Книга - The Owl Service

The Owl Service
Alan Garner


The much-loved classic, finally in ebook.Winner of both the Guardian Award and the Carnegie Medal, this is an all-time classic, combining mystery, adventure, history and a complex set of human relationships.It all begins with the scratching in the ceiling. From the moment Alison discovers the dinner service in the attic, with its curious pattern of floral owls, a chain of events is set in progress that is to effect everybody’s lives.Relentlessly, Alison, her step-brother Roger and Welsh boy Gwyn are drawn into the replay of a tragic Welsh legend – a modern drama played out against a background of ancient jealousies. As the tension mounts, it becomes apparent that only by accepting and facing the situation can it be resolved.























Books by Alan Garner (#ulink_4c308024-1684-5ed2-8b29-d53843d791de)


A BAG OF MOONSHINE (http://ads.harpercollins.com/bobauk?isbn=9780007385430)

BONELAND (http://ads.harpercollins.com/bobauk?isbn=9780007463268)

ELIDOR (http://ads.harpercollins.com/bobauk?isbn=9780007388769)

RED SHIFT (http://ads.harpercollins.com/bobauk?isbn=9780007539031)

THE LAD OF THE GAD (http://ads.harpercollins.com/bobauk?isbn=9780007539109)

THE MOON OF GOMRATH (http://ads.harpercollins.com/bobauk?isbn=9780007539048)

THE OWL SERVICE (http://ads.harpercollins.com/bobauk?isbn=9780007539055)

THE STONE BOOK QUARTET (http://ads.harpercollins.com/bobauk?isbn=9780007380121)

THE WEIRDSTONE OF BRISINGAMEN (http://ads.harpercollins.com/bobauk?isbn=9780007539062)







First published in Great Britain by William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1967

This edition published by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2017

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,

HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

The HarperCollins website address is:

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

Text copyright © Alan Garner 1967

Introduction copyright © Philip Pullman 2017

Decorations from the original plates by Griselda Greaves

The author acknowledges with thanks the use of the following copyright material:

The Bread of Truth by R. S. Thomas (Rupert Hart-Davis);

The Mabinogion: translated by Gwyn Jones and Thomas Jones (J. M. Dent & Sons); The Radio Times, The British Broadcasting Corporation

Cover design by studiohelen.co.uk

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007127894

Ebook Edition © 2017 ISBN: 9780007539055

Version: 2019-09-20




Praise (#ulink_e387e1b8-1387-5db5-b6f0-374814a1ba93)


“Garner writes books that really matter, books driven by powerful forces within himself, our history, our language, our mythology, our world.”

David Almond

“Alan Garner is indisputably the great originator, the most important British writer of fantasy since Tolkien, and in many respects better than Tolkien, because deeper and more truthful. His work is where human emotion and mythic resonance, sexuality and geology, modernity and memory and craftsmanship meet and cross-fertilise. Any country except Britain would have long ago recognised his importance, and celebrated it with postage stamps and statues and street-names. But that’s the way with us: our greatest prophets go unnoticed by the politicians and the owners of media empires. I salute him with the most heartfelt respect and admiration.”

Philip Pullman

“Alan Garner’s fiction is something special. Garner’s fantasies were smart and challenging, based in the here and the now, in which real English places emerged from the shadows of folklore, and in which people found themselves walking, living and battling their way through the dreams and patterns of myth.”

Neil Gaiman

“The power and range of Alan Garner’s astounding talent has grown with every book he’s written.”

Susan Cooper

“Remarkable … a rare imaginative feat, and the taste it leaves is haunting.”

Observer

“In his earlier novels, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, The Moon of Gomrath and Elidor, Garner used the successful formula of the spilling of the twilight world of ancient legend into the present day. Here he uses the formula again, with an added depth, and even more compulsive terror-haunted beauty.”

Financial Times


For Cinna




Epigraph (#ulink_57af039c-3cdc-5bf4-bc06-850cec943dba)


—The owls are restless.

People have died here,

Good men for bad reasons,

Better forgotten.—

R. S. Thomas

I will build my love a tower

By the clear crystal fountain,

And on it I will build

All the flowers of the mountain.

Traditional

Possessive parents rarely live long enough

to see the fruits of their selfishness.

Radio Times (15.9.65)


Contents

Cover (#u38ab5b23-6206-53f6-8687-5a6e345c8e61)

Title Page (#udd640e8f-4b70-5d91-8803-429719a27ec2)

Books by Alan Garner (#u7dac227c-ab4c-51cb-bc32-74410593fc61)

Copyright (#ue3af92f1-ed5f-5a72-a973-e8664a3e2b84)

Praise (#ufaba7516-8090-5477-a4ff-cfa4945f61de)

Dedication (#u75a32628-6e31-58bd-9de5-b308e497169d)

Epigraph (#ua3d7d160-8450-5b2f-bcf6-ffe72f9d0e1d)

Author’s Note (#u0d7d2ff9-b4c7-5fa0-a62e-9d6b017bb9fa)

Introduction (#u2fff756e-b1ea-5190-b0c2-1f6a491ffdae)

Chapter 1 (#u135c83c5-b360-5e92-8110-a81ae688afbc)

Chapter 2 (#u3a29bb28-e6de-55dc-8c98-15812ba47686)

Chapter 3 (#u19dc40bb-53cb-5d36-8bcc-50facaff53e5)

Chapter 4 (#u12c27f19-4953-511b-ada9-c5452c1429d6)

Chapter 5 (#ucd269770-2c47-539a-b559-a7f00b9058da)

Chapter 6 (#u8f13434f-6f19-559d-8db7-4427c66a5346)

Chapter 7 (#u87e7bee6-b0bd-5e82-b784-52d18820e1f5)

Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)

Postscript (#litres_trial_promo)

Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)




AUTHOR’S NOTE (#ulink_1a2ab216-d39e-50a4-a66c-dadd2ba6e95a)


I am indebted to Betty Greaves, who saw the pattern; to Professor Gwyn Jones and Professor Thomas Jones, for permission to use copyright material in the text; and to Dafydd Rees Cilwern, for his patience.

A. G




INTRODUCTION (#ulink_efe8be0d-65ea-5eb9-9615-f7b4395af503)


When this book was first published, in 1967, I was an undergraduate at Oxford reading English, and I remember the sensation it caused – not among the academics, for whom children’s literature was an area of no interest whatsoever, but among those of us who had arrived at university with our heads already harbouring an unhealthy fascination with hobbits and elves and so on. Tolkien was all the rage, but we weren’t allowed to take an academic interest in that sort of thing because fantasy was as un-literary, as looked down on, as an enthusiasm for books that children read. The fantasy fans had already read and enjoyed the three earlier books by Alan Garner, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen (1960), The Moon of Gomrath (1963) and Elidor (1965), but The Owl Service was something new, and tougher, and truer than anything we’d yet seen.

Like the earlier books, and unlike The Lord of the Rings, The Owl Service is set in our world, the “real” world as we call it. The fantastical elements irrupt into everyday life: the realistic settings and characters experience and are altered by their encounters with the mythical or the other-worldly. This way of writing a story is sometimes known as “low fantasy”, in contrast to the “high fantasy” of the Tolkien sort, where everything is made up. I think it’s a useful distinction, and I vastly prefer the low to the high.

What distinguishes The Owl Service from its predecessors, and from pretty well anything else published for children until then, is something uncompromising in the telling. We have to keep our wits about us as we read: everything we need is there, and nothing we don’t need. A great deal of the text consists of dialogue, which is sharp and tense and brilliantly economical. As a way of revealing character, Garner’s dialogue is unsurpassed: we can almost see the patronising, unperceptive, well-intentioned and severely limited Clive, the nervy, quick-witted, imaginative, generous, rebellious Gwyn. Clive’s relationship with his stepdaughter, Alison, could hardly be better revealed than through his own words:

“You’re looking a bit peaky this morning,” said Clive. “Sure you’re OK? Mustn’t overdo things, you know. Not good for a young lady.”

The tension in the family situation is made even more vivid by the setting. Garner is exceptionally sensitive to the atmosphere of places, and the Welsh valley where he conceived the story, and where the TV version was filmed, is a powerful and oppressive character in its own right. I have driven past that valley many times, and never without feeling glad to have left it behind. Setting and people, both living and mythical, combine in this wonderful novel to produce an effect unlike anything else in fiction. Is it a children’s book? Of course it is, and of course it’s not only for children. Nowadays, I’m very glad to say, children’s literature is taken seriously by academe, and not dismissed as trivial. The Owl Service is one of the books that made that both possible and necessary. Fifty years after it was first published, we can see that it was always a classic.

Philip Pullman










CHAPTER 1 (#ulink_418351af-e513-524b-9bfd-86ee1663ec53)


“How’s the bellyache, then?”

Gwyn stuck his head round the door. Alison sat in the iron bed with brass knobs. Porcelain columns showed the Infant Bacchus and there was a lump of slate under one leg because the floor dipped.

“A bore,” said Alison. “And I’m too hot.”

“Tough,” said Gwyn. “I couldn’t find any books, so I’ve brought one I had from school. I’m supposed to be reading it for Literature, but you’re welcome: it looks deadly.”

“Thanks anyway,” said Alison.

“Roger’s gone for a swim. You wanting company are you?”

“Don’t put yourself out for me,” said Alison.

“Right,” said Gwyn. “Cheerio.”

He rode sideways down the banisters on his arms to the first-floor landing.

“Gwyn!”

“Yes? What’s the matter? You OK?”

“Quick!”

“You want a basin? You going to throw up, are you?”

“Gwyn!”

He ran back. Alison was kneeling on the bed.

“Listen,” she said. “Can you hear that?”

“That what?”

“That noise in the ceiling. Listen.”

The house was quiet. Mostyn Lewis-Jones was calling after the sheep on the mountain: and something was scratching in the ceiling above the bed.

“Mice,” said Gwyn.

“Too loud,” said Alison.

“Rats, then.”

“No. Listen. It’s something hard.”

“They want their claws trimming.”

“It’s not rats,” said Alison.

“It is rats. They’re on the wood: that’s why they’re so loud.”

“I heard it the first night I came,” said Alison, “and every night since: a few minutes after I’m in bed.”

“That’s rats,” said Gwyn. “As bold as you please.”

“No,” said Alison. “It’s something trying to get out. The scratching’s a bit louder each night. And today – it’s the loudest yet – and it’s not there all the time.”

“They must be tired by now,” said Gwyn.

“Today – it’s been scratching when the pain’s bad. Isn’t that strange?”

“You’re strange,” said Gwyn. He stood on the bed, and rapped the ceiling. “You up there! Buzz off!”

The bed jangled as he fell, and landed hard, and sat gaping at Alison. His knocks had been answered.

“Gwyn! Do it again!”

Gwyn stood up.

Knock, knock.

Scratch, scratch.

Knock.

Scratch.

Knock knock knock.

Scratch scratch scratch.

Knock – knock knock.

Scratch – scratch scratch.

Gwyn whistled. “Hey,” he said. “These rats should be up the Grammar at Aberystwyth.” He jumped off the bed. “Now where’ve I seen it? – I know: in the closet here.”

Gwyn opened a door by the bedroom chimney. It was a narrow space like a cupboard, and there was a hatch in the ceiling.

“We need a ladder,” said Gwyn.

“Can’t you reach if you stand on the washbasin?” said Alison.

“Too chancy. We need a pair of steps and a hammer. The bolt’s rusted in. I’ll go and fetch them from the stables.”

“Don’t be long,” said Alison. “I’m all jittery.”

“ ‘Gwyn’s Educated Rats’: how’s that? We’ll make a packet on the telly.”

He came back with the stepladder, hammer and a cage trap.

“My Mam’s in the kitchen, so I couldn’t get bait.”

“I’ve some chocolate,” said Alison. “It’s fruit and nut: will that do?”

“Fine,” said Gwyn. “Give it us here now.”

He had no room to strike hard with the hammer, and rust and old paint dropped in his face.

“It’s painted right over,” he said. “No one’s been up for years. Ah. That’s it.”

The bolt broke from its rust. Gwyn climbed down for Alison’s torch. He wiped his face on his sleeve, and winked at her.

“That’s shut their racket, anyway.”

As he said this the scratching began on the door over his head, louder than before.

“You don’t have to open it,” said Alison.

“And say goodbye to fame and fortune?”

“Don’t laugh about it. You don’t have to do it for me. Gwyn, be careful. It sounds so sharp: strong and sharp.”

“Who’s laughing, girlie?” He brought a dry mop from the landing and placed the head against the door in the ceiling. The scratching had stopped. He pushed hard, and the door banged open. Dust sank in a cloud.

“It’s light,” said Gwyn. “There’s a pane of glass let in the roof.”

“Do be careful,” said Alison.

“‘“Is there anybody there?” said the Traveller’ – Yarawarawarawarawara!” Gwyn brandished the mop through the hole. “Nothing, see.”

He climbed until his head was above the level of the joists. Alison went to the foot of the ladder.

“A lot of muck and straw. Coming?”

“No,” said Alison. “I’d get hayfever in that dust. I’m allergic.”

“There’s a smell,” said Gwyn: “a kind of scent: I can’t quite – yes: it’s meadowsweet. Funny, that. It must be blowing from the river. The slates feel red hot.”

“Can you see what was making the noise?” said Alison.

Gwyn braced his hands on either side of the hatch and drew his legs up.

“It’s only a place for the water tanks, and that,” he said. “No proper floor. Wait a minute, though!”

“Where are you going? Be careful.” Alison heard Gwyn move across the ceiling.

In the darkest corner of the loft a plank lay over the joists, and on it was a whole dinner service: squat towers of plates, a mound of dishes, and all covered with grime, straw, droppings and blackened pieces of birds’ nests.

“What is it?” said Alison. She had come up the ladder and was holding a handkerchief to her nose.

“Plates. Masses of them.”

“Are they broken?”

“Nothing wrong with them as far as I can see, except muck. They’re rather nice – green and gold shining through the straw.”

“Bring one down, and we’ll wash it.”

Alison saw Gwyn lift a plate from the top of the nearest pile, and then he lurched, and nearly put his foot through the ceiling between the joists.

“Gwyn! Is that you?”

“Whoops!”

“Please come down.”

“Right. Just a second. It’s so blooming hot up here it made me go sken-eyed.”

He came to the hatch and gave Alison the plate.

“I think your mother’s calling you,” said Alison.

Gwyn climbed down and went to the top of the stairs.

“What you want, Mam?”

“Fetch me two lettuce from the kitchen garden!” His mother’s voice echoed from below. “And be sharp now!”

“I’m busy!”

“You are not!”

Gwyn pulled a face. “You clean the plate,” he said to Alison. “I’ll be right back.” Before he went downstairs Gwyn put the cage trap into the loft and closed the hatch.

“What did you do that for? You didn’t see anything, did you?” said Alison.

“No,” said Gwyn. “But there’s droppings. I still want to know what kind of rats it is can count.”




CHAPTER 2 (#ulink_66a47624-76c3-5d17-83b2-fb6eb81b44ef)


Roger splashed through the shallows to the bank. A slab of rock stood out of the ground close by him, and he sprawled backwards into the foam of meadowsweet that grew thickly round its base. He gathered the stems in his arms and pulled the milky heads down over his face to shield him from the sun.

Through the flowers he could see a jet trail moving across the sky, but the only sounds were the river and a farmer calling sheep somewhere up the valley.

The mountains were gentle in the heat. The ridge above the house, crowned with a grove of fir trees, looked black against the summer light. He breathed the cool sweet air of the flowers. He felt the sun drag deep in his limbs.

Something flew by him, a blink of dark on the leaves. It was heavy, and fast, and struck hard. He felt the vibration through the rock, and he heard a scream.

Roger was on his feet, crouching, hands wide, but the meadow was empty, and the scream was gone: he caught its echo in the farmer’s distant voice and a curlew away on the mountain. There was no one in sight: his heart raced, and he was cold in the heat of the sun. He looked at his hands. The meadowsweet had cut him, lining his palm with red beads. The flowers stank of goat.

He leant against the rock. The mountains hung over him, ready to fill the valley. “Brrr—” He rubbed his arms and legs with his fists. The skin was rough with gooseflesh. He looked up and down the river, at the water sliding like oil under the trees and breaking on the stones. “Now what the heck was that? Acoustics? Trick acoustics? And those hills – they’d addle anyone’s brains.” He pressed his back against the rock. “Don’t you move. I’m watching you. That’s better – Hello?”

There was a hole in the rock. It was round and smooth, and it went right through from one side to the other. He felt it with his hand before he saw. Has it been drilled on purpose, or is it a freak? he thought. Waste of time if it isn’t natural: crafty precision job, though. “Gosh, what a fluke!” He had lined himself up with the hole to see if it was straight, and he was looking at the ridge of fir trees above the house. The hole framed the trees exactly … “Brrrr, put some clothes on.”

Roger walked up through the garden from the river.

Huw Halfbacon was raking the gravel on the drive in front of the house, and talking to Gwyn, who was banging lettuces together to shake the earth from the roots.

“Lovely day for a swim,” said Huw.

“Yes,” said Roger. “Perfect.”

“Lovely.”

“Yes.”

“You were swimming?” said Huw.

“That’s why I’m wearing trunks,” said Roger.

“It is a lovely day for that,” said Huw. “Swimming.”

“Yes.”

“In the water,” said Huw.

“I’ve got to get changed,” said Roger.

“I’ll come with you,” said Gwyn. “I want to have a talk.”

“That man’s gaga,” said Roger when they were out of hearing. “He’s so far gone he’s coming back.”

They sat on the terrace. It was shaded by its own steepness, and below them the river shone through the trees. “Hurry up then,” said Roger. “I’m cold.”

“Something happened just now,” said Gwyn. “There was scratching in the loft over Alison’s bedroom.”

“Mice,” said Roger.

“That’s what I said. But when I knocked to scare them away – they knocked back.”

“Get off!”

“They did. So I went up to have a look. There’s a pile of dirty plates up there: must be worth pounds.”

“Oh? That’s interesting. Have you brought them down?”

“One. Alison’s cleaning it. But what about the scratching?”

“Could be anything. These plates, though: what are they like? Why were they up there?”

“I couldn’t see much. I asked Huw about them.”

“Well?”

“He said, ‘Mind how you are looking at her.’ ”

“Who? Ali? What’s she got to do with it?”

“Not Alison. I don’t know who he meant. When I told him I’d found the plates he stopped raking for a moment and said that: ‘Mind how you are looking at her.’ Then you came.”

“I tell you, the man’s off his head. – Why’s he called Halfbacon, anyway?”

“It’s the Welsh: Huw Hannerhob,” said Gwyn. “Huw Halfbacon: Huw the Flitch: he’s called both.”

“It suits him.”

“It’s a nickname,” said Gwyn.

“What’s his real name?”

“I don’t think he knows. Roger? There’s one more thing. I don’t want you to laugh.”

“OK.”

“Well, when I picked up the top plate, I came over all queer. A sort of tingling in my hands, and everything went muzzy – you know how at the pictures it sometimes goes out of focus on the screen and then comes back? It was like that: only when I could see straight again, it was different somehow. Something had changed.”

“Like when you’re watching a person who’s asleep, and they wake up,” said Roger. “They don’t move, nothing happens, but you know they’re awake.”

“That’s it!” said Gwyn. “That’s it! Exactly! Better than what I was trying to say! By, you’re a quick one, aren’t you?”

“Can you tell me anything about a rock with a hole through it down by the river?” said Roger.

“A big slab?” said Gwyn.

“Yes, just in the meadow.”

“It’ll be the Stone of Gronw, but I don’t know why. Ask Huw. He’s worked at the house all his life.”

“No thanks. He’d give me the London Stockmarket Closing Report.”

“What do you want to know for, anyway?” said Gwyn.

“I was sunbathing there,” said Roger. “Are you coming to see how Ali’s managed with your plate?”

“In a sec,” said Gwyn. “I got to drop these in the kitchen for Mam. I’ll see you there.”

Roger changed quickly and went up to Alison. His bedroom was immediately below hers, on the first floor.

She was bending over a plate which she had balanced on her knees. The plate was covered with a sheet of paper and she was drawing something with a pencil.

“What’s this Gwyn says you’ve found?” said Roger.

“I’ve nearly finished,” said Alison. She kept moving the paper as she drew. “There! What do you think of that?” She was flushed.

Roger took the plate and turned it over. “No maker’s mark,” he said. “Pity. I thought it might have been a real find. It’s ordinary stuff: thick: not worth much.”

“Thick yourself! Look at the pattern!”

“Yes. – Well?”

“Don’t you see what it is?”

“An abstract design in green round the edge, touched up with a bit of rough gilding.”

“Roger! You’re being stupid on purpose! Look at that part. It’s an owl’s head.”

“—Yes? I suppose it is, if you want it to be. Three leafy heads with this kind of abstract flowery business in between each one. Yes: I suppose so.”

“It’s not abstract,” said Alison. “That’s the body. If you take the design off the plate and fit it together it makes a complete owl. See. I’ve traced the two parts of the design, and all you do is turn the head right round till it’s the other way up, and then join it to the top of the main pattern where it follows the rim of the plate. There you are. It’s an owl – head, wings and all.”

“So it’s an owl,” said Roger. “An owl that’s been sat on.”

“You wait,” said Alison, and she began to cut round the design with a pair of scissors. When she had finished she pressed the head forward, bent and tucked in the splayed legs, curled the feet and perched the owl on the edge of her candlestick.

Roger laughed. “Yes! It is! An owl!”

It was an owl: a stylised, floral owl. The bending of its legs had curved the back, giving the body the rigid set of an owl. It glared from under heavy brows.

“No, that’s really good,” said Roger. “How did you think it all out – the tracing, and how to fold it?”

“I saw it as soon as I’d washed the plate,” said Alison. “It was obvious.”

“It was?” said Roger. “I’d never have thought of it. I like him.”

“Her,” said Alison.

“You can tell? OK. Her. I like her.” He tapped the owl’s head with the pencil, making the body rock on its perch. “Hello there!”

“Don’t do that,” said Alison.

“What?”

“Don’t touch her.”

“Are you all right?”

“Give me the pencil. I must make some more,” said Alison.

“I put the lettuce by the sink,” Gwyn called. “I’m going to see Alison.”

“You wait, boy,” said his mother. “Them lettuce need washing. I only got one pair of hands.”

Gwyn slashed the roots into the pig bucket and ran water in the sink. His mother came through from the larder. She was gathering herself to make bread. Gwyn tore the leaves off the lettuce and flounced them into the water. Neither of them spoke for a long time.

“I told you be sharp with them lettuce,” said his mother. “You been back to Aber for them?”

“I was talking,” said Gwyn.

“Oh?”

“To Roger.”

“You was talking to Halfbacon,” said his mother. “I got eyes.”

“Well?”

“I told you have nothing to do with him, didn’t I?”

“I only stopped for a second.”

“You keep away from that old fool, you hear me? I’m telling you, boy!”

“He’s not all that old,” said Gwyn.

“Don’t come that with me,” said his mother. “You want a back hander? You can have it.”

“There’s slugs in this lettuce,” said Gwyn.

“You was speaking Welsh, too.”

“Huw doesn’t manage English very clever. He can’t say what he means.”

“You know I won’t have you speaking Welsh. I’ve not struggled all these years in Aber to have you talk like a labourer. I could have stayed in the valley if I’d wanted that.”

“But Mam, I got to practise! It’s exams next year.”

“If I’d known you was going to be filled with that squit you’d never have gone the Grammar.”

“Yes, Mam. You keep saying.”

“What was you talking about, then?”

“I was only asking Huw if he could tell me why those plates were in the roof above Alison’s room.”

The silence made Gwyn look round. His mother was leaning against the baking board, one hand pressed to her thin side.

“You not been up in that roof, boy.”

“Yes. Alison was – a bit bothered, so I went up, and found these plates. I didn’t touch – only one. She’s cleaning it.”

“That Alison!” said Gwyn’s mother, and made for the stairs, scraping her floury arms down her apron. Gwyn followed.

They heard Alison and Roger laughing. Gwyn’s mother knocked at the bedroom door, and went in.

Alison and Roger were playing with three flimsy cut-out paper models of birds. One was on the candlestick and the other two were side by side on a chair back. The plate Gwyn had brought from the loft was next to Alison’s pillows and covered with scraps of paper. Alison pushed the plate behind her when Gwyn’s mother came in.

“Now, Miss Alison, what’s this about plates?”

“Plates, Nancy?”

“If you please.”

“What plates, Nancy?”

“You know what I mean, Miss Alison. Them plates from the loft.”

“What about them?”

“Where are they?”

“There’s only one, Mam,” said Gwyn.

“Gwyn!” said Alison.

“I’ll trouble you to give me that plate, Miss.”

“Why?”

“You had no right to go up there.”

“I didn’t go.”

“Nor to send my boy up, neither.”

“I didn’t send him.”

“Excuse me,” said Roger. “I’ve things to do.” He ducked out of the room.

“I’ll thank you not to waste my time, Miss Alison. Please to give me that plate.”

“Nancy, you’re hissing like an old goose.”

“Please to give me that plate, Miss Alison.”

“Whose house is this, anyway?” said Alison.

Gwyn’s mother drew herself up. She went over to the bed and held out her hand. “If you please. I seen where you put it under your pillow.”

Alison sat stiffly in the bed. Gwyn thought that she was going to order his mother from the room. But she reached behind her and pulled out the plate, and threw it on the bed. Gwyn’s mother took it. It was a plain white plate, without decoration.

“Very well, Miss Alison. Ve-ry well!”

Nancy went from the room with the plate in her hand. Gwyn stood at the door and gave a silent whistle.

“You ever played Find the Lady, have you?” he said. “‘Now you see it, now you don’t.’ Who taught you that one, girlie?”




CHAPTER 3 (#ulink_b03b64b1-875a-574e-a3af-960de4d22297)


“You’ve caused a right barny,” said Roger. “Nancy’s been throwing her apron over her head and threatening I don’t know what, your mother’s had a fit of the vapours, and now Nancy’s on her dignity. She’s given my Dad her notice three times already.”

“Why doesn’t he accept it?” said Alison.

“You should know Dad by now,” said Roger. “Anything for a quiet life: that’s why he never gets one. But you’d a nerve, working that switch on her. Pity she knew the plates were decorated. How did you manage it?”

“I didn’t,” said Alison.

“Come off it.”

“I didn’t. That was the plate I traced the owls from.”

“But Gwyn says you gave Nancy an ordinary white one.”

“The pattern disappeared.”

Roger began to laugh, then stopped.

“You’re serious, aren’t you?”

Alison nodded.

“Ali, it’s not possible,” said Roger. “The plate was glazed: the pattern was under the glaze. It couldn’t rub off.”

“But it did,” said Alison.

“But it couldn’t, little stepsister. I’ll show you.”

Roger climbed the ladder and opened the trap door.

“It’s too dark. Where’s your torch?”

“Here,” said Alison. “Can you see the plates? They’re in a corner over to your left.”

“Yes. I’ll bring a couple to prove they’re all the same.”

“Bring more. As many as you can. Let’s have them. Hand them down to me.”

“Better not,” said Roger: “after the tizz. But I don’t think these’ll be missed.”

“Mind the joists,” said Alison. “Gwyn nearly fell through the ceiling there. It was queer.”

“I bet it was!”

“No. Really queer. He slipped when he touched the plate, and he went all shadowy. Just for a second it didn’t look like Gwyn.”

“It’s the darkest part of the loft,” said Roger.

They washed the plates and took them to the window. Roger scrubbed the glaze with a nailbrush. “The glaze is shot,” he said. He picked at it with his fingernail. “It comes off easily.”

“All right,” said Alison. “I want to trace these owls before the light goes. I’m making them properly this time, out of stiff paper.”

“Not more!” said Roger. “Why do you want more? Where are the three you did earlier?”

“I couldn’t find them.”

“If you’re going to start that drawing again, I’m off,” said Roger. “When you’ve done one you’ve done them all. Shall I take your supper things down?”

“I’ve not had supper,” said Alison.

“Hasn’t Dad been up with your tray?”

“No.”

Roger grinned. “Your mother sent him to do the stern father act.”

“He’s not come.”

“Good old Dad,” said Roger.

Roger went downstairs and out through the kitchen to the back of the house. He listened at the door of a long building that had once been the dairy but was now a billiard-room. He heard the click of ivory.

Roger opened the door. His father was playing snooker by himself in the dusk. A supper tray was on an armchair.

“Hello, Dad,” said Roger.

“Jolly good,” said his father.

“I’ll light the lamps for you.”

“No need. I’m only pottering.”

Roger sat on the edge of the chair. His father moved round the table, trundling the balls into the pockets, under the eyes of the falcons and buzzards, otters, foxes, badgers and pine martens that stared from their glass cases on the wall.

“Don’t they put you off your game?” said Roger.

“Ha ha; yes.”

“This room was the dairy, wasn’t it?”

“Oooh, yes, I dare say.”

“Gwyn was telling me. He thinks it might have been the original house before that – an open hall, with everybody living together.”

“Really?” said his father. “Fancy that.”

“It often happens, Gwyn says. The original house becomes an outbuilding.”

“Damn,” said Roger’s father. “I’m snookered.” He straightened up and chalked his cue. “Yes: rum old place, this.”

“It’s that olde worlde wall panelling that gets me,” said Roger. “I mean, why cover something genuine with that phoney stuff?”

“I thought it was rather tasteful, myself,” said his father.

“All right,” said Roger. “But why go and pebble-dash a piece of the wall? Pebble-dash! Inside!” A rectangle of wall near the door was encrusted with mortar.

“I’ve seen worse than that,” said his father. “When I started in business I was on the road for a few years, and there was one Bed-and-Breakfast in Kendal that was grey pebble-dashed all over inside. Fifteen-watt bulbs, too, I remember, in every room. We called it Wookey Hole.”

“But at least it was all over,” said Roger. “Why just this piece of wall?”

“Damp?”

“The walls are a yard thick.”

“Still,” said his father, “it must be some weakness somewhere. It’s cracked.”

“Is it? It wasn’t this morning.”

“Right across, near the top.”

“That definitely wasn’t there this morning,” said Roger. “I was teaching Gwyn billiards. We tried to work out what the pebble-dash was for. I looked very closely. It wasn’t cracked.”

“Ah, well it is now,” said his father. “Not much use doing any more tonight. Let’s pack up.”

They collected the balls, stacked the cues and rolled the dustsheet over the table.

“Would you like me to take Ali her supper?” said Roger.

“Yes – er: no: no: I said I would: I’d better. Margaret thinks I ought. She’s a bit upset by the fuss.”

“How’s Nancy?”

“Phew! That was a real up-and-downer while it lasted! But I think we’ve managed. A fiver cures most things. She’s dead set against some plates or other – I didn’t understand what any of it was about. No: I’d better go and chat up old Ali.”

Alison was cutting out the last owl when she heard her stepfather bringing the supper tray. She had arranged the plates on the mantelpiece and had perched the owls about the room as she finished them. He pushed the door open with his shoulder and came in backwards.

“Grub up!”

“Thanks, Clive,” said Alison. “What is it?”

“Nancy’s Best Limp Salad, with sheep-dip mayonnaise.” He put the tray by the bed and lit the lamp. “I say, these are jolly fellows. What are they?”

“Owls. I made them.”

“They’re rather fun.”

“Yes.”

“Well – er: how are the gripes?”

“Much better, thanks.”

“Good. Up and about this morning?”

“What sort of a day did you and Mummy have?” said Alison.

“Didn’t catch anything, and one of the waders leaked, but I’ve great hopes of tomorrow. Old Halfwhatsit says he knows a stretch of the river where they always bite.”

“I bet he didn’t say where it is.”

“Er – no. No, he didn’t.”

“Have you been sent to tell me off about Nancy?”

“What? Oh. Ha ha,” said Clive.

“I don’t know why she was going on like that,” said Alison, “and I didn’t see it had anything to do with her. Gwyn found some of those plates in the loft, and she came storming up as if she owned the place.”

“Yes. Well. Old Nance, eh? You know—”

“But she went berserk, Clive!”

“Too true. We had a basinful when we came home, I’ll tell you! Your mother’s very upset. She says you ought to – oh well, skip it.”

“But it’s my house, isn’t it?” said Alison.

“Ah yes.”

“Well then.”

“It’s a bit dodgy. If your father hadn’t turned it over to you before he died your mother would’ve had to sell this house to clear the death duties. Morbid, but there it is.”

“But it’s still my house,” said Alison. “And I don’t have to take orders from my cook.”

“Fair dos,” said Clive. “Think of your mother. It was hard enough to get someone to live in all summer. If Nance swept out we’d never find a replacement, and your mother would have to cope by herself. She’d be very upset. And it is the first time we’ve all been together – as a family, and – and – you know?”

“Yes, Clive. I suppose so.”

“That’s my girl. Now eat your supper. – Hello: sounds as if we’ve mice in the roof.”

“Don’t wait, Clive,” said Alison. “I’m not hungry. I’ll eat this later, and bring the tray down in the morning. Tell Mummy not to worry.”

“That’s my girl. God bless.”




CHAPTER 4 (#ulink_97340659-7d9e-5b28-b869-487eff752e74)


“And the room was so cold,” said Roger. “It was like being in a deepfreeze. But it was the noise that was worst. I thought the ceiling was coming in. And there were scratchings going on round her bed, too, on the wall and then on the iron and her supper tray – you could tell the difference. Is that what you heard when you went up the loft?”

“No, not as bad,” said Gwyn. “But she said it was getting louder. What did you do, man?”

“I called her, but she was fast asleep.”

“What time was it?”

“About one o’clock,” said Roger. “You know how hot it was last night – I couldn’t sleep, and I kept hearing this noise. I thought she was having a nightmare, and then I thought perhaps she was ill, so I went up.”

“The noise was in the loft? You’re sure?”

“Positive. It was something sharpening its claws on the joists, or trying to get out, and either way it wasn’t funny.”

“You’re absolutely certain it couldn’t have been rats?”

“I don’t know what it was,” said Roger, “but it sounded big.”

“How big?”

“Big enough.”

“Then what?”

“Nothing – I funked out,” said Roger. “I couldn’t stand it.”

“How is she this morning?”

“She was all right at breakfast, a bit queasy, but that’s all.”

“Where is she now?”

“She said she was going to find her paper owls. She’s obsessed with those futile birds.”

“Them off the plates?” said Gwyn.

“Yes. Do you know how they got into the loft?”

“My Mam won’t say anything about them – nothing that sticks together: she’s that mad. And the switch Alison put across her! By! It’s making her talk like a Welsh Nationalist!”

“Ali says she didn’t switch the plate.”

“Pull the other,” said Gwyn. “It’s got bells on.”

“That’s what I said to her yesterday. But she didn’t switch.”

“Ring-a-ding-a-ding,” said Gwyn.

“Listen. I fetched two more down from the loft, and when I went into Ali’s bedroom last night they were on the mantelpiece. The pattern’s gone.”

“How did you know?” said Alison. She stood at the door of the billiard-room with the plates in her hand. “I was coming to show you.”

“Er – I thought I heard you having a bad dream last night,” said Roger, “so I popped in. The plates were on the mantelpiece.”

“Yes: they’re the same, aren’t they?” said Gwyn. “Well now, there’s a thing.”

“How can it happen?” said Alison. “Is it tracing the owls that makes the plates go blank?”

“What did you use?” said Roger. “Pumice?”

“Let’s see the owls,” said Gwyn.

“I haven’t any.”

“What?” said Roger. “You’ve done nothing else but make owls.”

“They keep disappearing.”

“This is ridiculous,” said Gwyn.

“Has your mother said anything?” said Alison.

“Not that can be repeated: except she’s made it a condition of staying that the loft’s nailed up permanent.”

“Today?”

“Now there she’s hoist by her own petard, like. It’s stupid. She won’t let Huw Halfbacon in the house.”

“What does she have against him?” said Alison.

“Search me,” said Gwyn. “Anyway, I measure the hatch, then Huw makes a cover, and I nail it up. We can spin that out till tomorrow between us. Plenty of time to bring the plates down, isn’t it?”

“How about leaving them where they are?” said Roger.

“We can’t,” said Alison. “I must make some owls.”

Roger shrugged.

“We’ll have to be a bit crafty,” said Gwyn. “Mam’s propped the kitchen door open. She’d hear us easy if we tried to carry them down.”

“That woman!” cried Alison. “She’s impossible!”

“I know what you mean, Miss Alison,” said Gwyn.

There was a scream from the kitchen.

“That’s Mam!” said Gwyn, and they looked out of the billiard-room. Nancy appeared at the outside door of the larder with a broken plate in her hands.

“Oh!” she shouted. “Oh! Throwing plates now, are you? That’s it! That’s it! That’s it, Miss! That’s it!”

“What’s the matter?” said Alison.

“Don’t come that with me, Miss! I know better! So sweet and innocent you are! I know! Spite and malice it is!”

“What’s the matter?” shouted Roger.

“I know my place,” said Nancy. “And she should know hers. I was not engaged to be thrown at! To be made mock of – and dangerous too! Spite, Miss Alison! I’m not stopping here!”

“It was me,” said Gwyn. “I was fooling about. I didn’t see the door was open, and I didn’t see you there. The plate slipped. Sorry, Mam.”

Nancy said nothing, but stepped back and slammed the door. Gwyn beckoned the other two away.

“Wow,” said Roger. “What was that?”

“Thanks, Gwyn,” said Alison. Gwyn looked at her. “I couldn’t help it,” she said.

“Couldn’t you?”

“Will somebody tell me what’s going on round here?” said Roger.

“Forget it,” said Gwyn. “I’d better go and butter up the old darling. Don’t worry, I can handle her all right. I’m going down the shop this morning, so I’ll buy her a packet of fags to keep her happy.”

“She looked wild,” said Alison.

“Do you blame her?” said Gwyn. “And what’s a clip on the earhole among friends? You go and square your family, put them wise, get in first: just in case. I’ll calm Mam down, and then we’ll see to the loft. She’s touchy this morning because I’m not supposed to speak to Huw, and I must over this job.”

“But what happened then?” said Roger. “That plate was the one she took from Ali’s room yesterday, wasn’t it?”

“I know,” said Gwyn. “Where are the others?”

“I put them on the billiard table,” said Alison.

“I’ll pick them up on my way back,” said Gwyn. “We’ll have a good look at them later.”

“Who’s going to deal with which?” Alison said to Roger as they walked across the lawn.

“We’ll each tackle our own, I think, in this case,” said Roger.

“Mummy’s sunbathing on the terrace,” said Alison.

“Right. Dad’s in the river somewhere, I expect, trying out his puncture repairs. Peculiar business, isn’t it? You know just before Nancy yelled – when you were letting off steam about her – a crack went right through that pebble-dash in the billiard-room. I saw it. It was behind you. Peculiar that. It’s the second since yesterday. Dad spotted one last night.”

Gwyn walked slowly. The plate had been on the dresser in the kitchen: his mother had been in the larder: a difficult shot. Who could have done it? Huw was shovelling coke by the stables. Who would have done it?

The smash in the billiard-room was like an explosion. Gwyn ran. The fragments of the plates lay on the floor. They had hit the wall where it was pebble-dashed, and the whole width of the mortar near the top was laced with cracks. Gwyn looked under the table and in the cupboards, but no one was hiding, and the animals were motionless in their glass.

Very gently, and softly, trying to make no noise, Gwyn gathered up the pieces. The morning sun came through the skylights and warmed the oak beams of the roof. They gave off a sweet smell, the essence of their years, wood and corn and milk and all the uses of the room. A motorcycle went by along the road above the house, making the glass rattle.

Gwyn heard something drop behind him, and he turned. A lump of pebble-dash had come off the wall, and another fell, and in their place on the wall two eyes were watching him.




CHAPTER 5 (#ulink_41321eed-72f4-5242-9308-a2b25d0b0198)


“Gwyn said he’d done it. I don’t think she believed him, but she had to shut up.”

“Good,” said Clive. “His head’s screwed on.”

“Yes, Gwyn’s all right,” said Roger. “But I thought you’d better know, in case Nancy wants to make a row over it.”

“Too true,” said Clive.

“None of us chucked the plate,” said Roger.

“It probably fell, and the old girl thought someone had buzzed her,” said Clive. “That seems to have fixed my puncture.” He lumbered out of the river. “Dry as a bone.”

“Have you seen this, Dad?” said Roger. He was sitting on top of the upright slab. “This hole?”

“Oh? No.”

“Any ideas how it was made?” said Roger. “It goes right through.”

“So it does. Machine tooled, I’d say. Lovely job. Seems a rum thing to do out here in the wilds.”

“Have a squint from the other side, up towards the house.”

Roger’s father put his hands on his knees and bent to look through the hole.

“Well I never,” he said. “Fancy that.”

“It frames the top of the ridge, and the trees, doesn’t it?”

“Like a snapshot.”

“That’s a point,” said Roger. “I wonder if it’s possible. You’d need a heck of a focal depth, and the camera I’ve brought here only stops down to f.16. It’d be interesting, technically – You’re off shopping today, aren’t you?”

“Yes: back after tea, I expect. That’s the drag of this place. It’s a day’s job every week.”

“I’ll need a different film and paper,” said Roger. “Can you buy it for me?”

“Surely. But write it down, old lad.”

Gwyn locked the billiard-room door, and instead of putting the key back on its hook in the kitchen he kept it in his pocket and went down the narrow path between the back of the house and the high retaining wall of the steep garden. He moved in a green light of ferns and damp moss, and the air smelt cool.

When he reached the open lawn he sat on the edge of the fish tank and rinsed his hands. Grey lime dust drifted from his fingers like a cobweb over the water. He bit a torn nail smooth, and cleaned out the sand with a twig. Then he went to the stables.

At first he thought that Huw must have finished with the coke, but when he came to the yard he saw Huw leaning on his shovel, and something about him made Gwyn stop.

Huw stood with two fingers lodged in his waistcoat pocket, his head cocked sideways, and although his body seemed to strain he did not move. He was talking to himself, but Gwyn could not hear what he said, and he was dazzled by the glare of the sun when he tried to find what Huw was looking at. Then he saw. It was the whole sky.

There were no clouds, and the sky was drained white towards the sun. The air throbbed, flashed like blue lightning, sometimes dark, sometimes pale, and the pulse of the throbbing grew, and now the shades followed one another so quickly that Gwyn could see no more than a trembling which became a play of light on the sheen of a wing, but when he looked about him he felt that the trees and the rocks had never held such depth, and the line of the mountain made his heart shake.

“There’s daft,” said Gwyn.

He went up to Huw Halfbacon. Huw had not moved, and now Gwyn could hear what he was saying. It was almost a chant.

“Come, apple-sweet murmurer; come, harp of my gladness; come, summer, come.”

“Huw.”

“Come, apple-sweet murmurer; come, harp of my gladness; come, summer, come.”

“Huw?”

“Come, apple-sweet murmurer; come, harp of my gladness; come, summer, come.”

Huw looked at Gwyn, and looked through him. “She’s coming,” he said. “She won’t be long now.”

“Mam says you’re to make a board to nail over the loft in the house,” said Gwyn. “If I measure up, can you let the job last till tomorrow?”

Huw sighed, and began to shovel coke. “You want a board to nail up the loft, is that what you said?”

“Yes, but we need time to bring the plates down without Mam finding out.”

“Be careful.”

“Don’t you worry.”

“I’ll do that for you,” said Huw.

“Why has Mam taken against you?”

“You’d better ask her. I’ve no quarrel.”

“She’s been away from the valley all these years. You’d think she’d have got over any old rows. But she hasn’t spoken to you, has she?”

“Perhaps she is afraid in the English way,” said Huw. “But if they think I am weak in the head they should have seen my uncle. And Grandfather they would lock in their brick walls.”

“Why?”

“Grandfather?” said Huw. “He went mad, down through the wood by the river.”

“Here?” said Gwyn. “The wood in the garden, where it’s swampy?”

“Yes. We don’t go there.”

“Really, really mad?” said Gwyn.

“That’s what the English said. They would not let him stay here. He lost his job.”

“The English? Wasn’t the house lived in properly even then?”

“It has never been a home,” said Huw. “They come for a while, and go. And my grandfather had to go. They would not let him stay in the valley.”

“What happened to him?”

“He walked away. Sometimes we heard of him. He sent those plates. He was working in the big potteries, and he decorated the plates and sent them to the house, and a letter to say he was all right now, but word came soon after that he had died at Stoke.”

“But why were they put in the loft? And why did Mam have hysterics when I found them?”

“Ask her. She’s your mother,” said Huw. “Perhaps there’s always talk in a valley.”

“Is there anything needed for the house while we’re out shopping, Halfbacon?”

Roger and his father came into the yard.

“No, sir,” said Huw. “We are not wanting any stuff.”

“Good,” said Clive. “I’ll be off, then. Jot down what you want for your snaps, won’t you, Roger? Funny rock you have in the meadow, Halfbacon. Who drilled the hole in it?”

“It is the Stone of Gronw,” said Huw.

“Oh? What’s that when it’s at home, eh? Ha ha.”

“There is a man being killed at that place,” said Huw: “old time.”

“Was there now!”

“Yes,” said Huw. “He has been taking the other man’s wife.”

“That’s a bit off, I must say,” said Clive. “I suppose the stone’s a kind of memorial, eh? But who made the hole? You can see those trees through it at the top of the ridge.”

“Yes, sir,” said Huw. “He is standing on the bank of the river, see, and the husband is up there on the Bryn with a spear: and he is putting the stone between himself and the spear, and the spear is going right through the stone and him.”

“Oho,” said Clive.

“Why did he stand there and let it happen?” said Roger.

“Because he killed the husband the same way earlier to take the wife.”

“Tit for tat,” said Clive. “These old yarns, eh? Well, I must be off.”

“Yes, sir, that is how it is happening, old time.”

Gwyn went with Roger and his father towards the house.

“Will you be using the billiard-room today, Mr Bradley?”

“No,” said Clive. “I’ll be fishing as soon as we’re back: mustn’t waste this weather, you know. Help yourself, old son.”

“Here’s what I want for my camera, Dad,” said Roger. “It’s all there.”

“Fine,” said Clive. “Well, cheerio.”

“I was beginning to believe that maundering old liar,” said Roger.

“Huw wasn’t lying. Not deliberate,” said Gwyn.

“What? A spear making that hole? Thrown all the way from those trees? by a stiff?”

“Huw believes it.”

“You Welsh are all the same,” said Roger. “Scratch one and they all bleed.”

“What happened to you yesterday by the Stone of Gronw?” said Gwyn. “You knew what I meant when I was trying to explain how it felt when I picked up a plate. And then you started talking about the stone out of nowhere.”

“It was a feeling,” said Roger. “One minute everything’s OK – and the next minute it’s not. Too much clean living, I expect. I’ll cut down on the yoghurt—”

“And you came straight up from the river,” said Gwyn. “Didn’t you? Work it out, man. We both felt something, and it must have been near enough at the same time. What was it?”

“A thump,” said Roger. “A kind of scream. Very quick. Perhaps there was an accident—”

“I’ve not heard of any,” said Gwyn. “And in this valley you can’t sneeze without everyone knowing from here to Aber.”

“There was a whistling, too,” said Roger, “in the air. That’s all.”

“And I got a shock from the plates,” said Gwyn. “And nothing’s been the same since. Did you notice the sky when you were with your Dad a few minutes ago?”

“No?”

“Flashing,” said Gwyn. “Like strip lighting switched on, only blue.”

“No,” said Roger.

“Huw saw it. Where’s Alison?”

“Gone to tell her mother about yours.”

“There’s something to show you,” said Gwyn. “In the billiard-room.”

They found Alison rattling the door handle. “Why have you locked it?” she said. “I want the plates.”

“They’re still here,” said Gwyn.

He unlocked the door and they went inside.

“Gwyn! You’ve broken them!”

“Not me, lady. Have you seen what’s behind you?”

“Holy cow!” said Roger.




CHAPTER 6 (#ulink_196f557c-f61e-5501-ae80-00767165df9b)


She was tall. Her long hair fell to her waist, framing in gold her pale and lovely face. Her eyes were blue. She wore a loose gown of white cambric, embroidered with living green stems of broom and meadowsweet, and a wreath of green oak leaves in her hair.

“Gave me quite a turn, she did,” said Gwyn. “There was just her eyes showing at first, but that pebble-dash soon came off.”

“She’s so beautiful!” said Alison. “Who’d want to cover her up?”

“Sixteenth century, if it’s a day,” said Roger. “Fresh as new. How’s it survived under that lot?”

The woman was painted life-size in oils on wooden panelling. She stood against a background of clover heads spaced in rows.

“What a find!” said Roger. “It’ll fetch thousands.”

“Not so fast,” said Gwyn. “We’ll keep our mouths shut. You’ll have to organise your Dad, and the one person who mustn’t know is my Mam.”

“Why, for heaven’s sake? Don’t you realise? You’ve a masterpiece here.”

“My mam would take an axe to it,” said Gwyn. “Start thinking. You’ve not asked me how I found it.”

“How did you, then?” said Alison.

“It was your plates. I was coming back in here when I heard them smash. They’d been chucked against the pebble-dash, and a piece fell off.”

“Why should this make your mother wreck it?” said Alison.

“My Mam’s scared stiff about something. She’s grim at the best of times, but not this bad. It’s the plates, isn’t it, Alison?”

“How should I know?”

“Guessing; and what Huw said. ‘Mind how you are looking at her,’ and now in the yard, ‘She’s coming,’ he said.”

“What does that mean?” said Roger.

“You can’t tell. He could be talking about the weather. It’s called ‘she’ in Welsh.”

“Then that’s it,” said Roger.

“But if it isn’t?” said Gwyn. “Someone cared enough about the painting and the plates to lug a dinner service into the roof and to pebble-dash this wall. You don’t go to all that trouble for nothing. Somebody wanted them hidden, and now they’re not hidden. They’re – loose.”

“It might not have been the same person. And there’s no harm, whatever the reason is,” said Alison, “not if we find something as wonderful as this.”

“Have you looked close? Marvellous detail, isn’t it?” said Gwyn.

“Every strand of hair,” said Roger. “I can’t get over how it’s stayed so clean all this time.”

“Marvellous,” said Gwyn. “Have you looked at them clover heads, boyo?”

“Great stuff: like heraldry,” said Roger. He went right up to the panelling. “And yet you could pick them—” Roger stepped back. “Oh no,” he said.

“What’s the matter?” said Alison. She looked. The heads were formed of curved white petals bunched together, each painted separately, fine and sharp. But the petals were not petals: they were claws.

“Someone had a nasty mind,” said Roger.

“Or maybe that’s the way it was when they painted it,” said Gwyn. “Nasty.”

“You can’t have flowers made of claws,” said Roger.

“Why not? You can have owls made of flowers, can’t you?” said Gwyn. “Let’s bring the plates down. I want to see them close to – and with the pattern on. Leave this pebble-dash: I’ll clear it up later. And don’t say anything about this wall until we’ve had a think.”

They arranged that Gwyn and Roger should take the plates out of the loft and lower them from the bedroom window in a linen basket to Alison, who would be waiting with a barrow.

“I’m getting cold feet over this,” said Roger. “Shouldn’t we leave it as it is, and nail the loft up?”

“There’s something in this valley,” said Gwyn, “and my Mam’s on to it. She’s been like the kiss of death since she saw them plates. That clover: them plates: it’s owls and flowers, and it’s dangerous.”

“So nail the loft up,” said Roger. “If you’d seen Ali last night you wouldn’t be keen.”

“That’s why I’m shifting the plates,” said Gwyn. “Get them away from her first, and then we can think. I’ve not had a proper look at them paper models she makes: are they genuine?”

“Absolutely. I’ve watched her. It’s dead clever the way she traces the patterns out so it fits together.”

“Does she really keep losing them?”

“I think so,” said Roger. “She’s quite het up about it.”

“So I’ve noticed,” said Gwyn. “We must disconnect her.”

“Disconnect?”

“That’s about it. Batteries can’t work without wires.”

Gwyn went up into the loft, and handed the dinner service to Roger, who put it in the linen basket and lowered it on a rope to Alison, then Gwyn measured the hatch, and came down.

“You know, I think we’re being a bit overwrought about all this,” said Roger. “When you see them they are just plates. And perhaps it was just mice.”

“Mice,” said Gwyn. “I’d forgotten. I set a cage trap.”

He climbed up the ladder and opened the hatch. Roger could see him from the waist down. He stood very still.

“Have you caught anything?” said Roger.

“You’ve seen a cage trap, haven’t you?” said Gwyn. “You know how it works – a one-way door: what’s in it can’t get out: right?”

“Yes,” said Roger. “Have you caught anything?”

“I think I’ve caught a mouse,” said Gwyn.

“ ‘Think’?”

Gwyn came down the ladder. He held out the cage. Inside was a hard-packed ball of bones and fur.

“I think it’s a mouse,” he said. “Owls aren’t fussy. They just swallow straight off, and what they don’t want they cough up later. That’s an owl’s pellet: but I think it was mouse.”




CHAPTER 7 (#ulink_f2c42f7a-8006-53fc-a016-529108cae187)


They had not heard Nancy come up the stairs. She was in the bedroom doorway. “It’s taking you long enough to measure that door, isn’t it, boy?” she said. “Is that all you’re doing? What you need that trap for?”

“I’ve finished, Mam,” said Gwyn. “I’m going down the shop.”

“About time,” said Nancy. “I’m wanting flour for tea scones: be sharp.”

“Can I have my money now?” said Gwyn.

“You has pocket money Saturday,” said Nancy.

“I know, Mam. Can I have it early this week?”

“You think I’m made of it? There’s nothing as can’t wait. Saturday, boy.”

“But Mam—”

“Down the shop with you, and less cheek.”

“I’m not cheeking you.”

“You are now,” said Nancy.

Gwyn went downstairs and into the kitchen. Roger followed. Gwyn opened a cupboard and took his mother’s purse from behind a cocoa tin.

“You’re not going to nick it, are you?” said Roger.

“No,” said Gwyn.

“You don’t need cash for the flour,” said Roger. “It goes on the account.”

“Yes,” said Gwyn.

“Do you have pocket money every week?” said Roger.

“Yes.”

“Bit quaint, isn’t it?”

“Is it?”

“Though if that’s how you’re fixed I suppose it’s OK to take some early. You’re not pinching it – just anticipating.”

“Not even that,” said Gwyn. “I’m giving.” He opened the purse, and dropped the ball of mouse inside. “A poor thing, but mine own.” Then he closed the purse, and put it back in the cupboard.

Gwyn walked so fast down the drive that Roger had to run after him. His face was white and he did not speak.





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