“Bag’s getting soggy,” she smiled nervously, keeping her eyes averted.
He looked at it, dismayed at yet another fuck-up, and then shrugged, shaking his head a little, as if trying to shake off the concern she must be feeling. “Dry out on the bus.”
She nodded, “Yeah, it’ll get hot in there.”
“Phew,” he looked away down the concrete fairway. “Last time I only had a T-shirt and jeans on and I was sweating like a menopausal woman.”
His turn of phrase made her mouth twitch.
“When I got off I had salt rings under my arms.”
She tutted disbelievingly.
“True,” he insisted. “I stood still at King’s Cross and a couple of deer came up and licked me.”
She smirked away from him, felt her eyes brimming up at the same time and frowned to cover it up.
“One of them offered me a tenner for a gobble, actually.”
She was crying and laughing at the same time, spluttering ridiculously, the pink glow from the adverts glinting off her wet cheeks. His whole fucking venture depended on a lie and she wasn’t a good liar.
“So,” she wiped her face and turned back to him, “so when you get there you’re off to—”
“My Auntie Margie’s, yeah.” He had done her the courtesy of looking away, giving her the chance to get it together before he looked back. “Yeah, she’ll be waiting in for me, got my room ready.”
“D’you get on with her?”
Chris shrugged, “She’s my auntie...”
He tipped gently forward on his heels, leaning out into the brutal wind beyond the shelter. A coach pulled past the mouth of the bus station, slowly, dim yellow lights behind the shaded windows. They both saw the rabbit-ear side mirrors. It was a luxury coach, luxury in as much as coaches ever could be. Full of fat tourists coming to see the Castle and the Mile, the pantomime of the city. Not the London Bus, not Chris’s bus.
He stepped back and they watched the bus pass, heads swinging around in unison like a pair of kittens watching a ball swing in front of them.
“I’ll not get that one,” he said, joking that he had a choice. “I’ll just wait for the shit bus and get that one.”
“Yeah,” she said cheerfully, and looking up saw him flinch, arcing his head back as his neck stiffened. He was still bleeding, she knew, had asked her if it was showing through the seat of his jeans, made her look. It wasn’t showing. She’d given him a fanny pad to put down there and he joked about having a period. She didn’t know who’d raped him, but it was someone they both knew, or else he wouldn’t be leaving. He confided in her because she was mousey, would give him the money for the ticket without asking too much detail, wouldn’t make him go to the police.
It came suddenly, a hot molten gush of dread from the base of her gut, rolling up her chest until it bubbled and burst out of her mouth: “Don’t go.” Her voice was flat and loud, ridiculous, a voice from the middle of a heated argument.
Chris looked at her, eyebrows tented pitifully. “I have tae...”
She nodded, looked away.
“I have,” he whispered. “Have to. You’ll come and visit me.”
“Of course. Of course, and we’ll phone all the time.”
“Yeah, phone. We’ll phone.”
As a coach slowly eased its way around the sharp turn into the St Andrew Bus Station, the destination lit up brightly above the windscreen.
The passengers who had waited inside, in the warm, filtered out behind them, talking excitedly, swinging bags, forming a messy queue.
Conscious of the company, Chris shifted his weight, brushing her shoulder lightly, shifting away. She felt the loss quite suddenly, a wrench, another cherished friend swallowed by the promise of London, loading the coach boot with bags stuffed with the offal of their own history.
The Madwoman of Usk
Edward Marston
Of all the gifts with which I’ve been blessed by the Almighty, none is perhaps as striking as my ability to sense the presence of evil. It’s uncanny. I can detect venom behind a benign smile, lust in the loins of a virgin and blackness in the heart of the outwardly virtuous. The first time I was acquainted with this strange power was when I was still a youth, studying in Paris. One of the many churches I visited harboured such a wondrous collection of holy relics that it had become a place of pilgrimage. Local people and visitors to the city flocked to view the sacred bones, leaving coins beside them as a mark of respect. One old woman, to whom my attention was drawn, came to the church every day to pay homage.
“She’s an example to us all,” I was told in a respectful whisper. “Though she’s seen seventy summers or more, she never misses her daily visit to the shrine. Behold her, Gerald.”
I did as I was bidden and watched her with care. After trudging down the aisle with the help of a stick, she lowered herself painfully to her ancient knees, dropped a coin on to the pile before her then bent her head in prayer. There she stayed until the discomfort grew too great. Hauling herself to her feet, she genuflected before the altar then struggled back down the aisle. It was a touching sight and I was duly moved — until, that is, she passed within a foot of me.
“Isn’t she remarkable?” said my companion.
“In some ways, she is,” I conceded.
“Such dedication is inspiring. Truly, she is a species of saint.”
I was blunt. “I don’t feel that she’s ready for canonization yet.”
My comment was felt to be unkind but I held my ground with characteristic tenacity. I knew something was amiss. Witnessed from a distance, the old woman’s commitment was stimulating. She herself had become an object of veneration. When she brushed past me, however, I caught a scent that was less than saintly. Keeping my thoughts to myself, I returned to my studies and lost myself in the beauty of the Scriptures.
On the following day, I made sure that I was in the same church at exactly the same time. The woman was punctual. Through the door she came as the bell of the nearby abbey was signalling tierce. I let her shuffle past me and make her way to the side chapel where the relics were housed. She was so preoccupied with the effort of lowering herself to her knees that she didn’t see me sink down a yard away from her. Like me, she deposited a small coin on the altar rail then lowered her head in prayer. The difference between us was that I kept my eyes open so that I could watch her.
What I saw outraged me. Down went her head and up it came again in a movement so slight as to be invisible to anyone not right beside her. As it went down once more, her lips fastened upon a coin and lifted it up before dropping it into a fold in her gown. Instead of praying to her Maker, she was instead plundering the church. In place of the one coin she had deposited, I counted over a dozen that she took. She was nothing but a common thief. I reported what I’d seen and, though nobody believed me, it was agreed that the old woman would be kept under surveillance the next day. Almost twenty coins were filched by her greedy lips on that occasion. Arrest and retribution soon followed.
I was thanked and congratulated. “How on earth did you spy her out?” I was asked.
“It’s a gift from God,” I replied.
“What’s your name, young man?”
“Gerald de Barri — though some call me Gerald of Wales.”
By the time I accompanied Archbishop Baldwin on his journey around my native country to find recruits for the Third Crusade, I was in my early forties and held, among other positions, that of archdeacon of Brecon in the diocese of St David’s. Instances of my remarkable skill in unmasking wrongdoers wherever I went are far too numerous to recount so I’ll merely offer one case that’s emblematic of them all. It occurred near Usk and tested my powers to the limit.