The Owl Service (15 page)

“You look ill,” said Gwyn.

“I'll be fine in a minute.”

“You'll come tomorrow,” said Gwyn.

“I can't.”

“There's only tomorrow.”

“I daren't.”

“I'm going back to Aber.”

“I know.”

“Tomorrow, Alison. Please. Can't you see? You must.”

“Stop it,” said Alison. “Stop it, stop it! Stop tearing me between you. You and Mummy! You go on till I don't know who I am, what I'm doing. Of course I can see! Now. But afterwards she starts, and what she says is right, then.”

“I only want you to be yourself,” said Gwyn.

“And what's that?” said Alison. “What you make me? I'm one person with Mummy, and another with you. I can't argue: you twist everything I say round to what you want. Is that fair?”

“You will be here, won't you?” said Gwyn. “Tomorrow. It's the last time.”

“Gwyn.”

“Please.”

“How now, brown cow?” Roger called. “Are you having trouble, Ali?”

He was climbing through the hedge at the other side of the garden.

“What's he on about?” said Gwyn.

“Nothing,” said Alison.

“What's that brown cow?”

“Nothing, Gwyn.”

“Tea, Ali,” said Roger.

“Yes: I'm coming.”

“How's the rain in Spain?” said Roger. “Still mainly on the plain?”

“What's he on about, Alison?”

“I say, that's a smart mackintosh you're wearing,” said Roger. “Those trend-setting short sleeves, and up-to-the-minute peep-toe plimsolls—”

“Be quiet, Roger,” said Alison.

“What's that about cows and rain?” said Gwyn.

“Don't tell me you haven't reached the lesson yet,” said Roger. “Surely it comes on the very first record.”

“Roger!”

“You told him?” whispered Gwyn. “You told him? Told him?”

“No!” said Alison.

“You told him. Was it a good laugh?”

“No, Gwyn!”

“I bet it was. What else? What else was funny?”

“You're wrong!”

“You won't have told him about the stilts, will you? Not when you'd got the big laugh.”

“Not that way, Gwyn! I promise it wasn't!”

“Couldn't run back quick enough, could you?” said Gwyn.

“You're not quite on the ball, actually,” said Roger. “Ali didn't say much. I mean, I don't know whether you're using the complete Improva-Prole set, or the shorter course of Oiks' Exercises for getting by in the Shop. She didn't say really.”

“Alison.” Gwyn backed from them. “Alison.”

“Gwyn! Don't look at me like that. Don't.”

“Alison.”

“Don't! Don't look at me like that! – Don't! – I can't stand it!”

“Alison.”

“Don't – Don't look at me! – Don't! – Stop him, Roger! Roger, make him stop. Make him! Make him! Make him!”

“Now, Ali, it's OK. It's OK. Calm down. It's all right, Ali. He's done a bunk. He's gone. I told you he was a yob.”

H
is face was in wet grass. He tore at his breath, sprawled among bracken and a knee hard against slate, but no pain. He looked through the bend of his elbow and saw the house a long way off. The cloud line was only yards above him, like smoke. He had no memory of reaching the mountain.

He lay till he could move, then walked up towards the grey air of the mountain. He would be safe outside the valley, he would make plans, where to go, how to eat, to sleep.

The cloud drifted with him, always in front, blocking his sight, and the mountain was open below him down to the house, but he could not look. He set his back to the valley, thrusting left right left right, a foot of mountain and a second of time behind him, and so for a while nothing else mattered.

He rested when he knew the house had gone. Most of the valley was hidden from where he leant against a quartz boulder under the edge of the plateau. He held a clover to strip the petals, and reached for another, and it was then that he saw how it grew in a white line of flowers past the boulder and into the cloud.

He crouched by a flower, but his hand drew back, for the grass round the clover had been flattened, though the clover stood free. As he watched, a blade sprang, and slowed, lifting its weight.

He went downhill a few paces. His feet had crushed grass and flower, but where he had not trodden yet the clover stood above the grass.

More blades sprang back, as if they had been flattened by a light step.

Somebody up there, is it?

He walked beside the white track and the cloud moved in front of him like skirts until he was on the plateau. The ground was level. There was no more climbing, and the mist lifted from the mountain and he saw across peat and water and rushes, and there was no one on the mountain but himself. In the distance a black sow rubbed its flank against the cairn.

Gareth Pugh's.

Now then. Which road?

Which?

He saw mountains wherever he looked: nothing but mountains away and away and away, their tops hidden sometimes, but mountains with mountains behind them in desolation for ever. There was nowhere in the world to go.

“Alison—”

He stood, and the wind was cold through him. He looked again, but there was nothing, and the sky dropped lower, hiding the barren distances, crowding the hills with ghosts, then lifting, and he looked again. Nothing. Even the pig had gone.

He stumbled along the mountain. I'll show them. You could die here, man, and who'd care? Them?

He had not meant to find the Ravenstone. He came to it when he could see no more than three paces ahead. He faced the wind, ready for the cloud to pass, and there were the valley and the house. For a moment he longed to be among fields and trees, with people, to be down from the moss and the peat hags.

But the sheep were moving from left to right across the slopes. Wether-go-nimbles. He raged the cold back into him.

Farmers whistled their dogs, and called. The sounds rose from the valley, “There, Ben. There, Ben. Good, Ben,” and he saw the dogs fanning through the bracken, black and white among the green. “There, Ben. Lass. Good, Lass. There. There. There.” The dogs changed direction at a whistle. He looked for the men, but they were not on the mountain. “Bob, there, Bob, Lass, good, Lass, there.”

The dogs came on and the sheep bunched together. The dogs were in a bent line, the horns of the line pointing up the mountain. The dogs reached the sheep. “There there there there. Ben. There. Bob, Bob, Bob.” The whistles followed sharp and urgent. The dogs swept past the sheep, ignored them, the horns of the line drew in, pointed to the Ravenstone.

“There, Ben. There, Ben. Good, Lass.”

He looked behind him. There were no sheep on the top.

“Bob, stay, Bob. There, Ben, there, Ben. Lass, there. Lass.”

The dogs came for the Ravenstone. Their tongues rolled with the climb, but they came, and when they were near they dropped their bellies low, and crept. They moved in short spurts, eyes fixed.

He could not watch all of them at the same time.

They moved past the Ravenstone, turned, and lay between their haunches, and then ran at him, low quick darts from all sides. When he faced a dog it stopped, and two others closed nearer, and lay still when he looked, and the first came on.

“Get out!”

He waved his arms.

“Ben. Good, Ben. There, Ben.”

A wall-eyed dog had reached him first, in with a nip to the ankle and away. He ran to kick it, but other teeth pinched his calf.

“Lass, Lass, Lass, there, Lass.”

“Call your flaming dogs off!”

But his voice went into cloud, and the wind spread it over the peat moss.

Two dogs rushed him, and he fell from the Ravenstone on to the steep grass and slid for twenty yards, sky, teeth, mountain and tongues whirling, and then he was on his feet and his own weight carried him down, and the whistling grew louder, but the dogs were silent – rush, stop, belly to the ground, rush, nip and away.

“Good, Ben. Good, Lass. Ben, there, Ben. Good, Bob.”

From the grass to the screes and the bracken, and grass again, over the streams they drove him. If he threw stones at them they snarled and were more savage in their biting. He ran, fell, ran a thousand feet down to the river, but they would not leave him. No men appeared, but the shouts and whistles were close in the hedgebanks. The dogs walked up the road, their steps high and slow, lips arched red, back, back, to the front drive – and left him. They cocked their legs at the gatepost, and frisked into the meadow.

“Good, Ben. Good, Lass. Good, Bob. Here. Here. Here. Good, Ben.”

Who told them? Who told them I was going? Who said? Who knew?

He wanted to sleep. Suddenly all he wanted was to sleep.

Sleep: food: eat. Who knew I wasn't coming back? They'll not have me. What are they wanting? They didn't send dogs – before – when we – I – up: before. Who told them? Who?

“T
here you are,” said Clive. “Been looking for you both.”

“Hang on, Dad,” said Roger. He pulled back his elbow and splayed his fingers over the green cloth. As he thrust the cue forward Alison said, “Hello, Clive.”

The cue glanced off the billiard ball.

“You did that deliberately,” said Roger. “Broke my concentration.”

“She didn't,” said Clive. “The bad workman always blames his tools. It's a cue, not a see-saw. Watch me. The cue moves easily: backwards: and forwards: one: two: one, two: level: don't lift the butt: and—”

He played five cannons in a row, and then potted the red.

“Clive, you're brilliant,” said Alison.

“Evidence of a misspent youth, that's what they say.”

“Why were you looking for us?” said Roger.

“Um – yes,” said Clive. “Tread a bit softly these next couple of days, there's good people.”

“What are we supposed to have done?” said Roger.

“I'm not bothered. But until her majesty abdicates things are a bit dicey.”

“What happened?” said Alison.

“Nothing. She's playing it strictly by the book, that's all.”

“I don't understand,” said Alison.

“Old Nancy's complained to Margaret about the kitchen being her stamping ground until she's worked her notice. So no safaris, eh?”

“Dad, are you all right?”

“She says the larder's been cleaned out of bread and cheese.”

“It wasn't me,” said Roger.

“Nor me,” said Alison.

“I'm not worried,” said Clive. “We stock up again tomorrow. Let's weather the next couple of days, though, shall we?”

“No,” said Roger. “We'll have it straight.”

“Honest, Clive,” said Alison.

“Oh? Well, not to worry.”

“It'll be that light-fingered so-and-so she carts round with her,” said Roger.

“It will be Gwyn,” said Alison. “I know he does – take things.”

“Does he?” said Roger. “Wait a minute, then. Have you borrowed my anorak?”

“No,” said Alison.

“I saw it wasn't in the cloakroom when we came through. If he's had it I'll kick his teeth in.”

“Leave it,” said Clive. “We'll be rid the day after tomorrow. It's not worth making a fuss. Are you coming for dinner?”

“Yes. There's something else I bet he's found,” said Roger, and on their way through the cloakroom he lifted the lid of an ammunition box by the log basket. “He has, too! Dad! He's pinched my climbing boots!”

“I'll have a word with him tonight,” said Clive.

“I'll have more than a word,” said Roger.

“I'd steer clear. Not worth the fuss.”

“In case someone's upset?” said Roger. “She'll just have to be upset. No doubt we'll survive.”

“Now watch it,” said Clive.

“Once bitten twice shy, that's your motto, isn't it, Dad?”

“Right,” said Clive. “Upstairs. If you decide you're fit to take dinner with the rest of us kindly see that you're ready by the gong. It's a civilised meal. We shan't expect any snotty-nosed kids who haven't learnt their manners.”

“Naturally, Father,” said Roger. “Good night.”

“Sorry about that,” said Clive. “He'll apologise.”

“It doesn't matter, Clive,” said Alison.

“Now look, princess. I'm the one to say whether it matters or not. Let's get that straight, shall we?”

“Excuse me.”

Huw Halfbacon knocked on the open door.

“Yes, what is it?”

“Excuse me asking,” said Huw. “Is the boy here?”

“Which boy? Young Gwyn?”

“That is right, sir.”

“I expect so.”

“We were fetching him down this afternoon, and I was wondering if he is here now.”

“I think he may have gone for a walk,” said Alison.

“Oh. Yes?”

“He's borrowed some climbing boots.”

“Ah,” said Huw.

“Last time I saw him,” said Clive, “he was having a kip along the front drive there after tea. I thought he was ill at first, but he was snoring away – spark out.”

“Yes, sir.”

“While you're here,” said Clive. “I don't suppose you can find us another housekeeper, can you?”

“Is she not good?” said Huw. “I am sorry for that.”

“She's given notice. Didn't she tell you? They're off the day after tomorrow.”

“She is not talking to me,” said Huw.

“But is there anyone else, Halfbacon?”

“No, sir. Now excuse me. I must go working.”

“Work?” said Clive. “At this time? Don't you ever knock off?”

“Yes, sir. Excuse me, when is she going, that day?”