Candlenight, page 17
Two mouths went into simultaneous sneers. The eyes were still fixed on Giles, who realised he'd got it wrong; this chap wasn't an incomer at all.
The man turned to his companion. "Learning Welsh, he is, this . . . gentleman" Turned back to Giles, unsmiling. "Go on then, say it again?"
"What d'you mean?"
"Go on—hanner . . ."
Giles said quickly, "Hanner peint o gwrw." Not liking the way these two were looking at him, almost smelling the sour hostility.
A blast of rain splattered a window behind his head.
"Didn't catch that." Slit-mouth. "Say it again."
"Hanner . . . oh. come on!"
"No, we want to learn, isn't it?" the other one said. He had a face like the cratered moon. "We want to speak our own language as good as you, see."
"I reckon that's all he can talk about, the beer."
"Oh no, talking to me in the lav, he was. He's an expert. He can do the weather too."
"Maybe he was takin' the piss, Gary "
"Fuck, I never thought of that." Heavily-feigned surprise. Still staring at Giles. 'Takin' the piss, is it?"
Giles said evenly. "I can assure you I was not taking the piss. If I'm trying to learn the language, I've got to use it. haven't I? Is there any other way? I mean, what am I
supposed to do?"
Definitely uncomfortable now—bloody yobs—he glanced around to see if there was anybody he knew even slightly, some group he could join. Didn't recognise a soul. Apart from a handful of men around the dart board the customers were all sitting at tables. There were no more than fifteen people in the room. The barman was at the other end of the bar, watching the darts.
The silence set around Giles like cement. Clearly. Pontmeurig was just like any other town these days, full of nighttime aggro. All very sad. Disappointing.
"Well now, there's an answer to that," Crater-face said, all casual, elbow on the bar, hand propping his chin. "I can tell you what you ought to do, English. Ought to fuck off back
where you came from, isn't it."
"Yes. all right, I will." Giles made himself take a longish drink. He'd finish his beer and get out. This was not convivial. What a country—layer upon layer of resentment.
"We'll come with you," Slit-mouth said.
"That won't be necessary." Giles muttered.
"Least we can do." Crater-face smiled with lurid menace. Show you the right road, see."
"Hate you to get lost." Slit-mouth said.
"Finish your drink, English." Crater-face said.
He had lowered his voice so as not be overheard by a stooping man with a bald head who was paying for a tray of drinks: three pints of bitter and a glass of dry white wine.
. . . Ah, no, well, that Freeman does not seem a bad chap." Idwal was saying as Dai laid the tray on the table. Compared with some of them."
The training session had been abandoned.
"That's because he turned you into an overnight superstar," said Guto. "Idwal Roberts, political pundit, social commentator, media personality . . ."
"He is actually OK," Bethan said, lifting her wine glass from the tray "Quite fair minded. Thank you, Dai."
She was sure Giles had learned about Guto and the pub incident. But he hadn't used it in his article—even though it would have underlined the point he was trying to make about Guto being the party hard-man.
"What I mean is," she said. "Giles is sympathetic. He can see what the incomers are doing to Wales and he doesn't want to be that kind of incomer. That is why he's so concerned about learning Welsh."
Dai Death said, "You're acquainted with this reporter from London then. Bethan?"
"Who do you think is teaching the bugger Welsh?" said Guto.
"He wants to learn Welsh for the election? There's enthusiasm."
"No, Dai," said Bethan. "He is thinking longer term. He has acquired a house in Y Groes."
A short but volcanic silence followed this disclosure.
"Y Groes!" Dai's voice rose to a squeak. He lurched in his seat, his bald head shining with hot indignation. "How the hell did he find a house there?"
Of course, Bethan realised. A sore point.
Amid muted rumblings from Guto about wealthy bloody incomers being able to find anything they wanted anywhere at a price, she briefly explained how Claire and Giles Freeman had gained admittance to Paradise.
Dai scowled.
"I've never been one to attack the incomers." he said. "Nothing personal, like. But the first house since I don't know when to come available in Y Groes . . . and it goes without a word, to a bloody Englishman. There is no justice."
"Englishwoman," Bethan said.
Idwal Roberts sniffed.
"I will tell you one thing." he said, tamping down the tobacco in his pipe. "You would not catch me living there. Godless place, that village, always has been."
Bethan, who had begun her teaching career as a member of ldwal's staff at Pontmeurig's Nantglas Primary School, had heard that since his retirement he had somewhat deepened his commitment to non-conformist religion.
"Godless," he said.
"Only on your terms, man." said Dai. still annoyed. "Just because there is no chapel anymore."
"No," Idwal waved his pipe in the air. "That's not—"
"Still a church there." Dai said. "Bloody good church."
Guto looked up innocently from his beer. "Still a chapel too. Had my car repaired there once."
"What?" Dai looked blank for a moment. "Oh, you mean Dilwyn Dafis's garage. I forgot that used to be a chapel.
"Aye, well, still a public service, isn't it? And plenty of room for the ramp, see, with that high ceiling."
"What I was meaning—" Idwal said.
"What is more," said Guto deadpan, "give Dilwyn Dafis a couple of quid on top, and you can have your bloody brake linings blessed."
"This is getting stupid." Giles said.
Light conversation, in both English and Welsh, went on around them, the thump of darts on the board, nobody appearing to notice anything amiss or picking up on the tension. Giles knew how it must look—as if the three of them were having a nice quiet chat about beer-prices or the prospects of the Meurig bursting its banks.
Slit-mouth made a narrow smile. "He thinks you're stupid, Gary."
Getting into the comedy routine. But Giles had had enough. You really did find them everywhere, didn't you, always looking for somebody whose night they could spoil. A few casual remarks in the toilet and he'd set himself up as tonight's target. Well that was it, he wasn't taking any more.
"Look," he said firmly. "I just came in here for a drink. I've moved into the area. I'm trying to fit in. I didn't mean to cause any offence, all right? What else can I say?"
He felt his voice quiver. Bastards.
They were both studying him now with their stone-hard, hostile eyes.
"Got a house, have you? How much you pay for that?"
"Oh. for Christ's sake, this is getting awfully tedious."
"Oh dear," Slit-mouth said, mimicking Giles's accent. Awfully tedious. Oh, my—"
Crater-face said to Giles, "See, I've got this mate lookin' for a house. Gettin' married, he is. And you know what . . . you won't believe this, but this boy, my mate, he's been lookin' all over town for fuckin' weeks and he can't find one anywhere. Not as he can afford. You know why . . . ?"
Leaning forward now, beer-breath sour in Giles's face "Know why, English?"
Oh yes. Giles knew why all right. "Now look, if you really want to talk about this—"
"Cause they've all been bought by your kind, is why, you bastard."
Giles got an explicit close-up of the angry, pitied skin and the eyes, wells of malice.
"Kid on the way, see."
Giles fell bits of beery spit spatter his face.
"Goin' to be really in the shit, he is, can't get a fuckin' house for his woman."
Edging his stool closer to Giles, he whispered. "I hate cunts like you, think you can buy in wherever you like. Come on, English, finish your drink."
Giles put one foot on the floor. Get out. Get out fast.
"But you think you're all right isn't it?" Lower lip out and curling. "You think you're laughing, cause—" Eyes glittered and the hand shot forward as if reaching for cigarettes or something.
"—cause you're learnin—"
Then pulled casually back, toppling Giles's beer glass still half full, off the bar and into his lap.
"—Welsh."
"You bast—!"
Leaping up in outrage, beer soaking invisibly into his dark suit, Giles was drowned out by Crater-face crying,
"Aaaaw!"
And leaping from his stool too, knocking it over. Crash of the stool, splintering of glass on the linoleum.
"Aaaaw, I'm sorry! My fault entirely, clumsy bugger I am. See, go in the lav, quick, sponge it off before it stains. I'll get you another—I'm sorry, pal, I really am!"
Everybody in the bar looking up now, vacant grins from around the dartboard. Obvious to Giles that nobody realised they were setting him up.
"Excuse me," he said stiffly and made for the door that said bilingually TOILETS/TOILED.
"—accident," He heard behind him. "No sense of humour, the English . .
Stumbled into the passage, but instead of going to the gents he dashed in the opposite direction. A door before him, ajar, LOUNGE on frosted glass, group of people huddled over a table. Giles saw them look up as if disturbed in some conspiracy—more hostility, Christ. Turned quickly away and saw, to his overwhelming relief that the passage was empty all the way to the front door. Going to have to get out of here quick before those two went into the gents and found he wasn't there. Giles glanced apprehensively behind, but they hadn't emerged.
Years since he'd been in such a panic. Memory-flash: hiding from older kids in a cloakroom at school. The famous wheedling lie: Come out, Freeman, we're not going to hurt you . . .
Giles charged along the corridor, not caring how much noise he made, knocking over an umbrella stand. He looked behind him one more time—thought he saw a pitted face—and then, with his right arm outstretched like a lance, he sent the swing door flying open and lurched into the street, into the hard, stinging rain, slanting golden needles in the streetlights.
He stood in the cold rain, cold beer in his crotch, telling himself, you're never—breathing hard—never going to get in that kind of situation again.
And thinking of the ancient wooden warmth of Tafarn y Groes, where he was known and welcomed, he turned and ran through the rain to his car, his shiny new Subaru four-wheel-drive, the thinking driver's answer to the Nearly Mountains on a cold, wet night.
They were waiting for him in the shiny wet car park, rainwater streaming down their ghastly, grinning faces.
"What I like ... out this pub . . ." —words fractured by the wind—". . . two doors."
Lower lip jutting like a waterspout.
Gargoyle.
Giles mentally measured the distance to the car. Fifteen yards. Might as well have been a mile. Not a hope of making it.
Through the blinding downpour, he sized up the opposition. They were both shorter than he was, but the crater-faced one had a rugby player's physique, wide chest, arms like double-barrelled sawn-off shotguns.
"Look, lads . . " he said weakly, accepting beyond doubt that he was in deep trouble here. What could one say to people like this?
Rain coming down like nails. Giles was suddenly terribly frightened. And heartsick to think this should happen to him in the land he'd chosen for his own, for his unborn children.
He wanted to weep.
The dark one, Slit-mouth, hard water plastering down his sparse black hair, pouring like furious tears down his concrete face, said,
"You're dead, you are, fuckin' Saxon git."
Giles folded in two as a big shoe went into his stomach and his hair was torn back and something that could only have been a fist but felt like a steel spike was driven into his
left eye.
Chapter XXXII
In Y Groes, around midnight, the air was still.
All that night there would be violent rain in Pontmeurig. Over the Nearly Mountains there was sleet. The River Meurig was savagely swollen.
Y Groes, around midnight, was another world.
True, it had been stormy and the barometers still registered minimal pressure. But now the rain had stopped and the wind had died. The clouds slid back theatrically and there was a full moon over the church. Wherever you stood in Y Groes, the moon always seemed to be over the church, like a white candle flame.
Just before midnight, Claire came down the ribbon of lane from the church among a group of people. They included the rector, the Reverend Elias Ap Siencyn, Glyn Harri,
the amateur historian, Mrs. Bronwen Dafis, mother of Dilwyn and grandmother of Sali. And the Morgans— Buddug Morgan and big Morgan Morgan.
They walked down towards the river and Claire, seeing the moon on the thrashing water, became excited.
The river had been rising all day and something in Claire had been rising with it. She felt drawn to the water, but a gentle hand held her back.
"Dim nawr."
Not now.
Mrs. Bronwen Dafis explained that if she went down now she might not get back. It was too dangerous. Too dark.
But the moon . . .
Indeed, Mrs. Dafis said cryptically. The moon.
"Wel, pryd?" Claire said. When?
"Bore fori," the rector said quietly. Tomorrow morning.
He turned and walked away up the hill.
Tacitly dismissed, the group split up in silence. Glyn Harri followed at a respectful distance behind the spindly figure of the rector. Then went Buddug and Morgan. Mrs. Bronwen Dafis was the last, a tiny upright figure, alone. None of them looked back at Claire, who stood staring into the dark water.
The river was still gathering rage, although there was no wind or rain here. As if driven by the moon, it hurled itself at the stone buttresses of the bridge.
No lights now in the village, except for a lone streetlamp with a small yellow bulb under a pan-lid shade. The rector's long shape vanished beyond the light.
She was alone on the bridge, but unafraid. Inside her dwelt a great calm which stilled her thoughts and her emotions. She was content. She was here. Home.
At last.
Time passed. True darkness came, as a dense cloud formed around the moon and then a final fold of cloud came down over it like an eyelid. The air was still, but the water rushed and roared, filling the atmosphere with rhythmic sounds. Claire could hear the night now and feel its essence inside her.
Eventually, she began to walk away from the bridge and up the hill towards the church. Although she was moving further from the bridge, further from the water, the sounds were going with her, swirling around her and then separating, dying off, then wafting in. And mingled with the water noise was the sound of singing, uneven and hesitant. A frail organ wail, like cat cries, and the sonorous rhythm of measured footsteps.
An arm brushed against Claire and a hand touched her shoulder.
Misty people were drifting around her. She was carried among them up the hill.
And they sang. With uncertainty in their fractured, mournful voices, they sang, in Welsh and then in English,
Love is kind and suffers long
Love is meek and thinks no wrong
The amorphous crowd split in two and something long and narrow slid between the two lines and a darker mist closed
around it.
As the singing fell away and the people dissolved into vapour, Claire felt a momentary heart-stab of pain. But a cushion of warm air settled around her and the pain became a soft and bearable memory. With no light to guide her, she turned into the track leading to her cottage.
Soon after, the rain returned. But there was no wind until daylight came.
Chapter XXXIII
It was probably the cold water that deadened the pain. He was lying in a puddle. Or perhaps it had been raining so hard that the entire car park was a great lake.
A blow. He heard rather than felt it.
Bastards. He cringed. How long would they go on hitting him and kicking him before he lost consciousness? He lay very still; perhaps he should pretend he was already unconscious. Perhaps that would stop them.
no need for you to speak Welsh, man . . .
How friendly they were in Y Groes. How hospitable.
makes you a novelty, like, isn't it . . .
A Rhys. He was a Rhys. Sort of. In spirit.
He was with them.
His head imploding as they kicked it. Far away though, now. He closed his eyes, wished he could keep them closed for ever, feeling nothing but the icy balm.
But they wrenched him to his feet again, flung him back against the wall. His stomach clenched, waiting for the pain. He felt the vomit rising again.
White figure swimming towards him.
From the picture. Pale figure from the photograph in its frame in the judge's study. Eisteddfod Genedlaethol White-robed, bardic, druidic.
It shimmered.
"No," he said weakly. "No . . "
"Giles."
"No."
Bethan pushed back the hood of her white raincoat. "Giles, can you see me?"
"No," he said. "No. Get away from me."
"Got him, have you? Where's the other?"
"Don't . . . know. Keep still, you bugger. You bite me again, I'm going to break your nose. What should I do with this one?"
"What you should do is to get rid of him very discreetly before he sees your face. You have enough problems as it is."
"Big bloody help that is. Where am I going to put him?"
"Well, hell. I don't know—drag him over to the castle and throw him in the moat. Take him a good while to extricate himself, by which time we'll all be away."
Guto looked puzzled. There is no moat anymore."
Dai Death looked up into the plummeting night sky. "There will be by now," he said.
Giles stared at Bethan as if he didn't know whether to push her away or to hit her. As if he couldn't decide if it was really her. Or, if it was her, whose side she was on.
