Читать книгу Screaming Yellow - Rachel Green - Страница 9

Chapter 4

“Watch the cat!” Meinwen yelled as her best friend barely avoided the tabby.

Dafydd Thomas almost dropped the box on the way to the truck, his dreadlocks swinging wildly as he recovered from almost treading on the cat. “Meinwen Bronwyn Jones! What have you got here?” He steadied the box with a knee as he sought a better purchase. “I think I’ve put my back out with this one.”

“Stop your yammering, Dave.” The box’s owner trotted out of the house carrying an aspidistra as tall as her and a transistor radio by means of hooking one finger through the carry strap. “That’s my computer and all the discs I need to get it running again after its journey in there. You drop that box and I’ll make you sorry I was ever born.”

“I already am.” Dafydd put the box onto the back of the truck and slid it forward. “I must have been bonkers to offer to help you move.” He stood at the back of the truck surveying the boxes, his hands on the small of his back and grunting. “Where did you keep all these bits of…collectables?”

“I heard that unspoken thought, Dafydd Thomas.” She tucked the plant under one arm and tucked the radio into the computer box. “And don’t call me by my full name. Only my mam called me that and I was tired of it before I was six. I was surprised by the amount of stuff I was keeping in my wardrobe and under the bed as well. I just haven’t had time to go through it all and decide on what to chuck.”

“I wish you had. It would have made this job easier. Less weight means less fuel too, you know.”

“Sorry. I had to close the shop in a hurry. Half of these boxes are stock from Reincarnations and worth too much to ditch. Look, can you take Mildred off me?”

“Yeah, well. Sorry about the shop an’ all.” Dafydd took the plant out of her hands and wedged it into the truck, using Meinwen’s duvet to protect it from damage. “Even sorrier you’re going to Leighton.”

“Laverstone,” Meinwen corrected. “I told you. There’s nothing left for me in Dovey now the shop’s closed. I’ve been itching to leave ever since Mam died and that was five years ago.”

“Why Laverstone though? Why not Aberystwyth or Cardiff, even? There’s plenty of tourist trade in Cardiff ever since they started filming Torchwood and Doctor Who there.”

“I’m not going into the Dr. Who market.” Meinwen sat on the tailgate. “It’s too competitive. Besides, there are other areas of interest in Laverstone.”

“Such as?” Dafydd sat next to her and began rolling a cigarette. “My gran says there’s nowhere quite like home.”

“And thank any god listening for that.” Meinwen glanced up at the second floor window she’d spent the last five years looking out of. “If I never see this place again it’ll be too soon.” She went to the passenger seat of the truck and pulled out a slim volume called Folklore of Laverstone. She waved it at Dafydd who stared at it while he lit his cigarette.

“You wrote a book, did you?” He nodded toward the author’s name.

“No. Another M Jones did. I can’t claim to be the only one.” She sat again and opened the book at the introduction. “I’d have had to be in my sixties to have written this. It was published in nineteen sixty-four.”

“Laverstone is a quiet backwater surrounded by the fields of Wiltshire and the arteries of London avoided, by accident or design, by the twentieth century. The fever to build roads and motorways never seemed anxious to include this historic market town.

“The hamlet of Laverstone was founded in fifteen forty-eight as a traveling inn for coaches on their journey between the metropolis and Oxford, and provided the basic needs of food, shelter and stabling. Within a year it had grown a smithy and several rude houses that took advantage of the river Laver and the pastureland surrounding it for several acres on each side.

“A village grew around the hamlet. Landowners carved up slices of the countryside and settled. The village became recognized as a town when the first of the three churches, that of Our Lady of Pity, was erected in eighteen sixteen. The inn grew into a manor, which flourished up to the late nineteenth century then fell upon hard times. The current owner, Frederick Waterman, became a reclusive poet after tragedy struck the family in the late nineteen fifties.

“The town, like Avebury, is surrounded by a ring of standing stones, reputedly either fifteen or seventeen of them, depending upon the proclivities of the counter. There are several legends warning of straying too near the stones at certain times of the year, the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, for example. It is reputed that Laverstone is where William Shakespeare found the inspiration for A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

“See?” Meinwen punched him on the shoulder. “The whole town is magical. I’d be daft not to go there.”

“There’re other towns not so far away.” Dafydd pulled on his cigarette. “Tintagel. Boscastle. Glastonbury. They’re places steeped in magic. You could open a shop there.”

“And be one among dozens?” Meinwen snorted. “I looked Laverstone up. There isn’t a single witchcraft shop in the whole town.”

“Aye. They probably burn them down.” Dafydd dropped his cigarette and ground it out with his foot. Without a filter, it would vanish into the soil within a day or two. He looked at her through his dreads. “Look, I don’t want you to go, okay?”

She nodded, flicking through the pages of the tour guide as if there was a script inside. “I know,” she said eventually, “but I have to go. I’m so sick of this town I could cry.”

“Why there, though? You might as well be moving to the moon. Or France.”

“It’s as good a place as any.” Meinwen closed the book and looked directly at him. “I’ll be honest with you, Dave. I met a bloke and he lives in Laverstone. Okay?”

“What sort of bloke? A boyfriend sort of bloke?” Dafydd frowned and stood, putting his hands on Meinwen’s shoulders. “I thought you and me had something special?”

“We did.” Meinwen winced as he let go and turned away. She caught his arm, pulling him around. “We do, I mean. We’re buddies, though. We’re not partners.”

Dafydd took her hand. “We could be.”

Meinwen almost laughed but stopped herself, shaking her head. “What about Madge? You’ve been seeing her on and off for nearly ten years.”

“Only because you were too proud.” Dafydd looked down. “I love you, Manny. Always have, always will.”

“I know.” Meinwen reached forward and opened her arms, relieved Dafydd returned the hug. “That’s why we’ll always be best mates. One for all, remember?”

“Yeah.” He smiled. “You haven’t said that since Billy left when we were kids. All for one and one for all.”

“Like Dumas’s heroes.” Meinwen smiled, her eyes glittering with tears.

“Nah, like on the telly.” Dafydd ran the knuckle of his index finger below her eye, caught the unshed tear and licked it off his finger. “Just you and me now.”

“One for all and two for one?”

“Yeah.” He pulled her in for another hug. “You’re my bestest buddy.”

Meinwen laughed and went inside for her bedding. “Two more boxes in the kitchen and we’re done. Then we can get off.”

“I thought you said we were just friends?” Dafydd grinned and ducked her mock punch, coming back out a minute later with both boxes and a mug perched on top of them. “Shall I take this back again? You only ever used it when I came ’round.”

Meinwen stared at it for a moment. “No. I was going to give it you back, but can I keep it instead?”

Dafydd nodded and grinned. “Sure,” he said. “It’ll be something for you to remember me by.”

While he finished packing the truck, Meinwen dropped her house keys inside the envelope and licked the flap to seal it. It wasn’t much to show for five years of living in a one-bed flat on Gwelfor Road but it had overlooked the estuary and for that she was grateful. She turned to the south-west, taking in every last detail of Cardigan Bay to store for the weeks and months of being landlocked in Laverstone.

“You ready?” Dafydd stood with the keys to the truck in his hand. “We’d best get a move on or the sun’ll come out and we’ll never get away from the crowds wanting a Mr. Whippy.”

Meinwen smiled, shoving the envelope through the letterbox before climbing into Dafydd’s ice-cream truck. She’d timed her moving date to his day off so he could drive her. “Yes. Let’s go before I change my mind.”

“Is that a possibility? I could drop my keys down this drain.”

She laughed. “No, I’m going and I won’t be back.”

“Not even for my Mr. Whippy?”

“Maybe for that.” She climbed into the passenger side. “I never could resist your strawberry syrup.”

“Now you’re talking.” Dafydd laughed and climbed in, turning the engine over to warm it up. Meinwen winced at the sudden peal of Greensleeves through the loudspeaker.

Dafydd lunged to switch it off. “Sorry.”

“Thank you.” Meinwen shook her head, grimacing. “Honestly, I don’t know why ice-cream trucks play that tune at all. It’s so sad.”

“Is it?” Dafydd pulled off and headed downhill. “It’s just an old English madrigal, isn’t it? All about true love and delightful company.”

“Unrequited love and a king pining away for want of a woman,” said Meinwen. “You might as well be playing Madonna’s Sex through your loudspeakers.”

Dafydd laughed. “I’d probably sell more ice cream, too.” He slipped in a CD of nineties chart hits and they drove through the rest of Aberdovey in companionable silence. Meinwen was wrapped in thoughts of the town she’d grown up in and how Dafydd would fare without his best friend. “There’s your old shop,” he said as they passed the vacant building. “They’ve not started renovating it yet.”

“Never,” said Meinwen, “am I calling a shop ‘Reincarnations’ again. It’s just asking for the lease to be canceled.”

“Well, it is coming back to life,” said Dafydd, trying to hide a smile, “just as a bookies. It could be worse.”

“In what way?” Meinwen turned her attention from the beachfront properties to the driver. “What could be worse than a bookies?”

“A butcher’s?” He allowed a grin to break through. “Or a Methodist church.”

Meinwen punched him on the arm. “Oh, very funny, I don’t think. Watch out for that bolt of lightning!”

“Where?”

“It must have been my imagination,” she said. “Because at least I have one. I didn’t go into a dead-end job like you.”

“Ice-cream trucking isn’t a dead-end job,” he said. “Well, except when you park up in dead ends.”

“It’s not a life’s ambition, though, is it? Didn’t you want to be a rock star?”

“I’m still working on it.”

“How far have you got?”

“Three Blind Mice on the recorder. I’m a bit stuck on getting the G-sharp, see.”

Meinwen laughed. “What about the winter? I’ve seen you with all sorts of jobs in the winter. Didn’t one of them grab you?”

“I quite like the burger truck,” said Dafydd. “Not that there’s much call for burgers in the middle of winter. You freeze your tits off just getting your money out, sometimes, let alone driving to Aberystwyth or Machynlleth, and then I’m digging trucks out of snowdrifts, see.” He glanced across at her. “What about you, then? How did you meet this fancy man of yours? What does he look like?”

“Robert, his name is.” Meinwen rolled the R across her tongue. “He’s charming and charismatic and sensible and mature and he has this tiny dimple in the corner of his mouth when he smiles.” She demonstrated with her finger on her face. “He’s lovely. I fell in love with him the moment I saw him.”

“Oh, aye?” Dafydd paused for a moment, concentrating on the road. “Mature, you said. Just how mature? Big brother sort of mature or my old man and a coffin mature?”

“Well, he’s a little bit older,” said Meinwen, on the defensive. “You have to be a bit older to achieve true wisdom and harmony with the world.”

“’Struth, he’s old enough to be your granddad, isn’t he?”

“No.” Meinwen looked out of the window at the mountains dotted with sheep. “He’s in his early fifties, which is no age, these days.”

“If he’s told you early fifties he’s pushing sixty.” Dafydd frowned. “How old does he think you are?”

“I might have been a bit conservative with my age.”

Dafydd snorted. “Go on.”

“I said I was twenty-five. All right? Are you happy now?”

“There’s no way you still look twenty-five, love. What did he say when you told him?”

“He didn’t say anything. Just how much he was looking forward to us being together.”

“Where was this? In the shop?”

“Sort of, yes.” Meinwen reached in her bag for the flask of tea then put it back again. “Look, can we stop in Machynlleth? I need to find a bathroom.”

“Aye, we can.” Dafydd glanced across again. “What did you mean ‘sort of’ in the shop?”

“I was in the shop.” Meinwen looked away. “And he was at home.”

“Eh?”

“I said he was at home. We were chatting on the internet, all right?”

“On a computer?” Dafydd frowned. “Have you not met him in real life, like?”

“Not exactly, no.”

“How do you mean, not exactly?”

“I mean I haven’t, okay?”

“You mean you’re packing up and moving three hundred miles for a man you’ve never even met? What are you like?”

Meinwen folded her arms and returned to looking out of the window. There were scattered houses now they were on the approach to Machynlleth. “I’m not moving just for Robert,” she said after a while. “I had to get out of Dovey. It’s stifling there. When they wouldn’t renew the lease on the shop I thought ‘Well that’s it then. There’s nothing else stopping me.’”

“But what will you live on, cariad?”

“I’ve got my savings, and what’s left from when the council bought Mam’s house and Robert’s found me a little cottage to live in that isn’t too much rent.”

“You’re not moving straight in with him then?” Dafydd pulled to the left to let a car overtake safely. “That’s a bit of a relief to be honest. Sensible of him, like. If you’d moved in and then found you didn’t get on together you’d be stuck.”

“Oh, he wanted me to move in all right,” said Meinwen. “It’s his wife that didn’t.”