'How vile,' said Malcolm with feeling. 'New to me too, I think. Just spring up behind your back. Same everywhere you go these days.'
That last phrase kept coming up in Rhiannon's hearing, often along with another one about it being a waste of breath. It seemed to hit them all sooner or later, even someone like honest old Ma1colm who never wondered where all the money was coming from. Once he got into this one the conversation would at least stay out of harm's way a bit longer. But nothing followed, and when he went on it was in anew, dreamy son of tone, not much of a good sign with him.
'They say people change over the years,' he began, and seemed set to end too for a while before hurrying on, 'and indeed it does often happen. You remember a fellow called Miles Garrod? Used to act a lot. Quite good he was. He played Marlow in _She Stoops to Conquer__ in the Arts Theatre. '
'Oh yes,' lied Rhiannon. When it was not going to make a difference she always did that except with Alun; it seemed fussy and cocky not to and you were going to get the rest of it anyway. This was a general policy of hers. People sometimes wondered gratefully how it was that she had never heard any stories before.
'Well, you wouldn't recognize him now, Rhi, that I guarantee. I bumped into him just a few months ago, at a wedding in Caerhays. Or rather I didn't bump into him, praise be, a fellow said there's old Miles Garrod, I said where, the fellow said there, and there he was, totally different. A different person. Not specially old-looking or unprepossessing. Just altogether different. A different individual.'
Having shown that one who was in charge he could have afforded to throw in something about what Miles Garrod was up to these days, but no. Returning to the dreamy tone and unmistakably starting paragraph 2, Malcolm said, 'But some people haven't changed, or only imperceptibly. You, Rhiannon Weaver, you haven't changed, not you. You're still the same person as the one I knew, well, let's call it _then__, shall we?'
'What nonsense, I've put on at least - '
'No, no, basically you're quite unchanged. The way you move, your glance, everything. The first sight of you that very first evening... '
She let him run on, but stayed alert for any wandering off into dodgy territory. Sudden blurtings of the type mentioned to Rosemary could not be guarded against, only watched for.
'... last glimpse of you eight years ago... '
A bit longer than that, but he had put it down very firmly, and what of it anyway. Not far now, surely.
'... never more than a few minutes at a time... '
Well, there again she seemed to remember proper evenings, even a weekend visit or two, in fact, certainly one thorough enough to have included a couple of chats with Gwen about the forthcoming arrival of what had turned out to be Rosemary's elder sister in 1959, but if he preferred to see it like this, well, fine with her.
'... I was seeing you for the first time since _then__. Ah, when I used to read about people feeling the years dropping away I thought it was just a phrase, just a fancy. But it's what _happened__.' He looked at her a little bit wildly but quite briefly out of the corner of his eye. 'And I'd known all along it would. Don't ask me how,' he told her, to be on the safe side.
STOGUMBER I
PETERSTOW 2½
the signpost said, and Peterstow was where they were scheduled to have lunch. How many minutes did that mean? Five? One and a quarter? Rhiannon crossed the fingers of her left hand. It was awful to think the thought in this way, but hopeless not to: if things got no dicier than at present, then no problem. They had got as far as they had pretty fast, true, and unassisted by drink, but he might have been encouraged by not having had to meet her eye any of the time because of driving, and he had not actually _said__ anything yet and it might all blow over.
The car came to the crest in the road a hundred feet or so above Stogumber village and from the sea on their right, limitless now, to the dense greenery on their left nothing showed that time had gone by.
'I don't just mean of course you're unchanged on the outside,' said Malcolm, dashing what could never have been more than a faint hope. 'Anybody with half an eye can see that.' He paused and drew in his breath. 'I mean on the inside too. But then I don't think anybody changes there much, do you? On the inside?'
She tried to consider it. 'No, I shouldn't think so probably.'
'Now I know I've changed a lot on the outside. A decrepit old bloke is what I've become. No complaints but that's how it is.' He wagged his head from side to side as he sat behind the wheel.
'I'm not having that,' she said indignantly. 'Decrepit is the absolute opposite of what you are. You're in jolly good nick and fit-looking and you've kept your hair and everything. You could pass for, for a much younger man.'
It had never been Malcolm's way even to try to hide things like pleasure at compliments, and here was one department in which he had certainly not changed. Another was making it very easy for the other person to tell when a compliment was called for and roughly how it should go, and then still enjoying it when it came. 'Oh, honestly, Rhi,' he said now a couple of times, continuing quite soon, 'anyway, I'm still pretty much the same on the inside.'
Dumbly-dumbly-dumbly-dum on the inside, she thought to herself, waiting to hear how, dumbly-dumblydumbly-dum on the outside, but crossing her fingers again. But then when it came it was· fine, in the same style as before, covering rather more ground, not much though: incurable romantic - always tended to expect too much from life - rather envied practical man who just got on with things - triumph of hope over experience - incurable romantic - count your blessings - help us get through life - never really wanted to be one of the down-to-earth sort that just stuck to the job in hand - too old to change now, he maintained firmly. Matters took a slight turn for the worse after that with him saying how much he had been looking forward to today and how he still had his hopes for the future, but he stayed vague on that and quite soon stopped. The end of the beginning, with luck.
They were in and out of Stogumber itself in not much more time than it took to notice a jumble of flags, posters and stickers coloured lime-green, yellow, pinky-red and black and white. Then having turned up left along the further edge of the little valley they came to another signpost, one of a new sort in dark green with a picture of a wigwam on it and thin white print which was quite easy to read from close to. This lot said Peterstow 0.8 kin; and no doubt if you went the way it pointed you got there in the end.
Rhiannon had been hoping and expecting to recognize the village when they came to it, but she failed to do so. There was a raised stretch of grass with some lumps of grey-white stone here and there, and an old drinking-fountain sort of built into the side of the slope, the remains at least of such a thing with a place where a chained cup might once have been joined on. Next to it she made out four or five names carved on a tablet and realized she was looking at a local war memorial. Here and there were hefty cottages in a darker stone or in a dark brick behind low white gates, and on the far corner a larger building done with beams and tiles. A sign said it was the Powys Arms and also mentioned old-fashioned things like finest ales and ciders. Although there were other cars about, it was still possible to park near the front door.