‘You there yet?’ His mother-in-law.
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘The boat was delayed. We had to spend a night in a hotel.’
‘But now you’re almost there?’
‘About another hour and a half, I think.’
‘What’s the weather like?’
‘Nice. The sun’s shining.’
‘It’s terrible here. Not cosy at all.’
The husband glanced to one side. The policeman was looking ahead imperturbably. ‘Well, it’s very cosy here. I drank champagne this morning.’
‘What? Why for God’s sake?’
‘It’s Boxing Day.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I don’t know. The second day of Christmas?’
‘Does that policeman of yours know how to get there?’
‘He’s got help. From Bram.’
‘Bram?’
‘One of those navigation systems.’
‘Oh.’ There was a moment’s silence. ‘Is he wearing his uniform?’
‘No, why should he? He’s not working.’
‘No, I thought, because he’s kind of going there to pick her up in an official capacity.’
‘This has nothing to do with the police.’
‘That’s true.’ There was another silence in Amsterdam. ‘Your father-in-law wants to know if they showed a film on the boat.’
‘Not that I know of. But it was a very big boat. We saw a clown on a stage.’
‘Look, when you’re there, will you tell her that we…’
‘Yes?’
They consulted again. ‘Well, that we love her. And that we want her to come home. Not to us, of course, but to you.’
‘To me? I thought it was all my fault.’
‘No. According to your father-in-law, that’s not right. We talked about it some more.’
‘Oh.’
‘We love her, her father too. Tell her that. Will you do that?’
‘Of course I’ll tell her. When we get there, I’ll give her my phone, then you can tell her yourself.’
‘No, you do it. And then we’ll call afterwards. Or no, you call us, because we won’t know when you get there. What time is it there anyway?’
‘An hour earlier than with you.’
‘OK, we don’t want to be in the middle of dinner.’
The man shook his head.
‘You can also tell her that it’s not on, just disappearing like that. That she should think of her old mum and dad. And that we’ve forgiven her.’
‘What have you forgiven her?’
‘You know, that thing with the, um…Everybody does things they end up regretting.’ His father-in-law said something in the background. ‘Your father-in-law says, “The flesh is weak.”’ She started to cry.
The husband moved the phone away from his ear. ‘I’ve got my mother-in-law on the line,’ he told the policeman. ‘She says the flesh is weak.’
The policeman glanced at him. ‘Can’t argue with that,’ he said.
‘Something else.’ Now he heard his father-in-law’s voice. He pressed the phone against his ear again. ‘Tell her that we really want to celebrate New Year together, all of us.’
‘I’ll do that. Are you going to come here or do you mean in Amsterdam?’
‘Here, of course! What would we want to go there for? Do you really see me getting your mother-in-law on one of those boats?’
‘You could fly.’
‘Not if you paid us. No, here. At our place. In her old home. It’ll be good for her. We have to look after her.’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ve got a return, haven’t you? When are you taking the boat back?’
‘No, no return. We can come back whenever we like. Plus we’ll have two cars then.’
‘You know what? Tell her her uncle and auntie are coming too.’ His mother-in-law said something. ‘What? Hang on a sec…No, of course he won’t mind. He’s worried about her…Why?…I guarantee he won’t play up…Sorry, your mother-in-law said something. I’ll arrange it right away. I’m sure she’ll enjoy it.’
‘I’ll let her know.’
More consultations in the background. ‘What? Hang on a sec. Your mother-in-law wants to know if the marble cake’s OK.’
‘It’s still in the bag. That’s for later.’
‘Will you ring up the minute you get there?’
‘I promise.’
‘OK. Drive safely for the rest of the trip.’
The man put his mobile back in his breast pocket. His ear was hot. ‘Shouldn’t you call home?’ he asked the policeman. ‘Just to touch base?’
‘No need.’
*
The A55 was now following the coast. Colwyn Bay, Llandudno, Conwy. A train that appeared to run along the beach overtook them.
‘Just under an hour,’ the policeman said.
‘I think it’s beautiful here,’ the husband said. ‘And I wonder what she’s been doing all this time.’
‘Maybe she’s living with a Welsh farmer.’
The husband laughed. They drove through a village where the train was stopped at a station. Land was visible in the distance. The husband wondered if it could be Ireland. A little later the train passed the car again. ‘She’s a city girl. She can’t tell a blackbird from a sparrow.’
‘Is that a requirement? You don’t need to know stuff like that to live in the country.’
‘It’s so lonely.’
‘And living with you in one house in the city wasn’t?’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
The policeman took one hand off the wheel and laid it on the husband’s leg.
He didn’t move it away because the policeman was the driver.
*
Turn left ahead. In eight hundred metres, turn left and follow the road. After a long silence Bram had spoken again. Caernarfon, the signs said, nine more miles. At the roundabout, turn right, third exit. ‘Bram’s got his work cut out for him now,’ the policeman said.
‘Can he find a house just by the name?’ the husband asked. He rubbed his left knee.
‘No.’
‘So how are we going to get there?’
The policeman took a map from the pocket in his door and gave it to the husband, saying, ‘What would you do without me?’
The husband looked at the map. Snowdon / Yr Wyddfa, Explorer Map. A mountaineer in a bright red coat standing on a rock with a snow-covered mountaintop in the background.
‘I drew a circle around the house,’ the policeman said. ‘And used yellow highlighter on the road to get there.’
The husband tried to unfold the map but couldn’t, it was much too big. Too big and too detailed and it also made an incredible racket. He laid the map on his lap. The land across the water on their right was a lot closer; it couldn’t possibly be Ireland. Take the exit. Keep left, then cross the roundabout, second exit. They drove through the town of Caernarfon. The shops were open and the streets were fairly busy; the husband saw a large sign reading Sale! He saw what he thought was a kind of palm tree in the middle of a small roundabout. Cross the roundabout, second exit. The husband kept quiet, he couldn’t compete with Bram. Was Boxing Day a public holiday when shops held sales?
*
A quarter of an hour later they stopped at a T-junction. Bram had said, You have reached your destination, and – just before the policeman pulled over – Try to make a U-turn. ‘No, Bram,’ the policeman said. ‘You’re done.’ Then he took the map from the husband. Now he was standing in front of the car with the map spread out on the bonnet. The car door was open. It smelt the way Amsterdam can smell in March with the wind from a certain direction: farmers’ spring air. The policeman turned round and peered at a narrow, sunken lane that ran uphill, tufts of grass sticking up through the middle of the asphalt. There was an incredible number of sheep in the field beside the lane. It was damp. The dashboard clock said quarter to one, from which the husband subtracted one
hour. He was strangely nervous. It was Boxing Day in Wales and in a quarter of an hour he might be seeing his wife again.
60
He keeps imagining the summit. The way he’d stood there, his breath visible, the Horseshoe, the Irish Sea, the lakes, the gradual slope down to Llanberis, as if the mountain had known all along that they would one day build a railway there. A layer of snow. It was a shame that you were never alone in places like this. The new top station, Hafod Eryri, was closed, sheets of hardboard protecting the large windows, a deep snowdrift against the back wall. It wasn’t busy, but the people who were there were almost all talking into mobiles, letting someone know they’d made it to the top. When he got back to where he’d left her – at a run – and didn’t find her, he looked over the edge, into the depths, before running on.
*
But now he’s stuck in the cellar of an old pigsty. Without a mobile. Even if he wanted to let someone know he was down below ground level, he couldn’t. Standing up straight is impossible. She’s laid cushions on the floor, rugs and blankets. It’s only after she turns off the light in the pigsty that he uses a match to light a candle. One candle, not both. They’re in the necks of two wine bottles. It can’t get really dark anyway, not with the house lights on and casting bright rectangles on the lawn. He can see them through the wide, four-inch window. In a plastic bag there’s bread and packets of biscuits, butter, a few bananas, a knife, cheese and sliced cold lamb. Is that a joke? He almost smiles. Does she think he’s going to eat that? There are three bottles of red wine with screw tops, one bottle of white, seven bottles of water, crisps. A glass and a plate. He hasn’t even looked for a second Christmas present. It sounds like she’s moving something with the wheelbarrow, footsteps on the crushed slate. The last thing he hears is classical music: the radio must be turned up loud with the window or front door open. Closed again, a bit later. Either that or she’s turned the radio off. He doesn’t understand, but he’s not really surprised. He still pushes hard on the trapdoor and feels the dust drift down on his head. He swears under his breath. ‘Sguthan,’ he says, without feeling angry, and ‘Iesu Grist.’ He eats and drinks, but not too much. This could last a week. And the likelihood of it being his father who ends up liberating him is something he can’t do a thing about. He pulls off his boots and coat and finally removes his hat. He lies down on the cushions without undressing further and pulls the blankets and rugs up over himself. He blows out the candle. He’s not cold. The lights are still on in the house. He sees himself on top of Yr Wyddfa, inhaling the biting air, screwing up his eyes in the glare of the snow.
*
Birds are singing the next morning. With a view of nothing – yes, beams and boards – he could think it’s spring. In the course of the night, the cold has risen through the floor after all. He sits up, eats a piece of bread with cheese, drinks some water. And waits. Maybe I got her pregnant, he thinks. He stands up to look out through the window. The grass is damp, and when he looks again a little later, he sees that the sun has advanced quite far. Only now does he notice that she has put the three flowering plants from the kitchen windowsill in front of the cellar window. When he sticks a finger in one of the pots, he feels that the soil is damp.
He still can’t work out why he stood there on the lawn like a deer caught in headlights, the headlights of the black pickup parked next to the house. He could just as easily have walked away, climbing back over the wall. Sam had sat trembling against his leg; that was how desperate he was to go to his master. She had given him a sign: incomprehensible, and yet, a sign. Maybe that was why.
*
He used to be able to stand upright in here, he even had to stretch to look out through the window at his mother and Mrs Evans, sitting on strange chairs in the shade of the alders, next to the stream. It was always cool in the cellar, he didn’t understand them staying outside. A couple of glasses of home-made lemonade with ice cubes on a wobbly table. Standing on his toes to look at the women, listening to his mother’s voice. Sometimes she’d call out, ‘Bradwen!’ and Mrs Evans would tell her to leave him in peace, ‘Da chi’n gwybod lle mae o.’ And always packing up when his father approached the chairs and table, finished with the sheep and ready to go home, sweat on his nose and brow.
The birds fall silent. Maybe they’ve figured out it’s Boxing Day, or midwinter at least, and not a gorgeous day in spring. He starts pacing back and forth, bent over in the green-tiled cellar, pressing once more against the trapdoor, which still doesn’t give, of course. Dust falls on the concrete steps. He imagines a little boy, a toddler: on a swing or trying to kick a non-cooperative ball. After a while his back starts to hurt and he lies down on the cushions. He’s no longer cold. If only Sam was here, even if he did always hold something back, looking over his shoulder, never unconditionally his. He unbuttons his jeans and pulls a blanket over himself.
*
Hours later, as he’s eating some more bread and cheese, he hears a car. Not driving away, but arriving. He keeps still and stops chewing. He’d rather be stuck in a cellar than see his father again this soon. Be sure to have enough cash for the lost geese. As if the woman is the fox who’s devouring the birds. Car doors open and slam shut, dull and distant, the car hasn’t stopped close to the house. Two male voices. They weren’t supposed to come until 1 January. Footsteps on the path. They’re not speaking Welsh. It sounds like her language: he recognises the harsh gutturals, the strange vowels. He looks around. And again. The flowering plants, the cold lamb, the two wine-bottle candleholders. He puts his boots on and pulls on his beanie. Then he eats another chunk of cheese with a slice of bread, washing it down with a glass of red wine. When he’s finished, he starts to bang on the trapdoor.
*
‘Who are you?’ one of the men asks. A man with short black hair.
‘Bradwen,’ he says. ‘I’m Bradwen Jones.’
‘Where is Agnes?’ The other man asks that. He’s got his lower leg in a cast and is on crutches. He’s pronounced the name the Dutch way, at the back of his throat, and Bradwen doesn’t understand.
‘What?’
‘Where is Agnes? From Amsterdam?’
‘Is that a name?’
‘Of course. Agnes.’
‘There’s no Agnes here. Who are you?’
The men stay where they are in the doorway, neither of them answering. The boy is standing on the concrete steps. Blinding yellow sunlight shines between their legs, making him raise a hand to shade his eyes.
‘No Agnes?’ says the man with the cast.
‘No.’
‘What are you doing in there?’ The other man says that. The man with hair like his but much shorter.
‘She locked me up in here. Emily.’
‘Emily?’
‘Yes.’
‘When?’
‘Yesterday afternoon.’
‘Where is she?’
‘I don’t know. Isn’t she in the house?’
‘No. Why did she lock you up?’
The man with the cast starts talking to the other man in Dutch. He gestures and says the name ‘Agnes’ again. The man with black hair keeps his eyes on the boy, even when he’s speaking to the other man. He has the wooden slat in one hand. Finally the men step back from the doorway. ‘Come,’ says the man holding the slat. The boy climbs out of the cellar. The man rests the piece of wood against the wall and goes down the concrete steps. The boy smells him as he passes: strong, fresh aftershave. The man with the cast hobbles over to the house on his crutches. The boy waits until the man has come back up out of the cellar and walks ahead of him to the front door, which is wide open. He looks at the rose arch. The single white rose that was little more than a bud is still a bud, and will probably never open.
*
In the kitchen both men carry on talking in Dutch as if they’ve forgotten he’s there. Or as if he’s irrelevant. The man with the cast is holding Emily Dickinson’s Collected Poems in one hand. From a lot of incomprehensible sounds,
the boy picks out the names ‘Emily’ and ‘Agnes’ and a single ‘ach’. He’s standing with his bum against the cooker as if he belongs there. The heat feels good after the cellar. The man keeps talking, laying his hand on a sheet of paper on top of the open map. Next to the paper is the brown felt tip, one of the pens they were supposed to use to plan the garden. The men’s bags are on the floor next to the sideboard. The radio is gone, leaving a conspicuous gap. The Christmas-tree lights are on. Now the man picks up a postcard and hands it to the man with black hair. The boy smiles. Rubbish, he thinks. Advertising. ‘Coffee?’ he asks, mainly because he feels like a coffee himself.
‘When did this card arrive?’ the man with the black hair asks.
The boy fills the pot with water and coffee and raises a lid. ‘Yesterday.’
‘Do they deliver here with Christmas?’
‘It was probably already in the letter box. I haven’t seen it before.’
‘Who are you?’
It’s like an interrogation. ‘Bradwen Jones.’ It feels good to say his own name like that, knowing full well that the man’s asking something else. The coffee pot is on the hotplate now, the hottest plate. The boy looks out of the window at the fallen oak. He, too, notices that it’s not right to have the slate path running into the lawn like that. There’s no reason to it, it doesn’t go anywhere. There should be something standing there. He turns round. The man with the cast stares at the postcard, the other man is staring at him again. ‘You a cop?’ he asks.
‘Yes.’ And after a short silence, ‘You’re a smart kid.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘Anton.’
‘And him?’
The boy gestures at the man with the cast.
‘He’s the husband of Agnes. Rutger.’
‘Where is she?’ Agnes’s husband asks. He’s talking to the postcard.
The coffee starts to bubble. The boy takes the pot off the heat and gets three cups out of the cupboard.
‘What’s that note on the front door?’ the policeman asks.
‘From my father.’ The boy doesn’t know what else to say about it. He has no idea why his father is coming with an estate agent on 1 January.
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