Candlenight (18 page)

   
"Listen ... We went to see
him just once, your father and I," her mother said, "when you were a
very small child, three or four. I've told you before, I'm sure, but I don't suppose
you were very interested at the time. Anyway, we thought he ought to see his granddaughter.
Just once, for the sake of—"

   
Appearances. Claire thought.

   
"—the family. Old times. I
don't know why we went really."

   
Because you wanted a good snoop,
Claire thought.

   
"But—My God, we soon
wished we hadn't. It was the most embarrassing day I can ever remember. He
seemed to have nothing to say to us. A
stranger
,
a strange man to me—my own father. Just some old, some old . . .Welshman. Who
didn't even look the same, somehow.
   
His . . . housekeeper prepared this
very basic lunch of ham salad, I remember. She also did most of the talking. And
then after lunch he said, let's go for a walk, something like that. And your
father got to his feet and the old devil waved at him to sit down. Not you, he
said. The child and I will go. I was speechless."

   
"And what happened?"
asked Claire.

   
A silence.

   
"You went," her
mother said coldly.

   
"Really?" Claire had
been expecting to hear how she'd burst into tears and clung to her mother's
skirt, demanding to go home. She was thrilled. "I really went with
him?"

   
Elinor didn't reply this time.
She obviously regarded it as an act of almost unbelievable treachery.

   
Claire said, "You never told
me that before. I know you never told me."

   
"Why should I? It's hardly
been a fond memory."

   
"Mother—"Claire
thought,
that feeling
. . .
the feeling that it was meant
... I was
simply
remembering
. . .
   
"What happened," she said, "when
I went for this walk with my grandfather? I mean, where did we go?"

   
"Claire, it's thirty years
ago. and it's not something—"

   
"Oh, come on. Mother, you
must remember. You remember everything else that happened."

   
She heard Elinor drawing in a
long, thin breath. "All I remember is that you were both gone for what
seemed like an awfully long time and I ran out of things to say to the frightful
woman, the so-called housekeeper, and your father got increasingly embarrassed,
so we went outside to look for you. George was getting rather worried because
it was hardly a big place and yet we couldn't see you anywhere.
   
And then the old swine came up the
lane from the church. He was holding your hand and we could hear him—well, I was
disgusted. I snatched you away at once."

   
"Good God, Mother, what on
earth—?"

   
"I put you in the car and
I made your father drive us away from there. We didn't bother to say goodbye.
We'd been insulted enough."

   
"But what was he doing?
Did he say something to you? To me?"

   
"And we swore never to go
back there again, ever. And we never did."

   
"But what—?"

   
"I don't
know
!" her mother had almost
screamed. "He was talking to you in
Welsh
,
for God's sake!"

   
The old oak tree stood there,
as if it were absorbing her thoughts and her emotions and considering what to
do about her.

Claire looked up the lane towards the church and pictured a
distinguished gentleman in a black suit walking slowly down it, a little girl
clinging to his hand.

But, of course, this was all imagination because Claire had no idea what
her grandfather had looked like. She'd never seen a single photograph of him.
Her mother wouldn't
have one in the house.

Chapter XXII

Walking towards
Tafarn y Groesfan
Giles fell undeniably nervous. For some reason, he started to think about
Charlie Firth, of the
Mail
, and the
allegedly poisoned eggs. All that absolute nonsense.

   
But, bloody hell—if, in parts
of Wales, there was a lingering suspicion of the English, was it not amply
justified by people like Charlie Firth and the others? If the locals were
suspicious of
him
, better to find out
now. Show his face, let them get used to it.

   
It was the last week of British
Summertime. The evening sun was losing strength, although it was still
remarkably warm, as Giles approached the huge oaken door which hung ajar,
giving direct access to the bar. As it swung open, the heads of three men
inside slowly pivoted, as if they were part of the same mechanism, and three
gazes came to rest on Giles.

   
He blinked timidly.

   
The bar was so small and—well,
woody
, that it was almost like being
inside an ancient, hollow tree. Beams everywhere, far thicker than the ones in
the cottage. It was lit only by the dying sun, so it was dark. But dark in a
rich and burnished way, rather than dim like, say, the judge's study.

   
It was palpably old. The phrase
"as old as the hills"—a cliché too hackneyed for Giles ever to use in
an article— suddenly resounded in his head, making dramatic sense.

   
All the richness came from the
age of the building, for it was very plain inside. No brass work, no awful
reproduction warming pans.

   
In a most an publike silence
Giles approached the bar. From beneath a beam the shape and colour of a giant
Mars bar, a face peered out.

   
The landlord, if indeed it was
he, was a small man with white hair and a Lloyd George moustache. Aled
Gruffydd, it had said over the door. What Giles had presumed was the familiar
line about Aled Gruffydd being allowed to sell liquor pursuant to sub-section
whatever of the Licensing Act had been given only in Welsh.

   
Either side of the bar a man
stood sentinel-like. Giles tentatively flashed each of them a smile and
recognised one immediately, having almost run out of petrol on the way here in
his determination to fill up locally, at this wonderfully old-fashioned grey
stone garage. It had tall, thin pumps, no self-service and a small, rickety
sign outside which said Dilwyn Dafis and something in Welsh involving the word
modur
, which he'd taken to mean motor.
   
This was Dilwyn Dafis. He was in his
thirties, wore an oily cap and had a spectacular beer belly. The second customer
was a contrastingly cadaverous chap with large, white protruding teeth and
thick glasses which were trained now on Giles, like powerful binoculars.
   
Giles had to bend his head because the
great beam over the bar was bowed so low. Too low for an Englishman's comfort.
All three of them stared at him.
   
Should he try greeting them in Welsh?
Nos da
? No, that was good night, said
when you were leaving.
Nos
. . .
nos
. . .
noswaith da
? Was that it? Was that good evening? Bloody hell, he
ought to know something as simple as that, he'd learned a whole collection of
greetings weeks ago.
Noswaith da
. It was
close but it wasn't quite there.
   
The three men went on staring at him
in silence. Giles began to sweat. Come on. come on, say
something
, for God's sake.

   
"Er . . . evening,"
he said lamely. "Pint of bitter, please."

   
The landlord nodded and reached
for a pint glass.

   
"And please." Giles
added earnestly, flattening his hair as if trying to make himself shorter and
thus less English. "Absolutely no need to speak English just because I'm
here."

   
Christ! What a bloody stupid,
patronising thing to say. Especially as nobody, as yet, had spoken at all. He
wanted to go out and never, ever come in again.

   
Still nobody spoke, but the white-haired
barman gave him an amused and quizzical look, into which Giles read withering
contempt.

   
"I mean—" he
floundered, feeling his face reddening. All those years a journalist and he was
going red! But this wasn't an assignment, this was the first faltering step
into his future. "If I want to know what's going on around here. I'll
just, er, just have to learn
your
language, won't I?"
   
Christ, worse and worse . . .

   
Dilwyn Dafis, the garage man.
chuckled quietly.

   
Aled the landlord stepped back
to pull the pint. The pump gurgled and spat.

   
It was the thin man with the
sticking-out teeth who finally spoke. He said, "Well . . .
there's
a fine thing."

   
What the hell did that mean?
For the first time. Giles came close to wishing he were back in London.

   
Aled Gruffydd topped up Giles's
pint, leaned across the bar with it. "Nobody expects that, man."

   
"I'm sorry . . . ?"

   
"I said nobody expects you
to learn Welsh. Right Glyn?"
   
"Good God, no." said the
thin man.
   
"No indeed," said Dilwyn Dafis,
shaking his head and his oily cap.

   
Giles inspected the three faces,
found no hint of sarcasm in any of them and was nonplussed. "That's very
generous of you." he said. "But I
want
to learn Welsh. I believe it's the least one can do when one comes to live in a
Welsh-speaking community." How pompous it sounded, how horribly,
unforgivably, tight-arsed
English
.

   
Aled Gruffydd said, "Why?
What is it you think is going to happen if you don't?"

   
"Waste of time for you.
man." Dilwyn Dafis said. "We speak it because we grew up speaking it,
the Welsh. No great thing, here. Just the way it is, see."

   
"Have a seat." said
Glyn. A faded tweed suit hung limply from his angular frame. "Tell us
about yourself. We won't bite you."

   
Giles sat down rather shakily
on a wooden bar stool. The whole atmosphere had changed. He'd walked into
silence and stares, and now they were making him welcome and telling him there
was absolutely no need to learn Welsh—in a village where little else ever
seemed to be spoken. He was confused.

   
"Where is your wife?"
Aled Gruffydd said.
   
"Oh, she's , . . out. Taking a
few pictures."
   
"Photos, is it?"

   
"That's what she does.
She's a photographer."
   
"Well, well," said Aled.

   
Giles had the feeling Gruffydd
knew this already. A feeling there was very little he could tell them about
himself that they didn't already know. But he explained about his wife's
inheritance and they nodded and said "well, well" and "good
God" a few times as if it was the first they'd heard about it. They were
unbelievably affable. And this made it more important for them to know he and
Claire were not just going to be holiday-home-owners, that this was now their
principal residence and they were going to preserve its character; there'd be
no phoney suburban bits and pieces, no patio doors, no plastic-framed double-
glazing, no carriage lamps . . .

   
"Good house, that is, mind."
thin Glyn said. "Been in that family for . . . what is the word in
English? Generations."

   
"You mean the Rhys
family?"

   
"Generations." said
Glyn. "Many generations, the Rhyses."

   
Bloody hell, he'd never thought
of that—that he and Claire were actually maintaining a family chain of ownership
going back possibly centuries. They really didn't know anything, did they?

   
"Gosh," Giles said.
"I suppose—I mean, is that why Judge Rhys came back? Because somebody left
him
the house?"

   
"Well," said Glyn.
"I suppose that was one of The reasons. From England, he came, as you
know, having spent most of his life there."

   
This was actually marvellous.
This gave them a solid, copper-bottomed basis for residency. This gave them a
right to be here.

   
"What is that other word?"
said Glyn. "Continuity. We believe in that, see, in Y Groesfan.
Continuity."

   
Giles understood now. When he
first came in they weren't quite sure who he was. Now they knew he was the husband
of a Rhys. Knew he belonged. He settled back on his wooden stool and began to
look around. What a superb old place it was. He remembered Berry Morelli
telling him on their way back to London how the buildings in Y Groes had struck
him as having grown out of the landscape as part of some natural process. This
pub was like that, its oaken interior so crude and yet so perfect. He felt
privileged to be here. And proud too, now.