1
You have to take the slow train to Hestyn. You have to stop at seven places along a 40-mile (64km) branch line. Seven empty platforms, half-swallowed by goosegrass and bindweed. Seven times the creak of carriages, the squeak of wheels, and birdsong. Then it’s a brief dash for the terminus, plunging into a tunnel and emerging on the very edge of the country, skimming the coast. Crooked houses line the former harbour, now silted up two miles (3.2km) from the sea. Tucked behind them, in the shelter of the high cliff known as Great Hood, is the town itself, a tangle of streets untouched by time. All around, sweeping down to the shore, overhanging roofs and chimneys, hiding Hestyn from the world’s view, is a mass of greenery, some as old as the land itself—though the bushes that rampage over Great Hood are rhododendrons, planted for the Manor House at the turn of the 20th century, and left to run riot after its desertion.
‘How’s that for starters?’
‘Lovely. Very poetic. Bung it in the laptop, there’s a good lad. Have you got a title yet? I’m thinking Gems of the Coast. What do you reckon? Wilf? Wilf? What are you doing? You sound like a bloodhound’.
Wilf scrambles down a narrow track gouged from grass and rock. His foot thuds against a large stone. He lands heavily on one thigh, falls back onto something sharp in his backpack and releases a loud obscenity that floats out from the clifftop and over the town.
‘Jesus—Wilf? You all right?’
Wilf secures his footing on the muddy track. One hand flaps to keep him upright; the other presses his mobile to his ear.
‘OK—I’m OK. Just grappling with the terrain’.
He pauses to search for a feasible route down from the cliff. Here and there, through loops and eyes of impossible rhododendron tendrils, a horizontal sheen is the only suggestion of a sea view.
‘I’m having to cut the town walk short. I think I might be lost. And I haven’t even found a place to stay yet’ he grumbles.
‘That’s what I like about you, Wilf—so passionate about your work’. Paul’s voice and interest are fading.
‘This is a shitty place’ says Wilf.
‘Change of scene’ says Paul ‘will do you the world of good. Recharge the batteries. Clear the mind.’
‘This is the arse-end of nowhere’ says Wilf. ‘I don’t know how you talked me into it.’
By the time Wilf makes it back to Hestyn the air is thickening into a damp dusk. It’s almost dark in the bushy lane from Great Hood to the edge of town. Wilf lengthens his stride, beginning to fret about finding a room. When he emerges into the top end of Hood Street he’s surprised to find it still light. Bricks and tiles have begun to take on a violet glow, and here and there he can see the pale gold of streetlights and living-room windows. He’ll never find anywhere in this dump. He should never have left his house. Once upon a time, long, long ago, when it was a proper house in a road of others exactly like it, when there were paving stones and shrubs and people watered their hanging baskets and put the bins out and walked their dogs, Wilf was constantly waiting for the next excuse to leave. Forever marking up his maps with coloured dots, planning a new campaign, booking tickets on the internet, checking timetables, folding handy raincapes and tucking socks into the corners of his backpack. In those days, going home was an anticlimax. Opening the front door to musty, unused air and the tick of a clock, gathering up bills and freesheets from the hall floor, switching on a radio to confuse the space … It was captivity. Now, as the light sinks and Wilf struggles to orientate himself in the evening chill, he longs for his skewiff bookshelves and his blasted street. He’s already calculating how quickly he can get through the places on his itinerary and scurry back home.
There’s noone around in the outlying streets. A buzz of TVs and the occasional child’s yell from behind closed doors are the only evidence of human life. But as he nears the centre he begins to pass others: a stout woman lumbering home, balanced by heavy shopping bags; a young girl jogging with miniscule, violent steps that make her pony-tail and breasts bounce in time; a leather-faced old man, fag angled in his mouth, being hoiked along in the wake of his gasping dog. Wilf guesses at a short cut through a side street and passes a pub with grime-tinted windows and a blare of big-screen sport; a boarded-up church; a junk shop crammed with broken dolls, old typewriters and computer keyboards, mouldering Christmas decorations, a framed appliqué picture of Ben Nevis, a handwritten sign saying ‘Loo rolls three for one special offer’. Wilf strides on, guided by metallic noises and shouts, and eventually comes out into the marketplace, where the stalls are being dismantled and the last few shoppers and first few teens are kicking through polystyrene takeaway boxes, crumpled drink cans and cabbage leaves.
Edward III granted Hestyn market privileges in 1332, and ever since then the square at the heart of town has been a focus of trade for the farms and coastal hamlets of the area. The surrounding buildings are a mish-mash of styles that provide a compact lesson in Hestyn’s history. A bakery and tea-room now occupy the rickety 15th-century half-timbered merchant’s house on one corner. The faded elegance of the Royal Hotel testifies to a flurry of interest in Hestyn’s bracing sea air during the Regency; and the gargoyles and pinnacles of the neoGothic town hall, facing the hotel across the square, marks another brief period of prosperity which followed the arrival of the railway. The most recent addition is a glass-and-concrete government office block, erected on the northwestern corner after its medieval predecessor fell into ruin.
Job centre, actually, notes Wilf, pausing outside—but that doesn’t sound very lyrical. He fishes the A4 Town Walk sheet from his back pocket and unfolds it to consult the crooked text next to a line-drawing of the square. Apparently, the long-gone medieval house was the earliest in town. ‘Nevertheless’ remarks the author—with some rancour, thinks Wilf—‘its demolition was welcomed by a majority of townspeople, who were more concerned with its delapidated appearance than with its historical value’. Wilf appreciates these local historians, who do so much of his groundwork and ask for nothing in return. He went straight to the town library when he arrived. Sure enough, Lambert’s Town Walk (free) and a thin booklet on the Wildlife of the Coast (60p)—probably all the literature available on Hestyn—were waiting for him in neat piles at the returns desk. Next to maps, libraries are Wilf’s favourite thing. He turns the page and reads the brief description of Hestyn House, or The Big House, supposedly found ‘along the clifftop trail’. What sort of direction is that? There’s an asterisk and, squeezed onto the end of the paper, a footnote: ‘For tours of the house contact Tourist Information’. Wilf scans the square. No tourist office or any other place that might conceivably arrange tours. Or display accommodation lists, come to that. A small knot of youths has formed under one of the streetlamps and beer and cigarettes are being passed round. All the stalls are down now, and two men are rolling steel poles onto the back of a truck. One of them regards Wilf warily, then gives an unsmiling nod when he catches his eye. Wilf takes his cue and wanders over.
‘Excuse me—do you know if there are any guesthouses round here?’
The men exchange a weighted look.
‘Long time since anyone’s asked that’ mutters one.
‘Passing through, are you?’ asks the other, with a hint of mockery.
‘As a matter of fact’ says Wilf, brightly, ‘I’m writing a travel guide’.
‘Oh, aye—to Hestyn?’ A phlegmy crack of laughter, and then their faces change as they realise he means it.
‘A travel guide to this dump?’ says the first man; the second, his throat still rumbling, starts locking the back of the truck. ‘Nowhere else left to go, is that it?’
‘That’s about it, yes’.
First Man nods, acknowledging the world’s insanity. Then inspiration strikes.
‘Tell you what, you could try Gwennie Price. She used to take in guests, didn’t she?’.
‘When she could find ‘em,’ comments Second Man, heading for the driver’s door.
Wilf stands outside a terraced house and wonders whether he misheard First Man’s directions. The curtains are open and the lights are on, and he can see the top of someone’s head over the back of an armchair, and the flashing glow of a TV screen. A hand-painted sign over the front door says ‘Rosehill’. This is definitely the one—First Man said it had a poncey name. Wilf opens the gate and notices a startled movement from the chair as he approaches the door.
‘Guests?’
Gwennie Price holds the door firmly at her own body width. Her expression shifts between suspicion and delight. She’s wearing some kind of quilted housecoat spattered with pink flowers, and her grey hair lies long on her forehead and around her jowls, giving her whole face a downward slant.
‘Just for two or three nights. I’ll pay the going rate’ says Wilf. The word ‘rate’ seems to flick a switch. Gwennie Price clutches at the front of her housecoat, trying to make it more decent, and steps back, opening the door wide.
‘Give me a sec, love, and I’ll straighten out the room at the back. There’s tea in the pot—I’ll fetch you a cup and you put up your feet by the telly while I get it all … aired… Won’t take a tick…’
She ushers him into the front room. Wilf hesitates at her armchair and opts for the tiny sofa instead. Some grinning ninny on the box is doling out tips about decorating bathrooms. The chink of a teapot from the kitchen. Wilf puts his finger into his left ear and waggles it experimentally. There’s a low-buzz in there; it’s been there since the explosion. During the day he barely notices it, but in silence it’s a constant, flickering presence. At home, he opens the window at night to cover it with the drone of the motorway. In a place like this, where there’s only silence after dark … Wilf focuses on the TV expert’s advice about grout-cleaning. One thing at a time. At least he’s got somewhere to stay.
It takes him a full minute, next morning, to remember where he is. He gazes at the thin curtains and lavender wallpaper and waits while they assemble themselves into context. Yes—Rosehill. He’s in the box room—the only one, Gwennie explained apologetically, warm enough in this chilly weather. Through the half-open door of another bedroom he’d spotted the real reason—boxes, bags, clothes and knick-knacks stored in every available space. Must be several years since Gwennie Price had paying guests. But the box room was fine for Wilf. Gwennie must have a generator of some kind; she’s slipped through the power restrictions, and keeps the heating on all night. The hum of a radiator pipe, which would have driven some to distraction, offered Wilf relief from the insect in his ear. And he doesn’t mind the lack of space. He doesn’t need much room for his kitbag.
A frizzle of bacon wafts up the stairs. Gwennie Price believes in feeding up. She cooked him sausage, beans and chips last night and then retreated to the kitchen, leaving him, despite his protests, to eat in front of her telly. Wilf throws on a T-shirt and shorts and pads out to the toilet. He doesn’t like using other people’s lavatories. He has a temperamental gut and likes to take his time. Especially if there’s another big meal to tackle. Sitting in the loo, drilling his finger into his damaged ear, Wilf heaves a deep sigh. I bet Paul doesn’t have a dodgy gut, he thinks, bitterly. I bet Paul’s got perfect hearing. Paul has always seemed to Wilf a perfect example of Life Going Right. In comparison, Wilf never feels he can quite measure up.
Breakfast is served in the ‘Morning Room’—a back room with a piano and double doors leading into a garden swamped by the relentless, dripping rhododendron bushes. There are two small tables, one laid for Wilf. His tablemat has a sepia line-drawing of Caerphilly Castle. A carriage clock’s fragile ticking divides the silence. Gwennie appears, transformed, her hair hauled and stapled into place on top of her head, foundation and lipstick glistening, blouse and skirt pressed and curveless. She stands over him while he tackles bacon, egg and tomatoes.
‘Busy day ahead?’
Wilf swallows his mouthful quickly.
‘Actually, I wondered …’ He draws the crumpled Town Walk from his back pocket. ‘Do you know how I get to Hestyn House?’
‘Ah…’ Gwennie produces a tiny pair of half-moon glasses, apparently from nowhere. She peers at the sheet of paper. ‘The gentleman you want is Lambert Stokes. He wrote that, you know! Mr Stokes knows all there is to know about this place. Now.’ The glasses vanish again. ‘Tell me. Which countries have you written about, Mr Bromley? What a wonderful job you’ve got!’
By the time Wilf’s plate is cleared she knows the title of every guide he’s ever written. Her more intimate questions fall on stony ground. But when her ‘Wife? Children?” meet with a simple ‘No’ she has the sense to leave it at that.
3
Wilf didn’t want to take this assignment. But Paul has always had a way of talking him into things, ever since they were at school together. When he set up his publishing business he roped Wilf in as easily as he used to coax him into playing in goal or going on a double date. Same with this job—even though Wilf had shut himself up like a hermit since Aggie had gone. Didn’t pick up the phone, didn’t look at his e-mails: just stayed in his house, looking at his maps. Wilf has always liked maps. That was why Paul reckoned he’d be good at this job—according to Paul, anyway. And it’s true that Wilf can spend hours poring over the things. Spreads them out on the floor, anchors the corners (ashtray, book, left shoe, right shoe), and goes down on all fours to explore. He likes their truth, and their falsehood, the way they reduce and calm all the crap of daily life into grids and measures and scales. He likes the painstaken details, the diminishing rings of high ground, the streets divided into individual houses, each one separated from its neighbour with a hairline wall. He likes the shapes and symbols: a group of perfect circles (oil refinery); a swarm of arrowheads (heathland). He appreciates the absence of mess, of noise, of birdshit and squashed foxes and discarded burger-boxes and smells. New editions are a particular treat—comparing and contrasting, noting the tiny additions and deletions signifying calamitous upheaval. Next time, his own street will have been replaced—with what? A jagged star, maybe, or just a blank space. Except for one solitary square representing Wilf’s home.
When Paul rang about this commission, Wilf barely registered the sound of the phone. His own voice spoke.
‘Sorry I can’t get there right now’—and Wilf continued tracing contours with his finger.
‘Stop screening’ Paul barked through the recording. ‘Answer the phone. I know you’re there’.
Wilf followed a bridleway through green pencil-flicked woods.
‘Stop moping, man. Pick up, you miserable bastard. I’ve got a job for you. Come on. Speak to me. I know you’re there’.
Of course he knew Wilf was there. Everyone knew where Wilf was—in the only remaining house of his row, standing proud and foolish like the last tooth. Next door kept it company for a few weeks after the incident, but in the end it had to be knocked down. And no doubt Wilf’s will go, sooner or later. There are two long cracks in the end wall—once the party wall—travelling to opposite corners. Crossing him out. It doesn’t look good. On the other hand, so far it’s stood firm against all the odds. After the explosion all Wilf’s maps and books and knick-knacks, CDs, photographs, interesting bits of driftwood, broken mirrors, were shaken onto the floor of every room. He had to wade knee-deep through a crackling marsh of his own belongings. And then the house staggered, sighed and found its level, and it hasn’t budged since. Aggie used to call it a ‘reliable little house’—and she was right. He can, at least, rely on his house. It’s all back in order now, all swept and stacked and shoved into place, though the shelves are crooked and everything leans at an angle. It’s like being at sea, especially on dark nights, when the walls are buffeted by the space that other houses used to fill.
‘I know you’re there’ said Paul’s voice for the last time. ‘If you won’t pick up, do me a favour and come to the office. I’ll be in all day tomorrow’.
He could have let it go. But even in the quiet depth of his self-pity, Wilf was aware of the mortgage bill and the overdue credit card and the grim-looking Inland Revenue envelope. He needed to earn some money. After the click of the answerphone he leaned back on his heels, creasing the edge of his map, and decided it was time to get on with life.
The next day Wilf cycled to Sitwell Publications. He locked his bike to the parking restriction sign and took the outer stairs up the side of the building, avoiding the kilted Big Issue salesman at the main entrance. He paused on the small landing to smoke half a cigarette, then stubbed the rest underfoot, adding to the squelchy accumulation of fag-ends on the metal platform. He keyed his PIN into the security pad and from above his head a small camera angled itself for a better view with a smooth buzz. As the door gave way Wilf breathed in the canned office air, and was seized by a kind of stage fright. The familiar quickening of the pulse that always used to herald an encounter with Aggie now combined with a swell of nausea. He was tempted to turn round and go back to his maps. Instead he padded along the pale-carpeted walkway towards Paul’s room. Everything was the same. Employees hurried between desks and paper-coloured computers. Phones rang with digital restraint. A percolator tutted. A photocopier dealt out pages in soft, rhythmic wingbeats. Nothing had changed at all. Wilf rapped on Paul’s door and immediately opened it. Paul looked up from his screen and said
‘Good lad! Just the man I wanted to see.’
‘Guidebooks?’ Wilf said. ‘New guidebooks?’
‘Of course.’ Paul spread his hands like a magician. ‘That’s what we do.’
‘What we used to do.’ Wilf swivelled his chair rapidly from side to side, trying to erase the scenes that fell into his mind.
‘What we’re still doing, mate.’ Paul attended to something on his screen as he spoke. ‘I don’t want to be harsh, but—the whole world didn’t screech to a halt, you know, when you lost Aggie’.
‘No, I don’t mean—’
A young woman with scythed blonde hair came in, laid an armful of pageproofs on the corner of Paul’s desk, and left.
‘Great’ said Paul as the door clunked behind her. ‘So much for the paperless office’.
‘New guidebooks?’ repeated Wilf. ‘You don’t think it’ll look … bizarre? In the current climate!’
The phrase ignited a gleam of mockery in Paul’s eyes. Wilf hurried on.
‘Paul, who’s going to buy them? These days? Where is there to go? Nowhere that’s safe.’
‘Don’t exaggerate, Wilf. You’ve been watching too much rolling news, that’s your trouble’.
In fact Wilf had watched anything but the news. Talent shows, soaps, ‘reality’ TV, the further from real life the better. He couldn’t bear to see the footage of far-off calamity—torn apartment blocks, chewed bodies, charred cars. He said,
‘The world’s busy blowing itself up. That’s no exaggeration. I wouldn’t have thought there was much of a market for travel guides. And presumably you’ve still got to sell the things, haven’t you?’
‘Afraid so, old son. Government grant hardly covers the cost of your coffee’.
‘There you are, then. So they must be a non-starter, the way things are now’.
Paul slapped the top sheet of the pageproofs.
‘That’s where you’re wrong, my friend. Tourists—gawd bless ‘em—they’re like blackfly. Descend on any spare patch of green. Any scene of any event. Battlefields, concentration camps, bombsites …they can’t help themselves. It’s in the genes. Blood still fresh on the ground, survivors brushing themselves down, diggers shovelling away the leftovers—next thing you know, someone wanders in with a bumbag and a camcorder looking for postcards. And someone else is propping up a stall selling coffee and souvenir pieces of bombed-out van. That’s life, Wilf. That’s progress.’
‘Aggie always said you were a cynic.’.
The words had sputtered out, in bitter little shards, before he could stop them. Paul narrowed his eyes, deciding how to play it.
‘Aggie’ he said in the end ‘was a fine one to talk’
‘Oh, come on’ protested Wilf, suddenly defensive. ‘Say what you like, you could never call Aggie a cynic.’
Paul bounced gently on his deskchair, tugging his shirt straight, and dismissed the subject:
‘Anyway. I’m not sending you out into the war zone. Not making that mistake again. You don’t have to leave this emerald isle at all, in fact. As it happens … we are cutting back somewhat on foreign destinations …’ Wilf gave a yelp of triumph. ‘… Just a slight change of focus, that’s all. Comfort. Heritage. Wilderness with a parking place. You’re going to venture to the last few secret corners of the country, and tell us everything there is to know. You’re off on a coastal odyssey, old mate. Get your notebook out and let’s talk schedules.’
3
Wilf has always approached adult life as a test. He used to have a mental ticklist—not so much a list of achievements, more a way of checking he was normal.
Got through school with decent enough qualifications. Tick.
Passed his driving test (third time). Tick.
Got drunk enough to throw up outside his halls of residence. Tick.
Had sex (finally). Not a thrilling experience or one that he or Beryl Harris cared to repeat—but both had needed to cross that particular item off the list, and each would occupy a secret place of gratitude in the other’s heart, all their separate lives.
He’d ticked off degree, job, flat and at 23 was ready for love and marriage. He was still waiting for that to happen when Paul oozed back into his life. They’d lost touch for a while, after school. Paul said he’d been doing ‘this and that’; judging from his designer suit, whatever it was had been pretty lucrative. Now he was striking out, as he put it, grasping the nettle. ‘Time for a little adventure, my old china. A new voyage of discovery. And I want you on board, mate’
‘You’re kidding,’ bleated Wilf. ‘I haven’t got an adventurous bone in my body’.
‘Nonsense. I bet you’ve done all sorts of things since we saw each other last’.
Wilf ran through the risks he’d taken so far, mainly in the hope of attracting a woman. He’d joined a book club. Attended an Italian evening class. Auditioned for a drama society (but failed). He’d grown a moustache, then shaved it off again. ‘Wise move’, commented Paul, eyeing his chin.
Wilf shrugged. ‘That’s as risky as it gets, in my life’.
‘Well, your life’ said Paul, reaching round the pub table to thump him on the shoulder, ‘is about to take a turn for the better. You’re going to write travel guides…’
‘Guides?’ Wilf’s lager missed his mouth and dribbled down his chin. ‘Write guides?’ he squeaked, mopping himself up with a dirty hanky.
‘Why not? You write reports, don’t you? You like maps…’
‘But that’s hardly—’
‘You’re going to jack in your desk job and be a freelance travel writer’.
‘A freelance—but Paul, you know what I’m like with organising, and money and things. Who the hell would employ me?’
‘No need to worry on that score. You’ll work for me. I’m starting a publishing company, and you’re going to be my main writing man’.
‘Paul, you’re talking complete and utter—’
‘—and I want to hook you up with a very interesting little ball of fire called Aggie…’
‘Aggie?’
Paul sat back, letting his expensive jacket swing open to reveal an equally expensive shirt.
‘She’ll be your editor. You two will be the dream team’.
Wilf took a wary sip at his drink.
‘This is all cobblers, Paul’ he said. ‘It’s never going to happen’.
Sitwell Publications started off on two ramshackle upper floors above an estate agency in a Georgian townhouse. The whole place crackled and groaned and squeaked and shook to the slightest human movement. The floors heaved and dipped like an ocean, straining under the weight of desks and copiers. Paul allocated himself an office and talked at his half-dozen staff about target readerships and marketing profiles and brands. He drew freehand diagrams on a flipchart. He slashed a circle in three with violent horizontal lines, to demonstrate his three-way mission: glossy, highbrow titles for the Visitor with money to spend; at-a-glance guides to sights, hotels and restaurants for the Tourist with budgets to control; cutting-edge, tell-it-like-it-is, shoot-from-the-hip ‘docubooks’ for the hard-core, deep-thinking Traveller. Wilf started an internet course on travel writing, but Paul told him not to bother.
‘Learn on the job, mate. Learn on the job. Aggie starts here next week. I’ll fix up a meeting and we’re off to go’.
Wilf caught sight of her before she turned to look at him. Paul had ushered him into the office and she was sitting with her back to them—frizzy hair, patched jeans, a man’s jacket. Then Wilf stepped on that creaky floorboard, and tried to make a joke of it.
‘Oops!’ he said. ‘Pardon me!’
Aggie looked round, baffled. She hadn’t even noticed the rasp of wood under his foot—why would she, among all the other noises in this place? And now he’d drawn her attention to it, and she probably thought he had broken wind, and was trying to cover it up. Paul introduced them. Wilf had cycled in and was windblown and sweaty; he wiped his palm on his anorak before shaking her cool, dry hand. Paul shut the door and the whole room shivered. Outside, one of the newly introduced printers started up like a machine-gun and set the windows chattering in their frames.
‘Won’t have to put up with this much longer’ remarked Paul, steadying a mug on his desk. ‘Pastures new before long’.
‘Really?’ asked Aggie. She had a low, husky voice. Wilf liked it.
‘Yup. Got a grant for it. We’re moving to state-of-the-art premises at the edge of town.
‘How did you manage that?’ asked Wilf, though he wasn’t surprised. Paul managed everything, somehow.
‘Oh, you know—new enterprise, green shoots; you talk the talk and they’re falling over themselves to help you walk the walk.’
Aggie exchanged a look with Wilf. She said,
‘Sounds like some kind of a scam to me—dont’t you reckon, Wilf?’
Wilf gave an idiotic laugh, drowned out by a sudden violent rumbling of his stomach. Paul said,
‘Time for elevenses, I guess’, and went to fetch coffee and biscuits.
‘No breakfast’ gasped Wilf, battling to suppress a blush.
Aggie said,
‘So, Wilf, these new guides …’
He sat forward, nodding intelligently. Aggie said she didn’t want the usual rehashed tat. She said, ‘Frankly, Wilf, most of these guides are anodyne pap, lies and half-lies, tourist office spin’.
Wilf said he couldn’t agree more. Aggie said,
‘I’ll be honest with you: this wouldn’t be my first choice of subject matter. But since it’s what I’ve got, I’m going to make it as honest and hard-hitting as possible. I want to keep a sense of integrity.’
‘Absolutely’ said Wilf.
She grinned at him. ‘I reckon we can be a bit subversive if we put our minds to it, don’t you think, Wilf?’
Wilf laughed again.
‘I should think so!’ he said, in a pathetically forced falsetto.
Paul came back with refreshments. Wilf was already twisting around in his chair to stop the rumbling, and lunged for a biscuit before the tray was on the desk. Aggie assessed him with serious green eyes.
‘I can see’ she said ‘that you like your food, Wilf’.
All through the rest of the meeting, that comment sat miserably at the back of Wilf’s mind, and he resolved never to eat in her presence again.
There was a map of the world tacked onto Paul’s wall, scored with lines and cross-hatching in different colours. Green for one series, blue for another, red for Aggie’s cutting edge guides. Thick black lines closed off the countries that were already out of bounds—the Discomfort Zone, immersed in civil or international war, or riven with terrorism and banditry. Aggie thought the criteria were too cautious.
‘These are books for adventurers,’ she said, ‘people who want to see what’s really going on. We can’t opt out at the first sign of trouble. I mean, there’s trouble everywhere you go.’
But Paul was adamant. ‘Cutting edge’ he insisted ‘doesn’t have to mean reckless. I’m not having my writers blown to bits or taken hostage, even in the name of honesty. They’re still travel writers, Aggie. Not war correspondents’. He winked at Wilf. ‘Told you this one would be trouble’.
Aggie gave Wilf a playful nudge and he nearly jumped out his skin.
‘Oh, Wilf and I will soon overcome your caution, Paul’ she said, ‘won’t we Wilf?’
Paul beamed from one to the other.
‘There you go’, he said, putting his hands in his beautifully tailored trouser pockets. ‘I knew you two would get on like a house on fire’.
4
From the harbour wall, where the tide once lapped and fishing boats nagged at their moorings, an expanse of tall reeds now extends to the horizon. This is Hissing Marsh, where drowned sailors are said to crawl as close to dry land as they can, to whisper their names lest the living forget. Stand and listen for a while to the breathing of the grasses and you do, indeed, begin to make out syllables and words. A flight of stone steps descends from the end of the jetty, no longer into water but down to an almost hidden wooden walkway. Follow this as it winds between the head-high reeds and presently forms a wide, westward arc. A rhythmic thump and rustle, deeper and further than the sailors’ whispers, are the only clue to your whereabouts. Then, suddenly, the lane rounds a shallow headland; the thump becomes a crash, the rustle a roar, and you’re at the rocky end of Hestyn Beach. Clamber over the dunes and pick your way through stones and driftwood heaped here by the waves. Now a three-mile crescent of sand sweeps out before you, pummelled by a steely-grey sea.
Not steely-grey: give the place a chance. To be fair, it might be a limpid blue in high summer. Wilf scribbles a correction. Lambert Stokes, leaning at the counter waiting for their order, lobs a comment at him, but Wilf can’t hear it over the sizzle of the coffee machine.
Halfway along the beach a concrete ramp leads up to the quiet resort also called Hestyn Beach and made up of a scattering of cafés and shops, strung along the seafront and up the solitary street that shelters behind it.
Lambert sets down their coffees and Wilf slips his notebook into his anorak pocket.
‘How are the legs?’ asks Lambert, scraping a chair closer to the table. Wilf lifts the leg of his jeans to reveal a fretwork of scratches above his ankle.
‘My stupid fault’ he concedes. ‘I should have worn walking socks’.
‘No point’ says Lambert, with a touch of pride. ‘Those gorse bushes will find a way to bite you, whatever you do. Better warn your readers’. He jabs a finger towards Wilf’s anorak pocket. ‘Tell them they can take the inland road. Less direct, but relatively painless’.
Now he tells me, thinks Wilf, sucking the foam that forms half his cappuccino. But still, he’s exhilarated by their walk, by the first sight of the sea and the salt now prickling his flesh in the café’s steamy air.
‘Give us a shout’ calls the café-owner from behind his worktop ‘if you want another cup’.
Lambert Stokes leans back in his seat, one hand poised on the table edge. He looks like an 18th-century gent posing for a portrait. He’s waiting, Wilf knows, to show off more of his knowledge, but for the moment Wilf’s mind is numbed by cold sea air and stinging legs and he can’t dredge up a single question to ask about Hestyn.
‘Here it comes’ says the café-owner, folding his arms on the counter. A misty rain fingers the window, obscuring the street and dissolving into slow runnels over the etched mirror-image words ‘Sunbeam Café’. There’s no sign of life outside at all. Wilf wonders how two cafés, a donut stall and a chippie can possibly survive in this place, but he decides to leave that question until their host is out of earshot. Lambert Stokes regards him with serenity. He’s a tall, thin man with hair curling into almost horizontal tufts around a bald dome. The nose is hooked and the eyes protrude slightly, giving the general impression of a scrawny but dignified bird of prey. He seems in no hurry; just sits there ready to swoop and pounce whenever a query might show itself. Wilf clears his throat.
‘So… Er… What’s the history of Hestyn Beach? As a, a resort, I mean?’
‘Ah’. Lambert taps his bony fingers once on the table-top. ‘Well, you have to go back to the 1860s and the opening of the rail link. Great excitement, grand plans…’ His voice takes on a stagey roundness. ‘Hestyn was sure its fortune was made. It was on the map, as it were. Every steam engine drawing up at the halt would be pulling carriages full of metaphorical gold…’
Wilf scrabbles to retrieve his notebook and pen. Evidently he’s in for the full WI/Round Table lecture. For an hour and a half his dodgy shorthand flies across the pages to Lambert’s dictation. They order second cappuccinos. They break off for Wilf to dive into the half-stocked newsagents next door and buy a new pad. The weather clears abruptly; the street reappears, bleached in sharp coastal light. The café-owner loiters behind his counter, wiping the surface occasionally or rearranging the mini-packs of shortbread biscuits. Every now and then he grunts his appreciation of Lambert’s anecdotes. At about ten to twelve he slaps his hands on the counter, looks at the clock on the wall and says,
‘Here we go. Better get cooking.’
Wilf glances round, puzzled. The place is still deserted. The only sound is the yodelling of seagulls at the autumn sun; even the sea is silenced here, hidden from ears and eyes by the line of buildings running across the end of the street.
‘So, in consequence’, Lambert is declaiming, ‘the east–west line was abandoned, the Majestic Hotel and Ballroom remained on the drawing board…’
As Wilf returns to his notes he hears a scuffling outside. The door rattles open and a box-like tartan shopping trolley trundles in, followed by an old lady only a couple of inches taller, who registers the two customers with bland surprise and then hollers at the café-owner:
‘Didn’t last, then, Vic, thank God!’
‘Nope, soon cleared up, Millie’.
And—’Let’s hope it keeps off for the rest of the day’—comes another voice behind Millie, and all at once the café is heaving with people, most of them over 70, jostling around the counter, bumping into the tables, knocking Wilf’s jacket onto the ground, and the air is thick with the smell of bacon and beans and brewing tea. Lambert holds up an elegant hand, unable to make himself heard over the cackle and gossip and sodden coughs, and mouths:
‘Perhaps we should reconvene elsewhere.’.
Reluctantly, Wilf puts away his notes and prepares to leave the hotspot of Hestyn Beach.
‘We needn’t go far’ says Lambert, as they emerge into unexpectedly warm sunshine. ‘Le Soleil will be empty now’. He leads the way across the road and into the resort’s second café, directly opposite the Sunbeam. This is a more bohemian affair, with square, wooden tables, candles dripping wax over bottles and framed abstract splotches on the walls. All are in shadow; the sunlight falls short of this side of the street.
‘Young mums’, says Lambert, as if addressing a gathering, ‘and teenagers from Hestyn during the school holidays—that’s the usual clientele.’
But not today.
They have toasted sandwiches while Lambert gives Wilf a potted history of Hestyn town’s harbour.
‘Yet another abortive attempt to boost Hestyn’s fortunes’, he explains. ‘The fishing village was in decline and had long since accepted its lot after slow, creeping centuries of deposit had separated the boats from their port. Hestyn was resigned to a mouldering decline. Until Caractacus Lane came along’. He relishes the name, rolling the ‘r’ and kicking the ‘c’s like a percussionist. ‘Mr Lane—or Lord Lane, as he styled himself—moved into the Big House on Great Hood some time in the early 18th century, and took it upon himself to reintroduce Hestyn to the sea. He drafted in a workforce from the surrounding farms and villages, to build the stone harbour wall and its fan of houses, and then to dig channels into the silt and entice the sea back. Like a King Canute in reverse’. The scheme, Lambert explains, was a dismal failure. Wilf’s pen pauses over his page.
‘So… it’s never really served as a harbour at all?’
‘Never. A mere folly, from its inception to the present day. Land’s too marshy for channels. Soaks up water like a sponge.’
‘You didn’t mention that in your town walk’ says Wilf.
Lambert wipes melted cheese from his mouth in a delicate movement.
‘Mmm… Strange to say, it’s not a story that goes down well with the natives. The townsfolk find the whole misadventure rather … embarrassing’.
‘Embarrassing?’ Wilf checks Lambert’s face for signs of humour. ‘Some rich bloke’s madcap scheme, 300 years ago?’
‘Well, you see…’ Lambert fiddles with his paper napkin. ‘They feel it makes the town seem rather … foolish’.
He meets Wilf’s incredulous eye and smirks. ‘Yeees, it is bizarre. But every community has histories it accepts and those it doesn’t, as we all know. Hestyn would far rather think of itself as the former home of a brave and thriving fishing fleet than as a wealthy lunatic’s whim’.
Wilf rubs his chin, wondering what the hell to write. He knows all about communities denying their pasts, but this is such an inocuous and a distant past—most places would grab it with both hands, as a distraction from worse reputations.
‘If Hestyn wants to attract the tourists’ he comments, ‘a lunatic’s whim is just the sort of oddity they should promote. That sort of thing’s always good for business.’
‘Quite so, but’—Lambert lowers his voice; Le Soleil’s patron is making his curious way around the room, tidying tidy chairs and brushing spotless tables—’I don’t think Hestyn really knows what business is, these days’.
5
‘Well? Was Mr Stokes any help to you?’
Gwennie Price ladels peas into a shiny mound on Wilf’s plate.
‘He was invaluable, thanks. He’s going to show me how to get to Hestyn House tomorrow. I got into a muddle when I tried to find it’.
‘Yes… it keeps itself to itself, the Big House. What’s left of it’.
Gwennie returns to the kitchen, leaving Wilf to his haddock, potatoes and peas in the living room. He seems to be given supper in here as a special privilege. The telly’s on, and a woman in a wheelchair is singing some show-stopper. Wilf feels the tears welling, against his will or inclination. He glances around. No photographs. No diplomas or certificates on the wall. No evidence of a Mr Price or any little Prices. This might be any room in any town that’s still reasonably intact. Wilf decides that, for all her chattiness, Gwennie Price is something of an enigma. One of those people who can talk and talk and reveal nothing of any substance. ‘Small talk’: it’s a good term, decides Wilf.
‘Get beyond the small talk’—that’s one of Paul’s favourite exhortations. Wilf has had to learn how to do that. A part of him has always thought of it as bad form to look for the dirt under other people’s carpets. When they were working on their cutting edge guides, his reluctance to dig too far, to quiz locals or seek out deprived corners, was a constant irritation to Aggie. She said he was shallow. She said he was too happy to blink at the sun on the water, and ignore all the crap underneath.
Well, thinks Wilf, taking a forkful of fish, is that so terrible? Why shouldn’t we strive to make life as pleasant and superficial as we can? We shouldn’t we all make small talk and look at the pretty views? Get on with it and stay out of trouble—that’s all most people want from life, isn’t it? And then his thoughts and the wallpaper and the weeping contestant on the TV screen all melt into one sublime sensation on his tongue, as Wilf realises he’s eating the most exquisite piece of haddock he’s ever tasted in his life. He doesn’t even particularly like haddock. But now he can hardly bear to eat any more of it, knowing that with every bite taken there’s one bite less to take. For the first time since he left his house on this trip Wilf forgets to be homesick. He tries to remember the other meals Gwennie’s cooked for him: full breakfast this morning, supper last night—were they as delicious as this? He enjoyed them, in an absent way; they left him satisfied and full. But nothing like this. Wilf’s fork slides into another velvet-soft portion of fish. He can hear Gwennie humming to herself in the kitchen. She must have hit her peak this evening.
6
Lambert’s reply is entwined and muffled in shrubbery.
‘Sorry?’
Lambert turns back to face him. Twigs and shreds are sprouting from his hair.
‘I was a history teacher.’
‘Here?’
Wilf tries to straighten up and scrapes his head on the cage of overhead bushes. All around them the greenery trembles and hisses.
‘No, no, not here. In my previous life.’
Lambert returns to his task, heaving and hacking new growth from the path, passing the weight of branches and leaves over his shoulder to Wilf, who hauls them behind him in turn and ducks through the space before they spring back into place. It’s taken them nearly an hour to walk the five hundred yards from the point where the clifftop fades into jungle. Lambert has apologised for the mess as if they’re in his living room; he cleared as much as he could only two months before, he says, but one old duffer is no defence against intruders such as these.
For a while they labour on, developing a rhythm of sorts: the thwack of Lambert’s walking stick, the rattle of unsettled bushes, the push of their misty breath. After a few minutes Lambert turns once more, half leaning against a net of hanging foliage.
‘War. That was the mainstay of the syllabus. Day after day, one stood before the drooping heads of bored adolescents, dictating battle dates and treaty names and casualty figures. With the occasional extra-curricular foray into gory detail, to sustain their consciousness. Medieval weaponry was a particular favourite, and the specific damage inflicted thereby’. He waggles his waggles his head and releases a shower of leaves. ‘Conflict is not what it was, I find. Gone are the days when wars had distinguishable combatants, fixed battles, beginnings and endings.’ Lambert gives a sigh that makes him sag in the middle, then perks up a little. ‘Although I suppose it never was like that, for those who were in the thick of it.’
Wilf nods uncomfortably. Lambert staggers as the thicket begins to buckle under his weight, and brandishes his stick ready for the next assault.
‘I suppose in the end’ he concludes ‘I tired of the din of it. A thousand years of killing—such a noisy business. So I moved on to pastures new’.
They resume their slow advance, and when Lambert speaks again the words disappear among the branches. Wilf hopes it’s something about nearing their destination, and sure enough, when the next armload is shifted to one side, he catches a glimpse of open sky, a grassy ridge and a low, golden sparkle of stone on the horizon.
‘There! That’s the garden wall’ cries Lambert. They stumble out onto clear ground, slapped by a cold wind, and make for the remains of the wall, which, Wilf can now see, is only about four feet high and ragged at the top, where stones have fallen or been pilfered or have simply worn away. It stands on a slight rise, and the two men climb towards it, Lambert waving and planting his stick with every step. From their lower position they can see nothing beyond the wall. They reach the sharper, two-foot slope that forms its base and without warning Lambert veers right, signalling for Wilf to follow with a swoop of the stick. They limp along the incline, through spurts of lush grass that have flourished in sheltered spots. Stringy weeds and young rhododenron-looking shoots grow through the cracks between stones and whip at them with every gust. Wilf stoops behind Lambert, letting him take the brunt of the weather. He watches his feet and concentrates on the flap and flutter of their jackets. When Lambert comes to a halt he nearly knocks him over.
‘Voilà! The Manor House of Hestyn!’
He gestures grandly to his left. Reluctantly, Wilf leaves the shelter of Lambert’s back and peers around him. The wind forces his breath back up his nose. He clutches Lambert’s arm to avoid being blown down the slope. They’ve reached a pair of tall iron gates, one half fallen where the supporting wall has been eaten away, and poised at an improbable angle. Elaborate scrolls and symbols are blurred by rust: the upright gate is topped by a blob that might once have been a coat of arms. Lambert is already shouldering a route through the gap between the gates, but Wilf isn’t ready to move yet. He crouches into the wall’s cavity, one leg propped against the hovering gate, ignoring the gripe of pain in the small of his back, and he gawps.
Ahead of him, a mossy drive leads between low humps and mounds that may sketch the layout of a formal garden. It’s not a long drive—no ceremonial twists and turns, no pompous statuary or ranked trees—just a short, straight approach to the house itself. Lambert, loping ahead, is nearly there. A fan of steps leads to the entrance, which is framed by a frenzy of carvings. From this distance Wilf has an impression of dragons, snakes, monkeys, grotesque unnameable creatures, all slithering and groping around the vast front door, getting a good look at anyone who ventures in. There are four high windows to either side of the porch on the ground floor; the first and second storeys have six smaller windows each. One or two hold on to a few last, sorry slices of the original glass; most are boarded up. The lower boards are festooned with graffiti. At the end of the west wing is a square tower, built of dark red brick, in ugly contrast to the golden-white stone of the house itself. Piercing the length of the roofline and the bowing gutters are green, bulbous shapes, vaguely oriental and probably a blaze of copper in their heyday. And strangest and most confusing of all is the rippling, winking wave of texture and light that brings the main façade to life. This is what roots Wilf to the spot, and what presently drives him in clumsy pursuit of Lambert through the gap and along the springing drive. When they draw closer to the building he can see that the effect is caused by hundreds of tiny shells, pieces of coloured glass, fragments of jewellery, metal buckles and buttons, nails and coins—all forced into the mortar and the stonework itself, and brushed, in places, with a thin layer of decaying plaster.
‘One of Lord Lane’s little touches’ explains Lambert, as Wilf runs his hand across the weird mosaic. ‘He had most of the house rebuilt in his own inimitable style, and then it was all covered up again by his successors. It’s only thanks to long years of neglect and harsh elements that all this came to light again.’
As if to illustrate his point the wind suddenly rushes up the drive and shoves them forward. Lambert hoiks back a bolt on the massive oak door, where a wisp of graffiti has wilted into the blackened wood.
‘A few youngsters come here from town now and then’ says Lambert. ‘I used a padlock for a while. They just broke through the windows’. He smiles and disappears into the gloom.
The door shuts behind them with a snort. They’re standing in a hall, lit only in weak patches where the sun has squeezed between the boards. The floor is hard and pale—marble, maybe—and Wilf can make out a wide, stone fireplace, a flight of stairs and a minstrels’ gallery. He begins to say something, then stops. There are other people present. Three or four, maybe more, watching them from the gallery rail. And on the far side of the stairs he catches a movement, checked almost as soon as he notices it. Terror clenches his guts. Simultaneously, Lambert and someone near the stairs spin round for a pincer attack. Wilf shrinks into his jacket and takes a step back, and so does a second person,. somewhere to his left, vanishing into the wall. Gunshot. Wilf’s whole body convulses and he lets out a yelp that’s nearly a scream.
‘Sorry’ says Lambert, smoothly. ‘I thought it might clarify matters somewhat’.
He’s wrenched a section of board from one of the windows with an almighty crack. The sliver of light broadens into a shaft and reveals a grimy, full-length mirror to the left of the stairwell. Wilf takes a couple of paces forward and his reflection returns, grey with relief. One hairline crack divides the glass in two, reminding him of the party wall in his house. The mirror-frame is a riot of flowers, grapes and putti, reduced from gold to a dull shade of sludge. As Wilf’s eyes adapt to the altered light the observers in the gallery reappear as lifesize figures in a trompe-l’oeil fresco. A fiddler tunes his instrument; a rosy-lipped boy with long curls executes a drumroll on his tabor and regards the visitors with blank impudence; two other youths—singers, perhaps—apparently lean forward on the balustrade. Pauled cobwebs quiver from the ceiling above them, but the figures themselves are remarkably vivid and fresh. Lambert beams at them with paternal satisfaction.
‘Yeees, the boys are in tip-top condition. Our teenage visitors have failed, as yet, to gain access to the gallery, or no doubt they would have added a little robust artwork of their own. Although, as you can see,’—he extends balletic arms—’the interior is refreshingly free of graffiti. I don’t know why. They come in here and smoke, drink, inject, or whatever …’ He indicates an empty vodka bottle, wedged into the remains of a fire in the hearth. ‘But for some reason, once inside, they put away their spray-cans and felt-tips. Maybe they’re put off by our vigilant friends up there’.
‘Yes’ agrees Wilf hoarsely, ‘I can see they might be a touch … daunting’..
Lambert bends his head to study Wilf’s drained face, then gives him two measured pats on the shoulder, letting his hand rest briefly each time. Pat. Pat. It’s a gesture full of comfort and sympathy. Wilf feels the tension leave his muscles, and has to stifle the urge to sob.
7
The first house on this site was built by a Norman adventurer. Gilbert de la Croix came across with William the Conqueror, snapping up a knighthood and this remote plot of land for his trouble. There are no records of Gilbert’s property but it was almost certainly stone-built and designed to withstand attack. For nearly 600 years the house was handed down through the same family—sons and grandsons, brothers and nephews and even one or two daughters—who, in their turn, redecorated, refurnished, demolished and extended. By the 13th century de la Croix’s descendants had built an entirely new house, complete with castellated wall, which provided protection for Hestyn’s inhabitants during a spate of forays by local bandits and pirates venturing in from the coast. In the late 16th century Hestyn House adopted a more domestic than defensive style. Away with the corner turrets, the gatehouse and the arrowslits, in with the brick chimneys, fancy plasterwork and a knot garden. By the time civil war broke out in 1642 the place was a confusion of styles, heaped together with little symmetry or logic. Elizabeth Delcrarr-Whyte inherited the pile when her two brothers were killed fighting on opposite sides in the Battle of Lostwithiel. Elizabeth’s late husband, Peregrine Whyte, had been a staunch Parliamentarian; after his death his widow unwisely switched to the royalist cause. When Cromwell’s troops stormed through the area in 1646 they paused to bombard Hestyn House and Elizabeth and her household fled into obscurity. What remained of the estate was abandoned to a neighbouring farmer, who kept his cattle in the great hall and his pigs in the drawing room.
Lambert is heading past the stairs and towards a door at the western end of the hall.
‘We’ll save the rest for later’ he promises, coquettishly. ‘It’s well worth the wait’.
They enter a room lined with dark panels. Half the window-boardings lie splintered on the floor, but most of the light soaks into the wood, leaving the room enclosed in permanent murk. Lambert fishes about in his jacket, which is pitted with pockets, and produces a torch the size of a biro. He directs the thin beam around the dour panelling.
‘A 19th-century travesty’ he comments. ‘But it has hidden depths’.
As they cross the room he shines the torch towards the centre of the floor. A charred nest of sticks and moss, and a couple of twisted tin cans, sit in a deep stain on the floorboards.
‘There’s a long tradition of igniting unauthorised fires in this house. Sometimes with disastrous effect’. As he talks, Lambert feels along the panels, pushing gently with one hand and giving each one a sharp knock in the corner with the top of his stick. ‘Whole place burned down three times. By rebels in the early days; by a servant in the Tudor era—a candle set fire to the draperies—and once in the early 19th century … Ah yes! Here we are—panel number five…’
The slat of plain wood dislodges itself under his pressure and one side swings a couple of inches towards him. Lambert hoists his long legs over the lower part of the wall into a passage about two feet deep.
‘Come along! And take care—not much breathing space in here!’
The passageway is barely wider than Wilf; he elbows his way between the walls, keeping a keen eye on the slim stream of torchlight that bounces along ahead of Lambert. Swags of cobweb appear and disappear. There’s a cold draught coming from above; when Wilf looks up he sees only the faint paleness of the walls soaring upward, higher, surely, than the ceiling of the room they’ve just left. Just as well: Wilf doesn’t like confined spaces, and it’s only the sense of fresh air somewhere over his head that prevents him reversing back to the secret panel.
‘Watch your step!’ commands Lambert. ‘We’re going up!’
Wilf stubs his boots against roughly hewn steps, shallow at first and then increasingly steeper as they turn a corner to the left. The walls change character, from milky stone to abrasive brick; they’re in darkness, now, except for Lambert’s torch, which strims from side to side, giving flashes of the deep-red brickwork. Wilf struggles to control his breathing. He stays close behind Lambert and is almost kicked in the face a few times. He steadies himself against the wall and recoils immediately from something moist and furry. He’s still rubbing his hand vigorously on the back of his jeans when Lambert barks:
‘Halt!’
An insistent, loose rattle of wood, the growl of a bolt being drawn, and the world opens out again. They’re in a perfectly round room with a stone-flagged floor and three leaded windows, filtering in a mellow, buttery light. Words and some sort of diagram are hacked into the sill beneath the central window. Glad to be out of the passageway, Wilf moves across for a closer look and realises, with a start, that they’re two storeys up in the tower, overlooking forested wilderness behind the estate. He peers at the carved message. It’s masterfully done, each letter flecked with a serif or trailing an elaborate tail.
‘John Auvrice—his prison and his refuge 1798’. The diagram is actually three crude symbols: a ship, a skull and a gallows. Wilf looks quizzically at Lambert, who’s leaning on his walking stick, recovering his breath after the climb.
‘Prison and refuge’ says Lambert cryptically, evidently enjoying himself. ‘One of the many mysteries of Hestyn House’.
8
She had a boyfriend. Naturally. Wilf had learned to assume that the odds were against him in these matters. Ridiculous word—’boyfriend’—for a fully consummated adult relationship, but Wilf persisted in using it to himself as a small act of malice. And in the hope that he might transfer some of its transitory, childish connotations to the relationship itself. Unfortunately for Wilf, ‘boyfriend’ was a wholly inadequate title for Aggie’s partner. Wilf first met him in a restaurant, a trendily casual Lebanese place with large, bare tables and scattered dishes to share. Aggie wanted to pick his brain, she said. He wondered whether this was a new euphemism for giving the sack. He’d written three guides for her by then and she’d dismantled and reconstructed every one, complaining that Wilf was too cautious, too polite, just too damn nice about everything. He didn’t imagine his brain had any pickings fit for Aggie’s requirements. He approached the restaurant with a heavy heart, and it grew heavier when he passed the wide front window and spotted her talking to her companion, touching the back of his hand. Surely, thought Wilf, she’s not going to fire me in front of her boyfriend?
‘Here he is—our roving reporter’ announced Aggie as he trudged in and almost walloped the back of another diner’s head with his backpack.
Hisham stood up and extended an arm across the table. He wasn’t at all what Wilf had expected. Older, for a start—about 45, maybe, with stylishly greying hair. And elegant, in a suit that couldn’t have come off the peg. His fingers were long and slim. As they shook hands Wilf’s backpack slipped from his shoulder and landed heavily in the crook of his elbow, nearly yanking Hisham off his feet.
‘Sorry’ muttered Wilf.
‘No problem’ said Hisham, smoothly, tugging his immaculate jacket into line. The weight of the backpack had pulled Wilf’s rainjacket half off, impeding his efforts to retrieve it.
‘Sit down, please, join us’ said Hisham—as if he owns the place, thought Wilf. He struggled into a seat and decided to hate the man. He couldn’t deny his beauty, though. Extraordinary blue-grey eyes, the exact colour of his suit, and a smile that he unveiled like a secret weapon. An accent that carved English banalities into delicate, lacy shapes. No wonder Aggie gazed at him like that. Wilf fumbled for the menu and tried to shrug his rainjacket onto the back of the chair.
‘I hope you don’t mind’ said Aggie ‘but I want your advice about something. I’m thinking of going freelance’.
Wilf was assaulted by several emotions in succession. Relief that she wasn’t getting shot of him. Elation that she wanted his advice. And then sudden alarm as he realised she’d be leaving Sitwell’s and disappearing over the horizon with bloody bespoke-tailored Hisham.
‘Agnes is far too wild to be chained to a desk’ said Hisham and Wilf glowered at the menu, refusing to see them keel towards each other. He hadn’t even known her full name was Agnes. He became aware that he should speak, and said,
‘I thought your name was Agatha.’ Issued it like a challenge. As if Hisham might have got it wrong.
‘Noone on earth is allowed to call me Agnes’ she said ‘except Hisham. He makes it sound so exotic’.
‘Us bleeding foreigners’ said Hisham ‘have our uses after all’.
And Wilf was obliged to laugh, because Aggie did. Agnes, he said to himself, trying to give the name music. Agnes. But he couldn’t say it aloud because he wasn’t Hisham.
She started reminding Wilf how long he’d been writing guidebooks, making ends meet as a freelance; she told him how suffocated she was, working for a company, going to the same corner of the same building and staring at the same screen every day. She resented the notion that other people owned her time.
‘Paid slavery’ she said. ‘That’s what it is’. Then added: ‘Put the menu down, Wilf, and take your bloody coat off’.
He’d only managed to shuck off the top half of his rainjacket, and his forearms were pinioned to his chair. He did as she said, and caught her watching him with that amused exasperation mothers reserve for their toddlers. He felt a momentary expansion in his chest, and cleared his throat to disguise a sharp, shallow reflex of breath. He thought: she likes this. Bossing me around. Hisham was taking the menu from his hand, leaving him free to untangle himself. Wilf wondered whether Hisham’s smile was a little strained at the corners and thought: bet she doesn’t tell him what to do.
Aggie was planning to give up the job. She called it The Great Escape. She asked for Wilf’s advice.
‘I’m not the best person to ask’ admitted Wilf. ‘I’m hopeless with money. Basically, I just travel around’.
He rolled up the sleeves of his jumper. It struck him that, if he played it right, the contrast with Hisham’s tailoring might actually work in his favour. He said,
‘I know what you mean about being suffocated. I get like that just coming back to my own house sometimes’.
‘Oh dear’ said Hisham sympathetically. ‘That’s quite a sad state of affairs’. He lifted the arm that had rested across the back of Aggie’s chair and gestured to a waiter with a balletic arc of the hand. Aggie scowled at him. Wilf noticed that she was leaning forward, and wasn’t in contact with Hisham’s arm after all. She said,
‘Hisham, wait a minute. Wilf hasn’t chosen anything yet’.
Hisham said very little during their meal. Aggie interrogated Wilf about his travels, and occasionally, in response to a description or anecdote Hisham would tilt his beautiful head and say,
‘How fascinating. How enthralling’—singing the words, performing them. Wilf couldn’t tell whether he was being sarcastic. But he could tell that Aggie was hooked—not by him, not even by his experiences, but by her own plans. She was smitten with the prospect of freedom, and he knew how to fuel her infatuation. He talked about castles and palaces and glaciers and deserts and sparkling cityscapes and sinuous dunes as soft as fur. He added a few places he’d never seen except on telly or in other people’s pictures. He filled in details: climbing a hideously swaying ladder to sleep on a roof in Athens. Chatting to a Russian waitress whose great-uncle had once returned from a business trip with a copy of Vogue hidden between layers of his underwear. Sharing a watermelon with a carriageload of schoolchildren in Sicily.
‘Why’ demanded Aggie ‘did you never give me this copy?’
Wilf shrugged. ‘It wasn’t in my brief…’
Paul had guessed she’d want to be out on the road before long. He’d told Wilf as much. ‘That girl’ he’d said ‘is not a corporate creature’. Sitwell’s was installed in its new building by now, with its urbanely tutting doors and its air-conditioning and windows that couldn’t be opened. Every day, Aggie saw the same people, had the same conversations, breathed the same air. Wilf reckoned she’d be out before the month was up.
But he didn’t expect to get home to her voice that same evening. When he let himself in the answerphone light was winking. She must have phoned from the counter at the restaurant: he could hear the drone and percussion of diners in the background. Not even Hisham had a mobile phone then.
‘Hi Wilf’ Aggie’s voice called into the dark room. Wilf stood over the machine, still in his rainjacket.
‘Sorry to pester you’ she said. ‘Just a thought. I know you’re down to do Spain after Christmas. Do you mind if I come along?’
No comments:
Post a Comment