Read Evan Only Knows Online

Authors: Rhys Bowen

Evan Only Knows (5 page)

“What about your friends at the Welsh club?” Evan asked.
“Well, they’ve almost all gone now, haven’t they?” Mrs. Evans said angrily, as if they had left on purpose. “Gladys Jones and Mary Roberts both died last year. Dropping like flies, they are.” She suddenly seemed to notice that she was getting wet. “Well, don’t just stand there in the rain then. Come on, inside with you.”
Bronwen looked at Evan. “Do you think Prince W. will be all right in the car a little longer?”
“There’s a shed in the back garden. We can put him there until …” He glanced at his mother.
The older woman picked up instantly. “You haven’t brought a dog with you, have you?”
“No, Ma. Not a dog. A sheep actually.”
Mrs. Evans laughed and gave him a playful shove. “Go on with you! A sheep—what, to remind me of my childhood home, is it?”
At this point a plaintive
baa
was heard from the interior of the car. Mrs. Evans peered out into the rain.
“Escob Annwyl!
You haven’t really got a sheep in there? You’re not bringing a sheep into my house.”
“It’s a pet lamb, Ma. Bronwen’s been looking after it for one of
her schoolchildren, and we couldn’t just leave him at home. It’s all right. Don’t look like that. We can keep him in the shed when it’s raining, and he can be out in the back garden when it’s not.”
“And have him eating all my petunias?”
“We’ll tie him up then. He’s really no trouble. He’s been as good as gold all the way down here in the car.”
“Pet lambs! What will they think of next?” Mrs. Evan shuffled back into the house, her carpet slippers flapping on the linoleum. “I’ve got the kettle on. So what would you fancy for your tea, Miss Price?”
“Please call me Bronwen. And just a cup of tea would be lovely. We’re a little late. We don’t want to spoil our dinner, do we?”
Mrs. Evans gave her son a strange look. Bronwen also sensed she had said something wrong. Evan put a hand on Bronwen’s shoulder. “My mum always has her main meal at midday and just a light meal at night. So it’s dinner in the middle of the day and tea in the evening.”
“Oh, oh I see.” Bronwen flushed. “Well, anything you like at all, Mrs. Evans. I’m not a fussy eater. I’m sure whatever you have prepared will be lovely.”
“We’re just working-class people, you know,” Mrs. Evans said. “Never did get into these fancy ways of lunch and dinner. Your dad was always home for dinner at one when he could make it, wasn’t he, Evan? And then we’d have something simple at night.”
“I’m sure it will be lovely,” Bronwen insisted. “Can I help with anything?”
“No, it’s all ready, apart from the eggs. I thought I’d do poached eggs on welsh rarebit if that would be acceptable.”
“Lovely,” Evan and Bronwen said in chorus.
Evan’s mother had led them down a long narrow passage that opened into an old-fashioned kitchen. Willow-pattern plates were stacked on a Welsh dresser. A table was set with a pretty lace-edged cloth. It was piled with a cottage loaf, a large wedge of yellow cheese, and a cake stand with several kinds of cakes and biscuits on it.
“We have a proper dining room,” Mrs. Evans said quickly, “but
I usually eat in here. It’s less lonely somehow. Cozier.”
“Of course it is.” Bronwen smiled at her. “Evan and I always eat in the kitchen at my place, don’t we, Evan?”
“You like to cook, do you, Miss Price?” Mrs. Evans asked as she poured boiling water into a teapot, popped a crocheted cozy over it, and set it on the table.
“I love to. I took a course in French cooking last year, and poor Evan had to sample all my mistakes.”
“French cooking — well, we don’t go for that around here much. Plain, simple Welsh cooking has always been good enough for my husband and my boy.”
Evan came to Bronwen’s defense. “You should taste the way she does leg of lamb, Ma — she puts little pieces of garlic under the skin.”
“Garlic? I wouldn’t want my breath smelling like a Continental myself.”
Evan laughed. “I’ll pour the tea then, shall I?”
Tea was poured. Eggs on cheese were produced and they sat down to eat. Evan was glad they had something to keep them all busy for the moment. He had hoped that his mother would take one look at Bronwen and embrace her as a future daughter-in-law. This obviously wasn’t going to happen. And he supposed he hadn’t really expected it to.
“So how is it that you have the Welsh then, Miss Price?” he heard his mother asking. “I thought only poor folks grew up speaking Welsh, but you sound like you’ve got the hang of it rather well.”
“I spoke it as a child, Mrs. Evans. My father worked for an international bank and was posted around the world—sometimes to places that were not very safe for families. So I was left at home with my grandmother near Denbigh. My father’s family were the local squires and of course he didn’t speak the local language, but my mother was the schoolteacher’s daughter. So my Nain always spoke Welsh to me. My parents were rather angry when they found out I preferred speaking what they thought was a backward language to English. That’s when I was sent away rapidly to boarding school.”
“A backward language, indeed.” Mrs. Evan sniffed. “One of the oldest, finest languages in the world, isn’t it? We had poetry when the English were still running around in goat skins.”
“I agree completely,” Bronwen said. “I always made sure I spent as much time as possible with my grandmother just to keep up my Welsh. Of course now I use it all the time, so it’s become my first language again.”
“And you’re teaching at the school, Evan tells me.”
“The village school, yes. I only have twenty-five pupils, all ages, so it’s quite a challenge. And the building is ancient. Have you seen it?”
“No. I haven’t yet been invited to visit my son.”
“Oh, come on, Ma,” Evan said quickly. “You know you’re welcome. It’s just that I only had a room, lodging in someone else’s house, until recently. And what I’ve got at the moment isn’t properly furnished yet.”
“When we’re married, you can come and stay with us,” Bronwen said.
Evan’s mother gave her a sharp look. “Oh, so it’s getting married now, is it? I hadn’t heard more than you were courting.”
“We didn’t want to tell anyone officially until we had met each other’s families.” Evan glanced across at Bronwen. “But yes, we’re planning on getting married some time soon. We haven’t set a date yet, or a place.”
“And where are your folks then, Miss Price?”
Evan noticed that she was not going to abandon the formality.
“They live in Monmouthshire now. My father retired from the bank, and they bought a property in the Usk Valley. Very pretty.”
“And you’re going there after this?”
“That’s right.”
“You’ll only be here a few days then, is it?” She looked wistfully at her son.
“This time, yes,” Bronwen answered for Evan. “Evan’s going to show me all his old haunts.”
“Old haunts? Makes him sound like a ghost.”
Bronwen laughed. “I meant his school and the rugby club.”
“Speaking of the rugby club, you’ll never guess who I saw at the market the other day.” Mrs. Evans’s face brightened up. “Maggie. Looking very fit and well, she was. Asked after you, Evan. She seemed very excited when I told her you were going to be here, so I asked her to drop by whenever she felt like it.”
“Ma, you didn’t! I wish you hadn’t done that. What makes you think I want to see her again? And I’m sure Bronwen doesn’t.”
“A lovely girl, Maggie, even if she didn’t speak Welsh properly. We always liked her. She had a lot of get-up-and-go, didn’t she? She used to make your dad laugh. He always said she was a real looker.”
“I doubt if Bronwen and I will be home much while we’re here. There’s a lot I want to show her, and I suppose I should pop down to the police station and visit my old mates.”
“They’ve moved the police station,” Mrs. Evans said. “Now they’ve got a spanking new one, all glass and purple tiles. Whoever heard of a purple police station? I think it’s the ugliest thing on God’s earth.”
“So where is the new one?” Evan asked.
“Just down the street from the old one, but I doubt they’ll have much time for you at the moment.” Mrs. Evans shook her head. “They’ll be too busy with this dreadful murder.”
“A murder? In Swansea?”
“Just over a week ago, it was. I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it on the news. A lovely young girl raped and murdered and her body left on the family’s doorstep for them to find. Dreadful, it was. One of those posh houses along Oystermouth Road. The father is a bigwig—on the city council and owns a factory.”
“What’s the name?” Evan asked.
“Turnbull. Alison Turnbull was the daughter.”
“Turnbull—didn’t he own a steel works that closed?”
“He did, but now he’s started up a new business. Something to do with computers. That kind always seem to fall on their feet, don’t they?” She got up and began clearing away plates. “Swansea’s not what it used to be. Full of riffraff and minorities. You remember that chapel you sang at when you were a little boy? I went past
it the other day and you’ll never guess what it is now—a mosque, that’s what it is. You could have knocked me down with a feather when I saw that heathen writing outside. And women with scarves around their heads.”
“Ma, you wear a scarf around your head. I’ve seen you.” Evan laughed.
“Yes, but only when it’s raining and not in the middle of summer. In fact if you want to know what I think—”
She broke off at the sound of knocking on the front door.
“Now who could that be?” she asked, reminding Evan of his former landlady, who always asked the same question.
“I’ll go, shall I?” Evan got up from his seat. He had a sinking feeling that it might be his old girlfriend, and he’d rather face her on the doorstep.
When he opened the front door, it wasn’t a girl at all. It was a uniformed policeman. He looked startled when he saw Evan, then a smile of recognition spread across his face.
“It’s never young Evan? Well, this is a surprise. Bill Howells, remember me?”
Evan shook the outstretched hand. “Of course, Mr. Howells. You used to belong to the bowls club with my dad.”
“Well, what a treat for your mum. She talks about you all the time. She still misses your dad terribly.”
“Don’t we all?” Evan opened the door wider and motioned to the man. “Well, come inside, Mr. Howells. Mum will be pleased to see you.”
“I don’t know about that,” the officer said, giving Evan a strange look. “Not when she hears the news I’m bringing her. But I thought she had a right to know.”
“To know what?”
“They’ve got the bastard who killed that young girl. And you’ll never guess who it turned out to be. Tony Mancini — the one who shot your dad.”
“Well, I never.” Evan’s mother reached out and grasped Evan’s hand as she digested the news. “I knew he was no good the moment I set eyes on him. And those psychologists were saying he was just a young boy led astray and didn’t know what he was doing.”
“Well, he knew was he was doing this time,” Bill Howells said, sitting to accept the cup of tea that Mrs. Evans had poured him. “Dumping the body on the doorstep too, for her poor parents to find. That’s an added touch of nastiness, if you ask me.”
Mrs. Evans had produced a handkerchief from her pocket and was dabbing at her eyes. “This would never have happened if they’d sent him to prison like he deserved.”
“We were unlucky enough to get that soft-hearted judge.” Sergeant Howells accepted a Welsh Cake from the plate and took an appreciative bite. “Four years in a young offenders institute and then out on the streets again. That doesn’t seem a big enough price to pay for a life, does it?”
“Especially not for a good man like my Robert.” Mrs. Evans put a hand over her mouth to control her emotion. “Well, I hope that judge is regretting it now.”
“This time he’s not a young offender any longer,” Sergeant Howells
said, looking up at Evan. “This time we’ll put him away for good.”
Evan had been observing this interaction as if the participants were somehow remote from him — characters in a play he was watching. When he finally tried to speak, he found it hard to form the words.
“When will the trial be?”
“They haven’t set a trial date yet, but he comes up before the magistrate on Monday afternoon. That’s why I came to see you, Mrs. Evans. I thought you might like to be there. We want to make sure the bastard isn’t allowed out on bail, pardon my language, Mrs. E. And now young Evan is here too, maybe you’d both like to let the magistrate know your feelings on the subject of bail.”
“I want to be there,” Mrs. Evans said. “Evan can take me. It’s only right that Robert has someone to speak for him.”
“When he’s up before the magistrate,” Sergeant Howells said. “I’ll be there myself, and DCI Vaughan is going to appeal against bail being granted. I’ll meet you there then, all right?” He got to his feet. “I’d better be going. We’re all running around like crazy at the station. We’ve got the place crawling with Major Crime Support Unit blokes from Talbot. We have to make this one stick.” He nodded to Evan, then to Bronwen, who had remained silent. “Nice meeting you, Miss. See you Monday then, Evan. Take care of your mum, won’t you? And thank you for the sustenance, Mrs. E.” He put his cap back on his head. “Don’t worry. I can see myself out.”
There was silence after the front door closed.
“Well, I never,” Mrs. Evan said again.
Bronwen touched Evan’s arm. “I take it that the suspect they’ve just caught is the man who killed your father, then?”
Evan was staring down at the lace pattern on the tablecloth. He didn’t trust himself to look up. “That’s right.”
“Tony Mancini. Is he an immigrant then?”
“Well, I suppose his family were immigrants originally. A lot of Italians came over to South Wales in the 1920s. We had quite a few boys at school with Italian names.”
“And why was he let out of prison so quickly?”
“He was only a kid when he shot my father. And he claimed it was accidental. My dad surprised a gang unloading a drug shipment at the docks. Mancini said he was told to shoot, and he shot. He was scared and just shot wildly. So they just sent him to a young offenders institute instead of prison.”
“And back on the streets after four years,” Evan’s mother said bitterly. “And now some other family will be going through what we did. Another empty place at the dinner table. It’s not right, is it?”
Evan went over and put his arm around her shoulders. “Don’t worry, Ma. This time they’ll put him away for sure. We’ll help make sure they do.”
 
During the night a strong wind swept in from the Irish Sea so that when Evan woke in the morning, the sky was blue with puffball white clouds scudding across it. When he took Bronwen a morning cup of tea he found her already up, kneeling on her bed, and looking out of the window.
“What a magnificent view.” She turned to smile at him. “If I lived here, I’d never get any work done. I’d be sitting at this window every day.”
Evan looked out at the expanse of Swansea Bay sparkling in the sunlight between its protective arms of green hills. From up here he couldn’t really see the power station or the steel works or any of the factories. Even the houses below looked clean and freshly painted.
“I used to have my desk in this window. I liked to watch the cargo boats come in.” He smiled at her.
“This was your room then?”
Evan nodded.
“Then you should have said something. I’m sure you’d rather have slept in your old room.”
“My mother would never have heard of it. This is her guest room now, and you are the guest.”
Bronwen looked around. “So what happened to all your things?
There’s nothing to indicate that you lived here once.”
“Up in the attic, in boxes, probably. My mother’s always been a great one for cleaning up and clearing out. I expect she’ll produce the photo albums at some stage and let you see me as a chubby baby and a skinny ten-year-old.”
“Oh, I do hope so.” Bronwen smiled at him. “Were you a skinny ten-year-old?”
“Very. And undersized. They used to pick on me in primary school because I was a new boy and I spoke Welsh.”
“And the other boys didn’t?”
“Some of them spoke it at home, but never in school. In fact one teacher told us very plainly that we’d be stupid to choose Welsh rather than French or German when we went to the grammar school, because it was a dead language and no use.”
“Well, I suppose he did have a point. I’m glad I speak it, but it isn’t really much use, is it?”
“Only to sing songs and recite poetry.”
Bronwen took a sip of the tea he offered her. “So can we get some of those boxes out of the attic? I want to see your Cub Scout uniform and your Meccano set.”
“Whatever for?”
“So that I get a picture of you as a little boy, of course. I have to know what I’m marrying.”
“Evan? If you’ve taken Miss Price her tea, I need you down here,” Evan’s mother called up the stairs.
Evan grinned at Bronwen. “She doesn’t want me lurking in your bedroom.”
“And quite right too. I’ll be down in a few minutes.” She slid off the bed and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “It’s a lovely day for walking.”
Evan glanced back down the hall. “It’s Sunday. I rather suspect we’ll have to go to chapel first,” he said. “Mum’s still very hot on that kind of thing. And then there will definitely be Sunday lunch with all the trimmings. But we’ll get out somewhere this afternoon. I can still give you my tour of the famous historic sites of Swansea.”
“Dylan Thomas’s birthplace, you mean? I’d love to see it.”
“I was thinking more of my primary school, my grammar school, my rugby field—they’re a lot more interesting than bloody Dylan Thomas. I can’t see why people make such a fuss about him.”
“Oh, but he was brilliant. I love his poems. ‘Do not go gentle into that good night.’ You have to admit that’s a wonderful poem.”
Evan frowned. “Funny. I came upon it when I was going through stuff after my dad died. I couldn’t read it. It made me too angry.”
Bronwen reached up and stroked his cheek. “Would you like me to come with you when you go to court tomorrow? I will if you want me to, but I don’t want to be in the way.”
“May be better if you don’t,” Evan said. “It might be rather hard for my mother, you know.”
“I understand.”
“Evan,” came the shout from downstairs. “What’s taking you so long up there? Leave Miss Price in peace.”
When Bronwen came downstairs a little later she found a full breakfast being cooked. Rashers of bacon were sizzling in a pan. Sausages, tomatoes, and mushrooms were under the grill, and eggs were waiting to be fried.
“Oh heavens,” Bronwen exclaimed. “You didn’t have to go to all this trouble for me. I’m quite happy with toast or cereal.”
Mrs. Evans gave her a disapproving look. “Neither my husband nor my boy ever had to start a day’s work on toast or cereal. They left the house with a good breakfast in their stomachs. Good wholesome food. That’s what keeps men happy.”
Evan saw Bronwen making sure she didn’t make eye contact with him. Instead she went over to the toaster. “I’ll do some toast for us, shall I?”
“Chapel at ten,” Mrs. Evans said firmly. “But I never asked, did I—are you church or chapel, Miss Price?”
“My grandmother brought me up chapel, but my parents are more church, when they go at all,” Bronwen said. “But I’m perfectly happy to come to the chapel with you, Mrs. Evans.”
“Right you are. We leave here at nine-forty, sharp. Got that,
Evan? I remember how you always made us late when you were a little boy, dawdling up in your room.”
“We’ll be ready, Ma.” Evan gave Bronwen a quick glance and she smiled back.
 
“You might have warned me the sermon would be in Welsh and then in English,” Bronwen muttered as they finally emerged from the squat gray stone building close to noon. “I could have brought a good book to stick inside my hymn book. My, but he did go on, didn’t he? And all that hell fire, too. What makes people actually want to be abused and insulted for two hours?”
“Good for the soul.” Evan squeezed her hand. “But the lunch will make up for it, I expect.”
When they got home they were greeted by the smell of roast leg of lamb. It came out of the oven crisp and brown. Potatoes, parsnips, and onions were dotted around it, equally crisp and brown, and to these Mrs. Evans added broad beans and marrow in a white sauce.
“And I made your favorite for pudding,” she said as she cleared away empty plates. “Baked jam roll and custard.”
Evan silently let a notch out of his belt as the long sponge roll, oozing with jam, emerged from the oven.
After lunch Mrs. Evans went for a rest. Evan and Bronwen took the opportunity to escape. “Although after that lunch I think I could have slept all afternoon too,” Evan said. “We’d better do plenty of hill walking to burn off all those calories.”
They started with a quick drive around the modern town center and past the 1930s Guildhall, then, after passing an attractive park full of Sunday sun worshippers, they pulled up outside a school.
“This used to be it,” Evan said. “It was Swansea Grammar School when I was there. Now it’s a comprehensive, like all the others. It used to be ever so snooty, and the kids on our street used to throw lumps of dirt at my uniform.”
“It sounds like a dangerous place to grow up.”
“It toughened me up,” Evan said. “And as soon as I started growing
and playing rugby, they stopped bothering me.”
“All right.” Bronwen gave a mock sigh. “Show me this historic rugby field. Have they put up a plaque to you yet?”
They zigzagged back up the hill and parked beside an expanse of playing fields. At this time of year there were no rugby posts, but the grass had been groomed in the center for a cricket pitch—a slim strip of perfect green. Figures in white were dotted around it and from the open car window they heard the satisfying thwack of bat striking ball, followed by a round of polite applause.
“This is it,” Evan said.
“So this is where you scored every Saturday.” Brownen’s clear blue eyes were teasing.
“I didn’t score very often,” Evan said, pretending not to get her double meaning. “I wasn’t supposed to in the position I played. I played number eight.”
“Sorry. I know nothing about rugby, which I’m sure is a sacrilege in Swansea.”
“Middle of the back row.”
“Sounds like a chorus line.”
“Of the scrum.”
“I only have a vague idea what a scrum is, but I bet your friend Maggie can tell me whether you scored or not. Maggie what was her last name?”

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