That finally seemed to do the trick. ‘I’ll find Hodge,’ he muttered, limping off back towards the barns.
There was a nano-second when she was tempted to go after him. But it was the briefest of nano-seconds only. Carys concentrated on locking the French windows, placing the key on the little hook set to one side of the door. As she did so, a swirl of greenery caught her eye. Not real leaves, but painted ones, emerging from a wash of white paint. It looked as if somebody had been cleaning away the top layer of paint to uncover them. The leaves were decidedly those of a vine. Bunches of dark grapes were half uncovered at one side. A butterfly appeared a little further down, and below that the blue-green of a kingfisher sat on a branch, staring eagle-eyed at some invisible patch of water below.
There was such exuberance in the colours and the lines of the drawing, she couldn’t help but smile. Further down the wall she could see another patch had been cleaned, revealing a riotous profusion of harebells and poppies, interspersed with camellias and tall yellow iris with nodding clusters of lily-of-the-valley at their feet, surrounded by deep orange wall flowers and spikes of blue stock. All of which had been interwoven with the delicate ramblings of a dog rose.
Whoever had painted those, she thought, had had such a zest for life, it was catching. It was obviously old. Dad had never mentioned there being a painter in his family. Plenty of gardeners, but no artists. Too busy earning a living, no doubt Dad would have informed her, roundly. But the painting was there, all the same. And painted by someone with skill and verve, who could catch the arch of a swallow’s wing with the merest flick of a brush.
‘Ready, then?’ called David from the front door, his voice echoing through the house.
‘Just coming,’ she replied.
The light had softened as evening crept around them, leaving the sky an impossible, fragile blue, and the summer-evening smell of autumn in the air.
‘I’ll row,’ said Carys, as they made their way back to the boat. David might be setting up a fine speed, but he had spent the day working in London, followed by a long train journey, and nothing could disguise the increased limp in his damaged leg.
‘There’s no need.’
‘Oh, so you think I’m not capable?’
‘Of course not,’ he replied, on his dignity. ‘I’d never even suggest such a thing.’
‘Good.’
Just for a moment he hesitated, but then he grinned. ‘Bolshie women, eh?’ he muttered under his breath to Hodge. ‘Story of my life.’ He settled a slightly bemused Hodge underneath the passenger seat and sat down. ‘There,’ he remarked, with only a touch of irony. ‘Happy?’
‘Very,’ conceded Carys graciously, settling the oars into the water.
David smiled to himself. It was good to see that Carys had relaxed a little and regained her sense of humour. There was something troubling her. It wasn’t just her mam: something deeper, more raw. Something that had been eating at her on their earlier journey, taking the smile and the life out of her.
He was glad, after all, that she hadn’t given him the chance to ask just now. It was none of his business. His concern might have appeared horribly intrusive, and he could feel anger simmering deep inside her, just waiting to be unleashed. She was keeping a lid on it, but only just. Whatever it was, he sensed, this was something Carys was going to have to work out for herself. But there was still a dull ache inside him, wishing he could help.
Carys had pulled them away from the jetty and was now manoeuvring the little boat to take a wide berth around Avalon. They’d been too young, he acknowledged, watching Carys, her face turned away from him as she concentrated on avoiding the treacherous mudflats around the little island. Too young, too naïve. Too innocent of life and the unexpected places it can take you. What they’d once had was in the past. He admitted the fact to himself. Maybe he’d always had a fantasy that one day they would meet up again and the old feelings would be there, just as they’d always been. Maybe, he admitted with an inward cringe, he had had – especially in the early years – a vision of Carys returning contrite, admitting she could not live without him, and of him forgiving her. Graciously, of course.
After today, he would always know that the Carys of this dream, the Carys he remembered, was gone forever. It was a new Carys in front of him, handling the oars with an inner confidence he had not noticed before. A Carys who was older, sharper, with a new edge to the gentleness he remembered so well. She had thrown off the constriction of Rhiannon’s mohair jumper when she sat down to row, allowing him to see that the soft arms he remembered had hardened into muscle; not the vanity variety of bicep gained from slavery to a gym, but the strong healthiness of someone accustomed to hours of physical work.
This was a Carys he didn’t really know at all. It was like losing her all over again.
As they cleared the island, the facade of Plas Eden, with its encroaching ivy, loomed up on the far shore. Carys brought the boat to a halt, steadying it gently with a touch of the oars.
David gazed over Eden lake, its waters turning an indigo sheen as the sun began to leave the sky, to where the house glowed pale amongst the shadows of hills and trees.
‘Beautiful, isn’t it,’ sighed Carys, a little wistfully.
‘Yes, it is,’ he replied. Across the little boat, his eyes sought out hers. She met his gaze for a moment, then turned to look over her shoulder as she prepared to set off once more.
David watched the water drip from Carys’ raised oar, splashing into the dark water, sending countless ripples out towards the shore.
He still couldn’t imagine his life without Plas Eden. But then once he could not have imagined his life without Carys. Maybe it was just simply time to let Plas Eden go. Start his life again, freed from the estate’s all-consuming responsibilities. Lead a normal existence, whatever that might be. There was one person, at least, who would be seriously disappointed.
David grimaced. So far, he’d managed to keep the emails and phone calls away from Rhiannon and Huw, but that couldn’t last. They’d all been so certain the periodic stream of vague threats and innuendo had finally been left behind several years ago when notice had come of cousin Edmund’s death in a nursing home in Patagonia.
But now there was Edmund Meredith’s son, Edmund Jnr, who had, it appeared, taken up his father’s sense of past injustice. David had hoped meeting Edmund Jnr during his latest business trip to London would allow them to settle the matter, once and for all. One look this morning at Edmund’s sharp, well-oiled face, along with his boasts of numerous high-placed contacts in Russia and the Arab Emirates, had put that particular hope to rest.
David sighed, wearily. Whatever Edmund Meredith was up to, it was bound to involve a battle, one that could last for years. He wasn’t certain he had the stomach for a fight, not any longer. Maybe the price of keeping Eden had just become too much.
This could be the sign that the time had come to concentrate on other things. He’d done his best, but there came a point when it was just time to let go. He raised his eyes to watch Carys, still absorbed in directing the rowing boat towards the jetty. He rather liked this new Carys. She was intriguing. Getting to know her, even a little bit more, would definitely be a challenge, if nothing else.
David smiled wryly to himself. With the rest of his life falling about his ears, he could do with such a challenge.
They were now approaching the shore, following a trail of ducks and geese heading for an evening share of seed and the odd stale crust or so, trailed by Hallelujah, sailing slowly and deliberately behind them.
As they reached the bank where Rhiannon was waiting, a shadow in the encroaching dusk, Hallelujah directed a swift peck at an inattentive mallard daring to cross his path. The mallard shot off in a flurry of spray and shrieks of indignation, sending the rest of his kind into a panic. Raucous cries and the flapping of wings filled the air, echoing into the silence and the vast spaces of the mountains, and then dying away.
Above the nearest peak, a
point of light flashed across the sky, flaring up into blues and greens as it swept above their heads, and then was gone.
‘Wow,’ breathed Carys.
‘Spectacular,’ said David. ‘I haven’t seen a meteor like that in ages. We’ve still got Dad’s telescope, you know. There’s so little light pollution here, you get amazing views of the skies. Rhiannon and me have turned into proper stargazing geeks, when we get a chance.’ He cleared his throat and tried to sound casual. ‘You’d be really welcome to join us one night.’
He could feel the hesitation. He could positively hear her mind working, searching around for some credible reason why she couldn’t possibly. Then the resistance went out of her.
‘I’d love to,’ she murmured, as she guided the little boat to the shore.
Chapter Fourteen
Carys paused at the bottom of the steep flight of stairs, blinking in the darkness, not quite sure where to go next.
As her eyes adjusted, the basement of Wyn’s Electricals opened out into a vast cavernous space. Thick sheets of grey sound insulation hung from the walls and the ceiling, like the insides of giant egg cartons. Not exactly pretty, but no doubt it did its job in preventing half of Pont-ar-Eden high street writing to the council and marching down here to protest at the noise.
‘Hello?’ called Carys tentatively. Her voice echoed around her. In the centre of the dimly lit space, she could make out a drum set and microphone stands, surrounded by several abandoned electric guitars and a full-sized harp, like a land-locked Marie Celeste, its performers spirited away halfway through a verse.
A door opened, letting light flood out. A woman in her early thirties, her short curly hair revealing a pair of intricate dangling earrings, emerged from a room crammed with computers and sound desks, and which was full to bursting with boys of all shapes and sizes.
‘Hi Carys,’ said Mari Lewis, making out the visitor. Since almost everyone in Pont-ar-Eden knew everyone else, any introductions were unnecessary.
Mari was one of those who had stayed in Pont-ar-Eden, leaving only to gain her teaching qualification and a couple of years’ experience teaching music in a tough inner Manchester comprehensive, before bringing her energy and enthusiasm back to Talarn Secondary. She was the first to volunteer when Merlin Gwyn got himself police-checked for working with youngsters.
‘Hi, Mari.’
‘Looking for Merlin, are you?’
Carys nodded. ‘They said in the shop he was down here.’
‘He was.’ Mari Lewis peered around in the gloom. ‘The band are just on a break at the minute, but he’ll be around here somewhere.’
‘He isn’t really expecting me,’ said Carys, hastily. ‘I should have phoned first. I can come another day.’
‘No, no that’s fine.’ Mari gestured towards a small room in the depths of the basement, whose partially open door revealed a desk containing a computer and printer and an ‘in’ tray overflowing with papers. ‘He must be on the phone. He’ll be out in a sec.’
As if in reply to this, the door to the office was pulled wide open and Merlin himself, cordless handset clamped to one ear, waved a biro in her direction in a gesture of welcome.
‘Organised chaos,’ said Mari, with a grin. ‘Sorry, got to go. It’s my job to see this lot don’t find their way round the internet controls and start accessing porn. Or smoke in the loos,’ she added. ‘Nice to see you, Carys. Good to see your mam looking so much better.’
‘Sure, sure,’ Merlin was saying as Mari vanished and Carys slowly made her way towards him. ‘Tuesday? Yeah, no problem. I’ll be here all day.’ He began scribbling furiously on a pad of paper. ‘No problem. I’ll email directions to you. The SatNav can take you round some pretty windy roads, if you don’t keep an eye out. Pont-ar-Eden,’ he said, in answer to some question, annunciating each word of the name carefully. ‘Yeah, it is a long name. Means “Bridge over the River Eden”.’ He waved for Carys to follow him back inside the little office. ‘Yes, there are apples. No, no snakes.’ The biro was put down. ‘Look, sorry mate, got to go. Visitors.’ His eyes went skywards. ‘Yeah, they had clothes the last time I looked. Might get arrested, otherwise. Thanks, mate.’ He put down the phone. ‘Wise guys, eh? Why is it they never can resist the old jokes about paradise and the Tree of Life? Wait ’till he finds there’s a “Nazareth” and a “Bethlehem” just down the road and half the chapels have Old Testament names.’
In the office, the phone rang again.
‘Look, if you’re busy …’ Carys began.
‘It can wait.’ He was watching her closely, an unmistakeable question in his eyes.
She looked around the basement, playing for time and to steady the wobble in her stomach. ‘Amazing place you’ve got down here. I didn’t realise it was so big.’
A pleased look crossed his face, replacing the question. ‘This is the sort of place I dreamed of when I was a kid. Pont-ar-Eden can’t keep on living in the past, or there’ll be no one left in twenty years or so. I’d like to think I was helping towards taking it into the future.’
‘I’m sure the kids love it.’
‘Yes, they do. And they give so much back, too. All that energy and creativity. It’s good to be reminded, sometimes.’ He gave a rueful smile. ‘The music business is not always a nice one. It’s easy to get jaded at times and forget what it was that got you there in the first place. Come on, I’ll show you around.’
By the time Carys had peered into miniature studios stuffed to the gunnels with recording equipment and admired the room flanked with computers, the musicians’ refuelling break was over.
As Carys followed her guide back into the central space, figures could be seen moving in the semi-darkness. A cymbal chimed on the little stage, followed by a drum roll. There was a high-pitched squeal of microphone feedback, instantly cut.
‘I know what you mean about this being the kind of place you’d have dreamed of as a kid. Even though I can’t play a note, I’d have loved this when I was their age,’ said Carys, wistfully, watching the group of teenagers getting themselves together.
‘It’s always been a dream of mine, making a place for the kids in Pont-ar-Eden,’ replied Merlin, quietly. ‘I never quite thought it would come true. It was slow at first, but looks like we’re going to need a waiting list at this rate.’
She watched him. ‘Plas Eden would make an amazing recording space.’
‘I’m sure it would.’ He met her eyes. ‘I haven’t changed my mind, though. This is small, and manageable. My days of wild ambition are over. I don’t want to be responsible for loads of hormonally challenged teenagers, and I don’t want any media attention and the whole thing turned into The X Factor, thank you very much. This way, I can keep small. Do things on my terms.’
‘Oh.’ More figures were appearing. A spotlight was switched on, sending a flood of colour into the gloom. A girl appeared in the spotlight. She was wearing a loose cotton dress with bits of emerald velvet let into the skirt, the kind you get from ethnic-type shops that smell of incense and faraway places. Her skin was pale, with just a faint scattering of freckles, set off by a long sweep of dark chestnut and copper hair, most of which had been brushed away from her face and twisted behind her head, to be held in place by a blunt pencil with a rubber at one end.
‘That’s Buddug’s daughter, isn’t it?’ said Carys, as the girl sang quietly, half under her breath, picking out chords on an acoustic guitar in an experimental fashion to go with her tune.
‘Yes.’ Merlin’s voice was thoughtful.
‘Buddug said she had a good voice.’
‘She does. A real haunting quality. Very distinctive. And she’s a good little songwriter, too.’
Carys frowned, suddenly uneasy. Merlin seemed to have mellowed into a nice guy with time, but that predatory figure of twenty years ago could still be there somewhere. Did people really change that much?
She discovered Merlin watching her, as if reading her mind. ‘Yes, I know,’ he said. ‘Hannah
would be a publicist’s dream. And maybe one day, when she’s older and has more experience, and knows who she really is and what she wants and can understand what she’s getting into if she goes into the music business …’ He gave a wry smile. ‘It’s not just the girls who are exploited, you know. I learnt that the hard way, when I left Pont-ar-Eden for the bright lights of fame and fortune.’
‘You seem to have done okay.’
‘Not half as okay as a couple of our managers,’ he retorted. ‘At least in the financial sense. Me and the band were properly screwed at least twice before we learned the ropes. In those circumstances, you learn fast or you sink.’ His voice softened. ‘I wouldn’t willingly put anyone else through that. And especially not someone that vulnerable. I can’t imagine the guts it took for Buddug to get those kids free from their dad, and I know she worries about the damage done just by the violence they must have witnessed. To be honest with you, she isn’t entirely a hundred per cent about Hannah being here at all.’
‘I see,’ said Carys. She met his eyes. In the instant, her mind was made up. She smiled.
‘Did I pass the test?’
‘Test?’
‘The ‘not-a-complete-bastard-after-all’ test.’
Carys felt herself blushing furiously. ‘I didn’t – I wasn’t…’ She flustered herself to a halt, and grinned. ‘Possibly,’ she retorted. She used to be good at this. It was one of the things she missed about being in an office, part of the week, at least; the quick-thinking, edged-with-flirtation banter, covering only thinly the serious negotiations going on beneath. Her brain needed a pencil-sharpener taking to it, most definitely. She could feel the old adrenalin begin to stir.
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