A Novel Page 6

  Paul Healey, who has been listening in bemused silence, now takes his chance. ‘If I may say, this is a quite remarkable and impressive leap of the imagination. Of course there’s nothing in the archaeology that would directly support such an interpretation.’

  Lucy turns her calm gaze on him. ‘As you know, Professor Healey, I am not a strong believer in the received wisdom of the archaeological establishment.’

  ‘That’s all very well, Dr. Trevelyan,’ Miles Johnson says, ‘but you have not really answered the charge that is laid against you. Our viewers might like to know where your ideas have come from.’

  ‘From a careful evaluation and interpretation of the evidence,’ Lucy says, speaking now with a steely self-assurance, ‘combined with numerous personal observations of similar sites throughout central and eastern Europe. The woman buried at Devil’s Barrow bears the hallmarks of one who wielded a great spiritual power as representative on earth of the mother goddess whom her people revered above all others. She was a weaver of spells, a powerful spiritual leader presiding over a ritual of renewal and rebirth at the great stone circle. We may see in her an embodiment of one the Greeks called Artemis, the divine huntress and protector of womanhood. At the centre of her power and her art was the beautiful ritual chalice that she carried with her to her death.’

  As Johnson reaches for a response to Lucy’s astonishing discourse, it is Hugh who speaks into the brief, awkward silence. ‘Belak-neskato she was named, the death-wielder.’

  Julia notices that his glass is empty, wonders how much he has drunk. ‘What was that, Hugh?’

  ‘It’s a line from one of the poems Bowen used to recite to us. Something she said made me think of it.’ There is a fleeting intensity in his expression, broken straight away by a dismissive wave of the hand. ‘It’s not important.’

  It is almost shocking to hear him refer to Caradoc Bowen, whose name he would never ordinarily mention. This is a part of his life that has been closed to Julia for fourteen years at least, since the events that led to Hugh’s bitter falling-out with his former mentor. Sensing an opportunity for some kind of liberating conversation, she tries to press her advantage. ‘I’d like to hear about it,’ she says.

  ‘It hardly matters, Julia.’ Now she hears the familiar tone of mild irritation, shutting off the possibility of further discussion. ‘I’m a little tired. I think I’ll head upstairs, if you don’t mind.’

  The BBC man is meanwhile bringing things to a close. ‘I would like to ask you both one last question. What, in your opinion, was the purpose of the ceramic cup? Paul Healey?’

  Healey seems back in his element. ‘I’ll admit it’s a beautiful object, fit for a British queen,’ he says, the twinkle in his eye fully restored. ‘The presence of traces of blood might suggest some sort of ritual significance, but in my view there’s no need to look for complicated explanations. In the end I suspect it was nothing more than a superior kind of drinking vessel.’

  ‘And Lucy Trevelyan? Do you agree with your colleague’s rather prosaic analysis?’

  For the first time, Lucy smiles austerely for the camera. ‘The chalice was, and is, a magical thing, that much is clear to me. Perhaps we should not attempt to interpret it beyond that?’

  Lucy has the last word, and the interview is wrapped up. Hugh is now standing in the doorway that leads to the stairs. ‘Will you come up soon?’ he says.

  It is a clear enough invitation, and Julia finds herself wishing he would simply take her by the hand and lead her to bed, as he would in the old days. ‘I won’t be long,’ she says.

  In the end she stays up for another hour or more, finding unopened post to go through, counter-tops to wipe, things to tidy up, her mind racing all the while on Hugh’s startling reference to Caradoc Bowen and his poem, on Lucy Trevelyan’s vivid description of the woman of Devil’s Barrow and her magical chalice.

  The Song of Lailoken

  CUTTING ACROSS LONELY chalk downlands, the train skirts the northern border of Cerdic’s ancient kingdom of Wessex, crossing the line of the old soldiers’ road from Corinium to Calleva, then following the Vale of the White Horse as it runs through the lands of the Brigovantes to the east. To the right, the long escarpment of the Berkshire Downs marks the line of the Ridgeway path, for over four thousand years the most important road of southern Britain. Here on the grassy uplands, in earthy mounds and cold stone barrows, lie buried the greatest leaders of bronze-age Britain.

  As Donald gazes out through the half-fogged glass at this landscape of rolling fields and curved green horizons, the soporific cadence of the wheels on the track carries him along the pleasant dreamy verge of sleep. He awakens some time later with a start, reaches into his pocket for his handkerchief to wipe a small dribble of saliva from his chin. Crossing the Thames at Goring, the train coasts on through Pangbourne with its vistas of neat suburban houses dispelling all sense of history.

  At Reading, the carriage fills up with London commuters. It seems to Donald, as he watches them unfurl their salmon-pink newspapers, that these people are uncommonly calm, focused, in control of their professional lives. He tries to gather his thoughts for the upcoming meeting with his editor. Felicity will gently try to steer him, as she always does; they will have the kind of conversation they always have. He takes out his manuscript, turns through the pages one more time, still hoping to find the essential, decisive insight that will make sense of it all.

  Meanwhile, he cannot stop thinking about Lucy and her excruciating television interview. Paul Healey, having failed to recognise the strength and agility of his opponent, came off far worse in the exchange, but at least he did not abandon all his scholarly principles. As to how Lucy was able to get sight of the Devil’s Barrow finds and then insinuate herself into the BBC newsroom with Healey, perhaps it is better not to ask. In some ways, Paul and Lucy make a likely pair; they are, after all, two of the most successful self-promoters in British archaeology. It occurs to Donald, with a surprising twinge of jealousy, that Lucy may have slept with Healey in return for sundry academic favours, then taken her chance to stab him in the back on national television.

  Outside the window, Windsor Castle makes a dramatic silhouette of towers and battlements on the southern horizon. The train rattles on past deciduous suburbs, along brick-lined Victorian canyons carved through Northolt, Greenford, and Ealing, and finally through a railwayman’s maze of rusting steel into the cavernous dimness of Paddington Station. Stepping out on to the platform, Donald is immediately caught up in the crowd pressing forward in the direction of the main concourse, the Financial Times readers rushing to save precious seconds in their twelve-hour days. Despite the chaos of humanity, this is a familiar and comforting space, with its high curving roof, timetables clicking overhead, the announcer’s voice rising resonant and lifeless above the throng. He heads straight for the taxi rank, climbs into a waiting cab, and is soon being driven through watery London sunlight towards Belgravia.

  The offices of Crandall & Boyd, Publishers, are situated in an imposing 1830s town-house with a polished brass nameplate at the door. The receptionist, tweedy and efficient, looks up at Donald with an overly practised smile. ‘If you’d like to take a seat, Mr. Gladstone, Miss Wickes will be with you shortly.’ She directs him to a cluster of straight-backed chairs arranged in front of a tall bookcase displaying a selection of titles from the publisher’s two and a half centuries of history. On the top shelf is an impressive array of leather-bound volumes, amongst them the arrestingly titled Zoonomia, or the Laws of Organic Life, published in 1796 by Erasmus Darwin, who did not live long enough to see his work eclipsed by that of his more famous grandson. Placed unfortunately, or whimsically, next to the elder Darwin is a Victorian edition of the biblical chronology of James Ussher, seventeenth-century Archbishop of Armagh, according to whom the world began on the morning of 1 January, 4004 BC.

  Donald searches in vain on the lower shelves for his own book, published two years earlier by Crandall & Boyd. It wa
s a surprising success at the time, A Dark Age Landscape: The Archaeology of Sub-Roman Britain. Intended as a serious academic study, it gained some traction in the bookshops largely (Donald has always assumed) because of the publisher’s insistence on a highly marketable title. On the strength of this achievement, he was able to negotiate a second contract for a book aimed more squarely at the popular market.

  ‘Donald, how are you?’ A plump young woman in a shiny black skirt and purple blouse comes striding across the room towards him. ‘Good to see you again,’ she says, grasping his hand. ‘How was the journey? Packed in like sardines?’

  ‘No, it was fine,’ Donald says. ‘I like the train. It’s a good place to think.’

  ‘Good. Excellent. Let’s go upstairs, and we can have a proper talk.’

  Felicity’s office is a jumbled papery landscape. ‘Sorry about the mess,’ she says. ‘People will insist on sending me their life’s work.’ She taps her hand against a large green bin at the office door, brimming with countless hours of profitless literary effort. ‘At least I can offload the slush pile to Emily—she’s been a great help.’ Emily, who is rapidly turning pages in a small office across the corridor, looks very clever, though much too young to be behind a desk.

  Donald sits in a leather armchair next to the tall sash window with its striking view across the road to the tightly wooded edge of Belgrave Square Gardens. He digs into his briefcase, pulls out the cardboard folder. ‘I’ve made a few changes to the version I sent you,’ he says. ‘I took out some of the denser background material on Geoffrey of Monmouth.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad to hear it, Donald. When I was reading the previous draft, I couldn’t help wondering why there was quite so much of Geoffrey. He seems mostly incidental to the story, don’t you think?’

  The charming look of uncertainty and contrition on Felicity’s face persuades him she is not joking. Geoffrey’s fanciful history of the British monarchy, the Historia Regum Britanniae, with its heroic narrative of Arthur and its famous prophecies spoken by the young Merlin, was responsible for the transformation of these characters from largely unfamiliar names in the old Welsh tales, little known beyond the Celtic lands, into the most celebrated figures of medieval romance. The implausible historical writings of this twelfth-century scholar have been a central theme of Donald’s research from the outset. ‘Don’t forget, he’s the reason we have all heard of King Arthur.’

  ‘I’m sorry to be such a poor student,’ Felicity says, grimacing faintly. ‘I do very much admire what you’ve done.’

  Donald finds himself smiling in sympathy with his editor as she stretches her diplomatic skills to the limit. ‘Why don’t you tell me what you really think?’

  She hesitates now, choosing her words cautiously. ‘Your writing seems so full of caveats and qualifications. I’m hearing about who Arthur was not, rather than who he really was.’

  ‘That’s exactly the point,’ Donald says. ‘If there ever was an Arthur of history, he is lost to us. All we can do is try to understand the origins of the story, and why it became so pervasive in European mythology.’

  Felicity, despite her ignorance of the twelfth century, is a dependable literary pragmatist. ‘I think your readers are going to want something a little more positive than that. If Arthur is so tenuous, historically speaking, could you perhaps get a little more creative, try to reconstruct him as he might have been?’

  Donald is rescued from answering this question by a loud knock at the door. ‘But now here’s Madeleine,’ Felicity says. ‘We can ask her what she thinks. You remember Madeleine, of course?’

  Madeleine d’Alembert, director of sales and marketing at Crandall & Boyd, would be a difficult person to forget. She is slim, elegant, dressed in black with lipstick and nail varnish in a coordinated dark crimson. Her face is frozen in an arctic demeanour that perceptibly chills the air as she walks into the room. She smiles, and the ice cracks momentarily.

  ‘Hello, Donald,’ she says. There is the faintest hint of a French accent. Her nails dig in a little as she shakes his hand. ‘I hope you haven’t quite finished your book yet, because I have something for you—but I expect you have seen this already?’ She hands him a cutting from the Guardian newspaper, a short, whimsical article from the bottom of the front page.

  (Un)Holy Grail Discovered in Wiltshire Field

  Despite the lofty ambitions of her mythical quest, Dr. Lucinda Trevelyan of St. Anne’s College, Oxford would be the first to admit that she is far from being the perfect Grail knight. She is female, of course, and half-American on her mother’s side, neither of which were attributes of Sir Perceval; though it is true that she, like Sir P., was removed at an early age from the corrupted world of chivalry (England), to be brought up by her mother in rural obscurity (California); and that she, being precocious in the acquisition of knightly skills, was determined to return to the royal court at the earliest opportunity. This she did in fine style some ten years ago, having first obtained her doctorate from Berkeley, and has since made her reputation at Oxford as an outspoken nonconformist scholar working at the thinly populated intersection of women’s studies and archaeology.

  Dr. Trevelyan’s unusual characterisation of the ritual cup discovered in an excavated pit near Stonehenge as a ‘magical’ object has led to some speculation that the Holy Grail has at last come to light. While scholars may choose to enter into prolonged and elaborate arguments about provenances and dates, and amateur enthusiasts may wonder quite how Joseph of Arimathea came to lose his prize possession in a Wiltshire field, Dr. Trevelyan consciously distances herself from such debates. ‘In ancient times,’ she avows, ‘the Grail was revered as a pure symbol of the feminine divine. Medieval France is solely to blame for its brash appropriation by the Christian faith as the holy vessel of the Last Supper.’

  With such trenchant opinions as these combined with her dramatic presence and fearsome erudition, Lucinda Trevelyan seems likely to become something of an icon herself. When this newspaper tried to reach her by telephone at St. Anne’s, we were told that she was engaged in an interview for the Daily Mail, and would call us back later.

  Donald exhales deeply and slowly, unsure whether to laugh or to cry. ‘From this morning’s paper?’ he says.

  ‘Yes, this morning,’ Madeleine says, ‘but of course you know about this already? This is your wife we are speaking of, this lady who so disdains my noble country?’

  ‘My ex-wife. We were divorced a few months ago.’

  ‘I am so sorry, Donald.’ Madeleine’s regret seems entirely sincere. ‘She is such a remarkable woman.’

  Felicity has a familiar discerning expression on her face. ‘Should we be sorry?’

  ‘Not in the least. You should be happy for me.’

  ‘But of course this is perfect,’ Madeleine says, the French coming back more strongly into her voice. ‘We can put our clever English scholar up against the crazy woman from America.’

  Donald cannot help smiling. ‘I’m not quite sure what you have in mind.’

  Madeleine picks up the cutting, flaps it melodramatically in front of his face. ‘You can use this in your book somehow, surely? The discovery of the Holy Grail?’

  ‘I’ve decided I’m not going to take that suggestion seriously.’

  ‘Archaeologists can be so dull.’ Madeleine’s smile is a flash of crimson on white. ‘If we’re quick, we can be first out on the street with our version of the story. You could do a documentary, Donald, become the new face of TV archaeology. What do you think, Felicity?’

  ‘I’m not sure our author is quite convinced,’ Felicity says.

  Half an hour later, nursing a second pint of Fuller’s ESB at the Prince of Wales pub, Donald is feeling quite sure of his opinions. ‘You seem to have mistaken me for the kind of person you assume Lucy would be married to,’ he says. ‘She was once my wife, but not any more. And even if we were still married, you would never persuade me to write that sort of book. It’s almost the opposite of what I
set out to do.’

  Madeleine casually swirls the umbrella stick in her vodka martini. ‘So your book will become the opposite of a bestseller, is this the idea?’

  ‘Leave him alone,’ Felicity says. ‘He can’t help having principles.’

  ‘I was never troubled by them, darling.’ Madeleine empties her glass in one go, winking at Donald. ‘Sorry, but I must be getting back—I’ve got some sales figures to muster up for the boss this afternoon.’

  ‘Please don’t pay any attention to her,’ Felicity says, in the calm that follows Madeleine’s departure. ‘She likes to pretend she works for a more glamorous company. I’m with you on this, Donald. I’m not at all interested in publishing something that’s a fake.’

  JULIA IS DUE to spend the day in the section of the Bodleian known as Duke Humfrey’s Library, where she has privileged access to materials from one of the most extensive medieval collections in the world. She heads in early, cycling down the Woodstock Road to St. Giles, then cutting along the path that skirts the leafy parkland behind St. John’s College. At the main entrance to the library on Catte Street, she finds a small knot of people gathered in wholesome silence in the courtyard, familiar zealous faces waiting patiently to go in. She smiles at some of them, acquaintances of a sort though they rarely exchange more than a few words during this long-standing morning ritual.

  When the doors are opened, she is the first to walk up the stairs and into the cool, dark, silent gallery of Duke Humfrey’s, with its extraordinary painted ceiling and ranks of heavy book stacks on either side. She makes her way through the older part of the library to her favourite reading desk, tucked in at the far end with an unobstructed view through the westerly window to the grounds of Exeter College. Once she is seated there, she feels the first infusions of a familiar tranquillity, a renewed sense of the order and importance of intangible things. It is a feeling that often overtakes her in a great calming wave as she adjusts to the mood of this hallowed literary space. Here, through a mixture of educated guesswork and pure serendipity, she hopes to find some of the earliest recorded uses of words in the English language. When things are going well, this is the part of her job that she likes most of all, the thrill of lexical discovery, the small rush of elation that accompanies the unsuspected literary find. She rarely tires of it, finds that her hours spent at the Bodleian resist all notions of the routine.