Candlenight (33 page)

   
Besides it was almost nine
o'clock.

   
Christ. She felt as if she'd put
in two full days' work, and it was not yet nine o'clock.

   
Five minutes or so later,
Buddug's hands froze above the piano keyboard as Bethan slid into the school
hall.

   
She stood in the doorway in her
white mac with the streaks of mud and the huge grass stains. The children, sitting
in five short rows, all turned towards her, and Buddug's head swivelled round
slowly, her lips drawn back into a smile of incandescent malevolence.

   
"
Bore da
" the children chorused. "
Bore da
, Miss Sion."

   
She sat down at her desk in the
hall, still wearing her mac, too weary to say anything as Buddug's hands
smashed into the opening chords of the hymn.

   
Buddug sang with shrill,
ferocious zest, hammering the keys like a pub pianist. Energy rippled through
the room as the children yelled out the words, gleefully discordant. Bethan sat
in her soiled raincoat and stared at the wall, utterly defeated.

Giles came out of the bedroom and stood at the top of the stairs,
swaying.

   
He could not believe the agony.

   
Like a flower it had opened
out. Bursting free inside his skull like some huge multi-petalled
chrysanthemum. And at the end of every petal, a poisoned barb prodding into
each tiny fold of his brain, awakening every nerve to the dazzling white light
of purest pain.

   
He could not even bear to
scream.

   
Mercifully, perhaps, the pain
had deadened his emotions. Except for one. Which was rage.

   
Rage gathered in his throat,
choking him. Rage against
her
.

   
And against him.
   
Her dead grandfather.

   
He began to walk down the
stairs, each soft step detonating a new explosion in his brain.

   
He walked across the hall, past
the pink vinyl headboard, to where the door of the judge's study still hung
ajar.

   
Giles went in.

BLACK TEA

Chapter XXXVIII

WALES

NO RACISM HERE—WE'RE BRITISH

by Gary Willis, political staff.

           
Candidates in the
Glanmeurig by-election have denied it's going to turn into a
                
bitter
    
Welsh-versus-English clash.

                       
Launching
his campaign yesterday, Conservative Simon Gallier said. I
                  
might have been born in
England, but I've spent all my working life in Wales. I
                
believe I stand for the quality of independence
which has won worldwide
                           
respect
for the Welsh nation."

                       
And his
Labour opponent. Wayne Davies said. "The main issue here is
                  
the threat to the rural
economy and the urgent need for new jobs."

                       
It was a
quiet start to a campaign expected to produce electoral
                             
fireworks. Everyone here is now waiting
for the Welsh Nationalist candidate
            
to
show his hand. . .

"You really write that. Gary?" asked Ray Wheeler, of the
Mirror
, grinning through Guinness froth.

   
"Do me a favour,"
Gary Willis said. Twenty-six years old the only reporter in the pack with a
degree in economics and political science. "Do I strike you as being that
inane?"

   
"You'll get used to it,
son," Charlie Firth said, lighting a thin cigar.

   
"But what's the point in
sending us out here if they've made up their minds what the issues are? Or in this
ease, what the issues are not."

   
"Don't be so naive, mate."
Ray Wheeler said. "You really think your rag's going to give any credence
to people who figure Great Britain needs fragmenting? Take my advice,
send 'em the stuff and try to avoid reading what the buggers do with it."

   
"And console yourself with
one thought," Charlie Firth produced an acrid cough.
   
"However hard it is for you to take, it
would have been a bloody sight harder for poor old Giles."
   
"That," said Ray. "is
very true. Does this dump do sandwiches?"

   
"If it's
egg
sandwiches," Charlie said,
"count me out. The Welsh aren't poisoning me a second time."

   
English was the dominant
language tonight in the public bar of the Drovers' Arms, where all five rooms
had been taken by representatives of the British national Press. Accommodation,
reporters were learning, was not plentiful in this area. Max Canavan, of the
Sun
, had been left with an attic, while
Peter Warren, of the
Independent
,
couldn't find anywhere in town and would be forced to commute each day from a
hotel on the seafront at Aberystwyth.
   
"Bloody BBC," said Ray
Wheeler.
   
"What have we done now?"
Shirley Gillies demanded.
   
"Only block-booked the best hotel
in town."
   
"Advance-planning," Shirley
smiled sweetly. "I shall think of you guys when I'm sitting down to dinner
at the Plas Meurig in approximately an hour's time. Still, it's awfully, you
know,
homey
here, isn't it."
   
"Piss off, Shirley," said
Charlie Firth.
   
"The Plas Meurig," Gary
Willis said, "is where the Tories'll be having their daily Press
conferences, yeh?"

   
"And the Liberals," Shirley
said. "It's a big place. They're at opposite ends. I'm not sure where
Labour are, but at least you won't have to get up too early to cover the Plaid pressers,
will you?"

   
They've got bloody great green
signs all over the door of the other bar," Ray Wheeler said. "Listen,
are we going to tackle the bugger about this assault stuff tomorrow?"

   
"Assault stuff,"
Shirley leaned forward. "Do tell."

   
"Come on, Shirley."
Ray said. "Everybody knows about that."

   
"The merchant banker he
filled in." Charlie bunched a fist. "Think you can buy up all our
farms and get away with it, do you' you English swine? Take that."

   
Charlie pretended to hit Gary
Willis.

   
"Oh, that" Shirley
said. "Is it actually true?'

   
"What's that matter to
these buggers?" Gary said.

   
"Watch it. Willis."
Ray held Charlie's beer glass over Gary's head and tilted it threateningly.

   
Just then a customer put down
his glass of lager, detached himself from a small group of companions and leaned
across the reporters' table in a conspiratorial fashion, like a trader in dirty
postcards.

   
"Not met him yet then,
this nationalist maniac?"

   
Charlie and Ray favoured this
native with their open, friendly, reporters' smiles. They couldn't see him very
well because the public bar had bad lighting, as distinct from soft lighting.

   
"Do you know him,
then?" Shirley Gillies asked.

   
"Surprisingly
distinguished-looking, he is. Not you know, tremendously tail. But
powerfully-built. What the Welsh consider a fine figure of a man."

   
"Like, short and
fat?" said Charlie.

   
"Stocky," corrected
the customer. "A good beard on him, too, but tidy. Dresses casual, like,
but not ... not a
slovenly
man."

   
"Looks a bit like you,
then?" Ray Wheeler said.

   
"Indeed." The man put
out a hand. "Guto Evans, my name."

   
He took a deep breath and, with
visible effort; added, "At your service."

A dark-haired man came in through the bottom door and quietly look a
seat at the adjacent table, behind Shirley
Gillies.

   
"Hullo, Berry," Shirley
said.
   
"Hi," he said quietly.
 
"Where are you staying?"

 
"Dunno yet. I just got here.
Where are you staying?"

 
"Plas Meurig." Shirley
said smugly. "Beeb's taken about ten rooms, what with all the telly boys
and the technicians. Charlie and Ray are awfully miffed." She lowered her voice.
"That's Guto Evans, by the way, the Plaid Cymru candidate. Isn't he
perfect?"

   
"You here on your own.
then?" Ray Wheeler said to Guto. "No aides, agent, entourage?"

   
"My local, this is."
Guto told him. "I tend not to require any political advice on which brand
of lager to select. Can I get you boys a drink, or is the English Press immune
to
bribery?"

   
"Son," said Ray
Wheeler, "you've obviously got a big future in politics. Mine's a
brandy."

   
"Come and talk to
us." Charlie said. "Tell us what this election is
really
about."

   
"Off the record, is
it?" Guto said dubiously. "I've been warned about you boys."

   
"Oh, sure." Charlie
said. "Don't you worry about a thing, Guto. We're all old hands at this
game, except for Gary, and his paper ignores everything he writes anyway."
Gary Willis looked very annoyed, and Charlie chuckled and offered Guto a cigar.

   
"Look, I have to walk back
to the Plas Meurig," said Shirley Gillies, "or I won't get my dinner.
I'll talk to you again, Guto. OK?"

   
"I'll walk with vou."
Berry Morelli said. "Dark out there."

   
"Amazing, isn't it."
Shirley said, plump body even plumper in an enormous pink padded ski-jacket.
"I mean, it's just a village, really. A big, untidy village."

   
Seven p.m. The lights of
Pontmeurig seemed vague and sparse, suffocating in a cold night mist. There was
no moon, no stars.

   
"You were expecting
neon?" said Berry.

   
Shirley shivered and wobbled. "I
suppose not. Still . . ."

   
"Yeah, I know what you
mean. That frontier-town feel."

   
They walked across the Meurig
bridge. No lights were reflected in the river heaving sluggishly below.

   
"Berry, look. I was awfully
sorry about Giles," Shirley mumbled. "We weren't very kind to him,
were we?"

   
"Kind?"

   
"It's horribly ironic, though,
isn't it, that we're all out here and he's ... I mean, I was picturing him in
that pub. He'd have been centre stage, holding forth, correcting our pronunciation
of Welsh names. Absolutely in his element."

   
"Yeah."

   
"I mean, isn't it just so
cruel
?'

   
They walked down from the bridge
and after a few yards there was a right turning, a sweeping drive and pillars supporting
illuminated AA and RAC signs. In the middle distance, a floodlit façade, a
colonial-style verandah. The Plas Meurig Hotel. Two-star.

   
"Thanks Berry. I don't think
I would've enjoyed walking down here alone. Are you here for the
duration?"

   
He shook his head. 'Two
days."

   
"So where are you going to
sleep tonight?"

   
"This an invitation,
Shirley?" He was being polite.

   
"Gosh . . ." Shirley
simpered. "I suppose it is rather a cold night to spend in one's car. But I
think not, really. Not at the start of a campaign. I generally prefer to let
the excitement build a little before I start to let myself go."

   
Shit. Berry thought sourly,
heading back over the bridge. This was what they meant by election fever?