Testament, p.7
Testament, page 7
The door to the common room was thrust open and three people strode in, one male, two female, all dressed alike in tracksuit bottoms and zipped tops in claret and navy. A tastefully discreet logo indicated that this was last year’s training kit.
‘Hey Sam, hey Lisa,’ one of the tracksuited girls said to an animated response from Sam Kearns and an eye contactless mutter from the solitaire enthusiast.
‘Hi,’ Damia greeted them, her hand outstretched ready to shake. ‘I’m Damia Miller — marketing and development manager and,’ she added, ‘general find-me-money-wherever-you-can dogsbody to Dr Norris.’
One of the female runners grinned. ‘Can’t imagine Dr Ed getting so mercenary as to say anything like that.’ She shook Damia’s hand. ‘Sally Mackie. And —’ Releasing Damia’s hand, she swept her own towards her companions in an invitation for them to introduce themselves.
‘Ellen Ballantyne.’
‘Duncan McTeer.’
As they finished shaking hands, Sally, in what looked to Damia like an attempt not to seem exclusive, asked, ‘Are you going to try out for the team this year, Sam?’
‘What, against you three? No chance!’
‘You’re a good runner,’ Duncan encouraged.
‘Yeah, specially now you’ve given up the weed —’ Ellen joined in, immediately looking at Damia, who held her hands up.
‘Don’t look at me, I’m not your mother!’
Sally tried again. ‘Why don’t you try out, Sam?’
‘Not against you.’
‘But you might be better than anybody at Northgate.’
‘Unlikely,’ was Sam’s opinion. ‘But even if I was —’ he shrugged — ‘it’s always two, and two isn’t it — two from Toby, two from Northgate.’
‘I don’t know if it actually says that anywhere —’ Sally began.
‘Do you reckon it says any of that stuff anywhere?’ Sam smiled, taking the sting from a remark which could have sounded superior. ‘It’s all just tradition.’
Damia’s office, which all three runners had professed themselves eager to see, was in the Fellows’ Quarters, the only block on the Octagon yard not to house undergraduates. A large first-floor room, its windows faced east, providing a bright welcome in the morning. This suited the early-rising Damia, who had no plans to spend her evenings in the office.
‘This is much nicer than most of the tutors’ rooms,’ Ellen said, as Damia invited them to sit down on the low, cream-coloured sofas. ‘How did you persuade them to strip the floors and give you new furniture? Most tutors have to put up with furniture older than they are!’
Damia grinned, catching her own expression reflected in the coffee machine she was in the process of priming. ‘Well, the floor thing I swung because I have quite a severe dust-mite allergy — makes me wheeze and my eyes run — so carpets are out, especially venerable ones. I suppose I could have got the new furniture on that basis, too, but actually I told Dr Norris that it was a matter of image — the faded glory look might impress academics but it doesn’t impress potential donors and investors.’ She opened a small fridge and took out the coffee. ‘OK, espresso, cappuccino or latte?’
‘Did that come as part of the “we are impressive” package too?’ Duncan asked when they’d all made their choices.
‘No such luck. I bought this as a congratulations present to myself.’ Since anyone else who might have been inclined to buy me such a thing was three and a half thousand miles away, she thought sourly.
‘What about the paintings?’ Ellen asked, nodding at the one over the mantelpiece. ‘Did they come with you, too?’
‘They were painted by my partner,’ Damia said.
‘Right,’ Ellen said, admiringly. ‘Talented guy.’
Damia didn’t miss a beat; she was practised at not missing beats. ‘Woman, actually.’
‘Oh, sorry.’
Damia waved the apology away, poured the coffee and the meeting began.
To Damia’s chagrin, the runners were less enthusiastic about their new sponsors than she had anticipated. In fact, they seemed surprised that a change of sponsor had been felt necessary, as the same company’s name had appeared on Toby running rigs for the last five years, with obvious results.
‘Don’t forget you’re the holders of the Fairings Rosebowl now. There were companies prepared to bid much higher sums in sponsorship this year.’
‘But Limestone was a good sponsor — it was a good image for us — healthy water, healthy bodies, all of that.’
‘Right, and in an ideal world, we’d have stayed with them. But, at this point, we can’t afford to be too picky.’
The runners looked at each other and Damia saw an understanding flicker between them. ‘We know Toby isn’t exactly flush at the moment —’
‘Guys,’ Damia held up her hands, ‘Isn’t exactly flush doesn’t come close. You’ve seen the strikers out on Kybald Lane?’
Making conscious eye contact with each of them, she explained the situation, feeling uncomfortably like the representative of a wiser, sadder generation.
‘But what about Atoz’s ethical and human rights record?’ Ellen asked. ‘They come pretty well bottom of the list in any league table of worker rights. Not to mention their use of child labour and that particularly delightful business practice of paying their workers in tokens that could only be used in the company’s own store —’
‘Which, to be fair, is ancient history now,’ Sally interrupted.
‘Only because of the boycott —’
Damia held up a hand. ‘Look, guys, I have to be honest here and say that their human rights record wasn’t something I looked into in much depth. Atoz is a household name, they came offering an extremely attractive package, I asked Limestone if they’d be prepared to match it — I was keen to keep them too — but they couldn’t so we went with Atoz.’ She looked at their clouded faces. ‘I’m sorry, but we’ve got to be realistic here.’
Wordless glances between the runners elected Ellen spokesperson. ‘It’s just that we did a lot of the work in keeping Limestone on board — we’ve never had somebody like you to do the negotiating before. It’s kind of a new sensation for us not to be involved.’ She glanced at the others. ‘And Atoz’s ethical stance does bother me.’
Damia selected her words carefully, aware that she’d suddenly blundered into an ethical minefield where she’d thought to skip lightly through a good-news flower meadow. ‘I hear what you’re saying, and I agree, in principle. But, actually, I’m not sure we have the luxury of choice. Right now, Toby is on the edge. We need all the financial support we can get.’ And, sorry guys, she added silently, but Toby’s got a marketing manager now. And it’s me. And the decision is made.
Nine
Salster, December 1385
While Piers Mottis, Daker’s lawyer, took the long, slow and necessary steps to prove Daker’s title to the land, Simon could do nothing but fret. With the case undecided, there could be no site to clear; no foundations to peg out. He could not even order stone up from the Kineton quarries for winter cutting in the lodge, so uncertain was the future.
He began to have the same nightmare night after night, one in which he was forced to watch whilst the parchments on which his plans were drawn were scraped clean and the palimpsests used in the priory’s scriptorium to write out the new deeds of title to the disputed land. As much as Simon had hated the thought of altering his original designs to fit a space more constrained than he had bargained for, such alteration now seemed an ideal when compared to the thought of his plans coming to nothing, their vision frustrated.
He looked over and over again at his amended drawings. Compressing the plan in an east-west direction to allow for a space of fifty paces instead of sixty, he had spared the fabric of the building entirely, choosing instead to narrow the bordering gardens considerably. The central structural block, deprived of so much of its setting, would lose in impressiveness but would accommodate no fewer masters and scholars.
Looking at his drawings, Simon knew that he had never felt such loss of heart. Through all the waiting years he had been patient, his eyes fixed upon his goal: a building worthy of his talents.
And finally, one man had put what he wanted into his outstretched hand. Richard Daker’s need and his own had coincided in a way that must, surely, be providential. Many times Simon had been afraid that he had angered God. Not only had he refused to take no for an answer, for wearing out his prayers in endless repetition of ‘Give me this one thing and I will show you that I have not wasted your gift’, but he had prayed stubbornly, year after barren year, for a son.
As time had passed and no son had quickened Gwyneth’s womb, Simon had looked at Alysoun — and Henry in his turn — with deep suspicion lest he should be forced to accept in either of these fosterlings his answer from God. Still, he had held out against Heaven and nature for a son of his own body. And his prayers had been answered. In one miraculous year he had been given both a commission to match his ambition, and a son.
But, now, Simon was learning that things longed for, once held in the hand, do not always match the picture nurtured in the mind. The masterpiece he had longed to build was still no more than lines upon parchment, and his son had become a wall between him and Gwyneth.
‘Simon, it cannot be done. You must find yourself another master carpenter, I have not the skill to build the roof you need for your college.’ His wife had been so desperate to have the words said that his hand had barely latched the door behind him before she had finished.
He had matched her passionate haste with aching silence. He could do nothing else, it was silence or rage and he would not answer for such rage and betrayal as he felt. Slowly, he walked to the chair which stood before the open-shuttered window, the chair she had made for him many years before and stood before it, his back against the light. ‘Gwyneth, have you thought through what you are saying?’
Her trembling tautness snapped. ‘Thought? Simon, I have thought of little else! I do not lightly cast such a request aside, but you must believe me when I say that I do not possess the skill.’
Her eyes were fixed upon him, willing him to believe her. He breathed deeply, controlling his voice with great effort. ‘You are not wanting skill, Gwyneth, just confidence in your craft. Only try and you will see that you may do more than you imagined.’
‘Simon, a lantern roof cannot be built on trying! There is only one in England — do you think I am the equal of the man who built Ely’s roof?’
‘No, but you can learn from him!’ Simon felt a sudden surge of hope. ‘I have sent to Ely for a copy of the pattern-book. A carpenter is copying the drawings for that lantern.’
Gwyneth was struck dumb at this extravagance and Simon pressed home his perceived advantage.
‘I want you for my master carpenter, Gwyn.’
She stared mutely at him, and he felt the tautness which held her lay its hold on him. ‘You just want practice, Gwyneth,’ he began again. ‘These months you have been idle have made you a stranger to your craft.’
‘Seven months do not make a stranger of one who has been twenty years and more at a craft.’ She hesitated, then, her voice quavering, continued, ‘I set aside my craft for two years once, Simon, only to take it up again as sweetly as yesterday’s leaving.’
Simon felt her words like a blow. His jaw clenched on the retort he would have made and he turned to the window to breathe air not contaminated by the memory of old pain.
They had been married less than a handful of childless years when Simon, fearing that such unwomanly pursuits stopped up her womb, had explicitly requested that Gwyneth put aside her carpenter’s tools. For two years she had confined herself to his accounts and her embroidery needle. Yet it had availed nothing. Her hands softened, but not her womb; still it had remained closed to his seed. Quietly, without seeking Simon’s permission or having it withheld, she had taken up her craft again.
His hands on the sill of the window, Simon said, ‘Your craft meant something to you then. Does it mean nothing to you now?’
‘Of course it does! It was my very joy until —’
He would not wait for her to say it; that, though the work of her hands meant much, her child meant everything, that Tobias was her life’s very blood. He plunged in where he saw a chink to his advantage.
‘Then, Gwyneth, be true to the trade your father taught you! Study the sketches from Ely and try!’
For the longest time, she did not reply but when, finally, she raised her eyes to his face, he forestalled anything she might say. ‘Gwyneth, a master craftsman could wait a lifetime for such a commission as this, a commission that would make his name —’
Simon stopped. He knew that, through the vehemence of his words, she had finally understood. Master craftsmen might very well wait for such work, but who would Simon of Kineton persuade to throw in their lot with him as he designed for a man who would take on the might of the Church? Without a carpenter of Simon’s own rebellious cast of mind, his college might never be built.
The taut silence between them was broken by a weak cry. Held in the grip of Simon’s intensity Gwyneth looked from the cradle to her husband.
‘He needs me, Simon.’
Simon ignored the plea. ‘We cannot hope to build until the new year — I will not need to see your drawings until then, and even then they need not be inch-perfect, it will be years before we come to roof the hall. His need will then be less —’
There was a silence between them, filled by Toby’s cries.
‘What must I do?’ Simon asked. ‘Must I cry, like him? Would your heart soften to me then?’
Gwyneth turned to the child in the cradle. ‘It is not in you to cry, Simon, just as it is not in you to humble yourself.’
Did she defy him because she knew that if he did weep, she must respond? Simon had watched his wife with their son and had seen a woman he had never known before, a woman of tenderness and soft eagerness. If she felt it for one being she could surely feel it for another?
But she knew him and she was right, it was not in him to weep his need of her.
‘I am a man, Gwyneth. With a man’s needs.’
His wife looked up from their son. ‘And he is a child, with his own needs.’
‘Then you will not build my roof for me.’
She looked at him, Toby at her breast. ‘Simon, you said yourself, it will be years before a roof is needed. Draw a lantern roof for Master Daker on your drawings and let what will come, come.’
Ten
From: Damia.Miller@kdc.sal.ac.uk
To: Wall Painting Project Supporters
Subject: Toby archive discovered
Dear Wall Painting Project Supporters
Soon there will be an exciting addition to the information bundle which you received when you joined the project. The college archive, removed from the college many years ago and now restored, may provide the key that unlocks the mystery of the wall painting. Central to this hope is the bundle of medieval papers that represent the earliest Toby records. These are currently being curated and translated by the cathedral archivist as they are in the form of letters written by William of Norwich, Salster’s Benedictine prior, to Robert Copley, bishop of Salster during the period in which Toby was built. Quite how these letters came to be in the Toby archive we don’t yet know. Watch this space!
Meanwhile, we have some questions that you may be able to help in researching. A cursory look through the Victorian part of the archive — which contains a detailed selection of oral history from Toby domestic staff and older Salster residents — has thrown up a few references which are obscure.
1. ‘Tobit Alms’. Aged residents of Salster, questioned in the 1850s, said that within the memory of their grandparents a ceremony called ‘Tobit Alms’ was observed at Kineton and Dacre College, though in something of an irregular pattern. Can anybody shed any light on this?
2. A folk-memory of some doggerel is recorded in the college’s recently recovered Victorian archive which makes reference to a curse of some kind falling on the college if a ‘stick or a stone’ should be removed from its fabric. Does anybody know the doggerel which is referred to, or what the alleged curse might be?
If you can help with either of these, let us know here at the Wall Painting Project.
Kind regards
Damia Miller
Director, Wall Painting Project
There had been no deeds. The trunk, its records of past generations lying like inverted archaeological strata with the most recent Victorian papers at the bottom, contained nothing that proved Toby’s title to the lands endowed to it by Richard Dacre, vintner of the city of London.
So the daily personnel change behind the Kybald Lane placards continued and the college moved ever closer to bankruptcy and the humiliating prospect of being rescued — or, to those less predisposed to believe Baird’s propaganda, taken over — by Northgate and its healthy investments.
When Damia and Norris had met with Neil Gordon at the archivist’s office in the cathedral precincts, he had been upbeat about the possibility of the letters revealing something to Toby’s advantage. Norris, on the other hand, had been uncharacteristically subdued, apparently having put more faith than he had been prepared to admit in finding papers of endowment amongst the missing college archive.
The need to bolster Norris’s failing confidence in a happy outcome had sustained Damia through what would, otherwise, have been an uncomfortable meeting. For days she had swung like a magnet suspended between shifting poles as she tried to decide whether to contact Neil ahead of any professional meeting but, finally, she had baulked at the thought of turning up at the cathedral and demanding that he explain what on earth he thought he was doing here. She did not, even tacitly, want to be seen to acknowledge that his coming to Salster at the very time when Catz was absent in New York might be anything other than a coincidence.
