Her eyes opened wide a few moments later when the man in the seat directly behind hers began to speak in an accent and a voice she recognized.
Florence pushed her woolly hat up over her ears so she could hear better and scrunched down in her seat, which was tall enough to shield her from the view of the passengers behind. She turned her body slightly, ignoring the glare from her seatmate, so her ear was up against the narrow divide between her seat and the one next to it.
“Yes, I do come from America, as you call it,” the man behind her was saying. “California. I work for an electronics firm. Just over here on business. Arrived a couple of days ago.”
The woman said something that Florence couldn’t quite catch.
“Well, my firm does sensitive work for a certain United States government agency, but I can’t really talk about it. Let’s just say I travel the world on top-secret missions.” He gave a little chuckle. “I’ve already said too much. Tell me about you. Where are you headed?”
Florence thought the woman said Deganwy, but she spoke so softly Florence wasn’t sure she had heard correctly.
“And will your husband be meeting you at the station? It looks as if we might get more snow. Hope you don’t have far to go?”
The woman murmured something.
“Oh, live near the school, do you? My mother was a teacher. I have such admiration for teachers.”
You lying bastard, thought Florence. Her brain was racing at warp speed as she tried to figure out what to do. Should she make herself known and let him know she’d overheard everything and that she was going to expose him for the fraud he was? But something told her better not, as least not yet. She shrank farther down in her seat and listened to his patter as the woman sitting beside him became increasingly quiet. Finally, overcome by boredom and lack of interest, Florence surmised, she no longer responded to him. Florence couldn’t see if she was looking out the window, reading, or pretending to be asleep, but she had certainly managed to send a message that as far as she was concerned, the conversation was over.
Florence smiled to herself. Nice try, old son. You win some, you lose some, eh, Harry?
The train rolled on to Llandudno, slowing as it approached the next station.
“Well, this is where I get off,” Saunders was saying. “It was nice meeting you.”
This can’t be Llandudno, Florence thought, checking her watch, and sure enough the signs on the station platform read Conwy. Why was Saunders getting off here? Surely it would make more sense for him to go to Llandudno and make his way from there to Llanelen or wherever he was going.
In an instant she made her decision. She rose out of her seat, slid into the aisle, and careful to keep her head turned away from Saunders, reached into the overhead bin and tugged at her suitcase. She followed him down the aisle, her suitcase bumping against her leg.
As the station announcer intoned, “Anyone alighting from the train should take extreme care as the platform is slippery,” Florence stepped cautiously onto the platform just behind him.
He made his way to the station exit and then, once he was on the street, paused for a moment to get his bearings and then turned in the direction of the castle.
Where on earth is he off to, Florence wondered, as she walked a little way behind him, keeping a steady eye on the back of his green anorak. She was not bothered that he would recognize her even if he did turn around. He hadn’t paid much attention to her when they’d met in Evelyn Lloyd’s home, today she was wearing a hat, and as she had learned a long time ago, women her age are almost invisible to the rest of the world. Florence had long ago accepted that no one takes any notice of an elderly woman, except for the occasional well-brought-up person who might, say, offer some assistance with a suitcase on a train.
Florence watched as Saunders entered the castle visitor’s centre. She crept after him and once inside busied herself picking through a selection of Welsh dragon key chains, playing cards with pictures of the castle on their backs, pencils, and bookmarks. She heard Saunders ask for a single admission ticket and waited until he had taken it, stepped away from the counter, and followed the arrow.
“The castle closes at four,” the woman told him.
Florence rummaged about in her bag for some change and approached the counter.
“How much is a senior’s ticket?” she asked. “That much?” She winced when told the cost.
“Well,” said the kindly clerk, “as it’s getting a bit late in the day, I’ll let you in for a pound, but don’t tell anybody.”
Florence slid a coin across the counter and accepted her ticket.
“Thank you. I appreciate this.”
“No problem,” the clerk replied, pulling out a notepad from under her counter. “The castle closes at four o’clock.”
Mrs. Lloyd finished telling her story to an astonished Bunny, who didn’t know whether to be upset because her friend had been hurt or because of the amount of money involved and was feeling pained for both in equal measure.
“Oh, Evelyn,” she said, her voice filled with warm concern. “How could you have been so…”
“It’s all right, Bunny. You can say it. Stupid.”
The two old friends looked at each other, and Bunny reached out to give Evelyn a comforting hug. At the tenderness of the gesture, Mrs. Lloyd’s eyes filled with tears.
“Oh, Bunny. I know I’ve been such a fool. But he was so charming and he made me feel like I was the only woman on earth. Special, like. I remembered things I hadn’t experienced in years. How good it felt to have a man admire me, tell me that I looked nice, open a door for me, give me a nice dinner. I enjoyed being seen out and about with a man. I liked being thought of as half of a couple. And he seemed so sophisticated, not like the men you get around here.”
Bunny inclined her head as she listened. “But what did you really know about him, Evelyn? You’d only known him for, what, a few weeks?” She shook her head and winced. “And to give him so much money. How could you? What came over you? What on earth were you thinking? How did all this happen so quickly?”
“I trusted him,” Mrs. Lloyd said simply, as if that explained everything. They remained looking at each other for a few moments, and then Mrs. Lloyd gave a little shrug and broke eye contact.
“It’s still early and I don’t feel like going home yet. Shall we walk on for a bit, maybe stroll past the castle?”
“I’d like to go in,” replied Bunny, “if you’re up to it. I haven’t been inside for years and I’ve never seen it in winter. Let’s just have a wander round, shall we? When I was a child, I used to try to imagine what it must have looked like when it was built. I pictured the queen sewing in her apartment all hung with tapestries, with her ladies gathered about her while the king was busy planning his war with his military advisors, or whoever he would have planned wars with. Of course, there would have been huge fireplaces with Irish wolfhounds or some such gigantic dog lying in front of them.”
Mrs. Lloyd managed a tight smile.
“Oh, Bunny, you always did have such a wonderful imagination. I can almost picture it. Yes, all right, let’s go in. Anyway, the views from the wall walks are lovely. You can see for miles.”
“The castle closes at four,” advised the attendant as the two women moved toward the glass doors that opened to a wooden walkway that led to the modern, upward path that would bring them to the castle entrance.
Twelve
Mrs. Lloyd and Bunny entered a narrow enclosure, or barbican, and then continued on into the ruins of the castle proper. The roof and floors had disappeared centuries ago, leaving the dark grey stone walls, green with lichen in places, standing open to the sky.
The women talked quietly as they walked slowly through the outer ward, referring to the guidebook Bunny had bought in the gift shop, until they reached what Bunny said was the hall range.