to have any relevance to the two of them, or was it just the usual cynicism that most people had about monastic life? Probably just the usual cynicism, because when they ascended to the point where the turrets of Whitby Abbey were visible, he said: ‘Ah! The lucrative ruins!’ He flung his right arm forward, unfurling his massive hand in a grandiose gesture. ‘See Whitby Abbey and die!’
Siân felt her hackles rise, yet at the same time she was tickled by his theatricality. She’d always detested shy, cringing men.
‘If the Abbey’d had a bit more money over the centuries,’ she retorted, ‘it wouldn’t be ruins.’
‘Oh come on,’ he teased. ‘Ruins are where the real money is, surely? People love it.’ He mimicked an American sightseer posing for his camera-toting wife: ‘“Take a pitcha now, Wilma, of me wid dese here ruins of antiquiddy behind me!”’
Squinting myopically, acting the buffoon, he ought to have looked foolish, but his clowning only served to accentuate how handsome he was. His irreverent grin, and the way he inhabited his body with more grace than his gangly frame ought to allow, were an attractive combination for Siân – a combination she’d been attracted to before, almost fatally. She’d have to be careful with this young man, that’s for sure, if she didn’t want a re-run of … of the Patrick fiasco.
‘Antiquity is exciting,’ she said. ‘It’s good that people are willing to come a long way to see it. They walk up these stone stairs towards that abbey, and they feel they’re literally following in the footsteps of medieval monks and ancient kings. They see those turrets poking up over the headland, and it takes them back eight hundred years …’
‘Ah, but that thing up there isn’t the real Whitby Abbey, is it? It’s a reconstruction: some tourist body’s idea of what a medieval abbey should look like.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘Didn’t it all fall down ages ago, and they built it up in completely the wrong shape?’
‘No, that’s not true,’ she insisted, feeling herself tempted to argue heatedly with a complete stranger – something she hadn’t done since Patrick. She ought to dismiss his ignorance with the lofty condescension it deserved, but instead she said, ‘Come up and I’ll show you.’
‘What?’ he said, but she was already quickening her pace. ‘Wait!’
She stumped ahead, leading him past Saint Mary’s churchyard, past the cliffside trail to Caedmon’s Trod – the alternative path back to the town below, along which he’d meant to run with Hadrian. Teeth clenched with effort, she stumped up another flight of steps leading to the abbey.
‘It’s all right, I believe you!’ Magnus protested as he dawdled in her wake, hoping she’d come round, but she led him straight on to the admission gate. He baulked at the doorway, only to see his cheerfully disloyal dog trotting across the threshold.
‘Bastard,’ he muttered as he followed.
Inside, there was a sign warning visitors that all pets must be on a leash, and there was a man at the admissions counter waiting to be handed £1.70. Siân, so used to wandering freely in and out of the abbey grounds that she’d forgotten there was a charge for non-archaeologists, paused to take stock. Mack’s running shorts, whatever else they might contain, clearly had no provision for a wallet.
‘He’s with me,’ she declared, and led the hapless Magnus past the snack foods and pamphlets, through the portal to antiquity. It all happened so fast, Hadrian was dashing across the turf, already half-way to the 12th century, before the English Heritage man could say a word.
Siân stood in the grassy emptiness of what had once been the abbey’s nave. The wind flapped at her skirt. She pointed up at the towering stone arches, stark and skeletal against the sky. The thought of anyone – well, specifically this man at her side – being immune to the primitive grandeur and the tragic devastation of this place, provoked her to a righteous lecture.
‘Those three arches there,’ she said, making sure he was looking where her finger pointed (he was – and so was his dog), ‘those arches are originally from the south wall, yes, and when they were reconstructed in the 1920s, they were propped up against the northern boundary wall, yes. Rather odd, I admit. But it’s all the original masonry, you know. And at least those arches are safe now. We’d love to restore them to their original position, but they’re better off where they are than in a pile of rubble – or don’t you think so?’
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry!’ he pleaded facetiously. ‘I didn’t know I was treading on your toes …’
‘I have some books and brochures that explain everything, the whole history,’ she said. ‘You can read those – I’ll give them to you. A nice parcel. Loggerhead’s Yard, wasn’t it?’
‘Oh, but no, really,’ he grimaced, flushing with embarrassment. ‘I should buy them myself.’
‘Nonsense. You’re welcome to them.’
‘But … but they’re yours. You’ve spent money …’
‘Nonsense, I’ve got what I needed from them; they’re not doing me any good now.’ Seeing him squirm, she was secretly enjoying her modest subversion of 21st-century capitalism, her feeble imitation of the noble Benedictine principle of common ownership. ‘Besides, I can smell cynicism on you, Mr Magnus. I’d like to get rid of that, if I can.’
He laughed uneasily, and lifted one elbow to call attention to his sweat-soaked armpits.
‘Are you sure it’s not the smell of B.O.?’
‘Quite sure,’ she said, noting that two of her colleagues were, at last, straggling into view. ‘Now, I think it’s about time I started work. It was lovely to meet you. And Hadrian, of course.’
She shook his hand, and allowed herself one more ruffle of the dog’s mane. Nonplussed, Magnus backed away.
A few seconds later, when she was already far away from him, he called after her:
‘Happy digging!’
That night, Siân fell asleep with unusual ease. Instead of spending hours looking at the cast-iron fireplace and the wooden clothes rack growing gradually more distinct in the moonlight, she slept in profound darkness.
I’m sleeping, she thought as she slept. How divine.
‘Oh, flesh of my flesh,’ whispered a voice in her ear. ‘Forgive me …’ And the cold, slightly serrated edge of a large knife pressed into her windpipe. With a yelp, she leapt into wakefulness, but not before the flesh of her throat had yawned open and released a welter of blood.
Upright in bed, she clutched her neck, to keep her life clamped safely inside. The skin was unbroken, a little damp with perspiration. She let go, groaning irritably.
It wasn’t even morning: it was pitch-dark, and the seagulls were silent – still fast asleep, wherever it is that seagulls sleep. Siân peered at her watch, but it was the old-fashioned kind (she didn’t like digital watches) and she couldn’t see a thing.
Ten minutes later she was dressed and ready for going out. Packed in a shoulder bag were the books and pamphlets for Magnus: ‘Saint Hilda and her Abbey at Whitby’, A
