'we only sell them for decoration, not eating. Lovejoy is squeamish,' she added for Lydia's benefit, leading the way to her bottling plant. It's in a shed. 'I once saw him rescue a fledgling in a thunderstorm. It had fallen from its nest. It died, of course, but only after Lovejoy'd tried to feed it with milk for two days. He's barmy.'
We stared at her bottling machines. 'Great, Dottie,' I said.
'You'll want to see this next bit, Lovejoy.'
We went along a narrow path, trekked down an overgrown path into thick trees. The ground sloped up. I realized we were on one of those ancient Celtic ramparts, probably no more than mere cattle compounds but which are now invested with folklore tales of primitive battlements. You get a lot hereabouts.
'Here,' Dottie said.
It was a glade some fifty feet across. Wild flowers were everywhere. An astonished fallow deer peered at us, sprang and vanished.
'What?' I said.
'Arthur Goldhorn.' Dottie looked sadly at me. 'I trust it wasn't for the pleasure of my company that you called, Lovejoy.'
'Arthur?' I said stupidly. There was nobody but us.
Lydia said quietly, 'The stone, Lovejoy.'
The headstone wasn't quite in the centre of the clearing. It was knee high, not as tall as they stand in our churchyard, faced with slate incised with bold letters done in brass. It announced that Arthur H. Goldhorn lay here. H for what? No epitaph, no sentimental Hoping On The Resurrection and all that. Nor was there any Beloved Husband Of and suchlike. Just Requiescat in pace, and that was that.
Dottie didn't speak. I read the inscription over and over.
Weeds had flourished since the burial. The earth mound was overgrown. Greenery stood taller even than the headstone itself. I stared, kept on staring, couldn't take my eyes away. The lettering was a professional job. I cleared my throat to say something, couldn't.
The women were talking quietly. I couldn't catch what they said, didn't try. A small bunch of wild flowers had been laid by the headstone. Who by? They were faded, petals fraying.
This was Arthur. It signified his arrival, birth, life, death. It was all he was or ever had been. No more.
'Look,' I said after a bit. 'See you back at the barn, okay?'
'Yes, Lovejoy.'
'One thing, Dottie.' It took me time to get the words out. 'Whose land is this?'
She didn't reply for a few pulses. 'It's mine, Lovejoy. Those two hornbeams. See them?
Six, seven perches off? That's my boundary.'
'Oh, aye.' I couldn't recognize a hornbeam tree if I fell over it. 'Whose land comes next, then?' I already knew.
A longer pause this time. 'Saffron Fields, Arthur's own land until lately.'
'Just making sure.'
'It belongs to Dieter Gluck now. Colette works for him in the London antiques markets.
A bag lady, people say.' I actually heard Dottie shrug, all that heavy rural garb susurrussing on her. 'She can't keep away. Like you, Lovejoy. A street lover, Arthur used to say.'
Nothing more. Arthur Goldhorn, ancient owner of an ancient manorial estate, had finished up a piece of discarded rubbish. Only the kindness of a neighbour had given him rest.
Eventually I heard them both go off down the footpath, weeds squelching underfoot.
Dottie does this to keep paths free, but it never works. Come back a day or two later, every track is almost completely overgrown like nobody had ever passed that way. Very like Arthur. Or you.
I sat on the ground by the grave, wondering who it was standing watching among the trees.
10
ME AND ARTHUR in the glade. One thinking about death, the other knowing all there was to know about it, thank you very much. He was buried in a remote wood.
Now, the law about burials in silent, leafy old East Anglia is exactly that for the rest of Great Britain, give or take a patch or two. People don't know this, but you can have yourself buried anywhere, as long as you stick to certain rules. Report the death to the Registrar General. Get the death certificated. Find a place, and that's it.
You don't have to hire a church and a priest, have grand motorcades. You can devise your own funeral service, sing whatever hymns you like, compose them yourself if you've a mind. Or stay silent. No need for posh coffins made of valuable hardwood, expensive mourners. It can be a Do It Yourself job, start to finish. In fact, it can be a festive frolic with friends. Not long since, a colonel-in-chief of the Sealed Knot - they re-enact Great Civil War battles - had his remains fired from a seventeenth-century cannon. Quite legal.
Arthur used to go scathingly on about council cemeteries, headstones on parade. It made me queasy, but he just laughed. 'Bury me under a tree on my own land,' he told me once. 'That giant mulberry, full of silk moths.'
Times out of number I'd joked back, 'It's a deal.'
Not your own land now, Arthur. Dieter Gluck now owned it. He also owned Arthur's antique dealership. And Colette too. Maybe if Arthur stood tall, he might just glimpse Saffron Fields manor where his ancestors had lived for a thousand years, maybe even see his precious mulberry tree. I couldn't recognize a mulberry either.
