"Evening, Bill," said the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, leaning across the Press table and then whispering. "Afraid I'm going to be a trifle boring tonight. Don't want to outshine the boy."
"Poor old Johnny," said Sykes, as the Minister hefted his considerable bulk up the three wooden steps to the platform. "Couldn't outshine a ten-watt bulb."
"I was wondering." Berry said, "what Ole Winstone would've made of all this. Think he'd've come?"
"Not a hope," said Bill Sykes. "You wouldn't have got Winstone back to Wales for a lorry load of Glenfiddich."
It struck Berry that you could get a hell of a lot of Glenfiddich on a lorry. More than enough to make a cynical old hack overcome his prejudices. He made a mental note to raise this with Sykes when the speeches were over.
There were a few cheers as Simon Gallier stepped onto the platform. He was built like a front-row rugby player, had prematurely greying hair and a shambling, untrimmed moustache like, Berry thought, a badly made yardbrush.
Gallier made a tough, rousing speech, full of commitment to Wales and the language, a few Welsh phrases scattered strategically around. When he threw these in. there were odd noises of appreciation. English immigrants. Berry thought. Token Welsh wouldn't cut much ice with the locals.
His perception surprised him. He must be getting the measure of this strange, mixed society.
The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry was indeed, even by comparison with Gallier, extremely predictable. Almost as boring as the questions people asked afterwards. Jerry suspected most of the questioners were plants. These guys were preaching to the converted. No opposition here — except, he thought, amused, for Bethan sitting somewhere back there discreetly absorbing it all for Guto's benefit. Mata Hari.
"One of Johnny's belter efforts. I thought," grunted Sykes as the minister sat down for the last time.
"Oh, Berry," a voice breathed in his ear.
As Gallier's applause died. Berry turned to find Shirley Gillies contemplating him, a bijou smile dimpling her plump, downy features. She said, "You must be getting really fed up, stuck in the Drovers' all night." She dipped her eyelashes. "I was wondering… why don't you wander back to the Plas Meurig for a couple of drinks before turning in?"
The implication was clear.
He couldn't believe it: she was genuinely turned on by all this shit. Wow. Was there a name for a person who was erotically stimulated by the cut and thrust — with the emphasis on thrust — of party politics?
"Thing is, ah, I arranged to see someone later." he said, trying to sound regretful. 'Thanks, though, Shirley."
"Oh, right, OK." said Shirley. "Just a thought"
It was going to be somebody's lucky night. Maybe even Bill Sykes's, depending how legless the alternatives were around midnight.
As they stood up, the hall clearing, people talking in bunches. Berry said to Sykes, "When you said Winstone wouldn't come back to Wales, you meant because of the bad time he had covering mat story in the sixties, the murder of the two farmers?"
"Ha!" Bill Sykes snapped a rubber band around his notebook. "Winstone never covered that story. He wasn't even born then. Indeed, that's the whole point."
"Huh?"
"Now there's a mystery for you, old boy. Remind me to tell you about it sometime, eh?" Bill began to rub his knees. "Not good for the joints, these damn chairs."
"Hey, come on. Bill, t—"
Tell me now, he'd been about to say, but there was a hand on his shoulder again and this time, to his relief — relief and a frisson of something more interesting — the hand belonged to Bethan.
She was wearing her white raincoat, Guto's beautiful spy.
"Can we be seen talking?" Berry said out of the corner of his mouth. "Or should I leave a message in the dead-letter drop?"
"Actually, this is probably the one place we are safe," Bethan said, 'if Guto sees us together one of us will need to seek asylum in England."
"Right. Ah…" Good a time as any. "I was gonna ask. Guto — Guto and you…?"
"He thinks I need to be protected," Bethan said.
"By him."
"Of course. He thinks living alone is not good for me. He thinks I am in danger of having a nervous breakdown."
"What do you think?"
"I think a nervous breakdown would be quite a relief," Bethan said softly. "Come on, let's go."
It was George who made the discovery, just as they were getting ready for bed.
"That's it!" he announced, sitting on a comer of the bed. flinging down a sock. "I'm going to find out what's causing it."
He's drunk too much, Elinor thought. "It's only a loose floorboard," she said.
"Getting on my nerves."
Elinor had more to worry about than a creak. It had been a most unsatisfactory evening.
She'd been almost hopeful at the start — Claire turning up at the inn at around seven, joining them for dinner. Roast lamb, of course. All the Welsh seemed to be able to cook was lamb. George enjoyed it.
There'd been nobody else dining at the inn, theirs the only table with a cloth. The little white-haired licensee had served them himself, reasonably courteously. An opportune time, Elinor had judged, to raise the issue of what was to happen now.
"Why don't you come and stay with us for a while, give yourself time to think things out?"
Claire had told her nothing needed to be thought out and then said, "We'll never agree about this, Mother, you must surely have realised that."
George had said, "Let the girl get over it in her own way." And Elinor had found herself wondering if, for Claire, there was really anything to get over. It was clear their marriage had not been as well founded as she'd imagined.
"I shall come and visit you, of course," Claire said. "Sometimes."
"I should hope so." her father said in his jocular way, his second cigarette burning away in an ashtray by his elbow.
"Knowing how much you would dislike coming to my grandfather's house."
Elinor had felt something coiling and uncoiling in her stomach. Tell me I've got it wrong. Tel! me you aren't going to stay here…
"Let's just enjoy our meal, shall we?" Claire had said.
Later, in the bar, everyone had greeted Claire in Welsh, switching to English when they saw she was not alone: She'd introduced them to her "friends," a thin man with horrible teeth and a couple, he bearded and hefty, she red-faced with little beady eyes and an awful gappy Welsh smile. All were appallingly friendly to Elinor and George, who was persuaded to play darts and allowed to win.
Not Elinor's sort of evening.
"Hey, look at this—" George had the floorboard up.
"Put the bloody thing back, for God's sake. George—"
"No, look—" He appeared ludicrously unattractive, sprawled on the floor, hair awry, white belly slopping out of his underpants, arm down a hole in the floor.
"Some kind of book, I think. Hang on… Here it comes."
George brought it into the light. "Probably a valuable first edition or something. Oh…"
The light from the centre of the ceiling fell on an ordinary stiff-backed notebook from W.H. Smith.
"Can't win 'em all," said George. He stamped on the floorboard, "Least I've stopped the damn squeak."
"What is it?" Elinor said, in bed now. wearing a long- sleeved pale-blue nightdress.
George opened the book. "Sir Robert Meredydd," he read. "Thirteen forty-nine to fourteen twenty-one. Can't be his notebook, anyway, it's written in Biro. Couple of diagrams, rough sort of plan, pages of unintelligible scrawl. Doesn't look very interesting. Why do you suppose it was under the floorboard?"
"I don't know. And I don't care."
"Probably a bloody treasure map." George laughed and tossed the book on to his bedside table. "Remind me to give it to that chap Griffiths in the morning."