Chapter Eight: Shenandoah
With a second pint in hand Conall strode blinking out of the pub to the tables arranged on the flagstones fronting the road. The main lunchtime rush was over and there was now the odd spare seat here and there, though no totally empty tables. He raised his glass and took a large sip of beer, contemplating whether to squeeze in amongst the hippies gathered around the folk band, the archaeologists or the bikers, or whether to just cross the road and go and sit amongst the stones. Still a little sunblind and squinting he moved aside to let someone past him into the pub. But they stopped.
‘Conall?!’
He turned, confused at the mention of his name. A woman stood beaming up at him, dressed in a simple faded red t-shirt under a suede jacket, pale blue jeans and black boots, a bag slung over one shoulder - but it was only when she removed her sunglasses and hugged him and he found himself with his nose and mouth pressed against the top of her head, breathing the scent of her sun-warmed long dark hair, that it fully sunk in who this was.
‘What the hell are you doing here?!’ she said, grinning as she pulled away, her brows creased in a deep frown.
Conall stood speechless, his mind screaming with a car-crash of conflicting thoughts and emotions.
‘Shen?!’ he said aware of the colour draining from his face.
‘Why are you here? Are you down here for long? You’re not leaving yet?’ Shenandoah asked, all at once.
Con shook his head. No words seemed to want to come.
‘No. Good. Look - I’m just going to drop something off in here,’ she said, motioning towards the door of the pub with her head, ‘but – you got time – I mean can I join you for a drink? Quick, grab us those seats then we’ll talk!’ she said, and then was gone, but not before looking back and smiling again, shaking her head.
Some of the archaeologists had just got up, leaving a table free, to which Conall walked, seating himself facing the sun. It was only when he picked up his pint that he realised his hand was shaking. The chances that he should meet her again, here, and now, seemed to him so astronomically slim he could only lift his eyes skywards, questioning whatever power might have arranged such a bitter-sweet coincidence. When he had met her here last year she had only been here for a matter of days, to visit her granddad - for she had long since moved away from Wiltshire; but Her Granddad had died shortly after, and anyway, since then all contact between Conall and her had ceased... She had no reason to be here, he thought; and yet here she was. Why? Why did he have to see her now? Could I, he asked himself, just slip away? All this was going through Conall’s mind, but behind it all was a more constant and more appealing image from their past: of her dark eyes looking up at him and closing as he leaned in to kiss her; and then a wave of sadness and guilt swept through him, and an image appeared in his mind’s eye - a line of Coleridge’s poetry savagely underlined in red biro:
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw…
And beside those words others in a shaky, wild hand:
I go to the river to die…
Behind him, following a burst of applause, the folk band had begun another song, and a strong female voice had started to sing.
There was three kings into the east,
Three kings both great and high,
And they hae sworn a solemn oath
John Barleycorn should die.
They took a plough and plough'd him down,
Put clods upon his head,
And they hae sworn a solemn oath
John Barleycorn was dead.
Just then the woman’s voice was joined by that of a man coming from the opposite side of the forecourt, deep, with a strong northern accent. Con turned – the man was shaven headed with a goatee beard, his wiry arms blue with tattoos – each forearm emblazoned with a spiralling serpent, the heads of which flicked their forked tongues across the back of his hands.
They've let him lie for a very long time,
'til the rains from heaven did fall
And little Sir John sprung up his head
and so amazed them all
The man had risen and was making his way from his seat near the door of the pub, past the folk singers, towards the road.
They've let him stand 'til Midsummer's Day
'til he looked both pale and wan
And little Sir John's grown a long, long beard
and so become a man.
He bowed to the group, grinning broadly and as he passed Con he winked at him mischievously before heading off across the road to the circle, his pint glass in his hand. Behind him the woman’s voice continued, and Con turned back and drank some more beer.
They've ta’en a weapon, long and sharp,
And cut him by the knee;
Then tied him fast upon a cart,
Like a rogue for forgerie.
‘Wake up, John-a-dreams!’
Conall looked up and met Shen’s dark-brown eyes, looking out from the curtain of her dark straight hair. She was holding a large glass of what looked to be coke, and a pint for him.
‘How come you’re here?’ Conall asked, dry mouthed. Shen bit her lip. Her eyes glistened and she forced a smile. ‘I’ve been here sorting Granddad’s things out since March; he left me the house in his will. I couldn’t sell it; just couldn’t. Oh, and there’s something he left for you, too. I meant to…’
‘No matter….I was sorry to hear about your Granddad. I’ve just left some tobacco on his grave.’ Conall said, matter-of-factly. ‘… I don’t know if it’s a Blackfoot tradition or not, but it seemed kind of appropriate.’
‘That’s kind of you.’ She said.
‘I saw the flowers there, too – I didn’t for a second think they would have been from you… So you’re living here now?’
‘Partly; it’s taking a while to get the business off the ground here and I still have the house on Scilly, but I’m renting that out over the summer as a holiday cottage; I’m probably going to sell it. I was never comfortable there, the sea can be so oppressive…Anyway… what about you?! What are you up to?’. Her smile seemed genuine, if a little strained. ‘How are you doing?’
Conall looked down, frowning, thinking of what to say, the words of the song distracting him.
They laid him down upon his back,
And cudgell'd him full sore;
They hung him up before the storm,
And turn'd him o'er and o'er.
They filled up a darksome pit
With water to the brim,
They heav'd in John Barleycorn-
There, let him sink or swim!
Con shivered at the image of a pale body floating in dark water that had risen in his mind’s eye.
‘Con? Hello!? Earth to Con…’
He half-smiled and shrugged. ‘Well I’m writing the odd article,’ he said, speaking louder than usual to be heard over the singing, ‘giving the odd lecture here and there...’ he took another sip to buy himself time while he struggled to rein in his emotions.
‘You know what I meant.’
Conall stared at his pint.
‘Yeah, I’m okay. I’m doing better.’ He smiled, gently, unconvincingly.
‘I thought about you.’ She suddenly said. Conall raised his eyes to hers in genuine surprise.
‘Likewise’ was all he could muster; he looked into her eyes, but she didn’t hold his gaze for long, lowering her eyes and picking up her drink.
‘I don’t really know what to say.’ Shen said, ‘I would have written again… but you said not to…’
She looked across at him again, fleetingly, with a slight hint of awkwardness.
He felt like he should say something to explain, but the words weren’t there. ‘Look, I'm sorry. I was in a bit of a shit place...’
'It's okay, Con. I know. God, you don’t need to apologise.'
‘But thanks for letting me know about Alfred…’ he mumbled.
She had been looking down at her small hands, fiddling with a jade and silver ring, but now she looked up.
‘It’s all so shit, isn’t it? And I knew Granddad was ill… I had time to prepare… but you…’
Conall shrugged again and smiled weakly, not wanting her to go on.
It was strange for them both to be sitting here in silence, after all the laughter and incessant talking they had enjoyed the last time they had met. It seemed so long ago. When they had parted it had all been good between them; but to meet again now, like this, perhaps it might have been better had he not seen her. Con sipped his pint in silence, and turned his head to watch the folk band finish their song.
They wasted, o'er a scorching flame,
The marrow of his bones;
But a miller us'd him worst of all,
For he crush'd him between two stones.
And they hae taen his very heart's blood,
And drank it round and round;
And still the more and more they drank,
Their joy did more abound.
John Barleycorn was a hero bold,
Of noble enterprise;
For if you do but taste his blood,
'Twill make your courage rise.
'Twill make a man forget his woe;
'Twill heighten all his joy;
'Twill make the widow's heart to sing,
Tho' the tear were in her eye.
The crowds applauded and Con and Shen joined them, politely. When Con looked back at Shen she was regarding him anxiously, feeling the same tension as him.
‘Well, this is awkward.’ She said. ‘God, Con, let’s not be off with each other, it’s not like we see each other every day…’. He nodded, smiling at her directness.
‘So did you ever work it out, your lost star myth – the dragon thing?’ she asked, seeming to relax a little.
He smiled. ‘I think so. It’s kind of changed a bit; not massively but a bit. It’s why I’m here,’ he half-lied, ‘the sky’s supposed to be clear for the next few days. You just can’t see any sky in London.’
‘It was always a bit beyond me, you know, your theorising.’ She shrugged. ‘But I loved the stories. Granddad did too. I loved it that night when you showed me which stars were which, and the tales behind them all.’
It had been on that night that he had first told her that he could really fall for her. Had that really happened? He felt himself redden. Was she remembering that too? But it had also been that night that the other thing had happened; not that Shen knew. Neither did he at the time; he had to wait a few more days for that news, and then everything had changed.
…They filled up a darksome pit
With water to the brim…
He cast the unwanted image from his mind, clenching his hand into a fist. ‘It’s the stories that are the key Shenandoah… they hold all that information, I’m sure of it. But it’s like a code that needs cracking… it was an intuition, that’s all – but I never had time to follow it up. Not til recently. And now, well… it makes sense, but I just don’t know if I’m right or if I’m seeing things…’
‘And you’re still at the uni?’ she asked.
‘Not any more; I quit.’.
‘Quit? Why?’
He shrugged. ‘Long story.’ He sipped his drink.
‘How long’s long?’ she smiled.
‘Too long for now; I don’t want to bore you.’
‘Well, you’d better quit now then; it is probably very boring.’ She joked.
In the more companionable silence that followed he relaxed and was able to take her in; sitting with her back to the sun, her broad-high cheek-boned face in shadow, it was clear that she owed her looks to a more exotic ancestry than her hyphened part-Irish surname, Mac Govan-Crow, suggested. Con recalled a scene from their previous meeting, when, sitting upon West Kennet Longbarrow, he had stuck the owl feather she had given him in her hair and told her she now looked like her great-great grandmother whose photo she had showed him on her granddad’s dresser… the same feather he had stuck in his hat not an hour before…
‘That’s my granddad’s dad, George, as a baby, and his parents, Kills Crow and Medicine Smoke Woman.’ she had said, pointing at the sepia image.
‘You look like her.’ He had said, his eyes on her rather than the photo. A silence had passed between them then. The truth was that she looked almost more native than her grandfather had done; her long straight dark hair especially, and her cheekbones that seemed to push her eyes into heavily lidded crescents; their colour somewhere between chocolate and black, depending on the light.
‘I guess Shenandoah is a Native name?’ he had said then.
She had smiled, ‘Well, it is, it’s a native river name - but that’s not why I’m called it – it’s after the song, my granddad sang it to me just after I was born, he liked the Jimmy Stewart film, and it stuck – thank God – I think my parents had been toying with Deidriu.’
‘Derdriu?’ he’d laughed.
‘Don’t laugh – it’s a family name, and it’s still my middle name.’
‘Ok, Deirdre.’
‘Shenandoah Derdriu Mac Govan-Crow… fuck me, that’s a mouthful!’ he had laughed.
A year and a world later Con took his tobacco from his pocket and rolled a cigarette, offering Shen one. She looked about her guiltily, with a voiced indrawn breath. ‘Oh god! Don’t!’
‘You given up?’
‘Kind of. My boyfriend doesn’t really like me smoking.’
Conall felt the smile freeze on his face. Boyfriend; of course: someone like Shen would never stay single for long, he reasoned. He felt a strange sense of deflation, but then she smiled at him and he felt somehow better; relieved even. Too much had changed.
‘Go on, have one. Blame the smell on me.’ Conall said with a wink, pushing the tobacco her way.
She hesitated, stared at the proffered tobacco, looked up at Con and then relented.
‘Who’s the lucky man?’ Conall asked, handing her the papers and rolling himself another.
‘He’s from Swindon…’
‘Oh I’m sorry…’ Con joked.
Shen narrowed her eyes and continued ‘– he’s called Hayden; been seeing him since last summer. He’s a fireman,’ she said, as he lit her cigarette.
‘Has that got anything to do with the no smoking? If he catches you will he turn the hose on you out of habit?’ Conall asked. She shook her head, smiling. ‘Uh huh, he’s a bit of a health nut. You need to be fit in that line of work….God that’s good’ she said, exhaling and looking down at the cigarette. ‘I’ve got half an hour before I’m meeting him – time for some of the smell to fade, I hope. I can always get some gum.’
Conall eyed his two thirds full second pint and full third pint and wondered if he could down both in less than half an hour. But at least if he, what was his name? Hayden, turned up they wouldn’t have to talk about what had happened since he’d last seen Shen. Again, the image of that manic handwriting beside the printed poem rose to consciousness: I go to the river to die… as if to punish him for this moment of levity.
‘You’ll have to see what I’ve done to the cottage. How long are you down for, again?’
‘A few days, not sure really.’
‘Well, unfortunately with the protest I’ve let my spare rooms out for the next few days, otherwise I’d have put you up.’
‘What protest?’ Conall asked.
‘Over the bones in the museum.’
He shook his head.
‘They’re bringing some new bones here that had been stored away in Devizes museum, and putting them in this swanky new display here; the museum’s been shut for a month or so while they’ve been renovating it; the Chairman of English Heritage is going to be here on Wednesday to visit the excavations and to open the new exhibit; there’s going to be a group of protesters there to meet him, pagans, who don’t think he should be on display. The head of them, Wolf, is lodging at Granddad’s. Granddad’s has kind of become unofficial protest HQ… if you’re around tonight we’ll be here in the pub – at half eight… you’ll be most welcome. Oh, and…’ she said, fumbling about in her bag; She took a card from out of her purse and handed it to him. Shenandoah Mac Govan Crow - Tarot card readings – individuals and parties catered for; followed by a mobile number and an email address.
‘Spread the word. Business is picking up – I mean, there’s loads of stuff like this down in Glastonbury, but not here.’
‘So will you read my cards?’ he asked. ‘You promised to last time but didn’t.’
She nodded. ‘Yeah, course I will! I read Wolf’s last night; it was fun.’
He felt a twinge of jealousy over this Wolf character…
‘And did the cards say they would win the protest?’
Shen shrugged. ‘Yes and no, strangely; they wouldn’t win but would get what they wanted.’
‘Hmm. Helpfully vague.’ Con grinned.
A beeping noise sounded from her handbag and she dug around until she had found her phone. Mouthing sorry she pressed to answer the call.
‘Hello? Hi! No, I’m at the pub…just dropped in some more cards…’ It’s Hayden, she mouthed at Conall. ‘Why don’t you come up?... No? Ok. Suit yourself,…’ she raised her eyes skywards as if to say ‘whatever’ ‘…I’ll be down soon.’ She put the phone back in her bag.
‘He’s already let himself in.’ she explained, ‘I’d better head off in a minute. He’s been on nights… grumpy as hell!’ She said. Suddenly her face dropped. ‘Shit! Do you have any chewing gum or anything?’ she asked, suddenly dropping the unfinished cigarette into the ashtray.
‘Nope’ said Conall, ‘sorry’.
‘Bugger. Oh well, he’ll probably be too grumpy to kiss me for a while anyway.’ She said, rising to her feet.
‘One for the road?’ Conall joked, offering her the packet of cigarette papers. She stuck out her tongue sarcastically.
She breathed into her hand and sniffed. ‘Oh, that’s not too bad.’ She said. Then she looked down at Conall and smiled, putting out her hand as if she were about to ruffle his hair, and touching him on the cheek instead.
‘I still can’t believe you’re here! I’m glad Con. I’m glad I got to see you again.’
‘Didn’t the cards tell you I would be here again?’ he asked, to which she half smiled half snorted; ‘not the cards, no’ she said enigmatically.
‘You’ll be here tonight then? The meeting?’ she asked.
‘Half eight!’ he said, nodding, and then she was gone.
After a few seconds there was only her mostly empty glass and her half-smoked cigarette smouldering in the ashtray to evidence she had been there at all. He lifted her glass and downed the coke, surprised at the taste of brandy in it, then finished her cigarette, but not before silently lifting it heavenwards, offering the first smoke to Ihtsipaitapiiyo’pa, the Great Spirit, as her grandfather had taught him.
‘Fuck,’ was all he could think to say. ‘Fuck!’
Chapter Eight: Shenandoah
With a second pint in hand Conall strode blinking out of the pub to the tables arranged on the flagstones fronting the road. The main lunchtime rush was over and there was now the odd spare seat here and there, though no totally empty tables. He raised his glass and took a large sip of beer, contemplating whether to squeeze in amongst the hippies gathered around the folk band, the archaeologists or the bikers, or whether to just cross the road and go and sit amongst the stones. Still a little sunblind and squinting he moved aside to let someone past him into the pub. But they stopped.
‘Conall?!’
He turned, confused at the mention of his name. A woman stood beaming up at him, dressed in a simple faded red t-shirt under a suede jacket, pale blue jeans and black boots, a bag slung over one shoulder - but it was only when she removed her sunglasses and hugged him and he found himself with his nose and mouth pressed against the top of her head, breathing the scent of her sun-warmed long dark hair, that it fully sunk in who this was.
‘What the hell are you doing here?!’ she said, grinning as she pulled away, her brows creased in a deep frown.
Conall stood speechless, his mind screaming with a car-crash of conflicting thoughts and emotions.
‘Shen?!’ he said aware of the colour draining from his face.
‘Why are you here? Are you down here for long? You’re not leaving yet?’ Shenandoah asked, all at once.
Con shook his head. No words seemed to want to come.
‘No. Good. Look - I’m just going to drop something off in here,’ she said, motioning towards the door of the pub with her head, ‘but – you got time – I mean can I join you for a drink? Quick, grab us those seats then we’ll talk!’ she said, and then was gone, but not before looking back and smiling again, shaking her head.
Some of the archaeologists had just got up, leaving a table free, to which Conall walked, seating himself facing the sun. It was only when he picked up his pint that he realised his hand was shaking. The chances that he should meet her again, here, and now, seemed to him so astronomically slim he could only lift his eyes skywards, questioning whatever power might have arranged such a bitter-sweet coincidence. When he had met her here last year she had only been here for a matter of days, to visit her granddad - for she had long since moved away from Wiltshire; but Her Granddad had died shortly after, and anyway, since then all contact between Conall and her had ceased... She had no reason to be here, he thought; and yet here she was. Why? Why did he have to see her now? Could I, he asked himself, just slip away? All this was going through Conall’s mind, but behind it all was a more constant and more appealing image from their past: of her dark eyes looking up at him and closing as he leaned in to kiss her; and then a wave of sadness and guilt swept through him, and an image appeared in his mind’s eye - a line of Coleridge’s poetry savagely underlined in red biro:
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw…
And beside those words others in a shaky, wild hand:
I go to the river to die…
Behind him, following a burst of applause, the folk band had begun another song, and a strong female voice had started to sing.
There was three kings into the east,
Three kings both great and high,
And they hae sworn a solemn oath
John Barleycorn should die.
They took a plough and plough'd him down,
Put clods upon his head,
And they hae sworn a solemn oath
John Barleycorn was dead.
Just then the woman’s voice was joined by that of a man coming from the opposite side of the forecourt, deep, with a strong northern accent. Con turned – the man was shaven headed with a goatee beard, his wiry arms blue with tattoos – each forearm emblazoned with a spiralling serpent, the heads of which flicked their forked tongues across the back of his hands.
They've let him lie for a very long time,
'til the rains from heaven did fall
And little Sir John sprung up his head
and so amazed them all
The man had risen and was making his way from his seat near the door of the pub, past the folk singers, towards the road.
They've let him stand 'til Midsummer's Day
'til he looked both pale and wan
And little Sir John's grown a long, long beard
and so become a man.
He bowed to the group, grinning broadly and as he passed Con he winked at him mischievously before heading off across the road to the circle, his pint glass in his hand. Behind him the woman’s voice continued, and Con turned back and drank some more beer.
They've ta’en a weapon, long and sharp,
And cut him by the knee;
Then tied him fast upon a cart,
Like a rogue for forgerie.
‘Wake up, John-a-dreams!’
Conall looked up and met Shen’s dark-brown eyes, looking out from the curtain of her dark straight hair. She was holding a large glass of what looked to be coke, and a pint for him.
‘How come you’re here?’ Conall asked, dry mouthed. Shen bit her lip. Her eyes glistened and she forced a smile. ‘I’ve been here sorting Granddad’s things out since March; he left me the house in his will. I couldn’t sell it; just couldn’t. Oh, and there’s something he left for you, too. I meant to…’
‘No matter….I was sorry to hear about your Granddad. I’ve just left some tobacco on his grave.’ Conall said, matter-of-factly. ‘… I don’t know if it’s a Blackfoot tradition or not, but it seemed kind of appropriate.’
‘That’s kind of you.’ She said.
‘I saw the flowers there, too – I didn’t for a second think they would have been from you… So you’re living here now?’
‘Partly; it’s taking a while to get the business off the ground here and I still have the house on Scilly, but I’m renting that out over the summer as a holiday cottage; I’m probably going to sell it. I was never comfortable there, the sea can be so oppressive…Anyway… what about you?! What are you up to?’. Her smile seemed genuine, if a little strained. ‘How are you doing?’
Conall looked down, frowning, thinking of what to say, the words of the song distracting him.
They laid him down upon his back,
And cudgell'd him full sore;
They hung him up before the storm,
And turn'd him o'er and o'er.
They filled up a darksome pit
With water to the brim,
They heav'd in John Barleycorn-
There, let him sink or swim!
Con shivered at the image of a pale body floating in dark water that had risen in his mind’s eye.
‘Con? Hello!? Earth to Con…’
He half-smiled and shrugged. ‘Well I’m writing the odd article,’ he said, speaking louder than usual to be heard over the singing, ‘giving the odd lecture here and there...’ he took another sip to buy himself time while he struggled to rein in his emotions.
‘You know what I meant.’
Conall stared at his pint.
‘Yeah, I’m okay. I’m doing better.’ He smiled, gently, unconvincingly.
‘I thought about you.’ She suddenly said. Conall raised his eyes to hers in genuine surprise.
‘Likewise’ was all he could muster; he looked into her eyes, but she didn’t hold his gaze for long, lowering her eyes and picking up her drink.
‘I don’t really know what to say.’ Shen said, ‘I would have written again… but you said not to…’
She looked across at him again, fleetingly, with a slight hint of awkwardness.
He felt like he should say something to explain, but the words weren’t there. ‘Look, I'm sorry. I was in a bit of a shit place...’
'It's okay, Con. I know. God, you don’t need to apologise.'
‘But thanks for letting me know about Alfred…’ he mumbled.
She had been looking down at her small hands, fiddling with a jade and silver ring, but now she looked up.
‘It’s all so shit, isn’t it? And I knew Granddad was ill… I had time to prepare… but you…’
Conall shrugged again and smiled weakly, not wanting her to go on.
It was strange for them both to be sitting here in silence, after all the laughter and incessant talking they had enjoyed the last time they had met. It seemed so long ago. When they had parted it had all been good between them; but to meet again now, like this, perhaps it might have been better had he not seen her. Con sipped his pint in silence, and turned his head to watch the folk band finish their song.
They wasted, o'er a scorching flame,
The marrow of his bones;
But a miller us'd him worst of all,
For he crush'd him between two stones.
And they hae taen his very heart's blood,
And drank it round and round;
And still the more and more they drank,
Their joy did more abound.
John Barleycorn was a hero bold,
Of noble enterprise;
For if you do but taste his blood,
'Twill make your courage rise.
'Twill make a man forget his woe;
'Twill heighten all his joy;
'Twill make the widow's heart to sing,
Tho' the tear were in her eye.
The crowds applauded and Con and Shen joined them, politely. When Con looked back at Shen she was regarding him anxiously, feeling the same tension as him.
‘Well, this is awkward.’ She said. ‘God, Con, let’s not be off with each other, it’s not like we see each other every day…’. He nodded, smiling at her directness.
‘So did you ever work it out, your lost star myth – the dragon thing?’ she asked, seeming to relax a little.
He smiled. ‘I think so. It’s kind of changed a bit; not massively but a bit. It’s why I’m here,’ he half-lied, ‘the sky’s supposed to be clear for the next few days. You just can’t see any sky in London.’
‘It was always a bit beyond me, you know, your theorising.’ She shrugged. ‘But I loved the stories. Granddad did too. I loved it that night when you showed me which stars were which, and the tales behind them all.’
It had been on that night that he had first told her that he could really fall for her. Had that really happened? He felt himself redden. Was she remembering that too? But it had also been that night that the other thing had happened; not that Shen knew. Neither did he at the time; he had to wait a few more days for that news, and then everything had changed.
…They filled up a darksome pit
With water to the brim…
He cast the unwanted image from his mind, clenching his hand into a fist. ‘It’s the stories that are the key Shenandoah… they hold all that information, I’m sure of it. But it’s like a code that needs cracking… it was an intuition, that’s all – but I never had time to follow it up. Not til recently. And now, well… it makes sense, but I just don’t know if I’m right or if I’m seeing things…’
‘And you’re still at the uni?’ she asked.
‘Not any more; I quit.’.
‘Quit? Why?’
He shrugged. ‘Long story.’ He sipped his drink.
‘How long’s long?’ she smiled.
‘Too long for now; I don’t want to bore you.’
‘Well, you’d better quit now then; it is probably very boring.’ She joked.
In the more companionable silence that followed he relaxed and was able to take her in; sitting with her back to the sun, her broad-high cheek-boned face in shadow, it was clear that she owed her looks to a more exotic ancestry than her hyphened part-Irish surname, Mac Govan-Crow, suggested. Con recalled a scene from their previous meeting, when, sitting upon West Kennet Longbarrow, he had stuck the owl feather she had given him in her hair and told her she now looked like her great-great grandmother whose photo she had showed him on her granddad’s dresser… the same feather he had stuck in his hat not an hour before…
‘That’s my granddad’s dad, George, as a baby, and his parents, Kills Crow and Medicine Smoke Woman.’ she had said, pointing at the sepia image.
‘You look like her.’ He had said, his eyes on her rather than the photo. A silence had passed between them then. The truth was that she looked almost more native than her grandfather had done; her long straight dark hair especially, and her cheekbones that seemed to push her eyes into heavily lidded crescents; their colour somewhere between chocolate and black, depending on the light.
‘I guess Shenandoah is a Native name?’ he had said then.
She had smiled, ‘Well, it is, it’s a native river name - but that’s not why I’m called it – it’s after the song, my granddad sang it to me just after I was born, he liked the Jimmy Stewart film, and it stuck – thank God – I think my parents had been toying with Deidriu.’
‘Derdriu?’ he’d laughed.
‘Don’t laugh – it’s a family name, and it’s still my middle name.’
‘Ok, Deirdre.’
‘Shenandoah Derdriu Mac Govan-Crow… fuck me, that’s a mouthful!’ he had laughed.
A year and a world later Con took his tobacco from his pocket and rolled a cigarette, offering Shen one. She looked about her guiltily, with a voiced indrawn breath. ‘Oh god! Don’t!’
‘You given up?’
‘Kind of. My boyfriend doesn’t really like me smoking.’
Conall felt the smile freeze on his face. Boyfriend; of course: someone like Shen would never stay single for long, he reasoned. He felt a strange sense of deflation, but then she smiled at him and he felt somehow better; relieved even. Too much had changed.
‘Go on, have one. Blame the smell on me.’ Conall said with a wink, pushing the tobacco her way.
She hesitated, stared at the proffered tobacco, looked up at Con and then relented.
‘Who’s the lucky man?’ Conall asked, handing her the papers and rolling himself another.
‘He’s from Swindon…’
‘Oh I’m sorry…’ Con joked.
Shen narrowed her eyes and continued ‘– he’s called Hayden; been seeing him since last summer. He’s a fireman,’ she said, as he lit her cigarette.
‘Has that got anything to do with the no smoking? If he catches you will he turn the hose on you out of habit?’ Conall asked. She shook her head, smiling. ‘Uh huh, he’s a bit of a health nut. You need to be fit in that line of work….God that’s good’ she said, exhaling and looking down at the cigarette. ‘I’ve got half an hour before I’m meeting him – time for some of the smell to fade, I hope. I can always get some gum.’
Conall eyed his two thirds full second pint and full third pint and wondered if he could down both in less than half an hour. But at least if he, what was his name? Hayden, turned up they wouldn’t have to talk about what had happened since he’d last seen Shen. Again, the image of that manic handwriting beside the printed poem rose to consciousness: I go to the river to die… as if to punish him for this moment of levity.
‘You’ll have to see what I’ve done to the cottage. How long are you down for, again?’
‘A few days, not sure really.’
‘Well, unfortunately with the protest I’ve let my spare rooms out for the next few days, otherwise I’d have put you up.’
‘What protest?’ Conall asked.
‘Over the bones in the museum.’
He shook his head.
‘They’re bringing some new bones here that had been stored away in Devizes museum, and putting them in this swanky new display here; the museum’s been shut for a month or so while they’ve been renovating it; the Chairman of English Heritage is going to be here on Wednesday to visit the excavations and to open the new exhibit; there’s going to be a group of protesters there to meet him, pagans, who don’t think he should be on display. The head of them, Wolf, is lodging at Granddad’s. Granddad’s has kind of become unofficial protest HQ… if you’re around tonight we’ll be here in the pub – at half eight… you’ll be most welcome. Oh, and…’ she said, fumbling about in her bag; She took a card from out of her purse and handed it to him. Shenandoah Mac Govan Crow - Tarot card readings – individuals and parties catered for; followed by a mobile number and an email address.
‘Spread the word. Business is picking up – I mean, there’s loads of stuff like this down in Glastonbury, but not here.’
‘So will you read my cards?’ he asked. ‘You promised to last time but didn’t.’
She nodded. ‘Yeah, course I will! I read Wolf’s last night; it was fun.’
He felt a twinge of jealousy over this Wolf character…
‘And did the cards say they would win the protest?’
Shen shrugged. ‘Yes and no, strangely; they wouldn’t win but would get what they wanted.’
‘Hmm. Helpfully vague.’ Con grinned.
A beeping noise sounded from her handbag and she dug around until she had found her phone. Mouthing sorry she pressed to answer the call.
‘Hello? Hi! No, I’m at the pub…just dropped in some more cards…’ It’s Hayden, she mouthed at Conall. ‘Why don’t you come up?... No? Ok. Suit yourself,…’ she raised her eyes skywards as if to say ‘whatever’ ‘…I’ll be down soon.’ She put the phone back in her bag.
‘He’s already let himself in.’ she explained, ‘I’d better head off in a minute. He’s been on nights… grumpy as hell!’ She said. Suddenly her face dropped. ‘Shit! Do you have any chewing gum or anything?’ she asked, suddenly dropping the unfinished cigarette into the ashtray.
‘Nope’ said Conall, ‘sorry’.
‘Bugger. Oh well, he’ll probably be too grumpy to kiss me for a while anyway.’ She said, rising to her feet.
‘One for the road?’ Conall joked, offering her the packet of cigarette papers. She stuck out her tongue sarcastically.
She breathed into her hand and sniffed. ‘Oh, that’s not too bad.’ She said. Then she looked down at Conall and smiled, putting out her hand as if she were about to ruffle his hair, and touching him on the cheek instead.
‘I still can’t believe you’re here! I’m glad Con. I’m glad I got to see you again.’
‘Didn’t the cards tell you I would be here again?’ he asked, to which she half smiled half snorted; ‘not the cards, no’ she said enigmatically.
‘You’ll be here tonight then? The meeting?’ she asked.
‘Half eight!’ he said, nodding, and then she was gone.
After a few seconds there was only her mostly empty glass and her half-smoked cigarette smouldering in the ashtray to evidence she had been there at all. He lifted her glass and downed the coke, surprised at the taste of brandy in it, then finished her cigarette, but not before silently lifting it heavenwards, offering the first smoke to Ihtsipaitapiiyo’pa, the Great Spirit, as her grandfather had taught him.
‘Fuck,’ was all he could think to say. ‘Fuck!’