Die Like a Dog (5 page)

There was a pause long enough for a bumble bee to investigate several foxglove bells.

‘Would you care for a cup of coffee?' he asked politely. ‘The kettle's hot.'

The break was needed to cool the atmosphere. .As they sat on the turf drinking coffee, he said calmly: ‘I don't care much for people; that's why I'm working here. You come to work with – and for – animals, and then you find them threatened. So you blow- up.'

‘Don't apologise. I know exactly how you feel.'

‘I doubt it. Harming innocent things sends me mad.'

‘Anger can be a heavy drain on vitality: anger and compassion.'

‘That's what
she
says. But some people are expendable.'

‘Who said some people were expendable?'

‘A girl. You met her – Seale. Maggie. She said anger was a waste of energy, but I said some people were expendable. I said it to her, you see.'

‘What did she say to that?'

He blushed. Miss Pink's eyebrows rose and her surprise forced the truth out of him.

‘She said I should let someone else “expend” them. That I had a positive contribution to make to – to natural history.'

He was studying his feet and failed to see her lips twitch at the substitution of ‘natural history' for ‘society'.

‘That girl,' she said levelly, ‘is cool. You could do worse than ponder what she might do when you feel your control going.'

He wasn't listening. He was smiling to himself and watching a ladybird crawl over his wrist. ‘Beautiful,' he sighed. ‘Beautiful.'

Miss Pink got up. ‘That was good coffee. Who lives in the cottage between you and Handel Evans; the place behind a dark avenue of yews?'

‘Bart and Lucy Banks. Lucy's the cook at the Bridge. You must have met her.'

‘I didn't know where she lived. Bart?'

‘That's her son. A young lad.' He laughed. ‘They thought I was a hard man because I took them climbing: Bart and Dewi Owen from the Post Office, but they were at the show last night and now they're worshipping Seale. I got them interested in the Reserve. They're unemployed, of course, but I'm training them; I want to get them up to a standard where they can find jobs as assistants at adventure schools. No reason why they shouldn't; they're bright boys and keen as mustard. A bit wild, but then they've only just left school. It's evil, isn't it: how there's no work for kids like that?'

‘And you don't care for people.'

He gave her a smile that lit his eyes.

‘In the mass, only in the mass.'

As she resumed her trudge up the mountain she reflected that his attitude was not uncommon. Wasn't her own reason for coming to this area a desire to avoid the hordes that frequented the tourist traps? She thought of the Snowdon paths this lovely day, saw them as a raven might: ribbons of people on eroded scars among the old grey rocks. So they escaped: the sensitive, thoughtful ones, retreating to corners of a beloved country where they might throw their protection round a sanctuary like a cloak, cherishing the flora and fauna, guarding it with the savagery of wolves. Why, she thought, that train of thought surely went off the rails – and then she remembered the paths wrecked by the passage of hooves, recalled the Alsatians; of course, it was the Alsatians that had prompted that simile of wolves. Poor Lloyd, beleaguered in his woodlands, impotent, seething, and deriving small support it seemed, from his employers. Knowing the Welsh backwoods, she suspected that those employers would have closer links with Judson than with Lloyd. Tyrants still had it going for them, she thought.

Down at the camp site in the sycamore grove Judson was beaming with delight. ‘You don't care, do you? I can throw you off this land without notice and you don't turn a hair.'

‘Don't be childish,' Seale said. ‘I don't play your kind of game, and I don't care to camp on land where people make a nuisance of themselves.'

There was a pause. His stare was moody, then he relaxed.

‘You go off at half-cock,' he told her. ‘You're different from other women but you don't seem able to come to terms with it. You're a poor judge of men too. I was paying you a compliment.'

‘You were trying to intimidate me.'

He shrugged. ‘Why do you hold out against me? Am I dull?'

She regarded him thoughtfully, ‘Only some of the time.'

‘Frightening?'

‘God, no!'

He winced. ‘So?'

She sighed. ‘You're bombastic.'

He wasn't put out. ‘That's a value judgement. To you I appear arrogant but my people have farmed this valley for centuries. You're arrogant yourself.'

She smiled. ‘This isn't the first time I've met a land owner.'

‘Damn it, I know! Tell me in France and the States and England you find your own level! Stop procrastinating, woman. You're going to give in and you know it. You're just playing hard to get. Well, I'm coming to Ebeneser; I'm going to see those pictures of yours again and afterwards it'll be a case of your place or mine. As for now: get that tent zipped up and let's go down to the coast for a lobster. Hock and lobster at a discreet little place on top of the cliffs. How's that?'

‘I don't have to be discreet.'

‘Now that's unfair – but it's what's so attractive about you: the carelessness. Doesn't it ever occur to you that it could be dangerous? You're reckless. What are you watching?'

‘Nothing,' Seale said, drawing it out, turning to him with a puzzled expression.

‘You look a little lost,' he said softly. ‘I'm sorry; am I going too fast?'

‘I don't know.'

Her gaze travelled over the trees and then she gave a sudden loud sniff and bent to close the tent.

A farmer called Hughes shouted across the yard to his wife:

‘Dil! You unchained that bitch?'

Her face appeared at the kitchen window.

‘Why should I?'

‘She's gone, chain an' all. Damn! Here's me going to mate her with a
champion
, and she's away!' He was distraught.

‘Go after her.'

‘Too late. She'll be mated with every bloody dog in the valley by now.'

‘You should have shut her up.'

‘I did then. In the byre. Door come open, didn't it? Shut and chained, she were. Bloody bitch on heat'll break out of a p'liss cell.'

‘Seven more for lunch,' Waring cried, bustling into the kitchen. ‘Can we do it, Lucy?'

‘No sweat,' she assured him comfortably. ‘Plenty of salad left and a couple of guinea fowl from last night. You can make it sound like guinea fowl salad was something only millionaires eat. Give it an up-market name.
Salade Gleneagles.'

‘Gleneagles is British Rail now.
Salade Dorchester
?'

‘They wouldn't know the Dorchester from a fried chicken joint. Call it
salade Hilton.
That'll send them.'

They giggled and Anna Waring, coming in from the passage, looked at them stonily on her way to the bar. Waring followed her and for a while they were fully occupied with serving pre-luncheon drinks to the guests. Seeing them settled for the moment, he went to the cellar for a crate of bitter lemon, muttering to himself about the weather. In the heat men drank beer and women fruit juice – small profit for a publican.

As he was stooping to the crate Anna's voice came from behind him: ‘I've no objection to your familiarity with the help but I'd rather you did it in private.'

‘What the hell –' It was too much: on top of a lunch time when the profit on drinks wouldn't cover his overheads.

‘Giggling together like a couple of kids in front of the kitchen stain She's an old-age pensioner.'

‘A well-covered bird. You're getting a bit stringy yourself.'

‘And what exactly does that mean?'

He lifted the crate and moved towards her.

‘Men like 'em younger and rounder.' He was breathing heavily. ‘Move over.'

She stayed where she was, her eyes flashing.

‘What's that supposed to mean?'

‘Don't keep repeating yourself. And get out of my way.'

‘You're implying something. You've been building up to this all morning –'

He dropped the case with a crash. Anna shrank back, livid.

‘That could have crushed my foot!'

‘Pity. You followed me down here to start something.' He regarded her tightly. ‘I'll give you one chance. You're mad because he followed that youngster out of the bar last night. If you've got something special to moan about, something that relates to me and this place, let's have it, right now. Otherwise move out of my way or I'll move you. I
will
drop the bloody crate on your foot, so help me.'

‘You'd threaten me!'

‘Too right, lady. I'm about choked.'

‘
You're
– ! You and that Lucy Banks!'

‘Now look –' he was quiet and tense, ‘– stop raising your voice; the customers will hear, if they haven't already. This place is our livelihood. You know damn well I know what's eating you so stop taking it out on me. This is summer: the
season
– there's a recession on, remember? But we're making money, holding our heads above water, if we can just keep it up. If you're mad, dear out for a day, go to Chester, go to London if you want. I can hold the fort, but don't you go putting Lucy's back up. It wouldn't matter if she was young and luscious and in and out of beds like a flea; what does matter is that she's the best cook in a fifty-mile radius and every other hotel is after her – but she works for us. Do I make myself clear?'

Anna shrugged. ‘I might do just that: go away for the weekend. It'll leave you free, won't it?'

He nodded grimly. ‘Yes, dear. Lucy and me'll have a ball.'

Somewhere above the valley, muffled by heat and humidity, a shot rang out. In the Judsons' stable yard Handel Evans lifted his head.

‘Where was that?' Gladys Judson asked.

‘Up the top of the combe, mum.'

She turned back to the stable door. Both its halves were closed. Behind a high window barred with wooden slats a form rose and fell silently.

‘I wish he wouldn't keep leaping like that,' she said unhappily. ‘It worries me.'

‘Strengthens his legs, mum.'

‘Evans, are you sure that door's safe? It's only a thumb latch, after all.'

‘Yes, but you got to put your finger through the hole and
lift.
Only a 'uman can do that. If it was a matter of bearing down – like the real thumb latch in houses, he could jump up, catch it with his paw, and spring the door open by accident. But he can't put his paw through and
lift,
can he?'

She sighed. ‘I suppose you're right. And there's no way he can get into the garage?'

The garage was next door to the stable, under the same roof, its double doors open, a green Mini facing them. They stared at the wall between garage and stable. It was made of breeze blocks. Evans said nothing.

‘Yes.' Gladys smiled. ‘He'll never get through that, but I'd be happier if he were chained.'

‘He were chained, and he got out.'

‘He slipped his collar. Now that you've tightened it, and with the door closed. ... It would be safer, Evans.'

‘Close the half-door, mum?' His voice rose. ‘And him chained behind it?' He was suddenly expressionless. ‘That's cruel. What would the master say?'

There was the sound of another shot. He looked puzzled.

‘Is Mr Judson shooting?'

‘Shooting? He went to town.'

‘Is that so. I think I'll take a turn round the place, see who's about, like.'

The glen drowsed through the hot afternoon while the tourist traffic drifted up the main valley, the haze gathered on the mountains and the water shrank a little more between the banks of gorse and golden buttercups. A stranger, driving idly up the lane under the oakwoods, might have thought that no one was abroad, that if anyone were alive in the old houses glimpsed through jungly foliage, like people in lower latitudes, they would be asleep behind drawn curtains, windows open wide to catch a breeze.

There was no breeze, no movement, only sound: the persistent drone of insects, the somnolent note of the wood pigeons, and once the barking of a dog, or dogs.

At five-thirty Gladys Judson came home from shopping, eased her Mini into the cobbled yard and braked. The top half-door of the stable was open. Satan was loose again.

THE VILLAGE FOLK
had a bad evening. During the night most people were to sleep well because they were safe indoors but earlier in the evening few local people were out walking, and when motorists went to and from their cars parked on the Bridge's forecourt, it was noticeable that no one loitered, and their glances towards the thick shrubbery were scared and resentful. Nor did anyone sit out on the terrace that night.

It was Gladys Judson who had spread the word as she searched, first through the Reserve and the meadows, then the village and further afield: driving slowly in her Mini, stopping to speak to pedestrians whom she knew, and some she didn't, drawing up at houses with an open door. And that was how pedestrians came to be off the roads, children indoors and the doors closed. ‘Our Alsatian, the black one; have you seen him?' She wouldn't use his name, Satan; she had always disliked it.

They felt sorry for her: a very polite lady, Mrs Judson, and obviously upset; all the same, no one dared to voice disapproval of her husband – not openly.

Gladys searched until dusk. Handel Evans, with the ribald advice of the Bridge's customers in his ears, concentrated on the local bitches and so eventually reached Hughes Cae Gwyn, who confirmed that his animal was in season, had been loose but had now returned and was shut in the byre. No, the black Alsatian had not been around the farm but if Handel Evans cared to come back in nine weeks' time, he'd be able to tell then if she'd seen the Alsatian in her travels. Evans started to point out coldly that information in nine weeks' time was no good now, when he saw Hughes exchange a deadpan glance with his wife, and he turned on his heel and walked out quietly, loosely, a figure of menace. Behind him he heard stifled giggles. He went home raging.