Cathbad has some trouble lighting his symbolic firebrand. The wind keeps whipping out the flame and, eventually, Freya has to shield him with her cloak. But finally he raises aloft the burning brand. ‘Goddess Brigid, accept our offering!’
Flames lick around the base of the bonfire. The children run around, shrieking with excitement. The adults are chanting again but then someone starts to play the guitar and the chanting turns into something cosier, something more like a folk song. There is quite a crowd now. Ruth recognises lots of faces from the university and from the field team, including Ted and Trace. Slightly to Ruth’s irritation, Max greets Trace enthusiastically. ‘She’s been working on the Swaffham site. She’s a good archaeologist. Very knowledgeable about the Romans.’
‘Mmm.’ Ruth’s appreciation of Trace’s skills is not improved by the fact that she is looking rather stunning in a black T-shirt and black leather trousers. ‘Let’s go and sit down somewhere,’ she says. Her back is killing her.
They sit in the shelter of one of the dunes, eating vegetarian hot dogs. Max has managed to annex one of the better bottles of wine and Ruth is drinking orange juice. Max doesn’t comment on her abstemiousness. They talk about the two sites – the Roman excavation and the seventy-five luxury apartments – about the two decapitated bodies, about the Roman gods, particularly Janus, the two-faced God. ‘He’s also connected to the spring and the harvest,’ says Max. ‘He’s not just the god of doorways but of any time of transition and change, of progression from one condition to another.’
‘Is that because he can look backwards and forwards at the same time?’
‘Yes, it also helped him pursue women, the nymph Carna, for example.’
‘Did he catch her?’
‘Yes, and in return for her favours he gave her power over all door hinges.’
Ruth laughs. ‘So, instead of WD40 we should pray to Carna?’
‘It’s worth a try.’
Max pours more wine but Ruth has caught sight of a modern nymph, walking towards them across the sand. Shona, wearing a shawl and a flowing purple dress, accompanied by a very unwelcome acolyte – Phil.
‘Ruth! What are you doing skulking here?’
Skulking, thinks Ruth, getting to her feet, is really a very unattractive way of putting it. She had been feeling rather good, lounging on the sand beside a good-looking and intelligent man. Now she feels foolish and somehow rather disreputable.
‘Hallo, Ruth,’ says Phil, too loudly. This is the first time Ruth has seen him in Shona’s company. This evening must represent some sort of ‘coming out’ as a couple. No wonder Shona looks so triumphant.
‘Hallo, Phil,’ says Ruth warily. ‘You remember Max Grey from Sussex? He’s the archaeologist in charge of the Swaffham dig.’
‘Yes, of course. How are you? Glad Ruth’s looking after you.’
This remark, like Shona’s, serves to make the whole evening seem ridiculous. Who is Phil to say that Ruth is ‘looking after’ Max? Why does he need looking after, anyhow?
‘I’m having a wonderful time,’ says Max, making things slightly better.
‘I’ve got no time for all this hippie nonsense,’ says Phil, ‘but Malone is a friend of Shona’s.’
‘Malone?’
‘Catweasel or whatever he calls himself.’
‘Cathbad,’ says Ruth between gritted teeth.
‘I hear he’s an ex-archaeologist,’ says Max.
‘Years ago,’ says Phil dismissively. ‘He works as a lab assistant now. He’s one of the airy-fairy type, believes in the symbolic landscape, ley lines, spirits of the ancestors, all that crap.’
Max says nothing. Ruth is pretty sure that he too believes in some of these things but it is in his interests to stay on the right side of Phil, who is partly funding the Roman dig.
It is nearly dark now. The Druids have planted burning torches in the sand and now the capering figures around the bonfire look monstrous and misshapen, their shadows black against the flames. The scent of wood smoke fills the air with acrid sweetness. Ruth realises that she is suddenly very tired. More than anything she wants to be home, in bed, with Flint flexing his claws against the duvet. But she is sure that Max won’t want to leave yet. How many more hours will she have to spend watching Cathbad throwing symbolic objects onto the fire? The last one was a University of North Norfolk sweatshirt; she dreads to think what this signifies.
She realises that Shona is talking to her, lowering her voice so that the men won’t hear. ‘He’s promised to leave his wife. What do you think of that?’
‘I’ve heard that one before,’ is what Ruth thinks. Aloud, she says, ‘Do you think he will?’
‘I don’t know,’ says Shona, draining her plastic glass. ‘I gave him an ultimatum. Her or me. He says I’m the most important thing in his life.’
Hence his presence here, guesses Ruth. A conciliatory gesture, appearing with Shona in front of this significantly insignificant group of people. She is sure that Phil would never accompany Shona to a departmental social or the Dean’s lecture. Equally, she is sure he will never leave his wife. Just as Nelson will never leave his.
‘Be careful,’ is all she says.
‘What do you mean?’ Shona tosses her hair, which glows as brightly as one of the torches in the darkness.
‘I’ve known Phil a long time. He says what he thinks you want to hear.’
Shona glares at her. Ruth is not sure what she would have said if Max hadn’t come over, placing a hand on Ruth’s arm. ‘Do you want to make a move?’ he says. ‘It’s getting a bit cold out here.’
Ruth agrees gratefully. With the disappearance of the sun, the night has got distinctly chilly. The wind is stronger too. Ruth pulls her jacket tightly around her but the Druids in their thin robes seem impervious to the cold. Their children too. As she and Max walk along the beach she can see them still playing in the near darkness. They have dug a deep hole and are chanting, ‘Ding Dong Dell, Pussy’s in the well.’
‘Some things never change,’ she says to Max as they make their way back to the path through the dunes. It is too dangerous to cross the Saltmarsh after dark; they must take the birdwatchers’ trail, a raised shingle path that leads back to the car park. Max has left his car there. Ruth hopes he will give her a lift home and won’t expect to come in for coffee.
‘Interesting rhyme,’ says Max in his tutorial voice. ‘It’s thought that Pussy refers to a prostitute.’
‘What are they doing, drowning her?’
‘Probably a version of a ducking stool.’
‘How does it go? “Who put her in? Little Johnny Green”.’
‘“Who pulled her out? Little Jimmy Stout”. Something like that.’
‘Who was Jimmy then? Her pimp?’
Max laughs. ‘I like you, Ruth,’ he says.
There’s no answer to that. ‘I like you too’ would sound impossibly arch. Changing the subject would sound like a snub. And she does like him. How much, she doesn’t really want to consider. It’s all so complicated, that’s the problem. She is pregnant with someone else’s baby. That someone else is married and doesn’t even know that she is pregnant. He will probably be furious when he finds out. Or will he maybe, just maybe, be pleased? Recently Ruth has been fantasising that the baby is a boy. Perhaps Nelson has always wanted a boy, will be delighted, will leave Michelle… Hang on, though, does she even want him to leave Michelle? On balance, she doesn’t. She would feel horribly guilty at breaking up the family and she is not sure if she ever wants to live with a man again. Especially a man as large as Nelson.
This is ridiculous anyway. Nelson doesn’t love her and never has done. Their night together had been the result of a unique set of circumstances. They had just found the body of a dead child, Nelson had had to break the news to the family. For that one night it seemed as if Ruth and Nelson were alone in the world. Nelson had come to Ruth wanting comfort; the passion had surprised both of them. But Nelson has never, before or since, given any sign that he thinks of Ruth as anything other than a colleague, a fellow professional, perhaps even a friend. Why, then, is she thinking of him now, as Max takes her hand to help her over a stile? Does Max remind her of Nelson? He’s a very different person; an academic, soft-spoken and courteous, but, physically, there is something. Like Nelson, Max has presence. It is not just that he is tall. It is more that, if he is in the room, you can’t really look at anyone else. Phil faded into insignificance beside him and even Cathbad seemed several shades paler.