The Painted Lady

Wednesday12th July 1995

9.00 Nursery Day -Sally

2.00 Orthodontist- Tabby

4.00 After School Club Tabby and Jo

It’s like a stuck record.

If I had a penny for ever time I hear her go on.

Petunia tells me that my sister in law has a great job, is terribly successful, that she earns a mountain of money, that she still has a family and manages without help.

She tells me that my husband likes bread that is home-made.

That he had never had anything else, not until now of course.

She tells me that when she was my age, she had three children, grew all her own veg, with no help

and fed 14 labourers throughout the summer months,

every day.

Petunia might as well say it to my face. I’m just not good enough.

Saturday 14th July 1995

2.00 Jo Football match

Am i the only woman on Earth who dreads the summer?

The days are so long

and its too hard.

And the children will break up soon and then they’ll all be home and I’ll be imprisoned by the daily grind, Tabby teasing Sally, Jo punching Harry, and poor little Harry, pining for his daddy, waiting up at the window till gone 11 hoping to hear the tractor.

I can’t bare it

and Petunia was here all day, again.

She turns up in shorts and a t-shirt, too small and too tight for a woman her age.

In my garden with her t-shirt off and M&S bra in full frightening view she points out, not for the first time,

how really white I am, so white that i reflect the sun.

When I told Micky, later what his mother said, he just laughed.

You know what mums, like

Yes

Yes, I do

I didn’t realise that when I married Micheal, I married Petunia too and that I would see Petunia more.

I miss him - especially now, in the summer

He’s already getting up at 5 and finishing work at midnight.

And his hours will get longer.

And so will mine

Please rain.

It’s Petunia’s birthday tomorrow. Somehow I’m hosting her celebrations.

Sally asked me why I call Granny, Petunia

I didn’t know what to say. so I didn’t

I’ve started decorating the sitting room, don’t ask me why. It seemed a good idea, but now have to lock the room to stop little Harry climbing the ladder,

and breaking his neck.

Sunday 15th July 1995

Petunias birthday

Outlaws for dinner and Micky promised to be here.

He promised

But surprise, surprise, he had a tractor break down and couldn’t or wouldn’t come

It was bedlam. 6 of them, 5 of us and no Micky.

Harry cried and then had an hissy fit. I had promised him daddy and there was no daddy.

Petunia had too much red wine and revisited the heritage crap. That theirs was a family with a history dating back centuries. Her family had always worked this land

and only pure untainted blood ran through their veins.

“Of course foreign blood is ok for lesser individuals,

but the Beresfords, we’re pure bred. “

Like pedigree dogs at Crufts I assume.

And they sure like being waited on.

By the time i had fed the ungrateful, washed up alone, made coffee, i was almost too tired to bundle the kids into the car to take a plate of food to Mick.

Secretly I wanted to leave his dinner in the Aga until it was ash, I was that cross with him

And then I wander if Mick hadn’t wanted to see his family either.

he just had a better excuse

Monday 16th July 1995

10.00 School meeting Jo

3.30 Jo -After school club

4.00 Tabby to drama

4.00 Party at Baldwins Tabby

The engineer has been under the tractor all day.

It seems that Micky hit something which burst his tire and knocked the electrics out.

Micky went to see what.

He had thought that the object was old and on a whim called the Bristol Archeological Society.

Thursday 19th July 1995

4.00 Jo - football

5.00 School disco Jo and Tabby

6.00 BBQ at the Thompsons

The chair of Archeological Society, Quentin Mansfield came out. Micky was somewhere else as usual but the kids seemed happy to run around in the field while he poked and prodded the exposed metal. He seemed very excited. His overly big balding head nodding as he spoke. I watched his jowls quiver as he talked.

And I longed to be back at work, behind a desk., using my brain, having a purpose.

Quentin cleared much of the dirt around the metal, while he talked He is pretty sure that it is an old chest, 13th or 14th century, and highly engineered. Which makes him think that its contents are valuable.

Jo had wanted to know whether that meant that there was gold inside, but Quentin had only shrugged.

I did notice that Quentin covered the box over with soil again before we left as if to hide the find.

Petunia thankfully had a luncheon today. For some reason, I really didn’t want her to meet Quentin or see the box.

Friday 20th July 1995

9.00 Sally to nursery

3.30 After School Club Jo Tabby

Its raining.

Micky is furious

I’m ecstatic

The box, a 3 foot cube was craned out of our field and a full-size dig has began around its site. Various students and workers have set up camp and the children are fascinated. Its all that I can do to stop Jo biking off without asking and upsetting the diggers. 3 times he crept off and the last time, I found him telling a young student that he was allowed to do what ever he liked as it was his land and not hers.

Micky’s son all over.

Get off my land.

Tuesday 22nd August 1995

It is still raining.

Micky is getting worried.

He is so behind.

I think he needs to work. He’s almost as prickly as his mother. I have both of them and the kids

And the rain

Monday 4th September 1995

Kids back to school

11.00 Quentin Mansfied University of Bristol to the Archeological Research Department.

3.30 Jo -After school club

4.00 Tabby to drama

We were invited to the University to see the opening of the chest. It’s lead based, so they haven’t been able to X-ray the treasures it holds

It was raining so Mick decided to come and we left the little ones with Petunia.

Behind a wall of glass, our box, incongruous in this high-tech clinical space, looked larger than I remembered. It was rusted, badly, with a flecks of green and red.

On the nearside they have de-layered the weathering to reveal a hammered iron surface with ratchet nuts. And this Quentin explained would be his point of entry. White gloved, figures wearing masks and surgical hats began to unbolt the container.

I remember asking him what he thought was inside, but he had no idea. He had never seen anything like it. And oddly I felt a slight pride, as if I the chest was something I had done.

But the excitement turned into boredom.

We waited hours

and hours

and hours

Too many cups of coffee, and stale sandwiches later, the last of 18 bolts were meticulously removed and a sheet of metal was prised from its container.

The gloved archaeologists wore gas masks now. Apparently 900-year-old air can be dangerous to breath in. And surprisingly a cloud of dust rose up over the box when it was opened.

And next to us a computer screen flashed into life as one of the researchers switched on a probe

It's difficult to articulate what we saw, in fairness it look like a bad x-ray, or even an early foetus scan. There were indistinguishable dark and light shapes.

fabrics, maybe?

The scan seemed to last as long as the box opening.

Micky was fidgeting. He was probably wandering if it had stopped raining!

But Quentin was glued to the screen. He mic-ed directions to the team and more objects became visible under his direction. The back of his bald head was practically shaking with excitement.

And we guessed that the news was good.

Finally he turned and beamed at us

And then said “Well there you are,”

And we had just looked back at him, because we still didn’t know what treasure there was.

So I asked “What’s in the box?”And he said

“Why, a body.

Well, not a body exactly.

The bones of a body or maybe two.”

Friday 25th September1995

9.00 Sally to nursery

10.00 Quentin Mansfield

3.30 After School Club Jo Tabby

Update on the dig

The skeleton, there is only one, had belonged to a 25-30year old woman who had died around 1295/1300AD.

She had been wrapped in a wooden cloth bag and had almost certainly been buried there post death. (Thank goodness.)

For Quentin, there are unusual factors.

Why would a woman be buried in a metal casket, not wood, on unconsecrated land and so far from any settlements?

Secondly the flesh and skin had been removed from the bones, pre-burial. This was easily determined, as every bone had been carved into, stars, triangles, circles, fish, birds.

And lastly. the woman was almost certainly,

black.

Not only that but the skeleton, it seems, displays tribal identity.

a distended head,

possibly Egyptian or even Ethiopian.

There was also some points of historical damage

on the left tibia and fibia and right wrist.

Possibly from long-term pulling on shackles. These areas of damage had been painted using a red oil paint now only flaked and mostly lost.

Saturday 16th September 1995

1.00 Jo Sally and Tabby to scout float

Floats leave 1.45

2.00 Church Fete.

It is still raining

The children passed us on the float wet and miserable. The long 40 minute parade unattended bar a few brave parents. Nevertheless Tabby still entered Buster into the dog agility (and came last but one) Petunia won the best cake competition, floral arrangement and biggest turnip. Micky and Jo decided that they were soaked any way so throwing soapy sponges at the teacher was worth an hour of their time

The unsolicited enjoyment of pelting the teachers made me ashamed.

Quentin’s words keep coming back to me. Had the body in the box died naturally or was she killed?

Could someone have stoned her?

And watching my boys,

enjoyed it?

The team have dubbed her "the painted woman" but I think this marginalises her.

To think, she had once been a living, breathing human being.

Why was she here?

How did she die?

What possessed people to write on her bones?

To paint the breaks?

To house her remains in an iron box so far from home?

So much for Christianity, for loving thy neighbour for Charity

Monday 6th November 1995

11.00 Meeting Uni Specialist update

3.30 Jo -After school club

4.00 Tabby to drama

A Highbrow meeting indeed - with the academics, professors of Languages and Ancient Texts (commissioned to decipher the symbols,) An Art Historian and Quentin and his whole team.

The shape of the pelvis indicates that our woman had died in or just after childbirth.

DNA samples returned surprising results, she wasn’t Ethiopian but in fact from South America, indigenous Colombian.

indicating we were possibly communicating with ethnic communities from the South American colonies much earlier than historians thought.

South America was discovered in the 1400s. And Colombia is difficult to terrain to negotiate,. It like a natural geological fortress and as such only coastal areas were explored until recent history.

There was talk that the bones could have been shipped here later, much later than her death. But for what purpose and to what end?

And besides, the symbols etched into the bones seem to be a hybrid of letters, hieroglyphs and pictures, often associated with English Pagan spells and incantations.

One thing is clear, said the language specialist, the symbols were not there for decoration and they were etched when the bone was still soft

They sought to purify the Earth,

to exterminate that which is wrong,

to cleanse the bad spirits

and to lock down the dangerous and violent souls.

Almost certainly invoked by a wise woman or witch

Quentin whispered

The White Witch vanquishes the Black

I had asked about the baby, but there was no foetal evidence in the box, nor in the surrounding dig,

But she definitely carried until term.

The paint is still a conundrum, Red symbolises blood, lineage, menstrual, Christ, death, life, birth, but coupled with the bone carvings, it didn’t look good.

I was late back to pick up the children for Petunia.

She might as well have told me that she was the real mother.

Saturday 25th November 1995

10.00 Kids Haircut

3.30 Jo’s walk in the dark Birthday party

28 boys plus my own darlings for Joes 6th birthday. They really got into the role of the soldiers on a night mission. They built dams, searched for bombs with torches (well chocolate eggs) and toasted marshmallows on a smouldering fire.

It rained so hard that our feet sloshed in our wellies and the children were sliding up the hill.

And despite making them do press-ups and standing one foot on their backs so that they collapsed into a bath of mud,, they cried when they had to go home.

In the distance I could see the camp lights around the dig and am pleased to be writing this after a hot bath and in my pjs.

ps

Our discovery has hit the nationals for the 5th time this month. We are big news, that and the fact that Britain has had a record amount of rain days in documented history.

The BBC are talking about making a drama series loosely based on the released findings, with the working title of The Painted Lady. Quentin was annoyed that the nickname had got out and has now banned all the team from referring to her as such.

Monday 12th February 1996

8.30 Work

3.30 Jo -After school club

4.00 Tabby to drama

First day at work. Yay

I am officially a Forensic Archivist Assistant, which means I am on the frontline with any new dig developments.

Quentin’s substantial funding from the British Archaeological Association and the Arts Council means that he has also commissioned an artist to create a physical reconstruction of the woman’s face. My first job this morning was at a desk beside her. For the last few months The artist has used a 3D printer to copy each bone, build a replica skull and she will begin to apply handcrafted silicon muscles and tissue and then finally skin.

I was cataloguing paint fragments from the box itself.

The box, a mix of iron, steal and copper had red markings as yet indecipherable.

Thursday February 15th 1996

4.00 Jo - Football

My family and friends are fed of my mentioning the Painted Lady and their eyes glaze over and look away at the mention of her. My mother in law has made it clear that my work should be with the children not in some morgue cataloguing dead things. I thought she just didn’t want to look after the kids, so I suggested that I find a nanny but she told me that the Line must be maintained by the Line. And if I wasn’t going to look after the children, she had no choice, as there was no one better for the job.

I hadn’t appreciated her way of telling me, nor do I like the somewhat arrogant behaviour that my children are exhibiting at the moment. But the dig has become my obsession and I cant let it go.

I must admit I moaned to Micky.

I mean, why does his mother always have to be in charge? She is so bossy. She even tells Micky and his dad how to farm.

I know that the farm is hers technically.

But well she doesn’t work it.

And we’d had an argument because he asked me if the kids are less mine because I’m not looking after them?

And I got really angry

And now we’re not talking

Friday 1st March 1996

9.00 Sally to nursery

3.30 After School Club Jo

4.00 Orthodontist- Tabby

8.00 Dinner at the Hughes

The facial reconstruction is really coming together. Her skull is immensely mis-shapen. The crown of the cranium distends like a tube, a third greater than normal.

A dark fascination has come over me and I’ve read endless articles on intentional body modifications in history, European women’s corsetry, Chinese foot-binding, Burmese neck-bands, genital cutting. Nearly all manipulations were done by women, on women. They followed a taught belief system, where women are not desirable unless altered.

I wander whether, in another life I would not find my girls beautiful enough?

That i could squeeze their skulls from birth with bindings,

like the painted ladies mother had done

as her mother had

and hers before that?

And who am I to judge?

Are we any more barbaric, tattooing our skin, or piercing our flesh in order to hang metal baubles from our ears, nose or belly button?

Needless to say she certainly would have been an alien site in 14th Century Britain.

Thursday 16th March 1996

2.00 Family trip to dentist

4.00 Jo - football

I had my genealogy results back.

I did I say I was having them done?

The Painted Lady made me think that I may be exotic too.

Well I’m not part leprechaun as I’d hoped, but almost pure- blood Irish with only 2% French and 8% Swedish.

No big surprise there.

Micky has refused to do one so I asked Petunia.

She hasn’t had her results because I have yet to hear what pure breeding looks like.

Does it ever stop raining in this country?

Monday 25th March 1996

3.30 Jo -After school club

4.00 Tabby to drama

The reconstruction is complete at last. And the full figure achieved. She stands in the lab and one technician has thrown a lab coat around her to hide her nudity. She has become real to others too. She is no bigger than 5ft, but technically she would naturally reach 4ft 9 or 10. She has been painted a warm toffee, similar skin colouring to her present descendants in Colombia. Her eyes are dark and large. She has no hair as Quentin believes that the women shaved their heads or kept small chunks which they platted and oiled close to the fringe.

Quentin keeps greeting the figure and talking to it as if it can understand.

One baldy to another.

For me there’s something about the face, the mouth, the nose.

Saturday 13th April 1996

Micky's genealogy results are back. I persuaded him when Petunia had lost hers

They make interesting reading

60% English

8% Native American, South

32% Native American, Andean

What is that fab saying?

Mind what you say because you never know when your words will come back to bite you.

I wander if Petunia will ever mention the bloodline again?

Please!