by Claire Peate
“Oooh, I have just no idea how you could cheer Louisa up!” Henna burst into giggles and Gwyn almost looked like he was blushing.
“I think you have to turn on the Welsh charm,” I said to him.
“It’s on already!” he said in despair, making us laugh.
“Glad to see you’re all having fun without me,” the hen returned, mournfully, bearing a double gin and tonic. “Can you believe that they don’t have Bacardi Breezers here?”
“Well, yes,” I said, failing to picture the local farmers coming in after a hard day spent mucking out the cow sheds and ploughing the fields and then cracking open pineapple alcopops.
Louisa perched herself down on a footstool near to Gwyn and asked the magic question, “So, Gwyn, are you married then?”
Clearly the phone call had sharpened her tactics – she was going in for the kill.
Five pairs of eyes fixed on him. Gwyn smiled and contemplated how to handle the question. However he did it, I knew he wouldn’t answer like the greasy City boys with “So what if I am darlin’” or “Would it matter if I was?”
“No,” he said, after what seemed like an eon and a half, “no I’m not.”
“Oh.” Five heads nodded. Five heads started to be filled with all sorts of saucy ideas if the faraway expressions on our faces were anything to go by. Actually, five except Cathy, who looked as though she were straining to listen in to the conversations around her going on in Welsh, no doubt getting her linguistic kicks from that.
“I expect it must be quite lonely tucked away in your farm on the mountains,” Henna said after a moment of day-dreaming. “Are there many women round here?”
Now that, I knew, was a stupid question. Thank God it wasn’t me that came up with that one. Still, you had to wonder if there was an element of truth in it. How many people lived round here anyway? Slim pickings...
“There are women.” Gwyn hid a smile by taking another swig of his pint. “There’s a woman over the valley in Brecon. And I believe there are a couple up in Builth Wells, well, so I’ve heard anyway.”
“Oh, you have such a wicked sense of humour,” Louisa gushed, tapping him on the arm playfully. “Honestly, Henna, what a silly question to ask.”
Louisa was flirting like her very life depended on it and it was painful to watch. It was as if she had wiped from her memory the fact that a) she had a fiancé and b) she’d just turned purple shouting obscenities at him in front of Gwyn and her mates. Here she was acting as though nothing had happened and she was this fun-loving flirty girl. It was all a bit weird to me. Added to this her left nipple was now completely exposed, her top having ridden down over the last few minutes. I was in a real dilemma whether, as a friend, I would do better to tell her about it, or whether to not tell her and hope she just tugs her top up unconsciously and never realises what a tit (ha ha) she’s made of herself. Total quandary.
I sat back and picked up my pint. It was half-gone. I looked at Gwyn who looked mock-surprised and then turned back to Louisa again, concentrating hard. A group had just left the pub and I now had a clear view of the old farmer sitting at the bar, still casting furtive little looks at the barwoman pulling the pints, hastily concentrating on his pint the moment it appeared she might look his way.
I think he probably did love her. The way he was gazing over at her was so expressive. Sad almost. In my mind he was a would-be lover of this woman. He probably came in to the pub just to be near her and I wondered whether in all the hustle and bustle of running the place she ever really noticed him looking at her. He was quite subtle in his looks, just casting a quick glance in her direction every now and then. She worked hard – she hadn’t stopped since we’d got there, serving drinks and food, taking orders and cleaning tables. But surely, surely she must be aware of him? And how many months or years had he been coming to the pub, sitting there with his pint, content just to watch her flit about him?
He was finishing his pint now and pushing it across the bar when he must have caught the glass with his sleeve. It began to fall to the floor and quick as lightning his other hand shot out from beneath his coat and caught it.
I took a quick intake of breath.
His hand! It was cut and bloodied. There was dried blood in great gashes running along the top of his hand and up his forearm. The wounds were still a livid red so they must have been fairly new.
He looked round to see if anyone had noticed so I feigned interest in the remains of my scampi until he resumed his position, left hand tucked into his jacket pocket protectively, right hand now cradling the empty glass.
“What is it?” Gwyn brought me back down to earth. The girls were talking amongst themselves and only he had noticed my reaction.
“The man at the bar...”
“What, Tomos?” he asked, pointing subtly in the old farmer’s direction with one of my chips.
“Yes, him. He looks familiar. Why?”
“He was on that picture I showed you last night. You know, the one with the renovation works. He was looking miserable. He does that.”
Ahh yes. The rafter photo.
“So do you know him, then?” I quickly pushed all stripped-to-the-waist images to the back of my mind; after all Louisa wasn’t going to let anything come between her and her farmer quarry so why bother letting myself get too carried away with the whole thing? Very sensible of me.
“It’s more like I know of him. Nobody really knows him.” Gwyn leant in towards me and I caught a whiff of his aftershave or deodorant. Something good smelling. In that moment I became super-aware of just how close he was sitting next to me, and although Louisa had positioned herself next to him, his body was more aligned to where I was sitting than to where she was sitting. My heart beat that little bit faster. It was very hard not to get too carried away.
“The man keeps himself to himself,” Gwyn was saying, munching the chip and going to get another from my plate. “Always has. Nice enough chap, bit morose I suppose. Why?”
“He’s not a friend of yours?” I said, wanting to clarify his relationship with the man before I went and talked about him. I’d been caught out by that before – talking about someone behind their back only to find out I was talking to that person’s best friend. Not good. Still, a valuable lesson for the future – if that’s not too much of a DLC thing to say.
“No, he’s not a friend of mine,” Gwyn confirmed, “just another farmer who keeps to his own company. Why do you ask?”
“Well, the thing is,” I began quietly, looking around in case any of the other girls were listening in, which they weren’t as they were all trying to console a tearful Louisa who had finally cracked and started to talk about James. “The thing is I’ve been watching that old farmer for a while this evening, and just now I thought I saw a glimpse of his left hand, the one that he keeps hidden, can you see? It looked like it was all cut up. I was just a bit shocked to see it like that...” I petered out. Now I’d said it, I felt a bit silly having mentioned it at all. It was probably nothing, just some regular sort of farming accident. And accidents must happen all the time in farming, mustn’t they? It wasn’t as if he spent his days in an office filing sheets of paper and operating fax machines. The man did real work which involved sharp blades and machines that had rusty edges and jagged bits. He must get scratched up all the time. Mind you, office work can be pretty dangerous; I once shot an enormous staple through my thumb when I was binding the colossal end-of-year reports in the office. I passed out with the pain and bled over six sets of appendices. After I’d been bandaged up in the first aid room, I had one hell of a job organising the printing up of unbloodied replacement sheets. But that was just me. Most people don’t maim themselves in the workplace.
Gwyn was peering over at Tomos now, hoping to see for himself a glimpse of the wounded hand. The old farmer was busy emptying his pocket no doubt looking for change for another drink. He was clearly trying very hard to keep his injured hand hidden beneath his coat. But it couldn’t be done –
he couldn’t get to the change and keep his hand hidden at the same time. In a flash, he exposed the wounds again, emptied his pocket and buried the offending limb back in his coat, looking round to see if anyone had noticed, but thankfully not looking in our direction.
“Christ, you’re right.” Gwyn let out a low whistle. “That’s a bad injury, that is. Wonder what did it? Looks like it goes all up his arm as well. Did you see that?”
“No. I just saw the top of his hand up to just above the wrist. The cuts look pretty deep, don’t they?”
“A cat attack?” Gwyn looked at me and raised his eyebrows.
“You think so?”
He nodded, slowly. “There’s got to be something out there.”
I shivered. “Have you read the flyers?” I pointed to the leaflets on the table.
“Yes. And I saw that news report where the reporter was attacked. They re-showed it on the news this morning. Apparently there are police helicopters coming over.”
“I know. I saw them this afternoon.”
“There you go then.”
“Gwyn.” I leant over to him, conscious that Louisa was starting to watch me with hawk eyes. “Why would Tomos have been attacked by a big cat and be keeping it a secret? Wouldn’t you be boasting about it if it was you? Or at least sharing it with someone?”
“It might not be a cat attack…”
“I know.” I rethought for a moment. “Does he have a dog?”
“Yes, but I can guarantee that those injuries didn’t come from his dog.”
“How do you know?”
“Old Shep lost all his teeth years ago. The animal never leaves the farmhouse these days, he’s so decrepit.”
“But –”
“Gwynfor, we have a theory,” Louisa cut in, all thrust bosoms and dazzling smile. “Does that old farmer have a thing for the barmaid over there? He’s been staring at her all evening.”
“Well, that’s very perceptive of you.” Gwyn instantly snapped out of his reverie and, finishing his pint, he put it squarely on the beer mat in front of him. “It’s no secret that many many years back he did have a thing for Angharad there. I mean, we’re going back some time now, over thirty years.”
“Oh, how charming. A tragic love story,” Louisa sighed.
“Something like that.” Gwyn looked amused. “The pair had eventually got together and were all set for marrying one another when along comes this chap Elijah from mid Wales and settles in the farm at the top of the valley. This Elijah was something of a handsome man in his youth and Angharad was smitten from the moment she set eyes on him. The wedding between Tomos and Angharad was called off, families were set against each other and within a year Angharad had married Elijah and a son was on the way.”
“Thwarted love!” exclaimed Cathy, usually so quiet but now animated. “How romantic.”
“Not for old Tomos it bloody wasn’t,” Gwyn said. “He’s still pretty bitter about the whole thing and won’t talk about it. Not that he talks about much, but still…”
“So sad,” I said, pushing what few chips Gwyn had left me around my plate. My perfectly manicured fingernails glinted in the lamp on the table. They really were beautiful. I spread them on the table top in front of me, just in case Gwyn looked down and paid attention to something other than what was on my dinner plate.
The evening wore on, and in proper hen weekend style we managed to keep Louisa out of the black mood that was on the horizon. Many gin and tonics later she was back to her normal vivacious self. And it hadn’t taken long before she’d toned down the manic flirting with Gwyn as she realised she wasn’t getting anywhere with him. He remained as friendly as ever but didn’t actually go so far as to flirt back at her, or indeed with anyone else, so it looked as though she had resigned herself to a good night out with mates rather than going on a mission to bed the farmer. For tonight at least. I was relieved she’d stopped her manhunt for the time being, not just because I would have been not a little jealous, but also because it would have put a real damper on the evening. She was the glue that bound us; an evening without her would seem very odd – just a collection of people thrown together for no particular reason. It was all very well knowing Laura already but I wouldn’t choose to hang out with her. And Henna was good fun but watching her pick her face all night was definitely one of the contributing factors to me not eating much of my dinner. And Cathy – it was obviously a bad weekend for Cathy. Perhaps ordinarily she would be quite a laugh but right now she seemed rather wet. We were an odd bunch really. Louisa certainly didn’t pick her friends according to a strict set of criteria.
As the gin and tonics flowed Louisa became quite the entertainer, regaling us with tales from the Absorb-O department where apparently James had turned round the fortune of the brand by applying the same marketing device that cosmetics companies were using. He was single-handedly responsible for the limited edition Absorb-O prints. They were so well received that an artist had even made a roll into a piece of artwork that had been installed in the Tate Modern for a season.
“So, like, what sort of prints are they?” Henna asked, dabbing a weeping spot with a napkin.
“At Christmas he did a cracker-joke roll with jokes printed on it. And there was even a Hitler roll with his face printed on every sheet. That was enormously controversial, but it sold like you would not believe.”
“Oh my God, I heard about that. It was all over the news,” I said.
Louisa nodded, smiling. “Actually I think that was going a bit too far, but that’s just me. His latest one is a Valentine’s Day print that’s being sold through those high-street sex shops.”
Cathy’s eyes were as wide as saucers.
“Do they have hearts printed on them or something?” Laura asked, lining up her empty Guinness pints on the table.
“Not exactly.” Louisa looked uncomfortable but knew she wasn’t going to get away with not saying any more. “Remember those Joy of Sex books?”
“With the bearded man?”
She nodded. “He got access to the pictures.”
“Oh that’s just brilliant!” Henna clapped her hands together. “Inspired!”
“God help us if he gets promoted to the toothpaste division,” I said. “What’s he going to do to them? Joy of Sex toothpaste?”
I’d gone too far. The others groaned and Gwyn looked at me half-shocked. I could feel myself turning bright red. Damn Welsh beer, it was strong stuff.
Fortunately Angharad shouted in Welsh from the bar, adding “Drinking up time!” for the benefit of the English speakers.
“Come on then, girls.” Gwyn rose to his feet. We’d all finished our drinks a while ago and no one had bothered to go to the bar to get more. “I’ll walk you home. Don’t want you mauled to death by a kitten or anything.”
“That’s not funny actually,” Cathy said quietly. “You said yourself you think there’s a big cat out there.”
“Ah, don’t worry. Think about it, why would it want to attack a group of people? No point. But I’ll walk you home all the same.”
“And who will walk you home afterwards?” Louisa grinned and linked her arm in his. “You’ll have to stay the night.”
Gwyn laughed and patted her hand.
In a flurry of commotion we piled out of the pub and reassembled on the road outside. I drew my arms around me; it was surprisingly chilly and the wind had picked up, whistling down the road and shaking the trees. And it was super-dark again. I peered into the black woods straight ahead, imagining eyes staring out at me. What if it was just there, watching us?
“Rach?” Laura slapped my shoulder.
“Fucking hell, Laura!”
“OK, OK! Calm down. Come on, let’s go.”
We made slow progress down the black lane to the Hen House. Mostly because Gwyn was impeded having Louisa clinging on one side, Henna on the other and Louisa employing various tactics to peel Henna off and have him all to herself. Laura, Cathy and I brought up the rear, concentrating ha
rd on Gwyn’s rear rather than looking about us and shining our torches into the dense blackness that loomed on either side. We preferred not to know what was there.
Nobody said much. Every so often Louisa would shout, “Henna!” when Henna tried to get Gwyn all to herself and Henna would say, “What?” but apart from that everyone listened to the creaks and cracks and flutters from the black woods. It was hard to navigate the pot holes in the road and as before every few steps one of us would wobble into one in our inappropriate footwear and be tugged back by the others.
Finally we were back at the Hen House. The lights were on downstairs just as we’d left them, making it look even more inviting; a sanctuary away from the danger outside.
“There you go then, girls.” Gwyn stood back as we walked inside, glad to be out of the escalating gale that was whipping round us.
“You are coming in, aren’t you?” Louisa looked mortified, smoothing her hair down as best she could and yanking her top up unceremoniously.
“I don’t think so, sorry. I’ll be up at five and need to get some sleep.”
“Yes but…”
“It was nice to see you all again.” He nodded at us and made to walk away.
“Wait!” I ran into the hallway and grabbed the poker. “Take this. Just in case.” I ran out onto the driveway and put it in his hand. He took it and briefly he put his hand on my arm.
“Thanks. I’ll bring it back.”
“OK.” I stood rooted to the spot. He touched my arm!
“Well, you ought to go in…” He smiled.
“Oh yes. Of course.” I bounded in to the hallway where all the girls were watching. “Night, then.”
He waved and walked into the night again.
“You were a bit forward there, Rach,” Louisa muttered. Laura wagged a mock-accusing finger at me behind Louisa’s back.
17
A gale was blowing. The wind had been picking up when we came back from the pub but an hour or so later when we headed off to bed it worsened, howling round the house and crashing into the woods making one hell of a din.
