Candlenight (59 page)

Chapter LXVII

Medieval, perpendicular. Two-tiered,
pyramidal, timber- framed bellchamber . . .

   
The church was a giant monolith
in its circular graveyard, its spire always seemed to be outlined against the
brightest part of the sky, from wherever you were standing.

   
From the churchyard, you looked
up and the whole edifice seemed to be swinging towards you, like a massive pendulum
suspended from the moon itself.

   
"I can't," Bethan
said. "I don't think I've ever liked old churches, even in the daylight,
and I'm frightened of what this one has become. I'm sorry."

   
Berry had it worked out. She
was saying this because she didn't want
him
to go in there. If he thought she was the one who was most scared he'd maybe
back-off, seek help.

   
No way.

   
He took out his car keys.
"Listen, how about you go fetch the Sprite. The gear's in back. Give me
time to check things out—might not even be open." It was only a couple of hundred
yards to the cars, and there was plenty of light.

   
She accepted the keys
reluctantly.

   
"Listen, any problems, just
blast on the horn, OK? Bring Guto and the guys outta the pub."

   
He tried out Aled's flashlight.
The beam was strong and white and threw a mist into the air. He hurriedly
directed it downwards, and it lit up a grave, and Bethan drew in a sharp breath.

   
On the gravestone was carved,

Dyma fedd
Thomas Rhys . . .

Berry tried a shrug. "We had to be standing by
somebody's
grave."

   
He tried to ignore the smell,
which was as if the grave had been opened.

A lot of whisky had been drunk. Alun, of Plaid, was looking at his
watch. Miranda had fallen asleep on Guto's shoulder, Guto was endeavouring to
give Bill Sykes a true insight into the philosophy of Welsh Nationalism, while
Charlie and Ray were sharing a cold meat pie.

   
Gary Willis had gone to the
gents, and Shirley Gillies had followed him out of the bar.

   
At the bar itself, the Tilley
lamp had spluttered out and been replaced with a couple of candles in ashtrays.

   
"Quiet in here, though,
tonight," Dai said to Aled. Where are all the locals then?"

   
Aled shook his head, said
nothing.

   
"Funny buggers here,"
Idwal Pugh said. "Won't share a tafarn with outsiders, see."

   
"Rubbish, man," Dai
scowled. "They have never been a town for that. I've been in here of a lunchtime,
an English chap walks in and everybody in the place stops speaking Welsh immediately,
out of courtesy. Very hospitable people, unusually hospitable."

   
"Where are they
then?" Idwal said. "Most places, if there's a power cut, no
telly—"

   
"They have no tellies here
anyway. No reception, see."

   
"Well, radio then. Not
even a proper light to read a book by, what would they do but go to the pub?
No, you are naive about this, Dai."

   
"What I want to know,"
Dai said, "is what Bethan and at American fellow are up to."

   
"Get them out," Aled
said suddenly. "Get them all out, Dai, for Christ's sake."

   
Behind him the telephone rang,
and everyone looked up.
   
Dai said, "Don't imagine the
phone to be working in a power cut. You forget it makes no difference."

Aled said,
Y Groes pedwar, pedwar,
chwech
."
   
"Aled, is that you?"
   
"Yes it is."

   
"Aled, it's Gwyn Arthur
from the police station. I'm ringing you myself because the roads are blocked
all over the place and we've had to pull the cars off. Otherwise someone would
have come out to see you."

   
"Snow's bad over there,
then?"

   
"Worst for ten years. Aled,
Aber police have been on the line, and I am afraid I have bad news. Very bad
news. You should sit down if you can."

"Let's go for a walk." Shirley said, and she grabbed Gary Willis's
hand.

   
Gary thought. Ah, what the
hell—and allowed her to pull him to the pub door.

   
The problem was, he was getting
married in a couple of months and was trying to develop a new and disciplined attitude
when faced with the sexual opportunities, which
ironically, had seemed to come his way quite often since his engagement.

   
On the other hand, Shirley, by
all accounts, knew the score. Had a husband somewhere and a very discreet, adult
approach to this sort of thing. She was also considerably older than Gary, and
so, he reasoned, it would be a sort of a social service on his part.

   
Yeh, what the hell. They
stepped out into the blue and purple night.

   
"Isn't it just amazingly .
. . you know, not cold." Shirley had left her ski-jacket in the bar.

   
"Bit odd, really,"
Gary said. "Considering the conditions when we were coming over the
mountains,"

   
"I quite fancy coming over
the mountains," Shirley said grabbing hold of his tie and leading him into
the street like a showman with a dancing bear.

   
She let him go when they
reached the bridge, the river burbling below. Soft snow sat lightly and
inoffensively on the top of the parapet. Shirley made a snowball and threw it at
Gary. It hit him on the cheek and felt like candyfloss. Gary gathered up a
handful of snow and advanced on Shirley who screamed delightedly.

   
Gary plunged the handful of
snow down the front of Shirley's blouse. "You swine," She cackled and
pulled his hand back down. "Now you'll have to get it all out."
   
"So I will," Gary said.

   
By the time they'd made their
inebriated way to the far side of the bridge the blouse was off, Shirley waving
it at Gary like a football supporter's scarf. Gary managed to grab a sleeve and
the blouse tore neatly in half, leaving them looking down at their respective
fragments and laughing helplessly.

   
Gary, sweating, pulled off his
jacket and hung it over the bridge parapet.

   
They might have been on a beach
in August.

   
Shirley unfastened her bra,
took it off and twirled it around her head as she bounced off towards the
woods. Gary thought she couldn't half move for her size.

   
"Slow down, Shirl, you'll
have no energy left."

   
"Ho ho," Shirley
gurgled. "We'll see about that, baby."

   
Running past the school lane,
she let her skirt fall to her ankles and stepped out of it and kicked it away
with the tip of a patent-leather boot.

   
She reached the edge of the
woods and stood panting, wearing only her boots, a pair of pink briefs and a
silver necklace, her back to an enormous oak tree, a ludicrous grin on her
face.

   
Just for a moment, as he stood
at the edge of the wood, fumbling with his belt, the total madness of the
situation was fully apparent to Gary Willis.

   
He saw the oak tree, heavy with
snow. He looked up at the iceberg hills, stark in the starry night. He looked
across the bridge to the village, feeble glows from behind the drawn curtains
of Christmas card cottages with snow on their roofs.

   
He looked at Shirley and saw
the sweat freezing rapidly on her grinning face, the skin of her exposed body blue
and mottled. And he thought,
it isn't
warm at all, it just seems
warm to us.

   
And then the moment passed, and
nothing was clear any more.

Chapter LXVIII

Berry walked into the nave, footsteps on stone.
   
Tock,
tock, tock
.

   
Outside, it had been unseasonally,
ridiculously, warm.
Inside the church it was winter again. When he switched off the torch, the
light was ice-blue from through the Gothic windows on either side and livid
through the long window at the top of the nave, beyond the altar.

   
He was glad Bethan was not with
him, but that didn't make him feel any better about being here.

   
He walked up the aisle towards
the altar.

   
Tock,
tock, tock,

   
tock,
tock,

   
tock.

   
The churches of his several
childhoods, in different States, had mostly been newish buildings masquerading
as places as old as this. His dad had been a lapsed Catholic, his
mom a Presbyterian. And so religion, to him, had been something pointless that
people argued about.

   
Here, tonight — shining the
torch on his watch he discovered it was not yet nine o'clock—he was aware for
maybe the first time of the awful power of something venerated. Like the Welsh
Language in Judge Rhys's study, only there was ritual worship involved here,
and many centuries of it.

   
Whatever it was reverberated
off the stones in the walls, was filtered through the mortuary light from the
windows, lay rich and musky on the air.

   
And it didn't want him here.

   
Fuck you, he wanted to say, to
make a stand, be defiant. But his full range of flip obscenities would seem
pathetically peevish and infantile, and about as effectual as throwing stones
at a tank.

   
"Help me," he said,
to his surprise, and the walls immediately laughed off the words.
   
me,
hee, heee . . .

He switched on the torch with a thunderous clack-ack-ack, and the
monstrous shadows leapt out, rearing up then settling back just on the
periphery of the beam so he would
know they were there, and waiting.

   
He drew breath and the rich air
seemed to enter his lungs in staccato bursts, like something that was planning
to come out as a sob. It was thick, sour-milk air, like in the judge's study,
only here it had a great auditorium to waft around in and ferment.

   
Berry found the tomb. There was
only one. It was in a small chapel to the left of the altar. A chapel of its
own.

   
It was three feet high and five
or six feet long, as long as the stone figure of the knight laid out on top,
hands together, praying.

   
The knight wore armour and its
face was worn, the expression on it blurred by the years. But the essence of
this remained, and it had nothing reassuring to say. Berry thought the face
might at one time have had a beard, but he could not tell if the beard was
cleft.

   
He didn't like to look too hard
at it, felt it was looking back.

   
There was kind of a plaque thing
on the side of the tomb, with lettering. But this was in Latin and maybe Welsh
too, and he couldn't make it out.

   
Meredydd, the guy's name, it
had said in Ingley's book.

   
Owain Glyndwr, I presume, was
what he'd figured he'd say on approaching the tomb. Let the stiff inside know
it was dealing with a wisecracking, smart-assed American who was in no mood for
any spooky tricks, OK?

   
Only the words wouldn't come out.

   
He thought that if anything
spooky happened in this place, there would be little question of how he'd
react. He would piss himself, throw up, something of that order.

   
The years had not blurred a
very ancient, sneering cruelty in the face of this knight that belied the
supplication of his hands.

   
Berry didn't like him one bit
and he had a sensation, like a cold vibration in the air over the knight's
eyes, that the feeling was mutual.

   
He put out a finger, touched
the effigy's eyes, one, then the other. The way the centuries had worn the
stone you couldn't be sure whether the eyes were closed or wide open. Berry
felt exposed, observed, and was unable to rid himself of the notion that
somebody was standing behind him in the cold chapel, perhaps the knight
himself, a great sword raised
in both hands over his head.