'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.
He steered stiffly across the Meurig bridge and on to the bypass. The Nearly Mountains were above him now, wispy grey clouds around the tops like smoke-rings.
Just hadn't realised what complete fatigue could be like. Except this was more than fatigue: his whole body aching, bloated, lumbering. His head feeling as though it were encased in some huge metal helmet, like the Man in the Iron Mask.
A truck blasted its horn behind him as he swung the car off the bypass and on to the mountain road, and he realised he'd forgotten to signal.
After three miles, Giles began to see double. Twin roads snaked into the hills, two wooden fences sealed off the forestry. He pulled into a lay-by. Switched off the engine, sat back, and the seat pulled him in and his eyelids crashed down.
He remembered Bethan then. How she was going to fetch him some clothes. He'd forgotten all about that. He must stop her, tell her he was going home. He sat up, hands scrabbling at the car phone. He would call home, tell Claire, get her to ring Bethan or something. Or something.
His fingers kept pushing all the wrong numbers. The car phone squeaked impatiently. He saw the message NO SERVICE printed out across the illuminated panel on the receiver. Giles groaned. He must have passed the point at which the Vodaphone signal faded out. Perhaps it would return. He must remember to try again. Must remember…
Really he felt like stumbling off into the forestry and curling up on the brown carpet of dead needles, knowing he would fall asleep there instantly. But he heaved his body into position on the seat, switched on the engine again and drove very, very slowly over the crest of the Nearly Mountains, where the snow snuggled into the crags and hollows. He could have stopped and walked out and gone to sleep in the snow, like Captain Oates. Just going out. May be some time.
He didn't have to analyse why it was so vital for him to get away from Pontmeurig and back to Y Groes. Couldn't have managed any heavy thinking in his state anyway. But he knew why it was. It came down to this: the first seriously unpleasant thing had happened to him in Pont, the thing that backed up everything they'd said, the hacks, at Winstone Thorpe's farewell session. While in Y Groes, everything disproved it. The warmth, the open friendliness, the generosity, the feeling that here were people who were confident enough of their heritage, their place in the world, not to suspect everyone with an English accent of trying to rip them off.
Something like that.
He glanced back at the phone. NO SERVICE it said still, NO SERVICE. Why should it just say NO SERVICE in English? Why not in Welsh, too?
Down now, into the forestry's gloom. Sitka spruce stamping in dispiriting symmetry down the hillside, stealing the land and the light. Giles clung to the wheel of the Subaru, wipers scraping at the spray thrown up as the car slogged through a roadside river left by the storm. The rhythm of the wipers wafted waves of sleep into his head. soon-be-home, soon-be-home, soon-be-home.
Only when his chin hit his chest did Giles awake to his peril, violently jerking himself upright, a bumper scraping he forestry fence as he swerved back into the middle of the road.
Breathing hard, he wiped the palm of his hand across the windscreen and smeared cool condensation into his hot, hurting eyes.
Presently, the sky brightened. He pulled down the sun visor then flung it up again, tears in his eyes, realising this was the brightness heralding home. He saw the church's two-tiered belfry, and he stepped the car his heart tugging weakly but triumphantly.
The church was a symbol for Giles of what this village was about. Not some grey chapel behind back-street railings, but a great, soaring tower stabbing the sky, announcing Y Groes. The cross, Y Groesfan. The crossing place.
He had never been to a service at this church, never been to any kind of service since his wedding, but he told himself he must go this Sunday. Renew his faith, give thanks to the village and to its people and to the Almighty for bringing him here.
Battered, beaten-up, bedraggled, Giles wrapped both arms around the steering wheel and wept. And looked up and saw, through his tears, two towers, two bridges, two roads. But he would make it now. Back home to sleep. Sleep until church on Sunday. Sunday. When was that? What day was it? Was it Sunday tomorrow?
The car rolled out of the forestry as if someone else were driving it. Giles's senses somewhere around the rear parcel shelf.
Across the bridge, up the hill, past the lych gate of the church, a couple of hundred yards then right, between the two great sycamores in full autumnal glory.
Oh God, thank you, thank you.
Giles almost fell out of the car, heedless of the pain, and breathed deeply of the soft air. The metal gate was open for him. They must have told Claire he was on his way. What he wanted most in the world was to fall into bed, holding her to him, and sleep. Sleep for ever.
'Claire… darling Claire…'
He realised he'd said that aloud as he staggered up the path. The judge's house — no his house surely, his house now — sat before him, grey stone under a milky sky. The front door also was open for him. He stumbled gratefully over the step. 'Hello, darling, I tried to phone…'
There was no Claire waiting for him in the little stone-walled hallway.
Giles went into the living room. It was silent. No fire in the hearth, no cups on the table.
'Claire?'
He shouted out, 'Claire!' His voice almost breaking into a wail of disappointment. She wasn't here.
But the gate open, the front door. Couldn't have gone far, surely.
Giles went back outside, looked around the garden, called out. 'Claire!'
The wind brought only a sheep's bleat back to him from Morgan's field.
He returned to the house, upset and angry now, feeling deserted. And terribly, terribly tired. Too tired to think sensibly
'I'm going to bed.' Giles said thickly. 'Sod you, Claire. I'm going to bed.'
He staggered through the passage to the bottom of the stairs, still clinging to the hope that he would meet Claire coming down, smiling with welcome and sympathy and a hot cup of coffee.
Three doors in the passage, the one to the judge's study hanging open. But no light leaked out of the gap into the already dim passage. Irritably he pulled the door closed, but it swung open again as he turned away.
Angrily he spun round and snapped it shut.
In the passage he stumbled over something that should not be there, could not lake in at first that this was the pink vinyl headboard, cheap and brash, from Garfield and Pugh in hostile Pontmeurig. What was the bloody
