"Looks like a nice old pub too." Berry said, slowing down, wondering where they'd got the stone from because it seemed to have a more softly-luminous quality than the rocks they'd passed. Although the soil here seemed lighter too, so maybe…
"I've never been in the pub." said Giles. "I was sort of saving it." Giles was hunched forward in his bucket seat excited in a proprietorial kind of way, pointing out this feature and that, the natural amphitheatre of hills, the steps leading up behind the inn to the churchyard, the path to the river.
Berry eased the Sprite over the narrow river bridge, the inn directly ahead. Its sign, swinging from a wooden bracket — or it would have been swinging if there'd been any wind — had a fading picture of the same church tower they could see jutting out of the hilltop behind. The inn sign said: Tafarn Y Groesfan.
"Just carry straight on up the hill, as if you're heading for the church."
Two old men with flat caps and sticks leaned against the side of the bridge. Berry gave them a wave and, to his vague surprise, one returned a cheery, gap-toothed smile and the other raised his stick in greeting.
Giles raised a friendly hand to the two old men and grinned delightedly. "You see… absolutely nothing like old Winstone's picture of Wales. God rest his soul. Super people here; everybody you meet has a smile."
Backs to the wall now, the Joneses and the Davieses…
Yesterday Berry had been to Winstone's funeral. The old reporter had gone down into the flames just like he always said he would and all the hacks had gone back to the last halfway decent pub in what used to be Fleet Street and drunk, between them, what Berry figured must have been several gallons of Glenfiddich in memory of one of the Scottish distillery's most faithful supporters. Giles had been unable to attend, having been sent to cover a much-heralded speech by Labour's shadow chancellor at some local government conference in Scarborough. Berry suspected he was glad to have avoided the occasion. Somebody — Firth or Canavan — would have been sure to make some discreet reference to Giles's behaviour on the night of Winstone's death.
Berry could still feel Winstone's hand on his arm. Stop him.
But this village wasn't helping.
He'd been hoping for somewhere grey and grim. Instead, he was charmed. There was a surprising air of contentment about the place.
The Thorpe funeral had been conducted by a retired Fleet Street chaplain, the Reverend Peters who'd known Winstone from way back. In the bar afterwards Berry had bought the old guy a drink, and it had emerged he was Welsh, from the industrial south east of the country. This had been a surprise because the Reverend Peters had seemed seriously English to Berry, hearty and genial and built like Santa Claus with a matching white heard. He'd laughed when Berry had told him of Winstone's gloomy warnings. His part of Wales, he'd said, had the warmest, friendliest folk you could wish to meet.
Up the short street Berry could see just two shops. Three women stood chatting outside one, shopping baskets on their arms. One woman had a cloud of fluffy white hair and wore a white summer dress with big red spots. Berry just knew they were speaking in Welsh. Something about the way they used their hands.
"Hey Giles—" He'd been trying to work out what it was made Y Groes different from anywhere else, even allowing for the absence of tacky modem storefronts among the old buildings.
He realised. "Giles, we're the only car here!"
"That's right. What do the villagers need cars for? Going to drive fifty yards to pick up the groceries?"
"What I'm saying is. village this attractive — how come there're no tourists, 'cept us?"
"Well, it's not on a tourist route." said Giles. "Lots of attractive villages don't get hordes of visitors simply for that reason. I mean, we're in the middle of some pretty rough countryside, the sort that tourists just want to get through quick to get to somewhere else. I suppose they get a few walking enthusiasts and people of that sort, but obviously not enough to be worth catering for — as you can see, no souvenir shops, no cafes, no snack bars. Don't even think the pub does overnight accommodation."
"Shame."
"Not for me," said Giles. "I hate bloody tourists. Pull in here. We'll walk the rest of the way."
A track led between two outsize sycamore trees. It was blocked after about twenty yards by a rusted metal farm gate.
"OK to park here?"
"Private road." said Giles. "Our private road. Or it will be."
They got out and stood looking down on the village in the vivid light of early evening. To the left of them stood the church tower, like a monolith. The church was built on a big hump, around which cottages fitted — or grew, as Berry liked to fantasise — in a semi-circle. The church tower had a short pyramid for a spire with timbers around the belfry. It seemed very old, older than the village. Older than the goddamn sky. Berry thought, for some reason.
"This is not typical, in Wales, right? Like, big churches, stained glass and all?"
"Chapels." Giles said. 'That's what you have mainly in Wales. Ugly Victorian chapels, presided over by hellfire preachers rather than Anglican vicars. Non-conformism — Baptist and Methodists. Puritanism. Fundamentalism — all that just stormed through Wales around the turn of the century. Trampling on history. And it didn't go away. Bit like your Bible Belt. I suppose."
"How come this place escaped?"
"I don't know." Giles said. "But I'm bloody glad it did. There's supposed to have been a Victorian chapel here, but it's obviously gone. One of those little mysteries. Y Groes is full of them."
A palpable silence lay over the scene, like a spell. No dogs barked, no radios played. It was calm and mature and the air was scented. The sycamores framed the view as if they'd been arranged by some eighteenth-century landscape painter.
"Nice." said Berry. "Hey. pal. I apologise. OK? You were right."
"Yes," said Giles.
"This is some place."
"Isn't it."
They stood in silence for almost two whole minutes. Birds sang. Butterflies danced up and down invisible staircases of warm air.
"You really gonna commute?" he asked. "Can you do that?"
"The way I see it," said Giles. "I'm working this four-day week, OK? So, let's say I'm working Monday to Thursday. I get up really early and drive down Monday morning. On Thursday night I drive back. That means I only have to spend three nights in London."
"Lot of travelling, ole buddy."
"I don't care. I just want to spend as much time in this bloody glorious place as I can wangle."
"Sounds good to me." said Berry, wondering if it really did.
He thought, could I go for this, all this rural idyll stuff, four nights out of the rat race? Well, maybe. Maybe, with the right lady. Maybe for a few months. Maybe in the summer.
You put the arm on young Giles. Persuade him to sell the bloody place, soon as he can…
But what would Winstone Thorpe have said if he'd seen this place?
"Tell you what," Giles was saying. "Why don't you come down for a weekend, or even a holiday, when we're settled in? Bring whoever it is you're with these days."
"Miranda," said Berry doubtfully.
"Oh yes, the one who—"
"Thinks I look like Al Pacino. When he was younger, of course."
Giles, face bright with pride, opened the iron gate and carefully closed it when Berry was through. Then he led the way along a track no more than eight feet wide, lined with hawthorn and holly.
They came at last to the house. And that was where, for Berry Morelli, the idyll died.