Roger Curtis - Lights in a Western Sky

Graham, for his part, had been well aware of the bus’s departure. In fact, he had stayed with the group until the very last minute before sidling away just as the remaining stragglers were boarding. At first he had climbed quickly, remembering the route he had taken before. But ten years – and early corpulence – had slowed him down. When he paused to watch the bus go he was already breathless and perspiring.

As he turned back to face the rock wall he remembered that it was at this precise spot that Rebecca had overtaken him. He had watched her lithe body making light of the difficulties of the climb, stretching high for each new handhold and exploring the rock intimately with her thin brown legs. In passing him she had exposed details of her body that were still unfamiliar – in spite of their previous intimacies.

There had, of course, been constraints. As a university teacher he had responsibilities towards his research students and for the most part he observed them. But with Rebecca things had been different. It was a relationship that could not have continued unresolved.

Not that he had brought her here deliberately. Quite the reverse. One day she had knocked on his study door and he had opened it to find her flushed and eager. ‘I have a theory,’ she had told him, ‘about the Shepton Circle.’ ‘And what is that?’ he had replied, amused but sceptical. But she had refused to answer. ‘I’ll have to show you,’ was all she would say. And that was the reason they had ascended the cliff on which Graham now found himself.

He remembered his surprise when, reaching the summit, he had found her standing erect and expectant, nostrils slightly flared, her proud grey eyes engaging his in anticipation of a final judgement on her intellectual journey. Then he saw that she was standing before a pink-white slab of rock, square, and creased gently and vertically along its centre like an open book. The sun was low over the hills on the other side of the valley, so that the valley itself appeared to be in darkness; but here, high up, the light was still bright, forcing her shadow hard into the stone. Around them white daisies studded the tufted grass. In the soft air Graham thought he could detect the fragrance of wild strawberries. ‘Feel the stone,’ she whispered. To his surprise he found it warm against the back of his hand.

She took that hand and led him beyond the rock, turning him around so that they were looking together down the length of the depression in its surface, and beyond into the valley below. ‘Look!’ was all she said, and it was enough. Graham could see that the line of vision led precisely to the centre of the circle. And at the centre was another slab of rock, deliberately placed to be in alignment with this, their stone.

So powerful were the forces reaching across the ages that, without thinking, he led her back to the foot of the stone. As if according to some arcane rite in which they were passive players, she lay back upon it, her body fitting snugly within its folds. For Graham there were no moral obstacles to overcome: it was the practical testing of his student’s hypothesis, and when their passion was over he thanked her solemnly for the honour of sharing her contribution to the advancement of archaeological knowledge.

They idled away the time lying in the long grass, making daisy chains, which he threaded into her long black hair. Then Graham noticed the shadow creeping up the base of the stone.

‘There’s a village up here somewhere,’ he said. ‘We’d better make for that. Get a drink before the light goes completely, then think about a taxi back.’ ‘Just a few minutes longer,’ she said, and Graham wandered away to hunt for the wild strawberries that he would collect and give to her.

When he returned to the stone he was alone. He searched in the long grass for yards around. For a brief moment it had to be a student prank, but his relief was short-lived. He tried to climb back down the cliff but it was too dark and he almost fell. Then he ran, hard, to the nearby hamlet, to the inn called the Shepton Stones where they called the police for him. But it was only in the light of dawn that they found her body, broken by the fall, at the bottom of the cliff.

All his had happened exactly ten years before, to the day, to the hour.

Graham had paid his respects to her memory before scaling the cliff and was in control. But on reaching the top he was drawn to the slab of rock, pink and warm in the dying sun, just as it had been before. He knelt down, then lay prone upon it, squeezing into its fold as if the crevices and fissures might exude their memory of Rebecca’s form. And perhaps they did, for there surfaced in his mind the worm of doubt that had lingered all these years. So again he examined the edge of the cliff at the point where she must have slipped. There was no clue, no hint, no prospect of resolution. But in the act of seeking there was a finality that lightened his spirits as he set out for the nearby hamlet. He could return home with a troublesome ghost laid to rest.

A narrow ribbon of trodden brown earth almost lost to encroaching stands of nettle and bracken led down towards the small cluster of buildings a few hundred yards away. The distance seemed longer than he remembered from his crazed sprint of ten years before. Away, now, from the escarpment and the highway it concealed, the moor was silent and still. Midges danced in the warm evening air. Once a partridge rose up on clattering wings. As Graham approached the hamlet he sniffed the scents of honeysuckle and jasmine, then saw the climbers themselves clothing the walls of the inn .

He had no reason to reflect on what sustained this remote community on the moor, nor why it should need an inn at all. But he had cause to do so later.

Outwardly the Shepton Stones had not changed, but it was odd that the beer garden was almost deserted on such a fine summer evening. A figure dressed in black motor cycle leathers lounged within the frame of the doorway. He scrutinised Graham carefully as he approached.

‘Where you from?’ he asked.

‘Sheffield,’ Graham replied blandly.

This seemed to suffice and the man moved grudgingly aside.

To Graham’s surprise the interior was crowded, but there was little of the noise he had anticipated. A score or so of mainly well dressed, middle-aged men were clustered around the bar. Their talk was animated, but the voices seemed held unnaturally low. In contrast, the floor of the room was bright with tables that appeared to have been set for an occasion. There were flowers in profusion, and lit candles in spite of the residual daylight. At each table sat a man and a woman whom Graham judged to be in their late twenties or not much older. Although the women were in summer dresses and the men were casually dressed, all had taken particular care with their appearance. They had obviously dined well.

Graham felt himself an intruder. There was a need to be careful, to take stock. The bar was inaccessible without making his presence obvious, so he made his way to the only vacant place he could see, on a high-backed settle near the chimney piece. Its only occupant, a small spare man in his fifties, shuffled aside to make room for him, then extended a hand.

‘George, by the way. They give you trouble at the road block?’

‘Graham. No… no trouble at all.’

‘Must have recognised you then, Graham. Come to think of it you do look familiar. About half an hour ago a bus full of strangers came up. Took a while to persuade them they weren’t welcome.’

‘That couldn’t have been easy.’

‘Did it gently, mind. Won’t suspect anything. By the way what’s your chapter?’

Graham was now out of his depth. He checked that the line to the door was at least clear.