‘Janey?’
Lamplight came zigzagging up the bank, bouncing off familiar bottle glasses, and Jane dredged up a grin.
‘You been snorkelling or something, Gomer?’
Up he came from the riverside footpath, over the broken-down wooden stile, the old lambing-light swinging from a hand in a sawn-off mitten. Patting at his chest for his ciggy tin. Still quite nimble for his age, which was reassuring.
‘What do you reckon, then?’ Jane said. ‘Seriously.’
‘Oh, he’ll be out, Janey, sure to.’
‘Really?’
‘Count on him.’
‘When?’
‘Tonight, mabbe tomorrow.’
Gomer set the lamp on the wall, its beam pointing down at the water.
His specs were speckled with spray and his white hair looked like broken glass.
‘You mean if it rains again?’ Jane said.
‘No ifs about it, girl.’ Gomer mouthed a roll-up. ‘Ole moon sat up in his chair, see?’
‘Chair?’
Jane peered at him. This was a new one. Gomer brought out his matches.
‘Ole moon’s on his back, he’ll collect the water. Moon’s sat up, it d’ run off him, see, and down on us. You never yeard that?’
‘Erm… no.’
‘Yeard it first from my ole mam, sixty year ago, sure t’ be. Weather don’t change, see.’
‘It does, Gomer.’
She must’ve sounded unusually sober against the snarling of the water because he tilted his head under the flat cap, peering at her.
‘Global warmin’? Load of ole wallop, Janey. Anythin’ to put the wind up ordinary folk.’
‘You seen those pictures of the big ice-cliffs cracking up in the Antarctic?’
Gomer’s match went out and he struck another.
‘All I’m sayin’, girl, science, he en’t got all the answers, do he?’
‘Yeah, but something has to be going on, because this hasn’t happened before, has it?’ Jane feeling her voice going shrill; it wasn’t a joke any more — up in the Midlands people had died. ‘I mean, have you seen this before? Like, here? We ever come this close to a real flood?’
‘Not in my time, ’cept for the lanes getting blocked, but what’s that in the life of a river?’ Gomer looked up towards the square, where the Christmas tree was lit up like a shaky beacon of hope. ‘You’ll be all right, Janey. En’t gonner reach the ole vicarage in a good while.’
‘What about your bungalow?’
She didn’t think Gomer’s bungalow was on the flood plain, but it had to be close. Always said it wasn’t where he’d’ve chosen to live but Minnie had liked the views.
Gomer said he’d brought one of his diggers down. Took real deep water to stop a JCB getting through.
‘En’t sure about them poor buggers on the hestate, mind.’
Nodding across the bridge at the new houses, one defiantly done out with flashing festive bling — Santa’s sleigh, orange and white, in perpetual, rippling motion. The estate had been built a couple of years ago, and most of it was definitely on the flood plain — which, of course, nobody could remember ever being actually flooded, although that wouldn’t matter a toss anyway, when the council needed to sanction more houses. Government targets to meet, boxes to tick.
This was possibly the most terrifying thing about growing up: you could no longer rely on adults in authority operating from any foundation of common sense. They just played it for short-term gain, lining their nests and covering their backs. How long, if Gomer was right, before the Christmas Bling house became like some kind of garish riverboat?
‘What about Coleman’s Meadow, Gomer? If the river comes out, could the flood water get that far?’
Twice they’d abandoned the dig — Jane really losing hope, now, that anything significant would be uncovered before the end of the school holidays, never mind the start.
‘Could it, Gomer?’
‘You still plannin’ to be a harchaeologist, Janey?’
‘Absolutely. Two university interviews in the New Year. Fingers crossed.’
Be fantastic if she could someday work around here. The Ledwardine stones could all be in place again by the summer, but there were probably years of excavation to come on the Dinedor Serpent, the other side of Hereford, and who knew what else was waiting to be found? Suddenly, this county had become a hot spot for prehistoric archaeology — two really major discoveries within a year. As though the landscape itself was throwing off centuries like superfluous bedclothes, an old light pulsing to the surface, and Jane could feel the urgency of it in her spine.
‘Gomer, is the meadow likely to get flooded?’
‘Mabbe.’ Gomer took out his ciggy, fingers sprouting from the woollen mittens. ‘Lowish ground, ennit?’
‘The thing is, if they think it could ruin the excavation, they might not even start it till there’s no danger of it all getting drowned.’
Meanwhile, Councillor sodding Pierce, who didn’t give a toss what lay under Coleman’s Meadow, would keep on trying to screw it, like his council had done with the Serpent. Playing for time, and Jane would be back at school before they got to sink the first trowel.
‘You going to the parish meeting, Gomer?’
‘Mabbe look in, mabbe not. Nobody gonner listen to an ole gravedigger. You still banned, is it, Janey?’
‘Well, not banned exactly. Mum’s just…’
… politely requested that she stay away.
It’s not going to help, flower. It’s reached the stage where we need a degree of subtlety, or they’re going to win.
Mum thinking the mad kid wouldn’t be able to hold back, would make a scene, heckling Pierce, making the good guys look like loonies.
The brown water flung itself at the old sandstone bridge, and Jane, officially adult now and able to vote against the bastard, bit her lip and felt helpless. Even the riverman was on the point of betraying her.
‘Dreamed about my Min last night,’ Gomer said.
Jane looked at him. His ciggy drooped and his glasses were as grey as stone.
‘Dreamed her was still alive. Us sittin’ together, by the light o’ the fire. Pot of tea on the hob.’
‘But you—’
‘En’t got no hob n’ more. True enough. That was how I knowed it was a dream.’ Gomer steadied his roll-up. ‘Was a good dream, mind. En’t often you gets a good dream, is it?’
Nearly a couple of years now since Minnie’s death. Close to the actual anniversary. Gomer had put new batteries in both their watches and buried them in the churchyard with Minnie. Maybe — Jane shivered lightly — one of the watches had finally stopped and something inside him had felt that sudden empty stillness, the final parting.
‘You know what they says, Janey.’
‘Who?’
‘Sign of rain,’ Gomer said.
‘Sorry?’
‘What they used to say. My ole mam and her sisters. To dream of the dead…’
‘What?’
‘To dream of the dead is a sign of rain.’
‘That’s…’ She stared hard at him. ‘What kind of sense does that make?’
‘Don’t gotter make no partic’lar sense,’ Gomer said. ‘Not direc’ly, like, do it?’
‘I don’t know.’