running across, waving. A measure of cool might be more appropriate. Try and cobble together a few quid for the petrol, indeed.
She strolled casually over the cobbles as Eirion climbed out. He spotted her at once and did his incredible smile — the kind of smile that said you were the only person who could make it happen.
Smooth bastard.
OK, he wasn’t. Eirion wasn’t smooth. He didn’t even know he had any charm.
When they’d finished kissing, he said, ‘Is there something wrong?’
‘Why?’
‘It’s very busy here today, isn’t it? I’ve never seen it like this.’
‘It’s Saturday.’ Jane looked back at the square. Lol and the guy from
‘Didn’t used to be like this on a Saturday, did it?’ Eirion said.
‘Tourism. It’s like tourists have suddenly discovered the area.’
‘Good for the shopkeepers.’
‘I suppose.’
Jane imagined the figure of Lucy Devenish, the ghost of Ledwardine past, standing in the shadows under the market hall. Lucy looking very old, the way she never had, and the poncho drooping. Something feeling wrong.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ Jane said.
6
On the Slippery Slope
Merrily found the atmosphere stifling. Too much heat, food-smells, a sense of something out of everyone’s control.
She exchanged glances with Saltash from opposite ends of the sofa. Saltash raised an eyebrow. Mrs Mumford seemed to think he was some kind of priest. And the wrong kind, at that.
‘Where’s the Bishop?’ she kept shouting at her son. ‘You said you’d bring the Bishop. You never does what you says you’s gonner do.’
Mumford sat, impassive, on a hard chair by the TV, which was silently screening some Saturday-morning children’s programme: grown-ups wearing cheerful primary colours and exaggerated expressions, smiling a lot and chatting with puppets.
Soon after they’d arrived, Mumford’s dad had walked out. ‘Can’t stand no more of this. I’m off shopping. She won’t face up to it. You talk some sense into her, boy, else you can bloody well take her away with you.’
‘I’m cold.’ Mrs Mumford was hunching her chair dangerously close to the gas fire. ‘Fetch me my cardigan, Andrew.’
‘You got it on, Mam.’
Mumford looked down at his shoes. The room felt like the inside of a kiln. His mam wore this winter-weight red cardigan and baggy green slacks. She had one gold earring in, and that wasn’t a fashion statement. She looked from Merrily to Saltash to Andy. She’d done this twice before, as if she was trying to work out who they all were.
‘Why en’t the Bishop come?’
‘He en’t well, Mam, I told you. He had a heart operation.’
Her eyes filled up. ‘You’ll tell me anything, you will.’
‘Mam—’
‘He was always nice to me, the Bishop, he never talked about God and that ole rubbish. Used to come in when we had the paper shop. Used to come in for his
‘Mam, that was the old bishop. He don’t live here no more.’
‘He can’t tell me why, see! That’s why he don’t wanner come.’ She turned to Saltash. ‘Can’t tell me.’
Mrs Mumford stared at Saltash in silence. Merrily looked away, around the room. The walls were bare, pink anaglypta, except for a wide picture in a gilt frame over a sideboard with silverware on it. But the picture had been turned round to face the wall. All you could see was the brown-paper backing, stretched tight.
What was it a picture of? Ludlow Castle?
‘What would you like the Bishop to tell you?’ Saltash asked.
Mam kept on staring at him, like she knew him but couldn’t place him. You could feel her confusion in the room, like a tangle of grey wool in the air. Her voice went into a whisper.
‘Why did God let her take him?’ Starting to cry now. ‘Why did God let that woman take our boy?’
Saltash leaned forward. ‘Which woman is that, Phyllis?’
‘You’re supposed to be a policeman!’ Mam rounding on Andy, chins quaking. ‘Why din’t you stop her?’
Andy Mumford drew a tight breath through clenched teeth, the veins prominent in his cheeks.
‘The Bishop, when he come round, he sat on that settee with a cup of tea and a bourbon biscuit and he never mentioned God nor Jesus, not once.’
Merrily said softly, ‘Mrs Mumford, who was the woman?’
Mam didn’t look at her. ‘I can’t say it.’ She pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and blew her nose. Saltash caught Merrily’s eye.
Andy said, ‘Mam, you can say anything to Mrs Watkins, and it won’t go no further.’
‘What… this girl?’
Mam snorted. Mumford looked helplessly at Merrily.
‘Phyllis,’ Saltash said. ‘I think you were starting to tell us about Robbie.’
‘Oh…’ She smiled suddenly, her face flushed. She sat up, centre stage. ‘He loves it here, he does.’
‘He felt safe here.’
‘He loves it.’
‘He was interested in history, wasn’t he?’
‘He loves all the old houses. He’s always walking up and down, looking at the old houses. He knows when they was all built and he knows who used to live in them. You can walk up Corve Street with him, and he’ll tell you who used to live where, what he’s found out from books. Reads such a lot of books. Reads and reads. I says, you’ll hurt your eyes, reading in that light!’
‘Phyllis,’ Saltash said. ‘Can you see Robbie… reading?’
‘No!’ She reared up, nodding the word out, hard. ‘I don’t need to see him no more. I said, please don’t let me see him. I don’t wanner see him like that…’
‘Like that?’
‘All broken. I don’t wanner— I just hears him now. Nan, Nan… Sometimes he’s a long way away. But sometimes, when I’m nearly asleep, he’ll be real close. Nan…’ She smiled. ‘And he draws them, the old houses. He’s real good. Draws all them old houses. And the church. And the ca—’
She stopped, her mouth open. And then her whole face seemed to flow, like a melting candle, and a sob erupted, and she clawed at her face and then — as Merrily stood up — kicked her chair back, dropping her hands.
‘She took him off.’
‘Mam!’ Andy knelt by the side of the chair, steadying it. ‘You mustn’t—’
‘She pushed him off, Andrew.’
‘No,’ Mumford said. ‘Now, that didn’t happen. Did it?’
‘Pushed him off,’ his mam said. ‘He told me.’
‘What do you mean?’ Mumford staring up into his mother’s swirling face. ‘What are you saying?’
Outside, the sun had gone in and there was a cold breeze. Merrily stared across the car park at the Tesco store. Its roof line had a roller-coaster curve, and she saw how this had been formed to follow the line of the hills beyond the town.
Some town — even Tesco’s having to sing in harmony.
She felt inadequate. Something wasn’t making sense. Or it was making the wrong kind of sense. There was
