"I wish it was morning now," Elinor said.
"I don't. I'm bloody tired."
"You're drunk."
"What, on three pints and a Scotch?"
"There's an awful tension in here. In the air. Can't you feel it?"
"Only the tension in my bladder." George said coarsely, pulling on his overcoat. "Excuse me."
As he slumped off to the bathroom across the landing— nothing en-suite in this place — Elinor pulled the quilt around her shoulders and picked up the notebook to take her mind off how much she hated this room. The book was not particularly dusty, obviously hadn't been down there long.
It fell open at the reference to Sir Robert Meredydd and Elinor saw that the date 1421 had been underlined twice and an exclamation mark added.
She looked at the diagrams. One appeared to be a rough map of the village with a circle marking the church, shading denoting woodland and a dotted line going off the page and marked "trackway."
Half the book was empty. The last note said something like "Check Mornington."
Elinor put the book back on the table, on George's side.
She'd hated those people in the bar tonight. Most of all she'd hated the way they and Claire had exchanged greetings in Welsh. Claire seeming quite at home with the language.
Elinor hated the sound of Welsh. Nasty, whining, guttural. If they could all speak English, why didn't they?
Her father had never once spoken Welsh to them at home. Yet had turned his back on them, returned to the so-called land of his fathers — and then, apparently, had spoken little else.
There was something rancid in the air.
When George returned they would have to put out the light, and the room would be lit from the window, which had no curtains and was divided into eight square panes. And the room would be one with the silent village and the night.
Chapter XLVII
Shadows clung to the alleyway along the side of the Memorial Hall. It was lit only by a tin-shaded yellow bulb on the corner of the building. Berry walked close to Bethan. He liked walking close to Bethan, though he wasn't too sure who was protecting whom.
Neurotic chemistry.
They came out on the parking lot below the castle. Any place else, Berry thought, they'd have had floodlights around a ruined castle this big. Made a feature of it. In Pontmeurig they seemed to treat their medieval monument like some shabby industrial relic, hiding it with modern buildings, parking cars and trucks as close as they could get to its ramparts.
Plenty cars here tonight, as many as in the daytime.
"Business has never been so good," Bethan said, as they crossed the road to Hampton's Bookshop. "The licensees are hoping that whoever wins the by-election will die very soon so they can have another one."
"Where's Guto's meeting tonight?"
"Y Groes," Bethan said quickly and pulled her keys from her bag.
"What time's he get back?"
"Alun's driving, so he'll have a few drinks afterwards. Half-eleven, twelve."
"Gives us a couple of hours to talk before he comes looking for your report."
"He won't tonight. Close the door behind you."
Bethan led the way upstairs, flicking lights on. In the flat she switched on a single reading lamp with an orange shade, went to plug in the kettle. "How long you lived here?" Berry said.
"Only a few months. After Robin died, I went to work in a school in Swansea, but then they offered me the head teacher's job in Y Groes '
"Hold on," Berry said. "I thought you were at Y Groes before."
"Yes, but not working there." Bethan came through from the kitchen in jeans and sweater, coat over her arm. She threw it in an armchair, sat on an arm of the sofa. "I'll start at the beginning, shall I?"
"OK"
She told him she'd been born in Aberystwyth, where her parents still lived. Went to college in Swansea, came back to teach at the primary school in Pontmeurig then at a bigger school in Aber. Met Robin McQueen, a geologist from Durham, working at the British Geological Survey Centre just south of the town. When they married they'd been delighted to be able to rent a terraced cottage in Y Groes, even though it would be a fifty-mile round trip to work each day for both of them.
"It all seemed so perfect," Bethan said. "Robin was like Giles — overwhelmed by the setting and the countryside and the beauty of the village itself. The extra driving seemed a small price to pay."
"How long were you there, before—?"
Her eyelids dropped. "Under a year."
"Listen, you don't have to—"
"There is very little to say. He complained increasingly of feeling tired. Put it down to the travelling and the stress. The stress, he— The survey team were being told to investigate Mid-Wales to find areas where the rocks were suitable for burying nuclear waste. Robin, of course, was fiercely anti-nuclear. He considered resigning. But then we would have been forced to leave the area — nothing else round here for a geologist. Then, worst of all, he found two prime nuclear-dumping sites in the Nearly Mountains, five miles from Y Groes. can you imagine that?"
"Awkward."
"So be was tired and under terrible stress and he flew into a rage if I suggested he should see a doctor. And then—"
The kettle puffed and shrilled. Bethan got up. Berry followed her into the tiny kitchen.
"And then he did see a doctor," she said dully. "And of course it was too late." She poured boiling water into a brown teapot. "Far too late."
Bethan pushed the fingers of both hands through her black hair. "We had not quite two weeks," she said.
"Jesus," Berry said softly.
"My neighbour at the lime. Mrs. Bronwen Dafis, told me one day — being helpful, very nice, very understanding — that Robin would be dead before the weekend."
"She was medically qualified, huh?"
"It emerged that she had followed a corpse candle from the church to our door."
"Followed a what?"
"In rural Wales." Bethan said. "There are many signs and portents signifying death. The corpse candle is said to be a tiny light which floats a few feet above the ground. Identifying the house of a person who will soon die. Or perhaps someone will see his own corpse candle, trailing behind him along the lane."
"People believe that?"
"That is the very least of what some people believe. There is something, also unique to Wales. I imagine, called the teuli or toili. The phantom funeral. A funeral procession may be seen carrying a coffin or pushing the coffin on a bier or a cart. Perhaps you are in some lonely place at night or twilight, and the cortege passes right through you."
"Legends. Folklore. Country bullshit, right?"
"Of course." Bethan poured two teas. "Strong enough?"
"Fine. These stories… must scare the crap out of kids."
"Except," Bethan said, "in Y Groes."
"Why'd I have a feeling you were gonna say that?"
They carried the mugs back into the living room. Bethan put on the electric fire. They sat, one on each arm of the peacock sofa.
"All this furniture from the cottage?"
Bethan nodded and told him how, heartbroken, she'd at first put the furniture in store and taken a job, any job, in Swansea — in spite of the entreaties of her neighbours, several of whom had seriously urged her not to leave.
"Obviously, they wanted me to stay because I was a Welsh speaker and they needed younger blood. The young people leave this area in their hundreds, to find work. And because, well, that is what young people do, they leave their roots behind. So you have many villages which are full of old people. And immigrants."