Humpty's bones

12. Friday Morning: 11.00

Any effective work at clearing the attic of unwanted junk came to an end with the discovery of the documents.

‘My mother’s,’ Heather announced. ‘I remember when I was a young girl my mother always saying that she wouldn’t allow her brain to go to seed living out here in the middle of nowhere.’ Heather pulled files from a box. ‘She got a bee in her bonnet about this. Night after night she’d sit at the kitchen table bashing away at a portable typewriter.’

‘What language is it?’ Eden peered at a clutch of handwritten pages.

‘Latin. The typescript is the translation. What made her so obsessed with it I’ll never know, perhaps sheer loneliness. After all, for years your grandmother and I were the only people living in the house.’

They sat side by side in the attic on an old steamer trunk that bore stickers announcing its travels to places like Alexandria, Cape Town and Hong Kong. In the attic were boxes of Christmas decorations, an exercise bike (no longer used), vac-pacs of clothes and stacks of rural life magazines. Eden angled a typewritten file so the light from the bulb fell on it.

‘It must have taken years,’ Eden marvelled. ‘There’s hundreds of pages.’

‘The fruits of an obsessive,’ Heather sighed. ‘Sometimes people can become fixated on the oddest passions.’

Like you excavating your own garden. Five minutes ago, Eden Page would have pointed out Heather’s obsession, too. This file, however, interested Eden. It suddenly seemed important, even if she couldn’t explain why.

‘So what is this?’ she asked. ‘A novel?’

‘No. Daisy, your whimsical, pixie of a mother, has all the imagination in the family. I was only about eight when my mother stopped work on this. All of a sudden if I remember rightly. As if it made her angry. Perhaps she realised it had been frivolous.’ She picked out more files from the box. ‘Every day my mother went to the church where the village archive is kept. The documents go back centuries; lots of them are in Latin. My mother took it on herself to translate them. These are records of marriages, births and deaths. Look, this page is for December 1642.’ She began to read a section highlighted in red. ‘“Moses Grander, his wife Susan, seven daughters and two sons died, twenty third day of December as a result of inundation; Dog Dyke End water mill.”‘ Heather rifled through the box. ‘See, there’s more of it. File after file. Sheesh. This is a register of parish priests going back to 870 AD.’

‘Can you find the most recent file?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘If your mother stopped work all of a sudden perhaps she learnt something that troubled her. Whatever it was, it’ll be in that last file.’

‘Eden, don’t we have an agreement? You stop the Werewolf talk. I’ll lay off how your apartment caught fire.’

‘Did I mention the word “Werewolf”?’

‘Just a warning.’

‘If anything, I thought she might have discovered some secret that was an embarrassment to the village.’

‘Eden, I strongly suspect the reason she stopped work on this was because she became pregnant with your mother. Even before she was born Daisy was trouble. My mother was so sick most mornings she couldn’t get out of bed, never mind translate volumes of Latin into English.’

‘Were you bitter about my mother being born?’

In lieu of answer Heather delved into the box again. ‘According to the date this is the latest. See, she’d written the month and year on the file.’ Heather read the title. ‘“The First English Translation of The Secular and the Sacred Balk of Elmet; subtitled: The Hermit of Kirkhampton’s History of our Village”. Ah… this must be the last file my mother worked on. See, it’s just a mass of rough jottings. If anything, it’s mainly chapter headings from the Hermit’s book, which, according to this was written by a local man in 1488.’ Heather leafed through the notes reading at random. ‘“Chapter 21: The importance of avoiding women. The scourge of carnal affection. Chapter 25: An explanation on the reasons why desire of the world and of womankind is to be detested. Tears which are turned into music.” Ah ha. “Women for kitchen hearth and birthing”… ’ Heather smiled. ‘It’s fairly obvious what the dear old Hermit thought about our sex.’

Eden spoke with utter conviction. ‘But your mother — my grandmother — learned something from the Hermit’s book, which had a profound effect on her. She stopped all work on the translation.’

‘You might be right, Eden. But if it’s here I don’t see it.’ Heather turned the pages. ‘Although take a look at that. My mother was doodling in church.’

Here was a sketch on one page devoted to translating a hymn that ran Make my flesh free of earthly love. The drawing of people, sitting in pews before a priest pointing skyward, had been titled Our Happy Congregation, Harvest Festival, 2nd October 1968.

‘We always used to go to church on Sundays,’ Heather sighed. ‘I never saw Mum sketch this, though. “Happy Congregation” is meant to be a joke of course, just look at these lines above the people. She drew steam coming out of their heads to show how angry they are.’ She studied the doodle more closely. ‘Good heavens, she’s drawn the villagers like gargoyles.’

‘No, these aren’t caricatures. Look at the size of their noses. She’s drawn Mr Hezzle’s family.’

‘Goodness, I think you’re right. I’d bet good money that the chap at the end shaking his fist is Albert Hezzle, the man you met a couple of days ago. A lot younger here, of course. This sketch was done over forty years ago. And he’s still as grumpy. My Mother wasn’t a bad artist. She’s caught the mood all right. They’re not happy about what the Vicar’s telling them.’

‘Go right to the end of the file. See what the last notes are before she stopped.’ Eden surged on with an additional, ‘Or before she was stopped.’

Heather gave Eden a curious sideways glance but said nothing. ‘It’s still chapter headings and fragments of the Hermit’s verse.’

‘Which prove he was a life-hating, world-hating misogynist.’

‘Absolutely… ’ Heather worked her way to the last page. ‘Ah, here’s something.’ Her voice rose in surprise. ‘Dog Star House! It’s about this place. My God.’

‘But the house wouldn’t have been built in the middle ages.’

‘No. It’s about what stood here before.’

‘Then this must be important. Your mother was preparing to do a lot of detailed work on the translation. Only for some reason she didn’t get any further.’

‘Like I said. Morning sickness. In spades.’

‘No, I don’t believe that. Your mother was onto something. Mr Hezzle warned me about digging holes in the garden.’

‘Mr Hezzle’s a — ’

‘No, this is important.’ With Heather’s no doubt derogatory assessment of the old farmer brushed aside, she added, ‘Look at all these words here. Your mother was searching for the right translation of a particular phrase. This must have been key to what was happening here. She took pains to get it right. See: Homo Prima. Then there’s different attempts at turning the phrase into English.’ She quickly read the list as a tingle of excitement ran through her. ‘“Homo Prima. First Man. Original Man. Premier Man.” Look: “First Man” is underlined twice.’

‘“First Man”? That’s probably a title for the male head of a family or a tribe.’

Eden tilted her head to see something scrawled in a margin. ‘The First Man is connected with the site of this house. Here’s some notes: “H demands Bishop conduct exorcism on Dog Star Hook. Bishop accedes.”‘ Eden mouthed the cryptic sentence again to herself, ‘H? H for Hermit I suppose. Dog Star Hook?’

‘That’s what locals call the bend in the road. The one that makes it curl half-way round the garden before it runs straight again.’

‘So the Hermit believed this land was haunted. He wanted the Bishop to banish the ghost.’

Heather bit her lip. Clearly she wanted to know more, but Eden suspected that she’d resist any more talk of werewolves and the supernatural. Instead of speculating about a rite of exorcism being conducted on this plot of land, she continued reading the note that must have been jotted in a hurry. ‘“Rolands arrive”… Rolands?’

‘“Romans arrive”,’ Heather corrected. ‘Her handwriting’s a bit wild.’

Eden read on, ‘“Romans arrive Yorkshire first century, commanded by”… I can’t read that. Grandma must have been shaking with excitement as she wrote this.’

‘Ahm… General Gallus.’

‘“… General Gallus, plus legion’s soothsayer, identifies Homo Prima” — the First Man — “as living embodiment of entire pantheon. Orders re-routing of Via Britannicus to spare theo… theo… ” what’s that word?’

‘Perhaps “Theopolis”? Not a real word, but suggests “city of god”. Or at least a place where the god or gods live.’

‘“General Gallus makes extraordinary visit to Emperor Claudius. Secures Imperial directive that First Man be venerated by Roman Army. Feast day set June 3rd. Coin struck in First Man’s honour. Emperor announces day of games in Rome in celebration. Free bread for poor. Gallus promoted.”‘

‘Phew… ’ Eden’s aunt could often appear too cynical for her own good; this time she was genuinely impressed. ‘You know what this means, Eden? The general invaded this part of Yorkshire nearly two thousand years ago. For some reason he had an epiphany when he reached this very spot. Right where this house is built! He believed he’d found the city of the gods. The legion’s holy man agreed. So, not only does General Gallus order that the road be diverted to preserve whatever he found, he makes a special trip back to Rome because he was so excited. He had to tell Emperor Claudius in person.’

‘Claudius believed him?’

‘Absolutely. Because he promoted Gallus, had a commemorative coin struck, and then held a colossal party in the city to celebrate the discovery. The poor even got free grub. This was the king of shindigs — a national festival of thanks.’

‘But what made this place so important?’

‘Important? It is amazingly important.’ Heather’s eyes shone with excitement. ‘The most powerful man in the Roman Empire, Claudius, knew he’d been given the location of Theopolis. The city of the gods here on Earth.’

‘No… that isn’t what it says. Not exactly.’ As Eden started to speak the phone rang downstairs. ‘It says here that — ’

‘Eden, I best get that. It might be the garden centre about their accounts.’ Heather rose to her feet from where she’d been sitting on the steamer trunk.

Eden knew this was important; she needed to press this one fact, at least, well and truly home. ‘But the full sentence reads: “General orders re-routing of Via Britannicus to spare Theopolis that exists inside the body of the First Man.”‘ She sighed with frustration as Heather hurried toward the attic ladder.

‘Heather. This is important.’

‘Later. I’ve got to take the call.’

Heather descended the ladder as Eden called out. ‘Don’t you see? It’s not saying there was an actual town here. It’s stating categorically that the city of the gods exists inside the body of the First Man. How can a holy city be inside a person?’

‘I’ll be back in five minutes. We’ll talk then.’ The phone’s ring was insistent. ‘I’m coming, I’m coming… ’ Heather ran down the stairs.

Eden returned to the file. What she learned there on the last page prompted her to carry the file downstairs. Not to find her aunt. Instead, she hurried to the lab to look once more at Humpty’s bones.