wall and drop down on the other side.
Something is wrong.
The soil beneath the wall has been disturbed.
Someone has been here.
They have left equipment close by. Tarpaulins and scaffolding. Heavy boot prints stamped in the earth, gouge marks on the grass. I don’t like this. Further down the path there are notices pinned up. I pull one down and stuff it in my pocket to look at later.
What’s going on?
I wander about, restless and agitated. There is a great disquiet all around me. Why?
I lean against the tombstones. The familiar carvings of winged souls and hourglasses are old friends. These markings I can read and understand. I run my fingers over them. The crumbling old stone, mellow and marmalade-coloured, is warm beneath my fingers. The contours are soft and welcome my touch. The later grey slabs stand firm, their faces dark and strong. I reach up to the old carved urn. The cloth draped over it is smooth and reassuring, soft folds falling, falling . . .
There is a flowering cherry right beside it. I gaze high through its branches. Its full frothy head is a spring song in the sky.
I go back to the wall and get myself comfortable on my ledge, with my burger and comic. The sun is on my face. I close my eyes.
Then I hear the sound of a heavy engine. I peer out through the stones. There’s a district council van driving through the bottom gate. Workies start piling out with picks and shovels. A larger car following them bumps up on the grass verge. Two official-looking plonkers get out and stride up the path towards me.
I cower down lower in my hiding place. They can’t possibly see me, can they? They stop a few metres short of my wall.
‘Drainage,’ says the smaller man. He’s wrapped up in a tan raincoat, hands stuck in his pockets. He rocks back and forth on his heels and then stamps his feet a couple of times. ‘Drainage, Professor Miller. That’s going to be a big problem.’
‘Mmmm?’ The one called Professor Miller seems more interested in the gravestones. He has stopped to examine one. He traces the line of the pattern with his fingers, his hands gliding lightly along the surface like a doctor’s, searching, probing. ‘This is extremely interesting.’ He has the trace of an Irish accent in his voice. ‘What is the history of this place?’
‘It was a burial ground attached to a small church. There are only a few stones of the ancient kirk left in one corner. It became overcrowded and was closed some time ago. I believe its origins are pre-medieval.’
‘Yes, that’s apparent.’ The professor takes a small eyeglass from his pocket. He indicates the west wall. ‘Some of those pieces of masonry are Pictish symbol stones which have been broken up and used as coping. It’s unbelievable how some local authorities allow a national heritage to be destroyed.’
‘Exactly so,’ said the other man pompously. ‘We won’t be allowing that to happen here. That’s why we’ve called you in for expert opinion. The council is building a new bridge across the river and we have to change the road alignment and divert the course of the water. All of the graves will have to be relocated. At first we thought we’d just collect all the headstones together and pile them up somewhere.’ He waved his arm around vaguely.
‘Did you?’ asked the professor quietly.
‘But of course this council likes to do things properly,’ the official went on hurriedly. ‘We recognise the historic value of these . . . er . . . things. So if you can undertake the special study required as soon as possible, and advise us of the best ways to preserve our cultural heritage, we’ll get on with moving the bodies.’
The two men are moving along the path as they speak. The professor stops at the cairn and, picking up one or two of the stones, he examines them carefully with his magnifier.
‘How long do you think it will take you?’ asks the official.
‘A few weeks anyway,’ says the professor slowly. He keeps one of the stones in his hand as he walks all the way round the monument.
‘Good. Good. That’s what we envisaged. We’ll start clearing the vegetation immediately and then we can start work on the exhumations.’
‘Mr Frame,’ says Professor Miller, ‘have you had a good look at this particular memorial?’
‘Not especially, no.’
‘Then I suggest you do. I’m afraid you may have a serious problem to contend with.’ Professor Miller replaces the stone in its original position. ‘Have you heard the expression “Cholera Ground” used in connection with old burial places?’ he asks.
‘Cholera Ground?’ Mr Frame laughs. ‘Cholera is a foreign disease. You don’t get cholera in Scotland.’
‘Not any more perhaps,’ says the professor, ‘because now we have a clean water supply. But in the early part of the nineteenth century it killed thousands of people. However the “Cholera Ground” in churchyards wasn’t used exclusively for victims of that disease. It was known as such because that was the most common disease from which people died. In actual fact it was a general name given to a special area set aside in kirkyards for the victims of any epidemic. Due to the lack of medical facilities, when pestilence struck, whole communities could be wiped out in a matter of days. Most corpses were laid to rest uncoffined. There wasn’t the money or indeed the time to do anything else. And these areas were known as the “Cholera Ground”.’
The professor breathes on his eyeglass, then polishes it carefully.
‘Many parishes held annual inspections of the turf over the ground used to ensure it remained undisturbed,’ he went on. ‘They feared the virus would escape. Sometimes they used a cairn of stones as a memorial, hoping to seal the ground and prevent further outbreaks.’
‘That’s very interesting, but as you said, cholera was caught by drinking bad water. It’s not infectious,’ said Mr Frame.
‘Cholera isn’t, that’s true,’ replied the professor. ‘But there was another far more deadly epidemic in Scotland. This pestilence visited the country until the late 1880s. A highly contagious virus in which the infection is carried on the skin in tiny pustules or blisters which form into scabs. The virus can survive in these dried-up scabs for many years.’
He puts his eyeglass back in his jacket pocket and then points to the large cairn of stones directly in front of them.
‘I suggest that you check the burial records for this kirkyard. When you do, I think you’ll find that lying under that mound is a mass grave for the victims of smallpox.’
‘What?’ Mr Frame steps back sharply. ‘You’re not serious.’
‘I’m very serious,’ says Professor Miller, ‘and in the light of what else I’ve noticed here,
