The Janus Stone

in her life, to say nothing of the traumas of the past few months, had faded into nothingness, leaving only a boundless blue contentment.

‘I hope you’ll change your minds,’ is all she says. She stands and helps her mother up from the tree stump.

‘We never change our minds about anything,’ says her mother proudly. ‘That’s not the sort of people we are.’

You can say that again, thinks Ruth. Being Born Again has only increased her parents’ already well-developed sense of infallibility. After all, if God has chosen you, how can you ever be wrong again? About anything. Her parents found God when she was a teenager. Far too late for Ruth, although she had, for a time, accompanied them to services. She has never found God but, then again, she isn’t about to go looking.

Her father gestures dramatically towards Severndroog Castle in the background.

‘Our values don’t change. They haven’t changed since that castle was built in the Middle Ages.’

Ruth does not add that the castle is, in fact, an eighteenth-century folly or that the Middle Ages were presumably rife with illegitimate babies and unmarried mothers. She only says, ‘Well I hope you’ll feel differently when the baby’s born.’

Neither of her parents answers but, when they cross Avery Hill Road, Ruth’s father takes her arm in a protective way, as if being pregnant has seriously impaired her traffic sense. This Ruth finds obscurely comforting.

Sunday afternoon in a King’s Lynn suburb. Cars are being washed, fresh-faced families set out on bike rides, dogs are walked, newspapers are read and the smell of Sunday lunch permeates the air. After his own lunch (roast lamb with vegetarian option for Laura) Nelson announces his intention of mowing the lawn. Michelle says she’ll go to the gym (she’s the only woman in the world who wants to go to the gym on a Sunday afternoon) and Laura says she’ll go too, for a swim. That leaves Nelson and sixteen-year-old Rebecca, who immediately disappears upstairs to plug herself into her iPod and computer. This suits Nelson fine. He wants to be by himself, performing some mundane domestic task. It’s the way he thinks best.

By the time he has got out the lawnmower, found that it has run out of petrol, fetched the spare can from the boot of his Mercedes, dropped the garage door on his foot, fixed the broken clutch cable and moved Michelle’s washing line, he’s thinking furiously. Is Ruth pregnant? Is it his baby? They spent one night together, back in February, but, at the same time, he knew Ruth was seeing her ex-boyfriend, Peter. It’s possible then that the baby is Peter’s. And what about Erik, Ruth’s old tutor? He always thought Ruth was very close to Erik. Could they have been sleeping together? It’s a funny thing but he thinks of Ruth as somehow existing on a higher plane than most people. The night they slept together had seemed removed from the ordinary motivations of lust and desire, though those had played their part. He and Ruth had come together as equals who had just been through a terrible experience together. It had just seemed… right. The sex, Nelson remembers, had been incredible.

Somehow, remembering that sense of rightness, Nelson feels convinced that Ruth did conceive that night. It seems almost preordained. Jesus – he gives the mower a vicious shove – he’s thinking like some crap women’s magazine. It’s highly unlikely that she got pregnant; she was probably using birth control (which was never mentioned; they didn’t talk much). He’s not even sure that she is pregnant. She has probably just put on weight.

‘Dad!’

Rebecca is leaning out of an upstairs window. With her long blonde hair and serious face she looks oddly accusatory, like a Victorian picture of a wronged woman. For one stupid moment Nelson imagines that his daughter knows all about Ruth, is about to tell Michelle…

‘Dad. It’s Doug on the phone. He says do you want to go to the pub tonight.’

Nelson pauses, breathing hard. The smell of mown grass is almost overpowering.

‘Thanks, love. Tell him no, I’d rather spend the night in with my family.’

Rebecca shrugs. ‘Suit yourself. But I think Mum’s going out to the pictures.’

That evening, as Nelson and his daughters sit in front of an old James Bond film (Michelle has indeed gone to the cinema with a girlfriend), Ruth is mindlessly watching the same movie in her parents’ sitting room. She loathes James Bond, thinks he’s sexist, racist and almost unbearably boring but her parents seem to be enjoying the film (although was there ever anyone less Born Again than James Bond?) and the last thing she wants to do is argue with them. The arguments about her baby have continued, wearily, all afternoon. How could she? Who’s going to look after it when she goes to work? Hasn’t she heard that families need fathers? What’s the poor little mite going to do without a father, without a family, without God? ‘You’ll be its family,’ Ruth said, ‘and you can tell it about God.’ Although, she adds silently, I shall tell it my own version. That God is a made-up fairy tale, like Snow White only nastier.

Now, mercifully, her parents are silent, happily watching James Bond beat up a scantily dressed woman. When Ruth’s phone rings, they both look at her accusingly.

Ruth walks out into the hall to answer it. ‘Phil’ says the message on the screen. Her boss. Head of the Archaeology Department at the University of North Norfolk.

‘Hallo, Phil.’

‘Hi, Ruth. Not interrupting anything am I?’

‘I’m visiting my parents.’

‘Oh… good. Just that something’s come up on one of the field sites.’

The university employs field archaeologists to work on sites that are being developed, usually for building. The field archaeologists nominally report to Phil and are the bane of his life.

‘Which one?’

‘Woolmarket Street, I think.’

‘What have they found?’

Though, of course, she already knows the answer.

‘Human remains.’

4th June Festival for Hercules Custos

Working all day today, translating Catullus. She distracted me, which is Wrong. I heard the voices again last night. I used to think that I was going mad but now I know that I have been Chosen. It’s a great responsibility.

It is not only the Lady who talks in my mind but the whole army of saints who once occupied this place. The martyrs who died for the Faith. They speak to me too. This is my body. This is my blood.

Death must be avenged by another death, blood by blood. I understand that now. She will never understand because she is a woman and women are Weak. Everyone knows that. She is too attached to the child. A mistake.

I sacrificed again last night and the result was the same. Wait. But she grows bigger. She is walking and soon she will be talking. I’m not a cruel person. The Gods know I would never willingly hurt anyone. But the family comes first. What must be done, must be done. Fortes fortuna iuvat.

CHAPTER 4

It is afternoon by the time that Ruth reaches the site on Woolmarket Street. She has no lectures on a Monday so took the opportunity to have a lie-in at her parents’ house (she is still being sick in the mornings – and evenings too, for that matter). Her mother made her porridge because that is meant to be good for morning sickness. Ruth could only manage a few spoonfuls but was dimly aware that her mother was trying to be kind. No other mention