Binscombe Tales - The Complete Series Read online

  ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME

  The sight of a stranger in the Duke of Argyll was always of interest, because of its mild rarity value, and to see an unaccompanied young lady was doubly so. Accordingly, I was both surprised and intrigued, on approaching the premises one summer’s evening, to spy Mr Disvan sitting in the pub garden deep in conversation with an attractive woman whose face was unknown to me. I hesitated to intrude upon them and so continued on into the bar.

  ‘You’re late,’ said the landlord in a mock chiding voice.

  ‘Possibly,’ I replied, ‘it being our busy time of year, I had to work on beyond normal hours.’

  ‘I see,’ said the landlord who never bothered to hide his lack of interest or indeed belief in anything that happened beyond the boundaries of Binscombe.

  I decided to turn the conversation so as to satisfy my curiosity and to engage the landlord’s attention all in one.

  ‘Who’s Mr Disvan talking to out in the pub garden?’

  ‘I’m not sure, but I think she’s one of the Diggers.’

  ‘Diggers?’

  ‘He means the archaeologists,’ said Doctor Bani-Sadr. ‘They’re excavating up on top of Binscombe ridge, near Mellersh Farm.’

  ‘There was something about it in the Advertiser,’ said the landlord.

  ‘Ah, is that it. For a while I thought it might be his long lost daughter or even a girlfriend!’

  My comment, intended to be humorous, fell horribly flat. Nobody laughed or smiled or had anything to say at all. They all looked away and acted for a moment as if I was not there. Having obviously breached local etiquette, I thought it best to temporarily remove myself from the scene.

  ‘Do you think they would mind if I joined them?’

  ‘Course not,’ said the landlord, ‘there’s nothing going on between them, is there?’

  ‘No. Well, I think I’ll take my drink outside and see you all later.’

  ‘Suit yourself.’

  I left the bar with the unpleasant sensation, whether true or false I could not say, of having several sets of eyes trained upon my retreating back. The silence was maintained until I had passed through the door and then I heard the low hum of conversation start up again.

  I shrugged off the feeling of unease that the incident had produced in me. Such solecisms were fairly frequent and hard to avoid in Binscombe’s complex tribal set-up, even for people such as I, who had lived there for years. Their occurrence just had to be accepted and, since forgiveness was always swift, time spent worrying about them was time wasted.

  I walked across the rear car park where, some time ago now, Trevor Jones’s car had been exorcised, and passed through the wicker gate into the Beer Garden. Although it was a warm evening without a hint of a breeze, Mr Disvan and his companion were the only people out enjoying their drinks in the dying sunshine, and all the other tables still had their chairs stacked upon them. My approach was eventually noticed and the two turned to study the newcomer. Mr Disvan, of course, instantly recognised me but the woman took no notice of this and continued to appraise me with a very cool, self-assured gaze. I recognised the technique from long sad years of London social warfare and so returned her look with equal candour. She was in her early thirties (or possibly late twenties with premature wear) and, although no attempt was made to emphasise the fact, she was, as I had earlier spotted, definitely attractive in a challenging sort of way. She wore a bib and braces outfit with a cheerful red scarf wound into her hair, and a pint of dark beer stood before her on the garden table.

  ‘Ah, Mr Oakley,’ said Disvan, ‘glad to see you. Bit late, aren’t you?’

  ‘I had to work.’

  ‘Busy time of year in your business, I expect.’

  ‘That’s right, it is actually. How did you know?’

  ‘Commonsense.’

  ‘I see. Anyway, leaving that all aside, I wonder if you’d mind if I joined you? I’ve said the wrong thing again in there.’

  ‘Mind? No, I insist.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Mr Oakley, I’d like you to meet Elaine, she’s one of the archaeologists working up on the ridge.’

  ‘I’m pleased to meet you, Elaine. How’s the work developing?’

  ‘Handsomely, thank you—and please call me Ellie, I much prefer it.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘What’s wrong with Elaine?’ asked Mr Disvan curiously.

  ‘I don’t know. I’m just not at ease with it so I use an alternative.’

  ‘How strange. There’s no bad connotations to it that I’m aware of. It’s an old French version of the Greek name Helen—very ancient as you know. There’s also Arthurian links to it via Tennyson and Mallory—“Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat” who had “that love which was her doom’”. A lovely old story.’

  ‘Very nice, I’m sure, but I still prefer Ellie.’

  ‘Ellie thinks,’ said Mr Disvan, ‘that they’ve uncovered, if you’ll excuse the pun, good evidence for continuity of use between the Iron Age and Romano-British cemeteries up there.’

  ‘Really? What about the barrow, though?’

  ‘Ah, well that’s the most interesting part of all, isn’t it, Ellie?

  The lady in question was looking at us with open approval.

  ‘You know, you people round here are really amazing. I’ve been digging all over, and everywhere else I’ve been all the locals want to know is if we’ve found any gold or skeletons—skeletons or gold every time. Here, though, people ask me about evidence for continuity of settlement, about cemetery lay-out and burial practises—all the sort of stuff only us professionals are supposed to be interested in. What is it about Binscombe people?’

  ‘We’re very keen on knowing about our past here, Ellie.’

  ‘And if we’re not to start with, then Mr Disvan makes sure that we are sooner or later. It was him who told me about the cemeteries up on the ridge—I wouldn’t have known about them otherwise. With the best will in the world, there’s just not the time to read up old archaeological reports and such like, so we rely on Mr Disvan here to be our fountain of knowledge.’

  ‘Even so, it’s pretty unusual to find an archaeologically educated public—and very gratifying.’

  ‘Why should you care?’ I said.

  ‘Else what’s the point of what we’re all doing? Why go on excavating and producing reports if the society they’re intended for doesn’t give a damn?’

  ‘You could say the same about anything that’s not strictly practical.’

  Ellie reached for her packet of cigarettes and lit one.

  ‘Yeah, that’s true. I’m overstating the case. Anyway, I’d still be an archaeologist even if I was the only one in the world who was the least bit interested. It’s just nice sometimes to know that a few people out there other than dried up old university professors would like to hear what we’ve found out.’

  ‘You haven’t told Mr Oakley about the barrow yet, Ellie.’

  ‘No, sorry—I was side-tracked and got onto my soap-box. It’s a failing of mine. Well, Mr Oakley, I presume then that you know about the Bronze Age barrow near the cemetery sites.’

  ‘Yes, it’s still quite prominent in the landscape.’

  ‘That’s because the land it’s on is useless for agriculture, and so the barrow escaped the attentions of the plough.’

  ‘Presumably.’

  ‘Definitely. Well, the barrow’s pretty typical Late Bronze Age and we didn’t expect it to reveal anything because—well, doubtless Mr Disvan has told you about the 1890 attack on it...’

  ‘No, he hasn’t actually.’

  ‘No? Oh well, in line with the practices of the time, the Binscombe Barrow was one of about a dozen ransacked in the course of a summer’s day by an Antiquarian Society from Hampstead. Their hired workmen simply dug a trench straight down through it whilst the members stood around and watched or ate a picnic. It was a common thing in those days—a pleasant day’s pillaging for the educated well-to-do.’

>   ‘Did they find anything?’

  ‘We don’t know. As per normal, the expedition wasn’t written up other than a very brief paragraph in The Gentleman’s Magazine. If there was a burial or cremation burial in there, they must have taken the bones and/or pot, and God knows where they could be nowadays. All they left for posterity was a great backfilled hole.’

  ‘That must be frustrating for you.’

  ‘You get used to it. Future generations of archaeologists will probably feel the same about our efforts. Anyway, the point is that we’ve found that the barrow was re-used long after its creation and that there’s a Roman double burial in one side—something the Victorian vandals missed.’

  ‘And that’s unusual is it?’

  ‘Not desperately, but taken in conjunction with the Iron Age/Roman continuity in the main cemeteries, the whole site’s quite a find.’

  ‘I’m gratified to hear that,’ said Mr Disvan, ‘but where are the rest of your excavators?’

  ‘They’re mostly MSC, sorry, Manpower Services Commission, people or day volunteers, so they’re not around in the evening. There’s three other people from the university with me but... well, they’ve got other interests than coming down to meet the villagers.’

  ‘And where do you fit into the group, Ellie?’ I asked.

  ‘Director, whip-cracker and sometime cook—which reminds me, I ought to be heading back to see what’s on food-wise. Besides which I’ve got a lot of writing up to do.’

  ‘Perhaps we could offer you a lift,’ said Disvan. ‘It’s a tidy old trek up through the roads to the ridge. Twenty minutes walk for anyone.’

  Ellie seemed very pleased to receive this offer. ‘Ordinarily I wouldn’t like to impose but...’

  ‘Mr Oakley, your car is here, isn’t it? You can drive us there can’t you?’

  I had a mere second in which to assert myself and resist this press-ganging before my hesitation would be detected and my churlishness revealed. As always the second passed and, long hard day and thirst notwithstanding, I agreed.

  ‘That’s very kind of you’ she said.

  ‘Not at all.’

  I finished my drink, and a few minutes later we were driving through the centre of the Binscombe Estate out towards the wilder agricultural and wooded area that surrounded it. The path to the ridge was a mere sunken mud track off a minor road but was nominally negotiable to motor vehicles, although in parts perilously narrow and beset by trees. As I struggled with the problems it posed and pondered on the mud and scratches my car was accumulating, I heard Mr Disvan and Ellie chatting learnedly about the dig, the site, and its place within the lost past of Binscombe. Even at the best of times I would have had little to contribute to such a conversation and so, in between desperate hauling at the wheel and the piling on of gas or brake, I was content merely to listen in to snippets of their talk.

  At length the car gamely took a very steep rise, at the top of which was a closed five-bar gate. Not far beyond, in a circle cleared of the bracken which grew all about, could be seen four or five tents, a large prefabricated wooden hut, and a patchwork of excavated areas. Above them, on the very apex of the ridge, loomed the dark elongated shape of the barrow. Plainly we had arrived. Ellie suddenly fell silent and there was a slight period of hesitation before she said, ‘I’ll just go and open the gate, then.’

  ‘Okay, your door is unlocked.’

  ‘Fine—right then.’

  She left the car and sprinted over to the gate. The rope loop which held it shut took a time to disengage, and while she struggled with it she cast numerous glances into the thick mass of trees and bracken which came up close to the path on either side. Once it was free she hurried the gate forward and waved us on. Within a few seconds of me clearing the gap she had closed and fastened the gate and was in the car again.

  ‘Is there some problem?’ said Mr Disvan.

  ‘Problem? No,’ she replied, ‘we’re almost there, drive on.’

  I duly covered the few hundred yards to the campsite and halted the car on a reasonably level piece of ground.

  ‘Thank you very much,’ said Ellie, ‘it was most kind of you. Come on over and meet the other full-timers. I’ll rustle up a cup of cocoa or coffee for you.’

  ‘That’d be nice,’ said Mr Disvan, ‘we’ll take you up on that offer. Follow me, Mr Oakley, don’t be shy.’

  Up to that point, I’d been thinking in terms of a swift trip back down Binscombe’s answer to the slalom in order to resume my interrupted visit to the Argyll. However, since we’d made it this far it seemed reasonable to accept the offer, even though Disvan’s habit of speaking for me irked as before.

  We followed Ellie to what was obviously the focal point of the camp: a large hearth of stacked bricks with a covering of corrugated iron over its top. Here, presumably, was where the meals were cooked and consumed. While Mr Disvan and I tried to make ourselves comfortable on the tree trunks which served as seats, Ellie put a kettle on to boil over a primus.

  ‘It’s humble, but it’s home,’ she said. ‘At least for a while.’

  Then, while we were sipping the resultant black coffee out of plastic cups, Ellie gave the hearth’s iron roof several hard blows with a stick. The clanging noise thus produced caused a curious head to peer out of one of the nearby tents and look about to find the source of the disturbance. Obviously our arrival by car and subsequent chat had not been sufficient to rouse him or her.

  ‘Visitors,’ shouted Ellie, and the head nodded and then withdrew back into the tent.

  ‘You’ll have to excuse them—they’re preoccupied,’ she said.

  ‘Them? I only saw one.’

  ‘There’s more.’ She smiled as if at a private witticism. ‘In every sense of the word.’

  ‘It’s a fine outlook you have here,’ said Mr Disvan.

  It was indeed. Below us the ridge fell away sharply and we had a clear and panoramic view of the rolling fields and lanes which led up to the start of Binscombe and the orderly, close packed streets beyond. A light mist was rising over the old glebe lands by the school and, in the distance, the sheen of Broadwater Lake was visible. The bird’s farewell evening chorus from the trees on the slope provided a pleasing soundtrack, and we carried on silently taking in the scene set out before us for several moments.

  Then the low roar and rumble of a forty-tonne juggernaut coping with the twists and turns of the Compton Road eventually reached us and broke the spell, dragging us back to the mundane world.

  ‘ “All the kingdoms of the world and the glory thereof”,’ Ellie said, smiling pleasantly and waving her arm towards the horizon.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘A joke. A quote I learnt at school.’

  ‘It’s Biblical, Mr Oakley,’ said Mr Disvan as if to a slow but favoured child. ‘Mr Oakley is the product of a strictly secular upbringing, Ellie. He’ll not understand your allusion, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Should I know it?’ I asked.

  ‘Probably not necessary,’ Ellie replied. ‘More coffee?’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘Hello,’ said a soft voice from behind. Mr Disvan and I turned rapidly to see that Ellie’s colleagues had silently joined us. She had been correct in saying that there were more—three in fact.

  ‘Hello,’ they repeated in unison.

  ‘Dave, Ros and Jayney, I’d like you meet Mr Disvan and Mr Oakley from the village. You two, please meet Dave, Ros and Jayney.’

  ‘Nice to meet you,’ said Mr Disvan, rising and shaking hands with each.

  ‘Likewise,’ I added.

  ‘Be careful,’ said Ellie to her friends. ‘Mr D and Mr O know a frightening amount about our trade.’

  In Binscombe circles the three arrivals stood out somewhat. Dave had shoulder length, slicked back hair and wore a sizeable amount of make-up. Ros and Jayney were petite earth mother figures on whom the fashions of the sixties counter culture and a future post apocalypse age struggled for ascendancy. Heavy rings of eye shadow gav
e them a friendly, panda-ish look.

  Even so, our greetings were none the less warm or genuine, for I had perforce gone beyond judging books by their covers, and Disvan was seemingly never disconcerted by anything or anyone.

  Hand in hand, the three came to join us on a nearby tree trunk-cum-bench.

  ‘Do you want to eat?’ said Ellie.

  ‘Maybe later,’ replied Jayney.

  ‘I’ll get a fire going in the hearth then,’ said Dave, and proceeded efficiently to do so.

  In the event we stayed far longer than initially envisaged and shared the archaeologist’s meal of beans and rice. Sitting round the blazing fire, with the barrow above us and the lights of Binscombe below, ultimately seemed very agreeable to me, and I relinquished any thoughts of returning to the Argyll. Mr Disvan got into a deep debate with the ménage à trois about the evidence for post-Roman social systems that could perhaps be derived from early Welsh legal codes and land deeds. Then he became even more popular when his meerschaum pipe was produced and shared round. The peculiar aroma it produced wafted over the hillside in competition with the wood smoke and added its dubious charms to the pleasant fragrance of the evening.

  Since I could add nothing to the discussion described above and Ellie did not seem minded to join in, our little gathering split into two groups, one silent and one not. I noticed that whereas my gaze was relaxed and more or less undirected, Ellie was staring fixedly into the woods that surrounded the encampment on all sides other than that occupied by the barrow. She seemed more tense than the situation demanded or merited, and I assumed that some unpleasant recollection had occurred to her. In order to dispel this, and—okay—perhaps with some idea of establishing more intimate relations, I decided to strike up a conversation.

  ‘I had no idea it was this pleasant on the ridge,’ I said. ‘It must be very easy to get to feel at home up here.’

  ‘That’s the whole problem,’ she replied, her mood obviously unchanged by having her thoughts interrupted. ‘It’s far too easy to feel at home here.’

  Mr Disvan appeared to have caught this answer and had broken off his talk, mid-sentence, to look intently at her.