‘Of course.’
Yes, you only really knew people when you knew everything about them. You needed to know it all — from the exact moment they had been conceived in the long grass at the back of the village hall to the first word they had spoken, and the contents of their fifth-form school reports. You needed to know what size of shoes they wore, how much money they owed the credit card company, when their last bout of chickenpox had been, and which foot had the ingrowing toenail. You had to know who their first sexual encounter had been with, what brand of condom they had used, and whether the experience had been satisfactory. Now that was knowing somebody.
‘But I have seen them,’ admitted Gwen. ‘The Mount lot.’
‘What about the girl? Laura?’
‘She never went to school in the village — she was already too old when they came. She didn’t even go to the big school in Edendale. Private, she was. That place out at Wardworth, what do they call it?’
‘High Carrs.’
‘That’s right. They always took her out by car every morning and back in the afternoon. At weekends they were always away out somewhere, shopping in Sheffield and the like. Riding lessons and I don’t know what. She never had anything to do with any of the other girls in the village, nor any of the boys either, though plenty would have liked to know her better, I don’t doubt. They kept her shut up in that place, or well away from here. So she was never really part of the village then, was she? Not her, nor that brother of hers either. They couldn’t be, not like that.’
‘And how well do you think your husband knew Laura?’
Gwen flared up suddenly, her lip lifting to reveal her false
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teeth in something that was almost a snarl. Cooper bit off too large a piece of biscuit and nearly choked.
‘Are you sure you’ve been listening?’
‘Of course I have.’
‘Didn’t I say he never tells me anything? How would I know if he knew her? She’s never been here, she’s never been to the cottage. So how would I know?’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and meant it. ‘I’ll have to ask him myself, of course.’
‘You think he’ll tell jou anything?’
‘It’s in his own interests. It won’t help to be uncooperative with us.’
‘Try telling him that. I wish you luck with it.’
She relaxed into her chair, calming down again as quickly as she had flared. She looked up at him coyly, as if ashamed at her show of temper.
‘I heard he had a bit of a disagreement with my bosses,’ said Cooper, probing gently at something that was intriguing him.
‘And thought he was very clever doing it,’ Gwen said. She sighed and put down her cup half drunk. ‘He always was contrary. A stubborn man. Ever since I’ve known him, he’s been like that. When I was a girl, it was one of the things I liked about him. I thought it was a man’s pride then. Now … Well, like I say,
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he’s stubborn. A right awkward old bugger, Harry Dickinson. Everybody knows that.’
From the way the old woman spoke, it seemed to Cooper that it was the stubbornness that was still, really, the thing that she liked most about Harry. Now that the physical attraction had gone and the romance had long since settled into a numb familiarity, there was still a quality in her husband that could make her voice soften and her pale eyes shift out of focus, as if she were looking beyond the walls of the cottage to the shadows of a happier past. Their marriage might not be happy, but surely something else had taken the place of happiness — a sort of stability, a necessary balance. The old couple were like two of those ancient rocks propped against each other on Raven’s Side — jagged and weathered, their hard surfaces
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gouging into each other, but worn to each other’s shape by the
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years. But if one of those rocks should crumble, there was no |[
future lor the other. f
‘Of course, he thinks more of those pals of his than he does of
me, these days,’ said Gwen. ‘Sam Beeley and Wilford Cults.” }|
‘I’m sure that’s not true,’ said Cooper. :| ‘That’s what Helen savs as well. But I’m not sure. Not at
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all. I j
‘He’s known them a long time, hasn’t he?’ ‘
‘For ever. From when they were young lads together. Before he met me. When you get married, you think you’ll be the most important thing in the other person’s life. But Harry never let me come between him and his pals.’
For a moment, Gwen’s voice hardened again, her eyes focused
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on Cooper as if he had reminded her of the present.
‘They worked together, you know, in the mines,’ she said. ‘And they joined up together. They were young men then. Served in the same regiment and came back from the war closer than ever. Then they went back to the mines — but the war had killed the lead mining like it killed all those men. It
