round and fell right
on his jacksy in the mud. I now have a degree in laughter suppression.
So what happens when you finish? I ask him.
Whole thing gets knackered. It’s going to be new houses, an executive development, they call it. They’ll probably name one
of the roads Boudicca Crescent. You can’t stand in the way of progress. Or should I say profit?
Crowds of jackdaws and rooks are massing in pylons, along the towers and even on the wires, almost ready to return en masse
to their roosts. Turning over and over in a lengthy and garrulous public conversation. We adjourn to the site hut and I walk
him through the basic functions on the webcam.
So does the site get written up somewhere? I ask him.
Yeah, we churn out a report for the developer. I don’t suppose they ever read it. Just gets their planning permission sorted.
Thing is, it’s hard to say the things you want to say. Vanished people, vanished lives, what made them tick?
He sips on a cup of coffee, spilling steam into the air.
See, he says. Someone once told me that human skin is actually made from holes. It looks like a continuous surface but when
you look through a microscope it’s holes all the way.
I scan the inside of the portakabin. Strewn tabloids, polystyrene coffee cups heaped with ash and dog ends.
The past, he says, is like that as well. It’s a landscape of holes. Think about your own memory. Your brain can’t possibly
store every single experience, every single sensation. It has to pick and choose. It just takes snapshots of the big stuff
and sort of blurs it into what you think is a continuous surface. Your memory’s like skin – it looks solid but when you get
up close there’s just holes. Think about yourself ten years ago, twenty years ago. What have you got in common with that person?
Over that time every single cell in your body has died and been renewed. The only connection you have is this electricity
in your head, theseflashes of light and sound we call memory. It’s a frightening thought.
He pauses, scratches at his stubble.
When you go beyond living memory, it’s even worse. We don’t even know our ancestors two or three generations back, what their
names were, how they lived. History tells us about the rich and powerful but the average Joe has vanished from the record.
So why do you bother?
He thinks for a moment, blowing more steam from his coffee.
Well, it pays the rent, just about, he grins. But it’s more than that. These scatters of pottery, the voids left behind where
wooden posts have rotted – they prove that there were people here once, real people with beating hearts and brains full up
with experience.
Touching vanished lives, I say.
Yeah, sort of. Or rather, not quite touching. Overlapping. You can’t ever quite touch.
Outside, a huge cloud of black birds begins to stream from the power lines, heading back towards Teesside in the evening gloom,
whirling and chattering. We step outside the hut to watch them.
It’s like that Hitchcock film, says Matt. At least I’ve got me hard hat if they come a-pecking.
The diggers stop to watch the stream of birds.
Back to work, scum, yells Matt, cracking an imaginary whip.
She’s lying on the sofa when I come in, knees tucked up towards her chest, one hand neatly under her cheek. At first I think
she’s asleep. She doesn’t stir when the latch clicks shut behind me. But when I come into the living room I see that her eyes
are open.
Tried to call you, she says, her voice passive, drained of colour. The eyes don’t look at me. She’s gazing into space, not
really focusing on anything in particular. I go over to her, try to brush aside a tendril of blonde hair which has flopped
over her face, but she flinches away.
No reception out there, I tell her, retreating back to the armchair and perching on the edge.
It hasn’t worked, she says, baldly. I did the test today. It’s negative.
I try to think of the
on his jacksy in the mud. I now have a degree in laughter suppression.
So what happens when you finish? I ask him.
Whole thing gets knackered. It’s going to be new houses, an executive development, they call it. They’ll probably name one
of the roads Boudicca Crescent. You can’t stand in the way of progress. Or should I say profit?
Crowds of jackdaws and rooks are massing in pylons, along the towers and even on the wires, almost ready to return en masse
to their roosts. Turning over and over in a lengthy and garrulous public conversation. We adjourn to the site hut and I walk
him through the basic functions on the webcam.
So does the site get written up somewhere? I ask him.
Yeah, we churn out a report for the developer. I don’t suppose they ever read it. Just gets their planning permission sorted.
Thing is, it’s hard to say the things you want to say. Vanished people, vanished lives, what made them tick?
He sips on a cup of coffee, spilling steam into the air.
See, he says. Someone once told me that human skin is actually made from holes. It looks like a continuous surface but when
you look through a microscope it’s holes all the way.
I scan the inside of the portakabin. Strewn tabloids, polystyrene coffee cups heaped with ash and dog ends.
The past, he says, is like that as well. It’s a landscape of holes. Think about your own memory. Your brain can’t possibly
store every single experience, every single sensation. It has to pick and choose. It just takes snapshots of the big stuff
and sort of blurs it into what you think is a continuous surface. Your memory’s like skin – it looks solid but when you get
up close there’s just holes. Think about yourself ten years ago, twenty years ago. What have you got in common with that person?
Over that time every single cell in your body has died and been renewed. The only connection you have is this electricity
in your head, theseflashes of light and sound we call memory. It’s a frightening thought.
He pauses, scratches at his stubble.
When you go beyond living memory, it’s even worse. We don’t even know our ancestors two or three generations back, what their
names were, how they lived. History tells us about the rich and powerful but the average Joe has vanished from the record.
So why do you bother?
He thinks for a moment, blowing more steam from his coffee.
Well, it pays the rent, just about, he grins. But it’s more than that. These scatters of pottery, the voids left behind where
wooden posts have rotted – they prove that there were people here once, real people with beating hearts and brains full up
with experience.
Touching vanished lives, I say.
Yeah, sort of. Or rather, not quite touching. Overlapping. You can’t ever quite touch.
Outside, a huge cloud of black birds begins to stream from the power lines, heading back towards Teesside in the evening gloom,
whirling and chattering. We step outside the hut to watch them.
It’s like that Hitchcock film, says Matt. At least I’ve got me hard hat if they come a-pecking.
The diggers stop to watch the stream of birds.
Back to work, scum, yells Matt, cracking an imaginary whip.
She’s lying on the sofa when I come in, knees tucked up towards her chest, one hand neatly under her cheek. At first I think
she’s asleep. She doesn’t stir when the latch clicks shut behind me. But when I come into the living room I see that her eyes
are open.
Tried to call you, she says, her voice passive, drained of colour. The eyes don’t look at me. She’s gazing into space, not
really focusing on anything in particular. I go over to her, try to brush aside a tendril of blonde hair which has flopped
over her face, but she flinches away.
No reception out there, I tell her, retreating back to the armchair and perching on the edge.
It hasn’t worked, she says, baldly. I did the test today. It’s negative.
I try to think of the
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