The Archivist Read online

  He was already on the roundabout now, and he felt the pale eyes of Dr Usher peering at him over the trees where he could just make out the brick chimney stacks of the Hall. He knew that if he ever wanted a life without Dr Usher, he was going to have to make those changes. He was not a stupid man, he knew he wasn’t living a healthy life, and if he didn’t want to face up to it himself, he had his daughter bleating at him every time she came back home.

  ‘Your house stinks.’

  ‘You never complained when you lived here.’

  ‘I know, Dad, but when I come back, I really notice it. I wish you’d give up smoking.’

  ‘And I wish you’d start eating meat.’

  He pulled up at the gatekeeper’s box at the top of the drive. ‘I’ve got an interview with Rosemary Welsh,’ he said to the gateman.

  ‘Have you now, sir?’ Pugh replied. Max caught the strong smell of rolling tobacco on his breath and warmed to him. ‘I’ll radio up to the Hall and let her know you’re here. Just you hang on a tick.’ He pressed a button on the two-way radio. ‘Gate to Rosemary, there’s a gentleman here to see you about a job interview ... ’ Pugh nodded and winked at Max as he listened to the reply. He then roared with gravelly laughter and signed off. ‘Now sir, park your car up by the Hall, to the left of the courtyard, and Miss Welsh will come down and find you.’

  The wind raced across the courtyard and caught the handful of visitors by their waterproofs, shaking them vigorously and sending them rattling for shelter. It hit Max the moment he opened his car door and cut through him like a knife, momentarily taking his breath away. He tugged his waistcoat down over his waistband to cover up the top button of his trousers which wouldn’t quite do up. Weaving her way between the topiaried trees, a woman was approaching him across the gravel, her head lowered against the wind, a green puffa jacket held tightly together at her throat. She didn’t look up until she was nearly upon him and then she extended a frozen hand and shook his firmly.

  ‘Hello, Mr Black – or is it all right to call you Max?’

  ‘That’s fine.’

  ‘I’m Rosemary Welsh, Head of Ops. Come on through and I’ll show you where we can get a cup of coffee.’

  The tearooms smelt of old biscuit tins and boiled cabbage. Rosemary negotiated the serving areas with ease until she had gathered two cups of coffee, a handful of milk sachets, a few tubes of white sugar and a couple of teaspoons and signed them out in the staff book, all with the other arm pinning a bunch of files to her side.

  ‘Right,’ she said a little breathlessly as she settled herself down. ‘There has been quite a lot going on here at Duntisbourne Hall, hence the recruiting drive. The trustees have been coming up with all sorts of initiatives to get a few more visitors in through the gates and last year they brought in a team of business consultants from outside which has shaken everything up a bit. It seems rather common to keep talking about making money, but I suppose that’s the way ahead, and the place needs a huge amount of work done to it. Anyway, they seem to be expecting a great many more visitors this year, so I’ve been told to get a few extra people on board, and that’s what this is all about. So when you’ve finished your coffee, I’ll ask you to give your address and everything to the office and they’ll send you a parking sticker for your car. When can you start?’

  ‘I’ve got the job?’ he said.

  ‘Of course. Do you have any questions?’

  ‘What exactly is it that I’ll be doing?’

  ‘Oh, sorry! Guiding, of course.’

  This is hopeless, Max thought. He hated public speaking – in fact he was terrified of public speaking – and his grasp of history was negligible.

  ‘I didn’t realise I’d be guiding,’ he said. ‘I thought visitor services was taking money for tickets, that sort of thing.’

  ‘We leave all that to the young ones, the students. You don’t want to be outside in all weathers at your age, do you? Anyway, looking at your CV, you’re perfect: public school educated, nicely spoken, smart. I don’t suppose you were ever in the army?’

  ‘Heavens no!’

  ‘Naval man?’

  ‘More of a legs man myself.’

  Rosemary frowned. ‘It’s not important,’ she said, ‘just that the earl likes men who have been in the services. You’ll soon pick things up – just follow a few of the team around and learn the blurb, and off you go. It’s ever so easy.’ Max wasn’t sure it would be all that easy.

  ‘History has never been my strong point,’ he said.

  ‘It’s not that difficult, and besides, most of the people coming here know a great deal less than you, so it really doesn’t matter what you say at all.’

  ‘And is there a dress code?’

  ‘Well, just wear the sort of things you’d usually wear in an earl’s house,’ she replied, beaming.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Now, come along, I’m going to hand you over to Bunty Buchanan. She’s our head guide and it would be much better for her to show you round than me. I know how to get a difficult window open but for the history side, Bunty really is your girl.’

  Max stood up, gulping down the last few mouthfuls of coffee. Rosemary was already at the door of the canteen and moving fast. He bounded up the stairs behind her, missing half of what she was saying to him over her shoulder. ‘This is the staff staircase. Awfully small treads, I’m afraid, but I suppose the maids had terribly little feet in those days. Probably all those potatoes and no protein. Ah! Here’s Bunty.’

  Coming down the passage through the gloom was a woman in her late sixties. Max noticed that her tights were laddered.

  ‘Good morning, Rosemary. Is this my new recruit?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Rosemary. ‘This is Max Black. He will be joining us ...?’ She left the sentence hanging in the air as she surveyed his face expectantly.

  ‘Oh, well,’ stuttered Max, ‘I’m free from Monday.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Bunty. ‘I need you to follow a few of the guides around. Don’t just learn the spiel – it’s meant to be a guideline. I’m sure you’ll develop your own style soon, just mug up on the parts of history that interest you. We’ll soon have you licked into shape, Mr Black – or shall I call you Max?’

  ‘Yes, yes. That’s fine.’

  ‘Right. Now, let’s start where the tours start. It’ll make more sense that way. Come along. Here we are in the great hall. ‘

  Max looked up at the high barrelled roof which bore the faint traces of painted motifs. In front of him a wide staircase led from the centre of the hall to a smaller left and right rise of stairs up into the minstrels’ gallery which ran around three sides of the hall. This magnificent structure had been made from fine oaks hundreds of years ago and had darkened to a sepia-black over the centuries. The staircase was embellished with hefty carvings of medieval fish, trading vessels in full sail, gauntleted hands holding dishes and chalices, ghastly gargoyles, naked maidens, faces of saints and angels, pomegranates and Tudor roses. The deep red carpet that should have accentuated its sweep and turn was stained and worn bare all the way up its centre. Portraits of earls and countesses from the past peered down through the gloom at him. Everything in the great hall was faded and threadbare – even the earl’s banner above the door was meshed with broken threads and a few pieces of the ancient appliqué twisted in the draught like loose autumn leaves. Beneath the banner was an ancient man pacing up and down and talking to himself.

  ‘Hello, Claude,’ Bunty hailed. ‘This is Max Black, a new boy.’ Claude Hipkiss stopped pacing, spun round on a heel and looked Max straight in the eye, astonished by the interruption. Bunty bustled on past him and Max let his proffered hand of introduction sink back to his side, unclasped by Hipkiss.

  ‘Claude,’ she said to Max, ‘has been with us for a great many years. He’s very interested in the Bomford Collection.’

  ‘Bomford Collection?’

  ‘Oh dear, you really didn’t do a lot of homework, did you?’ she chuckled. ‘Well, nev
er mind. I’ll give you lots of reading material before you go. No, the Bomford Collection goes back to the 1920s and is housed in the Egyptian Folly.’

  Max watched Claude Hipkiss as he paced and muttered. He was lofty, decrepit and whippet thin. His tweed jacket caught across his shoulders as if the coat hanger was still inside it. Underneath he wore a thick Viyella shirt with a knitted tie knotted loosely around the collar from which his neck emerged like that of an ancient tortoise. His trousers were hiked high up above his waistline and his brogues shone brightly against the rest of his dishevelled wardrobe. Above his high forehead his comb-over had been dislodged by the wind which whipped through the great hall and hung down sparsely on one side, brushing his collar. Occasionally he batted it away from his face with a pat of irritation. Max thought he bore a remarkable resemblance to the mummy of Ramesses II.

  ‘Lots of lovely carving here,’ Bunty said, wafting a hand above her head. ‘Always a good idea to mention that. And up there’s the minstrels’ gallery. Sometimes,’ she added confidentially, ‘when there’s a function on down here in the great hall, the earl creeps out of the private apartments and glares down at the revellers. A number of the more well-oiled diners swear they’ve seen the ghost of Duntisbourne Hall. He really hates the general public, you know.’

  A group of tourists ambled along the far side of the great hall, followed by one of the guides who was deep in conversation with a visitor. ‘Laurence!’ Bunty shouted, making Max jump. ‘Control your group from the front.’ Laurence peered across the open space and cupped his hand around his ear. ‘The front!’ Bunty bellowed. ‘Get to the front of your group.’ Laurence pushed forward in a state of some panic and ushered his group away and out of sight.

  ‘Right,’ Bunty continued. ‘Let’s go on down the corridor to the lower hall. You won’t need to know the names of all these statues, but it’s a good idea to have a bit of a working knowledge just in case you get some clever clogs who thinks he knows everything about sculpture and tries to catch you out. I like to have a little put-down line up my sleeve, something to stop them dead in their tracks, such as ‘The sculptor was a sodomite.’ I find that’s the best way to handle them. ’

  ‘Was he?’ Max said.

  ‘No idea.’

  They steamed on through a series of grand rooms, and as Bunty dispensed information left and right, Max began to feel baffled and confused. Would he ever be able to remember any of this? Would a day ever come when he would be able to throw handfuls of information at the visitors with the same confidence and relish as her?

  By the time they reached the state dining room his attention was waning, but as they rounded the corner, ahead of him he saw something that piqued his interest immediately so that he found himself concentrating hard, but not on Bunty. Coming across the dining room towards him were two people deep in conversation – an elderly man who leaned heavily on his stick every other step, and a woman. The flutter of interest that he felt was quickly overridden by the thought that she could be in her thirties, not much older than his daughter, because her blonde hair and figure gave an impression of youthfulness. He admonished himself at the same time as feeling a bleat of disappointment. Her companion stopped at the head of the table and pointed to a golden hand which was suspended on chains above the chair of the earl.

  ‘Good morning, BS,’ Bunty said.

  The old archivist hobbled towards them. ‘Good morning Bunty.’ He gestured towards his companion and added, ‘this is Sam Westbrook. She’s going to create a new exhibition for us here this season but I thought I would give her a general tour of the Hall as background. I was telling Sam about the golden hand.’

  Max had been dawdling on the periphery of the conversation admiring Sam when BS spotted him and said, ‘I do apologise, I thought you were a visitor.’

  ‘I’m showing him around too,’ Bunty said. ‘He’s joining the guiding team.’

  ‘Max Black,’ Max said, holding out his hand. ‘I’d love to know about the golden hand. I may have to tell someone about it on Monday.’

  ‘You certainly will,’ BS said. ‘It is probably one of the most important things to the family. This isn’t the original, of course. The original was made by Cellini. It was solid gold with natural pearls at the wrist and mother-of-pearl fingernails harvested from the South Seas – very valuable. So valuable in fact that one of the earls –’ here he paused and turned briefly to Sam ‘– probably the ninth earl in fact,’ and continued, ‘sold it off. However, this replica, commissioned by the eleventh earl in 1899, is still pretty valuable. It’s giltware, solid silver, dipped in gold – if you look carefully you can see that the fingernails were protected in some way and left silver.’ Max wasn’t looking at the golden hand, he was looking at Sam as she gazed up at the treasure, and as he studied her, his ungallant observation pleased him. She was not in her thirties at all – the softness of the skin around her eyes and along the line of her jaw indicated she was not a great many years younger than himself. As if she sensed his observation she turned towards him and smiled. He felt a ripple underneath his ribcage, nodded and looked back up at the golden hand.

  ‘The hand symbol is in the coat of arms,’ Bunty said. ‘You probably spotted it. It dates right back to the Crusades. Some people like to call it the Golden Hand of Jerusalem. There’s an ancient legend that one of the knights saw it in a dream and knew he was called. I’ve never quite worked out what it has to do with the family, but I’m not that hot on heraldry.’

  ‘Give Bluemantle a call,’ BS suggested. ‘The College of Arms are always extremely helpful. Or I may have some more information about it in the files upstairs. I’ll dig it out for you.’

  ‘Thank you, BS. But we mustn’t keep you. Come along, Max. Let’s go on through to the lower dining room.’

  Let’s not, he thought, but he was swept reluctantly away and on and on through the house, past Lelys and Holbeins and Slaughters and Reynolds.

  - 6 -

  Maureen Hindle sat on a chair at the end of the indigo library looking through the state rooms to the dining room. She was on security. To her left she heard the click of the door at the far end of the room – the door up to BS Moreton’s office. She felt her pulse begin to knock at the base of her throat and turned away before he emerged. She could hear the murmur of his voice; she was aware that he was walking up the library towards her, and he was talking to someone. She glanced up. It was that new woman, the one who had come to make the exhibition of those disgusting objects that were locked away above the minstrels’ gallery, which was exactly where they should stay. She didn’t acknowledge the couple but kept her gaze fixed on the dining room until they passed, and BS didn’t acknowledge her. Of course he didn’t. He had another handmaiden now. It was embarrassing seeing the old fool preening and fussing around her, showing off. He just couldn’t resist. And why did he have to wear his tie flopped out over the top of his V-neck jumper? He was like some ancient baboon displaying.

  She watched them recede down the corridor, silhouetted against the light flooding up from the dining room, BS leaning and swinging on his stick, his large head bent towards his companion who was only a few years younger than Maureen, but slim and well-dressed. Maureen could see she was a shallow woman. No one who spent that amount of time on grooming could be anything but shallow. Maureen felt a bat-squeak of hypocrisy at this thought because she spent quite a long time at the mirror in the morning backcombing her hair and dragging on her eyeliner, but Sam Westbrook looked glossy and understated and irritating, and Maureen hated to see BS Moreton schmoozing around her. It disgusted her. She saw them stop in the dining room. She saw Bunty coming over to speak to them accompanied by that man she’d heard was coming in today – a new guide who was starting this season. She could tell he was looking at Sam Westbrook in an admiring way. At their age! It was revolting.

  And then a memory rose up before her: Michael looking across the congregation at her in just that way thirty years ago. She felt her eyes stinging
, tears from what? Nostalgia? Regret? They had met through their church. As a student in Nottingham she had joined the Young Christians chiefly out of loneliness. She had hoped that college would salve the feelings of isolation which had dogged her throughout her adolescence, but it had only exacerbated them. She had always felt big. Not so much fat but large, the tallest girl in the class with the deepest voice and big feet and hands and teeth. She had big eyes too, but these did nothing to outweigh the rest of her physical appearance. She remained outside the circle of bright young things, her seriousness and lack of self-esteem keeping her on the perimeter looking in, and as the months passed she found herself sickened by their shallowness. Instead she struck up a friendship with another girl whom she recognised as her equal – another outsider. She was German, larger than Maureen, and had the livid red skin of an acne sufferer. When Monika asked if she would like to come to her rooms for coffee one evening, she accepted.

  Monika’s rooms were in another block, away from the main campus, and when Maureen arrived she was surprised but also relieved that other students were already there. These were the Young Christians of the college. They were friendly and welcoming, drinking coffee together and talking. Some nights one of them would bring a guitar and they would sing – ‘Michael Row the Boat Ashore’, ‘The Rivers of Babylon’, ‘The Streets of London’. Maureen soon began to attend their church meetings and although she had never thought of herself as a religious person, she found comfort among a group of people who accepted her and were eager to see her. She started to feel that she was on a higher spiritual plane than the rest of the students on campus and enjoyed criticising their behaviour with her new friends.

  Her secret struggle in this new religious life was with an overpowering sense of guilt. She had had her first sexual experience at the age of fourteen when she was riding a rickety bike down a long hill towards the hockey pitch at her exclusive girls’ boarding school. She had left the rest of the group some way behind and was freewheeling with the hem of her brown culottes flapping around her knees. About halfway down the hill the road had been recently resurfaced and, as the bike hit the loose gravel and began to judder beneath her, she felt an extraordinary sensation. She did not know what it was, but she was certain she did not want it to stop. The bike went faster and faster. Maureen rested her feet on the singing pedals and gasped at the rising sensation in the base of her abdomen. She heard the others shout from behind to warn her she was going too fast, she could see the end of the road ahead where it petered out into a rutted farm track beside the hockey pitch, but she was impelled to keep going, to let the feeling build, and as the bicycle hit the hardened ruts of the track a huge feeling of release swept through her lower body. The bike rattled past the sports pavilion as her throat released a loud wail which poured from her mouth until the bike hit the barley field at the end of the track and she tottered and fell full length into the crop.