Dark Ages. John Pritchard
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than she’d dreamed. She’d listened to the speakers, and joined in with the songs; shared the Peace with total strangers; hugged Paul tight. As people breached the wire and got arrested, she’d clung to the fence and shouted her support.
It was a rainbow congregation, lively and colourful; but most of all she remembered the Dominicans, in their solemn cloaks, and their banner behind them: a black dog running, with a firebrand in its jaws.
Paul had led her on down the perimeter path; taught her the difference between Blazer patrol trucks and Hummvee armoured cars (while one of the latter paced them, like a hunchbacked iron toad). An impromptu Mass was being held near the Peace Camp. Paul, being a Methodist, hung back – but Fran went and knelt at the roadside, to take a torn-off piece of Tesco’s Sliced, and sip from the chipped cup of wine. And all the time, beyond the fence, the planes were prowling past, their tailfin beacons pulsing bloody red.
They’d hung around in the waning afternoon, until the people who’d been arrested were finally released. Then one of the Oxford groups invited them back for a social at someone’s house. It lasted late into the evening, and she’d loved it: food and drink and dry good humour, ending up with some decidedly secular songs. She sang along delightedly with those; but the melody that stayed in her buzzing head was one she’d heard at Heyford’s iron gates. The people who stumbled in darkness, their eyes have seen the light…
4
And those who sit in the deepest pit: on them has the day dawned bright.
She ran the lines through her mind again – worrying each word like a Rosary bead; but the gloom was deep and glutinous inside her. There was just that pale, thin gleam on the horizon.
‘How do you feel?’ Lyn asked her gently.
They’d adjourned to a pub in Somerton, north of the airbase. Such a pretty little village, so close to that desolate field. Fran had made for the dimmest corner of the room, well away from the golden sunshine. And still she hadn’t taken off her shades.
‘Glad I came,’ she murmured, staring down at her drink; fingers playing with the stem of her glass. ‘Well no, not glad … but no regrets. I needed to start here.’
‘You came out here with Paul before?’ Lyn said after a pause. Proceeding with exquisite caution.
‘Yeah,’ Fran said. ‘He brought me. And after what I saw that day, my perspectives were all different.’
Another silence, while she took a sip of wine, and set the glass down carefully. Then her shielded gaze rose back to Lyn.
‘I’d never had such a sense of pure evil. You could feel it, coming at you through the wire. You could feel how close the warheads were; their power. Like sleeping suns …’ She shook her head again; more like a shudder. ‘And meanwhile, Cruise was coming out of Greenham, once a month.’
Lyn waited with her own glass barely touched.
‘It scared me – so I had to get involved,’ Fran went on softly. ‘Every time those missiles moved, I had to witness them …’ Behind the shades, her eyes had lost their focus: but now she could see deep into the past. ‘That night, they were headed for the Imber firing range – the most restricted part of the whole Plain. We tried to take a short cut: get ahead of them again. We cut across a corner of Larkhill range, the next one to the east. And Larkhill range was where we came to grief …’ She bit down on the final word, and dropped her gaze once more.
Lyn shifted awkwardly. ‘And they never found that person in the road?’
Fran didn’t answer for a moment; then took a deep, slow breath, and shook her head.
‘Did you hear from Paul again?’
‘Not since he came out of hospital. He just withdrew from everything – like I did. Marie died, and Kate broke her back. He blamed himself for that.’
‘And you … Do you feel guilty – for surviving?’
Fran wavered; gave a shrug of her thin shoulders. ‘It was my fault, as much as his. I said to go for it.’
Lyn took her hand. ‘Oh Frannie, don’t you think that you’ve been punished enough? You were traumatized as well. That’s why you had your … er …’
‘My breakdown, Lyn. Just say it.’
‘Sorry. Your breakdown.’
‘I was in a psychie hospital for nearly a year,’ Fran said in a grim, steady tone. ‘Voluntary admission: clinically depressed. I didn’t mention that, did I?’
Lyn made a hurt little face. ‘Oh, Fran …’
‘It must have been … the shock, or the concussion, but I had a real panic attack out there. I thought that things were chasing after me … And months, and years later, I was still convinced they’d creep into my room …’ And as she voiced her dread at last, she felt the gooseflesh ripple up her arms. Just then, for just an instant, she was back on the Plain, and lost in its featureless dark.
‘Shh,’ Lyn whispered, massaging her hand. ‘It’s over now. You’re safe.’
Fran swallowed back her tears again, and nodded. The flush of cold was fading, in the sunlight and Lyn’s love. Her memories were twisted up: her illness had done that. Her mental illness. The thought of it still shamed her, but she’d shared it. Like naming a demon to gain power over it. The past was the past. And here she was, objective: looking back.
It’s over now. You’re safe. Oh God, she hoped so.
‘Your parents must be so glad …’ Lyn said. ‘Seeing you able to come back here like this.’
Fran nodded again, and took her shades off – but only to wipe her eyes. ‘Yeah. They’ve put up with me a lot, these past few years …’
‘Your Geordie accent’s coming back, you know,’ Lyn said: a tentative attempt to tease.
‘Is it?’ Fran said wryly. ‘I can’t tell. We moved to Derbyshire ten years ago – that’s practically Down South!’
Silence settled between them. The ticking of a clock was quite distinct. Lyn moistened her lips.
‘Where was it you said you’d meet the man of your dreams?’
The gambit won a rueful smile. ‘Heaven’s Field.’ Fran murmured back. ‘Up north, on Hadrian’s Wall.’
‘So, did you ever take Craig there?’
Fran sniffed, and shook her head.
‘Are you going to see him?’
Fran shook her head again. Not negative this time; nonplussed. ‘I don’t know,’ she said softly.
And she didn’t. Thinking of Craig sent a giddy ripple through her – a sense of need as physical as hunger. But this was four years later, and the world had changed around. To visit old haunts was one thing; to meet old ghosts was something else again.
The conflict of emotions filled her mind; but something more subliminal still lingered. The faintest, phantom echo of that moment on the Plain. As if those twisted memories were still alive behind her: more distant now, but following her trail. As relentless and black as a Dominican dog.
5
Lyn’s flat was in a quiet, leafy street off Iffley Road: part of the first floor of a conversion. Fran wandered through, admiring, as Lyn showed her around: a cheerfully self-deprecating hostess – but Fran’s small suitcase made her feel too much like what she was. A stranger, from the past, just passing through.
‘This’ll be yours,’ Lyn told her brightly, opening the door on her spare room. A futon was spread out, all ready; the pillowcase and quilt smelt freshly washed.
‘I’m not sure how long I’m staying …’ Fran murmured.
Lyn’s