Ken McClure - Dust to dust

Brian seemed lost in a world of inner conflict. Grief, anger and frustration were demanding an emotional response from a man not used to giving them. He stood, staring into space, apparently oblivious of what was going on around him. May asked the officer, ‘Was Michael alone when he died?’

‘I would think not, Mrs Kelly. The field hospital is very well equipped and staffed.’

‘I was just wondering if he said anything before…’

‘I’m afraid I don’t know,’ replied the officer, sorry for not being able to offer the woman in front of him any crumb of comfort when she looked so vulnerable.

‘I just wondered…’

‘Of course, Mrs Kelly. I’ll make enquiries.’

‘Thanks, son.’

The officer left and May made tea. She put a cup down beside Brian, who didn’t acknowledge it. He simply said, ‘You’d better start phoning around. People will have to be told.’

‘Maybe you could get off your arse and give me a hand,’ snapped May in an uncharacteristic outburst as her grief spilled over into anger.

Brian looked at her in amazement, suddenly unsure of his ground. ‘Right, well, maybe I’ll go round and tell Maureen…’ he said, getting to his feet.

‘You do that,’ said May. ‘Tell her her wee brother’s… been killed

… Oh, Christ! Sweet Jesus Christ, what am I going to do?’ She dissolved into floods of tears, her shoulders shaking silently as Brian tried awkwardly to put an arm round her.

‘Easy, hen,’ he murmured. ‘I’m hurtin’ too.’

‘Maureen’ll want to come round,’ said May, as she fought to compose herself. ‘Tell her no. I need some time to myself. I’ll talk to her in the morning. Give my love to the bairns.’

‘Right you are,’ said Brian, putting on his jacket. ‘Will you be all right? Is there anything…?’

‘I’ll be fine,’ said May, giving a final blow of her nose and throwing the tissues in the bin. ‘I’ll drink my tea, then I’ll start phoning folk.’

‘Good girl… I’ll see you later.’

Brian returned two hours later, after telling his daughter Maureen and her husband what had happened and watching Keith trying to explain to their two young children, who’d been woken by the noise, why Granddad was there and their mummy was crying. ‘I’m back,’ he announced.

There was no response. The living room was empty; it seemed cold and alien with the television off. Thinking that May might have gone to bed, he had started in the direction of the bedroom when he glanced along the hall and saw a light under the door of Michael’s room. He went along and opened it slowly to find May sitting on Michael’s bed with photographs in her hands and spread all over the bedspread. She didn’t look up when Brian came in but knew he was there. ‘Do you remember the holiday in Kinghorn?’ she said, holding up a print. ‘That awful, bloody caravan and the sound of the rain on the roof…’

‘Aye,’ said Brian. ‘Rained every bloody day.’

‘But Michael loved it… happy as Larry in his wellies, he was.’ She finally looked up, pain etched all over her face. ‘What am I going to do?’

Brian sat down beside her, hands clenched between his knees. ‘We’ll get through it, hen. You and me, eh? We always do.’

May had a faraway look in her eyes.

‘Did you get your report off to St Raphael’s?’ Cassie Motram asked her husband when she arrived home from evening surgery to find him preparing what he’d need for the excavation at the end of the week.

‘I did.’

Thinking that she detected some unspoken qualification in the reply, Cassie asked, ‘A problem?’

‘Far from it. The donor seemed a perfect match for his highness in every way…’

‘But?’

‘What I really can’t get my head round is why they asked for my opinion in the first place. Many of the tests they asked for seemed utterly pointless in the circumstances.’

‘As you said, they wanted the best and they could afford it,’ said Cassie. ‘You’re the top man in your field.’

‘All they needed to do was make sure that blood group and tissue type were compatible for the transplant. All the other stuff they asked for was quite superfluous, an attempt to inflate the bill, if you ask me.’

‘Always better to have too much information than too little,’ said Cassie. ‘And it’s their money.’

‘I suppose.’

‘Why look a gift horse in the mouth? If they want you to dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s, it’s their business, and if it helps to pay for your excavation at Dryburgh, who are you to complain?’

‘You’re right.’ Motram smiled. ‘I should just take the money and run.’

‘At last, some sense. Expecting wet weather?’ Cassie was looking at her husband’s Wellington boots, standing beside the rest of the gear he was getting together.

‘The weather forecast from Thursday onward isn’t good,’ said Motram. ‘Heavy rain across the north of England and the Scottish Borders.’

‘In which case you should pack sunscreen,’ said Cassie. ‘You know what long-range forecasts are like.’

In the event, the forecast proved accurate. Motram had to drive up to Dryburgh on Friday through torrential rain propelled along by a gusting westerly wind. His hope that the latter might help the rain clouds pass over quickly was not encouraged by a persistently dark sky to his left. There was no sign of Blackstone or the two Maxton Geo-Survey men when he arrived although their vehicles were in the car park, as was a surprising sign saying that the abbey was closed to visitors for remedial work. Motram guessed rightly that the others had sought shelter in the hotel. He joined them for coffee and asked about the sign.

‘Change of plan,’ said Blackstone. ‘After what Les said about the press last time, I thought it would be wise to keep the place completely closed off during the dig. We can do without that kind of attention.’

Motram looked out of the window at the rain. ‘Doesn’t look as if we’ll be inconveniencing too many people on a day like this anyway.’

‘Mmm,’ agreed Blackstone. ‘We’ve just been discussing whether or not to call the dig off until the weather improves.’

Motram felt a wave of disappointment wash over him but managed to hide it. ‘I suppose it’s up to you guys,’ he said, looking at Smith and Fielding. ‘I don’t want anyone putting themselves in danger because of unstable ground or mud slides.’

‘It’s not so much the instability I’m worried about as the possibility of flooding,’ said Fielding. ‘We plan to create a forty-degree slope down to the wall of the chamber. If it’s still raining when we reach the stonework, the water’s just going to run down the slope and start accumulating.’

‘Couldn’t you use a pump?’

‘We could, but it’s a question of where would we pump the water to. There’s a fair stretch of ground to cover before you reach the ditch to the south of the abbey; that’s about fifty metres away and we don’t want excess water seeping down into the abbey foundations.’

‘We certainly don’t,’ Blackstone put in.

‘Well,’ Motram sighed philosophically, ‘I suppose our hosts have been waiting seven hundred years; another day or two isn’t going to make that much difference.’

It rained all day Saturday and Motram paced indoors at home like a caged animal, bemoaning his luck and insisting to Cassie that God had it in for him personally. Always had done, he insisted.

‘It’s just Britain,’ countered Cassie. ‘When have you ever known it not to rain when you’ve planned something outdoors? When I was a girl I used to think all invitations had to have “If wet, in church hall” on them.’