Page 13 of The Start of the Story
I felt the shutters come down again. I didn’t altogether relish the feeling as I might have done before, probably because I’d been half enjoying this relaxed conversation over hot food, withthe cottage illuminated and the glow from the lights shining out over the water. ‘You can’t,’ I said shortly and picked up my plate. I hadn’t quite finished eating, but I wanted to indicate that the matter was indisputable. ‘We agreed.’ I scraped the remains of my food into the bin with enough noise to drown out any comebacks.
Connor nodded over his last forkful. ‘Of course. I was teasing.’
I relaxed a fraction again. ‘I knew that.’
‘You’re very easy to wind up, y’know.’
‘So there’s no challenge in doing it,’ I retorted, putting my plate in the sink and running water onto it, which resulted in splashing myself up the front.
‘Touché.’ Connor got up and stood beside me. ‘Let me wash up. Why d’you not have the dishwasher?’
‘Because there’s only me.’ I felt oddly exposed standing there next to him. I’d put on a fleecy tracksuit after my shower, while he’d taken off his coat and hung it behind the door but was otherwise still wearing his usual black jumper and jeans combo. It made me feel as though I were unfinished, unprepared, whilst he was ready to face anything. I sat down again. He’d seemed too tall, too intrusive to be close to.
‘And what do you do in the evenings around here?’ He washed up efficiently and stacked the pots and pans to dry as though it was his usual task. All those brothers, I thought. If they were all this domesticated, that house in Dublin must be immaculate. ‘You’ve a TV, I notice.’
‘The signal down here is dreadful though,’ I said. ‘We’re in a dip. I stream stuff on my laptop, but usually I’m working.’
‘Isn’t that what daytime is for?’ Connor dried his hands on the kitchen towel and sat down opposite me again.
‘Daytime is for recording, for visiting people. Collecting their stories, going through various libraries, old papers. Eveningis when I type stuff up, collate, cross-reference. That kind of thing,’ I finished lamely, aware that this did not make it sound as though I were hosting riotous gambling evenings with exotic cocktails.
‘No socialising?’ He rolled his sleeves down.
‘I socialise.’ Now, that sounded defensive. ‘I sometimes go out with Chess, or – friends.’And how long since that happened?‘But I’m busy. I’ve told the grant board that I’m going to publish some of our stories, the more local ones, and they’re very interested in that, so I need to have something to show them at the next meeting. I need the money,’ I finished, hoping that some overt vulnerability might make him back off.
‘The overhanging bogeyman of the grant board.’ Connor leaned back in the wooden chair, stretching his legs out in front of him. ‘Now that’s one thing wecanagree on. I’m trying to raise the funding for a full investigation of that potential Roman settlement up on the moor there.’ He shifted about, crossed long legs ankle over ankle. ‘It is no secret to say that they are not keen.’
‘Oh dear,’ I said, with a lack of sympathy exuding from both syllables.
‘Which is why it would be good to lift your stone there. I’m still thinking it could have Roman origins. Or even pre-Roman, they sometimes re-used Iron Age or Neolithic artefacts as grave markers, and the cemeteries were usually on the road outside the settlement, so that might be even better.’
‘You’re not lifting the stone.’ My words were heavy, individually enunciated to leave no room for doubt, and he went quiet, tugging at the day or so’s growth of stubble that adorned his chin.
We had sat in this self-imposed sullenness for a minute or so, when there came a most tremendous crash from the living room,as though someone had thrown a brick through the window, and we both leaped up, wide-eyed.
‘What the hell was that?’ I’d frozen, clutching the edge of the table as though, should this be some kind of zombie attack, I could upturn it and hide.
‘Dunno.’ He looked at me and then at the dark doorway to the room beyond. ‘Shall I go and look?’
‘It might be dangerous.’ I grabbed at his arm to prevent him walking into whatever-it-was. ‘Someone trying to break in.’
‘Are you breeding attack-ducks out here?’ Connor gently removed my hand from his sleeve. ‘If they’re breaking in then they’re already here, and unless we barricade ourselves in the kitchen, we’re in trouble. Besides, it’s quiet now.’
He was right. Bar the odd tinkle of glass falling, there were no further sounds of onslaught, and together we shuffled our way over the threshold into the living room. I switched on the light.
‘Oh no.’ My map had fallen from its hook on the wall, slid down to smash on the metal of the log burner and lie face down on the carpet amid a glittering fallout of glass fragments. The frame had come apart, the mitre corners showing the nails that had held them together, newly exposed like internal organs.
‘What was it?’ Connor edged into the room now, as though the broken map might be concealing burglars.
‘It’s my 1857 map of the area. I use it for research. It shows the farms that were around then, the field boundaries and the old watercourses. The stone is marked on it too.’ I picked up the map by one side of the frame and more glass twinkled its way in shards onto the carpet. ‘It’s… I’ve had it a long time.’
‘Hmm.’ He looked at the hook, now distinctly sideways and with the lower portion bent. ‘This was never going to support that weight for long.’
‘It’s been up there since… It’s been hanging perfectly well for the last five years,’ I snapped. ‘I have no idea why it wouldchoose now to give up the ghost, unless it’s under the sheer misery of having a historian in the house.’
‘I don’t think you can pin this on me,’ he said, equably. ‘Mind you, I don’t think you can pin anything much on a hook like that.’ He bent down beside me and gently took the frame out of my hand. It was only then that I realised I was cut and bleeding where tiny fragments of glass from the edge of the frame had sliced into my fingers. ‘Put it down, it’s sharp.’
I tightened my grip until blood oozed. The shock of the breakage had gone now, replaced by the helplessness of losing something with so much memory bound to it. The map poked a corner from the frame, horribly bare now its glass was gone, looking cheap and like just another piece of paper, rather than the historic overview of my area it had been when it had been flat and weighted and captive.
