Читать книгу The Snow Spider Trilogy - Jenny Nimmo - Страница 13

‘We’ve left Dewi with his auntie,’ said Mrs Davis.

Dewi had many aunties. Gwyn wondered which one had the pleasure of his company, and if Dewi was to be envied or pitied.

The Davises had come to ‘thrash out the problem of the nose’, as Mr Davis put it.

It was six o’clock. The tea had only just been cleared away and Gwyn’s stomach was already grumbling. They were sitting round the kitchen table: Mr and Mrs Davis, Gwyn and his parents – as though they were about to embark on an evening of cards or some other light-hearted entertainment, not something as serious as Dewi’s nose.

‘The problem, as I see it,’ began Mrs Davis, ‘is, who’s lying?’

‘Gary Pritchard, Merfyn Jones and Brian Roberts, all say that they think they saw Gwyn throw a stone,’ said Mr Davis solemnly. ‘Now, this is a very serious business.’

‘Very dangerous too,’ added Mrs Davis.

‘That goes without saying, Gladys,’ Mr Davis coughed. ‘Now, the situation is,’ he paused dramatically, ‘what’s to be done about it?’

‘How . . . er, how bad is the nose?’ Mrs Griffiths asked.

‘Very bad,’ replied Mrs Davis indignantly. ‘How bad d’you think your nose would be if it had been hit by a rock?’

‘Now wait a minute!’ Mr Griffiths entered the conversation with a roar. ‘First it’s a stone, now it’s a rock, and we haven’t yet established whether anything was thrown. Perhaps Dewi bumped his nose, we haven’t heard his explanation.’

‘That’s the problem.’ Mr Davis banged his fist on the table. ‘Dewi says he did bump his nose, but the other boys say Gwyn hit him with a stone.’

‘Dewi’s frightened of him, see!’ Mrs Davis pointed an accusing finger at Gwyn. ‘He’s afraid your boy’ll do something worse to him if he tells.’

‘Bloody nonsense!’ Mr Griffiths stood up, his chair scraping on the tiled floor. ‘Let’s hear your side of it, Gwyn?’

Gwyn looked up. He was unused to having his father defend him. He felt that he could take on any number of Davises now. ‘I didn’t throw a stone,’ he said.

‘There!’ Mr and Mrs Davis spoke simultaneously.

Mr Griffiths sat down and the two sets of parents eyed each other wordlessly.

‘He’s lying of course,’ Mr Davis said, at last.

‘He ought to be punished,’ added his wife. ‘The headmistress should be told.’

‘It’s a pity they don’t thrash kids these days,’ growled Mr Davis.

This time it was Mr Griffiths who banged the table. Gwyn got up and began to pace about the room while the adults all talked at once. He had a tremendous desire to do something dramatic and the knowledge that he probably could, made the temptation almost unbearable. What should he do though? Box Mr Davis’s ears from a distance of three metres? Pull Mrs Davis’s hair? The possibilities were endless. And then he remembered Nain’s warning. He must not abuse his power. It must be used only when there was something that he truly needed to do.

‘It’s not as if your son is normal,’ he heard Mrs Davis say. ‘Everyone’s been talking about his being peculiar, if you know what I mean. Ask any of the children.’

For the first time his parents seemed unable to reply. Mrs Griffiths looked so miserable that Gwyn could hardly bear it. She had known for days that something was wrong, and now she was going to hear about his stories.

‘It seems,’ went on Mrs Davis, ‘that Gwyn has been saying some very peculiar things, if you know what I mean. And why? If you ask me your son’s not normal.’

Gwyn had to stop her. Contemplating the generous curves that overflowed the narrow kitchen chair supporting Mrs Davis, his eyes alighted upon a large expanse of flesh, just above the knee, that her too-tight skirt could not cover. He flexed his fingers, then pressed his thumb and forefinger together, tight, tight, tight!

Mrs Davis screamed. She glared at Mr Griffiths and then asked haughtily, ‘Have you got a dog?’

The two men frowned at her, for the distraction, and then frowned at each other, while Mrs Griffiths said, ‘Yes, he’s in the barn!’

‘A cat?’ Mrs Davis inquired hopefully.

‘A black tom,’ Mrs Griffiths nodded towards a dark form sitting on the sill, outside the kitchen window. ‘We call him Long John,’ she went on, ‘because he lost a leg on the road when he was just a kitten; it’s wonderful what vets can do these days.’

Mrs Davis glanced at Long John then quickly looked away, her cyclamen-pink lips contorted with distaste. ‘I think we’ll go,’ she said, and stood up.

Her husband looked at her but did not move.

‘Get up, Bryn!’ Mrs Davis commanded. ‘I want to go!’

Mr Davis followed his wife out of the kitchen with a bemused expression on his face. He could not understand why the interview had ended so abruptly, and wondered if the situation had been resolved without his being aware of it.

The Griffithses were as perplexed as he. They silently followed their unwelcome guests to the front door, and there the whole unpleasant business might have ended, had not Mrs Davis been heard to mutter darkly, ‘Someone pinched my thigh!’

Mrs Griffiths gasped, her husband roared, ‘What?’ But Mr Davis, having opened the front door, thrust his wife through it, before she could cause the affair to deteriorate further. He then leapt quickly after her and the wind parted the two families by slamming the door.

Mr and Mrs Griffiths retreated into the kitchen and slumped battle-weary beside the table. And then the humour of the situation overcame them and they began to laugh with relief.

‘Thanks for sticking up for me, Dad,’ said Gwyn, when his parents had recovered. He felt awkward and not at all sure that he had done the right thing in the end.

‘If you say you’re innocent, that’s all I need to know,’ said Mr Griffiths gruffly.

Gwyn looked hard at his father; he could not understand his change of attitude. A week ago he would neither have been believed nor defended. In all probability he would have been sentenced to a weekend in his room and a meal of bread and water. ‘I’d better get on with my homework,’ he said shyly.

He was about to leave the room when his father suddenly said, ‘Is that girl coming again, then?’

‘What girl?’ Gwyn asked.

‘You know what girl. The one that was here yesterday. I can always run her home if,’ his father hesitated and then added diffidently, ‘if she wants to come.’

‘I don’t suppose she will,’ said Gwyn. ‘She’s a girl. She only came because I was hurt.’

‘Oh, that was it?’

Gwyn thought he could detect something almost like regret in his father’s voice. What had come over Mr Griffiths? It was quite disturbing. It had nothing to do with him, Gwyn was sure of that. He knew, instinctively, that he could not, should not, use his power to influence thought. The pinch had been satisfactory though.

He remembered that his father’s mood had changed when Eirlys appeared. If that was the case, then she must come again, if only to keep his father happy. And so, although it was against his principles to have girls at T Bryn, the following day he asked Eirlys if she could come to the farm on Saturday.

‘Of course,’ Eirlys replied, and her eyes shone with pleasure.

‘Mam and Dad want it,’ said Gwyn, by way of explanation, ‘and . . . and so do I, of course!’

The weather changed. December brought sun instead of snow. The wind was warm and smelled of damp leaves and over-ripe apples.

Gwyn took Eirlys on his mountain and she saw it in sunshine where before she had only glimpsed it at dusk, through a mist of snow. She saw the colours that he loved, the buzzards hunting low over the fields, and rosy clouds drifting above the plateau. He had not realised that he would enjoy the company of a girl. But then Eirlys was not like other girls.

They leapt, and sometimes slipped, upon wet stones in the tumbling streams; they ran, arms-outstretched, along the drystone walls, scattering the sheep that dozed there, and they chased crows that hopped, like black thieves, behind the leafless trees. And somehow Gwyn’s father always seemed to be there, watching them from a distance, or walking nearby with his dog and his blackthorn stick, listening to their voices. And after tea he began to whistle in his workshop, and Gwyn realised he did not recognise the sound. Even his mother looked up, astonished, from her ironing.

In the evening, while it was still light enough to see the trees, the children walked in the orchard and Gwyn told Eirlys about Nain and the five gifts; about the power that had come to him from Gwydion and how he had hit Dewi Davis without a stone. He told her about the silver ship that had caused all his trouble at school and, unlike Alun, Eirlys believed him and did not think it strange that a ship had fallen out of the sky. Even so, Gwyn did not speak of the snow spider. He was still wary of confiding too much. ‘I’ll take you to see my grandmother,’ he told the girl. Nain would know whether he could tell Eirlys about the cobwebs.

Later, he asked his parents if Eirlys could come again, so that they could visit Nain.

‘Why can’t she stay the night?’ Mr Griffiths suggested. ‘She can sleep in Bethan’s room.’

‘No!’ cried Mrs Griffiths, and then more quietly, ‘It’s . . . it’s just that the room isn’t ready!’

Nothing more was said just then, but when Mr Griffiths had returned from his journey to the Herberts he suddenly said, ‘Shall we ask the girl for Christmas? She can stay a day or two, and there’ll be time to get the room ready.’

‘No!’ his wife said again. ‘No! It’s my Bethan’s room.’

‘But she isn’t here, Mam,’ Gwyn said gently.

‘It’s waiting for her, isn’t it?’ his mother reproached him.

‘But Eirlys could sleep there,’ Gwyn persisted. ‘The room is ready – I looked in. The bed is made, and the patchwork quilt on it: the cupboards are shiny and all the dolls are there, it’s such a waste!’

‘Yes, all the dolls are there!’ cried Mrs Griffiths. She sank into a chair and bent her head, covering her face with her hands. ‘You don’t seem to care, any more, either of you. It’s my daughter’s room, my Bethan’s: her bed, her dolls, her place.’

Her husband and her son stood watching her, sad and helpless. How could they tell her that it did not matter if Bethan was not with them, because now there was Eirlys.

‘We won’t discuss it now,’ said Mr Griffiths. ‘But I’ve already agreed to fetch the girl tomorrow. Be kind while she’s here. She’s an orphan remember?’

‘I won’t upset her,’ Mrs Griffiths said. ‘I’m sorry for her, she’s just not my Bethan.’

When Gwyn took Eirlys to visit his grandmother the following afternoon, Nain was waiting by the gate. She had dressed carefully for the occasion, in an emerald green dress and scarlet stockings; round her neck she wore a rope of grass green beads, long enough to touch the silver buckle on her belt, and from each ear a tiny golden cage swung, with a silver bird tinkling inside it.

Eirlys was most impressed. ‘How beautiful you look,’ she said, and won Nain’s heart.

Gwyn noticed that his grandmother could not take her eyes off the girl. She watched her every move, hungrily, like a bright-eyed cat might watch a bird. ‘Eirlys!’ she murmured, ‘that’s Welsh for snowdrop. So we have a snowflower among us!’

After they had sipped their flowery tea, and eaten cake that tasted of cinnamon and rosemary, Gwyn told his grandmother about the ship, and Dewi Davis’s nose, while Eirlys wandered round the room, touching the china, the beads and the plants; studying pictures in the dusty books and tying coloured scarves around her head.

Nain was not surprised to hear about the silver ship. She merely nodded and said, ‘Ah, yes!’ But now that her prophesies for Gwyn were coming true, she found it almost too gratifying to bear. ‘You have nearly reached what you wanted, Gwydion Gwyn,’ she said. ‘But be careful! Don’t do anything foolish!’

‘Shall I tell Eirlys about the spider?’ Gwyn asked his grandmother. ‘Should she know about the cobwebs and that other world?’

‘Of course,’ said Nain. ‘Though I believe she knows already.’

They left the cottage before dark. Nain followed them to the gate and as they set off up the track she called again, ‘Be careful!’

Gwyn was not listening to his grandmother; he had begun to tell Eirlys about the spider. He realised that he had not seen Arianwen for several days and wondered where she was.

When they got back to the farmhouse, Mrs Griffiths was upstairs, sewing the hem on her new bedroom curtains. Her husband was cleaning the Land Rover. He had used it to transport a new batch of pullets from the Lloyds that morning, and they had made more of a mess than he had bargained for.

Gwyn told Eirlys to wait in the kitchen while he fetched the pipe and the spider from his attic room. When he returned she was sitting in the armchair by the stove. The light was fading but a tiny slither of winter sun had crept through the swaying branches of the apple tree, and into the kitchen window. The light glimmered on the girl in the armchair and Gwyn had to stop and take a breath before he said, ‘You are the girl in the web, Eirlys!’

‘Am I?’ she said.

‘Yes, it was you! I knew it all the time, but I couldn’t see how . . . You’re like my sister, too. Where have you come from Eirlys?’

The girl just smiled her inscrutable smile and asked, ‘Where is the spider?’

‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘I looked in the drawer, on top of the cupboard and under the bed. I couldn’t find her.’

Eirlys looked concerned. ‘Where can she be?’ she asked.

Gwyn shrugged. ‘I don’t know. She’s been gone before, but only for a day. I haven’t seen her for nearly a week.’

His father called through the front door, ‘Time to go, Eirlys. Are you ready?’

Eirlys stood up. ‘You must find the spider, Gwyn,’ she said. ‘She’s precious! She will make it possible for you to see whatever you want, and when I . . .’

‘When you what?’ Gwyn demanded.

‘I can’t say, just yet,’ Eirlys replied. And then she had disappeared into the passage and run out of the house before Gwyn had time to think of another question.

He watched the lights of the Land Rover flickering on the lane before he climbed up to his room again. This time he shook the curtains, felt under the carpet and, beginning to panic, emptied the contents of every drawer upon the floor. Arianwen was not there.

He went down to the kitchen to see his mother. ‘Have you seen that spider?’ he inquired.

‘I’ve seen too many spiders,’ Mrs Griffiths replied. She was rolling pastry on the kitchen table and did not look up when she spoke.

‘But have you seen my own, particular, spider?’

‘I saw one, yes. It could have been the one.’ Mrs Griffiths inexorably rolled and rolled the pastry and did not look up. ‘It was different,’ she went on, ‘a sort of grey.’

‘Silver!’ Gwyn corrected her. ‘Where was it?’

‘Here. On the curtain.’

‘Did you catch it?’

‘Yes! You know I can’t abide cobwebs.’ Mrs Griffiths had finished the pastry, but still she did not look up.

‘What did you do with it?’

‘I put it down the drain,’ his mother said flatly. ‘Drowned it!’

Gwyn was speechless. He could not believe what he had heard. His mother had to be joking. He stared at her, hoping for a smile and a teasing word, but she kept tearing little pieces away from the pastry and would not look at him.

And then Gwyn found himself screaming, ‘Drowned? Drowned? You can’t have!’

‘Well, I did!’ At last his mother faced him. ‘You know I don’t like spiders. Why did you keep it so long?’ She could not explain to Gwyn that she was afraid, not only of the spider, but of the strange girl who could not be her daughter, yet seemed so like her, and who was beginning to take her daughter’s place.

‘You don’t understand,’ Gwyn cried. ‘You foolish woman. You don’t know what you’ve done.’ He ran to the kitchen sink. ‘Did you put it down here? Where does the drain go to?’

‘The septic tank,’ Mrs Griffiths said defiantly. Guilt was making her angry. ‘And you can’t look there. Nothing can live in that stuff. The spider’s dead.’