Ten White Geese (22 page)

A very light rain was falling. ‘Then we’re both impervious,’ the husband said as they got into the big black car. Walking felt easier this morning. He counted back through the weeks and realised it was almost time to have the cast taken off.

‘That’s got you thinking, hasn’t it?’ the policeman said.

‘Yep.’

The policeman drove out of the car park like a boy racer, swinging the wheel and wrenching the gearstick.

The husband positioned his cast and looked out. When he burped, he tasted the disgusting champagne. He didn’t think ahead. Even doing his best, he found it difficult to picture his wife’s face.
I’m coming
. It was really only because he knew she was ill. Otherwise he would probably have stayed away.

‘This friend of yours,’ he said.

‘No,’ said the policeman.

‘No?’

‘Don’t talk about it. We’re abroad.’

‘Do you even have a friend?’

Bram interrupted, telling them to cross the next roundabout. Second exit.
Hapsford, Ellesmere Port
. On the roundabout Bram continued to give them directions.

The husband watched the policeman’s hands, relaxed on the steering wheel. The windscreen wipers had stopped slapping back and forth. There was a break in the clouds ahead. ‘It’s going to be a nice day,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ said the policeman.

‘There is a chance, of course, that’s she no longer there.’

‘We’ll see when we get there.’

‘“Boxing Day”, what’s that actually mean?’

‘I don’t know.’

In eight hundred metres, bear right. Then take the motorway
. The husband was starting to get fed up with Bram. He couldn’t be bothered trying to talk over him. He closed his eyes and thought about running. With a foot that
wasn’t broken, that rolled. Running, breathing, sweating, clenching his fists to squeeze the pain out of his spleen. Coming home alone, showering, stretching out on the sofa. She never said anything. In all those years she hadn’t once asked how it had gone. Sometimes she sighed. She’d never put in an appearance at a race either. Impervious. He thought of something his mother-in-law had said.
It’s still all your fault.
Because he, as the policeman said, was hardly an open book himself? His foot wasn’t itchy; he didn’t miss the knitting needle. That was probably a sign that things were going well under the plaster.

*

Northop, Brynford, Rhuallt
. Bram hadn’t said a word for ages, presumably because they were on the A55 and would be staying on it for a while. The sun was now shining; the fields and woods were steaming. It’s beautiful here, the husband thought. His phone started to vibrate against his chest. He pulled it out of the breast pocket of his coat.

‘You there yet?’ His mother-in-law.

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘The boat was delayed. We had to spend a night in a hotel.’

‘But now you’re almost there?’

‘About another hour and a half, I think.’

‘What’s the weather like?’

‘Nice. The sun’s shining.’

‘It’s terrible here. Not cosy at all.’

The husband glanced to one side. The policeman was looking ahead imperturbably. ‘Well, it’s very cosy here. I drank champagne this morning.’

‘What? Why for God’s sake?’

‘It’s Boxing Day.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I don’t know. The second day of Christmas?’

‘Does that policeman of yours know how to get there?’

‘He’s got help. From Bram.’

‘Bram?’

‘One of those navigation systems.’

‘Oh.’ There was a moment’s silence. ‘Is he wearing his uniform?’

‘No, why should he? He’s not working.’

‘No, I thought, because he’s kind of going there to pick her up in an official capacity.’

‘This has nothing to do with the police.’

‘That’s true.’ There was another silence in Amsterdam. ‘Your father-in-law wants to know if they showed a film on the boat.’

‘Not that I know of. But it was a very big boat. We saw a clown on a stage.’

‘Look, when you’re there, will you tell her that we…’

‘Yes?’

They consulted again. ‘Well, that we love her. And that we want her to come home. Not to us, of course, but to you.’

‘To me? I thought it was all my fault.’

‘No. According to your father-in-law, that’s not right. We talked about it some more.’

‘Oh.’

‘We love her, her father too. Tell her that. Will you do that?’

‘Of course I’ll tell her. When we get there, I’ll give her my phone, then you can tell her yourself.’

‘No, you do it. And then we’ll call afterwards. Or no, you call us, because we won’t know when you get there. What time is it there anyway?’

‘An hour earlier than with you.’

‘OK, we don’t want to be in the middle of dinner.’

The man shook his head.

‘You can also tell her that it’s not on, just disappearing like that. That she should think of her old mum and dad. And that we’ve forgiven her.’

‘What have you forgiven her?’

‘You know, that thing with the, um…Everybody does things they end up regretting.’ His father-in-law said something in the background. ‘Your father-in-law says, “The flesh is weak.”’ She started to cry.

The husband moved the phone away from his ear. ‘I’ve got my mother-in-law on the line,’ he told the policeman. ‘She says the flesh is weak.’

The policeman glanced at him. ‘Can’t argue with that,’ he said.

‘Something else.’ Now he heard his father-in-law’s voice. He pressed the phone against his ear again. ‘Tell her that we really want to celebrate New Year together, all of us.’

‘I’ll do that. Are you going to come here or do you mean in Amsterdam?’

‘Here, of course! What would we want to go there for? Do you really see me getting your mother-in-law on one of those boats?’

‘You could fly.’

‘Not if you paid us. No, here. At our place. In her old home. It’ll be good for her. We have to look after her.’

‘Yes.’

‘You’ve got a return, haven’t you? When are you taking the boat back?’

‘No, no return. We can come back whenever we like. Plus we’ll have two cars then.’

‘You know what? Tell her her uncle and auntie are coming too.’ His mother-in-law said something. ‘What? Hang on a sec…No, of course he won’t mind. He’s worried about her…Why?…I guarantee he won’t play up…Sorry, your mother-in-law said something. I’ll arrange it right away. I’m sure she’ll enjoy it.’

‘I’ll let her know.’

More consultations in the background. ‘What? Hang on a sec. Your mother-in-law wants to know if the marble cake’s OK.’

‘It’s still in the bag. That’s for later.’

‘Will you ring up the minute you get there?’

‘I promise.’

‘OK. Drive safely for the rest of the trip.’

The man put his mobile back in his breast pocket. His ear was hot. ‘Shouldn’t you call home?’ he asked the policeman. ‘Just to touch base?’

‘No need.’

*

The A55 was now following the coast.
Colwyn Bay, Llandudno, Conwy
. A train that appeared to run along the beach overtook them.

‘Just under an hour,’ the policeman said.

‘I think it’s beautiful here,’ the husband said. ‘And I wonder what she’s been doing all this time.’

‘Maybe she’s living with a Welsh farmer.’

The husband laughed. They drove through a village where the train was stopped at a station. Land was visible in the distance. The husband wondered if it could be Ireland. A little later the train passed the car again. ‘She’s a city girl. She can’t tell a blackbird from a sparrow.’

‘Is that a requirement? You don’t need to know stuff like that to live in the country.’

‘It’s so lonely.’

‘And living with you in one house in the city wasn’t?’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

The policeman took one hand off the wheel and laid it on the husband’s leg.

He didn’t move it away because the policeman was the driver.

*

Turn left ahead. In eight hundred metres, turn left and follow the road.
After a long silence Bram had spoken again.
Caernarfon
, the signs said, nine more miles.
At the roundabout, turn right, third exit.
‘Bram’s got his work cut out for him now,’ the policeman said.

‘Can he find a house just by the name?’ the husband asked. He rubbed his left knee.

‘No.’

‘So how are we going to get there?’

The policeman took a map from the pocket in his door and gave it to the husband, saying, ‘What would you do without me?’

The husband looked at the map.
Snowdon / Yr Wyddfa, Explorer Map.
A mountaineer in a bright red coat standing
on a rock with a snow-covered mountaintop in the background.

‘I drew a circle around the house,’ the policeman said. ‘And used yellow highlighter on the road to get there.’

The husband tried to unfold the map but couldn’t, it was much too big. Too big and too detailed and it also made an incredible racket. He laid the map on his lap. The land across the water on their right was a lot closer; it couldn’t possibly be Ireland.
Take the exit. Keep left, then cross the roundabout, second exit.
They drove through the town of Caernarfon. The shops were open and the streets were fairly busy; the husband saw a large sign reading
Sale!
He saw what he thought was a kind of palm tree in the middle of a small roundabout.
Cross the roundabout, second exit.
The husband kept quiet, he couldn’t compete with Bram. Was Boxing Day a public holiday when shops held sales?

*

A quarter of an hour later they stopped at a T-junction. Bram had said,
You have reached your destination,
and – just before the policeman pulled over –
Try to make a U-turn.
‘No, Bram,’ the policeman said. ‘You’re done.’ Then he took the map from the husband. Now he was standing in front of the car with the map spread out on the bonnet. The car door was open. It smelt the way Amsterdam can smell in March with the wind from a certain direction: farmers’ spring air. The policeman turned round and peered at a narrow, sunken lane that ran uphill, tufts of grass sticking up through the middle of the asphalt. There was an incredible number of sheep in the field beside the lane. It was damp. The dashboard clock said quarter to one, from which the husband
subtracted one hour. He was strangely nervous. It was Boxing Day in Wales and in a quarter of an hour he might be seeing his wife again.

He keeps imagining the summit. The way he’d stood there, his breath visible, the Horseshoe, the Irish Sea, the lakes, the gradual slope down to Llanberis, as if the mountain had known all along that they would one day build a railway there. A layer of snow. It was a shame that you were never alone in places like this. The new top station, Hafod Eryri, was closed, sheets of hardboard protecting the large windows, a deep snowdrift against the back wall. It wasn’t busy, but the people who were there were almost all talking into mobiles, letting someone know they’d made it to the top. When he got back to where he’d left her – at a run – and didn’t find her, he looked over the edge, into the depths, before running on.

*

But now he’s stuck in the cellar of an old pigsty. Without a mobile. Even if he wanted to let someone know he was down below ground level, he couldn’t. Standing up straight is impossible. She’s laid cushions on the floor, rugs and blankets. It’s only after she turns off the light in the pigsty that he uses a match to light a candle. One candle, not both. They’re in the necks of two wine bottles. It can’t get really
dark anyway, not with the house lights on and casting bright rectangles on the lawn. He can see them through the wide, four-inch window. In a plastic bag there’s bread and packets of biscuits, butter, a few bananas, a knife, cheese and sliced cold lamb. Is that a joke? He almost smiles. Does she think he’s going to eat that? There are three bottles of red wine with screw tops, one bottle of white, seven bottles of water, crisps. A glass and a plate. He hasn’t even looked for a second Christmas present. It sounds like she’s moving something with the wheelbarrow, footsteps on the crushed slate. The last thing he hears is classical music: the radio must be turned up loud with the window or front door open. Closed again, a bit later. Either that or she’s turned the radio off. He doesn’t understand, but he’s not really surprised. He still pushes hard on the trapdoor and feels the dust drift down on his head. He swears under his breath. ‘
Sguthan
,’ he says, without feeling angry, and ‘
Iesu Grist
.’ He eats and drinks, but not too much. This could last a week. And the likelihood of it being his father who ends up liberating him is something he can’t do a thing about. He pulls off his boots and coat and finally removes his hat. He lies down on the cushions without undressing further and pulls the blankets and rugs up over himself. He blows out the candle. He’s not cold. The lights are still on in the house. He sees himself on top of Yr Wyddfa, inhaling the biting air, screwing up his eyes in the glare of the snow.

*

Birds are singing the next morning. With a view of nothing – yes, beams and boards – he could think it’s spring. In the course of the night, the cold has risen through the floor after
all. He sits up, eats a piece of bread with cheese, drinks some water. And waits. Maybe I got her pregnant, he thinks. He stands up to look out through the window. The grass is damp, and when he looks again a little later, he sees that the sun has advanced quite far. Only now does he notice that she has put the three flowering plants from the kitchen windowsill in front of the cellar window. When he sticks a finger in one of the pots, he feels that the soil is damp.

He still can’t work out why he stood there on the lawn like a deer caught in headlights, the headlights of the black pickup parked next to the house. He could just as easily have walked away, climbing back over the wall. Sam had sat trembling against his leg; that was how desperate he was to go to his master. She had given him a sign: incomprehensible, and yet, a sign. Maybe that was why.

*

He used to be able to stand upright in here, he even had to stretch to look out through the window at his mother and Mrs Evans, sitting on strange chairs in the shade of the alders, next to the stream. It was always cool in the cellar, he didn’t understand them staying outside. A couple of glasses of home-made lemonade with ice cubes on a wobbly table. Standing on his toes to look at the women, listening to his mother’s voice. Sometimes she’d call out, ‘Bradwen!’ and Mrs Evans would tell her to leave him in peace, ‘
Da chi’n gwybod lle mae o
.’ And always packing up when his father approached the chairs and table, finished with the sheep and ready to go home, sweat on his nose and brow.