Don’t Do Sorry
‘Awful,’ Jane said. ‘ Barbaric.’
She said there were three double rows of barbed wire, more than chest high and with new stakes. And like a plastic screen over part of it, so you couldn’t even see through.
‘Like some high-security… like Guantanamo Bay or something. Like Guantanamo Bay’s just appeared in Coleman’s Meadow.’
Lol said, ‘You didn’t-?’
‘No. Well, I’d’ve had to go back to Gomer’s for the wire-cutters. And anyway, it was very thick wire. Heavyduty. A proper fence, like I say. Impossible. Plus there were these two blokes there, putting up a big sign.’
‘I’m guessing it doesn’t say Welcome to the Coleman’s Meadow Ley Line.’
‘It says Private Land. Keep Out. Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted. And the word Will is underlined in red. Like somebody’s splattered it on in a rage.’
‘ Can they just fence it off like that, if it’s a public footpath?’
‘ Is it a public footpath, though? I don’t know.’ Jane didn’t look at him. ‘I should’ve checked it out, and I didn’t. It’s not marked as any kind of footpath on the OS map. This is all so totally my fault, isn’t it? You get carried away with the romance and the excitement and you don’t check the basic nuts and bolts. Didn’t even check whether it was a right-of-way and I ignored the fact that it wasn’t in The Old Straight Track. I’m naive and immature. I’m an idiot, Lol.’
Jane punched her knee and winced and started to cry. The Guardian was crumpled up on the hearthrug. Lol thought it was actually a bit magnificent. Jane wouldn’t look at it.
‘Ever wish you hadn’t started something?’
The warmest day of the summer so far and she looked starved. Lol eyed her, curious. He’d never before heard her wishing she’d never started something.
‘When I first saw the fence I was shocked and then I was furious. And then I saw… when you’re right up to it, the worst thing is… you can’t even see Cole Hill. I felt just… sick. I just walked away and sat down in a quiet part of the orchard and howled.’
‘Jane…’
Lol sat next to her on the sofa. This was the time to put a comforting arm around her, but he never had. They were close, but she wasn’t his daughter and there was an old barbed-wire fence in his head that had never quite rusted away and probably never would.
‘And you know what?’ Jane said. ‘When I stopped howling, I realized I was sitting right on the ley, and there was… nothing. Nothing to feel. No ancient energy. No shades of Lucy.’
‘Because they’d… blocked the line, you think?’
‘Oh, Lol…’ Jane squeezed his hand. ‘There’s absolutely no need to be kind. I just wanted… just wanted there to be some magic left.’
‘What’s wrong with that?’
‘It’s naive. People like me who listen to Nick Drake singing “I Was Born to Love Magic” and go all shivery. See, what I should’ve done – what a mature person would’ve done – I should’ve just objected to the housing, got some backing for that. Kept quiet about the ley. But no, I’m too smart for that. I go doorstepping a bunch of council guys at Pierce’s… in effect, tipping the bastards off. Now they know what it’s all about and they’ve turned it into some disgusting no-man’s-land. So nobody will ever see the magic again.’
‘Do you know who they are?’
Jane shrugged. ‘This guy Murray, the owner? Lol, look, if-’ She glanced towards the door. ‘If anyone comes, you haven’t seen me. Only, when I got back from the meadow just now, Jim Prosser’s like, Oh, Radio Hereford and Worcester are looking for you and some newspaper people, and they’ve all been ringing the vicarage and getting no answer. So now I can’t even go home in case anyone… I mean, I can’t talk to them now – I’m supposed to be at school. And I haven’t any evidence. They’d just walk all over me. I’m just totally dead, Lol.’
Lol stood up and went to the window. Saw two men and a woman walking up Church Street – people he didn’t know, and it was too early in the day for tourists. He stepped back and saw his own shadowy reflection in the dark side of the pane and knew that it wasn’t Jane who’d been stupid. She was a schoolgirl, below voting age, in no real position to object to a private housing plan or attempt to influence a local authority to veto it.
He, on the other hand…
… Had just stood and watched, perhaps only really concerned that Jane shouldn’t do anything to embarrass Merrily as parish priest.
‘You’re right. Best if you don’t talk to anybody at this stage. Best if you stay here while we work out how to handle this.’
‘ We? ’
‘If you have no objections.’ Lol turned his back on the street. ‘Interesting how fast this fence has gone up. They didn’t even wait for it to appear in the paper. The cattle had already gone last night.’
‘I noticed that. Jim said they belong to the guy who bought the Powell farm, rents the grazing from Murray.’
‘So if the cattle were removed yesterday – before the story appeared – that suggests that it was set up as soon as they heard the media were on to the story. OK… I’ll go and check it out. You stay here, don’t answer the door and be careful who you answer the phone to.’
‘You don’t have to-’
‘I do have to. Listen, while I’m gone, could you… My laptop’s under the desk. Could you put Wychehill Church into Google, see what you can find?’
‘What for?’
‘Think of it as Brownie points with your mum. You might need them.’
Jane smiled. Bit watery, but it was there. He told her about Prof Levin and the recording of the choir that had to be made at Wychehill.
‘You’re looking for connections with music. Choirs. Singing. I don’t know. Any link with Elgar in particular would be good. Use your intuition.’
‘Don’t you think that’s caused enough damage?’ Jane folded up the Guardian, put it behind a cushion, out of sight. ‘I can’t bear it. Why couldn’t I have just smiled? The photographer was going, no, no, don’t smile, but I didn’t have to play along, did I? Now I totally look like some evil slapper. An ASBO waiting to be issued. Lol…?’
‘Mmm?’
‘I’m sorry for getting you involved.’
‘Pull yourself together, Jane,’ Lol said. ‘You don’t do sorry.’
The men who’d put up the fencing had gone but it looked, as Jane had said, like a not-so-open prison. Lol was furious. The way governments, national and local, were operating now. Even the council had its cabinet, where iffy issues could be sorted in secret. Any hint of opposition, doors closed, locks turned, walls went up.
And barbed wire.
OK, there was no proof that anyone from the council was involved in this. But it was likely, at least, that the landowner had the support of the Establishment.
And they’d fenced off something they didn’t believe existed. They’d blockaded an idea.
Standing on the edge of the old orchard, Lol began to sense some of Jane’s feelings about Alfred Watkins, who stood for independence of thought. Well into his sixties, a respected local figure, when The Old Straight Track was published, and the archaeological establishment had immediately turned on him. A barrier had gone up, and it was still up.
Independence of thought. Always a crime in the eyes of the Establishment. Lol was starting to feel suffocated, as if the air had been turned into shrink-wrap, when Gomer Parry came ambling out of the orchard, an inch of roll-up gummed to his lips.
‘Lol, boy…’
Gomer extracted his ciggy, blew out a grey balloon of smoke. Lol wondered if a disused orchard was now classed as a public place where, although it might be entirely legal to light a massively carcinogenic bonfire, nobody was allowed to smoke.
Gomer nodded at the wire.
‘Janie seen this yet?’
‘What do you think?’
Gomer said, ‘What I think is, Lucy Devenish was still alive, she’d drag Lyndon Pierce yere by the scruff, make the bugger tear it down with his bare hands.’
Lol thought what a pity it was that this kind of organic, natural justice was purely the preserve of old ladies.
‘You think Pierce had something to do with this?’
Gomer’s shoulders twitched under his summer tweed jacket.
‘You know this guy Murray, who owns the land?’
‘By sight. Never worked for him. Big farm, and does his own drainage.’
Does his own drainage. Lowest of the low in the planthire world.
‘Knowed his auntie, though, Maggie Pole, her as left him the meadow. Nice lady. Always very fond o’ that meadow.’
‘I don’t think I knew her.’
‘Left before you was here, boy. Went to an old folks’ home, over towards Hay. Hardwicke.’
‘The Glades?’ Lol smiled. ‘I used to know somebody there. How do you mean, fond of the meadow?’
‘Used t’ be a bench near the gate, and her’d go and sit there sometimes on a nice day. Peaceful place, nobody disturbed her. That was all I remembered, but after Jane come over the other night, I went to see an ole boy name of Harold Wescott. Know him?’
Lol shook his head. Gomer pinched the ciggy from between his lips with his thumb and forefinger.
‘Gotter be over ninety, now, has Harold, but still got his own house. Can’t tell you what he had off the meals-on-wheels yesterday, but you wanner know about anything happened in Ledwardine fifty year ago, he’s your man. Anyway, Harold, he knowed Maggie Pole pretty well, and he remembers her was real careful who her let the meadow out to, for grass. Wouldn’t have no overgrazin’, no ploughin’ up. Said it was a piece o’ history.’
‘ Did she?’
‘Don’t get too excited, boy, wasn’t nothin’ to do with ley lines, far as Harold knows. ’Fact, he didn’t know nothin’ about ley lines. Not many of the old folks does. That was harchaeology – not for the likes of we.’
‘So why was the meadow a piece of history?’
‘Dunno. Harold reckoned it was Maggie’s mother used to go on about it. Maggie’s dad, ole Cyril Pole, he was a bit of a rough bugger, but her ma was a lady – real cultured, read books, had her own wind-up gramophone. Point is, Harold Wescott says Maggie told him her ma always said Coleman’s Meadow wasn’t to be touched.’
‘And it… you’re saying it was left to Maggie Pole on that basis?’
‘Sure t’be. But things get forgot, ennit? No kids, see, Maggie, never married, so that’s why it all went to the nephew and the niece. Niece got the money, this Murray had the ground.’
‘Did anybody else know the meadow wasn’t to be touched? Could be important, don’t you think?’
Gomer put the last inch of ciggy into his mouth, took a puff.
‘Hard to say, boy. Been all overgrown, round there, see, for a good while, since the orchard started goin’ to rot. Hell, aye, I’m sure some folks knowed, over the years, but mabbe they thought it best kept quiet about, like all these things. I’ll keep askin’ around. Where’s Janie now?’
‘My place. Should be at school, really, but she’s hiding from the papers and the TV. Not so sure any more that she’s got it right, you know? What are people saying in the village?’
‘Hippie thing,’ Gomer said. ‘That’s what they’re sayin’, boy. Sorry.’
Figured. In this area, the antique term hippie applied to any incomer of relatively unconventional appearance who couldn’t afford a luxury executive home.
‘What about the housing scheme, the loss of the field, the view of Cole Hill?’
‘Don’t affect many folks, see. They’ll do bugger-all, ’less it affects them personal. You listens to ’em, spoutin’ off in the shop…’
‘What are they saying about Jane?’
‘Leave it, Lol. These is just folks as don’t know the girl. Not like what we does.’
‘No, come on… what are they saying?’
Gomer squeezed his ciggy out.
‘They’re just ignorant people with too much time.’
‘Gomer…?’
‘Ah… sayin’ it’s no wonder her’s goin’ off the rails when her… when her ma en’t around half the time. And no wonder Janie’s livin’ in a bit of a fantasy world when the vicar spends her time chasin’ things as don’t exist.’
‘Instead of looking after the parish.’
‘Ar, more or less. Sorry, boy, but you assed.’