by Claire Peate
“Are you serious?” He looked at me and brought the Land Rover to a halt. “You are, aren’t you?” He laughed out loud. “Oh you’re so…”
I looked at him. He stopped and pursed his lips together.
“I’m so what?”
He shook his head.
“Urgh!” I said in mock indignation, but secretly overjoyed and wondering what his word would have been. What was I? So lovely? So sweet? So damn quirky? Or was it mad, bizarre, deranged…
I chose to think that it was probably one of the former. Did he like me? Did he look at me the same way that I looked at him? I shot him a sideways glance as he drove up the track, admiring his strong and ruddy profile. Lovely.
I’d never been in a Land Rover before and it was entirely different to what I would have expected. It was a bit like being in a car when car thieves had stripped out all the interior furnishings. And raised it about a metre off the ground. The clutch was a stick that came out of the floor, there were wires poking out everywhere and the dashboard looked like it was straight out of the seventies; a black plastic angular set of boxes with no-nonsense dials that told you speed and petrol. There were no thermometer or average speed displays in this vehicle. The seats were quite comfortable though, I just had to keep my legs over to the right to avoid the sharp seam where the seat cover had been ripped open and then badly mended with some duck tape. And there was a funny smell. Coming from the back…
We had arrived at the pub. Gwyn parked out at the front and escorted me inside, his body close to mine which I enjoyed immensely and I really didn’t feel too scared about the cat at all now I had a strong Welsh farmer pressed against me.
It was a Saturday night and the pub was full. There were a rowdy crowd of men near the bar, talking loudly in Welsh – not German – and older men and women sitting at the tables elsewhere. I scanned round the room quickly and was relieved to see Tomos in the seat that he’d occupied the other night; by the fireplace, head down, absorbed by his pint. I tapped Gwyn on his shoulder. He followed my line of sight and nodded, and then led me to the bar. A few of the burly Welshmen at the bar slapped Gwyn on the back, greeting him in Welsh. I just smiled and hoped my mascara hadn’t run after the crying earlier on. Why hadn’t I checked my appearance in the wing mirror? Did Land Rovers even have the luxury of wing mirrors? Probably not.
“What do you want?” Gwyn asked.
“Lemonade?”
“Really?”
“My liver will never forgive me if I have any more alcohol.”
“Fine, then. Lemonade it is,” and with that he turned back to Angharad who had come over to us, all winks and smiles.
They talked in Welsh, which I couldn’t make any sense of, even though I’d been exposed to it for a couple of years now. I think I caught the name “Tomos” somewhere in their conversation. It must have been a question about what Tomos was drinking as Angharad pulled a pint the same colour as the one that was before the old farmer.
Gwyn and Angharad rattled on so I dipped back from the bar and surreptitiously watched Tomos from across the crowded, smoky room. It seemed ridiculous now to think that I had once entertained the notion that this little old man with a weather-beaten face and hunched shoulders might be going round the countryside with a bread knife doing the attacks on animals himself. But then, how much more of sensible was it to suppose that he was keeping a puma locked up in a dog kennel or wherever it was and using it to do his dirty business? Either way it seemed crazy to associate this rather sad old man who was quietly minding his own business with that befanged wild animal lurking outside that tore sheep in two. Perhaps the whole thing was just a load of nonsense? Maybe I was just too eager to get one up on Marcia and do something exciting this weekend and was looking for an adventure when there wasn’t one to be had? Tomos’ injuries could well have been the result of a farming accident and as for the cat I’d seen on the road half an hour ago – well, it could have been just a large domestic cat that some farmer’s wife had overfed. Couldn’t it?
No.
Not unless the farmer’s wife had slipped the animal muscle-enhancing power drinks beloved of bodybuilders. No, that was definitely an exotic animal out there. I wondered where it was right now, prowling around outside, recognising Gwyn’s Land Rover and trying the door handles. Sniffing the ground and knowing that I was inside the pub. Then it would be waiting for someone to push open the pub door and it would be inside, hunting me down, padding silently on the pub carpet, slinking beneath the tables and chairs. The one that got away wasn’t going to be so lucky next time…
Gwyn was kept talking at the bar but I couldn’t join in as I didn’t understand what they were saying. The words came out so fast it was a wonder that anyone ever understood each other.
I glanced over at Tomos. He was nearing the end of his pint. We should make a move over there before he either left for the night or bought his own pint.
Gwyn turned to me and his friends all looked in my direction. “They want to know what you think of Tretower?” he asked.
“Oh. I like it,” I said. Did they not speak English? That was crazy.
“It’s not the best of times to be yer though, is it?” one of the men said to me laughing into his pint. “Have you seen our wild cat then?”
Oh. They did speak English.
“Erm, no,” I said, glancing quickly at Gwyn who was almost imperceptibly shaking his head.
“Well, it’s a nasty business, see,” another was saying, still in English. “It’s Elijah I feel sorry for; the animal has clearly got it in for him. I wonder what it is about his animals that make them so susceptible, like. Must have the tastiest Welsh lamb in the valleys, I reckon!” More laughter and “oh aye-ing”. “It’s like this, see – his farm isn’t the most remote, and it isn’t the only one to back on to woodland. And we all know his walls and fences are in good shape after last year. Remember that, lads? Building up those walls over a weekend!”
There was more laughter and they slipped back to Welsh again.
“Come on,” Gwyn said quietly, picking up Tomos’ pint. We threaded our way through the pub towards the old hunched farmer.
“Mind if we join you?” Gwyn asked him. Tomos raised his eyes briefly, frowned and then went back to staring at his pint again. He mumbled something, which can’t have been in English because I didn’t even catch one word of it.
“Well, my friend here,” Gwyn replied, pointing to me, “doesn’t speak any Welsh and she’d like to talk to you too.”
“Saesneg!” spat the old man, still not looking up from his pint.
Saesneg. I’d come across this before in Cardiff; you couldn’t well avoid it if you were English and living in Wales. It was the Welsh equivalent of the Scots and Irish Sassenach. It still meant “Saxon”, that is English, but whereas the Scots term had a certain negative connotation the Welsh word didn’t. Apparently. Still, it was the way he spat the word out that gave it its full meaning in this instance. I’d only come across a handful of anti-English Welshmen (always men) but they’d certainly left an impression.
“Yes, I’m English,” I said defensively, “but I live in Cardiff.”
“Cardiff,” he laughed. “That’s not Welsh! So you think you’ll be understanding some of our words then.” He smiled meanly and took a sip of the pint that Gwyn had brought him, without uttering one word of thanks for it.
“What’s Welsh for miserable old racist with a chip on his shoulder?” I asked, looking Tomos in the eye.
Tomos laughed and pulled out a stool. “Come on then. Sit your English-self down!”
I had no idea what to make of him but I did as Gwyn did and sat down, putting my drink on the table before me.
“So, Tomos, how are things?”
“Same as ever Gwyn. Same as ever.”
“Not sold your farm yet, then?”
“No.” He looked at me. “And not to a Saesneg either.”
“So the Englishman’s still interested in buying, is he the
n?”
“Upped his offer yesterday. Still said no. Not having the valley overrun with the damn English. This isn’t bloody Herefordshire. The great Owain Glyndwr didn’t fight for this beautiful old country of ours just to let us hand it to the enemy a few centuries later for hard cash.”
“So English people aren’t allowed to hold land in Wales then, are they?” I asked, rankled.
“Not if I can help it.” He turned to Gwyn and added, “Do you know the Englishman actually had the cheek to tell me that Monmouthshire was the new Gloucestershire? Up and coming! That’s what he said it was – up and coming! What am I supposed to do with that, I ask you? Daft idiot.”
“What did you do?” asked Gwyn, suppressing a smile.
“I did what any good Welshman would have done, young Gwynfor. I hit him with my shepherd’s crook and didn’t stop hitting him until he climbed back into his city car and drove out the gates. Bloody English.”
I gave him a sarcastic smile and before he could get any more pointed comments into the conversation, I said rather spitefully, “You will never guess what I bumped into on the way up here tonight.”
Gwyn put a hand on my arm. “Steady,” he said, but I’d hooked the old farmer’s attention. He sat up and looked to Gwyn questioningly.
“Tomos…” Gwyn put his pint down and softly continued, “Why don’t you tell us about the puma?”
For the briefest of seconds the old man dropped his guarded and miserable expression and looked plain shocked. Quickly recovering, he fiddled with the beer mat in front of him. “So it’s a puma then, is it? Didn’t know that.”
Gwyn nodded. “Yes, it’s a puma. And did you know they’ve got a team of police marksmen and a professional game hunter going over the valley trying to find it?”
“No. I didn’t know that either.” The old man raised his eyebrows and carried on feigning indifference. We weren’t getting very far.
Gwyn tried a different tactic. “How’s your dog? I heard that Old Shep got attacked by the puma, is it true?”
“Who told you?”
“One of the lads over at Caerwent Farm mentioned it.”
“Well he’s got no business…”
“So was Old Shep attacked by the big cat?”
Tomos shrugged. “May have been. May not have been.” He carried on fiddling with the beer mat, turning it one way and then the other. But never looking back up at Gwyn or me.
Gwyn was a marvel at interrogating the old farmer. From my super-experienced position in the art of interrogation – having watched nearly all the police programmes from Bergerac right through to Midsomer Murders – I knew that Gwyn was probably doing the right thing by not jumping straight in and accusing him of keeping a puma. Which is exactly what I would have done if I were in his position. I’m sure that I would naturally default to being the bad cop, slamming my hands down on the beery table and shouting, “Show us the cat! Show us the cat, you racist Welsh bastard, before I throw you in the slammer and toss away the key!” Maybe it was the whole “Saesneg” thing. I’m not usually prone to violent talk.
As it was, there was no slamming of hands down on beery tables. I just watched the two of them and sipped my lemonade, playing the silent bad cop which from my TV-cop experience was often more intimidating. Who knows what lurked beneath that smooth untroubled surface? Dressed in my gold party frock and with hair in ringlets I looked about at bad-cop as Little Miss Muffet but still, I tried to affect a tough façade.
“OK, Tomos.” Gwyn held his hands up. “I’m not going to play games with you, I’ll speak plainly. You’ve got the puma, haven’t you? Somehow or other you’ve gone and captured a wild animal and now you’re using it against Elijah’s stock. That’s how you got the scratches on your arm and that’s how Old Shep, who we all know barely leaves your farmyard let alone your house, came to be attacked. The cat’s on your property and under your care.”
Tomos considered for a moment before slowly looking up at Gwyn and me and shrugging.
“Well,” Gwyn pushed, seeing he was winning Tomos round.
“You’re half-right, young Gwynfor,” Tomos relented, eventually.
“Go on then…”
“It’s like this, see,” he began, leaning forward conspiratorially and looking at us both for the first time since Gwyn had talked about the cat. He sighed, “I’ve known this cat for a long time now. Years, you might say. She’s lived down yer in the valley by Coed y Brenin and she’s never done me or my animals any bit of harm so I just let her be and things carry on day to day. Just treated her like a foreign neighbour.” He looked over to me. “Like an Englishman.”
He winked. I found myself smiling.
“Anyway,” he continued, “I suppose I gets it into my head that perhaps I can use it to upset the boat a little for Elijah. You know how things are. You’re not stupid, Gwynfor Jones. That man had all the good luck in the world. He got her.” He nodded his head towards Angharad. “Got the best farm in the district, best flock at the best price. And six months ago would you believe it the man has not one but three healthy male grandchildren from his son’s wife. Male triplets! The man never put a foot wrong in life, did he? Where as I? I just struggle along and keep my head down and no one thinks about me. No one cares about me. Well, I don’t know, call it what you will – jealously I suppose, but I got to thinking. And the idea just pops into my head.”
“To use the cat.”
“If that’s what you want to call it.”
“You starved it?”
“Not starved. Let’s just say I didn’t let her feed for a while. Sharpened her appetite so she went for the bigger plates of food.” He shrugged again. And then I saw that look again, the one I’d seen earlier in the evening when I’d been talking to Joe the policeman. The look that said, I have more to say but don’t know whether I should tell you.
“How on earth did you capture it?” I asked, wondering how this rather doddery old farmer caught a very wild animal. Half-picturing him standing in his knackered old Barbour swinging a lasso around his head and hauling the writhing and howling beast in.
“That was easy enough to do, my young English friend,” he replied, “the animal’s obviously been someone’s pet or something. There’s not much wild about her. Anyways, she lived with me for a little while, bedded down near the sheds at the back of the farm during the winter and taking scraps of meat every so often, so we’d just sort of got used to each other, I suppose.”
“Where do you keep it now?” Gwyn asked.
Tomos looked hesitant again. Now I was sure that there was something he was withholding from us. But he’d been so candid up to now how could he possibly have anything more shocking to add?
“Where do you keep the puma, Tomos?” Gwyn asked again, leaning towards him, just like a policeman in an interview on TV.
“That’s the thing, isn’t it,” the old farmer began, slowly, going back to fiddling with the beer mats and running his thick calloused fingers along the edges. “It’s like this. I don’t have her any more, see.”
Gwyn and I looked at each other.
“What?” I said.
“Well,” Tomos sighed, “she got away, didn’t she?”
“When?” we both said in unison.
“A few days ago…”
“Bloody hell! That explains why the sightings have gone up all over the valley!” Gwyn leant back and glanced around, aware that he’d been too loud.
“And why I saw it on the way up here,” I volunteered.
“She’s here?” The old farmer’s eyes lit up and he looked towards the window expectantly. The poor old man. He must really care about the puma, however he’d mistreated her. Perhaps that lonely wild animal was the only friend he had? An abandoned cat and an abandoned old farmer, keeping each other company in this hidden valley.
“We were having this party at the Hen House, Ty Mawr…” I began.
“Party, eh?” Tomos’ eyes twinkled. “I don’t recall seeing an invite.”
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“Well, we’re all English, Tomos. You’d hate it. What would Owen Glendower say?”
Tomos shrugged. “I could have put that behind me.”
I laughed. “Next time maybe. Anyway, there were all these police marksmen that my friend invited and a big game hunter from Kenya…”
Tomos sat back, alarmed. “So there really is a hunter? Here?”
“At Ty Mawr. Fifteen minutes walk away.”
“My God.” He downed his pint and sat back, arms crossed. “So what happened at the party? Why are these men in the valley again?”
“Like Gwyn said, they’re here to get your cat. I was talking to one of the marksmen earlier this evening and he said that it was common knowledge a big cat lived round here, but it’s only since it started attacking people’s property that it’s become an issue.” Tomos was shaking his head. I continued, “I started to think about everything I’d seen during the few days I’d been here and, well, I got to making a connection between you and the cat. I saw the cuts on your arm the other night at the pub, and I saw you the next day walking towards the village with blood on the front of your jacket.” Tomos self-consciously drew the sleeve of his checked shirt further down his hand.
“You’re very perceptive,” he acknowledged, begrudgingly.
“It was luck really, and when I thought about it all it became obvious. When I got to talking to one of these marksmen who told me that they had a theory the cat was being manipulated, well, I knew it had to be you. I set out to see Gwyn and talk to him about it. And that’s when I met it. Her. On the path between Tŷ Mawr and Gwyn’s farm.”
“At what time?”
I looked at my watch. “Half nine?”
Tomos rose to his feet and pushed back his chair. “You’re a brave girl,” he said, “English, but brave. And smart too, coming up here to find out the truth for yourself before sending in those muscle-heads with their guns and their noise.”
I smiled, happy to take the scraps of praise.
Tomos continued, “But now we’ve got to take action. We have to catch her. She’s a trusting soul and not at all afraid of people. She’ll come up to those policemen or that hunter chap as bold as brass to make friends. What did they say they would do with her once they’ve got her?”
