Candlenight

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.'

'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.'