"Oh," said Bethan.
"Of course. You're the judge's daughter.
"He was a bastard. I think
that's the first time I've ever used that word."
"Why?" Berry asked
gently. "Why was he a bastard?"
"You don't want to know
all that. No time, anyway. George'll be back soon. With the car."
"You said you didn't want
him near her again. I remember Giles telling me specifically that Claire never
met her grandfather."
"She didn't
remember
meeting him. We were once foolish
enough to bring her here. As a small child. He . . .went off with her. I thought
. . . that he wasn't going to bring her back."
Bethan said, "Went
off?"
"I don't know where they
went."
"To the woods? To the
church?''
"Does it matter? Please,
all I want . . . Just ring me sometimes. Tell me how she is and if . . . You
see, I think she might be expecting a baby. Perhaps that's why she's changed. I
pray that's all it is."
"Not the best time to have
a kid," Berry said. He felt very sorry for the woman. Obviously wasn't
able to confide in her husband. Something not right when she had to pour it all
out to strangers in a cafe.
Elinor Hardy straightened up,
threw the crumpled napkin in the ashtray with two of George's cigarette butts.
"You must think me a very stupid, hysterical woman."
"No," Berry said.
"All the people you could've told this to, we're the ones least likely to
think that."
"I'll be better when I'm
out of here. I know it's your country, but I don't like it here. Feel
vulnerable."
. . . not meant to be here, the English . . .
"Car goes wrong and you're
suddenly stranded. Strange language, different attitudes. Birds pecking at your
window in the night."
Bethan's expression did not
change at all, but Berry felt she was suddenly freezing up inside.
"Birds?" Casually. Hiding
it.
"Pecking . . . tapping on
the window. Kept waking me up in the night. Wasn't an owl. I saw it. Or I may
have dreamt it. I don't know. I'm in a terrible state. I've got to get
out of here, it's gloomy. I'll go and find George. Look, you will ring me,
won't you?"
"I'll ring you before the
weekend." Bethan promised.
"Thank you. I don't even
know your name."
"Bethan. Bethan McQueen.
Mrs. Hardy, you
are
leaving today,
aren't you?"
"Oh, yes," Elinor
said. "Count on it."
When she'd gone. Bethan rose silently, paid the girl, collected her bag
and her white raincoat from the table. She walked out of the cafe and along the
street, Berry following. She didn't speak. They came to the bridge and Bethan crossed
the road and walked back towards the town, on the castle side. The frost had
melted now, but the sun had gone in.
When they reached the castle
car park, Bethan said, "Your car or mine?"
Berry unlocked the Sprite. They
got in. Berry started the engine. Not easy. Blue smoke enclouded the Sprite,
which now had a cough worse than George Hardy's. Berry backed it round, pointed
it at the road.
"Where we going?"
"Turn left," Bethan
said. "Across the bridge. Keep going. You'll see a sign pointing over the
Nearly Mountains to Y Groes."
"I know it."
"Pass it," Bethan
said. "Keep straight on."
"But where are we going?"
"Christ knows," Bethan
said. "Somewhere where nobody has ever thought they've seen the bird of
death."
Chapter L
Every second farm they passed seemed to have a political poster pasted
to a gate or a placard sticking out of a leafless hedgerow. Berry counted seven
for Gallier (Con), three for
Evans (Plaid) and two each for Labour and the Liberal Democrats.
"Could be worse," he
observed. "All over the world, farmers are notoriously conservative."
She didn't reply. She was
sitting as upright as was possible in a bucket seat full of holes and patches.
At least the Sprite was responding,
losing its bronchitis now they were into open country. He'd been getting a
touch paranoid about that, having told Addison Walls his car had broken down
and therefore been half-expecting it to do just that.
Superstition. Everywhere,
superstition.
Five miles now into the hills
north-west of Pontmeurig, and disillusion was setting in. At first he'd been
stimulated by all that "your car or mine" stuff on the castle parking
lot. Now the space between them was a good deal wider than the gap between the
bucket seats, and he didn't know why.
She said suddenly,
"Death fascinates the
Welsh."
The first time she'd spoken
since they passed the sign to Y Groes.
"Corpses and coffins and
funerals."
"Signs and portents," Berry
said.
"You see these farms. Each
one an island. Farmers never visit their neighbours. But when one of them dies,
people will come from miles around to his funeral. All the roads to
the chapel lined with cars and Land-Rovers for half a mile in each direction.
On the day of a big funeral, the traffic police send for reinforcements."
"Bethan, what is the bird
of death?"
She didn't reply.
"Where are we headed?"
"Keep driving," she said.
After a few miles they came to
a T-junction, Aberystwyth to the right, Machynlleth to the left.
"Make a right here?"
She pointed to the left.
"Quickest way out of the constituency."
Sure enough, after a couple
more miles there were no more political posters. The landscape became rougher
and a lighter, more faded shade of green. Kind of like the Nearly
Mountains, snow on the high ground giving the crags a 3-D outline.
Presently, they drove down into
a pleasant town, with a wide main street and a Gothic clock tower.
"This is the town that
ought to have been the capital of Wales." she said. "Perhaps the
earliest centre of Welsh civilisation."
We had the sociology, Berry
thought, now we get the history lesson. What is this, a school outing?
"But that's not why we're here,"
she said.
"So why are we here?"
"Because at the top of
this street is the best restaurant in this part of Wales," Bethan said.
"Vegetarian meals a specialty. Park anywhere along here."
Berry grinned. A long, slow
Italian grin.
"No. No! No! No!"
"I'm sorry. My wife is
rather distraught."
"Nooooooo!"
"We lost our son-in-law,
you see."
Elinor strode out then, straight
through a patch of oil, ruining her sensible pigskin walking shoes.
"Is there no chance for
later today?" George pleaded.
"What can I do." the
mechanic said, "if they send me the wrong parts. Look, I will show you a
copy of the order we dictated to them over the phone—"
"Never mind, I believe
you," George said. "It's just bloody inconvenient."
"Quite an old Volvo, see."
"Volvos last for ever."
said George, affronted.
Some minutes later he caught up
with Elinor.
"It's really not my fault,
you know."
"It's never your
fault."
"Look, what we'll
do—"
"I won't go back there.
I'll sleep on a park bench first."
"Dammit, there isn't a park.
Nor any benches. But what I was about to say . . . We've got a few hours. We'll
have lunch at that Plas Moorig place and see if they can't find us a room. Any
room. How about that? Please . . ."
Over lunch. Bethan said. I want not to think about it. Just for a
while."
"OK. Fine."
'Tell me about you."
"Oh, shit."
Bethan started on her fresh salmon salad. "What is that
stuff?"
"It's a vegetarian
cannelloni."
"I know
that
, but what is it?"
"Well, it's got spinach and
stuff inside." He sampled a segment. "It's OK."
"For Wales."
"No, it's real good.
Jesus, you Celts are so touchy."
He'd taken off his jacket,
revealing a green sweatshirt probably older than Guto's, if less torn. In black
Gothic lettering across the chest it said, AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON.
"You haven't told me about
you," Bethan said. "You just said, 'Oh shit,' and then we were
sidetracked by the food."
"OK. I'm from New York originally,
but I was brought up and educated in seven different states on account of my
dad kept moving to further his career until it wouldn't go any further and he
decided it was time he became a power and influence in the land."
"What did he do? What was
his job?"
"I just love it when people say
that. I hate it when they say, hey, you related to Mario Morelli?"
"Who is Mario Morelli?"
"He's my dad, the bastard."
"I had gathered that."
"OK, Mario Morelli is
maybe America's number one TV anchor man, known coast to coast. A household
name, like that—what's that stuff you put down the John?"
"Harpic? Toilet Duck?"
"Yeah, he's a real toilet
duck. Only the great American public doesn't want to know that on account of he
has this mature elegance and charms the matrons with his dazzling Italian
smile."
He told her about Mario
Morelli's role in the Irangate cover-up. He told her how his conscience
wouldn't let him hit on this information when it seemed they were going to get
away with it.
"Like. I don't want to
come over as this big idealist. But when your dad's a national hero and you
know what kind of asshole he really is . . . OK, in the end, it made no difference.
Most of it came out. And Mario Morelli came out of it as this caring patriot.
He did it for his country, all this shit. Cue for selfish, radical un-American
activist son to leave town. Or leave country in this case. So I came to England
and I find England's suddenly become a place where it's cool to make a million
overnight and they're looking up to America as this big, successful younger brother
who
got it
right
, for Chrissake. That's about it. My vegetarian cannelloni's
getting cold."
He ate some cannelloni, then he
said. "One thing I kinda like about Wales is that it's just about the most
obscure country in Western Europe, now even Belgium has the EC, but it doesn't
seem to look up to anybody."
"Wrong," Bethan said.
"Wrong, wrong, wrong."
"Wrong, huh?"
"You've only been exposed
to people like Guto, who are the most vocal but not typical. For most of this
century Welsh people have been looking up to anybody prepared to notice they're
even there. Especially the English."
"You're talking as a
nationalist. It's an outdated concept.
"How else can we defend
what is ours? The English wanted more water for Liverpool and Birmingham, so
they came into Wales and flooded our valleys. Whole Welsh villages at the bottom
of English reservoirs. And the humble Welsh people went to work for the English
water boards and said how good they were and how well they looked their
employees."