Ibrahim walked over to the barricade picnic, which was in full swing, and suggested that anyone who didn’t want to be arrested should perhaps move their chairs off the path. This shifted a few of the fairweathers. Colin Clemence led the charge. When Ibrahim reassured the rest that they only had to clear the path, and they were very welcome to stay out and watch the action, there was a proper exodus. Though not a quick exodus, because you know that getting out of a garden chair at our age is a military operation. Once you are in one, you can be in it for the day.
Eventually the scene was as follows. The barricade, with the gate firmly locked behind it, was the stage, and the crowd, happily back intheir chairs, was the audience. And who was on the stage? There was Maureen Gadd, who plays bridge with Derek Archer (and not just bridge, in my opinion, but that’s not to be repeated), Barbara Kelly from Ruskin, who once walked out of Waitrose with a whole salmon and pleaded dementia (my foot, but it worked), and Bronagh something, who is new and on whom I have no further information. I have seen all three of them on their way to the Catholic Mass on Sundays, then hours later, trudging back. They were padlocked to the gate like bikes on railings.
And in front of them? The barricade had disappeared, leaving just one man. Awake now, sitting to attention, unmoved, unbowed, terrific posture: Bernard. Unlike him, I suppose, but he must feel strongly about the graveyard. You should have seen him. The last guard, like Henry Fonda, or Martin Luther King, or King Midas. This was too much for Ron, who grabbed a chair and sat right next to him. Whether out of solidarity or a desire for attention, who knows? But I was glad that he did. I was very proud of them both, my stubborn boys.
(I don’t mean King Midas, by the way; I mean King Canute.)
Ventham had gone back to his car for the time being, with Donna and Chris.
I poured Bernard and Ron cups of tea and settled down myself, assuming the fun was about to end.
Which was when the taxi arrived and the fun really began.
Forgive me, my doorbell is ringing. I’ll be back in a moment.
50.
Father Matthew Mackie always likes to chat to taxi drivers. These days they are often Muslim, even in Kent, and their kinship makes him feel very comfortable. They also react well to the dog collar. But today he has been silent.
He is relieved to see that the gate up to the garden is still locked and guarded, and that the diggers are idling on their trailer. He had left a phone number on the notice board outside the chapel for just this eventuality, and that was the number Maureen Gadd had phoned this morning, promising also that she would “alert the troops.”
Mackie took those “troops” to be the three women in black standing stock-still by the gate. In front of them are a woman and two men in chairs, who didn’t seem quite the type. In fact, now he looks closer, he is sure that one is the gentleman with the opinions from the public meeting. And the man in the middle—is he the man from the bench the other morning? Well, whoever they are, and whatever their motive, all are welcome in this particular flock. To the side of the gate is a crowd of about fifty residents, sitting, watching, and waiting for a show. Fine, he will give them a show. He supposes this might be his last and only chance.
Stepping out of the taxi and giving the driver a large tip, Father Mackie sees Ventham is in a Ford Focus, talking to two police officers. One of them is a large man looking too hot in a jacket; the other, a young black woman in uniform. No sign of Bogdan, not even in the cab of the trailer. He will be somewhere nearby, surely?
Mackie wanders over to the gate; Ventham has yet to spot him. He takes a moment to speak to and bless the three guards. One of them, the mysterious Maureen Gadd, asks if there is the chance of a cup of tea, and Mackie says he will see what he can do. Before heading over to confront Ventham, he stops to introduce himself to the seated figures.
51.
Joyce
Sorry, the ring at the door was a parcel for upstairs, and we always sign for each other, so that’s where I’ve been. Sometimes, if I know Joanna is sending me flowers, I pretend not to be in, just so a neighbor picks them up and sees them. Terrible of me, really, but I’m sure people do worse.
Anyway, Bernard was saying that he wouldn’t take orders from the police. He was staying put, and that was that.
Ron said that he’d once been chained to a pit shaft in Glasshoughton for forty-eight hours, and they’d had to defecate into sandwich bags. Though he didn’t say “defecate,” and that was when Father Mackie introduced himself.
I had seen him at the meeting. He had sat at the back, quiet as you please, and slipped biscuits into his pocket when he thought no one was looking. As I’ve said, no one ever realizes I’m watching. I just have one of those faces.
I have to say he was very polite, and he thanked us for protecting the Garden. Bernard told him the Garden was only the start of it, and once you give someone an inch, then we all know what they’d take. Ron then had to have his say, and told Father Mackie that “his lot” (the Catholics) had not always been squeaky clean when it came to graveyards, but that a liberty is still a liberty and he didn’t like to see one being taken. Father Mackie said that “wouldn’t happen on my watch” and it all got a bitcowboy film, which was fine by me. I like to see men being men, up to a point.
This is when Ventham must have caught sight of Father Mackie, because over he rushed, with Chris, Donna, and Ibrahim chasing behind. And so, the stage was now set.
52.
Bogdan has been digging for a long time. Why not? Might as well be getting something done. He started at the very top of the Garden of Eternal Rest, where the earliest graves are now permanently under the shadow of the wide branches of the trees behind the wall. The ground is softer, having seen no sunlight in many years, and Bogdan knows that the older, grander coffins here will be intact. They will be solid oak. They won’t be split or rotten. There will be no skulls staring up at him, hollow and eaten and hopeful.
He hears the odd bit of excitement from down the hill, but still no rumble of the low-loader, and so he keeps digging. One of the machines could uncover a whole row of graves in minutes, especially if not much care is taken, which Bogdan knows will be the case. So he chooses to be neat and tidy, for as long as it is just him and his shovel.
The next grave he chooses to tackle is tucked tightly in the top corner of the graveyard. As he digs, he is thinking about Marina, the woman he met on his way up here. He has seen her before in the village, but mainly people don’t talk to him; they don’t even notice him, and that’s okay. He doesn’t suppose you are allowed to visit people here, but maybe one day if he bumped into her again, then that would be okay. He misses his mother some days.
Bogdan’s shovel finally strikes something solid, but it is not the lid of the coffin. There are many stones and tree roots, which make the job harder, but more fun, for Bogdan. He reaches down and clears thick earth off the obstruction. It is pure white. Beautiful, in fact, thinks Bogdan, in the moment before he realizes what it is.
This was not part of his plan. The very point of digging here was that there would be no rotten coffins and no bones. And yet here they were. Soeven 150 years ago they were cutting corners? Cheap coffins—who would ever find out?
Should he just fill the grave back in? Pretend it never happened and wait for the diggers? Something about that makes him feel uncomfortable. Bogdan has uncovered a bone, and that makes him the guardian. He has no smaller tool than the shovel with him, so he kneels down on the compacted earth and starts to work with his hands alone. He is as gentle as he can be. He shifts his kneeling weight to get a better angle to clear away more dirt, and as he does so he realizes he is not kneeling on compacted dirt, but on something much more solid. He is kneeling on the solid oak lid of a solid oak coffin. Which can’t be. A body can’t escape from a coffin. Bogdan tries to force out a horrific thought. That someone had been buried alive? Had managed to somehow clamber out of the coffin, but no farther?
Bogdan works quickly, with no room for ceremony or superstition. There are many bones, and then a skull, though he tries not to disturb it. He uncovers enough of the coffin to jam the blade of his shovel under the lid. After considerable effort he breaks open the lower third. Inside is another skeleton.
