Caedmon’s Song Read Free Page B

here to do some research,’ Martha lied. ‘I’m working on a book.’
    ‘A book, eh? Romance, is it? I suppose you’ll find plenty of background for that here, what with the abbey ruins and the Dracula legends. Plenty of romance in all that history,
I’d say.’
    ‘It’s not a romance,’ Martha said.
    He didn’t pursue the matter further, but looked at her with a fixed expression, a mixture of superior, mocking humour and disbelief that she had often seen men use on professional
women.
    ‘I’ll take it,’ she said, mostly to get rid of him as quickly as possible. She didn’t like the way he leaned against the doorway, arms folded, watching her. Was he hoping
she’d start taking out her underwear to put in the drawers? The room began to feel claustrophobic.
    He stood up straight. ‘Right. Well, here’s the keys. That big one there’s for the front door. Come in any time you want, but try not to disturb the other guests. There’s
a lounge with a colour telly on the ground floor. You can make yourself a cup of tea or instant coffee there, too, if you like. But be sure to wash out your cup afterwards. The wife has enough on.
Breakfast’s at eight-thirty sharp. If you want an evening meal, let the wife know in the morning before you go out. Anything else?’
    ‘Not that I can think of.’
    He closed the door behind him as he left. Martha dumped her holdall on the bed and stretched. The sloping ceiling was so low at that point that her fingers touched the plaster between the beams.
She poked her head out of the window to see what kind of view you got for nine pounds fifty a night. Not bad. On her right, very close, at the top of the street, loomed St Hilda’s Church with
its high, dark tower, like one of the monoliths from 2001; to her left, on the opposite hillside over the estuary, stood St Mary’s, built of lighter stone, with a smaller, squarish
tower and a white pole sticking up from it like the mast of a ship. Beside it stood what was left of the abbey, where, according to her guidebook, the Synod of Whitby took place in 664 AD, when the
churches in England dumped their Celtic ways and decided to follow Roman usages. The poet Caedmon had lived there at the time, too, and that was more interesting to Martha. After all, Caedmon was
the one who had called her here.
    She unpacked her toilet bag and went over to the sink to brush her teeth. The shrimp had left fibres between them and a salty taste in her mouth. As she spat out the water, she glimpsed her face
in the mirror. It was the only part of her that hadn’t changed much over the past year or so.
    She wore her sandy hair cut short more for convenience than anything else. As she never had any reason to do herself up to look nice for anyone, it was far easier just to be able to wash it and
forget about it. She didn’t have to wear any make-up either, and that made for less fuss. Her complexion had always been clear anyway, and the smattering of freckles across her nose was
hardly a blemish. Her eyes were a little Oriental – slanted almonds, and about the same light brown colour. Her nose tilted up slightly at the end – snub, they called it – and
revealed the dark ovals of her nostrils. She had always thought it was her ugliest feature, but someone had once told her it was sexy. Sexy! Now there was a laugh! She had her
mother’s mouth: tight, thin-lipped, downturned at the edges.
    All in all, she thought she looked haughty, stiff and aloof – prissy, in fact – but she knew well enough that her appearance had diverse effects on men. Not so long ago, she had
overheard a conversation in a pub between two lads who had been giving her the eye all evening.
    ‘Now there’s a bird looks like she needs a bloody good fuck,’ the first one had said.
    ‘Rubbish,’ his mate had replied. ‘I’ll bet she’s had enough cock to pave the road from here to Land’s End – ends up!’ And they had laughed at
that.
    So much for her looks.