Dying Fall

shouldn’t complain about outreach. I’m here to give a talk on Blackpool in the war. The library is really hot on local history.’
    ‘Sounds interesting,’ says Ruth. ‘I was visiting the county archaeologist.’
    ‘Susan Chow?’ says Sam. ‘Is this about Dan’s discovery?’
    ‘Yes,’ says Ruth, not sure how much she should tell him. Sam says he was Dan’s friend but how can she be sure? And, as Susan said, news travels fast amongst academics.
    ‘Look,’ says Sam. ‘I’ve got half an hour before my lecture. Would you like to get a cup of coffee?’
    Kate is silent, watching the buses go past, so Ruth says yes.
    *
    After a while, Cathbad decides that he’d better tackle Dame Alice head on. It’s no good hiding from the fact – Pendragon has disappeared and Dame Alice must know where he is. She didn’t seem to like the cherries much so Cathbad searches for something better. In the fridge he finds four cans of beer, and in the larder some rather crumbly oatcakes. No wine, unfortunately, but Dame Alice was probably a tough countrywoman who liked a good pint of stout. This is Guinness, which, Cathbad reckons, should be good enough for anyone. Pen must have got the taste for it when he lived in Ireland. Cathbad fills a glass with the beautiful black liquid and finishes the can himself. He has a feeling that he might need it before the day is over.
    He goes outside into the garden because that’s where he felt her presence the strongest. The clouds are still dark overhead and the bird still watches from the tree. Even when Thing runs out of the house, barking wildly, the bird does not fly away.
    Cathbad places the Guinness and the oatcake on the sundial. He raises his hands to the sky: ‘Dame Alice, accept my offering and help me find my friend.’
    Thing stops his mad circling and comes to sit at Cathbad’s feet. For a few moments everything iscompletely still and then, from the apple tree, the bird caws once.
    Cathbad reckons that’s all the answer he’s going to get.
    *
    They go to an Italian cafe where Kate is treated like a queen. She gets a special chair, a frothy milk drink and a selection of tiny cakes glistening with glazed fruit. Sam and Ruth get more prosaic cappuccinos, though these too are excellent. The proprietor obviously thinks Kate is their (joint) child and is fulsome with compliments. Ruth is getting used to people making assumptions about Kate’s parentage but Sam is obviously uncomfortable.
    ‘She’s not …’ he says when Signor Tino tells him to savour each fleeting moment of Kate’s babyhood. ‘Oh, never mind.’
    ‘Do you have children?’ asks Ruth.
    ‘No,’ says Sam. ‘Too late now, I suppose.’ His voice is cheerful but his eyes look rather sad. He has a weather-beaten face with light blue eyes that look very directly at you. He has a boyish outdoorsy look, like a grown-up scout, though his hair is starting to recede.
    ‘You’ve got plenty of time,’ says Ruth. ‘How old are you?’
    ‘Forty-two.’
    ‘Same as me.’ Same as Dan, she thinks.
    ‘Anyway,’ she says. ‘There’s no rush for a man. No biological clock, I mean.’
    ‘No,’ says Sam, putting sugar in his coffee. ‘But I had kind of expected to be married with kids by now.’
    He looks like a dad, thinks Ruth. The sort of father who would take his children swimming and cycling. Camping in summer with a small excitable dog in the back of the Volvo. It turns out that she was right about the dog. Sam tells her that he has a Jack Russell called Griffin. Ruth volunteers that she has a cat.
    ‘I always thought I’d end up a single woman alone with her cat,’ she says. ‘I never expected to be married or have children. Well, I’m not married but I do have Kate.’
    ‘Cake,’ says Kate loudly. Signor Tino is instantly at her side with new supplies.
    ‘You’re lucky.’
    ‘I know.’
    There is a short silence and then Sam says, ‘So why were you seeing Susan?’
    Ruth is expecting this question but is still not sure how to answer it. She doesn’t want to tell Sam about the switched bones but, on the other hand, he might be able to give her some useful information.
    ‘I was asking about the excavation,’ she says. ‘Were you there?’
    ‘I was at the early digs,’ he says. ‘But I’m a modern historian, not an archaeologist. Guy’s the man you should ask.’
    ‘Was Guy a friend of Dan’s?’
    ‘Yes,’ says Sam, wincing slightly as Kate drops a cream cake on the floor.