reminisced about them. Alun ordered two more large vintage ports and another glass of the house red, which he sipped at and seemed to lose interest in. After a few minutes he called for the bill, paid, tipped largely, and departed on his way - to take the car in and have its starter fixed, he said.
4
But when Alun reached his car and set about driving off, the engine fired in a couple of seconds, nor did he go near any garage or repair-shop before parking the machine at the side of the road in a smart residential area. There followed a brisk walk of a hundred yards to a short driveway, at whose entrance he abruptly checked his stride. Standing quite motionless he gazed before him with a faraway look that a passer-by, especially a Welsh passer-by, might have taken for one of moral if not spiritual insight, such that he might instantly renounce whatever course of action he had laid down for himself. After a moment, something like a harsh bark broke from the lower half of his trunk, followed by a fluctuating whinny and a thud that sounded barely organic, let alone human. Silence, but for faint birdsong. Then, like a figure in a restarted film, he stepped keenly off again and was soon ringing the bell in a substantial brick porch.
Sophie Norris came to the door in a biscuit-coloured woollen dress and looking very fit. As soon as she had taken in the sight of Alun her routine half-smile vanished. 'You've got a bloody nerve you have, Alun Weaver,' she said in the old penetrating tones. 'I've a good mind to slam this in your face, cheeky bugger.'
'Ah, but you're not going to, are you, love? And why should you anyway? Just dropped in for a cup of tea. Nothing wrong in that, is there?'
Sighing breathily and clicking her tongue, she gave way. 'Ten minutes, mind. Ten minutes max. I've got to go down the shop. Think yourself bloody lucky I hadn't left already.'
'Sure. Charlie not about then?'
There Alun overplayed his hand a little. 'What do you take me for, Weaver, a fucking moron?' she said more indignantly than before, her eyes distended. 'Do you think I don't know you'd never dream of showing your nose here unless you were absolutely certain he wasn't around? You sod.'
'Come on, only joking. Yes, as a matter of fact I've just come from the Glendower. Peter was there too. The three of us had a spot of lunch. Quite good it was. All right if I sit down?'
She conceded this with an ill grace. 'Why didn't you say something the other night at the Morgans'? Or you could have just picked up the - '
'I didn't get the chance. No, no, that's not true. I probably could have. I didn't happen to think of it then.'
'And when did you happen to think of it, may I ask?'
'Well... this morning. Can't remember what time.
One moment nothing could have been further from my mind and the next I was full of it.'
'And you reckon you can just turn up like this, out of the bloody blue?'
'You could always chuck me out. I'd go quietly. You know that.'
'Still the same old Alun, eh?'
'Pretty much, yeah.' He paused. 'Go for a drive, shall we?'
This· apparently innocent invitation held overtones for them that resounded from thirty years or more back, when their drives had taken them to a convenient spot behind the mental home, in better weather to the woods on the far side of the golf links and occasionally to the Prince Madoc out at Capel Mererid, in whose snug they had more than once behaved in a fashion that had never quite ceased to perturb Alun in retrospect, even today.
'No need,' said Sophie in reply. Her manner was still faintly tinged with resentment. 'There won't be anyone along.'
'What makes you so sure?'
'I'm sure.'
'Yes, but what makes you so sure?'
'I'll tell you later.'
'No, tell me now.'
'All right,' she said. 'When Victor puts him in a taxi he always gives me a ring to let me know. Because once when he stayed very late he pitched up passed out on the stool thing in the passport-photo booth at Cambridge Street station. And it just so happened that old Tudor Whittingham was on his way back from London and spotted him and fetched him home in a taxi, another taxi. He couldn't even remember being put into the first taxi.'
Alun pondered. 'But Victor giving you a ring won't stop him pitching up passed out at the station or anywhere else, will it?'
'No, but it sort of hands over the responsibility, see. I can understand it.'
'Oh, and I can. What does Victor think? About how that arrangement might, er, have a bearing on your own plans for, er, whatever it might be.'
'I don't know. I don't know what any of them think.'
'Who does? Has it come in handy before?'
'If I ever tell you that it's bloody going to be later.'
'Has that arrangement with Victor come in handy before?' he asked later.
'Do you consider you have the slightest right to expect me to answer that?'
'Absolutely not and absolutely none. Presuming on an old friendship.'
'You are a bugger. Well, sort of, just from time to time. Not ridiculous. Not like when... '
