Meici murmured to himself with evident satisfaction, the figures were looking good. He stopped and looked up, shoving the calculator over towards her. ‘There you go. That’s five grand I’ve saved you.’
She took out her reading specs and bent over the calculator. She leant back and said, ‘My, my!’ And then a thought clouded her brow. ‘But they have fewer spokes those carbon-fibre ones, don’t they?’
‘Absolutely,’ said Meici. ‘Stronger material, greater rigidity, fewer spokes—’
‘Hmm, but does that mean you don’t get that wagon-wheel effect you see in the old westerns where the wheels seem to be spinning backwards? I like that bit.’
Meici scoffed at the naivety of her question. ‘But of course you get it! Don’t you see? Fewer spokes, lighter weight, less drag, you can go fast as you like!’
Mrs Eglwys Fach quivered with an excitement that was almost carnal, all common sense had departed and in her eyes there burned the fierce gleam of a woman now picturing herself cutting a dash and inviting all the envious scorn of her neighbours as she sat at the helm of a new carbon-fibre wheel. In such a mood she would have signed away the deeds to the cottage. Meici studiously filled out the order adding in every conceivable extra, including anti-spell coating which I’m sure he had implied was rendered unnecessary by the advanced technology of the design.
Calamity whispered, ‘You go outside and create a diversion, I’ll get the tape.’
‘Why don’t you go out and create the diversion?’ I hissed back. She gave me an impatient look and Meici looked up to see what the problem was.
Calamity said, ‘No, Louie, I think I’ll sit here for a while, I’m feeling a little faint from the heat. You go out and take the air.’
I walked outside and heard a voice singing, a young girl’s voice. I followed the sound into the thin grey miasma that passed for summer in this dingle and walked round to the back of the cottage. The girl was sitting on the edge of a well washing her hair in a wooden pail. For a while she continued, unaware of being observed. She was bent forward over the bucket, wringing her hair, which the wetness had rendered dark and colourless. Soap suds glistened. She continued singing and I coughed politely. She started and looked up.
‘I’m with the spinning-wheel man,’ I said politely.
‘I know, I saw you arrive. I’ve seen you before somewhere, too, but I can’t remember where.’
‘Perhaps in church,’ I said.
‘Definitely not there.’ She picked up a towel and began to dry her hair. Colour emerged from the dark mass, like flowers appearing in the undergrowth of a gloomy wood: russets, mahogany, rosewood, copper. Then she swept the hair up into a white turban of towel.
‘If you were looking for the outhouse it’s through the kitchen.’
‘I just came for a walk. My name’s Louie.’
‘Arianwen. It was so nice of you to come, grandmother is lost without her wheel.’
‘It looks like she’s going to need a new one.’
‘Can’t you fix it?’
‘No, we think someone must have put a spell on it, probably in league with the birds.’
She giggled. ‘I don’t believe in spells.’
‘Nor do I.’
‘If you ask me, someone spilled some glue on it.’
‘But who would do a thing like that?’
‘I don’t know, an intruder I expect; definitely a very wicked person.’ She let her gaze linger on me for a second that might have been a hint of forbidden knowledge or simply the absence of guile. ‘You’re quite good- looking for a spinning-wheel salesman.’
‘No one’s ever said that to me before.’
‘That’s if you really are a spinning-wheel salesman.’
‘What else could I be?’
‘I think you are a rogue.’
‘I could be both.’
‘We get quite a few salesmen pass this way and you’re not like the usual ones. They’re always so corny: “My word, how pretty you are! Here, try this stovepipe hat on. Wow! Just look at that, have you ever thought about starring in the Butlies?” ’
‘What are they?’
‘You know, the “What the butler saw” flicks.’
‘I didn’t know they were called Butlies.’
‘Just shows you’re not a real spinning-wheel salesman, then, doesn’t it?’ She emptied the pail down the drain next to the kitchen wall. ‘And besides, you don’t smell of air freshener.’ She slung the pail down next to the drain, straightened up and smiled. ‘I bet he told you I was seventeen and never been kissed, too.’
‘Yes, he did.’
‘It’s because he heard the line in a song once. I’m twenty-one, in case you were wondering, and I’ve been kissed by three different boys, although I’ve never gone further than that, well not much.’
‘It’s never a good idea to rush these things.’
She feigned disappointment. ‘Oh you’re not much fun, are you? You sound like my grandmother.’
‘One thing you learn in life is almost everything your grandmother told you when you were young, and which you thought at the time was just the lunacy of old age, is actually true.’
Meici Jones appeared round the corner of the cottage, holding a stovepipe hat. He gave me the black look of a man who finds another trespassing on his territory. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I just came for a walk.’
‘You should have asked me first.’ He explained to Arianwen: ‘This is my assistant Lou.’
‘Yes, we’ve met.’
‘I’m sorry if he’s bothering you.’
‘Oh there’s nothing to be sorry for.’
‘He’s still learning, you see. Lou, get back to the car and write up your report on the call.’
‘Oh you’re a spoilsport, sending such a handsome man away to write a boring report.’
Meici’s face reddened and his eyes misted up. He ploughed on with dogged determination. ‘I bought you this.’
‘Not another silly hat! Granny never wears them.’
‘It’s for you.’
‘Oh. I see. It’s very kind of you.’
‘I was a bit surprised you weren’t wearing the dress.’
‘I wore it so much it had to go in the wash.’
I made a slight chivalrous bow to Arianwen, because I knew it would annoy Meici, and walked back. Calamity came out of the kitchen and gave me a wink that said, ‘Tape retrieved, mission accomplished.’ We waited next to the car for Meici to return. When he came back he was miserable and said he wouldn’t be driving us all the way, but would drop us off at the bus stop. I sat in the back with Calamity. Meici kept his eyes fixedly on the road and didn’t speak. As we exited the cottage, we passed a field in which stood a scarecrow wearing a red-and-white polka-dot dress that flapped in the breeze.
Chapter 5
‘Spooky,’ said Calamity. ‘Really spooky.’
We walked in single file down a narrow track of loose shale through gorse bushes and found ourselves on the lake’s shore. The waters were dark and sombre, and clouds brooded on the surface. Far out, in the centre of the lake, the spire of a church broke the surface. Birds wheeled about the sky, the waters lapped the shore gently. The world was quiet; even the bees had stopped humming. The only other human life came from a group of three artists painting in watercolours.
‘Spooky,’ said Calamity. ‘Really spooky.’
The reservoir lay on the east of the Penpegws massif, north of Devil’s Bridge. We had asked Meici to drop us off on the way back to town; we would get the bus back.
