‘Gone back to the same place then,’ he said.
‘I think so.’
BetFred. Bus stop.
‘I felt sorry for her actually,’ Madeleine said, ‘Lorna, I mean. The way her daughter was bossing her about. Sit there, Mother. Do this, do that. And she was so quiet, as if she’d just given up, just doing what she was told and holding onto this old holdall as if it was a baby.’
One of those telephone silences.
‘OK then,’ he said, ‘thanks for letting me know.’
‘I’m sure she must have been relieved though. I mean Lorna. To be going back. She must have been. By far the best thing.’
‘Probably,’ he said, and yawned.
‘So anyway, I thought I’d just keep you posted.’
‘Thanks.’
‘I’ve got a backlog now. It was actually all quite stressful.’
‘Uhuh.’
She sighed.
‘OK then,’ he said. ‘Thanks for helping.’
‘Bye then.’
‘Bye.’
He was still worn out from last night’s booze. The bees were getting quiet for winter. It was really coming now, a harsh one. He went in and the house was cold. What was the coal and wood situation? Shitty. Cut wood tomorrow. He lit a fire and fell asleep on his back on the sofa in front of it, woke to heavy rain. Torrential. Christ, that’s hail. He thought about the woman’s little silly house in the woods made of sticks and canvas and plastic sheets, all getting hammered into the forest floor. Tomorrow he’d go there and take a look at it and it would be all broken up and fallen in with some of her jewellery still hanging on it.
Oh well. Down to the village in the rain, to the pub. Got Marlon to sell him a bottle of Talisker. The telly was on. They were supposed to be making improvements to the place but it just looked more ordinary, more like everywhere else. If they took the old dragon from the wall, that was it. He wouldn’t come in any more.
He got talking to Pete about people he didn’t know. Pete’s daughter was going on a cruise. The Baltic states.
‘You been round that part of the world?’ Pete asked.
‘I did once.’
‘You’ve been everywhere.’
‘No. Furthest I’ve been is Iceland.’
‘When you didn’t see the Northern Lights.’
‘When I didn’t see the Northern Lights.’
‘I never have either.’
Dan’s back was sore. It was sore every day now. And one of his knees was cranky. Fuck old age. He wondered if he should tell Pete about the woman and all that stuff she’d told him. But then. If he was going to tell anyone, I suppose it should be the police, but then again, like the daughter said, after all, you couldn’t believe a word she said. What do you do? A crime? So, if it really was a crime, what? Murder? But then, what then? What would happen? Arrest. Trial? He didn’t know about the law. She’d go on trial. Obviously. But then again, mental health issues. Yeah but still have to go on trial, no way round that. But then. Prison? No no no, some kind of institution, what do you do with people like that? And anyway what if it’s not true, or true some other way, or her daughter who’s OK now is going to have to go through some horrible trauma knowing what happened, what’s the point of that? But she deserves to know. The truth. What is the truth? Truth.
‘So,’ said Pete, ‘yeah, I’d better be off.’
Dan hadn’t got a clue what he’d been talking about for the last ten minutes. Still, he knew he’d been chucking in the odd word.
‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘seeya.’
The TV over the bar showed people in an airport. Stuck. Bad weather. Snow wherever that is. More forecast.
I don’t know how you work these things out, how the hell, he thought. It’s wrong whichever way you look at it. The thought of her locked up seemed wrong. Oh fuck it, another drink.
It was snowing when he left an hour later. Delightful. The big flakes falling grey against the dark sky. Pissed. Lovely, going down the old lane with his arms out catching snow. She made his heart hurt, she was such a lost cause, that woman. Nothing to be done. Ah God, the old days, him and the fat boy, Frankie, and Eric Munsy and whatsisname throwing snowballs on the way home from school. One hit Mrs Turley on the back. Mrs Turley taught history. They all ran behind the hedge and killed themselves laughing. Didn’t hurt her. And where were they gone now? Just playing. Getting home he went through the blue snow garden, the flakes swirling and skirling, through the gates to the hives so he could look down beyond the slope and the hedge and see the open sky over the long field. There he scooped up a fair-sized snowball in his bare hands and hurled it way over the hedge. Good one! Play! Play! Play on. Another. There was a sound from the dark under the hedge at the bottom of the slope.
What was that under the whisper of snow?
Oh nothing. Mew mew. Cat. Can get in when it wants to.
His hands were wet and burning.
‘Hey, pussy cats!’ he yelled, going in. ‘Come on in now. Gather round.’
The fire was
