Chapter Twelve: Adversity
Once more seated at the table by the window of the Red Lion Conall was swirling his glass of diet coke so that the large effervescent paracetamol and codeine tablets he’d dropped into it would dissolve more quickly. The fizzing finally stopped and he swallowed the resulting bittersweet liquid with a grimace. He had left his campervan dehydrated with his head threatening to burst with every heartbeat making the walk to the pub nauseatingly painful and arduous. Now faced with a veggie lasagne with onion rings he looked down at the plate and wanted to heave, but he dipped a ring into a large heap of mayonnaise and persevered. Then he ate like a starving dog.
At the bar sat the wiry, shaven-headed man who had joined in with the folk singers earlier that day; he had greeted Conall with ‘y’alright?’ as he’d ordered his meal and Conall had done his best to nod, noticing the piercing in the man’s bottom lip above a greying goatee beard constrained in a leather thong, and the heavily tattooed arms. Now seated by the window Conall couldn’t help but listen to the man, who was speaking in a thick Yorkshire accent, talking to the pretty barmaid who had taken his food order earlier. The man’s words, like his accent, were strong – liberally peppered with swearing. He was showing the barmaid something he had on a lace about his neck that she was regarding with interest.
A little later the shaven-headed man left for a smoke and Conall took his now-empty plate to the bar; he ordered a Jack Daniels and coke and repaired to his seat. His headache had abated somewhat, but still hang around his temples; perhaps the shot would help, he thought, optimistically. He suddenly realised he was rocking back and forth on his seat like a caged animal, and so made a conscious effort to stop, only to find his fingers rapping on the table-top. It was through these physical expressions that Conall realised just how nervous he was about seeing Shen. There, at that very bar, he had first talked to her, all those months ago. He had been less nervous then. He couldn’t imagine doing it now. My fire has left me, he thought bitterly.
The door creaked open and Conall’s pulse shot up, but it was not Shen. It was a man in a biker’s jacket, tall, well-built, with a shock of red-blond hair and short fiery beard and blue eyes; Con breathed a sigh of relief, but it caught in his throat as he spied Shen walking in after him; she leant up and said something to him, then glanced about for Conall.
Shen smiled and lifted a hand, but before she could walk over the shaven-headed man had walked back in and had greeted her with a bear hug; turning, he shook Hayden’s hand and the two men headed for the bar.
‘What would you like to drink?’ Shen asked, walking over to Conall, her eyes smiling. ‘A beer; Green King – same as earlier’ he said. But rather than stay sitting waiting to be introduced to the others Conall rose and approached the bar with her.
‘Conall, this is Wolf Jones, he’s staying at the cottage, and this is Hayden…’ Wolf’s handshake was friendly and vigorous, and accompanied by the same ‘Y’alright?’ as earlier; Hayden’s grip was firm and he glanced at Conall with a lack of scrutiny that suggested either Shen had said nothing about their past (not that there was much to tell, he thought), or Hayden was not the kind of bloke to be troubled by such things.
‘A bitter drinker, eh?’ he said, his voice deep with a strong West Country tang. ‘That’s what we like to see! You here for the protest?’
‘I didn’t know it was happening, to be honest – I just needed to get away from London.’ Con stated.
‘Where are you staying?’ Hayden asked.
‘In my campervan –‘ he began, and when Wolf raised his eyebrows in interest he continued ‘I’m parked down by the avenue.’ Conall replied.
‘Silver fiat Scudo?’ Wolf said; ‘I think I saw it at the Sanctuary earlier. Nice little conversion – I’d love to have a poke around’ Wolf cut in. Conall tried to recall if he’d seen anyone there, ‘I was in my van just up from you – big black bastard with wolves on t’side.’ He chuckled.
‘Yeah, I saw your van.’ Conall said, trying not to think of the van rocking…
Shen and Wolf took their drinks over to the table while Conall waited for his own to be poured. He stood in silence next to Hayden who was tapping in his pin number into the card reader. Conall made an offer to pay for his pint but the other refused, and so Conall took both his and Hayden’s pints back to the table. Wolf had sat opposite Shen, leaving Conall to decide whether to sit next to Wolf or next to Shen; either way he’d have to sit opposite Hayden. He decided to sit beside Wolf – at least that way he’d be able to look Shen in the face.
‘Shen says you’re doing some research on the henges?’ Wolf asked.
‘Something like that…’ Con answered, dismissively.
‘It’s a cool place; the energy here is amazing. I was up at West Kennet this morning drumming…’ he closed his eyes and exhaled ‘…it was a beautiful sunrise.’
Hayden had arrived and nestled in beside Shen.
‘Did I hear you say drumming? Another fucking weirdo!’ He laughed.
‘I’ll pick you up at 5am tomorrow then, Hayden? I’ve got a spare drum…’
Hayden raised a sceptical eyebrow and smiled.
‘Such a shame, mate – I’ll be leaving for work before that… maybe next time.’ He said, winking. ‘You see it all here – drums, didgeridoos… croppies’ he swigged his pint.
‘Joking aside, you should try it.’ Wolf suggested, with sincerity.
‘Nah. Not my thing.’ He placed his hand over Shen’s, ‘I’m kind of a bit too practical for all that shit; but live and let live – it don’t bother me.’
Conall had so far remained silent, trying desperately hard to find something to say.
‘What’s a croppy?’ he asked
Hayden nodded towards a group on a table by the fire – long haired for the most part and sporting various types of facial hair, but these were not the usual hippy types dressed in colourful loose clothes – these seemed more techno-nerds, in blacks and dark greens – close-fitting, camouflaging - who were currently sharing images on their mobile phones and laughing.
‘Circlemakers.’
‘What – crop circles? These guys make them?’
‘Well, you can be sure little green men don’t – this lot are behind most – though they’ll not admit it; it’s all part of the mystique, apparently.’
‘I think I’d tell people – I’d be well proud.’ Wolf laughed.
‘They make a shit load of money, too – corporate branding etcetera – media and businesses pay these guys to stick advertising in fields – there was one a couple of years ago advertising Shredded Wheat – or film promos. If they let on they did them all they’d ruin the mystery and then no one would pay them to do it; it pays for them to keep quiet.’
Con continued to look over at them; they looked unassuming - perhaps, he thought, they derived some nerdish glee from pulling the wool over people’s eyes - drinking beer then going and playing practical jokes in a Wiltshire cornfield on a balmy summer’s night and gleefully listening to the speculation here the next day seemed a fairly innocuous hobby; it was all mercurial, childish fun. But perhaps he was doing them a disservice; perhaps they really were really faceless artists speaking up for the earth.
Another pint drunk, Conall was finding his tongue beginning to loosen.
‘So do you let Shen read your cards?’ he asked Hayden.
Hayden laughed and shot him a look that said ‘are you serious?’
‘It’s bollocks – I mean, a tarot card can no more tell my future than this beer mat; You know what I think? It’s more to do with her reading the people and then making the cards fit, don’t you think? She’s bloody good at reading people.’ He turned to Shen. ‘I mean it – you should go into psychology, or something. Use your skills properly. Or even the police, CID or something. This stuff’s okay, and people lap it up round here, but you could do something proper with it….’
Shenandoah looked up at him, her eyes wide. Conall couldn’t read what she was thinking.
‘I’m happy how it is, Hay. It’s starting to pay its way. And I can fit it in around my painting…’
‘Yeah, it is babe, but I just think you could be doing something better with it, that’s all.’ He stroked her cheek. ‘You’re wasted doing that.’
She looked up again and shrugged.
She met Con’s gaze for an instant, smiled weakly and then sipped her brandy and coke. He remembered her laughter from last year. She looked different now, kind of beaten down, or maybe she was just biting her tongue for the sake of the group. Besides, he guessed she could say the same of him – he felt uncomfortable here, a ghost playing at living, a cartoon character amongst flesh and blood men. Why can I never think of anything to say?! He berated himself.
‘So what do you do, Colin?’
‘Conall. Well, up ‘til recently I was a lecturer, in astrophysics.’
‘At last, a scientist!’ Hayden laughed and put out his hand for Con to shake. Conall shook his hand but felt like an idiot in doing so; Hayden’s hands were large and calloused; his own felt like a child’s in comparison.
‘til recently, you say?’
‘Yeah – I’m looking to lecture independently, and write – articles and stuff; I’m just fed up of London.’
‘He who is tired of London is tired of life’ – who said that?’ Wolf asked.
‘Samuel Johnson; well I guess I’m tired of life. I hate cities. I think mankind made a massive mistake in ever leaving the countryside.’
‘You wouldn’t say that if you lived here; it’s fucking dead!’ Hayden laughed.
Con shrugged. ‘We’re not adapted for city life – we evolved in the Savannah, moving in small groups, close to nature; in a city we see more people in ten seconds than your average prehistoric man would have seen in a lifetime; I just don’t think we’re adapted for it – I think we miss it.’
Hayden snorted. ‘How can we miss what we’ve never had?’
Con shrugged.
‘I read once of an experiment where generations of finches were brought up in a secluded lab, yet despite never having been outside nor seen a predator, when a plastic hawk was passed overhead they all crouched and tried to hide… they’d never seen a hawk yet felt fear. It’s instinct. The yearning for nature is an instinct, too. We can miss the world our ancestors knew.’
I miss it, he thought; that ancient sense of belonging, of living in harmony with Nature; not barricading her outside of the city gates. I don’t feel at home among other people; I sleep better under the stars than in any bed…
‘Yeah, I do get where you’re coming from, but you can’t turn back the clock.’ Hayden said. ‘Or stop the march of progress.’
‘More’s the pity,’ said Wolf. ‘I’m sure there’s a correlation between stress and cruelty and the way cities depersonalize you… look at what happened when the Native Americans formed cities – human sacrifice on a mass scale.’
‘You can’t blame that on cities,’ Hayden rejoined ‘– that was just due to plain barbarism. 84,000 people sacrificed over 2 days, so the Spanish Chroniclers said.’
‘Exactly, Spanish Chroniclers – sooo trustworthy and unbiased….’ said Shen, chagrined.
‘Well,’ continued Hayden in what must have been a perennial argument between them, given the withering look on her face ‘it just goes to show the Indians were just as brutal as the Europeans – this crap people spout nowadays about the poor tree-hugging natives is just bullshit – Aho! It’s a good day to die!!! your ancestors were just as bloodthirsty as mine.’
Shen pouted. ‘One - The Aztecs weren’t my ancestors; you can’t lump a whole continent of peoples together like that. There’s a bit of a distance between Mexico and Canada, you know? And two - that’s like me blaming your Scottish ancestors for the Holocaust just because you’re European.’
In the half hour or so of conversations that followed Conall found himself still silent and increasingly morose; that mercurial spark of drunken vision he had known earlier had vanished; his second beer that night was, like the first, tackled more out of duty than enjoyment, and he was remaining resolutely and unfortunately sober. Having lost its control momentarily earlier his outer-brain was not willing to relinquish its command so easily again. His social niceties and insecurities had snapped back in force. Sitting opposite Hayden he found that his view of Shen was mostly blocked by both Wolf and Hayden, as it was these two who were doing most of the talking, and both kept leaning forward over their drinks. Wolf would now and again ask Conall a question, but Hayden seemed to ignore Conall and Shen as he alternately clashed swords with Wolf or joined the other in raucous laughter. Now and again Conall would catch her eye and she’d raise an eyebrow. Eventually out of frustration Conall stood up and went and sat between her and Wolf at the end of the table.
‘You ok?’ he asked.
She smiled too broadly and said she was.
‘So what do you charge for a tarot reading?’ he asked, deliberately choosing the topic Hayden had been so dismissive of.
‘Well, if there’s a group of four or five, and I get a lot of groups, I’ll charge £100 for the evening.’
‘And individually?’
‘£25 to £30 I suppose. It’s tiring, though.’
‘I think it’s good, what you’re doing.’ He said.
She smiled again, but looked sad. She looked at him but he couldn’t read what was behind the look.
‘And the painting?’
‘So so. I’ve just got too much to do what with doing the house up, and the card readings; plus it’s hard to find the time – as in I need space, you know, when I’m doing it. And…’ she hushed her voice ‘certain people don’t like me spending all my time concentrating on it and not them; I get a fair few interruptions…’
They smiled conspiratorially.
She sipped at her brandy and coke.
‘I really shouldn’t have any more; I’m such a light-weight these days!’
She held his gaze and her eyes creased in a smile.
‘I’m glad you’re here. Avebury, I mean – not the pub – not just the pub; sorry. I wondered how you were doing.’
‘Life goes on.’ Con said.
‘Yes, it does.’
Wolf, meanwhile, was explaining to Hayden about the protest, telling how when the archaeologist Stuart Piggott had excavated West Kennet longbarrow in the 1950’s most of the bones found in the chambers had been taken to Devizes museum. But recently a researcher had re-discovered the most important of these remains – a full skeleton (rare, as most of the bones in the mound had been leg bones) in the bowels of the museum stores and these remains were being moved into a new display in the museum here at Avebury. Why, Wolf was arguing, could they not be repatriated?
‘This man is one of our ancestors; why should he be put on display in a museum to be gawped at?’ Wolf said.
Hayden had been listening to this preamble without saying a word, but now began to speak.
‘Unless they do DNA testing on the bones he can’t really be claimed as an ancestor; besides – the bones are of scientific interest. What’s important is what the bones tell us about how people lived back then; their diet, their diseases.’
‘Yeah, that’s interesting – but what if it was your granddad being put on display?’ Wolf said.
Conall tried not to look at Shen.
‘He’s not, though,’ replied Hayden, ‘nor is he anyone’s granddad that’s alive today. You’re just being sentimental and giving the bones a value they don’t possess.’
‘What of the wishes of the man himself? He would want to be with his people, not in a glass case in a museum.’
‘Well, to be frank, we can’t ask him his wishes, can we? It just all seems a bit phoney.’ Hayden continued.
‘It would be different if he had been buried a Christian, though, wouldn’t it?’ Wolf countered, ‘or these were some Saint’s relics? People are so bloody careful about not treading on the toes of Christians, Muslims or anyone else that might take offence, but the rights of Pagans and our Pagan ancestors are completely overlooked.’
‘Maybe that’s because there’s no continuity of tradition. You pagans are just using the bones to make a point; you’re trying to find a link to the past to justify your own beliefs. If you have ancestors you can see and touch then you have roots you can boast of. It’s possibly different if you’re a Red Indian and you can show the White Man has dug up your ancestral burial ground and taken the bones of an individual you can possibly name – but that’s not the case here. ’
Con looked aside at Shen to see if she would react to the rather derogatory term ‘Red Indian’ but she seemed distant, as if not listening to the argument between the two men. Remembering his PhD tutor’s comments Con bit his tongue and remained silent.
‘But even though we don’t know his name we can probably say that thousands of us are descended from him.’
‘Which is why when he’s on display in the museum it’ll be interesting and informative. How can we learn from him when he’s stuck back up in West Kennet or buried up on Windmill Hill, is it, as you’re proposing?’
‘It’s not about learning, it’s about respect.’ Wolf said. ‘And you tell me the principal reason for him being on display is scientific? Is it bollocks! It’s entertainment. It’s about numbers through the door and selling more fookin’ guidebooks. It’s getting kids to gawp at a skeleton for entertainment, not education. If it wasn’t going to make money they wouldn’t bother.’
Hayden took a mouthful of beer.
‘I know that’s how you feel, but the protest just seems pointless. It’s whimsical, and would deprive us of any future attempts to use the bones for all types of analyses we’ve yet to discover, despite what you think about it not really being scientific. Right, Colin? You’re a scientist; you understand the importance of this.’ Con just looked at Hayden without changing his expression, not that Hayden seemed to notice, for he continued speaking without pause: ‘Why should the greater part of mankind lose out just to satisfy the weird beliefs of a handful of hippies? Why should these few individuals lay claim to these bones when, as you say, thousands of us are descended from him?’
Con shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
‘Anyway…’ Hayden continued, ‘I’ve never been a fan of ineffective protests – and this is a waste of yours and everyone’s time; they’ve built the bloody display now – printed the new guidebooks, mugs, postcards, keyrings – and all manner of tat… what are they going to do? Say you’ve got a point and burn it all?’
Wolf paused, and instead of reacting he held his hand up and smiled; instantly any tension that had been building up around the table dissipated.
‘Well, we’ll agree to disagree on this.’ He said, taking out a pouch of tobacco and rolling himself a cigarette. He offered the pouch to Shen, who refused, with a furtive look at Conall. Hayden shook his head, but Conall took the proffered pouch from Wolf and rolled himself one.
Outside the pub, under the thatched eaves strung with outdoor lights, Wolf lit Conall’s fag, then his own.
‘That was very noble of you to bite your tongue.’ Conall offered.
Wolf blew out a long cloud of smoke, shaking his head.
‘I’ve heard it all before – but when I was talking about respect I meant it. We have to respect the wishes of the person we’re putting on display... The way he was buried; the special treatment of his body as opposed to the others – he wasn’t the same; he had a special role; and we need to honour that…Putting him on display just isn’t right. It’s disrespectful. and to argue that we might lose out on future scientific discovery is just bullshit! Is this all he is – some science experiment? So they cut up the bones and find out he ate 5% more wheat than a similar skeleton from France – so fucking what?’
Conall nodded. ‘It’s strange,’ he said. ‘What does it say about modern man that he puts science before humanity? Hayden talks about value, but fails to see that surely the greatest value the bones possess isn’t the abstract facts we can glean about his life from them but from the very fact they were part of a living human being – that surely is where their true value lies... ’
‘So you’re with us? Hehe!’ Wolf said, grinning, and slapped him on the back. ‘You should’ve said that back in there… but I can tell you’re not much of a talker, are you? Besides, I’m not doing it because I’m a Pagan – I bloody hate most Pagans – you know, the weekend witch types; I know that it’s what the ancestors want.’ And he fixed Conall with a sidelong look.
‘I’m not interested in any religion that may or may not be made up, and a lot of modern paganism is, I’m talking about the spirits of the land, and those spirits are just as present today as they were thousands of years ago. You just have to have the humility to listen to them.’
He looked southwards over the stones, now cloaked in darkness.
‘You see, it’s not about the past – about turning back the clock, despite what Hayden thinks; it’s about remembering what we need NOW. That’s why I get fed up with people who moan on about the good old days - they have lost sight of the potential of the present… and we only have the present; we can change the direction our species is travelling in, but not backwards.’
Con nodded in agreement.
‘Do you know Whitman’s ‘Leaves of Grass’?’ he asked his shaven-headed companion;
“There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now;
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.”’
Now. It has to be now. He thought; the past is no more sacred than the now… only I find it hard to see it, damaged as I am by guilt.
‘There’s no going back, but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from the past; all these progressives are so fucking dumb…’ Wolf spat. ‘I hate their self-serving greed– it’s all for the good of man, this myth of progress… some Jetsons future where all disease is cured and we’re all in flying cars; and what have we done to get there? Analysed all the bones, cut up all the animals; cut down all the trees.. but it’s ok because it was done in the service of man. It’s bollocks. If you were walking in city and you realised you’d strayed into a shit neighbourhood you wouldn’t blindly carry, you’d bloody well turn back round and choose another route. That’s where we’re at, Con, or should I say Colin?’ he laughed ‘as a species we’ve taken a wrong turn, and we need the humility to accept we need to change our path,’
Conall looked at this strange mixture of a man; his tattoos, piercings, wiry strong arms, wickedly glinting, predator-like pale eyes. There was no pretence about him, nothing done for effect; he was as he was.
‘Civilization is not the be all and end all. Civilizations have come and gone and will do again; I just don’t want to be part of the civilization that took the whole world with it when it fell…’ Wolf said. Un-beckoned the image of a vast wave sweeping over towns and cities rose in Con’s mind…of lightning in a blackened, churning sky, and the view of collapsing cliffs viewed from a violently lurching boat… where the hell did that come from? He wondered, bemused. I know that scene…
‘The ancestors - they are saying remember us.’ Wolf was saying. Con, roused from his disturbing yet weirdly familiar reverie glanced out to where Wolf was gesturing, towards the stones whose giant hunched silhouettes were slowly becoming visible against the pallid night sky as their eyes became used to the darkness; And can you hear their voices? Con wanted to ask. Is this some poetic metaphor or can you really hear the voices of the dead? Can you hear her?
‘So, are you a pagan?’ Wolf asked.
Con shrugged.
‘I’m not a fan of labels; I sometimes think I’m close to a Taoist or a Buddhist – but a lot of their philosophy seems very life-negating – the universe is a veil of tears and delusion and we need to jump off it…’
Wolf nodded. ‘You know, I’m the same – some of the basic tenets I love, but I agree – life is to be lived; it’s not fucking easy – but it’s not meant to be easy; it’s certainly not meant to be thrown away.’
‘It can be fucking cruel.’ Con commented.
Wolf pulled a face.
‘Depends on your perspective; what if it’s not so much cruel as not making things easy?’
‘That implies intention – you can’t say that there’s some great cosmic being who intends for the world to be this way – babies dying in Africa, kids with cancer; earthquakes, hurricanes, murder…’
‘No, mate – I look at it on a smaller scale than that – what if there was a part of ourselves, not some great cosmic force, but something in us that somehow stage managed our lives? It could be part of that greater force, just not all of it. It’s like when you dream – you’re in the dream, talking to someone who isn’t you – yet when you wake up it’s all been in your own head, so that other person WAS you, you just couldn’t see it from within the perspective of the dream. What if life is like that dream, and really we’re the stage manager and the actors – we just don’t have the perspective right now…I’m not saying I believe this, but I do sometimes wonder. If there was a greater part of me controlling things beyond my reach, I wouldn’t expect it to make things easy for me – for me to win the lottery or have a string of birds on my arm 24/7 – because if it was easy you wouldn’t try, and it’s through trying that you grow. Fortune favours the brave, and to be brave you need adversity.’
Adversity, thought Con. I’ve had my fair share…
‘There’s something that Krishna says in the Mahabaratha – love your enemies as they give you your destiny…’ Wolf said, then, changing tack, turned and looked directly at Con. ‘What do you think of Hayden?’
Conall shrugged, knowing any answer he gave wouldn’t be without bias.
Wolf smiled; ‘I don’t agree with his views, but he’s no fool. He’s a brave fucker: He was telling me last night about a rescue he was involved in on the M4 last year; I suppose you have to be no-nonsense and practical to deal with that kind of stuff; and have a certain amount of emotional distance. No room for sentimentality.’ Wolf grinned. ‘Hmm. Did you hope I was going to say he was a twat?’
Conall laughed. ‘Maybe. Maybe I wanted him to be one – I mean a fucking tall blond fireman. It’s like sitting opposite Thor.’
Wolf laughed. ‘What’s the story, then, with you and the lovely Shenandoah?’
Conall inhaled then blew the smoke out his nose with a shrug.
‘I met her down here last year. Spent a few days with her; we got on really well, but then something happened…’
Wolf gazed at him, unflinching. ‘She told me, you know… about your twin sister’s accident; I hope you don’t mind. I suppose she didn’t want me to put my foot in it or anything.’
Conall shook his head, both surprised she had mentioned it to Wolf, and that he didn’t mind she had done so.
‘Were you identical – you know, as I suppose a man and a woman can be?’
Con smiled. ‘No – different sex twins come from two eggs, actually - fertilised at the same time; we didn’t share an egg but we shared a womb – but yeah, she had the same hair as me – poor girl; but blue eyes.’
‘Same beard…?’ Wolf grinned. ‘Well, if you ever need to talk…I know that sounds lame, but it’s a genuine offer…’
Con paused as the laughing group of croppies exited the pub and walked into the dark.
‘Thank you. I think it’s all been said, though.’ He took a final drag off the cigarette, looking out over the field of stones across the road from the pub.
Wolf once more fixed him with his pale, predator’s eyes.
‘I very much doubt that. I get the feeling you’ve not even begun to talk about it. And you know that, too.’
‘It won’t bring her back.’ Conall said, through a cloud of smoke.
Wolf was quiet for a moment before he spoke.
‘No. But it might you.’
Once more seated at the table by the window of the Red Lion Conall was swirling his glass of diet coke so that the large effervescent paracetamol and codeine tablets he’d dropped into it would dissolve more quickly. The fizzing finally stopped and he swallowed the resulting bittersweet liquid with a grimace. He had left his campervan dehydrated with his head threatening to burst with every heartbeat making the walk to the pub nauseatingly painful and arduous. Now faced with a veggie lasagne with onion rings he looked down at the plate and wanted to heave, but he dipped a ring into a large heap of mayonnaise and persevered. Then he ate like a starving dog.
At the bar sat the wiry, shaven-headed man who had joined in with the folk singers earlier that day; he had greeted Conall with ‘y’alright?’ as he’d ordered his meal and Conall had done his best to nod, noticing the piercing in the man’s bottom lip above a greying goatee beard constrained in a leather thong, and the heavily tattooed arms. Now seated by the window Conall couldn’t help but listen to the man, who was speaking in a thick Yorkshire accent, talking to the pretty barmaid who had taken his food order earlier. The man’s words, like his accent, were strong – liberally peppered with swearing. He was showing the barmaid something he had on a lace about his neck that she was regarding with interest.
A little later the shaven-headed man left for a smoke and Conall took his now-empty plate to the bar; he ordered a Jack Daniels and coke and repaired to his seat. His headache had abated somewhat, but still hang around his temples; perhaps the shot would help, he thought, optimistically. He suddenly realised he was rocking back and forth on his seat like a caged animal, and so made a conscious effort to stop, only to find his fingers rapping on the table-top. It was through these physical expressions that Conall realised just how nervous he was about seeing Shen. There, at that very bar, he had first talked to her, all those months ago. He had been less nervous then. He couldn’t imagine doing it now. My fire has left me, he thought bitterly.
The door creaked open and Conall’s pulse shot up, but it was not Shen. It was a man in a biker’s jacket, tall, well-built, with a shock of red-blond hair and short fiery beard and blue eyes; Con breathed a sigh of relief, but it caught in his throat as he spied Shen walking in after him; she leant up and said something to him, then glanced about for Conall.
Shen smiled and lifted a hand, but before she could walk over the shaven-headed man had walked back in and had greeted her with a bear hug; turning, he shook Hayden’s hand and the two men headed for the bar.
‘What would you like to drink?’ Shen asked, walking over to Conall, her eyes smiling. ‘A beer; Green King – same as earlier’ he said. But rather than stay sitting waiting to be introduced to the others Conall rose and approached the bar with her.
‘Conall, this is Wolf Jones, he’s staying at the cottage, and this is Hayden…’ Wolf’s handshake was friendly and vigorous, and accompanied by the same ‘Y’alright?’ as earlier; Hayden’s grip was firm and he glanced at Conall with a lack of scrutiny that suggested either Shen had said nothing about their past (not that there was much to tell, he thought), or Hayden was not the kind of bloke to be troubled by such things.
‘A bitter drinker, eh?’ he said, his voice deep with a strong West Country tang. ‘That’s what we like to see! You here for the protest?’
‘I didn’t know it was happening, to be honest – I just needed to get away from London.’ Con stated.
‘Where are you staying?’ Hayden asked.
‘In my campervan –‘ he began, and when Wolf raised his eyebrows in interest he continued ‘I’m parked down by the avenue.’ Conall replied.
‘Silver fiat Scudo?’ Wolf said; ‘I think I saw it at the Sanctuary earlier. Nice little conversion – I’d love to have a poke around’ Wolf cut in. Conall tried to recall if he’d seen anyone there, ‘I was in my van just up from you – big black bastard with wolves on t’side.’ He chuckled.
‘Yeah, I saw your van.’ Conall said, trying not to think of the van rocking…
Shen and Wolf took their drinks over to the table while Conall waited for his own to be poured. He stood in silence next to Hayden who was tapping in his pin number into the card reader. Conall made an offer to pay for his pint but the other refused, and so Conall took both his and Hayden’s pints back to the table. Wolf had sat opposite Shen, leaving Conall to decide whether to sit next to Wolf or next to Shen; either way he’d have to sit opposite Hayden. He decided to sit beside Wolf – at least that way he’d be able to look Shen in the face.
‘Shen says you’re doing some research on the henges?’ Wolf asked.
‘Something like that…’ Con answered, dismissively.
‘It’s a cool place; the energy here is amazing. I was up at West Kennet this morning drumming…’ he closed his eyes and exhaled ‘…it was a beautiful sunrise.’
Hayden had arrived and nestled in beside Shen.
‘Did I hear you say drumming? Another fucking weirdo!’ He laughed.
‘I’ll pick you up at 5am tomorrow then, Hayden? I’ve got a spare drum…’
Hayden raised a sceptical eyebrow and smiled.
‘Such a shame, mate – I’ll be leaving for work before that… maybe next time.’ He said, winking. ‘You see it all here – drums, didgeridoos… croppies’ he swigged his pint.
‘Joking aside, you should try it.’ Wolf suggested, with sincerity.
‘Nah. Not my thing.’ He placed his hand over Shen’s, ‘I’m kind of a bit too practical for all that shit; but live and let live – it don’t bother me.’
Conall had so far remained silent, trying desperately hard to find something to say.
‘What’s a croppy?’ he asked
Hayden nodded towards a group on a table by the fire – long haired for the most part and sporting various types of facial hair, but these were not the usual hippy types dressed in colourful loose clothes – these seemed more techno-nerds, in blacks and dark greens – close-fitting, camouflaging - who were currently sharing images on their mobile phones and laughing.
‘Circlemakers.’
‘What – crop circles? These guys make them?’
‘Well, you can be sure little green men don’t – this lot are behind most – though they’ll not admit it; it’s all part of the mystique, apparently.’
‘I think I’d tell people – I’d be well proud.’ Wolf laughed.
‘They make a shit load of money, too – corporate branding etcetera – media and businesses pay these guys to stick advertising in fields – there was one a couple of years ago advertising Shredded Wheat – or film promos. If they let on they did them all they’d ruin the mystery and then no one would pay them to do it; it pays for them to keep quiet.’
Con continued to look over at them; they looked unassuming - perhaps, he thought, they derived some nerdish glee from pulling the wool over people’s eyes - drinking beer then going and playing practical jokes in a Wiltshire cornfield on a balmy summer’s night and gleefully listening to the speculation here the next day seemed a fairly innocuous hobby; it was all mercurial, childish fun. But perhaps he was doing them a disservice; perhaps they really were really faceless artists speaking up for the earth.
Another pint drunk, Conall was finding his tongue beginning to loosen.
‘So do you let Shen read your cards?’ he asked Hayden.
Hayden laughed and shot him a look that said ‘are you serious?’
‘It’s bollocks – I mean, a tarot card can no more tell my future than this beer mat; You know what I think? It’s more to do with her reading the people and then making the cards fit, don’t you think? She’s bloody good at reading people.’ He turned to Shen. ‘I mean it – you should go into psychology, or something. Use your skills properly. Or even the police, CID or something. This stuff’s okay, and people lap it up round here, but you could do something proper with it….’
Shenandoah looked up at him, her eyes wide. Conall couldn’t read what she was thinking.
‘I’m happy how it is, Hay. It’s starting to pay its way. And I can fit it in around my painting…’
‘Yeah, it is babe, but I just think you could be doing something better with it, that’s all.’ He stroked her cheek. ‘You’re wasted doing that.’
She looked up again and shrugged.
She met Con’s gaze for an instant, smiled weakly and then sipped her brandy and coke. He remembered her laughter from last year. She looked different now, kind of beaten down, or maybe she was just biting her tongue for the sake of the group. Besides, he guessed she could say the same of him – he felt uncomfortable here, a ghost playing at living, a cartoon character amongst flesh and blood men. Why can I never think of anything to say?! He berated himself.
‘So what do you do, Colin?’
‘Conall. Well, up ‘til recently I was a lecturer, in astrophysics.’
‘At last, a scientist!’ Hayden laughed and put out his hand for Con to shake. Conall shook his hand but felt like an idiot in doing so; Hayden’s hands were large and calloused; his own felt like a child’s in comparison.
‘til recently, you say?’
‘Yeah – I’m looking to lecture independently, and write – articles and stuff; I’m just fed up of London.’
‘He who is tired of London is tired of life’ – who said that?’ Wolf asked.
‘Samuel Johnson; well I guess I’m tired of life. I hate cities. I think mankind made a massive mistake in ever leaving the countryside.’
‘You wouldn’t say that if you lived here; it’s fucking dead!’ Hayden laughed.
Con shrugged. ‘We’re not adapted for city life – we evolved in the Savannah, moving in small groups, close to nature; in a city we see more people in ten seconds than your average prehistoric man would have seen in a lifetime; I just don’t think we’re adapted for it – I think we miss it.’
Hayden snorted. ‘How can we miss what we’ve never had?’
Con shrugged.
‘I read once of an experiment where generations of finches were brought up in a secluded lab, yet despite never having been outside nor seen a predator, when a plastic hawk was passed overhead they all crouched and tried to hide… they’d never seen a hawk yet felt fear. It’s instinct. The yearning for nature is an instinct, too. We can miss the world our ancestors knew.’
I miss it, he thought; that ancient sense of belonging, of living in harmony with Nature; not barricading her outside of the city gates. I don’t feel at home among other people; I sleep better under the stars than in any bed…
‘Yeah, I do get where you’re coming from, but you can’t turn back the clock.’ Hayden said. ‘Or stop the march of progress.’
‘More’s the pity,’ said Wolf. ‘I’m sure there’s a correlation between stress and cruelty and the way cities depersonalize you… look at what happened when the Native Americans formed cities – human sacrifice on a mass scale.’
‘You can’t blame that on cities,’ Hayden rejoined ‘– that was just due to plain barbarism. 84,000 people sacrificed over 2 days, so the Spanish Chroniclers said.’
‘Exactly, Spanish Chroniclers – sooo trustworthy and unbiased….’ said Shen, chagrined.
‘Well,’ continued Hayden in what must have been a perennial argument between them, given the withering look on her face ‘it just goes to show the Indians were just as brutal as the Europeans – this crap people spout nowadays about the poor tree-hugging natives is just bullshit – Aho! It’s a good day to die!!! your ancestors were just as bloodthirsty as mine.’
Shen pouted. ‘One - The Aztecs weren’t my ancestors; you can’t lump a whole continent of peoples together like that. There’s a bit of a distance between Mexico and Canada, you know? And two - that’s like me blaming your Scottish ancestors for the Holocaust just because you’re European.’
In the half hour or so of conversations that followed Conall found himself still silent and increasingly morose; that mercurial spark of drunken vision he had known earlier had vanished; his second beer that night was, like the first, tackled more out of duty than enjoyment, and he was remaining resolutely and unfortunately sober. Having lost its control momentarily earlier his outer-brain was not willing to relinquish its command so easily again. His social niceties and insecurities had snapped back in force. Sitting opposite Hayden he found that his view of Shen was mostly blocked by both Wolf and Hayden, as it was these two who were doing most of the talking, and both kept leaning forward over their drinks. Wolf would now and again ask Conall a question, but Hayden seemed to ignore Conall and Shen as he alternately clashed swords with Wolf or joined the other in raucous laughter. Now and again Conall would catch her eye and she’d raise an eyebrow. Eventually out of frustration Conall stood up and went and sat between her and Wolf at the end of the table.
‘You ok?’ he asked.
She smiled too broadly and said she was.
‘So what do you charge for a tarot reading?’ he asked, deliberately choosing the topic Hayden had been so dismissive of.
‘Well, if there’s a group of four or five, and I get a lot of groups, I’ll charge £100 for the evening.’
‘And individually?’
‘£25 to £30 I suppose. It’s tiring, though.’
‘I think it’s good, what you’re doing.’ He said.
She smiled again, but looked sad. She looked at him but he couldn’t read what was behind the look.
‘And the painting?’
‘So so. I’ve just got too much to do what with doing the house up, and the card readings; plus it’s hard to find the time – as in I need space, you know, when I’m doing it. And…’ she hushed her voice ‘certain people don’t like me spending all my time concentrating on it and not them; I get a fair few interruptions…’
They smiled conspiratorially.
She sipped at her brandy and coke.
‘I really shouldn’t have any more; I’m such a light-weight these days!’
She held his gaze and her eyes creased in a smile.
‘I’m glad you’re here. Avebury, I mean – not the pub – not just the pub; sorry. I wondered how you were doing.’
‘Life goes on.’ Con said.
‘Yes, it does.’
Wolf, meanwhile, was explaining to Hayden about the protest, telling how when the archaeologist Stuart Piggott had excavated West Kennet longbarrow in the 1950’s most of the bones found in the chambers had been taken to Devizes museum. But recently a researcher had re-discovered the most important of these remains – a full skeleton (rare, as most of the bones in the mound had been leg bones) in the bowels of the museum stores and these remains were being moved into a new display in the museum here at Avebury. Why, Wolf was arguing, could they not be repatriated?
‘This man is one of our ancestors; why should he be put on display in a museum to be gawped at?’ Wolf said.
Hayden had been listening to this preamble without saying a word, but now began to speak.
‘Unless they do DNA testing on the bones he can’t really be claimed as an ancestor; besides – the bones are of scientific interest. What’s important is what the bones tell us about how people lived back then; their diet, their diseases.’
‘Yeah, that’s interesting – but what if it was your granddad being put on display?’ Wolf said.
Conall tried not to look at Shen.
‘He’s not, though,’ replied Hayden, ‘nor is he anyone’s granddad that’s alive today. You’re just being sentimental and giving the bones a value they don’t possess.’
‘What of the wishes of the man himself? He would want to be with his people, not in a glass case in a museum.’
‘Well, to be frank, we can’t ask him his wishes, can we? It just all seems a bit phoney.’ Hayden continued.
‘It would be different if he had been buried a Christian, though, wouldn’t it?’ Wolf countered, ‘or these were some Saint’s relics? People are so bloody careful about not treading on the toes of Christians, Muslims or anyone else that might take offence, but the rights of Pagans and our Pagan ancestors are completely overlooked.’
‘Maybe that’s because there’s no continuity of tradition. You pagans are just using the bones to make a point; you’re trying to find a link to the past to justify your own beliefs. If you have ancestors you can see and touch then you have roots you can boast of. It’s possibly different if you’re a Red Indian and you can show the White Man has dug up your ancestral burial ground and taken the bones of an individual you can possibly name – but that’s not the case here. ’
Con looked aside at Shen to see if she would react to the rather derogatory term ‘Red Indian’ but she seemed distant, as if not listening to the argument between the two men. Remembering his PhD tutor’s comments Con bit his tongue and remained silent.
‘But even though we don’t know his name we can probably say that thousands of us are descended from him.’
‘Which is why when he’s on display in the museum it’ll be interesting and informative. How can we learn from him when he’s stuck back up in West Kennet or buried up on Windmill Hill, is it, as you’re proposing?’
‘It’s not about learning, it’s about respect.’ Wolf said. ‘And you tell me the principal reason for him being on display is scientific? Is it bollocks! It’s entertainment. It’s about numbers through the door and selling more fookin’ guidebooks. It’s getting kids to gawp at a skeleton for entertainment, not education. If it wasn’t going to make money they wouldn’t bother.’
Hayden took a mouthful of beer.
‘I know that’s how you feel, but the protest just seems pointless. It’s whimsical, and would deprive us of any future attempts to use the bones for all types of analyses we’ve yet to discover, despite what you think about it not really being scientific. Right, Colin? You’re a scientist; you understand the importance of this.’ Con just looked at Hayden without changing his expression, not that Hayden seemed to notice, for he continued speaking without pause: ‘Why should the greater part of mankind lose out just to satisfy the weird beliefs of a handful of hippies? Why should these few individuals lay claim to these bones when, as you say, thousands of us are descended from him?’
Con shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
‘Anyway…’ Hayden continued, ‘I’ve never been a fan of ineffective protests – and this is a waste of yours and everyone’s time; they’ve built the bloody display now – printed the new guidebooks, mugs, postcards, keyrings – and all manner of tat… what are they going to do? Say you’ve got a point and burn it all?’
Wolf paused, and instead of reacting he held his hand up and smiled; instantly any tension that had been building up around the table dissipated.
‘Well, we’ll agree to disagree on this.’ He said, taking out a pouch of tobacco and rolling himself a cigarette. He offered the pouch to Shen, who refused, with a furtive look at Conall. Hayden shook his head, but Conall took the proffered pouch from Wolf and rolled himself one.
Outside the pub, under the thatched eaves strung with outdoor lights, Wolf lit Conall’s fag, then his own.
‘That was very noble of you to bite your tongue.’ Conall offered.
Wolf blew out a long cloud of smoke, shaking his head.
‘I’ve heard it all before – but when I was talking about respect I meant it. We have to respect the wishes of the person we’re putting on display... The way he was buried; the special treatment of his body as opposed to the others – he wasn’t the same; he had a special role; and we need to honour that…Putting him on display just isn’t right. It’s disrespectful. and to argue that we might lose out on future scientific discovery is just bullshit! Is this all he is – some science experiment? So they cut up the bones and find out he ate 5% more wheat than a similar skeleton from France – so fucking what?’
Conall nodded. ‘It’s strange,’ he said. ‘What does it say about modern man that he puts science before humanity? Hayden talks about value, but fails to see that surely the greatest value the bones possess isn’t the abstract facts we can glean about his life from them but from the very fact they were part of a living human being – that surely is where their true value lies... ’
‘So you’re with us? Hehe!’ Wolf said, grinning, and slapped him on the back. ‘You should’ve said that back in there… but I can tell you’re not much of a talker, are you? Besides, I’m not doing it because I’m a Pagan – I bloody hate most Pagans – you know, the weekend witch types; I know that it’s what the ancestors want.’ And he fixed Conall with a sidelong look.
‘I’m not interested in any religion that may or may not be made up, and a lot of modern paganism is, I’m talking about the spirits of the land, and those spirits are just as present today as they were thousands of years ago. You just have to have the humility to listen to them.’
He looked southwards over the stones, now cloaked in darkness.
‘You see, it’s not about the past – about turning back the clock, despite what Hayden thinks; it’s about remembering what we need NOW. That’s why I get fed up with people who moan on about the good old days - they have lost sight of the potential of the present… and we only have the present; we can change the direction our species is travelling in, but not backwards.’
Con nodded in agreement.
‘Do you know Whitman’s ‘Leaves of Grass’?’ he asked his shaven-headed companion;
“There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now;
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.”’
Now. It has to be now. He thought; the past is no more sacred than the now… only I find it hard to see it, damaged as I am by guilt.
‘There’s no going back, but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from the past; all these progressives are so fucking dumb…’ Wolf spat. ‘I hate their self-serving greed– it’s all for the good of man, this myth of progress… some Jetsons future where all disease is cured and we’re all in flying cars; and what have we done to get there? Analysed all the bones, cut up all the animals; cut down all the trees.. but it’s ok because it was done in the service of man. It’s bollocks. If you were walking in city and you realised you’d strayed into a shit neighbourhood you wouldn’t blindly carry, you’d bloody well turn back round and choose another route. That’s where we’re at, Con, or should I say Colin?’ he laughed ‘as a species we’ve taken a wrong turn, and we need the humility to accept we need to change our path,’
Conall looked at this strange mixture of a man; his tattoos, piercings, wiry strong arms, wickedly glinting, predator-like pale eyes. There was no pretence about him, nothing done for effect; he was as he was.
‘Civilization is not the be all and end all. Civilizations have come and gone and will do again; I just don’t want to be part of the civilization that took the whole world with it when it fell…’ Wolf said. Un-beckoned the image of a vast wave sweeping over towns and cities rose in Con’s mind…of lightning in a blackened, churning sky, and the view of collapsing cliffs viewed from a violently lurching boat… where the hell did that come from? He wondered, bemused. I know that scene…
‘The ancestors - they are saying remember us.’ Wolf was saying. Con, roused from his disturbing yet weirdly familiar reverie glanced out to where Wolf was gesturing, towards the stones whose giant hunched silhouettes were slowly becoming visible against the pallid night sky as their eyes became used to the darkness; And can you hear their voices? Con wanted to ask. Is this some poetic metaphor or can you really hear the voices of the dead? Can you hear her?
‘So, are you a pagan?’ Wolf asked.
Con shrugged.
‘I’m not a fan of labels; I sometimes think I’m close to a Taoist or a Buddhist – but a lot of their philosophy seems very life-negating – the universe is a veil of tears and delusion and we need to jump off it…’
Wolf nodded. ‘You know, I’m the same – some of the basic tenets I love, but I agree – life is to be lived; it’s not fucking easy – but it’s not meant to be easy; it’s certainly not meant to be thrown away.’
‘It can be fucking cruel.’ Con commented.
Wolf pulled a face.
‘Depends on your perspective; what if it’s not so much cruel as not making things easy?’
‘That implies intention – you can’t say that there’s some great cosmic being who intends for the world to be this way – babies dying in Africa, kids with cancer; earthquakes, hurricanes, murder…’
‘No, mate – I look at it on a smaller scale than that – what if there was a part of ourselves, not some great cosmic force, but something in us that somehow stage managed our lives? It could be part of that greater force, just not all of it. It’s like when you dream – you’re in the dream, talking to someone who isn’t you – yet when you wake up it’s all been in your own head, so that other person WAS you, you just couldn’t see it from within the perspective of the dream. What if life is like that dream, and really we’re the stage manager and the actors – we just don’t have the perspective right now…I’m not saying I believe this, but I do sometimes wonder. If there was a greater part of me controlling things beyond my reach, I wouldn’t expect it to make things easy for me – for me to win the lottery or have a string of birds on my arm 24/7 – because if it was easy you wouldn’t try, and it’s through trying that you grow. Fortune favours the brave, and to be brave you need adversity.’
Adversity, thought Con. I’ve had my fair share…
‘There’s something that Krishna says in the Mahabaratha – love your enemies as they give you your destiny…’ Wolf said, then, changing tack, turned and looked directly at Con. ‘What do you think of Hayden?’
Conall shrugged, knowing any answer he gave wouldn’t be without bias.
Wolf smiled; ‘I don’t agree with his views, but he’s no fool. He’s a brave fucker: He was telling me last night about a rescue he was involved in on the M4 last year; I suppose you have to be no-nonsense and practical to deal with that kind of stuff; and have a certain amount of emotional distance. No room for sentimentality.’ Wolf grinned. ‘Hmm. Did you hope I was going to say he was a twat?’
Conall laughed. ‘Maybe. Maybe I wanted him to be one – I mean a fucking tall blond fireman. It’s like sitting opposite Thor.’
Wolf laughed. ‘What’s the story, then, with you and the lovely Shenandoah?’
Conall inhaled then blew the smoke out his nose with a shrug.
‘I met her down here last year. Spent a few days with her; we got on really well, but then something happened…’
Wolf gazed at him, unflinching. ‘She told me, you know… about your twin sister’s accident; I hope you don’t mind. I suppose she didn’t want me to put my foot in it or anything.’
Conall shook his head, both surprised she had mentioned it to Wolf, and that he didn’t mind she had done so.
‘Were you identical – you know, as I suppose a man and a woman can be?’
Con smiled. ‘No – different sex twins come from two eggs, actually - fertilised at the same time; we didn’t share an egg but we shared a womb – but yeah, she had the same hair as me – poor girl; but blue eyes.’
‘Same beard…?’ Wolf grinned. ‘Well, if you ever need to talk…I know that sounds lame, but it’s a genuine offer…’
Con paused as the laughing group of croppies exited the pub and walked into the dark.
‘Thank you. I think it’s all been said, though.’ He took a final drag off the cigarette, looking out over the field of stones across the road from the pub.
Wolf once more fixed him with his pale, predator’s eyes.
‘I very much doubt that. I get the feeling you’ve not even begun to talk about it. And you know that, too.’
‘It won’t bring her back.’ Conall said, through a cloud of smoke.
Wolf was quiet for a moment before he spoke.
‘No. But it might you.’