The Red Judge (6 page)

‘Good to see you,' I said, beaming at him, weak with relief.

He beamed back. ‘Good to see … you good to … have you here … again it's like … the old days … don't like change … I like things … better when they
… stay the same.'

This was a big speech for Pawl, who was a private man and didn't give much away about his feelings. At Grace's funeral he hadn't shed a tear. The packed church had wept openly, but Pawl had sat upright, his face stiff beneath his pork-pie hat, his eyes completely dry.

Even when our mother came down afterwards to sort out Prospect House, prior to the builders moving in, Pawl didn't cry. And he certainly wasn't crying now, but I wondered how often he let himself in like this, and wandered round the empty rooms in the early-morning light, telling himself that he liked things better when they stayed the same.

I gave him a hug, and said I agreed. I wouldn't have hugged my Fitztalbot uncles or aunts, and I certainly wouldn't have hugged my father, but Pawl belonged to the old days when Grace had been my family and he had been a part of it. We went downstairs together, and he sorted out the electricity and heating by a mere flick of a switch, then went back to the tin house to fetch me some provisions.

While he was away I looked for the phone, wanting to find out what was happening at the hospital. But I couldn't see it anywhere, and Pawl didn't seem to know where it was either, when he came back. I helped him unload the red wicker sled, which was weighed down with what looked like half his belongings. While I was upstairs making up a proper bed with a duvet, bed linen and pillows, Pawl cooked us both breakfast, his hat still on his head, a bin bag for an apron round his waist and an expression of pure contentment on his face.

He sang as he cooked. You could hear him all over the house. I wished that I could be more like him – could take life as it came instead of always getting in such a state.

‘Once I get back to Pengwern,' I promised myself, ‘I'm going to turn over a new leaf. I'm going to be nicer to everybody, especially my parents. I'm going to get a grip, and I'm going to work harder. I'll straighten up in school, pass my exams and prove to the Fitztalbot family that Cary's not the only one who's got a brain.'

Pawl called out that breakfast was ready. I hurried downstairs, and he might have trouble with his words, but it was obvious that Pawl could cook. I sat down before the perfect breakfast, especially for a boy who'd eaten almost nothing for the last two days. Bacon that was thick and crisp; sausages that were juicy without being fatty; scrambled eggs that were as light and soft as summer sunshine; toast that was as crumbly as if the bread had only just been baked; butter that tasted like home-whipped cream, and jam that smelt of early-morning dew in Grace's strawberry patch.

I ate it all, washed down with coffee that achieved the impossible and actually tasted as good as it smelt. The whole thing was astonishing. In all the years I'd been coming down to Wales, I'd never seen this side of Pawl before. You think you know people, but you don't.

He ate his breakfast too, beaming with pleasure as I heaped praise upon him. In between mouthfuls, he tried to tell me all the local gossip. But I couldn't understand the half of it and, besides, the combination
of food and warmth was finally getting to me.

My eyelids drooped and, in the end, I had to make my excuses and go up to bed. The house was warm now, and I was comfortable. Finally the trauma of the last few days was catching up with me. I closed my eyes and fell fast asleep.

When I awoke, it was getting dark. I could smell more cooking coming from the kitchen, and went downstairs to discover that, flushed with his success, Pawl had gone berserk. Covering every available work-surface were racks of biscuits, sponge cakes, muffins, sausage rolls and mince pies. Some of them were burned, but some of them were fine. In the oven was a loaf of bread, and on the brand new hob sat a hotpot of what my grandmother always used to call ‘sweet mountain lamb'. Dishes were piled in the sink, and the dishwasher was full.

The fridge was full as well, and so were all the cupboards. You'd have thought that I had come to stay for months. I swallowed hard. I'd never seen Pawl looking so pleased with himself. I wondered how I was ever going to explain to him about my need to return to Pengwern.

Before I could explain anything, however, he took me by the arm and steered me down the hall to Grace's parlour at the back of the house, telling me that I should go and sit with her and keep her company.

‘She waits for … you I'll bring … you in some … tea and cakes,' he said.

His words went through me. Surely Pawl knew that Grace was dead? I wasn't going to have to explain it to him, was I? Besides, the last thing I wanted was to
enter Grace's parlour and see it empty. It had always been her nest, full of bits and pieces that she'd gathered and brought home, knitting them together into a perfect whole. I hadn't been able to face it after the funeral, and I hadn't been able to face it later, when my mother went to sort it out.

She'd gone sweeping in with determination, saying it was a dirty job but ‘had to be done'. Clouds of dust had been raised and boxes had been dispatched to the garage to either ‘deal with later' or give away. But I had refused to touch a thing. I wouldn't even enter the room.

And I wouldn't have entered it now if Pawl hadn't given me a push and sent me flying in – only to discover that everything was back in its place. I stared at Grace's books and magazines, her paintings, her pens, notebooks, fossils, feathers, stuffed fish, old glass jars and jumble of everything from knitting needles to seed trays. It was as if she'd never gone away. I could smell her whisky, and even a whiff of her secret hoard of cigars. I went to look behind the Caradoc Evans on the bookshelf, and there they were, back where she had always kept them. Everything was in its place. Everything was back.

Even the dust was back.

I tried to speak, but couldn't manage a single word. Pawl brought in the promised tea and cakes and set them down. He was grinning with pride – a happy, grown-up child who seemed to think that he had cheated death. I remembered what he'd said about not liking change. It must have taken him months to get the room back to how it had been in the old days. But he'd worked away at it until he'd got everything
exactly right.

‘Sit with Grace,' he said.

I looked at Grace's chair, and understood. It was almost as if she was in the room with us. I'd thought she'd gone for ever, but now I could almost feel her presence again.

Pawl lit the fire, then flung himself down in a chair and closed his eyes. I knew he wasn't asleep, but savouring his achievement. I sat opposite him, and a companionable silence fell between us. Firelight danced on the walls and the day outside grew slowly darker. Harri and Mari lay at our feet, basking in front of the fire. There was something peaceful about them, and about the strange half-light. I could have stayed like that for hours, listening to them sighing in their sleep and watching Pawl smiling with his eyes shut.

But then the phone started ringing – the phone I'd tried so hard to find earlier, but now here it was when I least wanted it. I knew who would be ringing, but didn't want to answer. It rang on and on, and in the end Pawl went and got it.

‘Hello this is … Pawl that's right … Happy Christmas to … you it's snowy … here how's Pengwern … Zed's here shall … I call him?' he said.

Or something like that, anyway.

I got to my feet, braced to face my mother. Down the hall, Pawl was nodding and frowning, and I could hear my mother's voice buzzing down the line. But Pawl didn't call me over and finally, after a simple unadorned ‘yes', followed by an equally stark ‘no', there was a loud click and Pawl was left holding a humming receiver.

He stared at it, as if he didn't quite know what had happened. ‘What did she say to you?' I asked.

‘A happy Christmas …' Pawl said, shaking his head. ‘She wishes us … a happy Christmas …'

I walked away. I knew that there was more to it than that, but Pawl obviously couldn't get the words out. The day was spoiled, and suddenly I wanted to be alone. I went up to my room and sat in the dark, looking out of the window and thinking how much my mother must hate me, to not even want to speak to me.

But who could blame her, after what I'd done?

Outside the wind got up again, blowing down the valley and bringing with it a fresh fall of snow. Grace always said that Prospect House had the best views in the village, but that it paid for them by taking the brunt of the bad weather. It was doing that now, the walls buffeted by the wind, and the windowpanes thick with running streams of flakes.

Downstairs, the front door closed and Pawl slipped away as if the special moment was over and he'd got things to be getting on with – either that or else he'd heard the bad news about Cary and wanted to nurse his feelings on his own. I heard the sled skimming over the snow and the dogs running with it. Then the sound was gone, and all I could hear was the wind.

I leant against the window. It was pitch dark out there in the night, and I felt like the sole survivor in a crumbling world. I searched for signs of life and it was then, underneath the old yew tree that marked Grace's boundary, that I saw the candle. It was burning without flickering despite the storm raging around it. I wasn't imagining it. I really saw it.

A black corph candle,
burning for a death
.

That night I hung a blanket over the window to make sure that I didn't see anything else. I was terrified of what the candle meant, and why it had come to me. I called home but there was no reply, called the hospital, but the only news that the nurse would give out over the phone was that my sister was ‘stable', whatever that meant.

I hardly slept that night. I didn't for a minute believe that ‘stable' was anything to feel at peace about. Every time I dropped off, I dreamt of Cary lying in her hospital bed surrounded by machines. Morning came as a relief. I had fallen asleep around dawn, and now awoke late to the sound of bells.

I removed the blanket from the window with some trepidation, only to find a bright day outside. The landscape was as white as ever, but the snow clouds had blown away and people were out and about. It was like coming into shore from a distant sea voyage. Children played in the snow down the meadow by the river, and the ringing sound of shovels clearing paths
could be heard across the village.

Suddenly I was back in the real world again, with my feet firmly on the ground. It wasn't something out of legend that was going on outside my window, but real life. I watched people struggling up the church path, answering the call of St Curig's Sunday morning bell. I knew each and every one of them, knew their names and who they were related to and who was friends with whom.

The last to come was Pawl, gliding down the path in Grace's red wicker sled. He disappeared into the shadow of the church porch, pausing only to take off his pork-pie hat and stuff it into his coat pocket. Then the bells stopped ringing and the organ started playing carols.

For the first time in days, I felt as if Christmas was on the way. It was a beautiful morning. The storm had gone. The sky was bright. The valley glittered like a jewel and I had my first clear view of Plynlimon. Its flanks glistened, white upon white, whilst the Afon Gwy twisted down from it like a silver corkscrew.

It was a perfect picture-postcard view. I sat and watched the river flowing past the village. Back in Pengwern, people thought the queen of rivers was their Sabrina Fludde, but I knew that the Afon Gwy was the only queen. Suddenly I found myself pleading with it to save my sister's life. Pleading as if it was a real queen, and had the power to grant requests.

‘I don't care what becomes of me,' I pleaded. ‘Don't care if my family never speaks to me again. All I care about is Cary. Please, oh please,
let my sister live
!'

The Afon Gwy didn't answer. It just flowed on down the valley, giving no sign of having heard.
Feeling a fool for expecting anything else, I got dressed and went downstairs to call home. I couldn't get through, yet again, but discovered that, sometime in the night, my mother had left a message on the answerphone.

‘There's nothing to report,' she said. ‘The ward sister told us that you'd phoned, but it's probably better if
we
call you rather than
you
call us. If there's any change we'll let you know.'

I played the message through a couple of times, wanting to hear her voice again, even though I knew she must have phoned in the night to avoid hearing mine. Over in the church, the organ had stopped playing and I could hear the mumble of chanted prayers. Suddenly I wanted to pray too. I don't know what made me think of it, but I wanted to sit in the pews with everybody else, and feel like I belonged, and pray for Cary in the hope that God would hear me better than the river had done.

I hurried out of the house, pulling on my coat, staggered down the garden and over the churchyard wall, and headed for the church. I should have just marched in, but I stopped in the porch, waiting for the right moment. My eyes ran down the rotas on the church noticeboard – the lists of committees for famine relief, missionary work in South America, luncheon clubs, volunteer car-share schemes, babysitting circles, flower arranging clubs and a string of other worthy activities.

By the time I reached the end of them, I knew I couldn't possibly enter the church. What place was there for me amongst these worthy people and their good deeds? A boy like me, whose sister's life hung in
the balance because of what he'd done? What would these people on the rotas make of me, if they only knew? They'd wash their hands of me, just like my parents had done. Even Pawl would wash his hands of me. Even him!