Ghost Wall(17)

We walked down the road, Molly eating her Cornetto and me nibbling at a lemonade ice lolly that was already melting and making my fingers sticky. Anxiety was rising in me like water in a jug. The lolly had a bitter aftertaste. I let the bit in the middle that’s hard to bite without choking yourself on the stick slide onto the tarmac. Moll, I said, let’s at least get off the road with all this stuff, let’s just go behind the hedge and put that plastic bag away, and we must get on and find some proper food, something wild, it might take us a while. It’s fine, she said, calm down, we’ll finish these and then start looking, OK, we’ll have more energy and it’s not as if they’re expecting us back at a particular time, the day’s long enough. He’ll know, I said, he’ll know we’ve been mucking about, that woman might talk, please, Moll, let’s just hide what you bought and do what we’re supposed to be doing. He’ll know, she said, licking her ice cream. Your dad. Silvie, you’re terrified of him. I’m not, I said, really I’m not, but please can we just get on now, we’re going to get into so much trouble. I was starting to fight my breathing, could get air out but not in, as if my body was already full up, as if there was no space inside my ribs. Hey, Moll said, sure, come on, whatever makes you feel better. Are you OK? Look, I’m putting the plastic bag in the basket, see, no-one can see if that’s foraged – foraged gruel or Hula Hoops, and there, ice-cream all gone. Calm down, Silvie, it’s all right.

She agreed to hide her bag of ill-gotten goods in a hedge by the wood, and we went up along the edge of the trees and the moor. We found a wild plum tree covered in early small yellow plums, sour but edible, and then a whole lot of burdock. I know you can eat the roots, I said, I’m less sure about the leaves, though I think that’s what’s in dandelion and burdock. In what, asked Molly. The drink, I said, you know, but she didn’t know, maybe it was something else you could only get up north. Right, said Molly, but we haven’t got a spade. They probably didn’t have a spade in the Iron Age either, I said, we’ll make do, but of course in the end I made do while Molly read bits of the foraging book out loud to me. It says here, she said, roots are probably the least practical of all wild vegetables, being labour-intensive to gather and actually in many cases illegal. You can make a burdock and rabbit stew, I said, and we can look for more garlic greens and come to think of it dandelion leaves though I don’t think you’d want to cook them, best in a salad maybe with sorrel though I haven’t seen any sorrel. Plenty of dandelions any road. I’m sure you can make a burdock and rabbit stew, said Molly, there’s no law of man nor God stops you putting things in a pan if you’re so minded, question is—yes, I said, well, it’s exactly the kind of thing they want, isn’t it, Dad and Prof Slade? She shrugged. Suppose so.

I went on grubbing at the burdock with a flat stone, feeling the soil lodging under my fingernails. The smell of damp earth rose in the heat. I switched from kneeling to squatting although both hurt the backs of my legs, tried to edge into the shade of the trees. A wind ruffled through the leaves overhead but I barely felt it on my hot face. No birds sang, no creatures scurried. The sun didn’t seem to move in the sky. Slowly, I disclosed the root. Sweat trickled. The plant began to topple and I found myself feeling guiltier about killing it than I had about gutting the rabbits. The whole of life, I thought, is doing harm, we live by killing, as if there were any being of which that is not the case. Molly, I said, why did you come, if you don’t like Professor Slade, if you think the whole thing’s ridiculous? She bit a plum and puckered her lips. The field trip’s part of the course, she said, experiential archaeology, and I took that because I liked the idea that you can learn from doing things, that it’s not all books and speculation. Plus I thought it might be useful for getting into museum courses, ’cos that’s about actual things too. The burdock fell. I started digging through its roots. But now you’re here, I said, you’re not – well, you’re not exactly taking it seriously, are you? Well, she said, I’m joining in, I’m picking plums, I gathered mussels, I helped your mum wash tunics in the stream, I just think a lot of it’s boys playing in the woods. Your dad and Jim, have you noticed, they’re not much interested in the foraging and cooking, they just want to kill things and talk about fighting, why would I take it seriously? Because they are men, I thought, because they’re in charge, because there will be consequences if you don’t. I didn’t see how she could not know that.



We returned to the camp to find that only Mum was there. The fire was burning, flames almost invisible in the sunlight, steam rising from the cauldron balanced on its stones. Mum sat against the wall in the shade of the hut, not apparently occupied. Maybe this was ‘sitting down’. Hello, I said, look, we found burdock for your stew and more of those greens the Prof liked and loads of plums though I think ideally they’d want sugar, we can maybe dry them for sweetness. Hello, she said, hello Molly, that’s good, Silvie, your dad’ll be pleased. She started to get up, using her hands like a much older person. I put the rabbit on, she said, reckoned it could take a fair while, don’t think those were the youngest bunnies on the hill somehow. If we get those roots scrubbed they can go in now and we’ll leave the greens for later. Oh, now are you two hungry, only there’s nowt ready yet. No, we said, we’re fine, ate loads of plums, no bother to wait while the others get back. Could be a while, she said, warningly, as if she hadn’t just told us there was nothing to eat anyway. Not but what they’ll near to melt, rushing about up there, day like today. There’s water on the moor, I said, springs still rising, they’ll not parch, it’s the sunburn I’d be thinking of. Well, she said, they’re grown men the lot of them. Take these burdocks down the stream will you, give them a good wash. Molly, if you can stand the sun you could lay some of the plums to dry, it’s the right weather for it an’ all. Molly turned the sour plums in her basket with her fingers, picked out a caterpillar. Won’t they go mouldy, she said, that’s what happens to half the fruit at home. Not if they’re turned, I said, you want to turn them as they go dry and wrinkled before the underside gets mould, we’ll keep an eye on them. OK, she said, whatever you say, at least it’s not eviscerating rabbits.