There was a silence as if Peter’s words had been a small explosion and the aftermath had people stunned.
‘Dad,’ Richard said. He took his father’s arm and led him outside, still carrying the drink he had been given. To those left in the breathless silence, there came the murmur of voices, occasionally raised so they could hear words, like, ‘Obsessed’. ‘Crazy’. ‘Dangerous’. Larry stood staring at the open door, his face a mask of shock.
‘Why should he talk like that?’ he asked finally. ‘The guy came up and punched me on the face one day. That’s right, isn’t it, baby? And he calls me crazy?’ He put an arm around Rosemary’s shoulders and forced her to smile. ‘It seems he resents my looking a bit like Richard, though I’m better looking of course! Now how d’you deal with a queer fellow like that?’
Rosemary touched his shoulder and smiled at him to take the angry look from his face. Mrs Priestley stood up as if to go and Larry stopped her.
‘Don’t leave, Mrs Priestley, there’s plenty of food left and we can go for more drink if it’s running low.’ He filled her glass and then began to talk about his experiences over the weekend. ‘This is some country,’ he said. ‘There’s a different scene around every corner.’
‘I’m sorry about that,’ Richard said, appearing in the doorway.
‘No matter.’ Larry, playing the gregarious and friendly host, pushed a foaming glass into Richard’s hand and waved a hand at the food. ‘Come on, people! Let’s eat and drink and be merry.’
‘For tomorrow we – cry?’ misquoted Mrs Priestley.
‘Hell, who cares about tomorrow!’
‘Have you made any progress with your house-hunting?’ Richard asked Gethyn later in the evening.
‘Yes and no,’ Gethyn replied. ‘Yes, I’ve made progress, but no, I haven’t yet found anywhere. The trouble is, I want to stay here.’
‘It doesn’t hurt anyone to have a shake up now and again,’ Huw interrupted. ‘It can be worrying to have to make a move, but sometimes it works out for the best. You can be in one place too long.’
‘Not in my case,’ Gethyn said, then he lowered his voice and added, ‘I want to be here to keep an eye on Rosemary. We’re all enjoying Larry’s company, but I for one don’t forget for a moment all that’s been happening to her since he arrived.’
‘I’m uneasy too,’ Huw whispered back, ‘but what can we do? She loves the man, and there’s nothing we can say that will persuade her to doubt him, or encourage her even to check on all he’s said.’
‘Don’t let my father’s reaction make you overreact, mind,’ Richard warned. ‘I think they had a misunderstanding, that’s all.’
‘But he could be right,’ Gethyn said. ‘Someone is tormenting Rosemary and, who else could it be?’
‘You look serious, all of you!’ Rosemary called, and Larry looked at the three solemn men and echoed her words.
‘We’re afraid the booze will run out,’ Huw said, the solemn look not leaving his face.
‘Come with me and we’ll buy some more,’ Larry said at once. He patted his pocket to check that his wallet was there and they went out together.
It was midnight before the party finally broke up and Mrs Priestley had to be escorted into her house by Rosemary and Sally. They saw her in and made sure she was all right before leaving her sitting in front of her cold grate, insisting that she was, ‘As warm as toast and twice as tasty!’
‘You wouldn’t like us to see you upstairs?’ Sally asked.
‘No, thank you! I’m not drunk you know, only very excited and happy. We’ll be all right, won’t we, Queenie? But thanks my dears, you’re both very kind to me.’
Reluctantly, they went out, reminding her to lock and bolt her door.
‘We’ll wait ’til we hear it done,’ Sally shouted as they pulled the door to. ‘Bless her, she needs looking after, doesn’t she, Rosemary?’ she added in a whisper and Rosemary smiled agreement, curious at the friendship between the lively girl and the elderly woman. The bolt was thrown and they went back to number two as Richard and Huw were leaving.
Gethyn and Larry were in the kitchen, filling black plastic rubbish-bags with the empty cans and wrappings, and Sally knew that there was no way she would be expected to leave before morning.
‘It’ll be all right if I stay another night, won’t it?’ she said.
‘Sally, need you ask!’
‘Only one stipulation,’ Larry said. ‘Don’t call us before eleven!’
‘What a hope,’ Rosemary laughed. ‘Some of us have to work you know!’
Gethyn looked at Rosemary and frowned. He was imagining her sleeping beside Larry, and didn’t like it one bit. He left the remainder of the clearing up and went home, forcing a smile and a thank you to his hostess but managing not to say even goodnight to Larry.
The impromptu party-givers settled to sleep, Larry and Rosemary in the double bed. Sally on the put-you-up in Rosemary’s study. Sally stared at the ceiling and wondered if her suspicion that Larry was playing some dangerous game were true, and if so, what his reason could be. She touched her fingers and counted, noting every incident in which he could have been involved, trying to see some pattern to explain what had happened. At three o’clock, she turned over and slept, none the wiser.
Together in the double bed upstairs, Larry and Rosemary whispered softly to each other.
‘Miss me, honey?’ he asked.
‘Of course I did. I was jealous too. Jealous of you meeting new people and seeing new things without me.’ She cuddled closer to him.
‘Next weekend I’m free,’ she coaxed. ‘Where shall we go?’
‘Walking around these hills, eating at one of your pubs, that’ll suit me.’
‘No, I think we should see the Gower. We’ll stay with Mam and Dad, if you don’t object?’
‘Meet the parents? Gee honey, that’ll be great.’ He looked suitably alarmed. ‘The Gower you say, that’s in the south, isn’t it?’
‘I love Gower in the winter, when the scenery is widened by the lack of leaves. Everything looks different, there’s more of everything. Different season, different view.’
‘In the city it’s better, every day is different,’ he said, teasing her and expecting to provoke an angry response, but her even breathing told him she was asleep. He kissed her lightly and settled to sleep himself.
Sally and Rosemary got up early to prepare themselves for work.
At eleven o’clock Larry rang.
‘Honey, there’s been a phone call from your mother. They’re coming here on Sunday. Is that all right? I said it probably was, but that I’d ring if you still preferred to go there.’
‘That’s fine.’ Rosemary was pleased that her parents were visiting. ‘Try and persuade them to come on Saturday and stay over,’ she suggested.
‘I’ll do that – even if it does mean I’ll have to be a “good boy” for a night or two! Love you darling.’ He squeaked a kiss and rang off.
They were watching for the arrival of her parents’ car on Saturday morning when another car turned down the narrow path and stopped on the parking place. There was only room for three cars and Rosemary began to cross over the footbridge to ask the strangers to park elsewhere, when she recognised the vehicle. It belonged to the Hughes’s in number three. They had returned, at last, from their visit to their daughter in Bala.
‘Rosemary, how are you, my lovely girl?’ The rich, deep voice of Henry Hughes boomed across to where she stood waiting to welcome them. He bent from his six feet two and helped his wife out from the passenger seat. Muriel Hughes was plump and always laughing. She laughed now as she waved across at Rosemary and shouted, excitedly.
‘Darlin’, it’s great to be back, we’ve missed you. I’ll be in now in a minute to hear all the gossip. Got time, have you? Duw, there’s cramped it is in that car. I feel like a concertina that hasn’t been used for years!’ She laughed loudly and happily, full of excitement at being home again.
‘I’ll help with the luggage, shall I?’
‘Here, let me do that, you and the lady can get on with the talking,’ Larry called, having seen and heard the reunion.
He came to where Rosemary stood watching as Henry Hughes began dragging bags out of the back of the car, talking non-stop as he did so. Muriel stared at him admiringly and asked, ‘Hello, Larry, love! Seems you’ve got plenty to tell me, young Rosemary.’
Rosemary offered her hand to Larry and they walked to the car smiling.
‘You know each other? But how?’
‘Larry came and saw us at our daughter’s place, didn’t you Larry? Wanted to know all about the people in the village for a project he’s working on. How’s it going? Nearly finished it I expect.’ She laughed as she hugged him and then looked at Rosemary. ‘Are you two? You know.’ She winked. ‘Well,’ she demanded, as neither answered her. ‘Come on, you can tell your Auntie Moo!’
‘Yes, Muriel,’ Larry replied, hugging Rosemary, ‘we are – you know—’ And he winked back.
‘Well-well! Fancy that! You’ve grown up a bit while we’ve been away, girl,’ was Henry’s comment.
Rosemary took one of the smaller bags and went with Muriel to her house. As they opened the door, Muriel gasped.
‘There’s stuffy it is. I’ll have to live with the doors and windows open for a bit to get the staleness blown out. Lucky I’m good and fat, or it’ll blow me out as well!’ Laughing she led the way in and opened the windows. ‘Damn me, one of them wasn’t locked! Don’t tell my Harry, he’ll only blame me and make a fuss.’
‘You should have left a key, someone would have opened the windows now and then to freshen it before you came back,’ Rosemary said.
‘Not if what we’ve heard about the goings on at your place are even half true!’ Muriel said. ‘Come on, love, there’s milk and biscuits in this bag, put the kettle on and tell me what’s been going on.’
It seemed impossible to refuse and as Muriel kicked off her high-heeled shoes and loosened a button on her skirt, Rosemary attended to the kettle and began to relate some of what had happened.
She told the story as if it were a humorous one, making more of the funny side of things and playing down the fear and panic she had experienced.
‘I’m so glad Larry was there most of the time,’ she said finally. ‘I’d have felt very alone, with only Gethyn on one side and your empty house on the other.’
‘And Gethyn’s mam,’ Muriel said with a loud laugh. ‘Not that she’d be much good, poor dab, being over seventy, but at least it’s another woman.’
‘You – you haven’t heard?’ Rosemary said quietly. ‘Mrs Lewis. She’s dead.’
‘What? What happened for goodness sake? She was all right when we left.’
‘Fell, up on the mountain somewhere. Gethyn doesn’t find it easy to talk about it yet, and I haven’t got the full story myself.’
‘Fell, you say?’
‘Apparently no one found her until she had been there long enough to get severely chilled. Poor love. She was Gran’s friend and I miss her. It was like having a link with Gran, being able to talk to Mrs Lewis. I was in America when she died. I couldn’t even go to the funeral.’
‘Where was Gethyn?’
‘What d’you mean? He was at home as always.’
‘When she fell, where was Gethyn?’
‘Gone into town, I think,’ Rosemary said, trying to remember what she had been told. ‘It was early the next morning before they found her and it was too late to save her.’ She frowned at the jolly-faced woman who was staring into space. ‘Muriel, why did you ask where was Gethyn? Where did you expect him to be?’
‘Oh, I’m being melodramatic, darling, you know me. But just before we went to Bala, they had a terrible row. Her and Gethyn. He wasn’t speaking to her, she told me that. I wondered if an argument could have got out of hand.’
‘You think Gethyn could have hurt her? Never!’ Rosemary said emphatically.
‘No-no. Not hurt her, heavens above, no. Just didn’t bother to look for her, mad with her and letting her see he was upset.’
‘He waited on her hand and foot. He’s such a gentle, kindly man.’
‘Yes, but this quarrel, she wouldn’t tell me what it was about, but she was very distressed that day. Said she’d “lost him”, she felt sure he wouldn’t ever talk to her again.’
‘I wonder what happened? Poor Gethyn, how awful to lose someone just after a bad quarrel without having the chance to put things right.’
‘She put on him, mind. Perhaps she went a bit too far, elderly people can, you know.’
‘Perhaps he’ll be able to talk about it soon, it’s nearly five months now. Time to have faced all the grief, the horrors and self-recriminations. ’
‘What about this Larry of yours then?’ Muriel asked with a sparkle in her dark brown eyes. She had the kind of cheerful and mischievous face that made a smile irresistible and Rosemary forgot the sadness of Gethyn’s bereavement and responded to the inquisitive wink that accompanied the question.
‘We met in London when I came back from America. It was an amazing coincidence really,’ Rosemary told her. ‘He wanted to find out all he could about his family roots and I came from here, the very area where they had once lived.’
‘It was a ploy, really,’ Larry said, as he came in with the luggage behind the large figure of Henry. ‘I’d never heard of the place but Rosemary’s legs are the sort to make you really confused when it comes to geography!’
‘Larry!’ Rosemary laughed.
As they were drinking their second cup of tea, Gethyn came to tell them that Rosemary’s parents had arrived and were knocking at the door for admittance, and complaining that their key wouldn’t fit.
‘Gethyn, love,’ Muriel said, getting up to hug him. ‘There’s sorry I am about your mam. You must come up later and tell me all about it. Why didn’t you write to tell us? We’d have wanted to come to the funeral and pay our respects. Been neighbours for years we had.’
‘It wasn’t easy to think straight for a while. It was sudden, and completely unprepared for,’ Gethyn said. ‘Quick for her and that’s the thing to remember. The doctor said it was sudden.’
‘I thought – didn’t you say that if she’d been found earlier—’ Rosemary began.
‘Went out like a light. Worst for me it was, not finding her for those hours, but no, it wouldn’t have helped her.’
‘So you not finding her for a while didn’t really matter?’ Rosemary asked.
‘No, she died quickly.’
‘Thank goodness for that. It would have been worse for you if you hadn’t done all you could, you being such a good son.’ Muriel patted his arm affectionately, but in her intelligent brown eyes were questions waiting to be asked.
Rosemary felt an undercurrent of dread. For some reason she couldn’t fathom, Muriel wasn’t easy about Mrs Lewis’s death. It had been an accident. She had walked up on the mountain and fallen, there was no more to it than that. Surely the strange disasters and accidents connected with her house hadn’t begun earlier, and in Gethyn’s house?
She hurriedly offered to help Muriel if she were needed, and ran to where her parents stood leaning against the door in mock despair.
‘Rosemary, thank goodness,’ her father said. ‘Our key no longer fits and we were beginning to think we’d be sleeping on the banks of the stream!’
‘Muriel and Henry are back,’ Rosemary explained.
Larry was still helping the Hughes’s to empty the car, which seemed to contain enough clothes for a dozen people for a year, but he ran across, hugged and kissed her mother and shook hands with her father in his friendly yet polite way.
When he had finished trekking backwards and forwards from the car, her parents went to greet the Hughes’s and she and Larry were alone. At once she told him of Muriel’s comments about a quarrel between Gethyn and his mother.
‘They never quarrelled,’ she told him. ‘Not in all the years I’ve known them. Gethyn looked after her every moment of the day. He couldn’t have done more.’
‘Perhaps Muriel was right, she overdid the dependency. It happens, the worm turns and bingo, she gets a slap.’
‘Gethyn was never treated like a worm,’ she protested. ‘Neither did Mrs Lewis take advantage. Gethyn offered to do things, I don’t think I ever heard her ask for anything. He knew what she wanted and arranged it without waiting for her to ask. To me he seemed a highly sensitive son who hated his mother to feel she was in any way a nuisance. He forestalled her need to ask. She would never have been a whingeing, whining sort.
‘Besides, she wasn’t an invalid, far from it. She went to the shops, did a bit of weeding and even went for walks occasionally, up on the mountain, like she did on the day she died. Usually she had Muriel for company.’
She smiled. ‘Muriel is so overweight that she was breathless long before Mrs Lewis!’
‘It must be odd having a mother almost as old as the grandparents of his friends,’ Larry insisted. ‘I bet that rankled, at least when he was younger.’
‘I’ve never seen a sign of it,’ she said emphatically.
She began to prepare the meal for her parents and themselves when suddenly she threw up her hands in despair, scattering flour over the stone floor. She had never told her parents all that had happened in the house, determined not to worry them unduly. Now, she had forgotten to warn Muriel not to discuss it. They would most certainly have been told everything that Muriel had gleaned, and if her past record was a guide, that would be plenty.
‘What is it, love?’ Larry asked.
‘Mam and Dad, they’ll be told all that’s happened here. I forgot to warn Muriel.’
‘Too late to worry now. Besides, I guess it’s time they were put in the picture.’
‘I guess you’re right.’
After they had eaten, squashed together in the small kitchen, Larry told them he had a few surprises. From his travel bag he produced gifts for them all. A sweater for Rosemary’s father and a scarf for her mother, both bought from Macy’s, the famous New York store. To Rosemary he gave a watch. In platinum, it was small and delicately crafted and she gasped at the sight of it.
‘Larry, it’s lovely. I – oh, thank you!’ She hugged him and her parents looked politely away as they kissed. She slipped it on her wrist. She sparkled like a small child at Christmas, they told her.
Rosemary was particularly thrilled with the presents as it proved that both she and Gethyn had been mistaken; Larry had been in America when he said he was, and not driving around the country in his Citroen. They must have simply misread the licence plate number.
For that alone the gift was special. She took it off as she went to her lonely bed, thinking about Larry on the sofa downstairs and trying not to allow her thoughts to drift too far into the future. He loved her, she was certain of that and for the moment it was enough. If he went back to his family, then it wasn’t necessarily the end, she told herself. The world was small and shrinking all the time. She stared at the watch on the bedside table beside her until she slept.
The next day was chilly but the early mist was already clearing and giving them the prospect of a pleasant day.
They drove to Aberangell in Mr Roberts’ spacious Rover and walked up between the tall conifers until a valley opened out before them in the silent world where cars were neither seen nor heard, where the soft murmurings of a stream seemed deafeningly loud and the birds seemed to be subdued and in awe of the wide sky and the miles of rolling hills around them.
Holding Larry’s hand, Rosemary proudly showed him her favourite places. They stood and looked down at the blue pool and the waterfall, and teased Larry when he jokingly called it a rival to the Niagara Falls. They laughed stupidly as they watched children in the distance, playing roly-poly down a steep hill, almost wishing they could join in the fun. They watched as rabbits browsed, unafraid, in the soft green grass, marvelled at the narrow, green lane through Aberangell that had once been the main street.
They ate in their favourite pub in Dinas Mawthwy. Everything was exciting and fun; Rosemary couldn’t ever remember being so happy.
It was late in the evening before Rosemary’s parents left. As she walked with them to their car, she could see that her mother wanted to say something. She hoped it was not disapproval of Larry. She had not kept it a secret that she and Larry lived together.
‘Thanks, love,’ her father said as he put the bag into the boot of the car. ‘I’m tired out mind, but very content. You and Larry have given us a day that’s as good as a week’s holiday.’
‘We’ve enjoyed it too, Dad,’ she smiled as she kissed him. Then she looked at her mother and asked, ‘You too, Mam? Did you enjoy it?’
‘Very much, love. Thank you. Both of you.’
‘But – ?’ Rosemary asked. ‘There is a ‘but’, isn’t there? I can always tell.’
‘But I’m worried about Gethyn.’
Rosemary was so surprised, she laughed.
‘I know he’s a grown man,’ her mother defended, ‘but his mother’s death was a terrible shock. He’d been so wrapped up in looking after her he’s a bit lost now she’s gone, and so suddenly too. Keep an eye on him will you, love? Don’t give up on the old friendships to make room for the new, you need them all. It seems that he quarrelled with her on the very day she died. That must make it terribly upsetting.’
‘I’ll make more of an effort,’ she promised. ‘I’ve been too wrapped up in my own life lately to remember how he must feel.’
‘Devastated he was, by his mother’s sudden death.’
‘He’s very fond of you, Rosemary,’ her father added as he fired the car into life. ‘Very fond, and that means you can help him more than most.’
‘I’ll give him more time, I promise,’ she said, hugging them and closing the car doors.
Behind them Mrs Priestley, and Muriel and Henry, stood at their doors waving goodbye. The students were busy working on Huw’s car, and they too called a farewell. At his window, they saw Gethyn watching. He had called earlier to say his goodbyes and would not come out with the others.
‘It’s such a friendly place, everyone knowing the rest and watching over each other,’ Rosemary’s mother smiled as she turned to wave yet again.
‘Lucky you are to live in a place like this,’ her father agreed. Rosemary wondered what they would say when she told them she had decided to sell. Once Larry had gone, she wouldn’t stay. The people who had approached her asking for a first chance to buy were still interested and she would give them the go-ahead the moment Larry said goodbye.
Larry stood beside her and waved until Mr and Mrs Roberts were out of sight.
‘I suppose I’m the reason you’ve neglected Gethyn,’ he said, putting an arm around them as they walked back to the cottage. ‘If that is the case, well, I’m not sorry. I can’t have you consoling bereaved young men, not when he’s under the impression you’re his property.’
‘He doesn’t think that,’ she laughed. ‘But we’ve been friends and constant companions from childhood.’
‘Until now, darling,’ he said, kissing her cheek. ‘Until now.’
‘Jealous?’ she asked.
‘You betyer sweet life I am! Gethyn might be a queer fellow but he’s quite handsome in his quiet way, and about the right age, and what’s worse, he lives right next door to my girl!’
On Monday morning, Rosemary dressed for work and went to pick up the new watch from the bedside table where she had put it the previous evening. Then she changed her mind. Perhaps, for a while she would treat it like something too exclusive for daily use. She would save it for evenings and special occasions. It was special, much more than a watch. It was proof that he hadn’t lied about being in New York.
Larry was there when she returned from work and she sensed he was upset about something. She didn’t ask, always preferring to leave it for him to decide when to open up and discuss what was on his mind. But he said nothing, and she was in such a state of euphoria after the wonderful weekend and the gifts Larry had brought for them, that she was almost unaware of his rather subdued mood.
They were going to eat out that evening, their first alone since Larry had returned, and as she dressed in a newly bought suit in Larry’s favourite yellow, she reached for the watch. It wasn’t there.
‘Larry?’ she called. ‘Have you seen my watch? I left it here, on the table beside the bed.’
‘I wondered when you’d miss it,’ he said softly. ‘Here it is.’ He held out his hand and on it was the watch, or what was left of it. It was completely ruined.
‘But—’ She looked stupidly at the table as if expecting it to materialise, whole and perfect. ‘Larry, I left it on the bedside table. How could it have been broken? Where did you find it? I don’t understand. If it’s a joke then it isn’t funny,’ she sobbed. She picked up the distorted bracelet and then the shattered watch. The glass was smashed, and the hands torn out of shape. ‘What happened? Please, tell me,’ she said as the vision of the broken face shimmered and disappeared behind her tears.
‘On the road where you carelessly dropped it,’ he said. ‘Rolled on by several tractors by the look of it. Rosemary, how could you be so casual with such an expensive and beautiful thing?’
She began to argue, to tell him she hadn’t been careless, that it had been safely left in its box beside her bed, but as the words came out of her mouth they seemed to disperse in the chilly atmosphere as if she hadn’t spoken.
‘What else have you done and then pretended it was done by some mysterious intruder?’
The look in his eyes made her blood turn to ice. There was no sign of the love that had been there the last time she had looked into their brown depths. She was looking at a stranger. Emanating from him was unutterable anger. It was as if he had no words left to describe how he felt, but the expression told it all. She felt a shudder of dismay run through her body and knew that whatever she said, Larry would not believe her. Larry thought she was the trickster, playing the tricks on herself.