to why he’d got saddled with this wretched creature for the remainder of his adult life.

  Sometimes she only got as far as the bypass. He’d heard about her encounter with this Jerry fellow. Look how unhappy that had made her. He knows he has his shortcomings. Business not so good, but it will get better. It always does. So why, oh why, does she just have to run out on him like this?

  But, hey, he knows why she’s run away. Stock answer to an unresolvable problem. She’d seen that photo of him and Bernadette and Ben. He couldn’t explain it away, not without sounding mealy-mouthed and pathetic. He’d tried, though, saying, “That’s what you do, isn’t it, when you stand next to someone for a photo. You put your arm round them.” Their fingers must have just got accidentally dovetailed just at the moment some dickhead had taken the photo.

&n
bsp; No, he knew it didn’t sound plausible. When you’re fat and you live in the same faded red coat and the guy you marry to shelter you from the harsh realities of the world turns out to be a pathetic waster who can’t even run a business mowing a few lawns and potting up a few begonias without putting it all in jeopardy, then you just don’t believe any old con. You’re past having any dreams, past believing in any fairy tales.

  He sighs heavily. What should he do? Experience tells him that the swifter he runs after her, the harder and further she goes. Sometimes it is better just to let her off the leash, let her run her course and be around to pick her up when she runs out of steam. But this time is different. It is so, so different. Looks like she isn’t just going down. Looks like she is going to take Bernadette down with her.

  He hadn’t told Bernadette about the row after the day of the field clearance. They’d just carried on as usual. She’d drop Ben off on a Saturday for a shift in the nursery. They’d exchange cordialities when she picked him up or when he dropped Ben off. Why involve Bernadette in the mash-up that is his marriage?

  Anyway, what is there to tell? My wife, who is nuts anyway, thinks we are having an affair. He imagined her looking at him, her head on one side, laughing discreetly at the absurdity of the very idea. He felt his heart shrivel. Bad enough being an object of scorn and disdain from a woman such as Mandy. A very different matter if Bernadette got the giggles.

  Of course Ben had badgered him every Saturday to go and see the kittens in the cave. He told him, perhaps unfairly, that the mother would eat them if she were disturbed. That seemed to hush him up. Until the next time.

  Cecily

  Cecily opens the back door to let Trueman out. He lugubriously lifts first one paw over the threshold and then, slowly and considerately, follows that with the other paws. He seems weighed by the heat. Picking his way like a camel through the desert, he ambles to the shade of a tree in the orchard and lets himself down with a grunt. His chin descends to his outstretched paws and his eyes, after a quick check left and right, close gratefully.