In truth he felt awful — physically and emotionally in a similar condition to his clothes.
But he was going home.
Guto was wearing a tie.
An unheard-of phenomenon.
"I borrowed it." he said. "From Dai."
"But it's one of his working ties." Bethan said.
"Looks all right though, doesn't it?'
"It's black."
"Reflects my new image. Sober. Caring."
"Take it off, Guto. I shall go and buy you another. Meanwhile, there is something you could do for me."
"No time — to get a new tie. I mean. I'm meeting Dafydd and Gwynfor in Lampeter at ten. Then we are all going over to Rhayader for the selection meeting."
"It's not until tonight, is it?"
"A lot to discuss before then. Hell of a lot."
They were alone in the house. Guto's mam having gone for the early bus to Aber. as she did every Friday. Bethan had driven over from Y Groes in a kind of trance, going deliberately far too fast so that she would have to concentrate hard on her driving to avoid disaster and would not be able to think about anything else.
"There are big green stains on your mac." Guto observed.
"So there are." said Bethan.
It was not yet eight o'clock. No more than half an hour since she'd scrambled up the river bank away from the madwoman who had almost been her friend.
"Guto. Giles might be coming out of hospital this morning. You know the state of his clothes. I was wondering if you had anything that might fit him."
"What about his own clothes? He's got more than that suit at home, hasn't he?"
"Yes, but… there are problems in bringing them across."
The central problem, she now realised, was that Giles would actually be going home — she had no illusions that the doctor might persuade him to be examined at Bronglais — and walking into a situation which he might have difficulty coping with even if he were fully fit. She simply did not know what to do for the best.
"I'll make some tea." Guto said. "You look as if you need it."
"No, you go." Bethan said. "You get off to Lampeter. It's your big day."
"Are you all right, Bethan?"
"Of course I am."
"Listen, go upstairs now. Second door on the left. Just inside the door there's a wardrobe. Some of my dad's old clothes you'll find in there. A big, tall man, he was, my dad. Well, compared with me he was. Take what you like. Bit old-fashioned, mind, but if it's only to get him home…"
Guto straightened his undertaker's tie in the gilt-framed mirror over a mantelpiece heavy with cumbersome Victorian pottery. From a chair he look his briefcase. His briefcase. A tie and a briefcase. On any other day but this Bethan would have found the spectacle richly amusing.
"I'm off" said Guto. "Just slam the door behind you when you've finished."
"Thank you. Guto…"
He looked back, mule appeal in his doggy eyes.
What the hell, Bethan thought, and went over and kissed him. On the cheek, of course.
"Good luck, Guto."
Guto snatched her by the arm and kissed her on the lips.
He'd trimmed his beard too.
"There," he said. "Now I feel lucky."
When he'd gone, Bethan went upstairs and found his late father's wardrobe. Guto's dad had been a miner in the Rhondda who had suffered badly with his chest. When Guto was twelve or thirteen the family had moved west for his father's health, taking over a small tobacconist's shop in Pontmeurig. Bethan remembered Bryn Evans as a man who coughed a lot and laughed a lot, spent each night in the Drovers' Arms until closing time but was never conspicuously drunk.
Inevitably, as she pulled open the mahogany doors, Bethan remembered going through Robin's wardrobe, packing up all his clothes, taking them to the Oxfam shop in Stryd-y-Castell. Easily the most heartbreaking task she'd ever performed. She remembered folding his beloved sheepskin-lined flying jacket, then changing her mind and taking it out of the cardboard box and stowing it in the bottom of her own wardrobe, where it still lay, and she—
Stop it, stop it, stop it!
On a shelf above the stiff, dark suits, she found a pair of light slacks and a thick, grey rollneck pullover. Could be worse.
With the clothes under her arm. she ran down the stairs and out the front door, shutting it firmly behind her. Five minutes past eight. Not much time. She wondered how Buddug would react if she didn't turn up for school by nine o'clock. And would Buddug herself be on time, or would she be otherwise engaged?
Bethan shuddered at the memory of Buddug. enormous in the doorway, made-up like a fat corpse.
She put the clothes on the back seat of the Peugeot and drove to the collage hospital. On impulse she went into the phone box in the hospital foyer and dialled Y Groes 239.
Last chance to speak sensibly lo Claire, otherwise she would have to tell Giles everything.
Tell him everything?
But what was she doing in the river, Bethan?
She was washing her hair. Giles.
I see.
In Y Groes the telephone rang out. Six times, seven times, eight.
Bethan hung up and left the box and walked across to the reception desk.
"Giles Freeman." she said to a woman who had been a couple of years ahead of her at secondary school in Aber.
"You'll be lucky." the receptionist said. "Do you want to speak to Dr. Tahan?'
"What do you mean?'
"I'll bleep him," said the receptionist. "He'll want to talk to you, I imagine."
Bethan went cold. "Is Giles all right?'
"No, he's not all right." the woman said smugly. Bethan could tell that, as she spoke, she was busy fabricating an interesting relationship between the schoolteacher and the Englishman. "Not for me to say, though, is it?'
The doctor was more forthcoming. He led Bethan to his office in the new wing and closed the door. "Delayed concussion, fractured skull, brain haemorrhage, you name it." he said. "It could be any, it could be none. But how are we to know? I don't particularly want to know precisely how he came by his injuries, but I do want him to be fully examined. Call it selfishness. Call it protecting my own back. I don't care."
"Hold on." Bethan said. "You are saying he's gone?'
"Your friend discharged himself half an hour ago. There was nothing I could say to stop him. We don't, unfortunately, have powers of arrest."
"Oh God," Bethan said.
"I don't know how much you are in a position to influence him. but if he blacks out and runs his car off the road…"
"All right." Bethan said, looking at her watch. Twenty past eight.
She ran down the hospital corridor and did not look at the receptionist on her way to the door.
Chapter XXXVII
Tired. Desperately, desperately tired.
He had thought the fresh air would revive him, but walking to the car park was like he imagined it would be for a deep sea diver staggering across the ocean bed, the air heavy on his shoulders, powerful currents pulling him this way and that. In reality the wind was not so strong anymore and the sky all rained-out.
Stepping from the kerb, Giles lost his balance and fell sideways across the bonnet of a parked car. People stared at him, as though he were some rare species of breakfast-time drunk.
When he got into his own car, the new Subaru, it felt strange, as if he hadn't driven it in years. When he pulled out of the car park below the ruined castle, his hands on the wheel seemed a long way away, as if he were driving from the back seat.