Candlenight (27 page)

   
"Maybe he was takin' the
piss, Gary "

   
"Fuck, I never thought of
that." Heavily-feigned surprise. Still staring at Giles. 'Takin' the piss,
is it?"

   
Giles said evenly. "I can
assure you I was not taking the piss. If I'm trying to learn the language, I've
got to use it. haven't I? Is there any other way? I mean, what am I
supposed to do?"

   
Definitely uncomfortable
now—bloody yobs—he glanced around to see if there was anybody he knew even
slightly, some group he could join. Didn't recognise a soul. Apart from a
handful of men around the dart board the customers were all sitting at tables.
There were no more than fifteen people in the room. The barman was at the other
end of the bar, watching the darts.

   
The silence set around Giles
like cement. Clearly. Pontmeurig was just like any other town these days, full
of nighttime aggro. All very sad. Disappointing.

   
"Well now, there's an
answer to that," Crater-face said, all casual, elbow on the bar, hand
propping his chin. "I can tell you what you ought to do, English. Ought to
fuck off back
where you came from, isn't it."

   
"Yes. all right, I
will." Giles made himself take a longish drink. He'd finish his beer and
get out. This was not convivial. What a country—layer upon layer of resentment.

   
"We'll come with
you," Slit-mouth said.

   
"That won't be
necessary." Giles muttered.

   
"Least we can do."
Crater-face smiled with lurid menace. Show you the right road, see."

   
"Hate you to get
lost." Slit-mouth said.

   
"Finish your drink,
English." Crater-face said.

   
He had lowered his voice so as
not be overheard by a stooping man with a bald head who was paying for a tray
of drinks: three pints of bitter and a glass of dry white wine.

. . . Ah, no, well, that Freeman does not seem a bad chap." Idwal
was saying as Dai laid the tray on the table. Compared with some of them."

   
The training session had been
abandoned.

   
"That's because he turned
you into an overnight superstar," said Guto. "Idwal Roberts,
political pundit, social commentator, media personality . . ."

   
"He
is
actually OK," Bethan said, lifting her wine glass from the
tray "Quite fair minded. Thank you, Dai."

   
She was sure Giles had learned
about Guto and the pub incident. But he hadn't used it in his article—even
though it would have underlined the point he was trying to make about Guto
being the party hard-man.

   
"What I mean is," she
said. "Giles is sympathetic. He can see what the incomers are doing to
Wales and he doesn't want to be that kind of incomer. That is why he's so concerned
about learning Welsh."

   
Dai Death said, "You're
acquainted with this reporter from London then. Bethan?"

   
"Who do you think is
teaching the bugger Welsh?" said Guto.

   
"He wants to learn Welsh
for the election? There's enthusiasm."

   
"No, Dai," said
Bethan. "He is thinking longer term. He has acquired a house in Y
Groes."

   
A short but volcanic silence
followed this disclosure.

   
"Y Groes!" Dai's
voice rose to a squeak. He lurched in his seat, his bald head shining with hot
indignation. "How the hell did he find a house there?"

   
Of course, Bethan realised. A
sore point.

   
Amid muted rumblings from Guto
about wealthy bloody incomers being able to find anything they wanted anywhere at
a price, she briefly explained how Claire and Giles Freeman had gained
admittance to Paradise.

   
Dai scowled.

   
"I've never been one to
attack the incomers." he said. "Nothing personal, like. But the first
house since I don't know when to come available in Y Groes . . . and it goes without
a word, to a bloody Englishman. There is no justice."

   
"English
woman,
" Bethan said.
   
Idwal Roberts sniffed.

   
"I will tell you one thing."
he said, tamping down the tobacco in his pipe. "You would not catch me
living there. Godless place, that village, always has been."

   
Bethan, who had begun her
teaching career as a member of ldwal's staff at Pontmeurig's Nantglas Primary
School, had heard that since his retirement he had somewhat deepened his
commitment to non-conformist religion.

   
"Godless," he said.

   
"Only on your terms,
man." said Dai. still annoyed. "Just because there is no chapel anymore."

   
"No," Idwal waved his
pipe in the air. "That's not—"

   
"Still a
church
there." Dai said.
"Bloody good church."

   
Guto looked up innocently from
his beer. "Still a chapel too. Had my car repaired there once."

   
"What?" Dai looked
blank for a moment. "Oh, you mean Dilwyn Dafis's garage. I forgot that used
to be a chapel.
   
"Aye, well, still a public
service, isn't it? And plenty of room for the ramp, see, with that high
ceiling."

   
"What I was meaning—"
Idwal said.

   
"What is more," said
Guto deadpan, "give Dilwyn Dafis a couple of quid on top, and you can have
your bloody brake linings blessed."

"This is getting stupid." Giles said.

   
Light conversation, in both
English and Welsh, went on around them, the thump of darts on the board, nobody
appearing to notice anything amiss or picking up on the tension. Giles knew how
it must look—as if the three of them were having a nice quiet chat about beer-prices
or the prospects of the Meurig bursting its banks.

   
Slit-mouth made a narrow smile.
"He thinks you're stupid, Gary."

   
Getting into the comedy
routine. But Giles had had enough. You really did find them everywhere, didn't
you, always looking for somebody whose night they could spoil. A few casual
remarks in the toilet and he'd set himself up as tonight's target. Well that
was it, he wasn't taking any more.

   
"Look," he said
firmly. "I just came in here for a drink. I've moved into the area. I'm
trying to fit in. I didn't mean to cause any offence, all right? What else can
I say?"

   
He felt his voice quiver.
Bastards.

   
They were both studying him now
with their stone-hard, hostile eyes.

   
"Got a house, have you?
How much you pay for that?"

   
"Oh. for Christ's sake,
this is getting awfully tedious."

   
"Oh dear," Slit-mouth
said, mimicking Giles's accent.
Awfully
tedious
. Oh, my—"

   
Crater-face said to Giles,
"See, I've got this mate lookin' for a house. Gettin' married, he is. And
you know what . . . you won't believe this, but this boy, my mate, he's been lookin'
all over town for fuckin' weeks and he can't find one anywhere. Not as he can
afford. You know why . . . ?"

Leaning forward now, beer-breath sour in Giles's face
"Know why, English?"

   
Oh yes. Giles knew why all
right. "Now look, if you really want to talk about this—"

   
"Cause they've all been bought
by your kind, is why, you bastard."

   
Giles got an explicit close-up
of the angry, pitied skin and the eyes, wells of malice.
   
"Kid on the way, see."

   
Giles fell bits of beery spit
spatter his face.

   
"Goin' to be really in the
shit, he is, can't get a fuckin' house for his woman."

   
Edging his stool closer to
Giles, he whispered. "I hate cunts like you, think you can buy in wherever
you like. Come on, English, finish your drink."

   
Giles put one foot on the
floor. Get out. Get out fast.

   
"But you think you're all
right isn't it?" Lower lip out and curling. "You think you're
laughing, cause—" Eyes glittered and the hand shot forward as if reaching
for cigarettes or something.

   
"—cause you're
learnin—"

   
Then pulled casually back,
toppling Giles's beer glass still half full, off the bar and into his lap.
   
"—
Welsh
."
   
"You bast—!"

   
Leaping up in outrage, beer
soaking invisibly into his dark suit, Giles was drowned out by Crater-face
crying,
   
"Aaaaw!"

   
And leaping from his stool too,
knocking it over. Crash of the stool, splintering of glass on the linoleum.

   
"Aaaaw, I'm sorry! My
fault entirely, clumsy bugger I am. See, go in the lav, quick, sponge it off
before it stains. I'll get you another—I'm sorry, pal, I really am!"

   
Everybody in the bar looking up
now, vacant grins from around the dartboard. Obvious to Giles that nobody
realised they were setting him up.

   
"Excuse me," he said
stiffly and made for the door that said bilingually TOILETS/TOILED.

   
"—accident," He heard
behind him. "No sense of humour, the English . .

Stumbled into the passage, but instead of going to the gents he dashed
in the opposite direction. A door before him, ajar, LOUNGE on frosted glass,
group of people huddled over a table. Giles saw them look up as if disturbed in
some conspiracy—more hostility, Christ. Turned quickly away and saw, to his
overwhelming relief that the passage was empty all the way to the front door.
Going to have to get out of here quick before those two went into the gents and
found he wasn't there. Giles glanced apprehensively behind, but they hadn't
emerged.

   
Years since he'd been in such a
panic. Memory-flash: hiding from older kids in a cloakroom at school. The
famous wheedling lie:
Come out, Freeman,
we're not going to hurt you . . .

   
Giles charged along the
corridor, not caring how much noise he made, knocking over an umbrella stand.
He looked behind him one more time—thought he saw a pitted face—and then, with
his right arm outstretched like a lance, he sent the swing door flying open and
lurched into the street, into the hard, stinging rain, slanting golden needles
in the streetlights.

   
He stood in the cold rain, cold
beer in his crotch, telling himself, you're never—breathing hard—
never
going to get in that kind of
situation again.

   
And thinking of the ancient
wooden warmth of
Tafarn y Groes
,
where he was known and welcomed, he turned and ran through the rain to his car,
his shiny new Subaru four-wheel-drive, the thinking driver's answer to the
Nearly Mountains on a cold, wet night.

They were waiting for him in the shiny wet car park, rainwater streaming
down their ghastly, grinning faces.

   
"What I like ... out this
pub . . ." —words fractured by the wind—". . . two doors."

   
Lower lip jutting like a
waterspout.

   
Gargoyle.

   
Giles mentally measured the
distance to the car. Fifteen yards. Might as well have been a mile. Not a hope
of making it.

   
Through the blinding downpour,
he sized up the opposition. They were both shorter than he was, but the crater-faced
one had a rugby player's physique, wide chest, arms like double-barrelled sawn-off
shotguns.

   
"Look, lads . . " he
said weakly, accepting beyond doubt that he was in deep trouble here. What
could one say to people like this?

   
Rain coming down like nails.
Giles was suddenly terribly frightened. And heartsick to think this should happen
to him in the land he'd chosen for his own, for his unborn children.

   
He wanted to weep.

   
The dark one, Slit-mouth, hard
water plastering down his sparse black hair, pouring like furious tears down
his concrete face, said,

   
"You're dead, you are, fuckin'
Saxon git."