Treasures of Time (30 page)

I must say something. Ask. I’ve got to know. I have known, for weeks now. Later, back at Danehurst. But there’ll be so many people around. Why is Paul Summers crawling around in front of the Tump now? Oh, I see – he’s supposed to be looking inside.

‘… not unfortunately restored and preserved like West Kennet. The entrance remains but the chamber had been largely destroyed by early barrow diggers and little is now left. If we look at this scale diagram of the interior of the barrow we shall get an idea of the lay-out.’

And cut again. ‘O.K.’ said Tony. ‘I know, I know, Mike. You can’t see a damn thing. Pack it in and get the camera back to the car before it starts coming down.’

The tilt of that cloud lid had accelerated, bringing with it rumbles of thunder. There was a sour yellowish light. The group around the Tump broke up and began hurriedly to head back to the cars; even as they did so warm rain started to fall. There was a flare of lightning. The girl with the clipboard ran helter-skelter for the gate, a jacket slung over her head; the others followed at a more dignified pace. Paul Summers said, ‘Well, I daresay it could change again equally suddenly.’ There did seem to be a malign triumph about the rapidity with which the storm had broken.

They crowded into the cars. Tom and Kate were squashed into a big Volvo with cameraman, lighting man, Tony, and the clipboard girl: rain thumped down on the roof. The girl said, ‘I’m petrified of thunder, I know it’s silly.’ She sat with her hands over her ears. There was reminiscence of other disastrous filmings. Someone brought out a flask of brandy which was handed round. Kate sat silent; when anyone spoke to her she made a brusque, awkward rejoinder; Tom felt a gush of irritation. The noise without was deafening; beyond the windows of the car there was nothing but a wall of water. Tom said cheerfully, ‘How much is all this costing the BBC?’

It slackened, at last. They climbed out into the dripping landscape.

The girl said, ‘Phew! Thank God that’s over,’ and then, ‘Funny smell….’ Looking up towards the Tump, they all became aware of some re-arrangement of the large stones at the entrance. Paul said, ‘Hello! What’s happened up there?’ He made off up the track again, followed by the others.

The lintel stone, they saw as they got nearer, had cracked through and toppled across the entrance, bringing with it a cascade of soil and smaller stones. From the wreckage protruded the hindquarters of a dead sheep; another lay close by. That peculiar acrid smell of burnt wool was accounted for. A bolt of lightning had struck the stonework of the Tump, and with it the group of sheep that had huddled there for shelter. The party gathered round, impressed. Someone said, ‘Bloody good thing
we
didn’t think of sitting it out here.’ The clipboard girl took one look, walked over to the fence and was discreetly sick into the long grass. Tony said fretfully, ‘Well, I hope to God those shots we did manage to get are going to be O.K., because there’s going to be no re-shooting of that particular angle. Are you all right, Sue – why don’t you go back to the van?’ Paul Summers speculated aloud about the chances of getting the entrance restored. It was suggested that someone had better make contact with the local farmer. Sue, with Kate and one of the men, set off down the track. The others followed singly, picking their way through the watercourse of creamy mud resulting from the storm.

Tom, looking back, saw Tony bring up the rear, considerably separated from the rest. The Napoleonic image, if pursued, suggested now the retreat from Moscow. He was hurrying down, his stoop exaggerated – perhaps by the slope of the hill. And behind him, above the Tump, as though to emphasize the caprice of the physical world, the sky had cleared to an intense and cloudless blue. Sheep were already grazing once more unconcernedly around the Tump, yards from their former companions.

‘What rotten luck,’ said Laura. ‘Typical. And now it’s perfectly fine again.’ She was exhilarated, a little overwrought; Danehurst teemed with people. In the kitchen Mrs Lucas and a sister-in-law prepared food, paying token and slightly cynical attention to Laura’s frequent entrances and instructions. Kate disappeared to talk to Nellie, who was remaining in her room for the time being. Tom retreated onto the terrace with Tony’s assistant, Sue, an attractive girl, now recovered from her attack of sensibility at the Tump and amusingly tart about the rest of the company. Within, the Hamiltons were in bright conversational assault upon the cameraman.

‘I only came onto this programme last week, because someone’s on holiday – I don’t entirely get where everyone fits in. You, for instance.’

Tom said, ‘Oh, I’m just incidental.’

‘And the prickly girl – she’s the daughter, right?’

‘Mmnn.’

‘A bit grumpy – you can’t get much going there.’

There was a pause. The girl said, ‘Oh, Christ, you’re not…’

‘Not to worry – you couldn’t know.’

‘Trust me… Now you’re going to loathe me, and quite right too.’

Brown eyes turned on him, filled with genuine remorse and compunction. Tom said, ‘I’ll see if I can rustle up another drink without letting us in for being generally sociable.’ She was a thin girl with straight, fair hair. Not a bit like Kate. A little like Laura, oddly enough; Laura twenty years ago.

A buffet lunch was served in the dining room. Others had arrived: John Barclay and a couple from Marlborough. In a somewhat ill-assorted party, conversation periodically withered. Tony, evidentally ruffled by the morning’s events, seemed unable to concentrate on what was said. Nellie came in and sat somewhat apart. Laura and Barbara Hamilton vied to outdo one another in sprightliness. Kate remained silent.

To Tom, the whole day had begun to be somehow macabre. Never having previously thought a great deal about Hugh Paxton, he was now acutely conscious of his absence. It seemed an interesting instance of the power exercised by the dead: in this case the ability to fill a room with people most of whom had never known the person in question. To determine not only how they spent their day, but how several of them had been spending a good number of other days. He looked at Tony, who was rather dazedly listening to Laura. Laura, though, in mid-anecdote, had fallen suddenly silent, as though forgetting what she had been about to say, thus allowing Barbara Hamilton neatly to occupy the vacuum.

I can’t remember what Hugh looked like, she thought. I can’t see him any more. Oh yes, there is the photo on the dressing-table, I know what that looks like, and all the others in the albums. But I just can’t see him any more. He’s gone.

And in sudden panic she clutched the glass in her hand, jerking it so that the wine tilted over onto her skirt, dark drops on the blue silk, and she not noticing, nor hearing Barbara Hamilton either, staring with wide surprised eyes at all these people.

‘What?’

‘A hankie, Ma, you’ve slopped wine onto your dress.’

It’s nothing; it doesn’t mean anything; he only met her today, he’ll never see her again.

Or will he?

She has hair like Ma’s; that straight, fair, fine hair. She makes people laugh; she makes Tom laugh; I never make people laugh.

I’ve got to talk to him. Before we go back to London. Before we start another week in which we don’t make love once and most evenings he goes out somewhere on his own. Or we go out together to meet someone because he doesn’t want to be with just me.