And then they were somewhere else. They were standing together in the Basin, shadowed by the massive sheet-metal waterfall that stood in the centre, sprayed by the wind-borne water that curved away from it. The sky was dark and starred, with wisps of cloud floating on the breeze. Owen could smell baking bread, roasting food and, strangely, candy floss. Crowds parted around them like a shoal of fish moving to avoid an unfamiliar presence in their ocean, not looking at them, not even aware that they had appeared from the depths of the earth.
‘Jack told me that something had happened here, once,’ Gwen said softly. ‘Something was here that had the power to make people ignore it. The thing left, but some echo of the power stayed. That’s why nobody can see us until we step away.’
‘Whatever it was,’ Owen said, ‘he’s obsessed by it. It’s scarred him.’
‘Thanks for the lift,’ Gwen said. ‘You can find your own way back, can’t you?’ For a second he could smell her skin, her perfume, her soap, and then she was gone, running off across the square.
‘Actually,’ he said, ‘I think I need a drink.’
The Indian Summer was half-full, and Gwen spent a few moments standing in the doorway and scanning the interior before she spotted Rhys.
The restaurant walls were painted white, the artwork hanging on the walls was big and abstract, the furniture stark black, and the entire effect about as far away from the standard ‘flock wallpaper and sitar music’ stereotype of Indian restaurants as it was possible to get. And that was before one even saw the menu. The Indian Summer had opened less than a year before, and it had soon established itself at the forefront of Cardiff restaurants. Gwen and Rhys had been there enough times for the waiters to start to recognise them. Or, at least, they were polite enough to pretend to recognise them, which was a start.
Rhys was sitting at a table near the bar, and Gwen had to look twice before she was sure it was him. For a start he was with another woman, which she hadn’t been expecting, but there was more than that. Rhys just didn’t look like Rhys.
Once or twice, when she had first joined the police, Gwen had been patrolling through one of the shopping arcades in Cardiff when she had caught sight of her own reflection in a shop front. For a few moments she had found herself wondering who that rather severe person in uniform was before she realised with a sudden shock that it was her, hair drawn back in a bun and striding along the line of shops in her clunky shoes. She had the same reaction now, watching Rhys without him being aware that she was there. When was the last time he had shaved? When had his face got that chubby? And when had he started wearing his shirt untucked from his jeans in an attempt to disguise his growing beer belly?
It was bizarre that Gwen could find herself standing there, surprised at the appearance of a man she spent every night sleeping with, but how often did one look — really
Waving away the waiters, she weaved through the tables, and by the time she had got to where they were sitting Rhys was Rhys again and Gwen was wondering where that sudden disconnection had come from.
And yet, part of her was asking herself what Rhys saw when he looked at her, and whether she had changed as much as, for that long moment, she had realised he had.
Rhys stood up as she arrived, grabbed her round the waist and kissed her. ‘Hi, kid. I was beginning to wonder if you were going to make it tonight.’
‘I promised I’d be here,’ Gwen said, and turned to where Rhys’s companion was determinedly avoiding watching them as they hugged. ‘Hello,’ she said, extending a hand, ‘I’m Gwen.’
The girl was younger than Gwen by a few years: black-haired and slim. Very slim. She smiled at Gwen. ‘Hi,’ she said, taking Gwen’s hand. ‘Nice to meet you.’
‘This is Lucy,’ Rhys said. ‘We work together. I hope you don’t mind, but we bumped into each other outside. She’s going through a bit of a rough time, and I thought she needed cheering up. Is that OK?’ His voice contained a hint of a plea, and there was something in his eyes that made her wonder what he thought her reaction was going to be.
‘That’s fine,’ Gwen said, aware that this wasn’t the time to point out that she had been hoping for a quiet evening out, just the two of them. Time to talk, and share experiences, and shore up their rather fragile relationship. ‘Have you ordered?’ she added, seeing a plate of poppadoms on the table and a set of dishes containing lime pickle, raita and chopped onions.
‘We thought we’d wait for you,’ Rhys said as they both sat down. ‘We just ordered some stuff to keep us going.’
Gwen picked up the menu and quickly scanned the familiar dishes. ‘I’ll have the Karachi chicken, lemon pilau rice and a sag paneer,’ she told Rhys. ‘And a bottle of Cobra.’
As Rhys turned to pass the order on to the hovering waiter — including, she noticed, ordering food for Lucy without having to ask what the girl wanted — she turned and said, ‘So how long have you and Rhys worked together?’
‘About six months. I moved here from Bristol. Rhys looked after me when I arrived: showed me how the job worked and where everything was kept. He was very patient.’ She smiled. ‘Rhys tells me you’re something special in the police.’
‘Rhys talks too much.’ She smiled to take the sting out of the retort. ‘I’m on plain-clothes duties now, but I used to be in uniform. That was when we met.’
‘How’s your day been?’ Rhys asked as the waiter walked away.
‘Not too bad. Pretty quiet, in fact.’
‘You see,’ he said, turning to Lucy: ‘I can spend hours telling her about the intricacies of logistics and routing, and all I get back for my trouble is “Not too bad. Pretty quiet”.’
While they waited for the food to arrive, the conversation flickered back and forth around subjects they could all contribute to: work, holidays, nightlife in Cardiff… nothing that would have excluded one of them, which meant that Gwen never got a chance to talk to Rhys about their own lives, how they felt about each other, where they were going and what was happening to them. All very superficial.
At one point, Lucy said, rather shyly, ‘You probably don’t remember, Gwen, but we have met before.’
‘We have?’
‘At a party.’
Gwen thought back. She and Rhys had always socialised with his workmates quite a bit, but that had all died away recently without her really noticing. She remembered all the parties, but she didn’t remember Lucy.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I was probably drunk at the time.’
‘It was over in Ely. There was a barbecue, and some of the guys were busking in the garden.’ She looked over at Rhys, and Gwen was disturbed to see something in her eyes, something warm and melting. ‘Rhys borrowed someone’s bass guitar, and they all played some Kaiser Chiefs stuff. He was very good.’
And then Gwen remembered. It had been a hot Saturday afternoon, and she had been wearing a long cotton dress and a straw hat, just to keep cool. Rhys had been wearing black jeans and a green T-shirt. She hadn’t even realised he played bass until he picked up one belonging to the man who was throwing the party, plugged it into an amp and just started playing along with the other guys. The next-door neighbours had banged on the door to complain, but had ended up staying and getting drunk in the kitchen. It had been a magical evening.
And yes, she did remember Lucy, but not the way she was now. The hair had been the same, but she had been about three dress sizes larger. A size sixteen, at least.
‘But you were-’ she blurted, and caught herself.
‘I was a bit bigger then,’ Lucy said, blushing and looking down at the tablecloth. ‘I’ve lost quite a lot of weight recently.’
Two waiters turned up with a trolley of food, and there was silence for a moment as they deftly crammed the metal plates of food into every spare inch of space on the table. Gwen looked across and noticed, with a little twinge of some unidentifiable emotion, that Rhys had ordered a lamb dish that was heavy with cream. And he’d replaced his empty bottle of Cobra with a full one while she hadn’t been looking.
‘I’m sorry,’ Gwen said when the waiters had retreated, ‘I didn’t mean to-’
‘That’s all right,’ Lucy said. ‘I’m a lot happier now. Rhys remembers what I was like before. Don’t you, Rhys?’
