by Phil Rickman
The wind was down, the street deserted, the night air quiet, and something landed like a cold moth on Jane’s face.
Snowflake. First of the year?
She was walking slowly down Church Street in the direction of the river, hands deep in the pockets of her parka. More lights across the river now, with the expansion of what Gomer called the hestate. Jane scowled. According to the Hereford Times, over ten per cent of dwellings in Ledwardine were now second homes, used just a few weeks a year by rich Londoners who brought their fancy food with them and would never drink in the Ox. Result: need for more local housing, erosion of the countryside.
She looked up. Three of them this time, one in her eye, almost certainly snowflakes. She just wanted to stay out in it, let it come, but a door on the left of the street was hanging open to mustard walls and sallow light and the whizz and clink of gaming machines.
Some incomers apparently wondered why nobody bought the Ox and turned it into a swish bar with tables spilling into the street.
Only a matter of time. Jane walked in and wasn’t sure whether to feel good that nobody looked up from the pool table. She gazed around, under the sagging beams, past the sagging beer guts, the beer-stained sporting posters and the jukebox loaded with country and western classics, and he wasn’t there.
Wasn’t there.
Oh well…
There were other people she recognized, including Ledwardine’s iffy councillor Lyndon Pierce, accountant and crony of builders committed to turning Ledwardine into a pink-brick hell twice its current size. What was Pierce doing deserting the Black Swan for this dive? He glanced at her and pretended not to recognize the woman who’d once publicly called him a bent bastard. And who was—?
‘Jesus!’ Jane said.
Someone rearing up in front of her, a hand reaching out and then hesitantly drawing back.
‘Damn. I’d always hoped you’d never discover my middle name.’
Jane collapsed into a wild grin. She genuinely hadn’t recognized him. A bunch of gigantic teenage males standing around the bar had concealed the table he was saving in the corner. Time was he wouldn’t even have fitted in that corner.
‘You been ill?’
Well, it broke the ice.
‘I just lost weight, OK?’ Eirion raising his eyes, addressing the ceiling. ‘You’d prefer it if I got diabetes or wound up taking statins for rampant cholesterol?’
‘It’s just… not Welsh, Irene.’
Jane started to laugh and smothered it, but he was smiling and his eyes hadn’t changed, and – bugger – she’d called him Irene.
He was inspecting her.
‘Still sweet cider, is it?’
‘No, I’ll have a Manhattan, please. With extra tequila.’
‘Jane, there’s no tequila in a Manhattan.’
‘I knew that,’ Jane said.
She sat down at the wobbly table, damp with cider and beer, Eirion’s beanie on the driest corner.
He said he’d driven over to see a guy he’d been at the Cathedral School with, just out of hospital after being badly hurt in a car accident. Could’ve been killed. It had, he said, made him think. The guy had just got engaged in hospital. Didn’t want to wait any longer because he’d realized you just didn’t know what might happen tomorrow.
Jane pushed her chair back, alarmed. Eirion got it at once, rose up.
‘Oh no… look, I didn’t mean—’
‘I know you didn’t, I was just—’
‘On the other hand, I didn’t not mean… Oh, shit.’
‘I, erm…’ She was suddenly serious. ‘I’m not saying I never want to get married or live with somebody, just that I don’t want any kids.’
‘You always used to say that.’
‘Nothing’s changed. Not for the better anyway, and it isn’t going to on a horribly overcrowded planet where everything gets built on, layer after layer, and anyway I want to do something, I want to find something, I need to stop things—’
This was ridiculous. She was just talking, faster and faster –lecturing him, for God’s sake – creating distance between them and dragging the conversation, as rapidly as possible, to the point of no return.
She looked across at Councillor Lyndon Pierce, who’d been joined by an older man in a leather jacket who she recognized from somewhere but couldn’t immediately put a name to.
‘… like him. And the rest of his disgusting council? They just want to pile more and more people into Hereford – more council-tax payers. He’s still got plans for a supermarket and a big estate where the Ledwardine henge is. Well, where I think the henge is.’
‘You getting any further with that?’ Eirion asked.
‘Erm… there’s… there’s…’ Oh God, she’d done it, put herself slap in the centre of the target area. ‘… there’s this archaeologist I met in Pembrokeshire, at the dig, who thinks maybe she can interest one of the universities in sponsoring an exploratory excavation.’
‘Excellent,’ Eirion said.
‘Yeah, it’s, er… it’s pretty good.’
The sounds of the Ox – clink, whizz, raucous laughter, pool-clink and beerpump-gasp – exploded in Jane’s ears then faded.
‘If I tell you something… something personal.’
‘I was hoping you might get around to that.’
‘To what?’
‘Something personal.’
‘Yeah. Right. Well, I can think of two possible reactions to what I’m going to say. One’s you putting your glass down and quietly walking out.’
Jane looked for his eyes, but his face was distorted behind his cider glass. She thought, ludicrously, that his old face wouldn’t have fitted behind a cider glass.
She moistened her lips.
‘And the other’s all sleazy jokes and like, can I watch next time? Only there isn’t going to be a next time, and I’m not sure there was a last time, due to me being very pissed.’
Eirion said nothing.
‘And grateful,’ Jane said, avoiding his eyes. ‘That she was on my side. My wavelength.’
‘Wavelength. How very pre-digital of you, Jane.’
‘You—’ A surge of interior heat drove her chair back hard into the corner. ‘You bloody hate me already, don’t you? She’s a good archaeologist and a nice woman. Who happened to believe in the same fairy tales as me. Ley lines, earth energies, dowsing.’
‘Unless you’ve changed a lot, Jane,’ Eirion said, ‘you don’t think they’re fairy tales.’
‘Only I’m not sure if she actually did – does – believe in them. And I’m not sure if I did anything else. Other than actually sleep with her.’
She looked frantically around to see if anyone else had heard.
No sign of it. She looked across the sticky table at Eirion and then away. Through the glaze of desperate tears, she looked back at Eirion, but he was already on his feet.
‘Time to go, I think,’ he said.
63
Lamping
LOL STAYED BEHIND after the meditation, helping her put the chairs back. Then they stood together in the porch doorway, hand in hand.
‘It was snowing,’ Merrily said.
‘Been trying to all day. So he wasn’t there, then? Crowden.’
‘No. No, he wasn’t. I didn’t really expect him to be. Not a second time. He’d know I’d have to approach him, and what was he going to say?’ She pulled her scarf tighter. ‘Might have saved time if he had been here.’
‘I’m still finding it hard to believe that the C of E goes in for this kind of clumsy espionage.’
‘This is nothing. And it’s going to get worse. I thought Huw Owen was exaggerating when he told me, years ago, that the clergy fight like rats in a sack, for position and influence. And now it’s about survival, so much more vicious. Anyway… I had a message to ring Sophie, and she’s been talking to people about Crowden.’
‘Women? Boys? Cocaine?’
‘I’m not going to say, “I wish”, because that would s
ound…awful. No, he’s happily married, a family man. Drugs? Unlikely.’
‘You can’t win.’
‘It’s not about winning.’ She leaned into him. ‘I mean, he’s not popular. Sanctimonious sod. Laughs a lot, but no sense of humour. However, listen, if Darvill hasn’t spoken to him yet, perhaps you could ask him to do me a favour. Next time he talks to Crowden, perhaps he could arrange to meet him.’
She turned and pulled the porch doors together.
‘I’m scared to go home, Lol, in case Jane’s back. It might seem trivial and domestic, but I just want something to go right for her.’
‘She’ll be OK.’
‘I think there’s more wrong than she’s telling me. It’s like she wants him to walk away.’
‘I think she’ll be OK,’ Lol said.
‘Well,’ Jane said. ‘I have to say I really wasn’t expecting this tonight.’
Eirion’s car was parked in near-total darkness in what might one day be a building site but was still a small wood at the edge of Virgingate Lane. Ironically, not far from where Lyndon Pierce lived, right on the eastern periphery of Jane’s imagined henge. There really weren’t many places left around Ledwardine where you could find seclusion with your engine running, for the heater, and nobody likely to pull in alongside. Seeing Lyndon Pierce in the Ox had reminded her of this place.
She thought she could hear the light patter of snow on the rear window, which was wonderful, although…
‘I think I’m actually starting to feel a bit cold now, Irene.’
‘Hang on…’
Eirion pulled the travelling rug up over her bare shoulders.
‘You, erm, never used to keep one of these in your car,’ Jane said, ‘as I recall.’
Pathetic. Shut up.
‘Once again, Jane, I swear to God,’ Eirion said, ‘that you’re the first woman to lie under it.’
‘Sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Seriously, I’m sorry. What right have I—?’
‘There really isn’t anyone else. Not even another bloke.’ He kissed her lightly. ‘So what did you say?’
‘When?’
‘When the gay lady in the bookshop asked you whether your teddy was a boy or a girl?’
Bugger. Why the hell had she told him about that?
‘You presumably remember,’ Eirion said. ‘Not going to forget something like that.’
‘Gus said hers was always a girl.’
‘Well, that would figure, but…’
‘All right. I said teddies were, like, beyond all that. Without gender. That was the whole point.’
‘Teddies go both ways?’
‘But then I had a woolly dog, and he was called Ron, and I was still sleeping with him when I was twelve, if you must know, so…’
‘OK, that’s fairly conclusive,’ Eirion said crisply. ‘You can get dressed now, Ms Watkins.’
‘Look, I just needed some sound advice, all right? In the old days, when women were expected to fight against it—’ Jane was leaning up into the cold, feeling along the back shelf for her bra, when it came to her. ‘Oh God, of course – Charlie Howe!’
‘Sorry?’
‘It was Charlie Howe with Lyndon Pierce in the Ox. He was the chairman of our school governors. Very iffy. Nearly as iffy as Councillor Pierce. Who’ll have a slice of the action if his mates get planning permission for this field and Coleman’s Meadow and God knows where else. You do remember?’
‘Of course I remember.’ Eirion was generously helping her on with her bra. ‘News story in that yet?’
‘Wouldn’t give it to you if I knew. You’re a mere student.’
‘Could be a working journalist in a couple of years, Jane.’
No doubts, no uncertainty. She reached up and ruffled his hair.
‘You know exactly where you want to be, don’t you?’
‘I know what I want to do. And no time to waste any more, the speed newspapers are closing down. The way unbiased journalism’s getting replaced by semi-literate, opinionated, fantasist bloggers on the Net.’
‘You sound quite bitter.’
‘It’s scary, Jane. Nobody knows where to find the truth any more. Anyway, I don’t want to ruin the best night since I don’t know when. You decided yet? Like which uni?’
She was quiet. Hadn’t wanted to get into a discussion on this either. Didn’t want to get into another bloody lecture.
‘Jane?’
‘I don’t know. I’m not sure.’
‘Not sure of what?’
‘Whether it’s the way. Digging up building sites before the concrete goes in. And anyway, there are too many universities now. Shows the education system up for what it’s become – just a business. A degree’s worth shit. There are guys who can’t spell poncing around with PhDs in subjects you don’t need to be qualified for. Just another self-perpetuating industry in a country run by people I hate. Whoever’s in power.’
It went very quiet. If the pattering on the window had been snow, it was no longer snowing. She felt Eirion sitting up beside her.
‘I love you, Jane,’ he said. ‘How sad is that?’
Merrily stopped on the square, snow falling lightly again, and she didn’t care at all.
‘You didn’t!’
‘She’s never going to know, OK?’ Lol said. ‘Not from me.’
‘Ever?’
‘If you say so.’
‘What happened, when his text arrived, she asked if it was me who’d put him up to it and I hadn’t – hadn’t spoken to him in weeks. So it seemed OK, now they were back in contact, to ring him. And put him in the picture about… what I just told you about. And I never told you that, either, or Jane and me will be over.’
‘I can’t believe she couldn’t tell me. Well, actually, I can. What I can’t believe is that she told you.’
‘I think, in some strange way not unconnected with your job, that she thought you might feel compromised. Don’t ask me how. Also she probably owed me a secret.’
‘What?’
‘Never mind.’
‘You bugger.’ She felt dangerously light. ‘What did he say? Eirion.’
‘He didn’t laugh. Well, not at first. Then he did. I suspect he wasn’t sure what he ought to think.’
‘What would you have said if he’d been horrified?’
‘Tried to talk him round. Or if he couldn’t be talked round, suggested he just didn’t meet Jane.’
‘How did you know she was going to tell him? How do you know she… has?’
‘Can you imagine Jane not telling him? Also, I didn’t want him coming out with, “Woo, can I watch?” I didn’t think he would, but if it came as a surprise…’
‘You’re a good person, Lol.’
‘Please,’ Lol said. ‘It’s been embarrassing enough—’
And then they were kissing publicly. Or would have been if the weather hadn’t cleared the square.
Eirion started to laugh. It had made him, he said, not want to be a student any more, get university behind him. Get some working years in before journalism became history. Literally.
‘Something will happen,’ Jane said. ‘The Internet as we know it will become unfashionable. Passé. I mean, what else is there to do with it? Facebook’s already a refuge for old people – sheltered networking. Shit, that’s another car gone past. Is everybody going home because of the weather? People are afraid of everything these days. Every trip to the pub’s a risk-assessment situation.’
She told him about the job she’d be starting after Christmas, minding the shop for the Ledwardine Festival. How she planned to make it into a proper business, almost a little tourist centre for Ledwardine.
‘For as long as it’s worth visiting.’
‘You know,’ Eirion said. ‘We really have to make the effort to become more optimistic about things.’
‘I feel optimistic about some things tonight. What was— You hear that? If it’s those bastards lamping hares again. Or foxes.’
‘Jane…’
/>
‘Oh!’ She thought at first it was the banging of her heart. Someone up against the misted windscreen, peering in, making faces. ‘Sod off!’ Pulling on her hoodie, struggling to zip it up as Eirion scrambled up between the front seats. ‘No! Don’t put the lights on!’
‘I wanted to see who this pervert is. I— Oh God.’
The boles of trees had come up all white in the headlights, and also the man’s face, up close, squashed for a moment against the windscreen then sliding away.
‘It’s him,’ Jane said numbly. ‘Charlie Howe. What does he—?’
She saw Charlie Howe turn abruptly away, as if he was disgusted at what he’d seen in the car. Then she thought she saw a pinkish lump come jumping out of the side of his head and he slid silently away down the car bonnet, and the thin layer of snow on it was slicked red and pink and there was a crack in the air.
Part Six
’Tis the yeares midnight, and it is the dayes,
Lucies, who scarce seaven houres herself unmaskes,
The Sunne is spent, and now his flaskes
Send forth light squibs, no constant rayes;
The worlds whole sap is sunke:
The generall balme th’hydroptique earth hath drunk,
Whither, as to the beds-feet, like is shrunke,
Dead and enterr’d; yet all these seem to laugh,
Compar’d with mee, who am their Epitaph.
John Donne (1572–1631)
‘A Nocturnall upon St. Lucies Day’
Being the shortest day
64
The best is yet to come
A WINTER’S DAWN. A real winter’s dawn with mauve-veined sky and scraps of snow littering the car park.
Not the police car park, the adjacent public park on Bath Street, where Annie had left her Skoda Yeti. Bliss had never been in that car, and he didn’t get in now. They stood on the car park and shivered, and the sparse flakes floated down like cold ash.
The snow was coming in from Wales. All over the Black Mountains in the west, sprinkling the Malverns in the east.
Annie’s trench coat was hanging masochistically open.
‘You don’t call me,’ she said. ‘Not on the landline or the mobile. You don’t email.’
Like he’d even think of it. He was still in a cold sweat over how close they’d come to spending last night at his place in Marden instead of going their separate ways.