Olwen. A white trail. He thought of the damp receding, of the flowers rising like bold sails from the ground. So it was her, sweeping her whiteness over their lives.
‘But why are you here?’ he asked. ‘Why are you with us?’
‘My father, Ysbaddaden, sent me away. He’s going to do something awful while I’m gone, I know it. I’ll be going back to him once it’s over.’
He asked her what she had done to make her father want to send her away. She would not tell him. She asked him who he was.
‘The son of the woman who locked you up.’
She asked him if he was sure. He’d never thought about it until that moment.
‘Because I think... I think you might be the one... the one left over. They made a mess of things so they had to send you away. Otherwise, you might, might have been me. But you’re not me. I’m me. Though it doesn’t feel like it sometimes. All I know is... I don’t think you are their son.’
The moment she said it he began to feel funny. His chest constricted, his eyes suddenly began to droop and his whole body felt as though it would slump to the floor. A grey haze began to settle over his mind. It was as though the truth had winded him. ‘Oh,’ she said, seeing him grab the wall of the hut for support. ‘Oh no. You have to go. Quickly – before it takes hold.’
‘Before what takes hold?’ he asked her.
‘Please, go now,’ she said.
There was such urgency in her voice at that moment that he had no choice but to listen to her. He struggled for breath in the dark, turned on his heels and trudged slowly back through the forest, back to the farm, to certainty, to order. The closer he got to the smallholding the more the heaviness lifted, his legs became his own again, his eyelids sprung open. Even without looking up he knew the birds were not with him now; that he had only been a means of leading them to her. In the distance he heard that one faint squawk swell into bright, triumphant chatter.
By the time he was back in his own bed, his head was clear once more, and he knew that she was right, he was not their son. Perhaps he had always known.
He waited before going to see her again. His mother came and went, and he dreamt of the damp flaxen hair in that stream, longing to touch it, to see her properly. He thought of nothing but her, this girl in the hut in the forest. And yet his parents acted as though nothing was amiss. He had expected them to find the birds missing on their daily rounds, and yet there was no mention of them at all. The three of them would still sit around that table and pretend their life together was entirely normal and ordinary. As if there was not a girl living a few feet away from them, caged, like the silent birds in the aviary. As though his parents had not done something so terrible that they had to keep looking after her and had little or no say in what they could and could not do.
He was determined to set her free. Grabbing his father’s tools the following night, he had never felt such bravado. He would wrench that door open and she would fall into his arms, he envisaged it time and time again. His heart was pounding as he approached the hut. To his surprise the door was wide open. The strip of light from his torch revealed it to be bare and empty. Fury rose up in him; he kicked the door, punched a wall, shouted into the night. He had not been prepared for the physical pain of losing her, and he knew – at that moment – that there was nothing more important to him than finding her again. Once he was able to still himself, he lay down on the wooden floor, frantically sniffing the air for any trace of her. That’s when he became aware of a silhouette in the doorframe, one that was all too familiar. His mother.
‘What are you doing here, Culhwch?’ she asked. He could hear the fear in her voice. ‘What have we told you about the forest?’
‘You’ve told me a lot of things,’ he said, without getting up. ‘None of them seem to be true.’
‘I think we’d better go back to the house,’ his mother said. ‘We can talk things through. Perhaps we could answer any questions you may have. It isn’t... we aren’t... we aren’t bad people, me and your dad. It’s just we got... a bit caught up in some things and...’
‘But you’re not my parents, are you?’ he said. The sentence surfaced in the dark between them.
‘No,’ his mother said quietly. ‘No, we’re not.’
‘What’s going on? You always said you would tell me. One day, you said. We’ll tell you – you’ll understand. We’ll explain everything. Isn’t that what you said?’
‘I always wanted to – it was your father...’
‘He’s not my father though, is he! Stop pretending.’
‘No, he’s not. Culhwch, I’m sorry, he’s not... he’s not... not my husband either. He’s nothing to me. This whole thing... it’s just not... not real. I’m as tired of it as you are.’
His mother burst into tears. He’d never heard her cry before. He wanted to put an arm over her shoulder, but he stopped himself – holding on with all his might to the anger which rose in him, a new and delicious feeling. He kicked the wall again. Enough to hurt himself. Enough to feel alive.
‘What have you done with her, with Olwen?’
‘She’s gone home, Culhwch, that’s all. Let’s go back to the house, eh? I’ll explain things.’
‘Was it the birds?’ he asked. ‘Did the birds set her free?’
His mother gawped at him, as though he’d said something ridiculous.
‘No, Culhwch. God, no. The birds wouldn’t be able to come here...’
‘Don’t lie to me! They were here, I saw them.’
His mother’s face paled with shock.
‘No, they couldn’t have been.’
‘They were here, I tell you. They knew her...’
‘But that’s not possible, I mean they aren’t… aren’t meant to be anything to do with her... they’re... it’s hard to explain. Look, let’s go back to the house. We’ll sit down and talk.’
Culhwch wasn’t sure what happened next. It seemed unreal to him, walking back through that forest to a house he had called his home for fifteen years, knowing full well he wasn’t supposed to be there. He trailed behind his mother’s shadow feeling like a lost little boy once again. But then he saw something. Just as the moon fell away under a cloud and the whole forest became a silvery, slippery pool, the ground suddenly revealed a trail of white flowers, weaving their way through the forest, in the opposite direction. He couldn’t explain it but he knew, at that moment, that it was Olwen, that she had left a pathway for him, that she wanted him to find her. He realised suddenly that that’s what his mother had uprooted on her journey into the forest, eradicating all traces of life that Olwen had left behind. And so he turned on his heels and ran. The white flowers grew bolder, meatier and brighter as he passed by, the petals spilling over themselves, forming elaborate patterns, boasting new textures. He ran and ran for what seemed like hours, until he came upon an enormous building, right at the far end of the forest. That was where the flowers stopped.
The house was a colossus of white brick. Its blank face stared down at him. The gardens around it were pristine and well kept, and yet the house was eerily quiet, and apparently deserted. But what he saw next stunned him. Looking up to a high window he saw Olwen, face pressed against the glass. Her body was bulging, and he saw now why she had seemed so curiously heavy and lopsided; she was pregnant. He’d never seen a pregnant woman before, though he’d seen pictures of mammals with bulging stomachs. He saw her hand shooing him away, as she turned to talk to someone in the room. The fright in her eyes was unmistakable and her hand was telling him firmly; go, now.
He obeyed her gesture, and walked all around the forest until he came to a road. A lovely, plain, forgiving road, that eventually provided him with passing traffic, a kind truck driver, and a means of bringing him to a nearby town. He asked the truck driver if he knew anything about the building in the forest and he said that it was the home of a millionaire.
‘He’s loaded that guy. Ysbaddaden Bencawr, I think he’s called. Acres and acres of land and the tightest security you
’ll ever get, I reckon. No one’s allowed within miles of the place. And rumour has it he lives there all alone too. Deliveries by helicopter, that sort of thing. Stinking rich. No one knows how he made his fortune, but it’s got to be something underhand if you ask me. Drugs or something. Coffee beans even. No, probably oil, warfare, something dodgy, it’ll be something illicit, you mark my words.’
Ysbaddaden. He remembered the name. Olwen’s father. They drove on in silence, the words chiming in Culhwch’s mind.
‘I don’t know who I am. I... I think I belong to someone else,’ the boy finally said. ‘Can you help me?’
‘Hand yourself in,’ the truck driver advised. ‘Look, I’ll take you to the police station. You can tell them everything. They’re bound to have some files on you or something.’
He drove Culhwch to the police station. He said he’d wait for him. Culhwch went in, saw all these people in uniforms, drunk people being shoved about, girls shouting and crying. He thought of his mother, that frail little bird, being caged in such a place, and he retreated. The truck driver, fiddling with his iPhone, looked up at him excitedly.
‘I just googled something,’ he said. ‘You know, just curious like. The Missing Persons’ Network, it’s called. And I found… I think I found you!’
That’s when Arthur’s sketch came up. With Cilydd’s details, phone number, address. Attached were the news items about Goleuddydd’s disappearance and murder. Culhwch couldn’t believe it had been that easy – he had never seen such a contraption as an iPhone, a tiny little screen in his hand which showed him a portrait of himself, sketched by someone who had never seen him. His own history, which had been kept from him for fifteen years, was something that could be clicked upon by a stranger in seconds. He read his whole sorry story beneath a fug of fingertips. The truck driver dropped him off in front of Cilydd’s house – wishing him all the best. All his life he had only been three miles away from his father’s home.
But he couldn’t go in. Not straight away. It didn’t seem right. He saw a woman and a girl coming and going – saw Cilydd himself smiling in the driveway, looking content. So he spent a few weeks in the town thinking things through; sleeping rough, doing a few odd jobs here and there, scrabbling for money. And making phone calls, Cilydd thought.
‘So here I am, finally,’ he said, looking up at Cilydd and Arthur. ‘I’ve wasted enough time, just thinking about things. Now I need to do something. Olwen is probably due any day now. And we’ve got to help her. That’s why I’m here.’
Arthur, still in his boxer shorts, gawped at him. Cilydd did not know what to say. He noticed that Culhwch had said nothing about Doged. Perhaps the boy was biding his time, or had decided to shield Arthur from the truth. Either way, Cilydd was grateful.
‘I knew, once I found you, that you’d help me,’ said the boy. ‘Help me to get Olwen out of Ysbaddaden’s house.’
‘Ysbaddaden Bencawr. Now there’s a name I never thought I’d hear again, ’Arthur said, shaking his head.
‘You know him?’ Culhwch turned to Arthur.
‘Know of him, yes. Used to be a private eye, of course, back in the day. Always vying for the same cases as I was. Neither of us were particularly successful, of course, as far as I know he never solved a single case either – though I don’t suppose it even matters, considering how much money he’s got now.’ Arthur sighed. ‘I guess I drew the short straw.’
‘But what does he do? I mean, where does all the money come from? That house, I’ve never seen anything like it. There must be a hundred bedrooms in that place. And it’s just him and Olwen, isn’t it?’
‘Funny – I never heard he had a daughter. Rumour had it that he lived there all alone. I mean, that’s how the rest of us private eyes always comforted ourselves about the whole thing – ah, yes, Ysbad-daden, he’s a millionaire but has he got anyone to share it with? No. Living all alone in that house. Better a pauper than a lonely man.’
Culhwch’s eyes circled the room.
‘Don’t you live alone?’
‘Yes...’ Arthur looked away. ‘But that’s beside the point. I heard the money was some inheritance. A bit of luck, I think.’
‘Well, we need to get Olwen away from him,’ Culhwch said. ‘And we need to do it quickly. I’ve got a feeling that if we don’t get her out of there soon that something awful will happen to her. That’s why I need your help. Both of you. I have to find her. I can’t explain to you what it means to me. If we find her then everything will be OK. I mean, it’s hard enough to make sense of it all but if we just find her then maybe some good can come of all this. I mean, this girl. I love her... I know it sounds stupid and you probably think I’m just a child, but I do, I really do. Look, all I need is some transport. Just to get toYsbaddaden’s estate. Ysbaddaden Bencawr has got something to do with my disappearance, I know he has. He has something over my parents; that’s why my mother was looking after Olwen. Possibly it’s why they were looking after me, too. And if we go to him, we can find out what is going on. Don’t you want to know what happened to me? Why I was taken?’
‘Of course we do,’ said Arthur, ‘don’t we Cilydd?’
Cilydd said he needed a glass of water, and went to the kitchen. Arthur joined him. Cilydd paced the room, peering every now and then through the crack in the door to check his son was still there.
‘Well, what do you make of it?’ he asked his cousin.
‘I don’t know. I knew something like this was going to happen soon. I mean, have you been... well, having phone calls?’
‘Phone calls? No.’ Cilydd lied, feeling the colour drain out of him.
‘Well I have, and when I came home yesterday –well, I could swear someone had been in the house. And all day today I’ve had this restless feeling, like I was waiting for something to happen. So restless, all I could do was get drunk, like I was trying to ward off some terrible feeling. And now, it’s gone. Because it’s like I’ve been waiting for him, and now he’s here. He’s finally here.’
‘But is he... I mean, is he who he says he is?’
‘There’s no doubt, he’s your son, Cilydd. I mean, even the ears...’
‘I know...’ Cilydd said. His son. How simple it sounded; though how utterly complex. ‘But, I mean, living on that farm, all those years – that farm, of all places! It’s the farm where they found her body, isn’t it? It doesn’t make any sense. Surely the police checked everything – how could he have been under our noses, all those years? I remember them saying that a family had moved in... but surely...’
‘The police, Cilydd – you can never rely on the police. I told you that. I mean, they’re full of Anlawdd types – full of themselves. That’s why you came to me in the first place, remember? I think we should help him Cilydd, and if he’s right, aboutYsbaddaden, well, I’m not being selfish here, but, it could really be the making of me...’
Arthur grinned, and took a final swig of his whisky.
Before they set out, Culhwch asked them if they would cut his hair. It had grown long and straggly over the years, had come to define him, and he did not want to be recognised when he entered the house. Arthur plugged in his shaver and went about shearing the boy’s head. Cilydd sat silently under the naked bulb of Arthur’s kitchen and watched Goleuddydd’s hair coming off, lock by lock. It was funny how comforting it was to see it, flowing orange all over the floor. The thought that even after you had long left this world something of you, something as essential, as intricate, as your hair, remained, on someone else’s scalp. He offered to scoop up the leftovers and found himself looting the lot of it, shoving it into his pocket, where it bristled against his hand, a living, passionate part of someone he’d loved so dearly, come back to him, grown again on the surface of his world.
And so Culhwch, Cilydd and Arthur set out, in the thick of night in Arthur’s old carpentry van, to find Olwen, daughter of Ysbaddaden Bencawr. Cilydd could not remember the last time he’d done such a thing; taken off like this. Probably never in h
is life. It just wasn’t something he did. Even before Goleuddydd disappeared he would always tell people where he was going, when he would be back. He suddenly realised that now he was the one who was missing, and that his wife and daughter were going to return home in a few hours to find the house empty. He looked again at the figure sitting behind him. This boy who had not known, until recently, that he was a missing person. How could one not know? Throughout his life he had been nurtured, cared for by people he believed to be his parents – yet all that time he had been a foundling.
After they’d driven a few miles out of town, the dark began to clear, giving way to the first peachy hues of day. Soon they came upon a long, narrow road with towering fir trees on the left-hand side. Cilydd felt the scene to be all too familiar, and he realised that this was where the police had brought him, fifteen years ago. His memory smelt the pigsty, and it made him gag.
‘I think we should start from here,’ Culhwch said. ‘Stop the car.’
They got out of the car. The rows of trees went on for ever it seemed, taunting long bodies, standing in their way.
Culhwch walked on without saying a word. Soon the three of them found themselves entering the maze of woodland. There was no light at the far end, no certainty of anything but darkness. The further on they went, the more Cilydd found himself wanting to grab hold of his son’s hand, to stop him from being enveloped by the blackness, an urge which he forced himself to fight. Culhwch battled his way through the greenery, aimlessly, twisting this way and that. As though fighting the earth that refused to give him answers.
‘I don’t think this is a good idea,’ Cilydd said, stopping suddenly in his tracks. ‘I mean, have you got any clue where you’re going?’
His son turned around to look at him.
‘I know thatYsbaddaden’s house can’t be far...’
‘Yes, but there’s no clear pathway here. We could end up walking around in circles. I mean, we probably are walking around in circles already. I just don’t think... I don’t think this is the right way to go about it. I really don’t.’
White Trail Page 6
