Clare Houston - An Unquiet Place

‘Someone to follow me around then and pick up after me,’ said Joseph cheerfully.

Alistair avoided Hannah’s gaze. ‘My wife had the house done. She wasn’t the homey type, though, and we always had someone cooking for us. Now I eat with my parents a lot. Still, it’s a waste of such an enormous kitchen. Please.’ Alistair gestured to the plain dark wood table. Hannah and Joseph settled there and he put the kettle on the hob, taking three mugs from a cupboard. ‘Tea or coffee? I can use a plunger if you’d prefer.’

Hannah smiled. ‘I got into trouble several times overseas, asking if I could make coffee with a plunger. People thought I was about to whip out the old toilet plunger.’

Alistair’s mouth pulled up at the corner.

‘I’d love a decent cup of coffee,’ said Joseph. ‘Hannah’s place has every possible type of tea, most of them disgusting, but neither of us can figure out the coffee machine.’

‘I’ve taken to drinking my coffee at Kathryn’s,’ said Hannah.

‘Better than this will be, no doubt,’ said Alistair, slanting a smile at Hannah.

Hannah pulled Rachel’s journal and her own notebook from her bag.

‘So this is the famous journal,’ said Alistair, reaching for it across the table. He began turning the pages gently, scanning the tightly cramped writing. ‘How do you read this?’

‘Hannah is a language master,’ said Joseph. ‘The Afrikaans department had high hopes for her until the English department grabbed her for her PhD – you could say another Anglo-Boer War was fought over her,’ he said, laughing as he poked her in the shoulder.

‘How do you know all that?’ said Hannah, poking him back, surprised he had been keeping track of her life.

‘I have eyes and ears everywhere,’ said Joseph.

She poked him again. ‘You have women in universities everywhere, you mean, who would tell you anything to stay in your favour.’

‘They have their uses,’ said Joseph, returning the poke with a grin.

‘So,’ Alistair gestured at the journal, ‘where do we go from here?’

‘Right,’ said Joseph, clearing his throat and putting on a serious face. Hannah shook her head at him, wondering if they would ever relate to each other as adults.

‘Right,’ said Hannah, taking over and opening her notebook. ‘We have the journal written by Rachel Badenhorst. When I visited Silwerfontein, I found photographs of her and her family, and a marriage register including her parents and her brother. Wolf’s wedding took place after the war, and his grave is in the cemetery in town. And then,’ she paused, not sure how Joseph and Alistair would react, ‘there are Kobie’s stories about Goshen.’

Alistair lifted his eyes from the journal to her, one eyebrow raised. ‘You can’t base an excavation on ghost stories.’

Joseph linked his hands on the table and began tapping his thumb thoughtfully. ‘The paranormal and archaeology have always been linked. When you’re dealing with the dead, it’s obvious that people’s fascination with the paranormal will be fed. What are the stories?’

‘Kobie’s been on the farm his whole life,’ Hannah said. ‘He speaks of the smell of sewage or the smell of smoke when there’s no fire. He says he’s heard keening on the wind. Says he and his sister have seen two different women in Boer clothes. I believe he’s telling the truth – at least, he believes it’s true.’

‘It’s complete nonsense,’ said Alistair strongly. Hannah looked down at her hands on the table, feeling her heart shrink a little, and glad she hadn’t mentioned her own experience on the plateau.

‘There are some archaeologists who are into “ghost science”.’ Joseph punctuated the words with his fingers. ‘I’m more pragmatic than that. Chances are that stories of the camps have been passed down the generations in some form or other, and placed a sense of expectation in Kobie’s mind, whether he remembers hearing the stories or not.’ He smiled at Alistair’s frown. ‘We mustn’t discount stories – they might have begun in reality. Besides, a few ghosts here and there are very helpful for funding.’ He winked at Hannah before continuing, ‘Why this specific site on Goshen? What do you call it? The plateau?’

Hannah began thoughtfully, ‘When I first asked Alistair’s mother, she just assumed I was talking about the plateau. Kobie’s stories are based up there, and then, when I went up with Alistair, I saw the line of gum trees which Rachel references in her journal.’

Joseph’s interest sharpened. ‘What trees?’

‘She describes how the camp children planted a windbreak. A line of gums stands on the plateau, with no other apparent purpose.’

Joseph turned to Alistair, who was looking down at his hands on the table, a frown drawing his brows down. ‘What do you think, Alistair? About the plateau’s being the site?’

‘It’s a creepy place, for no reason that I ever knew before now. The trees? I don’t know. Anybody could have planted them, I suppose, down the years.’

Joseph must have heard Hannah’s intake of breath, because he turned to her and said, ‘No, Han, it’s good to have a devil’s advocate. It means we can’t make assumptions without looking at all the angles. And sometimes,’ he shrugged, ‘struggling with something produces more exciting results than what was simple and obvious.’

‘I don’t mean to be rude,’ said Alistair, ‘but are you the right person to be doing this investigation? I mean, shouldn’t we be getting a South African War historian to do it? Do you know enough about the period to run a project like this?’

Joseph laughed. ‘Good question! Historians and archaeologists are two different beasts. Archaeologists use scientific evidence. There are archaeological processes which we follow, and our conclusions are based on what we find, rather than the archival record. An historian cannot run a dig. I’ve been doing a bit of phoning around in the last few days. There is only one archaeologist working on camp excavations in South Africa. He’s a goldmine of information, and was very interested in partnering with me to look at this site. He’s overseas at the moment. He’s going to do some teaching there, so he can’t get back for a while. Are you happy for me to work with him but be the hands on the ground?’

Alistair nodded, but the look on his face told Hannah he was feeling this snowball was rolling already and there was little he could do now to stop it.

‘Besides,’ said Joseph, ‘this is all presuming there is anything to find.’ He winked again at Hannah, who had looked up sharply.

She felt a bubble of excitement begin to build in her as she stared at her brother with new eyes. She had always assumed he was so far above her in intellect and success that he would never credit her for anything of her own. But now, sitting here, perhaps she had misjudged him. He was taking her seriously. ‘Where to now?’ she said.

‘I think we need to take a two-pronged approach. One is the site, which is my domain, and the other is the recorded evidence. Hannah, that journal is key, so you need to make copies, perhaps translate it so that we lesser mortals can read it. It needs to be combed for any detail, no matter how small. References to time, physical landmarks, food, water supply, fuel, shelter, anything we might find remnants of. And then you will need to go further afield to the archives to find any connections with the official record.’ He paused to take in their reactions. Hannah was smiling, almost vibrating with excitement, but Alistair, with his arms folded in front of him, had a frown of worry creasing his face. ‘Are you ready for this?’ Joseph said.

Alistair’s ‘No’ collided with Hannah’s ‘Yes!’