“So,” he said, “you went to his sick bed. Pleased to see you, was he?”
“I think he appreciated it.”
“And then you came here.”
“I thought you might like some company.”
“That’s a lie.”
Rhys just looked at him with an air of helplessness.
“Where are you staying?” Owain asked suspiciously.
“The Windsor. Waterloo Place. t I’d invite you out to dinner. Unless you have other plans.”
Owain walked into the living room. “Uncle suggest it, did he?”
His brother followed him through. “As a matter of fact, no. After the last fiasco I think he’s given up.”
Rhys had left the house in Paris while Owain was taking the call from Marisa. Sir Gruffydd had told Owain that he’d gone because he didn’t feel welcome. And nothing, as far as Owain was concerned, had changed.
“I think we need to talk,” Rhys persisted. “All I’m asking is for a few hours of your time.”
“I’ve told you before—I’ve nothing to say to you.”
His brother came up close and, before Owain could recoil, whispered: “I know about Regent Street, Owain. And I think I know why.”
“Geoff sends his apologies,” Tanya was saying, her voice carrying from the kitchen. “Something’s cropped up at work.”
A delicious smell of roasting lamb filled the dining room. Earlier I’d been out in the garden, trying to salvage usable leaves from the stringy mass of mint in the herb border. I’d peeled parsnips, scrubbed new potatoes, fetched a couple of bottles of rose from the store in the garage.
Tanya went upstairs. The radio was playing in the kitchen: someone was talking about markets and share prices. I moved around the dining table, laying down cutlery. Four places had been set.
Tanya returned, undoing the straps of her apron. Long neck arching out of a black scoop top, a peachy fuzz on its nape. But she looked distracted, even peevish.
She was holding the brass letter opener. It was shaped like a cavalry sword.
“Have you been trying to get into my writing desk?”
“What?”
“I found this in the lock.”
I just gaped at her.
“You weren’t exactly subtle. You left it jammed in there. What were you after?”
I had absolutely no recollection of doing so. But who else could it have been? Certainly Geoff wouldn’t have wanted to raid his own wife’s bureau, and definitely not as clumsily as Tanya implied.
“Owen?”
My full name. A measure of annoyance. And who could blame her?
font size="3">“What were you after?” she repeated.
I shook my head helplessly.
“If you want something, you only have to ask. Was it your keys and wallet?”
Now I had another brief memory, of trying to access her computer. But I didn’t know the password, hadn’t been able to log on. I recalled it as though I’d been sleepwalking.
“I’m not trying to stop you from doing things,” Tanya was saying. “But I can’t have you skulking around like a burglar. Doing needless damage.”
What had I been after? A means of escape? Two days had passed. What had I been doing in that time?
“Did you need money? Were you planning on going out?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
There was a degree of anger in her voice, but far stronger was her desire for a simple explanation. I couldn’t satisfy her because I had no answers.
“I can’t remember,” I said, angry with myself. “It’s ridiculous. I don’t know what could have possessed me.”
But this wasn’t true. I had more than an inkling.
Tanya unhooked her apron and tossed it on the worktop. “I’m going to take a bath.”
“You’ve got to believe me,” I said, but couldn’t then explain just what it was I wanted her to believe.
Two days had passed. I’d been back at the hospital with Tanya on both of them, doing a lot of sitting around in between various neurological tests that had exhausted me. No Owain in that time, I was certain, just Tanya tending to me. She was feeling the strain. Which wasn’t surprising.
“Anything I can do?” I called up the stairs.
“It’s all under control. Take a look at the meat if I’m not out in twenty minutes. Otherwise, just behave yourself. Stay away from the knives and forks.”
I heard the bathroom door close, the key turn in the lock.
I couldn’t bring myself to face up to what must be happening. It was too threatening, too frightening to contemplate. I had to stay calm, be as mentally strong as possible. Root myself in the here and now as firmly as I could.
I went back into the dining room and began fiddling with the napkins in the wineglasses. I squared and re-squared the place mats, mad"3">Twor adjustments to the chairs. On the mantelpiece there was a photograph of Tanya’s wedding day. I refused to scrutinise it, registering only the flowing but unfussy cream dress, the slimmer-than-ever figure in a navy suit, church ivy framing them.
Tanya and Geoff had married within six months of returning from California. Tanya sold her grandmother’s house and they bought a venerable place in Twickenham. To me, the sales marked the end of our student era, but at least they were now living relatively close. There was the prospect of seeing Tanya more frequently.
Shortly before they returned Tanya sent a postcard congratulating us on Sara’s birth. I don’t know how she found out. The card contained no hint that they might soon be returning to the UK. But one Saturday morning the phone rang and it was Tanya’s voice at the other end of the line, telling me they were home, that they themselves were getting married in the New Year.
I still remember vividly the circumstances of the call. I was reading the colour supplement in an armchair right next to the phone. When I picked it up and said my name, the response was: Guess who?
Of course I recognised her instantly, despite the faint American lilt to her accent. At some point Lyneth came in from the garden and sat down on the sofa opposite me. She looked on with interest, a pair of secateurs in her hand, as Tanya and I brought our respective lives up to date. We kept it brief but ended with Tanya promising she would call again soon. We should get together and she hoped very much that we would come to the wedding.
I told Lyneth that I’d been talking to an old friend from university whom I hadn’t seen in over three years. Without rancour or suspicion she asked me if it was the same woman I’d been seeing as a student.
The phone in the hall was ringing. I picked it up, said, “Hello?”
A silence, followed by a fumbling, as if the receiver had been dropped. Finally a voice said, “Yo, bro.”
“Rees?”
“The one and only. We still on for tonight?”
I didn’t know what he was talking about. It occurred to me that Tanya must have invited him to dinner. That was why the table had been set for four. But because I wasn’t certain, and because I wanted to avoid embarrassment I said, “What time did she say?”
“Seven.”
Rees sounded quite definite. Which was a relief in more than one sense.
“Seven it is,” I told him.
“Better get my skates on. Might be bringing someone else.”
“What?”
He had already hung up.
I tried to ring him back but the line was engaged. He was often hard to contact on the phone; he had no mobile and spent hours on the internet when he wasn’t deliberately leaving the phone off the hook.
I couldn’t recall whether I’d seen him since the hospital visit. I thought not. It was impossible to guess what his current state of mind might be. There were times when he could be perfectly normal, times when he flipped between sanity and the skewed world of his illness.