A Night With No Stars

by Sally Spedding

  ‘My God, I’m thirty tomorrow,’ she announced without thinking. Immediately Mark turned to her.

  ‘Right then,’ he said.

  ‘Right then what?’

  ‘We celebrate.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘We find the best digger, the best pipes for a mains supply, the best tiles for your roof and by the end of next week you’ll be snug as a bug, able to wash your clothes and, listen to this,’ he smirked, ‘even have a Jacuzzi . . .’

  She was about to thank him when suddenly huge blobs of rain hit the windscreen, sluicing away the red mud which had gathered in its corners.

  Distant thunder next and not so much rain an attack, pummelling the van from all sides, forcing Mark to drop to second gear. It was then, despite the recent laughter that she became truly aware of the reality of her undertaking, and more importantly, having enough funds over to get herself started.

  She then asked, ‘why have you just mentioned mains? Why not a private water supply like you’ve suggested all along?’

  ‘D’you really want to be frozen up from December to March and run the risk of someone mucking about with your supply? Blocking it up, whatever?’

  ‘Who on earth would do that?’

  ‘Two people I can think of, for starters,’ he said as the first small shops appeared. ‘Do you want me to spell out their names?’

  She fell silent while the van rumbled over a defunct level crossing and veered into a layby filled by an ever-deepening puddle.

  ‘But mains will cost an arm and a leg, surely? She muttered, slumping down in her seat while a few brave shoppers hurried by, bent against the weather.

  ‘Initially, yes. The supply would come down from the Hall, but at least you’d have peace of mind.’

  Peace of mind? That’s a joke . . .

  ‘You should have called those ravens off,’ she sat up again to make her next point. It had been on her conscience since yesterday afternoon. ‘Supposing they’d had that sweep’s eyes out. Then where’d we be?’

  Mark shook his head then reached behind his seat for his old parka. He placed it on her lap and the smell of the forest which rose up made her catch her breath.

  ‘Not them. They know just how far to go. A fright’s all he had, and serve him bloody right too.’

  ‘What if he’d had a heart attack? I mean, he’s not exactly young.’ She’d never heard a man yell like that before – even in films – but he’d surely woken all the dead for miles around. And as for Bryn Evans and his seemingly telepathic collie who’d arrived yesterday on the dot of twelve to corral his flock into the massive trailer he’d brought. Would he really interfere with Wern Goch in that way? Or was he, despite being a Deacon, really one of the dreaded Morrigan’s cohorts?

  ‘Those sheep could have stayed a bit longer too,’ she went on. ‘I’m not going to be needing the land till the spring at least.’

  ‘Not the point. I’ve already explained to you about him.’

  ‘So you have.’ She pulled her fleece closer around her body and zipped it up to her chin, suddenly aware of someone standing outside her door blocking out what little light there was. At first, she thought some shopper was taking cover from the rain, but a second glance told her there were two people, one tall, one shorter; and they were staying put.

  ‘Mark, look,’ she urged.

  ‘Huh huh. Talk of the Devil.’ He ratched up the handbrake, but his eyes now betraying something less lighthearted. ‘Sit tight, okay? Leave this to me.’ With that, he got out, slammed his door and went round the front of the van to where both Evans and Sion Hughes pressed their wet bodies against the van’s near side. Neither moved nor looked him in the eye when he asked what they were doing.

  ‘I’m counting to ten,’ he said, drenched already. ‘And if you’re not on your bikes by then . . .’

  ‘Then what, freak show?’ taunted the nineteen-year-old. ‘Going to tell Dada are we? That useless piece of dung.’

  ‘I’ll shift you myself.’

  By now, four curious female onlookers had gathered. It was clear they formed part of the Deacon’s congregation and acknowledged him as if they were outside chapel, not awaiting a possible brawl on some wet street. Lucy prayed nothing more would happen. That the men would just move on, like she had to, because in half an hour Jewsons and everything else would be closed. She held her breath as Mark seemed poised to throw the first punch, but the young farmer kicked him smartly in the groin. He doubled up in obvious agony, giving Evans the chance to push him into the puddle.

  It was only when they’d finally gone and the miserable quartet dispersed was she able to open her door and wade through the water to reach him.

  Half an hour later, in the Morfa tearooms, she poured Mark his third cup of tea from a big brown teapot. She was ratty and fed up. How dare those two idiots jinx her plans. Besides, Mark still seemed to be in pain and had to scrounge a cushion for his hard wooden chair.

  ‘Bastards,’ he muttered yet again, loud enough for one or two customers to look his way.

  ‘And cowards,’ she added, putting the last slice of bara brith on his plate. ‘Still, a few of his flock saw what happened and word’ll get round. Come next Sunday, that Evans will probably have an empty chapel. Not once, but twice.’

  ‘No chance. They’re like crows round newborn lambs, that lot. Give them a whiff of trouble and that hooks them in. He’ll be a main attraction now. Have you read Under Milk Wood by any chance?’ he emptied his cup with a single angry gulp. Or shouldn’t I ask?’

  ‘Loads of times. It’s brilliant. Hellebore’s bringing out a new paperback version plus audio tape in September . . .’

  Here she stopped herself. She was going on as if she still worked there. As if this Welsh thing was some weird short break, and next day when the rain had cleared, she’d be heading back . . .

  ‘Penny for them,’ he said, reaching out and covering her hand with his. ‘Or is that too cheap?’

  She smiled, and as she did so, noticed behind Mark, amongst the herd of anoraked and mackintoshed tea drinkers, someone utterly different. A man of around her age she guessed, with sun-blonde hair above a tanned fine-boned face. His immaculate trench-coat positively glowed against the gloomy throng as he sat at a table for one in the farthest corner of the tea room next to a Welsh dresser full of old plates and knick-knacks.

  The moment he caught her eye, she quickly diverted her gaze and made a pretence of looking at the menu. Because her heart was on the move and because Mark might detect her quicker pulse rate, she also gently removed her hand from his.

  ‘Would you like anything else?’ she asked him. ‘My Auntie Phyll used to make a brilliant carrot cake and you know what carrots are good for.’

  He shook his head and droplets of rain showered on to his parka’s shoulders. She’d slipped that over him once he’d managed to stand in the puddle, and now, being wet through, it resembled a night-coloured cloak.

  ‘Better go. We don’t want the Mellte flooding.’

  With a final backward glance at the intriguing stranger, she left the table and waited as Mark paid. He’d insisted, and rashly, in return, she’d offered to rustle something up from the Hall’s freezer. According to him there were three steaks plus some onion rings and ice cream.

  ‘Hold me back,’ she’d joked, but, given what he’d just endured, it was the least she could do.

  *

  ‘Who were your witnesses?’ asked Hector as he ladled yet more dubious-looking mustard over his meat. ‘You must have recognised someone for God’s sake.’

  Lucy watched Mark chewing with difficulty. She suspected the steaks were of the Tyrannosaurus Rex variety. Nevertheless, she’d done her best with a sluggish grill.

  ‘Four women. They didn’t want to get involved. Like you said, no one ever does.’

  ‘They addressed him as Deacon Evans, though,’ she added. ‘As if they knew him from chapel.’

  ‘That’s something, I suppose,’ Hector took a drin
k of his bottled water and grimaced at the taste of it. ‘Still, don’t expect me to go hanging round that bloody place on the off-chance of finding them. Gives me the willies it does. All those black Bibles, those dark pews. No wonder RS Thomas had a problem with it all, and he’d been a bloody minister . . .’

  She pricked up her ears at the name of that illustrious poet who’d been dead for barely a year. Despite his religious calling, none of his work ever spoke of redemption and, as the antithesis of Magical Tales, a bleaker view of Welsh life she’d yet to find. However, her dissertation on his uneasy relationship to God had at least helped her gain a First at Warwick. And now, six years later, wasn’t it as if she’d just stepped from one of his pages – sitting at a formica table in a draughty kitchen with two relative strangers, blighted by grief? Sure. She could even imagine what the first line might be.

  ‘Never mind him,’ Mark snapped. ‘I’m going to nail those two before they get even bigger ideas. You try and stop me.’

  ‘The law’s the law. You be careful, son.’

  ‘Why? Evans is probably sitting there right now getting a sermon ready for Sunday, or else knobbing that little queen of his . . .’

  ‘OK. OK. Let’s calm down, shall we?’ Hector set his knife and fork together and finished his glass of water. ‘I’ve nothing else on this evening, so I’ll go and pay a couple of calls . . .’

  To her, this seemed idiotic. Supposing the two men were armed? She knew that most farmers kept guns.

  ‘That’s exactly what they’ll be hoping for,’ she challenged him. ‘I wouldn’t give them oxygen just yet. Let them think they’ve got away with it. False sense of security if you like.’

  ‘She’s right, Dad,’ said Mark, finishing a beer and wiping his mouth with his bare forearm.

  But Hector stared at her in a way which made her realise that there’d not been a female voice at the Hall for years. No one to keep him in check. And yet again, she was proved correct.

  ‘With the greatest respect, Lucy, no one tells me what to do.’

  He stood up, pulled his napkin from under his chin and made his way out of the kitchen.

  ‘By the way,’ he called out as he went. ‘Make sure you lock up after me.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  Yo,

  A poem this time. Didn’t old Bowen (remember him with the dyed tache and eyebrows?) say I’d got something? That was then. Got nothing now, mind. Down to 8 stone.

  I hear songs on the waves in my head,

  Her songs, dying.

  I see lips that never were so red,

  In the grave lying.

  X

  Mark Jones spent longer than usual in the bathroom next morning, not only because the last Saturday of every month was his day off, but also because it was Lucy’s birthday. He’d planned to take her to lunch at the Hotel Metropole in Llandrindod Wells. Home of his Grammar School and somewhere both his grandparents and his parents used to visit before the tensions started. It was kind of in the family – or what was left of it.

  He finally emerged, wearing just his briefs, only to be surprised and embarrassed to find Lucy waiting outside, wearing a Yogi Bear T-shirt nightdress and clutching her wash-up bag. However, he needn’t have worried about his state of undress. She seemed too deep in thought to notice.

  ‘Sorry,’ he stepped aside, holding the door open for her. ‘Thought you’d be having some extra kip as it’s your birthday.’

  She shook her head and with one practised movement pulled her hair from its ponytail where it stayed covering her left cheek. For a tempting moment he wanted to draw it aside to feel the blonde softness under his work-coarsened hand. To touch her nipples which he could see pressing against the cotton fabric.

  ‘I couldn’t sleep at all,’ she said. ‘Not with those awful screams going round and round in my head, and what happened to us last night.’ She edged past him into the bathroom and began to close the door.

  ‘Look, don’t worry. Dad knows what he’s doing and like he said, Monday’ll come soon enough. When the old fart makes a promise, he keeps it. OK?’

  She nodded, but to him, not convincingly.

  ‘It’s Hughes and Evans,’ she began. ‘I don’t trust them any more. How can I? What else are they going to do to intimidate me? Burn the place down? Cast some weird spells?’ Her eyes were wide, angry. He felt defeated. Then to make himself feel better, imagined lunch.

  ‘By the way,’ he began. ‘I’ve got a treat lined up for you. It’s not much but . . .’

  The door shut on him. Tight.

  Damn. Damn. Damn.

  He stayed to listen as her shower water began to fall and imagined her body glistening under its flow. Every time he came close to her now he just wanted to hold her, to feel those small firm breasts against him, to let his hands follow every contour, every mysterious hollow . . .

  Hold on now. Hold on . . .

  Maybe he shouldn’t push it, he thought. Maybe she’d got her own agenda – even a boyfriend somewhere – and all this fixing up things for them to do together, might have the reverse effect. To drive her away.

  He was just about to return to his bedroom when a heavy finger tapped his shoulder. He spun round. Always edgy. Hector, nattily dressed in navy slacks and a clean open-necked shirt, was smiling despite a purple bruise above his right eye.

  ‘You okay?’ Mark asked him.

  ‘Nothing to what I dished out, son,’ he winked, causing his eye to twitch. ‘I don’t think those two will be troubling us again for a while. Anyhow, breakfast’s ready.’ He then pointed to the bathroom. ‘Lucy in there?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Good. Gives me a few more minutes.’

  He watched this changed man go downstairs and along the hallway until the top of his Brylcreemed head bobbed out of sight. He’d not made breakfast for anyone for years.

  ‘What happened last night?’ He called after him.

  ‘Tell you later. Don’t be long, you two.’

  Mam . . .

  His smile flickered and died. That’s exactly what she used to say on a typical school morning, just before the grammar school minibus was due at the end of the drive. And he’d never let her down. Not like Richard, who’d spend half an hour simply putting on his socks, checking them for holes or patches of wear. Who’d stand by the hall mirror repeatedly slicking his hair until the driver sounded his impatient horn from too far away . . .

  Then there’d been the Goodbye Kiss. Not from his dada, mind, but her while he, Mark had to be content with a mere brush of her red lips on his forehead at bedtime, before she invariably went out.

  Richard, ever greedy, would grab her by the neck and plant his mouth on hers, then run away down the Hall steps, his satchel bumping on his back. Richard who could turn into a poisonous snake if he didn’t get his own way.

  ‘Hi, have you seen the mist out there?’ Lucy appeared on the landing, her hair lay damp against her pinkened face. She looked stunning, he thought. More than just kissable. So why hadn’t he expressed these aspects in his poem to her, instead of focusing on what she represented?

  He didn’t know, because whenever he’d sat down to write in his den, the words had seemed to come not from any conscious thought, but from somewhere far beyond his control. The slough of his past, perhaps? Still, he’d got another chance to put that right. She’d asked for another one, hadn’t she?

  ‘It’ll clear,’ he said, glancing out at the blank whiteness beyond the landing window. ‘The September ones are the worst.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to be such a grump just now,’ she said, making for her door. ‘It’s the birthday thing as well. Even as a kid I was never that bothered about them. In fact, I hated getting older.’

  ‘Me too,’ he said with feeling. Because each year which passed had brought increased strains within his parents’ marriage so that by the time he was twelve and a year into the Grammar, his father sulked at home while his mother . . . His mother . . .

  ‘Is anyone comin
g down?’ Hector’s voice interrupted his recollection. The aroma of frying bacon filled the stairwell. ‘Everything’ll frizzle up otherwise.’

  My God, he thought. The man’s actually been near the stove.

  Without waiting for Lucy, he leapt down into the hall and jogged into the kitchen where he stopped, his mouth agape at the sight in front of him. For starters, a clean white cloth covered the table and in the middle, amongst a new HP sauce bottle and a sparkling glass cruet stood a vase full of half-open orange lilies. Four coloured envelopes also lay by Lucy’s side plate.

  Hector was wearing one of his own mother’s crossover aprons and looked ridiculous. He was prodding at eggs in the frying pan. What was going on? Mark asked himself.

  ‘Jesus Christ, you,’ he said.

  ‘Makes a change, son. Now tell me – it’s so long ago I’ve forgotten – was it you or Richard who always liked sunny side up?’

  ‘Me.’

  Me . . . me . . . me . . .

  ‘Wow!’ exclaimed Lucy from the doorway, obviously unaware of the sudden painful silence. ‘Those lilies are fantastic. How did you know they’re my favourites?’

  Mark felt as though a little knife labelled jealousy had just pierced his heart as she went over to the cooker to plant a kiss on Hector’s cheek. The wound seemed to grow inside him as she then studied the ugly bruise.

  ‘Does that hurt?’ she asked him.

  ‘A bit. Still, that kiss of yours’ll make it better.’ Hector then pulled out three unmatching plates from the oven and added an egg to each triangle of fried bread more tenderly than Mam had ever done, Mark admitted to himself, still hearing his brother’s name in his ears. But this was just for Lucy’s benefit, surely? As for his mother, she’d loathed cooking as if it got in the way of the fun she could be having instead. So they’d existed on oven meals and more oven meals. Expensive too, and all tasting the same . . .

  ‘Bon appetit,’ said Hector, pointing his knife at the envelopes, then Lucy. ‘They’re all for you. And there’s another present. I nearly forgot.’