The Outcast Dead

Grey’s OK on a man,’ says Mary-Anne. ‘Silver fox and all that.’ Ruth notices that Frank doesn’t seem to mind this description. She also muses that there isn’t a female equivalent to ‘silver fox’. ‘Grey-haired old bat’ doesn’t cover it somehow.

If one should say to you that the soul perishes like the body, answer that the flower withers but the seed remains.

I know you've all got it in for me," says Bob. "You fitted me up for one crime, why not pin every child murder in the last twenty years on me?" His voice rises hysterically. "That seems rather an extreme reaction," says Tim. "I just asked what you were doing yesterday afternoon.

Flint jumps onto the table and arranges himself, with geometrical precision, on the exact article that Ruth is reading.

This is one of the worst things about being a working mother. Oh, the work’s all right. You can make arrangements for the work. It’s all the other stuff. The drinks after work, the leaving dos, the Friday nights when someone suggests a curry. All the times, in fact, when the important bonding gets done. Ruth has to miss all that, and she’s lost count of the times when she’s been the last to hear about a dig because ‘we discussed it last night in the pub.’ Phil is a great one for networking, he’s always skulking off with a few cronies to plot over pasta but, then again, Phil is only a working father. Having children doesn’t seem to impinge on his professional life at all.

Ruth enjoys teaching summer school. The students are always keen, often they are older people who have always dreamt of being archaeologists, merchant bankers inspired by Time Team, old ladies with a surprisingly detailed knowledge of Bronze Age burial customs. There are usually lots of foreigners too, because the university needs the money: Americans with complicated dietary needs, earnest Chinese students, casually elegant Italians.

But the partner usually does know, thinks Tim. Even if they don’t know what they know.

The hills are shadows, and they flow From form to form, and nothing stands: They melt like mist, the solid lands, Like clouds they shape themselves and go.

She wants to pray but she can’t because of the little niggling reason of not believing in God.

I’m dreading it.’ ‘You’ll be great. Just be yourself.’ ‘People always say that,’ says Ruth. ‘It’s surprisingly unhelpful.

Nelson looks as surprised as anyone to hear this.

There's plenty of time," says Janet comfortably. And that, Ruth muses, as she gets into her car, is certainly true. One thing you learn as an archaeologist: there's always plenty of time.

Cathbad couldn't eat so Maddie demolished both croissants. She drinks her chocolate the way all teenage girls do, hunched over it like a vagrant. Cathbad is horrified to find himself wanting to tell her to sit up straight. Good God, he's turning into a fascist.

Is she selfish, she wonders. She certainly has her life the way she wants it--a job she loves, a daughter she adores, a companion animal to share her home--and she knows that she would find it hard to compromise this existence for any man. Even in her fantasies of Nelson leaving Michelle (which do occur, despite herself), they never progress beyond the first ecstatic love-making. She never thinks about Nelson actually living in the tiny cottage, hogging the bathroom, leaving his giant policeman's boots on the stairs, wanting to watch the football instead of Prehistoric Autopsy. They would kill each other in a week.

After lunch Ruth will still experience that old Sunday afternoon dread—a heady mix of undone homework and uniform drying by the fire, cosy and sad at the same time. She’ll get the Dread even though she doesn’t have to go to work tomorrow. Summer School is over and the holidays have officially started. But as soon as the Sunday evening programmes come on the television—costume dramas, antiques and the countryside—the Dread will descend.

And they’re bringing in a well-known historian. Frank Barker. Have you heard of him?’ ‘No.’ ‘He’s an American,’ says Phil, as if this is an occupation.

Poems by Alfred Lord Tennyson. ‘To Ruth,’ reads the inscription, ‘with very best wishes from Frank Barker.’ Ruth opens a page at random. The hills are shadows, and they flow From form to form, and nothing stands: They melt like mist, the solid lands, Like clouds they shape themselves and go.

Clough distrusts new people on principle, if they are men and graduates, fitter and better-looking than him, his suspicions hardens into open hostility.