The Woman at the Window (19 page)

‘That's it. When they look right through you as though you weren't there, that's the end of the line!'

I was left marvelling at the vagaries of human nature or at least the male of the species. I remembered how moody Rod used to get when we witnessed Peter's invariable success with girls. He found it irritatingly unaccountable. After all, he, Roderick Roberts, was the acknowledged ‘Handsome Harry', the captain of the first XV and the proud possessor of a fine head of fair wavy hair. There were unkind people who would describe Pritch as downright ugly. How he could exercise this magnetism among girls was not apparent to us, who were at an age when we knew the answer to everything. And now, seated around a table decorated with eight bright candles, in a private room in the well appointed Trefarthen Country House Hotel, with sauna available, we look at each other in uncomfortable silence, with a cold infinity of questions and no available answers.

The perfection of the arrangements intensified the silence. I wondered if Pritch saw ghosts from our common past parading behind our presence. He was looking ominously theatrical as ever. The fact was I had no idea what he could be thinking. Were we nothing more than old acquaintances masquerading as friends, old acquaintances with nothing to say to each other except repeating the word ‘old'? Anxious as ever to the point of panic to observe the social niceties, I rehearsed the toast I already had in mind. My design was to neatly combine celebrating Pritch's eightieth with some reference to the memory of Augustus Jones MA who had for some unfathomable reason thought so highly of the three old men around the candlelit table when they were frisky untamed and unproven colts. I would refer to high points in Pritch's distinguished career and touch on corresponding peaks in Rod's and even mine. I was quite put out when Rod pushed back his chair and raised his glass. It was obvious he had already been drinking. The brief encounter with the receptionist's desk had clearly upset him.

‘Here's looking at your ugly mug, Pritch old boy. Welcome to the Club! Decrepitude for ever!'

I had to join in the toast. Peter Pritchard was looking at us both as though he were struggling to remember where he had seen us before. He was slow on cue to respond and after he had done so he seemed to be absorbed in pursuing a train of thought that had been interrupted. I found his detachment disturbing. Did he not appreciate the effort I had made to arrange this special visit? Rod had slumped back in his chair and was prodding himself in the chest, absorbed in his own condition.

‘I tell you something,' he said. ‘You can take a little trip tomorrow to the nearest sand dunes and you can shoot me! You'd be doing me a favour. Very convenient. Easy to bury me in the sand.'

Was it a joke? It was hard to decide whether he was glaring at us or gloating. He was a doctor, and we had to accept he knew what he was talking about. He had always been short tempered but his professional reputation was high. Arab sheiks travelled long distances to be operated on by him.

‘My useful life is over,' he said. ‘I suppose it was useful. I hope I cured more people than I killed. I don't know who keeps the score. All that's left is to watch myself go ga ga. It's all there. Written in my arteries. And there's damn all I can do about it!'

I was quite hurt. Offended. I had gone out of my way in my new BMW to pick him up and bring him up here and I assumed he had enjoyed the trip. It was the middle of May and the weather was perfect and our native land looked like a green festival from one end to another. It was a time for celebration. The world was renewing itself and he seemed to be ignoring the fact that we were here to celebrate Pritch's birthday.

‘Steady on, Rod,' I said. ‘You're not the only one. We are all in the same boat. We think about these things too, you know. But it's now that matters. Now with a capital N. The world's here to educate us to the last moment. I can hear old Gussie saying it. And I'm sure the old windbag was right. He used to say the world is packed with wonders pining for recognition.'

I was rather pleased with dredging up those old saws for fresh recognition. Rod was unmoved.

‘I've never been afraid to face facts. You'd be no bloody good in my job if you couldn't. You are as old as your arteries and that's the beginning and the end of it. When you're dead you're burned or buried and that's the end of it and good riddance. Of course most people, the vast majority, are willing and eager to be fobbed off with candy-floss. Maybe they have to be to keep the old social wheels oiled. But facts are facts and that's all there is to it.'

‘Did you hear that, Pritch? The whole world of the arts and humanities dismissed in two words and a hyphen. Candy-floss. My goodness!'

I cheered up. At least we were arguing and that was better than staring at each other in embarrassed silence. Peter Pritchard held on to what I thought was a theatrical pause, those big eyes staring at us at their most mesmeric as they used to with an audience.

‘You might consider,' Pritch said, ‘you are reading the wrong script.'

He gave us both a broad benevolent smile. 

‘Wrong?'

The doctor poked himself in the chest. 

‘What else have I got to read except myself?'

Pritch rose to his feet and walked to the window. He pulled a theatrical face to show he was not pleased with what he saw. The hotel management had illuminated the gardens and trees until they were bathed in a romantic light.

‘What bloody script are you talking about?'

Pritch raised both arms. He was going to declaim in style, which I welcomed. It would at least liven things up.

‘This island has twenty-eight standing stones,' he said. ‘Twenty-eight meini hirion. They have been standing there for three or four thousand years. What are they for? What do they mean? All sorts of theories have been canvassed. And discounted.'

‘And now you've got one,' Rod said.

Pritch ignored the interruption. His mellow voice was edging towards incantation.

‘You need to imagine this island as it was four thousand years ago. Long long before the Celts and their druids. What were they related to, these humans who lived and died here then? To the skies of course. To the stars. The stars were their books. Their constant illumination. The constellations were a language and those standing stones were there to read them. Perhaps more than read them. They were petrified avatars.'

‘Goodness gracious. You have looked into it.'

Rod had settled to be more jovial than sarcastic, which was a relief, mellowed I hope by the excellent wine I had ordered and paid for.

‘What's an avatar by the way?'

‘Messengers from a higher level of consciousness,' Pritch said. ‘That's one way of putting it. They can occur anywhere and anytime. But these standing stones are there for all time to teach each succeeding generation to look up and learn. To accept that they are privileged for their brief term to be at the centre of the universe.'

He created another pause.

‘I've been thinking a lot about you two,' he said. ‘How calm are you?'

To me it seemed he meant how calm were we in the face of our imminent extinction and I resented the question. It was like asking what answers you had given to those difficult questions in the exam that you had failed to answer.

‘Maggie introduced me to meditation. It helps me anyway.'

‘Jolly good.'

Rod raised his glass to drink his health and I did the same. It seemed the answer most immediately to hand.

‘In this day and age,' Pritch said, ‘we are so obsessed with ourselves we can't see very much else. But the Neolithic people, on this spot where I am standing now, were constantly aware of everything beyond them. And I would say the human race, human nature, has always been aware of this. Of higher states of consciousness related to higher states of being. Always. At least until it gave way to the satanic temptation that it could control the world. Master it. Subdue it. Bend it to the human will. No room for Avatars any more. Only for obedient robots. And egos bigger than atom bombs… now then. Tomorrow. I want to show you something. We need to start out bright and early and have the place to ourselves. And take our candles with us. So that we can read the Runes.'

And so it was, the following morning, bright and early, we set out in my roomy and comfortable BMW to cross to the other side of the island. As though they were maps, Pritch presented us with drawings of the decorated stones he wanted us to see. In the passenger seat, Rod nursed them disdainfully in his lap, making a half-hearted attempt to prevent them dropping under his feet.

‘There we are,' Pritch said. ‘Stone on stone transferred to pencil on paper. And photocopied of course. There you have three processes of transposing meaning into signs. Just what was spelt out by a stone chisel four thousand years ago? They knew what fragile creatures we are. Not like stone or stars.'

‘Decorations can just be decorations,' Rod said. ‘Prehistoric doodles. You have to find something to do when it's raining cats and dogs and there's no telly.'

‘Lettering is only decoration until we are taught to read. You have to look. Look at those zigzags, those lozenges and spirals. Especially the spirals. Maggie said someone among those very first farmers was working out the escape route from the exigencies of living to the more accommodating realm of the stars. You can just imagine them reading those signs in the light of torches, during their ceremonies. And the spot they chose for their decorated stones. On the bold headland facing the restless immemorial power of the sea.'

The rough parking area of sand and stones was deserted at this hour of the morning except for a solitary ice-cream stall, boarded up. Our goal, the decorated passage grave, was encased in a turf-covered mound like a watch tower on top of the promontory that thrust out into the sea. The tide on the small beach below us was gentle enough, but the sea westwards was filled with a numinous power in the early morning light.

Pritch led the way up the narrow path alongside the headland, leaning heavily on his walking stick to relieve the arthritic pain in his right knee. In his haversack he carried his electric torch, his candles, a notebook and the key to the padlocked grill that guarded the entrance. He was followed, at a distance that could have been respectful or resentful, by the portly figure of Rod Roberts. I came last restraining myself from any untoward display of fitness. We could have been medieval pilgrims visiting a shrine or three schoolboys lining up to receive their certificates and prizes from the late Augustus Jones MA on his dais. I took time to pause and look back to admire my black BMW gleaming in solitary splendour in the crude deserted car park. It was a comforting sight.

When I caught up with the other two I found them gazing at a mobile phone lying crushed in a rain puddle between the modern retaining walls leading to the iron gate. Alongside the broken mobile lay the dispiriting shape of a discarded condom.

‘Mind where you put your ancient feet,' Rod said in his jovial mode. ‘You might catch something.'

The iron grill was not locked. The padlock was missing. Pritch muttered a curse on the irresponsible habits of tourists. The interior was pitch dark. Pritch was concerned with placing the candles where we could see the decorated stones to best effect. He gave Rod the electric torch to shine against the dome that covered the site.

‘Good God,' Rod said. ‘Prehistoric concrete.' 

He began to sniff.

‘Funny smell in here.'

Pritch was dissatisfied with the candlelight.

‘You have to imagine flames from the torches. The spirals are the most difficult to make out. Shine a light over here, will you, Good God… is he dead?'

Underneath the special stone a male body dressed in a dirty overcoat lay in a foetal position. Rod went into action, happy to take charge.

‘Not dead,' he pronounced. ‘Drunk or drugged. Possibly both.'

It was alarming, unpleasant, but at least the man was not dead. If he had been, how on earth would we have managed? Rod poked around and shone the torch in his face; a young man, unshaven and unwashed and the distinctive smell could have been narcotic. He sat up slowly, yawning, peering about, bewildered in the candlelight.

‘Jeesus,' he said. ‘Somebody's birthday or what?'

A southern Irish accent I have always found charming. It came in strong contrast to the creature's smelly and scruffy appearance. Pritch was amused. He shone the torch on his own face and gave one of his more menacing grins.

‘Mine,' he said.

The Irishman exaggerated his fear. It seemed to me he was acting more than reacting.

‘Oh God,' he said. ‘Dracula's Tomb. Where the hell are we?'

It was his business to explain himself. We waited in judgement and said nothing.

‘In this wicked world, is there anything worse than liberated women? I was on my way to Holyhead with my guitar and, and they stopped their van to offer me a lift. The next thing I knew they were on about magic circles and moonlight and magic mushrooms and what have you and we landed here and the wicked bitches have nicked my guitar. Lovely guitar it was… oh Jeesus I'm bursting for a piss…'