style="font-size:15px;"> ‘Well, no, he was actually my father’s dog. My father died three weeks ago.’
Siân stopped stroking. ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’
‘No need. He and I weren’t close.’ The dog, bereft of caresses, was poking his snout in the air, begging for more. The man obliged, ruffling the animal’s ears, pulling the furry face towards his. ‘I didn’t like our dad much, did I, hmm? Grumpy old man, wasn’t ’e?’
Siân noticed the size of the man’s hands: unusually large. A superstitious chill tickled her spine, like a tiny trickle of water. She distracted herself from it by noting the estuary twang of the man’s accent.
‘Did you come up from London?’
‘Yeah.’ He frowned a little, intent on proving he could please the dog as much as the next pair of hands. ‘To bury the old man. And to sort out the house. Haven’t decided what I’ll do yet. It’s in Loggerhead’s Yard, so it’s worth a mint. I might sell it; I might live in it. As a building, it’s a hell of a lot nicer than my flat in West Kilburn.’ He cast a deprecating glance back at the town, as if to add, Except of course it’s in bloody Whitby.
‘Did you live here as a kid?’
‘Many, many, long, long years,’ he affirmed, in a querulous tone of weary melodrama. ‘Couldn’t get out fast enough.’
Siân puzzled over the two halves of his statement, and couldn’t help thinking there was a flaw in his logic somewhere.
‘I like this place myself,’ she said. It surprised her to hear herself saying it – given the nightmares and the insomnia, she had good reason to associate Whitby with misery. But it was true: she liked the place.
‘But you’re not from here, are you?’
‘No. I’m an archaeologist, working at the dig.’
‘Cool! The sixty skeletons, right?’
‘Among other things, yes.’ She looked away from him, to register her disapproval of his sensationalist instincts, but if he noticed, he didn’t give a toss.
‘Wow,’ he said. ‘Gothic.’
‘Anglian, actually, as far as we can tell.’
Her attempt to put him in his place hung in the air between them, sounding more and more snooty as she replayed it in her head. She returned her attention to the dog, trying to salvage things by stroking the parts the man wasn’t stroking.
‘What’s his name?’
He hesitated for a moment. ‘Hadrian.’
She snorted helplessly. ‘That’s … that’s an exceptionally crap name. For any dog, but especially this one.’
‘Isn’t it!’ he beamed. ‘My dad was a Roman history buff, you see.’
‘And your name?’
Again he hesitated. ‘Call me Mack.’
‘Short for something?’
‘Magnus.’ His pale blue eyes narrowed. ‘Latin for “great”. Grisly, isn’t it?’
‘Grisly?’
‘Sounds like I’ve got a big head or something.’
‘I’ll reserve judgement on that. It’s a fine, ancient name, anyway.’
‘You would say that, wouldn’t you?’
The familiarity of his tone worried her a bit. What delicate work it was, this business of conversing with strangers of the other sex! No wonder she hardly ever attempted it anymore …
‘What do you mean?’ she said.
‘You know, being an archaeologist and all that.’
‘I’m not actually a fully-fledged archaeologist. Still studying.’
‘Oh? I would’ve thought …’ He caught himself before he could say ‘at your age’ or anything like that, but the implication stabbed straight into Siân – straight into her innermost parts, so to speak. Yes, damn it, she didn’t look like a peachy young thing anymore. What she’d gone through in Bosnia – and since – was written and underlined on her face. “It pleased the Author of our salvation …” Pleased Him to put her body and soul through Hell. In order that her strength might be made perfect in weakness. In order that people she’d only just met would think she was awfully old to be studying for a degree.
‘I would’ve thought archaeology was a hands-on kind of thing,’ he said.
‘So it is. I’m a qualified conservator, actually, specialising in the preservation of paper and parchment. I just fancied a change, thought I should get out more. There’s a nice mixture of people at this dig. Some have been archaeologists for a million years. Some are just kids, getting their first pay-packet.’
‘And then there’s you.’
‘Yes, then there’s me.’
He was staring at her; in fact, both he and his dog were staring at her, and in much the same way, too: eyes wide and sincere, waiting for her to give them the next piece of her.
‘I’m Siân,’ she said, at last.
‘Lovely name. Meaning?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Siân. In Welsh, it means … ?’
She racked her brains for the derivation of her name. ‘I don’t think it means anything much. Jane, I suppose. Just plain Jane.’
‘You’re not plain,’ he spoke up immediately, grateful for the chance to make amends.
To hide her embarrassment, she heaved herself to her feet. ‘Well, it’s nearly time I started work.’ And she steeled herself for the remaining hundred steps.
‘Can I walk with you as far as the church? There’s a run I can do with Hadrian near there, back down to the town …’
‘Sure,’ she said lightly. He mustn’t see her limping. She would do what she could to prevent his attention straying below her waist.
‘So…’ she said, as they set off together, the dog scampering ahead, then scooting back to circle them. ‘Now that your father’s funeral’s over, do you have much more sorting out to do?’
‘It’s finished, really. But I’ve got a research paper to write, for my final year of Medicine. So, I’m using Dad’s house as a kind of … solitary confinement. To get on with it, you know. There’s a lot of distractions in London. Even worse distractions than this fellow …’ And he aimed a slow, playful kick at Hadrian.
‘You’re partaking of a fine Whitby tradition, then,’ said Siân. ‘Think of those monks and nuns sitting in their bare cells, reading and scribing
