The House of Women

by Alison Taylor

  Peering over his shoulder, Phoebe asked: ‘What’s that?’

  All afternoon, helping with the thankless task of sifting Ned’s artefacts, she had haunted him with memories, relentlessly recreating the dead. The cat, spread along the windowledge, was motionless for long periods, occasionally shifting with the fall of the sun.

  She scanned the cutting. ‘Uncle Ned said his legs would have to come off eventually, so he was collecting stuff about amputations and artificial limbs. Dr Ansoni said he was being morbid, as well as mad.’

  ‘The pathologist didn’t find anything life-threatening,’ Dewi told her.

  ‘That doesn’t mean there never would have been.’

  ‘You’re a real prophet of doom.’

  ‘I’m a realist.’

  ‘Not all the time. I’ll bet you and Ned often had your heads in his Box of Clouds. And talking of boxes, George mentioned a Box of Lies, only I can’t find it. We’ve got five boxes all the same down at the station, and every single one’s full of stuff about the professor.’

  ‘Really?’ Phoebe widened her eyes. ‘How peculiar.’

  ‘You can’t help, then?’

  ‘Maybe it was stolen, like the letters and photos and address book.’

  ‘I’m beginning to wonder if any of it ever existed.’

  ‘Of course it did! Don’t be stupid! And if you’ve got five boxes like the Box of Lies, they must all be full of untruth, mustn’t they?’

  7

  Frowning, Rowlands glanced at Janet’s pasty face. ‘You can go home if you want. Nobody need know.’

  ‘Ms Bradshaw’s got me under surveillance. Anyway, I’m OK.’

  ‘She’s got us all under surveillance.’ He dumped a huge pile of Ned’s papers on her desk. ‘And you look far from OK to me.’

  ‘You know, don’t you?’ Janet asked wearily.

  ‘I’ve seen it all before. Twice, in fact, and we’ve got two kids to prove it.’

  ‘Did your wife have awful stomach ache?’

  ‘She had whatever you care to name, and it was hell on earth for both us in the first three months, then everything simply disappeared, and she felt wonderful.’

  ‘I can’t wait.’

  Glancing at her again, he found her expression as ambiguous as her words. ‘D’you mean you can’t wait to feel better, or you can’t afford to wait to find out if you will?’

  He watched a tear trickle from the corner of her eye and come to rest on her cheek like a bead of dew. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You’re torturing yourself with indecision. Why don’t you make up a balance sheet and see how it works out?’

  ‘My father’s reaction would obliterate any credits.’

  ‘He’s not the one having a baby, and you won’t get through this by any rules except your own.’ He put another pile of papers on his own desk. ‘And if you’re not making your own rules yet, this is the time to start.’

  ‘You don’t know my father!’

  ‘Don’t prejudge, Janet. He might be thrilled once the shock wears off.’ Lighting a cigarette, he added: ‘Bradshaw’s prejudging, and it’s going to cost.’

  ‘Refusing to bail Polgreen isn’t unreasonable.’

  ‘Refusing to ask Iolo Williams why Ned collected reams of paper about him is, though.’

  ‘Not necessarily. He might’ve been Ned’s secret hero.’

  ‘I’d credit Ned with better judgement. Williams is hardly the stuff heroes are cast from. He’s a weasel sort and his wife’s a harpy, and I still want to know where his money comes from.’

  *

  As soon as Diana Bradshaw went home, Janet followed suit, leaving Rowlands alone in the deserted offices. The smell of paint grew rancid about him and a mug of coffee cooled at his elbow as he fiddled with the computer controls, trying to reduce the glare of the bright green images flickering on the screen and searching for the secrets which riddled the machine’s guts.

  By his own account, George despised secrets, knowing they would sooner or later break through the weight of time and deception like weeds through concrete. Pausing with his finger on the scroll lock button, Rowlands thought of the huge and handsome black man, still incarcerated in the bridewell, and, inconsequentially, of Janet, who, during the morning’s interview with George had shivered now and then, her sensitivities, heightened by pregnancy, perhaps reacting of their own accord to the man’s exotic atmosphere. In other words, he thought, releasing the scroll lock, she had the hots for him, like Mina Harris, and as data skipped from bottom to top of the screen, he wondered if Solange ever dreamed of those fine black hands and scarred wrists charting her body, then shivered himself as the image of her in lust with her pot-bellied spouse sprang to mind.

  Iolo Williams had no record of any delinquency attached to his own name, but accessing the file reference which flanked his address, Rowlands discovered that a Mrs Margaret Williams was twice convicted of theft many years before, and escaped a custodial sentence because her mental equilibrium had fallen foul of her hormones. Her last known whereabouts were on one of the city’s council estates.

  8

  McKenna felt unable to leave Llys Ifor without saying farewell to Gertrude. She was like the ghost at a banquet, an unresolved mystery who would remain a fixed point in the existence of all who knew her.

  Gladys solved the dilemma for him. ‘Mr McKenna’s got to go now. He’s a long drive ahead of him.’ Her sister snuffled, head sunk in her chest. Then, holding out her hand, Gladys said: ‘It was kind of you to come, and I hope you’ll let George go soon. I know he wouldn’t hurt Ned.’ Her palms and fingers were calloused with toil, the skin on the back of her hands freckled with liver spots. ‘Will you give him my regards? Tell him to come and see us when he can.’

  Annie took him back through the kitchen. ‘It’ll be dark soon,’ she commented, looking at the sky to the east, dusky with impending twilight. ‘If Mama’s still attached to the floor, I might stay here overnight.’

  ‘We need to search your mother’s house for Ned’s missing things, but I’d be grateful if you don’t alert her yet.’

  ‘Not tonight, surely?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘That’s another day, and anything could happen. All your questions could be answered by a stroke of magic.’

  ‘I doubt that.’

  She fell silent, looking up at the sky, then at him. ‘Could you do me a favour? I’m not taking advantage of knowing you, but I’ve got a problem and it won’t go away. At the moment, it’s a little one, but I’m afraid it’s getting bigger.’

  ‘I can’t promise, but I’ll try. What is it?’

  ‘The car.’ She nodded towards the vehicle, gleaming beside the other dark beast of a machine. ‘I bought it last November, and in March, 1 received a fixed penalty notice about a parking offence in Shrewsbury. I haven’t been to Shrewsbury in years, so I filled in the form which came with the notice, and sent it back. Then another one came, about the same offence, so I added a letter, and last week, I had a final notice. I rang Shrewsbury police, but they say I’m the last registered owner, and therefore liable.’

  ‘I’ll see what we can do.’

  As he walked towards the car, Annie a few paces behind, Bethan came around the corner of the house, Meirion beside her, and began to run towards her mother, curls flopping. One of the dogs shot past his master in a flurry of black and white, and collided with the child, knocking her to the ground. She lay there, stunned, a little heap of flesh and bone in bright summer clothes, and McKenna ran towards her, gathering her in his arms. She sobbed briefly, rubbed her eyes with her fists, then smiled at him, and wrapped her arms around his neck. As he carried her to Annie, her hair like gossamer against his cheek, her sun-warmed flesh against his, he realized he had never before held a child, and felt such a pain pierce his heart he needed to cling to her, for the comfort she brought, as Phoebe clung to her fat tabby cat.

  *

  Hesperus, the evening star, hung between the mountains
like a guiding light. Save for the odd farm vehicle, the road was almost deserted, and, where the old railway viaduct marched in silhouette over the horizon to one side, and the bulk of Arenig Fach cast a massive shadow to the left, McKenna glimpsed a tiny shape pacing ahead like a piece of landscape on the move. Drawing near, he saw the shape for an old man, clad in shirt and britches, tumbledown boots on his feet, his skin like tanned leather, an empty fertilizer sack tied around his middle, and a knapsack bouncing between his shoulder blades. He stopped the car, dust and stones spinning from the rear wheels, and reversed. ‘Can I give you a lift? We’re a long way from civilization.’

  The man halted his trudging, a little smile tweaking at lips bedded in stubble. He leaned on the car door, the smell of tobacco and sackcloth strong about him, and laughed at the transformation of McKenna’s face as recognition came.

  ‘Robin Ddu!’

  ‘Not quite so black as last time we met,’ the old man said. ‘I get a good scrub now and then at the mansion farm near Bronaber. I’ve been working there the past few weeks.’

  ‘Where have you been today?’ McKenna asked, pushing open the passenger door.

  ‘The same place you just came from, most probably,’ Robin dropped heavily on the seat. ‘I stayed last night at Martha’s, then went on this morning to pay my respects to Ned’s folk.’ He eased off one of the boots, exposing a wash-worn sock. ‘You and your fancy car are welcome to me. I’ve got a blister on my heel from this terrible heat and my new socks.’

  ‘And what have you been up to since I saw you last?’

  ‘This and that. Here and there.’

  ‘Where did you spend the winter?’

  ‘The usual places.’

  Resting almost on the horizon, the sun cast his face into sharp relief, reddening the weathered cheeks. He was a large man, bony and ill-proportioned, with rawboned hands strong enough to wring the life from a sickly lamb or a dog gone bad. His scalp was fluffy with wispy grey hair, his eyebrows bleached by the sun, and his eyes that clear, far-seeing blue, peculiar to the true Celt.

  ‘Martha’s offered me a roof this year,’ he added. ‘If she’s not dead by then.’

  ‘The one they call Martha’r Mynydd?’ McKenna asked.

  ‘She’s the only Martha in these parts. D’you know her?’

  ‘I’d never heard of her until today. Annie Harris told me about the Ingrams.’

  ‘She’s a bonny young woman, isn’t she? And the little one’s as pretty as a picture.’ Robin smiled, exposing raw pink gums. ‘More than even God Himself could say for Martha. Poor soul! She’s been so sick they took her to the hospital in Bangor for a couple of nights.’

  ‘What was wrong with her?’

  Rummaging in the knapsack between his feet, Robin pulled out a dog-eared book and waved it under McKenna’s nose. ‘Ned gave me this last time we met. It tells how the English found us in centuries past.’ He turned the pages slowly, one expression after another beguiling his face, and, his words in counterpoint to the whining slipstream, said: ‘They reckoned the country was the fag end of Creation, the animals were the rubbish from Noah’s Ark, and what passed for houses nothing more than nasty hovels dripping with damp, where the farmer, his family, his servants, and his animals all lived together, and they were all such brutes you couldn’t tell one from the other.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with Martha?’

  ‘She still lives like that, only it’s just her and the animals. She caught something off one of them, and it made a huge cyst on her neck, and when it burst, she said the room was almost flooded, then this huge tapeworm crawled out and slithered down her body and away through the bloody stuff from her neck.’

  ‘For God’s sake!’ The car swerved, rocking wildly for a moment.

  ‘It’s true,’ Robin insisted. ‘You ask the nurse who does for Gertrude Jones if you don’t believe me.’

  McKenna thought of the ignorance on which Annie blamed Gertrude’s tragedy, and, glancing at the man beside him, whose age he could not even remember, of others brutalized by that ignorance.

  ‘Martha’s been very miserable since she came back from the hospital,’ Robin went on. ‘She had some turkeys in the barn, ready for Christmas, only a fox got in and killed all but three. Then the next night, there was a great wind, and the barn roof caved in and finished off the rest, like God smashing His fist on her. She wants me to go back before the weather turns to make the hole good.’

  ‘Did she know Ned?’

  ‘She knows the whole family, and she said the friend he brought back from college stuck out like a sore thumb.’

  ‘That was over thirty years ago,’ McKenna said.

  ‘So? He was a foreigner, so he stuck in the mind. Folk like to remember some things, as when Ned won at the Eisteddfod. They were all very proud.’ He smiled the toothless smile again. ‘Robbed you of your glory, didn’t he?’

  ‘Is there anyone in Christendom who hasn’t heard that story?’

  ‘Probably not. It’s a good story, and you’ll be remembered for it.’ He rubbed the blister on his heel. ‘So let’s hope it’s not spoilt by folk saying you didn’t have the brains to find out who killed him. Gladys tells me the young man you locked up isn’t the right one.’

  ‘No, I don’t think he is, but we had no choice.’

  ‘We’ve always got a choice.’

  ‘You choose to live like this, do you? Never knowing where your next crust’s coming from, never knowing if you’ll have shelter of a night?’

  ‘I had the choice to slave for another man’s profit, or be where I am, beholden to nobody.’ His right hand still holding the old book full of English spite, Robin waved his left airily about him. ‘Look around you, man! It’s a sight to break your heart! Is it any wonder I chose to walk the roads?’ He grinned, gums raw in the cavernous mouth. ‘I’d be a gyppo if I could afford the pony and caravan.’

  ‘You’re nuts,’ McKenna said equably. ‘You always were. So’s Martha, by the sounds of it. You’ve probably been drinking water from Trawsfynydd Lake.’ Reaching the bottom of the pass, he slowed the car. ‘I’m going to Porthmadog. Where are you heading?’

  ‘The farm at Bronaber.’

  ‘I’ll drop you off, then. It’s not far.’

  ‘No need. You’ve already saved me three hours or more.’ Leaning down, seat-belt cutting across his chest, he put the boot back on his blistered foot, and methodically tied the laces, breath wheezing. ‘Stop where the road forks, and we’ll part company for the time being.’ The boot laced, he sat up, and grinned again. ‘I dare say I’ll call on you one way or another when I’m next in Bangor.’

  ‘We’ll always give you a bed, if you’re desperate. You don’t need to smash up the town to get inside the police station.’

  ‘That was the last time I saw Ned, you know,’ Robin said. ‘When you locked me up for the night.’

  ‘Did you ever write to him?’

  ‘I’m not one for having my thoughts on paper for others to know about. Gladys kept me up to date.’

  ‘How long have you known them?’

  He shrugged. ‘Who keeps tally? I’ve helped out since their father passed on. I can strip a sheep of its fleece faster than anyone this side of the mountains.’

  McKenna stopped the car, wheels cutting deep wounds in the grass verge. Reluctant to abandon his passenger, he asked: ‘Have you any cash to tide you over?’

  Robin patted the pockets in his britches, and McKenna heard the jingle of coins. ‘I get a wage at the farm, and I’ve no outgoings like the rest of the world.’ He clambered out of the car, and reached in for his knapsack. ‘I’ll be fine. This is my land, isn’t it? I know it better than the backs of my hands.’ He shut the car door, hefted the knapsack on his back, then leaned over, gazing at McKenna. ‘Next time you see young Annie, tell her about the Ingrams, will you? I forgot earlier. We were too busy with Ned.’

  ‘Tell her what?’

  Robin looked towards the horizon, where the se
a glimmered like molten metal between the fall of land. ‘I slept in Martha’s barn, under the stars I could see through the hole in the roof, because folk wouldn’t think it seemly for us to share the house, even at our age.’ He put up his hand, shielding his eyes from the setting sun. ‘And nobody knows where the tapeworm went, do they? Anyway, very late last night, I heard noises from the house, so I went to look. There were shapes flitting back and forth behind her curtains, and a man talking in a deep voice, and a girl laughing, and Martha joining in with the fun. So there you are. You never know, do you?’

  9

  Still dressed in the clothes he wore the night before, George was stretched out on his bunk, staring at the ceiling with his hands laced behind his head. A book lay spine up in his lap, and an empty plastic mug had toppled over on the floor. When Dewi opened the cell door, he turned his head slowly. ‘As I’ll be here at least one more night, d’you think I could have a shower and change of gear?’

  ‘The duty officer’s on his way.’ Dewi leaned against the wall, imagining the black man like a caged panther. ‘You should’ve been released. It’s as plain as a pikestaff somebody fitted you up.’

  ‘Not according to the lady bwana. She’s explained how she worked out my elaborate plot to kill Ned by remote control, so I can steal his work.’

  ‘She doesn’t really believe that, does she?’

  George put the book on the floor, then sat up. ‘She’s managed to convince a magistrate.’

  ‘But you were in London.’

  ‘Who says? Me? My parents?’ He smiled bitterly. ‘Get real, Dewi! Nobody believes people like us, unless we’re confessing to crimes.’

  ‘Other people would’ve seen you.’

  ‘Yes, and if I could remember where I went and when, your mates in London would know who to ask, but I can’t.’

  ‘Edith said you hadn’t been to the house for weeks.’

  ‘She goes out, doesn’t she? She can’t know for sure.’