The next bit
Jul. 30th, 2015 08:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avevale_intelligencerShe played a mean jazz trumpet. God knows where she picked that up; it never seemed like the kind of thing her family would put up with. She could have gone pro--I remember one night in a club in Salford, she filled in for Tommy Caxton when he had toothache, and afterwards he swore he was never going to miss another dentist appointment, just in case--but she didn't want to be an oddity, and I didn't blame her. Still, I taught myself to bash out a bit of boogie-woogie and blues on the old piano, and we used to jam some nights, in between jaunts.
Couldn't do it then, of course. I hadn't touched the thing in years except to check the tuning, and the hands were none too steady anyway. So we just talked, that first night. About the old days, the old gang, finding replacements, what had happened to the world in fifty years, how everything was computers now and you couldn't go anywhere in the world without running into a mobile phone mast and a Tesco, except possibly some parts of Lincolnshire. We talked about everything except the important things.
"You can't just go jaunting off digging stuff up any more," I said. "Everywhere's mapped and referenced, and everyone's suddenly very aware they've got a heritage and very keen on hanging on to it."
"Quite right too," she came back. "It was shameful, what we did. We meaning the British, and the French, and the Americans, and all us developed nations who thought we were being so virtuous. It was theft, pure and simple."
"Didn't stop us doing the same," I said.
"That was the whole point. I was drawing attention to the injustice, trying to get it stopped, only we never got caught. Anyway, that won't be a problem this time. We're not digging something up, we're putting something back."
I kept quiet. All that time I'd thought we were just pushing back the frontiers of knowledge, in a fairly informal sort of way, and making a little bit of cash while we were at it. It wasn't proper archaeology, of course. I wasn't that dim. It was treasure-hunting, like she said, theft pure and simple. But the places we sold our finds to were reputable institutions, and they never asked too many questions about how we'd come by the things. Maybe it had all been a grand political gesture, or maybe she'd just told herself that. I didn't care. Whatever it was, it had been the happiest few years of my life, stravaiging around the world with Anita, Gunnar, Eli, Rafe...and Tom Donnelly.
Tom Donnelly. Smiling Tom, my best mate from the Navy days, the man who could always find a way round anything, charm his way past anyone. It was never all blarney and top-o-the-mornin-to-yez, he wasn't a comedy Irishman, he was just...never lost for words. I'm sure the accent helped, though.
Tom Donnelly. I wondered if he was still alive.
I wondered if I was going to kill him.
Couldn't do it then, of course. I hadn't touched the thing in years except to check the tuning, and the hands were none too steady anyway. So we just talked, that first night. About the old days, the old gang, finding replacements, what had happened to the world in fifty years, how everything was computers now and you couldn't go anywhere in the world without running into a mobile phone mast and a Tesco, except possibly some parts of Lincolnshire. We talked about everything except the important things.
"You can't just go jaunting off digging stuff up any more," I said. "Everywhere's mapped and referenced, and everyone's suddenly very aware they've got a heritage and very keen on hanging on to it."
"Quite right too," she came back. "It was shameful, what we did. We meaning the British, and the French, and the Americans, and all us developed nations who thought we were being so virtuous. It was theft, pure and simple."
"Didn't stop us doing the same," I said.
"That was the whole point. I was drawing attention to the injustice, trying to get it stopped, only we never got caught. Anyway, that won't be a problem this time. We're not digging something up, we're putting something back."
I kept quiet. All that time I'd thought we were just pushing back the frontiers of knowledge, in a fairly informal sort of way, and making a little bit of cash while we were at it. It wasn't proper archaeology, of course. I wasn't that dim. It was treasure-hunting, like she said, theft pure and simple. But the places we sold our finds to were reputable institutions, and they never asked too many questions about how we'd come by the things. Maybe it had all been a grand political gesture, or maybe she'd just told herself that. I didn't care. Whatever it was, it had been the happiest few years of my life, stravaiging around the world with Anita, Gunnar, Eli, Rafe...and Tom Donnelly.
Tom Donnelly. Smiling Tom, my best mate from the Navy days, the man who could always find a way round anything, charm his way past anyone. It was never all blarney and top-o-the-mornin-to-yez, he wasn't a comedy Irishman, he was just...never lost for words. I'm sure the accent helped, though.
Tom Donnelly. I wondered if he was still alive.
I wondered if I was going to kill him.
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Date: 2015-07-31 07:22 pm (UTC)More, please!