“Don’t pretend you came here to help me find her, Ivan. You let me come with you because I had the money.”
“You know that’s not true,” he said. “You know that is not the reason.” He pulled her close, but she was stiff in his arms. “I liked you the first time I saw you sweating away in the snow on the mountain. Never looking back. Remember? You didn’t look back then.”
She set her face in defiance. “It’s not me looking back, Ivan. It’s you.”
And she pushed past him and went to the pump for more water.
Her hands shaking.
* * *
That afternoon, when the others returned, Magda sat at the table and listened with half her heart to Bethan’s stories of the city. And when it was time enough she said goodnight to them all, and at last she made her way down the darkened corridor to her own kitchen.
It was very late by the time Ivan returned. Quietly through the back door. Hanging his bag on the hook.
He ate the stew.
Magda watched him with her still-shaking hands in her lap.
But he did not talk about Gulbekhian and going back.
And when they were in the darkness of their bed he was very soft and gentle with her and afterward he lay for a long time looking at the side of her face in the candlelight.
Havemercy. He remembered her calling out in the forest. And how he had thought of helping her. Then finding her in Krakow. He had not needed her. Not even her money. It was only now that it came to him, came to him that things were not so simple within his heart: that, though she was drawn to him, he too was drawn to her.
“You’ll always settle down and make a nest, won’t you,” he said fondly. “Wherever you land. Even if it’s just a couple of twigs in a bare tree.”
Magda turned her head, her hair rustling on the pillow. “Why do you say that?”
He closed his eyes and breathed in the smell of her.
“I love you, Magda,” he said.
It was the first time.
So easy it was for the demons to grow silent.
He loves you. And you love him. And everything will be all right.
And without a ripple now disturbing the pool, Magda fell asleep with her head on his shoulder at last.
But the new day would come.
* * *
It was barely light outside.
Paleness rimming about the hills.
A blackbird—chee chee cheeee cheeee chee—dipped past the window and woke Magda from her sleep.
She sat up in the bed. Queasy in her stomach.
Instinctively she felt for Ivan beside her.
The sheet was cold.
He has probably gone out to fetch wood.
She got up and pulled a blanket about her, stepped down the stairs, hand against the wall in the dimness.
The kitchen was empty. The faint lingering of warmth in the burnt-down stove. Table clean and tidied from the night before. The remains of last night’s stew in the pot.
Smiling, she went to the door and unlatched it. Stood out on the damp step with the first birds singing.
“Ivan?” she called.
It had rained in the night. The long grass was wet with it.
“Ivan?”
The birds seemed so loud. The tiny leaves on the hawthorn coming now so fresh and green, sprays of white mayflowers among the matted branches and the spiders’ webs glistening in the dew of the hedge.
There was no sign of him.
She went back inside, pulled the door, and looked behind it.
His bag was not there.
She tapped with her hand. His knife—gone from the shelf.
Maybe he has gone out for a hare?
But her heart beat like a drum as she hurried back up the stairs and knelt down on her knees by the bed, prizing frantically at the floorboard.
The board came away easily enough.
She rummaged with her hand. Maybe they were pushed further underneath.
But they were not.
The bundle of passports was gone.
And yet the roll of money. The last of the money for Bogdan Stopko’s pony. She counted the notes. Two hundred and forty zloty. He had halved it.
It came to her in that instant.
She fell forward, bent over with her long hair pooling on the dark floorboards, head in her hands, thumbs pressing stars into her screwed-up eyes.
It came from the very depths of her quaking guts, without a bend in the river or any impediment, a pool that welled up from her simple heart and burst from behind her eyes and poured from her mouth in a cry that filled her head and her body and every single part of her.
Ivan had gone.
And she knew, because he had not told her, because he had crept away like a thief in the night leaving half the money, that he was not coming back.
She dragged herself up from the floor and leaned against the wall.
I love you, Magda.
Why why why?
And she saw herself. And not for the first time. A foolish country girl with hair smeared across her wet face.
This was the new day and what it had brought.
You had not told him, you had not told him.
And the tears came again and she crawled onto the bed.
And that is how Anwen found her, with the swollen-uddered cows calling out by the gate:
“Magda—the milking. It’s seven already!”
SUMMER
Then the night grew dark as soot.
And words that Crow had spoken rang like Clappers in Bells.
“If you but cry out once, my misery will be doubled.”
And the Spirit of Faith sang from the Chimney and circled her head like a shadow of bats. It beat about her face and tangled in her hair and hung from the mantel with tiny sharp claws.
“Faith!” cawed Crow from its lofty perch. “Faith always sings in the dark.”
And still the girl was silent. Alone on that wide, wide bed as the flames in the fire grew low.
30
But the hands of the clock—the old long-case clock in the stone-flagged hallway at Rathged Farm—would not stop their working round: second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day.
The sun crept up, unveiled by those clouds that had swollen the stream and wet the slates on every roof for seven whole days.
Behind the fluttering, full-leafed apple trees below her window, Magda’s sleep had been restless as usual.
She had woken early, enjoying, for that brief moment of deliverance, the light on the sill and the promise of a new day. But like every waking moment of calm, all her certainty had crumpled in a second like a castle of dust.
The sheet still bare beside her.
Dressing slowly, she went to the window and put her sad head against the pane.
Did she expect to see him down there, looking up at her window? Even now? Had she really waited so long?
* * *
She went out to the waiting cows in the milking shed. Their warm smell and prodding noses were her morning comfort now. When the urn was full of milk, she lugged it to the dairy, lifting the heavy latch with one hand and pushing her way inside with her elbow.
The room was cool and quiet with that sweet sour smell from the scrubbed benches. The bowls sat clean and washed from the day before.
She took out last night’s milk and placed the new urn into the bucket of cold spring water and covered it with a cloth for the cream to rise.
The curd cheese that had been hanging in muslin bags was strained, and Magda filled clean bowls with it, sealing the tops with boiled cloth and wooden lids. She tied each bowl with string to make a handle on the top and layered them in sturdy boxes. The curd cheese always sold, and the hard cheese, the ones she could spare, fetched enough money to buy salt.
She had made twelve pairs of snowshoes from the hazel rods Bran cut for her, and they were tied in bundles by the door.
“You do that cleverly enough,” Bran had said. “But people fo
rget the snow when the sun’s shining. No one will buy them.”
“Yes they will,” Magda told him. “You’ll see.”
But she hadn’t really cared whether they would or not. The main thing was to keep busy. If that meant blistered palms from bending sticks, or sore feet from standing over the cheese, or aching arms from sweeping the kitchen floor, or fingers pricked from darning Alice’s socks—it was all one to her.
She followed the day with these chores, chasing the hands of the clock until bedtime came around and sleep gave her some peace from thoughts of Ivan.
* * *
The crunch of wheels in the yard signaled Callum’s arrival. He had come up to the house with the stocky pony, Mill Boy, hitched to the cart.
Magda came out to greet him, folding her apron in her hands. She looked over the rail at his bundles of sheepskins and jars of honey. “I’ll bring the cheese out,” she said. “I’ve packed it in boxes. Where’s your mother? Isn’t she coming too?”
“She’s not feeling too well, hasn’t got over her cold yet.”
“I think I’ll go with you then,” said Magda. “I can give you a hand and the change of scenery would be good.”
“What about Bethan?” said Callum, looking disappointed.
“I’ll run in and ask her.” Magda smiled. “I’m sure Alice would enjoy the ride.”
* * *
And so it was that Callum Gourty went to market with two young women and an excited little girl sitting up beside him on the seat. He slapped the reins on the pony’s back and they jolted off down the drive, out between the old stone gateposts of Rathged Farm and onto the overgrown lane that led down to Dolgellau.
The wheels rumbled and creaked over the narrow roads where mossy grass now clung to the tarmac and dandelions found purchase in a thousand cracks. And happy enough was Callum Gourty with Bethan Mortimer swaying beside him.
“It’s been a good summer,” Bethan said. “Maybe we’ll have an easy winter of it this year. It can’t go on getting colder and colder, can it? Things will get back to normal—surely.”
Magda pulled Alice up onto her lap and held her little hands, clapped them gently together.
“Clap, clap, little hands,
Babula is still in bed,
Babula will give us milk;
While dya-dya bakes a gingerbread.”
“More, more!” Alice chortled. “More.”
The cart rolled along and everyone fell silent, even Alice. There was a kind of soporific rhythm to it, the tail of the pony swishing now and then, the nodding of its head. The sound of metal rims on the grassy road.
“Look! It’s Huw and Geraint,” Bethan said.
Callum looked out across the fields and saw the old man and his son shepherding a large flock of sheep down the hill.
He stopped the cart by a gap in the hedge and waved. “Hulloooo!”
Geraint cantered over the meadow to the cut in the road and came clattering up, his pony sweaty-necked and breathing hard.
“Hello there.” Geraint was awkward in his eighteen-year-old body. A soft downy sprouting of dark hairs creeping over his face. A lock of thick black hair hung over his forehead. He pushed it back, reddening slightly.
“Where are you lot off to then, like?”
Callum thumbed back at the boxes loaded onto the cart. “Dolgellau market.”
“I can see you’ve brought a fishing rod—”
“That too.” Callum smiled. “Might go down to Bontwerduu Pool if I get time. Where are you taking the sheep?”
“Barmouth. Slaughtering the lot of them.”
“Slaughtering them. All?”
“Dad’s decided to farm deer now. Got a grant to put a fence up and everything.”
“A grant?” Callum sounded surprised.
“Went up to Manchester and arranged it with DEFRA,” said Geraint proudly. “It’s the food shortages. They give you a grant and buy everything you produce. We’ll have to get papers and special licenses and all that.”
“Why not stick with the sheep?”
“We’ve been lambing in the snow for the last six years. Dad’s tired of it. We’ll end up with the same money for the deer and less work of it.”
“Looks like he needs you,” said Bethan, pointing across the field.
Geraint turned in the saddle, one hand on the pony’s rump. His father was waving angrily from the hillside, the flock parting.
“Coc!” Geraint pulled the pony’s head up from the grassy verge. “Better get back before he loses his rag proper like.” And they all laughed as he kicked the unfortunate beast up the bank and back across the field toward his irate father.
* * *
Down in the valley, rising and falling with the tides that swept up from the Barmouth estuary, was the wide-banked River Mawddach, glinting here and there between the stands of low trees. And from the newly built jetty in Barmouth harbor, the Liverpool boat unloaded its passengers into long, sturdy dinghies that ferried punters upriver to the Dolgellau market.
Callum pulled up on the old stone bridge outside the village.
“Look at that.”
Early as it was, there were already people carrying boxes from the riverbank with baskets and bags and folded trestles and dinghy men shouting and helping women off.
“When we’ve sold everything, I need to go to the Stag.”
“What is the Stag?” asked Magda.
“It’s the pub,” said Bethan. “Callum always gets a barrel of beer from Vince the landlord.”
* * *
Vince Price heard the rumbling of cartwheels. He looked out from a small, grimy window in the storeroom of the Stag as a horse and cart passed by on the street outside. He recognized Callum Gourty. Couple of pretty girls up back too.
Vince rubbed the side of his beaky nose. Turned to the tired-looking man with thick reddish hair seated at the table.
“Well, so what are you going to do then?”
“Sit tight, I reckon,” said the man.
“You know they’re looking for you, Robin.”
“Reckon they are.”
A grubby little child played with a piece of wood and an old snooker ball under the table.
“And?”
“Reckon I’ll keep low. Keep working away.”
“I’m risking a lot for you, you know that?”
“I know.”
“I’ve spoken to Mr. Ip about the ink. He’ll be in here later too. I asked him to bring some. But it isn’t going to come cheap.”
The man nodded. “You know where to find me.” He got up, his tall, lean form giantlike next to Vince. The child crawled out from under the table without needing to be told, and Vince opened the door that led out to the dank yard above the cellar where a small pony was waiting.
“You all right up there? Without Sarah?” he said, helping the child onto the pony behind the man.
“We get by.” And without too many other words the tall red-haired man kicked the pony on and went up through the narrow lanes that led out behind the houses to the dark of the Coed-y-Brenin forest, a dark shelter on the distant hills beyond.
* * *
Back in the pub there was a loud banging on the door. The Liverpool slaughter-men wanting to get on the grog before the day had started. Big, hard men from the city, come up for cutting throats in the slaughter sheds by the river.
“Oy! Open up!” they shouted.
“Hold your bleedin’ horses!” Vince stumped toward the old heavy door and pulled back the bolts. “Patience’s bleedin’ virtue, mate.”
Two men with drawn faces stumbled across the step and smirked. “Where’s the beer, man. I’m parched.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Vince went back behind the high-topped bar and tapped a couple of pints from the barrel on the wide shelf. “Five quid.”
“I’m not paying that for weak fockin’ ale, man.”
“Well, that’s all you fockin’ getting,” said Vince, banging the glass down on the counter. “Money—”
Everyone knew that Cockney Vince was as tough as a badger so the slaughter-men handed over their cash and went to drink in silence on the old wooden pew by the unlit fire.
Vince cleaned glasses and kept his watchful eyes on them. He’d seen it all before, few hours of fresh air and lads from the city, on God knows what business, always sucked like water in a drain toward the dark corners of the grog house. The slaughter-men at least had some excuse for watering the cold light of day. And money was money.
Coming out on the boat was a bit of a holiday for him and Irene—good to come back to the old place and air out the rooms for a month or two. Irene, the lazy slattern, still in bed. He went to the doorway marked PRIVATE and hollered up the stairs. “Oy, Irene, get yer lazy arse out of bed. We’ve got customers.”
* * *
Callum led the way, stooping his tall frame under the low door of the pub. The room was dingy and smoke-filled. A menacing group of slaughter-men sauntered by the bar with greedy eyes and bloodstained fingernails, clasping glasses of Vince’s dark brown ale. They turned and stared at Magda and Bethan. One of the men raised his glass. “Come over here, lass.”
Callum glared. “You two sit down with Alice, out of their way.”
“What’s your problem, mate?” one of the slaughter-men shouted over. “You got enough women there to spare one.”
“Do you think this is a good idea, Callum?” said Bethan, pulling Alice onto her lap as they squashed at a table.
“Ignore them. I’ll go and see about the beer.”
Callum leaned over the counter. Vince was busy tapping pints and a flustered Irene was taking money.
“Callum!” she exclaimed. “Good to see you. Now then, what’ll you have?”
“I’d like to get a barrel of beer.”
One of the slaughter-men banged his empty glass on the counter. “Another ale!”
“You wait your turn, lad. Vince!” She turned to her husband. “Callum Gourty’s here.”
Vince swiveled around, still pulling a pint under the barrel. “Callum! Ain’t seen you in a while. Saw you go by loaded to the eaves with stuff. Sell it all?”
“Yes,” Callum shouted. “Sold the lot.” He waved a thick wad of cash over the bar with a grin and peeled off a stack of notes. “Enough for a barrel this autumn.”
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