The fun and companionship of that Thursday evening sustained Mal over the hard work of Friday and the comparative loneliness of the weekend. He had plenty to keep himself busy - a huge backlog of paperwork to get through and he had all the normal housekeeping chores to attend to. His flat was, to put it mildly, in need of some TLC. His previous home had been a nearly-new two bed apartment, high spec throughout, whose bland appearance had been outweighed by the amazing view of Bristol Docks, and that he was sharing it with someone he had thought he loved. The rent for this one cost him less than half of the one in Bristol and its scruffy nineteen seventies wallpaper and swirly patterned carpets were bearable now he was no longer being nagged. It had the potential to be lovely - huge Georgian windows and little cast iron fireplaces appealed to Mal's inner-curator - but for now its biggest advantage was that it only took five minutes to walk to work. As Mal pushed the vacuum-cleaner around he imagined the fireplace opened up, some moody lighting and a long couch to stretch out on - with someone, perhaps. That was a nice idea. The bathroom wasn't too bad. As Mal scrubbed the limescale off the shower-head it occurred to him that the shower cubicle was probably big enough for two as long as they stood close together. From there it was barely a step at all to imagine who the other person could be. Rob, of course. Mal sighed and closed his eyes contemplating that muscular arse and broad shoulders. He'd have to be careful, he decided. It wouldn't do to get his hopes up as well as his inconvenient and insistent cock. Just because Rob flirted it didn't mean he was prepared to carry through.
Monday and Tuesday passed with all the routine annoyances and Wednesday was shaping up to be more of the same until Betty arrived.
"What the heck happened to you?" he demanded, eyeing her pale face and red rimmed eyes with alarm. "Are you ill?"
"It's not catching." Betty turned the kettle on, wincing at the click. "Darts last night. Coach and Horses vs the Dog in King's Norton. We won."
"I'd hate to see you when you've lost," Mal said.
Betty snorted. "Just don't ask me to do anything technical, okay?"
"How about I look after the desk and you look through my emails?" he suggested, but she just gave him a narrow-eyed look so he left her with coffee and a duster to flick around the shop and went up to his office.
Five hundred emails since last night. His predecessor, an older lady, had a finger in every professional pie going and had subscribed to every professional journal's newsletter. Mal hadn't been there long enough yet to know which he could safely unsubscribe from. Then there was the ever-present spam. Invitations to conferences, offers of racking, coffee machines, health insurance, and a Mercedes for 'only' £300 a month. And so much stuff from the council. Why on earth would Mal need to know about lunch hour Pilates classes at a venue thirty miles away? Or that the car park at the Shire Hall was being resurfaced and inaccessible. Click, double-click, delete. Click, double-click, delete. There was a nice rhythm to it.
By ten he had got rid of everything superfluous and could settle down to deal with the things that actually needed his attention. A solid hour's typing then he fired off all the emails together and turned off the computer. Now for some proper museum work.
He called down to reception to let Betty know that he'd be up in the stores. In the foot well of his desk there was a wooden box printed on the side with the name of a Hereford business - ‘Cranston, Seedsman, King's Acre’. It was an interesting object, and from the number hand-printed on the edge had been catalogued sometime in 1998, but since then it had been filled with several disintegrating Tesco bags holding a collection of brass and pewter candlesticks.
"They came in a few years back," Betty explained, "and we put them in the box for safe-keeping and - well, you know how it is."
Mal did. Also, the box was bloody heavy. He dragged it out from under the desk, wincing at the dust behind it, and went up into the attic to find a safe spot for it in the stores.
This was the part of the job he liked best. Deciding whether to catalogue the items as one collection or separate them out into 'local businesses' and 'domestic lighting'. Handling the objects, checking their condition, assessing them for inclusion in potential future exhibitions, packing them carefully into acid free cardboard boxes nested in wonderful crinkly tissue paper. It was a luscious sensory experience plus it also fed his imagination. The brass and pewter columns were satisfyingly heavy in his latex-gloved hands. Most were simple shapes but one pair bore the patinated glow of frequent handling and had broad flanged tops still spotted with wax. When he held them up to his face he could smell the faint tang of beeswax under the sharper scent of burning. The candlesticks' stems fitted his palms, inviting caresses. Whose hands had caused the subtle patterns of wear, whose fingers had fitted the candles into the sockets, or had struck flint against steel and coaxed the wick into light? What sights had the brightening candle flames revealed? The pages of a book, a letter with the crabbed writing of a lawyer imparting serious news, or perhaps that yellow flicker had warmed the bare skin of a lover. Mal sighed as he covered the box with a final layer of tissue and fitted the lid. Job done. He picked up a 2B pencil and copied the numbers of the items onto the outside of the box and made a little space for it at the end of the ‘lighting’ shelf, beside a scatter of small loose objects that he'd probably get around to boxing eventually. There was just so much to do. For the moment he stood the snuffers and wick trimmers on a sheet of tissue in the Cranston box and made a note of their catalogue numbers in the notepad app on his phone.
His phone bleeped making him jump. "Hello," he answered cautiously - not that many people had his mobile number. "Who's that?"
"No need to panic." Betty sounded as though she had been giggling. "Remind me to set you up with individual ring tones. There's a gentleman here with some flints he's picked up."
"Ooh." Mal enjoyed flints as much as he enjoyed candlesticks. "I'll be right down."
"It's lunchtime," Betty pointed out, "and I have to pop out for a bit. How about I send him up to your office?"
"Cool. Have a good lunch."
As Mal trotted down the narrow stairs from the attic to the lower landing it suddenly occurred to him who might have been making Betty giggle and who she might trust enough to let them loose on the upper corridors of the museum. So he wasn't altogether surprised to glimpse a yellow hard hat through the wrought iron of the bannisters.
"Hey." Mal leaned over the rail and grinned as Rob looked up at him. "Didn't think I'd see you again so soon. No pool table, but I can make you a coffee."
Rob gave him a beaming smile. "Tea and you're on," he said, and followed Mal into the little room they had set aside as a staff kitchen.
Mal took a couple of mugs down from the cupboard and turned on the kettle. "I think I thanked you all for last Thursday, didn't I? It was good fun."
"Yeah," Rob's grin sounded in his voice but Mal turned to look at him anyway just for the pleasure of it. Rob had taken off his hard hat and put it on the window sill and was leaning against the edge of the window, hands in his pockets and looking out over the patch of grass and shrubs that was all the museum could afford of a garden these days. With his high vis jacket and coveralls undone to show a bright segment of printed tee shirt - Mal could see the '-oun-arm-lu' of ‘Young Farmer's Club’ and a bit of a bull logo - and with long legs in rigger boots crossed casually at the ankle, he looked both wildly out of place and very much at home. Mal really envied his ease. Here was a man who knew exactly what he wanted and was confident of getting it.
And what he wants right now - apart from tea - is me! Mal found that a very satisfying thought.
The kettle whistled and Mal poured the boiling water into the mugs, soaking the special pyramidal bags that Sharon insisted made much better tea than any other variety. Mal stooped to open the fridge.
"Milk?" Malcolm asked. "Sugar?" Rob had stopped looking out of the window and was watching Mal. Mal could feel it.
"I never say no to a bit of sugar. Bit o' milk too. Just enough to take the edge off."
Mal grinned and made the tea, then turned and offered Rob his mug.
"Thanks," Rob said then lifted the mug a bit to read the printing on the side. "Museum Curators do it Meticulously? Oh. My. God. I hope that's true."
Mal snorted. "It's part of the job to keep the paperwork in good order."
"That's not what I meant and you know it."
Mal just smiled his agreement. "Come through to my office," he suggested. Rob followed, his boots sounding heavy even on the threadbare carpet.
"Blimey," Rob muttered as Mal opened the door. "Bit of a mess, innit?"
"Inherited, I assure you. My predecessor had some health problems the last few years of her tenure and everything got a bit out of control." Mal went to the desk to put his mug down. The only other chair in the room was burdened with yet another box - this one contained two rebate planes, a chisel, a sheaf of papers rolled and secured with a perished rubber band and a couple of zip lock bags of Roman grey ware pottery sherds - so he shoved it into the foot well where the candlesticks had been. By the time he had straightened up Rob was in the chair, ankle cocked on one knee with his mug balanced on the other. "I believe you've got something to show me?"
"Oh hell yes. And I brought you some stuff I found to look at too."
Mal couldn't help but laugh. "You're shameless!"
Rob shrugged. "Saves time, doesn't it? I like the look of you. If you didn't like the look of me you'd'a told me to fuck off by now." He grinned and offered Mal a jiffy bag with a scrawl in Biro on the front. "Betty's been after me to bring these in for a while but I never got round to it before."
"Oh?" Mal eyed the bag feeling the familiar flutter of excitement. There could be anything in there. Could he be blamed for prolonging the moment? "And why would that be?"
"Because the previous curator was a nice enough old lady in her own way but I didn't want to rip her clothes off with my teeth."
Mal took a deep breath. "Fair enough," he said. "Though you don't actually have to rip. I'm quite capable of taking my own clothes off for the right person."
"Where's the fun in that? Come on, take these off me quick before I do something the council might object to."
Mal took the bag, enjoying the brush of Rob's fingers against his. Bloody council. Bloody 'no bonking on the premises' rules. "Thank you," he said. "I've only just got this job and I wouldn't like to lose it."
"Betty told me to mind my Ps and Qs, though what she thinks I'd do to you in a space this crowded I have no idea, especially since I was rather hoping you might come out on a date with me. Bloody woman's got no sense of proportion. So what do you think then?"
While Rob was talking Mal had seated himself at the desk and opened the bag. He was pleased to see that the scrawl of letters and numbers was an address and an OS map reference, which was always handy. He peered inside then gently tipped the slightly muddy bits and pieces out. "Did you find these all in one place?" he asked.
"No, I meant about coming on a date with me?"
Struck by an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu, Mal sat back in his chair and stared at Rob. Rob stared back with a broad grin.
"That was a trick question, wasn't it?" Mal asked. "If I mentioned the bag you'd claim you were talking about a date. If I mentioned a date you'd probably claim to have been asking what I thought of Betty's sense of proportion. If I mentioned Betty you'd point out that I should be looking at the flints. Most of which look as though they came off someone's drive, by the way."
"Oh my God, you're good." Rob shook his head admiringly. "The wonders of a university education."
"No, I learned about never being able to find the right answer from an ex. He was the sort who used to like to keep people on the wrong foot so he could manipulate them. Not an admirable character trait." Mal turned over the pile of stone chips, sorting them and setting some aside. "Hmm, a few of these are rather good but as for some of the others - are you having a laugh?"
He glanced up and was a little surprised to see that Rob's smile had gone and he was looking down at his mug. "No, I'm not," Rob said. "I'm sorry."
"No need to apologise." Mal tried to smile but suspected that he looked a bit strained. The memories of his last few months in Bristol had kept him awake more than one night. "It wasn't a pleasant experience - one I don't want to repeat. You've been straight with me so I thought I'd be straight with you."
Rob looked up again. "If either of us were straight, neither of us would be here working our way to finding out if you're coming out with me. I'll even let you choose where to go. I've got a tie - somewhere."
That sounded promising. "Not if, when. But you'll need to tell me what the options are."
Rob began to talk, a cheerful babble of distances, facilities and reminiscences, while Mal inspected the scraps of stone that littered his blotter. Rob's voice was deep but hit occasional high notes as he moved from disgust to laughter or indifference. His accent was the mild mixture common to the area, Herefordshire's soft country burr tinged with the lilt of Welsh, as seemed right to Mal for this border country. The pieces were a mixture too - some clearly picked up from the same source, probably the drive of a house. In fact Mal thought he knew which house. He had cycled past one with just such virulent alien yellow flint chips on his way back from the development. But others were of great antiquity and he set them in order with care.
"So the Red Lion's very plush," Rob continued. "But they have absolutely no sense of humour and I probably wouldn't get away with feeling you up under the table in there not like in the White Horse. Also the Lion might still enforce that ban. It wasn't as though me and Sion did much but Phil Rother and his mates was right out of order."
"Phil Rother?" Mal grinned. "Still got all his teeth?"
"Yeah, fuck him. Well, I wouldn't, but you know what I mean. Honest," Rob sighed, "it's the twenty-first century. You'd think we'd be over the whole eighties gay panic shit but the small-minded, tiny-dicked morons are always with us."
"I'll have to watch out for him then."
"Probably not." Rob considered Mal for a moment then flapped a hand at him. "You talk posh, work in an office and I bet you got a string of letters after your name. He'll leave you alone. Also he's built like a brick shithouse so he'd look like a bully if he had a go at you. But he's Gary's boss so feels he can throw his weight about a bit with us. You'll meet him. He's doing the security for Gaskell Developments."
"I'll not look forward to it," Mal assured him. "I've met a few homophobes and there's really no doing anything about them."
"Nah, punching him in the gob didn't work. He just stands out of reach now and slags us off from a distance."
"Nasty, so we won't go to the Lion then. But the White Horse is all right for some fun, the Coach is great but your mates might interfere, and the Carpenter's Arms has a good kitchen but the barman doesn't know his stout from his lager. I guess we'd best go to the White Horse then."
"Good choice." Rob grinned. "When? I'd love to say tonight but I've got to take some stuff over to Leominster for Glyn and won't be back 'til late."
"That's okay. I've got a meeting at County Hall first thing tomorrow and will need my wits about me. I'm free Friday," Mal offered.
"Another good choice," Rob grinned. "What's the verdict on the stones and stuff, then?"
"Well, these," Mal pushed the yellow stones to the edge of his blotter, "are very interesting. I suspect of foreign origin and I know exactly where they came from - the drive of that run-down nineteen-thirties semi in Ross Road. Remember when I said you were shameless? Well, you are."
Rob chuckled then nodded to the other little pile. "It's a fair cop. Didn't want to make it too easy for you, did I? But what about those others?"
"These are the real thing. Did they all come from the same spot?"
"Yeah, found 'em years ago. I looked it up on the map as best I could and wrote down the reference. It's from the field above the development. Gaskell wanted to buy it too but Old Beynon wouldn't let it go." Rob got out of his chair uninvited and came to lean on Mal's shoulder. "Tell me what I'm looking at, then."
"Well, you obviously already know that flint isn't natural to this area so it's of interest."
"I never missed an episode of Time Team, if that's what you mean." Rob reached past him and turned over the biggest chunk. "What's that?"
"That's part of a core. Probably discarded because there was a fault in the flint and it broke along the fault. See the long strips on the sides? That's where the flint worker, the knapper, struck off flakes to work up into blades. Look." Mal picked up a narrow fragment and held it against the core. "They were making things like this. Knife blades. Or they would set a series of them into wood and make things like sickles."
"So Stone Age, then?"
"Yes, some of them. The really tiny ones are what's called Mesolithic - Middle Stone Age - but most are a bit later than that." Mal picked up the best piece of the lot, in a pale cloudy grey flint almost translucent along the edges where the chipping was finest. He tested the edge with a fingertip and smiled to see the little indentations of the serrated edge on his skin. "See this arrowhead. One of the barbs has been broken off but otherwise it's perfect. They were making them like that during the Bronze Age, about three to four thousand years ago. Absolutely lovely."
"So it's an old break, not a new one?" Rob asked. "I thought I'd done it. Spent some time looking for the other bit."
"You can tell from the edge. A fresh break is as sharp as a razor. That had been in the soil for a while. These rounded ones are scrapers." Mal picked one up between thumb and forefinger and demonstrated its use, roughing up the edge of his blotter. "Here, take my magnifying glass. If you look at the edge along here you can see a little bit of polish. That shows it has actually been used. And this almost triangular bit, I think, is a chisel point arrowhead."
"For birds," Rob said. He was inspecting the scraper minutely, turning the little object between gentle if work roughened fingers, handling it so delicately that Mal had to swallow hard. What would those hands feel like on his skin? "I saw a programme about them once. That's so cool to think we had people making tools right up there on the hill above the town, way before the Romans."
"Not just making tools," Mal said. "Scrapers were disposable. Like Stanley knife blades. Nobody bothers to sharpen those. You just get another. So I'd expect to see a few scrapers about casually discarded. But these other pieces, the blades and arrowheads, are finely worked and they look to me as though they may have been broken deliberately. Maybe, at one time, there was something up on the hill that people visited and left a token."
"There's a spring," Rob suggested. "I'll take you to see it if you like. It's on private land but Dai Beynon won't mind. He's a good lad is Dai."
"Another friend?"
"Oh aye. People used to go up to the spring and leave stuff there. If you know where to look you can still see bits and pieces, ribbon and stuff, on the trees."
"Wow, genuine folk tradition?"
"We could ask him," Rob suggested. "He's often in the Horse, Fridays. Pick you up at yours, seven o'clock?"
"Cool. I'll just write down my address for you."
Rob shook his head. "Mr Archaeologist, you're in Pemberland now. Everybody knows where you live."