A Novel

by Sean Pidgeon

  ‘Oliver Cromwell has a lot to answer for,’ Donald says, striving to redeem himself. ‘He tried to drive out every last vestige of the old English folklore.’

  ‘That’s as may be,’ the gardener says. ‘Now, you’d best be along, or they’ll close the gates on you. This is no place to be shut in after dark, as I should know.’ With this the old man turns away with a low chuckle, picks up his clippers and goes back to work.

  Feeling vaguely ill at ease, Donald walks on towards the main abbey buildings, the ruins dominated by two tall, finger-like fragments that give a certain desolate symmetry to this once-majestic structure. Inside, where the nave would have been, he finds a small metal plaque, white lettering on brown.

  SITE OF KING ARTHUR’S TOMB

  IN THE YEAR 1191 THE BODIES OF KING ARTHUR AND HIS QUEEN WERE SAID TO HAVE BEEN FOUND ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF THE LADY CHAPEL. ON 19TH APRIL 1278 THEIR REMAINS WERE REMOVED IN THE PRESENCE OF KING EDWARD I AND QUEEN ELEANOR TO A BLACK MARBLE TOMB ON THIS SITE. THIS TOMB SURVIVED UNTIL THE DISSOLUTION OF THE ABBEY IN 1539.

  Archaeologists have found convincing evidence that an excavation of this sort did indeed take place at the end of the twelfth century. But the exhumation was shown to be a fraud, one of the more infamous monkish hoaxes in English history. A dramatic discovery such as this was well suited to the purposes of the presiding Abbot of Glastonbury, Henry of Sully, who was determined to revive the fortunes of the abbey after it burned down in 1184. It was therefore decided that his resourceful monks should by chance unearth a hollow log containing the bones of a woman and a very tall man. To provide a further layer of false authenticity, Henry also arranged for the discovery in the grave of a lead cross with an intriguing inscription. It said, Hic iacet sepultus inclitus rex Arturius in insula Avalonia: Here lies buried the famous King Arthur in the isle of Avalon. The cross itself was lost long ago, though it was seen and described as late as the sixteenth century by John Leland, the celebrated antiquarian to Henry VIII.

  Donald cannot help thinking of Paul Healey with his bones unearthed from the Wiltshire soil, his long-limbed king and his queen found clutching her mysterious blood-filled chalice. It is not precisely the same thing, perhaps. Healey did not go quite so far as to bury his skeletons first before digging them up again, though his instinct for publicity is at least as well tuned as was Abbot Henry’s in his day. A line comes back to him, something he wrote in the preface to his book. Every age has its plausible charlatans; and every age has its susceptible pilgrims and romantics, its seekers of the Holy Grail.

  As he walks back towards the gate, Donald pulls his jacket more closely around him against the autumnal chill that has crept into the air. The gardener has quietly disappeared into the dusk. He is anxious now to be away from this place, with its long falling shadows and the jagged remnants of the abbey like giant gravestones silhouetted against the sky.

  AT DYFFRYN FARM, time passes for Julia in a blur of soft-voiced and kind-hearted visitors, relatives and old family friends who soon absorb her into their circle. She takes it all in, keeping her composure, not letting them get too close. Far from obscuring her other, more ordinary troubles, her father’s death seems to have brought them out into the harsh daylight. Dai was always a good friend and mentor to Hugh, especially in the early days when he would often say to Julia that he saw something of his own younger self in her ardent, self-assured new boyfriend. It makes her desperately sad to think how disappointed he would be if he could see them now. She finds herself thinking often of Donald and the kiss at the Trevethey bridge, and how she abandoned him without the merest word of explanation. A few seconds longer, another sip of wine, and she might have become his lover. She would like to speak to him, to explain what has happened, but there has been no chance of making a private telephone call in the crowded farmhouse.

  The funeral arrangements provide some sort of a distraction. Julia takes control, glad to be busy, to do something to help her mother just as the reality of their tragedy begins to break down Cath Llewellyn’s stubborn defences. Then there is the service at St. Clement’s in Rhayader, where they must look at one another, by turns resigned and desperate, as they sit huddled together with the flower-strewn coffin right there in front of them. It is Aunt Nia, her father’s younger sister, who gives the eulogy, somehow steadying her voice as she stands up in front of the congregation. She speaks not of Dai the settled farmer of later years, but of the Dai she knew as a child in Llangurig, the gifted boy with a flair for landscape sketching and wood-carving in a time and a place where such pursuits were for the amusement of idle, soft-handed men who had no lambs to slaughter nor stone walls to mend. By the age of sixteen, the frustrations of youth and the mockery of his peers had subverted his talent. He fell in with a circle of fiery young compatriots, shepherds and mechanics and quarrymen who met in back rooms full of wild-eyed talk, angry reports of new English incursions on the native soil of Wales. Then, on a cold spring day at Aberdovey, he gave his hand to young Catherine Pursey of Sussex as she stepped off the ferry-boat. Cath is what he insisted on calling her (pronouncing it in the Welsh way, ‘cat’), and soon enough his love for this graceful Englishwoman began to draw the bitterness out of him. In time, he was able to return to the first calling of his childhood, drawing and carving and sculpting in his old familiar style. In later years, settled and happy in the hills above Rhayader with Cath and their daughter Julia his pride and joy, he was at last content with the idea that the transcendent vision of Wales he strove to capture in his art was no more than a nostalgic landscape of the imagination.

  Afterwards, the coffin is borne outside by eight men of Dai’s generation, local farmers who held him in the highest esteem as a friend and fellow Welshman. They return in the vanguard to Dyffryn and lead the party through the afternoon and evening with a boxful of cheap blended whisky driven up from town by Gareth Williams, the proprietor of the Black Lion pub. These are true-blooded patriots, though their talk is more of the recent heavy rains, the state of their winter flocks and the grievances of their long-suffering wives. Hugh is there complicit amongst them as if he were a Radnorshire man himself, down from the hills. To Julia it seems a forced camaraderie on his part, an elaborate act for which she is the intended audience.

  There is one of the local men who holds himself apart from this narrow fraternity, keeping his distance, brooding in the quiet corners. He has the wiry frame of an outdoorsman, dark hair cropped short, a lean, pockmarked face creased up into a habitual expression of aloofness or perplexity. It is not until late in the evening, after what is left of the party has moved to the front room and Julia is sitting exhausted at the foot of the narrow stairs, that he finally catches her eye. She watches him as he pulls deeply on his cigarette, eyes narrowing through the smoke, then taps off the ash and walks over to her, whisky glass in his other hand. She can tell he has drunk more than his share of it.

  ‘Thank you for coming, Ralph. How have you been?’

  ‘Well enough, considering. I’m sorry about Dai, though. He was always a good friend to me.’ His meaning comes through sharply enough. Dai was a good friend, whereas Julia treated him as if he were nothing.

  ‘I was hoping to see your father today?’ The Reverend Stephen Barnabas, Anglican vicar of the parish of Rhayader, was once close to Dai. They fell out long ago, but still he might have been expected at the funeral.

  Ralph takes another long pull on his cigarette. ‘My dad’s not been feeling well, these past weeks. I’m afraid he’s on his way out.’ He says this almost casually, as if discussing the price of last season’s lambs.

  By now, Hugh has seen the two of them talking. He breaks from his circle in the front room and comes over to join them. ‘Ralph,’ he says, with what seems a friendly enough nod, though there is a constraint in his expression, something held back. Ralph Barnabas has worked at Ty Faenor for more than ten years, ever since Dai persuaded Hugh to take him on, but the old grudges have never quite worn smooth.

  ‘I’ll
be leaving you to it, anyway,’ Ralph says, taking his jacket down from the coat-rack and heading for the front door. ‘You’ll not want me hanging around here, getting in the way.’

  ‘He still has a thing for you,’ Hugh says, after he has gone.

  ‘I’m not sure why that should be. I hardly ever see him these days.’

  ‘As if that makes a difference.’ On some other occasion, Hugh’s rueful smile might seem charming, but now it strikes a false, jealous note. ‘I assume you’ll stay here tonight?’ he says. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, OK?’ Before she can respond to this, he has pulled on his coat and stepped out into the night.

  A PHONE CALL at the office from Donald’s father is a rare event, and his first reaction is to suspect that some calamity has occurred. Tim Watson, with whom he has been comparing notes on the Amesbury dig, catches the look in his eye and makes a diplomatic exit.

  ‘I found something interesting in the attic this morning,’ James Gladstone says, with a hint of self-satisfaction in his voice. ‘I think you might want to have a look.’

  ‘Are you going to tell me what it is?’

  ‘It’s a little tricky to explain over the phone. You’ll have to see for yourself. Come over this evening, if you like.’

  Donald drives straight to Chewton Mendip after he has finished work for the day. The front door of Grendel’s Lair is opened by a woman in later middle age with a plump, red-cheeked face, grey-brown hair pulled back into a bun. She takes him warmly by the hand. ‘Well, if it isn’t young Donald Gladstone,’ she says. ‘Your father said he had asked you to come, though you’re a little earlier than we expected.’

  ‘Audrey, I’m very glad to see you.’ Donald smiles quietly to himself, remembering the home-made ginger biscuits. Audrey Jenkins is a kind, sensible woman, a widow herself, and it is right that they should have a chance to make one another happy.

  ‘Do come on through,’ Audrey says. She ushers him into the kitchen, then heads discreetly in the opposite direction.

  Donald’s father is at the sink with a tea-towel and the last of the drying-up, looking intently into the darkness outside the window as if some momentous event is unfolding out there. He turns as his son enters the room, wipes his hands on the towel. ‘I’m glad you could come over, Donald. Did I mention that Audrey has been keeping house for me?’

  ‘Keeping house?’ Donald smiles broadly. ‘I’m happy to hear it, Dad. You’ll be great company for each other.’

  ‘I must say the place is rather more cheerful than it used to be.’ James Gladstone runs a nervous hand through his thinning grey hair. ‘And she has been keeping me on my toes. Did you know she has a doctorate in theology from the University of Kent?’

  ‘Yes, you’ve mentioned it a few times.’ Donald tries to imagine them engaging in deep philosophical debate over their toast and marmalade. ‘I’m sure you’ll be no match for her, intellectually speaking.’

  ‘Quite so.’ His father smiles, turns to the stack of dry crockery and starts putting it away in the cupboard. ‘How was your Cornish symposium?’

  ‘Not quite as useful as I expected.’

  James Gladstone hangs the damp tea-towel on the back of a chair, looking inexplicably pleased with himself. ‘Well, come along and see what I’ve found.’

  Donald follows him through to the dining room, rarely used in the ordinary run of things except as a place to store the best cutlery. The table has been extended to its maximum length, and is now covered from end to end with large-scale geological maps of Wales. Numerous markings in coloured pencil can faintly be seen.

  ‘What on earth have you been up to, Dad?’

  ‘I must let you into a little secret. After we spoke about Caradoc Bowen and his maps, I went up into the attic to have a look through my old paperwork from the Geological Survey, and I found this.’ He picks up a long cardboard tube from underneath the table. ‘The maps were returned to me at the Survey. I had completely forgotten about it.’

  ‘Bowen sent them back to you?’

  ‘Well, yes—I had asked for them to be returned when he was finished with them. I have the covering note here, though it doesn’t say anything very useful.’

  The letter is no more than a brief, courteous expression of thanks, neatly typed up on Jesus College letterhead. It is the signature that is of most interest to Donald. The correspondent identifies himself as H. E. Mortimer, Research Assistant to Professor C. H. R. Bowen. He remembers what Julia told him at the Randolph, that her husband was once a favourite of Bowen’s, a member of his radical political group, Tân y Ddraig.

  ‘The maps have evidently been well used,’ his father is saying. ‘I would hazard a guess that they have been taken out in the field.’

  Donald looks more closely at the nearest sheet, which shows the Black Mountains from Crickhowell to Hay-on-Wye. Several areas of upland terrain have been carefully outlined in red and blue and green pencil, all explained by a hand-written key at the edge of the map. ‘You did all this yourselves?’

  ‘Yes, of course. You have to remember that those were the good old days when a formal request to the Survey from Oxford University would be attended to without question. We put in the red highlighting to indicate the most conspicuous outcroppings of the Devonian rocks. For the most part, what you are seeing here is the St. Maughans formation of the Lower Devonian period, known colloquially as the Old Red Sandstone. It is prevalent in south-eastern and central southern Wales, as well as some parts of the border country farther north.’

  Next to each of the highlighted areas is a small cross made in faded blue ink. ‘Did you put in these markings as well?’ Donald says.

  ‘No, and I’m not sure what the annotations mean. I was hoping you might have an idea about that?’

  Donald traces a finger across the map, his father looking at him expectantly. ‘I think I could make an educated guess. Bowen wanted to find one of the battle-sites that was described in the poem I told you about. But I don’t think he was looking for the right thing.’

  ‘And do you know what the right thing is?’

  ‘I have an idea about it, but we won’t know until we have a proper look.’ Donald glances across the tabletop at a dozen or more maps that together represent thousands of square miles of rugged Welsh landscape. ‘I’m going to need your help, Dad.’

  ‘Yes, of course. I dare say I know the terrain as well as anybody, geologically speaking. But you’ll have to tell me what we’re looking for.’

  ‘We’re still interested in the sandstone cliffs, but only if they are rising above a river valley, and only if the valley also contains three waterfalls.’

  ‘Precisely three?’

  ‘Yes, precisely three.’

  James Gladstone raises an eyebrow. ‘Well, we must do our best.’

  They set to work in a state of suppressed excitement. The geology and topography of Wales is such that many locations seem at first glance to be strong candidates, but none of them quite meets all the requirements. The task is made more difficult by the fact that very few waterfalls are marked explicitly on the map; their existence must instead be inferred by studying the contour lines. A sense of futility begins to set in. An hour passes, and then another, before Donald gives a small, triumphant shout. At the edge of one of the more southerly maps, he traces his finger along a thin jagged line denoting a stream dropping down a steep valley from a mountainous terrain. There are tall rock formations higher up, outcrops of the Devonian sandstone. Lower down, a placename in Welsh catches his eye, Rhëydr y Tair Melltith. He will later learn that the correct translation from the Welsh is closer to ‘Falls of the Three Curses’ or ‘Thrice-Accursed Falls’, though the English placename inserted by the cartographer is an interesting variation on this, Three Devil Falls.

  Borderlands

  NOT LONG AFTER dawn, with the cold soaking rain coming down from clouds that might be no more than a hundred feet above her head, Julia gently closes the front door of Dyffryn Farm. Behind her, the house is full of
sleeping people, family and friends who failed to make it home in the groggy aftermath of her father’s wake. She has in mind to escape for a while, find some space to breathe. At the back of her mind, too, is the thought that she must try to call Donald and explain everything to him. She treads cautiously around the edges of the farmyard puddles to the gate, unlatches it and swings it open. Some old nervous reflex makes her glance back at the cottage to make sure Dai is not there watching her at the upstairs window; but it is her mother who catches her eye instead, raises her hands in a questioning gesture that says, I’m coming with you whether you like it or not. Soon they are side by side in the car, driving half-blind through the rain, Julia pouring out her story as they climb up into the high country above the Clywedog valley.

  ‘So you have two men to worry about now,’ Cath Llewellyn says. There is a glimmer of mischief in her pale blue eyes. ‘Three, if you include poor old Ralph Barnabas.’

  ‘You make it sound as if I should be happy about it,’ Julia says, though it is true that her spirits are lifting as they follow the narrow twisting lane up to the higher pastures that skirt the slopes of the mountains beyond. There is no traffic at all, only birds in the sodden hedgerows flying up on either side as they pass, stray sheep escaped from the fields, a large hawk glimpsed once or twice, soaring in and out of the lower reaches of the cloud.

  ‘I remember a time when your father would have chased all three of them off with his shotgun. It’s still up there on the wall of the barn, though he hardly touches it these days.’

  They both notice the mistake, but say nothing of it. ‘I’m thinking I’ll head back to Oxford early next week,’ Julia says.

  ‘Will Hugh go with you?’

  ‘I haven’t asked him.’ Julia peers out through the rain, concentrates on keeping the car out of the ruts at the edge of the lane as they climb in a series of steep curves up the flank of the hill known as Lan Goch. A question comes to her, something she has never thought to ask. ‘What did you and Dad really think of Hugh when I first brought him to Dyffryn?’