The Locked Room (Ruth Galloway #14)(44)
‘Richard Lovelace,’ says Shona. ‘He was one of those Cavalier poets.’
For a moment Ruth thinks Shona means ‘cavalier’ in the sense of being offhand, but then she realises that Lovelace must have been writing at the time of the English Civil War between the Parliamentarians (Roundheads) and Royalists (Cavaliers). Ruth is a bit vague on the detail but she knows that King’s Lynn was besieged first by the Royalists and then by the Parliamentarians, led by the Earl of Manchester who always sounds made-up. Who was it that called the Parliamentarians ‘right but repulsive’? She questions Shona, who laughs.
‘That’s from 1066 and All That. The Royalists were “wrong but romantic”. That’s pretty much how I see the two sides. Lovelace was a Royalist, imprisoned by the Parliamentarians. Why are you interested in him? He’s a minor poet, really.’
Ruth knows that Shona has her own literary hierarchy, headed by Sylvia Plath and Shakespeare. Other dead white men are near the bottom.
‘One of my students quoted something by him,’ says Ruth, which is more or less true. ‘“Stone walls do not a prison make. Nor iron bars a cage.”’
‘That’s probably Lovelace’s most famous poem,’ says Shona. ‘“To Althea, from Prison”. I’ll email you a copy if you like.’
‘It’s not that obscure then?’
‘God no. You can probably get it on a mug or embroidered on a cushion.’
‘Did he die in prison?’ asks Ruth. ‘Was he executed?’
‘Oh no,’ says Shona. ‘He lived to fight another day.’
Ruth feels oddly comforted by this. They chat for a few more minutes before Ruth rings off, promising to think about the quiz.
Kate has gone back to her Lego so Ruth goes into the kitchen to ring Janet Meadows. She opens the back door and looks out into the garden. Once again, the small patch of green is extremely soothing. She can hear Zoe talking to Derek in her garden. A blackbird sings loudly from the apple tree.
Janet, too, seems pleased to hear from her.
‘I’m already fed up with lockdown. There’s only so much yoga and baking you can do.’
Ruth remembers that she included yeast and bread flour in her mammoth shop on Tuesday. Had she really been intending to bake bread? Things aren’t that desperate yet. But then it’s only been a week.
‘I wanted to talk to you about one of my students,’ says Ruth. ‘Joe McMahon. He was the one who came to see you about the Tombland skeleton.’
‘I remember. Chap with a beard.’
‘That’s right. I just wondered if you remembered anything specific about the conversation.’
Janet must wonder why she’s asking but, unlike Shona, she doesn’t press the matter.
‘He wanted to know why a skeleton would be buried on its own like that. He thought it might mean that she was an outcast. Or a suicide.’
Eileen had said something similar, Ruth remembers.
‘I don’t think it was a deviant burial,’ says Ruth. ‘The body was wrapped in a shroud and was probably just interred in the graveyard. I told the students that.’
‘He was quite intense,’ says Janet. ‘He told me that his mother had died recently. I felt quite sorry for him. Actually, hope this doesn’t make you feel old, but he said he thought of you as a mother figure.’
Old isn’t what this makes Ruth feel.
‘I showed Joe the original plans to Augustine Steward’s House,’ says Janet. ‘He seemed very interested. He said he was thinking of writing his dissertation about Tombland.’
‘He’s only a first year,’ says Ruth. ‘It’s a bit early to be thinking of dissertations.’
‘Really? I thought he seemed older. But, seriously, I don’t think there’s any harm in him. He’s just a bit sad and a bit intense. We’ve all been there.’
Ruth definitely knows what it’s like to be eighteen and intense. She thinks of the days when she was dating Daniel, reading The Brothers Karamazov in the library and dreaming of escape. Life for Janet, pre-transition, must have been difficult in ways that Ruth can’t even imagine. Maybe she’s being a bit hard on Joe. After all, it’s his business what he puts on his walls. She decides to change the subject.
‘Have you found somewhere to live?’ she says. ‘When we last spoke you said you had to move out of your flat.’
‘Yes, I’ve found somewhere.’ Janet gives a little laugh.
‘Is it in the centre of town?’
‘Oh yes,’ says Janet. ‘Dead centre.’
Isn’t that the punchline of a joke? Janet doesn’t seem to want to explain so, after a few minutes’ desultory chat, Ruth says goodbye and rings off.
Chapter 23
The trouble with lockdown, thinks Ruth, is that the evenings are so long. Kate has finished Hogwarts by five and is wandering around the room, picking things up and sighing. Flint is not much better. He keeps standing on Ruth’s keyboard and inserting the letters ‘ppppooootttt’ into her comments column. Ruth gives up. She switches on the news and learns that Boris Johnson has tested positive for Covid. His statement says that he’s working from home and ‘continuing to lead the national fightback against coronavirus’. Fightback sounds as if the battleground is even, instead of the virus having all the weapons. Ruth hopes the Prime Minister recovers quickly. There’s something frightening about the leader of the country being taken ill, whether you voted for him or not. She turns the radio off.