‘All right. I’ll tell you. I’m afraid. For Beth and for me.’
He listened without interrupting, once leaning forward to take the wine bottle from its bucket of ice to refill her glass, then sitting back in his chair, his whole body relaxed. Behind his dark glasses his eyes were an enigma.
When she had finished he said nothing for a moment, then slowly he sat up and leaned forward, his elbows on the wooden table.
‘Did you ever go to a priest for advice?’
She shook her head. ‘That’s not Adam’s way. And it’s not mine.’
‘And your friend, Meryn?’
‘I don’t know where he is.’ She hesitated. ‘Do you believe me?’
‘Why should I not? I am old enough to have seen many strange things in my life. After all,’ his face broke into a smile, ‘my beautiful Liza has come back to me.’
‘Flatterer.’
He acknowledged the remark with a slight nod of his head. Then he leaned forward again. ‘I am intrigued by this. In some ways it is a lovely story. A young girl, driven by love, pursues a man through the years. It shows a depth of devotion we might all envy.’
‘It shows madness, Michele. Single-minded, obsessive madness.’ Liza’s voice was sharp. ‘Do you know how many people she has killed?’
He shrugged. ‘Ah, I did not say she was not dangerous.’ He paused thoughtfully. ‘How do you know she will not follow you to Italy?’
‘I don’t. I am hoping she won’t.’
‘And you still have not told Beth why the cat attacked her?’
‘No. I don’t want to frighten her. I was eighteen when Brid first attacked me, Michele. I can’t believe it! She has hunted me for nearly half a century!’
‘But she has not killed you. For some reason she has let you live, or you are protected and she cannot harm you. Which?’ He removed his glasses and fixed her with a piercing stare. ‘We must work this out. It is important. Do you still love Adam?’ He kept his voice carefully neutral.
She smiled. ‘In a way, I will always love him. Yes.’
‘But not enough to live with him?’
‘No. We are very different people. We could never live together.’
‘I wonder if that is it, then. She knows you are no threat. On the other hand she killed, you think, your husband as well as your daughter. That was to punish you? There could have been no other reason?’
‘No.’ She looked away to hide her sudden tears.
‘Liza.’ He put his hand on hers gently.
‘I know. I’m sorry.’ She sniffed. ‘Will you give me some more wine?’ She held out her glass with a shaky hand. ‘So, you do believe me?’
‘I told you so.’
‘And are we safe here?’
There was a pause. ‘I believe so. After all, why would she pursue you when she has her Adam all to herself now? Surely that is all she wanted.’ He was silent for a long time, then slowly he drew her to him. ‘Liza. I think the time has come for us to get married.’
For a moment she tensed, then slowly she relaxed. She looked up, the tears still in her eyes. ‘Do you mean it?’
His arms tightened round her. ‘I mean it, carissima. I have never meant anything more in my whole life.’
She gave a little sigh. ‘I would feel safe here.’
‘You would be safe.’ He held her at arm’s length and smiled. ‘I wouldn’t stifle you, Liza. I wouldn’t stop you painting. All I have to offer is adoration. Think about it at least, please?’
A-dam?
Her voice was growing weak.
A-dam?
Endlessly she searched the rooms, but they were empty. The furniture had gone. Only dust remained on the floors. Silently drifting up the stairs she wandered from room to room yet again. The room she had shared with Adam, the room he had shared with his wife, the boy’s room, even that was empty, the walls stripped of posters and pictures and books.
A-dam? I need you.
Her strength was going without Adam to sustain her. Soon she would have to return to the mountains where her sleeping body lay, captive in another time. There was no link now, no means of searching for him. No energy to do anything beyond roaming endlessly round the empty house in St Albans where the new season’s roses were hanging unpruned and uncared for on the spindly bushes. Soon the new owners would move in. They planned extensive renovations. They were going to knock walls through, change window frames, turn the garage into a playroom, put a conversion in the attic. They were going to take a bulldozer to the garden, put in a pond, take out the old pear tree and the roses. They did not care that two women had died in the house. They were not superstitious; it did not cross their minds that there might be ghosts.
Brid watched them from the window as they walked around the garden discussing in loud voices what they would do to A-dam’s beloved flower beds. If they saw the cat lurking in the shrubs it did not worry them. A good sprinkling of pepper dust would soon see it off.
So, Brid, are you awake?
Broichan’s voice came to her from the distance, muffled as if with sea mist. It is time to come back to us, Brid. Your time for travelling is over. See, I have your brother here waiting for you.
‘Gartnait?’ She opened her eyes. ‘Gartnait, are you here too?’
Where was she? The pavement was wet and cold. Someone was standing over her. ‘It’s one of those hippies. Drugged, I wouldn’t wonder.’ The woman in a plastic raincoat, with a shopping trolley on wheels, sniffed and passed her by. The next person threw a few pennies at her, which rattled onto the paving and lay scattered round her in a semi-circle. She was crying now.
‘Gartnait?’
‘What did she say? Foreign, I shouldn’t wonder. Better fetch the police.’
They came, they went away. No one did anything. As it grew cold and dark she huddled smaller into the shadows, praying for her cat self to come so she could hide and hunt and curl up somewhere in the shelter.
Brid, there is no point in hiding any more. Come back.
She could feel him tugging at her. The chain around her ankle bit tightly and she moaned with fear. Adam would save her if he knew. Where was he? Why had he left his house? Why had it all changed?
Brid, you disobeyed the rules of the priesthood. You disobeyed the gods. They are angry, Brid. You were too clever. You used their gifts for your own lust. You must go before them and atone.
Stand up. Move, get away from these people. She knew what interfering people did. They took you to a mental hospital, where you were locked up and made to wear silly clothes and eat horrible food. They kept you where you could not see the sun or the moon; where you could not wash your limbs in the soft brown waters of a mountain stream, or the hot steaming baths of A-dam’s house. Instead you were kept like a slave. She could feel the chain now. Broichan’s chain, around her ankle, holding her, stopping her from fleeing. When she went back to her bed in his hall she would die by his hand, a sacrifice to the gods who were affronted by her behaviour. There was nowhere for her to go. No one to look after her. She had to stand up. She had to move.
She wasn’t sure how she reached the orchard. One moment she was in the wet St Albans street, the next she was standing leaning against the old lichen-covered gate, her fingers stiff with cold as they rested on the top rail. The farmhouse was in darkness. She frowned. Her green gown was wet and thin. She was shivering violently. Closing her eyes for a second she tried to imagine herself inside the warm sleek cat skin, feel herself looking out of narrowed feline eyes, listening with acute, sharp, pointed ears. Her fingers flexed on the gate and tried to become claws, but nothing happened. A splinter of old wood ran up under her nail and startled by the pain she looked down to see a spot of blood stain the pale lichen. She pulled off some moss and packed it round her finger, then she walked slowly towards the house.
Carefully she walked all round it, peering in at the windows. Already she knew there was no one at home. There were two cars in the garage but it was padlocked shut. She did not sense they we
re near. Certainly A-dam was not there. Nor had he been.
Huddling into one of the old barns, she pulled a sack around her shoulders and sat down to listen to the rain on the roof slates. Broichan could not reach her here. Neither could the interfering people of St Albans who wanted to take her somewhere and give her soup. Here she could rest until morning, then she would begin her search. Somehow she would find her A-dam again, if it took her all eternity.
PART FOUR
Beth Early
1990s
19
Robert Cassie sat back and stared round The Granary with immense satisfaction. He had just consumed his third cup of coffee and his second slice of delicious carrot cake and he was fairly sure he had won. He brought his attention back to Beth with a smile. ‘You know it is not every illustrator I would drive a hundred and fifty miles to see.’
‘I know.’ She smiled back. ‘But then it is not every illustrator you would dare put such a proposition to. You know Giles and I do not get on.’
‘But you are a winning team.’ Their book, The Magic of the Black Mountains, had sold 30,000 copies in hardback and reprinted three times within the first three months. Getting them to finish it had been a triumph for Robert’s diplomatic powers, which were considerable but had never before or since been tested to such limits.
‘Listen, Robert, I said I would think about it, and I will. You are offering me a lot of money.’ She allowed her eye to stray for a moment down to the file of papers lying on the red-patterned oil cloth which covered the round table between them. The working title These are My Mountains: the Beauty and Mystery of the Scottish Highlands was printed in black italics across the cover. Somehow seeing it like that made it seem a fait accompli – a psychological ploy for which she gave him full marks for effort.
The door opened and three hikers came in, their faces reddened by the wind, their boots grating on the flagstones. They stood before the blackboard menu rubbing their hands and blowing on them, comforted and cheered by the warmth and the smell of cooking.
‘Does Giles know you are asking me to do the illustrations?’ She looked at Robert quizzically.
‘Of course. He knows you are essential. Without your pictures the book wouldn’t work. Giles needs the money, Beth. He is desperate to do it.’ He looked at her under beetling eyebrows and grimaced. ‘I shouldn’t tell you that, but I think you should take it into account before you turn the whole thing down out of hand.’ He was fairly sure she wasn’t going to turn it down, but he couldn’t count completely on her agreement until she had signed something. Perhaps it was time to change the subject. ‘Tell me, how is the gorgeous countess?’
Beth giggled. ‘She doesn’t like being called that at all. She is very left wing, my grandmother.’
‘She must miss Wales.’
‘Of course she does. She found it very hard to sell the farm. In fact I don’t think she would have if she hadn’t been able to buy Meryn’s cottage for me. She knows she can come any time. And they do in the summer. When it gets too hot for her over there and she longs for a bit of mist and Welsh rain.’
‘And she must miss you, too.’
Beth gave a wistful little shrug. ‘Of course. But I visit often. And she and I are working girls. She goes and paints people all over the world still, and I have my moments!’
‘Like this one, when a London publisher comes and grovels at your feet and sparing no expense, takes you out for carrot cake and coffee.’
‘Were you shocked I wouldn’t come to London?’
He grinned. ‘Shocked but not surprised. You’re playing hard to get.’ His grin broadened. ‘I know you and Giles have problems. And I do know you hate coming to London. You’re a country girl through and through, aren’t you?’
‘I am. And I’m a Welsh girl, Robert. I know nothing about the Scottish mountains.’
‘You could learn. And you may have been brought up in Wales, but one of your grandfathers was a Scot, wasn’t he? Wouldn’t you like to find out about your ancestors on your father’s side of the family? And you would love the mountains up there. I guarantee that you couldn’t fail to fall under their spell.’
‘You’re believing your own publicity already!’ She smacked his wrist. Sitting back in her chair she allowed her eyes to close for a moment. Her brain was whirling. She had not seen Giles for three years.
They had tried to be just friends, but it hadn’t worked. Sex got in the way. And Idina. And love. Hers. Then they had blazing rows. Even so, she had done the work. Her sketches and paintings had been brilliant. But on each occasion when they had had to meet to discuss the book she had insisted that it should be in London, so that they could meet at the neutral offices of Hibberds in the West End, and there they had been carefully and ostentatiously polite. Two or three times he had criticised her drawings and she had flounced out of the meetings. Twice she had told Giles his captions were crap and Robert had had to retrieve him from the pub across the road, but they had managed to finish the book in the end and, as she vowed never again to go to London, had been photographed together, smiling, at the launch party in Hay and again on the top of Hay Bluff. It was there that Beth had told him, between clenched teeth as she pretended to smile at the stunning view across what felt like the whole world, to take a running jump over the edge of the steep hillside. Neither of them had ever referred again to their idyllic few days together in the old farmhouse, or to the attack by the wildcat which had, in the end, left a slight scar down the side of Beth’s face beneath the sweep of her long curly hair, or to the unbelievable hurt she had felt at his abandonment of her.
She leaned back in her chair to gaze at the log fire burning in the hearth nearby. The place was filling up and she found herself having to raise her voice a little to make herself heard. ‘Why is Giles so hard up? He made a packet out of the book.’
‘I don’t think that’s our business, Beth. He just said he was.’ Robert, with a glance at the neighbouring table, put on a carefully neutral voice. ‘The point is, I’m sure you and he could work well together again. It would be a new project, in a new place. He would behave.’
‘Did he say so?’
He nodded, then stood up. ‘I’m going to fetch myself a beer. Can I get you something?’
She shook her head; and watched as he threaded his way through the crowded room to the queue at the counter. Half of her was tempted by the offer of the commission, but the other half, the half which was in charge of her self-preservation and her self-esteem, said: No. Don’t do it. Don’t get involved. If she didn’t care it wouldn’t matter. But she did still care, that was the trouble.
After Giles there had been no one else. No one serious, that is. And she suspected there never would be. Giles was the first man she had fallen in love with and, stupid though it seemed, it looked as though he would be the last.
She watched Robert returning to her, carefully making his way between the crowded tables. It had felt like a good idea to suggest they meet here when she had spoken to him on the phone. Although it was filling up fast now, early in the day the place was quiet and warm and comfortable, perfect for coffee and a meeting of this sort. But he had, it was now beginning to dawn on her, driven one hundred and fifty miles for this cup of coffee. It would hardly be hospitable to send him back without lunch. Perhaps she should even offer to put him up for the night, too.
In the end she suggested they take a walk along the Wye, then she drove him to the Radnor Arms for a late lunch. When their discussions were finally and impassably over, she dropped him back at his car so he could start back for London. There had been a slight hesitation, she thought when she offered to take him up to the cottage, but in the end he had declined. There were meetings all tomorrow he couldn’t miss, he said sadly. She did not enquire if one of them was with Giles.
She parked by the standing stone as she often did on the way home and stood for a few minutes looking out across the steeply sloping hillside towards the Wye valley and the Radnor forest beyond
. It was a peaceful place when there were no other cars parked there, a place, she sometimes thought, where one could feel the heart of the mountains beating with a slow, gentle reassuring rhythm. The clouds had drawn back a little and there was a watery sun appearing low in the west, throwing etiolated shadows across the hills. The air smelled cool and fresh and sweet. It was a long time since she had allowed herself to think about Giles. Damn Robert! He had presented her with a dilemma she didn’t want to have to face.
Realising she was cold she turned back to the car and climbed in. It wasn’t far down the narrow winding pitch to the track which led to Ty Mawr. It was extraordinary the way she had come to own the cottage. Almost the same day that Liza had told her she had finally agreed to marry Michele and had offered her the farmhouse – too big, too rambling, too expensive to run, too many memories – Meryn had walked in and sat down at the kitchen table and told them he was going to give up the cottage. ‘I’m so seldom here. It fills me with sorrow, but I don’t see any alternative.’
They still did not know where he went; the address of his solicitors was in Cardiff, but he had asked a ridiculously low price and given Beth his blessing and told Liza, quietly in private, that she would be safe there.
Beth’s old car bucketed over the rough track – she was going to have to do something about both car and track soon – and came to a halt outside the cottage. A small blue Peugeot she didn’t recognise was parked there and she stared at it for a moment with a sudden illogical rush of excitement. Had Giles come to persuade her himself?
Getting out of her own car she looked at it, puzzled, then she stared round. The house was locked and there was no sign of anyone there.
‘Hello?’
She walked round the back to Meryn’s small herb garden – too long a wilderness during his extended absences and not much better looked after by an owner who preferred to sketch the plants rather than weed them. An old man was standing there, hands in pockets, looking up towards the cloud-wreathed top of the hill behind the cottage.
On the Edge of Darkness Page 45