by Rosie Thomas
On the first morning of his visit, they walked slowly away from the old schoolhouse and down the village street. Everyone they passed waved at them, or called a greeting.
‘You really do know everyone,’ Jamie said. ‘Don’t you find it rather claustrophobic?’
‘I used to.’
‘It’s so small,’ he went on, looking around him. It was true. Jamie looked almost as tall as the little houses. ‘I’d imagined something bigger, and less … grey.’
More like a Cotswold show-village, Angharad thought, with a quiet, bitter defensiveness that surprised her. Jamie seemed only to see the narrowness, and feel the weight of parochial inquisitiveness. He hadn’t taken in the grandeur of the humped mountain, and the contrast of the snug village huddled against its protective sweep, or the way that the afternoon light from the west turned the slate and stone from grey to lavender. Nor had he seemed to taste the exotic sweetness of the milky air.
‘It’s only because you’ve never talked to me about it,’ he said gently, after they had walked the length of the street in silence. He was looking sideways at her, searching for Anne in this thin, simply-dressed girl, younger-looking now than her years. This wasn’t Anne, nor was it the strange, untamed girl who had appeared in Duff’s so long ago. This woman was anxious, but there was a soft, diffuse glow of calm happiness underlying the anxiety. Jamie thought that he had never seen her look so beautiful, or so desirable in her remoteness from him.
‘That’s it. You’ve seen it all,’ Angharad said as they stood under the old oak at the end of the street. Jamie put his hand under her elbow and turned her to face him. The street was deserted and so, to him, they were alone. He lifted her chin and kissed her mouth.
Angharad knew that behind the lace and net curtains they were being watched. As Jamie’s lips touched hers she knew someone was saying, ‘Aaah. Now, isn’t that nice?’
Jamie felt that her mouth was stiff, and her skin smooth, but cold. He dropped his hands at once.
‘Shall we,’ he asked smoothly, ‘go up to the pub and have a drink and a sandwich before I take William on this trip to the seaside?’
Angharad was hoping that they might be able to discuss her schemes for the restaurant over lunch. The builder had been encouraging. The old school was sound, and almost ideally laid out. The kitchen would have to be equipped, and the dining-room decorated and furnished. But the obstacles in her immediate path were much less daunting than she had feared.
But when they reached the bar, they found only a handful of people there. Everyone stopped talking when they came in and waited, expectantly. Angharad introduced Jamie. He was a good talker. He asked all the right questions about the village, and within minutes he was the centre of the group while she listened, and watched him. Was she the only one who detected a flicker of cynicism in him? She despised herself for the thought, but it refused to go away.
‘They all liked you,’ she told him on their way home again.
‘I wanted them to, because of you. But I could only understand about half of what they were saying. Rather difficult!’ She knew what he meant, and she understood. But it was the wrong answer, setting them both apart from the friendly, beery faces in the bar, and it irked her.
Jamie, she thought. I don’t want Cefn to come between us. Then, with a chill shiver, she answered herself. Perhaps it always has been there, between us. Perhaps it’s always been too late for Jamie and me, right from the beginning. Then they saw William bursting out of the house and racing towards them. Jamie ran too, caught him by the wrists and swung him round until his black hair stood out like a mop and he begged, gasping and laughing, to be put down again.
Angharad was struck by the way that Jamie clung on to him for a second longer, his cheek against the black hair and his arms wrapped around the lithe, wriggling little body. She had seen it in their reunion the day before, a physical expression of how much Jamie had missed the boy, no more than a fleeting shadow, but there just the same. She stood a little apart in the sunshine, watching them romping together.
Jamie had never been possessive of her son. He had never tried to dictate to her about his upbringing. He had simply loved him, and herself, with the same generosity.
Angharad felt confusion, apprehension and fear rising inside her, and the spring sunshine turned suddenly cold.
William was pulling at Jamie’s hands. ‘Come on, it must be time to go to the funfair now. I can’t wait any longer.’
‘Okay, I’m coming. I’ll need my arms in one piece though.’
‘Can we go on everything?’
‘Oh, of course. The big dipper and the dodgems and the waltzers and the big wheel and the chairplanes …’
‘And the slot machines and the shooting gallery? Have you got plenty of money?’
‘Me? No. I thought we might break open your piggy bank.’
‘Oh Jamie, that’s not fair …’
‘’Bye, both of you. Have a good time. Don’t make yourselves sick.’
‘Won’t you come?’ Jamie asked quietly, and she hesitated. They would be like a family again, enjoying the seaside funfair, and they would come home tired and giddy, and sticky with candyfloss. But she had promised to see the builder, and Jessie, and she shook her head regretfully.
‘Hurreeee up,’ William was clamouring from the Porsche. Jamie touched her cheek. ‘We’ll have a proper talk about your idea tonight.’
It was a gesture of conciliation, and she smiled, gratefully. Then she kissed him, and for the moment she had forgotten whoever might be watching them.
The afternoon was busy.
The builder came armed with his estimates, laughably modest after London prices. With Jessie beside her, she went through the catalogues of Liverpool catering suppliers, pricing the ovens and sinks and equipment they would need. It would be the bare minimum, but that would be pleasing in itself after the complex machine that was Le Gallois.
Already in her mind’s eye Angharad knew how she wanted the little dining-room to look. The main schoolroom had exposed rafters and triangular beams supporting the high roof. When it was decorated it would be a cool, white space arching over the half-dozen tables. The solid slabs of slate that made up the floor would be polished, until they shone, and the tall windows all round the room would be curtained with thick folds to swallow the noise and make the night-time room enclosed and intimate. There would be candlelight, and flowers, and at the end of the room she would have the old stove removed and replaced with an open fireplace. Instead of a bar, she would have low sofas grouped around the fire.
Jessie was as elated by the idea as Angharad herself. The suggestions she made showed that she was inventive, as well as practical. By tea-time, they had arrived at a round figure for the investment that Angharad would have to make before her schoolhouse restaurant could earn a single penny.
To Jessie it seemed enormous. She leant back in her chair, looked around Gwyn’s dusty old studio, and whistled. ‘It’s a fortune.’
Angharad smiled. Compared with the sums of money tied up in Duff’s and Le Gallois, it was modest enough. Since becoming Jamie’s partner, her share of their profits had accumulated substantially. She had almost enough capital and the rest she was certain she could borrow.
‘I think I can manage the money.’
Jessie’s ginger eyebrows went up an inch. ‘The village is right, then. You have done well for yourself. One more question.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Who’s going to eat at this beautiful restaurant?’
‘A very good question. It will be Jamie’s first one. Look.’
It had helped Angharad, over the last few days, to think about something that wasn’t the pain in her father’s face, and didn’t pull at the chords of memory that drew her back over the hills to Llyn Fair and Harry.
Through a childhood acquaintance she had obtained from the local council a highly unofficial and surprisingly lengthy list of holiday and weekend cottages in the area. After some v
igorous telephoning she had compiled her own list too. On it was the new squash club down at the coast, the Rotarians and drama societies, young farmers’ clubs and preservation societies, and dozens more.
‘We must make sure that all these people know about us. All of them. We’ll have a pretty card designed and printed to send out to them. And we’ll have an opening day – no, week – with different parties for all the right people. That’s where we win out by being local, you see. We know who they are. Once everyone has been once, we can depend on word of mouth …’
‘It’s going to be that good?’
‘Yes,’ Angharad said quietly. ‘I think we can make it that good.’ Quickly, because she didn’t want to seem cocksure, she went on, ‘I think we can hope for local press coverage right away. And it will take longer, but the food guides should visit us too. A country Le Gallois will be interesting enough. I think – no, I’m sure – we can fill the place almost from the start.’ And as she looked round the room her face was lit by conviction that made Jessie smile admiringly.
‘Yes. Fingers crossed we can convince your partner, then.’ Almost as she spoke they heard the throb of the Porsche outside.
There was a second’s silence and then William was shouting, relating the afternoon’s delights before he was even in the house.
‘We went on everything, even the really scary things. You never would’ve, Mum. There was one thing called the Mad Mouse that went on high rails that stuck out right over the sea. Look!’ He was brandishing a helium-filled balloon and a coconut and a lime-green nylon fur snake. ‘And look!’ In the other hand, a goldfish circling desperately in a bulging polythene bag.
‘Oh no.’
‘It was that or a tortoise.’ Jamie tottered into the room and sank into a chair. ‘My stomach. My head.’
‘It wasn’t. You’re fibbing. You didn’t score enough points to get a tortoise.’
‘Deliberately. Don’t you know I’m really a crack shot? Some tea, for God’s sake, before I pass out. William won’t be needing anything until the day after tomorrow. He ate enough fish and chips and horrible sticky things for five people.’
‘Cake, please, Mum. I’d like a piece of cake.’
Angharad bent her head over the teacups to hide her face. The two of them were so happy together, and so important to each other. How could she even let her thoughts run on in the direction they had been taking?
Jessie went away to attend to her own children. In the doorway she touched Angharad’s sleeve. ‘Good luck.’ They smiled at each other. It had suddenly become very important to have Jessie on her side.
Alone together, Angharad and Jamie and William went through the supper and bedtime routines that were accepted rituals at home in their Chelsea house. William fell asleep almost as soon as they had kissed him goodnight, his hair very black against the white pillow.
Jamie said, ‘I’m going to have a bath. That funfair was unbelievably grimy. Then we can have a drink and talk.’
She nodded, faintly apprehensive. She wanted his support, and his approval, and knew that she didn’t have the right to ask for it.
Jamie went and she watched him go, thinking how well she knew him. He hated baths. What he really wanted was a shower in the spacious, luxurious bathroom adjoining their bedroom at home. He was too big for Gwyn’s cramped, turquoise-tiled bathroom and he had to bend uncomfortably to see himself in the tiny square of mirror over the basin. The little room was underheated and glistened with condensation, and there was no room for him to put his things.
Angharad was oblivious of the discomfort on her own behalf, and to William, it was all a huge adventure. But Jamie minded, and she saw it as another manifestation of the way he didn’t fit in at Cefn.
She sighed and went back into the kitchen. It was all, all the knot of problems confronting her now, an impossible conundrum.
At least, she reminded herself wryly, there was a fine dinner and a decent bottle of wine waiting for Jamie when he emerged from his bath, and a bottle of Glenmorangie for afterwards. Perhaps that would help him to look on Cefn and the schoolhouse a little more kindly.
At last they were sitting with their chairs drawn up to the pot-bellied stove. The evening was cold so Angharad had lit it, and now the coke glowed comfortably in the open throat.
‘Right,’ Jamie said. ‘Let’s hear it.’
She recognized his businesslike manner, and knew that he would give her proposal his full, formidable attention.
Crisply she took him through her plans and estimates. She outlined the menus she planned to offer, the staff she needed to help her, the cost of decor and furnishings. Forestalling him, she spread out her lists of customer targets and went through them carefully.
She knew that she was right. Even in the time she had been away, the overspill from the big towns over the border had crept closer to Cefn. There were enough prosperous immigrants to fill the restaurant regularly. She wouldn’t, and couldn’t, rely on special-occasion local trade.
Angharad talked for nearly an hour.
At the end Jamie nodded, but his face didn’t clear.
‘All right. It makes commercial sense. You can almost certainly make a go of it. It will mean very hard work for you.’
‘I don’t mind that. You know I don’t.’
‘Two things, then. One of them is purely business. Are you proposing that Duff & Co. make this investment? Or are you doing it alone?’
His sharp blue eyes met and held hers.
‘I want to make the investment myself.’
It might have been imagination. But did she see disappointment in his eyes? ‘I see. Well, setting aside the fact that your plan deprives the company – our company – of the best chef it has …’
‘Jamie, you know that I don’t cook any more. I just sign cheques and solve problems.’
But he ignored that, as she had known he would. ‘Setting that aside, we come to the second thing. Where does it leave us? You and me, Anne, not Duff & Co.’
She looked away from him, and into the red heart of the stove. It was so bright and hot that it hurt her eyes. Until this moment, she had had no idea how she would answer. Now she found herself talking, talking.
‘It’s only the summer season. April to October, at most. Perhaps a fortnight over Christmas and the New Year. The rest of the time we can be in London, just like always. And perhaps you can come up here, on and off through the summer, just like now.’ Perhaps, she supplied for him. Or perhaps not. Cefn and its environs wouldn’t contain Jamie for long, even if he tried it to please her. ‘I want to do it, Jamie. It’s important. Le Gallois is stifling me. And I want to be here, for Dad’s sake. I can’t leave him again. Or Aunty Gwyn. She’s old and frail too. You saw it yourself.’
Jamie’s gaze was cool now. ‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘But what if your father dies even before you get the place open?’
Angharad’s head was bent. ‘I’ve thought of that. Even if … that does happen, I’ll still want to do it. He would like it. And it would help me to grieve for him. Being here, in the place and with the people he chose. I don’t know how I’d do that in London. Anyway,’ with a defiant lift of her chin again, ‘I don’t think he will. He isn’t ready yet. If you had seen him with William, I think you would understand.’
Jamie was driven back on to his final defences.
‘What about William, then? How can you uproot him from his home and friends and school, and then plonk him down here for half the year?’
And now, she thought, the battle lines are drawn. Jamie, I didn’t want it to come to this.
As gently as she could, she said, ‘This is his home. Here, where his family belongs. Don’t you remember, when you came to see me in the hospital with his teddy and the red roses? “Think about going home,” you said. “Back to your own people.” Now I have thought about it. And I have come.’
‘His schooling, then?’
‘He can go with Teck Williams to the local school.’
; ‘Oh Anne, for God’s sake …’ He was angry now, and her own anger flared up to match his.
‘Don’t be such a snob. I went there for seven years. And won a scholarship at the end of it.’
‘You’re exceptional, Anne.’
‘Isn’t William?’
They were staring at each other, with more hostility than she could have believed possible between herself and Jamie. Then, just as suddenly, he was looking away, picking at an invisible thread on his knee.
‘Yes. You’re both exceptional.’
At once her anger melted and she went to him, putting her arms around him and laying her forefinger against the cleft in his chin. She knew that he loved them both, and she ached at the way she was repaying his love and loyalty. She loved him too, in a certain way, yet in her heart she knew that that certain way wasn’t enough.
Later, after their melancholy dinner together and the clearing away in the inconvenient kitchen, they lay together in the hollow of Gwyn’s brass bed. Angharad’s body was taut as a wire with the day’s tension. Beside her, she was vividly aware that Jamie was awake, silently suffering the sagging bed and restricting blankets that would slide away as soon as he fell asleep. At last, he turned and put his arms around her. His mouth found her ear, her cheek and then her lips.
‘Anne,’ he whispered. ‘Come back.’
Not just to London. Come back much further, from wherever she had retreated. His hands moved over her body and she responded, thinking again, How familiar. How safe. And yet, how far away from touching her, or from making her cry silently for him as she did now, ‘I love you. Oh, I love you. Where are you? How can I bear to be without you for so long?’
In the grateful darkness tears stung her eyes, and instead of the room she saw the lines of Harry’s face, the light and the shadow in it and the command that she couldn’t refuse, however much she wanted to deny it and to submerge herself in the simple affection that surrounded her now.