Lamp Black, Wolf Grey (12 page)

“The people who lived here long ago believed just that. Or later that the storms were sent by a god to show his rage.”

“Didn’t the ancient Greeks think thunder was the gods quarrelling?”

“I like your idea better,” he said with a smile. “Though I shouldn’t take it personally. Why would the storm single you out?”

“I don’t know, perhaps it didn’t want me up there on the mountain. Maybe I don’t belong.”

“Ah, so you do believe a person can belong to a place and not only the other way around after all.”

Laura remembered now he had asked her that very question about her house. It had all seemed a bit New Age then. But now …

“I do think a place can change a person,” she said. “And I do love living at Penlan. I have to say I think I’d struggle all the way up here, though. Especially on my own.”

“Why is it that people are so afraid of their own company?” he asked.

His question threw her. She had been looking for confirmation that there was no one living at the croft with him. Instead he had turned her probing remark around and aimed it back at her.

“It’s not that. At least, it wouldn’t be with me. I like being alone a lot of the time. I just wouldn’t choose to live on my own in such an isolated place. That’s all. Anyway, I’ve got Dan, haven’t I?”

Rhys nodded, drinking his coffee, giving nothing more away. Laura could stand his evasion no longer.

“So, no wife up here to help you with … all this?” She waved her arm at the range and the garden outside, and inwardly cringed at the crassness of her question.

“No. I’m not married. I choose to live here alone because this place suits me. This is where I feel I am able to be myself.”

“But you’re not local? I mean, you didn’t grow up here, did you?”

“No. I have traveled a little, lived in other places, seen enough of the world to decide I don’t want a great deal to do with it.”

“Well, then, you’re certainly in the right place. Is there even a road up here?”

“A track. I have an old Land Rover, but I don’t use it very often.”

“And you manage without electricity. I don’t suppose there’s a mobile signal up here either?”

“No electricity. No phone. That’s the way I like it. And you?” he asked. “What made you decide to move to Penlan?”

“Oh, you know, had enough of the city, searching for a more relaxed way of life.”

“You have no children?”

There was a tiny but eloquent pause before Laura answered.

“No. Not yet. That is, we’d like to have a family, but we’ve had no luck so far.” She smiled in an attempt to keep her voice level. “Who knows, maybe all this fresh air…”

“I’m sorry.”

She was about to ask what for, but his face told her that. He was not apologizing for raising what was clearly a difficult subject for her. It was as if he understood her suffering. As if her deepest pain was visible to him. She blinked away tears, cursing her own sensitivity.

“Some days I can be philosophical for a whole five minutes. You know, ‘it wasn’t meant to be’ sort of stuff. Other days I feel so angry, and of course there’s no one to be angry with. Except perhaps myself, given that it’s my fault.”

“Your fault?”

“I mean, the problem is with me. Dan could have children with someone else. But not with me, it seems.” Laura fought to deflect the conversation from her own demons. “And you haven’t any children yourself?”

“No. Maybe that is another thing not meant to be. Besides, I think I do best on my own,” he said, a shadow passing over his face as he turned thoughtfully to the fire.

“Do you hate other people so much?”

“I don’t waste my time hating.”

Laura suspected she had touched a nerve. She heard her mother’s voice in her ear and for once acted upon it.

“How on earth do you earn a living up here? You surely can’t survive on selling your veg and eggs. Though it was all delicious, by the way.”

Rhys frowned at this, and Laura feared she had been too nosy and asked one question too many. He leaned forward and picked up the small ax he had used earlier for chopping wood. He turned it around in his hand, staring at the blade. Laura stiffened in her chair. It came home to her now that she was alone, miles from anywhere, with a strangely solitary man whom she knew next to nothing about. Rhys nodded in the direction of the table.

“I make furniture. Things like that. Rustic, natural pieces. I sell them to a shop in Cardiff and another in Hereford. People with city lives like a little bit of the country in their homes, it seems.”

Laura relaxed again, “I love that table. I might have known you’d do something creative.”

“What about you—have you finished your studio yet?”

She was a little surprised he knew about that. She remembered telling him she painted, but couldn’t recall mentioning she was setting up a studio. It was a reasonable assumption, but it made her feel as if he had been watching the house. She shook her head at her own silly notion.

“It’s a long way off being finished, but I can paint in it as it is. Or rather, I will be able to once I’ve settled back into it. I think the move has upset my muse. Must have left her in one of the packing cases somewhere.” She felt oddly uncomfortable discussing her problems with her painting with him. It was as if she ought to apologize for failing to be inspired by such a wonderful place. A place he clearly loved. She got up and walked over to his bookshelves. “Wow, this is quite a collection. I’m surprised you can read by candlelight. I think it would do my eyes in.”

“You get used to it.” He left his chair and followed her as she browsed.

“Hmm, let’s see what you spend your winter evenings reading. Hemingway, Joyce, all the usual suspects. Oh, quite a lot of poetry. Some in Welsh, too. Do you speak the language?”

He nodded, “It is beautiful. Listen.” He took down a well-thumbed book and selected a poem. He read quietly but confidently. Laura could not understand the meaning of the words, but the music in them was unmistakable. She had always thought Welsh to be made up of harsh, guttural, unmanageable sounds, but listening to Rhys now she heard nothing jarring or ugly, only rhythm and pattern and symmetry. He finished the poem and returned the book to the shelf. “I’ll translate it for you one day. If you’d like me to,” he said.

“Thank you, yes. I would like that very much.”

She browsed on. There were books on gardening and horticulture and wood carving and herbal remedies and all manner of things that fitted with Rhys’s obscure lifestyle. There were plenty of novels, too, and the poetry, and a section on philosophy and theology. Another shelf was given over to mathematics, and still another to psychology, dispelling at last any idea Laura had of Rhys being an aging hippy. Here was a voracious reader. A scholar, even. She was getting a clearer picture of him now, and it revealed a complex and ever more intriguing character. At last she came to a large number of books about legends and myths, most focusing on stories related to Wales and the Celts. “Oh, these are interesting.”

“Do you like legends?”

“I’ve been trying to find out a bit about local ones. Actually, I started off looking for ghost stories. I don’t know, something about Penlan got me thinking about ghosts. Ridiculous, I know, but with such old houses its easy to get daft ideas in your head.”

“You shouldn’t be so quick to consider your ideas ridiculous. You talk more sense than most, it seems to me.”

“Really? You think? Anyway, I didn’t find anything written about that sort of thing. I did get a good book on local myths though, stuff about Merlin. He lived around here for a while, so the story goes. Did you know that? Of course you did—look at all these books on him!”

“I do have a particular interest in him. And you’re right about him having been here for a short time. Just one summer.”

“You believe he was a real person, then? Not just a myth?”

“Of course. There is real evidence. He was someone who had an enormous influence, in more ways then most people realize.”

“Looks like you’ve got every book ever written on him.”

“There have been plenty written, not all of them worth reading. Some have references to his time here, which I find especially interesting, more so now that I live here, of course.”

“It’s quite a library.”

“Borrow whatever you like,” he said.

Laura became aware of how close he was standing to her. She could feel the warmth of his body and the movement of his chest as he breathed. She grabbed a book without even looking at it.

“Thank you. I’ll return it as soon as I’ve read it.”

“Take your time.”

There was a pause—a highly charged moment. Laura knew she must leave. Quickly, before she did something she might later regret. Something that would change her, and change her life, forever. She brushed past him with a light smile, though her pulse was racing.

“Well, thanks again, for rescuing me. And for the coffee. And the clothes.”

“You are welcome. Come and visit me again, though perhaps not in a thunderstorm next time,” he said with a smile.

Laura opened the front door, then hesitated. She turned and looked at him and allowed herself to acknowledge how much she wanted to stay. He returned her gaze steadily. In that moment she could so easily have given in, every particle in her body screamed at her to stay, to be with him. But a small voice in her head held sway.

A thought occurred to her as she was on the point of leaving.

“Where is your dog?” she asked. “Big, shaggy, grey thing?”

Rhys shook his head.

“No dog,” he said. “I have never had a dog.”

5

B
Y THE TIME
Dan arrived home from work on the following Friday night Laura found herself reluctant to tell him about her visit to the croft.

“What have you been up to this week? I want all the details,” he said, pulling off his tie and opening the fridge.

“Oh, I’ve been sorting out the studio, going for walks, making sketches, you know. Usual sort of stuff before getting started on a new lot of paintings.”

“We had terrific thunderstorms in London, rattled the office windows. Did you get them up here, too?” He helped himself to a beer and passed one to her.

“Some, but not close up.” She surprised herself with the first lie. She didn’t want Dan to think her stupid for being on the mountain in the storm, but that was not her only reason for fibbing. “It did rain, though,” she added.

“So I see. Freshened things up a bit, thank God.” Dan perched on the edge of the table and drank.

Laura watched him. He was still the same old Dan, still the man she married. The man she loved. But she felt herself strangely distant from him. By not telling him about going to Rhys’s cottage she was lying to him. She could not convince herself otherwise. And yet, how would it sound if she told him? She had behaved like an idiot in the storm, been rescued by Rhys, let him wash her, changed into his clothes, and spent time alone with him. But it had all been innocent, nothing had happened, so why was she hiding it? Deep inside she knew the real reason. She knew how close she had come to staying with Rhys. She knew how much she had wanted to. How much she still wanted to.

Later, as Dan snored lightly beside her, Laura read the book she had borrowed from Rhys. It had been a lucky choice, all about Welsh folklore. Six months earlier she could never have imagined herself interested in such a thing. Now it fascinated her. Particularly the section on fertility. She read that corn dollies had been thought vital to the success of a crop. Each year, after the summer solstice, dollies would be twisted from the ripe corn. They were often given as presents at weddings and for newborns—seedless for men, but with the grain inside for women. They had to be buried in the field the following spring to assure the farmer of a good harvest. Similarly, they were believed to help women conceive, and could be hung in the bedroom of a woman wishing for a baby. As Laura read on she learned that the birch tree was also reputed to have magic properties where baby making was concerned. She was just about to find out why and how when Dan stirred. He rolled over and smiled up at her sleepily.

“What’s that you’ve got there?” He squinted at the cover. “Welsh Folklore. Not your usual nighttime reading.” Dan yawned and tugged the book from her hands.

“Hey!”

“Let’s see, oh, ‘Fertility Rites and Rituals’—sounds like a good chapter. Any tips for me? Should I be making wild love to you in the meadows under a full moon?”

Laura snatched back the book. “Very funny. I want to learn something about the history of our new home, even if you don’t.”

“All riveting stuff, no doubt.” He shook his head and turned away again, making something of a show of getting comfortable.

Laura pretended to read until she was sure he was asleep again then put the book back on her nightstand. Why had Dan seen fit to make fun of something that had been a crucial part of people’s lives for centuries? Who was to say what might or might not work? The whole business of conception was so mysterious, why not turn to magic? Could it be any less successful than anything else they had tried? She closed her eyes and tried to sleep, but now all she could think of was Rhys, and all she could see was his face close to hers. Outside a family of foxes called to one another in dry yaps and husky barks. Soon the young would leave the lair to make their own way in the world, but for now they played and hunted together. Laura thought of how everyone was driven to build a family around them, to be part of a pack. And of how Rhys had chosen to live alone, so far from anyone. What could have made him choose such a life? He was a man of intellect and of passion, yet he shunned company. Why? As she drifted into a fitful sleep a shadowy figure followed her into her dreams.

*   *   *

L
AURA MADE A
point of spending as much time as possible with Dan over the weekend. Whatever assurances she had given her mother, she knew she would have to work at maintaining the usual closeness the two of them shared, now that they were apart for so much of the time. And she so wanted him to fall for Penlan in the way that she herself had. She tried to think of aspects of their new home that would appeal to him, seeking out a wonderful local pub that sold good food and one of his favorite beers; introducing him to the delights of the one and only Indian takeaway ten miles away; renting a new DVD one evening and seducing him in front of it with a bottle of champagne. These were hardly rural pursuits, but they did help to reestablish a bond. The time passed swiftly, and she felt quite low watching him drive away through the pretty mist on Monday morning. She decided to redouble her efforts to paint. It was ridiculous to be so feeble about it. She had the time, the place, the subjects—what was stopping her? With amazement she realized she had not produced more than a few sketches in almost two months. She wondered why she had not gone mad.