Digger! said Rhod enthusiastically, holding Teddy on his lap so Dan could climb up to join them. Yellow digger! You’re driving it, mate! Look at you go now – go on, say digger, then, there’s a lad.
He’s not saying anything these days, said Dan, and told him why.
Bastards, said Rhod, with non-specific disdain. What’s a little man like that ever done to them?
He fished a key out of his jacket pocket.
As promised; got you this. It’s a copy. All yours. And the pipes are in the back here. I’d do it myself but my job’s already on the line. You know what to do? You got help?
Yes, said Dan. I know what to do. And I have got help. When’s best, do you think?
I reckon about one. Nobody on site after midnight and they don’t come back before five or six. Good luck.
Teddy had gone home in the van with Lina and Theo and Mrs Evans. Covered in ice-cream. Barely a backward glance. Dan grins into the darkness and tries to imagine how they’ve managed with bedtime. The closing-time alarm has been and gone; the sun has gone down, and the sweepers and their dogs have done the rounds for drunks and druggies and anybody considering committing lewd acts in a public place. He lies curled on the floor of the digger cab and wonders where they all go these days, the people who used to break into Eden after dark.
Now Dan has the entire park to himself, and finds that his eyes can manage with the light from the city and the last chunk of a waning moon, and the stars. He walks. The concrete path is clear enough. Something large and indistinguishable crosses swiftly into a dark mass of trees up ahead. He isn’t afraid. Out in the dark, he thinks. Though it isn’t snowing, of course. Still, out in the dark, the fallow doe… fast as the stars are slow.
He walks and walks to keep warm, to keep awake, and imagines that it is years ago, and that he can feel Jane’s cold slim hand in his. Always cold, her hands. And that she is pulling him across the wet short grass of the rugby pitch to find a good open place for them to spread their coats and lie on their backs and look at the stars. Lesson One, she says, the Plough. And from there follow my finger to the Pole Star. And from there, she says, I can take you anywhere.
79.
Did she, or you, never get them in some kind of order?
Theo considers. It’s a sort of archaeological order, he says. You go down levels. That’s what I’m doing now.
She sits on the table in his study, watching him hunt through the stacks of paintings and drawings leant up against the far wall.
There are dates on some, he says. Though not all. You’re right. It is a bit chaotic.
What you should do, she says, is take photos of them all individually, and number them, and wrap and store them somewhere safe. Then you’d have them all on the computer and you’d know where they were, if ever you need them.
She pauses for a split second, then says, with a flicker of mischief, to his crouched back, you know, like water-beetles. Properly catalogued.
He ignores the beetles. Too many pictures, he says. It would take ages. I don’t have time. He straightens up briefly, and then hunkers down again, still searching.
I do, she says. And I like your mother’s stuff. I could do it, slowly, a few at a time. And I think she could even sell some of them online… I’m fed up with doing nothing. And I’m not going back to work.
No? he says, looking up at her in surprise. Since when?
Since a few days ago. I phoned my boss. If I leave, there’s more chance they’ll keep Elin. And I get a reasonable deal. I’ll be fine for a few months; the flat isn’t too bad. I paid off a big chunk of mortgage when Mum died.
Hmm, he says. I could tell you that you’re not supposed to make big life decisions when you’re ill, but I don’t suppose there’s much point in me trying.
None whatsoever, she says, and flashes him a delighted smile.
He doesn’t dare ask if that means she’ll be staying a little while longer, a few days, a few weeks, forever. He keeps leafing through the layers, until at last he finds what he’s looking for.
Look, Myra, he says. Look at this.
She flinches. Turns her head away.
He lays the picture flat on the table beside her, and puts an arm round her shoulders.
It’s OK, he says, quietly. Come on, please look.
It is clearer, in this picture done in pastels and charcoal, that the woman is made of marble, as is the man with the neat curly beard who bends over her, possessive and tender, triumphant; he cannot see, beyond the curve of her hips and shoulders, the thin-lipped face with the eyes devoid of hope.
Myra shivers and closes her eyes.
Why, she says in a whisper, are you doing this?
See that date at the bottom of the page, he says evenly, ignoring her distress. She drew this twenty-five years ago, in the museum. There was an exhibition. You know who it is?
She shakes her head.
Galatea. And that’s Pygmalion. He carves her, sculpts her out of marble, to his own specifications, as it were. And she comes alive.
She’s not happy, says Myra, grimly.
No, not in this one. There are others. Rodin did two at least; and Dali, that’s your woman made of spheres, I don’t know how the curator managed it, but she was by all accounts a seriously persuasive woman. International exhibition, major pieces, major pictures – bits of script and stills from productions of Shaw. Amazing thing. I found some old reviews online.
He looks her straight in the eyes.
You must have been there, Myra. You didn’t make them up. You saw them in the museum when you were small…You’d have been, what…
Seven or eight, says Myra, gradually understanding. Perhaps. Perhaps I did.
You see, he says calmly. No madder than the rest of us.
She lets it sink in, and begins to feel relief, the slow, slow easing of knotted anxiety inside her.
And the glass thing?
Always been there. You could have seen that any time. Like the turtle.
She shakes her head. Not any time, she says, firmly. You know I don’t go in. Not since I came back. And we left for London when I was nine.
She almost adds, but doesn’t quite, with the man.
Instead she shakes everything out of her head and slips down off the table.
That’s enough, now, she says. More than enough. Come on. I’m feeling strong today.You said you had a rowan tree to show me.
80.
It is mid-September, and they have arrived. On the first day they build the large circular stage across the moat and the flat grassy circle where the mound and the keep used to be. Then they construct the complex labyrinth of metal poles and lights and ropes and mirrors. Finally, they raise the huge white canvas marquee to cover it all, opened at one side to face the stands where the audience will sit. Luke realises, as the day wears on, that the cold will be a problem for the audience. It has already been a huge problem for the workers from the troupe, slowing everyone down, forcing them to find coats and gloves in local charity shops, and to stop every so often and climb up the steep grassy banks, or to go outside the castle walls altogether and rediscover warmth in the mellow September sun. The difficulty of performing even straightforward tasks in the thick of the silence tells on everybody. There are arguments; there are even tears, and by six o’clock Meg Vaughan looks at the washed-out, exhausted faces of her performers and sends them away to the hotel. Sleep, she signs, pulling the gloves from her cold hands to make herself clear. Go and find something to eat, go to the pub. Don’t come back before ten tomorrow morning. We’ll rehearse then. Go.
She beckons Luke over and gestures that they should climb the bank out of the worst of the silence. He has spent the day being helplessly star-struck and superbly efficient. He follows her with his heart beating a hint too fast. She has seen how quick he is with his iPad, and sits him down next to her, and leans across him, and writes:
Where is he?
Luke pulls a face. I don’t know.
Ill?
Yes.
Too ill for this?
I think he will come. Will you write to him to ask?
She shakes her head, and shrugs. Not me.
He senses a deep complication, and nods. I’ll go to the flat now, he taps, if you’re sure…
She nods her head, and looks momentarily sad. Then sharper, determined. He’s the only one talking to the family, she writes. Say it has to be him here, with her, on the night.
She looks down at the domed white canvas. How’s it going, underneath?
Pretty good. Tiring. Bloody cold. We’ll carry on tomorrow.
She nods, wearily.
Luke is suddenly overwhelmed by an incoherent rush of pity and tenderness and admiration, and begins typing furiously.
Professor Vaughan… I… I just wanted to say how much…
She puts one hand on his to stop him writing, and a finger on her silent lips, and shakes her head and smiles. Then she stands up and, without saying a thing, formally thanks him for his help and his work throughout the day. He bows his head and says good-bye, and goes off to talk to the professor.
On the morning of the second day Theo and Dan decide to open the cap on the pipe buried by the digger three weeks previously. They put a few orange bollards in neat lines, dig through the last layer of earth, and then stand in their official yellow jackets, with unconcerned faces and wildly excited hearts, watching the water pour in a nicely controlled stream from the Dock-feeder canal into the recently-drained external moat. The woman in the headscarf pushing a lively blond child, and the striking girl with short red hair helping an elderly lady along the path whoop unexpectedly, as if in celebration. The two officials merely frown, and pretend not to notice. The ditch fills slowly, but impressively, and by the afternoon the water reflects the sky and laps the walls as it has always done.
He comes in the evening when there is no choice; he comes when absolutely summoned. In a suit and a tie, with his winter coat and scarf over his arm. He is charming and beautiful. He drinks sherry with the rich and powerful in the Winter Smoking Room, where a myriad gilt stars and the entire zodiac riot above his head. She is not among them. Omnia Vincit Amor, he thinks. So where are you now? He avoids eye contact with the stuffed and antlered heads on the painted walls.
The old lady’s hand curves like a claw around his arm as he helps her to her seat in the stand, tucks in the fake tartan blankets around her, and hands her a glass of gin. Then, like some sacrificial victim, he takes his place beside her and looks to the trailing sunset behind the towers as one might look to the promised land. The stars will strengthen, and move across the sky, he thinks, and eventually this night will be over.
The hand resting briefly on his other arm is Luke’s. He clasps it, and thanks him again, and apologises under his breath for his unspeakable weakness. Luke reminds him to put his coat on.
Free-eezing, he says. I have to, ah, check the others. Good luck, sir.
He goes along the row to find Myra and Lina, and Mrs Evans, and Teddy, all bundled into too many clothes, with quilts and eiderdowns piled across their laps.
If you feel the cold is getting dangerous, he hisses, just leave, OK?
They nod, obedient. And the stage lights up.
The bodies twist and turn in constantly shifting light. They hang from the scaffolding and cables and ropes; they dance and somersault. One walks a metal wire. There are stories of encounters and oppressions and partings. Myra feels her cheeks wet with tears. The dancers’ faces have a chalky, unearthly quality, and they perform in a depth of perfect silence they have never before, as a company, achieved. The strain it puts them under does not show.
And while they are absorbed in the figures on the stage, Lina and Myra find that two dark, wet and muddied bodies have crept into their row, and huddle shivering at their feet. They wrap them in eiderdowns and blankets, and hold their frozen hands to warm them. Myra wraps her silvery scarf around Theo’s neck and runs her hands through his spiky wet hair. Below them, under the silk ropes and the pool of light, deep under the boards of the stage, the released water rises gradually in the empty space of the old moat.
On the third day the scaffolding comes down, and the boards come up, but the white canvas dome remains, hiding the night’s work for as long as possible from the man in the uniform at the door.
The professor wakes surprisingly late, and thinks with relief of the small private plane flying up the coast towards Scotland. And sees, over and over, the beautiful figure on the stage, bowing discreetly at the end of the performance and raising her face to everyone sat out there in the dark. It is an illusion, he remembers, to think that people on the stage are looking directly at you. The lorries are probably heading north by now, or wherever the next performance may be. He wonders if she has gone with them.
He heads into town down the river and thinks that whatever happens next he will not be here to see it. He plans to walk the length of the country, to the mountains in the north, and if she will see him, so be it. And if not, he can climb the mountains, and start to get himself well. He remembers that Luke’s friend is looking for a flat, and is relieved to think he can be of some use there, at least.
There is a change inside the castle walls. The space is still as scraped bare as it ever was: still square, and still curiously emptied of its violent history, Romans, Normans, the army that destroyed the Chartists. But there is a loosening of the air.
He guesses that everyone is hidden inside the white tent. He pushes the canvas flap and finds a whole world inside: a deep circle of water, and the new island where a dozen people are busily planting trees.
81.
Theo parks the van at the far end of the museum car park. When he steps down onto the tarmac it is covered in yellow gingko leaves. He picks one up, a perfect specimen, and twirls the stem between his large thumb and middle finger. The air is November sharp.
She is sitting on the bench, waiting. He can see her red hair, grown enough already to curl down the nape of her neck, as he comes from the direction of the building. He sits beside her and puts the leaf in her hand.
I remember these, she says.
They are old, old, he says. Prehistoric.
He pulls a crumpled unopened letter out of his bag.
I have some results, he says. The star-shot.
She waves an official envelope, also unopened.
Me too, she says. Hospital.
Ah, he says. Do you want to open yours first, or shall I?
Neither, she says. I want to go in there.
Sure you’re ready?
I’m sure.
Good plan, he says. We’ll see the turtle. And the Blaschkas. And we can have coffee there as well.
She jumps up from the bench and holds out her hands to pull him up. The silver bracelet glints on her wrist. He almost kisses her, but is distracted by a kestrel hovering above the castle.
Look at that, he says. There must be something worth having in there. Already. Mouse, perhaps.
She thinks of the mouse going about its business in the newly fallen leaves and wishes it luck. She wonders what else might end up living behind the square walls, given the chance, and whether the habitat would ever be suitable for aardvarks. She thinks of the slim, nearly dormant young trees, the rowans and the thorns and the hazels and the little oaks; and she thinks of the sleeping water, filled with tiny eggs and organisms, and imagines how busy the place will be come the spring.
Do you think it will last till spring? she asks. Do you think they’ll let it stay?
He shrugs. If Luke can persuade them it was their idea all along, he says. Stranger things have happened. The silence didn’t do them any good, after all, it just drew attention to all the other stuff they’re up to; and they’ll doubtless be glad to tell the world how green they are, how caring. That’s a lot of hail-marys in there.
I can’t wait to hear the frogs, she says. When they get their voices back. Imagine the racket.
He takes her by the
hand and they walk past the little bronze girl, and cross the road, and climb the granite steps together: seven, then nine. And at the very top, just before the big door, where it clings like cold gossamer on their faces, they push together through the vestigial threads of the silence.
Rhag yr oerfel
Glossary of Welsh phrases
Aur a thus a myrr – Gold, frankincense and myrrh.
Pobl sy’n Eistedd ar Feinciau – People who Sit on Benches.
Be ti’n feddwl, Leusa? – What do you think, Leusa?
Dim rili yn… t’wbod. Dim rili yn gweithio… Dim imi, ta beth. Sori. – Doesn’t really… you know. Doesn’t really work… Not for me anyway. Sorry.
Bainc/mainc – both forms for ‘bench’.
Un dau, un dau, un dau – one two, one two, one two.
Dere, dere nawr – come, come now.
annifyr – adjective covering a range: ‘disagreeable/uneasy/unpleasant’.
Dim yn dy geg! – Not in your mouth!
ddim yn ffôl o gwbl t’wbod.Beth am Calon Lân? – Not a bad idea at all, you know. What about [the popular hymn] Calon Lân?
Ond mae pawb yn hoffi Calon Lân! – But everyone likes Calon Lân!
Ti ddim yn oer lan fan ‘na ngwas i? – Aren’t you cold up there, my boy?
Pob lwc – Good luck.
Bachgen mawr! – Big boy!
Wrth ymyl y degell – Next to the kettle.
Broga – frog.
Angen siarad – Need to talk.
Cneifio – shearing (sheep).
Yma – here.
Ti’n iawn? – Are you all right?
Acknowledgements
This book would not have been written without the support of a grant from Llenyddiaeth Cymru / Literature Wales: I am extremely grateful to them for helping me carve out the time to write it. Thanks too, are due to various people for help and inspiration along the way: to David Anderson and the staff at the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff; to Aled Gruffydd Jones and the staff at the National Library of Wales; to my editor Penny Thomas and all at Seren; to Paul Frame for conversations about Radiolaria, and to Gareth Griffith for (still inconclusive) conversations about star-jelly; to Si Constantine for introducing me to Rainer; to my parents, for Norrard, where parts of this were written; and to Liz Edwards, Margaret Ames and (as ever) David Parsons for moral support. Especial thanks are due to Clive Hicks-Jenkins for finding the time to produce the beautiful cover and illustrations; and to Peter Wakelin, for reading and commenting on the whole thing with amazing grace under difficult circumstances.
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