Candlenight (16 page)

   
Berry stood at his apartment
window, looking out at the block from which you could see the Thames. He
clenched his fists.

   
All the way home from
Aberystwyth, he and Giles had discussed their respective careers in journalism,
the differences between the British and American media and even the rift between
Berry and his dad and what had caused it, the ethics of the job, all this
stuff.

   
Everything, it seemed, except
the cottage in Y Groes, Giles's future there, Berry's feelings about the place.
It was clear that Giles, having brought Berry to see the house without getting
the expected result—"Gee, Giles, this is just amazing, you're a lucky guy,
I can't tell you how jealous I am"—had been studiously avoiding the issue.

   
While Berry . . . Well, what
was
his
excuse?

   
You asshole, Morelli. he told
himself. You blew it again. All ways, you blew it.

   
This was three days ago. It was
now Wednesday night. It was well into October. It was dark. He had nobody to
talk to.

   
Miranda had landed a part in a
TV commercial for perfume. Although the perfume was made in Wolverhampton, they
were making the commercial in Paris. She'd left a message on his answering
machine to say she might be back by the end of the week if she didn't run into
any vaguely interesting Frenchmen looking for a little fun.

   
Berry sat down and tried to
watch a re-run of an episode of
Cheers
.
Even that didn't lift him out of his private gloom. When it was over, he
switched off and lay down on his bed.
missing Miranda, haunted by the same crazy question. Am I psychic or just
neurotic?

   
"
The kid's neurotic
," Mario Morelli had said. It was the first
time he was conscious of hearing the word. He'd been—what? Nine, ten? The year
he went to summer camp and was so unhappy they sent him home, scared—he heard his
dad telling his mom—that he was going to walk off on his own and drown himself.
After that, Mario took no chances; he wasn't having a son of his bringing down scandal
on the family.

   
His career. Really, he was
afraid of what it would do to his career.

   
In subsequent years they reluctantly
took him with them on vacation, which was how he first saw London. He'd been happy
then, although he knew things between his parents were not good. He'd pretended
he was there alone, pretended it was his town. Felt the history of the place;
imagined he was part of it, not part of his dad's vacation, which seemed to be
full of inefficient service and lousy Limey food.

   
How long after that was The
Gypsy?

   
Whenever, that was the year the
vacation coincided with his mom being in hospital having this Ladies'
Surgery—he never did find out whether it was a hysterectomy or new tits—and his
dad had to take custody of the kid.

   
Berry had spent this dismal
fortnight down in Florida, where Mario—already a high-profile newsman with
NBC—had borrowed a beach house from a friend. Come to think of it, this friend had
been a senator, the bastard already getting too close to politicians for a guy
who was supposed to be ruthlessly impartial.

   
Anyhow, that had been the
summer of The Gypsy. He didn't know if she
was
a gypsy, but that was how he always thought of her. He didn't know, either, if
she was a phoney. Just always hoped she was. Better to be a basic neurotic than
what she said.

   
He remembered the nights spent
holding the pillow around his head to muffle the sound of Mario humping Carmine,
his mistress, in the next room. One night he didn't go back to the beach house,
just walked until dawn, a night of spinning pinball and hard coloured lights
and cheap music.

   
And The Gypsy.

   
She was this mid-European lady,
with a sign over her door covered with coloured moons and stars. He couldn't imagine
now how the hell he'd found the courage to walk in there with his five dollars.

   
She'd said. "You not a
happy boy, you mixed up." He thought she was about to use the word
neurotic, like his old man. But she went on, "It affect you more on
account of you sensitive, right? Have eyes inside, yes?" Berry staring at
her blankly. "One day something happen to you. Wow! Crash! Boom! And then
you know what you got."

   
Crazy. The lights, the hot
music, and The Gypsy. Sometimes—occasionally in the years before The Gypsy and increasingly
afterwards—he'd gotten feelings about things or places. Small things, stupid things.
Feelings that said: don't get closer to this, back off. And The Gypsy's words
would come back to him, and he'd laugh. Try to laugh, anyhow.
   
She'd been called Rose-something, weren't
they all? She'd taken his money, but afterwards given it back to him. "You
and me, we in same shit. You find out. Good luck, huh."

   
Most likely, she was neurotic
too.

   
The thing that really got to
him was old Winstone. Put the arm on young Giles, stop him, not meant to be
there, all that crap. The sequence of events leading up to him standing in a
dark, cold room permeated by hatred.

   
Or maybe simply a perfectly
ordinary room with a certifiable neurotic standing in it.

On Friday night Miranda called Berry from her mother's house in Chelsea
to say she was home.

   
"Did you get my
message?" she asked him.

   
"Did you get a
Frenchman?"

   
"They all tried too
hard." Miranda said. '"I wanted one who really didn't want to know,
but they all tried too hard. I'm afraid Paris has become rather tedious."

   
"As tedious as
Wales?"

   
"Do me a favour. How did
you get on. anyway?"
   
She seemed to have forgotten about
telling him not to bother coming back.

   
"Oh, you know, OK."
Berry said. "Interesting place, good scenery. Crazy language."

   
"And you spelled it out
for him? As stipulated in the dying wish of old what's-his-name?"

   
"It was complicated."

   
"Complicated. I see. What
you're saying is you didn't sort it out. You didn't, did you? You really didn't
tell him. You spent the whole weekend poncing around with a lot of Celtic
sheep-shaggers and you didn't say a word."

   
"That isn't quite fair.
Miranda. What happened . . .Listen, can I see you?"

   
She hung up on him.

   
Angrily. Berry broke the line
and tried to call her back.
   
Then he changed his mind and called
Giles at home. This was it. The end. He'd lay the whole thing on him, the whole
Winstone bit, the bad vibes in the judge's study, everything.

   
Giles's phone rang five times
and then there was a beep.

   
"This is the London home of Claire and Giles Freeman. We 're not
here, so you can either leave a message after the tone or ring us on Y Groes
239."

   
Beep.

   
Berry put the phone down.
   
Y
Groes 239
.

   
"Shit," he said,
dismayed.

   
Giles had complained it would
be months before all the legal stuff was complete, what did they call it,
probate.

   
"They're living in that
goddamn house," Berry said aloud. "They moved in."

   
He'd blown it. He'd let
everybody down again. Giles, Winstone. Even Miranda.

   
You're a waste of time, boy. You know that
?
   
Mario Morelli's words, of course.
   
You
got no guts is the problem
.

CHAPTER XX

WALES

One of the first things they did was to go into Pontmeurig and choose a
bed.

   
Nothing else. Not yet, anyway.
Any changes, they had agreed, should be dictated by the cottage itself. They
felt that after they'd spent a few weeks there they would know instinctively
which items of new furniture the judge's house might consider permissible.

   
But a new bed was essential.
There was only one in the place, an obvious antique with an impressive
headboard of dark oak which was possibly Claire's grandfather's deathbed.
        
Hardly be seemly for the pair of them
to spend their first night in Y Groes squashed into that.

   
So they ordered the new bed
from Garfield and Pugh's furniture store in Stryd y Castell, Pontmeurig. It
wasn't the kind of bed they would have bought under normal circumstances— it
had a headboard of shiny pink vinyl—but there were only three to choose from
and Giles was adamant that they should support local traders.

   
"We can soon pick up a new
headboard somewhere." he whispered to Claire. "I mean, it'd look
pretty bad if we walked out now without buying one."

   
Young Mr. Pugh. son of one of
the partners, was standing no more than four feet away with a contemptuous
smile on his pale, plump face. He had obviously heard every word and was not
bothering to conceal the fact.

   
"I cannot see us having
anything that would suit you," Mr. Pugh had told them bluntly. "No
brass bedsteads here. No pine. Nothing—how can I put it —nothing
cottagey
. Have you tried Aberystwyth or
Lampeter?"
   
"We'd rather shop locally,"
Giles had replied stiffly. "Now we're living here." He was furious.
This youth was treating him like one of the mindless incomers who wanted to
turn Wales into an English colony. He imagined a headline in the local paper.

SNOOTY LONDONERS SNUB LOCAL BEDS

"We'll have this one," Giles said. "Nice cheerful headboard."

   
Mr. Pugh shrugged. "We
can't deliver until Monday."
   
"That'll be fine." Giles
said, wondering where the hell they were going to sleep over the weekend.
"
Blaen-y-cwm
, is it?" Mr.
Pugh asked.
   
"What?"

   
"Mrs. Harris's old place.
Where you're living?"

   
"No," Giles said.
"We've taken over my wife's grandfather's house at Y Groes. Judge Rhys."

   
"Oh, I see." said Mr.
Pugh. with a little more interest. "
Siarad
Cymraeg
?"

   
"I'm afraid not."
Giles said. "But we hope to learn."

   
"They don't speak much
English in Y Groes." Mr. Pugh said with a smirk.

   
"Good," said Giles.

   
When they left the shop. Claire
said. "Not very friendly, are they? He didn't particularly want to sell us
that bed."

   
"He's probably sick to
death of posh English people buying things and then seeing something better and
cancelling their order."

   
"They weren't very
friendly in the Drovers' Arms either."

   
"They were OK. They didn't
all start speaking Welsh or anything when we walked in."

   
"Oh yes, most of them were
speaking English," said Claire. "But not to us."

   
"For God's sake—"
Giles snapped. "Give them a chance, can't you?"

   
Claire's small face was solemn,
and Giles's mood softened. He knew she was looking for reasons not to stay
here. Not because she didn't want to, but because she did want to
very badly.

"Look," Giles said. "We can't expect them to rush out and
welcome us with open arms. We're just another English couple in love with a
dream. They've seen us before. That's what they think."

   
Claire smiled. "I doubt if
anyone has seen you before Giles." she said.

   
Giles ignored this. "We've
got to persuade them we're not the usual kind of pompous self-satisfied shits
who come in and throw money about until they get bored and move to
Provence or somewhere the weather's better." He put an arm around Claire.
"Come on. let's go home."

   
He loved the sound of that. Home.

   
Y Groes was home now.