A Crown of Lights

Betty’s hair was loose and tumbled. Her face was flushed. She looked more beautiful than he’d ever seen her. She always did look beautiful. And he was losing her. He’d been losing her from the moment they arrived here. He felt like his heart was swollen to the size of the room.

‘We’re not gonna let them take us down, are we? Betty, this is... this is you and me against the world, right?’

Betty detached her car keys from the hook by the door.

‘Please,’ Robin said. ‘Please don’t go.’

Betty said quietly, ‘I’m not leaving you, Robin.’

He put his head in his hands and wept. When he took them down again, she was no longer there.

25 Cyst

LEDWARDINE SAT SOLID, firmly defined in black and white under one of those sullen, shifty skies that looked as if it might spit anything at you. Just before nine Merrily crossed the square to the Eight-till-Late to buy a Mail.

A spiky white head rose from the shop’s freezer, its glasses misted.

‘Seems funny diggin’ out the ole frozen pasties again, vicar.’

They ended up, as usual, in the churchyard, where Gomer gathered all the flowers from Minnie’s grave into a bin liner.

‘Bloody waste. Never liked flowers at funerals. Never liked cut flowers at all. Let ’em grow, they don’t ’ave long.’

‘True.’ She knotted the neck of the bin liner, spread the Daily Mail on the neighbouring tombstone and they sat on it.

‘Barbara Buckingham’s missing, Gomer. Didn’t show up for Menna’s funeral. Never got back to me, and hasn’t been in touch with her daughter in Hampshire either.’

‘Well,’ Gomer said, ‘en’t like it’s the first time, is it?’

‘She just go off without a word when she was sixteen?’

‘Been talkin’ to Greta Thomas, vicar. No relation – well, her man, Danny’s second cousin twice removed, whatever.’

‘Small gene pool.’

‘Ar. Also, Greta used to be secertry at the surgery. Dr Coll’s. En’t much they don’t find out there. Barbara Thomas told you why her was under the doctor back then?’

‘Hydatid cyst.’

Barbara had talked as though the cyst epitomized all the bad things about her upbringing in the Forest – all the meanness and the narrowness and the squalidness. So that when she had it removed, she felt she was being given the chance to make a clean new start – a Radnorectomy.

Gomer did his big grin, getting out his roll-up tin.

Merrily said, ‘You’re going to tell me it wasn’t a hydatid cyst at all, right?’

Gomer shoved a ready-rolled ciggy between his teeth in affirmation.

‘I never thought of that,’ Merrily said. ‘I suppose I should have. What happened to the baby?’

‘Din’t go all the way, vicar. Her miscarried. Whether her had any help, mind, I wouldn’t know. Even Greta don’t know that. But there was always one or two farmers’ wives in them parts willin’ to do the business. And nobody liked Merv much.’

‘Hang on... remind me. Merv...?’

‘Merv Thomas. Barbara’s ole feller.’

‘Oh God.’

Gomer nodded. ‘See, Merv’s wife, Glenny, her was never a well woman. Bit like Menna – delicate. Havin’ babbies took it out of her. Hard birth, Menna. Hear the screams clear to Glascwm, Greta reckons. After that, Glenny, her says, that’s it, that’s me finished. Slams the ole bedroom door on Merv.’

Merrily stared up at the sandstone church tower, breathed in Gomer’s smoke. She’d come out without her cigarettes.

‘Well, Merv coulder gone into a particlar pub in Kington,’ Gomer said. ‘Even over to Hereford. Her’d have worn that, no problem, long as he din’t go braggin’ about it.’

‘But Merv thought a man was entitled to have his needs met in his own home.’

It explained so much: why Barbara left home in a hurry, also why she had such a profound hatred of Radnor Forest. And why Menna had invaded her conscience so corrosively – to the extent, perhaps, that after she was dead, her presence was even stronger. When Menna no longer existed on the outside, in a fixed place in Radnorshire, she became a permanent nightly lodger in Barbara’s subconscious.

‘But the bedroom door musn’t have stayed closed, Gomer. Barbara said her father was determined to breed a son, but her mother miscarried, and then there was a hysterectomy.’

Gomer shrugged.

‘But then his wife died. Hang on, this friend of yours...’ Merrily was appalled. ‘If she knew about Barbara, then she must’ve known what might have been happening to Menna.’

‘Difference being, vicar, that Menna had protection. There was a good neighbour kept an eye on Menna, specially after her ma died. Judy Rowland. Judy Prosser now.’

Judy... Judith. ‘Barbara said she had letters from a friend called Judith, who was looking out for Menna. That eased her conscience a little.’

‘Smart woman, Judy. I reckons if Judy was lookin’ out for Menna, Menna’d be all right. Her’d take on Merv, would Judy, sure to.’

‘She still around?’

‘Oh hell, aye. Her’s wed to Gareth Prosser – councillor, magistrate, on this committee, that committee. Big man – dull bugger, mind. Lucky he’s got Judy to do his thinkin’ for him. Point I was gonner make, though, vicar, I reckon Judy was still lookin’ out for Menna, seein’ as both of ’em was living in Ole Hindwell.’

‘You mean after her marriage?’

‘No more’n five minutes apart, boy at the pub told me.’

‘So if she also still kept in touch with Barbara, maybe Barbara went to see her, too, while she was here.’

‘Dunno ’bout that, but her went to see Greta, askin’ questions ’bout Dr Coll.’

Gatecrashed his surgery. Made a nuisance of myself. Not that it made any difference. Bloody man told me I was asking him to be unethical, pre-empting the post-mortem.

‘What did Barbara want to know about Dr Coll?’

‘Whether he was treatin’ Menna ’fore she died, that kind o’ stuff.’

‘What’s he look like, Dr Coll?’

‘Oh... skinny little bloke. ’Bout my build, s’pose you’d say. Scrappy bit of a beard.’

‘He was at Menna’s funeral. The private bit.’

‘Ar, would be.’

‘So where’s Barbara then, Gomer? Where is Barbara Thomas?’

‘I could go see Judy Prosser, mabbe. Anybody knows the score, it’s her. I’ll sniff around a bit more. What else I gotter do till the ole grass starts growin’ up between the graves again?’

It was colder now. The mist had dropped down over the tip of the steeple. Gomer’s roll-up was close to burning his lips. He took it out and squeezed the end. He looked sadly at the grave, his bag of frozen pasties on his knees and his head on one side like a dog, as if he was listening for the ticking of those two watches under the soil.

‘I’ve got to go back there today.’ She told him about Old Hindwell seemingly metamorphosed into Salem, Mass. ‘You, er, don’t fancy coming along?’

Gomer was on his feet. ‘Just gimme three minutes to put these buggers in the fridge, vicar.’