"The Thread that Binds."

The Thread that Binds.

Mark Patton.

The grating rhythm of steel trowels scraping hardened earth from harder stone rang through the air as Pierre walked with Catrin along the tree-lined avenue that led to the excavation site.

Penned in by a circular hedge, the kneeling students worked around the bases of the stones that made up the passage and chamber of the tomb, exposing the rubble structure of the cairn. A girl looked up from a carefully exposed accumulation of overlapping stones. She brushed her dark hair from her face, leaving a smudge of soil on her forehead.

“Ah, bonjour, Professeur Guillevic!” she said.Only then did he recognise her as one of his own students.

“Bonjour, Célestine,” he said, smiling.

On the massive stone slab that covered the end of the chamber stood a woman photographer, struggling to balance her tripod on its uneven surface. Beside her, Pierre’s friend and colleague, Stephen Rees, the director of the excavation, pointed to the features that he wanted her to focus on.

Behind the stones of the passage, two of the students were muttering.“Damned woman will have us licking the stones clean next!”

Stephen Rees lifted his head like a serpent roused from sleep.

“Olly,” he called out.

The fair-haired student looked up, raising his head above the stones. “Yes?”

“Shut up!” said Rees, in a voice that carried.

Pierre and Catrin looked at one another. She was trying hard to suppress a laugh.

“He asked for that,” she said, whispering.

“I’m glad it’s one of Stephen’s students and not one of mine,” said Pierre.

He waved to Stephen, who leaped down from the capstone onto one of the upright stones of the passage and then onto the ground, bounding across to join them.

“Welcome to Jersey,” he said, “I hope you had a good trip.”

One by one, the students vacated the site, taking with them their buckets, trowels and brushes and standing back against the hedge whilst the photographer completed her work.

“Thank you, yes,” said Pierre, “and thank you for sending Catrin to pick me up at the harbour. I was just trying to get a taxi when I saw her in the Land-Rover.”

Taking care to stay out of the photographs, Stephen conducted Pierre around the site. He pointed down towards a cist, a small box formed of stones set into the edge of the chamber.

“We found human bones in there last year,” he said, “the remains of a woman, with a little crescent-shaped stone pendant.”

“Have you had any dates back from the lab yet?” asked Pierre.

“Fifteen of them,” said Stephen, “they all cluster between 3800 and 4000 BC.”

Pierre thought for a moment.

“A little earlier than I would have thought,” he said, “but not so much earlier, I suppose.”

As they walked back towards Catrin, she was looking at her watch.

“We may as well call it a day,” she said.

“What time is it?” asked Stephen.

“Twenty to five,” said Catrin.

“OK then,” said Stephen. “It makes sense to start removing the cairn tomorrow, besides, I need to get cleaned up before I start on the cooking.”

Catrin signalled to the students and they started out on the short walk towards the campsite. Pierre climbed into the Land-Rover beside Stephen, with Catrin sitting behind.

The students’ tents were clustered on the grass around a squat round tower of granite, a Napoleonic fortification, Pierre assumed, until, crossing the bridge over the moat, he looked up and saw above the door a date-stone of 1837.

Inside, a single massive pillar held up the vaulted ceiling, with an arched door on either side giving access to staircases, one leading up, the other down.

“We’ve set up a camp-bed for you downstairs,” said Catrin, “but the roof’s the place to be on an evening like this. Let’s have a drink whilst Stephen prepares the food.”

Catrin took a bottle of wine from a rack set against the wall, and Pierre followed her up the vaulted stone staircase, emerging onto the flat roof of the tower. In the centre was a wooden table with four chairs, set over the rusted iron gun-rest of the tower. Catrin set the bottle down on the table, beside a plastic tray with glasses and a corkscrew. She poured the wine and handed Pierre a glass. He turned the bottle to see the label.

“Stephen knows his wine very well,” said Pierre, “this is from Pascal Cotat in Sancerre. I knew his father!”

Leaning against the parapet of the tower, they looked down at the harbour of Gorey and its Medieval fortress, glowing red in the late afternoon sunshine. Beyond lay the coast of Normandy, a low, grey shape with a thin yellow band, like a spread of butter, between it and the sea.

Pierre noticed a group of rocks between the fortress and the French coast and, pointing, asked what they were.

“Les Ecréhous,” said Catrin.

“Does anyone live there?” asked Pierre, thinking he could make out a couple of whitewashed houses.

Catrin shook her head.

“There was a monastery there in the Middle Ages,” she said, “I worked on the excavation there a few years ago, but now there are just a few huts. People go there for fishing...and for adultery, of course. We saw more politicians there than Dante met in Hell, and all of them hand-in-hand with their secretaries!”

Pierre laughed.“That’s the same everywhere,” he said, “we have some small islands in the Golfe du Morbihan...”

He turned his head, as Stephen Rees emerged from the stairhead bearing a tray with a large steaming bowl and a stack of smaller bowls beside it. Angela Maynard, the photographer, came up behind him with two loaves of crusty bread.

“This is a treat,” said Pierre, “I wasn’t expecting you to cook for us.”

“He hasn’t just cooked for us,” said Angela, “he caught the fish himself!”

“That’s not quite true,” said Stephen, “there are scallops in this stew, I dived for those this morning, but there is also conger eel, which I bought from a fisherman. I leave those to the professionals, they have teeth like dogs. In any case, I didn’t want a whole one, there wouldn’t be room in the fridge.”

The stew was creamy, unctuous, delicious, and the wine crisp and flinty.After they had eaten, Stephen fetched a bottle of calvados, throat-warming apple-brandy from Normandy, and poured each of them a glass. Leaning against the parapet, they could see the students in small groups, some of them eating, a few cooking over gas stoves, others drinking from bottles of wine or cans of beer.

Pierre chuckled.“The students don’t seem to mix,” he said, “I see five of mine down there, but just talking to each other, and that group there must be yours, Stephen.”

Catrin shrugged her shoulders.“They eat different things and drink different things,” she said, “the French students don’t seem to have met vegetarians before, and they’re lazy with the language, the French and the Brits alike.”

“That’s one of my students talking to one of yours,” said Stephen, pointing to two figures sitting on the edge of the moat.

Pierre took his glasses from his pocket and put them on. The two students, the slender dark-haired girl and the tall boy with long fair hair, were sharing a bottle of wine, the boy’s hand resting on the girl’s thigh.

“Célestine?”Angela strained her eyes.“Célestine and...Olly Mulgan,” she said.

“Oh, I might have known,” said Catrin, “it was only a matter of time. He’s worked his way through all the English girls!”

“No, don’t scoff,” said Stephen, “it’s the second evening they’ve been together. That’s a record for him!”

“Sure,” said Catrin, “a broken record by the morning, and it’ll be me that has to pick up the pieces. Why do they fall for it every time?”

“Come on,” said Stephen, leading them back towards the table, “let’s give them some peace. Please god we’re not so old that we can’t remember what it was like to be their age.”

Later that evening, after Catrin and Angela had both retired for the evening, Pierre and Stephen stood, nightcaps in hand, looking out across the sea. The moon was rising, a lantern, butter-yellow, almost bright enough to blot out the winking red and white beacons from the distant lighthouses along the French coast, no bigger than the stars that winked above them. A light breeze blew in from the east in which, it seemed, were combined the aromas of the land and sea: rockpools; seaweed; nettles; buttercups; sweet hay.

“You know,” said Pierre, “it’s at times like this that I can really imagine the people we have been studying all our lives, I mean really imagine them, their boats slipping out from the shore to fish, their trading expeditions out across the sea, even the food they ate, perhaps not so different from what you cooked for us this evening. Five or six thousand years ago, yet somehow, in the open air beneath the stars, the things that haven’t changed seem more real than the things that have.”

He looked up at the stars, exactly as someone must have done all that time ago, except that, no, this was one thing that had changed. This sky, this night, revolved around Polaris, in the constellation of “Ursa Minor,” although it resembled more a large axe than a small bear. The sky six thousand years ago would have revolved around the dimmer point of light that was Thubon, in the constellation of “Draco,” although it looked more like a snake than a dragon. Such things would have mattered more then than they did now, Pierre thought.

****

The early morning mist gradually dispersed into fleece-like wisps as the sun rose in the sky. Above the leather boat with its flimsy ash-wood frame, terns circled and screeched. All around were rocks, jagged, pig-high, draped with slippery weed, cormorants perched on them, wings outstretched to dry.

Face to the stern, pulling on her oar, Egraste looked up at her lover, poised confidently at the rudder, and had to admire his seamanship. They must have been among these rocks long before the sun rose, and how he had traced a path between them she had no idea.

Without warning, he leaped into the sea. The water came only half-way up his thigh. He held the boat as the ten rowers stowed their oars and stepped out into the icy water, Egraste hitching up her deerskin tunic and darting quickly onto the soft sand of the beach. She looked around her, and what she couldn’t see swirled around in her mind so that she hardly noticed what was there. There were no houses, no cows, no pigs, no sheep or goats. There were no trees, no bushes or shrubs, no flowers, and what little grass there was formed little tufts, like the wisps of hair on a new-born baby’s head. Behind the beach, what passed for an island was little higher than the rocks

“This...isn’t the island you told me about...” she said, grasping Txeru’s arm.

His male companions immediately burst into laughter, staggering about on the beach.

“Shut up, all of you!” he said, picking up a handful of sand and throwing it in their faces.

“Come,” he said, whispering to Egraste, “let me show you.”

“Make yourselves useful,” he said, turning to his companions, “get a fire started.”

The men muttered among themselves.

“It’s hopeless,” she heard one of them say, “it’s all very well for him, but what are we going to do when we get back?”

“Well I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m going to follow his example!” said another.

“Oh, really?” said another, “you and whose sister? You can keep your hands off mine, you ugly goat!”

Txeru picked up the bundle that he never allowed out of his sight, took Egraste’s hand and led her up behind the beach. He broke into a trot, leaping over the untidy nests of cormorants and terns, dodging the thrusts of their spear-sharp beaks with as much skill as he had picked his way between the rocks in the sea. They came to another beach. He stopped and pointed.

There on the horizon, as far beyond them as they had travelled to get here, was the long, grey shape of a real island, with a fuzzy outline that suggested a covering of trees.

“That’s the island I told you about,” he said, “that’s Andis.”

They sat down together on the sand.

“Nobody lives here?” she asked.

“No,” he said, “we come here just for fishing and sealing.”

“We will reach Andis tomorrow?” she asked.

He nodded.“So long as the weather holds out for us,” he said.

“How long have you been away?” she asked.Txeru thought for a moment, running his fingers through her hair.

“Fourteen or fifteen months,” he said. “I left in the Month of Bramble-Flowers, and found you, I think, in the Month of Sand-Poppies. Then I left you to continue with my journey, and by the time I came back to you it was the Month of Ground-Roses. Now we’re in the Month of Sand-Poppies again, so thirteen months in all.”

“Are you worried about going back?” she asked.“Not with this I’m not,” he said, patting his bundle.

“May I look,” she asked, “now that we’re alone?”

Txeru untied the leather thong and opened the package, stretching out the woven wool to reveal three large rings, each a hand-span wide, and an axe-head, all of polished stone. He picked up the axe-head and handed it to Egraste. She gasped as she held it up to the light. It was beautifully crafted, long, thin, highly polished, the green stone shining like a wet leaf. Her stomach jumped like a spring lamb.

She looked directly at him.“Did you...steal this?” she asked.

Txeru grinned.“I...acquired it,” he said, “I think I would say that I won it by my wits.”

“The same as you won me?”

“An axe-head and a woman are not the same thing,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

“All the same, though, my father would say that you stole me.”

She handed the axe-head back to him. Reaching down, she scooped up a handful of the soft sand, letting it trickle slowly between her fingers, and all the time looking towards the island.

“And you are sure that everything will be alright when you present this bundle to the man you offended?”

“Of course,” said Txeru, “listen, nothing like this has ever been seen on Andis before.”

“I don’t doubt it,” she said, looking down at the bundle, “I’ve heard stories about these axes, but I’ve never actually seen one and, as for the rings, this pendant from my grandmother is the closest I’ve come to one.”

She fingered the small stone pendant that she wore around her neck, made from a fragment of what must once have been a ring like those in Txeru’s bundle.

“What did you do to offend this man,” she asked, “that you had to seek out such treasures to placate him? Did you steal from him?”

“I didn’t steal,” he said, grinning once again, “I only...borrowed.”

“What did you borrow?”

“I will tell you one day,” he said, “when all of this is over.”

“But you took it without asking? And you gave him nothing in return, until now?”

“I didn’t think it was for me to ask him,” said Txeru, “and I did give him something in return, in a way, something he can call his own, even though it isn’t, but...well...I think that was part of the problem.”

Egraste took a sharp intake of breath.

“I suppose it would be,” she said, shaking her head, “well at least now I know. But listen. Listen well. I allowed you to steal me away from my father, but once we get to Andis there must be no more stealing, and...no more ‘borrowing.’ Especially no more ‘borrowing.’ Will you promise me that?”

“I promise,” said Txeru, stealing a kiss.

****

Pierre sprung from his canvas bed. It was the smell of frying that had roused him, a smell that recalled distant memories of his naval service. He dressed hastily and climbed the stairs.

Stephen Rees was frying bread and mushrooms over a stove fuelled by bottled gas.

“Good morning!” he said, turning to his colleague, “I trust you slept well.”

They were just settling down for breakfast when the iron door of the tower swung open, crashing against the granite of the wall. Catrin strode in, with three large plastic bags, which she set down heavily in the middle of the floor.

“If I’ve told them once, I’ve told them a thousand times,” she said, “just look at the amount of litter I’ve had to pick up, and that’s just between my tent and the tower. It’s disgusting! I won’t spoil breakfast by telling you what’s in there, but I have to wash my hands before I eat.”

She placed an empty wine bottle on the table and poured some water from a jerry-can into a plastic bowl to wash her hands.

“Perhaps I should have a word with my students about it before I leave,” said Pierre.

“Your students aren’t the problem,” said Catrin, lowering her voice, “although I’m sure they’ll pick up bad habits in time.”

She tapped the empty wine bottle.

“We know whose this is,” she said, “Stephen, you’ll have to have a word with him.”

“Is this the bottle that your student was sharing with Célestine?” asked Pierre, lifting the bottle.

“It must be,” said Catrin, “I found it where they were sitting.”

“I can’t fault his taste,” said Pierre, “either in wine or women. A Grand Cru Chablis, no less, but she’s worth it!”

“Can I see that?” asked Catrin, reaching out to take the bottle back from him.She walked across to the wine rack, crouched down in front of it, examined a few bottles and finally removed one. She walked back to the table holding up the two bottles, the empty one in her left hand, the full one in her right, both with identical labels.

“This is how good his taste is!” she said, placing the two bottles on the table and turning the labels to face Stephen.

“How do you mean?” Stephen asked.

“Isn’t it obvious?” she said, “he must have stolen it! Don’t you remember, you gave him the key to the tower yesterday, so that he could fetch some drawing equipment.”

“You can’t say that,” said Stephen, shaking his head, “I bought all of this wine in a shop down in St Helier. He could have got it from there.”

“As if Olly would know one bottle of wine from another,” said Catrin.

“The woman who runs the shop is very knowledgeable,” said Stephen, “if he asked her advice, she would give it. I think she was the one who recommended this wine to me in the first place. In fact, I’m sure of it.”

Catrin sighed.“You wouldn’t let your own son get away with this,” she said.“I seem to remember that my father did,” said Pierre, chuckling, “but that was a very long time ago, and I did marry the girl in the end.”

“What time is your boat, Pierre?” asked Stephen, changing the subject.

Pierre searched for the ticket in the inside pocket of his jacket, put on his glasses and peered at it.

“Four o’clock,” he said.

“Fine,” said Stephen, “we can have lunch together, and then I’ll get someone to drop you at the harbour. I’ll have to get back to the site because we have a visit from the funding committee this afternoon. Is there anything that you would like to see before you leave?”

“If we can get to the museum, I would like to see the jadeite axes. I’m writing a paper on them at the moment. Marco Collinelli is convinced that he has found the source for them, I will be visiting his excavations in Italy next month.”

“Most of them are in the museum store,” said Stephen, “it’s not far away. Catrin, can you take charge of the site this morning? I’ll be back after lunch, and the committee won’t be here until three.”

“Of course,” said Catrin, “I’ll go and round the students up.”

In the Land-Rover, Stephen drove Pierre the short distance to the archaeological museum. Pierre had been there before, but many years previously. It was in the shadow of a prehistoric mound, covering a tomb similar to the one that Stephen was excavating, but much larger, and better preserved, so much so that the mound had a small medieval chapel perched on top of it. Alphonse, the ageing custodian, a bunch of heavy keys dangling from his belt, let them in to the museum store, inside which the treasures of the island’s past lay packed in boxes, arranged on improvised steel shelves that stretched in rows from floor to ceiling like a giant Meccano set.

Some of the objects were in purpose-designed boxes of acid-free cardboard, but others were in older crates and boxes that themselves told the stories of previous generations of archaeologists: men, and a very few women, whose names Pierre knew vaguely from published papers stretching back over a century One of these, he didn’t know which, had evidently been fond of Sandeman’s port, another of Romeo y Julieta cigars. He began to wonder whether one of his brighter students, Célestine perhaps, might make something of this “archaeology of archaeologists.” Maybe not, but he would keep it in his mind anyway.

The stone axes, somewhat incongruously, were stored in a chest of shallow drawers that looked as though it had been designed in the 1950’s for the keeping of ladies’ gloves, and each drawer marked with a label indicating a stone type: diorite; dolorite; fibrolite; jadeite.

Stephen took out the drawer marked “jadeite” and placed it on the table in front of Pierre. There were about twenty axe-heads in the drawer, each in its own plastic bag with a label indicating the place and circumstances of its discovery. Pierre examined each one of them in turn, taking measurements with a set of callipers that he took from his overnight bag, and jotting down notes in a Moleskine notebook.

“You see how similar the stone is,” he commented to Stephen, “Collinelli believes that they all come from a single boulder, and he is convinced that he has discovered it.”“

Oh, there’s one missing,” said Stephen, “let me fetch it for you.”

Stephen walked through a door into a side-room and came back carrying a perspex box. He opened the lid and in the box, resting on a crumpled bed of tissue paper, was a particularly large, thin and finely polished axe-head, one of the finest that Pierre had seen.

“Where was this found?” asked Pierre.“Right here,” said Stephen, “in the field just opposite the entrance to the tomb. I think it must have been buried in the rubble blocking the entrance.”

“Which dates...if I remember correctly...to around 2400 BC,” said Pierre.

“Thereabouts,” said Stephen.

“In which case,” said Pierre, “it must have been in circulation for more than a thousand years. It must have been very special to those who owned it, and it must have had dozens, perhaps even hundreds of owners, in different parts of Europe.”

Smiling, Pierre replaced the axe-head in its box and handed it back to Stephen. He packed his notebook and callipers back in his bag.

“Let’s go for lunch,” said Stephen, “I know a place on the pier at Gorey, just beneath the tower.”

They sat on the terrace overlooking the harbour and shared a platter of seafood. Stephen ordered a bottle of wine, but poured most of it into Pierre’s glass, since he was driving.

In the Land-Rover back at the site, Stephen thanked Pierre for his visit.

“I’ll see you at the conference in Rennes in September,” he said, shaking Pierre’s hand, “wait here, I’ll fetch someone to drive you down to the harbour at St Helier.”

Stephen strode off down the tree-lined avenue and, a few moments later, returned with Olly Mulgan.

“Oliver will drive you,” he said, “have a good trip home.”

The tall, long-haired student turned the ignition key and they drove away from the site. Pierre was surprised when Olly started up a conversation in French, asking about the archaeology courses at the University of Vannes. Having explained the courses to him in general terms, Pierre turned to him, leaning his arm on the back of the driver’s seat.

“There are not many British students who speak French,” he said, “where did you learn?”“My mother is from Geneva,” said Olly.
“Ah,” said Pierre, “that explains it. Professor Rees was saying to me only last night that the British students don’t mix much with the French students, but we only had to look over the parapet to see that you were the exception.”

Pierre watched as Olly’s face turned first to pink and then to scarlet.

“There’s no harm in it, is there?” Olly asked.

“None at all,” said Pierre, “it’s...all part of the thread that binds us to the people we study, and...to the

archaeologists who will study our society long after our names have been forgotten. So long as you’re serious, of course.”

Olly smiled, his blush gradually fading. “I am serious,” he said, “more serious than I’ve ever been, I think, but it will be difficult when the dig ends, won’t it, when some of us go back to Wales and some of us have to go back t France?”

“You know,” said Pierre, “there is an exchange programme between our two universities. We don’t get many British students because of the language, but that’s not a problem for you. You could come and study for a semester with us, and Célestine...we are talking of Célestine, aren’t we...could study for a semester afterwards in Wales.”

“Thanks,” said Olly, “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Well do think of it,” said Pierre, “that’s what ‘serious’ means. Speak to Professor Rees if you want to go ahead. Tell him that I suggested it.

As they drove down the hill into the town, Pierre again turned to Olly. “Do you know where there is a wine shop in St Helier?” he asked.

“Sorry, I don’t,” said Olly, “I hardly know St Helier, except for the pubs.”

“That’s odd,” said Pierre, “so where did you get the bottle that you shared with Célestine last night?”

“I...I don’t remember...there are shops near the site, I think it must have been one of those.”

The blush was returning to Olly’s face.

“There,” said Pierre, pointing, “there is a wine-shop. Can we stop for a moment?”

Olly turned into a ten-minute parking space just outside the shop. “I’ll wait for you here,” he said.

“No, no,” said Pierre, opening the driver’s door, “come with me.”

Pierre sensed the reluctance from Olly, but he climbed down from the vehicle and followed him into the shop.

“You will be spending the evening with Célestine, I imagine,” said Pierre.

“Of course.”

“So you will need a bottle of wine. Do you know what sort of wine she likes?”

“No,” said Olly, “I just picked a bottle off the shelf.”

“Really?” said Pierre, walking over to the shelf marked “Burgundy.”

“Did she enjoy it?” he asked.

“I think so.”

Pierre took a bottle down from the rack and turned on his heels. “Well I think this was it,” he said, “the bottle you enjoyed together.”

Olly stared at the £30 price label, his mouth falling open.

“But perhaps you would like something different for this evening,” said Pierre, “after all, it depends what you are going to eat. Do you know what you are likely to have?”

“We talked about having an omelette,” said Olly, “the farmer opposite the site keeps chickens, we were going to ask him to sell us some eggs.”

“Then perhaps a red wine,” said Pierre, handing him a bottle, “this would be perfect.”

A smile spread across Olly’s face as he took the bottle. Pierre wasn’t sure whether he was delighted by the name on the label, Saint-Amour, or relieved by the £8 price-tag.

“Thank you,” said Olly, “I’ll go with this.”

Olly placed the bottle on the counter and pulled a credit card from his pocket. Pierre put out his hand to stop him. He still had the £30 bottle of Chablis in his hand, which he held out towards him.

“If I were you,” said Pierre, “I would buy this bottle also, and leave it for Professor Rees to find. You don’t have to say anything. You could just leave it on the table in the tower, or even in the front of the Land-Rover, but it would be noticed. People would think more of you, and not just Professor Rees.”

Olly hesitated for a moment, then took the bottle from Pierre’s hand and paid for them both with his card. They returned to the Land-Rover, and drove the short distance to the harbour, where Olly dropped Pierre off.

“Thanks for everything,” said Olly, “have a good trip back.”

“Good luck,” said Pierre, “perhaps I will see you in Vannes.”

“I hope so,” said Olly.

Pierre Guillevic turned and walked into the harbour waiting lounge, whistling the tune to Les moulins de mon coeur.

“Une pierre que l’on jette
Dans l’eau vive d’un ruisseau,
Et qui laisse derrière elle
Des milliers de ronds dans l’eau...”