43

The boy wasn’t home. She laid the hat under the Christmas tree, which was standing in the corner next to the sideboard, already hung with tinsel and baubles and with the fairy lights on. He’d put it in a zinc tub with a load of crushed slate to weigh it down. She climbed the stairs slowly, pushed open the bathroom door, laid the tablets on the shelf above the washbasin and took one without reading the leaflet. The doctor hadn’t quibbled on quantity. The tubes of cough drops were on the shelf too, unopened. She sat down on the toilet. The cramp she had felt in the car came back. And again. Each time she went to tear off some toilet paper, she had to pull her hand back. ‘Goodness,’ she said quietly, elbows on her knees, her head hanging down over the tiled floor. After wiping her bottom, she ran the bath for the second time that day, again adding a good squirt of Native Herbs. The bubble bath had a pungent smell. A real smell. She took off her clothes and sat down in the hot water, thinking about the boy’s monologue and all the things he’d reeled off smoothly, as if he had thought about it beforehand, as if there were a plan behind it. She tried to feel what the tablet was doing inside her body by imagining the journey the active ingredients were making from their starting point in her stomach. Hopefully reaching her head sometime soon. When a pleasurable lethargy began to seep through her, she realised that it would soon be New Year.

‘Hello!’ That wasn’t Bradwen, if only because he would have turned it into a question. Rhys Jones. Already through the front door, and her in the bath. The front door led straight to the stairs. In this house, climbing them was a completely natural thing to do. She had to get out of the bath; the door wasn’t even locked. The water splashed loudly. The tablet had done its job: it was her own body that got out of the bath, but with a slight lag. She hadn’t heard a car. She took the towel from the hook on the door and pressed it against her breasts. He knocked on the door, fairly hard. ‘Go away,’ she said. In the silence that followed, she leant her head on the wooden door panel. She thought she could hear him breathing and at the same time she heard the baker’s wife saying something. And if she was still alive she would never have let him eat so much cake. If only she were standing at the baker’s now, fully dressed, with hiking boots on her feet. The bathwater was still settling. It was very clear.

‘I’ll wait in the kitchen.’

She recoiled from his voice, which resonated in the wood. She heard him go downstairs. Slowly she dried herself, leaving the plug in the bath; the gurgling water would make too much noise. Slowly she pulled on her clothes. Cramps in her belly that didn’t really hurt, no pressure behind her ears, a numbness in her head. Before opening the door, she looked out of the small window at the snow-covered drive. What was keeping Bradwen? The geese were huddled together in front of the shelter. In front of it, never inside it. Stupid animals.

Rhys Jones was sitting on the kitchen chair closest to the Christmas tree, the gift-wrapped hat in his hands. There was something about him, something different.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

‘I assume you don’t put presents under the tree for yourself.’

‘And?’

‘I was imagining you’d bought this for me.’

‘What?’

‘Who else comes to visit you?’ He squeezed the parcel. ‘It feels like socks.’

‘Put it back.’

‘It’s not for me?’

I could grab a knife, she thought. The heavy frying pan if necessary. ‘No.’

‘You are living here alone, after all? Isn’t that what you told the agent when you signed the provisional rental agreement?’ He laid a special emphasis on the word ‘provisional’.

‘Mr Jones.’

‘Call me Rhys.’

‘Mr Jones, would you be so kind as to put that package back?’

‘Fine, fine, be as uppity as you like.’ He stood up and returned the hat to its place under the tree. He straightened his back, turned round and went into the living room. She heard the front door open.

She looked around. The kitchen was safe for a moment. The three flowering plants on the windowsill, the coffee pot on the cooker, the Christmas tree. She still had a quick look in the cutlery drawer, at the biggest compartment. The front door closed. Rhys Jones came into the kitchen carrying a plastic crate. She looked at his feet and, while looking down, realised what was different about him: his thick greasy hair was a good bit shorter, she’d seen his ears for the first time.

‘Lamb,’ he said, putting the crate on the table.

She looked into it. A few hunks of dark-coloured meat. She raised a hand to her throat. ‘Is that a whole lamb?’

‘No. A half of lamb.’

‘A half?’

‘I was only going to give you a quarter, but that would have been leaving you with hardly any. I’m a soft touch.’ And as he said that, he put a hand on her bum, as if to prove it.

She didn’t grab the hand; it was the one with the torn fingernail. Instead she stepped aside, as calmly as possible, away from the hand, and kept moving. She ended up directly opposite on the other side of the table. ‘Take it away again.’

‘Isn’t it good enough for you?’

‘What do you want?’

‘I’ve brought you a couple of legs of lamb. Completely free of charge.’

‘I don’t want them. Lamb disgusts me.’

‘Too bad. I’m leaving it anyway. I’ve fulfilled my obligations.’

‘You can leave, then.’

‘You look very different from last time,’ he said.

‘You can leave, then.’

‘Have you been to the hairdresser’s? Shirley’s?’

She had put her hands on the back of a chair. Shirley, the doctor, the man opposite her, the baker and his wife; everyone knew each other. Everyone except Bradwen. He was the only one who didn’t fit in. What was keeping him? Although, having decorated the Christmas tree first, he could be gone for a while yet. She looked at the clock. Almost half twelve. I have to do something, she thought. It doesn’t matter what. She went through to the living room, opened the door of the stove, pushed two logs onto the smouldering fire, and slid them back and forth a little with the poker. She realised that she was standing with her back to Rhys Jones, bent forward. She felt strong.

The sheep farmer had followed her and was now sitting sprawled on the sofa with one arm on the backrest. ‘Don’t I get any coffee?’ he asked. ‘Badger lady?’

‘What did you say?’

‘I said, badger lady.’

‘You’re not getting any coffee. You can leave now.’ She stayed where she was, next to the stove, without putting the poker back in the wood basket.

‘My estate agent friend rang up.’

She looked at his socks.

‘They’ve tracked down a great-nephew. Lives in England. Your tenancy won’t be renewed.’

She moved the poker to her other hand.

‘Seeing as my friend’s a nice guy, he realises that it’s very short notice and he’s giving you until 5 January to pack your stuff. We’ll be dropping by on New Year’s Day, though, to check the condition of the house.’

‘No problem.’

‘No?’

‘No. None of this old junk is mine. I don’t need a moving van.’ She looked out of the window. It was as if she sensed that would be the second in which Bradwen would come over the garden wall. He didn’t jump this time, he climbed. Sam jumped, landing next to the oak and alder branches. Apparently he remembered exactly where they were. Strange he’s coming from that direction, she thought. The boy walked across the snowy lawn and stopped at the edge of the dug-up section. She wondered if he could see her. The living room was fairly gloomy with its single window but, as ever, the standard lamp was on. Bradwen gave the dog a command. Sam turned back and sat down against his leg, partly hidden by the rose bushes. Why is he standing there? she thought. Can he see Rhys Jones’s car from there? And what of it?

‘You’ll have enough time to eat the legs of lamb.’

‘I don’t eat lamb.’

‘Please yourself. Mrs Evans loved lamb. She made it to ninety-three on it.’ He looked up. ‘What are you doing over there? Come and sit on the sofa.’

‘It’s time for you to leave,’ she said. ‘You’ve fulfilled your obligations and you’ve delivered your message.’

‘I still haven’t told you how Mrs Evans met her end.’

‘I’m not interested. I didn’t know the woman.’

‘I think you’d find it very interesting.’

From the corner of her eye she saw Bradwen still standing in the same spot. She shook her head, wondering if the man on the sofa could really have such primitive thought processes. He’s a widower, she seems to be unattached. What’s holding us back? The boy moved an arm. Was he reacting to the shake of her head? She raised the poker, without knowing what exactly she wanted to indicate. ‘Cigarettes,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘In the kitchen. My cigarettes.’ It annoyed her that she hadn’t just gone to the kitchen without a word. The kitchen in the house that was hers until 5 January. She went to the window and gestured to Bradwen that she would come out, laid the poker on the table and lit a cigarette. Then she went straight to the front door and opened it. That was too much for Sam. He jumped up, barked and ran towards her. The boy let the dog go; he didn’t call him back.

Rhys Jones rose from the sofa with surprising speed. ‘Sam?’ he said.

The dog swerved slightly, ran to the sheep farmer and jumped into his arms.

Rhys Jones staggered.

She looked at Bradwen. Then back at the sheep farmer, whose eyes seemed even moister than usual.

Sam snorted and licked and barked.