To Dream of the Dead

‘That’s disgusting!’ Jane glared down from the stairs, holding the dead lights. ‘I don’t know anyone who could do that.’

‘Well, I don’t either, so let’s not worry too much about it. It’s all circumstantial, anyway.’

‘These are gentle people. Well-meaning.’ Jane looked down at the limp necklace of bulbs. ‘They’re just people who think we should be aware of our origins.’

‘Well, me too, but—’

‘And like just pushing out cities and towns and villages in all directions, ruining the countryside for more and more houses and factories that close down after a couple of years… that’s just mindless. Building that road is… thrusting a spear into the countryside.’

Merrily sighed.

‘It’s like nobody ever really thinks any more,’ Jane said. ‘Like the way they just went into Iraq and nobody considered the consequences. Nobody thought.’

Tears in Jane’s eyes.

The fairy lights blinked once and then came on, like jewels on her fingers. She looked down at them.

‘God, it’s just like the Serpent.’

‘Sorry?’

‘It’s like… I never told you, did I? Let me show you, OK?’

Jane picked up the end of the wire and dragged the lights up the stairs to the first landing, where she took off one of her trainers. She wrapped the end of the wire around it to hold it firm on the landing, and then came downstairs backwards, arranging the lights.

Somehow, they all stayed on.

‘This is how it worked, right? The theory is that the Serpent may run all the way from the top of Dinedor Hill down to the River Wye.’

‘How far’s that?’

‘Not as far as you’d think. So it’s connecting what, in ancient times, would have been the two main features in the landscape, pre-Hereford — the biggest hill and the river. The most important river in the west of England and Wales, so very sacred. And the wavy pattern of the Serpent is actually simulating the meandering of the river.’

‘Who’s saying that?’

‘That’s come from the archaeologists themselves — the guys in charge of the rescue excavation. I got it from Coops. Obviously, they’ve only uncovered a small section of the Serpent, but that’s what they reckon. These guys don’t say anything until it’s looking pretty solid.’

‘I see…’

‘I don’t think you do. Not yet. Listen… this is the cool part — the little stones include fragments of quartz, which was probably quarried in the area. So if you imagine this river of stones — with a high quartz content — rising from the Wye, across Rotherwas. Imagine Rotherwas when there were no factories there, no warehouses, only open countryside. So imagine the river rising up the side of Dinedor Hill. Now…’

Jane went across the landing and snapped off the lamp over the stairwell.

‘… Imagine a full moon…’

Before her eyes adjusted, Merrily saw this shining chain against smoky blackness. Ascending lights.

‘On the night of a full moon,’ Jane said, ‘all the fragments of quartz would’ve been reflecting the light. So you’d be seeing like tens of thousands of little lights. An incandescent stream down the sacred hill to the banks of the Wye. You see?’

‘The whole Serpent lights up? That’s what it was for?’

‘Awesome, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ Merrily said. ‘It must have been.’

Light against darkness. My God.

Realising that Jane had said something about this before but it hadn’t really registered. There really wasn’t anything like this, was there, possibly anywhere in the world?

‘Jane, why was this not talked about?’

‘Because the council kept it quiet. You think they wanted everybody to know how exciting it was? Mum, it’s like Bill Blore said, these people are not fit to make decisions on anything important. Anything you can’t take to the bank they don’t even understand.’

That night, as the squally rain spat at the bedroom window, Merrily lay awake, thinking about the Serpent, the stones of Coleman’s Meadow and several other recent finds suggesting a rich, unsuspected, ancient heritage along the Welsh border. When you considered the emotive and mystical power of this illuminated umbilical cord and the impact of its severance by a road carrying heavy commercial traffic…

Who cared?

Not the council, evidently. Most of them probably hoping the serpent would be washed away by the rain.

‘It’s clear what’s happening, isn’t it?’ Jane had said, when they’d put the lights back on the tree. ‘Hereford’s pagan past is rising again, all around us — and it’s more beautiful and spectacular than anyone ever dreamed. And they hate that.’

‘The Council?’

‘The Council, the secular state. And the Church, what’s left of it.’

Ah, yes, the Church. All this was pre-Christian, not the Church’s problem — official.

And whatever was in Coleman’s Meadow wasn’t a problem for the Vicar of Ledwardine. Yet the beauty and — yes — the sanctity of it all… Jane was right, nothing of spiritual value should be discarded. Whether or not you could understand it, there was something you could feel. Something to seize and lift the spirit.

Archaeology to die for.

But archaeology to kill for?

Merrily rolled over. She’d forgotten her hot-water bottle, was feeling chilled, like the vicarage would always be, and she was resisting the warm fantasy of being across the road in Lol’s little terraced house, in the little cosy bedroom with Lol’s warm—

‘Mum?’

The landing light had come on, and Jane stood in the bedroom doorway, bare-legged, a fleece around her shoulders. Flashback to the days after Sean’s death, when she’d stand, bemused, in another bedroom doorway, hugging her oldest teddy.

‘Mum, I forgot — sorry.’

‘What time is it?’

‘Only about half-twelve.’

‘Oh, only half-twelve and you having to go to school in the morning, even if it is the last day of term—’

‘Mum, I forgot, OK? I was going to tell you about it before you asked me about the Serpent and all this Clem Ayling stuff came up, and it got… pushed out.’

‘Couldn’t it have waited till morning?’

‘We never seem to have time in the morning, and I want to check the river, and—’

‘OK.’ Merrily reached over to the bedside chair for her bathrobe. ‘Tell me. Quickly.’

‘It was this woman I met yesterday morning. In the churchyard?’

‘You’ve never mentioned a woman.’

‘No, it didn’t seem important, and I was late and… Anyway, she called herself Lensi, and she had this posh camera. Said she was a press photographer, freelance, working for… I think it was the Independent? She knew about the stones, and she, like, she wants to take some pictures of me?’

‘Not another one.’

‘Yeah, well, I didn’t encourage her, I’m a low-profile person now.’

‘Can’t actually say I’ve noticed.’

‘Anyway, I asked Eirion if he could check her out with his media friends? And, good as gold, he did, and when I rang to tell him it was OK to come at the weekend he told me who he thought she was.’