The Cure of Souls

Lol pushed the wheelchair back into the lane. He wondered when God might think it appropriate to ask her exactly why she’d been so afraid of Simon going into Stock’s kiln?

30 Element of Surprise

EIRION TOOK THE big roundabout at Carmarthen on two wheels, it felt like, throwing Jane into the passenger door. ‘There’s a station here, right?’ she demanded, but he didn’t react. He drove on, until, quite soon, there was only open countryside in front of them.

‘I did not ask for this,’ Jane said. ‘I did not want this.’

Eirion was heading north towards Llandeilo. He was, like, serious. He was even wearing his baseball cap the right way round.

‘I’d really hoped,’ Jane said, ‘that you were not going to turn out to be one of those guys who think women can’t transport themselves from A to B on their own.’

He still didn’t respond. Well, stuff it, Jane was thinking now, why should I complain if he wants to drive me to Hereford and then turn the car around and drive all the way back to the bosom of his incredible family? Except…

‘This is Gwennan’s car, isn’t it?’

‘She lets me use it,’ Eirion said through his teeth, eyes fixed on the road. ‘And anyway, they’ve still got Dad’s car.’

‘As I understand it, she only lets you use it because you’ve got some heavy dirt on her. Like that she’s really English or something?’

‘If you’re just trying to make me dump you at the roadside,’ Eirion said, ‘it won’t work.’

‘I was merely trying to envisage the scenario when little Sioned and little Lowri returned from y siop, maybe half an hour ago, to find out that we’d pissed off without them, and their mummy discovered she was obliged to take care of them for the entire day. I would have gone on to make the point that whatever dirt you have on her – and I would be the last one ever to ask – would then count for like… not a great deal. I just make the point.’

Eirion slowed the BMW. She saw that, despite the air-conditioning, he was sweating.

‘I just don’t want you to get disinherited in favour of those spooky kids, is all,’ Jane said. ‘It would like distress me if you were to be taken away from the Cathedral School and forced to work as a rent boy in Abergavenny.’

‘What makes you think I don’t already?’

‘You’re not pretty enough.’

‘Why don’t you call your mum?’ Eirion said.

‘It’s not your problem.’

‘Then why did you tell me about it?’

‘We’ve been through this. I just didn’t want you to think it was a racial thing when I went over the wall.’

Eirion pulled into the side of the road. Though it was a main road, it was still fairly quiet. The hills were low and green and there were broadleaf woods. Apart from the colour of the soil, it didn’t look dramatically different from Herefordshire.

Eirion turned to face her and took off his baseball cap. His eyes were solemn, his famously amazing smile now in cold storage.

‘I’ll be straight with you, Jane, I’m going to be in deep shit over this. Gwennan and Dad have a big lunch today in Tenby with some Arts Council people and National Assembly delegates and a cultural delegation of Irish- speakers from Ireland. It’s informal, but there could be a significant PR contract in it for Gwennan, in connection with this pan-Celtic cultural festival.’

‘Turn the car round now,’ Jane said with this, like, dark menace.

‘No. They’ll deal with it. They’ll find someone to look after the kids. Things will be a little tense for a while. I may have minor transportation problems – nothing I can’t handle.’

‘Why are you telling me this?’

‘Brownie points, that’s all,’ Eirion said. ‘I mean I’d really hate you to think I was in love with you or anything like that.’

He turned on the engine and pulled back into the traffic without looking at her.

Jane sank back into the leather. ‘Holy shit,’ she whispered, almost to herself.

They stopped for lunch at a roadside diner, where they were served chips only slightly broader than matches, then made it through Llandovery and Brecon without once being stopped by the Welsh National Assembly Cultural Police looking for a stolen BMW, and reached the outskirts of Hereford by early afternoon.

It was like Eirion had crossed over some barrier, and nothing emotive was touched on again. His mood was lighter, but Jane also sensed an underlying determination, and by the time he pulled into a side road off Kings Acre it was clear it had never been his intention to drop her off at the bus station.

‘Where exactly do we find this suicide kid?’

‘It wasn’t my intention even to try,’ Jane said. ‘It would mean getting past her old lady. That could take time. She sounded like a very difficult woman.’

‘Then let’s be sensible about this and go and see your mother.’

‘You’re missing the point. My mother is in an invidious position. And if she gets involved with Riddock it will like rise off the scale of invidiousness.’

‘So you want to go and face up this Riddock?’

‘Christ, no. She’d chew us up. Especially you.’

‘Thanks.’

‘You’re a guy. Guys she eats for an aperitif.’

‘An aperitif is a drink, Jane. Try hors d’oeuvre.’

‘I thought children of your ethnic persuasion had to do Welsh instead of French.’

‘I didn’t need to do Welsh, Jane. It was my first language – well, almost.’

‘Sometimes you scare me, you’re so alien.’

‘Bollocks,’ Eirion said. ‘Neither, somehow, do I believe this Riddock scares you.’

‘Doesn’t scare me, exactly. I just don’t want to go near her until I’ve got the means to, like, bend her to my will. No, listen…’ Jane hammered both fists on her knees. ‘Listen, listen, listen, I can work this out. You were right, of course. There was no way I could go to the media with half a story. We have to know first what the complete score is with this slag. Like, are we talking extortion? Because when I first sat down at that table in Steve’s shed, the first thing Kirsty Ryan asked me was had I got the ten quid. I mean, was that a joke? Or have they actually been taking money off little kids for letting them talk to their dear departeds?’

‘Little kids tend not to have dear departeds,’ Eirion said. ‘Death doesn’t mean that much to them.’

‘Jesus,’ Jane said, ‘when did you have your mid-life crisis?’

‘Besides which, I thought you said she had this rich stepfather who bought her a yellow Porsche.’

‘Mazda. Look, we don’t know enough, OK? Therefore, we need to talk to someone who does. Turn the nice German wheels around, and I shall endeavour to direct you. And…’

‘Yes?’

‘I’m very grateful to you for sacrificing your cultural heritage on the altar of, um…’

‘Don’t embarrass us both,’ Eirion said. ‘We have all the time in the world for that crap.’

‘Wasn’t that in an ancient James Bond film?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Bond’s like, “We have all the time in the world.” Then his woman gets shot.’

‘You have to turn everything into wide-screen, don’t you, Jane?’

‘It’s a cultural thing,’ Jane said. ‘It’s about seeing the big picture – being outward-looking, rather than… all