The Lost Days of Summer (25 page)

Nell walked briskly along the lane which led from the farm to the village. They seemed to be having an Indian summer in mid-September, and before she had gone half a mile perspiration was running down her back. Trust Auntie Kath to send me on an errand when it’s hot enough to bake bread, she thought ruefully. And coming home would be worse, because the marketing bag would hold not only the housekeeping purse but the big sacks of porridge oats and flour which her aunt needed. If I had a bicycle, I could be there and back in a quarter of the time it takes me to walk, she thought wistfully. Wouldn’t it be lovely if someone came forward with one for sale, just as I was pinning my notice to the board in the post office window!

This made her think of the rusty bicycle she had seen leaning against the wall of the Swtan, and the price Auntie Kath had suggested she might offer. Five shillings seemed very little; she was almost sure she had seen a bicycle advertised for sale in the
Liverpool Echo
before she left home priced at ten shillings. But then the seller had had to pay for the advertisement, which she guessed must cost a good deal more than the tuppence Mr Mason charged. However, she already knew that the housekeeping purse would only contain sufficient money to buy the goods her aunt required. No doubt Auntie Kath would part with a larger sum when, and if, someone came forward. Until then, Nell thought, wiping beads of sweat from her forehead, she would have to be content with Shanks’s pony.

And that was an odd term when you thought about it: Shanks’s pony. It made her think of Feather, for at one time she had suggested that she might learn to ride her, but Auntie Kath had vetoed the idea. ‘She’s never been broke to riding,’ she had explained. ‘She’d likely buck you off the moment she felt you on her back. No, that would never do. But I’ll teach you to drive the pony and trap when I’ve a spare moment . . . if I ever have a spare moment, that is.’

At this point in her reflections, Nell reached the post office and joined the queue which had formed. Despite the heat, the village street was busy, with women bustling in and out of the shops and children playing what looked like relievio. Nell knew a good few of the villagers by now and they exchanged greetings. Several people asked after her aunt and one tall, heavily built woman with a booming voice demanded to know whether Mrs Kath Jones intended to join other WI members on an outing to Wrexham, as she usually did. ‘We’ll be going next Monday, because that’s the day they hold the beast market on Eagle’s Meadow,’ she said persuasively. ‘You can come an’ all, young ’un, though I take it you’re not yet a member of the Women’s Institute.’

‘No I’m not,’ Nell said. ‘We’ve been terribly busy, like all the other farmers, but I’m sure if she feels she can get away, Auntie Kath will join you. Only I’m afraid Ty Hen couldn’t manage without both of us, so . . .’

She stopped short. She had been shuffling slowly up the queue, looking forward to the moment when she actually got inside the post office and out of the direct rays of the midday sun, but now a movement ahead of her caught her attention. Someone was putting a card up in the window, a tall, thin fellow in RAF uniform, who looked vaguely familiar. He wore a forage cap, set at a jaunty angle on his curly black hair, and his skin was deeply tanned. Nell was frowning over his identity when light dawned; it was the fellow she had seen at the Swtan!

‘Oh, very well, me love, we’ll not expect yourself; but remind Mrs Kath, would you? She can let me know by the milk lorry if she’s not coming into the village for the next few days. We’ve already got a good crowd . . .’

But Nell was no longer attending. She was watching the card going up in the window and wondering whether she should leave her place in the queue and grab the fellow as he came out of the post office, tell him she had recognised him as the watcher at both Llangefni and the Swtan. But if she did that she would have an audience of half the village, and if she missed the post . . . she shuddered at the thought. Auntie Kath had made such a point of getting the letter to the land girl – Margaret Smith – as soon as she possibly could; if Nell had to admit failure she could imagine all too well her aunt’s chilly annoyance. And we do seem to be getting on much better, Nell reminded herself. No, I dare not leave the queue, not even to satisfy my almost unbearable curiosity!

So she remained where she was and watched, still not sure whether to draw attention to herself when the chap came to pass her. The queue shuffled forward once more and Nell reached the doorway, passed it, and saw him grin at the postmaster, raise a hand in farewell, and leave. He had not so much as glanced in her direction and, convinced that she had missed her only chance of confronting him, Nell turned eagerly to the woman behind her. It was Mrs Blue-door Jones, so called to distinguish her from the many other Joneses living in the village. She smiled comfortably as her eyes met Nell’s.

‘Well I never did, it’s the little gal from Ty Hen,’ she said affably. ‘Come to shop for your auntie, ducks? It’s pension day, that’s why there’s such a queue, and by the same token that’s why there’s queues at most of the other shops. Come in for one thing, most of us does, and end up doin’ the week’s shop.’

‘That’s right,’ Nell said breathlessly. ‘Mrs Blue-door, who was that young man, the one with curly black hair, who just went out? I thought . . . oh, but it’s my turn next and I’ve got to write out a card to put in the window . . . oh dear, I wanted a word wi’ that young feller, but me aunt’ll have me guts for garters if I don’t get her letter in the post double quick!’

She turned to look anxiously after the boy and saw him look round, then join the queue outside the baker’s shop. She smiled at Mrs Blue-door. ‘It’s all right. I reckon he’ll be here for a while yet; he’s going into the bakery so he’s probably doing his mam’s messages – shopping, I mean. But who is he? I’ve not seen him in the village before.’

The plump little woman tried to see where Nell was pointing, but her view was obscured by others in the queue, all a good deal taller than herself. She strained her neck, then gave it up, shaking her head sadly. ‘I can’t help you, my dear, though I know every mortal soul hereabouts. Never mind; as you say, the young feller will probably be around for a while yet. Now tell me, how’s my old friend Mrs Kath?’

By the time Nell had answered Mrs Blue-door and hastily written out the card and bought her stamps, she had almost given up hope of seeing the boy from the Swtan again. She stuck one of the stamps on the letter to the land girl and went outside to post it. Then she turned towards the grocer’s shop and just as she did so the boy emerged from the baker’s, carrying two large loaves beneath his arm. Nell saw he was heading towards a rusty bicycle and followed him; she could buy porridge oats and flour
after
she had spoken to this elusive young man!

The young man in question was settling the loaves in the large wicker basket on the front of the bicycle. When he had done so, he produced a list from his pocket and was scanning it when Nell addressed him. ‘Hey! You’re the feller from the Swtan, aren’t you?’ she asked, grabbing hold of the bicycle by its handlebars in case he simply leapt aboard and pedalled away from her. ‘I saw you spying on me when I was there a while back, and I saw you at Llangefni market before Christmas. You were dodging in and out of the stalls, watching everything I did. What’s your game, wack? And don’t go trying to pretend it weren’t you because I know better.’

The young man grinned. ‘Wack indeed! I’m a member of the Royal Air Force, young woman, so don’t think yourself so mighty important! Why should I want to spy on a scruffy kid? I’ve better things to do with my time.’

‘Huh! That’s a loud one,’ Nell said. ‘I’m not asking
if
it was you; I bleedin’ well know it was! You weren’t in uniform then, I admit, but for one thing there aren’t many fellers with hair that black and for another I’ve a good memory for faces, so stop fooling around. Why were you spying on me? C’mon, you must have a reason.’

The chap grinned again. ‘You say I was spying on you, but I could say you were spying on me. You were dodging round the rocks and gorse patches, looking down at the Swtan longhouse, but you never came down to ask if you could have a drink of water from the well; you just went and helped yourself.’

He had clearly meant to put Nell at a disadvantage, but though she felt warmth rise to her cheeks she continued to stare challengingly at him. ‘I didn’t want to disturb the dog and perhaps wake whoever lives down there,’ she said defensively. ‘Besides, it may be your well, but it’s not your water. Water belongs to everyone.’

She expected the young man to start arguing over this remark, but he was staring at her, his dark eyes holding an arrested expression. ‘You saw a dog? The old feller who’s moved in now doesn’t have a dog.’

‘I’m pretty sure I saw a dog, a black and white border collie,’ Nell said obstinately. ‘I saw the old feller for a moment, too. But you’re trying to divert my attention, pretend that it’s me who was spying and not yourself. Well it won’t work, wack. Tell me why you were spying on me or I’ll – I’ll . . .’

The other laughed. ‘All right, all right, I’ll come clean,’ he said. ‘But not in the middle of the village street, if you don’t mind. I don’t suppose you’ve got a bike?’

‘No, but Auntie Kath is going to buy us one. I’ve put a notice in the post office window . . . but there you go again, trying to avoid giving a straight answer!’ The young man heaved a sigh and started to push the bicycle up the road so Nell released her grip on the handlebars and grabbed the saddle instead. ‘I’m coming with you, whether you like it or not,’ she said breathlessly.

‘I suggested that you should, if you remember,’ he said patiently. ‘We’ll go a little way out of the village while we talk. Then we’ll come back and do the rest of our shopping. Will that suit your ladyship?’

Nell was beginning to say that she saw no reason for secrecy when she changed her mind. The chap was quite right; she did not want the entire village knowing her business. They walked on, and after a very few minutes there were no more houses, only gently sloping green fields, rocks and gorse. He leaned the bicycle against a crumbling stone wall, then seated himself on it and gestured to Nell to join him.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘I’ll start at the beginning, with the Christmas market at Llangefni. Bryn’s my pal, you know. He and I have always been as thick as thieves – that’s what his mam used to say – so naturally, when I saw him with a girl, I was intrigued. To the best of my knowledge, Bryn has never so much as glanced at a girl. I reckon he’s young for his age because he was ill quite a lot as a child. Anyhow, I wanted to get a good look at you, see what the attraction was.’

His eyes scanned Nell from her shabby old sandals to the top of her head and she felt a blush warm her cheeks. She shifted uncomfortably on the old stone wall. ‘Yes, well, you can leave out that side of it,’ she said hastily. ‘I take it you didn’t know Bryn was staying with his taid and helping out at Ty Hen?’

‘Of course I knew,’ her companion said rather indignantly. ‘I told you, we’re pals; pals tell one another all sorts. But I’d not seen him for weeks, and though he mentioned that he was moving in with old Eifion he said nothing about no girl.’

‘Thank you,’ Nell said sarcastically. ‘So you were spying on me at the market in order to see what sort of girl your pal was with. But that doesn’t explain why you ran away from me at the Swtan.’

‘I didn’t run away; I hid,’ the young man said, grinning sheepishly. ‘By the way, my name’s Hywel, Hywel Jones. To tell you the truth, I’m not at all sure why I did hide. When I saw you at the well, I meant to come up to you and ask you what you were doing, but I’d promised to take one of our cows across to young Bleddyn Jones’s bull. We live in Llanrhyddlad and I knew my uncle had already brought her in from the field, so I had to get a move on because Bleddyn would have brought his bull in as well. So because I didn’t have time to talk to you, I thought it would be better if you didn’t see me. Understand? By the way, what’s your name? I told you mine.’

‘I’m Nell Whitaker,’ Nell said readily. ‘Mrs Jones at Ty Hen is my Auntie Kath, and I’m staying with her and working on the farm. I understand now why you followed me at the market and kept dodging out of sight the other day. I suppose you thought it was an odd coincidence, me turning up at your place when you had connected me, in your mind, with Llangefni.’

Hywel shook his head. ‘No, you’ve got it wrong. I didn’t realise that you and Bryn’s girl were one and the same person. What I did think was that you might have come down from one of the villages inland to steal a lobster or two. We’ve a sort of keep-net in one of the pools, which saves us having to take our catch of crabs and lobsters into Valley or Holyhead every day of the week. Provided no really violent weather blows up, and we put stout rubber bands round the lobsters’ claws to stop them fighting and ripping each other to bits, the critters are safe enough in the pool until we need ’em.’

Nell began to say huffily that she was no thief, but Hywel shook his head and cut across her. ‘Of course you ain’t, but someone’s been taking the odd lobster now and then, thinking we wouldn’t notice, only we count ’em whenever we put them in the pool.’

‘Well, whoever’s stealing them, it’s not me,’ Nell said. She looked very hard at her companion. ‘And now explain about the sheep dog I saw . . . or perhaps I should say the one I thought I saw.’

Hywel grinned. ‘What d’you know about this island, Mam Cymru, Mother of Wales?’ he asked. ‘I don’t know how much Bryn told you, but I know he’d agree with me when I say strange things happen here. D’you believe in magic?’

‘No I do not. I’m not a child; I’m sixteen,’ Nell informed him frostily. ‘What’s it got to do with seeing border collies anyway?’

‘Maybe nothing, maybe everything,’ Hywel said. ‘I’m telling you, the whole island is steeped in mystery and – oh, and a sort of magic, and the Swtan, being so old, is steeped in it too. But perhaps I shouldn’t call it magic. It’s – it’s as though the life that went on once is still here, but only certain people are aware of it. Can you be open-minded and not simply scoff if I try to explain about the dog?’