Named of the Dragon (24 page)

"It couldn't have been Tony," she repeated, setting out our teacups on a tray. "But sometimes, I like to let myself believe it was. Does that sound very mad?"

I looked at her, the small face and the large eyes turned so hopefully towards me, and I gently shook my head. "No."

"It's only that I miss him," she said, simply. "Does it ever stop, this missing someone?"

I was thinking, not of Martin, but of Justin—of the empty cot, the grave beneath the churchyard yew, the smile I'd never see.
No,
I could have told her, but instead I answered truthfully, "It changes."

"Good." She added the plate of mince pies to the tray and lifted it carefully, stepping away from the counter. "Let's go have our tea in the sitting-room, shall we?" she said, switching subjects. "I do want to show you my Christmas tree."

XXVII

The gale and the storm keep equal pace;

It is the work of the wise to keep a secret.

The Red Book of Hergest (trans. W. F. Skene)

“Well, I can't see how it could be better than
our
tree," said Bridget. Behind the upraised magazine, her posture was defensive.

Even the tree seemed to bristle, indignant, its fairy lights twinkling more sharply than usual. Kneeling beneath it, I centered a book in the bright square of gift wrap and sighed. "I didn't say that hers was better. I just said that it looked rather nice, the way she had it done, with all the ornaments from nature, and the ribbons, and no lights. It's very rustic."

Bridget sniffed, to show me what she thought of all things rustic. "Anyone who makes a crib from bits of twig and nuts ..."

"She's creative."

"She's something, all right." Shifting round in her chair, Bridget swung her legs over the arm and lay back, shaking out the pages of her magazine. "Such a shame she won't be coming to the party."

"I thought she told James maybe."

"She won't come. She'd never leave her precious boy with someone else."

I couldn't resist. "Perhaps she'll bring him."

"Oh, that," Bridget said, "would be brilliant. A baby at a cocktail party. That would ... what are you laughing at?"

"Nothing." I straightened my face, looking down.

"I can always switch agents, you know."

"I wasn't laughing."

"I hear Ivor Whitcomb is taking new clients."

James chose that moment to enter the dining-room. "What's that about Ivor?" he asked.

"Nothing," Bridget said, mimicking me. Looking over her shoulder, she watched James start opening drawers in the sideboard, with purpose. "What is it you're wanting?"

"A pen that works."

"Well, darling, I should think this is hardly the right room to—"

"Ah." He pulled the fourth drawer out and smiled. "The mother-lode." Rifling through the contents of the drawer, he selected a handful of pens and wandered over to inspect my work. "Is that for me?"

"Don't tell him," Bridget said. "The man is horrible with gifts. He pokes and rattles."

"I do not."

"You nearly broke your birthday present last September."

"A fine French brandy," he informed me. "Smashing stuff."

"Yes, well, you nearly
did
smash it," said Bridget.

"But this one won't break." He looked down at my gift. "It's a book."

I smiled at his persistence. "It's not for you. It's Christopher's."

"Ah yes, my baby brother." Eyebrows raised, he turned to Bridget. "What the devil have you done with him, by the way? I haven't seen him anywhere since you came back."

She shrugged, not looking up. "He helped me put the coal into the shed and then took off again. I don't know where."

"How odd."

"No odder," said Bridget, "than you making plans for a Christmas Eve party."

His mouth curved. "That bothers you, doesn't it?"

"It's just so out of character."

"Yes," he mused. "I suppose it is." And then, with pens in hand, he grinned and left us.

Bridget lowered her magazine, meeting my eyes. "Men," she said. "They love to be mysterious."

"And you love mysterious men," I reminded her.

"Lucky for James." Watching me do battle with a length of curling ribbon, she asked, "Is that really for Christopher?"

"Mm. I'm giving him the naval murder mystery."

"Oh. Because I meant to tell you earlier, you could have given him the Welsh one that Lewis sneaked into the heap."

' 'Does Christopher know Welsh?''

"Yes. He said his mother taught him. James never took any interest in learning it, Christopher said, but then James hasn't got an ear for languages. I've heard him butcher French," she told me. "Christopher, though, is a wonderful mimic. You ought to have heard him today, going on like the man at the coal-yard. He got the Welsh accent down perfectly."

The flat blade of the scissors slipped and left the ribbon, nicking the side of my thumb. I sucked the tiny wound a moment, wondering if Christopher could imitate an old man's voice, as well.

Bridget didn't notice my accident, nor my frown. "So I thought," she went on, "if you wanted that book off your hands, you could give it to Christopher."

"Well, I've got this one wrapped now," I said, attempting the ribbon again with more care. And besides, I had somebody different in mind for the Welsh book.

*-*-*-*-*

Gareth looked larger, somehow, in the dark. With the light spilling out from the passage behind him, his face was in shadow, unreadable. "A what?" he asked, as though he hadn't heard me right the first time.

"A Christmas present." I thrust the small parcel towards him. "Here, take it. It's not going to bite."

"What the hell'd you do that for?"

The wind struck my back and I shivered on the doorstep, losing patience. "Look, either take it or don't take it, I don't much care. But I can't stand here freezing all night."

He took the book warily, studied my face, and stepped back from the door. "Come in."

The Aga, nestled in its nook within the kitchen wall, had chosen to behave this evening, burning cheerfully and radiating warmth. With the fire cover off, the play of thin blue flames across the glowing mass of coals gave the illusion of an open hearth and made the room feel cosy. Chance was dozing on the flagstone floor close by the Aga's feet, too comfortable to do much more than wag his tail in greeting. Gareth clearly had been thinking about putting supper on. A can of Irish stew, unopened, sat beside the cutting-board, with a generous hunk of cheddar and a wholegrain cob. He shoved them to one side and set his gift on the worktop, reaching to plug in the kettle. "Tea?"

"Lord, no." I put a protesting hand to my stomach. "I've had tea with breakfast, tea with Elen, and tea at four o'clock. I really don't think I could face another pot."

He considered the problem. "I have instant chocolate," he said. "Any better?"

"Heaps. Thank you."

Retrieving the tin and two mugs from the cupboard, he glanced at me over his shoulder. "So you've been to see Elen today."

"Yes."

"And?"

"We had a long talk, about Tony. And Stevie."

He knew what was coming. "She said Tony wasn't the father."

"She did, yes."

"Bloody rubbish. If there's one thing I know about Elen, it's that she would never have cheated on Tony."

"She seemed very sure."

' 'She's confused in her mind about what really happened the day Tony died, that's all." He challenged me, "Can you remember everything about your husband's death?"

That caught me off guard. Till now I had nearly forgotten what Bridget had said about Gareth knowing Martin from the time he'd spent in London all those years ago. And of course, if Gareth and Bridget had talked about me, he would know I was widowed. "I wasn't with him when he died," I answered, very calm. "But yes, I have a fairly vivid memory of the day, and what I did, and who was with me."

The kettle boiled. He frowned and looked away. "Well, Elen doesn't." And then, in a completely different tone of voice, he asked, "How did you end up with a sod like Martin Blake? You hardly seem the type."

"What type is that?"

He met my eyes again. "You know the sort of man he was." He handed me the mug of frothing chocolate and I took it with a shrug.

"Like you, I met him at a party. He was sober then. He dazzled me. I wasn't very bright."

"Would you have stayed with him?"

No one had ever asked me that before. Would I have stayed with Martin if he hadn't died? I wasn't sure. I'd always thought—still did—that marriage was a promise, a commitment, not a thing you walked away from. But with Martin...

"Sorry," Gareth said. "That's not a fair question, is it?"

I replied without thinking, "I wouldn't have thought that you cared about fairness." Then, hearing how tactless that sounded, I hastened to soften the statement. "What I meant was—"

"I know what you meant." His dark eyes assessed me, expressionless. "You do have a high opinion of me, don't you?"

"Well, you haven't made it easy."

Frowning, he unplugged the kettle and lifted his mug from the worktop. "Come on through to the study. It's colder in there, but the chairs are more comfortable."

Chance came with us into the adjoining room, and settled himself with a sigh and a thump on the hearth, his shaggy back pressed close against the fire screen.

"You'll singe yourself, you idiot. Get out of that." Gareth nudged Chance aside with his foot before lifting the screen away, letting the fire's full heat spill out into the room. He was right—it did feel a bit chillier here, but the armchair he offered me cradled my back with more kindness than the hard wooden one in the kitchen.

"So." He sat at his desk by the half-shuttered window and swivelled the chair round to face me. "You think I'm an ill-mannered bastard, is that it?"

I didn't back down, this time. Lacing my fingers, I met his gaze levelly. "I think you like to give people that impression, yes."

"And why would I want to do that?"

"I don't know. To keep them away, I expect, or to keep up your image—the angry young playwright at war with the world."

To my astonishment, he smiled. "Not so young, anymore. And there are some who might dispute the 'playwright' part. My muse doesn't speak as freely as she used to."

Now, I thought, we'd moved to more familiar ground—

an agent and a writer talking shop. But still, I couldn't help but hesitate, uncertain of his smile, not wanting to put a foot wrong. "Have you been working on this play for long?"

"I started it years ago, right after
Red Dragon Rising.
But after I came out of London I chucked the whole thing, put the play in a drawer and just left it there rotting."

I assured him that a lot of writers did that. "I think when your first work has been such a stunning success, there's so much pressure to repeat the trick that..."

But Gareth was shaking his head. "The last thing I wanted," he said, "was another success. I was sick of the whole bloody business."

There was no use, I thought, in pointing out the pleasure that his work had given people, and the eagerness with which we'd all awaited his next play. I knew he wouldn't thank me for the praise. He'd only think it hollow flattery, and bracket me with all the hollow people that he'd so despised in London. I held my tongue, accepting his decision. "So what changed your mind?"

"Stevie's birth." He said that without hesitation. "Elen going around spinning tales about dragons and talking to Merlin..."

"You know about that, then?"

"Oh, yes, it's all part of the same thing, it makes Stevie special—a fatherless baby, a child of prophecy. Once she got on to all that, all her prophecy business, I couldn't help thinking of Henry VII. And once I start thinking," he told me, "I write."

"Well I, for one, am glad of that. I do like your writing—you have such a poetic way with words." So much, I thought, for my determination not to praise him.

He didn't seem to mind. He shrugged. "It's not the words that worry me. The value of a play is in its silences."

"How so?"

"The silences," he said, "are when the actors get to act.

That's where the magic happens. Without the actors, all you have are pretty words on paper."

Tearing my eyes from the uneven stack of pages at his elbow, I tried to shift the conversation out of the abstract and into the concrete. "And does it have a title, this new play of yours?"

He measured me a moment. "I call it
The Long Yellow Summer,
from an old song the bards passed around in the summer of 1485, while everyone waited for Henry's return from his exile in Brittany. 'When the bull comes from the far land to battle with his great spear,' that's what they sang. 'When the long yellow summer comes and victory comes to us...' Henry, of course, was the bull—that was one of his symbols. Like Owain Glyn Dwr, he knew how to play on the prophecies."

"I imagine, like Owain, he'd make quite an interesting hero."

He shrugged. "Henry's not in the play. It's a couple of months in the lives of those waiting for him to return and do battle—much more scope, there, for intrigue. I wanted to steer clear of Henry."

"Because you don't connect with him?"

"Because we have too much in common."

"Ah." I shifted my gaze to the fire, reluctant to ask him the obvious question. Knowing nothing of his private life, I didn't want to pry. The flames dancing round one large coal to the rear of the grate disappeared with an audible puff in a trail of thin smoke, then sprang to life again, like magic.