A master of mood ...

one is drawn into his tale as if by a magus’

- Sunday Tele graph „•
 PENGUIN BOOKS

FIRST LIGHT

Peter Ackroyd was born in London in 1949 and was educated at

Cambridge and Yale universities. He was literary editor of the Spec¬
tator for some years and is now chief book reviewer for The Times. He
has published four books of poetry including The Diversions of Purley
and is the author of The Great Fire of London, The Last Testament of
Oscar Wilde, winner of the Somerset Maugham Prize for 1984.
Hawksmoor, winner of the Whitbread Award and Guardian Fiction
Prize for 1985, Chatterton, First Light, English Music, The House of
Doctor Dee and Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem. His non-fiction work
includes Ezra Pound and His World, a biography of T. S. Eliot which
won the Whitbread and the Heinemann Award for 1984, and a
biography of Dickens, which was shortlisted for the NCR Book
Award for 1991. Many of this books are published by Penguin.
■

a ■■■' '"Of ■- . : • ' :r - •

-
PETER ACKROYD

FIRST LIGHT

PENGUIN BOOKS
 PENGUIN BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ, England
Penguin Books USA Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2
Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England

First published by Hamish Hamilton 1989

Published in Penguin Books 1993
3579 10 864

Copyright © Peter Ackroyd, 1989

All rights reserved

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Printed in England by Clays Ltd, St Ives pic

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject

to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent,
re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's
prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in
which it is published and without a similar condition including this
condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
♦PART ONE*
But if he spoke it would mean that all this world
would end now - instanto - fall down onyour head.
These things are not allowed. The door is shut.

‘The Finest Story in the World’

Rudyard Kipling.
.

<.
LTHE UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE
ET ME be drawn up into the immensity. Into the darkness,
where nothing can be known. Once there were creatures of
. light leaping across the firmament, and the pattern of their
movement filled the heavens. But the creatures soon fled
and in their place appeared great spheres of crystal which turned
within each other, their song vibrating through all the strings of the
world. These harmonies were too lovely to last. A clock was ticking
in the pale hands ofGod, and already it was too late. Yes. The wheels
of the mechanism began to turn. What was that painting by Joseph
Wright of Derby? I saw it once. Was it called ‘The Experiment’? I
remember how the light, glancing through a bell-jar, swerved
upwards and covered the whole sky. But this too went out: the candle
flame was blown away by the wind from vast furnaces, when the
electrical powers swept across the firmament.
But there were always fields, fields of even time beyond the fires.
Empty space reaching into the everlasting. At least I thought that as
a child. Then there came a tremor of uncertainty. There was no time
left. No space to float in. And everything began moving away.
Nothing but waves now, their furrows tracking the path of objects
which do not exist. Here is a star called Strange. Here is a star called
Charmed. And after this, after this dream has passed, what then?
What shape will the darkness take then? I. . . Damian Fall turned to
his companion. “Of course you know what we will be observing?”
“Aldebaran.”
“Yes. There.” Damian pointed towards the horizon, and both
men looked out at the great star. “One hundred and twenty times
brighter than the sun,” he said. And he put his hand above his eyes,
as if shielding them from the heat. Burning star. Seeming to be red,
but the colours shifting like an hallucination. In this same area of the
sky they saw small cones of light, called the Hyades and believed to

3
 FIRST LIGHT

be at a greater distance from the earth - cool red stars glowing within
the clouds of gas which swirled about them. And close to them the
lights known as the Pleiades, involved in a blue nebulosity which
seemed to stick against each star, the strands and filaments of its blue
light smeared across the endless darkness. Behind these clusters they
could see the vast Crab Nebula, so far from the earth that from this
distance it was no more than a mist or a cloud, a haziness in the eye
like the after-image of an explosion. And yet Damian could see
further. He looked up and could see. Galaxies. Nebulae. Wandering
planets. Rotating discs. Glowing interstellar debris. Spirals. Strands
of brightness that contained millions of suns. Darkness like thick
brush-strokes across a painted surface. Pale moons. Pulses of light.
All these coming from the past, ghost images wreathed in mist which
confounded Damian. I am on a storm-tossed boat out at sea, the
dark waves around me. This was what the earliest men saw in the
skies above them - an unfathomable sea upon which they were
drifting. Now we, too, talk of a universe filled with waves. We have
returned to the first myth. And what if the stars are really torches,
held up to light me on my way? I see what they saw in the beginning,
even before the creatures of light appeared across the heavens. I can
see the first human sky.
“Yes,” he said. “Aldebaran. Once this region was thought to form
the outline of a face in the constellation of Taurus - ” He looked at
the face of his companion, but he could see only a silhouette in the
darkness. “But the Pleaides contains three hundred stars in no real
pattern. Just burning, being destroyed, rushing outward.” The last
vestiges of cloud had now drifted away and the entire night sky had
reappeared, so bright and so clear that Damian Fall put out his hand
to it; then he turned his wrist, as if somehow he could turn the sky on
a great wheel. And for a moment, as he moved his head, it did seem
that the stars moved with him. “Why is it,” he went on, “that we
think of a circular motion as the most perfect? Is it because it has no
beginning and no end?”
“Now that’s a deep question.”
“Like circles in stone. You know there was an ancient historian
who wrote about the stone circles around us here? Even on the moor.
He describes how the god was supposed to return to the island of
Britain every nineteen years, the period in which the stars completed
their cycle. During his visitation the god sang and danced con¬
tinuously by night - on just such a night as this - from the spring

4
 THE UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE

equinox to the rising of the Pleiades. And of course the rising of

Aldebaran with them.” His young companion shifted his feet, and
said nothing. “You know one thing that has always puzzled me,
Alec? Why does our galaxy rotate as it does? The mass of the visible
stars is not enough to account for the movement. There must be
other kinds of mass. Other fields of force. Black holes. Patches of
darkness. Uncertainties. I’m sorry. I’m boring you. You know all
this.”
“Yes. I had heard. It’s my job.” Alec blushed, instantly regretting
his tone.
“A hundred thousand million galaxies. A hundred thousand
million stars in each one.”
“Serious numbers.”
“I wish we could see them all, but then probably the light would
blind us. Still, we do our best.” He turned around and looked back at
the observatory, its white dome gleaming in the starlight. “What I
meant to say,” he went on, more cheerfully now, “is welcome to the
project. Welcome to Holblack Moor.”
“Tea up.” The two men were roused from the darkness, and
stepped apart, as a young woman called over to them. “Almost
dawn,” she said. “Time for a nice cup of tea.”
“Coming, Brenda. We’re coming.”
This star is Strange. And this is Charmed. Everything is rushing
away. Damian drank his tea and, under the light issuing from
immensity, he chatted with Alec and with Brenda.
He drove back by way of Pilgrin Valley and, as he turned down the
small track which ran beside it, he was forced to brake suddenly in
order to let a brown car pass. He looked at it curiously, and saw a
man and woman sitting in the front; they were saying nothing to
each other, but the woman was holding up a small mirror in order to
pat her hair into place. It was already light.

5
 *2*

AFTER THE FIRE

“ ■ ^ ROM ASHES to ashes,” she said. “How gorgeous.”
“And you see,” he went on, “where the fire died down
' within the ash forest? There. Over there.” In his excite-
JSL ment he took off his green deerstalker hat and pointed
with it across the valley.
“You mean all those alarming black stains?” She peered vaguely
in the direction of his outstretched hat, and noticed large scorch
marks which at this distance looked like shadows on the earth itself.
“The burnt trees were cleared away, after the fire. And that’s
when we saw it.” He looked at her, his eyes still wide. “That, Miss
Tupper, is when we made the discovery.”
“It’s the most extraordinary story I have ever heard in my life.”
On this spring afternoon, her words disturbed the vast pool of bird
song around them.
Evangeline Tupper and Mark Clare were standing on a track
beside the west slope of Pilgrin Valley and ahead of them, across the
east slope, stretched the bright grass which sprang from the chalk of
this region. It is so bright that it seems to blaze and its line of flame to
follow the curve of the chalkland for many miles, sweeping across its
ledges and plateaux, filling its shallows and depressions, rising with
its dunes and hills. From the air it appears to be a huge river moving
inland from the sea but those who walk upon it know how fragile it
can be, how easily uprooted from the soil, how close to the hard bed
of the chalk itself so that its brightness becomes a kind ofdelirium, its
green a fever of imminent destruction.
From the west slope of the valley they could see how one area of the
chalk grassland was still scorched and blackened after the fire but
how, to both sides of it, the landscape remained as it had always been
- the fields here of varying colours, as if clouds were passing
overhead and turning the vivid green into darker shades of emerald

6
 AFTER THE FIRE

or ofjade. Here also there were patches ofjuniper scrub and, dotted
amongst them, dark evergreen bushes which from this distance
looked almost black against the varying shades of the land. There
was a ridge above the valley at this point, with a decaying plantation
of beeches clustered upon it; mixed among the beeches there stood a
clump of young ashes, their smooth grey bark like strips of light
against the dark wood of the older trees. And there, further down, on
the edge of the burnt forest, was the ancient tumulus itself.
The grass or turf which covered it was of a darker green than any
in the fields beside it and although at first sight it might seem part of
the natural landscape - its shape was like that of a hillock or dune -
on further inspection it was clearly not in proportion with the rest of
Pilgrin Valley. It was twelve feet at its highest point and some eighty
or ninety feet in length, seeming to emerge from the side of the valley
itself and then rising gradually before sloping abruptly downwards.
This long narrow mound might have marked the sudden emergence
of some creature now extinct or have represented some ancient and
forgotten disease in the landscape - a large growth which had for
centuries been successfully concealed beneath the covering of ash
trees, but which had now at last been revealed within the blackened
circles of a forest fire.
A wind started up from the east and carved strange shapes in the
grass before it reached Evangeline Tupper, who gave an expressive
little shiver before tying the knots of her bright red scarf more firmly
under her chin. “It’s all too much,” she said to Mark Clare. “I’m
coming out in goose pimples. Or is it goose bumps?"
He put out his arm, believing that she needed support, but she
backed away quickly. “I think it was the wind,” he said. “We’re
accustomed to strong winds up here.”
“Something absolutely rural like that, I’m sure.” It was growing
cold, and her toes curled involuntarily within her brown walking
shoes. “Something utterly unchanging like this—” She could not
think of an appropriate word. “—this territory.”
“No. It has changed.” Mark had a deep voice and he took some
pleasure in employing it, in reciting all he knew while Evangeline
looked out mournfully over the valley as if she were some Dryad
about to be turned into a tree. “It has changed,” he said again. “This
would all have been forest once, and some of it must have been
cleared away before they built the tomb. Cleared by fire. And then
the stones were brought here. This must have been a sacred place.

7
 FIRST LIGHT

Perhaps they thought of it as a centre of the earth.” His eyes gleamed

with his own romantic vision of the past and, as the wind swept
through the grass and the trees, it was as if a multitude were on the
march.
His voice trailed off and Evangeline, assuming that he had
finished, murmured, “I must have a Woody. Do you mind awfully?”
She took a packet of Woodbines from the pocket of her tweed jacket,
and stuck a cigarette into her mouth without lighting it.
“Shall we follow our ancestors?” he asked her, impatient to reach
the site itself. “Shall we go down?”
“Go down where?”
“To the tomb.” He hesitated, so odd a mixture of bravado and
uncertainty that there were times when one person seemed to retire
as another stepped forward. He had long sideburns which covered
half of his cheeks, and now he began to smooth them down with his
hands. He looked at Evangeline almost in defiance, as if she were
about to contradict him. “We’re almost sure that it must be a tomb,
you see.”
“I can’t wait. Really can’t.” But it was with a noticeable reluc¬
tance that she followed Mark Clare.
“Tally ho!” he shouted, sensing her slowness, and began running
down the slope, his long loosely-fitted overcoat billowing out behind
him.
“Wait for me,” she shouted back, in a much weaker voice. “Wait
for the little fox!” The ground was still soft after a recent rainstorm,
and Evangeline had some difficulty in picking her way across the
flints and old stones which littered the valley; she jumped over one
boulder but then skidded into a patch of mud and sat down heavily
upon the damp grass. “Shit!” she shrieked, before getting up very
quickly. And then she laughed, as if she had enjoyed her own fall - a
loud, long laugh which echoed through Pilgrin Valley. It also
startled two sheep in an adjoining field; they ran into a corner of the
tall hedge and they waited there, the red brands clearly visible upon
their cropped wool as they averted their faces from the wind. At the
same moment two small white vans passed along the track from
which Mark and Evangeline had just come; they stopped, and then
moved on again into the dark foliage which grew over this stretch of
the old road.
Evangeline searched in the wet grass for her cigarette, retrieved it
with a flourish, and then in much better humour followed Mark

8
 AFTER THE FIRE

down to the stream which ran through the bottom of Pilgrin Valley
and which was swollen now with the recent rains; here she felt it
necessary to pause for a moment. Concealing from Mark the fact
that she was still smiling to herself, she turned around and with a
magnificent gesture waved across the valley. “And who—” she
managed to say after a few seconds “—and who do we nature lovers
have to thank for all this?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Who owns all this lovely scrub?”
“The ash forest and the tumulus belong to the Forestry Commis¬
sion now. And the rest belongs to the local farmer. Farmer Mint.
You can see his house over there.” He pointed in the direction from
which they had just come and there, along the track, she could see
what appeared to be a collection of corrugated iron shacks.
“Ah,” she said. “The good life. Nothing for miles and miles.”
“Actually, Colcorum village is down there. At the other end of the
valley.”
“Colcorum? Let me roll it around my tongue.” She took the damp
cigarette from her mouth and threw it into the stream. “Colcorum.
What a lovely old English name. Like sheepdog. Or muffins.” All the
while she was watching her Woodbine as it floated away from her on
the turbid current. “And I wonder,” she added, pointing dramati¬
cally at the water, “where all this comes from?” In fact no one knew.
No one could tell precisely where it came from before it fled into the
sea but there were a number of underground caves or fissures in the
region, carved out of the soft chalk, and it was popularly believed
that Pilgrin stream issued from some mighty river which flowed
beneath the surface of the earth at this point where Devon and
Dorset met. In the vicinity there were many springs and seepage
lines, marked by damp or rushy patches, and it was no doubt from
one of these that the stream emerged into the light. “And I wonder,”
Evangeline added, “if it would be ever so tiresome if I tried to find a
wonderful little bridge?”
“There’s no need.” Mark brightened at the prospect of helping
her. “Allow me.”
He was about to take off his overcoat and drape it across some
stones when Evangeline, with another laugh, jumped over the
stream at its narrowest point. “Aren’t we just like Lancelot and
Guinevere?” she said. “We really are.” In fact they were a strangely
matched pair - Evangeline Tupper was in her late fifties. She was

9
 FIRST LIGHT

short and somewhat narrow, with a thin mouth and sharp nose
which made her look like a parrot onto whose face make-up had been
hurled with great force, leaving it wide-eyed and bewildered. Mark
Clare was tall, although his height was in part disguised by his
plumpness. He was a robust red-faced man, well into middle-age,
and with his broad sideburns he might have passed as a country
butcher-yet his clothes were too bright, too eccentric, and there was
a wariness about his eyes which suggested a man who was compelled
to make an effort to conquer self-doubt. He had taken off his
deerstalker now as he climbed the slope towards the mound and, in
his sudden enthusiasm, he pushed back his straggling white hair
with a violent gesture. Evangeline was having more difficulty with
the ascent and appeared to be walking sideways, one leg crossing the
other at an odd angle, and he waited for her to reach him before they
walked the last few yards. “What time is—” she began to say.
She was gesturing at her wrist, but Mark was looking at the
tumulus. “Thousands of years,” he replied loudly. “At least four
thousand years.” He gave a sigh of pleasure and put out his arms
towards it.
“As old as the hills! May I?” She brushed past him and, with one
finger outstretched, prodded the mound with the tip of her varnished
nail. “Something very ancient has entered me,” she said. “Some¬
thing old and precious is inside me now.” She was about to lick her
finger, but at the last moment she decided not to. “You are lucky,”
she added, “to be working here.”
“We never would have found it, except for the fire. The ash trees
had been covering it for - for I don’t know how long—”
“Absolute centuries?”
“For a long time. And then when the fire destroyed them, and the
ground was cleared, we saw it. No one had noticed it before. It was
just another incline, just another surface feature.” He had been
looking at it almost in gratitude but then he swung around towards
her and, in a softer voice, added, “Of course once we open it up, we
destroy it. We will have to tear it apart as we excavate. In archaeo¬
logy we always ruin the evidence even as we find it, but if we could
just preserve it like this . . .”
“No no no.” Evangeline shook her finger at him. “Don’t you be
naughty. The Department would kill me. And you.” Evangeline was
a senior civil servant in the Department of the Environment, and had
travelled down from London after her immediate superior had given

io
 AFTER THE FIRE

her Mark’s report of what might be one of the most significant

archaeological ‘finds’ in recent years. “And where,” she added, “is
that fascinating stone circle which you mentioned?” She put her
hand to her forehead and scanned the horizon. “I don’t see
anything.”
“I’m a fool,” he cried out and, to her alarm, hit his chest with his
clenched fist; he did everything on too large a scale, as if he were
always trying to convince himself. “Of course you want to see the
photographs. And I’ve left them in the car! Hang on.” Before she
could say anything he marched down the slope, jumped across the
stream and started running up the other side of the valley towards
the track where he had parked his brown Ford Cortina.
For some reason Evangeline did not welcome the prospect of being
left alone beside the burial mound. She decided to turn her back
upon it and then, very cautiously, she leaned against it; but it felt too
damp, too soft, and the thought of falling into it - of somehow being
sucked within it — appalled her. She took out another Woodbine, and
with still trembling hands tried to light it. But the wind was too
strong here in the exposed valley. She could hear it soughing through
the branches of the ash and beech which clustered on the ridge above
her but even here, in the open area beside the mound, she seemed to
hear the same sound.
And yet she needed that smoke. “Desperate,” she whispered to
herself. “Desperate for a Woody.” She looked around for some cover
and noticed a small outcrop of rock a few yards further up the slope;
somehow, with her peculiar sideways movement, she managed to
reach it and then she crouched behind it so that only her tweed-
covered rump was sticking up above the stone. But she lit her Woody
and, with a small sigh of pleasure, she stood up, brushed her skirt
and sat down upon the stone itself.
She glanced at the landscape around her without interest, and
puffed viciously upon her cigarette. The two sheep were still huddled
in a corner of the adjacent field, and she blew a smoke ring towards
them. “I’d like you well cooked,” she said. “I’d like you on my
plate.” She looked down the rest of the valley, with its trees and
hedges and irregularly patterned fields, but she did not notice how
patches of white chalk showed through the vivid grass like the bones
beneath the flesh of some recumbent figure. Then she heard a noise
behind her. She turned back to stare at the mound. Nothing moved.
It must have been the wind. Now th.ere was something crawling on
 FIRST LIGHT

her leg. And, when she bent down to examine it, she found a small
green burr stuck to her nylon; it had left a definite ‘run’ in the
stocking. “This place,” she said. “This place is not very nice.” She
spoke out loud, as she often did, and it may have been laughter or it
may have been her own echo along the ridge behind her. She turned
around quickly and peered into the clusters of beech and ash above
the valley; and for a moment she thought she saw something moving
between the trees.

12
 *3*
ON THE MOUND
ISS TUPPER?”

M ‘Oh my God!” Evangeline gave a little shriek

when Mark Clare touched her shoulder.
He shrieked back in sympathy. “I just wanted to
show you these,” he added in his confusion, and held out the
photographs he had retrieved from his car.
Evangeline gave him one of her loveliest smiles. “There was no
need to scream,” she said. “I’m having a perfectly marvellous time.
All this fresh air.” She stubbed out her cigarette on the grass and
crushed it with her heel but then, seeing Mark’s inadvertent look of
horror, she picked up the butt and placed it in her pocket. “Isn’t it
gorgeous,” she went on, “here in the absolute wild?”
“It was much wilder once. Look.” The first photograph was of the
whole landscape from the air and in the upper left hand corner the
tumulus could clearly be seen with the scorch marks around it; it
must once have dominated the valley and, from this perspective, it
resembled a single eye staring up at the heavens. The second
photograph was taken from a different vantage, and showed the
tumulus in the bottom left hand corner with the ridge of trees above
it. “And here,” Mark said, “is the old circle.” With his finger he
traced a line of darker soil which extended around the mound; it took
not the form of a circle but that of an ellipse, and it extended into the
field beyond Pilgrin Valley itself. “We come closer here,” he went
on, and with outstretched arm gave her the third photograph.
“These are the marks of the standing stones. At least eight are buried
but there are five still above the ground. You were just sitting on one
of them.”
“You don’t have to tell me. I sensed it. I felt all Dorset beneath me.
All of it going up me.”
“And this was taken immediately above the mound.” In the

•3
 FIRST LIGHT

fourth photograph the tumulus emerged from the side of the valley,
but there was a shadow lying across it. “Everything suggests that
this was an important burial place. The size of the tumulus. The
stone circle. The site itself. I can see them walking in procession
down the valley.”
“Oh God. Where?” If there were people coming to greet her, she
wanted to look her best.
Mark had not heard her. The tumulus was sacred still, because it
had not changed. And it seemed to grow brighter as he watched it,
with all the centuries glowing within it. A place of power. A place of
ritual.
He turned around just as Evangeline was applying a fresh layer of
peach-blush lipstick to her mouth. “I don’t see a soul,” she said,
closing her pocket mirror with a definite snap.
“They’re all around us,” he said, stamping his feet on the ground
like a child stamping in a puddle. “Everywhere.”
“I could have told you that.” With a dramatic flourish she untied
her red scarf, and let her bleached hair slowly unwind in the air.
“The ground above us,” she murmured, gazing at the sky with a rapt
expression, “the heavens beneath us. Now that’s what I call poetry.”
He nodded, not wishing to point out that she had reversed the
position of earth and sky. “I could stay here all day and just suck
them all up.”
“I could stay here all day, too.” His enthusiasm had redoubled in
response to her own.
“Well. Perhaps not today.” He seemed to be taking her seriously,
and she grew alarmed. “But very, very soon.” She dabbed the side of
her mouth with a paper handkerchief, and then dropped the soiled
tissue into her handbag.
“I’m sure that you’ve seen enough.” He sensed her mood, and
began stamping his feet in a more weary rhythm. “I mustn’t keep
you.” He would have been quite happy to stay, and to explain in
detail the characteristics of the site which he and his team were about
to excavate, but Evangeline said nothing and seemed to have
resumed her quiet contemplation of the sky. “Shall we,” he added,
“shall we make our way back to the car?”
She sighed. “We could make our way back to the car. But only if
you insist.”
“No, not really—”
“—Of course I would like to stay here for ever. But if you do

4
 ON THE MOUND

insist.” She began fastening her scarf.

“I didn’t mean—”
“And it is rather chilly, isn’t it?” Quickly she walked ahead of him,
her sideways motion tilting her some degrees to the left, until she
reached the edge of the stream. When he reached her, she had one
foot poised above it. “Was this stream always here, too?”
“Yes. I think so.” He began helping her across four white stones
which connected the banks. “Burial mounds were often placed
beside running water.”
“And nobody knows why?” He shook his head. “Of course not.
Nobody ever does.” With this somewhat cryptic comment she
crossed the stream, and ascended the western slope towards Mark’s
car.
“It could have something to do with spirits,” he said, once again
hastening to catch up with her.
She laughed, and shouted to him over her shoulder. “That
reminds me of a terribly funny story . . .” Her voice faded into the
distance. The silence around the burial mound returned. Pilgrin
Valley was quiet.

‘5
 *4*

M THE VALLEY
ARK DROVE Evangeline to Axminster Station
and, as soon as she had entered her first-class com¬
partment, he began waving - his arm held up high in
the air, as if she were several hundred yards away.
“Farewell,” he bellowed. “Farewell, Miss Tupper!” With a sudden
access of gallantry he took offhis deerstalker and began waving that,
too.
In her turn Evangeline was making frantic little signals in her
compartment but, from her expression, it was difficult to determine
whether she was in extreme high spirits or in terrible agony. With
pantomimic gestures she was mouthing some words, and Mark
thought that he recognised “gorgeous” when suddenly, without
warning, she pulled the orange curtains across the window. The
Inter-City express pulled out of the station, bearing its precious
cargo back to London as she took out a Woodbine, sighed, and
relapsed into her characteristically morose expression.
Mark had lived in Lyme Regis all his life but now, instead of
returning home, he turned off the main Axminster to Bridport road
and drove down the narrow lanes and steep tracks which would
eventually take him back to Pilgrin Valley. Perhaps the tall hedges
give this region its air of seclusion and even of secrecy; certainly there
were no signposts to the valley itself, and there were times when even
Mark was forced to slow down beside a gate, or a break in the hedge,
in order to make sure of his location: he recognised the contours of
the irregularly patterned fields, of the barrows, of the ancient hill-
forts and embankments, and they had become his familiar guides.
He was climbing higher now. The pink campion and dog violet gave
way to scrub; the hedgerows became sparser and wilder; the chalk-
land itself seemed to rise up towards the sky. Sometimes it occurred
to Mark, when he was walking here, that he needed only to run

16
 THE VALLEY

across the curve of this chalk and then he, too, would be able to rise
into the sky, borne upwards by the serene light of these high places.
But then he would feel afraid of his own enthusiasm, and he would
dig his heels into the grass and loam.
He was driving past the house of Farmer Mint. It was a small
farmhouse of whitewashed stone, but it was surrounded by old sheds
and bams which were constructed of corrugated iron sheets, wooden
planks, ancient thatch, pieces of rag and a variety of other materials
held together by yards of thick rope which were looped and knotted,
falling like drapery across the ruined buildings. At first glance it
might have been some gypsy encampment, but Mark knew that
Farmer Mint had always lived here and that these ramshackle huts
and sheds were a token of his being quite at home. They were
temporary dwellings but only in the sense that Farmer Mint knew
the valley would survive his passing, just as it had survived the
deaths of those who had come before him.
He drove another few yards down the track, and then parked his
Ford Cortina beside a steep bank before walking down into Pilgrin
Valley. From here he could see the landscape stretching beneath him
just as if it had momentarily unrolled itself at his feet, but on this cool
spring day there was a mist forming at the far southern end of the
valley and the fields there quivered before disappearing from sight.
He walked quickly across the flinty soil and crossed the stream.
When he came up to the tumulus itself, he put his hands against its
grassy side; and then, more slowly, his face. He breathed in the
dampness of the cold earth and, in his exhilaration, he believed that
he was reaching towards unimaginable passages of lost time. He was
there. With them.
He took a step back, and with an almost proprietorial manner
surveyed the tumulus. Now it was as it had always been but Mark
knew that, in a few days’ time, it would have to be destroyed. When
he and the archaeological team met on this spot to begin their work,
the burial mound would be systematically stripped bare; as they
worked downwards the stages of its construction would be reversed
until the first secrets of its makers were finally revealed. And in that
great change it would surely lose its sacredness. When he had first
seen it, when he had first been brought to this spot after the forest fire
had disclosed the great mound, when he had first observed the stones
which surrounded it, he had been filled with an excitement which
was almost like hilarity. He had retained all that excitement but

>7
 FIRST LIGHT

now, as he glanced around the site, his mood was charged with pity —
pity not only for those who might lie buried here but pity also for the
tumulus itself which was about to suffer so severe a change.
Mark turned away, rubbing his face with his hands, and his
movements were so sudden that they must have startled something
in the copse of trees behind the mound. He thought he had seen a
movement between the slender branches of the ash trees but, when
he climbed up to them, there were only wreaths of small flies
suspended in the air. Then he noticed how the sun threw the long
shadows of the trees across the ground and he decided to keep on
walking, pacing away from the shadows; he knew the land stretching
beyond the west slope of the valley from the aerial photographs, for it
was here in these fields that the boundaries of the stone circle were to
be found, but he had never walked across it by himself. So now he
passed through the trees, surmounted an outcrop of rock which
marked the top ridge of the valley, reached the plateau above and
then looked over the landscape. The softly undulating fields were
familiar to him, but particularly he noticed a small thatched cottage
which seemed almost to be hiding in a corner of one of them. It was
surrounded by a tall sycamore hedge, and was partly obscured by
two ancient plum trees which leaned towards its thatch, but even so
Mark was intrigued by it. “Come on,” he said to himself. “Come on,
Mark Clare.” He liked to walk, he liked what he called a ‘blow’, and
with a smile he marched towards the cottage. He was in another
time. He was a boy again.
After a few minutes he reached a white gate which opened into the
garden of the cottage but, when he looked up, to his alarm he saw a
dark figure moving rapidly to and fro across a window. And there
was, in these quick movements across the light, some undefinable
sense of fear or apprehension which affected Mark even as he stood
there in the glowing field. He turned back, and retraced his steps
across the valley.

18
 *5*

H SOME INHABITANTS
E HAD come out onto the track but was so lost in his
own thoughts that he almost stumbled against a line of
cows being led homewards; they had the usual air of
shambling defiance and thrust their heads forward as if
they had recently been blinded and were still in pain, the
immemorial procession of the animal kingdom towards ignominy
and death. A dog barked at regular intervals and Mark could also
hear the low murmur of two voices coming towards him. He stopped,
and waited for Farmer Mint and Boy Mint to appear.
“Here he is, Boy,” the farmer said. It was almost as if he had been
expecting him.
“Yes,” Mark answered, louder and more defiantly than he had
intended. “Here I am.”
“No. Him.” Farmer Mint was pointing upwards, and Mark
realised that he had been referring to a dark storm cloud which was
clustering above Pilgrin Valley. “He’s been biding his time.” And he
put his right palm upward, as if he were greeting the cloud. In turn
Mark stepped forward to meet them, and he noticed that Farmer
Mint was wearing his usual collection of heterogeneous garments:
old dark blue walking shoes, patched brown trousers which were
laced tight at the ankles, a thick black overcoat which was in turn
covered by a green plastic mackintosh. He was wearing an old flat
cap but nothing could disguise the amount of hair which seemed to
be sprouting from all over his face and head - hair struggling to
emerge from beneath the cap, hair pouring in torrents from his neck,
hair writhing out of his ears, hair climbing from his eyebrows to his
forehead. In contrast Boy Mint was almost completely hairless, and
there was a suspicion that beneath his own flat cap he might in fact
be bald; nevertheless he, too, wore blue boots, patched brown
trousers, black overcoat and green plastic mackintosh so that

•9
 FIRST LIGHT

together they resembled a pair of large garden gnomes sprung

suddenly to life. But Boy Mint was unlike his father in one respect: he
seemed older, his manner more venerable, his replies more
measured than those of Farmer Mint.
“Here he comes,” Farmer Mint was saying. “Here’s the first bit of
him ” And he held out three raindrops in the palm of his hand.
“Take a lick of him, Boy, and bring your powerful mind to some
conclusions.”
Boy licked the proffered drops, and meditated upon them for a few'
moments. “It’s rain,” he said.
Farmer Mint was delighted. “He’s hit it on the head again!
Nothing gets past that boy!”
“And how long,” Mark ventured to ask. “How long will it rain?”
He was concerned about the start of the excavations.
“Give us a little more of your knowledge, Boy. How long will it
last?”
Boy Mint contemplated the top of his father’s cap for several
seconds before delivering his final opinion. “He’ll stop,” he said.
“He’ll stop eventually.”
“Was there ever a Boy like it?” Father and son looked at each
other in admiration and then, at the same moment, pulled their caps
further down their foreheads.
They were about to go forward, and already the cattle began to
sway from side to side in instinctive anticipation of their move, but
Mark wanted to tell them about the excavations. “We begin work
next week,” he said. “On the mound.”
Farmer Mint laughed, showing the stumps of his decayed molars.
“And what might you be expecting to find in there?”
The two Mints turned to stare into each other’s eyes, and Boy
Mint addressed an answer to his father. “Sheep’s bones. And
rabbits’ teeth.”
“Say it again, Boy. Linger over it.”
“Sheep’s bones. Rabbits’ teeth. Skeletons of dead birds.” Boy
Mint was enjoying this litany, and smiled as he spoke. “Cow shit.
Dead foxes. Moles.”
“There’s no stopping him now.” Farmer Mint put both hands out
into the rain, as if imploring it to listen. “He’s the one who knows.”
Mark Clare was equally sure that Boy Mint did not know the
value of the tumulus, but his evident lack of interest came as
something of a relief: in the past Mark had suffered from the curiosity

20
 SOME INHABITANTS

and interference of neighbouring farmers, and he preferred to be left

alone. In fact the Mints had owned the land into which the tumulus
burrowed, until it had been purchased by the Forestry Commission
some six years before, but their manner suggested to Mark that they
were glad to be rid of it. Certainly the discovery of the burial mound,
after the fire, seemed to them to be nothing more than some kind of
practical joke. And yet, if this valley belonged to anyone, it belonged
to the Mints.
The rain was falling heavily upon them and, in the gathering
darkness, the mist swept down from the far end of the valley. For a
moment the three men looked towards the tumulus in silence.
“Sheep’s bones,” Boy Mint muttered, enjoying his joke once more.
“Sheep’s bones.” Then the two men and their animals started
moving in unison along the track. Mark watched them until they had
turned into the fields and, not for the first time, considered the
possibility that they had been putting on an act, that they had been
performing for his benefit.

21
 .6♦

E LONDON LILAC
VANGELINE TUPPER took a taxi from Waterloo
Station, but she did not direct the driver towards her own
home. Instead she was to be seen arriving in quite another
part of London. She turned into a white square, empty on
this spring afternoon except for two or three slender and leafless
poplars. A small terrace of mid-nineteenth-century houses bordered
the far end of the square and it was towards these that she walked,
more slowly now. A small, very elderly, man yaved at her from a
window; and, with a sigh, she climbed the stone steps and took out a
key from her handbag to open the front door.
“You look well,” he said, as she came into the narrow hallway.,
“You look very healthy.”
“Hello, father.”
“Shall I put the kettle on?”
“No. Let me.” Anyone who knew Evangeline in other circum¬
stances would have been surprised by her sudden weariness and the
resigned, flat tone in which she spoke. But her father was
accustomed to it.
“Your tea’s ready,” he said. “You do like beetroot, don’t you?”
He asked this anxiously - as if he might once have known and had
now forgotten, or as if he no longer knew his daughter’s tastes at all.
“Yes. Of course. Whatever you want.”
Everything was prepared in the small front room and Evangeline
glanced at her father from time to time as they ate together: in his
hurried movements and gestures she could always see her own, and
even in his now sunken face she recognised her own features. And yet
I am so far away, she thought, so far away from him now. So far away
from my origin. She realised that she had been looking at him as if he
were just another old man, not her father. And it was as if she had
been looking at herself as a stranger.

22
 LONDON LILAC

“How’s work?” He asked her with his mouth full. He ate with the
same nervous speed as his daughter.
“The usual things.”
“Nothing special?”
“No. Nothing.” And, at this moment, nothing did seem special to
Evangeline. In any case, she did not want to talk about her life at all.
“Just the same as ever.”
“You should be high up in that office now. What do they call it?”
“Environment. The Department of the Environment.”
“You should be at the top of the tree.”
“Yes, father.” She knew that she loved him, but she could not
reveal her feelings for him. She ought to have gone over to him and
kissed him, this frail man so close to death, and yet she was awkward
and reticent with him.
And of course he realised that, too. “I’m proud of you,” he said,
trying to comfort her, trying to tell her that it was all right,
everything was all right. “Your mother would have been proud,
too.”
“Yes, father. I know.” She loved him more than any other man -
in fact she had loved no other man - and yet she could think of
nothing to say to him. If she had explained her real feelings for him,
they would both have broken down beneath them. If she had started
speaking, she would have spoken forever. So there was nothing
whatever to say. I am so far away, she thought. So far away from
myself.
“How’s your friend,” he was asking her.
“She’s very well.” Evangeline blushed, and rubbed a stain on the
table cloth with her finger. “She’s not really my friend,” she added.
“She’s my assistant.” She was still blushing: it was as if she were a
child again, caught out in a lie. She changed the subject quickly and
in her flat, neutral tone remarked, “What a cold day. Don’t you
think it’s a cold day. For spring?” He did not reply, but looked out of
the window at the deserted square. “Can I turn on the television?”
she added. She could not bear any silence between them. “Is there
anything good on?”
Soon it was time to go and, in unspoken compliance, he rose
unsteadily to his feet and took her to the front door. “It was good to
see you,” he said. “It’s always good to see you.”
Impulsively he kissed her cheek as they stood together on the
threshold, and it was only with an effort that Evangeline stopped

23
 FIRST LIGHT

herselffrom flinching. But at once she felt guilty for this. “I’m always
glad to be here.”
“It’s a long way to travel,” he replied, looking at her with
something like pity. “You know I could always come to your place
one day.”
“No.” She said this too readily. “I like coming here. It makes a
change.”
“Goodbye love. I’ll see you soon.”
Now that she was about to depart, she felt a sudden freedom.
“Goodbye, father. Yes. I’ll see you soon.”
As soon as she walked away her mood of weary resignation
returned. And it occurred to her, as she left the white square, that it
was because she could not reveal her true feelings to her own father
that she could not disclose them to anyone else. She walked between
the leafless poplars and, when a woman crossed her path, instinc¬
tively Evangeline looked away. She looked down at the ground. So I
have no connection with the world, she thought. This white square
might as well be in a dream.
The orange arm of a broken doll was lying in the gutter in front of
her and, as she bent down to look at it, she caught the perfume of
early lilac from somewhere in the street ahead. London lilac. She had
known that scent all her life and, standing upright again, this small,
thin woman walked uneasily away.

24
 *7 *

T WAITING
HE RAINSTORM had grown worse and it was darker
still by the time Mark Clare reached Lyme Regis from
Pilgrin Valley; as he drove into the town the lights from
his car swept across the eighteenth-century house fronts,
the newsagent and chemist on either side of a Victorian archway
made of red brick, the supermarket, the stone pillars of the Georgian
Assembly Rooms and the car-park before he turned out of Broad
Street into Crooked Alley. He switched off his engine and for a few
moments he listened to the sea - noticing, as he always did, how
different it sounded each evening. And if it was the repository of the
hopes and dreams of humankind, as certain writers had suggested,
was it possible that it also changed with them in a perpetual and
tumultuous echo?
He lived in a flat above an antiques shop, in a late eighteenth-
century building which despite renovations had retained its original
proportions, and as he rested in his parked car he saw a light in the
second-floor window. He knew that his wife had been sitting there;
she would have waited until she heard the sound of his car, and now
she would be standing in the hallway to greet him.
“You’re tired,” she said, anxiously scanning his face as he climbed
the last stairs.
“Kathleen!” He ignored her remark, and held out his arms as he
came up to her. “My own Kathleen!” He was smiling at her, willing
her to smile too. “Sorry I’m late. I had to take Miss Tupper back to
the station.” He embraced her and, as he held her in his arms, he
talked over her shoulder. “And then I went back to the site, just to
see it one more time.”
“I didn’t know—” Gently she disengaged herself from him, and
led him by the hand into the sitting room. “I thought something
might have happened.”

25
 FIRST LIGHT

“You shouldn’t worry, Kathleen. You should never worry.”

“I don't. Not when you’re here.” She was still holding onto him as
they entered the room. There was a metal brace around her withered
left leg, and it was an old habit of hers to lean against him so that her
pronounced limp became less noticeable.
“You always expect the worst,” he was saying. “But there’s no
need. No need at all.”
“Of course not.” She held onto him more tightly for a moment,
and put her face against his shoulder.
“Home again,” he added.
“I know. Home again.” She repeated his words as if they were a
spell. She buried her face in the sleeve of his coat and then, with a
definite effort of will which Mark himself could feel, she pulled
herself free. She stood up, trembling slightly as she tried to right
herself, and went across to the marbled mantelpiece. “Look,” she
said. “I was reading this before you came home.”
“Let me see.” He was always good-humoured with her. “Let me
take a look at this.” She held out towards him a copy of New
Archaeology, and he peered at it for a moment before taking out a pair
of spectacles from the jacket of his coat. He always liked reading out
loud, and Kathleen always liked to hear him. Eagerly she pointed to
the page, and he began:

There is a theory that in the late neolithic period

there existed a professional order of wise men, or
astronomers, who were supported by the labours of
a rural population and who were able to transmit
their knowledge from generation to generation by
verse and by ballad. It is clearly impossible to
believe that the building of such large henge
structures as those outside Lyons and Cracow could
be achieved without the active superintendence of a
central organising power and, since these monu¬
ments seem typically to be aligned to the stars, it is
probable that only trained astronomers could have
worked out the precise positions of the stones and
the tumuli. We are brought, then, to the over¬
whelming conclusion that astronomers were the
leaders or at least the magi of late neolithic society
- and, since there are examples of the same tumuli

26
 WAITING

and ritual stones in many parts of Europe, all of

them springing up at approximately the same time,
we are further led to believe that this order of
astronomers was an international one.

Kathleen was watching her husband carefully as he read this. Since

she had known him she had become an enthusiastic amateur
archaeologist, forgetting whatever interests she had pursued before
that time as if she had somehow been renewed or, perhaps, cut free
from the ties which had previously bound her. She understood the
significance of the discovery in Pilgrin Valley, and in fact she was as
excited by it as Mark himself. And yet she never visited the site; she
never allowed herself to be seen by his colleagues.
He had turned the page of the article, where he had come to

the evident fact that all these henge monuments fell

into disuse at some time around 1400 bc and that a
corpus of astronomical and mathematical theory
was lost or abandoned in the same period. Our
proposition is that all this knowledge vanished
because of a change in the patterns ofclimate, when
the warm, still and dry air which had allowed
astronomical observations was displaced over a
period of one or two centuries by mist, rain and
almost perpetual cloud-cover.

Mark looked up briefly at his wife. She was much younger than her
husband, not quite half his age, but in the subdued light her face -
framed by long black hair - seemed tired and worn.

Without visibility, of course, the stars became a

less important part ofcommunal rituals and during
the early bronze age there is a significant change in
religious practices. The religion connected with
henge monuments and subterranean burial
vanishes, and at the same time the alignments, the
henges, the stone circles and the passage graves fall
into disuse.

“Where’s Jude?” he asked, putting down New Archaeology with a sigh.

Jude was the name of their small wire-haired terrier.
“He’s asleep in your study. But what do you think?” Kathleen
took the article from him, and eagerly looked at it. “What do you

27
 FIRST LIGHT

think of the theory?” She seemed to lose herself in these vistas of the
remote past, as if somehow they could mitigate the life through
which she moved every day.
“It’s a theory,” he said. He saw the look of disappointment on her
face and added, more jovially, “But of course it might be true. Who
knows? Shall I go and see Jude?” He walked through into his study, a
small room at the back of the flat which overlooked the yard of the
antiques shop beneath them. And when he saw Jude asleep on the
floor, its paws tucked in and its back slightly arched, it occurred to
him that this was the way that dogs had always slept; even at that
time when the great stone monuments were being erected. As soon as
he entered the room the animal sprang into wakefulness and,
yawning, jumped onto its hind-legs and leaned its paws against
Mark. “Good boy,” he said. “There’s a good boy.” And the dog
barked in return.
Mark went over to the window and looked down at the antiques in
the yard below - the broken statuary, the vases covered with mould,
the other scattered relics worn down by time. Their true features
were not visible in the unnatural darkness of the storm, but they
seemed to glow in the gathering dusk.

28
 ♦8 ♦

A EARLIER TIME
NOTHER TIME. In another time. She is a child, a
crippled child. She is standing on the shore near Lyme,
looking out to sea. Her parents are sitting in a beach-hut
L behind her, eating their sandwiches, and she turns
around to make sure that they are still there. That they have not
abandoned her. And then she looks back out to sea, the light from the
waves playing upon her face. It is impossible to know what she is
thinking. In fact she is thinking of nothing. Kathleen has merged
with the sea.
He watches her. He is walking with a companion along the shore,
but he watches the crippled girl. Is it pity he feels for her? No, not
that. Not just pity. Rather a sense of opportunity. A sense of
adventure. He would like to take her up, put her upon his shoulders
and carry her to the top of the cliff where she could see more. More of
the sea. More of the light. It was hard to talk to other people, but he
knew that it would not be hard to talk to her. Accepted. Accepted
and accepting. Mark’s companion looks at the girl and says, “There
is always someone left behind on the shore, isn’t there?” But no one
need be left behind. Not Mark. Not the crippled girl.
Another time. He knows her now. They have become friends, the
girl and the man. They walk together. She seems never to be
impeded by her limp. She walks forward, and all the intensity of her
nature suffuses his own. New hopefulness. For, yes, she protects him
too. With her he can discuss his work without hesitation or awk¬
wardness, and in his vision of primeval time she too can lose herself.
The man and the girl, meeting each week in front of the old clock in
the market square, walking along the shore, walking through the
foliage of the undercliffs, sitting on the highest rocks and looking out
to sea. And he becomes a child again with her, a child dreaming of
old stones. Old stories.

29
 FIRST LIGHT

Another time. Later still. A cycle of the sky completed. Her

mother is dead and she suffers once more the old feeling of loss, the
terrible silence of abandonment. It has been with her all her life, this
fear of being left behind, of being left somewhere out of the world.
But she is trying to fight it back, to fight down the fear. And now he is
with her. To carry her over her moods as once he had wished to carry
her on his shoulders. And she, too, will never abandon him. He
knows that now. Together they will conquer their fears.
Another time. She looks at him warily. She looks at him with pity.
But what can she do with her leg? What must he think of her? This is
the first time - the first time in all these years - that it has been
mentioned. No. He tells her that he never sees it now. It is simply
part of her. Her. The person whom he loves.
Present time. Time encircling her. Bereft on this stormy night
before Mark returned home. He will never come back, she thinks. He
has died and I am alone again. How can I live here after him? And
how can I take care of Jude? This is the fate Kathleen always fears
and always imagines for herself.
Past time. She had always felt destined to suffer- after she had met
Mark, she was afraid of his kindness and companionship. She was
afraid of her good fortune because in the end it was bound to
disappear, leaving her more solitary and bewildered than before.
Even after her marriage Kathleen could not keep hold of her
pleasure, her joy in the feeling that she was no longer alone. It always
seemed to her about to dissolve - for why else had she been crippled,
except as a special mark of disfavour? Beneath the surface of her
contentment there was still the same cowed and stricken figure
waiting to emerge. Even when she felt loved, therefore, she felt most
afraid. This was the identity by which she had first known herself
and she feared that the first identity would also be the last. It would
always be the one to be renewed, rediscovered. The crippled girl.
Encircled. Waiting for the rebuff.
Present time. That morning she had seen the sunlight moving
slowly across the room - and this movement, she thought, marks the
rotation of the planet. So in small things can we recognise the great.
In the same way my own life is a reflection of the movement of life
itself. But I am only part of its shadow as it progresses onward. And
then, oh then, the rain came, blotting out the sun. Even the shadows
disappeared.
This was Kathleen as she was, and as she would always be:

30
 EARLIER TIME

brooding, melancholy, afraid. This was the meaning of her time

upon the earth.

3*
 ♦9♦

K A CHILD
ATHLEEN FOLLOWED him and leaned against the
doorway of the study, watching him intently as he
looked down at the broken antiques in the yard. She did
not move. “I telephoned the agency,” she said at last.
“I spoke to someone. Mrs Lipp.”
Mark was rubbing his forehead with his hand. “Are you sure you
still want this?”
“Of course.” Slowly she put her arms down by her side, and stood
upright. “I think about it all the time. There are so many lonely
children, Mark. So many unhappy children. Why can’t we help?”
“All this longing for things that cannot be.” There was an audible
gasp of breath from her, and he turned around to face her. “I’m
sorry, Kathleen. I didn’t mean that. But isn’t it enough that we have
each other?” But, no, she needed some other reassurance; she
needed some other connection with the world; she needed someone
else to hold onto. There were times when he still saw her as the
crippled girl upon the shore, and now he took her fingers and kissed
them. “Isn’t it enough?” he asked again, as he hid his face in her
hands.
“How can you talk of that when you have the same - what was the
word - longing? Isn’t longing the same thing as belonging? And isn’t
that what we want? Belonging to a child?” They were both talking
very quietly, both of them rocking to and fro as they held each other.
“And how do we know what cannot be? Who is there to tell us?”
“I know.” He looked up and saw his wife’s stricken face. “I know.
I just want to do what is best. Best for you.”
“Why me?” The idea seemed to horrify Kathleen, as if she did not
wish to be singled out - even by her husband - for special attention.
She broke away from him gently. “We both want a child,” she
whispered. “You always said that you wanted a child.”

32
 A CHILD

Once more he was rubbing his forehead with his hand as she
spoke, as if there were a mark there which he wanted to erase. In fact
there was something about their intensity which bewildered him. In
the company of others Mark was as he had always been but, when he
was with Kathleen, he felt isolated, vulnerable, attentive to the
darker music of the world. It was inseparable from his love for her
but, still, it frightened him. “Let’s eat,” he said. “Is there anything
to eat?” It was only at this moment he realised that Jude had been
lying quietly at their feet, remaining with them in the gathering
dusk.
They went into the kitchen where over dinner they discussed the
possibilities of adoption and, when they eventually agreed to enter
the first stage in a process of which neither could imagine the end,
Kathleen clapped her hands. “I knew it!” she said. “It’s all coming
true!” And her thin, pale face was suffused with light.
Mark returned to his study after dinner, and sat among his books.
Around him there were piles of his own papers, graphs, computer
print-outs, and drawings as well as old copies of archaeological
journals and volumes of archaeological research. On his shelves, too,
were antiquarian studies of the area itself. For Dorset was his
obsession. He believed that this place had its own sound - he had
always heard a peculiarly soft quality in the bird song - and its own .
smells. And when he saw the sheep and cattle peacefully grazing in
the fields he could feel the pressure of its beneficence, its curves and
folds cradling the life which seemed to have issued from it. It
possessed an almost human presence, as if the generations of those
who had dwelt upon its surface had left some faint echo - as difficult
to recognise as the song of a particular bird, but a subdued persistent
note beneath all other sounds. Or was it a colour rather than a note -
that deep green, as rich as blood, as soft as breath, forever being
renewed. When he lay upon the grass of Dorset it was as if he were
being borne up by the hands of all those who had come before him.
They were the ground on which he rested. Yes, this was a haunted
place. It contained mysteries.
He took down a volume of Dorset Antiqua. Even its title evoked for
him the open fields, the hollows and recesses of green, the wooded
horizons, the curving boundaries of the chalk, the soft earth. And
once again he felt at peace. He did not want to read it, he just wanted
to hold it in his hands and look at it, turning its musty and slightly
damp pages and gazing once again at the engravings of the old

33
 FIRST LIGHT

landscape with its ancient mounds and long abandoned pathways.

He stopped at one page, which contained a sketch of a tumulus
somewhere in the region. It had been drawn impossibly large, no
doubt by some eighteenth-century antiquary, and it dominated the
rolling landscape like a Leviathan. And yet in another sense it
seemed to Mark to be in true perspective, since the landscape itself
had been changed beyond recognition - with his finger he traced the
outline of wild trees in the engraving, their branches inked in so
boldly that they seemed to be leaning in fright away from the mound,
away from the ravines beneath them, away from the distant crags
which contained no reassurance of any human community. All these
features might have been emanations from the tumulus itself and,
above them, the antiquary had depicted a livid and turbulent sky.
But perhaps this was how the landscape then was. Or perhaps, after
the engraving was completed, this was the way it had become. And
all the time Kathleen was standing outside the closed door of the
study, listening intently as if by some sudden sigh or movement she
might catch an echo of his real thoughts.
Mark put down the book and went over to the window. And so we
will adopt a child, he thought, we will take one human life and attach
it to our own - changing all of us completely, changing our lives,
changing the child’s life, changing the lives of those who will come
after us. It all begins now. From this time a set of relationships will be
established which may endure for ever, passing down echoes of
Kathleen and myself from generation to generation; a change in the
human pattern and yet why is it so random, so unforeseeable, so
permanent? Is everything so tenuous and yet so unassuageable as
this one act?
He looked up at the sky. The rainstorm had passed and it had
become a clear, calm night - on just such a night Gabriel Oak was
tending his sheep on Norcombe Hill in Thomas Hardy’s Farfrom the
Madding Crowd, and Hardy describes how “. . . the sovereign bril¬
liance of Sirius pierced the eye with a steely glitter, the star called
Capella was yellow, Aldebaran and Betelgeux shone with a fiery
red” for this was a night when “the twinkling of all the stars seemed
to be but throbs of one body, timed by a common pulse”. But the
stars are not pulsating in quite that manner. They are rushing away
from an unknown point of origin, and this planet is rushing away
with them, driven on by the force of some event that created time in
the same unimaginable moment as it created space.

34
 A CHILD

Mark Clare was not thinking of this. He looked up at the heavens

and for him the constellations were transformed into the faces of
Farmer Mint, Evangeline Tupper, his own wife. This was the story
written across the sky. And then these faces faded, and he began to
see the outline of an unknown child’s face. “A child,” he said. “Our
own child.”
Kathleen could not make out his words but she had heard the
strange tone in his voice; she knocked softly and entered the room,
seeing only his silhouette against the sky. Then she heard the
collection pf antique clocks chiming the hour in the shop beneath
them - all of them, great and small, sounding together. “It’s so dark
in here, Mark,” she said. “Put on the light. You should put on the
light.”

35
 ♦ 10♦

AT THE SITE
“ m HIS WILL be a kind of inquest. And yet it will be one in
which the dead will speak to us, if we know how to
listen. You have all seen how much equipment we need
to use, but there are other kinds of signal as well. There
are signals which come from the people who are buried beneath my
feet, and it is these which we must really learn how to decode.” Mark
Clare was standing on top of the tumulus, with the other members of
the archaeological team gathered around him. He stopped for a
moment, enjoying the rhythm of his words, and they could hear the
swollen stream running through the sedge and the dripping bracken
before disappearing once more beneath Pilgrin Valley. It had been
raining once more - until just after dawn, a thick and steady rain that
had seemed to hover in the air or, rather, to rise up from the earth
and fall backwards into the sky. Yet the sky itself was now a pale
translucent blue, brighter than the earth which in its dankness still
seemed to be shaking off the night. And above the noises of the
stream the wind brought to them the bellowing of a cow, whose calf
had been taken from her under cover of darkness by Farmer Mint.
“Our first task is to walk the whole area, to survey it and then to
map it.” Mark was gesticulating like a public speaker, pointing
urgently towards the distant fields as if something of himself had
been left there. “And this will require intense observation of every
single feature in the landscape. The circle of stones around this site
emphasises how important it must once have been, but we must also
look for peripheral burials further out in the valley. And we must try
to find traces of the settlement, if any, from which these people came.
Quiet though it is today, many hundreds of them may once have
lived and worked here. So look out for the smallest things. A broken
flint or a sliver of stone may be the relic of an activity or even a
gesture that will help us to understand this forgotten world. One of

36
 AT THE SITE

the builders here may have dropped a flint in anger, or spoiled one of
his tools as he worked, and that brief moment has lain dormant here
until we came to revive it. A few seconds of human activity may have
been preserved for the last five thousand years, and it is our task to
restore them.” Some members of the team knew Mark well, but were
still surprised by the fluency and energy with which he always spoke;
it was as if he became inspired.
The wind was blowing strongly now, and Mark raised his voice so
that his words might be properly understood. “All of you must keep
records of everything you see. Drawings. Notes. You know all about
systems theory, don’t you?” Some of them nodded, others looked at
each other uneasily. “Keep everything in sequence. Nothing must be
lost, since all the data we collect here will pass through high level
computer analysis. Our goals include total recovery, objective
interpretation and comprehensive explanation. We are creating an
electronic archive, because only then will we understand the real
nature of this site.” From this vantage Mark could see down the
valley, and for a moment he looked across at the adjoining field
where a line of sheep seemed to be forming into a circle, then
breaking apart, and then reforming, driven by the impulse of some
private energy. “But we also have to understand the events which
are missing from here. Sometimes the silences, the gaps, tell us more
than anything else. Why is it, for example, that the tumulus was
constructed by the side of the valley rather than in the open
grassland—”
“Arseland!” A high voice came from somewhere behind him, and
Mark turned in surprise towards the charred remnants of the old ash
forest.
“Hey, mister! Mind out for the old one! You’re standing on the old
one!”
“Don’t go waking him up!” Two small children ran across the
burnt clearing and then down towards the stream, laughing as they
went and disturbing a flock of starlings which rose up and made
small patterns in the sky.
The archaeologists laughed, too, and Mark smiled as he rubbed
one eye with the palm of his hand. “Well,” he said, “there are all
sorts of theories. Even the children have their own stories, as you can
see. That’s why . . .” And he faltered here. “That’s why it is so
important to discover the truth. Before it’s too late.”
“Too late? What on earth does he mean, too late?” Owen Chard,

37
 FIRST LIGHT

site surveyor, turned with a scowl to the colleague on his left.

“You know dear Mark. Sometimes he doesn’t mean anything at
all.” Martha Temple, ‘finds’ supervisor, said this in her most
pleasant voice as if she were paying him the greatest compliment in
the world. She was a large woman with a deceptively jolly manner,
and her plump beaming face would have led almost anyone to trust
her. “Quite likely,” she went on, very agreeably, “that he hasn’t a
clue. Oh look, here’s Julian very late indeed. Do you think he could
have been told the wrong time?” And she gave a girlish little wave to
Julian Hill, the site environmentalist, who came panting up the slope
towards them.
These three stood apart now as Mark continued to address the
band of voluntary helpers who, otherwise unemployed, felt them¬
selves to be taken up in a great adventure. There were twenty of them
- most of them young, but there were two or three middle-aged men
among them who had gone to the local archaeological unit with a
kind of desperation. Now they were working again and, just as
importantly, working their way into a past which belonged to them
as much as to anyone else. They no longer felt excluded, and they
were listening intently to Mark.
“We are very lucky here,” he was saying. “The tumulus had never
been seen before fire destroyed the ash forest, so it has remained
untouched, unvisited. My guess is that this is a burial site from the
late neolithic period, and that when we enter it we will find evidence
of a period which has remained undisturbed for almost five thousand
years—”
“He hopes,” murmured Owen Chard. “Amazing how certain
people will jump to conclusions.”
“Do let’s give him the benefit of the doubt.” As Martha spoke, she
was smiling and nodding towards Mark. “Someone has to.”
“I don’t want to blow my own trumpet—” Julian Hill was still
sweating after his late arrival, and stood just behind them as he
wiped his forehead. He was a young man - sturdy, self-confident, but
with a strange wild look as if he were always watching something in
the far distance. He had unkempt red hair which, absent-mindedly,
he now pushed back as he spoke. “I don’t want to boast—”
“Well, don’t then.” Owen took a pipe from his top pocket and
clenched it between his teeth; in this attitude, with his grey hair, firm
mouth and imperturbably serious features, he resembled a solicitor

38
 AT THE SITE

or headmaster. He was well known for the sharpness of his remarks

but, if someone had explained to him how often he seemed unkind,
he would genuinely have been astonished. He had no idea of his
efTect. He merely said what he thought.
“It may be very important,” Julian Hill went on, not at all
discomfited.
“Yes. Do let Julian continue, Owen. We all have our little
contribution to make, don’t we? You of all people should know that.”
“Has Mark mentioned my idea about significant clustering?”
“Oh Julian dear.” Martha could not have been more concerned.
“Not as far as anyone can tell.”
“Not even my very important point about the multi-dimensional
factors here?”
“It must have slipped his—” She gave a delicate little cough. “His
mind.”
“Oh well. Oh well.” Julian shook his head impatiently. “I am
right, anyway.” He smiled to himself. “Of course you know my
theory—”
“I’m sure there’s a lot to be said on both sides.” Martha had put
out her hand to stop Julian talking about himself once again. “But I
think we ought to make an effort to listen to Mark for a little while,
don’t you? He tries so hard, after all.”
In fact Mark was coming to the end of his prepared remarks. “So
we will excavate down to the forecourt.” He walked onto the western
end of the tumulus, which opened out into the rough shape of a
wedge. “And if this is a chamber grave, as we all expect, we are likely
to find the entrance here. Then we will work in from the entrance
itself, towards the eastern end of the tomb.” He gestured towards the
point where the tumulus tapered to a point which seemed to vanish
into the side of the valley itself. “But, remember, this will be a slow
process. We must never dig too hastily or too deeply. As we excavate
the mound we have to keep in phase with each other, working
downwards together so that all the recognisable events of each
period can be exposed at once. We have to follow the layers. We have
to follow the traces of the soil. We have to listen to its secrets before
we discover what, if anything, is still inside the mound.” Mark
stopped abruptly, as if he wanted to catch the echo of his own
eloquence.
At this moment Martha Temple nudged Julian Hill and

39
 FIRST LIGHT

whispered, perhaps a fraction too loudly, “So he didn’t bother to

mention you, after all.” Then she began to applaud Mark with
excited little claps.

40
 ♦ II*

W FIELD WALKING
ALKING ACROSS the grass, leaving the planet
step by step and then returning; walking upright but
with head bowed, freedom and submission as the
conditions of being on the earth. Field walking. They
are searching for traces of their ancestors, who had once walked with
the same posture. Heads bowed. Looking for seeds and roots. And, if
it was the same posture, was it not also with the same sense of the
world and of the sky above it? Had there been any essential change
from the time when the stones were used as arrow heads until this
time, now, when the stones are being assembled once again?
Walking over the grass in unison, seven of them in a line across
Piigrin Valley, feeling the pressure of each other’s steps like small
changes in gravity around them. Others had walked this way before
them, and now they too are changing the surface, eroding it, leaving
their own traces which in turn will be found. And this was why the
walkers resembled dancers, when the dance is always the same while
the dancers change and change about.
Walking over the ridge of the valley into the fields of the plateau
beyond, tracing the curve of the chalk, keeping in time with a
common purpose, stepping across the rabbit burrows, examining
the old tracks which run like white threads through the grass,
looking for flints, for particles of bone, for seeds, for snail shells.
Walking over the grass which is always the same, always renewed, so
that even beneath their steps it is itself the past for which they are
searching.
And yet there will be other evidence too. Evidence for these field
walkers who know that, since fossils still emerge from the coastlines
of this region, belemnites and ammonites thrust from the rocks by
spillage or by sudden fissure, it is likely that the inland region will
also disgorge the evidence of its former inhabitants. Traces found

4i
 FIRST LIGHT

suddenly, as if they had sprung up overnight.

Martha Temple cries out in alarm: a black creature has emerged
from one of the burrows and fled towards the small whitewashed
cottage in the corner of the field. It had the shapelessness of
something she might have seen out of the corner of her eye. It must
have been a cat. Yes, a cat. And she looks across at the cottage,
taking a step forward when she thinks she sees a figure crossing in
front of the window. Then crossing again. But this must have been a
cloud passing across a sun, or the shadow of a branch falling across
the window. And she returns to her field walking. Walking in silence
in unison with the silent earth; the silence of dust, the silence of soil,
the silence of trace elements, the silence of phosphates, the silence of
those who are now guiding her steps across the silent fields.
Now the silence is broken as Julian Hill and a young woman call
out readings to each other. Placing the valley within a framework of
Euclidean geometry as the various gradations and contours of the
site are mapped. Replacing Pilgrin Valley with a vision of numbers
as its coordinates are plotted. Degrees. Declinations. The flow chart.
The matrix. Just another vision as the numbers are called out
beneath the sky.
At the same time Mark Clare is supervising the digging of a trial
trench, some fifty yards away from the tumulus, so that he can
expose a section of the ground. The immediate surface of loam and
clay contains minute particles of chalk but the excavators go deeper
and deeper until they touch the soft weathered chalk beneath the
clay and the loam. Deeper still until they reach the harder chalk
which is the shape of the land itself. And in these layers of chalk and
soil they hope to discover the layers of human settlement also.
Clusterings. Hypothetical time.
Mark Clare and Owen Chard are now working around the
tumulus itself: Mark is driving terminals into the ground, while
Owen watches a small black box and makes notes. It is clear from
their expressions that they have come across something entirely
unexpected: the fluctuations of magnetic noise suggest that there is a
semi-circular pattern of holes within the forecourt of the unex¬
cavated tomb. Why should they be here? They can only assume that
they were designed to support large wooden poles. All may be
resolved in time. Real time.
They have also registered differences in the levels of electrical
activity - for even chalky soil has less resistance than stone walls or

42
 FIELD WALKING

floors - and the data suggests to them that there is some kind of stone
construction within the tomb itself. But perhaps this is optimistic
guesswork: most of the signals from within the mound are so faint,
and so complex, that they cannot yet be analysed. There will be
another phase. The process continues. Hypothetical time. Real time.
Curving towards each other. Like the field walking which spreads
out from the tomb and then returns to it; tracing and retracing the
old steps; understanding how the dead do surround the living.
Everything is touching everything else.

43
 • 12*

AN ARGUMENT
A T THE time of the vernal equinox, the tomb was in direct
/ alignment with the Pleiades. My theory still stands. I
/ % was right all along.” Julian Hill was triumphant, and
.A. JA. his voice became shrill as they sat together in the
Portakabin on the site.
‘‘So now you can go ahead and write your nice article.” Martha
Temple could not have been more supportive. “Don’t forget to
mention our names. We exist too, you know.”
“What a stroke of luck for me. And for us, of course.”
“Of course.” Martha was being very sweet. “So you think this is a
shrine . . .” As she prompted Julian, she directed a brief but
significant look at Owen Chard.
“Yes. This is the burial place of someone who understood the
stars. In the late neolithic period, the astronomers were kings. They
were the communal spokesmen. They were the interpreters. And
I’m the first person to—”
“It’s a lovely theory, Julian.” Martha had interrupted in the
nicest possible way. “And I’m sure you’re right. I just can’t imagine
why no one has found any evidence to confirm it, can you?” And
once again she darted a significant look at Owen.
“You’re very good at telling stories,” Owen said now. It was
almost as if he had been prompted by her. “You should get an award
for fiction.”
Julian laughed, a high-pitched laugh with no amusement in it.
“People would have assembled here, in this sacred place. There is no
doubt about that.” He made an effort to control his voice. “And I
wouldn’t be surprised, 7, at least, would not be at all surprised, if
there are other astronomers interred here. Buried over the
centuries.”
Owen had put his head in his hands and was murmuring, “Oh

44
 AN ARGUMENT

dear, oh dear, oh dear.”

“What was that, Owen? Did you say something?” Martha seemed
genuinely anxious to know if he agreed with J ulian.
“We haven’t even opened the grave yet and here he is, telling us
what we can expect to find in it. Could we have a few facts, please?”
Julian glared at him. “I wish you would explain to me what you
mean by a fact.”
“And I wish you two wouldn’t argue.” Martha seemed to have
forgotten that she had instigated the confrontation. “You know how
I hate any kind of disagreement. Any kind of unpleasantness.” She
waited eagerly for them to continue, however, but they fell silent.
Mark Clare had been listening to the conversation; he had been
leaning forward in his chair, almost doubled up, restraining his
impulse to break in. But now, his eyes bright, he felt impelled to
speak. “Someone was talking about stories,” he said. “I have a story.
Or perhaps it was a vision. I don’t know. I was much younger then.”
Martha, ready to leave now that the argument had subsided, was
tying the strings of a plastic yellow rain-cap underneath her plump
chin; but she found time to arrange her face into an open and
enthusiastic expression. “Do tell,” she said.
At first Mark said nothing, merely clearing his throat. Then he got
up, thrust his hands deep into his pockets, and began swaying from
side to side. This was how he usually prepared to address the others,
but Martha could not resist giving a wide conspiratorial smile to
them. It faded when she realised that Owen and Julian were paying
no attention to her. Instead they were looking at Mark as he began
his story.

45
I A VISION
WAS ON a field-trip in Peru. Beyond the rain forest, they
said, was an Inca settlement. A morning’s journey through
the forest, they said, would take us there. And so we set off at
dawn.
It was like entering a dream. Everything was too large - the
stumps of dead trees covered by moss, the creepers which trailed
down like the strings of huge kites, the plants which seemed to grow
both upward and downward so that there was no room for us to pass
between, the slender trunks of trees which seemed to rise for ever, the
fronds opening out in front of us - and everything was too green, too
vivid. It was as if we had wandered into the drawing of a forest in a
story-book, and at any moment giants were going to part the leaves
and peer at us. You know how in an English forest you can feel the
peacefulness of its age? How centuries of quiet have entered it like a
mist? There was nothing of that in the rain forest. It was so vivid that
it might just have sprung into life, and you could see as you walked
that it would never change, never grow old. It would always be too
bright. And the smell - the smell was not soothing, not the smell of
decay, but the rank smell of things newly born. And the continual
noise, the noise of insects, the constant noise of chattering birds, the
screeching of howler monkeys, the noises of other animals, was like
some perpetual carnival, some perpetual celebration. And I
thought, how could ancient ruins exist in such a place? Of course I
was wrong.
We had been walking all morning, with the guide ahead of us
clearing a path through the undergrowth. It was not rough terrain
but it was treacherous - and the dampness, the dampness weighed
down all of us. Our faces streamed with it. It was as if we were
perpetually in tears. Yet in fact there was something about this sweet
clotted atmosphere which exhilarated us; we were almost hurrying

46
 A VISION

in our eagerness to find the ruins, and then when i looked down I saw
that we had not really touched the ground because were were
walking across a carpet of dead insects and the small light skeletons
of forest creatures. They had given us the momentum in our steps.
And yet, when I look back upon that day, I realise that I might have
been mistaken: the foliage was so thick above our heads that we had
been walking all the time in a perpetual green twilight, and I must
have seen very little. The forest acted as a canopy, and we were
continually in shadow.
But then I began to feel flickers of sunlight upon my face, the
ground became firmer, some ferns brushed across my face and quite
suddenly I found myself in a clearing. The dazzling light seemed to
be all around me, as if I were in a cloud, and I had to fight to get my
breath.
When at last I could see, I found that we had reached an open
space, a kind of plateau, which seemed literally to vanish into thin air
since the only thing in front of us was the sky - a shimmering,
iridescent sky with nothing in it. Nothing. No clouds. No birds. Just
this vast empty bowl above my head. The guide told me to step
forward, and so I crossed the clearing towards him. He was standing
on the edge, just at the beginning of the sky, and as I approached him
he pointed with his left arm. I came up to him and, as I followed his
outstretched finger, I realised that we were standing on a crest above
a huge valley. I could see beneath me ridge upon ridge of dark green
trees stretching down towards a wide river which flowed along the
bottom of the valley; and the river was such a deep blue I could not
tell whether this colour came from its water or the reflection of the
sky within it. Then I looked across, in the direction the guide was
pointing, and I could see a wide plateau of rock upon the other side of
the valley. There were no trees here, just flat stone with its own
intricate pattern of ridges and rocky outcrop.
“Do you see them now?” he asked me and, as my eyes grew
accustomed to this dark grey expanse, I saw tall standing stones
behind the plateau. They were in a circle and there, in the centre, I
could see an earthwork. It might have been a tumulus like the one in
our valley but it was bigger, much bigger, and the summit of it had
been flattened as if by some giant hand. I couldn’t speak, and I
simply stared at the stones and at the mound. The guide came up to
me and put his hand upon my shoulder. “You see there,” he said.
“You see clearly now?” He pointed at the great earth mound, “This

47
 FIRST LIGHT

is the place. Here it was that in the sacred times men used to fly.” I
asked him what he meant. “I thought,” he said, “that you saw it
clearly.” Then he chuckled. “They would fly from the great hill.
They would fly from out of the circle into the sky.”
And, you know, it was a circlejust like this one. Just like the circle
in Pilgrin Valley.

*t

48
 *14*

T THE VISION FADES

HAT EVENING Kathleen Clare clung to Mark on his
return from Pilgrin Valley. “Did you have a good day?”
she asked him. “I hope you had a good day.”
“Good? I suppose so.” The memory of his journey to
the ruins through the rain forest was still with him.
She broke away from him, as if she were half-expecting some
rebuff. “What are you thinking about?”
“I wasn’t thinking. I was miles away. I’m sorry.” And then,
knowing how easily hurt she still was, he went on with “I was telling
the others the story about Peru. Do you remember, how there were
once men who flew?”
“Tell me,” she said, clapping her hands.
“But you know the story.” It was one of the first things he had told
her about his past life.
“Tell me again.” She crossed the room, holding onto the back of a
chair to steady herself. “Why won’t you tell me?”
“Not now. Not now.”
“Did they really fly away?”
“No one knows. No one ever knows.” He wanted, for Kathleen’s
sake, to change the subject. “Come on. Tell me all about your day.
I’m sure you had a much more exciting time than I did.” He was
able to regain his usual tone of enthusiasm. “Did you visit the
adoption agency?”
“I went this morning, and they sent me to a social worker. From
the way they talk, you would think it was me who was being
adopted.” With strangers she was always very conscious of her limp,
and Mark could imagine how difficult this interview had been for
her. “He was very nice. He asked me all about you. About us." Her
face brightened. “He said he would be writing. And you know,” she
went on, making her own connection, “I had a dream about us last

49
 FIRST LIGHT

night.” Again she emphasised the pronoun, as if her real identity

depended on it.
There was a small scream from the street outside, and Mark went
over to the window. He looked down and could see the owner of the
antiques shop dancing on the pavement, in front of him the shattered
remains of a plaster head; he had dropped it while bringing it from
his car into the shop, and now he stooped down to pick up a piece of
eye and forehead. Then he saw Mark in the window above, waved
the white fragment in the air, smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
“Goddess Nelly is all in bits,” he shouted up at him.
“What did you dream?” Mark asked her as he turned away from
the window.
Jude had started to bark at the sudden noise; Kathleen picked him
up and, as she talked, she was stroking his fur, all the time stroking it.
“I dreamt that we were walking along a dusty road, towards some
large town. It was a very hot day - did you know you could feel the
warmth in dreams - and the white road was baking in the heat. Yet
there was something comforting about it. Something comforting
about the smell of the dust.” She did not mention to him that, in her
dream, she could walk without impediment; but this was her clearest
memory. “And then a horse-and-cart stopped beside us. There was a
little square window at the back of it, and when I looked through I
could see the silhouettes of some old women talking. And then the
dream faded.”
“It sounds,” said Mark, “like the beginning of an interesting
story.”
“I know.” She hesitated. “What was that noise outside?”
“Augustine dropped a statue.”
“Not again.” She laughed at this, but it was clear that she was
thinking of something else. “You’re right,” she went on. “It was like
a story. It was like entering the plot of a novel. And when I was
young, did I ever tell you, I always wanted to get inside a book and
never come out again? I loved reading so much I wanted to be a part
of it, and there were some books I could have stayed in for ever.”
Mark looked at her with something like alarm. “Not now of course,”
she added. “We’re happy now, aren’t we? This was ages ago.”
Quickly she put down Jude and went across to the window, her back
turned to Mark.
Now that she had talked of books, he remembered one incident in
the early months of their marriage. They were visiting London and

50
 THE VISION FADES

had been taken on a guided tour of the British Museum, and when
she had seen the books beneath the great dome, with the volumes
curving away from her, she had started to cry. She had never
explained this, but now Mark understood her sadness. These had
been alternative worlds in which she might lose herself, imaginary
landscapes in which she might walk freely for the first time, but she
would never be able to enter them. She was in a sense locked out.
“Come and look,” she said. “Augustine is putting back the
pieces.” He stood beside her and watched as, on the pavement
beneath them, the antiques dealer was carefully fitting together the
fragments of the whitened head. “It looks so easy from here,” she
said. “But it won’t be the same. It never is the same.”
 *i5*

T THE EXCAVATION
HEY BEGAN work in Pilgrin Valley the next morning.
Over succeeding days the ancient site was stripped of all
its natural characteristics and an area around the
tumulus itself, stretching as far as the ring of stones, was
systematically cleared. The top soil was lifted off and placed in
separate heaps away from the excavation itself, leaving “the
natural” or sub-soil behind. As the earth was unrolled it became
steadily darker; it was like stripping the skin from an animal while it
was still alive.
And when Mark Clare first cut into the surface of the tumulus
itself, it was almost with reluctance: this was a beginning for him, but
an ending for those other workmen who had preceded him
thousands of years before. He could feel their sense of loss as he and
the others, in driving rain, began to remove the covering of the tomb;
in the grey light they cut away the turf and stacked it, grass face to
grass face, in another part of the site. And so the wound spread.
“The capstone—”
“Capstone? Don’t tell me you’ve found their teeth already. I can’t
bear it.”
“I’m sorry.” For some reason Mark was apologising to
Evangeline Tupper for her own mistake, and he started to laugh.
“The capstone is the roof. I was going to say that the stone roof is
about three feet below the surface.”
“There are no words.” Gingerly Evangeline stuck the toe of her
brown shoe into the damp soil. “No words for something so divine.”
“Oh there are words. You just have to choose the right ones.”
Nevertheless he was grateful for her evident enthusiasm; he clapped
his hands together, although it was not cold. “And we’ve already
found traces of the period,” he said. “There are tiny flecks of
charcoal in the turf stack, which suggests that the area must have

52
 THE EXCAVATION

been cleared by fire before the mound was constructed.”

“It makes me feel very quiet and humble.”
“Oh dear no.” Martha Temple had joined them as they stood in
the rain beside the mound. “I don’t believe that for a minute, Mrs
Tupper.”
“Miss Tupper, in actual fact.”
“You’re far too important. We are the ones who feel humble.” If
there was a note of asperity in Martha’s voice, it was well disguised.
“Too kind of you to say so.” Evangeline had taken an immediate
dislike to this plump woman, with her confiding and even cosy
manner. “And what precisely is it that you do?”
“I look after the finds.”
“I suppose someone has to do it. Did you say fines?”
“Finds. Pins. Beads. Pottery. Objects from the site.” Martha was
talking very slowly, as if it were just conceivable that Evangeline
might have some difficulty in following her.
“Now I understand. You mean old things. Broken things. Like
bones.”
Martha, smiling sweetly, was examining Evangeline’s dark tweed
suit with an almost professional interest. “I can see you understand
our work,” she said. “But bones are not really in my department.”
“Oh no?”
“Owen Chard looks after the bones. We have quite a complex
stratification system, you see. Bones and other organic material are
not classified as finds. Not as such. They are part of a different
matrix. But I’m boring you. Archaeology is very dull for outsiders.”
She said this so gently and so lightly that no reproach could possibly
have been intended.
“I’m not in the least bored.” In fact Evangeline had been poking
her fingers around her handbag, looking for a cigarette and hum¬
ming a little tune as she did so. “But don’t we have to fly?”
She addressed the last question to Mark Clare, who seemed to be
exhilarated by it. He laughed out loud. “Fly? Fly where?”
“To meet your friends, the Flints. Are they old? I love old men.”
She remembered her father for a moment, and put the unlit Wood¬
bine between her lips.
“Of course. The Mints.” Evangeline had once expressed a fleeting
interest in seeing Farmer Mint in order to thank him for his co¬
operation and, to her dismay, Mark had taken her seriously enough
to arrange this meeting. It was one of the reasons she had travelled

53
 FIRST LIGHT

from London. “Yes,” he went on. “They’re expecting us. They’re

probably waiting for us now.”
“Under the greenwood tree?”
“What was that?” Mark was smiling, but only because
Evangeline smiled.
“I think,” Martha Temple said, “that Mrs Tupper—”
“Miss. Or Ms.”
“That Miss Tupper was making a joke.”
“That’s right. One of my ghastly little jokes. Think nothing of it.”
But she put back her head and roared with laughter - causing all
those who were working on the site to pause for a moment and glance
up at her. She looked around and then added, in a whisper, “I don’t
suppose one ought to laugh beside a tomb, ought one?”
“Oh don’t think of it like that,” Martha said gaily. “Think of it as
a place of entertainment. We don’t mind.”
Her tone was so pleasant that Evangeline might just have believed
her but now, shutting her handbag, she turned to Mark. “This has
been a perfect visit. But perfect things do come to an end.” She took a
few steps down the slope but then paused, turned, and smiled at
Martha. “My dogs like bones, too, by the way. Au revoir.” And she
gave another loud laugh which echoed down the Pilgrin Valley.
She and Mark had hardly reached the other side when Owen
started moaning. “This is it,” he was saying. “I’ve had enough. I
give up.”
“What is the matter, Owen dear?” Martha eagerly rushed over to
him, anticipating some minor disaster. “I’m the one who had to put
up with that Tupper woman, after all.”
“Another spade has gone. I put it down a minute ago. And now
it’s gone. Vanished.” And indeed, when Martha looked over this
corner of the site, she could see only the damp exposed soil. The
spade had disappeared.

54
 *16*

F VISITORS
ARMER MINT had seen them coming down the track,
and was waiting for them on the threshold; he was wearing
a dark donkey-jacket on top of an even darker overcoat
and, as he stood with arms hanging loosely by his side,
Evangeline considered the possibility that a scarecrow had been
placed in front of the door. So she gave a momentary but visible start
when Farmer Mint grinned and said, “I’m waiting for the cows.”
“Well,” she replied, apparently regaining her composure. “Here
we are at last.”
Farmer Mint nodded, very slowly. “I know about you,” he said.
“You’re expected, too. Along with Mr Clare here.” He rocked back
and forth in his old Wellington boots, preparing himself for sudden
movement. “Boy Mint’s inside,” he added, as if his son were the real
object of their visit. “Waiting with his powerful brain.”
“This is too exciting.” Evangeline was already hurrying down the
narrow path as Farmer Mint turned into the house. She had
expected a small passageway - some alcove, at least, where she
might pause for a moment and pat her hair into shape - and it came
as something of a shock to find herself stepping at once into a large
room. Boy Mint was looming against a wide fireplace, in exactly the
same scarecrow posture as his father, and he took off his flat cap
when Evangeline entered. “Boy.” He announced himself gravely
and yet with a certain cautious pride.
“Miss,” she replied, equally gravely. Then she stepped back and
gave a little scream. “Aren’t you gorgeous?” she said. “Just look at
you! You’re gorgeous!”
She turned around towards Mark for confirmation of this senti¬
ment and, to her alarm, found Farmer Mint standing right behind
her. But he seemed to share Evangeline’s emotion. “That’s a good
boy, that is.” And then he added, more confidentially, “He can milk

55
 FIRST LIGHT

a cow as soon as look at her.”

“And cows, too. This is incredible. Do you get many of them in the
country?”
Boy Mint reflected on this question, as if he would have preferred
to have been given notice of it. “A lot of cows,” he said at last. “Yes.
And sheep. And chickens. And rats.”
“Oh, we have those in London.” She smiled, trying not to laugh.
“But we don’t have you. We would love to have you.”
“They all love the brain in this boy.” Farmer Mint was eager to
join the conversation. “That brain would rise anywhere. But it don’t
want to leave this spot. This spot is it.”
“Of course it is. No one would ever willingly leave Dorset.” Mark
Clare had spoken for the first time, and Evangeline looked at him
with some surprise. It was only for a moment, but time enough for
her attention to wander from the enthralling subject of Boy Mint’s
cerebellum. Now she was looking around the large room, her mouth
half-open. “I don’t believe it,” she said. “I really don’t believe it. Am
I going potty or am I in the Arabian Nights?”
And in fact the room was filled with miscellaneous objects which
looked as if they might just have been conjured into existence -
candles in various stages of decay, old lanterns, a pair of warming
pans, one wooden chest filled with boots, two broken stools, bulky
glass jars containing torn pieces of newspaper and, in one corner, a
brass bucket filled with dried grass. On the wall above this bucket a
clock, constructed out of heavy ebony, had come to a halt many years
before; and, beneath its motionless face, there was affixed a metal
plaque bearing an advertisement for Bourneville’s Cocoa. The
hearth of the wide fireplace was filled by a cast-iron range with two
separate ovens; perched on top of one was an ancient black kettle
and, on the other, a conch shell with some straws sticking out of it.
Against the side of the range had been propped a broom, made out of
twigs and bound together with a wand of hazel; beside it had been
tossed a hinged metal box, a spade and a pair of bellows. But the
most notable feature of this room could be seen above the fireplace;
the heavily patterned wallpaper here was covered with row upon
row of photographs, medallions, miniatures and drawings, all of
them bearing images of men and women in profile or in full face.
“Pinch me, somebody,” Evangeline muttered. “I must be dream¬
ing.” Boy Mint, who had a somewhat literal understanding, stepped
forward to oblige her; Evangeline quickly moved out of his way bv

56
 VISITORS

picking up the broom and brandishing it in front of her. “An early

form of flight?” she asked.
“No,” he replied. “That’s a broom.”
“Really?” She seemed nonplussed and turned to Mark for
assistance, but he was looking out of the main window; from here, he
could see the tumulus very clearly. “All this is ecstasy,” she went on.
“Sheer ecstasy. I insist that you leave it to the nation.”
Farmer Mint considered her offer and then shook his head. “They
can’t be parted from us now,” he said. “The valley wants them. Isn’t
that right, Boy?”
He looked at his father and then at Evangeline, deliberating which
one should receive the full benefit of his next remark. “The valley
needs them,” he said triumphantly.
Farmer Mint chuckled and took off his flat cap in homage to his
son’s sagacity. “You don’t get a thought like that every day, do
you?”
“Not in London, no.” Evangeline started desperately to examine
the portraits, drawings and miniatures which were hanging above
the mantelpiece. “What lovely old faces,” she said. “They all look so
rural, don’t they? But I suppose that can’t really be helped.” Father
and son stared at her; whenever they had nothing to say, they lapsed
into what Evangeline was later to call a “primeval stillness”. But for
the moment she was disturbed by their silence and turned around
again to face the dead rather than the living. “And who,” she asked,
pointing to a faded brown photograph, “are this gorgeous old couple
who look like something out of Holbein?”
Farmer Mint came up and lightly touched the photograph with
his finger. “That,” he said. “That is the aged pair.” An old man and
woman were standing outside the closed door of a cottage, its thatch
just a few inches above their heads. The woman was wearing a white
bonnet with its ribbons hanging around her neck; her hands were
folded in front of her over her white apron. The old man was wearing
a dark smock and was leaning forward on a stick, apparently staring
into the eyes of the photographer. “They’re that Boy’s great-
grandparents. That’s what they are.”
“Never,” Evangeline replied. “I have never been more astonished
in my life.” She shook her head with a delightful look of perplexity
and interest but, if she had looked at the photograph more carefully,
she would have noticed that the old couple were standing outside the
Mints’ farmhouse - and she would have noticed also that, with its

57
 FIRST LIGHT

broken path, with its whitewashed stone, and with its cracked green
door, the house had not changed at all. It might have stood like this
for centuries.
“They’re all his,” Farmer Mint was saying. “Boy Mint’s
ancestors. He goes back a long way.” And in fact these pictures and
photographs, which seemed to mark a continuous line of at least
three centuries, displayed a succession of faces which bore a striking
resemblance to those of the present Mints. “He stretches right
back.”
“Don’t tell me.” And, for once, she meant what she said. She
thought of her own parents, and their parents before them; they were
strangers to her. But somehow worse than strangers. Somehow they
were her enemies.
Mark was still looking out of the window, distracted: he thought
he had seen a figure standing on top of the tumulus, waving its arms,
and, although the impression had lasted only a moment, he was still
wondering who it could have been when Evangeline came up to him.
“It’s a marvellous view from here,” he said eagerly. “But you know I
could have sworn I saw something . . .” No one seemed very
interested, and he began again. “Miss Tupper—”
“Evangeline. I’m always Evangeline in the country.”
“Evangeline wanted to come and thank you both for being so
helpful to us. We’re making steady progress now.” Farmer and Boy
Mint did not seem to understand what he meant. “You know,” he
said. “With the passage grave. The great mound.”
“Pretty as an absolute picture,” Evangeline added.
Farmer Mint had moved across the room and was staring at the
photographs and miniatures of his ancestors. He seemed to be
paying no attention to this conversation but now he broke in with, “I
wouldn’t know anything about that.” He turned around and faced
Mark. “There’s no good,” he said, “in raking over dead soil. You
won’t find much in that.” Mark had heard all this before, and simply
shook his head. “Tell him what he will find, Boy. Let your mind
wander along that question.”
For once Boy Mint did not need several minutes to collect his
thoughts. “Sheep’s bones,” he said at once. “Rabbits’ teeth.
Skeletons of dead birds.” It was as if he had memorised this litany.
“Cow shit.”
Evangeline put up her hand and interrupted him. “I don’t think
that I have ever spent a nicer or more informative afternoon.” Boy

58
 VISITORS

was continuing with his list under his breath as she continued. “I’m
positively stuffed with rustic lore.”
Farmer Mint approved of this. “That’s right,” he said. “He’ll stuff
you with it. He won’t stop.”
“And neither must we.” This seemed to Evangeline a very
graceful farewell and, smiling triumphantly at Mark, she walked
towards the door, opened it and stepped out on the path. Three hens,
who had been peacefully browsing amongst some ancient straw,
started a chorus of protest and scuttled into the hedge. “I wonder,”
she asked the Mints as they followed her down the path. “If you fed
them chicken, would they become savages?” She did not wait for
their answer. “Goodbye. You Mints just keep on being adorable.
Like your delightful ancestors. Goodbye.”

59
♦PART TWO*
Creation began whenyou were bom. It will end on
the day you die.

Oscar Wilde.
 ■

- ;1
 *1J*

ON THE BEACH
rp HE OLD man in the straw hat and pink blazer was
sitting on an outcrop of dark grey rock, singing softly to
.JL. himself:
Only to see the old cottage again!
How my poor heart would rejoice,
To see the old faces I loved
And to hear my poor mother’s voice . . .
His voice trailed off, and he started humming instead, when an
elderly woman with difficulty crossed the stony beach to join him.
“Honest, Joey,” she said. “Never again. Not for all the money in
China.”
“Tea, dear.”
“I don’t care what it is. It’s still my poor feet.” She was wearing
pink, too, this rather dried-up little old woman with her white hair
carefully crafted into bunches of tight white curls; and her voice was
husky, as if she had a permanently sore throat.
“But, Floey, don’t you enjoy your morning promenade? In a
lovely spot like this?” He smiled and tipped his straw hat at a
conventionally jaunty angle, although his face retained its somewhat
lugubrious expression.
She looked behind him at the slate-grey cliffs of St Gabriel’s Shore,
broken down from landslips, disrupted by the underground springs
which leaked from the cliff-face, the ancient strata of the region
fashioned here into blocks of subsided limestone and sloping banks
of clay. Small streams of water, gravel and clay ran down the cliffs
and, beside them, lay the tumbled boulders and broken rocks which
reached down to the edge of the beach. “It’s a mute point,” she said.
“Moot.”
“It’s debatable.” She put out her hand and helped him up from

63
 FIRST LIGHT

the rock. “We have no call to be here in the first place. On a wild
duck chase.”
He laughed. “Do you remember that old song, Floey. ‘For the sake
of the days gone by’?”
“Sung in a mysterious way?”
“That’s the one.” They were now walking arm in arm along the
strand, the reflected light from the sea making the stones shine in
front of them. “I’m here for the sake of my days gone by. I’m a thing
of the past, old dear.”
“Don’t go on about it, Joey.”
“I just want to know what my past is. Or was.” He stopped and
looked out at the sea. It was at low tide, and stretching down towards
it from the exposed shore were flat outcrops of dark slate. From this
distance they seemed smooth, as if they had been polished by the
endless movement of water, but when Joey Hanover came closer he
saw how they were marked with small holes and grooves. He was a
large and apparently ungainly man, but with a sudden graceful
gesture he leapt onto the surface of the slate and began to walk across
it to the sea.
“Joey! Break a leg!” Floey laughed at the silhouette of her
husband, in straw hat and pink blazer, nonchalantly standing in
front of the bright waves. In response he kicked one leg in the air,
tried to make a twirl, slipped, and fell upon the slate; but he could not
have been seriously hurt, since immediately his attention was drawn
to something lying upon the rock beside him. He picked it up, waved
it above his head and shouted something; but the sound of the slowly
advancing sea drowned his words.
“I’ve got something here,” he said when he returned, slightly
breathless, “which is thousands of years old.”
“One of your jokes?”
“Don’t mock, Floey. Take a look.”
He held a piece of rock towards her and, wrinkling her nose in
apparent disgust, she examined the spiral shape of a snail-like
creature embedded in the stone. “Is it dead then?”
“Of course it’s dead. Things that old don’t come to life again.”
“Don’t you be so sure.” The shape of this thing, curled in its last
primeval sleep, reminded her of the image of a star, its various gases
spiralling around a tiny central core. “It’s one of them mam-
monites,” she said at last.
“Is that the right word? Mammonite?” Joey was accustomed to

64
 ON THE BEACH

his wife s little mistakes with the language.

She gave him a look of utter contempt. “Of course I’m sure. I read
about them.”
“So,” he said. “That’s solved that, then. They’re all digging for
mammonites!” The Hanovers had been puzzled by the presence on
St Gabriel’s Shore of five or six people, clutching buckets and small
hammers, who had been clambering along the cliff-face. In fact this
coastal region was famous for the wealth and variety of its ammonite
fossils which, after a period of long rain, were often dislodged from
the crumbling clay and limestone or washed down onto the beach
itself. So portions of the fossil-bearing beds sometimes lay among the
debris and the fallen rock at the base of the cliffs, remnants of the
delicate creatures which had moved across the surface of this place
140 million years before.
The Hanovers walked further along the shore, Floey hanging back
for a few moments while she placed the ammonite in her bright
yellow handbag. When she caught up with him, she resumed the
theme of their previous conversation. “And what good does it do to
come back,” she asked him, “after all these years? The past is past
and buried. Why go digging it up again?”
“I have to know the truth. Before I die.” She was about to
interrupt him, but he held up his hand to stop her. “I mean it, Flo.
Before I die.”
“Joey-”
“How would you feel? You would want to know, wouldn’t you?
You would want to find out. All these years I’ve been thinking about
it, wondering, making plans . . .” Then he began to laugh at his own
earnestness and, taking off his straw hat, put it to his chest with a
theatrical gesture. “Oh, Floey, I can’t forget the days when I was
young.”
“And grief too keen to talk about was thine?” She knew the song.
“The Lyceum, Wolverhampton, 1946.”
“Sung with immense success?”
“That’s right! We were a success, weren’t we?” Joey sighed. They
carried on walking, hand in hand, and once more he returned to the
subject which had never left his mind. “I know it was somewhere
near here. As soon as we came here, I remembered. There was a
cottage with a garden. I remember purple flowers. And there were
faces, too. White faces like the faces of angels. It’s a dream. Do you
know what I mean? Except that this dream is somewhere close to

05
 FIRST LIGHT

hand. And I have a feeling, Flo. I have a feeling that I’m just about to
find it.”
A mist had gathered above the cliffs and, now that the wind had
dropped, it began to curl downwards in wreaths towards the debris
of the fossil beds. Someone had lit a fire on the strand, and its smoke
rose into the mist until it became a part of it. The sea was quiet and,
for a moment, Joey Hanover felt afraid. “Come on,” he said. He took
his wife’s arm and, as they returned to their car, he began to sing out
in a loud voice

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside,

Oh I do like to be beside the sea . . .

66
 *i8♦

I THE FAMOUS MAN

T WAS late morning when the Hanovers returned to Lyme
Regis, and Joey smiled placidly as they drove up Broad Street
before turning left into the Cobb Road; it was the smile of
someone who is accustomed to being observed. “There are
more old fossils here,” he murmured, “than there are on the beach.”
He looked with barely suppressed satisfaction at an elderly woman
who was crossing in front of them. “All I need is a hammer and a
bucket.”
Floey parked a few yards from Crogg Lane, where they had rented
a house for three months. “You great goose,” she said. “Have we got
time for just the one?”
“Just the one.”
They left their Rover 2000 and began walking downhill to The
Hungry Donkey. The public house was some distance, but Joey
retained his smile - even when a small boy came up to him, looked at
his face, opened his mouth in astonishment and then skipped past
him. The boy then ran quickly down a side street, doubled back,
turned the comer and, with a look of wonderful blitheness, slowly
came walking towards him again. Joey was amused by this and,
when the boy passed him once more, he whispered, “Does yer
Mother know yer out?” This was a well-known Joeyism’. The boy
screamed with laughter, and started walking backwards so that he
could keep abreast of the Hanovers as they made their way - all the
time contemplating Joey’s lugubrious features. This attracted some
attention and, from the other side of the street, a young man shouted
“’Ow’s yer poor feet?” This was another of Joey’s famous catch-
phrases, but he did not look around; he smiled, waved his hand
vaguely in greeting, and walked on.
The Hungry Donkey was perched beside the Cobb, the ancient
fortification which protected the town from the depredations of the

67
 FIRST LIGHT

sea; they could hear the waves breaking against the old stone wall as
Joey pretended to kick the boy in the seat of his pants and
murmured, “Fly away, care.”
Floey had already scurried into the saloon bar and was trying to
catch the attention of a middle-aged barmaid who was, at that
moment, plucking a hair from her nose. “Two port and lemons,” she
was saying. “Easy on the lemon.”
Joey came up beside her. “The wife’s a bit particular, you see.”
There was something about his voice which attracted the bar¬
maid’s attention and, very slowly, she turned to face the elderly pair.
“I know you,” she said to Joey. “I know you very well.” She was
shaking her head from side to side, as if she were reprimanding him
for some minor offence. “Joey. Joey Hanover.”
“That’s my name and that’s my nature.”
In fact everybody knew Joey. Immediately after the Second World
War he had started work as a stand-up comic in variety and in
working men’s clubs, and had quickly acquired a reputation for his
‘patter’. While on tour in 1948 he had met Floey at the Gaiety
Theatre in Huddersfield; she was in the chorus there, but had given
up her own career as Joey became more popular. He had followed
the natural route from the clubs to radio and television, with
occasional seasons of pantomime to renew his acquaintance with the
stage, until he had become by the Sixties one of the most popular of
modern comedians. But his comedy was of an especial sort: although
his career coincided with the extinction of the music-hall he was still
associated with that particular kind of theatre and, despite the fact
that he was a ‘star’ of television, he still seemed to carry with him the
garish and sentimental aura of the halls. His persona was close to
that of Dan Leno or Max Miller: Joey Hanover, too, was the
lugubrious Cockney, downtrodden but not down-hearted, bent but
not broken, an object both of pity and of laughter. His repartee was
often coarse, but he seemed quite innocent of all the innuendoes
which entertained his audience. He was sometimes merry,
sometimes in tears, but he always made them laugh. His features
were unmistakable even when he played the dame in pantomime;
and, with his wide mouth, his pendulous nose, his large hands, there
were some who saw in him the lineaments of such clowns as
Mathews or Grimaldi. He was also famous for his ‘Joeyisms’ or
malapropisms, which in fact he stole from his wife’s ordinary
conversation.

68
 THE FAMOUS MAN

The barmaid was so busy looking at him that she seemed to be in

no hurry to provide them with their drinks. So Joey, nudged by his
wife, put his chin upon his hands and leaned over the bar in a
confidential manner. “I bet the port and lemon—”
“Easy on the lemon,” Floey added quickly.
“I bet the port and lemon will come in a glass. Don’t you agree?”
The barmaid giggled, seemed to shake herself awake, and
prepared the drinks - all the time looking slyly across to Joey
Hanover to make sure that he was watching her. “A bit more lemon,
Joey?”
“Anything, darling. Anything so long as it’s wet.”
A middle-aged man was sitting on a stool along the bar and now
looked sideways at him. “Excuse me,” he said. “Excusez-moi.” The
man was resting a straw hat on his knee and now he picked it up and
twirled it around, at the same time looking at Joey’s own headgear.
“Snap,” he said. “Snapette.” With his free hand he picked up his
glass. “Your health.”
“Bad on Fridays. Not so bad on weekends.”
“Fraicheur, sir.”
“I love fresh air.”
“Don’t be a scream,” the man replied. “That’s my name.
Augustine Fraicheur. It’s in big black letters all over town.”
“Undertaker?”
“No, but you’re very warm. Antiques. Clocks the speciality de la
maison.”
Joey Hanover was beginning to like this man with rheumy eyes,
who was now brushing down his bright orange cravat. It was set ofT
by a pale striped shirt and tweed jacket that might have seen service
in colonial India. “Hanover,” Joey replied. “As in Germany.”
“Oh, I knowjoa. Everybody knows you.”
“And that’s my wife. In the red corner.” Floey had scuttled off
with her port and lemon and now, apparently taking no further
interest in the proceedings, was sitting beneath a darts-board.
“I was in the profession once,” Augustine was saying. “Another G
and T, Betty dear.” He was signalling for another drink. “And
something for Mr Hanover.” There was the sudden flurry of a pink
cotton dress, as Floey miraculously appeared at the bar. “And of
course his lovely lady.”
“Proust!” she said, taking the refilled glass and going back to her
secluded spot.

69
 FIRST LIGHT

“Yes, I was in the business. But that was during the War.”
“Entertaining the troops, were we?”
Augustine shrieked with laughter. “I don’t know what you mean!
I was only at the back! Kicking my legs up like there was no
tomorrow.” He sighed. “I had lovely legs in those days. Lovely
gams.”
Joey was used to similar nostalgia from the people whom he met,
and he had a series of prepared remarks for the occasion. “They had
real theatres then,” he said, looking his most mournful. “Real acts.
Tennyson and O’Gorman. The Tiny Websters. Clapham and
Dwyer. Murgatroyd and Winterbottom . .
“Gladys Cooper’s sister.”
“Gladys Cooper’s sister?”
“That’s right. Gladys Cooper’s sister.”
There was a silence between them, and Floey looked tentatively at
the bar to see if any more drinks were being offered. Then she cleared
her throat very loudly, reminding Joey of her presence. “My wife
was a danseuse, too, you know. Oh yes. Another one for you, my
darling?” He took across a large drink and, when she gave him a
baleful stare, whispered, “He may know something. He may be able
to help us.”
“I’m still an old thespian at heart,” Augustine was saying when
Joey returned to the bar. “I can’t help it. Put me near a stage and I
yearn for tights. I run this little amateur company, you know.”
Suddenly he looked at Joey Hanover with additional interest.
“We’re doing The Family Reunion this season. For the summer trade. I
wonder—”
Joey forestalled him. “T.S. Eliot? Am I right?”
“Frightfully highbrow, I suppose. Especially for Lyme Regis.”
Augustine took a large swallow of his drink. “But I think it ought to
be played as comedy, don’t you? These tragedy queens aren’t in my
line at all.” He looked across at Joey, and said again. “I wonder—”
Joey adopted his most lugubrious expression. “No. Of course not. Of
course you wouldn’t.”
“I’m in retirement.” Joey said. “Close the shutter, Joey’s dead.”
“Silly me. Slap slap.” And Augustine did indeed slap both sides of
his face; since he was now rather drunk, he hit himself harder than he
had intended and he winced. “But I do hope you’ll come and see us.”
Throughout this conversation the barmaid had been staring at
Joey’s features; she was now quite red in the face and was wobbling

7°
 THE FAMOUS MAN

slightly, as if the effort of trying to restrain her amusement had

become too much for her. Now something within her stirred and
quite abruptly she came out with, “It’s all very well, Mr Pell, but you
can’t sleep here.” This had been another ofjoey’s catchphrases, but
the barmaid laughed so loudly that she might have just invented it
herself.
Joey was used to being quoted. “No roof above our weary heads,”
he replied. “Born to wander, that’s what we are.”
Augustine was not sober enough to follow this turn in the
conversation. “I thought you were summer visitors.”
“Actually,” Joey said. “We’re looking for something. We’re
looking for a cottage.”
“How clever of you to come to the country. We have plenty of
cottages here. We’re quite famous for them.”
“No. We want something very particular.” He glanced over at
Floey, but she was swirling the last of her port and lemon around in
the glass. “Now follow me closely, will you? This is rather intricate.”
Even when talking seriously, instinctively he reverted to the lines of
his old act. “We-meand her-are looking for a cottage. It’sgot to be
a special cottage. It must be in a valley. It’s got to have a wood near
it. And I think it’s got to have purple flowers in the garden.”
“Flowers are very common too. Thank you, darling.” Another gin
had been placed in front of him, and at once he became more
intimate. “As for valleys, my dear, they are everywhere. There’s no
stopping them. Up and down. Up and down. Too ghastly for
words.”
“But I remember—” Here Joey broke off for a moment, and
swallowed the rest of his drink. “Sorry. The mouth went all queer for
a moment. I mean to say that we’re looking for a very secluded
valley. Very quiet.”
Augustine pursed his lips. “I’m afraid the country tends to be very
noisy. If you want tranquillity, you should try London.”
“It’s quiet up your way, Gussy.” The barmaid was taking this
conversation seriously. “Too quiet.”
“You haven’t heard me in the kitchen, dear. I go wild. In the
country, you know,” he went on, looking at Joey, “there’s a very thin
line between us and absolute savagery.”
Joey was more anxious to pick up information of a geographical
kind. “Where do you live?”
“I’m in Colcorum. Just a common-or-garden village nestling in

7i
 FIRST LIGHT

the Pilgrin Valley—”

“—That’s what I mean,” the barmaid interrupted. “That valley
is ever so quiet. And there used to be cottages there.”
“Derelict now, dear. Very much a case of the time that land forgot.
Or is it the other way around?”
Joey began singing under his breath as he took out a small
notebook. “Is that Pilgrim as in to be one?”
“No. Pilgrin. Pill. Grin.”
The barmaid leaned towards Joey, watching eagerly as he wrote
down the name with a pencil. “I love them old songs,” she said.
“Give us another.”
“Let me refresh Madame Sin first.”
He took another drink over to Floey, who grabbed it and mut¬
tered, “I suppose you’re making a fool of yourself.”
“I’m just being agreeable, Floey. And if that makes me a fool, then
so be it.” He stood up now and, with his back against the darts-
board, stretched out his arms toward the barmaid. “Listen,” he said.
“This’ll do you good.” And then in a quiet voice began to sing

In the twi-twi-twilight
Out in the beautiful twilight
We all go out for a walk, walk, walk
A quiet old spoon and a talk, talk, talk
That’s the time we long for
Just before the night—

It was an old song and it brought back to the barmaid memories of

her earlier life, memories of her childhood. Past time. Another time.
And she began to cry as Joey carried on singing

In the twi-twi-twilight
Out in the beautiful twilight. . .

12
 GRANNY’S TEETH
As THEY left The Hungry Donkey somebody passed across
/% them, brushing against Floey Hanover; since by this time
/ % she was a little unsteady on her feet she staggered back,
JL. JL and was about to shout out something when Joey
checked her. It was a crippled woman. She had not seen them
because she had been reading a letter and now, apparently staring at
something far out across the water, she hurried forward towards the
Cobb. It was clear that she did not know, or care, where she was
going; she was simply advancing towards the sea, with the letter in
her hand, and now she began to mount the narrow stairs which are
cut into the Cobb and which are known as ‘Granny’s Teeth’. But she
was limping badly; suddenly she slipped and, unable to hold her
balance, she fell sideways onto the ground beside the harbour.
Joey Hanover, clutching his straw hat to his head, rushed to help
her. “That was a nice tumble,” he said. “I wish I could fall like
that.” She did not seem to be injured, and gently he helped her to her
feet.
“The letter,” was all she managed to say. “My letter.” She had
stretched out her hand as she fell, and the letter had been blown
against the Cobb.
But the same small boy who had accompanied Joey down the
street now ran up to her, clutching it. “Here it is,” he said. “I got it.”
He winked at Joey, as if he had known him all his life, and quite by
instinct Joey winked back.
The shock of the fall had clearly unnerved the crippled woman,
and she was still shaking. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry. I don’t
normally slip.” She started to cry.
“We all slip once in a while, don’t we?” Joey was addressing the
boy, who nodded benignly. “There’s no reason to be sorry.”
“I don’t normally fall.”

73
 FIRST LIGHT

“Of course you don’t.” He put his arm around her and led her
away from the Cobb. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Just like the ivy I’ll
cling to you.” The boy smiled, saluted Joey, put his hands in his
trouser-pockets and strolled away. “Show me the way to go home,”
Joey was saying. “And I’ll take you back.”
For the first time she looked up at him; she knew his face but
she was so shaken that it seemed to her to be the relic from some
powerful dream she must once have had. “I’m fine. Really. It was
only—”
“We insist.” Floey came up to her and took her arm. The young
woman bowed her head for a moment, and Floey bent down slightly
so that she might see her face. “Here we are,” she said very gently.
“Nothing the matter at all.” The three of them walked slowly
towards the car, the Hanovers on either side of the crippled woman.
She told them that she lived in Crooked Alley. She tried to laugh and
held onto the letter more tightly. “That’s a fine name,” Joey said.
“An old name.” He ran his hand along the Rover 2000 now that they
had reached it. “I’m Joey. This is Floey.”
“Kathleen. Kathleen Clare.” She bowed her head again as she
said this; it was as if the name did not really belong to her, as if it
belonged to no one in particular.
Floey helped her into the back seat and moved in beside her.
“Show us where to go,” she said. “We’re the ones who need help
around here.”
And so Joey drove back through Lyme Regis as Kathleen directed
him through the maze of small streets which cluster by the sea and
around the narrow river which runs through the town. “You’ve got
to get under,” he was singing softly to himself. “Get out and get
under.” They reached Crooked Alley, and at once he noticed the
sign “Antiques. Augustine Fraicheur”. He smiled and wound down
the window, hearing the sound of the encroaching sea which was
only two streets away. “I know him,” he said. “I like him.”
Kathleen got out of the car, and turned to thank them. Her hands
were still trembling and there was so much intensity in her manner
that Floey pitied her. “Go and have a nice cup of tea,” Floey said.
“The cup that moves.”
“Soothes, dear.”
Kathleen thanked them and turned away; but not before Joey
noticed that once more she was crying. He watched her as she
opened a door by the side of the antiques shop, and slowly began

74
 GRANNY’S TEETH

climbing some dark stairs. Then he sat over the steering wheel for a
while, with head bowed. “Floey,” he said eventually. “Shall we take
a step inside?”
They got out of the car and walked into the shop. A young man, his
long red hair tied back into a sort of pigtail, came from behind a
grandfather clock. “Gussie’s out,” he said, flatly. He had a strong
Belfast accent.
“I know,” Joey smiled. “I was just with him in a public house.
Someone may have to show him the way to go home.” The Irishman
said nothing and, a little disappointed that his joke had met no
response, Joey took his wife’s arm and began to look over the objects
collected here, gathered on tables, hidden in corners of the dusty
room, placed high up on shelves so that they were difficult to see -
there were general items but, pre-eminently, there were clocks. Sand
glasses with their metal bases stained or worn, chronometers, deck-
watches, pocket watches, alarm clocks, clock watches, .table clocks,
grandfather clocks, an orrery made from the thinnest and most
glittering brass, a marine timekeeper with a mechanism so intricate
that it seemed to be in perpetual nervous motion - all of them
measuring time with weights and balances, springs and wires. And
as they stood in silence within the shop the Hanovers could hear the
sounds of time being measured and despatched, with the scraping of
tin cylinders against each other, the rustling of gears as thin as
wafers, the winding and unwinding of delicate springs, the more
familiar tick as the seconds were checked one by one. No other sound
could move Joey half as much as this and, as he stood with his fingers
lightly touching a dial made out of ivory, he felt himself being carried
away on the stream of time.
Augustine had come in. “When the cat’s away . . .” he said to his
assistant and, even from a few feet, Joey could smell the drink on his
breath. Then Augustine turned and, suddenly seeing Floey in the
half-light, gave a little cry of recognition. “This is unexpected,” he
said. “Did you come for anything particular? An astrolabe? A nice
Victorian travelling clock?”
“No thank you.” Floey looked around for her husband. “We were
doing that thing people do with books.”
“Burning?”
“No.” The word came out triumphantly as she prepared herself to
leave. “We were browsing.” Joey could smell the dust all around
him but, when she suddenly opened the door, he felt the stream of

75
 FIRST LIGHT

fresh air and a sudden access of light as if someone else had entered
the room. And he thought of the crippled woman, who lived above
this place where the ancient clocks were gathered.

76
 * 20*

W IN THE TWILIGHT
HEN MARK CLARE returned home that evening
from Pilgrin Valley he hoped that Kathleen, as
usual, would be waiting to greet him. But she was
sitting in a chair beneath the window, her profile
against the darkening sky. “Hello,” he said gently. But he sensed
that something was wrong and he called out, more enthusiastically,
“Hello there. No light? Shall I switch on a lamp?”
“No, Mark. Not yet. Please.” It was as if she wanted to disappear
with the disappearing light, to fade and so cease to be herself.
“What’s the matter?” He said this hesitantly, almost apologet¬
ically. “Is there anything the matter?”
She handed him the letter without replying, and he stood behind
her so that he could read it by the waning light from the window. It
had come from the adoption agency and explained, very carefully,
that since Mrs Clare was registered as a disabled person further
inquiries would have to be instituted before any preliminary steps for
adopting a child could be taken. There were circumstances in which
a disabled person could be considered eligible as a parent, but
unfortunately there were also circumstances in which no such
decision could be made. Matters were proceeding.
“This doesn’t mean anything,” he said. For some reason he was
trying to swallow. “This is just routine stuff.” But, as soon as he put
his arm around Kathleen’s shoulder, he felt her despair and help¬
lessly began to enter it. He let the letter fall to the floor. Although he
had not wanted to expect it, he knew that it would come; and he had
tried to prepare himself for the.moment. “It’s just routine,” he said
again. “A routine precaution.”
“A precaution?” She turned around to look at him. A precaution
against what?” Her voice had sounded shrill and, moving away from
Mark’s embrace, she put her hand upon her neck.

77
 FIRST LIGHT

“They just have to be sure,” he said. “As soon as they’ve seen us,
they’ll know. People like us . . .” It was the very starkness of this
“people like us” which made it sound piteous - it was as if he were
seeing Kathleen and himself from the outside, as if they were not
unique but somehow so marked by loss or incapacity that they had
become representative, as if they had ceased to be fully real to each
other. He knelt down beside her and took her hand.
“I was beginning to forget about it,” she said very softly. “But
now that’s what I am again. That’s what I’ve always been.” She
touched her leg. “It weighs so heavily upon me.”
“I know.” He wanted to help, but once again he felt himself being
overtaken by her own sorrow. If someone had entered the room
suddenly Mark would at once, as if by instinct, have become the
genial and enthusiastic person whom all his friends recognised; but,
with Kathleen, his own secret self emerged. He was always surprised
by its promptings and now his work, his investigations into the past,
his reconstruction of the abodes of the dead, were not of the slightest
importance when compared with his wife’s despair. It was one that
other people had suffered through the centuries - “people like us” -
and yet it was always fresh, always renewed, always the first pain.
“Perhaps they’re right,” Kathleen was saying. “Perhaps it was all
a mistake.”
And as she spoke he realised how fragile was her hold upon her
apparent good spirits and optimism; how little she had changed. He
tasted his own fear, like metal in the mouth. “Try and be angry,” he
said. “Don’t direct it all into yourself. Direct it outward.”
“But you don’t know what it’s like to be trapped. And to know that
nothing will ever be different. Some things change,” she said. “But
the important things remain the same.”
“It’s not important.” He was not sure what he was saying. “Try
and see beyond this.”
“And then what will I see? The sky? The earth? They will go their
own way without me.”
Mark could hear in her voice the intensity, the withdrawn low
sound, which he had sensed when he had first met her. And now he
knew that he was being excluded from her suffering. This dialogue
with herself was one she had conducted since infancy and although
once he had heard it, faintly, it had soon been drowned out by their
life together. Now Kathleen’s intensity was so real that it seemed to
annul all the years between; she was what she had always been, and

78
 IN THE TWILIGHT

was it possible that being crippled was the only real meaning to her
life? But no, that could not be true, not now. “We have each other,”
he said. “Don’t forget. You’re not alone.”
“And you have to carry me like a burden. Is that what it is?”
“You’re no burden. You are my life.” He had never seen such pain
in her eyes and he watched fascinated, as if in front of him she was
being transformed.
“Yes,” she said. “I know.” Both of them were holding each other,
rocking to and fro in the twilight.

79
 * 21*

O GOING DEEPER
WEN CHARD watched the young man working beside
him and noticed with some pleasure that his move¬
ments were getting slower and slower. Perhaps it was
the warmth of the late spring morning that was affect¬
ing him, but from time to time he sighed and passed his hands across
his eyes. “Well well well,” Owen said eventually. “Tired already.
Where’s the fibre?”
“Not tired exactly.” The young man had been kneeling on a piece
of black plastic sheeting, in an attitude which from a distance might
have resembled that of someone praying to the ground, but now he
stood up to ease his legs and aching back; as he did so, he looked at
the dark exposed surface of the earth all around him. “I don’t know
what it is.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Owen was unusually cheerful. “Everyone
gets it once in a while. We call it Stone Age gloom.” He tapped the
earth with his trowel. “It just seems to seep up from here. Coming up
for air.”
“Like a disease?”
“No. Like gloom.”
“Now what are you two boys talking about?” Martha Temple
came up to them, wagging her finger in the most delightful way. “I
heard a horrible word, and I don’t like it. Let me hear a happy word.
Like gingerbread. Or doughnut.”
“I was just telling him about Stone Age gloom,” Owen said. “I
presume you remember what that is.”
“I don’t want to know.” Gaily she put her hands up to her ears,
and walked away. But she knew already. She knew the cold sweat
which gathered on the forehead, the sense of futility like an ache in
the limbs, the strange sensation of being watched. It had affected.her
once severely, but she was very cheerful now. “Julian,” she called

80
 GOING DEEPER

out. “Julian Hill, what are you doing?” She was so playful that she
could not possibly have been drawing attention to the fact that
Julian, as usual, was doing very little to help the excavation. He was
standing at the eastern end of the tomb, where the tUmulus seemed
to emerge from the side of the valley; his head was thrown back, and
he held his arms in the air. “I have a theory about the midsummer
sunrise. One of my best theories as a matter of fact—”
“And you’re the expert, as everyone has been told. Why don’t you
write a very interesting paper for New Archaeology? Isn’t that how
people get promotion?”
“That’s a thought.” Julian had taken her suggestion quite
seriously. “I wonder how much they would pay for a really good
piece?” It was a peculiarity ofjulian’s temperament that he assumed
everyone would agree with his own estimate of himself. “I could
work up my lecture, too.” Julian Hill’s lecture, which he had never
yet delivered, concerned the future of archaeology. He had a vision of
a time when there would be no cause for excavation at all, when soil¬
sounding devices would be able both to detect all the objects buried
underneath the earth and to reconstruct them in three-dimensional
form. The subterranean world need never be disturbed, since these
three-dimensional images could then be reproduced as holograms:
in the museum of the future passage graves and underground
chambers would float in light upon the exhibition floor, perfect
simulacra of objects that remained concealed within the close-
packed earth. The stone of these neolithic monuments would seem as
real as the stone of the museum in which they had been created,
decayed bones and pottery as solid as if they had just risen out of the
earth, all the evidence of prehistory resurrected in glowing form.
And nothing would actually have been touched: there would be two
worlds, therefore, one buried forever in darkness and one filled with
light. Julian Hill saw himself in the light, also; he saw himself far
away from the detritus of digging, away from the sphere of his own
body, away from all his colleagues, away in that distance towards
which his eyes always seemed to be fixed.
Martha Temple watched as he pressed some numbers into his
pocket calculator. “It is lucky,” she said in her most charming
fashion, “that one of us doesn’t have to do any actual digging. You
can stand back and get an overall picture, can’t you?”
“That’s what I do best.”
This was not quite the answer she expected, and there was a

81
 FIRST LIGHT

certain disappointment in her voice. “I mustn’t keep you,” she said.

“I have to get back to some real work now.”
At this moment her own work was to be found in the contents of a
wooden tray, which she had left on her desk in the Portakabin
attached to the site. Here were the objects which had been dis¬
covered during this morning’s excavations - two flints, both of them
in an advanced stage of decay but bearing enough traces of their
original shape to suggest that one had been much broader and flatter
than the other. The precise location of these finds had been noted
and, although there were several hundred years’ difference in the
date of their manufacture, they had in fact been discovered very close
to each other. There was also a piece of pottery. It was no more than
two inches in width but, when Martha bent over to touch it with her
fine brush, she noticed at once that there was a groove within it
which had the appearance of cord - in another time, someone must
have pressed a rope against the clay when it was not yet solid, leaving
this faint trace of decoration. In another time. But the dating was
again curious; the grooved ware came from a period which suggested
that the site was still in use many hundreds of years after its
construction.
Carefully she placed the fragment in a polythene bag, which she
then sealed and tagged. She heard the door open behind her and she
said, as if to herself but in her most engaging manner, “This is all
very strange.” No one replied. “It may just be silly little me.” There
was still no response, and she turned around sharply to see Owen
Chard taking out his pipe. “I didn’t hear you come in,” she said with
a delightful little laugh. “What must you think of me, talking to
myself like that?”
“I wasn’t listening.” He knocked the pipe-bowl against the side of
the computer. “You thought I was Mark, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t think it was anyone.” Again the delightful laugh but,
since Owen was paying no attention, she added rather more acidly,
“Where is he anyway?” She went to the door of the cabin and called
out, “Mark? Mark? Has anyone seen Mark?” - thus drawing
attention to the fact that he had not yet arrived. “I hope,” she added
to herself, trying to suppress a slight smile, “that nothing terrible has
happened.”
In fact Mark did not arrive until later in the day. The others were
so accustomed to his enthusiasm that no one, except Owen, noticed
how forced and strained he seemed. But Mark said nothing and all of

82
 GOING DEEPER

them worked through the day, slowly removing the chalky earth
which pressed down upon the chamber tomb within the mound.
Their backs ached as they knelt over the ground; their knees were
grazed and bruised even though they tried to kneel upon the black
plastic sheeting; they developed painful cramps in the neck as they
examined the soil which they loosened with trowel and scapula; their
fingers were scraped by the sharp stones; their wrists ached with the
effort of sifting the earth and placing it in plastic bags for later
analysis.
They worked on until the light began to fade, and the setting sun
cast long shadows of the boundary stones across the flat site. The
tumulus itself, although now some eighteen inches lower than its
original position, cast a pool of darkness on the side of the valley. A
wind had started up in the early afternoon and it had blown particles
of dust and chalk into the eyes of the excavators, entering their
mouths and streaking their hair. But the wind had dropped and the
first faint vestiges of mist were succeeded now by a heavier veil which
hovered over the beech and ash trees on the crest of the valley - so
deep did it become that the trees were like pencil drawings upon the
mist itself, and seemed ready to dissolve within it.
“Over here!” It was the voice of the young man who had suffered
the Stone Age gloom. “Come over here!” Mark and Owen walked
across the site towards him, and looked down as he pointed with his
trowel at a shape embedded in the earth. It was twelve inches in
length, and curved. “Some sort of bone?” he asked, embarrassed
now in case his discovery was of no real importance.
“Oh yes, it’s bone.” At first glance, Mark knew what it was. “But
not human bone.”
“No,” Owen added. “This is the scapula of an ox. Shaped to form
a shovel. Do you see?” He bent down and traced the outline with his
finger, making sure that he did not touch the object.
Mark took a step back. “That’s right,” he said. “That’s what it is.
We’re getting close to them now.”

83
 • 22»

S INVADERS
OMETHING HAD happened during the night. Owen was
the first on the site the following morning and, when
Martha arrived, she found him shaking his head and
smiling grimly to himself. “Now,” he said. “Now. I wonder
who did this.” As soon as the excavation had begun, this section of
Pilgrin Valley - including the stone circle and of course the tumulus
itself - had been cordoned off with lengths of bright green rope
attached to wooden posts. But overnight the rope had been cut on all
four sides, and the ends trailed upon the freshly dug earth.
“Could it have been some sheep?” Martha asked, innocent as
ever. “Sheep can bite, after all, and I can’t imagine anyone wanting
to harm the site. Not even . . .” Her voice trailed off, principally
because she could think of no one in particular to accuse.
“Sheep? Oh yes. Sheep could have done all this. Of course.”
Owen pointed to the area around the mound itself, where a series of
planks or walkways had been placed to protect the newly exposed
ground. Now these planks had been removed - some of them broken
in half and thrown beyond the area of the site, while others had been
stacked together and left in a pile beside the Portakabin. It was at
this point both of them suddenly realised that the door of the office
itself had been opened. Martha ran ahead, eager to be the first to see
any possible damage, and she allowed herself the luxury of a little
scream when she entered the office. All the orange plastic chairs had
been turned over or ripped, the screen of the computer had been
smashed and several files had been scattered across the floor. Now in
genuine alarm, she went across to her small desk where the “finds”
were examined before being despatched to the laboratory of Exeter
Museum. And, curiously enough, the objects assembled yesterday
had not been harmed: the flints, the section of grooved ware, the
seeds, the shells and the'fragments of animal bone were intact. And

84
 INVADERS

yet there was something missing .

She waited until Owen had entered the Portakabin before putting
her hand up to her mouth and exclaiming, “The scapula! The
scapula has gone!” She had placed the shovel carved from ox-bone,
found the previous evening, in a sealed plastic container; but the
container had disappeared. “I don’t believe it,” she said. She picked
up one of the chairs, dusted it down with her hand and sat upon it
very deliberately. “I won't believe that anyone from this site could
cause so much damage.” Owen had not really considered the
possibility that one of their colleagues had done this, and he looked
at her in bewilderment. “I may be wrong. I may place too much
stock in human nature. But I don’t believe it.” She sounded
delighted.
Mark rushed in, taking off his jacket as if he were late for work.
“What is it?” he asked. “What’s been going on?”
“Someone doesn’t like us.” Owen was very grim.
Martha’s mood changed as soon as Mark entered the little cabin.
“Oh don’t say that, Owen. It may all be just some awful mistake.
Some accident. Even though,” she added, looking slyly at Mark as
he bent to pick up a file, “it may take us weeks if not months to get
over it.”
He stood up and wiped his hand across his face. “What exactly
has happened here?”
This was the question which the others debated throughout the
day. Owen Chard had decided that the site was under concentrated
attack, and spent most of his time telling everyone what everyone
already knew. Julian Hill arrived immediately at the theory that this
invasion corresponded to their own spoliation of the neolithic grave,
and became so strongly convinced that the whole “experience”
needed to be “internalised” that he paid no attention to the damage
which had been caused. Martha Temple was angelically good-
tempered, almost breezy; but, in her lovely attempts to “keep up the
spirits” of “the team”, she managed inadvertently to cast the
lightest possible suspicion on practically all of its members.
Only Mark himself was able properly to deal with the situation: at
this moment he seemed positively to enjoy creating order out of
disorder as if, in some way, he were trying to free himself. He
itemised the damage and took immediate steps to rectify it, while all
the time considering the significance of this strange incursion into
the area of the site. The actual event was clear: someone had

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 FIRST LIGHT

destroyed much of the equipment belonging to the archaeological

team but, curiously enough, had damaged neither the tumulus itself
nor any of the objects retrieved from it. Even though the planks had
been forcibly removed from the area, the ground beneath them had
not been touched; there were no footprints here, no fresh stains upon
the ancient earth. Only the ox-bone shovel had been stolen.
Mark at first assumed that the culprits were local children,
perhaps even the small boys who so many weeks before had
interrupted him with their laughter. But would children have shown
such curious reverence for, or fear of, the site itself? And why would
they have stolen the shovel while leaving behind everything else?
But, if children were not responsible, who would have cared to
disrupt the excavation? It seemed to be a kind of warning, but there
was no one living in Pilgrin Valley who would feel the need to offer
such an omen. Then he remembered the old cottage beyond the
ridge of the valley; and he remembered, too, the shape which he had
seen walking backwards and forwards in the lighted room. But he
said nothing to the others and, meanwhile, he telephoned
Evangeline Tupper to explain the events of the night.

86
 ♦23♦

TWO LADIES
■ OW UTTERLY grotesque. How terribly reminiscent
^M of the French Revolution. Did you say an ox-bone? I
hear the tumbrils already.” Evangeline Tupper was
JL. reacting to Mark’s news but now she put her hand
over the mouthpiece of the telephone and whispered, “This will only
take a minute, Baby Doll.”
The recipient of her confidence was Hermione Crisp, an elderly
lady who this afternoon was wearing a black suit with white shirt and
loosely knotted blue tie; her grey hair was cropped close to her head
so that, from a distance, she resembled a company director with a
crewcut.
“I have never heard anything so ghastly in my life.” Evangeline
had turned her attention back to Mark’s account of the damage. “I
shan’t sleep a wink tonight.” She smiled at Hermione. “Sickening.”
She stifled a yawn while continuing to listen. “Tragedy, absolutely
classical tragedy. Of course. Horrid. Ugh.” And then, finally, “I’m
coming to you.” She put down the receiver with a flourish, and
turned to her companion. “What a boring man.”
“Don’t say things like that.” Hermione had a soft and melodious
voice; it might have conflicted with her somewhat stark appearance
but, in fact, it seemed strangely to complement it. “You know you
don’t mean it, so why say it?”
The two ladies had lived together, for the last twenty years, in a
mansion block close to the Albert Hall; somehow during that time,
despite all evidence to the contrary, Evangeline had fostered the
belief that Hermione was the essence of femininity. “Whatever’s got
into your pretty little head?” she asked her companion. “Be sweet to
your Evangeline. Think pink.”
“I didn’t know that I was supposed to think at all.”
But Evangeline had not heard her; she had walked over to the

87
 FIRST LIGHT

window and was now looking across the street at the Albert
Memorial. “I’m going down to Dorset,” she said. “I want to talk to
him. Man to man.” Just as Hermione was treated by her as the
incarnation of womanhood, so Evangeline seemed to cherish the
illusion that she herself was a byword for masculinity. “I’m going to
muck in. Get my hands dirty.”
Hermione looked at her in amusement. “By doing what?”
“It’s not Esher, you silly girl. It’s rough out there. All those
cocks.” She shuddered slightly. “And oxen.”
“That reminds me. Your father called.”
“What did he want?”
“I just took his message. I know that you don’t like me talking to
him for too long.” And this was true: even after twenty years
Evangeline could not speak to her father about her relationship with
Hermione, whom she always described as her “assistant”. Their
world, it seemed, had to remain a private one.
“I’ll call him when I get back,” she said, reluctantly.
“Why don’t you treat him a little better?” Hermione asked her.
“He is very old now. Just make an effort to be nice. For once.”
“I am nice. I’m nice to you, aren’t I?” Clearly she did not want to
talk about it; in fact she rarely wanted to talk seriously at all, and
Hermione suspected that the roles they played were a way of evading
reality. The whole of Evangeline’s personality was, in that sense, a
denial of true feeling. But Hermione had grown accustomed to this
and, in fact, there were even times when she enjoyed it. “Would you
like to come down with me?” Evangeline was clearly embarrassed by
her own dismissal of her father, and was trying instead to placate her
companion. “Just the two of us? It would be nice to have a woman
around.”
“I thought there were women on the site.”
“Naturally they work there, Baby Doll. This is the twentieth
century.” Evangeline knelt down beside her and playfully pinched
the creases in her dark trousers. “But there’s no one really feminine
down there. Do you know what I mean? No one as girlish as you.
Although how someone so fluffy and adorable is going to survive in
the country . . .”
“Shall we bring the dogs?” The ladies owned two female French
poodles, named George and Harry.
“With all those cows around? I think not. We may only be there
for a day or two.” Evangeline brushed a piece of thread from the

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 TWO LADIES

lapel of Hermione’s suit. “But do bring a party frock in case of

emergencies. Baby Doll always looks her best in something frilly.”
They both knew that Hermione had nothing of the kind in her
wardrobe, but now she straightened her tie as if in instinctive
preparation for the journey. Evangeline looked at her in admiration.
“I may be rough,” she said. “I may be a rough tough old thing. But
she bewitches me.”

89
 * 24*

T THE LADIES MAKE A VISIT

WO DAYS later the bewitching creature, wearing a
tweed shooting jacket with matching cap, was to be seen
walking down the platform of Axminster Station.
Evangeline Tupper followed some distance behind,
encumbered by the two large brown suitcases which she insisted on
carrying, and was quite out of breath by the time she reached Mark
Clare. “Delightful,” she said, putting down the cases and swiftly
rearranging herself into an attitude of authority. “Always gorgeous
to see you.” Her companion was gazing down at a plastic replica of
an orphan, advertising Dr Barnardo’s Homes, and Evangeline
beckoned her over. “I don’t think,” she said, “that you’ve met
Hermione Crisp? My assistant? Invaluable really.”
Hermione extended her hand. “Delighted,” she said. Mark,
alarmed by her appearance, expected a vice-like grip and was
surprised by how soft her fingers seemed, how gentle her handshake.
Meanwhile Evangeline had advanced into the ticket office, as if to
avoid watching this encounter, and now she inhaled very deeply.
“Country air,” she said. “There is absolutely nothing like it. I feel as
if I belong here already.”
Mark managed to manouevre both ladies past the wondering
passengers and into the station car-park, all the time smiling and
nodding at nothing in particular. He picked up the cases with a sigh,
since their contents proved to be very heavy but, when Hermione
moved forward to help him, Evangeline hustled her into the back
seat of Mark’s car. So it was with some difficulty that he placed the
suitcases in the boot before they drove away in the direction of
Pilgrin Valley.
And, as they drove, he dramatically described the damage which
had been inflicted upon the site. “I don’t understand it,” he was
saying. “Who would want to wreck the excavations? Who would

90
 THE LADIES MAKE A VISIT

want to divert us from our work?”

Evangeline had been gazing comfortably out at the passing
landscape, and volunteered no reply. “What a nice car,” she said, as
if they had been talking about nothing in particular. “I feel as if I’m
in a golden chariot.”
“Chariots,” he replied, “don’t have automatic fuel injection. But I
like the image. Its a nice image for an ancient landscape.” He took
his hands off the steering wheel for a moment, in a gesture either of
triumph or supplication.
Hermione leaned forward. “How many miles do you get to the
gallon,” she asked Mark. But, before he could answer, Evangeline
shook her head in a delightfully perplexed fashion. “My assistant,”
she said, “knows absolutely nothing about cars.”
“Oh yes she does.” Hermione glared at her. “I’d like to take a look
under his bonnet.”
“Do you see what I mean, Mr Clare?” Evangeline looked back
somewhat sternly at Hermione, as if to suggest that her adorable
feminine contributions might not be welcome at this moment. “Cars
don’t have bonnets, Hermione. Bonnets are for women. Women like
you and me.” She turned to Mark. “Do go on,” she said. “About the
tragedy.”
“I don’t suspect anyone in particular,” Mark said. “Of course
there were some children, but I don’t think children would have
been so careful. The site itself wasn’t damaged. Some planks were
ripped up and the computer was smashed, but the actual mound
wasn’t touched. Even the turf stacked at the side was left as it was. It
was as if, as if someone were trying to warn us. Or trying to make us
* leave the valley. But who could that be?”
“I don’t think it could have been children.” Hermione was much
more intrigued than her companion by this conversation but, as soon
as she tried to speak, Evangeline turned around and put a finger up
to her lips in order to curb her coquettish enthusiasms.
“My assistant,” she said, almost as an apology, “is very interested
in your work, Mr Clare. As you can see.”
The three of them lapsed into silence during the last stages of the
journey, a silence broken only by Evangeline’s delighted exclama¬
tions whenever she passed anything remotely recognisable as
belonging to the Dorset countryside. “Look,” she said to Hermione.
“Cows! Hedges! And look at those squelchy big things over there!”
“I think,” Mark said, “that they may be pigs.”

9«
 FIRST LIGHT

“You and your country lore. It is too staggering.”

They arrived in Pilgrin Valley; they left the car, and were slowly
making their way down the west slope towards the tumulus on the
other side of the stream when Martha Temple came forward to greet
them. “Miss Tupper,” she said. “How charming. I’m surprised that
you can be spared from your desk.”
“The Department is always good in emergencies.”
“So you are a sort of - what is that word beginning with trouble?”
“Shooter?” She opened up her handbag in order to take out a
cigarette, and Martha took a step backward. Hermione was listening
to this exchange with some amusement and Evangeline went on,
with a slight frown, “May I introduce Hermione Crisp? My
assistant?”
Martha had not quite caught the name and, in any case, her
glasses were suspended on a thin silver chain around her neck. She
screwed up her eyes at the phenomenon in the tweed jacket.
“Delighted to meet you, Mr Crisp.”
“Miss.”
Baby Doll laughed out loud at the mistake, but Evangeline did not
seem so amused by it. “It’s a pity,” she said viciously, “that you
can’t meet George and Harry.”
“Not your husbands, I suppose?” Martha was very calm and
sweet. “No. Of course not.”
“No,” Evangeline replied. “Just two bitches,” Martha was puz¬
zled. “Two dogs. We had to leave them behind. In case they went
wild in the country.”
“That was very wise,” Martha said. “I’m told that city bitches
often do.”
Evangeline Tupper stared at her, and then started talking in a
loud voice to Mark. “I am sure,” she said, glancing towards Martha,
“that there were murders committed here. Don’t you feel it, too?”
“I feel so many things,” he said, looking around at the landscape
and smiling, “but I don’t—”
“And do you think there were women involved?” She was direct¬
ing her voice towards Martha.
“I honestly don’t know.”
“And mutilation, too, perhaps? What do we know of primitive
mutilation?”
“It’s impossible to say.”
“Not impossible, surely? Nothing is impossible.” He merely shook

92
 THE LADIES MAKE A VISIT

his head.
“Well, never mind. Everyone has their own horror story. Talking
of which—”
So Evangeline was shown the damage but, as they toured the site
together, Mark was invaded by a feeling of futility. In the face of the
now disordered excavations, the landscape itself seemed to shrink
and to lose its colours. Here were the remains of a culture which no
one professed to understand, relics of that expanse of time which was
a “period” only in the sense that a story must have a beginning as
well as a middle and an end. The disruption of the site confirmed
Mark’s sense that the secrets of the tumulus would remain secrets,
reminders of the larger mystery from which they had so unexpec¬
tedly been rescued. They might help to refine the story, but it was a
story being told in the dark. The chaos which had descended on
them was a reminder of that darkness.
“This is like a film,” Evangeline told him at the end of her tour of
inspection. “Just like a film. We may have been attacked.” She lit
her cigarette, and puffed upon it eagerly. “We may have been
attacked by something awfully vengeful and ancient. Coming from
the abysm of time and so forth.”
Martha heard this and looked around at the others in mock
bewilderment. “The only ancient creatures in this valley, Miss
Tupper, are the Mints.”
“The Mints! I love the Mints! Aren’t they adorable?” She seemed
to have forgotten her own horrid warnings. “I really do think of them
as an absolutely national treasure.”
“There is the old cottage as well,” Mark said, half to himself.
“There is someone living there.”
“And I saw someone there, too.” Martha had a pack mentality,
and was in any case happy to create another object of suspicion.
“Someone walking up and down.”
“Exactly what I have been saying!” Evangeline was delighted to
have her vision of horror confirmed. “It is my belief,” she said in her
most authoritative voice, “that someone has been playing with fire.
But I will say no more. Not yet. Not till I have investigated this.” She
prided herself upon being ‘good in a crisis’, and now she stood up
and threw her cigarette dangerously close to the mounds of stacked
turf. “Action this day,” she added. “Any volunteers?”
Eventually it was agreed that Mark and Evangeline herself should
visit the cottage in order to question its owner - or, rather, to

93
 FIRST LIGHT

question the figure whom Mark had seen in the lighted room. So
together they climbed up to the ridge, passed the copse of beech and
ash, and then made their way across the adjoining field. In late May
the dips and hollows of that field were filled with daisies and with
buttercups and, as they walked, the yellow pollen clung to the edges
of their shoes so that they seemed to be treading in light. Mark
looked back and glimpsed the dark trail which their footsteps had left
but, when he turned again a few moments later, the trail had
vanished.
They could see the cottage in the corner of the field, its thatched
roof and upper windows just visible above the tall sycamore hedge.
“Divine,” Evangeline murmured as they approached it, but then
inadvertently she started when she saw a dark figure behind one of
the windows. Now that they were so close they could hear voices
coming from the cottage - not precisely voices, but murmurings or
whisperings. They advanced towards the white wooden gate and, as
Mark put his hand upon it, something sprang out of the hedge and
raced into the field. Evangeline gave a little scream and clung to
Mark’s arm. “Only a cat,” he said. “Only a black cat.”
“It was monstrous,” she said. “Pure ‘X’ certificate.”
The voices, or murmurings, were growing steadily louder. Mark
opened the gate and both of them walked down a cracked stone path.
As they approached the old cottage the whisperings became audible,
and they could hear now

Solemn before us
Veiled the dark portal
Goal of all mortals . . .

They looked at each other for a moment, and then Evangeline

dramatically turned her eyes towards two white masks on either side
of the lintel - the white plaster masks of two young faces, perhaps not
death masks but sombre and still nonetheless. “Do you think,” she
said, “that we have found Hansel and Gretel?” Then with some force
she knocked upon the door.

94
 *25*

T THE WHITE FACES

HE MURMURINGS stopped. Evangeline knocked
again, and after a few moments the door swung open. “I
hope that you don’t mind Schoenberg.” A man’s voice,
hesitant and even nervous, came from behind the door.
“Was it too loud?” He appeared suddenly in front of them - a man in
his forties, his dark hair already turning to grey and his face so thin,
so hollowed out, that it was one which seemed to anticipate the very
look of death. “I’m sorry. Please come in.”
“I thought I recognised it!” Evangeline crossed the threshold, her
hand outstretched. “I am Evangeline Tupper. And this—” She
waited as Mark came into the room behind her. “This is Mr Clare.
You may have seen us both in Pigskin Valley.”
“Pilgrin,” Mark murmured.
“Wherever.”
He looked at them for a moment, with a baffled and even defeated
air. He had seen them once before, he had seen them in a brown car
on his way back from the observatory, but he said nothing about that
now. “Fall,” he answered softly. “Damian Fall.” He went over to his
compact-disc player, turned down the volume, hesitated, and then
switched off the machine. Mark noticed that he had a slight stoop.
This came from no physical cause but rather a moral one: he wanted,
as far as he could, to placate other people. He did not want to cause
offence. “Did you have a chance to admire the garden?” Damian
asked, still with his back to them.
His sombre formality had even affected Mark, who replied in a
low voice. “We were only passing through.”
“You must come back in summer time. Pinks. Meadow-saffrons
And so on and so forth.” He was speaking reluctantly, as if he were
already afraid of boring them.
“What a wonderful cottage!” Mark, eager to dispel the atmo-

95
 FIRST LIGHT

sphere of gloom, rubbed his hands gleefully. He might have dis¬

covered the place himself. “Seventeenth century?”
“I don’t know.” Damian said this slowly, as if it were one more
failure of many.
“Good sturdy workmanship,” Mark added, banging one wall
with his fist. “Thick. Meant to last. Great stufT.”
There was a silence now, which Evangeline broke by advancing
into the centre of the room. “And were these,” she said, “all done by
hand? I can’t believe it.” She was staring upwards in apparent
ecstasy, at a number of white plaster faces which had been carved or
fixed upon the high ceiling. They looked down upon the occupants of
the room, their eyes rolled back.
At last Damian turned around, and looked upwards. “I imagine
it’s a long story, but I don’t know it. You will have to ask the Mints
who own all this. I’m sorry.” He might have been apologising all his
life. Now he glanced from one to the other, curious about the purpose
of their visit but clearly unwilling to broach the subject.
Evangeline was not about to help. “So you know the Mints, too?
Aren’t they the most rural creatures you have ever seen? I feel like
taking a pitchfork and just piling hay on them. Do you know what I
mean?”
Damian Fall smiled nervously. It was already evident to Mark
Clare that he had no connection with the events in Pilgrin Valley,
but Mark had no idea how to conclude what was becoming a fruitless
and embarrassing encounter. “Are you,” he said, carefully, “on
holiday?”
“Oh no.” For the first time Damian seemed genuinely to respond.
“I never take a break or rest.” At the word “rest” a spasm passed
momentarily over his left cheek, although his voice remained per¬
fectly controlled. “I never have the time, you see. My superiors . . .”
He broke off at this point.
“I suspect,” Evangeline declared in a loud voice, “that you do
something absolutely wonderful.” But she hesitated, not immedi¬
ately able to think of anything in that connection. “Are you some¬
thing to do with weather forecasting?” This was the first wonderful
occupation which occurred to her.
“Getting warm.”
“Water diviner?”
“Well—” Damian Fall wanted her to guess accurately, to save
any further embarrassment. “I’m afraid you’re getting a little bit

96
 THE WHITE FACES

colder.”
Evangeline put her hands in the air. “I give up,” she said. “I
completely surrender.”
“I’m in a profession like your own.” He had turned to Mark,
having already suspected that Evangeline herself was not an
archaeologist. But then he turned back to her again, unwilling to
offend. “And yours, of course.”
“No,” she said. “Don’t taunt me. Spit it out. Etonnez-moi.”
“Look around.” He seemed to Mark to grow smaller as he talked
and now, when he pointed towards the walls of the cottage, it was as
if he were quite happy for his unexpected guests to forget that he was
there at all.
Obediently Evangeline glanced around the room, one finger
against her bottom lip in an adorably curious manner - as if she fully
expected to be surprised or delighted by practically anything she
saw. Against one wall there was a series of prints, mounted in narrow
black frames, and with an apparently involuntary cry of excitement
she scurried over to them. Here was an engraving of Galileo’s chart
of the Pleaides, published in The Starry Messenger in 1610, its dark
lines carefully traced so that filaments seemed to spread out between
the circles of flame; an eighteenth-century image of Ptolemy holding
up a resplendent image of the sun, its rays represented by tongues of
burnished metal issuing from a central sphere; a portrait of Coperni¬
cus in a long wig, his right hand resting on an astrolabe as he looked
towards an opened door; an engraving of Tycho Brahe, surrounded
by letters and numbers which mimicked the position of the stars; a
representation of Kepler, his hand pointing towards a celestial
hemisphere and beneath him the inscription, “Astronomy has two
ends, to save the appearances of the heavens and to contemplate the
true form of the edifice of the world”; an image of Newton, drawing
back a curtain to reveal a model of the solar system floating within a
lighted room; and, at the end of this sequence, a photograph of
Einstein in front of a blackboard, with chalk marks scrawled across
it.
“What lovely faces they had,” Evangeline was saying. “In those
days. Oh, look. More bliss.” She went across to the other wall, where
three larger prints had been hung carefully in sequence. The first
engraving, its edges creased and stained, was of an old man in
monk’s habit who gazed up through an open window; his hands were
raised, palms outward, in a gesture of supplication. Next to it was a

97
 FIRST LIGHT

seventeenth-century print of three men who were wearing tie-wigs

and looking through long tubes; beneath this scene there was printed
the inscription, Prospectus Intra Cameram Stellatum. The last engraving
was of more recent date: it showed three Victorians, wearing stove¬
pipe hats and busy in a darkened dome, while in front of them a
narrow beam of light descended from a large telescope. The legend
beneath this was Domus obscurata.
“And what,” Evangeline asked, “is the meaning of that gorgeous
phrase?”
Damian was very still. “The darkened house,” he said.
“I can’t bear it. It’s too beautiful.”
Mark Clare had been looking at the drawings, too. “We have the
same thing in archaeology,” he said. “We call it the fogou. The
house under ground.”
“But my darkened house is above the ground,” Damian said
rapidly and nervously. “I work in the observatory on Holblack
Moor. I am an astronomer. What was it you wanted with me?”

98
 ♦26*

THE CONVERSATION
“'W "YOU CAN never go back,” Damian Fall was saying.
\/ “Signals sent into the past would be killed by their own
echoes. You can do only one thing. You can send signals
.JL. into the future. Sorry. Forgive the interruption.”
In order to provide some explanation for his visit, Mark Clare had
asked Damian if he had noticed unusual activity in Pilgrin Valley;
now, more convincingly, he was outlining the nature of the tumulus
itself. He stood in the middle of the cottage, his hands deep in the
pockets of his overcoat, his eyes shining with the knowledge he
wanted to impart. “The megalithic period,” he was saying,
“stretches back for an immensely long time. It lasts for over three
thousand years. And chamber tombs like this one were being built
for some two thousand years.” In his excitement he went up on
tiptoe, and then rolled back upon his heels.
“If only we could see it all in the absolute flesh.” Evangeline was
determined not to be left out of this conversation. “All those
delicious animal skins. Delicious but no doubt very dirty.”
Mark frowned, unwilling to enter the spirit of her playful
nostalgia. “We don’t know - we’re not certain - but we think the
tomb in Pilgrin Valley was constructed around 2500 bc. And we
think that it is the grave of an astronomer.”
Damian, hearing his own profession mentioned, blushed.
Evangeline gave a little cry of pleasure. “What an extraordinary
coincidence! I bet you felt someone walking over your own grave.”
“It’s difficult to be sure,” he replied. “But certainly I must have
felt something.” Diffidently he smiled at Mark, as if^e were trying to
apologise in advance. “There are so many theories. Perhaps it
doesn’t matter which one you choose. Just more smoke in the air

“There were stone-circles all over England at the time this grave

99
 FIRST LIGHT

was being constructed.” Mark was too eager to pursue his argument
to notice how Damian seemed curiously unwilling to listen. “And all
the evidence suggests that the stone circles were observatories. So it
seems possible that the greatest of the tribe were those who watched
the night sky and could somehow read the stars.”
Damian put out his hand to stop him and then, looking at it,
replaced it quickly in his pocket. “Now that you have imagined it,”
he said, “it has become true. I have to believe the story once it has
been told, but—”
“Yes. Of course. And we also believe that these observatories
came independently into existence all over the world. They have
been found in Malta, Portugal, Denmark, Ireland. And now here.
Here in Pilgrin Valley.”
“—But I wish I had never heard it. There are too many stories.”
Mark stopped, seeing for the first time the strain upon the
astronomer’s face, and then went on to say, speaking slowly and
clearly, “Nobody knows why there should have been such a general
interest in the stars during this one period. No one understands why
the people of the earth began to see their meaning in the skies. It’s
rather like asking why it is that some creatures grew wings and
became birds.” He faltered and for one moment he had a vision of his
wife in a darkened room, sitting in their small bedroom and looking
out of the window.
“Go on,” Damian said, blaming himself for the sudden silence in
the room. Mark still hesitated. “Please go on. Every good story must
have an ending.”
“It may even be that the stone circle around our tumulus is aimed
at some point in the heavens. It is of such an unusual shape that it
might represent a fixed observation platform. Perhaps for the time of
the vernal equinox.” His enthusiasm had returned as quickly as it
had subsided, and now he wrapped his arms around himself in his
excitement. “But we’re on our way. We will just have to dig deeper.”
“Until time stands still?” For a moment Damian had caught
Mark’s enthusiasm as a mirror might reflect a face. “Did you know
that time flows faster at the top of a building than it does in its
basement?”
“Perhaps that’s why the old inhabitants of this valley buried their
leaders in the ground. Perhaps they understood that.”
“But when they looked up, they would have seen a pattern of fixed
stars. Why didn’t they burn the astronomers and send them

ioo
 THE CONVERSATION

upwards? Over the moon?”

“Haven’t I come across that phrase somewhere before?”
Evangeline, bored with this conversation, at last heard something
faintly familiar. “Does it mean the same thing as sick as a parrot? Or
am I just being silly?” Both men were silent. “Here comes another
silly question,” she added with a certain desperation. “What pre¬
cisely do you do on that gorgeous moor?”
“I study the stars,” Damian said.
“But there are so many to choose from.”
“Do you know the Pleaides?” Evangeline nodded vigorously.
“Come closer and you have the Hyades. Closer still and you will find
Aldebaran, the red giant. Do excuse me.” He paused, embarrassed
as much by his talk as by his silence, and he closed his'eyes for a
moment. “Naturally none of us believes in a fixed geometry. So by
closer I mean closer in time. The Pleaides are 300 light years away
from us, the Hyades 140 light years. Aldebaran is only 68 light years
distant. They all seem so close to each other, but in reality they are
far apart.”
Evangeline put a hand up to her mouth, as if she were quite
fascinated by what she had heard. “I didn’t know,” she said, “that
astronomy could be so delightful. Quite a revelation.” She managed
to stifle her yawn.
“It is really only a model,” Damian replied. “After all, we don’t
know what we don’t know.”
“Now you are teasing me. You’re having a lovely little tease of
Evangeline.”
“Come and visit me on the moor,” he said, without thinking. He
looked down at the floor. “Then you can see for yourself.”
“That would be utterly delicious.” The invitation was in fact
addressed to Mark but Evangeline, in her eagerness to be gone,
accepted it with alacrity. “I don’t know when I have had a more
fascinating conversation.” She stared at Mark, who showed no sign
of preparing to leave. “And I’m sure that we’ll have a great many
more in the future.”
“Of course.” Damian took a step backwards from them, and then
a step sideways, so that he seemed to be dancing to and fro.
Evangeline marched towards the door, Mark reluctantly follow¬
ing her, and Damian Fall watched them as they walked down the
path and opened the gate. He did not want to stay in the cottage, not
yet, so he went out into the little garden. Before their arrival he, too,

101
 FIRST LIGHT

had been examining the engravings of Ptolemy and of Copernicus, of

Kepler and of Newton, all of them framed within images of their
endless pursuit. Their own theories and inventions had lasted only
for the briefest of periods but, if all knowledge was a story, what did it
really signify? Perhaps there were no stars and no planets, no
nebulae and no constellations; perhaps they merely came into
existence in recognition of our wishes or demands. And if there came
a moment when no one on earth was studying the heavens - no child
looking up in wonder at the stars, no radio telescope directed
towards the distant galaxies, no astronomer sitting in the
observatory - what then? Was it possible that the heavens would
then disappear? What if there is a void above us, like the void within
me now? He leaned against the gate and looked out across the
darkening fields. In the distance a solitary figure was driving some
sheep across the valley and, behind him, a small fire was sending its
smoke into the sky.

102
 M THE BLUE DOG
ARK AND Evangeline returned from the cottage to
find Hermione sitting cross-legged on one of the
desks in the Portakabin. She was smoking a Wood¬
bine and, as they entered, she was jabbing it in the
air as she addressed Martha Temple. “And then there’s the
Japanese strangle-hold. That’s a lovely old move. Let me have your
neck a moment.” Martha had entered this conversation only to
discover more about Evangeline Tupper, and she had become rather
alarmed by the turn it had taken. She was not sure whether
Hermione was really interested in displaying these wrestling holds to
her. Certainly she seemed to be an insecure woman, despite her
severe appearance, and it was possible that she was nervously
playing a part. “Go on,” Hermione was saying as she slid ofT the
desk. “Be a sport.”
“My assistant,” Evangeline interrupted, stepping into the middle
of the room and effectively preventing her from getting any closer to
Martha, “is very fond of outdoor sports. Butterflies and so forth.
Aren’t you, Miss Crisp?”
Hermione merely smiled at her.
Martha could not have been more charmed, or indeed relieved, by
Evangeline’s sudden entrance. “Your assistant,” she said,
emphasising the last word, “has been telling me some fascinating
things.” Evangeline smiled graciously, prepared to agreed about the
wonders of the truly feminine mind. “She tells me that she always
works at home.”
“I am blessed in that respect.”
“But don’t you have a woman who comes in?”
Evangeline bristled slightly. “Comes in where?”
“A cleaning lady.”
“There is someone of that sort, yes.” She was eager to leave the

103
 FIRST LIGHT

subject of her domestic life. “Do you know,” she went on, “that we
have just had a most interesting conversation with the man over
there.” Evangeline pointed vaguely in the direction of the cottage.
“Quite a little brains trust.”
“And of course he had nothing to do with - with—” Mark said, in
a voice he considered to be hearty enough to cover his embarrass¬
ment at the events of the afternoon.
“Oh,” said Martha, very sweetly. “/ never thought he was a
suspect. Is that the right word?”
“Yes,” he replied. “That’s the right word.”
He was about to add something else when Evangeline, now eager
to be gone, asked him where they were supposed to stay for the night.
“Of course.” Mark was still talking too loudly. “You mean a
hostelry?” He smoothed his side whiskers. “Something solid and
comfortable. Something from old Dorset.”
“Now let me think.” Martha decided to be bright and helpful.
“There is always the Blue Dog. They’re very liberal there.” She
glanced at Hermione as she said this. “I presume you will be needing
separate rooms?”
Hermione was standing with her legs apart. “Any berth will do for
me. Any old hammock.”
“I believe the Blue Dog is confined to beds.”
Evangeline again intervened. “I’m sure,” she said, “that beds will
do very nicely.”
They left soon after, as Mark guided them down the slope and
across Pilgrin stream. The others worked on even as the sun was
setting, and when Mark looked back he saw how the legs and bodies
of the archaeologists were now in shadow while their heads and
shoulders still caught the slanting light. The tumulus itself was in
darkness, except for its very summit which gleamed in the rays of the
declining sun. It was at this moment that he understood - that he
saw - how there had once been a pyre upon it, a fire lit and then
succeeded by other fires in the same region. He saw the pattern of
flame across the countryside and, yes, it took the shape of the stars
directly above the tumulus. The ancient fires imitated the star-glow
of the Pleaides. Earth reflecting the sky. And it was with a certain
lightness of spirit that he drove Evangeline and Hermione into Lyme
Regis.
“Would you,” Evangeline said as they stood outside the Blue Dog

104
 THE BLUE DOG

together, “like to join us for dinner? I’m sure they have some lovely
country recipes.”
“I would love to. But my wife—”
“She can join us too,” Hermione added quickly.
“My wife is not very well.” He looked down at the ground, already
anticipating his wife’s pain and dreading that moment when it
would become his again.
“I am sorry,” Evangeline murmured. “Feminine problems?”
“No, not really. Just problems.”
“They can bejust as bad. Do give her my fondest love. Tell her I’ll
be thinking of her.”
“Of course.” Mark was genuinely grateful for her concern.
“I feel as if I know her very well already.”
“I’ll tell her. Thank you.”
“I’m the one who should thank you.” Evangeline was already
ushering Baby Doll, and the large brown suitcases, into the lobby of
the hotel. “For such a charming day. Au revoir.” Evangeline gave a
lovely wave as Mark returned to his car, and she kept her smile in
place long enough to speed him on his way back to Crooked Alley. “I
thought,” she said after he had turned the corner, “the bore would
never go. Him and that so-called astronomer utterly exhausted me.”
Furiously she rung the bell on the hotel-counter. “And that’s
another thing,” she added. “Why do you insist on embarrassing me
in front of my colleagues? With all that wrestling business?”
“I was just making conversation. You do it all the time.” The
hotel-clerk came over, and it was not until after he had completed
their bookings and they had been taken to their room that Hermione
felt free to continue. “In any case,” she said, “there are times when I
get tired of being treated as the little woman. The brainless feminine
assistant.” She emphasised the phrase in Evangeline’s manner. “I’m
hardly dressed for the part, am I?”
All the unresolved pressures of their private life might have found
an outlet here, but Evangeline chose not to take the opportunity.
“Well,” she said with a sigh as she placed her suitcase on one of the
single beds. “I suppose that what Baby Doll wants, Baby Doll gets.”
She felt the bed with her hand. “And perhaps Baby would like to put
on something pink for dinner?”
Hermione looked at her for a moment, astonished at her ability to
ignore everything that had just been said, but then she laughed.

105
 FIRST LIGHT

“Something very fluffy. Like this?” From her own suitcase she took
out a green tweed jacket and held it out to her friend. “Something
your father might wear?” Then they both laughed.
 *28*

I A REUNION
N FACT, when the two ladies eventually came down to the
hotel restaurant, Baby Doll had dressed for the occasion in
her simple pin-stripe suit. Evangeline was wearing a
diaphanous blue gown - blue itself being what she called “an
old sailor’s colour”. “And what little delicacies does Baby want
tonight?” She waved the menu in front of her old friend. “A few little
fairy cakes?”
The waitress came hesitantly over to the table. “Steak,”
Evangeline said, at once changing her tone. “And make it very rare.
As if it’s just been carved off the cow.” Then she added, “There’ll be
a tip in it for you.” Hermione was having some difficulty in making
up her mind and Evangeline grew increasingly impatient as her old
friend traced her finger down the menu. “You like brains, don’t
you?” she asked and then, without waiting for a reply, looked up at
the waitress. “I think she’ll have brains tonight.”
“Will they be rare, too, miss?”
“In this town, I wouldn’t be at all surprised.”
The waitress had not caught the joke. “How would you like them
done, miss?”
“She wants them burnt to ashes, dear. Unrecognisable. And two
bottles of house red.”
“I do wish,” Hermione whispered to her, “that you wouldn’t
order for me. I hate it.”
Evangeline looked at her in astonishment. “What have I done
wrong? You do like brains, don’t you?”
Another couple were pretending not to watch them, from a
distance of three tables. “Look at those kikes,” Floey Hanover was
saying to her husband. “Dressed like Winston Churchill.”
“Dykes, dear. But you remember the old Irish melody, don’t you?
Then tell me no more with a tear and a sigh, that our love will be

107
 FIRST LIGHT

censured by many. All have their - something tra-la I’ve forgotten -

But ours is the sweetest of any.”
‘‘It’s not right,” Floey said. ‘‘Not at their age.” But she signalled
to him to keep quiet as she leant forward over her chicken curry,
trying to hear the conversation between the two old ladies.
“The bitches will be missing us,” Hermione was saying to
Evangeline. Floey Hanover gave a significant look to her husband.
“They will be perfectly happy where they are. They always have
been.” The two French poodles, George and Harry, had been left in
charge of the ‘daily’ - an I rish woman, known to them as Paddy, who
lived with her three sons in a council flat. “Paddy dotes on them,
darling. And they’ve always been good little bitches.”
A fork hung suspended between Floey’s mouth and her plate.
“Did you hear them talking dirty?” she whispered to Joey. “And in
Lyme Regis too.”
Evangeline took out a Woodbine and settled back, preparing for
her meal. “What an enchanting day it has been,” she said. “And so
educational. All those stars and light years. Baby Doll’s pretty little
head would have been spinning.”
“‘We must explore that valley tomorrow,” Joey Hanover was
explaining to his wife. “What did he call it? Pilgrim?” He was
drawing circles on his empty plate with a fork. “I’m beginning to
remember a wood by the cottage. Or a forest. Trees, anyway. I
remember trees.” He began to talk in a more sonorous voice. “I
knew by the smoke that so gracefully curled. Above the green trees.
That a cottage was nigh . . .”
“The Woodpecker Tapping?”
“That’s the one. Sung with great feeling to the crowned heads of
Europe.”
But suddenly he was talking to himself. Floey was staring at
Hermione and Hermione was staring back at her; both women rose
from their chairs at the same time. “Tiger skin!” Floey shouted.
“Bluebell!” Hermione returned.
They approached one another in the middle of the hotel
restaurant, stuck their little fingers in their ears, revolved once and
called out in unison, “The maggots for ever!”
Evangeline, believing that this was one of her friend’s “old
flames”, prepared herself to be at her most charming. Joey Hanover,
in his turn assuming that Hermione had been part of a theatrical
troupe which his wife had known in her youth, smiled broadly and

108
 A REUNION

looked around at the other diners. “This is the old musical hall,” he
might have been saying. “Love it or hate it, you will never see its like
again.”
Floey turned to him. “What do you call it when two people meet
by accident?”
“A crash?”
“No. Something else. Something like indifference.” She gave up
her unequal struggle with the language. “Tiger skin was at school
with me,” she went on to say. “You know, at St Muriel’s?” She gazed
at Baby Doll’s suit, collar and tie. “You haven’t changed a bit,” she
said.
“I should hope not, Bluebell.”
“I don’t think,” Evangeline said from a distance of some twelve
feet, “that I have had the pleasure.” So introductions were made, the
two parties moved to a larger table, and the school-friends
reminisced about the dormitory of St Muriel’s.
“Do you remember, Tiger, how you got drunk one night and
started eating dog biscuits? You thought they were cereal. You
poured milk on them, and ate them.”
For some reason this seemed to horrify Evangeline. “How very
funny,” she said, managing to smile as furiously she stubbed out her
Woodbine.
“It sounds to me,” Joey said, “like St Trinian’s. Is that the old
school tie?” He pointed at the article around Baby Doll’s neck. “Or
is it the school of hard knocks?”
Baby Doll laughed at this. “Hole in one,” she said.
As Baby Doll and Floey Hanover went over their past, Evangeline
turned to Joey; she recognised him very well, from television, but she
was not about to admit that fact. Not yet. It put her at too much of a
disadvantage. “Isn’t it lovely for them to meet again,” she said.
“And in such a charming spot, too.” She lit another cigarette. “We
see nothing in London, do we? Somehow we are all cut off.” Joey
seemed to agree with this. “But, as soon as we see Nature, we want
her. We clasp her to our bosoms.”
“That’s what you remind me of,” Joey said. “The Brave Old Oak.
Crooned in a low voice.”
This might have been a compliment, and Evangeline smiled. “I’m
sure,” she said, “that I have seen you on the stage.”
“I was on the stage once. Yes.”
“And elsewhere?”

109
 FIRST LIGHT

“Elsewhere too.” Joey Hanover had no vanity as such, but he was

always disconcerted when he went unrecognised. It was as if, at that
moment of unresponsiveness, he ceased to exist. “Television. Radio.
But it’s over. Over the hills and far away.”
“And there,” she said, “speaks a man who has retired with
absolute dignity. Unspoiled.” He made her a little bow. “I
presume,” she went on, “that’s why you are here? In this gorgeous
old town?”
“It could be, it could be.” Joey seemed evasive. “A little of what
you fancy does do you good.”
“Now isn’t that odd? That’s always been my philosophy, too.”
There was a silence between them and, in desperation, Evangeline
plunged towards another topic. “Talking of retirement,” she said. “I
have found this delightful old cemetery. But I don’t mean a
cemetery. Not exactly. What on earth do you call it?”
Floey was always ready to help with linguistic difficulties of this
kind, and she broke off her animated conversation with Baby Doll.
“Sanatorium?”
“Not exactly.”
“More like crematorium?”
“That’s closer.” In fact she was referring to the tumulus in Pilgrin
Valley. “There are some divine stones around it,” she said. “Simply
all the way round. Isn’t that surprising? And it has something to do
with the stars . .
She trailed off. Joey was looking into the distance, drumming his
fingers upon his bright red waistcoat. “That reminds me of a story,”
he said slowly. “I remember a story. I don’t know how I know it. But
I know it.”
Evangeline blew a smoke ring towards the restaurant ceiling.
“Fire away,” she said.
“Are you with me?” This was one of his famous catchphrases but
he said it now very softly, as if it were the beginning of a spell.
“Well—”

i io
 *29*

O A STORY
NCE UPON a time, and it was a very long time ago,
there were spirits all over the earth. Spirits of the rocks;
spirits of the streams; spirits of the forests. And in those
days the people of Wessex worshipped them. There is a
field by the shore, just beyond Lud Mouth, and in that field you can
still see a piece of black stone so deeply embedded that no one has
ever been able to prise it loose: this was where water and grain were
left for the spirits, and it is still known as the offering-stone. But there
were other spirits, evil spirits who came from beneath the earth. It
was said that the noises of the people walking over the ground
enraged them, and so they tried to lead the inhabitants of this region
off the edge of high precipices or into the deepest pits. They wanted
to destroy them so that they could sleep undisturbed.
Now these spirits could fly. They did not live in one place only but
soared and skimmed through the great caverns beneath the earth -
which is why, if you put your ear to the ground, you can sometimes
hear a rustling as of wings. They could even fly up from the earth into
the outer air, through the great portals which human beings cannot
see; but, because they were hated by the spirits of the forests and of
the streams, they could not hover near the surface but had to fly
further up into the clouds or soar, higher yet and higher, into the
firmament. There are some people who claim to see them still,
whenever there is a quick movement across the heavens.
It was mid-summer long ago and, in the old stone village of St
Gabriel, many of the men and women were sleeping out of doors and
beneath the open sky. It was a small village but of course there were
children - some say twelve, some say more. Naturally the evil spirits
hated children and that night, as the villagers slept beneath the stars,
they plotted together; they circled above their heads, sometimes
hooting like owls and sometimes barking like foxes, as they schemed

111
 FIRST LIGHT

and planned. This is what they did. At the stillest hour of night, in
the dead time, when all the beneficent spirits were resting within
their rocks or streams or forests, they hovered for a little while and
then fluttered down to earth at the spot where the children lay. One
evil spirit crawled up to the first child and whispered in his ear,
“Leave your parents and come with me. I will teach you to fly, and
together we will explore all the bright stars which shine above your
head.” Then a second spirit touched the shoulder of another child
and whispered, “Come with us. We are your real family because, like
you, we know what it is to be free. We will take you with us into the
skies, and show you the mysteries of the heavens.” A third spirit
wakened up a child with the tip of his wing and murmured, “Why lie
down on the hard earth when you can be floating on the soft air?
Leave your parents and come with us.” No one knew if these
children were tired of the arduous life they were forced to lead, or if
they had been dreaming of the stars even as the evil spirits whispered
to them, or if they were entranced by some other means; but,
whatever the reason, they rose up together and were led by the evil
spirits to the edge of St Gabriel’s cliff. Then the spirits flew above
them and, by trailing their wings, they made the sky seem more
bright and glorious than the children had ever seen it before. The
children clapped their hands, but softly so as not to wake their
fathers and mothers, and the spirits smiled at one another secretly
before they told them that they could fly, too. “You will all fly with
us,” they whispered. “And there is only one condition.”
“Tell us what we must do,” the children begged. “Tell us what we
must do!”
“You must start a new life. You will leave the earth for ever and
dwell among the stars, but if you set foot on earth again you will be
turned to stone.” Now the spirits murmured this very quickly, and it
is said that some of the children never heard their warning; what
they did hear was the excitement of flying upwards into the firma¬
ment, and what they saw was the wonder of the night sky. “What
shall we see? What shall we see?” a little girl asked them.
“This is the greatest wonder of all,” the chief spirit replied. “You
will see whatever you wish for. You will see what you wish to see.”
Of course the children became very excited at this, and all of them
began clamouring to be taken up; so one by one the spirits lifted them
upon their wings - and so light were these wicked spirits that it
seemed to the children that they themselves were flying. At once they

112
 A STORY

were soaring above the fields and the forests which they knew so well;
higher and higher until their houses and their families were no more
than grains of sand; upward and upward, until they recognised
nothing which was beneath their feet. But now it began to grow very
cold, and the children shivered. “Where are the stars?” one of them
asked; and another called out, “Where is the sun which warmed us
on the earth?”
And then one spirit replied, laughing, “You will see whatever you
wish for.”
And another echoed, “You will see only what you wish for.”
But in truth the children had wished for nothing and had expected
nothing. They had only wanted for one moment to escape, to fly
away from their hard lives. In fact, some of them did not know what a
wish was. And all around them now were cold, and darkness, and
mist. “Let us down,” the little girl cried.
“Take us back,” her brother yelled.
“But you know the condition? If you touch the earth again?”
“We want to go home!” The children were now too frightened to
care, and they wanted only to leave this terrible place.
“If that is your real wish, then so be it.” The spirits quickly
dropped through the air; lower and lower they flew so that the
children put out their hands towards the familiar forests and hills,
down and further down so that the children could even make out the
old village of St Gabriel. They came so close that they could see the
sad faces of their sleeping parents but, as soon as the evil spirits came
back to St Gabriel’s cliff, they tossed the children from their backs.
And when they fell to the earth, they were at once turned into stone.
Twelve of them, forming a circle on the margin of the sea. This was
the end of the children’s journey away from home.
Some say that this is a fairy story, to teach children not to roam.
But there are some who say that there is a truth to it of another kind -
that there was a child, an orphan who scavenged in the fields beside
St Gabriel. Now this orphan was a strange child who fascinated the
other children of the village. He was known as Barren. Old Barren.
And Old Barren told them that he could fly; when they scoffed at him
he became angry and insisted that he could teach them to fly also. It
is said that he led them singing to the edge of St Gabriel’s cliff, and
that here he persuaded them to jump from it into the air. But of
course they fell, and were smashed upon the rocks beneath. So these
rocks are not the children changed by spirits, as the story tells us, but
 FIRST LIGHT

really the graves of the children who thought they could fly. And,
although the tiny village has long ago gone under the earth, you can
see the twelve rocks still.

Joey Hanover rubbed his eyes and looked at the others. “How did I
know that story?” he said, to no one in particular. “When did I ever
hear that story?”
Evangeline and Floey were asleep but now they woke up as Joey’s
voice died away. Floey had managed to keep one hand around the
neck of the empty wine bottle, and Evangeline pointed wearily at it.
“Was it a good year?” she asked her.
“I wouldn’t know.” Floey sounded offended. “I’m not a
bibliophile.”
But Hermione had been listening to Joey’s story very intently, and
she had been crying. Now she took a large white handkerchief from
the pocket of her jacket, and blew her nose very loudly. “Sorry,” she
said. “I think there was ash in my eye.” She tried to suck upon her
cigarette but it had gone out and, in a softer voice, she asked, “Has
anybody got a light?”
♦PART THREE^
They more and more felt the contrast between their
own tiny magnitudes and those among which they
had recklessly plunged, till they were oppressed
with the presence of a vastness they could not cope
with even as an idea, and which hung about them
like a nightmare.

Two on a Tower
Thomas Hardy.
1
 * 30*

I PRIVATE WORLDS
T WAS going to be a hot summer, and the sun had already
burned away the last of the dawn mist from the slopes of
Pilgrin Valley; the leaves of the trees were darker now, and
the recently sheared sheep crept noiselessly beside the narrow
stream. By the early morning the archaeologists were at work,
watering the ground around the grave; it might have seemed that
they were urging something to grow and spring from the soil, but in
fact they were moistening the freshly exposed earth in order to
preserve those visible markings which might otherwise be
obliterated by the dust and glare of the day. A swirl of darker clay
might suggest the presence of some long buried object, already
decayed, while stains on the bed of chalk could represent a scattering
offlints or axes. And so, as the day progressed, sheets of green canvas
were erected around the site to keep it in shadow.
They had gone much deeper, steadily moving downwards to the
forecourt and entrance of the chamber tomb. Already the capstones
of the roof had been uncovered - large dark stones wedged so tightly
together that the tomb seemed to be covered by one piece of flat rock,
the huge weight pressing downwards and sealing the unknown
interior. These stones were now protected by thick black plastic
sheeting but, some days before, when the residue of chalky soil had at
last been cleared away from them, when their pitted and striated
surfaces were finally revealed, Mark had eagerly climbed on top of
the mound. He wanted to be the first to touch the ancient roof. It was
as if, in that moment, he might be able to touch the life and the spirit
of the workers who had sealed the tomb some four and a half
thousand years before. Perhaps the whole landscape would then be
transformed, fading and folding like smoke until the smoke cleared -
cleared to reveal the ancient valley, just as it was when the tomb was
being constructed and its occupant carried towards it singing. He

117
 FIRST LIGHT

put both hands upon the stone, and then looked around with a kind
of wonder. But nothing had changed. The branches of the trees
scraped together in the wind, the hedges crackled, a trowel was being
dragged across some earth. The stone was cold to his touch and
quickly he clambered down from the tumulus; then he turned and
walked away, since he did not want the others to see his face. The
present could not be escaped, after all.
There were some twelve workers on the site, sifting and digging
silently through the summer morning, each one staying within a
small area of marked ground; around them were scattered scapulas,
knives, toothpicks, brushes, trowels, plastic beakers, spades. They
had grown accustomed to each other now, and Owen Chard noticed
with a certain grim satisfaction how their behaviour seemed to be
changing as they came closer to the tomb. He knew it well, since it
was always the same process. They were becoming more open, more
distinctly themselves, less inclined to camouflage; it was as if their
own protective layers were being stripped away. Only Martha
Temple had not been affected. While Julian Hill formulated his
theories in a loud voice, sometimes standing in the middle of the site
as if it were some literal extension of himself, and while Mark Clare
collated each day’s evidence as if he were engaged on some assiduous
and private search, Martha remained indomitably bright. She was
triumphant at the discovery of each pin and pendant, each broken
piece of pot or slate, quite as if she were the only person doing any
work at all upon the site.
“Isn’t it funny,” she was saying to Owen this morning, breaking
the silence with relish, “that there is always more work for us? Of
course I’m sure that Mark knows what he’s doing. I’m just so glad I
can give him all the evidence he needs.”
Owen was kneeling on the ground. He stopped what he was doing
and stared down at the soil for a moment before saying, “The others
are working too, aren’t they? Not just you.”
“They are doing their best. And I’m the first to congratulate poor
Mark for trying . . . but I often wonder why none of the evidence
seems to fit.” Having scored what seemed to her to be a palpable hit,
she went on her way.
Indeed there was a sense in which all the material, so far detected
and gathered, provoked more difficulties than it solved; it came from
so many different periods, and showed such unequal signs of human
habitation, that the precise identity of the site was still in doubt. So

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 PRIVATE WORLDS

all of them working here - the young assistants, the diggers, Mark
Clare’s closest colleagues — all of them had their own private vision of
Pilgrin Valley and of this grave. And, as they worked on in silence
throughout the day, some saw it fitfully, some saw it clearly. The
people beneath their hands, beneath the soil, represented the begin¬
nings of human life but when they came to this spot they must have
been celebrating death; there had taken place some unknown ritual,
but because of it there was now some unspoken and unanalysable
communion between the living and the dead; they were the same
people as ourselves, but they were also unimaginably different.
Everything the diggers had found - the pots, the pins, the beads,
even the scrapings of ash from long dead fires - all these familiar
details had suggested some continuity of human feeling and human
community. And yet what could have been their words, what could
have been their gestures, what were the expressions upon their faces?
And, if this tumulus were truly in alignment with the heavens, what
did they see when they looked up at the stars?

Time. In another time. Either before or after. They were not stars,
but fires. They were the souls of birds. They were entries into the vast
fire. They were the eyes of the dead. And in the darkness they were
imprisoned by them.

“Have you found them yet?” Farmer Mint had come up behind
Martha Temple, and he chuckled as she gave a little start of surprise.
“Have you?”’
“I’m probably being very stupid,” she said, recovering herself
quickly, “but I didn’t understand a word you said.”
“Tell her, Boy.”
Boy Mint was standing beside him. “Have you found them sheep
bones? Rabbit heads? Cow muck?”
Martha seemed to find some comfort in this. “Now don’t you go
spreading gloom and despondency.” She wagged her finger at them.
“Trying to pretend our work here is useless. And ridiculous.” She
was still smiling. “No one will ever believe you. Really. And I keep
my own opinions to myself.”
Farmer Mint was smiling with her now. “What came out of your
mouth this morning, Boy?”
“They’re making perfume out of gorse these days.” Boy Mint
scratched his head, and laughed out loud at the beauty of it.

1 *9
 FIRST LIGHT

“Do translate, Mr Mint. I’m far too stupid.”

“There’s all sorts of uses for rubbish these days. That’s what he
means.”
She smiled and rubbed her hands together. “I quite agree with
you,” she said. “But I think you ought to tell the others.” She looked
around to see who was within hearing range, and shouted, “What a
treat! Look who’s come to see us!” Then she whispered to Farmer
Mint, “Do tell them what came out of your son’s mouth.”
The others looked up to see the farmers standing side by side, and
grinning; they were of exactly equal height, and they cast two
identical shadows across the tumulus. The two men were not at all
embarrassed at this attention, and looked across at the perspiring
workers. “Warm, is it?” Farmer Mint asked them. Like his son, he
•was dressed in a thick green pullover with an old black jacket on top
of it; there were layers of shirt and vest beneath this outer covering,
but neither of them seemed to feel the heat. “Next thing you know
you’ll be seeing them things in the desert.”
“Mirages,” Boy Mint added, and earned a look of pride from his
father. “Them mirages.”
“Actually, I did see something.” This was a young woman who
had been working on the site from the beginning, always quiet and
uncomplaining. “Something like a mirage.”
“I wish I was young again,” Martha whispered to Owen. “All
that imagination.”
“I saw a man. A naked man clambering up the valley here.” She
pointed towards the stream. “At least I think I did.”
“Don’t be silly, dear.” Martha was happy to interrupt. “You must
have been in the sun too long.” The two farmers said nothing, but
examined the girl closely.
“Perhaps it was one of us,” Owen murmured. “We’ve got some
strange ones working here. Oh yes.”
“No.” The girl spoke quite calmly. “He was different.” The two
farmers kept on staring at her. “He wasn’t one of our kind. If you
know what I mean.”
“No. I do not know what you mean,” Martha said. But she was
clearly eager to hear more and came closer as the others gathered in a
group around the girl.
Then another of them, a young man who had spent the whole
morning brushing some soil off a piece of bone no more than four
centimetres in length, spoke out. “It’s funny, but I thought I heard

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 PRIVATE WORLDS

voices the other day.” He was silent for a moment. “And then I
thought I saw something.”
Farmer Mint put his head on one side, as Boy Mint leaned in the
opposite direction. “So you seen them coming, did you?”
“Them?”
“You know. Them.” Farmer Mint nudged his son. “Go on, Boy.”
“Sheep. You saw the sheep coming for you.” Both farmers
laughed in unison. “They’re terrible when roused, them sheep.”
“Well, well, well.” Owen seemed to find it funny, too. “The world
is going quite mad. Voices. Naked men. Sheep. What about haunt-
ings, too? I’m sure one of you has seen a ghost somewhere.”
Martha gave him a playful slap on the hand. “Don’t be so awful,
Owen. They’re only being honest. They’re being very youthful and
inventive. Let them have their little joke.” She smiled sympatheti¬
cally at the group, emphasising the fact that she was always on their
side while somehow managing to ridicule them at the same time. No
one knew how she did it. It was a gift.
At this moment Mark Clare came out of the Portakabin and,
seeing the Mints, walked over to them. He was rubbing his hands.
“Is everything in order?” he asked them. “Is there anything the
matter?”
“Not to speak of, Mr Clare.” Farmer Mint was noticeably more
formal with him than with the others. “Nothing to speak of. We’ve
just been having a history lesson.”
“History?” Mark was puzzled. He put up his hand as the Mints
were about to turn away. “Actually,” he said. “I was just about to
come and see you. There was something I wanted to tell you. Don’t
be alarmed if you see lights in the valley tonight.”
“Light?” This seemed momentarily to annoy Farmer Mint.
“Yes. Lights. We want to do some night photography.”
“Light don’t bother us, Mr Clare,” Boy Mint replied, on behalf of
his father. “Nor voices. Nor sheep. Nor strangers coming up the
valley.”
“It’s just,” Mark went on, “that we need another way of looking at
the site. There are things here we don’t even know how to see.”
“So you need light, do you?”
Suddenly there was a mournful bellowing which echoed down the
valley and they all turned towards the source of the sound. “That’ll
be Cow Number Four,” Farmer Mint told them with a certain
satisfaction. “She’s lost her calf. She’ll be moaning for a day or two

I 21
 FIRST LIGHT

yet.” And each year it was the same - the same deep cry which
punctuated the night and the day, the same lament for the loss of her
offspring.
“I really don’t want to hear it,” Martha said, putting her hands up
to her ears. “I just don’t want to hear it.”

122
 ♦3

T NIGHT PHO TO GRA PHY

HEY RETURNED that night. A slender tower of metal
scaffolding had been erected fifteen yards away from the
tumulus, just on the edge of the ruined ash forest, and
from here three high-intensity lights were to be directed
upon the site. The glare would create short intense shadows - all the
shallows and undulations of the surface springing up from the
darkness in bold relief so that, even on such a misty night as this, the
surface of the earth would become strange and unfamiliar. There
was a circle of pale light around the moon, and in a neighbouring
field a woman shone her torch as she called to some sheep that had
strayed. “Bill,” she cried. “Matilda!” Her voice rang down Pilgrin
Valley, where there was no other sound.
Owen Chard and Mark Clare were sitting together at the edge of
the site, waiting to judge the angle of the intense light that would
soon burst from the tower. In the darkness they could hear Julian
Hill saying loudly to Martha, “I’ll have my article for you next week.
I think you’ll like it,” and both men instinctively ducked behind one
of the standing stones which encircled the tumulus. Mark sighed and
leaned back against the stone in order to contemplate the mist and
the night sky. “After I spoke to the astronomer,” he said softly, “I
began reading about the Pleaides. And the great star, Aldebaran.”
He touched the standing stone with his knuckles. “These people
must have known them, too. But what exactly did they see?”
“Don’t ask me,” Owen replied. “Ask our friend Julian. He knows
everything.” But then, sensing Mark’s real interest, he pointed
upwards. “Andromeda,” he said. “Cygnus. Altair.”
“I didn’t know that you followed the stars.”
“I don’t. I don’t really understand any of it. All I see are lights in
the sky. I know less than them.” Mark looked across at him, not
understanding this. “Less than the people buried here. If they are

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 FIRST LIGHT

here.” There seemed to be a fluctuation in the sky but it was nothing;

a tremor in the atmosphere. “If they did come alive,” Owen went on,
“they would know far more about the stars than you or I do. After
all, the sky would be the one thing they would recognise.”
Mark was elated by this. “But it’s all coming together. Don’t you
feel it?”
“Yes, I feel it. I feel a pain in my arse.” Owen got up from the
damp grass, groaning, and looked towards the tumulus - of which
the outline, in the darkness of the night, could hardly be seen. It was
just the intimation of a shape and yet its presence was so strong that a
stranger here would have been forced to walk slowly, peering into the
darkness to find out what it was that so changed the feeling of this
place.
He returned to Mark who was still propped against the stone, and
crouched down beside him with the affection of an old companion.
“You don’t like poetry, Owen.” Mark carried on talking as if he had
never gone away. “And you pretend not to feel anything. But do you
know these lines?” He looked up, the brightness of the sky upon his
face, and in a low voice began reciting . . .

“. . . a wondrous rocky world of cruel

destiny
Rocks piled on rocks reaching the stars,
stretching from pole to pole,
The building is Natural Religion and its
altars Natural Morality,
A building of eternal death, whose propor¬
tions are eternal despair.”

“That was Blake,” he added. “I learnt that by heart when I was a

child.”
“You’re getting like the girls around here,” Owen replied, but not
unkindly. “Dreaming of things.”
The woman had stopped calling her lost sheep, and had switched
off her torch.
“Listen.” Mark put up his hand. The two of them heard a chorus
of human voices, falling and rising. The words were indistinct but a
sudden gust of wind from the edge of the valley carried “beginning”
and “silence” towards them. “It’s coming from the cottage,” Mark
said. “Damian Fall is playing his music very loudly tonight.”
“Someone’s playing the fool. That’s what you mean.” But both

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 NIGHT PHO TOGRAPHY

men continued to listen as the words ascended towards the glistening

stars.
And then the three high-intensity lights were switched on at full
strength, momentarily blinding all those on the site. Mark got up,
shielded his eyes and peered towards the metal scaffolding, “Down a
bit!” he shouted. “They’re too high. They’re missing the ground!”
So the lights were lowered, causing the brightly illuminated earth to
shift and sway as if it were being rocked by a giant hand. It regained
its solidity only when the lights were brought to their proper
positions, and now each undulation or curve in the earth was clearly
visible in the unfamiliar glare. The stars had vanished, leaving only
the brightness of the ground.
Mark walked up to Julian Hill, embarrassed at having avoided
him a few minutes before. “Do you see,” he said, “how there is no
true gradient? The curves of the land are sweeping away from the
tumulus in every direction. But there is something wrong. Some¬
thing missing. Or something I can’t see yet.” He shouted for the
lights to be lowered slightly; once more the landscape quivered and
changed its shape. “There is something—”
There was a sudden crack and a rushing sound as if a strong wind
were blowing up the valley; the whole earth seemed to tilt as the
brightness swung upward in an arc and then something fell to the
ground. In the crash, the lights went out: somehow the scaffolding
had collapsed, toppling back into the ruined forest. The confused
shouts of the archaeological team rang down the valley and Mark
called out, “Stay where you are. Don’t move. Don’t go near the
tumulus!” And then he added, “Is anybody hurt?” Now there was
silence as they peered at each other in the darkness; but they could
see only silhouettes, shadows, shapes, as the bright stars once more
reappeared above them.

125
 *32*

M AFTER THE FALL

ARK DROVE home an hour later. The fall of the
scaffolding had unnerved him — not because the
night photography had been abandoned just at the
moment when it promised success but, rather,
because he was beginning to see Pilgrin Valley as an “unlucky” site.
He had known such places before - soon after he had visited the
excavations in the Peruvian rain forest, they had been abandoned as
a result of accidents, misunderstandings, thefts. There had even
been a death. And that site had returned to the rain forest; the
standing stones were even now concealed by the green fog of
vegetation; the great earth mound, from which it was said that men
had once flown, was hidden from the sky by moss and creeper. And
there surely must come a time when the tumulus in Pilgrin Valley
would itself be concealed, perhaps by the trees which would eventu¬
ally grow out of the burnt forest. His work upon it was just a brief
interval in the course of its dissolution.
He opened the door of the flat very softly, hoping that Kathleen
would already be asleep. But she found it difficult to rest - sometimes
she even seemed unwilling to do so - and as he entered their bedroom
he found her sitting by an open window, looking out at the night sky.
“I didn’t expect you back,” she said. “Not yet.”
“The scaffolding collapsed.” She made no response. “But it was
all right. No one was hurt.”
“That’s good.” Until recently she had always wanted to know
everything about his work; his life had seemed more important to her
than her own. But now she was drawing back.
“I don’t know how it happened,” he was saying. “It just fell. As if
it had been pushed over.” He remained standing at the door, and he
could see her head outlined against the dark window. She was not
facing him; she was staring into the night.

126
 AFTER THE FALL

“That’s a pity,” she said. In recent weeks Kathleen had been

quiet, compliant to the point of passivity. Certainly she had lost
interest in the process of adoption she had so enthusiastically begun,
and had not even attempted to answer the letter from the social
service department. It was as if she had been expecting that first
rebuff; as if she had even positively invited it. Whenever he was with
her now Mark felt afraid - afraid for her but also afraid for himself.
They clung to each other, but they were taking each other down. “I
was just thinking,” she said, “what a happy time it was when we first
bought this place. Do you remember?”
“Every time has been a happy time. You know that.”
“But we always used to look forward.” She turned to face him.
“We never knew, did we? We never understood.”
“Never understand what, love?” He took a few steps towards her,
but she turned around again to the window. “Never knew what?”
At first she did not answer, but kept on looking up at the sky.
“Everything has to end,” she said at last. “All we’re doing is waiting
for the end.” The wave of her misery hit him now, knocking the
breath out of him. “I can look up at the stars,” she said. “But they
may be dead too by now. And what’s the use of looking so far in any
case? Where can I go?” This was how she had been before they had
met. Time. Time returning. Time swirling around her. The crippled
girl.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “Don’t think about it.” He was so
confused by her pain that he did not know what he was saying. “It
will all be the same in a hundred years.”
“And we will have been forgotten then,” she said. “We will have
left nothing behind.”
“But then—”
“Of course someone will take our place. There will always be
people like us. Wasn’t that what you said once? People like me.”
“Come on. I’ll help you to bed.”
“They say that suffering is noble. But it’s not. It’s a mean thing. A
petty thing. It crushes the meaning from you. Have you ever seen a
lost dog?”
“It’s late,” he said gently. He put his arm around her and helped
her to her feet; she seemed about to lean heavily upon him, but then
with an effort she straightened herself and made her own way
forward. But this was not an angry gesture; it was just that she
wanted to let him walk freely.

127
 ♦.33 ♦

D ON THE MOOR
AMIAN FALL had always been changed by rooms. He
had known from his childhood how powerfully they had
affected him: in his suburban parental home he had
become cramped and dull, and only when he had gone
beyond its threshold did he realise how free he could be. In the
hospital ward where his mother had died, he had himself grown sick
with a fever which abated when he left the building. In his first
university rooms he had felt so strongly the pulse of generations of
youthful ambition that he had become inspired but then, in the
library of the university, he felt himself being invaded by the words of
the books around him and he had fled in horror. In a lodging house
he once sensed the distillation of loneliness, had bowed his head and
wept. Even in places where the original rooms had been altered or
destroyed, he could still sense the atmosphere issuing from them -
some years before he visited a place which had been an asylum for
the insane, and he heard the screaming. And there were times when
it occurred to him that this strange sensitivity might account for his
early ambitions - why he wanted to leave the buildings of the world
and walk out beneath the stars. For, surely, the stars could not affect
him. And, yes, he had wanted to be a great astronomer.
Now he looked around the walls of his cottage, at the engravings of
those who had come before him. When he had first arrived here he
had sensed an overwhelming mood of patience, of the peace which
springs from inevitability; in those early months the cottage pos¬
sessed the endurance of generations, the habitual quietness of labour
undertaken and completed. But he could no longer feel such things.
His own labour seemed so pointless, his endurance so much a matter
of habit or folly, that the loss of his own hopes had affected the
cottage itself. Even here his own awareness of failure haunted him,
and now this place seemed to be no more than another part of the

128
 ON THE MOOR

valley - no more than a frail covering, a hiding place. And he sensed

within these walls the presence of something else, of a despair which
seemed to ebb and flow. Tonight it was very strong. It was time to
leave. It was time to visit the observatory.
It was a clear night without wind and, as he walked along the
garden path, the perfumes of the earth seemed to rise straight
upward; there was a scent, then no scent, and then scent again so
that it seemed to Damian that he was walking among pillars - that he
was walking on consecrated ground. He got into his car and drove
quickly down a track which led away from Pilgrin Valley. The light
from his headlamps swept across the valley in a sudden arc, and for a
moment the landscape was startled into movement as if it had been
woken from a dream. He drove due south and then, at Lud Mouth,
turned east along the coastal road. He knew how close he was to the
sea but it was lost in the darkness; he could see only the tall hedges on
either side, the road just ahead of him whitened by his headlamps
before it, too, ran into the night. He knew this route well. He fully
expected to be driving along it for the rest of his life, so he paid no
particular attention to it now. There was a section where the road
curved before a stone bridge, and at this point Damian switched off
his lights and turned left upon a rough track. He had come to
Holblack Moor.
He drove across this expanse of flat land for five or six minutes; he
could see nothing but a low level of thick shadow ahead of him,
stretching from horizon to horizon, but he knew where to slow down
and where to stop. He got out of the car and did not even glance at
the large object silhouetted against the sky beside him. At first sight
it might have been a giant’s head emerging from the ground, with a
curious upright ridge of hair running across the skull, but in the
starlight Holblack Observatory gleamed slightly - the whiteness of
the hemispherical dome contrasting with the dark brick of a small
one-storey building attached to it. It was towards this that Damian
walked.
For the first time he looked up at the stars, and then opened the
door, “Good evening, Brenda.”
“Oh, hello.” This was her usual greeting. “And how’s Mr Fall?”
“Much the same, Brenda. Much the same.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?” Brenda was the secretary. She checked
times; she made the coffee, she typed out reports. On this particular
week of night duties, she had decided to streak her hair with blonde

129
 FIRST LIGHT

highlights - even in the observatory she tried her best to look

glamorous or, as she put it, “keep the flag flying”.
“Brenda’s just made a smashing cup of coffee, haven’t you?” This
was Alec, the young Scotsman who had been Damian’s assistant for
some months - ever since Damian had welcomed him on the moor.
“Made it with her own lily-white hands.”
“Don’t you go talking to me about hands.” Brenda giggled.
“Had experience, have you?” Alec was very cheerful, and often
very boisterous. He laughed now, and swayed to and fro in his chair.
“Oh go on. Don’t be awful.”
“Had a few hands, have you?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Damian took ofThis brown corduroy jacket and hung it behind the
door as the other two watched him with something like pity: he
always wore a white shirt with the same dark green tie, and he
always smoothed his greying hair back over his head before turning
round again. They were in a small room which contained three
desks, two grey filing cabinets, a large clock, a kettle on a small
electric ring, a calendar, some colour-coded clip-boards fastened to
the wall. And on a cork noticeboard was pinned the message, ‘We’re
Travelling To The Stars’. This was the office for the observatory, the
muddled ante-room in which Alec and Brenda seemed quite at home
but which depressed Damian Fall: it was the room to which he
always had to return after watching the heavens. Returning to his
own fallen state. And, when he saw the dirty coffee cups, the
crumpled papers, the stained desks, he used to think that this was the
kind of room in which he might die. “It’s a nice night for it,” Brenda
said to Alec with a smile. “Don’t you think it’s a nice night?”
“It’s a lovely night, Brenda. A lovely warm night. For it.”
“Yes,” Damian said and the other two became quiet. “The air is
still. The viewing should be steady.” That was why he had glanced
up at the sky before entering the building. On a night bad for
‘seeing’, the stars would have eddied like candle-flame in a draught-
the atmospheric turbulence might make them seem to ‘twinkle’ but,
when magnified, they would leap and gyrate. But there was no
turbulence tonight. The stars shone with a steady glow; on this good
night they were still. He turned to Alec. “Shall we go through?” It
was the same question he always asked. And for Damian there
seemed failure in that, too - almost a tangible sense of it, like the
smell of prison clothes.

130
 ON THE MOOR

“Keep on trucking,” Alec said. “I’m with you, boss.” He got up

from his chair and did a little shuffle on the spot. Damian slid open a
thick metal partition while he waited for him, and together they
walked down a short corridor lined with bright yellow tiles. Then
Damian unlocked another metal door, slid it across, and the two men
entered the dome of Holblack Observatory.
“Bye!” Brenda called out from the other end. “Don’t do anything
I wouldn’t do!”
The dome was not lit and, when Damian locked the second door
and blocked out the neon from the corridor, the observatory was so
dark and so cold that it might have become part of the moor itself.
Then he extended his arm, touched a switch, and a bank of dim red
lights illuminated the interior. And here it was: the 36-inch reflector
telescope issuing from a circular green metal platform and sustained
by a network of white girders as it rose towards the roof of the dome.
It might have come from a fairground, so exotic and elaborate it
seemed - except for the equipment panels attached to its base, and
the knotted bundles of cables that were looped around its sides.
These cables, some of them as thick as a human wrist, were curled
across the black rubberised floor but then went down beneath the
mounting of the telescope; the instrument itself did not stop at its
metal base, but part of it descended beneath the floor of the dome as
if it were literally rooted into the earth. It might have stood here for
ever.
There was a circular metal stairway on the other side of the dome
and Alec, whistling softly to himself, walked towards it. He patted
the gleaming telescope as he passed, and blew a kiss towards it. “I’ll
go on down,” he said. “Be seeing you.” Alec monitored the spec¬
trograph in the laboratory beneath the dome; it was into this that the
light from the stars was hurled, through a panoply of lenses and
mirrors which sent images spinning downwards to the photon¬
counting detectors and the spectrometers - through primary mirrors
and secondary mirrors, the images of images, reflections of reflec¬
tions, until the light itself was broken apart and diffused into the lines
and bands of the stellar spectra. And, with his own special taped
music coming through his head-phones, his feet tapping out the
beat, Alec examined the light issuing from immensity.
Damian stood quietly in the observatory. Yes. There had been a
time when he had wanted to become a great astronomer. But what of
that now? He was no more than a technician, a useful adjunct to the
 FIRST LIGHT

work of others who had seen much further than he. He had been
stationed here, at this minor observing post, because he had
achieved nothing by himself. His superiors now told him at which
part of the sky to look, and which measurements to take. But, when
he saw how his contemporaries had succeeded where he had failed,
he felt neither bitterness nor self-pity. He simply marvelled at them-
marvelled at their ability to go through the world with such con¬
fidence. But it was too late for him. Much too late. He could only
carry on with the work allotted to him, and derive from it what
satisfaction he could. But nothing could take away the emptiness,
the feeling of waste as day by day he grew older and less able to
change. Even if someone had offered him an escape, a new life, he
was no longer sure that he would have had the courage to accept it.
And was this what happened to most people, this creeping across the
face of the earth?
He walked over to the console by the side of the dome. Here the
celestial coordinates were stored in digital form, and it took a matter
of moments for Damian to confirm that the declination and axle
bearing of the telescope had been correctly programmed. He sat
down and pressed the controls in rapid sequence. The red lights
within the observatory faded, the darkness returned, and the hemi¬
spherical roof began to open - its two halves parting so slowly that a
sliver of night sky appeared in the centre, gradually increasing in size
until the roof disappeared and the darkened dome was flooded with
starlight.

132
 ♦34♦

T THE OPEN DOME

HE TELESCOPE, moving fractionally to the east and
then to the north, rose up out of the dome; and, as he
watched its progress from the control panels, Damian
imagined himself to be soaring with it in successive stages
through the magnetosphere, the troposphere, the stratosphere, the
mesosphere, the thermosphere, the exosphere until he had left
behind the earth and had soared upwards into the heavens. Towards
Aldebaran.
The radio telescope at Silverdown had reported strange fluctua¬
tions in the signals from this giant star, and Damian had been
formally instructed to observe it and to report on the unknown
reactions which were taking place within it. Once he would have
done this eagerly enough, since it had been these recesses of the night
sky which had enthralled him as a child. For it was here that he had
found Aldebaran. He had first seen it low upon the northern horizon,
one autumn night, and he had not dared move. It was as if the child
and the star were studying one another, searching out the mystery.
The difference was that then he had no name for the star; now it was
quite familiar to him. Once the sight of the constellations had filled
him with exaltation, but now they were merely figures, integers, part
of the network. He was like a priest who had lost his belief in God.
Alec still had his faith, which was why Damian liked him and
enjoyed his company. He suspected that the young man had been
dispatched here eventually to take over from him - there were times
when Damian’s paranoia was like a sheet of ice between him and the
world - but still he recognised in Alec the kind of person he had once
been. He was eager, energetic and beneath the enthusiasm Damian
sensed that steady faith which had once inspired him also - a belief in
the stars, a belief in the progress of knowledge which was no less than
a belief in life itself. It was this that made Alec sing out loud as he

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 FIRST LIGHT

examined the stellar spectra.

The light from Aldebaran was being gathered and reconstructed
even as Damian watched the computer; it was possible for him to
understand its patterns and energies without once looking up at it
and now, on the screen, he could see the pale and shuddering surface
of the giant star. Its colours were forming and then fading, squares of
light being dispersed and then reassembled - black, green, red,
violet, blue. These were not the colours of the star itself but, rather,
electronic markings; they were visible symbols to register differences
in the intensity of its light. This was its surface as it had been aeons
ago and this light, not decayed but rolling onward, was the only sign
that the universe had existed before his birth. Everything on the
earth existed with him, shared his time with him in an ever-receding
present moment; everything was connected, but this network of
invisible relations was a network of simultaneity. Damian had to
assume that there was such a thing as the past but any evidence for it
was part of the present, too. All the world had ever known was a
succession of present moments. There was - there is — nothing else.
Except these images from a distant star, appearing now second by
second but belonging to another time; and there was the sky itself,
with traces of light which emerged thousands of millions of years
ago. And yet what if these images were an illusion - what if the
pictures of Aldebaran were simply constructions with no reality
beyond this particular time and place, this particular observer who
now looked up at the sky from the dark observatory, looked up at the
vast emptiness? And there shall be beautiful things made new, he
thought, beautiful things made new for the surprise of the
sky-children.
“Any luck?”
It was Alec, standing beside him. Damian did not know how long
he had been dreaming but his mouth felt dry, and he sensed that he
had been asleep for many hours. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I was miles
away.”
Dawn was breaking and in the pale light Alec could see how he
seemed to tremble by the controls. “Any joy?” he added, more softly.
“No. No joy yet.” Then he corrected himself. “Nothing can be
determined yet.”
A buzzer sounded and Alec walked over to the sliding door.
Brenda had arrived, with three cups of coffee on a tray. “I bet you
boys want something hot inside you,” she said. “I know the feeling.”

134
 THE OPEN DOME

She put down the tray of coffee. “Shall I?”

“Of course you shall,” Alec replied with a smile. “Don’t give it a
second’s thought.”
“Shall I turn on the lights? I don’t like being in the dark with you
two boys. There’s no knowing.” Alec put his arm around her waist,
and with a little shriek she moved a few inches away. “Leave off,”
she said. “I’m getting those goose-pimples.”
“You know where we Scotsmen get pimples don’t you, Brenda?”
“If it’s anything to do with kilts, I don’t want to hear.”
He gave her a little squeeze. “You wee sleekit cowrin timrous
beastie.”
“Don’t talk dirty, Alec.”
“Yes.” For the moment they had forgotten Damian, and now they
turned to listen to him. “Yes. It’s certainly preferable to be in the
light.”

*35
 * 35 *

THE ENTRANCE
AN AFTERNOON in August, and nothing moves in the heat;
/ ^everything living but not moving, everything waiting in the
/ ^heat. And on this August afternoon the sounds of hammer-
jL JbL
ing echo through Pilgrin Valley, but then suddenly stop.
It is as if someone has been knocking continually on a closed door,
which has unexpectedly opened.
“Utterly primitive and wonderful!” Evangeline Tupper clapped
her hands. “Just as I expected!”
“It must be so nice to have an imagination.” Martha Temple was
at her most pleasant. “The rest of us just plod on.”
The two ladies were standing within the exposed forecourt of the
tumulus; immediately in front of them Mark Clare and Owen Chard
were examining a massive stone slab which had been placed against
the entrance of the tomb.
“I wouldn’t say you plod, Miss Temple.” Evangeline was being
equally charming. “We all walk on together. Banners waving and
lovely band music.”
“This is the limit.” Owen sighed very deeply. “This is the
absolute limit.”
“What is it now?” Martha asked eagerly. “What else has gone
wrong?”
“No. I mean this is the limit. We can’t go any further in this
direction. But someone—” and he looked at no one in particular -
“someone should have guessed that this was a blind entrance.”
Over the last few weeks they had uncovered the stone roof of the
tomb, and had now descended further; they had reached down to its
entrance, the four-foot high portal into the chamber itself. Only the
sides of the tumulus were still concealed beneath the banks of turf so
that the whole structure seemed to be rearing itself upward, trying to
break free from the chains of the earth. The cleared space in front of

136
 THE ENTRANCE

the entrance, the forecourt, was semi-circular and they had found
the five upright stones which once marked its perimeter; but they
discovered that the entrance itself was blocked by a massive slab,
wedged into position between the two portal stones. This was not an
ordinary barrier, however, since it displayed a number of markings -
rings and spirals, lines and hollows, all of them carved into the stone.
At first sight it might seem that these had been created by the
movement of the earth over the centuries, but they were too
elaborately arranged to be the traces of subsidence or erosion. And
yet if there was a pattern it was unrecognisable: these circles and
lines might have been a form of handwriting but, as Mark Clare ran
his own hand across them, he knew that it was one which might
never be deciphered. If there was a message, of greeting or even of
warning, it had died with those who had fashioned it.
And yet there were some things which Mark now understood; he
was beginning, at last, to see the chamber grave clearly. Within the
forecourt itself five small pits had been dug in a half-circle immedi¬
ately in front of the upright stones; Owen Chard had already
determined that these pits or holes contained a hard packing of
broken stone around a softer filling of charcoal: and at once Mark
realised how long wooden poles had been placed within them, poles
at least fifteen feet high, poles which had all been burnt at the same
time. Perhaps they had been designed to stand alone, in a half-circle
around the tomb, but it was more likely that they had supported a
wooden canopy: flecks of charcoal scattered across the site suggested
that this canopy had also been burnt at the same time, its ashes
floating over the whole area. This temporary structure might have
been a covering for sacred ground, or it might have been a shrine in
which some object or relic had been venerated. There had been a
ritual conflagration, after the tomb had been sealed, when this
wooden monument was put to the torch.
Mark walked away from the blind entrance and stood at the
central point around which the upright stones and the poles had
been erected - two half circles, one of wood and one of stone, so what
was placed at this midpoint where he was now waiting? He looked
down at the freshly exposed ground and saw how the warm wind
seemed to lift the dust from it; there was always a wind in the valley.
He shuffled his feet sideways and then, to his surprise, took three
steps forward. Yes. The canopy on fire in a place where heaviness
and lightness are the real qualities of being, where the heavy stone is

137
 FIRST LIGHT

god and the smoke of the burning wood is spirit. Yes. The flames are
rising amid high rapid voices, voices mimicking the passage of the
fire into the sky. Humans and animals have come here of their own
accord, each understanding the call of the other. Here amid the
smoke and the ashes are the two-legged creatures, moving up and
away from the earth; and here are the four-legged creatures, curving
towards the earth and sorrowful with it. Time. Another time.
“Almost five thousand years ago?” Evangeline Tupper had taken
out a Woodbine, and was now waving it in the direction of the tomb
as she talked to Martha Temple. “Are you telling me that you can
date these stones because of something that happened in space? That
is the most bizarre thing I ever heard in my life.”
“But many bizarre things are real, Miss Tupper. As you must
know.”
Evangeline decided that she did not like Martha’s tone. “I am not
an expert,” she answered very deliberately. “I don’t have your
wealth of experience.”
“But surely you know all about radio-carbon dating? It simply
means that we measure the level of radioactive carbon to determine
age. Great age.” She was looking at Evangeline’s thin and puckered
mouth as she spoke. “It comes from space. From cosmic radiation.”
“I simply don’t believe it. It’s too - too—”
“Grotesque?” Martha was smiling.
“Something like that.”
Julian Hill had been standing next to them throughout this
exchange. He was eager to get Evangeline’s attention, in the hope
that she had some influence in the ‘Department’. “I think,” he said,
“that you ought to read my monograph. It makes it all much
clearer.”
“I’m absolutely dying to.” For the moment she could not remem¬
ber the man’s name. “I love everything you write.”
Julian assumed that she was referring to the only article he had
published, two months ago in New Archaeology. “But my monograph
is on quite a different scale. I do think it’s rather a success.”
“Tell me this.” Evangeline suddenly walked over to Mark. “How
did they manage to get these enormous stones on top of one another?
They must have been superhuman. Like coalminers. Vast hands.”
She thought of Baby Doll, and smiled.
“I can explain that very easily.” And, without sensing
Evangeline’s growing impatience, Mark described in vivid terms

i38
 THE ENTRANCE

how the inhabitants piled the outcrop of the area upon sledges before
pulling them across the long wooden causeways which would have
been laid in the valley; he then went on to explain how the tomb itself
was filled with field rocks and packed earth, to support the stones as
they were being levered and pushed into position. Once all the stones
had been correctly placed, this interior packing of the tomb was
removed.
Evangeline watched his gestures as he talked - wide expansive
gestures, spreading outward from himself, pointing towards nothing
in particular. And when he lowered his arms to his sides she knew
that at last he had finished. “That was practically Biblical,” she
said. “Sheer Old Testament.”
He was pleased by his performance, too. “Those are all the
parameters,” he said.
“Aren’t they adorable?” Evangeline presumed he was referring to
a feature of the landscape. “Sometimes I long to climb up them and
just throw myself off.”
But Mark’s excited attention had already returned to the blind
entrance, and he gazed at the carvings on its stone. He could smell
their age even as he looked at them and, in a sense, they were just
what he ought to have expected - further evidence that there were
secrets within Pilgrin Valley which would not be easily resolved. For
five months they had been exploring the site, but their slow descent
had been constantly interrupted; there had been nothing like the
havoc of late spring, when the site had been invaded and damaged,
but ever since that time there had been a series of unpredictable
events. Finds had been mislaid; tools had vanished overnight;
petrological analyses had been torn up or thrown away; the com¬
puters had malfunctioned, and on one occasion valuable data had
been lost. Perhaps it was the shock of these accidents which had
affected the morale of the team: the normal mood during such
excavations was one of rising excitement as the object of the quest
slowly emerged from the earth but, as they had dug deeper here, they
had been afflicted by lassitude and even by depression. There had
been quarrels. There had been two resignations.
Mark could not account for this but now, as he looked at the
carving on the blind entry, it became only one aspect of his larger
bewilderment - there was something wrong, something missing.
Why was this chamber grave not at the centre of the standing stones
which stretched over the countryside? Why had it been placed at

139
 FIRST LIGHT

least one hundred yards too far west? And why had it been built into
the side of the valley? All the evidence was suggesting to him that he
was quite wrong about the significance of the tomb - but, in that
case, what was it? What was escaping him? With an effort he turned
to Owen, who was photographing the post-holes in the forecourt.
“There is,” he said, hesitantly, “there is a reason for the blind entry.
It is not just to protect the grave. Somehow it’s related to t^?
symbolism of the thing.”
“Don’t talk to me about symbolism. I don’t believe in that
rubbish. That crap,” Owen added, delicately stepping across one of
the ancient holes dug in the surface of the earth.
“No. I mean that this stone is meant to be massive. Like the
others.” He looked at his colleague, uncertain whether to go on; but
Owen, despite his abrupt dismissal of the theory, was clearly
listening. “The thickness of the stone is the important thing. There is
a kind of magic in it. But I don’t understand these markings . . .”
Evangeline was still beside him, her back turned to Martha and
Julian. “Isn’t it exciting?” she said, taking out another Woodbine.
“Do you think it has anything to do with worlds in collision?” She
had read a book by Eric von Daniken, and had some confused
memory of ley-lines and ring-markings. “I would love to know.”
“We all would, Miss Tupper.” Owen looked gravely at her.
Evangeline paid no attention to him, and turned back to Mark
who still seemed lost in the stone. “So what’s next?”
1 m sorry r
“I think, Mark,” Martha had decided to intervene, “I think that
Miss Tupper is getting bored with us.” For some reason she seemed
exhilarated by this. “She probably finds us very dull indeed.”
Mark pretended not to hear this. “Did you ask what was next?”
Evangeline nodded. “We will have to enter the grave through the
side. Once we’ve stripped away the earth, there will be a gap. There
has to be a gap in the stones. Otherwise nothing could get in. Or get
out.”
“Delicious.” Evangeline shivered. “All the horrors of the tomb,
and so forth. Talking of horrors—”
She looked back at Martha Temple who, after her interruption,
was now walking delicately across a plank which had been placed
above one of the deep trenches at the boundary of the site: it was here
that Mark had hoped to find traces of early occupation but, although
some charred seeds had been located, no definite traces of human

140
 THE ENTRANCE

habitation had been Discovered. Martha had reached the other side
when something inside the trench caught her attention; it was as if
something had suddenly moved there, and she peered down through
the millennia at the old surface of the earth. Then she fell forward
and, with a shriek, tumbled into the trench. She tried to grasp the
side of the plank, bringing it down with her, and she fell awkwardly
upon her left arm. The others rushed over to her and, for a moment,
they gazed down into the trench where she lay splayed out on the
hard earth - she might have been a figure in a grave which they had
just opened, and there was something startling in her sudden
approximation to the long dead.
“Fuck!” Her normally charming and girlish manner had disap¬
peared. “My arm! I can’t feel it!”
Evangeline had hurried over. “I think,” she said, “that the poor
darling has broken her arm. We will have to be as gentle as absolute
lambs.”
And they were gentle: it took some time before Martha, placed
upon a makeshift stretcher and covered with a blanket, was brought
to the surface. “Someone pushed me,” she was saying as they carried
her onto the grass. “Some bastard pushed me!”
Mark turned around quickly, but there was nothing behind him
except the hot and silent fields of Pilgrin Valley. “There was nobody
there,” he said; but then he relented. “At least I didn’t see anybody.
Did you see anybody?”
This was addressed to Evangeline, who shook her head sadly -
quite as if this were one of poor Martha’s sick delusions. “It must be
the shock.” She pretended to whisper, but her voice was loud enough
for Martha to hear. “The shock of unbearable pain.”
Martha tried to raise her head. “I felt him!” she said. “That
bastard pushed me.” Then she moaned and sank back on the
stretcher. “Pardon my French—”
“—I don’t think that was French, dear.”
“But I didn’t just slip into the hole.”
“That all depends.”
For once Martha was paying no attention to Evangeline; she was
trying to remember the exact sequence of events. “I saw something.”
She lay back on the stretcher and closed her eyes. “Then I looked
down. And then someone pushed me.”
 *3 6*

T DECODING
WO NIGHTS later and Mark Clare lay in bed, unable to
sleep. Kathleen was beside him, clutching a pillow
around her head. Each time he closed his eyes, coloured
whorls and spirals crossed each other within the infinite
recesses of his night vision; and, as always, these phantom shapes
seemed to mimic the object of his thoughts - even as he tried to sleep
he was still attempting to understand the circles and indentations
which had been carved upon the large stone which sealed the tomb.
Quietly he got up from the bed and tiptoed across the room; he did
not want to wake his wife who, in the waning darkness before dawn,
seemed invested with a kind of sacred stillness. The world was
balanced between night and day, and her troubles had left her
suspended in a fragile sleep. Or so it seemed to Mark. But when
softly he opened the door she watched him from the bed with wide
eyes; and when he had closed the door she pressed her face once more
against the pillow, her eyes still open.
Mark went into his study where all his familiar objects were still
shrouded in darkness; he switched on the light and in the sudden
glare they sprang into vivid life, still somehow hollow from not being
looked at, from not being seen in the night, and only by degrees
reacquiring their substantiality as Mark walked among them. He
went over to the drawer of his desk, and took out the photographs of
the blind entrance which Owen had taken on the afternoon of
Martha’s fall. In these black and white prints he could see the worn
grey surface of the stone, as well as the darker markings upon it.
Then on a sudden impulse he took out a large yellow envelope, in
which Owen had placed the negatives. He held one of them against
the electric light, and when he saw that reverse image he understood
it at once; for it was in this instant, when he examined what were now
the lighter markings against their dark background, that he saw the

142
 DECODING

affinity - here were white points of light, white circles like swirling
clouds, white lines like tracks spreading across a black expanse. This
was a map of the heavens. This was a drawing of the stars. These
were the patterns of the constellations recorded in the only way
possible then - they had been inscribed upon stone. And then these
stars had been placed against the grave itself, enclosing the person or
persons who were buried there. The tomb was sealed by brightness
or, rather, by the brightness marked upon the stone. This was truly
the grave of someone who had worshipped the stars. At last Mark
knew what he was looking for - what was waiting for him within the
tomb.
Kathleen Clare was sitting upright in the bed, her hands clasped
around her knees. When she heard Mark coming out of his study she
lay down upon the bed again and pretended to sleep. But he did not
return to her. Filled with his excitement at the decoding of the stone,
he walked past the bedroom and quietly descended the stairs. He
opened the door into Crooked Alley as dawn was breaking, and went
out into the light.

H3
 ♦.37 *

GUARDIAN ANGELS
A "T” OULD YOU like to swing on a star?” Joey
^ /% / Hanover sang as he looked down into Pilgrin Val-
%/ ley. “Carry moonbeams home in a jar?” He looked
7 7 mournfully at a cow behind a hedge. “Or would
you rather be a mule?”
“Stop that howling, Joey.”
“I loved it when I was young, Flo. I loved it when I was young.”
“That’s no reason to sing it now.”
“That’s every reason.”
In fact Floey Hanover was growing irritable; it was already the
middle of August and they had spent the last weeks driving
desultorily along the lanes and tracks of this region, looking for the
right cottage in the right position. Now, finally, they had arrived in
Pilgrin Valley; despite Augustine Fraicheur’s recommendation they
had left it until last, and this principally because it was the only one
not properly marked upon their maps of the area. It had been
difficult to find: they had been forced to turn back along the green
ways, they had driven into farmyards, they had come to a halt on
desolate ridges, they had driven along an appropriate route only to
come out by a rocky shoreline or the brow of a hill. Now that they had
found it, however, Joey felt unaccountably afraid; he started whis¬
tling to himself as they sat in the car. They were a few yards from the
Mints’ farmhouse, and could see across the valley to the excavations.
“That’s another bad sign,” his wife said. “When you make that
noise.”
“It’s my nerves, Floey. I’m a prey to my nerves.” They were silent
for a moment. “Hello,” he said. “What’s that excrescence?”
“Don’t be filthy, Joey.” But she liked the sound of the word; she
would employ it on the right occasion.
“No, seriously. What’s that business over there?” He pointed

144
 GUARDIAN ANGELS

towards the tumulus, exposed now but covered with plastic sheeting
and guarded by a fence clumsily constructed out of chicken wire.
“Isn’t that what my friend’s friend was telling us?”
“Your friend’s friend?” He enjoyed the phrase. “Who was your
friend’s friend?”
“Tiger’s friend. You know. That woman with the funny face. Like
a parrot. Evangeline. Don’t you remember anything except old
songs?”
“Not if I can help it.” He could see, beside the tumulus, the burnt
space where the old ash forest had stood. “But there is something
here . . .” he said. “Something I do remember.” He put on his mauve
checked cap, opened the door of the car for Floey, and together they
walked down the western slope of the valley towards the Pilgrin
stream. Farmer Mint was just carrying a pail from his house; he
stopped to look down at Joey in his bright blue blazer, and at Floey in
her corn-yellow dress with large green straw hat. He watched them
pick their way among the stones and the parched grass; then he
scratched himself. Late summer. The turning point of the year.
The Hanovers stepped across the stream, now the merest ripple in
its chalk bed, and climbed towards the tumulus. “Just look,” he said.
“Take a little look at that.” He pointed towards the forecourt and its
blind entry. “Pure pantomime, that is. Pure Genie of the Lamp.” He
turned around towards Floey and put out his arms. “There is a voice
from the grave,” he sang. “Calling me, calling me.” Then he turned
around and shielded his eyes from the sun, so that he might more
clearly see the rise of the valley ahead. “Let’s try up here,” he said.
“There is something . . .”
“Another wild duck chase,” Floey whispered to herself as, reluc¬
tantly, she followed him. He avoided the excavations and worked his
way up towards the copse of ash and beech trees on the crest of the
valley; she stopped half way, to fan her perspiring face with her green
straw hat. It was only when she had put it on again that she saw Joey
standing very still on the ridge, with his arms in the air. She climbed
up towards him, and still he did not move from this spot; she stood
beside him, and saw that he was looking across a dry field towards a
small cottage. There was a hedge around it, but Floey could see the
thatched roof and two upstairs windows. “I know this place,” Joey
said. “I know this place very well.”
He started walking across the field but he increased his pace, and
then he began to run; his check cap was blown off in this progress but
 FIRST LIGHT

he seemed not to notice. He did not stop running until he had

reached the white gate of the cottage, where he stood panting for
breath. Then he sat down on the dry grass and bowed his head.
A few minutes later Floey came up to him, holding out his cap.
“Here’s part of your wardrobe,” she said.
He looked up at her, not seeing the cap. “This is it, Floey.”
“This is what?”
“This is the cottage I remember.”
“Why don’t you go in then?” She sounded unenthusiastic but,
really, she was trying to calm him.
“I don’t know.” He was filled with the same fear he had
experienced when driving into the valley. “Give me a minute.” But
he did not have a minute: the cottage door opened and Damian Fall,
wearing his corduroy jacket, came out with a watering can. He saw
the Hanovers at once, and stepped backwards. The Hanovers were
alarmed, too, and Joey hastily got to his feet.
“I’m sorry.” It was all Damian could think of saying. “I’m sorry.”
Joey seemed puzzled. “Excuse me,” he said. “But do I know
you?”
This was a genuine inquiry, and it embarrassed Damian. He did
not expect anyone to know him. “Not to my recollection. No.” He
ran his finger along the inside of his shirt collar.
“Do you know me then?”
Damian scrutinised him with apparent anxiety. “The face is
familiar, but. . .”
“Joey Hanover,” his wife said, flatly. “Of course he was first
known as Joey Chuckles.”
“Of course. Everyone knows your name.”
“This is it,” Joey answered. “This is the problem, you see.” He
took his check cap from his wife’s hands, and began to dust it. “It’s
not my name at all.”
“Would it be a stage name?”
“No. An adopted name. I was adopted. May we?” They had been
talking on opposite sides of the gate, and now Damian put down his
watering can in order to open it for them. Joey walked down the
garden path, twisting his cap in his hands. “That’s why we’re here,”
he said. “I know this place. I think I was born here.”
“Then you had better come in. Fall,” he added quietly.
“Just over the threshold?” Floey was confused, remembering
some of her old stage tumbles.

146
 GUARDIAN ANGELS

“No. That’s my name. Damian Fall.”

He led them into the front room and at once Joey saw the plaster
casts of the faces, looking down at them from the corners of the room.
“There they are,” he shouted. “There are my guardian angels!” He
looked with a certain wild bafflement at Damian, as if he were
somehow keeping something from him. “There was a floor here,” he
said, gesturing above his head. “And then there was a bedroom. My
bedroom.”
“I think the floor must have been removed. It makes a larger
space, you see,” Damian added helplessly.
Joey was not really listening to him. “And these were my angels.
Angels watch me as I sleep. From bad dreams my soul to keep.
Someone sang it to me once.” He sat down, rather heavily, upon a
slender wooden chair. “This is it, Floey. This is it.”
Damian watched him as he struggled for breath. He knew that
something important, something significant, was happening to these
people; and he did not particularly want it to take place in front of
him. He did not know how to respond. “Can I get you something?”
He was almost pleading with Floey, pleading with her somehow to
domesticate this situation and to render it normal. “A drink?”
“Get him a brandy,” she said. “And could I have a gin? Gin and a
bit?”
“It. Gin and it.” Joey corrected Floey automatically, as he stared
straight ahead. When Damian came back into the room he was still
staring in the same direction, and he carried on talking as if there had
been no interruption. “When I was given away, you see, no one knew
very much about me. My adopted parents thought that I came from
this part of the world. And somehow I remembered this cottage. So
we’ve been looking. But I never thought—” He looked up at his
angels. “I’m just a poor orphan. With nothing but dreams. How did
the song go, Floey? Was it something to do with scream? Or with ice¬
cream?” She shook her head.
“I think it was scream,” Damian said. The two men gazed at each
other, and this mutual look so bewildered them that they could not
turn away - they stared at each other, discomposed, wild, haunted,
lost.
“I want to find out who my parents were,” Joey said at last. “I
want to find out where I come from.”
“Where does anybody come from?” Damian was talking quite
directly to him, as if the strange look between them had removed any

>47
 FIRST LIGHT

attempt at concealment.
“I’m not with you.”
Floey had already finished her drink. “He’s telling you to be
philosophical about it,” she said. “He’s telling you not to give it
another thought.”
Damian seemed to shake himself awake. “I’m really only a
tenant,” he said. “I don’t have much information.”
“Where’s the landlady?” Floey looked around, half-expecting to
see the kind of theatrical proprietor she met on her travels so many
years before.
“My landlord is Mint. He’s on the other side of the valley.”
“Can I look around?” Joey went from room to room, and then he
stepped out into the garden. “Purple flowers!” he shouted to both of
them.
Floey looked apologetically at Damian. “He really needs to find
out the truth,” she said. “He’s got a bee in his—” She could not
remember the rest of the phrase. “Where is it? Where do you keep
bees when you want to know the truth?”
Damian understood what she meant. “The truth? I don’t know.”
He put his hands through his hair and went over to the window. “I
suppose I believe in cultivating my own garden.” And as he said this
he realised how much it was a counsel of despair, how much a
confession of his failure.
“I do beg your pardon,” she said, not without a hint of asperity.
“We’re stopping you.”
“What?” He turned around, his face burning.
“We’re stopping you gardening.”
He was still considering his own failure. “Of course. Weeding.
There is always weeding to be done.”
Joey came in now, bewildered. “Tell me,” he said. “Who am I?
Do you know me?”
“You’re Joey Hanover,” Damian said. For some reason he
wanted to make amends now, he wanted to be of some use to these
people who needed his help.
“That’s who I thought I was. Thank you very much.”
“You must go and see the Mints,” Damian went on. “They know
everything. And they’ve owned this cottage for years.”
“What do we do,” Floey asked him. She was becoming tired of this
apparently perpetual quest. “Follow the yellow brick road?”
“No. No. Come with me.” He took them back out into the garden

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 GUARDIAN ANGELS

and, pointing towards Pilgrin Valley, directed them to the Mints’

farmhouse. “Goodbye,” he shouted as they made their way back
across the field. “Good luck!”
“What did you make of that one,” Floey asked her husband as
soon as they were out of earshot. “That was not a happy person.”
“I found it, Floey. I actually found it!” All his life Joey Hanover
had been haunted by the image of some remote and tranquil past; he
had known nothing definite about it, and his adopted parents had
been able to tell him no more than that he had come from
“somewhere between Devon and Dorset”. Yet he had always
nourished images of this place, of a high green hedge, of purple
flowers, of a nearby wood. He could remember one time in his
infancy when he had looked up at a cloudless sky, and the knowledge
of that blue was somehow connected with the noise of rooks and the
sight of some sheep grazing vaguely on the side of a valley - and he
had believed these sheep to be clouds which had left the sky, come to
linger for a while upon the surface of the earth.
After this solitary memory there was a break, a silence, and out of
that darkness he emerged as the adopted child whom he knew very
well. But, still, these images of an earlier life had remained within
him, and they always left him calm. For this remnant of his infant life
was a feeling like no other - it was a feeling of permanence, a feeling
that the ordinary business of the world was of no consequence, a
feeling like the warm passivity which occurs just before sleep. And
this was true, too - the images of his unknown childhood helped him
to sleep. And would they help him when the moment came to die? He
found that he was crying. He wiped his face with his check cap, and
then smiled at Floey. “Tears are blessings,” he sang out in a strong
voice as they descended into Pilgrin Valley. “Tears are blessings, so
I let them flow.” As soon as they had crossed the stream they could
see the Mints’ farmhouse on the road above the valley, and suddenly
Joey stopped. “No.” he said. “No. It’s been a shock to the system. I
can’t take any more today.”
She sensed how tired he felt now, and she took his arm. “We’ll
come back tomorrow,” she said. “Tomorrow’s another day. Isn’t
that what they say?”
“I don’t know what they say, Floey. I don’t know what they say.”
They went back to the car but, just as he was about to drive away,
Joey stopped. “Do you think we’ll be able to find it again?” He
looked around in panic, for at that moment it seemed to him that all

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 FIRST LIGHT

this might be an illusion, a dream - and that they would never be

able to return to Pilgrin Valley, where all his hopes rested now.
“Of course we will. We’ll come back tomorrow.” Both of them
turned to look once again at the Mints’ farmhouse; if there had been
any sign of activity there, Joey would have changed his mind and
gone over to it. But, since it was quite silent and apparently deserted,
they drove back to Lyme Regis.
Damian Fall had gone back into the cottage. He washed the
glasses which they had used and then he dusted the chair where Joey
had sat, taking care to move it back to its original position. Then he
sat down upon it. He had a feeling that something had passed him by
— that once more he had not seen, or had been denied, something of
great significance; and, with a terrible cry, he rocked to and fro.

150
 ♦.?<?»

THE PERFORMANCE
M ’M HAVING a little party afterwards.” Augustine
Fraicheur was talking to Joey Hanover outside the small
theatre in Wagg Street. “The creme de la creme of Lyme.”
M It was the evening after the visit to Pilgrin Valley, and Joey
was admiring the bright scarlet posters advertising the first night of
The Family Reunion. By T.S. Eliot. “Of course we’re playing it as
comedy.”
“That’s good. I like a nice cry.”
Augustine was taken aback for a second, but then he recovered
himself. “You’re such a scream, Mr Hanover. Joey.”
“That’s what I mean. Comedy is serious. Just look at me.”
At this moment Floey came out clutching two tickets; she had
decided that her husband needed enlivening after the events of the
day, and the lugubrious expression with which he was addressing
Augustine confirmed her worst fears. “Five pounds each,” she said,
waving the tickets in the air. “These people would take the skin ofT
your back.” Joey began to smile, and she held up her hand. “No.
Don’t correct me. I’ll do it myself. Skin of your teeth. Shirt off your
back.”
“It’s all for charity,” Augustine said. “We’re just being cruel to be
kind.” With a little bow he walked away but then stopped, twirled
around, and put one hand on his hip. “See if you can guess where the
clocks come from.” He hurried off, and then stopped for a second
time. “Don’t you two forget to laugh,” he said. “I think it’s going to
be very camp.”
Perhaps that was not, Joey thought as he watched, the right
adjective. The play had actually been directed by Augustine in a
robust manner; its quiet sad lines were delivered with a stridency
that would have done credit to Gothic melodrama, and the
somewhat boring characters were so padded and so emphatic that
 FIRST LIGHT

they took on a grotesque life quite different from anything the author
could have envisaged. But, as they sat in the small auditorium and
the voices of the actors boomed around the theatre, the Hanovers felt
quite at home. The world had been transformed into a pantomimic
creation, but that did not mean that it was any the less effective or
any the less moving. It had acquired a higher reality and, as soon as
Joey Hanover heard the first lines with their refrain on clocks that
stop in the dark, he was entranced by it. This was the kind of
performance he had been giving all his life: strident, vivid, colourful,
simplified beyond the range of “character acting”. It had been part
of his skill as a comic to understand that everything had its own form,
an inner truth or consistency which was not revealed to those who
insisted on some distinction between the real and the unreal. No one
had asked Picasso to depict ordinary faces; no one asked a musician
to transcribe the familiar sounds of the world; so why should not Joey
Hanover himself create his own kind of truth by disciplining and
reinventing reality? That was why in his own act he took on a
character which was like no real Londoner but which still managed
to capture the essence of London; that was why his ‘patter’, his
mixture of songs and jokes and innuendoes which bore no relation to
ordinary speech, so touched and amused all those who came to hear
it. And that was why, as he sat in the small theatre in Lyme Regis, he
was genuinely frightened when in the first scene The Furies
appeared outside the drawing-room window. They were badly
made-up, their costumes awry, their delivery awkward, but they
were still effective. And yet even as they terrified him he knew that
they were not real. A little later he nudged Floey when the Chorus,
arms flailing wildly like scarecrows come suddenly to life, stepped
forward to explain that events which take place in time are never lost
but remain, echoing through the past and the future.
“Too much business,” Floey whispered to him. But she let out a
great sigh of pleasure.
“Ham?”
“Wall-to-wall pork. Wonderful.”
Floey’s attempt to divert her husband seemed to have worked
since Joey was so rapt in the performance that he had forgotten the
search for his lost parents which had brought him to this place. He
was the old Joey, watching every aspect of the action, appreciating
the asides, noticing the sets and the props with the same avid care as
if he were at that moment on the stage himself. But as Floey Hanover

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 THE PERFORMANCE

watched The Family Reunion she worried about him and his explora¬
tion of his lost past; it was too late, she knew that, and those matters
which had been concealed for so long should remain so. If there was
some secret, it was one which could be of no possible use to Joey now.
It could only bring him grief. She shifted in her seat, and looked
sideways at him. Three rows behind, Evangeline Tupper noticed
Floey’s movement, but with the same distant attention as she
watched the performance itself. The play meant nothing to her
except as the stage for her own memories and, as the characters
walked to and fro, she thought once more of her father’s loneliness.
Baby Doll, sitting beside her, was remembering once more the story
which Joey had told them - the story of the children who flew. Then
she was thinking of the sea, and of the layers of blue she had glimpsed
within it that morning when the gulls flew around her. And Joey was
looking at the green slopes of Pilgrin Valley, studded now not by
rocks but by the white masks of his guardian angels. Evangeline had
put her arms around her father’s neck, while Floey looked on
helplessly as her husband lay dying. Time. Past time. Future time.
Imaginary time. Other times curving around them. Each of them in
another time and yet each of them still following the performance on
stage, as if somehow the words and gestures in front of them
prompted their own feelings; as if the play had become the text which
gave those feelings form and substance. When the curtain fell at the
end it was as if they had been dreaming, and had suddenly been
awoken; and as they rose from their seats, they left their private
worlds and at once became their ordinary selves.
The Hanovers left quickly, in order to avoid Augustine and any
further mention of his party, but already Evangeline and Hermione
were scurrying ahead of them out into the night. “What was that
man complaining about?” Evangeline was asking. “All he needed
was a good slap. One hard slap. Around the face. It would all have
been quite different,” she went on, “if it had been written by a
woman. You know what they say about one touch of Nature—”
Floey Hanover walked up between them and, taking Hermione’s
arm, replied, “Makes the whole world sin?”
Evangeline did not seem at all pleased to see her, or her husband.
“This is gorgeous,” she said in her nicest possible manner.
“Absolutely gorgeous. But not altogether a surprise.” Joey looked
puzzled. “The theatrical profession,” she went on, “never misses a
first night, does it?”

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 FIRST LIGHT

Joey did a brief soft-shoe shuffle on the pavement outside the

theatre. “There’s no business, Miss Tupper, like show business.”
Floey looked on, and turned to Hermione. “At heart, you know,
he’s still an old lesbian.”
“I think,” Joey said quietly, “that you mean thespian?”
Evangeline had started laughing. “Well, darlings—” She had
only met the Hanovers once before, in the dining room of the Blue
Dog, but from her tone she might have known them all her life.
“Well, darlings, what’s the difference? We are among friends, after
all.”
Hermione and Floey walked ahead together, while Evangeline
and Joey followed a few paces behind. “I suppose,” Evangeline was
saying, “that you understood the play far better than I possibly
could?”
“Bits of it. Little bits of it.”
“But why were they speaking in that very peculiar manner?”
“I think,” Joey replied, “that it was meant to be blank verse.”
“Oh, was it? That explains it. I knew it was a lot of fuss over
nothing.”
“We saw your famous tomb this morning,” Joey said. “In that
valley.”
“How was it?” She might have been enquiring about a casual
acquaintance. “I could sit and look at it all day, couldn’t you? Well.
Perhaps not all day. Perhaps until the early afternoon.” Joey made
no reply: the memory of Pilgrin Valley had provoked fresh anxiety
about his prospective meeting with the Mints. Now that he had
found the cottage, he was more uncertain than ever. Uncertain
about his past, and uncertain about himself.
The more silent he became, however, the more animated
Evangeline decided to be. “We’re going inside it next week,” she
said, loudly. “And no one has a clue what we’ll find. But I do hope
it’s something very grim and prehistoric. Something we can sink our
teeth into.”
The thought of Evangeline sinking her teeth into something grim,
possibly Baby Doll herself, caused Joey to burst out laughing.
“Don’t mind me,” he said. “I was just thinking of the play.”
Evangeline tried to laugh, too. “Yes,” she said. “There were parts
that were terribly funny, weren’t there? Just like a family reunion is
supposed to be.”

154
 ♦39*

I DARKNESS
ATER THAT same night and, as the Hanovers slept, as
Evangeline Tupper slept, as Augustine Fraicheur slept,
.Damian Fall sat in the darkness of the observatory.
Squares of bright colour were reflected upon his face as he
plotted the light curve of Aldebaran. On another screen he called up
a model of the spectral emissions from the star, and he could see its
shell of gases as a dark revolving sphere - the ripples and undula¬
tions in the surface of that sphere like the dunes and tumuli of the
earth. But look, Damian. Look closely at the shapes being formed.
Could it be true that I know this place? Could the star have taken on
the shape of Pilgrin Valley? Yes. And, look, it is moving.
Darkness. He has fallen forward or backward. He has not been
able to hold himself against the power of gravity. And yet what is
gravity, except a wave of emptiness? It is not a “power” at all.
Gravity is simply one aspect of a force which no one understands.
But what of this chair? This observatory? They are no more than
whorls or knots in the cosmic field, temporary patterns of energy like
the changes in brightness across the surface of Aldebaran. The world
and the visible universe are an irruption of stray matter into the vast
nothingness, a relic of that inconceivable moment when space and
time were created together; they are fossils brought together by the
stellar wind that has blown from that first moment of fortuitous and
unnecessary creation.
Darkness. And I know that matter itself is a residue, an obstacle in
the path of the perfect patterning of the cosmos, a stain upon the face
of the original nothingness. Gravity cannot exist without objects;
objects cannot exist without gravity; space is inconceivable outside
of time, and time itself is only an aspect of space. These forces are
fractured and incomplete, therefore; only the relationship between
them is significant, since in that relationship there is some faint echo

155
 FIRST LIGHT

of the order which existed before the creation of the visible universe.
And perhaps I hear some echo of the perfect order.
Darkness. Matter itself takes recognisable shape only when it is
examined at a comparatively low energy; when it is observed at a
higher energy it becomes simply a mode of instability - violent,
spontaneous, unfathomable, the flashes of some much larger force.
And how much simpler, and purer, if that force could exist without
these spirals of space-time piercing through it? Does the universe
expand because it is yearning to be free of itself?
Darkness. And yet the universe cannot escape from the relics of its
origin - energy thrust into time and space and thereby “created”,
turned into light and heat, slowly decomposing into visible being.
The cosmos can no more reverse its fall into the dimensions of space
and time than the world can discard the relics of its own develop¬
ment. That is why those buried in the tumulus are as much a part of
me as I am of them. Everything is touching everything else, expand¬
ing outwards but still mingled together. If a leaf were miraculously
to disappear from a single tree the whole universe would be
destroyed, because at that instant the balance of forces would be
disturbed.
Darkness. And I, too, am an aspect of that order, a relic of earliest
creation which space and time have now woven together: nothing
can happen to me without subtly altering the shape of the visible
universe. I too am moving away through limitless space; I am part of
that infinite expansion which seems to me to be an infinite horror.
Yet I am not my self; I am as evanescent and as shifting as every
other part of the cosmos, a fortuitous arrangement of particles, a
small plateau in the endless decomposition of space and time, a stasis
in the struggle of forces which has turned into matter.
Darkness. And yet I am not matter; I am merely the space through
which the forces of the universe pass, just as the billions of neutrinos
pass through me in their journey across the cosmos. I am of the same
order of being as a gas cloud, or a constellation. Everything is
watching everything else and now, as Damian looked up through the
open dome of the observatory, he could see the stars quivering and
dancing in the turbulent air.
He wanted to flee. But where could he escape to? He could not flee
to the sky. He knew that there was no sky. He knew that it was only
light which had been trapped. Darkness still.
Damian, wake up.

156
 *40*

W HORSES AND FISHES

AKE UP, Damian.” Brenda was standing beside
him, and was digging her finger into his right
shoulder. “Isn’t that weird,” she said as he opened
his eyes. “I couldn’t rouse you for ever such a long
time. Just couldn’t arouse you.” He did not realise he had been
asleep. “I’ve got a man in there.” She tossed her head in the general
direction of the office. “Who wants you.”
“Who is it?” He was still lost in his dream, if it had been a dream.
“Clare?”
“Of course. Bring him through.” He had invited Mark Clare to
visit the observatory and, yes, he remembered now, the archaeolo¬
gist had written to him about some markings upon a stone; they had
agreed to meet on this particular night.
Brenda led him into the dome. “I know you” she said, now that
she had taken a proper look at him in the passage. “I’ve seen you in
Lyme. With a woman on your arm.” She giggled. “Who was she?”
“That was my wife,” Mark said. He looked at her with something
like panic; it was as if Kathleen had somehow entered the room.
Brenda remembered now that the woman had had a brace upon
her leg, and she blushed in the darkness of the observatory. “Will I
be wanted?” she said quickly.
Alec had come up behind her in the passage, and squeezed her
waist. “Not till Birnam Wood goes to what’s-its-name.” He put his
face over her shoulder, so that he could more easily see Damian; he
had begun to notice the strangeness of his behaviour and, sur¬
reptitiously, he was observing him. Damian Fall was right about his
assistant: Alec did have faith in the stars, and in the possibility of
human progress. But this meant, too, that he had some trust in
human nature; and that trust led to his concern for others. This was
why he was worried now about Damian Fall. He admired him, and

*57
 FIRST LIGHT

he understood very well the nature of Damian’s melancholy. Alec

was more romantic - did he not sing whenever he thought of the
heavens? - but he was also more pragmatic. He wanted to help
Damian, to prove to him that his work was important, that even on
Holblack Moor there was hope to be found.
Brenda gave a little wriggle as Alec playfully embraced her. “I
don’t know anything about woods,” she said. “Or the back seats of
cars, thank you very much. I’m just asking if they want me.” They
went back to the office together, Alec briefly looking back at Damian.
“I like Shakespeare,” she was saying as she closed the partition
between the observatory and the passage. “I like that song about
bees sucking.”
The two men were left alone beneath the open dome. “Shall I turn
on the light?” Damian asked.
“No,” Mark replied. “Please don’t. I prefer it like this.” He went
over to the telescope. “It reminds me,” he said, “of the engraving in
your cottage. What was it called? The darkened house?”
“Domus obscurata. Yes. But they knew much more then. They
understood much more.”
“But now—”
“Now we’re really in the dark.” Damian laughed. For a few
moments he tapped some keys on the console, and the great
telescope whirred into life; but it did not seem to Mark to be going in
any certain direction. “Backwards and forwards,” Damian said.
“Backwards and forwards. All the time.” Somehow, at this moment,
they both experienced the same sensation of futility. It was as if the
observatory itself had inspired it. It was as if they were standing on
waste ground. Mark said nothing, and for a while the two men
listened to the sound of the guiding mechanism as it turned and
turned about.
Damian switched it off, and leaned against his chair. He had his
back to Mark and, in the darkness, his natural reticence seemed to
disappear. “We really know nothing, after all. We see what we want
to see. In each generation the heavens become a kind of celestial map
of human desires. I’m sorry. Am I boring you?”
“Of course not.”
“They reflect all our recent theories about the universe, and
although we no longer see the stars in the shape of gods or animals
our own theories are no less fabulous.” Damian pushed back his
chair and looked up at the stars through the open dome. “The stars

158
 HORSES AND FISHES

take on the shapes we choose for them, you see. They become the
images of our own selves, shining down and comforting us.” His
voice sounded quite different to Mark; it was as if he had just
emerged from deep water, and was still out of breath. “I’m not so
sure that the Greeks weren’t right. Perhaps there are horses and
fishes floating across the sky. Perhaps we wished them into existence,
centuries ago, and they’ve been trapped there ever since.”
The silence which followed this lasted too long. “But there is
science—” Mark began to say.
“Ah yes. Science. But who is to say that our science is any better
than the science of the astronomer buried in Pilgrin Valley? You did
tell me he was an astronomer?”
“We think so. In fact I’ve brought something—” He had brought
an envelope containing the photographs of the tomb-markings
which he wanted Damian to examine, and now he held it out.
But Damian did not notice this. “Science is like fiction, you see.
We make up stories, we sketch out narratives, we try to find some
pattern beneath events. We are interested observers. And we like to
go on with the story, we like to advance, we like to make progress.
Even though they are stories told in the dark.”
“But you have your equations. Your mathematics—”
“Oh. Mathematics. Mathematics is like language. No one knows
where it came from. No one really knows how it works. More horses
and fishes. Horses and fishes trapped in signs.”
Mark put down the envelope on a small table next to him but as he
did so he brushed against a plastic cup, half-filled with coffee, which
fell to the floor. “Oh my God,” he said. “I am sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. There’s nothing to be sorry about. I chose this
life.” And yet Damian saw nothing but darkness ahead of him, the
same weary routine, the same sense of futility, the same awareness of
failure; the same loss of faith.
Mark had grown accustomed to the half-light, and the objects in
the dome were bathed in the crepuscular glow of the stars. “But you
have discovered so many things,” he said. He was talking to the
silhouette of Damian, poised and watchful, but when he walked over
to him he realised that it was simply the chair with a jacket thrown
across it.
Damian was behind him now, and he jumped when he touched his
arm. “I’m sorry,” Damian said. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. I
didn’t mean to frighten anyone. Go on.”

159
 FIRST LIGHT

“You know so much more than we do. We only have a few

scattered finds—”
Damian laughed at this. “Yes. We go further out. We go so far out
that we can see nothing. Do you know that in quantum physics
objects simply appear and disappear? And then we see objects
suddenly emerging in two places at once which, as far as I remem¬
ber, was always supposed to be impossible.” Mark could see his face
now, also glowing in the starlight. “We see an electron at one point
but then somehow it is also at another, and it has reached it by
travelling in all possible trajectories at once. Now this is a very
strange thing. A strange thing for someone who believed in the
orderly movement of the stars.” He bent down to pick up the fallen
plastic cup, and with his foot he was gradually spreading the spilled
coffee into wider and wider circles. “And there is another thing, too.
We know now that the scientist is actually controlling the reality
while he observes it. The spin of a sub-atomic particle, for example,
always does what the physicist expects. It always follows his random
choice. Horses and fishes again.”
“You mean that everything takes the shape we expect?” Mark was
thinking of the tumulus; he was thinking of the world which they
imagined to have once existed around the grave.
“Yes. And where does that leave me, the observer of the heavens?”
In the same instant both of them looked up through the open dome at
the obscure milky filaments of Ophiuchus, the Serpent-Bearer.
At this moment Kathleen Clare was sitting by the window in
Crooked Alley and gazing at the same group of stars; Owen Chard
could not sleep and was watching them, too. So was Joey Hanover.
And all over the dark side of the planet there were multitudes looking
up at the sky. The stars danced for them in the turbulent air, and
their cares rose from them like mist into the freezing firmament.
But who was this lying down in Pilgrin Valley, lying down beside
the tomb, lying down on the hard earth and also looking upward?

160
 *41*

SERMONS IN STONES
“ f ■ ^ HERE WAS something I wanted to show you.” Mark
Clare picked up the photographs of the tomb markings,
and held them out towards him. “You may understand
it.” The dome was closed now, and the red lighting
which ran around the interior of the observatory had been switched
on.
“Tell me the story,” Damian said. He had sensed the anticipation
in Mark’s voice; it reminded him ofjoey Hanover’s excitement when
he had entered the cottage, and he was moved by it. It reminded him
of Alec. It reminded him, too, of something in himself; something
which had once set his life in motion but which had now been lost.
He took the photographs as Mark explained how the engraved
whorls and spirals had been found on the blind entrance of the tomb,
and he knew at once what Mark had discovered. “If this is a star
map,” he said, “then here are the Pleiades.” He pointed towards
seven marks, showing white upon the negative. “There is Alnath
within them.” He pointed towards a blurred indentation, which may
have been no more than a smear across the stone. “And here are the
Hyades.” His index finger moved down to three smaller marks,
joined by a trembling line. “And there—” his finger encircled a
much larger area of white, which must have represented some deep
indentation in the surface of the blind entrance “—there is
Aldebaran, the great star. How odd that it should be preserved in
stone like this.” He put down the photographs. “Do you have a
date?”
“All the evidence suggests—” Mark began to say and both men
laughed at the phrase. “All the evidence suggests that the tomb was
built around 2500 bc. Can you tell me anything about the vernal
equinox then?”
“It will take a minute.” Damian went back to the computer,

161
 FIRST LIGHT

where all the information on the movement of the heavens was

stored. On the screen a parallelogram revolved slowly; then all of its
lines began to spin apart and a new pattern was formed. “At the time
of the vernal equinox in 2500 bc,” Damian said, “those particular
stars were just visible upon the eastern horizon. Come and look at
them.” Mark went over to the console, but all he saw were small
crosses shimmering upon the screen. “Your own map is more
dramatic,” Damian said, “But the information is the same. The
same night sky has been restored to us.”
“And it means,” Mark said, “it means that the chamber grave
was in alignment with the stars carved on its entrance. The tumulus
points east, and from the crest of the valley you can see the horizon.”
He was now very excited, and his throat had become dry. He
swallowed.
“Ifthat is so, then you have evidence of remarkable planning. The
stone must have taken some time to carve, so these people - is that
what they were?”
“Yes. People.”
“These people must have been able to forecast the movement of
the stars as accurately as we do.” He turned off the computer, and for
an instant Mark could see the linear model rushing away towards
the sides of the screen. “And there is a grain of comfort in that,”
Damian went on. He was no longer looking at Mark as he spoke. “At
least I know the stars were really there, after all. Whoever these
people were, at least they saw the same light.”
 *42*

IF YOU GO DOWN. ..
“ ■ EEP. THAT’S the word I’m searching for. This land-
g| scape looks so deep. It looks as if it’s been inhabited for
B thousands and thousands of years. But inhabited by
* ^ who? By whom?” Joey Hanover stretched out the last
word, in imitation of an owl’s call.
“Keep your eyes on the road, Joey. I don’t want to be hit by a
coagulated lorry.”
“Articulated.”
“I don’t care what it is. I don’t want to be a living skeleton.” The
Hanovers were on their way to the Mints, and had already driven
three miles along the road which leads out of Lyme Regis into the
open country. Occasionally they passed the corpses of birds, foxes
and other small animals which had been hit by speeding cars so that
this route was like some sacred avenue marked by sacrifices. But
travelling always exhilarated Joey and now he began to sing:

Every little journey has a meaning of its own

Every little story tells a tale . . .

He broke off when a car, travelling in the opposite lane, flashed its
headlights several times. “Hang on,” he said. “There’s trouble
ahead.”
And when they turned the next bend they saw what the trouble
was: six or seven cows had somehow got out from an adjacent field,
and were now careering down the middle of the busy road. They
were so bewildered that they had been stunned into a sort of half-life,
terrified of the vehicles which swept past them. And to Joey they
seemed like lost children - no, not children, stranger than children.
They had left one world and had entered another, a world close to
their own but one which they had never seen. It was a world which
threatened them and, in their fear, they knocked against each other;

163
 FIRST LIGHT

they were going in no particular direction, and one of them looked up

at the sky as if this were the only thing it recognised or could
remember. For they had come from some other time.
The Hanovers drove on more slowly and, when eventually they
parked above Pilgrin Valley, Joey Hanover let out a deep sigh.
“Begone dull care,” he said, and then kissed his wife on the cheek.
They walked down the track and, when they reached the gate of
the farmhouse, a dog started ferociously to bark. “Do you know what
that sounds like?” Floey asked him as she took his arm. “That
sounds like the Hound of the D’Urbervilles.”
They walked down the path but the door was opened before they
could reach it, and Farmer Mint stood on the threshold carrying a
pair of Wellington boots. “I hope,” Joey said, “that we don’t
intrude?”
“If you’ve come about the cess-pit, Boy Mint is waiting there.”
Farmer Mint looked them up and down, and now seemed to notice
that Joey was wearing a blue striped blazer while Floey was
resplendent in a cherry-red dress. “On the other hand,” he added,
with a chuckle, “perhaps you haven’t come about the cess- pit. I
wouldn’t know.”
“My name is Joey. This is Floey.”
“Mint. The other Mint is in the cess- pit.”
Joey was disappointed that the farmer did not seem to recognise
him; any assistance, at such a moment, would have been welcome.
“Jo and Flo,” he went on. “The couple who know.” This had been
one of their theatrical catchphrases.
“Mint and Mint. As hard as flint.” He grinned at them. “So what
can we do for you?” Even as he said this he was looking strangely at
Joey and, apparently absent-mindedly, he let the boots drop from his
hand onto the gravel path.
“I was born in the cottage on the other side of the valley,” Joey
said at once, not knowing how else to proceed. “I was told that it was
yours.”
“You were, were you?”
“I was.”
“Do you happen to mean the cottage in the field?”
“The one with the plaster faces.”
“Do you mean the one with the white gate and the rusty thatch?”
“And the purple flowers.”
“And you think you were born there, do you?”

164
 IF YOU GO DOWN. . .

“I know I was born there. I remember it.’

Farmer Mint took off his cap and searched deeply within it, as
though his next thought were written somewhere on its lining. “Well
well,” he said at last. “You’d best come in then.”
Several objects had been added to the main room of the farmhouse
since Evangeline Tupper’s visit at the beginning of the excavation,
and now the Hanovers found themselves stepping around an empty
milk-can, two neatly tied bundles of silver paper, a rake with some of
its teeth missing, a length of hosepipe and an ancient vacuum cleaner
balanced upon an upturned pail. But Joey noticed none of these
things: he was staring at the paintings and photographs of the
ancestral Mints on the wall above the fireplace. Farmer Mint looked
at him for several seconds, and then he looked at the pictures; then he
picked up the rake and, carrying it into the centre of the room, leaned
on it for support. “Now that we’re comfortable,” he said, “we can get
acquainted.” He gestured Floey towards the milk-can, upon which
obediently she perched herself, and then turned again towards Joey.
“Who said you were born there?” Before Joey could answer he put
down the rake and went over to the window. He seemed to be looking
out for Boy Mint and then, obviously disappointed, he came back
into the middle of the room. “Who told you?”
“My foster parents. They told me I was born in this area. They
told me I lived here till I was about five years old. And I remember
the cottage itself. I remember the faces.” Joey was gazing at Farmer
Mint, as if he were pleading with him as he spoke. “It’s my old
home.”
“Hold on. Hold it there.” Farmer Mint put out his hand. “My spit
has dried in my mouth. I need watering.” He left the room, and after
a few moments the Hanovers could hear a tap running. It kept
running for several minutes, but eventually Farmer Mint reap¬
peared. His hair was very wet, and it was clear that he had put his
head under the tap. “The Boy should be here,” he muttered. “The
Boy knows how to tell a story.”
“Story?”
“I’m coming to it. I’m ambling towards it. Sit yourself down
here.” With a series of nervous gestures Farmer Mint cleared two
broken cups, a statuette of some unrecognisable figure, and a
cardboard box filled with buttons, from a small wooden chest. “Sit
down there. Sit opposite the Mints.” He had placed Joey in front of
the pictures. “Let them take a good look at you while I get myself
 FIRST LIGHT

prepared.” He glanced briefly at Joey again, shook his head and

began pacing up and down. Then he stopped and spat on his hands -
a ritual gesture which he observed before undertaking any activity.
He went over to the pictures and, on the bottom line, he pointed out
two sepia photographs which were framed in gilt. “Take the case of
two brothers,” he said. “Brother Herbert. My father.” He tapped
the first of them, and the Hanovers could see a man, of about the
same age as Farmer Mint now was, standing beside a hayrick; from
this distance, he seemed to them to be wearing precisely the same
clothes as his son. “And Brother Samuel.” Joey Hanover got up and
walked over to this second photograph. It showed a young man,
clearly dressed for a photographer’s studio since he was wearing a
herring-bone jacket and a stiff round collar. He seemed so ill at ease
in these clothes Joey sensed at once that he was not used to wearing
them; and there was something familiar about his face. With a
feeling very much like despair, he sat down on the wooden chest and
waited for Farmer Mint to continue. “This is a story,” he said.
“About them two brothers.”
 * 43*

O HERBERT AND SAMUEL

NCE UPON a time there were two brothers, Herbert
and Samuel Mint, and they lived together in a little
house above the valley; they were very happy there,
ploughing and tilling from morn until dusk, but the day
came when Herbert decided that it was time to take a wife. So he
packed some pigeon sandwiches and walked into the local village of
Colcorum where he explained to the people how many pigs and
cattle were raised on the farm, and how much work still needed to be
done, and how happy he would be to bring up a son in the valley; he
was a very persuasive man, being a Mint, and within a few hours
Emily Trout, the daughter of the local timber-merchant, was chosen
as a wife for him. They married at the mid-summer solstice, and very
soon the farmhouse was filled with the laughter of a plump little wife
and a plump little baby boy.
Now it was Samuel’s turn. “I don’t like the women of the village,”
he told his brother (making sure that Emily was out in the fields at
the time), “I will go out into the wide world and search for my
bride.” So he took a knapsack and filled it with good country things,
such as a rabbit for his midday meal, and off he journeyed into the
wilderness. He walked and walked until he had gone at least twenty
miles, and he came onto a moor not far from the treacherous sea
coast. He decided to stop here for a bite of rabbit, but when he began
to cook it on an open fire he heard a rustling behind him. It sounded
like a fox, desperate enough to come and share Samuel’s meal, but
when he turned around he saw a young woman kneeling on the turf a
few yards away from him and wringing her hands as if in grief.
“Help me,” she called. “Oh, do.”
“Who are you?” he asked.
“My name is Jenny Pocket, and I have run away from my father
who is a travelling spar-maker and who beats me and who tries to

167
 FIRST LIGHT

sleep with me in my own bed. I ran away at daybreak and now, as

you can see, I am all alone upon the terrible moor.”
Samuel reflected upon this information for a while, the Mints
being cautious folk, but at last he decided to share his meal with the
wretched young woman. He had enough rabbit to spare, after all,
and it seemed a pity to waste it. She ate ravenously, and Samuel
hardly had time to reach his next decision. “How would it be, Jenny
Pocket,” he said, “if you and I were to wed and to live in my valley
over yonder? There is always work to be done, and we could raise
more Mints. My name is Samuel Mint, by the way. How do you do?”
She got up from the grass, dusted down her brown dress, and put
out her hand; Samuel shook it and so, as the custom was in these
parts, the decision was made. They travelled back together, and by
the time they had reached the valley Jenny seemed to have forgotten
all about her wicked father, the travelling spar-maker. Herbert
rejoiced when his brother returned with new help for the farm, and in
celebration he split open the juiciest calf. They were wed on the feast
of the ram, which was a holy day in this part of the rolling English
countryside, and by this time Jenny was already three months
pregnant.
Now there is an old saying that two wives in a house are like two
bees in a honeypot or two maggots in a carcase, and so it proved.
Jenny could not abide Emily, Emily had no liking for Jenny, whom
she called a changeling, and very soon the brothers decided that it
was time for them to be parted. So Samuel, being the younger Mint,
left the farmhouse and moved with his heavily pregnant wife to a
small cottage on the other side of the valley; it was nothing but a ruin
then, but in no time Samuel had filled the holes in the walls, mended
the thatch, dug out a little garden and, as a final touch, carved little
faces in all the corners of the cottage. These are our angels, he told
Jenny as she went into labour, our guardian angels. So now in the
year 1925 there were three Mints in the cottage, Samuel and Jenny
and their baby son. Five years passed, five years of spinning and
weaving and making soup, and by this time even the villagers of
Colcorum (who were notorious gossips and scandal-mongers)
agreed that at last they must be living happily ever after.
Now comes the hard part of the story: one late afternoon in the
August of 1930 Samuel came back from the fields, tired and hungry
after a day’s reaping, and was calling “Jenny! Jenny! Where’s my
rabbit stew?” just as soon as he was within earshot of the cottage. But
 HERBERT AND SAMUEL

there was no sound. And when he unlatched the little white gate, and
entered the little blue door, calling for his stew, there was still no
reply. The cottage was empty. There was no sign of the infant Mint,
either, until Samuel rushed out again into the garden. And there he
was, sitting in the middle of a bed of lovely purple phlox; and the
phlox were so high that it was only when the child popped up his
head that his father could see him. Where was Mummy? Mummy
had gone for a walk that morning, and Mummy had not come back.
Where did Mummy walk? Mummy walked towards the little wood
on the side of the valley, where the old stones are. What had she said?
She had said, give a kiss to your Daddy for me.
And with a terrible cry Samuel run across the fields.
Jenny was never found. One villager confirmed that he had seen
her walking towards the ash forest and the old stones but, if she did,
she certainly never came back. Jenny had vanished. Some say that
she went back to her wicked father, the travelling spar-maker; some
say that she was running in terror from something or someone, and
that as she fled towards the sea she.fell down the sandstone cliffs and
was washed away; others say that she was murdered and still lies
buried somewhere, perhaps beneath one of the old stones. In any
case, she was never found.
Samuel Mint never recovered from his wife’s disappearance. He
refused to go out in the fields and sat all day in the cottage. “Waiting
for Jenny,” he used to say whenever a villager called. “Waiting for
Jenny.” But the strangest part is that he could no longer endure the
sight of his little son. “Whenever I see that child,” he said to Herbert
and Emily one day when they came to visit him with a lovely mulch
of lamb’s brains for dinner. “Whenever I see that child, I get to
thinking about Jenny. And, when I get to thinking about Jenny, I
take a wrong turning in my head.”
“You mean,” says Herbert, raising his fork over the lamb’s brains,
“you mean you can’t plough a straight furrow no more. Is that the
size of it, Sammy Mint?”
“That’s about it, brother Herbert. I can’t see ahead of me far
enough.”
Now Herbert Mint would always remember this conversation,
because it was no more than a month after when Samuel took down
his old twelve-bore rifle, went into the wood where his wife had
disappeared, sat down upon one of the stones there, and shot himself
through the mouth. He was found laid out on the ground and,

169
 FIRST LIGHT

according to the old village custom, he was cremated in a secret place

and his ashes strewn under the ground.
But what had become of the little child? Here, at last, is the happy
ending: a month before Samuel Mint blew out the back of his head
and, as it happens, the day after his conversation with Herbert and
Emily over the lamb’s brains, he had taken his little son to London.
He had left him there with a couple who were so happy to have a
child that they asked no awkward questions and, in return, they even
gave Samuel Mint a bag of gold and silver. So the little boy was
adopted, after all. And that boy’s name was Joseph. Otherwise
known as Joey.

*7°
J ALL IN A SINGLE DAY
OEY,” HE repeated, now that he had come to the end of his
story. “Joey Mint.” In the silence Joey Hanover reached
over to take his wife’s hand, looking at her all the while but
saying nothing. She stared straight ahead, and began a low
tuneless whistle. Farmer Mint turned away from them and
straightened the photographs of Herbert and Samuel.
Then the door was suddenly opened, and Boy Mint burst in
shouting, “The bull’s got into the drainage ditch! He’s in the
drainage ditch!”
His father hurried towards him and put his hands on his
shoulders. “Boy!” He was shouting, too, as if his son were yards
away from him. “Boy, come and meet your Uncle Joey!” Boy stood
very still, opened his mouth, looked in bewilderment around the
room, and then put his cap over his face. “Yes, that’s right, Boy!
Don’t be bashful. Here’s your Uncle Joey at long last.” Farmer Mint
was now in a state of wild excitement and he rushed over to Joey.
“And I’ll tell you something else,” he said, hoisting him up from the
wooden chest. “You and me are cousins again!” He brushed a tear
from his eye. “My spit’s gone,” he said. “I need some more
irrigation.” Hurriedly he left the room.
So the story had been told: Joey Hanover was Joey Mint after all.
He had been taken from the cottage and adopted in 1930; now, so
many years later, he had discovered that his parents had both died in
Pilgrin Valley. He could not fully absorb this new knowledge, not
now, and yet he was exhilarated by it - exhilarated not by their
deaths but by his sense of origin; for the first time in his life he could
feel that he belonged in the world. He could look back and see his
parents with their parents before them; he was not alone. He had
also found a cousin and a nephew and, as he sat with them in the
farmhouse, he discovered that there were many other of his relatives
 FIRST LIGHT

in the same area. The Mints had farmed this region from generation
to generation. Joey had been the only one who had ever strayed.
Then he thought of his parents again. “I have to see the forest,” he
said. “Where it all happened.”
Farmer Mint shook his head. “Tell him why he’s barking up the
wrong tree, Boy.”
“Uncle.” Boy Mint regarded him gravely. “Uncle, you can’t.”
“Can’t?”
“In the first place there was a fire. In the second place it was
burned down. And in the third place they’re messing about with
it—”
“It just pours out of him, doesn’t it?” Farmer Mint looked at his
son in wonder.
“Them excavators,” Boy Mint went on, receiving the compliment
with appropriate gravity, “have been digging and chipping and
unearthing.” He gave a loud laugh which unnerved Floey: she sat
upright and started putting on her gloves as a sort of reflex response.
“Not that they’ll find anything.” He laughed again, and Floey
started taking off her gloves. “Little do they know.”
Joey had been thinking about his dead parents, and had hardly
been listening. “Little do they know what?”
Farmer Mint went over to his son, and put his hand on his
shoulder. It might have been a warning gesture. “Not now, Boy.
Don’t open the floodgates of your powerful mind. Not yet. We have
to wait until your uncle has been properly introduced.”
The last word caught Joey’s attention and he began to croon, in a
low voice, “Hello, she cried and waved her lily hand.”
Floey turned to him. “Black-eyed Susan!”
She was pleased that her husband was returning to himself, but
now he seemed to forget that he had been singing. “Introduced to
what?” he asked.
Farmer Mint chuckled. “There’s going to be a celebration. Now
that you’re back.” He spat on his hands and rubbed them together.
“You can meet all the others. All the other Mints.”
“And then,” Boy Mint added, equally ecstatically, “then you’ll
know everything. You’ll know as much as I do.” This was clearly a
great compliment but, before Joey could properly thank him for it,
there was a roaring close to hand. “Damn me,” the Boy said, going
over to the window. “I forgot that bull. That bull’s messing about in
the drainage ditch!” He rushed out of the door and Farmer Mint

172
 ALL IN A SINGLE DAY

followed him, stopping only to say, “Make yourself at home, Cousin

Joey. You are at home now, after all.”
Joey sat back and Floey looked at him, smiling. “You were right,”
she said. “It wasn’t a wild fruit chase after all.” She felt something
crawling up her right stocking and, when she looked down, she saw
an earwig moving slowly up her leg. With a little shriek she knocked
it back to the floor.
Joey went over to the photograph of his father. “I want,” he said,
“to go down to the woods again.”
“That is a good idea.” Floey herself was happy to leave the
farmhouse as quickly as possible. “Fresh air will do you good. And
you can leave a note for your friends - I mean your—”
“My family.” Joey could find neither pen nor paper; but there was
a dusty mirror propped against a wall. He picked it up, licked his
finger and wrote upon its surface, “Back later”. Then he hesitated,
not sure how to sign this brief message, and inscribed a small “j”.
The Hanovers walked down the path and, arm in arm again,
descended the west slope of Pilgrin Valley towards the excavations
and the ruined ash forest. “It’s hard to believe,” Joey said. “After all
this time.” He looked at the palms of his hands, as if he might see
some change in them. Then he looked straight ahead at the place
where his parents had died, and almost marched towards it.
There was nothing left of the ash forest except the clumps of a few
trees, some of them scorched and broken, and some of them so seared
by the heat that they had ceased to grow. There were dark circles on
the ground where other trees had stood, but even here wild grass and
fern were beginning to creep across the blackened surface of the old
forest. The rest of it had been taken over by the site; the Hanovers
went over to the chicken wire which encircled the excavations, and
looked out across at the tomb and its exposed forecourt. “I wish I
knew,” Joey said. “Where it happened. Where he shot himself.”
The valley was suddenly very quiet, so that for a moment it
seemed to him like a closed and shuttered room in which he must
turn and turn about. But then he heard the banging of a saucepan
and a series of fierce cries, echoing from the other side of the valley:
the Mints were trying to scare the bull out of the drainage ditch and
back into the fields. The bellows of father and son sounded to Joey
identical, and so unlike their normal voices that they might have
been possessed - these were the calls which Farmer Mint had learnt
from his father, who had in turn received them from his father. These

173
 FIRST LIGHT

strange cries echoed from generation to generation across this valley,

and how far back did they go?
He walked over to a ruined clump of trees. Floey looked on
anxiously, but now he looked around and smiled at her. “What’s
that expression? Dead, dead and never called me Mother? Except,
this time, it’s the other way around.”
“At least you’ve kept your sense of humour, Joey. I thought I’d
lost you for a minute.”
“You know what they say, Flo. Tragedy in the past, mystery in the
future, but comedy in the present. Comedy in the present. Shall we
go now?”
They walked away from the excavation, and in the Pilgrin Valley
on this summer morning the cries of the Mints were united with the
sound of Joey’s voice as he sang

All in a day my ’eart grew sad,

Misfortune came my way.
I ’ad to learn the whole bitter truth
All in a single day . . .

174
 45*

I A LETTER FROM DAMIAN

NEED TO write to you, Alec. Or do I need to write a letter to
myself? There is, of course, no reason why you should want to
read this: as you know perfectly well, I am a failure. Like one
of those figures at the end of a Chaplin film, I get smaller and
smaller as I walk into the distance. I am working in a minor
observatory. I am part of the network, receiving orders about what
portion of the sky to watch - for how long, and to what purpose. And
I once thought of the night sky as my home! I thought it was
illimitable, and I suppose that I always sensed in its infinity my own
feeling that I, too, was without limits. Without boundaries. That I
could become whatever I wished to be. When I was a young man I
saw in the sky the pattern of my own destiny. I doubt that you find
this strange, Alec. I see in you the same ambition, the same hunger.
That is why you look at the heavens with such admiration. I
remember that you once admitted that you were a romantic, but are
you sure that you are not just romantic about yourself?
There. Already I seem to be attacking rather than addressing you.
In reality I am flinching from myself. Turning my face away because
it is too hard to bear. I had wanted to be a great astronomer. A
discoverer. I studied hard. I learnt everything I could. I mastered
the facts. My life seemed to be a series of challenges but they were
ones which I gladly accepted. In fact, I had no other conception of
what life might be. Like you, I went from school to university and
then became a research assistant at an observatory. I was an
astronomer at last. A professional. Just as I had planned. But it was
not long before I realised that this was not enough: now that I was
working with others I, who had worked so much in isolation -
worked for myself, you might say -1 found that I could not move any
further ahead. To tell you the truth, I was afraid. “The world”
became too much for me. I lacked the will to impose myself upon

175
 FIRST LIGHT

others, and I realised that without the power to move or to influence

people there could be no progress. All sciences - even astronomy -
are human sciences, after all. And so I surrendered my ambitions to
others who were more forceful than myself: I watched them coming
up behind me, pausing, and then overtaking me. I, who thought I
had so much to say, could not speak a word. There were people who
seemed to lead charmed lives - charmed in the sense that events
merged with them, propelled them forward. Their direction seemed
already to have been chosen. And as for me? Well. My own
insignificance must have been determined already, too. I was being
pushed around - literally pushed around by my own fate. And then
the chill set in^ as deadly as the chill of death: I began to accept this
fate. I began to accept other people’s opinions of my own self. All the
time I was simply getting on with the work, following instructions. I
was transferred from one observatory to the next — I did my work
well, I have no doubt about that. But it was routine work. Observ¬
ing. Notating. Checking. Cross-checking. I was doing nothing for
myself any more - do you understand that, Alec? I was working
impersonally, and all the promptings of my old dreams and ambi¬
tions gradually fell away. Everyone said that I was reliable, efficient,
safe - there was a part of me that even enjoyed such praise, such
scanty confirmation of my identity, but even as I heard them I
realised that these compliments were also indexes of my inability to
achieve my ambitions. In other words, I was a failure. And then, last
year, I was sent here to Holblack Moor. Once I was too frightened to
change my life - too aware of my own inadequacies to trust myself in
the world - but now, I believe, I have also grown too lazy; I am still
afraid, don’t doubt that, but my fear has itself become a form of
lethargy. I live from day to day, not looking ahead because I know
there is nothing to see there. Only above. The heavens above me.
Above my head. I go on tracking the stars, but now the sight of the
night sky is a reminder of all that I can never achieve. Working
without hope until retirement or death, making a virtue out of the
dogged round - and, as always, the same fear. The fear of the future.
The fear of other people. The night sky has become an image of my
shrunken self.
But that is not the only reason I am writing to you; if that were all,
I could leave it to your own keen observation. Keener than my own,
no doubt. I am writing to you now because something else is
happening to me, and I want to tell you about it before it is too late to

176
 A LETTER FROM DAMIAN

do so. Before it becomes impossible for me. And I must leave one
record of my life, isn’t that right? Even if it is only a letter. Otherwise
it will be as if I had never existed at all.
It began two weeks ago. I had left the cottage and was walking
across the fields - nowhere in particular except that, as usual, I
found myself walking along Pilgrin Valley. Just walking, for in the
country I was safe. And it was at this moment of great calm that I felt
I was being watched. Now. If I were a madman, I thought, I would
believe that I was being observed by something inhuman. Some god
or devil. And in the same instant, I had that sensation. I was being
watched. By some alien presence. And at that moment, too, I was
filled with nausea. My body knew it before I did - I was going mad.
It was only a brief episode, but from that moment my fear of madness
became more disturbing than the attack itself. Over the next few
hours I waited - waited for another sign.
And then it happened: it was as if my consciousness had been
involved in some great convulsion. It radiated pain like a wound,
and I was surrounded by some inexplicable and unfathomable
horror. Horror of myself. Horror of something other than myself. I
cannot say how frequent, or how long, but there were successive
waves of - what? Not fear. Fear is too obvious a word. And not
darkness, either, because the world seemed to be filled with some
unfamiliar light. I was dazzled by my own madness, like a man upon
an operating table who looks up and sees the lights at the same
moment as he shrieks with pain. I believed that I was Christ and
looked around me fearfully, I believed that there was a conspiracy
against me and that all those I knew were robots programmed to
deceive me, I believed that there were microphones hidden within
the cottage. There was some creature inside me. I was not of the
human species. There was some presence within me, speaking
through my own voice. And this was the greatest horror of all: that I
was not my own self. Then I was sick upon the floor. And even as I
suffered these things it occurred to me that insanity was simply the
re-emergence of primeval images. I, who believed neither in God nor
the devil, now realised that I was being watched by them. I knew the
natural world to be apart from myself, and yet now I saw every
aspect of it as connected, malign, purposeful. I had become a
primitive again. One of my own ancestors. This was madness. And I
realised how easy it is to slip into it, how close it always is. It was as if
the oldest fantasies of fear and dissolution lay just beneath the

177
 FIRST LIGHT

surface, waiting to be brought forth. Waiting to be excavated.

There were times when the crisis passed, and I believed that it was
gone for ever. I was able to breathe more freely and the ordinary
world seemed to emerge with fresh definition - it must seem like this
to a blind man who suddenly regains his sight. But then the tremors
came again. I felt the soft movement beneath my skull, as if
something were being enlarged. And it began. I have told you some
of the things - but I have not told you all. How I knew that I was a
murderer. How I believed that I would see my own double walking
in the garden. How I knew that I was possessed by the devil. That I
had become invisible. There were times when I wanted to tear out
my eyes, bite off my own tongue. Even when I lay outside on the
grass, I knew that the calls of the birds were directed against me -
and the wind, oh the wind, how I trembled when it passed across me.
It was my enemy, too.
I cannot say when the next crisis will come to me, but I am waiting
for it now. I think, today, it will have something to do with species.
Artificial species. Species changing their form. Of course I know that
my madness will always adopt a new shape - there is always some
new horror waiting to be revealed. For all these things are images of
what I imagine madness must be like. Do you understand that, Alec?
The insane take the shape of other people’s fears. Madness is copied.
Do you really understand that? The other night I was eagerly
searching through a book - I do not remember why - and I came
across a phrase. I can repeat it: “. . . that old sinking of the heart and
longing after home”. I looked around, startled, because I have no
home. My threatened reason has nowhere to rest, nowhere to go.
No. I am not going to send you this letter. I was about to leave it
somewhere, in case of my final collapse. But I do not need to send
you this. I will destroy it. For who knows if you have not been
responsible for all that has happened to me? Is it true that you are
planning my death? And how do I know you will not use this letter as
evidence against me? I fear, Alec, that you may be a devil.

178
♦PART FOUR*
Then was the serpent temple form'd, image of
infinite
Shut up in finite revolutions . . .

Europe
William Blake.
 6
*^. *

A TORCHLIGHT
T LAST,” Mark Clare said. “At last.” Early autumn,
and finally the chamber tomb was laid bare. After the
forecourt had been exposed, they had begun immedi-
L ately to remove the chalk and turf which covered the
sides of the tumulus - only the back of the grave, which tapered off
into the eastern slope of Pilgrin Valley, remained concealed. The rest
now rose up from the ground like a long house, and one so perfectly
preserved that it might have been just recently erected. A fine mist of
water was being directed onto the stones so that they became darker
and colder than anything around them - at least this was how they
seemed to Mark, as he pointed out to Martha Temple a small gap in
the side wall. “There it is,” he said. “There is the real entrance. No
one has gone through it since the grave was sealed.”
“And how does it feel,” Martha replied with the lightest possible
laugh, “to be a grave robber?” Her arm was still encased in plaster
after the accident but, from her tone, it seemed that she had nothing
whatever to do with the excavations.
“I don’t know.” As always, he answered her seriously. “But grave
robbers used to be known as resurrection men.”
“Is that the same thing,” she added gaily, “as daylight robbery? I
hope you don’t do anything you’re going to regret.”
Owen Chard had joined them. “If I were you, I wouldn’t put it
that way,” he said. She gave him the briefest of smiles. “I wouldn’t
put it any way. I would wait to see what - if anything - is in there.”
She turned to him triumphantly. “I do hope,” she said, “that
you’re not suggesting that the tomb is empty? That all these months
have been wasted?” No one had mentioned this possibility before,
although some of them considered it to be likely, and her words
spread a distinct gloom over the others who were standing beside
them. “And please don’t talk of robbery. I think it’s so ghoulish.”

181
 FIRST LIGHT

She seemed to have forgotten that she had raised that particular
topic. “Try and look on the bright side. Like me. I’m sure that it’s all
going to be an incredible success.” But somehow she had managed
to change the mood of the whole team.
Mark had already hurried over to the tumulus just as the final
small stone was being cautiously removed from the entrance in the
side. For a moment he could not breathe, but then in his excitement
he called over to Owen. Martha shook her head and smiled before
turning, with a delightful sigh, to Julian Hill. “They’re just like
children, aren’t they?” she said. “But I wish them well. Now that
we’ve done all the hard work, let them enjoy themselves. I’m the last
person to be bitter, after all, although there are some people—” she
looked around to see if the others were still listening “—who might
feel a little bit left out. Just a little bit aggrieved.”
Julian himself had no wish to go into the tomb; he could see all he
needed from the outside, and could decode the rest on the computer.
“Why don’t you join them?” he asked her.
She gave him a vicious look, and raised the plaster cast.
“Everyone seems to have forgotten,” she said, “that I was injured by
a person working on this site. I name no names. But one day it will all
come out.” Her voice had gone up an octave. “Not that I’m
complaining, of course.” She had recovered from her momentary
lapse, and was once more her usual smiling self. “I’m having a
perfectly lovely time. Watching Mark and Owen take all the credit.”
This alarmed him. “Do you really think they will?”
“Aren’t you the jealous one? Whatever makes you think a thing
like that?” She patted his arm. “Don’t worry, dear Julian. I always
defend your interests. When they talk about you.” This thoroughly
discomfited him, and he glanced around. But no one was paying any
attention. They were all looking at the tomb.
Mark was kneeling in front of the side entrance, so that his face
was at a level with the opening within the stones; the cold seemed to
be drawing him in, actually ingesting his breath, and for a moment
he felt dizzy. He would have fallen, but he placed his hands against
the ancient wall until he had recovered himself. Now there was no
help for it: it was time to go forward. The space was just wide enough
for him to pass through, but he only placed his head and shoulders
between the stones; he did not want to walk upon the floor of the
interior, not yet. He did not want to move inside the tomb. So he lay
down within the entrance itself and peered into the small side
 TORCHLIGHT

chamber.
Bright sunlight outside, but pitch blackness within. There was no
smell of decay but, rather, the denser and more pervasive smell of old
earth and old stone. With a start he drew back his head; it was as if he
had confronted some living thing, trapped in the tomb but now
rushing towards him. The sudden movement backward had pre¬
cipitated him out into the light but he did not glance at the others;
instead he looked down at his hands and clothing, because the smell
of old earth and old stone already seemed to be clinging to them.
Slowly he unhooked a torch from his belt, turned it on, and once
more manoeuvred himself between the stones. He shone the torch
within the darkness of the chamber, and its thin ray of light touched
something on the ground. For a moment Mark closed his eyes in
terror; but the outline of this thing remained still even as the light
played upon it, and he saw that it was a dish or basin of stone placed
in the very middle of the chamber. There were no objects around it -
no debris or scattered artefacts - and it occurred to him that this
room might otherwise be bare. He placed the torch in his left hand,
still with its ray focussing upon the bowl as if it might move or
disappear if the light were not directed onto it, and with his right
hand he felt the ground just inside the entrance where he lay. He had
time only to sense flat stone, but this pavement was so cold that the
sudden shock of it made him drop the torch; the clatter echoed
through the small chamber and seemed to travel down the central
passageway of the tomb, entering various rooms and recesses until
quite suddenly it stopped. It was as if this echo had been muffled at
some particular point.
The torch had not gone out but in the fall the beam had now
shifted to expose the far wall facing Mark: there was a stone slab here
which seemed to block whatever entrance the side chamber might
once have possessed but, no, it was not completely blocked. The
torchlight had revealed a circle of greater lightness, and he realised
that this was the contour of a porthole carved in the base of the stone
slab - a porthole which must lead to the central passage of the
tumulus, and through which it was possible to enter or leave this
small chamber. So at least he knew that, if he wished to, he could
make further progress.
To test the echo he had just heard he whispered “Hello” and a
murmured “Hello” was returned from the chambers beyond: he
knew from his own earlier soundings just how large this tumulus was
 FIRST LIGHT

but at this moment it seemed to him to be immense, elaborate,

incalculable. His whisper might travel for ever through the cold and
the darkness. And so he was straddled between two worlds - the
upper half of his body now within the tomb as eagerly he peered
forward, the lower half still protruding in the outer world. Part of
him had been swallowed up.
Martha had joined the others behind him and now she whispered
to Owen. “Isn’t it sweet, to see Mark’s little legs waving in the air?
Only a professional doesn’t mind making a fool of himself.”
Owen gave her a sour look. “He isn’t the only one, is he?”
She was in one of her nicest moods, and at once rose to the defence
of her colleagues. “If you are referring to Julian, I just don’t want to
hear. I’m sure he’s doing the best he can.” But she changed the
subject quickly. “Look,” she added, “Mark’s little legs have
disappeared.”
Owen had already noticed that Mark had fully entered the
tumulus. “Oh dear, oh dear.” He shook his head. “He should not
have done that. He really should not have done that.”
“Why?” Martha knew the reasons, of course, but she repeated her
question more loudly so that the others might have time to hear.
“What else has dear Mark done wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong." Owen was embarrassed that his reaction had
been drawn to the attention of the rest. “Nothing is wrong exactly.
But there should have been a proper examination. Something might
be destroyed.”
“Did you hear that?” Martha turned to the others. “Mark may be
destroying the evidence. But we have faith in our leader, don’t we?
We understand.”
Mark had heard none of this. Even when he had lain across the
entry he had been surrounded by the silence of the tomb which, like
its dark and cold, supplanted everything from the outer world. But
he had not decided haphazardly to enter the tomb: he had retrieved
his torch and directed its light down onto the area in front of him,
seeing at once that here was a flat stone floor which contained no
debris of any kind and which could certainly bear his weight. So,
very slowly, he moved further into the darkness - now holding the
torch steadily in front of him so that its thin beam pierced the
porthole of the stone before seeming to disappear into the passage
beyond, to be snuffed out. He managed to slide through the entrance
and slip down onto the floor of the tomb, and at once he could feel the

184
 TORCHLIGHT

cold ascending from the stone pavement into his body. But he
welcomed that cold and he lay upon the floor of the tomb like an ice¬
bound traveller who knows that to freeze to death is simply to fall
asleep.
Now, very hesitantly and very carefully, he tried to stand upright
in the chamber; as yet he had no idea how low its roof might be. Then
he felt it just above his head. Or, rather, he sensed its presence-as he
had noticed in previous excavations, the human body seemed
quickly to fit itself into the contours and limitations of these ancient
place^. He was bent over now, the ceiling some five and a half feet
above the floor; he was crouching inside the tomb. He was the first to
have entered this place for more than four thousand years, and with
that knowledge he acquired new energy. He shuffled his feet, as if at
the beginning or end of a dance. And then he put the torch beneath
his chin, so that its occluded beam travelled upward and turned his
face - if there had been anyone to see it - into a kind of gargoyle.
Then he spoke some words into the cold air - inconsiderable words,
nonsense words, but words that reclaimed this place for human
occupation. “I am making a mappemunde,” he said, and the phrase
echoed through the tomb. And he felt pride-not pride in himself, for
being there, but pride in the lineage and in the continuation. Pride in
the words that issued from him but which had their origins among
the long dead. In this enclosed space he sensed the closeness of
worship but it was not just the worship of ancestors but, rather, the
worship of time itself. The passage of time. And, yes, this was a
passage grave.
 *47*

O IN THE PASSAGE
VER THE next few weeks the tumulus was thoroughly
explored, the archaeological team working steadily
beyond the side chamber where Mark Clare had
uttered “mappemunde” and moving along a central
passageway. Until they reached a dry stone wall at the end of the
passage, the wall against which all echoes stopped. This was not the
back of the tomb but rather a barrier protecting a room beyond - a
terminal chamber which was the focal point of the whole tomb, a
chamber sealed, built into the slope of Pilgrin Valley, but pointing
eastward to the rising sun.
And this is what they discovered during the course of their journey
towards the hidden room: from the blind entrance, where the
patterns of the stars had been inscribed, to the terminal chamber
itself there ran a passage which was some four and a half feet wide,
five feet high and seventy feet in length. This passage was construc¬
ted by means of twenty-four large orthostats, the upright stones
which supported large roofing slabs; there was no mortar between
these dry stones, and they were kept in position only by their own
weight and by the weight of the stones around them. All the forces of
the tomb were directed downward, therefore, its fabric held in place
by gravity.
They had discovered two small chambers on either side of this
passage. It had been in one of these that Mark had stood on first
entering the tumulus and, as he had seen, each chamber was blocked
by a high septal stone which for some reason was punctured by a
circular porthole through which it was possible to crawl. The
function of these low circular entrances was not immediately clear
and, as Mark explained, it could really only be determined when the
precise nature of the tomb was understood. Julian Hill had already
come to the conclusion that to go through the porthole would have

186
 IN THE PASSAGE

been tantamount to a form of rebirth, thus connecting the burial

ritual with an ancillary fertility rite. He believed that he understood
the formation of primitive worship, and everything he saw confirmed
his hypothesis. But Mark was not so certain: he saw only a sacred
entrance which took the form of a circle, and it seemed to him that
these portholes might somehow be related to the circular engravings
of stars which had been scored on the blind entrance of the tomb.
The worshipper (if that was who it was) bowed his head in the
passageway and literally entered a star.
But, when they passed through that star, what then? The two side
chambers closest to the terminal room contained only an empty bowl
made out of stone - it had been one of these that Mark had seen in the
beam of the torchlight. But the other two chambers were filled with a
bewildering variety of artefacts - bewildering not only in their
profusion but in their respective ages. Here were shards of simple-
rimmed undecorated cups which were typical of south-western
pottery in the early neolithic period; but beside these were fragments
of bowls or cups which retained impressions of twisted cord or the
even more complex shapes created by “finger-nailing” - the early
inhabitants of this region using their own hands to create a web of
impressions along the rims of their earthenware. The dates for all of
these objects ranged from 4300 bc to 3400 bc, and yet also within the
side chambers the excavators found examples of grooved ware
which, as far as anyone knew, had not come into use until 2600 bc.
As far as anyone knew: this had become the problem of Pilgrin
Valley, since the discovery of pottery from three widely separated
periods threw all chronology into doubt. Either a whole range of
disparate artefacts were in use for a period of seventeen hundred
years, or the tomb itself was much older than the preliminary
examinations had suggested. It was even possible that this tumulus
was built upon the site of a still more ancient tomb, and that this
place had been a centre of worship or ritual for many thousands of
years. No one was certain of anything any more. Orthodox theories
and even the most reasonable calculations seemed to decay or to
dissolve in the face of these discoveries. And, as the expectations of
the archaeologists wavered and changed, so did the evidence itself;
the closer they came to the actual stones and relics, the more these
objects retreated into a kind of unknowability. They seemed to resist
explication, in the process becoming denser and darker. Nothing
seemed to stand still; everything was in flux; and, since it was

187
 FIRST LIGHT

impossible to establish any definite relations between the various

artefacts, the finds themselves began to lose their reality even as the
archaeologists observed them. They were working in the dark.
And eventually it occurred to Mark, as they continued with their
excavations, that everything depended upon the terminal chamber.
It had been closed off with stone walling, but already the resistivity
meter had shown that it was polygonal in shape and that there was
some kind of hearth, or pit, or burial place, in the centre of the
polygon. If the function of the tomb could be discovered when the
seal of this chamber was broken, then perhaps this new light would
flood across all the other objects and render them visible once more.
But he had to wait patiently for this revelation; he had to wait until
the rest of the tumulus had been cleared, and he had reached the dry
stone wall. Only then would he know what was inside the hidden
room.
 T |OMORROW,”
'
SEA LILY
MARK was saying, “we go inside the

:terminal chamber.”
‘Tomorrow,” Kathleen repeated this flatly, almost
as if she had not properly heard it. She was sitting by the
bedroom window, looking down at the yard and the dusty antiques
which Augustine stored there.
“Yes. At last—” But he broke off, as he watched his wife. Their
dog, Jude, was lying at her feet, its head resting on her shoes; it did
not look up when Mark entered the room.
Kathleen stayed in the bedroom for much of the time now, looking
out of this window. There had been a period when she liked nothing
more than to sit in Mark’s small study, reading his books and leafing
through all the magazines which he brought home. But now she
avoided his room; not because she disliked it - no, not that, for there
were many occasions when she longed for the peace which it had
once brought her - but rather because she wanted to lay no claim
upon him. That was why she had long ago ceased to mention the
prospects of adopting a child, because to her it now seemed that this
would be just another way offorcing herself upon him, forcing him to
accept as permanent a marriage which must be more and more
distasteful to him. But everything was left unsaid. There were
avenues of silence down which they walked by mutual consent; they
did not wish to go down the other path, of open speech, since the
destination was so uncertain.
In turn Mark blamed himself for her silence and her obvious
loneliness; he had become so consumed with his work upon the site
that he had not fully understood her own sense of loss and, on the
occasions when he had tried to enter her life, he had been so
disturbed by it that he had wanted to retreat. This was how it seemed
to him, at least, and he believed that she was holding herself back out
 FIRST LIGHT

of reproach. But everything was left unsaid. They were so frightened

of understanding their own feelings that they spoke only about those
subjects which did not reveal them.
And Kathleen sat all day by the window above the yard of the
antiques shop. Sometimes she would fall asleep for a few moments,
and it was then as if she had been launched into infinities of darkness.
But when she woke up with a start, and saw once again the dusty
bowls and broken statues, she returned to consciousness with a
feeling of horror. But everything was left unsaid. They spoke only
about things which could not harm them. They both felt ashamed,
but to admit that shame to each other might have led to the release of
everything. And that could not be endured.
“At last,” Mark was saying, “we’ll find the secret behind the
wall.”
“Is there a secret?” She turned from the window and looked up at
him strangely.
“Of course. If there was no secret there would be no discovery.”
“But sometimes,” she replied. “Sometimes the cure is worse than
the disease.”
She was turning something over and over in her hands, and gently
he went towards her, stilled her fingers with his touch and took it
from her. “What is this?” he asked her.
She seemed almost embarrassed by it. “I bought it for you. But I
wasn’t sure if you would want it. If you would like it.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a piece of sea-lily. Look, do you see its little stalks?” He held
up the fossil, and in the light he could just see the striations which
were the marks of its slender threads.
“It’s very lovely,” he said.
“No. Not lovely. I liked it because it was so strange. It is beautiful
in its way. But so dead, don’t you think? So dead.”
She said this with such intensity that he was afraid to look at her,
and so he examined the fossil once more. “Not dead,” he replied.
“The strange thing is that it has survived for so long. For so many
thousands of years.”
She had turned back to the window. “I was thinking of that,” she
said. “But then I couldn’t see it properly. Do you understand me? It
comes from some landscape I don’t understand. Once it was living
and growing within some unimaginable sea. Beneath some unim¬
aginable sky. Sometimes I think the past is so mysterious that we
 SEA LILY

needn’t really worry about the present at all.” It sounded to Mark as

if she were trying to console him, but he did not know why. “It is part
of our past,” she went on. “Part of ourselves. And yet it is still
incomprehensible.”
There was some meaning behind her words, or some yearning,
which he recognised but which he could not understand. “Where
shall I put it?” he asked her.
“Put it here. Put it here by the window, where you’ll always be
able to see it.” And there was something in her voice which
frightened him now. But her depression seemed to lift; it was not that
she became more peaceful but there was a determination - almost a
fierceness - which seemed to inspire her. She stood up and, leaning
heavily against the window frame, looked beyond the antiques yard
at the other houses of the town. “In a way I can see them all,” she
said. “Other people in other rooms. All the faces. They remind me of
the filaments in the sea-lily. Moving gently under the sea.”
 * 49*

W BEHIND THE WALL

HAT WOULD they have been like?” A young
member of the excavation team was asking Martha
Temple’s opinion as they waited for Mark to
emerge from the tumulus.
“I’m sure they would have been very nice. Probably rather like
Julian in appearance.”
“Short and squat, you mean?”
“Well. Shortish. And, yes, rather squat too. Don’t you agree,
Owen?” He came up to them with some difficulty, since around his
waist there was a wide leather belt, from which were suspended a
small hammer, a torch, a file, a steel ruler, a pen-knife, a measuring
clip, a thermometer and his pipe. “If we can hear you above the noise
of your—” she looked at the belt “—your implements.”
“If you really want my opinion—”
“Of course we do. Everybody values your opinion.”
“If you really want my opinion.” He glared at her. “Previous
burial sites suggest that they were of slender build. And about five
and a half feet tall. They had long narrow skulls and moderately
sloping foreheads.”
“What did I tell you, dear?” Martha turned to the young worker.
“Just like poor Julian. Perhaps that’s why,” she added quickly as
Julian came over to join them, “perhaps that’s why he seems to
understand them so well. I was just saying, Julian, how well you
understand the people who worshipped here.”
“I don’t want to be tied down to worship. I’m in one of my
exploratory phases.” He had been reading a novel theory on the
nature of primitive ritual. “But I’m sure I’m right about—”
Mark came out of the tomb. “I think,” he said, not realising that
he was interrupting, “that we can begin now.”
The problem was to remove enough of the dry stone wall in front of

192
 BEHIND THE WALL

the terminal chamber to allow entrance, without disturbing the

chamber or unnecessarily damaging the wall itself: it was possible,
after all, that the hidden room might contain inscriptions or signs
just as elaborate as those which had been scored upon the blind
entrance. A single arc-light had been brought into the passageway,
and it was within its narrow beam that Mark now began gently to
dislodge one of the smaller stones at the top of the wall: the mortar
between the stones had already been taken away, and over the last
few days this first section of masonry had been tested to ensure that
the balance of weight within the tumulus was not changed by its
removal. So now the forces of gravity held as Mark cautiously
removed the stone; the fabric of the tomb was not disturbed. And he
understood that this concealing wall was in fact designed to be
removed without destroying the rest of the edifice; the terminal
chamber was meant to be discovered. But had its builders seen so far
forward into the prospect of future time?
There was a sudden noise as Mark took away the stone - a sound
like a sigh or a murmur of wind. And this is what he had feared, since
the entry of air meant that the terminal chamber had once been
sealed. The stream of air might now oxidise whatever was concealed
here, causing any human remains to crumble and to dissolve before
he could reach them. He wanted to tear down the wall quickly but he
knew that he could not do so: all the stones had to be removed and
labelled before he could reach beyond them. But at least he could
peer into the small space he had just made; he could look into the
frame of origin. In the reflected glare of the arc-lamp the terminal
chamber was pierced by a band of light; but as yet Mark could see
nothing beyond that light, nothing except an expanse of stone.
Over the next two days the first layer of masonry was removed
and, after the excavators had moved down two feet, they could see
the upper portions of the chamber in the half-light. But the
remainder of the concealing wall threw a shadow across its floor. It
was only when the next level of stonework was removed, and a
second arc-lamp brought into the passage, that the terminal cham¬
ber was flooded with light.
It was, as expected, polygonal in structure. The roof was construc¬
ted out of one large capstone, supported by a number of orthostats -
these upright stones in turn were kept in place by footing stones but
the separate pillars were fitted so precisely together that, from a
short distance, they seemed like one vast expanse of unbroken stone.

193
 FIRST LIGHT

But it was not the stones themselves that led Mark to bow his head
and close his eyes for a moment before looking up again; he had seen
something else. He had seen upon the stones row upon row of curves
and spirals and lines, carved deeply into the surface and entirely
covering the roof and walls of the polygonal chamber. Sometimes the
flow was broken by a sharp triangular mark, representing the shape
of the stone axes which must have inscribed these lines, but
otherwise the elaborate patterning was consistent and continuous.
He could tell at once that these signs were of the same order as those
marked upon the blind entrance but, if that entry stone had been a
star m&p, here was an entire planetarium.
And then he saw the figure crouched upon the beaten earth floor-
the figure lying within a shallow square pit. But it was not so much a
figure as the outline of a figure, cast in sharp relief by the glare of the
arc-light. These were the contours of a human shape emerging from
the ground — its brownish colour so similar to the soil around it that it
might have been a sculpture made out of the earth and now slowly
fading back into its native element. And then Mark realised that a
white object was resting on its folded knees - for a moment he
thought these might be the bones of an infant or a small animal but
then he saw from its blotched and already crumbling surface that
this was a chalk figurine already fading into the knees of the dead.
The two figures had lain together, in this long duration, and were
becoming part of each other; if they had remained undisturbed for
another few thousands of years they would have reverted to their
chemical elements, and then the human figure and the chalk figurine
would have been reconciled. But that process of reversion had now
been disturbed; the excavation of the tomb had broken the bond
between this body and the earth upon which it rested. The burial
ritual would never now be completed.
After all these days of work Mark’s hands were cut and swollen,
and the atmosphere of the tomb seemed to have entered his body so
that he moved and talked more slowly. Now he was changed. He put
out his hands and walked towards the crouched figure but, in his
wonder, he had forgotten that only half the concealing wall had been
removed and as he advanced he fell heavily against it and toppled
forward into the terminal chamber. He lay upon the rough surface of
the floor, but he felt no hurt. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry.” He
did not know whom he was addressing, and his voice echoed around
the small chamber before returning into his own mouth.

*94
 BEHIND THE WALL

The others stood quietly behind the half-demolished wall, looking

down both at Mark and at the body which they had unsealed. He got
up, and was about to dust his hands against the side of his trousers
when he realised that even the earth now smeared across them might
be of value; so he held them up towards the others - his palms
seemed yellow in the light - and tried to smile. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“I hope I haven’t disturbed anything.”
He was whispering, and Owen whispered back. “I don’t know
that you’ll be disturbing him.” He nodded towards the crouched
figure.
Mark could sense their hot breath entering the tomb like a stain,
and he wanted them all to leave. He wanted to be left alone with this
shape upon the floor. But that would never be possible. If he had
come upon it alone, there might have been some communion with
the dead; but the presence of the living was too strong. “Quickly,” he
said. “We must work quickly. Before he fades.”

195
 ♦5°*

I THE HANGED MAN

N THE days that followed the discovery they knelt beside the
figure, their mouths close to the gap where his mouth had
been, their arms beside his arms, studying the dissolution into
which eventually they all must run. With knives and small
brushes they scraped away the earth around him, to reveal the
human crust which was like a raised drawing upon the earthen floor.
And, when the crust was lifted off and taken away, they touched the
polished brown bones which lay beneath it. This was the ancient
cage from which the bird had fled. And yet, when they had
reconstructed his shape, it was a form of return. Old wings beating
back the air. Here was the man, his body curved forward and his
hands resting upon his knees; but his head was thrown back
unnaturally.
“He reminds me of someone,” Martha was saying. She was trying
to revive her old joke about Julian Hill’s appearance. “Doesn’t he
remind you of someone?”
Mark saw at once that the neck had been broken. “He’s been
hanged,” he said, without thinking. “This is the resting place of the
hanged man.”
Three days later he went back into the tomb, now thoroughly
cleared, and stood in the centre of the terminal chamber where the
square burial pit had been. He examined the star markings; he
looked around at the orthostats so cunningly fitted together; he
looked up at the capstone; he looked down at the earth beneath his
feet. And he considered those who had stood here in another time.
Their smell had gone. Their smell had faded into the stone and into
the earth. And the smell of death had been displaced, too. Time.
Another time. No, they are not here. They are not allowed within
this sacred place. They are along the sides of the valley. They are
looking down on the tumulus. There is silence when the victim is cut

196
 THE HANGED MAN

down from the ash tree but, when his body is carried in triumph to
the tomb, there is a murmur from the assembly which gradually
grows louder and louder until it becomes a great roar which
reverberates along the valley. Mark passed his hand across his face
because he could still hear the echo of those voices - like the sound of
running water, or of whispering, confused noises which seemed to be
coming from behind the stones. Coming from behind the stones at
the back of the room, coming from inside the valley against which the
terminal chamber rested.
He went out into the light, parting the canvas of the bright green
tent which now protected the tomb. A mist had settled into the valley
and had grown steadily deeper throughout the day, so that Mark
could see only the silhouette of someone coming towards him. The
figure had something tied around his neck - a necklace or a chain
with some kind of stone or jewel suspended from it - and he held out
one hand in greeting. Mark stood very still.
“Press,” the figure said. “ Western News.” As he came up, Mark
could see that he was a tall, thin man with a camera slung around his
neck. “Is there something unusual in there? Something interesting?”
He was a rheumy-eyed, middle-aged man with an irrepressible air of
defeat about him. “Is there anyone here who can tell me all about it?
Just for a paragraph.”
“I don’t know.” Mark hesitated. “I suppose so.” The isolation of
the site had meant that they had been able to work undisturbed,
away from the attentions of sightseers, but the tumulus was never
meant to be a secret. And for some reason he pitied the man. “You
can talk to me,” he said, “if you want.”
“What have you got in there? Tutankhamen?” Mark looked
around, as if he had come upon the tomb quite by accident and did
not know how to answer. “I shan’t take a minute,” the journalist
went on, sensing his uncertainty. “I won’t bother you. I just want a
paragraph.”
The man’s self-effacement reminded Mark of Kathleen, and the
terrible outline of his guilt rose up in front of him. “Of course,” he
said. “Of course. There’s so much to tell you.” And he took the
journalist through the side entrance of the tomb, explaining as he
went the significance of the star-markings and the grave of the
hanged man.
Two other figures were lingering in the mist a few yards away,
watching them as they bowed their heads and entered the tumulus.

197
 FIRST LIGHT

“I haved a funny little suspicion,” Martha said, raising her plaster

cast in the direction of the tomb, “that we have just seen a journalist
with Mark. I wonder why.” In fact she had talked to the man from
the Western fVm just after he had arrived. “Of course I may be quite
wrong.”
“A journalist?” Julian Hill seemed alarmed by the news. “Talking
to Mark? I really think I ought to do any explaining—”
“That’s why it’s so strange,” Martha said. “But I’m sure Mark
wouldn’t dream of going behind your back. Or of taking all the
credit.”
“No.” Julian was biting his finger-nail. “Of course not.”
“That makes it all the more peculiar. His refusing to introduce
us.”
“Did he refuse?”
“As good as. Don’t you think?” She lifted up her face towards him
in perfect innocence.
“I’m going in.”
“Oh, do.” Julian rushed off into the mist. “I’ll stay here,” she
shouted after him. “To make sure that the coast is clear.”
Somebody tapped her shoulder, and she gave a little shriek. “Well
well well.” It was Owen. “Making trouble again, are we?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” It was noticeable that, with
Owen, she lost much of that charming girlish manner which
endeared her to everyone else. “I’m just standing here.”
“I don’t mean anything. I’m just standing here, too. I’ve been
standing here for a few minutes.” He looked at her suspiciously.
“It’s always the same with you, Owen. Always seeing the worst in
everyone. I’m surprised you can live with yourself, I really am.”
“And what do you expect, when I look around me?” He stared at
Martha. “I don’t see any angels. I don’t think any of us can fly, do
you?”
She could not help smiling. “I’m sure,” she said, “that poor Julian
will have a theory about that, too. He’s probably explaining it now.”
And she burst out laughing.

“Of course,’’Julian was saying to the journalist at that moment. “I

realised at once the significance of the carvings.” The three men
were in the terminal chamber, trying not to notice the interior cold.
“So I knew that he had to be the astronomer.” Julian had not
explained Mark’s part in the decoding of the stones, but Mark did
 THE HANGED MAN

not seem to have noticed; he had gone up to the end wall and put his
face against it as if he were listening to something else. “So we have
here,” Julian went on, “what I have called a Merlin figure.”
“Is that right?” The thin man was scribbling into his notepad.
“Merlin?”
“No. Not Merlin. A Merlin figure." Julian sensed a slight disap¬
pointment in the journalist so he added quickly, “Although they
may be much the same thing.”
“Is that right? How do you spell Merlin?”
Julian spelled it for him. “And my name is easy to remember,
too,” he added, sounding as unconcerned as he could. “Julian Hill.
Hill as in hill.” He looked over the journalist’s shoulder as he wrote
the name in his notebook. “You can say that I’m writing the
definitive book on this site.”
The journalist closed his notebook. “This,” he said, “should make
a very interesting story.”
“I know. My book’s almost finished.”
“A very interesting story'.”
And as they spoke Mark, with an attentive look, kept his face
pressed against the stones.

199
 *5'*
THE WOOD
“ M WISH IT could go on and on.” Kathleen was walking in
front of her husband, sometimes hardly able to keep her
footing on the track but hurrying nonetheless - hurrying
-A. through the great wood just beyond Colcorum village. “I
could walk for ever.” Jude stayed with her, sometimes bounding
ahead but then just as quickly dropping back so that he might trot
beside her; and occasionally he would look up at her face before
resuming his own secret inspection of the undergrowth. In his own
time.
A Sunday afternoon in late autumn and after a night of heavy rain
Colcorum Wood seemed to be soaked in the rich and hectic green
which always precedes the first frosts of the new season, like the flush
on a human face just before death. Kathleen waded through the
gorse and the tall thickets of brake fern, and Mark could see the
brambles sticking to her red coat as she disappeared into a darker
part of the forest ahead; when he caught up with her she was
standing very still, and staring upward through the tangle of
branches. “You know,” she said, “in the fairy tale, there are giants
who part the leaves and peer at the little children. I wonder who’s
watching us now?” In the silence they both listened to the tapping of
the branches above them, and the soft noise of rain dropping from
the leaves onto the mass of vegetation beneath their feet. Behind her
was an old elm, and in one of its forks a pool of water had collected.
Kathleen turned around and dipped her finger into it; then she made
a sign of the cross. “Prayers for the dying,” she said. “The dying of
the light.”
Mark recognised her melancholy, and tried to keep back his own
feelings of helplessness before it. He was wearing a bottle-green
overcoat, and now he waved his hands in the air and stamped upon
the sodden ground. “Look at me,” he said, trying to make her laugh

200
 THE WOOD

at the oddness of his behaviour. “I’m the famous green man!” And
then he added, staring at Jude as the dog barked at him, “I’m the
famous archaeologist! The robber non pared!”
Kathleen started walking ahead. “You know how proud I am of
you,” she said. He knew what she meant: after he and Julian had
talked to the journalist the discovery of the tomb, and of its strange
occupant, had become a newsworthy and even sensational event.
“You don’t need me now, do you?”
“Kathleen!” He tried to catch up with her, but the path was so
narrow at this point that he still had to walk behind her. He put his
hands gently upon her shoulders. “Of course I need you. Who else
do I have?” He brushed a leaf away from his face. “Please don’t say
such things.”
They walked on in silence, Kathleen still keeping ahead of him,
limping over the massive moss-covered roots of oak and elm, putting
up her arm to part the damp branches in front of her which had
already soaked her face and hair, inhaling the green secluded light.
Then suddenly she stopped. “Do you hear it?” she asked. She
sounded almost anxious, as if perhaps this were some hallucination
of her own. But Mark heard it, too, and through the ancient trees
came the sound of someone singing. The voice was coming from
somewhere close to them, and Kathleen crept forward.
There was a small clearing ahead and, when they came to the edge
of it, they could see an elderly man-a tramp, a vagrant, a wayfarer¬
sitting upon the trunk of a fallen tree and feeding bread to the wood-
pigeons which clustered around him. This bread must have been his
only meal since he would eat one piece himself and then throw the
next one in front of him - a calm and continuous gesture, which was
broken when he sensed the presence of Mark and Kathleen. Now
that he realised he was no longer alone he stopped singing, and sat
very still.
“I’m sorry,” Kathleen said quietly, moving out from the shelter of
the trees on the margin of the clearing. “We didn’t know. We didn’t
realise ...”
He looked down at the brace upon her leg, and made an effort to
get up to greet her. Then awkwardly he sat down again.
“Do you often feed them?” she asked him. And then she added,
“Is this your home?” He said nothing. It was as if he were not used to
speech. But he was smiling at her, and only the brightness of his eyes
showed how much he was thinking; how much, perhaps, he could

201
 FIRST LIGHT

have said. Jude went up to him, his tail wagging, and the old man
gave him some bread also.
Kathleen watched him for a few moments, content with the silence
until Mark touched her arm and led her away. “I know about him,”
he said after they had left the clearing. “I’ve seen him before.”
“Why did you never tell me? Why did I never know?” She seemed
to be accusing him of something which Mark failed to understand.
“Jude! Jude!” She had to call the dog, who seemed reluctant to leave
the old man. And then she went on, more quietly, “Is this place his
home?”
“As far as I know. They call him the woodlander. Once there were
three of them.” And as they carried on through the wood Mark told
her the story which all the villagers knew.

202
 *52*

O THE WOODLANDER
NCE UPON a time there was a young boy, Michael
Hare, who had been born in a cottage beside the great
wood ofColcorum; he spent all of his days in that wood
and so great was his attachment to it that there were
some villagers who said that he must have been conceived there.
That he was a child of the place. And in truth Michael was.
Here he walked among the trees, making sure that he touched
each one as he passed it, and in his wanderings he took great care not
to break or damage any of the foliage which bordered the narrow
overgrown paths. He was careful even with the grass beneath his
feet, because instinctively he knew how everything in the world
could feel pain. He knew, too, how the inhabitants of the wood could
also bring him consolation: there were times, in moods of great
sadness, when he would curl up beneath the ancient trees and, as he
slept, the earth and boughs would take the sadness from him. For
this was yet another truth he had come to understand: that the
natural places of the earth are imbued with the feelings of those who
enter them.
After a time the animals grew to recognise him and, when they
came up to him, he gave each of them names so that there was not a
fox or a deer or a rabbit which did not respond to Michael’s calls. But
animals have no sense of time and, when the boy returned each
evening to the cottage of his parents, they grieved over his loss and
greeted him the next morning as if he might have left them forever.
In turn Michael protected everything that lived here. He would
watch at the beginning of each season for signs of damage or decay
and, guided by his own inner knowledge, he knew how to repair each
burrow and how, at the time of the earliest frosts, to feed the birds
who would otherwise have died among the trees. As winter came he
spoke to the plants and calmed them, telling them of their eventual

203
 FIRST LIGHT

rebirth.
But he had not remained without human companionship; he had
two friends who lived not tar from his cottage, and Michael taught
these boys all his knowledge of the wood. So throughout the early
years it became their home, too - in fact they were known to the
villagers as the three spirits of the wood, and it was said that Michael
had found some secret magic within this place. There were rumours
that he had taught his two friends how to call the animals down into
the hollows, how to find food and medicine from the plants, how to
pass through the spiders’ webs strung between the trees without
disturbing them, and even how to remain invisible once they had
gone into the wood.
But, as always in this sublunary world, there had come changes.
The two friends had grown older and, without the same love for
Colcorum Wood, the time came when they wished to leave it. “I
must be on my way,” the first one said. “I have found a girl I wish to
marry, and this is no place for her.” Michael said nothing, but he
knew that his real family could only exist here. He smiled at his
friend, and then followed him to the edge of the forest. “Take this,”
he said, handing him a bough of an ancient ash. “I wish you well in
the world.”
It was not long after that his other friend decided to leave him. “It
is time for me to go,” he said to Michael. “I must find work in
another village.” Michael nodded and said nothing, although he
knew that his own work would always be here. He accompanied his
friend to the edge of the wood. “Take this,” he said, handing him an
ash bough. Then Michael waved as his friend walked from beneath
the trees and set off into the distance.
Now he was alone. He sat down upon the roots of an old oak and
cried so much that his tears entered the soil (and on that spot, it is
said, there grew a sunflower). The birds came to sing above his head,
and one of the foxes crept up to him and put his paws upon him for
consolation. So Michael was left alone in the wood as he had been as
a child and, after a few days, he was able to relive the happiness of his
first years - the wood relived it with him, too, and through these
nights the villagers thought that they could hear the singing of birds
and, although there was no wind, the excited soughing of the
branches. Now he spoke to the animals alone and alone he would
wander among the trees, touching them as he went.
It was then that he vowed never to leave Colcorum Wood because

204
 THE WOODLANDER

he understood that, without the human spirit within it, it might grow
tired and then decay. But he knew also that there would be a day
when his own death must come, and so now Michael began to create
a map of the entire wood, marking in with different-coloured pencils
its various hollows and copses; he sketched leaves and trees and
stones; in a notebook he kept a record of its changing seasons;, and he
listed all the names of the animals whose home this was.
Eventually his parents died, and he left the cottage by the side of
the wood in order to live among the trees. He gave the cottage to an
old woman who, in recompense, still brings him food; he sleeps on a
bed of pine needles each night, and washes in the stream each
morning. The years have passed and he is growing older; but this is
of no concern to him because he knows how the wood will always
return to life each spring, just as the young animals always come
forward to greet him at the appointed time. This is the greatest
miracle of all, and sometimes he pities his two companions who live
in the outer world where they cannot see such things. He knows, too,
that someone will come to take his place one day, which is why he
always keeps by him his drawings and maps of the great wood - to
help this stranger on his way. And so the woodlander lives here still.

205
 ♦ 53 ♦

SWITHIN’S COLUMN
Y B ^ HIS WAS the story that Mark Clare told Kathleen, and
she was silent for a while as they continued through the
wood. She was still walking ahead of him, and he could
^ not see her face as she said, “So he is always alone?”
“Yes. As far as I know.”
“But he seems happy, don’t you think?”
“He was singing.”
“Yes. The wood is his world.” She remembered his eyes, and how
bright they seemed. They had reached the edge of the wood now, and
he came up to her side as she stopped. He was about to change the
real silence which had existed between them for some months: he
was about to speak freely for the first time. It may have been that she
sensed this, because she broke away from him and walked out from
beneath the trees. “Look,” she said, “there’s the haunted tower!”
She was pointing towards a circular isolated hill which stood in
the middle of a wide ploughed field: it was covered by fir trees but on
its summit, and rising above the tree-tops, was a tower erected in the
form of a classical column. It had always been known as Swithin’s
Column although the origin of that name, and whatever purpose the
tower itself once had served, had long ago been forgotten. It was
rarely visited now, and of course it had acquired the reputation of
being haunted.
“I must see it,” she said. “Will you come with me?” So together
Mark and Kathleen walked with Jude across the field and, when
they came to the foot of the hill, they could see a small path winding
up towards the edifice - a path so covered with pine needles that the
ground seemed to spring up under their feet as they approached the
column. It was much more massive than it had seemed from
Colcorum Wood; it was a true monument and, as they stood in front
of a small wooden door at its base, both of them hesitated.

206
 SWITHIN’S COLUMN

For this was not a column but a hollow tower, and the door led to
some space within. Kathleen tried the door gently and at once it gave
way to her touch, revealing a flight of stone steps, covered with lichen
and mossy damp, which wound out of sight and clearly led upward
to the top of the tower. Shafts of dim autumn light came from narrow
slits set in the circular walls, and Katherine had already impulsively
set her foot on the first step of the ascent. For once, however, Jude
seemed curiously unwilling to follow her; the dog lay crouched on the
ground, growling towards the open door. Mark softly called her
back. “I think,” he said, “that someone may be living here.” He
pointed to a scrap of paper, apparently torn from a book, which was
lodged against the bottom step.
She picked up the page but its words were obscured by a green
patina of vegetable decay, and she could only make out the phrase
. . has beyond it ghastliness.’ “No,” she said. “No. This has been
here for a long time. The tower is deserted. I can feel it.”
Once again she began her climb up the relatively smooth stone
steps, winding round and round the interior of the tower, as Mark
trod behind; and their footsteps had a dead echo in this enclosed
space, like the sound of doors shutting somewhere in the distance.
They climbed steadily higher, Jude reluctantly following them, and
there came a moment when Kathleen had to press herself against the
wall in order to give support to her withered leg; but then she looked
up, and with redoubled energy continued her ascent.
Eventually they reached the summit of Swithin’s Column, and
found themselves in a small circular room with bare arched windows
from which all the glass had been removed and from which they
could see the surrounding countryside. “I told you,” she said. “No
one comes here any more. This place has been forgotten for a long
time.” They looked around and saw only some fragments of a broken
bottle, a wooden chair with a sagging seat, and a small rusted tin.
But these things seemed to delight Kathleen. “This is strange,” she
said, almost to herself. “I feel as if I know this place already. I feel as
if I have been here before.”
Mark looked around again, looking for some clue to his wife’s
sense of recognition from the damp and moss-stained walls.
“Perhaps you just read about it. Everyone knows about the haunted
tower.”
“No. I know it in some other way.” She went over to one of the
large arched windows and looked out across the field. “And it isn’t

207
 FIRST LIGHT

haunted. You know that, too, don’t you?”

‘‘I don’t know anything.”
“Look,” she said, leaning so far out of the window that she had not
heard him. “There’s the sea.” She pointed across the top of Col-
corum Wood to the shoreline beyond. “Do you see the difference in
the light? Do you see it? That’s Lud Mouth!” He came up beside her,
alarmed by her leaning so far out. “I remember Lud Mouth,” she
went on, still looking beyond the wood. “I remember going down to
the shore there when I was a child. But I never liked beaches, you
know. I felt so exposed on them.” Something about the peace and
emptiness of Swithin’s Column seemed to make her want to talk, and
it occurred to Mark that she was replying to some unspoken question
of his own. “I hardly ever went to the beach, so I remember this time.
I was standing by the water and there were three other children
playing in the sea just in front of me. Of course I couldn’t swim. Not
with my brace. I was standing by the water and they were throwing a
ball to one another. And I was watching them. It was just a game,
but I liked to watch it. And then I remember two people walking
across the sand, and I heard the woman saying to the man, ‘There’s
always one who is left alone on the shore.’ I wasn’t embarrassed, or
anything like that, but I did move further out towards the water. Just
to show them I wasn’t afraid. When I turned I could see that they
had noticed my leg. The man was blushing. He took off his hat. I
remember that. I don’t know why, but he took offhis hat and held it
in his hands. Perhaps he was just frightened that the wind would
blow it away—”
Mark had been that man upon the shore. He stood very still,
hardly able to breathe. Time. All these years, and she had never
known. Another time. Time encircling him.
“—my parents were sitting close to me and they had heard the
woman’s remark, too. And at the same time they came up to me, and
my mother picked me up in her arms and kissed me. But my father’s
head was bowed. And then I remember we were sitting in a little
wooden hut in front of the beach - you know those huts, don’t
you?—”
“Yes. I know them.”
“—and we were having our tea. It was very quiet. And it was as if
they felt guilty for making me the way I was, and I felt guilty for
being the way I was. I was only a little girl, but I understood that
even then. Somehow we all pitied each other, but no one could say

208
 SWITHIN’S COLUMN

anything about it. There was such a feeling of helplessness. Such

sadness.” Kathleen broke ofT and turned to Mark for the first time.
‘‘Such sadness. But why did I think of it now? Why did I think of it
here?”
He thought that he understood the reason; he sensed that she was
talking about their own life together, a life begun when he had looked
at her on the shore of Lud Mouth. She had no idea that he was the
stranger who had seen her then, that this had been the beginning,
but somehow she had remembered the scene all the same. Time.
Time encircling them both. He put his arm around her. “We ought
to go,” he said. “We ought to go before it gets dark.”

209
 ■

I
♦PART FIVE^
“I often experience a kind of fear of the sky after
sitting in the observing chair a long time,” he
answered . . . “That’s partly what I meant by
saying that magnitude, which up to a certain point
has grandeur, has beyond it ghastliness.”

Two on a Tower
Thomas Hardy.
 ♦.54♦

L CORONA
OVELINESS IS everywhere. Everywhere is loveliness.” As
they emerged from the back of an old blue-and-white van,
-they began clapping their hands and singing. There were
^ seven of them, all wearing long blue robes with white
headbands, and only when they came closer to the tumulus did
Evangeline Tupper realise that there were five young women leading
the way while two men followed a few paces behind. “Loveliness is
everywhere. Everywhere is loveliness.” They kept on clapping and
singing until they came within a few feet of Evangeline. One of the
young women came forward with her arms outstretched. “Softness is
strength,” she chanted. “Strength is softness.”
“I thought,” Evangeline said, “that was an advertisement for
something.”
The young woman’s perfectly serene smile did not waver. “Are
you the Feminine Principle?”
“I’m in charge of the site, if that’s what you mean.”
The young woman turned joyfully to the others. “Everything is
female,” she murmured. “Female is everything.” They all laughed
gaily, and clapped at this news.
“I would be the first to agree with you,” Evangeline replied,
thinking of Baby Doll. “Under normal circumstances.” But these
were not normal circumstances: as soon as news of the discovery had
been published, a large number of visitors had converged upon
Pilgrin Valley; it was only with the help of the Dorsetshire police that
the site was now protected from those who had come to see the grave
of “Merlin” or “the lost king of Wessex” or “the great astronomer”,
as it was variously interpreted. At the first sign of public enthusiasm
Evangeline Tupper had hurried down from London and, with
Hermione, had ensconced herself in the Blue Dog to cope with what
she insisted on calling the “invasion”. She also took over Mark

213
 FIRST LIGHT

Clare’s Portakabin by the site and was now, as Martha Temple took
great pleasure in explaining to everyone, “Queen of all she
surveyed”.
“Everything is female. Female is everything.” The young women
had all taken up the chant and formed an excited little half-circle
around Evangeline.
“It is a lovely thought, I know. But this particular female every¬
thing has to draw the line somewhere.” They continued to smile.
“You can’t stop here, I’m afraid. The tomb has to be protected.”
“Protected against us?” The young woman waved her hand in the
direction of the others. “We are all here to worship. Presence is
worship. Worship is presence.”
“That’s exactly what I’ve always said. But, to be devastatingly
frank with you, we have had so many, so many—” she searched for
the right word to describe the various cults which had travelled to
the tomb “—so many groups that we simply can’t let you in.” And in
fact the site was now surrounded by a high wire fence. “It was a
dreadful decision. I agonised night and day until I was prostrate.
But there it is, my darling.” Evangeline was rather taken by this
young worshipper. “What is your name, by the way?”
“I am called Corona.” Corona had remained very serene and now
with a light laugh she put out her hand to introduce the others. “This
is Sagilla, this is Auriga, this is Ursa and this is Spica.” Each of the
young women giggled and blushed as she was introduced.
“What lovely names! And what an extraordinary coincidence that
they should all end with the same letter. Although,” she added,
shaking her head at the foibles of the young, “I don’t think I’ve ever
read of a Saint Spica. Not in the Christian calendar, at least.”
Corona joined in their happy laughter. “These are our sky
names,” she said. “We no longer have earth names.”
“And the males?” Evangeline looked somewhat sternly at the two
young men who had remained a few feet behind the others.
“Corvus and Cetus have been instructed. They have increased
their feminine quotient.”
“My assistant would be terribly interested in that,” Evangeline
replied. And then she added: “Her earth name is Hermione Crisp.
But her sky name is Baby Doll.”
Corona did not seem to understand this reference, and in fact it
was not clear if she understood anything. “We would be happy to
meet this sister.”

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 CORONA

“Actually she’s not my sister. She’s my - well, let’s not go into that
now.” It was a cold winter morning, and Evangeline pretended to
shiver. “You really will have to leave now, darlings. Goodbye.” Her
enthusiasm had vanished as quickly as it had arrived; she started
walking back to her Portakabin, and gave a little wave to the group
without turning around to look at them again. “Terribly sorry,” she
shouted into the air.
Martha Temple and Julian Hill had been watching this scene
from behind the wire fence with barely disguised amusement. They
were both on the ‘duty roster’ for this day’s supervision of the site
but, even on such a cold morning as this, they did not seem to mind -
in fact they now enjoyed each other’s company, united as they were
in their firm but always unspoken hatred for Evangeline Tupper.
“She handles such things so well, doesn’t she?” Martha said. The
cast had come off her arm, and she was her old cheerful self.
“She’s a pro. A real old pro.”
“Explain yourself, Julian.” Martha gave him a playful tap. “I
presume you mean that she gets on very well with those young
women. Those pretty young girls.”
“I don’t know if she was right to send them away.” Julian had
been reading some radical sociology on the subject of primitive
societies and, his eyes once again fixed on the distance as he spoke, he
now happily launched into a new concept. “Many of these modern
cults,” he said, “would have the same beliefs as the working men
who were forced to build the tomb.”
“I don’t think Evangeline bothers her head about little things like
that. She’s much more concerned with making statements to the
newspapers. And the television cameras.” This was a direct hit,
since it was her assumption of a public role that had infuriated Julian
Hill; and now with an innocent smile Martha walked over to the
group of young women.
They did not seem at all displeased by their encounter with
Evangeline; they had now formed a circle and, with arms raised,
they were gazing at the sky at the same time as they let out a
prolonged high note. Martha Temple stood near them and waited
for the ululation to end. Then she exclaimed, “Let joy be
unconfined!”
“The hymn is old Mother.” Corona was as serene as ever. “Old
Mother is the hymn.”
“I hope,” Martha replied, “that you weren’t referring to

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 FIRST LIGHT

Evangeline.” Corona made no response and it occurred to Martha

that her smooth, soft face might conceivably be an index of blankness
as much as anything else. “But don’t pay any attention to her,” she
went on. “She has many personal problems which we probably
wouldn’t understand.” Then she added, confidentially, “There is
some sort of camp at the other end of the valley, by the way. There
are lots of you there.”
Corona clapped her hands excitedly. “Thank you,” she said. “We
will sing for you tonight. We will sing The Menstrual Song.”
“I’ve always wanted to hear that.”
The others also clapped their hands at the wonderful news of the
evening’s celebration, and then by some mute instinct they all
turned together and, with their laughter tinkling like little bells,
skipped down the slope of Pilgrin Valley towards their battered van.
As soon as they had gone Evangeline emerged from the Port-
akabin. “Weren’t they an absolute nightmare?” she said, coming up
to Martha. “I hope they’ve crawled back to their slums.”
“Actually their leader said—”
“—her name was Corona, dear. Like the fizzy drink. Isn’t it a
joke?”
“I think Corona said they were going to that awful camp. I don’t
know how they heard about it.”
“I don’t believe it! This is the end.” There had already been
complaints from the villagers of Colcorum about the makeshift site
created in Pilgrin Valley. “I’m going to take poison,” she went on.
“Take absolute poison.” Martha gave her an encouraging smile. “I
can’t have those silly bitches hanging around my neck.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure.” Evangeline was breathing very heavily, and
scraped the ground with her foot. She seemed to be preparing herself
for a decision. “I’m going down there,” she said. “I’m going to talk
to them. I’ll show them what the Eternal Feminine is all about.”

216
 *55*

E THE TRA VELLERS

VANGELINE TOPPER drove almost a mile along the
track until she came to the southern entrance of Pilgrin
Valley, which was so narrow at this point that the camp
site had spread across both slopes. It was not a large camp
but, in the month since accounts of the tumulus had appeared in the
newspapers, groups of various kinds had settled here until now there
were almost a hundred people cooking in the open and washing in
the Pilgrin stream. Amongst them were a number of travellers who
lived in caravans and seemed to move on restlessly from one ‘sacred’
site to the next, but there were also solitary people who arrived
without any apparent purpose and, in addition, there was a small
troupe which called itself the Theatre of Peace.
In fact, just as Evangeline arrived, the Theatre was running
through one of its performances for the benefit of the others - the
young travellers to one side, Corona and her delightful bevy of sisters
to the other. Several actors were linking hands, making what might
have been the shape of a pentagon or of a star, while in the middle
three others curled up in little balls and made moaning noises.
Evangeline got out of her car and walked towards the crowd. “I do
beg your pardon,” she said to a young man who was part of the
audience. “But what do I have the privilege of watching?”
“They represent the birth pangs of world peace.”
“Of course. I thought I recognised it.”
“And the star is the sign of unity through difference.”
Corona had heard the last phrase and began singing joyfully,
“Unity is Difference. Difference is Unity!”
“Oh hello darling.” Evangeline turned to greet her. “Fancy
meeting you here.” She might have been at a cocktail party, despite
the fact that the theatrical troupe had suddenly put on clown masks
and with great ceremony were handing artificial flowers to various

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 FIRST LIGHT

members of the audience. Evangeline took one. “A daffodil,” she

said. “My favourite. Thank you so much.”
“The great thing is,” the young man said, “they don’t use words.
They don’t think much of words any more.”
“I can see that.”
“No.” He looked across at her for the first time. “Don’t make fun
of them. They’re not doing any harm.”
“I’m so sorry.” And in fact Evangeline was genuinely abashed by
this rebuke. “I didn’t know you were with them. I must be really out -
to lunch.”
She thought that this phrase might endear her to the young man,
but plainly it did not have the appropriate effect. “I’m not with
them,” he said sternly. “I just don’t like to see them hurt.”
In fact, as Evangeline was later to discover, he was with the
travellers themselves. There were thirty of them, twelve couples still
in their twenties, and six small children. Somehow they seemed
rougher than the others on the camp-site, with that unmistakable air
of having been raised in cities. They were all unemployed; they were
poor; and, in a sense, they were desperate. It may be that they had
come to Pilgrin Valley to be close to a world which was somehow
different from the one which oppressed them and offered them no
hope - as if the passage grave represented a reality deeper and richer
than the one through which they were forced to move. Or it may
have been that they had come here to propitiate the earth, to ask for
help in their extremity.
“I’m not with them,” he repeated. “But we’re all in this together.
We help each other.”
“Isn’t it strange,” Evangeline answered. “I’m in a caring pro¬
fession too. In some ways I’m the chief carer.”
She may have been about to explain the nature of that profession
when suddenly the members of the Theatre of Peace tored off their
clown masks, jumped up on each other’s shoulders to form a human
pyramid and began to exclaim, “Peace not war! Peace not war!”
Evangeline joined in the cry and, in the general excitement, Corona
and her sisters began chanting, “Joy! Joy! Joy!”
The human pyramid was breaking up when Evangeline saw her
opportunity to make a dramatic public statement. She rushed into
the centre of the ring and, while there were still three members of the
troupe with their backs bent to take the weight of the others, began
hauling herself onto them. “Help me up,” she said to the others.

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 THE TRAVELLERS

“I’ve got a little speech to make.” After a few moments, when she
was being supported and precariously balanced on top of them, she
began to speak in a loud voice. “Fellow carers!” she said. “And
caring persons! You all know me. You know that I am looking after
the tomb to which you have all come to pay your respects—” She
made it sound like an unavoidable social obligation.
“No. Not our respects.” This was the young man again. “We
came here because there is nowhere else to go.”
“Absolutely.” She did not like to be interrupted.
“Peace will start here!” someone else called out.
“It is lovely and quiet, isn’t it?” With a brief smile of sympathy,
she launched upon the speech she had been preparing in the car.
“But I must beg you. I beg you on my bended knees.” Such was her
precarious position that at this moment she could only manage a
little bob, which sent tremors through the backs of those supporting
her. “Please do not try and enter the site. It is very fragile. We still
have much to do there.” She flung out her arm, and was only saved
from toppling over by the young man holding onto her right leg. “We
ask for your understanding and, yes, your forgiveness too. Many of
us have toiled for days and nights, laboured for nights and days.
Many of us have planned and dreamed for years to bring this project
to fruition. So if we have a fault. And of course we all have faults.”
She gave a sad smile. “If we have a fault, it is the fault of being
patient and of being terribly, terribly careful. Forgive us our faults.
Help us to protect the site.” Evangeline, carried away by her new
role as progenitor of the whole excavation, threw out both arms in
the direction of her audience. “We love you all, yes, and we share
your love of the tomb. But give us time. Give us space. One day it will
all be yours. And, if I should ever, ever let you down, I promise you
this. No mortal punishment would be too severe for me.” At this she
put her hands against her chest and bowed her head. Then after a
pause for reflection she blew a kiss at her audience, but this sudden
shift in her weight was too much for her bearers who began to break
under the strain. Even as she was being applauded she slipped down
between them, and was only just caught before falling heavily to the
ground.
“Perhaps,” someone called out, “perhaps we’re connected with
the tomb in any case. Perhaps there is a ley line.”
“Of course.” Evangeline was a little flustered by her sudden .
descent, but she was determined to retain her dignity. “I know all

219
 FIRST LIGHT

about it.” She flung out her arm in the general direction of the
tumulus. “There is a gorgeous line which runs all the way down the
valley. I have trod upon it myself.” She began ceremoniously to walk
away, her mission fulfilled, when the young traveller called out after
her, “Can we stay here, then?”
She did not turn back but called out, “That has nothing to do with
me. You must ask the parish authorities.” And, as she returned to
the track above the valley, she whispered to herself, “Well, Miss
Tupper, I do think that was something of a triumph.”
But before she could reach her car someone put his hand upon her
shoulder and, with a gasp, she glanced around. It was a middle-aged
man wearing a purple open-necked shirt, despite this winter
weather, with a variety of bead necklaces and bangles. “I have
something of great importance to tell you,” he said.
Evangeline was impatient to get back to her warm office. “I’m all
ears.”
“You think you’re going forward. But you’re not. You’re going
backward.”
“That does sound exciting. Does it take a lot of practice?”
“You don’t understand me, do you?”
“There is a definite possibility that you are too deep for me. Yes.”
“There is something wrong in the valley. Something evil in the
tomb. Don’t you feel it?”
“At this precise moment, I don’t feel anything.”
He put his hand up to his face, as if he were literally brushing aside
her words. “Please remember this.” He spoke very slowly now. “In
the beginning there is an end. In the end there is a beginning.”
“You know,” Evangeline said, drawing the conversation to a
close. “I have been saying that all my life. But people just won’t listen,
will they? Goodbye.”
She hurried back to her car, and he watched her. “Remember,” he
shouted. “When you find yourself in the dark.”

220
 H TEA TIME
AVE ANOTHER cup that - what is the cup supposed
to do?” Floey and Hermione were sitting in the house
which the Hanovers had rented near the Cobb.
“Cheers.”
“And to you, Tiger.” Both women raised their cups. They now
spent a great deal of time in each other’s company, and were already
thoroughly comfortable. “Seriously. What is it supposed to do?”
Hermione laughed. “Flo, you’re game. I could go into the jungle
with you.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, Tiger. I wouldn’t know what
to do with all those rum-babas.”
Hermione rarely bothered to correct Floey’s misappropriation of
words; in fact she rather enjoyed them. “So tell me,” she went on.
“Why are you being so mysterious about Joey?”
As soon as Hermione arrived Floey had said, rather significantly,
that her husband was “with his new relations” but so far she had
refused to be drawn any further. Now the time had come, and with
monumental deliberation she replaced her tea-cup in its saucer.
“Well,” she said. “This is between you and me and—” She could not
exactly recall the other member of this triumvirate of secrecy.
“Gatepost. Of course I won’t tell.”
“Don’t forget, Tiger. Pigs have ears, you know.”
“Don’t beat around the bush, Floey.”
“Are you sure it’s beating around the bush? I was always under the
impression that—”
“Come on. Spit it out.”
“Well.” So Floey told her old school-friend about Joey’s search for
his origins, his recognition of the cottage, his conversation with the
Mints, the discovery that his parents were dead and the revelation
that he was Farmer Mint’s cousin. “Family, family, family,” Floey
 FIRST LIGHT

added towards the end of the story. “That’s all they talk about.” She
glared at her tea-cup before picking it up again to inspect its cracked
base. “You would think that they were despots or something
interesting. Instead of farmers.”
“But they’re men, Floey.” Hermione felt in the pocket of her
tweed jacket, and took out a packet of cigarettes. “They’re idealists.
They’re much more sensitive. Much more delicate. They haven’t
seen as much of the world as we have.”
“I suppose not.” This explanation did not altogether satisfy her.
“And there’s another thing. They’re having some kind of family
reunion in the dead of winter. Of course I haven’t been invited. I’m
not a precious Mint. I’m a persona no thank you.”
“Non grata?”
But Floey wasn’t listening. “Hush,” she said. “I hear his tiny
footsteps. Talk about something else.” And, when Joey finally
entered the room, the two women were amicably discussing the
future of the coal-mining industry.
“What a lovely sight,” he said. “Two old friends by the fireside.”
He took off his cap - he owned a flat cap now, exactly the same as
Farmer Mint’s - and bowed to Hermione.
She bowed in return and put out her hand. But instead of shaking
it he kissed it, and then began to croon

“Mid the smiles of bright eyed lasses—”

Here he bowed again.

“And the sight of dear old friends—”

“He should go back into the business,” Floey remarked loudly to her
old school-friend. “He’s wasted down here.”

“When the merry chink of glasses—”

He picked up a tea-cup and gave it a little flick with his finger.

“In some jolly chorus blends.”

He went over to his wife and kissed her on the cheek. “And I do feel
jolly, girls. I feel very jolly.” In fact the experiences of the last few
weeks seemed to have rejuvenated him. There had been a time when,
without any proper knowledge of the past, he saw ahead of him only
the unfathomable and therefore unfair process of ageing; why should
he have begun to die when he did not truly know who he was? But the
discovery of his family had allowed him to see his life as part of some

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 TEA TIME

larger continuity and, just as he could now look backward with more
confidence, so also could he look forward. The world, before, had
been merely an index of his own ageing; but now it seemed to him to
contain the possibility of change, to be always capable of renewal.
“I saw your other halfjust now,” he said to Hermione. “She was
in the old valley.” This was a phrase which Farmer Mint always
used, but now Joey hurried over it in case she should ask him his
reasons for being there. “She was talking to some campers,” he
added quickly.
“Campers?”
“That sort of thing. Young people, anyway. But she wasn’t just
talking to them. He could not help laughing. “She was standing on
a human pyramid. You know, Floey, like Boothroyd and Jones.”
“Contortionists extraordinaire?”
That s them. And then,” he said, suddenly adopting his most
melancholy expression, “she fell off. She fell between them.”
“Was she hurt?” Both women asked the question at the same
time.
“Not at all. She just carried on talking.”
Hermione rubbed her hands with delight. “That’s Evangeline for
you,” she said. “Always on the ball.” The Hanovers smiled politely.
It was clear to her that they were not altogether impressed by this
commendation but she, at least, understood the nature of her
companion’s effusiveness and hysteria: Evangeline still possessed
the selfish and impetuous needs of her childhood, a childhood from
which she had never been rescued, and so her relations with the
world came hurtling downwards, as it were, at a wrong angle.
“Well,” she said, picking up her fedora from the chair next to her
own, “Goodbye dearies. I must leave you.” She made a point of
shaking hands with both of them.
“Are we to part like this?” Joey said.
“Sorry. Got to see a man about a dog.”
“That woman,” Joey muttered after she had gone, “is particularly
charming. She makes me go all funny. All queer.”
Floey made no response but, to her husband’s surprise, started
making a series of animal noises - those of pig, lamb, cow, and mule
in quick succession. Then she stopped and, with a placid expression,
asked, “How’s Farmer Giles?”
Now Joey understood. “The family is very well. But it’s not nice to
mock, Flo. Not nice in the least.”

223
 FIRST LIGHT

“I’m not mocking. I’m making a point.” But, when she saw his
wounded look, she relented. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But we’ve been
here months now. Let’s be ornithological. Let’s face facts.”
“But that’s exactly it. I’m looking for facts. I’m still looking for my
parents. I’m still trying to find out what happened to them. I can’t
leave it unfinished. That makes me feel unfinished.”
“You’ll live.” But there was a trace of sympathy in her voice.
“Yes, I’ll live. And then I’ll die. Like them.”
“Can’t we go home now? Just for a few days?”
For some reason this seemed to cheer Joey, and he got up from his
chair. “What’s the old song, Flo? We all go the same way home. All
the collection in the same direction. We all go the same way home.
Shall we dance?” He went up to her and, gently lifting her to her feet,
began to waltz with her around the small room as he crooned the old
song. But then suddenly he stopped. “While we’re on the subject of
facts,” he said, still holding her in the centre of the room, “there is
something strange. I don’t know yet. But it’s something to do with
the valley.”

224
 ♦57*

T THE MEETING
HERE MUST be a law against them. There’s always a
law against people like that.” The speaker was a small,
thin, bespectacled woman with her hair tied up in a
bun. “I’ve lived in this village for thirty years,” she
added, as if this provided conclusive proof.
“I don’t think this is a time to speak of laws, Miss Ford.” The vicar
of Colcorum had risen. “I feel sure that we should be addressing
their need for faith. Think of the early church. It seems to me that we
must not judge them.” A meeting had been convened in the village
hall of Colcorum - a low-ceilinged barn which was used for every
activity, from bingo meeting to memorial service - and almost all of
the villagers had gathered here to mount a protest against the camp¬
site in Pilgrin Valley. Some of those concerned with the tumulus had
also come: sitting on the cheap plastic chairs, among the villagers,
were Evangeline Tupper and Hermione Crisp, Mark and Kathleen
Clare and, standing at the back, Farmer Mint and Boy Mint. “The
early church, don’t you see, was such a prayerful gathering of folk.
Such a lesson. It seems to me.”
“What on earth is he talking about,” Evangeline whispered to her
friend. “Where is this early church?”
“Coffee?” Miss Chancellor’s coffee was famous throughout Col¬
corum, and only strangers to the village seemed willing to accept it as
she went amongst them with a tray.
“Haven’t you got anything stronger?” Evangeline asked her as
she was passed a cup of the gruel-like liquid.
“I do have some Earl Grey, dear. Would you care to partake?”
“No. I think I’ll partake some other time.”
“The early church, don’t you see, had a lovely communal
togetherness. A lovely feeling for life in all its felt complexity—”
“I’m getting quite dizzy,” Evangeline muttered, in a slightly

225
 FIRST LIGHT

louder voice.
And the sound of Farmer Mint and Boy Mint chuckling at the
back of the hall was also perfectly audible as another villager got up
from his chair to address the meeting. “I say we surprise them. We
surround them and then we attack.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Evangeline added to Hermione.
And with a certain amusement she turned around to look at the
speaker - a tall middle-aged man wearing a tweed jacket. He
sounded measured and precise, but there was an undertone of panic
in his voice which stirred a sense of unease throughout the room.
Evangeline, however, smiled and nodded at him in encouragement.
“We could,” he was saying, “set fire to their caravans. Steal up on
them and put them to the torch. I’m a great believer in the scorched
earth policy.”
Evangeline was enjoying herself. “They are barbaric in the
country, aren’t they?” she whispered. “Nature absolutely red in
tooth and claw.”
“More beverage anyone? Still deliciously hot.”
“No thank you, darling.” Evangeline handed back her cup to
Miss Chancellor. “One cup goes a long way in this parish.”
“Or,” the speaker was saying, “we could bring in the army—”
“Or you could eat shit!” He stopped at this interruption, although
very few of the villagers bothered to turn their heads towards the old
woman, dressed in a patchwork of old clothes, who had appeared at
the door of the village hall. “Help me in,” she added in a peremptory
voice, and at once two of the younger members of the audience
rushed over to her and supported her on each arm as slowly she
made her way to the front of the hall. She had a strange decayed
smell, a distillation of moth balls and old eau de cologne. “Sit me
down.” And, although in fact there seemed to be no reason why she
could not perform these movements for herself, they duly put her
slowly into a plastic chair. Now she turned to the villagers behind
her, her expression as blind and immobile as that on a death mask.
Certainly her arrival seemed to have discomposed the last speaker
and, sensing his opportunity, the vicar was once more on his feet.
“Surely we are all Christian folk, part of a broad church—”
“Balls.” It was the old woman, who had turned to stare fixedly at
the vicar.
“If Mrs Trout will allow me to continue,” he said, rather sadly. “I
want to direct your attention to the plight of the young people. We

226
 THE MEETING

owe the young a great debt, especially our friends in the valley who
are so desperately seeking for faith and inspiration—”
“Fuck them.” It was the old woman again.
Evangeline turned to Hermione. “Pin your ears back,” she said,
giggling. “This is becoming an absolute joke.”
In her excitement she had spoken quite loudly and a man, wearing
a white jacket and yellow cravat, turned around. “Didn’t you
know?” he said. “We are much more amusing in the country. Much
more civilised.” The old woman was just hurling the word
“Wanker!” at the vicar. “And Lola Trout is such a splendid
creature, isn’t she?” he went on. “Even though she has never left the
village, her behaviour is quite metropolitan.”
“Is she always so foul-mouthed?”
“Just her natural enthusiasm. But underneath I am told she is
sophistication itself.”
“I don’t think I want to look down that far,” Evangeline replied.
“Oh dear, do you want me?” This last remark was addressed at the
vicar, who was smiling at her and lifting his florid eyebrows in her
direction.
“Perhaps,” he was saying, “one of our friends from the excavation
might care to enlighten us. Give us the privilege of her thoughts,
woefully in need of instruction as we all are.”
Evangeline rose to her feet, and could distinctly hear the sound of
the Mints’ laughter as she prepared to speak. “I know,” she shouted,
“exactly what you are feeling. Every fibre of my body throbs with
you. Because I, too, have suffered at their hands.” Presumably she
was referring to the group camped in Pilgrin Valley, although she
did not specify the exact nature of her suffering. “But what more can
I do? I have informed the Forestry Commission, who own the land.
The police are guarding the excavations night and day—”
“Cunts!”
Evangeline rode over Mrs Trout’s interjection. “Or so I am told
by the proper authorities. And, apart from that, I am helpless. I am
as nothing.” She caught sight of the Mints grinning at her, and
added for their benefit, “I am trussed up like a chicken.” She
wrapped her arms around herself, to symbolise her plight, and then
sat down to murmurs of approval from the villagers at her colourful
speech.
The vicar jumped up, to forestall some terrible interruption from
Mrs Trout who seemed to be asking for more assistance. “May I call

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 FIRST LIGHT

for a vote of thanks—” He had been calling for votes of thanks since
he moved to Colcorum, and the gesture was instinctive.
But before he could call anything, Kathleen Clare brushed aside
her husband’s arm and stood up. She was very pale. “You are all
wrong,” she said. “All of you.” Lola Trout became quite still. “The
valley doesn’t belong to you. Or to the Forestry Commission. It
doesn’t belong to anyone. It has got nothing to do with us.” Savagely
she pushed her right hand through her hair and Mark half-rose
beside her. “This is a place for the dead. The living are not wanted.
They’re not needed yet. Can’t you tell? Or perhaps you know that
very well. Perhaps you’ve always known it.” Mark stood up, put his
arm around his wife and gently led her from the hall. She was
limping very badly, because she knew that the others were watching
her.
There was a momentary silence and then the vicar began once
more. “That was a most interesting contribution, I thought, to our
discussion. Quite refreshing.” And the villagers murmured their
agreement, happy to arrive at the conclusion that nothing, really,
had happened at all. That nothing had been said.
But, also by common consent, it was time to go. Mrs Trout,
supported on both sides, led the way out of the village hall but, as she
passed Evangeline, she was able unaided to stick one finger in the
air. Evangeline seemed about to protest but the vicar came up
behind her, and said apologetically, “Testing for wind, no doubt.”
The Mints followed, chuckling in unison at a joke which no one else
had as yet understood.
The two ladies were the last to leave and, as they walked onto the
gravel path which encircled the village hall, Evangeline took out a
packet of Woodbines and offered one to Hermione before herself
deeply inhaling. “I thought my chicken image was very good,” she
said. “Wasted on them, of course.” She looked anxiously around for
the Clares and, when she saw their car turning the corner, she let out
a deep sigh. “Thank God they’ve gone,” she said. “Wasn’t the wife a
nightmare? I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she were some kind of
witch. I feel so sorry for poor dear Mark.”
“Do you? Actually, I feel sorry for her. It can’ti>e easy.”
Evangeline seemed surprised by this. “You and your girlish
sympathies,” she said, rather nervously. “You are far too sweet and
sensitive for your own good. Now let’s get out of this hell hole.”

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 5
* &*

S MAUVE COTTAGE
UCH A charming interlude, didn’t you think?” The
yellow cravat had walked up to them, extending his hand.
“Fraicheur,” he said. “Augustine Fraicheur.” He sidled
between them and, as Hermione smiled at him, linked
their arms in his. “Don’t you find the country rather noisy after
London, Miss Tupper? We like it, but to more sensitive ears . . .”
“It’s terribly sweet of you to ask. Of course my assistant, Miss
Crisp, suffers much more than I do. She is terribly delicate, as you
can see.” Augustine glanced at the squat and dark-suited figure
beside him, as Evangeline went on to say, “How do you know my
name, by the way?”
Augustine gave a little shriek. “Our mutual friends, of course! The
Hanovers. I dote on them, don’t you?”
Evangeline nodded enthusiastically. “I feel so close to them
sometimes, it’s almost frightening.”
“I agree. And they’re so fond of you, too. From their description, I
would have known you both anywhere.”
This did not sound particularly like a compliment to Evangeline,
but Hermione was rather touched. In any case, a friend of Floey
Hanover was a friend of hers. “Would you care for a fag?” she asked
him.
“I beg your pardon?” For some reason he seemed offended by this.
“A cigarette?”
“Oh, dear no. I’m afraid in the country we don’t have such
unspoiled tastes. I envy you, I really do.”
“Well,” Evangeline replied, “I have been described as a man’s
man.”
“I don’t doubt that for a second.”
She was growing uneasy with this conversation, and disengaged
herself from Augustine’s arm. “Do tell,” she said, quickly changing

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the subject, “who was that dog’s dinner in the front row? That one
over there.” She pointed towards Mrs Trout, who was now being
carried down the main street as if she were Guy Fawkes being taken
to a bonfire.
“That’s dearest Lola. Lola Trout. Quite the uncrowned queen of
Colcorum, if I do say so myself.” The three young men carrying her
for a moment wavered under the burden, and he laughed. “We must
seem terribly decadent in the country. Almost Roman.”
“Do you have many queens in the rural areas?” Evangeline asked,
without the trace of a smile.
“They say there’s one in every village. But I wouldn’t really know,
would I?” He laughed more loudly than before. “And I’m not going
to say another word about Lola until you come in for a Campari.”
They had been walking down the main street, and now Augustine
stopped at the door of a small cottage. He looked up at the sign above
it, ‘Mauve Cottage’, ornately carved in wood. “Named after a great
chum of mine who owned it. Mauve Freedom Hooper. Did you know
him?”
Both ladies shook their heads. “Tragic death,” he said.
“Absolutely tragic. Do come in.” They entered what might have
been a museum of Regency style - the striped wallpaper in white and
rose, the set of elbow chairs in a dark wood, the mahogany side-
tables, the sofa covered with blue silk, the footstool with its brocade
covering, the polished wooden floor, the damask curtains. “Do sit
anywhere,” Augustine said. “I always do.”
Evangeline looked around for a brief moment and then put up her
hands in a little act of homage. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful
in my life. I could perfectly easily die here.”
“Yes. That’s what happened in Mauve’s case.” He tried to remain
solemn, but he could not suppress a smile. “It is rather special, isn’t
it?”
“You have a gift. An absolute gift. Let me touch you.”
Augustine Fraicheur nervously backed away from Evangeline,
although in fact she had no intention of actually putting her hand
upon him. “I do deal in antiques, after all,” he said, as if warding off
a blow. Then he became confidential again. “Actually, my shop is
beneath them.”
“Them?”
“You know. The Clares. The crippled woman. And your arch¬
aeological friend.”

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 MAUVE COTTAGE

“That woman is so brave,” Evangeline said. “I was just saying

that to my assistant. Wasn’t I, Miss Crisp?”
Hermione stared at her but did not reply, and Evangeline turned
instantly to Augustine. “I don’t want a Campari,” she said. “Do you
have any real ale?”
“I’m afraid we don’t have real ale in the country, Miss Tupper.
Our natural tastes have been quite spoiled. Would a malt whisky be
too cravenly sophisticated?”
“As long as it’s neat,” she said.
“Not even a little Perrier?”
“No. As rough as you’ve got it.”
“Snap,” he said, “I like it rough too.” And with a little giggle he
disappeared, only to emerge a few moments later with a silver tray
bearing three drinks. He settled down on the sofa. “Don’t you
think,” he said, holding up his gin-and-tonic, “that the chink of
glasses must be one of the oldest sounds in the world?”
“I’m sure,” Evangeline replied, “that it is in this household.”
Augustine was beginning to enjoy this conversation. “Now tell
me,” he said. “Who were we going to gossip about?”
“You were telling us about the fascinating Lola Trout.”
“Do you have a handkerchief?”
Hermione took him literally, and pulled out from the breast
pocket of her dark suit a large white cloth. “Here,” she said. “Blow
on this.”
“I only meant,” Augustine said, politely declining the proffered
article, “that it is a very sad story.”
“Don’t tell me!” Evangeline exclaimed. “I know I shall cry
buckets. I always do.”
Augustine took a large gulp of his gin. “Do you remember that
very tall man who spoke in the village hall?”
“The one who had the terribly good idea of calling in the army?”
Augustine nodded. “That was Mr Trout.”
Evangeline opened her eyes very wide. “You don’t mean . . .”
“Lola’s son.”
“Oh.” She sounded disappointed.
“But he hasn’t spoken to his mother for twenty-six years.” He took
another large gulp. “Isn’t it divine?”
Evangeline swirled the whisky in her glass, and looked at
Augustine through it. “There can’t have been anything like it since
the Borgias. Do tell.”

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 FIRST LIGHT

“It’s too ghastly, really.” Savouring the suspense, he left the room
quite suddenly and returned with bottles of drink. “But as long as it’s
strictly entre nous?”
Evangeline bowed her head for a moment. “No force on earth
could drag it from me.”
“Well. There were three Trouts. Father. Son. And Lola. Now
personally I love difficult women, don’t you?”
“I don’t think,” Evangeline replied, “that I have ever met one.
Have you, Miss Crisp?” Hermione shook her head slowly.
“Aren’t you the lucky ones?” Despite his firmly creased beige
trousers, and his yellow cravat, and his white jacket - he might have
passed as an English gentleman of the pre-war years - Evangeline
was beginning to suspect that there was in fact something rather
vulgar about him. And his watery eyes seemed to gleam as he
surveyed the two women above the rim of his glass. “The point is
that Lola is an absolute bitch.” He uttered the last word with relish.
“The late Mr Trout, her husband, was also a bit of a bitch. And so
. . .” He took another gulp.
“And so?”
“He passed on.”
“He left Colcorum?” Evangeline was becoming impatient with
Augustine’s somewhat cryptic remarks.
“Oh dear no. Nobody leaves Colcorum.” His fingers fluttered
towards the ceiling. “He was taken up into a larger bosom than Lola
Trout’s.”
“He kicked the bucket, did he?”
“He positively dented it, dear. Everyone said that it must have
been a heart attack. Everyone, that is, apart from the son. Simon
Trout. Simon knew what bitches—” again he savoured the word “—
what bitches his parents were, and he claimed that the mother had
poisoned the father. I don’t know what evidence he had, but Lola has
always been very good with her herbs. Potions of this. Potions of
that. Positively out of the jungle, dear. Anyway, terrible scenes
follow. He accuses her. And you know that Joan Crawford gaze she’s
got?” Augustine Fraicheur opened his eyes very wide, and some¬
thing close to a basilisk stare swept over the walls of Mauve Cottage.
“A bit like that. Then she slaps him. He slaps her. And then she
throws him out of the house. And then she burns his bed and all of his
clothes. I don’t know what happened after that-we never pry in the
country, have you noticed that? - but I do know that they haven’t

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spoken to each other since. And that was twenty-six years ago. Isn’t
it a scream?” He leapt up again to pour some more drinks. “We are
absolutely wicked in the country, aren’t we? It must come as a shock
after the primitive innocence of London.”
“That is the most ghastly story I have ever heard in my life.”
Evangeline almost intoned the words. “Just look at me! I can’t stop
shaking! She held out her right hand, which seemed only momen¬
tarily to tremble. “But tell me this.” Disappointed, she withdrew her
hand from public examination. “Just tell me this. Why weren’t the
police informed at once?”
“Oh no.” Augustine seemed unsettled. “They don’t like Lily Law
around here. Pardon my French. The boys in blue are not welcome
in Colcorum. Besides, Lola was related.”
“I knew it! I knew there was blue blood in her. I was telling Miss
Crisp that there was something highly aristocratic about her general
bearing.”
“No, my darling.” The more drunk Augustine became, the more
intimacy he assumed. “Nothing to do with Debrett’s. Lola Trout is
related to the Mints.”
“The Mints! But I adore the Mints too!”
“Of course.” Augustine did not sound altogether sure of his own
feelings. “Aren’t they lovely? And so clean, too.” In mock horror he
clapped his hand over his mouth. “I didn’t say that, did I? It must
have been someone very large and very outspoken just behind me.
Bottoms up.” He took another large swallow. “It’s not wise to say
anything about the Mints,” he explained in a lower voice.
“Everyone is related around here, you see. They are not what you or
I would call normal people.” He balanced his empty glass on his
knee, as he leaned forward and whispered, “Rituals. Do you know
what I mean? And incest. I’m the only one who has stood out against
the trend. And Frank, of course. A Belfast boy, actually. My
assistant.”
He glanced at Hermione as he said this, but Evangeline was the
one who responded. “Frank? That’s a good masculine name.”
“You never can tell, can you? But he’s very good with fabrics. It’s
quite a joy to see him running them up.”
Evangeline was not particularly interested in Frank’s skills. “Tell
me more about the Mints.”
“Despots, my dear. Absolute despots. This whole village is
controlled by them.” He poured himself another gin, and forgot to

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 FIRST LIGHT

whisper. “That’s why they all hate strangers.”

“They don’t hate me!” Evangeline was adamant about this.
“They adore me.”
“Oh really?” Augustine was deep in his drink. “I suppose you
think they’re grateful you discovered that ghastly tomb? Or
whatever it is.”
This was said with unmistakable irony and Evangeline, who was
beginning to slump on the Regency sofa, struggled upright. “Of
course they are.”
“Think again, darling. They’ve known about it for years. It was
meant to stay a secret, you see. Until you came.”
To other ears this news might have been of some significance, but
Evangeline was so ill-informed about the nature of the site that it
meant nothing to her. “Naturally,” was all she could think of saying.
“I’ve always understood that perfectly well.”
Even so, Augustine seemed to think that he might have said too
much. “By the way,” he added quickly, “where did you get that
dress? It’s a lovely blue.”
With a comfortable gesture, Evangeline smoothed it down with
her hand. “It’s nothing special. Just a country outfit. I wanted
something very wintry.”
“You certainly found it.” He cocked his head to one side, and
inspected her thoroughly. “You’re about my size, aren’t you?” He
grew confidential once again. “You know the women in this village
dress like sluts. Really they do. It’s disgusting.” Augustine now
seemed genuinely angry; his voice rose an octave, and it was clear
that his good humour could turn very quickly to rage. “I think
women always ought to be well dressed. They ought to look their
best. Not like the tarts around here. I could throttle them sometimes.
I could really.” Once more his vague, weak eyes gleamed; and the
sudden surge of aggression seemed to animate him. “Frank thinks
your friends are very noisy,” he went on to say with barely concealed
annoyance.
“I have so many friends I don’t know . . .”
“The Clares. Above my shop. Him and the crippled wife.”
“The Clares are, I think, my closest friends in the world.”
Evangeline tried unsuccessfully to sit upright again. “A noise from
them is a noise from me.”
“But she clumps around so much. Like Captain Ahab, dear. And
she cries, too. She cries all the time. Sobs her little heart out.”

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 MAUVE COTTAGE

“Why?”
“Probably loneliness,” he muttered, his anger transformed now
to lugubriousness. “Despair. Melancholy. Madness. I really don’t
know.”
These words seemed to depress Evangeline, too, and with a
supreme effort she rose to her feet. “We’ve had an absolutely lovely
time,” she said. “Lovely to talk to a real country person.”
He led them to the door. “We must have a proper talk next time,”
he said. “All about dresses.”
“I can’t wait. But my assistant is the real expert, you know. She is
the authority on anything feminine. Goodbye.”

“You were very quiet,” Evangeline said as they walked down the
main street of Colcorum.
“Was I? Well, you talked enough for both of us.” In fact
Hermione, even though she was accustomed to her companion’s
manner, was beginning to realise how strained and difficult
Evangeline had become; in this alien setting, she was beginning to
see her clearly. But she said nothing, and they walked in silence for a
few moments. “What was all that about the tumulus?” she asked at
last. “What secret did he mean?”
“I wasn’t following every detail, Baby Doll.”
“He said that the Mints have always known about the tomb.”
“Did he?” Evangeline was too tired to think about such things.
“Just a misunderstanding. Probablyjust a misunderstanding.” And
she was too tired to realise also that, as they went back towards the
village hall, they were being watched.

235
 *59*

D THE RAT KING

AWN AT the camp-site; a grey-light gusts along the
caravans and the old cars and the makeshift tents; a dog
barks somewhere in the valley; a flock of wood-pigeons
are disturbed and, when they rise up from the beech, it is
as if the top of the tree itself has broken apart and ascended into the
air. The calls of other creatures also mark the beginning of this
winter day but, suddenly, these eternal sounds are broken by a single
loud scream. And then another. They were coming from Corona’s
tent, and the next moment she ran out still screaming. “There’s
something in there!” she shouted as Spica and Auriga, pale and
wide-eyed, hurried out after her. “Something was crawling over
me.” Corvus and Cetus tumbled out of the van into which they had
been consigned. “I could see its eyes!” she screamed at the men, as if
somehow they were responsible. Then she became rigid and said in a
dry, quiet voice, “Here they are. Look around.”
And when they looked down they saw several large rats scamper¬
ing across the earth; but not so much scampering as hopping away,
disturbed by the noise and by the beam of the torch light which
Cetus now directed among them. They were scurrying in no one
direction - some of them had crawled under the parked cars, some of
them had climbed the canvas of the tents, others were picking their
way over the bare feet of the sky-children. Corona, unable to move
before, now bent over stiffly and was sick upon the ground. Her
sisters clung to one another and screamed at the two men, “Do
something! Get rid of them!”
Already the other travellers had been woken by the noise and, as
they hurried from their beds in alarm, more small dark shapes could
be seen leaping or crawling away from them. The camp-site had
been invaded by rats. Two of them were swinging on the patchwork
curtains within one of the caravans, three had climbed upon the roof

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 THE RAT KING

of Corona’s van and were now standing on their hind-legs sniffing

the air, two were clinging to the fur of a cairn terrier while, in the
general confusion, three more had hidden under the masks of the
Theatre of Peace. And there were still more of them, and more,
swarming across the site, their long tails arching over the hard
ground.
The more robust travellers began trying to chase them away; at
first they did not want to kill them but, as they began banging
saucepans or kettles to scare them, and as they began to fan out in a
circle to find the ones still concealed, the urge to destroy took
possession of them. With large stones and thick sticks they beat
down whatever rat they found, leaving heaps of brown skin and pink
flesh upon the ground. The surviving rats tried to flee along the
Pilgrin stream towards the other end of the valley and, with whoops
and yells, the travellers pursued them. But then they stopped. They
fell silent. And they began backing away. There was high-pitched
screaming of another kind for here, at the edge of the camp, clearly
visible now that the sky had brightened, was the rat king.
Seven male rats, with their tails so intertwined with each other
that they could not flee but lay squealing on the ground, tugging in
different directions and forming the shape of a star. Seven rats
caught in a knot: this was the rat king. And the travellers were afraid
because the rat king, so rare a thing in nature, is a warning of disaster
and the symbol most feared by those who move from place to place.
“We can’t stay here.” This was the young man who had rebuked
Evangeline the week before. “We can’t touch it. And we can’t stay
here.” One of the travellers’ children wanted to know how the rats
had got their tails twisted so. “Nobody knows,” the young man said.
“But you mustn’t look at it. You have to come away.” The others
were glad to turn their backs upon the rat king, too, but they could
still hear it squealing when they returned to the others. They were
standing in small groups, making sure that they kept away from the
battered corpses of the rats, and shivering in the cold winter
morning. On this spot where blood had now been shed, a new
atmosphere seemed to be rising among them. And it was with
genuine fear that the young man spoke first. “We’ll be moving on,”
he said. “We’ll be going farther west.” They began piling their
possessions into two caravans, taking care all the time not to look in
the direction of the rat king. Corona and her group were even
quicker. It was customary for them to begin each day with a chant to

237
 FIRST LIGHT

the Great Mother, but on this particular morning they hurried into
the blue and white van and drove off. The Theatre of Peace followed,
forgetting even to make their farewells to the travellers.
They were the last to leave, but they waited patiently as the young
man dug a small pit and threw the corpses of the rats within it. And,
as he levelled the ground on top of them, the shrieks of the rat king
seemed to rise even higher into the cold morning air. Then the
travellers left - they were moving onward, moving across the face of
England.
Pilgrin Valley was silent once again: even the rat king made no
noise and, now that there were no human beings beside it, it ceased
to struggle and waited patiently for its termination. Later that day
two men came up to it. They were carrying sacks upon their backs,
and they were both still chuckling at the success of their plan to drive
out the strangers and so to protect the tomb.
“You showed them, Boy,” one of them said as he put down his
sack and went up to the rat king with a pair of scissors. “You
certainly showed them.”

238
 ♦6o♦

T THE SOUL’S MIDNIGHT

HE WINTER sun was half way across the sky but still so
low upon the horizon that it seemed to be just beyond the
trees; Mark Clare looked up at the ash upon the ridge
above him and it was burning, its branches shimmering
in the heat, the sun within it like a cold fire. And the firelight
stretched across the sheep in the neighbouring field, who trod not
upon grass but upon vivid green shadows. “The circle is the
important thing,” he suddenly said. “That’s where we were wrong.
We assumed that the tumulus was the central object, but of course it
isn’t. The stones form an ellipse more than a mile in circumference,
so the actual centre lies over the valley. The tumulus was only the
first stage.”
Martha Temple looked triumphantly at Julian Hill. “I didn’t
want to say anything at the time—”
“Naturally.” Julian was very grim.
“But I always knew the tomb was never as important as you
thought. I loved your theory about an astronomer—” she managed
to suggest that the entire explanation of the grave had been Julian’s
responsibility “—but then why did we only find the body of the
hanged man? It didn’t make much sense, did it?” Julian remained
impassive, if somewhat pale, but Mark was listening to her intently.
“And why was the grave so empty?” she was asking now. “It has
remained undisturbed for thousands of years, but there were
relatively few artefacts. And very few ritual objects. Strange, don’t
you think?”
Undisturbed: this was the word which worried Mark. There was
no evidence of entry - there could have been no entry - and yet the
interior of the tomb had the indefinable quality of human presence.
Undisturbed. Mark knew the difference between the raw emptiness
of a primeval site and the echoic attentive atmosphere of one which

239
 FIRST LIGHT

had at some stage in recent human history been used or occupied:

the tomb in Pilgrin Valley was just such a place. Undisturbed. And
yet the chambers seemed to have been swept clean, the few remain¬
ing objects arranged neatly in accordance with some previous
design. Undisturbed. He was convinced that in the last thousand
years there had been some who had come to pay homage, but how
had they entered the mound? And what were those noises he thought
he had heard behind the wall of the terminal chamber?
“I suppose,” Martha was askingjulian, “you will have to correct
your pamphlet. Or article. Whatever it was. Do you think you’ll
have to apologise, too? What am I saying?” She looked around, as if
she had suddenly become two people and was consulting an image of
herself just behind her shoulder. “It wasn’t really your fault, was it?
Any one of us could have made the same silly mistake. I often make a
fool of myself, too.”
Far from comforting Julian, however, this little confession seemed
to depress him even further. He shook his head. “The theory is
right,” he said without looking up at her. “It is just the evidence
which is wrong.”
“What an original idea,” Martha exclaimed. “Do tell.”
But, without saying anything further, Julian walked away.
There was a sense, however, in which he was right. And that
night, in Crooked Alley, Mark Clare could think of nothing else.
There had been times during this excavation when the evidence
seemed unreliable and capricious - there were even occasions when
it seemed to be assembling itself for his benefit, the tomb itself taking
an appropriate shape in order to please and then to baffle him. And
so he dreaded that inevitable moment when an unexpected dis¬
covery was made, a discovery which undermined the construction
placed upon previous finds. For, when the theory fell apart, the
evidence went with it. All the objects were still there, but as soon as
they lost their coherence they lost their identity; they returned at
once to that disassembled and dishevelled state in which they had
first been found. That new discovery, that suddenly revealed artefact
or altered carbon dating, acted as a piece of primal darkness blotting
out all light - it was a contagion which sent everything else spinning
back into the abyss. And these new fragments were always waiting
just beneath the surface, waiting for that unforeseeable moment
when they in their turn would be discovered: as he stared up from the
bed he saw that these fragments of darkness were part of some

240
 THE SO UL ’S MIDNIGHT

general dislocation, some general pain. He looked across at Kath¬

leen, who seemed to be sleeping. But then she opened her eyes and
for a moment they stared at one another. “I’m sorry,” was all she
said.
“I was thinking of the tumulus.” He felt a certain shame, his
thoughts being so far from her, and he went on in extenuation, “I
was thinking that 1 don’t understand it at all. Can’t you sleep?”
“The strange thing is, that I can’t think of anything to sleep about.
Does that make any sense?” He said nothing. “What time is it now?”
she added in a lower voice.
He leaned across to look at his watch, left by the bed, “Three
o’clock.”
“The soul’s midnight,” she said.
“I never heard . . .”
“This is the time when people are most likely to die. That’s how it
gets its name.” She turned restlessly in the bed, so that now she was
no longer facing him. “But I think it’s a peaceful time. A holy time.”
He put out his hand towards her, but then she turned once again and
spoke directly to him. “Go to the tumulus now. Visit it in the night.
In the silence.” It was as if she had understood all his previous
anxieties and hesitations for it had occurred to him, too, that the
darkness of the tomb might well be resolved in the actual darkness-
away from the exigencies and the false clarity of the day. “There are
some things,” she went on, “that you can only see in the night. It’s
the time when all the secrets of the world are revealed, so why not
those in the valley? And perhaps this is the time that he died.”
“You mean—”
“The man inside the tomb. This may have been his hour.”
“Do you think—”
“Go now.” She was urging him forward but, still, he was reluctant
to leave her. There was something about her tone that worried him.
“I don’t mind being alone,” she added, again as ifin response to his
unspoken thoughts. “I feel quite happy now.” She was trying to
diminish her own role in his life but she could not have guessed that
the more unworthy she declared herself to be, the more unworthy he
felt of her.
“It might make a difference,” Mark replied. “I’ve never been
there at night before. I’ve never been there by myself. It is possible
)>

“Find out everything and tell me next time.”

241
 FIRST LIGHT

“Next time?”
But she had closed her eyes again and, thinking that she wished to
sleep, Mark quietly left the room. He dressed and drove slowly
towards Pilgrin Valley. It was some time later that Kathleen heard
the ticking of the clocks in the antiques collection below her. It was
the only sound that could soothe her now and she rose up from her
bed so lightly, so lightly, it was as if she had ceased to exist. Leaving
the sleeping dog behind her, she went out of the flat and descended
the stairs. She knew where Augustine concealed the key which
opened the inner door of the shop and very quietly, so as not to
disturb the ticking of the clocks, she walked into the dusty room. In
the darkness she could see only the glass facings of the clocks,
reflecting the streetlamps in Crooked Alley and the moonlight which
pierced some ragged clouds; she saw only streaks of light, while the
dials remained obscured. But she could hear them all around her;
she could hear the whirling of the orrery, the rustling of the hour¬
glass, the clanging of the marine chronometer, the faint ticking of the
pocket watches and the darker beat of the grandfather clocks. And
she moved among them, putting out her hands to steady herself in
the darkness, still feeling very light, still feeling so light that she need
not exist at all. And what need was there for her own existence in this
cave of time, in this place where the movement of the hours and years
was steady, insistent, remorseless? But this was a comfort to her, this
sense of continuity, because in the passage of time she could be
blotted out, utterly forgotten. There was no need to fear for herself,
then, and as the clocks chimed the hour around her she lifted up her
arms in celebration.
She climbed the stairs, quietly still, and went back into the flat; she
dressed herself, making sure that she put on the clothes she always
wore, and then she took the fragment of sea-lily and placed it in the
pocket of her red coat. But then she turned around, put her hand
through her hair and crept into Mark’s study; she took out the sea-
lily and placed it on his desk. She was about to leave the house when
she went over to the dog and kissed it, as at once it sprang awake.
“Goodbye, Jude,” she whispered. “Goodbye, old friend. Go back to
sleep now.” Saying farewell to the dog was like saying farewell to the
whole world. Then she left the house, and hurried through the dark
streets of Lyme to her destination.

242
 *6i ♦

M FOGOU
ARK CLARE stood in front of the tomb but, in this
darkness, it was difficult to see where the stones
ended and the sky began. He held his torch in his
right hand but he did not want to use it, not yet, and
gradually the starlight revealed to him the true outline of the
chamber grave. He had already dismantled the green canvas which
protected it - he wanted to view the structure entire, as it had been
on just such a night as this thousands of years before.
He was trembling in the cold, and even the crackling noise he
made within his anorak seemed too loud; but then the silence
enshrouded him, and he could not move. He had the strangest
sensation of being listened to. With an effort he walked across the
forecourt and put his hands against the markings on the blind entry,
feeling the whorls and spirals with his fingers. He knew no more than
the people who had carved these shapes and, beneath the canopy of
the heavens, on this dark night, they seemed to him to represent true
knowledge. Now, when he looked up, he saw the same stars: there on
the horizon, as Damian Fall had shown him, were the Pleiades. And
there, with its faint red glow, was Aldebaran.
He walked slowly around the tumulus until he reached the small
side entrance between the stones: he knelt down and for a moment
peered into the absolute darkness. Was Kathleen right? Was it now,
in the most silent part of the night, when the tomb was most like its
ancient state, was it now that he would begin to resolve those
problems which the excavations of the day had revealed? What was
her phrase? The soul’s midnight? He bowed his head and passed
through the entry.
The side chamber was completely empty now, its artefacts already
collected and removed, yet Mark walked carefully through it: it was
as if the outline of the bowl and dish still remained on the floor, as

243
 First LIGHT

tenuous as the outline of the dark stone against the dark sky. He lay
down on the pavement and then very carefully crawled through the
porthole in the septal stone which blocked the chamber; he came out
in the central passageway, raised himself slowly and then, crouched
beneath the low stone roof, he shuffled towards the terminal cham¬
ber. He knew his way in the dark but he had no idea how long it took
him to reach the chamber, since in this place he never had any
sensation of time. He had already noticed how much warmer it was
here than in the valley outside, and now it occurred to him that the
stone walls of the chamber grave might keep out more than the
winter air. They might also keep out time itself and, for a moment, he
had to fight back his panic: he might be trapped here, never able to
return to that other dimension from which he came.
He had reached the polygonal chamber but, before he entered it,
he looked around in case there were someone hiding here. But he
could hear only the sound of his own rapid breathing and now, with
arms outstretched, he entered this room of the dead. He could see
nothing but, without knowing why and with a low moan he did not
understand, he lay down in the attitude of the hanged man whose
remains had been found here - the body crouched over, the hands
upon the knees, the head thrown back. He could hear the beating of
his heart, sounding like a muffled drum through the chamber, and he
felt a giddiness in his head. Still he could see nothing but, with his
eyes wide open, he knew he was looking at that point where the
capstone of the roof was cunningly joined with the upright stones of
the wall. And he waited.
Nothing happened. He did not know what he expected - some
intimation of the past, perhaps, some alteration in his own being -
but, lying on the floor in the posture of the hanged man, he felt
nothing. And this was the way it had always been, this bareness, this
blankness of stone. So was it with something like resignation that the
victim had gone to the sacrifice? Yet who was he to talk of sacrifice?
He repeated these words out loud: “Who? Who am I? Who am I to
talk? Who am I to talk of sacrifice?” And now he sensed a presence -
the presence behind the words, the presence within his blood, the
presence which sustained his own breathing moment by moment.
This presence was like a pressure all around him, and he felt it as
surely as he felt the hard earth of the floor which bore his weight. And
could this be true, after all - that he was as much a part of the earth as
the earth was part of him? It was being sustained, too, moment bv

244
 FOGOU

moment, continually made and remade, held in place by some

inconceivable force. And this was something they had known. This
was why they had built the mound of stone.
There were voices close to him - no, not voices. Something else.
Mutterings or whisperings from which all sense had gone. And his
shock was so great that it was as if he had vanished from the tomb,
leaving only these sounds in his place. But they were not close to him.
They were coming once more from the end wall, the eastern wall
built against the slope of the valley. He rose and walked calmly over
to it - he displayed no fear because he did not believe himself to be
really here. He was playing someone else’s part.
For the first time he put on his torch, and in that momentarily
dazzling light the surface of the rock seemed to advance, shudder
and retreat. And the beam of the light managed to dispel his fear,
helping him forward down the bright path of cause and effect. Now
he realised that he might have mistaken the sound of an under¬
ground stream, or even of a sudden wind entering the tumulus itself.
Yes. The noises were clearly coming from behind the eastern wall,
from somewhere within the valley. He put his ear against it, not
wishing to breathe until he had identified the source of the sound. He
could hear those murmurings which were like the distant residue of
shouted words. But, if the stones of this end wall were as massive as
those in the rest of the grave, then no echo should be able to pass
through them. He was quite calm now in the glow of the torchlight.
He considered the'possibility that certain vibrations from the grave
came to a focus at this point but, no, these sounds were coming from
somewhere beyond the wall itself. If this were so, then there must be
a hollow space behind these stones . . . and at once he knew. He was
on the other side of a souterrain. An underground passage. An earth-
house. A fogou. /
This was why the chamber grave had been built against the side of
the valley; its terminal chamber had almost been inserted into the
slope so that it would be easier to hollow out a tunnel within the earth
itself. And this was why the chamber grave was not at the centre of
the stone circle: it was an entrance, an opening into another passage
which would - Mark felt certain now - lead to the centre of the
stones. This passage grave was not the culmination of some ritual
but rather its beginning, with the hanged man marking the way
forward. He was the door-keeper to the world beneath the ground.
It was some time later when he looked at his watch. Five o’clock.

245
 FIRST LIGHT

But he could not leave this place, now that he had learned its secret.
He knew that he would have to remain here until daybreak, until the
others came, so that they could then at once begin work on the
removal of the stones which concealed the underground passage.
The noises now had faded - or perhaps he had become so used to
them that, like the casual sounds of the outer world, he no longer
needed to hear them.
He must have slept, and dreamed, because his wife was taking him
by the hand and leading him through the stones. They were
descending steps into the earth, and he knew that she was taking him
to the object of his quest. And yet they were not travelling downward
into the earth but upward; they were treading the stone steps of
Swithin’s Column. When they reached its summit they found
Damian Fall looking through a telescope at Aldebaran, while
Kathleen wrote words in red chalk upon a ruined wall.
The image of these words was still imprinted upon the darkness
when Mark opened his eyes. And at once he was filled with a horror
of this place: to have slept here, to have dreamed here, was like a kind
of death. He turned on his torch and looked at his watch. Seven
o’clock.

246
 S EIGHT O’CLOCK
EVEN O’CLOCK. Julian Hill was standing in the large
field just beyond Pilgrin Valley. He was close to Damian
Fall’s cottage, too, so close that he could see a lamp being
carried from room to room; two owls called to each other
from different sides of the valley, and then the lamp suddenly went
out.
He turned on his torch and peered at the map he held in his hand -
it was an Ordnance Survey plan of the area but Julian had carefully
traced upon it a computer projection of the stone circle which had
once dominated this valley region. Its original shape and dimensions
had been superimposed upon the existing landscape, and the place
where Julian now stood was designated by the computer to be at its
centre. But he was standing in a bare and windswept field, nothing
beneath his feet except scrub and thistle; there were small white
stones scattered over the cold earth, and he kicked out at some of
them viciously. He was angry - angry that Martha Temple had
derided him and his theory, angry at himself for coming out on such
a cold morning with such little result. But if there was one thing more
powerful than his anger it was his will. He stared down at the hard
earth as if somehow he might penetrate its secrets, scrutinised the
map again and, in the glare of the torchlight, noticed for the first time
that a track was faintly marked going eastward from this spot. He
looked up, turned off his torch and allowed his eyes to become
accustomed to the early morning gloom; he could see no path
through the field itself but, about three hundred yards to the east, he
could see the outlines of some stunted or broken trees. They were no
more than a smudge upon the horizon but, in this bare landscape,
clearly visible.
He walked towards them, his mouth firmly set, with no other
sentiment than one of determination. Nothing mattered to him now

247
 FIRST LIGHT

except the resolution of this mystery. This was not for the sake of the
tumulus itself, for he had no disinterested curiosity: he knew that, as
soon as he explained it satisfactorily, he would rapidly move on. It
was for the sake of his own pride. And he kicked the stones out of his
path as he approached the ancient trees.
They must once have formed a copse but they had been cut down
many years before - or, rather, they must have been blown down by
some strong wind since there still remained the shattered and useless
trunks, some of them five or six feet in height and covered by moss,
bramble, and trailing creeper. Julian looked down at his map again
and realised at once that this spot marked part of the outer perimeter
where the stones had once been set; but it was unvisited now, and
had the savage odour of quiet unchecked decay. He brushed away
some ferns growing among the trees, each frond stiffened with a thin
patina of frost, but all around him was layer upon layer of rank
vegetation. And this angered him, too: he had been looking for stone,
and had found only putrefaction. He wiped his forehead and then
leaned one hand against a ruined tree, its bark flaking offbeneath his
palm, while he considered his next move.
The first rays of the rising sun had already reached the copse; the
top of the trunk against which he leaned was still in shadow but a
large cobweb, strung across the opening of its hollow, glistened as
the pale light moved upward. The early frost was melting, and a
drop quivered and shone beside the cobweb before falling from the
bark onto the mossy floor. This might have been a tree he had
climbed as a child, and for a moment it seemed to Julian that it was
the beginning of some bright path into an enchanted place. To pass
through the tree and to find protection against the wind of the world
- how strange for him to remember the sensations of his childhood.
On a sudden instinct he bent down and ducked within the hollow of
the tree.
It was curious: he had expected the ground beneath his feet to be
soft and yielding, but it was quite hard. And, when he stamped his
foot upon the spot, something rang like stone. He crouched down
and with both hands scraped away the detritus which had been
blown here and, as he did so, he could feel the hardness of stone
beneath his fingers. With a fresh access of energy he scraped away
the dead branches, the leaves and the moss until he could see, at the
bottom of the hollow, a slab of stone which exactly matched the
interior shape of the trunk itself. Julian knew what kind of stone it

248
 EIGHT O’CLOCK

was: it was the same dark flint which had been used to erect the
chamber-grave itself. But how could this be? How could the stone be
here? No tree could have grown around it to ensure such a perfect fit.
But, if it had been so neatly carved and placed here, then surely it
must act as a concealed cover or perhaps even as an entrance.
Julian stamped upon it, and thought that he heard some dull
muffled echo. Then he went back into the field, found a large rock,
and carried it to the copse in triumph; he went up to the hollow trunk
and with all his strength hurled the rock down upon the covering of
stone, sensing almost at the same moment the faintest of reverbera¬
tions. But it was enough, and he knew now that beneath this stone
was an empty space or even a passageway. And he used the same
words as Mark Clare. “A souterrain,” he said out loud, his words
muffled by the dead trees. “An earth-house. A fogou.”
He knelt down and put his hands on either side of the stone. But he
could not lift it, and he gave up the attempt readily enough. It was
not that he experienced any fear at the prospect of going beneath the
ground - at least no fear which he would have cared to recognise; but
he had seen enough. His theory had been proved, and the triumph he
felt was less at the discovery than at his own vindication. The
business of excavation could be left to others.
So it was with the exhilaration of a labour completed, of a
speculation proved, that he left the copse and hurried back across the
field towards Pilgrin Valley. And as soon as he crossed the ridge he
saw Mark Clare standing by the chamber-grave, waving his arms in
the air and shouting something which Julian could not hear. But as
he rushed down the eastern slope he heard him shouting, “Great
news! Astonishing!”
And Julian was shouting. “Yes!” as he came towards him.
Both of them became quieter as soon as they were close to each
other. “Have you guessed it?” Mark asked him.
“Guess? Guessed what? Not at all. You see, I have something to
tell you.” He took hold of Mark’s arm, and in the action dropped his
torch. “I’ve found it.”
“But—” Mark bent down to pick up the torch, making sure that it
was turned off.
“I was right all along. I’ve solved the mystery.”
“Yes,” Mark said. “There is a passage.”
“What?” Julian stepped back, astonished and not at all pleased by
his interruption. “How did you know?”

249
 FIRST LIGHT

Now it was Mark s turn to be surprised and he said, slowly, “The

stones in the terminal chamber conceal a hollow space. But you
don’t mean that—”
“Yes. I’ve found one, too.” And as they compared their dis¬
coveries they realised that each of them had found separate
entrances for an underground tunnel, which ran for at least seven
hundred yards between the chamber grave and the copse of ruined
trees. There was no doubt that these entrances had been carefully or
even cunningly concealed, and yet this was not a secret that could
have remained undiscovered since the building of the tomb: if that
had been the case, and if the entrances had been neglected for so
many thousands of years, they would by now have been quite
destroyed or altered beyond recognition. They would have been
folded back into the earth and the underground passage itself would
have become no more than a fault-line, to be revealed only when the
earth itself was torn open. The passage must have been built more
recently, therefore, or it had been continually preserved over a long
period.
Yet Mark did not mention the noises which he had heard when he
was standing in the polygonal chamber. He said only, “We will have
to go forward very carefully. There may be underground streams or
chasms, or—”
“Yes. Of course.” Julian was scarcely listening to him. “But the
important thing is that we can reach the absolute centre of the stone
circle. The dead centre.”
There was a sense of danger or menace here, which Mark could
not dispel. “I wonder,” he said, “what the hanged man means . . .”
Then he felt as if all the energy had been taken out of him, and he
experienced a sense of loss so strong that his life seemed to have been
snatched away. He opened and closed his mouth, attempted to
swallow, and then had to fight back a rising sickness. “What time is
it?” he asked very weakly.
“Eight o’clock.”
“Martha will soon be here—” He was trying desperately to regain
his sense of the world, but he could not say any more. He no longer
knew who he was and so great was his fear of himself that he did not
want to stay close to Julian Hill. He staggered back and, to Julian’s
astonishment, walked away from him until he could lean against the
side wall of the tomb.
“What is it?” Julian called to him. “What on earth is the matter?”

250
 EIGHT O’CLOCK

Mark had his eyes closed, and when consciousness returned it was
with a sense of terror. He looked down at his hands, and then
intertwined them. Then he thought of Kathleen. “I have to go,” he
said. “Something is wrong. Something is happening.”

251
 *63*

M THE FOX
ARK RAN up the stairs of the house in Crooked
Alley, calling out “Kathleen! Kathleen!”; and his
dread ran up the stairs beside him. As soon as he
entered the flat he knew that it was empty; it had an
especial quality of emptiness, too, as if nothing could ever have
breathed here. But still he went from room to room, whispering her
name. Jude ran after him, not letting Mark out of its sight, and, when
he stood in his study, it looked at him anxiously. He picked the small
dog up and for a moment buried his face in its fur; then gently he let it
down.
Kathleen had placed all his books and magazines neatly upon his
desk; she had wanted him to carry on working, he understood this at
once, and when he went over to his papers he saw that she had put
the fragment of sea-lily upon them. To keep them from blowing
away. But there was no other sign of her presence here and once
again, calling out her name, he walked from room to room. His
mouth was very dry now. He went into the kitchen for some water,
but everything here seemed unfamiliar to him: the plates, the cups,
the spoons, the glasses, the refrigerator. These things were part of
their life together, but they might have been the tokens of any life. All
lives were the same. The plates rattled slightly as he ran his fingers
along them. In Pilgrin Valley they had once eaten their food around
the fire, and then beaten the ashes back into the earth. Another time.
But everything here was being sluiced away, all the lives around him
ebbing with it. He picked up a glass and noticed that there was a
hairline crack in it, running from its rim down to its moulded base.
Swithin’s Column. Suddenly he knew the place where he would
find her. She had got up before dawn and gone to the empty tower.
But before he could act upon this knowledge he felt himself invaded
by some kind of fever, or sickness. He dropped the glass and, as he

252
 THE FOX

leaned over the sink, he saw the sweat dripping from him like melted
fat. Then he managed to break free.
He drove to Colcorum, but it seemed to him that he was not going
forward at all; that, somehow, the world was moving past him: so
great was his fear that he had no sense of himself as capable of action.
It was raining by the time he reached the forest which stood before
Swithin’s Column; the beech and the oak remained quite still in the
downpour, mutely accepting the rain which had always fallen upon
them. He plunged into the undergrowth, not certain of his direction
but following the secret tracks which crossed the forest, and he felt no
pain as the low branches whipped across his face. He just wanted to
see her again, and in his panic he thought that he had returned to the
rain forest of so many years ago - the rain forest from which he had
emerged onto a dazzling plateau, and from which he had seen the
place where men once flew. He was praying, but he did not know
what his words meant. Now his sweat, his tears and the rain mingled
on his face as he rushed desperately forward.
He stopped when he reached the edge of the forest and, across the
ploughed field, saw Swithin’s Column rising up among the fir trees
on the isolated hill. He looked down and noticed that there were
tracks in the muddy earth which led that way, and with a cry he
followed them. He might have been running for ever. By the time he
reached the foot of the hill he saw two men standing at the base of the
tower, and in his extremity he wanted to call to them, to hold onto
them, to be comforted, to be forgiven. Then he saw that they were
looking down at something lying upon the ground. He knew who it
was. He bent down and was sick in the undergrowth. When he stood
up again he put his hand above his eyes, as if he were trying to peer
into the distance, and looked at his wife lying between the two men.
Now for the first time that day his fear was displaced by his pity -
pity that she had become what she had always feared to be, the
object of others’ scrutiny.
Slowly he climbed up the path towards the tower but, as soon as
they saw him, the two men instinctively stepped back. “I know,” he
said, trying to reassure them. “I know who she is.” He wanted to
keep on watching them; he wanted to divert them from his wife; he
wanted to protect her from their curious gaze. And yet, also, he
wanted to be sure that he himself was not an object of horror.
One of the men must have taken offhis overcoat and placed it over
the body but, for some reason, he had left Kathleen’s face uncovered;

253
 FIRST LIGHT

Mark smiled as he looked at her for the last time, because he saw how
all the suffering had left her. This was how he would remember her,
in the years that followed. And the rain fell upon her mouth and
forehead just as it fell down upon the quiet trees. “I have to,” he said.
“May I?” And very gently he took off his jacket, knelt down, and
placed it over her face.
He could look away now, and he stared at the edge of the forest
across the field. There passed across his line of sight a red fox slowly
making its way against the misty trees; it moved without fear, but
before leaping back into the forest it turned once and seemed to look
directly at Mark. In his bewildered state he believed that some kind
of understanding had passed between them; the animal and the
human were in the same frame. The frame of origin.
“This gentleman found him,” someone was saying. Mark stood
up awkwardly, wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt, and for the
first time realised that the woodlander was here - the vagrant whom
Kathleen had seen feeding the birds of the forest, and whose story
Mark had told. Now, standing by her body in his ragged clothes, he
added a new solemnity to her death. For a moment Mark felt
ashamed - ashamed to have accepted this as his private calamity, to
have stolen her death from the world. The woodlander’s eyes were
very bright; and yet he had that attentive but tremulous look which
is sometimes to be observed on the faces of the blind. “She weren’t
moving when I came up to her,” he said gently. “She were already
gone.”
“Did you see—”
“She just sort of fell. From the tower.”
He had a slight but noticeable stutter, and Mark realised how it
was that he had fled from the world and become an inhabitant of the
woods; but it seemed strange to him that, at this moment of calamity,
he should understand this man’s life better than his own. He knew
that he would soon feel a sense of loss and of grief so great that they
could hardly be endured but, for the time being, he was able to stand
upright in the world. Only she had fallen. He had an image of a dead
bird falling upon water, sending its ripples to the furthest edges of the
pool; so it was that the earth shook at the moment of Kathleen’s
death, sending out waves into the past and into the future.
“Here they are,” the other man said. He was the farmer whose
field surrounded Swithin’s Column. “I had to call them.” Two
policemen were walking slowly, apparently studying the furrows as

254
 THE FOX

they went. And, as he watched them coming across the field in

silence, Mark knew how she had crossed it - Kathleen had moved
across it slowly at first, not sure if she could carry out her intention,
but then she had looked up at the summit of the tower and walked
much more quickly.
“This is the deceased,” he said when they eventually came up to
him. Still nothing moved him, nothing but the effort to ward off the
pain. “The deceased was my wife.”
A few awkward preliminary questions were asked, but it was clear
to all of them that she had killed herself. The atmosphere of this place
had told them at once; there had been no violence here. Only the
ending of some great sorrow, which had passed into the earth itself.
“Is there a note?” one of the policemen asked him. All of them
looked away, not wanting to add to Mark’s misery.
“No. I don’t know . . .”
“No one has been up—” the farmer began to say, and then looked
at the tower. The two policemen walked over to the small wooden
door at its base; it was already ajar, and cautiously they opened it
further before beginning their ascent of the circular staircase. Mark
did not want to follow them. He did not want to see that room which
he and Kathleen had once visited together, and from which she had
flung herself. And had she known even then? Had she known that
this would be her last place on earth? Had she chosen it that day?
And he remembered how Jude had not wanted to enter it; it had
known, too. And the woodlander had known, when he rose to greet
her. All the world had known, except him. On a sudden impulse he
went after the policemen, hurrying up the stairs just as she had done
a few hours before - hearing the echo of his own footsteps against the
ancient stone as he climbed to the sujnmit.
When he arrived at the small circular room, with its bare arched
windows, they were leaning over a ledge. But they heard him enter,
and turned around quickly. “There’s nothing here, sir,” one of them
said. “Your wife must have—”
“I know. I understand.” He felt the urine running down the side of
his trouser leg and into his sock. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m very
sorry.”
They helped him down the stairs; they drove him back to Crooked
Alley; they interviewed him as gently as possible; and then they were
gone.
It was as if they had never been. The events of that morning had

255
 FIRST LIGHT

passed so quickly that Mark had difficulty in believing that anything

had happened. Now he was alone. Perhaps nothing had happened.
Of course. He must insist that nothing had changed. Kathleen
would open the door and they would be happy again. He went into
their bedroom and opened the wardrobe. One of her hats was
hanging here, so Mark took it out and put it on. And then he began
talking to himself and to Kathleen, all the time fingering the edge of
the blue hat. No. This should not be happening. This is madness. He
took it off, and was about to fling it into a corner of the room when he
checked himself. He kissed it and put it carefully away. And it was
only now, when he put his hand up to his face, that he realised he was
still crying.
There was a scratching at the door, and for a moment he believed
that it was the red fox he had seen in the wood. The fox had seen his
sorrow and had come to comfort him, to let him ride upon its back
and fly to the woods. He opened the door. It was Jude, crying to be
let in. So he picked up the little dog and cradled it in his arms,
smelling Kathleen’s perfume as he held it close to him.

256
 *64*

H LUD MOUTH
AD OUR beauty sleep, have we?” Augustine
Fraicheur was sitting on an ebony stool in the
antiques shop, polishing a silver pocket watch with a
small cloth. He seemed to register no surprise at
Mark’s dishevelled appearance, or the fact that he was holding Jude
in his arms. “Had a nice lie in?”
Mark now felt very calm but for some reason he found it difficult to
speak; he tried once, coughed, and then tried again. “Can you take
care of the dog for me?” This was the first favour he had ever asked of
Augustine, and with embarrassed impulsiveness he went over and
put the dog in his lap. A clock struck the hour behind him. “It will
only be for a little while.”
Augustine held the dog with his free hand, although in fact it made
no effort to struggle or to escape: it seemed that Jude was resigned to
this further separation. “Is it a bitch?” he asked Mark. “I hate
bitches.”
But Mark had already gone. He had started walking through the
town and, although he did not care in which direction he went, he
found himself fleeing from the narrow streets and hastening towards
the sea. Without thought or purpose he made his way to the coastal
path between Lyme and Lud Mouth, a barren stretch of the coast
which fault lines and frequent slippages had rendered dangerous;
there were signs warning the casual traveller of the risks involved in
walking here, but Mark did not see them.
The rain lifted as he walked on, but it was only when the mist
cleared that he stopped and looked down from the height which he
had already reached; he was on the grey cliff of St Gabriel’s Point,
with the sea and rocks some hundred feet below. He could see the
twelve stones about which so many stories had been told, but he felt
no fear. He merely looked down with interest, since the ground

257
 FIRST LIGHT

beneath his feet seemed to him to be no less distant than the strand
against which he could hear the waves beating. So why should he not
hurl himself down upon it? At his back he could hear the birds
singing in the ruined village of St Gabriel’s, long since abandoned,
and in that moment of choice they sang to him. He stepped back
from the edge of the cliff, and walked on.
^ The decision whether to live or die did not, in truth, seem to him to
be an important one: if he felt anything at all it was only that, without
substance, even without identity, he had no right to jump. And yet
he realised how, in that instant, he had felt free. This was the choice
which Kathleen had exercised, and he felt a certain exhilaration. If
she had made her own choice, then there was no need to pity or to
mourn her. And yet only in that instant of decision had there been
any freedom: as soon as Kathleen had fallen from the arched window
of Swithin’s Column she had ceased to be freejust as now, somehow,
he had made his own judgement and consigned himself to his life.
There was no freedom in life, and certainly there was none in death:
only in that moment of uncertainty had he known it. But if that
choice between life and death could be prolonged by some other
means, so that the individual decision no longer really mattered,
then the real nature of the world might be disclosed. Now he
remembered the passageway in Pilgrin Valley, which ran under the
earth; the passage of stone was also the passage of time, and perhaps
it was only there that true freedom could be found. Was it at the
moment of his discovery of the souterrain that Kathleen had plunged
to her death?
He had walked as far as Lud Mouth, a shallow curve in the cliff
where the limestone and clay of the region are displaced by orange
greensand; there was a path from the clifftop here down to a stretch
of sand and shingle at the sea’s edge. Yes. He hurried down the face
of the cliff to the shore. He did not take off his shoes and socks, but
walked out into the water until it lapped around his ankles. This was
where Kathleen had come as a child, where he had first seen her. In
time. Another time. “There is always one left behind on the shore.”
That was what she had heard as a child. But now it was he who had
been left behind. She was safe now.
The sky had cleared and, in the winter sun, the waves themselves
seemed to be emitting light. Or was it just the light on his face? He
turned around and looked at the orange cliff behind him. Orange
rock, with the light blue sky soaring above it. And the orange and the

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 LUD MOUTH

blue calmed him, for this was what the world had been before there
were people in it. Orange stone and blue air. The peacefulness here
was a relic of lost time and, when he considered this, he realised also
that his own life was simply borrowed from time. It was not his to
throw away.
He waded out of the water and started walking towards the cliff-
face. When he came up to it, he stretched out his arms and put his
face and hands against the orange stone. It felt warm to his touch,
warmer than the surrounding air, or was it the heat of his own body
returning? With his palms spread out against the stone, he seemed to
sleep. And, as he slept, he took in the warmth of the landscape. The
orange stone absorbed his salt tears. When he opened his eyes he saw
that a flock of gulls had descended upon the cliff-face, and were now
perched on the strange knobs and outcrops carved in it. They looked
down at him with interest and, as Mark walked away from Lud
Mouth, he knew that grief and guilt would follow soon. But he
understood, also, that he must re-enter the world.

259
 * 65 *

T CONNECTIONS
HREE DAYS later Mark Clare, contemplating the com¬
ing inquest and funeral, received a letter from Damian
Fall. It read, simply: “Let us look at the stars together.
Come to Holblack Moor on Monday night.” Which was,
Mark realised, that very night. He was not sure if Damian had heard
the news of Kathleen’s suicide, but the prospect of visiting the
observatory somehow comforted him. He might, as he said to
himself, see things in a different light.
And so that night he drove along the dirt track which led onto the
moor and the vicinity of the domed building. It was only when he
had switched ofThis engine, and allowed the darkness of this place to
envelop him, that he realised with horror how he had left on his
headlights as he swept across the moor. It was possible, after all, that
these stray beams had affected Damian’s observations of the sky -
but, at the same time, he recognised how strange it was that he
should be worried about such things so soon after the death of his
wife.
He walked up to the small office alongside the dome itself and
knocked softly on the metal door. It was opened very quickly but, in
the darkness, he could not see who was standing in front of him.
“Oh, hello.” It was Brenda’s voice. “Come in quick. I don’t like
standing in the dark.” She gave a giggle and closed the door as soon
as he entered. “You never know, do you?”
“Know what?” Mark was puzzled.
Brenda chose not to hear this; she was still making her way to the
light-switch, with a number of little groans and squeals as she
brushed against various objects. “I have to do it, you see,” she went
on. “We don’t like any light outside. Was that you who just touched
me?”
“No. I’m over here.”

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 CONNECTIONS

“Never mind.” She sounded disappointed, but she did now

manage to switch on the light. “Oh hello,” she said again, as if they
had just met. “It’s you, isn’t it?”
“Who did you think . . .”
“I didn’t know, did I? I just knew it was a man.” Her hair was
ruffled, as if she had just woken from sleep, and she tossed her head
back. “Have you come to see His Highness?”
Mark presumed that she meant Damian, and nodded. “I think,”
he said, “that he’s expecting me.”
Brenda allowed herself a little smile. “Don’t go away,” she said.
“I’ll be right back.” She opened the sliding door and entered the
small passage which led into the observatory, and did not return for
several minutes. “He says he can’t see you,” she said very flatly. “He
says he’s very sorry. But he can’t.” She sounded so resentful that it
was clear that Damian had in some way upset or unnerved her.
Mark was astonished. “But he sent me a note.” He took it out of
his pocket, and held it towards her. “He wanted to see me.” He felt
isolated once again, this sudden and unanticipated rejection some¬
how bringing back memories of Kathleen’s death; and he felt afraid,
as if there were no one on earth willing to help him.
But at this moment the sliding door was opened again and Alec,
Damian’s assistant, emerged; he glanced quickly at Brenda and then
went over to Mark. “Shall we go outside,” he asked him. “It’s a
beautiful night.” He put his arm around Mark’s shoulder and
steered him gently towards the door, closing it softly behind him as
the two men walked out upon the moor. They were silent for a few
moments. “I was sorry to hear—” Alec began.
“No. Don’t be sorry. There’s nothing to be sorry about.”
This seemed to relieve him. He took the older man’s arm and said,
more cheerfully, “Shall we take a walk beneath the stars?” All the
time he was glancing surreptitiously at his face, but Mark was
looking up now and Alec could not see his expression.
“So far away,” Mark said at last.
“And getting further. The galaxies are moving away from us at
forty-four thousand miles a second. Serious speed.”
“It’s so hard to understand.” Mark kept on looking upward as
they walked further away from the dome, onto the open moor. “So
hard to believe.”
“Seeing is believing. Isn’t that what they say?”
“And how far does the universe extend?”
 FIRST LIGHT

It was clear to Alec that Mark was drawing some comfort from the
meditation of this vastness. “We can see for ever,” he said, more
softly, “We can detect quasars which are thousands of millions of
light years away.”
Mark put out his hand, as if holding onto the sky. “And what else
is there?”
“Pulsars. Neutron stars. Red giants. Interstellar gases. Clouds of
stars. Constellations. Galaxies. Thousands and thousands of mil¬
lions of galaxies distributed evenly through space. And our own
galaxy contains one hundred thousand million stars. Far out, right?”
He laughed at his own joke.
“Then why,” Mark asked, “is the sky not covered with stars? Why
is there so much darkness still?”
“Ifyou wanted to see the universe filled with light, you would have
to look back into some inconceivably remote time.” Alec’s serious¬
ness was that of a young man not quite certain how far he could take
it, not quite certain that he might not be ridiculed; he was a romantic
about his work, but one still hovering on the edge of self-conscious
laughter. “We would have to see into the time of origin. We can look
back thousands of millions of years, but not that far back. Not yet.
And if we did—”
“What then?”
“Then,” Alec replied gravely, “in my opinion we would cease to
exist. To see the beginning is also to see the end.”
Mark marvelled how this young man could entertain such
thoughts; he had seemed so high-spirited, so full of energy. But
perhaps this darkness above them was the reason for his cheerful¬
ness. “Is there such a moment,” he asked him. “Is there a moment of
origin?”
“Oh yes.” Suddenly Alec did a little dance on the moor, making
whooping noises as he did so. “Oh yes. We still get the cosmic
radiation from it. You can see it on your television screen.”
“You mean we can see the evidence for the origin of the universe?”
“No doubt about it. It’s everywhere. It will always be with us.”
There was a gust of wind which swept across the moor, but it
dropped as suddenly as it had arisen. “Everything is related, you
see,” Alec went on. “The earth was formed from the solar nebula,
the solar nebula from the galactic gases. Everything is part of
everything else. Even the most distant stars may be affecting us.”
Again he was embarrassed by his own tone, and he executed a few

262
 CONNECTIONS

dance steps on the ground. “I can’t help it,” he said. “I’ve got to
keep moving.” They had walked some distance now from the dome,
and the young man turned his head to watch it gleaming in the
starlight. “You must forgive Damian,” he said. It was clear that for
some reason he was anxious about him; in fact Damian had been
behaving very oddly that evening. He had been talking loudly, and
then had withdrawn into his own thoughts. He had asked Alec if he
had seen any microphones and then, just a few minutes before, he
had refused to see Mark. “Sometimes he shuts himself away,” Alec
was explaining. “I’ve always thought he must be a very disap¬
pointed man. You know sometimes he is so clear, sometimes he has
so much vision. And to end up here—”
“Most people are disappointed,” Mark replied. “Perhaps that’s
why he likes to look up at the stars. You know,” he went on, his voice
dropping a little, “Kathleen used to watch the stars, too. From our
bedroom window. And until now I never understood why.”
“I’m sorry,” Alec was embarrassed. “I didn’t mean—”
“No. Don’t be sorry. What is that story, you know, the one which
says that every soul is turned into a star at the moment of death?
Have you heard it?”
“No.” For some reason Alec felt exhilarated by what Mark had
said. “But perhaps there is some truth in it. Perhaps souls are made
of the same material.”
Mark laughed. “How could that be?” And then he realised that
this was the first time he had laughed since Kathleen’s suicide.
“I told you everything was related, didn’t I? Well, even our bodies
are built with the fossilised debris of dead stars. Stars which ceased
to exist millions of years before the earth was formed.”
“I don’t understand.”
“But didn’t you know that we were made from the ashes of dead
stars? All the materials of life come from the cosmic trace elements.”
Alec put his hand upon Mark’s shoulder. “You have a universe
inside you, my friend. The real thing.”
“So perhaps the story is right, after all. Perhaps our souls do
become stars.”
“And there’s something else, too.” Alec sounded as if he had
discovered all of these things for the first time, and was eager to share
his knowledge. “If you ever put blood plasma under a microscope,
do you know what it looks like?”
“No.”

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 FIRST LIGHT

Alec was triumphant. “It looks exactly like a star field.”

And once more Mark felt a sudden rush of happiness. “So
everything connects,” he said. “Everything is part of the pattern.”
“Yes. If only we knew what it was. But I suppose -1 suppose—”
he was trying to put his own thoughts in order - “I suppose that we
could only see the pattern if we were outside it. And in that case we
would have ceased to exist. So all we can do is make up our stories.
That’s what Damian once told me.” For some reason, he sounded
anxious again. “He said that we don’t know more than ancient
astronomers. We just know different things, just as we wear different
clothes and speak different languages.”
Mark was only half-listening to this since he, too, had been trying
to order his thoughts. “But if we are all part of the same pattern,” he
said, “then nothing is destroyed. Things just change their form, and
take up another place in the pattern. No one really dies.” He put his
hand up to his face, feeling a happiness that was also unhappiness,
and both were mingled, and both were the same.
There was a noise which, in the stillness of the moor, sounded like
a long sigh. But Alec knew what it was: he turned around at once,
and saw the great white dome of the observatory slowly opening. “I
must get back,” he said. And then he added, almost to himself, “I
don’t know what he’s doing in there.”
“Of course. Go back. I know my way.” Alec simply touched
Mark’s arm before hurrying away, and Mark smiled at him. Then he
stood quietly and looked up at the heavens.

264
 *66 *

LETTERS
■ S THIS the opening?” Evangeline Tupper was standing in
the copse beyond Pilgrin Valley, where Julian Hill had
discovered the second entrance into the ground.
M “Actually,” Martha Temple said, very sweetly, “there is
a bigger orifice elsewhere.”
Evangeline ignored this. “Will you be crawling down it yourself,
Miss Temple?”
“No. Mark and I will be leading the excavations at the other end.”
She watched with disapproval as Evangeline stifled a yawn, and
began walking into the field. “But I’m boring you with the trivial
details—”
“Not at all. Nothing is too trivial for me.”
“Would you like to join us? The passage does seem to be quite
wide.”
“I would adore to. As you know. But unfortunately I have to see
my favourite people in the whole world.”
“You don’t mean—” Martha had no idea what she meant.
“Of course! The Mints!” In fact hers was rather a delicate
mission; since the passage ran beneath the Mints’ fields, even more
of their land would be disturbed by the archaeologists. “That’s why
I’m dressed to the absolute gills. Couldn’t you tell?”
Martha smiled. “I thought,” she said, “you were in mourning for
dear Mrs Clare.”
It was a week after Kathleen’s death, but it was clear to everyone
that the exploration of the underground passage should no longer be
delayed; too much excitement had been aroused. Mark himself had
returned to work four days ago, just after his visit to the observatory.
The conversation with Alec on Holblack Moor had changed him
but, as yet, he did not know to what purpose. He felt that, if he had
looked at the stars long enough that night, he would have understood

265
 FIRST LIGHT

everything. He would have seen the pattern. But they had led him
forward only to leave him in the dark; however avidly he gazed at the
sky he was still held down by the earth, and in that disparity was the
puzzle which he could not yet solve. He had seen the light but he was
controlled by gravity - even though, as Alec had told him, they were
both part of the same force. The newly discovered passage, the blind
entrance with its pattern of the constellations, the hanged man, the
fact that the stone itself was the debris of dead stars, even Kathleen’s
suicide - all of these things were somehow connected, but the nature
of the connection was not yet clear to him. He no longer believed that
he had “lost” Kathleen, but he did not know in what sense he might
find her again. This was why he had returned to Pilgrin Valley so
soon, and why he was eager to pursue his journey into the souterrain
or earth-house.
If it was a house. Over the last few days Julian had conducted a
number of electronic surveys to detect all the hollows and anomalies
in the area between the two stone entrances, but the picture which
emerged from the computer was in some ways incomplete. A long
passage could be traced but there were sections where it seemed to
break off or to fade, and there were other areas where it made blind
divergences to the side. At that most significant point, precisely in
the centre of the standing stones, there was activity which suggested
a vast recess somewhere beneath the earth; and yet even this was not
entirely clear, since certain magnetic anomalies here scattered the
echoes and signals in every direction.
There was no choice but to descend into the passage itself and,
with a team at each end, methodically to move towards the centre.
This journey would not be without danger, however. The passage
itself might not have been entered for hundreds, if not thousands, of
years; they might encounter crevasses, rock falls, or some more
general subsidence. Mark was aware of these difficulties, but he had
to go on. And it was as if Kathleen herself were leading him forward.
So now he was standing within the polygonal chamber. The entry
stone had been removed, without damage to the fabric of the tomb
itself, and even before an arc-light had been brought to the mouth of
the passage Mark sensed that there was no other obstruction in front
of him - the way into the ground was open. And, after her brief
conversation with Evangeline, Martha was now ready to join him.
“What’s that lovely old saying?” she said as she put on her yellow
hard-hat. “Abandon hope all you who enter here? You lead and I’ll

266
 LETTERS

follow.” He ducked his head and, saying nothing, went into the
passage.
It was no colder than the tomb itself but it seemed to him to have a
much damper atmosphere; as soon as he put his hand against the
wall, he realised that it was wet and slightly powdery to his touch.
“Limestone.” For some reason he was whispering. “This is a
limestone passage.” They walked forward slowly, stumbling over
the uneven ground, and as soon as they had gone beyond the range of
the arc-light Mark switched on his torch. Something glistened in its
beam and, on the ceiling no more than a foot above his head, he
glimpsed sparkling deposits of black and silver ore. He put out his
hand, and both of them stopped to survey the beginning of this
souterrain. The limestone itself seemed grey, almost unhealthy, in
the unaccustomed light; slender trickles of water ran down the walls,
giving them a striated appearance, and there were clusters of green
moss on the surface of the stone. Further down the passage, just at
the point where the light faded and where the darkness under ground
began, Mark could see bands of red and brown clay like fissures in
the limestone. At his feet a narrow stream of water followed the slope
of the passage further down into the earth.
Perhaps it had been the sound of this water that he had heard from
within the chamber; perhaps there had been no voices, after all. But
it was.already clear to him that this was not a natural passage: it had
been fashioned deliberately, carved out of the stone, and as he
walked forward it seemed to him that he was in some sense
trespassing upon ground that did not belong to him, that did not
belong to anyone still living. He stopped suddenly when in the beam
of the torchlight he saw two smaller tunnels branching off from the
main passage in opposite directions. “Oh dear.” He had forgotten
that Martha was behind him, and he was startled by her voice. “Oh
dear,” she repeated. “We are in a maze, aren’t we?” She seemed to
be relishing the situation.
“A labyrinth perhaps.” Mark looked from one opening to the
other, uncertain how to proceed. And then he caught a slight scent in
the air, something like a perfume, coming from the right-hand
tunnel. It reminded him of Kathleen, and in that instant all the
details of her death returned to him. For a moment he felt faint, and
leaned against the wall of the passage. How strange it is, he thought,
to remember such things here. But then perhaps not so strange. In
this place time might not simply go forward, forgetting and forgot-

267
 FIRST LIGHT

ten; it might move in other directions also.

“Is there anything wrong?” Martha had put one hand against the
limestone, and was scrutinising the grey powder on her palm.
“Anything the matter?”
“No. Nothing.” He made an effort to stand upright again.
“Except that we may have been mistaken about the site all the
time.”
Martha laughed, but her laughter sounded so odd in the tunnel
that she stopped at once. “Of course I didn’t like to say anything at
the time. But I did think that Julian’s theory was preposterous.”
“No. We may all have been wrong. The builders of the tomb may
not have worshipped the stars, after all.” He was looking into the
mouth of the tunnel where he had sensed Kathleen’s presence.
“They may have worshipped the subterranean powers. There is
something strange about this place. Don’t you feel it?” Martha
looked into the mouth of the tunnel, too, but she said nothing. “Let’s
go on,” he said. “Let’s go deeper.”
“Do you really think—”
But he had already moved forward. Yes. There was something
strange here, the strangeness of being under the earth. Some weight,
no less onerous fof being invisible, was pressing down upon them;
and, although they could have stood upright in the passage, they
bowed their heads as they made their way. Their footsteps and their
whispered voices did not echo here, but seemed to eddy away into
the soft stone which surrounded them.
Something glinted in the torch light, something to Mark’s right.
He paused and to his astonishment saw, on a small shelf carved into
the limestone wall, three small coins. He shone the torch full upon
them. But he did not want to touch them. “I hope you’re not going to
tell me,” Martha whispered to him, “that our neolithic friends
invented coinage, too.”
He smiled, but it was a nervous smile. It was as if they had
discovered some private joke, the perpetrator of which might be
hiding around the next corner. “No,” Mark replied. “Obviously the
coins are of a later date. So there must have been people here after
the tomb was sealed. Long after.”
He swung the torch around and in that sudden movement he
thought he saw something on the ceiling. He held the torch up and
there, scrawled upon the stone roof in red ochre, were some letters.
And, in the tremulous light, he was able to read ‘L.M. 1586’. He

268
 LETTERS

swallowed back his fear. “I think,” he said in a loud voice, “I think

we ought to call in the others.”
And so slowly they retreated, saying nothing to one another. He
was not sure if Martha had seen the writing, too, but he did not want
to talk about it. Not yet. This discovery was so odd, so unexpected,
that he wanted to consider it quietly in the daylight. Not here. Not in
this place. Not in the fogou where it seemed that the centuries were
collapsing together.

269
 1

*6j*
YOU NEVER KNOW
“ ~W" T’S GOOD news week!” Evangeline Tupper stood on the
Mints’ threshold. “And I’m the good news bear!”
“Good news, then, is it?” Farmer Mint was out of breath,
^ and his hair was streaked with some kind of grey powder; it
seemed to Evangeline that he must have run very quickly all over the
house and scraped his head on the ceiling before answering the door.
“Boy Mint is out in the fields,” he added.
“Preparing something delicious for lunch, I’m sure.” Evangeline
was by now used to the farmer’s ways, and without further invitation
walked into the living room. “Everything is looking as lovely as
ever,” she said, resisting the impulse to retch at some strange smell
coming from a corner of the room. She gazed instead with apparent
enthusiasm at the familiar bric-a-brac of the Mint household -
recently increased by a collection of old buckets and radios which
were mingled promiscuously together in front of the ancient stove.
“And whenever I see your ancestors,” she added as she went over to
the collection of paintings and miniatures above the fireplace, “I
think of England which never, never will be a slave.”
“I wouldn’t know anything about England, Miss Tupper. We
don’t discuss it here.”
It was clear to Evangeline that Farmer Mint was not to be
diverted by her pleasantries, and was waiting for the news she had to
bring him. “Aren’t you the lucky one,” she said, still pretending to
look at the portraits. “Having an absolute tunnel running right
under your land.” She had decided to put this matter in the best
possible light. “Dame Nature really seems to have dealt you a
winning hand.”
“Is that the good news?” He did not seem particularly surprised
by her revelation.
“Of course it is! My dear, it might be another Cheddar Gorge.

270
 YOU NEVER KNOW

Pictures of bison and so forth.”

“Is that right?” Farmer Mint put his head on one side, and flashed
an almost toothless smile. “We don’t know nothing about no
tunnels.”
“This one is positively dank with age.” She tried not to look at his
mouth. “Really primitive.” Then she remembered the need to be
positive. “But primitive in a very nice way. I’m sure you could grow
something down it eventually.”
“We don’t go poking about in no holes.”
“Not even a nice big one?”
“No holes. No bison. No tunnels.”
Evangeline was not sure how to continue this conversation: far
from being dismayed by the further encroachment upon his land, the
farmer seemed quite uninterested in the discovery. But at this
moment Boy Mint burst into the room, and Evangeline welcomed
the interruption literally with open arms. “Here he is,” she cried.
“My gorgeous boy-friend. Tell me your secret.”
“Secret?” He stepped away from her and glanced across at his
father. “What secret?”
“The secret of eternal youth, of course. Has it got something to do
with sheep’s glands?”
Farmer Mint answered for him. “He don’t know no secrets.”
“One more double negative and I shall faint."
“And he don’t know nothing about no tunnels.”
“Catch me.” She pretended to stagger back but, since neither of
the men made any effort to move towards her, she sat down very
suddenly on a somewhat damp chair.
“That’s the pig’s seat,” Farmer Mint said. “When he’s at home.”
She got up quickly, not without a suspicion that they were making
a fool of her. “I take it then,” she said, “that the archaeologists can
carry on? Just go on as before?”
“That’s a tautology,” Farmer Mint replied. “Almost as bad as a
double negative.”
Evangeline realised that no more helpful answer was likely to be
volunteered, and began walking to the door. “We must keep in
touch. You never know—”
“No. You never know, do you?” Farmer Mint opened it for her.
“You never do know.”
“—what may come out of the tunnel.”
He laughed at this. “What goes in must come out. I’ll agree with

271
 FIRST LIGHT

you there.”
“I’m so glad that we can agree upon something.” Evangeline blew
a kiss at both of them. “It puts mein a much happier frame of mind.”
As soon as she had walked down the path, Farmer Mint slammed
the door and bolted it. “The old cow is right,” he said, chuckling.
“What goes in must come out.”
Boy Mint walked over to the portraits, and took offhis cap. “Shall
we discuss it with the others tonight?”
“It don’t matter what any of us say. It’s what we do. And we don’t
do anything. Not just yet.” He joined his son, and gazed with him at
the long line of Mints. “They can wait a little longer,” he said. “Just
a little longer.”

272
 ♦68 ♦

M ON THE TELEPHONE
Y DEAR. You should have seen them trooping into
the village hall, with Lola Trout in the lead.”
Augustine Fraicheur was talking to Evangeline
Tupper that night on the telephone, one of the
many conversations since their first meeting in Colcorum.
“I’m dying to know what she’s wearing.”
“Well.” There was a little slurp of gin. “Do you know those old
stained things the Salvation Army practically have to give away?”
“Which look as if they’ve been to hell and back?”
“She’s got a dress exactly like that. A sort of mouldy snuff colour.
She was being carried by two strong boys, as usual, but the skirt was
so long she kept on tripping over it. She was tripping all the way
down the street.”
“I don’t believe it!”
“Literally tripping. And then she stops at my door, bangs on it like
the porter in Macbeth and starts screaming out ‘Piss! Piss!’ Honestly.
It turns out that being carried excites her bladder, and she had to
spend a penny. In my loo, too. And I just had it carpeted.”
“Regency striped?”
“It is now.”
“This is horrible!” Evangeline squeezed her legs together in
delight. “This is like something out of the Sixties!”
“And then, when she’s quite finished, they all follow her into the
village hall. With the Mints in the lead. They’re not the Sixties, my
dear. They’re the Dark Ages.”
“I just saw them this morning. Aren’t they ghastly?” Since she
now suspected them of making fun of her, her opinion of them had
altogether changed. “All that terrible facial hair.”
“—and then your friend, the comic, goes in after them.”
“Joey Hanover? Isn’t he priceless?”

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 FIRST LIGHT

“I could put a price on him.”

It was clear that Augustine was no longer impressed by Joey, so
Evangeline added quickly. “He’s not my friend, actually. My
assistant knows his wife. And you know how innocent Hermione is.”
“Blissfully. She should still be sucking at the breast.”
“Well. Let’s not go into that now.”
Augustine giggled. “So they all literally sweep into the hall. Have
you ever read Thomas Hardy?”
“Not as far as I know. But I gather he’s absolutely divine about
Dorset.”
“He has this marvellous scene at a country dinner. Pass the
turnip, and so forth. Tonight is exactly like that.”
“And you say they meet once a year?”
“Like the Queen’s birthday, dear. All the Mints and their rela¬
tions put on their warpaint, and stamp their little rustic feet. I can
hear them now—”
“Don’t tell me that. That would be too marvellous.”
“I can.” Augustine’s voice rose a little in emphasis. “When they
leave the window open, I can hear every word. After all, I’m only a
stone’s throw—”
“I’m sure they make good use of it.”
“—a stone’s throw from the hall. Listen.” At this point Augustine
put the telephone receiver close to his own open window, but all
Evangeline could hear was the sound of the ice clattering around in
his glass as he took another large swallow. “Did you hear that?”
“I certainly heard something very strange.”
“That was Farmer Mint. He’s giving his annual report.”
“What on earth is there to say about cows? Or whatever those
things are.”
“So far he’s been talking about rats.”
“Don’t.”
“He said something about rats being in short supply this year, and
then I distinctly heard La Trout laugh. Not an attractive sound, I
can assure you. Hold on.” There was a silence during which
Evangeline grew more and more impatient; she was just about to put
down the receiver, when Augustine returned. “He’s just been
introducing your friend, Joey. A late arrival, he said, but long
expected. Now he’s explaining something about him.”
It was clear that Augustine was about to go back to the open
window, and Evangeline interrupted. “By the way, do you have any

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idea what they’re eating?” She was always fascinated by the food of
others.
“Just the usual coarse country fare, I imagine. Pizzas and so
forth.” There was silence again as Augustine listened.
“Now what’s happening?”
“Joey Hanover is making a little speech. Speechette. He’s saying
what a privilege it is to meet them all. After such a long time without
knowing anything about them. And now La Trout has shouted
something.”
This calls for a stiff drink,” Evangeline said. Augustine con¬
tinued with his commentary, not realising that she had left the
telephone and gone over to the small refrigerator in her hotel room.
When she came back she gave an audible gasp of excitement, just for
Augustine’s benefit.
“I know” he exclaimed in response. “And now the little Mint has
started. He’s talking about some tunnel or other. Some underground
passage.”
“Of course. I was the first to tell them. They were utterly
astonished.”
“And now he’s shouting something about Old Barren or Barren
One.”
“Really?”
“And now they’ve closed the window.”
“Damn.”
Augustine was already so bored by the Mints that he no longer
cared whether he heard any more of their dinner conversation. “Tell
me,” he added, more comfortably, “what are you drinking?”
“Gin and it.”
“Oh snap. So am I. Isn’t it lovely?”
“Nothing lovelier.” At this moment Hermione came into the
room. “I really have to go now, darling.” Evangeline became more
formal, almost pert, with him. “You know what it’s like for us
working women.”
Augustine was annoyed by her sudden change of tone, although
he had already become accustomed to it. “Join the club, dear. I
suppose I’ll hear from you when you need more information?”
“Of course you will. But now I really must fly.”
Evangeline put down the telephone as Hermione stared at her.
“What was all that about?”
“Nothing, Baby Doll. Nothing at all.”

275
I THE DINNER
T WAS getting late at the Mint dinner. Under the festive
moss and bracken, which had been draped over the dark
exposed beams of the ceiling, several relations looked glumly
at one another or yawned quietly in the corners of the village
hall. Farmer Mint and Boy Mint were enjoying themselves,
however. They had both drunk large amounts of their own special
Mint cider, so strong that clumps of what looked like cow dung were
floating in it; they were now clutching each other, heads close
together, whispering spmething which sent them into roars of
laughter.
Joey Hanover was beside them, dressed for the occasion in a light
blue velvet suit. He was talking to Lola Trout, sitting across from
him along a narrow wooden table which ran almost the whole length
of the hall, but he was now so drunk that he seemed to be quoting the
words of one of his old songs without realising the fact. “You know,
Lo,” he was saying. “I knew by the smoke that so gracefully curled.
Above the green elms. That a cottage was near.”
“Get off!” She kept on running her tongue across her upper lip
which, to those who knew her well, meant that she was enjoying this
conversation.
“I know what you mean. I respect your opinion. But can I just add
that a cottage was near? And I said if there’s peace to be found in the
world, Lo, a heart—”
“Eat shit.” She drained offher own glass, and now waved it wildly
in front of her.
“A heart, Lo, that was humble might hope for it here. And that’s
when I saw my guardian angels. Hello. What’s this?” Farmer Mint
was holding over Joey’s head a pair of antlers, stuck on what looked
like a wooden helmet. “Unless I am very much mistaken, some¬
thing’s been mounted.”

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 THE DINNER

Farmer Mint was chuckling. “Go on, Boy. Tell him what to do.”
“You have to put them on. That’s whatjoa have to do.”
“Me? Par excellence the idol of the day?”
“Uncle, it’s a family custom.”
“Well, I’m game.” Joey rose and took the horns from Farmer
Mint, there was a leather strap beneath the wooden helmet, and it
took him only a few moments to fasten the whole apparatus to his
head. He put up his hands to touch the horns, and suddenly he was
filled with a wild exhilaration. “You never expected to see me
stuffed, did you? he said to Lola, and then jumped onto his chair.
“And here’s another funny thing.” He looked at the assembled
company as if they had become just like the audiences he had once
known. “My wife. God rest her soul.” The antlers felt heavy on his
head, and he swayed a little in the chair. “She’s still alive, you know,
but I’m hoping.” At this Lola screamed with laughter. “Have you
got knickers on, lady?” He gave her the famous Joey look. “I’m
coming down in a minute. Anyway my wife, my wife—” He was now
deep into his old act. The sweat was pouring down his forehead and
face, but he wiped it ofT with the sleeve of his blue velvet jacket. “I
won’t say that she’s ugly, but a man has to walk in front of her with a
red flag. He does. And she’s that mean, she . . .”
As Joey continued with his act, Farmer Mint sat down next to
Simon Trout. “Your old mother seems to be enjoying herself,” he
said. It had been one of his self-imposed tasks, over the last twenty
years, to arrange a reconciliation between mother and son.
“I hadn’t noticed. I wasn’t looking in her direction.”
“She’s looking good for her age, isn’t she?”
“Withered, I would say.”
“Withered, yes. But firm with it. Nice and firm.”
“She never changes. She never will change. And what’s more—”
he looked Farmer Mint defiantly in the face - “neither will I.”
Drunk though he was, Farmer Mint realised that no effort in this
direction was likely to succeed; so he changed the subject. “You
know,” he said, in a much lower voice, “that they discovered the
tunnel?”
“I heard.”
“They’re getting very close.”
“Have they found—”
“No. Not yet. But they’ll get there in a week or so.” He looked at
Joey Hanover for a moment, still sweating and swaying on the

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 FIRST LIGHT

wooden chair. Farmer Mint laughed and clapped his hands before
turning back to Simon Trout. “We’re going to have to do some¬
thing,” he went on. “We’re going to have to take some action, we are.
Before they find—”
“Has Joey been told yet?”
“Me and the Boy are waiting for the right time. He has to be told.
Now that he’s one of us.”
“She hates me, you see.” Joey was continuing with his perform¬
ance. “Yes she does. She must do. She’s lived with me for twenty
years. And fat.” Joey passed a hand over his face. “She’s so fat that.”
He stopped quite suddenly. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I just can’t
remember the next line.” He got down from the chair on which he
had been standing and sat down heavily, his head dipping under the
weight of the antlers. Clumsily he unstrapped them and placed them
on the table in front of him. Boy Mint was watching him closely and
was surprised to see him shaking not with disappointment, or
embarrassment, but with laughter. He thought he was laughing at
the helmet itself, and indignantly he stretched across him to remove
it. “This is precious,” he said. “This is our heirloom.”
Joey looked at the antlers more closely now, seeing how ancient
the carved and polished bones must be. “I’m honoured. Honestly. I
am. I was just laughing at myself for not remembering my lines. It
doesn’t matter any more, you see. It just doesn’t matter. I’m free.”
“Joey!” He flinched at the loud squawk which came from
somewhere above his right shoulder. It was Lola Trout, who had
somehow managed to rise unaided from her chair and walk around
the table. “You know what you can do, Joey, don’t you?” He shook
his head, expecting some terrible insult. “You can carry me around
the room!” There was a general murmur of surprised approval:
clearly it was a great honour to be so invited, and with a smile Joey
Hanover stood up to take Lola in his arms. He staggered under the
unexpected weight, but soon stood upright and with a great drunken
effort managed to carry her from one end of the hall to the other, his
face buried in the folds of her snuff-coloured gown. “There,” he said
when he eventually put her back in her seat. “Was that nice?” He
was panting for breath.
“That was pathetic!” But she was obviously pleased by her
excursion. “You need a few lessons,” she added. “Then you can
carry me anywhere.”
Joey bowed to her after this kind offer, and was just about to return

78
 THE DINNER

to his seat when Farmer Mint grabbed his arm and led him to a
corner of the hall. “Walk this way,” he said. “Something to tell you.”
He spat on his hands, rubbed them through his hair and then began
to explain something to Joey very seriously and very slowly. But by
now both men were so drunk that, although they agreed with each
other very fiercely, neither had the faintest idea what they were
discussing. ‘ I’m with you!” Joey shouted. “I’ll never, never leave
you!”
“That’s a good boy,” Farmer Mint shouted back. He might have
been talking to his dog. “That’s a very good boy!” With a supreme
effort he grabbed a piece of old moss which was hanging from the
rafter above him, pulled it down onto his face and shoulders, and
then collapsed into a drunken stupor. Boy Mint had been watching
this exchange and as soon as his father had fallen he got up, put on
his cap, walked over to him and hauled him across his shoulders with
no more effort than if he had been a bag of peat compost. “It’s all
true,” he said to Joey as he carried him away. “What he told you is
all true.”
“Of course it’s true!” Joey was very insistent, although he had no
idea what was meant. “It’s very true!”
The departure of the Mints was the signal for a general exodus by
the guests, but it was only when Joey staggered outside and saw his
car that he remembered he was being met by Floey. She was waiting
for him, her fingers drumming on the rim of the steering wheel, but
as he approached the car he kicked one leg in the air and began to
sing very loudly, “We won’t go home till morning, dearest Floey.
“No, we won’t go home till morning. We won’t go home till morning.
Till something-or-other doth appear.”
“I’ll appear in a minute,” she said, opening the door for him. “I’ll
appear behind you with an axe.”
“Family occasion, dearest Floey.”
“Do you know how long I’ve been waiting here? My tiny mind is
frozen.”
“Very lovely lovely family occasion.”
“Oh yes.” She watched him as he fell into the back seat. “Let’s
hope you don’t sell your birthright for a mess of porridge.”
There was a faint cry of “pottage” but Floey did not hear and,
with a grim smile of satisfaction, she began to drive her husband
through the dark street of Colcorum.
Augustine Fraicheur had been watching this scene through a gap

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 FIRST LIGHT

in his striped curtains. “What a performance,” he said out loud to no

one in particular. “I can’t wait to tell Evangeline. She is going to
scream.”
As the Hanovers travelled past Pilgrin Valley Joey lay in the back
seat and crooned, “One little kiss for Mother. Kiss me, Mother, ere I
die.” Suddenly he sat up. “Flo,” he said. “He told me that there’s
something in the tunnel.”

280
 *70*

T AT THE CENTRE
HEY HAD been working in the underground passage for
three weeks, two teams moving slowly from each
entrance towards that central point where all their hopes
rested: hopes raised by the discovery of the three coins
and of the red markings on the limestone roof of the tunnel, and then
further increased by other ‘finds’ in the course of their slow journey.
They had already located and removed part of a leaf-shaped sword
from the early bronze age; two undecorated bowls from the early
neolithic period; some grooved ware from the late neolithic; a
globular urn from the middle bronze age; dress pins and bone
tweezers from the early bronze age. So, to their astonishment, there
was evidence of a continuity stretching for many thousands of years;
either all of these artefacts had been collected and at some late stage
taken into the tunnel, or the passage itself had been considered a
sacred place over many generations with the tumulus acting as a
landmark for its entrance.
But there was something more puzzling still. The red markings
which Mark had seen were soon found elsewhere - sometimes
daubed in red ochre, sometimes scrawled with black slate. Mark had
read “L.M. 1586” but now others had come across “T.M. 1750”,
“O.M. 1690”, “J.M. 1827” and a crudely written “George. 1894”.
The meaning of these letters was not at first clear but their signifi¬
cance was not difficult to determine: the passage had been known
and used as late as the nineteenth century, during a period when the
tumulus itself was completely covered by the ash forest. But, if that
were so, why had nothing in the tomb itself been moved? Why had
the hanged man, the guardian of the secret entrance, remained quite
undisturbed?
These were the questions which they were still debating with one
another as they met on a cold February morning. All the instruments

281
 FIRST LIGHT

agreed that on this day they would be able to break through to the
central area; they might need literally to break through, in fact, since
as they came closer and closer to their destination they had dis¬
covered various impediments - heaps of limestone rubble, false
turnings, large boulders - blocking their path. But they had gone
forward steadily, and now they were ready for the final move.
They were huddled together in small groups, their breath like
splinters in the freezing air. “So what is this M?” Julian Hill was
asking. “Does anyone know? Of course,” he went on hurriedly, not
listening for any response to his question, “it may not be an initial at
all. It may be some ritualised sign.”
“Could it mean misguided?” Martha asked sweetly. “Or moron?”
“What is the sacred name for God?” Mark had thought of this
before, but only now mentioned it. “The one which, when uttered,
will bring about the end of the world?”
“If I knew,” Martha replied, “I certainly wouldn’t tell you in
public.”
Owen Chard had been biting the end of his unlit pipe and now
removed it very slowly from his mouth. “I’ll tell you what M
means,” he said. “It stands for Mint.”
“I think,” Mark said, in the sudden silence, “it’s time that we
began.”
And so they made their way. Owen and Julian went to the
entrance hidden in the copse, while Mark and Martha continued
their journey from the terminal chamber of the tumulus. The various
assistants, who had been working on this excavation since its
beginning so many months before, would wait for them at the
respective entrances. At some time in the course of that day, they
would meet and shake hands beneath the earth.
Mark moved forward cautiously still; even in those sections of the
passage which they had already explored there was still the danger of
slippage or rockfalls, and he did not speak as he walked in front of
Martha. Only the sound of their boots scraping the limestone floor
could be heard as they descended further into the "earth; but,
although the passage seemed to be sloping downward all the time, its
roof became higher, and soon they were able to go forward quite
easily without bending or crouching. And it occurred to Mark that
this was part of the design: the builders had determined that, as the
worshippers moved further from the surface of the earth and came
closer to the centre of this ritual way, they would be able to walk

282
 AT THE CENTRE

freely for the first time.

They had arrived now at the final section, the central area still
hidden from them by a wall of limestone boulders which might have
lain there for centuries but which seemed to Mark, for reasons he
could not properly explain, to have been recently or hastily erected.
But he said nothing of this to the others. A similar wall blocked the
passage on the other side and now, in a final effort, they worked
together to remove the boulders one by one. Neither party could hear
the other, since the central area seemed to prevent any sound from
passing through, but they progressed at a similar rate. It was hard
and uncomfortable work but their enthusiasm invigorated them,
even if that enthusiasm was tinged with fear at what they might find
when they removed these barriers. They were deep beneath the
earth, in a place no person was meant to come, and the stone
boulders themselves seemed to them heavier than they should be,
unwieldy, alien. Once they stopped, both parties hearing the echo of
movement somewhere above their heads; but it faded away, and
they continued with their work even more swiftly. Until finally they
broke through-.
At the same moment they stepped into the central area. They
found themselves in a round space, cleared of all objects but with one
small tunnel cut into the side of the rock. The roof was higher here
and they could look up into the gleaming recesses of the limestone; it
appeared to them that they were at the base of a giant cone and,
when they peered into the abyss above their heads, the ground on
which they stood no longer seemed so firm. They were in a cavern
beneath the earth but they might have been floating away, the stone
turned to water and cloud around them; and, although no one spoke,
they knew that they all felt this. Some fragments of rock were
scattered across the floor of this place, and a thin stream of water ran
down one wall before passing off at an angle into the depths below
them. The four of them stood silently, instinctively forming a circle,
hearing only the faint echo of water steadily dripping somewhere
close to them.
They might have stood there for ever, but then Mark broke away.
“Hold on,” he said. “I have an idea.” He walked over to the small
opening carved into the side, and crouched down beside it. It was as
if he were listening to something but the others, perhaps dispirited
by the emptiness of this place, made no effort to follow him. “I shan’t
be a minute,” he said. Then he ducked down and crawled into the

283
 FIRST LIGHT

side tunnel. He had taken one of the portable lamps with him, and in
the suddenly attenuated light Martha switched on her torch and
swung it towards the opening through which Mark had disappeared.
The damp walls glistened around her but after a few moments the
torchlight began to flicker, and to fade; then it went out.
It could only have been a few seconds later that they heard a cry -
or a call - which spun out from the small tunnel and whirled
upwards into the cavern above their heads. And at the sudden sound
of Mark’s voice Julian dropped the portable light he had been
holding and it, too, went out. For a moment they were all silenced by
the darkness around them for it was a darkness like no other, a
darkness more intense than that of night. They could smell it, dank,
ponderous, threatening; they could even taste it.
“Oh my God!” Martha said at last. “Whose fault is this?”
“It’s nobody’s fault,” Julian snapped back at her, his fear adding
to his anger. He reached down to feel for the light he had dropped but
he touched Martha’s leg, and she cried out in alarm. “Don’t panic,”
he whispered, appalled by her scream which, in his nervous state, he
thought might send rocks tumbling down on their heads. “It’s just
me.
“I didn’t panic. Just don’t touch me.”
“Stay calm.” Owen sounded some distance away; but this was
just a trick of the echo, since he was next to them. “Julian and I still
have our torches.” For a moment they could not find them, although
they were strapped to their waists: the intense darkness had so
disoriented them that they were not sure of the precise alignment of
their own bodies. Eventually they switched them on but, in the twin
beams, they seemed only to be lost in a sea of blackness. They moved
cautiously, as if there were caverns into which they might fall, the
darkness billowing around them. Even when they found the outline
of the tunnel which Mark had entered, they could not see into the
blackness beyond. “That was definitely his voice,” Owen said.
“We’re going to need ropes. And proper lights. I’ll stay here in case
he gets back. You two go and get help.”
Julian Hill needed no persuasion to turn back, but Martha was
annoyed by this sudden assumption of authority by Owen. “I hate to
intrude,” she said. “But don’t you think we should try and find him
now?” She moved her feet as she spoke; she did not like to stand still
since then, she feared, she might be sucked further into the earth.
“Look.” Owen shone his torch into the tunnel, but its beam

284
 AT THE CENTRE

penetrated only a few inches before being snuffed out by the

darkness. “There may be pot-holes here. There may be other
passages. We could be lost for ever.”
“I suppose,” she replied, “that for once you may be right.” So she
and Julian returned, hurrying back to the main entrance where the
others were expecting them. Owen sat down in the central circle,
took out his pipe, clenched it firmly between his teeth, and waited for
them to return.
And what of Mark Clare? He had entered the tunnel without any
thought of the consequences. He had just wanted to leave the others
for a little while. In this sacred place, he needed no company. As
soon as he crawled through the entrance their voices were blocked
out, and at once he felt at peace. So he went forward in confidence -
he trained the beam of the portable light on the ground in front of
him, bending forward as he crept along. This was a narrow passage,
no more than three feet in width, and when he put his hands against
its side he realised at once that it was made of drier and firmer stone
than any used in the main tunnel. The rock itself had changed; this
had the hardness of granite.
There seemed to be no recesses or passages to either side of him,
and so he continued going forward. “This is the way,” he said out
loud. And indeed it seemed to him that he was moving down some
sacred avenue, away from the circle in which the others still stood.
“This is the way,” he repeated after a few minutes. “This is the way,
the truth and the light.” He sensed a shape in front of him, stopped,
and tried to stand upright. But then something hit him on the back of
his head; he stumbled forward, and he fell.

285
 *JI*

I SILHOUETTE
N THE after-shock Mark dreamed that he was still falling
but, when he put out his hand, he realised that he was
sprawled upon flat ground. He did not know how long he had
lain here but, reluctantly and cautiously, he began to rise. Not
because he had any desire to move, only to make sure that he could
still do so - that the sudden feeling of exhilaration which now
possessed him was not some recompense for injury. But he knew at
once that he was unharmed. “I might have been lowered by angels,”
he said out loud. And then he thought of Kathleen.
The light he had been carrying before his fall was lying some feet
away from him, lodged between two large stones, its beam travelling
upward and slightly aslant so that it resembled a ladder of light.
Mark followed it with his eyes until it reached that point above his
head from which he must have fallen: he could see the broken edge of
the passage on which he had stumbled, the low ridge against which
he had hit his head and, on the other side, he could see how the
passage continued. So this hollow, or crater, cut the passage in two;
it might almost, if such a thing were possible in this subterranean
world, be some kind of trap. And yet he knew that any rescuers
would find him easily: they would come with their voices, their lights
and their ropes; they would raise him from this place and take him
back to the surface and to the outer air. But he was not sure, yet, that
he wanted to leave.
Their lights. Suddenly the electric beam of his own light disgusted
him and he walked over to switch it off; the ladder disappeared,
leaving an after-image which hovered for a few moments like an
hallucination. He sat down again, in the same spot where he had
fallen, and leaned against the stone. Welcoming the darkness which
seemed like a companion sitting beside him. But he could not remain
in the dark: even as he sat here scenes and images from the outer

286
 SILHOUETTE

world emerged from him, staining the air before him in dumb show.
Colours, movements, pictures, all of them creating stories in front of
him. There were figures walking silently - not figures, but shadows
with faces which merged indistinctly with one another. And then
there were wheels of light. Spirals. Strands of brightness. Pulses of
colour. Even this place was filled with ghosts but when he tried to
track them down, to exorcise them, he did not know from where they
had come. They must have issued from the deepest part of himself,
and yet they were quite impersonal; they seemed to have no real
origin.
Other images rose up silently in front of him - children playing in
a field, the broken statues in Augustine’s yard, the slope of the
Pilgrin Valley itself. Even now he knew that he could leave all these
things behind for ever; but then, out of the darkness, sprang Jude.
The dog, yes, was another living thing that had depended upon
Kathleen. But it was just an involuntary memory; Jude faded into
oblivion, like the after-image of light. Everything was so frail, as frail
as the images forming and then dissolving, as frail as the electrical
activity within Mark’s head. Yet this frailty was all there was. It was
life itself, and he understood how the little dog was an emblem of
some general helplessness which he shared. Perhaps it would be easy
to leave that frailty behind, but would not a kind of pity - a pity for
the human state - always stop him?
And now, for the first time, he began to think of Kathleen’s funeral
without dread. It had been arranged for next week, but the whole
slow process of the investigation and the inquest had seemed to him
to be taking place outside the current of time, for it had been a
prolongation not of his own misery but that of Kathleen. During all
this period he had not thought of the funeral as some laying to rest,
some accommodation with eternity, but an ending no less abrupt
and arbitrary than her death. Everything had been incomplete,
irreconcilable, inconsolable. But now, sitting in the darkness under
the earth, this incompleteness, this frailty, was no longer a thing to
be feared or even regretted. It was to be accepted, and he no longer
felt afraid. He became quiet-or, rather, he began to feel the presence
of the earth around him, enfolding him, obliterating the gleams and
slivers of his private consciousness. It was as if these were porous
stones which could draw off human images as easily as they
absorbed water.
He must have slept since, when he raised his head again, he found

287
 FIRST LIGHT

that he had changed position and was lying curled upon the ground.
But, if that were so, then he must have slept with his eyes wide open
because he had become accustomed to the darkness: it was no longer
an opaque resisting medium but seemed to sink and drift, to billow
out or fade in response to some internal pressure. And, when he
shook himself awake, he noticed in the distance a band of paler
darkness like dying firelight, like the phosphorescence of ruined
stones, like the ghost of light. There was an arch cut into the rock in
front of him, and beyond that arch he could see an alcove where this
barest perceptible haze on the surface of the darkness seemed to
hover; he rose and began walking towards it. He stepped beneath the
arch and then quite suddenly he stopped; he stopped because he
sensed that he had reached the end of his subterranean pilgrimage.
This alcove was the house under the ground.
There was an oblong slab of stone about seven feet in front of him
which, in the paler darkness, seemed to him to resemble an altar.
And there was something lying upon it. He stepped uncertainly
towards it, hands outstretched, but drew back with a gasp when he
realised that this thing was not itself made of stone. It was something
else. Tentatively he touched it again, and felt the wood beneath his
trembling fingers. This was a wooden box, some four or five feet in
length. A wooden coffin. He put his hands against the side closest to
him, and with his fingers he could trace notches or grooves carved
into the wood. They seemed to be forming letters even as he touchdi
them.
He took two steps back, stared wildly at the altar for a moment as
if he were trying to reach some decision, and went back for the light
he had left propped between the stones. Then he returned to the
small square room and, when he turned on the light, he saw that this
wooden box or coffin was so cunningly sealed that it might have been
constructed out of one single piece of wood. There was only a worn
groove to mark the position of the lid, and there were tight wooden
bands encircling it - just as if something had been locked in. And
when he stepped up to the altar Mark realised that, on the top
surface of this coffin, there had been drawn, in red ochre, the
silhouette of a figure lying crouched with its knees drawn up against
its chest. And what of the words he had touched? The carved words.
He knelt down and shone his light against the side of the coffin and
saw there, clearly marked, ‘Old Barren One’. He had no way of
knowing how long those words had been inscribed there, but Mark

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 SILHOUETTE

knew at least that he had reached the centre - the origin - for which
he had been searching. This was the body for which the tumulus had
been built some four and a half thousand years ago, the silhouette in
red ochre representing the shape inside - if, indeed, any recognisable
shape still remained. He knew that, encased like this, organic
remains could be preserved for many, many centuries. But for
precisely how long?
And why had it been concealed for so long? Why was it being
concealed even now? He had reached the end of his quest, but he
could see neither backward nor forward. He switched off his torch,
and with bowed head placed his hands once again upon the wooden
casket. Alec had told him that the human body contained cosmic
debris, and was the relic of dead stars. Surely here, if anywhere, this
was true: there was starlight above and beneath the earth. Those
who had come to Pilgrin Valley had come to venerate the body but
also to worship the stars; and in so doing they had created a circle of
light, like the circle of stones above his head. He had seen eternity,
too, for here there was no beginning and no end. “Kathleen,” he
said.
He had entered another time, a time where his wife continued to
exist. He could remain here always, and in this moment of
acceptance he felt at peace not only with Kathleen but with all the
dead. And when he thought of them, when he thought of the past, he
saw only the perpetually mined movement of starlight drifting
through space in a silence like the silence of this place. And, yes, the
silence here was the silence of the dead, the silence of those who had
come before him and who had led him under ground just as surely as
if they had taken him by the hand. They were the stone against
which he leaned, the rock upon which he stood. They had become
the world. He knew what time was now: it was the word for that
which no living thing could understand, because to understand it
would be to exist outside it. Only those who had died could
comprehend time, for time was God. And in the house under ground
he no longer felt any fear.
Then he heard the murmur of voices. These were his rescuers and,
reluctantly, he went back into the pit and waited to be escorted into
the upper world.

289
♦PART SIX^
It is therefore a truism, almost a tautology, to say
that all magic is necessarily false and barren; for
were it ever to become true andfruitful, it would no
longer be magic but science.

The Golden Bough

J. G. Frazer.
 *J2*

A ALDEBARAN
LDEBARAN. OLD. BARREN. These were the words that
came into Damian Fall’s head as he looked out of the
window of his cottage at the setting sun. And this was
L how his own life was setting, too. He watched it as it
trembled on the horizon, so close that it seemed to be descending into
Pilgrin Valley itself. Then he licked his forefinger gently, and held it
up towards the dying star.
He had heard every sound in the valley tonight. He had heard the
shouts and laughter as Mark Clare was rescued from the cave under
the earth; then, much later, he had heard the Mints arguing loudly
beside the tumulus; but it was quiet now, and he was alone. And as
he watched the dusk thicken the air in front of him there was a
familiar disquiet, a stirring, beneath his scalp; it was as if something
there had swerved and changed direction.
There were noises in his head - no, not noises, voices, and they
were rising like a wind which brings sickness. And it occurred to him
that this cottage was a tumulus, too, but one in which others beside
himself were housed. Shadows stirred in the room around him, and
they were the shadows of the people who had once lived here,
crossing and recrossing in front of him. There was a sudden harsh
laugh: Damian put his hand over his mouth, and stared wildly
around.
But the shadows had not heard him. They had gone now and, in
their place, had come a greater darkness when he realised with
horror that the windows themselves had darkened - that they had
come alive. They were trembling with life, and when he took a step
forward he saw that there were swarms of large flies blocking the
light. And then Damian realised that they were trying to reach him;
their eyes were upon him, even in the darkness. He swung his arms
savagely around as if the flies had already eaten through the glass

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 FIRST LIGHT

and had entered the room. He turned a full circle, swaying slightly,
and when he looked around the flies had gone. The windows were
quite clear again, letting in the last fading light of the day.
It was in this grey light that he watched the engravings upon his
wall; they were no longer still, but seemed to have been infused with
life. The chart of the Pleaides began to move and shimmer; Ptolemy
looked across at Damian before raising in triumph a burnished
image of the sun; Copernicus turned the astrolabe with the forefinger
of his right hand, and then licked the dust from it; Tycho Brahe
reached up to the artificial stars he had placed upon a velvet curtain,
and at the same moment the old man in monk’s habit peered with
wonder through a wooden tube. There were two men in short wigs,
walking upon a wooden floor in the dark, and Damian could hear the
beating of two large clocks inside cases which were fastened to the
wall. As his eyes grew used to the starlight he saw that they were
standing within an octagonal room, and now one man walked over to
a large brass quadrant beside an open window. “You see,” he was
saying to his companion, “how the angle of the equinoctial gradient
has changed?” Damian knew that the words were his own and yet
not his own. He walked backwards, and he could hear his shoes upon
a wooden floor. “Yes,” he said. “It has changed.” But all he sensed
now was the ticking of the clocks.
It was time to leave the cottage. Perhaps there would be safety in
the night. In the darkness he could hide from his attackers. For, after
all, was he not worthy of attack - he who had achieved nothing, who
had no reason to exist? He could not stay here, not in this house
above the ground where he was so much exposed. He was about to
close the curtains but then he put a hand on his arm to check himself;
no, for that might be to close something in. And no lights, no electric
lights; they were the lights of prison. If he switched them on he might
glimpse his own shadow - he was afraid, literally afraid, of his own
Shadow. He took up his jacket and ran out of the cottage, making
sure that the door was still open after he had left. Let it be open to the
valley tonight.
He climbed into his car and travelled through the gathering
darkness to the observatory on Holblack Moor, where he knew he
could find rest. He would soon be safe under the dome and, as he
drove out of Pilgrin Valley, he amused himself by wondering how he
might seem to anyone who was sitting beside him. He turned his
head and smiled at his invisible companion, his dark face in profile

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 ALDEBARAN

against the dark window. I am not like this at all, he said. This is not
really me at all.
There was no one at the observatory when he arrived; it was still
too early for Brenda or Alec, who came at ten in order to work
through the night. So he made his own way into the office, humming
a little tune, and quickly passed through the passage into the
observatory itself. He pushed a button and was bathed in red light as
he turned to slam and lock the connecting door. Then he stood with
his back against the wall. He was standing on the cliff of himself,
looking down and frightened of falling.
Aldebaran. The giant star was waiting for him, as it had always
done. It was the star which controlled all the sighs and tears of the
earth, just as the moon controlled its tides. He must have known this
from the beginning, but why was it now so important? He must
watch red Aldebaran, in case time ran out. But how could time run
out? Where could it run? It was the shape of the universe itself.
He descended the metal stairs to the control room beneath the
floor of the observatory, where he was greeted by the murmur of the
faint object spectrograph. The red light from the observatory
penetrated this dim recess and he watched the spectral lines as they
emerged from the printer, issuing from the immensity above his
head; this starlight was thousands of years old but was now con¬
verted into lines and bands of colour, restored, changed into a
different pattern, lost colours revived, impulses turned into form.
Where others might look up at the night sky and glimpse only a faint
light, blown by the gusts of the thermal currents and obscured by the
giddy atmosphere, Damian could see the true identity of Aldebaran
as it emerged in these lines which were like the spectral handwriting
of one long since dead. Yes, that was it. He was haunted by the ghost
of Aldebaran. The ghost was in the room with him. His eyes ached,
and he passed his hand across his face.
But what was this? This could not be happening. As he watched,
the spectral lines began shifting towards the shorter blue
wavelengths at the end of the spectrum; the lines were coming
together, they were being compressed by some enormous force. And
he knew why this was so. The blue-shift meant that the giant star was
no longer moving away; its passage from the red to the blue end of
the spectrum meant that it was now moving towards the earth. It
was approaching at enormous speed. In his agony he rushed over to
the photon counting detector, which seemed to spring into chatter-

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 FIRST LIGHT

ing life even as he approached it and there, on its monitor, the figures
which measured the background heat radiation of the universe were
moving too rapidly. The numbers rose as he watched, numbers
merging into one another so fast that they seemed like a series of faces
entwined with one another.
He might have watched them for hours, seeing faces he recognised
in the bewildering spirals. But he knew now. At last the long agony of
the universe was over. The flight from its moment of origin had come
to an end. It had ceased to expand and was now rushing towards
him. Damian. He held onto the equipment, as if he were in danger of
being blown away. This was the time he had always anticipated and
had always feared.
He broke away from the photon detector and climbed back up to
the dome; where he stopped suddenly, thinking he could hear the
groaning of the night sky. So this was why he had seen the trembling
flies. This was why he had heard the old voices in the cottage: the
heat of the encroaching universe had woken them, and they had
begun to celebrate the death of the cosmos which had imprisoned
them for so long. The ground trembled beneath his feet: yes, they
had come from beneath the earth, greeting the livid sky from which
they had been formed. They were the shadows he had seen in front of
him. And when he closed his eyes he could see the trees in Pilgrin
Valley, ringed with fire and still burning.
But why had the ending not yet come? If the universe were
contracting, returning to its unimaginable moment of birth, then
surely it would have happened instantaneously? Once the pressures
of time and space were reversed, and the universe doubled back
upon itself, surely this unravelling would occur outside time - would
occur, in a sense, after time had ceased to exist? So perhaps it had
already happened. Perhaps the collapse of the universe had taken
place, had reached past the moment of origin to be transformed into
some other shape.
No. This could not be so. There was a world around him still. He
lived and moved. He still existed, or else why should he be suffering
so? No. It was only Aldebaran. Only the red star had been shaken
from its accustomed place. Somehow Aldebaran had fallen from its
sphere and, with the clairvoyance of one who has seen into
extremity, Damian connected its fall with the disturbances in Pilgrin
Valley. The shadows and the voices had been real, after all; they had
come to warn him. Barren. Old. He went over to the monitor which

296 %
 ALDEBARAN

interpreted the faint impulses caught by the electronic camera: here

on the screen was the image of the great star itself, its light and dark
patches suggesting that it was no longer of uniform brightness but
was being twisted apart in some giant convulsion. All these images
were growing paler, too, which meant that the star was becoming
steadily hotter, coming much closer to the earth. The universe was
not falling, just the one red giant star which had slipped out of its
constellation and was now moving towards him. Damian felt his
stomach melting in the heat. He looked down at the monitor again,
and saw how the computer-generated squares of light were breaking
up and shuddering at the edges of the screen. And he caught his own
face reflected in that screen, bathed in red but with the mouth and
eyes quite dark.
He moved to the other side of the observatory and, with a deep
sigh, opened the dome. Slowly the two hemispheres of the roof
parted, and starlight flooded the chamber, as it had always done.
Damian wanted to look up with his usual calm eye and to recognise
the familiar constellations shining down upon him; but he saw only
random points of light swaying above his head and ready to fall. And
he looked into the abysses between them, the gulfs of darkness which
were not of this time, not of this time in which he had his being. And
there were no stars, there were only words with which we choose to
decorate the sky. These points of brightness were travelling from
objects already long dead and the visible firmament was no more
than a wave of dying energy, eddying through unimaginable spaces
to some unknown destination. The universe was a structure
established upon . . . established upon what? Nothing. And as he
looked up he was filled with the fear of emptiness, the fear of non-
being. And he became nothing. He crept into a corner of the
observatory and sat down with his knees drawn up against his chest,
crouched under the vast emptiness of the universe.

297
 ♦ 73 ♦

RESURRECTION MEN
“ ■ E CAREFUL with him. Don’t shake him up.” There
were three men in the subterranean passage, two of them
^ carrying a large object wrapped in black plastic sheeting
“ while the third walked ahead of them with a lamp. But

they did not really need the light: the two carriers seemed to know
their way so well that, despite their burden, they were able to
anticipate every curve and declination in the tunnel. They were
accustomed, also, to the changes they felt within themselves
whenever they journeyed under the ground: they left the domain of
ordinary time, and the echoes of their voices were like the other
echoes which they sensed all around them. Time was curving back
upon them, encircling them and also protecting them. It was as if
they lost their ordinary selves and became the servants of this force -
no different, perhaps, from those who first built this passage and
from whom they believed themselves to be descended.
“He’s in safe hands. None could be safer. Not on this earth.” The
first carrier stopped for a moment, and looked back at his com¬
panion. “What do you say, Boy?”
“As safe as houses. Isn’t that what those fools call it? The house
under ground?”
“Don’t talk too loud.” Simon Trout, who was carrying the lamp in
front of the Mints, put his finger up to his lips. “They may be
listening.”
“The only ones listening here know all about us.” Farmer Mint
said. “They know our voices.” And indeed only the dead could have
heard them: it was into the round space of the souterrain, beneath
the centre of the stone circle, that the bodies of the villagers were
always brought; in this hollow within the rock, where the archaeolo¬
gists had lost their lights, the corpses were prepared for burning and
the smoke of their funeral fires ascended into those shafts and fissures

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 RESURRECTION MEN

which so resembled a cone.

I m talking about the ones still living,” Simon Trout explained
impatiently. “They might be listening. I’m talking about them
above ground who may still be on the watch.”
“There’s no one watching. Don’t you worry.” Farmer Mint gave
the signal to his son, and they picked up their burden again.
“They’ve all gone home by now.”
It was the night of Mark Clare’s rescue from the hidden chamber,
where he had found the wooden casket with the words ‘Old Barren
One carved upon its side. This was the discovery which his
colleagues had hoped for and, as soon as Mark was lifted out of the
pit and taken into the upper air, they began to organise their
excavation of this area. The pit itself would have to be thoroughly
cleared, but the archaeologists had noticed that, although the
central area had been swept clean of objects, there were traces of ash
against the side of the rocks there; and the roof of the cavern above
seemed, on first inspection, to be scorched or blackened. There must
have been fires here, just at the point where the passages came
together. But the prime object was the coffin which Mark Clare had
found; this wooden casket would have to be removed, opened, and its
contents examined. So it was true that Damian Fall had heard
laughter as he sat m his cottage: it had been the laughter of the
archaeologists who realised that, at last, their quest was over and
that the secret of the tumulus had been resolved. Whoever was
within the coffin - king, astronomer, or sorcerer - was clearly the
object of the cult which existed in Pilgrin Valley; the tumulus was the
entry to his mystery, the stone circle the emblem of his power.
It was long past midnight now and, under the cover of the darkest
part of the night, the three men began to climb out of the passage
which they knew so well. But they need not have feared discovery: as
Farmer Mint had guessed, the others had gone home hours before.
Simon Trout emerged cautiously from the entrance hidden in the
copse, making sure to shield the lamp with his hands before he
ventured into the cold night air. Farmer Mint and Boy Mint
followed, alternately heaving and pushing the wooden coffin until it,
too, re-emerged in the outer world. They kept it wrapped in the thick
plastic sheeting, and laid it carefully on the hard ground. “Let him
down gently,” Farmer Mint whispered. “Lay him down gently on
his own ground.”
“He shouldn’t have to leave,” his son whispered back. “He

299
 FIRST LIGHT

shouldn’t have to be taken out in the night. Not like this.” His
companions understood what he meant - the wooden casket and its
occupant were in the wrong place, almost in the wrong dimension.
The wrong time. And for a moment Boy Mint thought he heard
noises coming from within the coffin.
“He’ll be back. Boy. He’ll be back in good time. He understands.”
Simon Trout glanced nervously around, and saw Damian Fall’s
cottage across the field. “Who lives there now?” he asked, pointing
towards it. “Who is it?”
Boy Mint chuckled. “He won’t be any trouble, he won’t. I saw
him go off hours ago. Like a lamb to the slaughter. There’s only the
angels left there now. The guardian angels.”
As his son spoke Farmer Mint bent down and reverently passed
his hand across the coffin. “We can’t take him home,” he said, as if
anticipating their thoughts. “Because they might look for him there.
And we can’t take him into Colcorum. Too many foreigners.
Begging your pardon,” he added, lifting his cap to Simon, who lived
in the village, “but there are strangers there. So the Boy and I have
come up with a beautiful plan.”
Simon Trout could hardly contain his impatience and anxiety.
“What plan is this?”
Boy Mint put out his palm and then slapped it with his other
hand. “We take him to Uncle Joey,” he said. “Joey Hanover, as
was.”
“But—”
Farmer Mint took up the narrative. “He’s family, isn’t he? He’s
one of us. He’s worn the stag.” He chuckled. “And no one would
suspect him would they? No one knows that there’s a connection, do
they?”
“They do not\” Boy Mint clapped his father on the shoulder.
“They’d as soon suspect Uncle Joey as - as—” He searched for an
appropriate name. “As Miss Evangeline Tupper herself.”
“Have you told him?” Simon Trout seemed somewhat doubtful.
“Have you warned him?”
“Not in so many words. But he’s a good boy. He’ll understand.”
He gestured to Boy Mint and together they took up the coffin again.
“Be careful,” he said. “We don’t want to wake him. Not yet.”

3°°
 ♦74 *

D MY OLD MAN
AY WAS breaking as they drove up to the Hanovers’
house near the Cobb, but Joey was already awake; he
was standing in his small front garden, wearing a scarlet
dressing-gown despite the cold, and poking the frost-
hardened soil with a stick. And as he did so he was singing:

“Oh I do like to be beside the seaside—

Even when it is very cold—
Oh I do like to be beside the sea.”

“Hello there,” he said as Simon Trout and the two Mints opened the
garden gate. “Who’s the early bird and who’s the worm?”
“We’ve got a little bit of a surprise for you, Joey.” Farmer Mint
looked very seriously towards him. “That’s what we’ve got.”
“Don’t tell me.” Joey closed his eyes. “It’s my mother-in-law.
You’ve had her stuffed.”
“Close. But not close enough. You tell him, Boy.”
“It’s a member of the family, Uncle. You’re right about that.”
Joey suddenly turned pale, and dropped his stick upon the frosty
ground. “It’s nothing to do—” He coughed, shook his head, and
started again. “It’s nothing to do with my mother, is it?”
“Oh no.” Farmer Mint did not take his eyes offhim. “Further and
further back than that. Deeper and deeper than that.”
Joey was curiously relieved. “So what’s the surprise, then?”
“He’s in the back.” Boy Mint said, indicating the scruffy green
van in which they had arrived. “He needs a good home, he does.”
Joey looked in the direction he was pointing, and laughed. “My
old man said follow the van. Do you know that one?”
Now it was Farmer Mint’s turn to laugh. “The old man is in the
van this time.”
“Not my fath—”

301
 FIRST LIGHT

“No. I told you. Go further down. Further and further down.”

“Should I invite him in then?” Joey Hanover was smiling. ‘It’s
terribly chilly here, don’t you think? When the wind blows?”
“He don’t worry about the cold. Not him. What do they call him,
Boy, when he don’t notice the cold?”
“Impervious, father.”
“That’s the one. He’s impervious, he is.”
“He’s dead,” Simon Trout said in a lugubrious voice. “And he’s
been dead for rather a long time.”
Joey Hanover looked at them in surprise, and then he started
laughing. “I know,” he said. “This is one of your routines, isn’t it?”
He assumed that this was another ritual ‘testing’, just like the pair of
antlers he had worn at the dinner in Colcorum. “Bring him in then.
What do you want me to do with him? Put him on my head?” And
Joey led the way into the house.
“He’s taking it very well,” Simon whispered to Farmer Mint.
“He’s not taken it at all. Not yet. But we’ll do what Joey says.
We’ll bring him in. I’ve got a feeling he’s going to like it here.”
The three of them went back to the van and then brought the
coffin, still wrapped in its black sheeting, up the garden path and
into the house. They carried their burden slowly, and a silence
seemed to descend upon the immediate neighbourhood; no birds
sang as they lifted him across the threshold. Floey Hanover, wearing
a vivid blue dressing-gown, was waiting in the front room. She
glared at them as they lowered the coffin onto the floor. “Was it the
cough that carried him off?” But she did not sound very amused.
Joey, now appreciating the joke, studied the bundle with a
practised eye. “It looks like the old carpet trick, Flo,” he said. “Do
you remember the Human Hairpin?”
Farmer Mint began carefully to unwrap the plastic sheeting, and
Floey sniffed the air. “It smells,” she said, “like one of those things
you find in telephone exchanges. You know. It rhymes with tulip.”
Joey was not listening to her. He was watching, fascinated, as the
wooden casket was slowly revealed. Floey stopped talking, and also
stared in amazement at the coffin. There was a change of atmosphere
in the room; it seemed to the Hanovers to become wider or darker,
and to be rocking gently from side to side as if it were balanced upon
a slender pillar.
“Now this,” Farmer Mint said proudly, “is the head of the family.
This is the original Mint, Joey. The old one. Tell him, Boy.”

302
 MY OLD MAN

“Yes. Tell me.” Joey was staring at the silhouette in red ochre, of
the figure with its knees up against its chest.
“We don’t know how old he is,” Boy Mint began. “Not to the
exact year.”
“Or century, Boy. Don’t forget we don’t know the century
neither.” Farmer Mint added this triumphantly, as if the further
confusion only increased the importance of the object which they all
now encircled. As if chaos were part of the pattern.
“But we do know he’s as old as the burial ground. As old as the
stones. He’s always been with us. He’s always been under the
ground.”
“Always looking after us, Joey.”
“He’s a Mint. That’s what he is. And the Mints have taken good
care of him.”
Joey recalled the portraits of his ancestors which had been fixed
above his cousin’s fireplace. “Did you say you kept him under
ground?”
“His ground. Under his ground.” Farmer Mint put his hands in
his pockets with a very deliberate gesture. And then he began
explaining to Joey how the ancient coffin had always been concealed
within the underground chamber; how generation after generation
had come to venerate or to placate their ancestor. He did not know
precisely when the souterrain had been discovered, and there was
always the possibility that it had not been discovered but continually
used. Used from the time when their original ancestor was carried
through the valley and buried there. And he told Joey that there were
stories - histories - connected with the resting place. Stories of
human sacrifice, of blood poured into a small pit at the centre of the
standing stones, of divination at the time of ritual killing.
“We don’t do such things now, Uncle.” Boy Mint wanted to
reassure him. “This was ages and ages back.”
“Not that far back,” Farmer Mint added quickly. Joey said
nothing, but continued to listen to his narrative. How, at the death of
any relative, the body was taken under ground and burnt in the
central area of the souterrain; how the ashes of the dead were then
sprinkled over the fields around Colcorum and Pilgrin Valley. And
how, every five years, the villagers made a ritual descent into the
passage, crossed the round central area in solemn procession, and
then journeyed down the small tunnel into the sacred enclosure -
how they congregated around the coffin there and prayed to the

303
 FIRST UGH7

spirit within it. Of course they had known all about the tumulus,
hidden by the ash forest until the recent fire. But it had always been
considered outside their bounds. It had never been touched or
opened because there were other stories - stories how, at certain
times, the original inhabitants could be seen clambering over the
valley towards the tumulus; how it was an unlucky spot where the
dead could take hold of the living.
“My own parents,” Joey said. “My own parents died there.”
And there was another story, too - that, if ever this coffin were
opened, the dead would arise again and take over Pilgrin Valley.
“That’s why we had to take him away,” Farmer Mint was saying.
“From his land. From his tunnel. To protect him. From them.”
“You mean?”
“Them. The experts, or whatever they call themselves. They were
disturbing the peace. That’s all they were doing.” There was the
sound of Floey Hanover trying to stifle a laugh, or groan; she had
taken a handkerchief out of the pocket of her dressing-gown as
Farmer Mint had been talking, and had now stuffed it in her mouth.
“That’s why,” he added slowly, “we had to take him away.”
“How old did you say it was?” Joey was staring once again at the
silhouette in red ochre.
“Ages and ages back.” Farmer Mint went over to the coffin and
looked down at it, almost with the pride of ownership. “Right back to
the beginning.”
“The beginning?”
“I can’t put it into words exactly. When things began. Started.
You know—” He hesitated and then stopped.
“But how do you know,” Joey asked, “that there’s anyone still in
there?”
“We feel the weight. We can still feel the weight of him. Don’t you
worry about that.”
This was too much for Floey, who removed the handkerchief from
her mouth and burst out in laughter. “Open the box!” she shouted.
There was a note of hysteria in her voice. “Take the money or open
the box!” She got up hurriedly, and started to leave the room.
“Excuse me,” she said. “I have to spend a penny.”
The four men were silent for a few moments. “So what do you
want me to do?” Joey picked up the handkerchief which his wife had
dropped, and wiped his own forehead with it.
Boy Mint looked at his father, as if for permission to speak. “We

304
 MY OLD MAN

want you to keep him.”

“Keep him!”
“Just for a while. Just till they give up searching for him. And then
we’ll come and take him off your hands.”
“I don’t have to touch him, do I?”
“Just a figure of speech, Uncle. Just a figure.”
“But where am I going to put it? Him.”
Simon Trout, who had wanted to speak ever since he entered the
house, now saw his opportunity. “Somewhere cold,” he said. “And
dark.”
Farmer Mint took over. “It’s winter, isn’t it? That’s cold enough.
Have you got such a thing as a garden shed?”
“I have.”
“Put him in that. He’ll be happy there. Quite happy.”
Floey had come back into the room. “It’s the first time,” she said,
“that I’ve had a corpse in the garden.” She went up to her husband,
and gripped his arm very tightly.
“This is family,” Farmer Mint said softly to Joey. “He’s your
family. He’s one of us.” And Joey, thinking of his lost parents,
thinking of his origins, thinking of the remote time from which he
had come, thinking of the peace he felt here, nodded.

305
 ♦ 75 *

D GREEN FINGERS
ON’T TELL me. Let me guess.” Evangeline Tupper
was sitting in the Hanovers’ front room. “I love
games.” She was holding up the large ammonite
which, several months before, Floey had picked out of
the blue lias clay on St Gabriel’s Shore. “It’s on the tip of my
tongue.”
Hermione took it from her, and put it up to her ear. “I think,” she
said, “that’s its something to do with Amazons—”
“But it’s pink!”
“—or with a religious order.”
“It’s an ammonite.” Joey came in from the garden, but stopped at
the threshold of the front room in order to take off his thick gardening
gloves.
Evangeline watched this ceremony with something like distaste.
“Dear Joey,” she said. “I suppose you have very green fingers?”
“I’ve only been in the shed,” he said; and instantly regretted it.
“Bulbs and things?”
“And things.”
“Joey is a great herbivore,” Floey said. “He’s ever so well known
for it.” But it was clear from her tone that she did not want to dwell
on the subject of gardens or garden sheds, and almost at once
she turned to Evangeline. “Tell Joey what happened in the
observatory.”
“Oh no.” Evangeline pressed her hands between her knees. “You
know that I never gossip.” In fact she had talked about little else for
the last ten minutes. “Really, it’s too ghastly even to mention.” The
Hanovers waited patiently for her resolve to collapse. “All right
then. You win. Well—” She gavejoey the full benefit of her innocent
expression. “You know that strange little human being who lives in
Pilgrin Valley?”

3°6
 GREEN FINGERS

Farmer Mint? There was a certain cautiousness in Joey's voice.

“No. Not the grim reaper.” Hermione had never told Evangeline
about the family ties between Joey and the Mints; hence her
relatively plain expression of distaste. “Revolting though he is. The
other one. You know. The one who lives in the ugly little cottage.
The astronomer.”
“I never met him.”
“Haven’t you really? Well. It’s too late now.”
‘ Get on with it.” Hermione had heard this story several times,
and was growing impatient.
“That astronomer.” Evangeline took out a Woodbine and
knocked its tip on the palm of her hand before continuing with her
sentence. “That astronomer went quite mad in the observatory.
Barking, dear Joey. Absolutely barking. They found him curled up
in a little ball, screaming that the sky was about to fall in. Just like
that character in the fairy tale. And he kept on talking about Old
Barren or Old Ones.”
Joey suddenly became very attentive. “What was that?”
“You know. Old things.”
“Do get your story straight,” Hermione said, not without
asperity. “He was talking about a star. Aldebaran.”
“Quite. Some nonsense or other like that.” Evangeline’s cigarette
was not yet lit, and she fumbled in her handbag for a small gold
Rolex lighter. “Eventually he had to be injected with something.
Isn’t it too awful for words?”
“Poor man,” Joey said. He looked across at Floey who all the time
had been examining her hands, having placed them firmly in her lap.
“I know.” Evangeline sighed, and let out a ring of cigarette smoke
which ascended to the ceiling. “In the old days they would have
taken a whip to him. But I suppose progress is inevitable. Now. Tell
me your news.”
Floey was still looking down at her hands. “Nothing. Nothing ever
seems to happen to us.”
“And then of course,” Evangeline went on, pausing only for
breath, “there is the other huge drama. At the excavations.” Floey
and Joey looked at each other very briefly, but she had noticed their
momentary glance of complicity. “I suppose some gossiping bitch
has already told you about it? People can be so vile.”
“Told us? Told us what?” Joey was humming a little tune, but
Evangeline noticed at once that he was blushing.

307
 FIRST LIGHT

Hermione saw this, too. “Forget it,” she said to Evangeline. “Put
a sock in it.”
“You naughty thing. You should never say sock. You should say
stocking.” She pronounced the word very slowly, but all the time she
was looking at the Hanovers. “Or, at a pinch, tights. But not socks.
Never socks. Now. Where was I?” She took another long drag of her
Woodbine, while the others said nothing. “Oh yes. Something’s
been stolen. Some ghastly old object has been taken away.” And she
noticed how Floey was blushing now, too, and how Joey gave an
almost subliminal glance towards the gardening gloves which he had
dropped outside the door. “We all suspect the Mints, of course, ever
since we found some funny little letters in the tomb. And that
reminds me.” She put her head to one side and smiled at Joey. “I
knew there was something. Weren’t you seen at the famous Mint
dinner in the village?”
“Yes,” he replied, somewhat desperately. “They wanted an act
for the night.”
“How sophisticated of them.” She looked at him for several
seconds. “Of course this object is of enormous value. I’m not
accusing the Mints for an instant, but the robbers are bound to be
thrown into jail. For ever, probably.”
Floey rose to her feet. “I must go upstairs,” she said. “I’ve got a
slight pain in my clavicle.”
“Do be careful with it.” Evangeline was almost cheerful. “It’s the
only clavicle you’ve got.”
There was a silence as she left the room, which her husband finally
broke. “Talking of coffins,” he said, “reminds me of a joke—”
“I didn’t mention coffins.” Evangeline was very stern. “Whatever
gave you that idea?”
Joey was becoming flustered. “Yes you did. You said coffins. I
heard you. Definitely coffins.” *
Hermione knew all about his connection with the Mints, and now
guessed that he might somehow be involved in the theft. “I hate to
throw a spanner in the works, Evangeline—” Her friend shuddered
at the phrase. “But you mentioned coffins at least twice.”
“Did I really? How extraordinary. I must be raving. Like that
astronomer. Absolutely raving.” She saw how Joey was biting his
lower lip. “I must just go and see Floey,” she added, getting up very
quickly. “I’m terribly worried about her clavicle.” She left the room
but, instead of going upstairs to Floey, she tiptoed through the small

3°8
 GREEN FINGERS

kitchen and opened the back door to the garden: there was some¬
thing wrong here. She sensed it. Something to do with the ghastly
Mints. She walked out into the garden and, ducking down beneath
the window, scurried over to the garden shed. But as she approached
it she felt very faint, and for a moment leaned against its mouldering
door; she had had a sudden vision of her father, dead. She passed a
hand across her face and turned around; she did not want to open the
door of the shed - something held her back - and instead she peered
through its cracked and smeared window. At first she could see
nothing but two greon bags of compost, some flower pots, an old rake
and the broken engine of a lawnmower. But then, beneath a low shelf
and lying upon the ground, she saw a large object half-covered by
empty potato sacks. At once she knew what it was. And she felt
afraid. She ran back into the kitchen, only to find Floey standing in
front ofher with a knife raised in her hand. “Don’t do it!” Evangeline
screamed.
“Don’t do what?” Floey screamed back. Both women were in fact
equally startled. “Don’t cut the cake?” There was a Scotch seed cake
in her other hand.
“Don’t—” Evangeline tried to recover from her fright. “Don’t
ever cut down those rose bushes. They’ll be absolutely lovely next
year.” And both women looked at each other, uncertain what the
other knew or guessed.
Alarmed by the noise, Joey now came into the kitchen. “Did
somebody drop something?”
“I dropped a hint,” Evangeline said, moving towards the door.
“About your divine blooms.” For some reason she did not want to be
left alone with them any more, and she called out to Hermione.
“Miss Crisp.” She looked quickly at her watch. “Miss Crisp! It’s
time to be on our way!” She glanced back at the Hanovers, who were
standing together now. “It gets dark here so early, don’t you think?
And cold, too. So cold.”

309
 *j6*

T THINK PINK
HE TELEPHONE was ringing as they returned to their
room in the Blue Dog, and Evangeline rushed to answer
it. “It’s me,” she shouted. “Miss Tupper!”
“Is it really? It sounded like Winston Churchill.”
Augustine Fraicheur, enjoying a pre-lunch drink, was in playful
mood. “Voices can be so deceptive, can’t they?”
“Along with everything else.”
He smiled at his gin. “Any news?” Augustine accentuated the last
word, as if he were anticipating something very shocking indeed.
“Actually,” she replied, automatically delving into her handbag
for another Woodbine, “I have the most fabulous piece of gossip.”
She paused to light it. “But I don’t know if I should tell you.”
“Torturer!” He screamed with pleasure.
“Honestly. You’ll have to wait.”
“I can’t bear it.”
“But I promise that you’ll be among the first to know.”
“I think I’m beginning to go mad.”
“Like poor Damian Fall?”
“Fall was an astronomer. I am an antiques dealer. A much
tougher breed. Now come on and tell me before I call the police.”
“Actually the police are very apropos. Is that the expression?”
“Yes, that’s the expression.” Augustine was becoming impatient.
“Well.” She took a long drag of her cigarette. “Do you remember
that coffin which was stolen from the valley?”
“That ghastly old thing your friends dug up?”
“We didn’t dig it up. We knew where it was to be found.” From
her tone it was clear that she had organised the entire excavation
herself. “But the gorgeous thing is that now I’ve found it again. And
you’ll never guess where.”
“The hotel kitchen?”

310
 THINK PINK

“In the Hanovers’ garden shed.” At this moment Hermione Crisp

took a step towards her, put out her hand, but then hesitated. “In
their absolute shed. Doesn’t it remind you of one of Saki’s short
stories?”
“I thought sake was a drink.”
“To you, my darling, anything could be a drink.” Augustine’s
reaction was less fulsome than she expected, and at once she became
bored with him. “Listen. I have to go now. I have to telephone Mark
Clare and tell him the good news about the coffin.”
She put down the receiver without waiting for Augustine’s
farewell, and was about to dial Mark’s number when Hermione put
her hand on top of the telephone. “Don’t,” she said.
“Why, Baby Doll, what lovely red nails you have today.”
“Don’t do it. Don’t tell him about Joey.” As soon as they had left
the Hanovers, Evangeline had vividly recounted her discovery of the
old coffin in the garden-shed; Hermione was not particularly sur¬
prised, but she was alarmed for her new friends. Floey’s revelation
that her husband had found his family once more had delighted her,
and she saw no reason why that reunion should be injured by
Evangeline. And, even as she listened to this conversation with
Augustine, she had decided to tell Floey to remove the coffin. Before
it was too late. “Don’t ring Mark Clare,” she said.
“I have to tell him, Baby Doll. These silly men love a good
drama.” Hermione shook her head, looked up at the ceiling, sighed,
and then came to a decision: she went over to the door, locked it, and
put the key down the front of her starched white shirt-front. Then she
went over to a suitcase left in a corner of the room, and took from it
two thick pieces of rope which were generally used to fasten it. She
walked over to Evangeline, grabbed hold of her wrists and pinioned
them together. Evangeline watched all this with astonishment, as if
it were happening to somebody else. “Baby,” she whispered. “This
isn’t a very feminine thing to do.”
“There are times when a woman’s got to do what a woman’s got to
do.” She tied Evangeline’s wrists with one piece of rope.
“Is this some lovely new game, Baby Doll? In which case, you had
better tell me the rules.”
“This is no game.” Now she was tying Evangeline’s ankles to the
chair. “You have to leave the Hanovers alone for a while. They need
time.”
“Baby.” Evangeline began to sound stern. “Unless I am very
 FIRST LIGHT

much mistaken, I am being tied up. Like some Mormon woman.”

“Do be quiet. Just for once.”
She went into the bathroom and returned with a roll of
Elastoplast. “Hermione darling.” Evangeline was horrified by this
new development. “Remember what I always tell you. Think pink.”
Hermione cut off a strip of the Elastoplast. “Think pink!” And she
put it over Evangeline’s mouth.
After a few moments Hermione picked up the telephone and rang
the Hanovers, but there was no answer. So she sat down and waited,
stonily watching Evangeline as her companion rolled her eyes
dramatically and issued a few moans of muffled protest.
It was at this moment that Augustine Fraicheur was leaving the
antiques shop on his way to the Hungry Donkey; his straw hat was
tipped rakishly at an angle, and it fell off as he tried to lock the
outside door. He had just retrieved it when Mark Clare and Martha
Temple walked up beside him. “Hello,” he said, his speech slightly
blurred. They were both dressed in black, and he giggled. “My
dears, you look as if you’ve just come from . . . Oh. I am sorry.” He
suddenly remembered that this had been the morning of Kathleen’s
funeral. “I’m terribly sorry. I forgot.”
“We don’t mind, Mr Fraicheur.” Martha Temple seemed to have
assumed the role of chief mourner. She had announced after the
funeral that she would “look after” Mark; he had wanted to leave
alone and, as far as possible, unnoticed but she had solemnly
marched back with him to the waiting car and, on the slow drive
back into Lyme Regis, she had been recalling all those colleagues
who had not attended the ceremony. “A little thing like that,” she
added to Augustine, “could slip anybody’s mind.”
He was eager to change the subject. “As it happens,” he said very
quickly. “I was rather preoccupe. Our dear friend Miss Tupper just
called.” v

“Oh yes?” Martha Temple looked at him with fresh animosity.

“We were expecting to see her today, too.”
“—and she had the most extraordinary piece of news.” His eyes
glistened from the effect of the gin, and he dabbed them with his
pocket handkerchief. “Most extraordinary.”
Mark was waiting, head bowed, to walk past him and enter his
flat. But Martha was now interested. “What news?”
“I should really leave it to her, of course.” Augustine hesitated,

312
 THINK PINK

but he could not resist. “It was about that coffin you lost. She’s found
it.”
Mark looked at him for the first time, and Augustine flinched.
“Found it?”
“She says she found it with the Hanovers. She found it in their
garden shed.”
“I knew it!” In fact Martha Temple had only the faintest
recollection of the Hanovers, and had spent the last few days
throwing dark suspicions upon everybody else. “And in a shed, too.”
Mark remained calm. “When did she tell you this?”
“Minutes ago. I was just pouring myself a large gin. You know the
way one does? And then she ’phoned. She was ever so excited.”
Mark walked past and climbed the stairs, followed by the others.
When he entered his flat Jude was waiting to greet him, and the sight
of the little dog awakened all of the sorrow he had felt at the funeral.
He picked him up, and buried his face in the dog’s fur.
“Don’t you think,” Martha said, “you should call Evangeline at
once? There are several people who ought to be in jail by now.”
Reluctantly he put down the dog and went over to the telephone.
He spoke in a low voice for a few moments, as Martha strained
impatiently to hear. “That was Miss Crisp,” he said. Martha gave a
little shake of disapproval. “She says that Evangeline has gone back
to London.”
Augustine, already convinced that he was responsible for the
whole development of this mystery, was irate. “Evangeline always
confides in me, and she didn’t even mention London! Not a
syllable.”
“The police.” Martha was very firm. “We must call the police at
once. I have a great many things I wish to tell them.”
“No, Not yet. Let me think.” Already the images of the funeral re-
emerged as Mark tried to consider his next move. He was once again
beside the open grave, watching as his wife’s coffin was lowered into
the ground; now he could see the earth being tossed upon it. And for
a moment, in his perplexity, it seemed to him that the Hanovers had
taken his wife’s coffin. “Martha. You and I will go to the Hanovers
now. Evangeline may have misunderstood. I just don’t know—” He
was rubbing his forehead savagely with his hand. “Mr Fraicheur,
would you mind—”
“I’ll do anything. Anything.”

3*3
 FIRST LIGHT

“Would you mind telephoning two of my colleagues, to tell them

what has happened?” Yet it all seemed so pointless to him. And, as
Mark talked, the dog lay still at his feet.
 *77 *

T AMMONITE
HE HANOVERS had just returned from a walk along
the Cobb when Mark Clare and Martha Temple called
upon them; and, as the archaeologists were shown into
the small back room, it occurred to both of them that
Evangeline Tupper might have been quite mistaken - or, more
probably, that Augustine Fraicheur had exaggerated her suspicions.
Certainly nothing could have been calmer than Floey’s demeanour
as she poured them coffee. The Hanovers did not seem even to be
particularly surprised by this unexpected visit, but it was clear that
they were waiting for some explanation. And yet neither Mark nor
Martha really knew how to begin - until, that is, Martha remem¬
bered the shed. Slowly she went over to the window which over¬
looked the garden. “How lovely this must look in the spring. When
everything is reborn.” She paused. “Will you have ladies’ fingers?”
“I hope so.” Floey looked down at her own, which were now
trembling slightly. “We have champions and acrimony, too.”
“Campions,” Joey interpreted. “And agrimony.”
Martha smiled sympathetically at Floey. “I do envy people with
time on their hands.”
“Joey is very keen on his contagious borders.”
“I would love to see them. Can I go outside?” She noticed how
furtive the Hanovers suddenly became, but at this moment the
telephone rang in the next room. Joey went out to answer it: it was
Hermione, rapidly explaining how Evangeline had found the coffin
and had then telephoned Augustine. “Evangeline will keep her
mouth shut for a while,” she was saying. “But not for long.”
“That is nice to know,” Joey replied, without thinking. “Ta very
much.” But, by the time he put down the receiver, he had gone quite
pale. He stood for a moment, vacantly staring out of the window and
stroking his cheek. Then he telephoned the Mints and, as he outlined

3!5
 FIRST LIGHT

the situation, Farmer Mint signalled to his son who was feeding the
chickens in the yard. They would, he said, arrive in fifteen minutes.
Joey came back into the room, humming a vague tune.
“We were just saying,” Martha announced very brightly, “that
we would love to see your garden. Weren’t we, Mark?”
Mark had said nothing; he was hardly looking up at all. “Yes,” he
said. He had been thinking of the flowers at Kathleen’s funeral -
flowers cut or uprooted, as if in killing them the mourners were re¬
enacting a symbolic death in homage to the human one. “Yes. Of
course.”
“The garden is not at its best this time of year,” Joey closed the
door firmly behind him. He knew that he had to detain them here
until the Mints arrived and had removed the coffin. “But it does
remind me of a song I used to know. Years ago now. Would you like
to hear it?” He put out his arms and went down on one knee, but then
froze in this striking posture. He could no longer remember any
words. “La la la,” he sang, “something, la la, to do with a little plot.
Silly me. And there was a body in it somewhere.” Then he stopped,
very suddenly, and awkwardly rose to his feet.
“That was lovely,” Martha exclaimed, clapping her hands. “And
with a real moral there, too. For all of us.”
“More coffee?” Floey became very attentive to the others.
“I’d love some.” Martha looked across at Mark, as if urging him
to talk, but still he said nothing. So in turn she became very cheerful.
“It’s so nice,” she said, “to have a rest from the excavations. I
suppose you’ve heard all about our trouble there?”
Floey perceptibly tightened her grip on the coffee-pot. “Oh. Just
rumours. You know how it is.”
“Of course I do. So you must have heard that an ancient artefact
was stolen?”
“Stolen?”
“Taken. Removed in the night. It was one of the most valuable
objects ever found in this country.”
Joey began to say, “How do you know how valuable—”
His wife stopped him with a glance. “We never heard anything
about that, did we, Joey?”
“Not a dicky bird, Floey.”
“Really?” Martha was now certain that something was wrong
here, and began to enjoy herself. “Not even a little bit of a birdy here
and there?”

316
 AMMONITE

“No,” Joey was very stern. “We know nothing.”

Martha turned to Mark. “I think,” she said, “that you ought to
tell them. It’s only fair.” She already realised that, if Evangeline’s
suspicions proved false, no blame could be attached to herself; so she
relaxed a little. “They have a right to know.”
“To know what?” Floey seemed indignant.
Mark really did not know what to say; his head was bowed, and he
was picking at a thread in the armchair as he spoke. “There’s just a
chance,” he said. “Just a possibility—”
He was too slow for Martha. “Evangeline Tupper tells us that you
have a coffin in the garden shed. Strange as it may seem.”
“Now there’s a funny thing,” Joey was quite at a loss.
“Isn’t that a funny thing?” his wife echoed.
“Very funny indeed,” Martha replied. “But I’m sure there’s a
perfectly rational explanation for it. Why on earth would you want to
keep a coffin in the garden?”
Joey swallowed very hard. “I don’t think—”
Martha forestalled him by rising to her feet. “So if you would just
allow us to take a tiny peek, we can all be satisfied.”
“You can’t,” Floey replied, also rising to her feet. “The garden
door is locked. And I’ve lost the key.”
“How curious.” Martha walked over to the window. “But that
pile of, of—”
“Sticks,” Joey said in a low voice.
“But that pile of sticks looks as if it has just been put there.” She
craned her head, and noticed that in fact the door to the garden was
ajar. “I wonder,” she added, sweetly, “if I could just go and powder
my nose?” She left the room without waiting for an answer but after a
few seconds Floey, taking something from the mantelpiece, followed
her.
So the two men were left along together, neither really knowing
what to say to the other. And Joey could not bear the silence. “You
know, don’t you?” he asked.
Mark sighed, and smiled at him. “Sometimes,” he said, “I don’t
think I know anything at all.”
Joey looked at him carefully, and for the first time noticed that he
was wearing an arm-band on his dark suit. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I
didn’t realise—” He had heard about Kathleen’s suicide, but had
not really thought of it since the Mints’ arrival with the coffin.
Mark put up his hand. “No. Don’t be sorry. It’s all over.” Now he

3*7
 FIRST LIGHT

began to find the words which had been eluding him since the
funeral. “As long as I can think of it as a natural thing, as an
inevitable thing, I can go on. Did you hear how I was caught in the
underground passage for a while?” Joey nodded. “It was there I first
realised it. That I first understood how nothing really dies. Just
because we are trapped in time, we assume that there is only one
direction to go. But when we are dead, when we are out of time,
everything returns.” Joey was listening to him intently. “Everything
is part of everything else—” Mark broke off. “—I don’t know. Am I
making any sense?”
“Of course. How could it not make sense? After what has
happened to all of us?”
Mark hardly understood this. He wanted to complete his thought.
“And do you know,” he went on, “someone once told me a
wonderful thing. He told me that our bodies are made out of dead
stars. We carry their light inside us. So everything goes back.
Everything is part of the pattern. We carry our origin within us, and
we can never rest until we have returned.”
Joey Hanover had put his hands together, as if he were praying.
“Yes. I know that, too. Why do you think I came back here? I was
looking for my own past.” He stopped for a moment. “And why do
you think it was that we had to take him from you?”
“Him?”
“The old one in the coffin. He’s part of us, too, you see.”
There was a scuffle and a sudden noise outside; both men looked
at each other in alarm, and rushed out into the hallway. Martha
Temple was lying upon the floor and Floey Hanover stood over her,
brandishing the ammonite in her hand. “She tried to get into the
garden,” she said. “So I gave her a little - what’s that word, Joey,
which rhymes with rash?”

318
 *y8*

F A T LAST
LOEY SOLEMNLY handed the ammonite to Mark
Clare. “You can use it,” she said, “in the evidence against
me.” Then the doorbell rang and Mark was so startled that
at once he dropped the fossil, which fell with a thud onto
the hall carpet. Floey expected the police somehow to have arrived
already and she marched towards the door, opening it with a great
flourish. The Mints were standing there, both of them twisting their
caps in their hands. “Where is he?” Farmer Mint asked her.
“He’s right in front of you.”
“No. Not Joey. Where is he? The old one?”
“He’s in the garden shed.” She stepped to one side in order to let
them in. “But it’s too late now.”
The Mints were just about to rush into the house, and remove the
coffin to some new place of safety, when two cars drew up in the
street: Owen Chard and Julian Hill, alerted by Augustine
Fraicheur’s somewhat hysterical telephone calls, had come to assist
Mark Clare. They were still wearing black suits from the funeral.
Farmer Mint turned to face them and whispered to his son, “Get out
the pitchforks.” Boy rushed to the van, dived into the back, re-
emerged with the implements and, just as Julian and Owen were
about to open the garden gate, burst through them and stood with
his father on the threshold of the Hanovers’ house.
“Oh dear. Oh dear.” Owen shook his head at the two men facing
them. “We are back in the seventeenth century, aren’t we?”
“I don’t care what century it is,” Farmer Mint replied. “You
don’t come no nearer. Not a step nearer.”
“Notyou,” Boy echoed. At this point Floey, overwhelmed by the
events of the last few minutes, gave a little scream and slammed the
front door.
Julian Hill tried to advance, but Boy Mint brandished his pitch-

319
 FIRST LIGHT

fork and he retreated. “We are only archaeologists,” he said. “We

only want to examine a find.”
“He’s not a find.” Farmer Mint shouted. “He’s a Mint. He’s one
of us. Joey! Joey!” Joey heard the call, and opened the front door to
hear what his cousin had to say. “Joey! Burn him. Burn the old one
before they get him. Let him go back.”
“Burn him?” Joey was incredulous.
“No!” Julian shouted. “Leave it to us. We need to study it!”
“You know what you have to do, Joey.” Farmer Mint spoke very
slowly. “He can’t be taken away from us. Send him home.”
Joey closed the door, and turned to face Mark who had heard this
conversation. “Are you going to try and stop me?” he said softly.
Mark stepped back. “I don’t know.” For some reason it was he
who was imploring Joey. “I just don’t know.”
“It’s my family. Like yours.”
Mark put his hand on Joey’s arm, but not as a gesture of restraint.
“It must be your decision,” he said. “We have to bury our own
dead.”
Joey smiled. “Yes. That’s right. What was it you said about the
stars?” He walked into the kitchen, stepped over Martha Temple
who was now moaning as she began to regain consciousness, and
went out into the garden.
He opened the shed and knelt down beside the old wooden coffin.
He traced the carved words on its side with his finger and then he
said out loud, “I am the last person. I am the last person on earth to
talk to you. Your presence is coming to an end.”
The coffin was too cumbersome to lift and so he dragged it along
the floor of the shed into the garden; then he stood up, panting, and
examined the red silhouette of the crouched figure. “I have to see
you,” he said. “After thousands of years, someone has to see your
face. You can’t leave us without being seen.” With a deep sigh he
went back into the shed, and came out with a hammer and chisel. He
looked over his shoulder at the house, almost in embarrassment, but
then he saw with relief that Floey had drawn the curtains. Very
carefully he put the chisel into the worn groove of the coffin and
hammered it home, drawing it upwards and creating a small chink
or cavity in the wood. There was no noise. He had expected a sound
like some vast intake of breath, but the coffin was silent: he had the
strangest feeling that someone was waiting for him. He worked
around the edge of the coffin, prising it open very gently wherever he

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 AT LAST

could. And at last it was free.

For a moment he could not open it. He knelt upon the hard ground
and, with bowed head, put his hands upon it. “Forgive me,” he said.
Then he raised the lid.
He saw him. The body was not lying crouched, as the silhouette
had depicted. A small human form was lying upon its baclc, the thin
arms and hands crossed upon the breast. And, when Joey felt able to
look at the face, the hollowed eyes seemed to be gazing out at him
almost in pity. Then something began. Joey stared in surprise at the
withered face and limbs because they were being joined by some
other force - as he might have stared at a radio which suddenly
began to transmit music. There were voices. Joey turned and turned
about, his hand over his mouth. They were human voices but they
had some different note within them, and at this moment it seemed
to Joey that these were the original voices - voices which had known
speech but not writing. Like sky without cloud. And as he gazed at
the small figure other sounds began to encircle him or, rather,
thoughts raised into sound as a sleeper rises after a dream and talks.

Time. Another time. He lifts up his hands to the sky and his voice
rises above the valley, calling the animals with their own notes,
making the noise of water and the sound of trees in the wind. For in
this world sound is the soul of all things, and it rises through him.
The leader. In delirium he makes the sound of stone which is the
sound of prophecy. He tells them of their dreams: he raises his hands
and speaks to them. We are so close to the beginning that we have
dreams of origin and of the darkness from which we come. That is
why we try to reach the light above our heads. He tells them of the
sky. He raises his hands and tells them of the night. They are not fires
above us but souls, the souls of those who came before us and light
our way. They are the eyes of the dead, always watching. They are
our hopes: that is why they are so distant and why there is darkness
amongst them. They are the word for far. They are the word for
dream. You must make your own fires in the same pattern. Place
your fires here, in the valley, in the pattern of the sky. And so make
the stars your home.
Joey hears all this and weeps. He turns about and time turns about
him; he puts out his hand, bewildered, towards the coffin. But the
coffin is no longer there. Time turning. There is a time, he says, there
is a time when the seven blue fires rise above the horizon and the red

321
 FIRST LIGHT

eye watches over them. They mark the time of warmth, and to make
this time return you must carve them into the stone. Carve their
pattern into the stone. Sky stone. In the valley of the seven stars. I
have chosen this place. I have listened to the earth and chosen it. I
have chosen the powerful green glowing upon the hilltop, and I have
chosen tHe sacred avenue beneath the earth. Build here. Purify the
ground with fire and walk out the circle. Measure the ground which
brings on trance and prophecy. Build the house of stone within the
circle. And bring me to this place when I am called away from you.
So the stones were carved from the sea’s edge, lifted and carried
along the wooden ways, a passage burnt before them through the
vagrant paths of stream and forest and hillside. Shuffling of feet and
singing. They build the house of stone. Pointing one way. Only one
way. Beneath. And only he may walk the avenue under the earth.
Time. More time. The indivisible moment of his parting from us.
He died and we changed the silence with our cries. Lamentation on
the brow of the hill. An absence. A curving inwards. And so we
carried him along the valley, in a casket of carved wood. Smoke in
the far distance to greet the procession, and the animals bow their
heads towards the earth in homage. The birds rise from their trees,
wings upon wings. He is led to his last home, miraculous journey
under the ground in which the guide must die.
He who led us touches hands with the one before him, and touches
hands with the one who follows. Like the circling stars and the
circling generations of the earth. Locked within the circle. A testa¬
ment. We lift our hands high, palms outward, facing the sun in
honour of him who goes down.
Time. Another time. Joey is turning and turning, his features
blurred by the wind from the valley. He hears them there, but he
cannot speak. He cannot answer the voices coming out of time.
Ancient voices.
Wind sound. Air sound. What turns the light to darkness, and
causes the river to run one way? We speak softly to one another, for
this is the law, and our voices mingle with the animals who move
among us. We know only what they know: we know only the weight
of the world, and the innumerable odours around us. Skin. Fur. The
sea. The river. The smell of those who sleep upon the ground, and
those who shelter in caves. Those who lie among the animals and
those who lie among their own kind. Blood. The smell of those who
have just come to us, screaming at the light, and of those about to

322
 AT LAST

leave us. This is the sum of our knowledge.

Everything falls. Struck by the stone, the beast falls. And then the
stone falls from the hand. Death coming and going. Herding us as a
dog herds cattle, rushing down the hills, creeping along the bank of
the stream, knocking us down with the palm of his hand. Hand
across the neck. Why have we been left here, unknown, walking a few
short paces over the earth? The earth is still strange to us, each
horizon a line of danger. Consider each man in his days: the sun
behind him, the sun in front of him. Forced to walk between, to walk
through the changing light until he falls into the dark. No more than
that. No more. Tied to the world as a dead bird is tied to a tree.
This is the time of change, the strange time foretold by his death.
We stare at the giant mound, at the horror of the stone and the dark
world beneath it. Our despair is like a stone. We move from side to
side, lamenting. Time. Another time. Another dawn. Great sun. Red
sun rising. Touching the white frost with flame, turning the hills to
purple. Across the fields falls the shadows of the stone, the shadows
of the animals, the thin shadows of our bodies. As the sun rises and
floods this valley with its light. This, our home. There is no other.

Joey is still watching the face when he seems to awake from his own
dream. He has returned to his garden, and is bending over the coffin
once more. And in this old face, now, he sees other faces - he sees the
features of his mother and, extending his hand, he cries out to her.
He sees his father, lifting him from a bed of purple flowers. He sees in
this face, too, the faces of all those who had come before him. And the
faces of all those he has known. This is the human face he recognised
in all those he has loved. Joey is crying, his tears falling upon the
ancient human form.
And, as he watched the face within the coffin, he saw a landscape
with figures moving across it. But it was the face itself changing,
being transformed. The old face began to stir and fade, just as a wind
passes across sand and dissolves its features. Entering another time.
“So you saw us, too,” Joey said. “You saw us at last.”

323
 *79 *

A LIGHT
T THIS moment Evangeline Tupper pulled up outside the
house in a taxi and emerged, triumphant, with Hermione.
“Now,” she said, “aren’t you glad you let me go? Just
L look at all these silly men.” She walked up the garden
path. “She had to untie me.” She seemed to be addressing no one in
particular. “Women’s Lib!” She stopped when she saw the Mints
brandishing their pitchforks. “What on earth is going on here?”
Julian turned to her viciously. “Can’t you see? They won’t let us
in. They’ve got the coffin inside.”
“I could have told you that,” she said, with a laugh. “Hours ago.”
She walked up to the Mints and put her hands on top of their
pitchforks. “I love your style,” she said. “But there have to be limits.
Even to rural life.” She walked past them, knocked on the Hanovers’
door, and then turned to wave at the others.
As soon as Floey had unlocked the door Evangeline pushed it open
and, paying no attention to her, walked into the kitchen where Mark
was bending over Martha. When she saw her lying there Evangeline
smiled. “Is she drunk?” she asked him.
Martha, who had been whimpering slightly, made a very quick
recovery. “If you must know, I have just been hit on the head with
something extremely large.”
“Seeing stars, are we? Pity.” She examined the bruise on Martha’s
forehead with almost clinical detachment, and was about to touch it
with her finger when Martha jerked away her head. “But at a time
like this,” she went on, disappointed, “even the most terrible
personal tragedies have to be put to one side.” She looked at Mark,
as if she were trying to remember something. “Where’s the body?
The real body, I mean.”
“Outside.”
Evangeline scurried over to the kitchen door, but it was locked.

324
 LIGHT

She turned around, to find that Floey was standing behind her with
her arms folded. “So far, Miss Evangeline Tupper,” she said. “And
no further.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure of that if I were you.” She walked past her
and went into the back room which overlooked the garden. She
opened the heavy curtains which Floey had drawn, and was in time
to see Joey dragging the coffin onto a large pile of sticks. “This is
absolute—” She could not think of a word. “—I have to stop him.”
But she was too late; even as she watched, Joey set fire to the sticks.
She rushed into the kitchen and with a loud shout hurled herself
against the door; but it did not move and she staggered backward
upon Martha Temple who gave an equally loud scream of pain.
“This is no time to think of your personal comfort,” Evangeline said.
“I have a job to do.”
She looked wildly around and picked up a toaster from the kitchen
table; she was just about to throw it through the window of the
garden door when Mark Clare stopped her. “No,” he said. “Not
now. It’s too late.”
Together they returned to the back room and looked out of the
window. Already the flames were licking the side of the coffin. They
could see the pale breath issuing from Joey’s mouth; he was singing
as the coffin and the ancient body were consumed in the fire. Floey
helped Martha into the room, and all of them watched as the smoke
rose into the sky. The Mints saw it, too. They put down their
pitchforks and stood in the middle of the garden. Hermione joined
them, alongside Owen and Julian. All of them watching the smoke
flowing into the air.
And suddenly Evangeline knew that her father was standing
beside her; smiling, she turned to him. She talked to him, but she
made no sound. Mark was with Kathleen again, as he knew he
always would be. Joey put his arms around his parents who had
returned to him at last. And Hermione was surrounded by the
children of St Gabriel, the children who had once tried to fly. The
Mints did not need to turn around to know that there were others
with them, too, a whole concourse of people who stood and watched
silently. But they felt no fear. It was as they had always been told. No
one is ever dead, and at this moment of communion a deep sigh arose
from the earth and travelled upward to the stars.
Now they were alone again. And now they are children, their
parents standing behind them and resting their hands lightly on

325
r FIRST LIGHT

them. And now they are also old, tired of the earth and longing for
sleep. The years brushed past them lightly, like the wings of wings.
All this happened in a moment out of time, and out of time it was
gone. “It’s all over,” Farmer Mint said to his son, as he watched the
smoke growing paler and paler. “He’s safe now.”
They fell silent as the ancient form flew upwards into the air - high
above Lud Mouth, where Mark Clare had re-entered the world,
above St Gabriel’s Cliff, where the lost children nad fallen, above
Swithin’s Column, where Kathleen Clare had died, above Pilgrin
Valley and his old resting place there. He had been released at last.
He had returned to the frame of origin. The ashes rose into the sky,
higher and higher, rising towards Aldebaran and the other stars,
until eventually they faded into the light.

326
 *8o♦

LTHE UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE

ET ME be drawn up into the immensity. Into the darkness,
where nothing can be known. Once there were creatures of
. light leaping across the firmament, and the pattern of their
^ movement filled the heavens. But the creatures soon fled
and in their place appeared great spheres of crystal which turned
within each other, their song vibrating through all the strings of the
world. These harmonies were too lovely to last. A clock was ticking
in the pale hands of God, and already i t was too late. Yes. The wheels
of the mechanism began to turn. What was that painting by Joseph
Wright of Derby? I saw it once. Was it called ‘The Experiment’? I
remember how the light, glancing through a bell-jar, swerved
upwards and covered the whole sky. But this too went out: the candle
flame was blown away by the wind from vast furnaces, when the
electrical powers swept across the firmament.
But there were always fields, fields of even time beyond the fires.
Empty space reaching into the everlasting. At least I thought that as
a child. Then there came a tremor of uncertainty. There was no time
left. No space to float in. And everything began moving away.
Nothing but waves now, their furrows tracking the path of objects
which do not exist. Here is a star called Strange. Here is a star called
Charmed. And after this, after this dream has passed, what then?
What shape will the darkness take then? I. . . Damian Fall turned to
his shadow. Of course you know what we will be observing? Yes,
Aldebaran. One hundred and twenty times brighter than the sun.
Burning star. Seeming to be red, but the colours shifting like an
hallucination. In this same area of the sky he saw small cones of light,
known as the Hyades and believed to be at a greater distance from
the earth - cool red stars glowing within the clouds of gas which
swirled about them. And close to them the lights known as the
Pleiades, involved in a blue nebulosity which seemed to stick against

327
 FIRST LIGHT

each star, the strands and filaments of its blue light smeared across
the endless darkness. Behind these clusters he could see the vast
Crab Nebula, so far from the earth that from this distance it was no
more than a mist or a cloud, a haziness in the eye like the after-image
of an explosion. And yet Damian could see further still. He looked up
and could see. Galaxies. Nebulae. Wandering planets. Rotating
discs. Glowing interstellar debris. Spirals. Strands of brightness that
contained millions of suns. Darkness like thick brush-strokes across
a painted surface. Pale moons. Pulses of light. All of these coming
from the past, ghost images wreathed in mist which confounded
Damian. I am on a storm-tossed boat out at sea, the dark waves
around me. This was what the earliest.men saw in the skies above
them - an unfathomable sea upon which they were drifting. Now we,
too, talk of a universe filled with waves. We have returned to the first
myth. And what if the stars are really torches, held up to light me on
my way? I see what they saw in the beginning, even before the
creatures of light appeared across the heavens. I can see the first
human sky.
Yes, Aldebaran. Once this region was thought to form the outline
of a face in the constellation of Taurus. He smiled at his shadow. But
the Pleiades contains three hundred stars in no real pattern. Just
burning, being destroyed, rushing outward. The last vestiges of
cloud had now drifted away and the entire night sky had reappeared,
so bright and so clear that Damian Fall put out his hand to it; then he
turned his wrist, as if somehow he could turn the sky on a great
wheel. And for a moment, as he moved his head, it did seem that the
stars moved with him. Why is it that we think of a circular motion as
the most perfect? Is it because it has no beginning and no end?
Time. Another time. He looks out of the window, from the
confines of his bed. But he can see nothing now. Only the sky filled
with light.

328
 , -

'

■ 1 •

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Bag X08, Bertsham 2013
BY THE SAME AUTHOR

The House of Doctor Dee

‘His best novel to date’ - A. N. Wilson in the Spectator
When Matthew Palmer inherits an old house in Clerkenwell he feels
himself to have become a part of its past. Compelled to probe its
mysteries, he discovers to his horror and curiosity that the previous
owner was a practitioner of black magic. As he continues his
research, Matthew learns of the famous sixteenth-century sorcerer
and astrologer John Dee. Drawn into the mystery of his alchemical
experiments, Matthew becomes aware of the forces awakening about
him ...

English Music
Timothy Harcombe’s extraordinary talents are a source of inspiration
to his father, Clement, a spiritualist who performs acts of healing in
the London of the Twenties and Thirties. When Timothy is sent
away to live with his grandparents, their unorthodox life together is
for ever changed. But as he embarks on an unlikely journey through
adolescence and adulthood, Timothy, is slowly awakened to the
grandeur and beauty - the ‘music’ - of English art and literature, and
of life itself.
‘A virtuoso performance . .. strange and brilliant’ - The Times

and
Hawksmoor
The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde
Chatterton
The Great Fire of London

also published
T. S. Eliot
 Part archaeological detective story, part metaphysical
extravaganza, Peter Ackroyd’-s First Light centres around
the discovery of a tumulus deep in the Pilgrin Valley. Its
untold secrets act as a magnet to archaeologist Mark
Glare, his team of volunteers and an assortment of truth-
seekers. Meanwhile, in an observatory near by, the
astronomer Damian Fall is receiving strange signals from
the distant star Aldebaran - signals which may be
connected to the prehistoric site ...

‘Ackroyd dances about with amazing brio ... to give this

tale of tombs and stars an extraordinary sense of depth
and significance’ - Observer

‘Ackroyd is such a master of mood, of tension, angst,

foreboding, frisson, but also of tenderness and exultation,
that one is drawn into his tale as if by a magus’
- Sunday Telegraph

‘It is a beautiful book ... a remarkable novel; anyone

looking up or digging down will never feel quite the same
again’ - Time Out
« i '

‘Our most exciting and original writer ... one of the few
English writers of his generation who will be read in a
hundred years’ time’ - Sunday Times

Cover illustration by Paula Silcox