After Brock (25 page)

Sam said, ‘I think that we – that
I'd
like to have a sighting, Mrs Parry.'

‘Sighting?' repeated Mrs Parry with a quizzical smile, ‘Yes, that's Don's word too. This evening's tailor-made for him, isn't it? He's still a boy like yourself, even though he's pushing thirty, and he's been wanting something like this to happen his whole life long. Even when we were still living in Wrexham.'

‘What do
you
think's happened, Mrs Parry?'

Mrs Parry had obviously answered this question that night many times before, mostly in reply to herself. ‘Well, when we heard the loud bangs round half eight, and then saw the sparks flying into the sky, what I thought was – those bloody soldiers at the camp in the mountains are doing their exercises again and have gone too far this time. I've never trusted the military all my days, and even less this last year when they got official permission to do whatsoever they like up there. Dangerous! Asking for trouble sooner or later!' She peered over her convex glasses as if half-suspicious that the lad before her in the bomber jacket and speaking with a classy English accent might be in league with the British Army. Then, as if reassured, she went on: ‘All I know is that the strange things that Don saw over at Llandrillo where he was visiting his nice young friend,' and from the way she said this Pete surmised she knew of Don's liaison with Susie, ‘that big mass of light, with the little ones twinkling below it – were all seen by other folk from Llanrhaeadr who were over that way too. And many far less full of wild fancies than my Don. Bill Edwards, two doors down, came back here, about an hour ago, with the strangest story yet.'

‘Really? And what might that be?' And Sam stretched forward his neck towards the elderly woman, again like a cob-swan, as if to snatch this story from her lips.

‘He was over in Bala, Bill was, having a drink in a hotel, and into the lounge there came a posse,' she seemed proud of this word, but probably it had been Bill Edwards', for she repeated it, ‘a real
posse,
of men in black. All looking alike, and all telling the receptionist their business was urgent. Men in black, eh? Same time as all the noises and apparitions in Llandrillo. What do you make of that, boy? Bill said the lot of them gave him such pip he was out of the hotel in two shakes of a lamb's tail, and driving home – along the B3491 if you please – like a speed-hog to get home and dry as fast as he could.

‘But me – I'm a dull old woman really – I expect there's an ordinary enough explanation. Sanitary inspectors most likely, checking up to see whether the hotel meets the health and safety regulations. Or maybe,' she chuckled, ‘
tax
inspectors. That'd frighten the management far more than any aliens, daylight robbers that they are… Anyway I can see you can't wait to be on your way.'

This was certainly true. Sam was visibly wriggling in his impatience to be off – somewhere, anywhere, not to miss even the faintest glimpse of these goings-on. And Pete had already stepped forward from Greatorex's window in readiness… ‘But on our way
where?
' Sam couldn't quite check the exasperation from his voice, for really Mrs Parry, while kindly and hospitable, had been unhelpful in her vagueness about her son's whereabouts.

‘We-ell, I would think the waterfall's where you might think of looking for him first. High up it is. Just right for meeting people not of this world.'

For a moment Pete suspected she was teasing Sam, even having him on. But then he thought: ‘She just doesn't know how best to behave in such abnormal conditions.'

‘Meeting people not of this world? Annwn?'

‘Anyway I think my Don spoke of going up to Pistyll tonight?'

‘Well that's where we – where I'll go! I just follow the sign, I take it…?'

‘Scared, Pete?' asked Sam, as they jumped into the VW, ‘did you hear all that?'

Pete nodded. ‘Not yet,' he answered, ‘though I dunno how I'll feel when we encounter a posse. A posse in fucking
black!
'

‘Me neither,' said Sam. ‘You can't know how you'll react before something's actually happened. We might well shit ourselves but I was anything but afraid on my last sighting.'

Yes, I keep forgetting about that, thought Pete, though I don't know how I could do. Sam's always one major step ahead of me in this strange game we're playing, instigated by him, and organised too. Which might well turn out no game at all. ‘I can't recall when I was last afraid either,' said Pete. Nor could he! Quits!

Sam turned right, as signposted, at Greatorex's shop, drove past the British Legion Hall outside which another bunch of men were talking (comparing notes?) and then swung the car to the left. Soon Llanrhaeadr was behind and below them. The road to Pistyll Rhaeadr follows the downward course from the Fall of the Afon Rhaeadr. It's narrow, and every now and again climbs uphill, but mostly it keeps to the valley. To the boys this seemed unknown country indeed, and, for all the houses and farms here, charged with arcane power. On their right the mountain slopes looked mighty in the darkness; further ahead these turned into cliff faces. And beyond?

‘Crikey! What a place!' Pete forced himself to exclaim aloud, though he was sincere enough, ‘and what a story all this will make for
High Flyers
!'

He felt like he'd thrown himself off the highest diving-board at a pool, in some swimming exam, as he should have done a long time before. At last he'd managed it!

Sam's voice was low-toned when, after a pause that quickened Pete's pulse, he inquired: ‘
High Flyers
, what has that got to do with this waterfall?'

‘Not the waterfall as such. Unless we're lucky enough to have a sighting there. I mean, the whole thing itself. Our journey in search of an Unidentified…'

Why was he unable to continue the sentence? At the back of it was only a stupid radio show when all was said and done. Compare that with the thrilling reality of two true mates bonded by delight in each other's company fearlessly travelling towards the Unknown. Sam, even though they had just rounded the bend of a tortuous road he didn't know at all, was slowing the car down radically, and his head, which he turned to Pete, maybe at the cost of control of the wheel, was his fiercest cob-swan's yet.

He had understood anyway. As his very next words made clear. ‘Do I take it you've made UFOs your Special Subject for your Jan 31?'

‘Yes, Sam, I thought I'd already made it more or less clear.' (‘More or less'!?)

‘Like
fuck
you did!' Sam hissed, and now he'd stopped the car and turned the engine off. ‘I've asked you about it, directly and indirectly, I don't know how many sodding times. Until I thought I'd best stop, because you might have chickened out of the damned show altogether, and just not wanted to say.'

‘I promised you I wouldn't chicken out, and I've
kept
the promise, Sam. And I couldn't have a better subject than UFOs, could I? You of all people must agree?'

‘Me of all people… too fucking right, Pete. UFOs are
my
subject, man,
my
experience,
my
passion. You little arsewipe, you pathetic cocksucker, you shrivelled-up cunt, you can't go stealing from me, and expect me to take it on the fucking chin! You
know
you're a thief, you
know
I'm right to think you one, I can tell from your fat little common face… I bet you've already told them your choice? The BBC crew?'

If Pete couldn't remember when he was last afraid, he most certainly knew he was now. Sam's viciously spoken language – way beyond the normal locker-room obscenities of young male talk – had appalled him. ‘Well, I had to tell them, didn't I?' he protested, ‘but we're doing things differently this year, as I remember explaining to you. No more questions and answers. Instead each competitor gives a brief talk and is judged on that. Good idea, don't you think?'

‘Oh, I think it's a marvellous idea, a perfectly fucking
brilliant
idea.' Pete felt as he heard and saw Sam's uninhibited fury that – whatever peculiar bodies were manifesting themselves in the sky above, whatever animals were prowling or running or hunting or grazing in the wild around them – reality for him right now was confined to one object, Sam's irate head spitting hostilities at him in the inescapably confined interior of the VW. ‘Mr Pete Kempsey – who's never seen a UFO in his life, and who never gave the matter serious thought before the two of us shared that spliff one month and one day ago – for that twat, that shithead, that spunkless prick, to get up on his hind legs in front of all Britain and talk about
my, my
greatest interest – which I share with the wisest man of the century, Carl – Gustav Jung – yeah, that's such a good idea I feel like getting up and fucking dancing on the roof of this car for sheer joy.'

Swans angered on riverside paths not only hiss at and threaten irritating intruders, they strike them with their wings and poised beak. And now Sam, leaning over Pete with rage in his deep-brown eyes and with his handsome head jutting forward, laid into him with his fists. Pete, hoping to avert a full fight, received the blows without retaliation.

‘Nobody deceives me, friend, fucking nobody,' Sam informed him, ‘you don't know why the hell I left Darnton, do you? You'd have been more careful if you'd known.' It was not one of Bala's Men in Black or any other unidentified phenomenon that was going to make Pete shit himself in terror; it was this youth from The Tall House, Bargates, Leominster who was now forcing himself astride him.

‘Sam, I've always wanted to know,' said Pete with difficulty, from underneath this strong, electrically charged body, ‘and on the programme, I'm going to tell them all, the whole of Britain, what a great guy you are, the greatest I've ever come across, and how it was you – and you only – who gave me the idea in the first place, and how you've actually seen…'

Impossible to go on any further because down came Sam's right fist – probably not caring about its aim, but landing on his nose. Hard. Extremely. And Pete couldn't but feel his head was spinning round and round and might well part from his neck and trunk. Tiny little stars appeared sparklingly before his eyes. All this, before pain – multiple pain – properly registered itself, and the blood flowed down over his upper lip and so into his mouth which had gained some cuts of its own.

‘You haven't heard me out, you scumbag. I'm now going to tell you why they made me leave Darnton.' Pete, the appalling loosening in his bowels beginning the filthiest realisation of what Sam and he had ruefully suggested as possibilities for this last stage of their adventure, attempted to wriggle out of Sam's hold. But his own greatest asset in any combat – his feet, with which he'd aimed many a successful kick on the sports field – were pinned down by his companion, who weighed more than he'd have suspected. ‘I tried to top myself. Understand? With a knife, in full view of those guys I thought had most to answer for. I'd absolutely had it, had it fucking up to here, in Darnton with people letting me down, and deceiving me. Stealing my ideas. Betraying my friendship. God, I resented those two guys – Rogerson and Lawley, I'll never forgive them – going for me two against one, and forcing the knife out of my hands. And let me tell you something, Peter fucking Kempsey, you've behaved worse to me than anybody, you dickhead you. You make me disgusted with life all over again. And then some!'

‘Don't kill yourself because of me, Sam!' Pete got out, ‘I mean, I
like
you!' (‘And perhaps even
loved
you, though not again after this.') He was aware more blood was pouring from him; his nose had not been the only victim of Sam's fists. And now, still unable to move from under Sam, the inside of the whole car, and what he could see of outside it, was tilting back and forth as if some earthquake was starting up (and maybe, like at Llandrillo this very evening, it actually was). Faster, faster. Faster, everything rocked.

‘Don't you fucking faint on me!' Sam was, just about audibly, saying, ‘we'd better get you into the fresh air, hadn't we?'

He stretched his left arm out to the back of Pete's head and with his hand pushed open the passenger door behind him. The impact of the night, through which rain was beginning to fall in chill gusts, dealt another blow to battered Pete, but it was welcome too – insofar as his swaying, throbbing, bleeding body could welcome anything.

‘Let me help you out, friend!' said Sam, his voice suddenly gone soberer, softer, mellower. ‘I'll get out my side of the car, and then help you out yours.'

‘Well, his fit is over, thank heavens,' thought Pete, ‘truly dreadful though it was while it lasted. And I pretty well deserved it too, didn't I? Not coming clean with him earlier, though I only spoke the truth when I said I always intended to praise him on the programme. I did, I did. Always, always…'

‘Easy does it, dude!' said Sam, in this new, warm, greatly preferable tone, his strong hands moving under Pete's shoulders and lifting him with impressive ease out of the front seat onto the tufts of moorland grass that formed the shoulder of this unfenced road.

Pete couldn't help crying now. Pity, but he couldn't switch this humiliating process off. He was not crying from physical pain, though he had plenty of that – he'd always been reasonably brave – but because of the intensity of Sam's bad feelings towards him, which he now could share only too easily. ‘I've been a complete pillock, I know,' he gasped to the figure standing by the open car door, ‘I should have told you ages before, I do see that! I guess I always knew you wouldn't like the news. But I've always meant well towards you, Sam. Everything I've done has been with real…' But ‘real' what. ‘Admiration'? The unspeakable word ‘love'? But his mouth was now starting to pulsate with hurt so much it couldn't cope with another word.