A Room Full Of Bones

CHAPTER 6

Ruth drives to work on Monday feeling that several hurdles have been overcome. Kate’s birthday party (she knows she shouldn’t think of this as a hurdle, but still) went off OK and the new neighbour didn’t turn out to be a trendy sushi-lover or a weird seaweed collector. True, he had looked a little weird at first with his hair in a sort of sumo-wrestler knot and his feet, despite the weather, in leather flip-flops. And the name! She’d had to ask him to repeat it.

‘Bob Woonunga.’ He had grinned, showing very white teeth in a dark brown face.

‘Oh. That’s… unusual.’

‘It’s an Indigenous Australian name,’ he had explained. They were sitting in Ruth’s kitchen by this time, drinking tea. Kate was still asleep on the sofa.

‘Safe in dreamland,’ Bob had said. ‘Don’t wake her.’

Indigenous Australian? Did that mean Aborigine? Were you allowed to say Aborigine anymore? Ruth had settled for: ‘You’re a long way from home.’

‘I’m a bit of a wanderer,’ Bob smiled. He had an Aussie accent which, Ruth realised, was one of the things that made her trust him. Why? Because of Neighbours and other warm-hearted Antipodean soap operas? Ruth doesn’t like to admit it but it’s probably true. As a student she had been addicted to Neighbours. And now she has a real-life Australian for a neighbour.

She had wanted to ask more about Mr Woonunga’s wanderings but he had volunteered little except that he had a temporary post at the University of East Anglia, teaching creative writing. Or, as he put it, ‘I’ve got a gig at the uni.’ He has rented the house next door for a year.

‘Are you a writer then?’ asked Ruth.

‘Poet mostly, but I’ve written a few novels.’

Ruth was impressed. Like many academics, her ultimate goal is to turn her thesis into a book but so far she hasn’t progressed far beyond the title, ‘Bones, Decomposition and Death in Prehistoric Britain’. To think that someone can be so blasé about their success that they can shrug it away like that. ‘I’ve written a few novels.’ And he must be a successful writer if he’s teaching on the UEA course, even if she hasn’t heard of him.

‘What made you choose this place?’ she had asked. ‘It’s quite a way from Norwich.’

‘A friend recommended it,’ said Bob, stroking Flint, who seemed to have become surgically attached to his new neighbour. ‘And I like the place. It has good magic.’

Good magic. Ruth, negotiating the turn into the University of North Norfolk (definitely the poor relation to the prestigious University of East Anglia), wonders why she hadn’t recoiled as she usually does at any mention of religion or the supernatural. Was it partly because she agreed with Bob Woonunga? Cathbad would say that the Saltmarsh is sacred to the Gods. Erik used to call it a symbolic landscape. Nelson usually refers to it as a dump. For Ruth it is home, but she sometimes wonders why someone born and brought up in South London should be so drawn to such a desolate place. Does she feel that there is magic in the shifting sands and secret pools? No. But, although she has experienced both fear and danger on the Saltmarsh, she knows that she wouldn’t live anywhere else. It’s not entirely rational, she’s willing to admit that.

Ruth’s office is in the Natural Sciences Block which is separated from the main campus by a covered walkway. It’s fairly pleasant in summer, with views over the ornamental lake, but on this grey November morning everything looks forlorn and unloved. The paint is peeling in the lobby and someone has scrawled ‘Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here’ above the main doors. Ruth climbs the two flights of stairs to her office, noticing that the fluorescent lights are flickering again. She’ll have a headache by lunchtime. She opens her door with a key card and sits down at her desk.

Ruth’s office is tiny, only just big enough for a desk and a chair. One wall is full of books, the other has a window overlooking the grounds. It’s too hot in summer and too cold in winter but Ruth loves it. It’s a place where she can be Doctor Ruth Galloway, expert in forensic archaeology, not Kate’s mum, running late as usual, or Ms Galloway, single mother. ‘You’re very brave,’ someone said recently, ‘to bring her up on your own.’ What choice did I have? Ruth wanted to say. Expose her on the hillside? Leave her to be adopted by a friendly wolf pack? But she did have a choice, she recognises, right at the beginning. A choice she supports. It was just that when it came to it she realised she wanted a baby very badly indeed. And, if she never sees him again, she will always be grateful to Nelson for this at least.

Nelson’s birthday present was a large stuffed monkey. Ruth had looked at it for a long time, trying to find some hidden meaning in the blond acrylic fur and beady eyes. Why a monkey? Why a present at all? Hadn’t Michelle forbidden all contact? And when did Nelson deliver it? When the children were singing ‘Happy Birthday Dear Katie’? When Cathbad was rampaging round the garden? She doesn’t like the idea that someone can just drive up to her house, leave an offering on her doorstep, and disappear. Though it has happened before.

Ruth sighs and starts opening her post. November is a busy time, there are assessments to be made, essays to mark. They are more than halfway through the autumn term. She needs to read through her lecture notes for the morning but first she needs a coffee. Maybe a doughnut too. The canteen does a tolerable espresso but the trick will be getting there without running into Phil. She’ll risk it. He’s probably still at home, sleeping off last week’s conference.

‘Ruth!’

‘Hi Phil.’

Caught just outside her office, coffee money in hand.

‘Going for a coffee?’

‘Er…’

‘Great idea. I’ll go with you. Though I’m off coffee at the moment. Keeping Shona company.’

When, last year, Phil had left his wife of fifteen years to move in with Shona, few had felt confident that the relationship would survive. Even Shona seemed shocked at the transformation of her married lover into full-on live-in partner. Ruth had thought that Shona might lose interest in Phil once she had prised him from his wife (it had happened before) but then Shona had become obsessed with having a baby. Maybe it was because Ruth had just had Kate; maybe Shona just felt that the biological clock, though on silent for many years, was not to be denied. But for whatever reason, she had wanted a baby and Phil had obliged. Now Shona’s pregnancy is all that he can talk about. He seems to feel that Ruth is interested in every twinge of heartburn, every swollen ankle. Was he like this when his first children were born? Ruth wonders. She didn’t know him then but she bets not. Phil is embracing older fatherhood as he does every new fad, with tail-wagging enthusiasm. It’s quite sweet, she supposes, though she draws the line at discussing piles.

Phil, though, has something else on his mind. He buys a Smoothie and a banana (‘Shona’s got a real craving for them’) and steers Ruth to a discreet table near the window.

‘Terrible thing at the museum on Saturday.’

‘Yes,’ says Ruth. She bets Phil was gutted to miss the excitement.

‘That poor curator. Do police know how he died?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ says Ruth. ‘They don’t confide in me.’

Phil looks at her curiously. Ruth knows that he has always been intrigued by her relationship with Nelson. She keeps her face blank and takes a sip of coffee. It is thick and bitter and perfect.

‘Anyway,’ says Phil, obviously deciding that there is nothing more to be gained in that direction. He pauses impressively. ‘I had a call last night from Lord Smith.’

‘Oh yes?’ The name means nothing to Ruth. She looks longingly at her doughnut, the grease just starting to ooze through the paper bag.

‘The owner of the Smith Museum.’

‘Oh. Danforth Smith. What did he want?’

‘It’s a delicate matter.’

Phil looks positively delighted. He loves any intrigue. Ruth raises her eyebrows. She is desperate for a bit of doughnut but doesn’t want to look greedy in front of Phil – especially as Shona, even pregnant, is thinner than she is.

‘You know the museum has a large collection of New World artefacts?’

Ruth dimly remembers a room labelled New World. But she had plumped for Natural History and the stuffed animals. ‘Yes,’ she says warily.

‘Well, they contain a number of skeletal remains.’ He lowers his voice. ‘Human bones.’

‘Human bones?’

‘Apparently Lord Smith’s great-grandfather brought home a number of skulls and other bones from Australia. They’re thought to be the relics of Aboriginal Australians.’

Ruth’s head is like a switchboard, lights flashing, bells ringing.

‘And now a pressure group is demanding the return of these artefacts,’ says Phil.

‘This pressure group, is it called the Elginists by any chance?’

‘How did you-?’

‘Just a lucky guess.’ Cathbad’s interest in the museum is now explained. She also wonders about Bob Woonunga and the mysterious ‘friend’ who recommended the Saltmarsh as a place to live. Isn’t it a bit of a coincidence that an Indigenous Australian should suddenly move in next door?

‘Well, the heads are fairly obvious and Lord Smith is adamant that they’re not going anywhere. But he needs someone to look at the other bones, to check if they really are human. And he asked for you.’

‘Why?’ asks Ruth.

‘Well, you’re our bones expert. I presume he asked around.’

I bet he did, thinks Ruth. And I wonder who he asked.

Back in her office, she makes an internal call to Cathbad. He works in the chemistry department as a lab assistant, though he originally trained as an archaeologist.

‘So, tell me about the Elginists.’

Cathbad laughs, not at all abashed. ‘I knew you’d come round to the Elginists.’

‘Apparently Lord Smith wants me to look at some Aboriginal relics.’

‘Indigenous Australian,’ Cathbad corrects her. ‘And they’re not relics, they are remains of the ancestors, the Old Ones. They need to go back to their own country, so that they can enter the spirit world and be one with their mother, the Earth.’

Ruth marvels anew at how Cathbad comes out with the stuff, just as if he is reciting a chemical formula. She is used to him going on about Mother Earth, though the Indigenous Australian link is new.

‘How come you’re involved in all this? I thought you were a druid.’

‘All the great religions are one,’ says Cathbad impressively, but Ruth thinks it is a typically religious phrase because it sounds good and means absolutely nothing.

There is a scratchy, electronic pause. ‘I got involved with the Elginists when we were protesting about the henge,’ Cathbad says at last. ‘They offered their support. They agreed that the henge should stay where it was.’

Ruth remembers the protests about the henge, Cathbad standing within the wooden circle, staff upraised, defying the tide itself. There had been rumours that the entire archaeology team had been cursed, that anyone who touched the timbers would be dead in a year. Well, Ruth is still here and even Erik survived for a good many years after the dig. Ruth wonders what sort of help the Elginists offered.

‘Cathbad,’ says Ruth. ‘Do you know Bob Woonunga?’

Cathbad laughs again. ‘Bob’s an expert on repatriation. He’s a poet too. He’s written lots of beautiful things about the Dreaming. I met him at a conference.’

‘And you recommended that he move in next door to me?’

‘I thought it would suit him. He’s a good bloke, Ruth. You’ll like him.’

‘I met him last night.’

‘There you are then.’

‘Why do I feel that there’s something you’re not telling me?’

‘Relax, Ruthie. Look, we’re having another meeting next week. Why don’t you come along? There’ll be lots of archaeologists there. It’s all above board, I promise you. Your friend from Sussex is coming. Max Whatshisname.’

‘Max Grey.’

‘That’s the one. It’ll be a laugh. We’re going to end with a real Aboriginal smoke ceremony.’

‘Indigenous Australian,’ says Ruth but her heart’s not in it. She is thinking about Max.