The Owl Service Read online

“Well, right now you can take this tea trolley.”

  Gwyn pushed the trolley through the dining-room. From the dark of the room Alison and her stepfather, sitting together outside, were as brightly lit as if they were on stage. Gwyn watched, and when Clive left Alison he moved to the window.

  Look at me, girl. Look this way. Look. Look. Look.

  Alison was studying her reflection. As the minutes went by she became more and more absorbed. Gwyn lifted his hand to rap on the window, but changed his mind.

  No. Your creeping Mam’s somewhere. We’ll do it this way. I’ll show you who’s boss. You’ll look. You will look.

  Alison started to fidget. She was no longer interested in the water.

  That’s it, girl …

  When Gwyn returned to the kitchen his mother was not there, but he heard her walking about in the flat above, backwards and forwards, again and again, then a bump. More walking. She was in Gwyn’s room.

  Gwyn went upstairs.

  The old leather suitcase was on Nancy’s bed, and she was flinging clothes out of drawers and cupboards.

  “Come here,” said Nancy. “I got a bone to pick with you, my lad.”

  “What are you doing?” said Gwyn.

  “Clearing out,” said Nancy. “I told him!”

  “We’re going?”

  “Forty-eight hours. From tomorrow. And I don’t want no references nor no in lieus. I’m off. I told him.”

  “Only two more days?” said Gwyn. “Only two days? Mam, not yet. Please, Mam.”

  “How did he find out? What you been saying behind my back?”

  “Nothing, Mam.”

  “Nobody seen what I done with that key. Nobody. You, is it? Soft-soaping me, and then running to them with your tales?”

  “No, Mam! What key?”

  “After all I done for you. Running to them with your tales. Think you’re one of them now, don’t you? Know it all, don’t you? Right, my lad. Right. You know where you’re starting next month. That’s you finished, boy!”

  “I’ll come back when you’re more civilised,” said Gwyn.

  He managed to close the door of the flat behind him and to walk down the stairs. He was at the bottom of the stairs. He sat on the bottom step, his head in his hands, and there was nothing else he could do. Through the distance inside him he heard footsteps far away, and voices, and rustling, and through his wet fingers he saw two pairs of shoes stop in front of him, then move round him, and he felt the wood creak, and he was alone again and no one had said his name.

  “How absolutely embarrassing,” Roger shut the door. “It’s disgusting.” He laid the print on his bed.

  “Haven’t you ever cried?” said Alison.

  Roger stretched a nylon washing line across a corner of the room and hung the print from it.

  “Haven’t you?” said Alison.

  “Don’t be an idiot,” said Roger.

  “You’ve not answered my question.”

  “Years ago, maybe: not recently: and certainly not in public.”

  “What about when your mother left?”

  “Shut it!”

  “Don’t be coarse.”

  “You’ve heard nothing yet,” said Roger.

  “I only asked.”

  “And I’m only telling you. Shut it.”

  “I don’t know why you’re so thin-skinned about your parents,” said Alison. “You’ve done pretty well out of it.”

  “Meaning what?” said Roger.

  “Or your father has,” said Alison. “Clive’s sweet, but he’s a bit of a rough diamond, isn’t he? Mummy’s people were very surprised when she married him.”

  “Yes, she was pretty damned quick off the mark, for a widow,” said Roger. “Does she always home on to the nearest bank book?”

  “Roger!”

  Roger moved the print along the washing line. Alison sat on the bed, and twisted a thread in the counterpane.

  “I ought to go and see what’s the matter with Gwyn.”

  “On your head be it,” said Roger. “But I’d leave well alone, if I were you. A couple more days and you’ll have no problems.”

  “You’re hateful.”

  “Now then, Ali,” said Roger. “This place’ll be a lot better without those two weirdies: admit. I shouldn’t be surprised if the whole thing’s a put-up job between them and that Halfbacon moron to scare us out so they can dig up the treasure. Or is this a smugglers’ headquarters? The very nerve-centre of the illicit Welsh whisky trade!”

  “You’re not even vaguely funny,” said Alison. “You know that what Gwyn told me makes sense, and if it was anybody else you’d agree.”

  “What, that battery-and-wires hogwash?”

  “You feel he’s right,” said Alison. “I know you do. You can’t bear to think he’s cleverer that you are, that’s your trouble. You couldn’t have worked it out like Gwyn has.”

  “You call that working it out? That moonshine? That claptrap? Oh, he’s smart. Too smart. He’d got it all pat the day after you found those plates, hadn’t he? The very next day. That’s smart, all right!”

  “He knows instinctively. He belongs here.”

  “Instinctively? Do me a favour! He wants to believe it. Him and Baconbonce – they never stop yakking. You can talk yourself into anything, if you try.”

  “Like now?”

  “Like hell.”

  “You’re stupid,” said Alison.

  “I may be stupid,” said Roger. “But I’m not blubbing on the stairs.”

  “Perhaps you never had cause to.”

  “Perhaps. Ali, let’s stop this. OK, he’s intelligent: but he’s not one of us, and he never will be. He’s a yob. An intelligent yob. That’s all there is to it.”

  “What will you do when you leave school?” said Alison.

  “Go in with Dad, of course.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “I’ve told you—”

  “You want to?”

  “Yes. Well. What else?”

  “You like photography,” said Alison, “and you’re good at it. Yes you are. Wouldn’t you like to be a photographer?”

  “I might not be good enough,” said Roger.

  “You don’t know till you try.”

  “You mean professionally? What would I use for money? It takes years to become established. Anyway, Dad has it all lined up for me.”

  “I’m serious,” said Alison. “If you wanted to be a photographer, what would Clive say?”

  “He’d make the wallpaper curl.”

  “And what would you do? Would you stick out against him?”

  “Would you against Margaret?”

  “I don’t know,” said Alison. “It’s terrible. I’ve never felt anything that strongly.”

  “I can always do it in my spare time,” said Roger. “As a hobby. What’s started you off on this?”

  “Gwyn,” said Alison. “He’s upset me.”

  “You’re not the only one he’s upset!”

  “What do you think’ll happen to him?” said Alison. “What will he do with himself?”

  “He’ll be a teacher, or something equally wet.”

  “His mother’s threatening to make him leave school and work in a shop.”

  “Then he’ll work in a shop,” said Roger.

  “Can’t you realise?” said Alison. “He has to find everything for himself.”

  “Do him a world of good.”

  “And the awful part is, he knows this, but he doesn’t know where to begin. It’s ghastly. He’s – he’s – oh, Roger, he’s saved up and bought an elocution course on gramophone records.”

  “You’d never guess, to listen to him,” said Roger.

  “He can’t use them. He hasn’t got a record player. That’s what I mean. Doesn’t it make you feel ashamed?”

  “Not really.”

  “You smell of petrol,” said Alison.

  “It was that rush job I did on your film,” said Roger. “And it’ll be meths, not pe
trol.”

  “It’s petrol,” said Alison. “I feel sick.”

  CHAPTER 20

  T he weather changed overnight. A wind came, dragging clouds along the mountains.

  Gwyn packed. Nancy went about in silence and did her work with a perfection that made the house unbearable.

  The valley was sealed by cloud.

  “It’s four o’clock, girl. Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  Alison dropped her sketch pad. Gwyn was in the parlour doorway.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m standing next to a chaise longue.”

  “You’re not allowed in here,” said Alison.

  “Sorry, Miss. Will I get the sack?”

  “Mummy may come!”

  “What’s that to me?” said Gwyn. “I’m going the day after tomorrow. Alison – tomorrow: one day. Where’ve you been, girl?”

  “Mummy saw us up the mountain. She was watching through binoculars. She was waiting for me – and now I daren’t. I just daren’t. Gwyn, please go.”

  “I’m going after tomorrow, first thing. So I’m here now. I’ve nothing to lose.”

  “But I have!” said Alison. “You don’t know!”

  “You’d better tell me, then,” said Gwyn. “I’m listening.”

  “Go away—”

  “Neat fireplace, isn’t it?” said Gwyn. “Those tiles hand-painted, are they?”

  Alison knocked open the catch on the french window and ran from the house on to the drive.

  “The kitchen garden’s over there,” said Gwyn. He had caught up with her in a few strides.

  “Go away!” said Alison. “Anyone can see us!”

  “Not likely,” said Gwyn. “But the kitchen garden’s nice and quiet. Or shall we stay here? Your wish is my command.”

  The kitchen garden was at the end of a path below the drive. It was shut off from the rest of the grounds by a slate wall and a hedge. The gate pierced the hedge, which was high, and thick and deep. A seat made from old ship’s timbers was set in the hedge for the view out over the river to the mountains.

  “That ravine up there is where the foxes go,” said Gwyn. “The Black Hiding. They go up the waterfalls, see, and the cliffs are that steep nothing can come at them, and the hounds lose the scent, and they lie till it’s safe. Then they skip out at the top in the peat. Cunning.”

  “What do you want?” said Alison.

  “You asked me that before,” said Gwyn. “The answer’s not changed. You have.”

  “No, Gwyn. You don’t understand. I daren’t see you. Mummy’s threatened what she’ll do, and she means it.”

  “And what’s that?” said Gwyn. “What can she do? Hang you in chains in the family dungeon? Lock you in a turret? Your name Rapunzel or something, is it? What can she do, girl? Shoot you?”

  “You don’t understand—”

  “I don’t understand. I understand what it’s been like since we went up the mountain: I’ll give you that free, girl. Your Mam couldn’t do anything worse than these last five days. Go on, you tell me.”

  “Mummy says – if I talk to you again – she’ll make me – I’ll have to – she says I’ll have to leave the choir.”

  “What?” said Gwyn.

  “She means it. I’ll have to leave the choir. And she won’t renew my subscription.”

  “Subscription,” said Gwyn.

  “For the tennis club.”

  “Club.”

  “You see, Gwyn—”

  “See! See! See! See!” Gwyn flung his head back against the wood. “See! See!”

  “Don’t make that noise! Everyone’ll hear!”

  “You think I care?” said Gwyn. “She said that, did she, your Mam?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you didn’t tell her what she could do with the choir and the tennis?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That’s why you’ve not come these last five days.”

  “I wouldn’t play tricks on you, Gwyn. I simply daren’t come.”

  “It did happen,” said Gwyn. “We were up there on the mountain. It did all happen.”

  “Of course,” said Alison. “It was lovely.”

  “And you gave me a box,” said Gwyn. He put his hand in his mackintosh pocket. “This box. Why?”

  “I was happy. I wanted to give you a present,” said Alison.

  “And the choir and the tennis,” said Gwyn. “You put that against – this.”

  “It’s Mummy. I can’t bear to see her hurt or upset.”

  “No,” said Gwyn. “No. All right, girl.”

  “Don’t be angry,” said Alison. “You frighten me when you’re angry.”

  “I’m not angry,” said Gwyn. “Never mind. Did you find out about your cousin?”

  “Yes,” said Alison. “He was very clever with his hands. All those animals in the billiard-room are his work, and he made the cases for them.”

  “What else?”

  “That’s all. Mummy wouldn’t tell me any more.”

  “Nothing about how he was killed?”

  Alison shook her head.

  “Shall I tell you, then?” said Gwyn.

  “You know?” said Alison. “How did you manage that?”

  “In for a penny in for a pound,” said Gwyn. “I thought my Mam would have an idea about what’s going on, so I whipped some of your stepfather’s fags for her as bait. She only nibbled, though: but she did mention this Bertram. Then a couple of nights back I siphoned off half a glass of port from the decanter – it’s all she needs – and she was in the right mood to get a kick out of pinching it. And that was that. By!”

  “What?”

  “Well, she as good as said Huw did him in, but I shouldn’t worry. No, cousin Bertram snuffed it up the pass there: road accident.”

  “Is that all?” said Alison. “The way Mummy’s always rolled her eyes I thought he must have killed himself, at least. I used to make up stories about him: he was crossed in love: she’d Married Another. He looked that sort in his photographs. Very dashing.”

  “Bit too dashing,” said Gwyn. “You were right about good with his hands. He had this vintage motorbike, see. Done it up himself. Then one day he’s coming over the pass – one-in-four just there – and he failed to negotiate a bend, as they say. He’d left his brakes at home. The bike jammed itself on some slate, but he went three hundred feet – kerchoom, kerchoom, aaaaargh, splat! – Alison!”

  Alison screwed up her eyes and her mouth was drawn tight.

  “I’m a fool,” said Gwyn. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I didn’t know you cared about him. You said you’d never seen him. Alison!”

  She straightened up. “It’s not that,” she said. “Sorry. I’m all right. Something else. Gwyn, I must go. I must go. It’s tea time.”

  “You look ill,” said Gwyn.

  “I’ll be fine in a minute.”

  “You’ll come tomorrow,” said Gwyn.

  “I can’t.”

  “There’s only tomorrow.”

  “I daren’t.”

  “I’m going back to Aber.”

  “I know.”

  “Tomorrow, Alison. Please. Can’t you see? You must.”

  “Stop it,” said Alison. “Stop it, stop it! Stop tearing me between you. You and Mummy! You go on till I don’t know who I am, what I’m doing. Of course I can see! Now. But afterwards she starts, and what she says is right, then.”

  “I only want you to be yourself,” said Gwyn.

  “And what’s that?” said Alison. “What you make me? I’m one person with Mummy, and another with you. I can’t argue: you twist everything I say round to what you want. Is that fair?”

  “You will be here, won’t you?” said Gwyn. “Tomorrow. It’s the last time.”

  “Gwyn.”

  “Please.”

  “How now, brown cow?” Roger called. “Are you having trouble, Ali?”

  He was climbing through the hedge at the other side of the gard
en.

  “What’s he on about?” said Gwyn.

  “Nothing,” said Alison.

  “What’s that brown cow?”

  “Nothing, Gwyn.”

  “Tea, Ali,” said Roger.

  “Yes: I’m coming.”

  “How’s the rain in Spain?” said Roger. “Still mainly on the plain?”

  “What’s he on about, Alison?”

  “I say, that’s a smart mackintosh you’re wearing,” said Roger. “Those trend-setting short sleeves, and up-to-the-minute peep-toe plimsolls—”

  “Be quiet, Roger,” said Alison.

  “What’s that about cows and rain?” said Gwyn.

  “Don’t tell me you haven’t reached the lesson yet,” said Roger. “Surely it comes on the very first record.”

  “Roger!”

  “You told him?” whispered Gwyn. “You told him? Told him?”

  “No!” said Alison.

  “You told him. Was it a good laugh?”

  “No, Gwyn!”

  “I bet it was. What else? What else was funny?”

  “You’re wrong!”

  “You won’t have told him about the stilts, will you? Not when you’d got the big laugh.”

  “Not that way, Gwyn! I promise it wasn’t!”

  “Couldn’t run back quick enough, could you?” said Gwyn.

  “You’re not quite on the ball, actually,” said Roger. “Ali didn’t say much. I mean, I don’t know whether you’re using the complete Improva-Prole set, or the shorter course of Oiks’ Exercises for getting by in the Shop. She didn’t say really.”

  “Alison.” Gwyn backed from them. “Alison.”

  “Gwyn! Don’t look at me like that. Don’t.”

  “Alison.”

  “Don’t! Don’t look at me like that! – Don’t! – I can’t stand it!”

  “Alison.”

  “Don’t – Don’t look at me! – Don’t! – Stop him, Roger! Roger, make him stop. Make him! Make him! Make him!”

  “Now, Ali, it’s OK. It’s OK. Calm down. It’s all right, Ali. He’s done a bunk. He’s gone. I told you he was a yob.”

  CHAPTER 21

  H is face was in wet grass. He tore at his breath, sprawled among bracken and a knee hard against slate, but no pain. He looked through the bend of his elbow and saw the house a long way off. The cloud line was only yards above him, like smoke. He had no memory of reaching the mountain.