*
He stared at the dog on the card for a long time. It wasn’t going to tell him what to write. A group of cyclists rode by, giggling girls, wobbling across the full breadth of the road, mobile phones at the ready. Ring-necked parakeets squawked in the small park on the edge of his neighbourhood. Being at home alone wasn’t unpleasant. There was a glass of red wine in front of him on the coffee table. He felt calmer, more at ease. From the Bruna, he’d hobbled to the flower stand, where he’d bought a large bunch of yellow tulips. Not Christmas but spring. The spring races were beautiful too; he’d have to concentrate on them now. He saw himself going out the door alone, returning alone, no hellos or goodbyes, no sighs. He’d already addressed the envelope and stuck two stamps on it; in the shop he hadn’t thought about the difference between domestic and European. Now he just had to write something. What did he want to say to her? If he was very honest, not much. ‘I’m coming,’ he wrote, with her name above it and his underneath. He quickly slipped the card into the envelope and licked it shut. Then he drained the glass and called the policeman.
48
The ease with which Bradwen once again used the hotplates and the oven made her realise that he must have been familiar with the cooker for a long time. He had slid a leg of lamb into it — with garlic and anchovies, as promised — but he could eat it himself. The thought alone made her feel sick. Where had he got that tin of anchovies? Had he bought it earlier? She lit a cigarette. He must have seen the present under the Christmas tree. Maybe he was looking forward to it, just as she had always stared greedily at the St Nicholas presents in the old days but had to wait until someone told her that she could take one and unwrap it. She used to kill time by staring out of the window with feigned indifference. She smacked her lips, there was something strange about the taste of the cigarette. As long as she kept quiet, he couldn’t do anything.
‘Plant the roses tomorrow?’ he asked.
‘Yes, fine.’
He sat down at the table, a bit lost.
‘Or maybe wait a little longer,’ she said.
‘It must have been Sam,’ the boy said. He had clasped his hands loosely and was rubbing one thumb with the other in turn.
‘What?’
‘Foxes smell a dog.’
She tried to cast her mind back. Ten geese, eight geese, seven geese. She saw herself kneeling in the dark, chips of slate pressing into her flesh. There were four or five around then, but the boy and the dog hadn’t arrived yet. Or had they? ‘Do you know the baker and his wife?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why didn’t you say so?’
‘You didn’t ask.’
‘Don’t they have a baker in Llanberis?’
‘Sure. My father used to say he danced to the pipes of the tourists. Making rolls nobody else wanted. Fancy stuff.’
‘So you don’t have a mother any more.’
The boy bowed his head and looked down at his thumbs, dragging a nail through the wrinkles on his knuckle.
I didn’t want to know a thing about him, she thought. He was just supposed to be here. But he had to leave too. And now I know he’s a motherless son. That he left home and took his father’s dog. She felt exhausted. She didn’t want to know or hear any of the ins and outs. ‘Pour a drink,’ she said loudly.
The boy picked up the bottle she could have picked up herself and poured two full glasses. She raised hers, the boy raised his. She looked at him, he looked back. The kitchen smelt of meat. She raised her eyebrows.
‘To the lamb,’ Bradwen said.
‘No.’
‘To the roses?’
‘Yes.’ She drank.
The smell of lamb wasn’t as bad as she’d expected; one and a half glasses of wine were enough to drown her slight sense of nausea. During the meal they hardly spoke. The boy ate a lot of meat. She watched him shovel it in and imagined a lamb with muscular buttocks, a bundle of vigour and vitality, gambolling over a hilly field. She understood why Bradwen was so wiry, strong and wiry, as robust as the meat he ate and had probably eaten throughout his childhood. Now and then she saw him glance at the Christmas tree, looking at the present he suspected to be socks. He no longer urged her to eat. He ate and drank. Once, he forgot that the dog wasn’t there any more and whistled under his breath.
She shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. She was very tired. ‘He’s gone.’
*
When Bradwen had finished eating, he stood up to clear the table.
‘Leave it,’ she said. ‘I’ll do it in a minute. Look under the Christmas tree first.’
Without feigning surprise, he walked straight to the present, picked it up and came back to the table. ‘Socks,’ he said softly. It sounded reproachful, as if he was thinking of the encounter with his father. He laid the present on the table and pulled off the Sellotape before folding back the wrapping paper. He took the hat in his hands, looked up — his squint a bit more pronounced than usual — then pulled it down over his black hair.
She took a mouthful of wine and watched as the boy stood up and came round the table to kneel down next to her. She knew what he was going to do even before he, like Sam, began licking her free hand. She stared at his neck and the pastel-blue hat with the curls sticking out from under it, and from there her gaze moved to the candles on the windowsill, which had almost burnt down. There was still a large piece of lamb in the earthenware dish. She tried to think whether she knew any commands in English. What was she supposed to say? ‘Down!’ perhaps?
49
She woke in the night. The rushing of the stream was fairly loud, she’d slid the window up before going to bed. Was that what had woken her? Had the wind turned? She felt bloated, as if she’d eaten half a saucepan of potatoes and a whole plate of parsnips. There were noises from the bathroom. Bradwen was on the toilet. She struggled over onto her side and listened to the stream, imagining water flowing to the sea day after day, seawater evaporating, fresh water being drawn up from the salt, clouds floating to the land, rain falling on the mountain, water feeding the stream. A little later she realised that the boy wasn’t on the toilet. He was probably kneeling in front of it. Retching. She sat up, throwing the covers aside. The bedroom was cold. She didn’t just feel bloated, she felt terrible. So terrible she could hardly drag herself up onto her feet. The landing light was on, the bathroom door wide open. She walked there using the railing for support. Bradwen hadn’t turned on the light in the bathroom itself and he wasn’t kneeling, he was standing bent over and clutching the sides of the toilet bowl. His naked back was like a sick animal’s, hunched but powerful, curved but taut. A gymnast. She had never seen him like this. She laid her right hand on his upper back and, without applying any pressure, moved it back and forth from shoulder to shoulder. ‘There, there,’ she said. She felt a wave forming under her hand, put her left hand on his stomach, imagining it more tanned than usual, the muscles tense, her little finger on the elastic of his underpants. It was as if she were the one who made sure he got rid of what needed to come up. He gagged and spewed, she felt his body relax. Never before had she felt this close to him. At the same time, holding him like this helped her stay upright.