That lime is getting everywhere. All over his hands and trousers and shoes. He leads the way out of the bedroom, through the living room and out of the front door, held open by Carole.
Out into the gloom of the thick mist. Mist so thick he still can't see the trees on the other side of the road. Walking into a netherworld where the living and dead are side by side. Maybe they always are in Cwm Celyn. Cwm Celyn has so many ghosts.
The mist is hiding them from sight. The mist is dampening their footsteps rendering them silent. The mist is also dampening Geraint's clothes and face. He coughs. The lime dust itching on his skin and irritating his lungs.
Carole has caught up and is walking alongside them now. Everyone moving silently through the mist on this blind-deaf journey to the lake to bury a man who died over a century ago.
Geraint spots something large at the side of the road. Peter's Porsche. He parked down here to avoid it being seen from the cottage. That's assuming that Carole was not out this way. But it isn't really hidden at all. Maybe he just didn't care. Didn't care if others spotted him here. That's far more frightening, someone who has no fear of consequences. And this man is so close Geraint can feel his breath on the back of his neck.
"Stop a minute. I'm losing my grip". Peter stops, almost wrenching the canvas bag from Geraint's hands. "Put it down". Geraint and Peter place the bag down on the wet road. Sweat is pouring on Peter's face, dripping off his nose. "I need a minute". Peter's heavy breathing is the only sound now.
Geraint looks at Peter panting. Seriously? This isn't heavy. He could carry it himself, but that would be wrong. This bastard should at least share the load, if not carry it as penance for what he has done. But that would take all day. The sooner this is done, the sooner that bastard can go home. The sooner he can go home. "Put it on your shoulder. It'll be easier".
Peter and Geraint pick up the bag once more, resting it on their shoulders and head off down the road towards the glow in the mist; the sun descending in the sky ahead. Very red for the time of day. A trick of the light with this fog maybe.
Carole watches them go. She remembers her father telling her folk tales of the area. They look like a funeral procession headed by a Canwyll Gorff, The Corpse Candle her dad told her about all that time ago foretelling or marking a death. Red for a man. That light is unnaturally red. Is it really the sun?
Geraint and Peter are coughing now. The dust from the bag getting on their faces. "Don't let this stuff get in your eyes or mouth. Its alkaline. It burns".
"Acid?"
"No, the opposite". Geraint wonders how this guy became a city whizkid with so little knowledge.
Suddenly the road descends beneath their feet. It gets rougher, the old tarmac making way for stone and gravel. They are entering the car park by the lake. As the surface levels out, Geraint can just make out the standing stone by the water's edge and heads for it. The end of the road, thank God. He leads the way and comes to a halt at the stone. "This is it".
Geraint and Peter lower the bag to the ground. Carole catches up to them, taken aback at what she sees. They are both covered in the lime dust, white, black and grey against the reddish mist. Looking like painted, prehistoric tribesmen carrying out a ritual.
"We should weight it down, We can't risk him floating up". Geraint being practical again beyond his years. "A few rocks will do it". He wanders around the edge of the car park and picks up four heavy stones. "Come on, give me an hand!"
Carole and Peter collect a few heavy stones and join Geraint. Geraint opens the canvas bag gingerly and lays the stones inside on Ifan's body. He places the rocks that Carole and Peter have brought too. He ties the bag tight.
"Should I say a few words? You know..."
Carole nods. "Yes, I think that’s best. A Welsh boy with a chapel upbringing, you’ll think of something".
Something, yes. From Bethan's funeral. A reading from a psalm. A handful of them from the school's sixth form were press ganged into it. He memorised that. How did it go? He looks at Peter standing idly by. "Come on. Let's get it done".
Geraint takes one end of the bag and starts dragging it into the water. Peter drags the other end. Peter was expecting to maybe roll the bag into the lake. Geraint wades in, the bag half submerged.
The lime in the bag and on their persons begins to smoke as it comes into contact with the water. As Geraint leads deeper into the lake, he, Peter and the bag are enveloped in smoke. They disappear, lost in a cloud moving across the lake surface in the mist. Carole can only hear the splashing as the two men take the bag further out from the shore.
Geraint begins to recite a Psalm in Welsh, from Bethan's funeral. Peter watches the white dust covered lad speak a language he hardly knew existed. "Na chofia bechodau fy ieuenctid, na'm camweddau: yn ôl dy drugaredd meddwl di amdanaf, er mwyn dy ddaioni"
The words are completely alien to him. But apt. Asking for forgiveness of sins and... Agh! Peter trips over a rock in the lake. He falls beneath the water, letting go of the bag. His eyes shutting as the water hits them. He is on his knees, under the water. The heat of the lime on his face. He rubs the lime off in panic.
Peter opens his eyes seeing the canvas bag sink in the water. Dropping beyond a ledge a little way ahead. Descending out of sight into the weeds of the bottom of the dark lake. Peter gets to his feet. Up to his shoulders in the water now. Fog all around. No sign of Geraint. No idea which way is back to dry land.
Silence. Then Geraint stands up. Around ten feet away, wiping the remainder of the lime from his face. Geraint turns around and walks away leaving Peter alone in the lake. He disappears in the mist.
Peter follows, back through the mist until he sees the standing stone and a figure. Carole. Geraint joining her, soaked from head to foot. Peter wades out of the water which gets shallower with every step.
"You boys better come back to the cottage to dry off".
Geraint shakes his head. "We should get back to our own lives. It’s best if we don’t see too much of each other again. Best not tempt fate. It’s too easy to rekindle a fire on an old hearth".
Peter nods. "Yeah, old flames never die and all that... I have to get out of here Carole. Call me when you're back in town. We still have stuff to sort out".
Carole steps forward to hug him but he is gone. Heading off across the car park and up the road into the mist.
Carole watches Peter disappear out of her life.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Wake
Peter walks briskly up the road, his wet clothes flapping against him. Looking down making sure he stays on the tarmac. He can only see a few feet in this mist. Out of nowhere the Porsche appears. Peter roots in his pockets for the keys. He taps the electronic fob. A thump as the car unlocks and the interior light comes on. Peter takes off his shirt and trousers and tosses them into the car.
He starts the engine and turns up the heating, shivering already. The car throws up mud as it gets back onto the road and roars off. The full headlights showing a wall of white ahead of Peter. Featureless, full of danger. A track not much wider than the car through a world of trees. He puts on the fog lights, killing the main beam. Better. The road lights up in front of him.
Passing the cottage on his left. A shiver runs through him again. He taps the sat nav and hits "Home". The windows misting up now from his wet clothes. An internal mist adding to the external one, but he hasn't felt as clear as this for days. The car follows the twists and turns of the road. If it hadn't been for the sat nav he would have missed the turn onto the mountain road.
The engine roaring as the car climbs steeply through the trees. Breaking out of the tree line, and out of the mist. A sunny summer evening on the mid Wales mountains. Sheep grazing on the open common.
Peter looks in the mirror at the wall of mist behind him, hiding Cwm Celyn as if it was a bad dream. But it wasn't a dream and when he gets back to London there will be hell to pay. Burnt bridges at work. A new place to find to
live. And all he can say in his defence is that he wasn't himself this week. Fuck!
Peter puts his foot down sending the car roaring across the open mountain road.
Carole and Geraint walk wordlessly, side by side through the mist. Carole instinctively glances around for Sammy. She lets out a sob.
"Are you OK Carole?"
She nods. "I was thinking about Sammy. I'll be alone in the cottage now".
Geraint smiles. "No ghosts though. And he's just outside the back door looking after you".
"He was a good dog".
"Lovely dog".
They are at the cottage. "Are you sure you don't want to dry your clothes in front of the fire?"
Geraint shakes his head. "No, I'll get home. If Mam asks, I'll tell her I fell off my bike. That will explain the bump on my head".
"But you're OK?"
"I get worse every week playing rugby". This is it. Goodbye. No point drawing it out. Geraint grabs his bike and rides off into the murk with no lights. In a few seconds he has gone.
Carole stands alone outside her cottage. Totally alone.
She walks into the cottage. Even in the gloom she can see the lime dust everywhere. She goes into the kitchen. She fills a bucket from the Belfast sink and picks up the mop and sets to work cleaning.
Into the bedroom. More mopping. Getting a hammer and nails and replacing the floor boards. Making it look like the whole thing never happened. All that redecoration and repair she hasn't done this week will have to restart in the morning.
Geraint rides the bike slowly through the mist. Wobbling a little, losing his balance. Maybe he took more of a knock than he realised. He is shivering in his wet clothes in the cold air. Damn its cold. He passes the pathway to Nant y Cadno and the Dark Grove. He could have ended up like that lad. It doesn't bear thinking about. He won't care if he never sees Carole again.
She's procrastinated enough. She picks up her phone, steps outside and dials 999. "Police please". She locks the door and walks down the road towards the village. "Hello. I'm out walking and I've found a couple of bodies in the woods.... No they are very old. Cwm Celyn..." Carole disappears in the mist.
Almost an hour of waiting at the track to Nant y Cadno. Headlights approaching through the mist. Blue flashing lights. Carole waves.
Up in the Dark Grove with two PCs, one seeming as young as Geraint, and the other a girl Carole's age. Looking down at Mari and Owain's bodies in the hollow. Carole telling the police a cock and bull story of how she found the bodies. Its plausible enough it seems. The important thing is that she is passing the wife and the boy on to the powers that be. They'll get a proper funeral. Her job is done. Her conscience clear. Time to move on.
Carole looks down at Mari staring back up at her from what has been her grave. Carole feels a strange sense of loss. Loss for what Mari gave her in that brief time. The fun part of Mari. The happiness. The sex. All of which she'll miss. Mari opened up a part of her she had forgotten existed.
Well over a couple of hours sitting in the back of the police car. In that time half a dozen vehicles have joined it, parking precariously at the edge of the narrow road. A Private Ambulance arrives. White suited Scenes of Crime Officers trampling down what was a secret pathway to the old forgotten Cwm Celyn. This is now a Crime Scene. A hundred years too late.
Carole sits alone in the back of the car, available for any further questions. Already an afterthought in this little drama that is unfolding in the thick June fog.
She could have been one of these bodies today. She and Geraint could have been murdered. With Peter hanging himself, that would have been the second murder suicide at the cottage. Geraint's words, 'Its easy to relight a fire on an old hearth' come back to her. History repeating itself.
Peter has been deeply affected by this, like Geraint. She has to admit, so has she. Maybe its best she leaves too? Sell the cottage on.
No! Its her cottage. She bought it to remember her Dad. Tying another generation of her family to this little valley in the middle of Wales where most people have had to leave to make any kind of living. No! She's staying! Its not a haunted house any more. History won't be repeating itself again. No!
The woman PC who was first at the scene taps on the car window. "Its OK love, don't cry. I'll take you home shortly, OK?"
Carole catches her reflection in the car window. She is in floods of tears.
Darkness has fallen. The police car pulls up outside Pantyfedwen. The female PC lets Carole out of the rear of the car. "There you go Miss Morris. Thank you again for all of your time and help this evening".
Carole smiles weakly and walks to the cottage door. The police car drives on up the road. Carole looks at her phone. Almost ten o'clock. They kept her for nearly four hours. Maybe in the scheme of things that's not too long to put this to bed. She fumbles for her keys and puts the key in the lock.
Carole unlocks the door. It jams. Carole pushes it. Stuck again. She barges the door open. Car headlights. The police car drives back up the road towards the village. Carole waves from the doorway.
The female PC does a double take at the two figures in the doorway. Carole closes the door, Phillips behind her, the sound of his electronic watch marking the hour. Beep beep.
THE END.
Old Flames Page 20