Unfortunately there was no time left to do anything about it. John and Will knocked off at six and an hour or so later Robert went in for his supper. Instead of carrying on, I wanted to have another think while I decided what to do next. I’d already unfolded the tarps and was preparing to spread them out, when I turned around to see a large, unfamiliar-looking man. He was climbing down the ladder right into the belly of the ship.
“Excuse me!” I called out.
This had no effect, none at all. Although the man could hardly have failed to hear me, he took no notice. Meanwhile, the ladder bowed beneath his weight. As he neared the bottom, I saw that he wasn’t simply large around the middle. He was large all over. His trousers were hitched very high over his chest and he wore a spotted bow tie.
“Stop there!” I shouted, much more loudly than before.
At this, he finally came to a halt.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
He looked straight through me. Or rather over my shoulder at the lines of rivets running off into the sand.
“Ye gods,” he said.
And then he carried on coming down the ladder.
“No, no! You can’t!”
Once again he stopped.
“I beg your pardon?” he said, saying it in such a way as to imply that no begging was involved.
“You can’t come down here.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not safe for someone of your—”
“Of my what?”
“Of your build,” I said.
By now he was only two or three rungs from the bottom. In the same slow, deliberate manner as before, he finished climbing down. Having reached the bottom, he stepped onto one of the planks and thrust his chest out at me. He did so like he was presenting it for inspection.
“Megaw said nothing this big had ever been found before. Certainly not in East Englia—” that was how he pronounced it. “Even so, I never expected this.”
I’d had enough by now. “Look here,” I said, “I’ve asked you twice to leave. That should be enough for anyone, but I’m doing so again. This is a very delicate site. And a dangerous one,” I said, pointing up at Billy’s LIVE BOMBS! sign.
“What about the chamber?” he asked.
“Chamber? What chamber?”
“Have you found any sign of the burial chamber?” Perhaps he was out of breath, but when he spoke to me he broke up his words into pieces as if he was talking to a child.
“No,” I said. “Nothing.”
Shortly afterwards, he started to climb back up the ladder. Halfway up, though, he stopped and gazed back down at the ship.
“Ye gods,” he said again.
When I returned to the cottage Vera said, “There’s a surprise waiting upstairs for you, Basil.”
I can’t say I was in any mood for more surprises. “What do you mean?”
She laughed. “You go and have a look for yourself.”
May was standing in my bedroom. There were red patches on her cheeks. Around the brim of her bonnet her hair was sticking out all over the place.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Old Middleton was coming into Woodbridge. He offered me a lift. You sounded so out of sorts in your last letter, Basil, that I was worried. I thought I’d better see how you were. And I’ve brought you some fresh clothes.”
“I’m all right,” I said. “I am now anyway.”
“Really?”
She lifted her chin and I gave her a kiss. Then we sat together on the bed. The bed is a metal-framed affair, set unusually high off the ground. So high that our legs hung off the sides. The sun was shining straight in through the window. We both had to shield our eyes from the glare.
“Are you pleased to see me, Basil?”
“Course I am.”
“You don’t show it much,” she said.
I gave her another kiss. When we’d finished, I said, “Why don’t you take your hat off?”
She pulled out the pins. As she lifted the hat, her hair sprang up all round her head in stiff corkscrews. “There, is that better?”
“Much better — even better,” I added quickly.
“That Reid Moir. Behaving like he’s Lord God Almighty. If I ever see him I’d like to give him a piece of my mind.”
“Luckily there’s not much chance of that.”
“You’re too trusting, Basil. Yes, you are. How big did you say this ship of yours is?”
“Sixty-four feet so far.”
“Sixty-four feet!”
“And I reckon there could easily be another fifteen to go.”
“Something like this, everyone’s going to want a part of it. You’ll need to watch your back.”
“I’ll be all right.”
“No, really, Basil. I mean it. Play this one properly and you could make quite a name for yourself.”
“I’ll be all right,” I said again, quite keen to change the subject. “So what happened with Potter and the rent?”
“He’s not come back. I think I saw him off. For the time being at least.”
“I hope so.”
“The cheek of it, really. Seeing how little he’s done for us.”
“Best keep him sweet,” I said.
“Don’t you go worrying, Basil.”
“Nothing we can do anyway, is there?”
“Nothing at all.”
The sun was sinking now, just a last few shafts coming in through the window. Downstairs, Billy and Vera were talking. I could hear the mumble of their voices coming up through the floorboards.
“What else have you been up to, then?”
“Nothing much,” she said. “This and that…”
Something about May’s voice made me ask, “What do you mean, ‘This and that?’ ”
“Nothing!”
“Tell me,” I said.
Her cheeks had turned even redder now. “I cleared out your books, Basil.”
“You did what?”
“I had to! I could hardly move. Let alone sit down.”
“What have you done with them?”
“I put some in the roof and others in the shed. The rest I stacked in piles. Don’t be angry with me.”
“I’m not angry,” I said, and almost meant it.
May pressed down in the middle of the bed.
“I don’t think much of this mattress,” she said. “It’s a bit soft, isn’t it? Especially here.”
“It does me well enough.”
She brushed her hand over the crocheted bedspread. “Does this remind you of anything, Basil?”
I laughed. “Course it does.”
Back when May and I were courting, we arranged to meet one evening on Rickinghall Common. We were going to catch the bus into Stowmarket to see the pictures. May had knitted a dress specially. It was in the latest fashion, just over the knee. But on the way there she had to walk across a hay field. The grass was wet and the moisture weighed down the wool. By the time she reached the common the dress was flapping round her ankles.
“What must I have looked like?”
“I didn’t complain, did I?”
“That dress, I don’t know what happened to it.”
“You probably cleared it out,” I said.
We sat on the bed as the light faded around us. The dusk was thickening. The air might have been rubbed with charcoal.
“How much longer do you think you’ll be here, Basil?”
“Could be another three weeks. A month even.”
“That long! I miss you when you’re not at home. Especially now.”
“Come here,” I said.
“I am here, aren’t I?”