things. You've seen the changes, her mother's seen it. It's uncanny. Eerie.'

''True,' he conceded. Reached across the bed, pulled her into his arms. 'But what the hell can we do about it?'

'I'm only relieved.' she said, wet hair against his chest, 'that her parents managed to get away before…'

Chapter LII

Did George know she was on Valium?

She thought he must. How could anyone be expected to cope with reality as dismal as this without a little something to place a distance between one and it?

George did not, of course, need anything himself. Some sedative side of his mind seemed to be turned on automatically whenever life threatened to cross the pain threshold.

He certainly enjoyed his dinner again.

The little licensee had gone to great pains to make sure they were comfortable, lighting a log fire in the dining room where They ate alone. Serving lamb which George said was more tender and succulent than any he'd had before, even in the most expensive restaurants.

She had no opinion on this, did not remember tasting it.

The wine, though, she drank some of that, quite a lot in fact.

'Steady on, Elinor.' George had said, predictably, at one point.

At which she'd poured more.

'Another bottle, Mr. Hardy? The little landlord, dapper at George's elbow.

'Oh, I don't think—'

'Yes please,' she'd said to the landlord. Thinking of the combined sedative punch of valium and alcohol and deciding she needed to be entirely out of her head if she was to sleep the night through.

'When's Claire coming?' Pushing her plate away.

'She isn't.' George lighting a cigarette, blue smoke everywhere. 'She's picking me up first thing, then we can get the car back. Won't take them more than half an hour once they've got the parts. So I told Claire not to bother coming over, we'd be having an early night.'

'An early night?' Elinor croaking a mirthless laugh as a log collapsed in the fireplace. 'Bit late for that now.'

'Have some coffee.'

'Don't want coffee, thank you. The Welsh can't make proper coffee. Nescafe and Maxwell House are all one ever gets in Wales.'

'Actually, what I didn't want—' George leaning across the table, voice lowered, ' — was another night in that awful bar, all this bonhomie.'

'Oh, I hate it too, George. I shall drink here.'

'Please, Elinor… We'll be away tomorrow.'

'You bet your miserable life we will. If we have to flag down a long-distance lorry driver and show him my drooping tits.'

'Elinor!' Through his teeth.'… God's sake.'

'Perhaps I'd've been better off with a lorry driver, what do think George? Common people have fun.'

'Are you coming?' Getting to his feet, taking his cigarette with him.

'Did you ever imagine. George, that the day would come when you'd want to get me to bed only to save embarrassment?'

'Yes,' George said brutally.

She awoke thinking the night was over.

A reasonable mistake to make. There was a brightness beyond the curtains, before which all the furniture in the bedroom was blackly silhouetted.

But her watch showed 3:55 a.m.

Elinor, in a white nightdress, slid her feet into her wooden Scholl's, made her way unsteadily to the door, turning the handle slowly because, for once, her husband was sleeping quietly, no snoring.

At least the radiators in this place worked efficiently. It must be a freezing night outside, but the atmosphere in the bedroom was close, almost stuffy. Same on the landing outside.

She locked herself in the bathroom, two doors away, used the lavatory. She was disappointed but not surprised that the combination of drink and Valium had failed to take her all the way to the daylight- Washing her hands afterwards, she could not bear to look into the mirror over the basin, knowing how raddled she must look, still in last night's make-up for the first time in thirty-odd years.

She had no headache, but was certainly on the way down from wherever she'd been, despising herself utterly.

Why had they come? What had she been trying to prove?

Come to pay their last respects lo their good and upright son-in-law. And to be at their daughter's side in her hour of need.

A joke. Claire had not needed them for years and would never need them now.

She bent her head over the sink, turned on the taps again. Feebly splashed water on her face, left great lipstick smears on the towel wiping it off.

This time she did look up into the mirror. And in her sick clown's face she saw her father's eyes.

'Your fault.' she hissed. 'All this. I hope your soul is rotting.'

Her father's eyes did not flicker.

She turned away, pulled back the bolt and switched off the bathroom light, thankful for one thing: at least they had not set foot in his house. Not that Claire had invited them. Not once.

When she returned to their room, George was lying on his side, face to the wall. 'Mmmmmmpf,' he said.

At home they had twin beds. Next year, she decided, she would move into a separate room.

How far off morning?

The watch said 4:21.

But the light through the curtains was brighter. It could not be long.

She stood by the window; her hand moved to lift up the curtain… and pulled back. Suppose that bird was there again?

Beyond the drawn curtains it grew brighter still, blue-white like constant lightning.

'Ernrmph,' George rolled over.

Elinor forced herself lo pull buck the curtain a little, and she looked down into the village street.

The street was blue with cold.

Radiantly blue. A mat of frost the colour of a midsummer sky was rolling out over the river-bridge towards the inn.

Along this chilly carpet a figure moved.

He had a long overcoat of grey, falling lo the frosted road, and a wide-brimmed hat which shadowed his downcast face. He moved like a column of smoke, hands deep in the folds of his coat.

She could not see his feet or hear his footsteps, only a sharp, brittle sound, perhaps the frost itself. He left long, shallow tracks behind him but, as she watched, the marks in the frost healed over and the bright blue ground shone savagely cold and mockingly untrodden.

The figure advanced towards the door of the inn, and with each of his steps the temperature dropped around Elinor, as if the radiators were shutting down in great shudders. Her body began to quake, her teeth to chatter, and the fingers holding back the curtain were numbed.

Reaching the door of the inn. the visitor paused, the cold rising from him like steam, brought a hand out of his pocket as if to knock.

It was not a hand but the yellow, twisted, horny talon of a bird of prey.

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