The Janus Stone

‘Thirteen weeks. Oh my God.’ Shona wipes her eyes and seems to recover some of her equilibrium. Her expression is now straightforwardly curious. And she asks the question that Ruth dreads.

‘Who’s the father?’

‘I’d rather not say.’ This doesn’t go down any better with Shona than it did with Ruth’s parents. Shona flicks her hair impatiently.

‘Oh, come on, Ruth. You can tell me. Is it Peter’s?’

‘I can’t say.’ Now Ruth feels herself getting tearful. ‘Please.’

Shona leans over to give her a proper hug. ‘I’m sorry. I’m just… gobsmacked. Are you keeping it?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s brave,’ says Shona quietly.

‘Not really. I haven’t thought it through. The implications, I mean. But I do want it. Very much,’ she adds.

‘You’ll be a great mum! Can I be godmother?’

‘In a strictly non-religious sense, yes.’

‘I’ll be its auntie. Like I’m Flint’s auntie.’ There is a distinctly brittle edge to Shona’s laughter now.

‘It’ll need all the family it can get,’ says Ruth. ‘My parents have more or less disowned me.’

‘Really? Does that still happen? Everyone has babies now without being married. Even my mother wouldn’t mind. And she’s a mad Irish Catholic.’

‘My parents are… old-fashioned.’

‘They must be.’ Shona fiddles with her wine glass for a second before asking, ‘Does Phil know?’

‘No, not yet. I’ll have to tell him soon, before it becomes too obvious. I saw Cathbad today and he guessed immediately.’

‘Cathbad, really?’ Shona knows Cathbad of old. They met on the henge dig all those years ago. Ruth remembers that Shona initially sided with the Druids who wanted to keep the henge in place rather than with the archaeologists who wanted to move it to a museum. She wonders what Phil, an establishment man to the core, thinks about Shona’s newage leanings

‘Perhaps the spirits told him?’ suggests Shona.

‘Perhaps.’ Ruth remembers Cathbad saying that Max respected ‘the spirits’. She has a sudden vision of a shadowy army hovering around, questioning, commenting and passing judgement. Funnily enough, they all look a bit like her mother.

‘He’s having a party on Friday,’ she says.

‘A party?’

‘Well, a celebration. In honour of Imbolc, some Celtic thing about the coming of spring. He’s organising a party on the beach. Do you want to come?’

Shona brightens up at the prospect of a party. ‘Why not? A spot of satanic ritual’s just what I need to cheer me up.’

CHAPTER 12

As it turns out, nothing could be less satanic than the Imbolc celebration on Saltmarsh beach. Some of Cathbad’s colleagues have even brought their children who play happily on the sand, daring each other to jump over waves. Even the vast bonfire, constructed out of driftwood and old packing cases, seems more like something made by the PTA to raise funds for playground equipment than an offering to the pagan gods of fire.

Ruth and Max walk over the Saltmarsh, carrying offerings of wine and crisps. Though Max does not know it, they are following the path taken by Ruth and Lucy, that wild night in February, when the wind howled from the sea and the marsh shifted treacherously in the darkness. Sometimes it seems to Ruth as if that night was something that happened to someone else; she can think about it quite calmly, as if she is reading about it in a book. At other times, the memory is as sharp as if it happened yesterday: the flight across the marshes in the night, the moment when she knew that she was going to die, the dark wave coming from nowhere.

Now, though, the sky is palest blue and only a light, companionable breeze blows through the coarse grass. Ruth and Max take the path through the dunes and see the beach spread out before them; the silver line of the sea, the deep pools reflecting the evening sky, the miles upon miles of rippling sand.

‘It’s beautiful,’ says Max. ‘I’d forgotten how open it is in Norfolk. Nothing but sand, sea and sky.’

‘Yes, it is beautiful,’ says Ruth, pleased that Max appreciates her beloved Saltmarsh. ‘It can be desolate in the winter but on evenings like this I think it’s the loveliest place on earth.’

‘I like the desolation too,’ says Max, looking out towards the retreating tide. The seagulls are swooping low over the waves and the shouts of the children seem thin on the evening air.

Ruth looks at him curiously. She knows what he means. Sometimes the Saltmarsh’s sheer loneliness and splendour gives her a thrill of almost sexual pleasure. But she hadn’t expected Max to feel the same. Doesn’t he come from Brighton, where the beach is more about kiss-me-quick hats than desolate beauty? But he was brought up in Norfolk, she reminds herself.

They walk towards the bonfire, very black against the white sand. Cathbad, wearing Druid’s robes and the purple cloak is supervising the stacking of wood but when he sees Ruth he breaks away with arms outstretched.

‘Ruth!’ They hug and Ruth feels Cathbad’s beard tickling her cheek.

‘Cathbad, this is my friend Max.’