A Read online

  PC Price walked back up the road towards the car, the slopes to either side of him sheer and in shadow. Sitting back in the driver’s seat, he removed the Inkspots tape from the stereo, turned it over and pushed it back in again. There was a hissing noise for a few seconds then the Inkspots’ ubiquitous guitar intro ushered in the Street of Dreams:

  Love laughs at a king.

  Kings don’t mean a thing

  On the street of dreams…

  PC Price sang softly now, sighing with the runs of the piano, watching as the front wheels of the ambulance sank back to the ground. Someone was moving equipment – a jack, presumably, and a punctured wheel – then there was a splash of colour at the front of the car as its lights came on and it began to pull away across the grass, revealing itself as a Mark I Escort estate. It threw its light briefly on a man – quite tall, quite well-built – and a shapely young woman, who lifted a hand to wave at it.

  The story he would shortly be leaking in the pub was beginning to take form in PC Price’s mind. There were big-time London criminals hiding out around these parts – or on the loose, perhaps – wild-eyed lunatic men and beautiful-but-deadly women. For the first time that day he didn’t sing along to Home on the Range, running through his lines instead.

  – Course, I can’t tell you any details, though I dare say you’ll be reading a headline or two about it soon enough. And not in the Brecon and Radnor neither… And not just in the Brecon and Radnor neither. Oh, mine’s a pint, Sid. Cheers.

  – …where seldom is heard a discouraging word.

  Colours were showing at the front of the ambulance too now. It shuddered a moment like it was trying to drive against the handbrake, then it began to roll forwards, turning right onto the lane, and, mercifully, taking another right rather than coming up towards the Gospel Pass where he would doubtlessly have been obliged to arrest them.

  – ’Course, I saw them. Well, I saw them a couple of times, as it goes… Yeah. Chased them too. Christ knows what engine they’ve got in that van of theirs…! Oh, but you should see their women! Beautiful, they are! Fucking beautiful! Deadly too, of course. You got to watch them… Oh, ta, Joe. Cointreau… Lemonade. Anyway, I shouldn’t really be telling you this…

  Once Home on the Range had died back down to a hiss, PC Price restarted the Maestro, removing the radio from the dashboard.

  – Colin, it’s Andy. Come in, would you?

  – Andy! What’s going on? Do you require back-up?

  – Got some, have you? Colin… Look. There was this tractor jack-knifed on the Capel-y-ffin road. Took a bit of time to get over here. There’s no-one around. Some tracks that might have been theirs, but that’s it, basically.

  – Now that is a shame, Andy.

  The two voices had much the same level of sincerity. PC Price released the handbrake and the Maestro began to roll down the hill.

  – Isn’t it? he said.

  – Well, never mind. Nothing to be done. You’d best sign off for the day, then.

  – That’s just what I was planning, Colin. You have a good weekend, hey?

  u: topiary

  The trees made a tunnel around the ambulance: its headlights a circle on the walls, evolving with the twisting and pitch of the lane. Angus was driving, thinking about Ipswich, watching the hill as it fell away in front of them.

  His sixth-form self had had straggly hair and smoked a lot of cigarettes. If he were to meet him now he was quite sure that he wouldn’t like him: a sullen, drunken teenager who hung around derelict buildings when he wasn’t out shoplifting.

  There was one night, he remembered, when they’d got a few carloads of people together and went out to a castle on the coast. They’d had speakers, record-decks, petrol tanks, a generator and a box full of empty milk bottles, all of which they hoisted over a fence and arranged around the crumbling walls. Techno was the thing of the moment – the type with the rousing build-ups – so they put some on, jumping around and generally getting wasted till the first light grazed the clouds above the sea, and they gathered themselves round the well to drop petrol bombs.

  Each of the bombs had had a circle of light on the walls around it, following it down. The circles had had a weightlessness about them. Momentarily, they’d always made Angus wish to be falling too; then, just before the bottle hit the bottom, they’d turn into a dot and you’d have to jump backwards, glass, stones and dust shooting up into the air.

  Fay was on the far side of the front seat, her hair in a curtain across her face, her feet in cleared spaces on the floor. She was looking through the window beside her.

  The lane was getting tighter, slick with a sludge of leaves. Tim was in between them, smoking, rocking psychotically, occasionally talking to himself. In the back, Belle spoke only when she required another cigarette.

  On the stereo, Neil Young was singing:

  Oh, Isabella! Proud Isabella!

  They tore you down and ploughed you under…

  Angus didn’t feel easy driving an ambulance; any easier than he would have done driving a hearse.

  They stopped – just – when they arrived at the main road, the wheels slithering where a tractor had left mud around a gateway. Beyond the verge in front of them, the Wye was gorged and choppy, thinking itself still in the mountains. It sparkled as the headlights swung across it; then there was only the road – wide and flat and heavily subsidised by the European Union, leading to putative Toyota factories and tourist resorts that were sunny in the photos.

  An ambulance can only go so fast.

  It’s easy to get buried in the past,

  When you try to make a good thing last.

  Angus reached forward abruptly and pressed Eject; then he turned off the radio too – white noise humming at the pitch of the engine – and watched the road in silence. The song seemed to have been tapping his brain, broadcasting his thoughts with an acoustic guitar and a mournful, sliding fiddle.

  – I was enjoying that, said Fay, without looking away from the window; a blurred line of houses, their doorsteps on the roadside.

  – Sorry, said Angus. I was just finding it a bit, you know, bald… You couldn’t put on anything a bit more upbeat, could you?

  Fay bent down to pick up the tape bag, inspecting the titles in the moonlight. She dug out some brew of hip-hop and classical music, which he didn’t recognise but somehow felt appropriate.

  The moon was behind them when Angus first realised something was wrong, fields and hedges luminous to either side. At first he glanced at the instruments, pumping the accelerator, but soon he noticed steam, escaping from a side of the bonnet. He flipped on the indicator, swearing to himself and steering into a layby.

  There was a mound of gravel higher than the roof on the ground before the hedge, one end of it mined by a digger. Not far away a phonebox glowed placidly. Tim smoked, staring with the beams of the headlights. Angus rubbed his eyes and turned off the ignition.

  – What is it? said Fay.

  – It might be my imagination, said Angus, but I think that the radiator’s boiling.

  – Ah yeah, the meter’s bust, said Fay. It boiled last night too. I’m not sure how much water Pete put back in.

  – Well, said Angus, sliding open the door and climbing out. I guess we’re just going to have to sort it out.

  Glancing back across the cab, his eyes met Fay’s for a second or two. Their faces were both lit by the headlights, both tired and worried-looking, shadowed by hair. It made Angus feel glad and, at the same time, strangely defensive: glad that someone sane was around to help him, defensive because that look – the worriedness – had become a kind of domain for him. He wasn’t sure that he was prepared or even knew how to share it.

  The two of them stood, watching the steam as it slackened. The engine was plainly too hot to keep driving.

  The track from Pentwyn arrived at the main road about a mile on from where the ambulance had broken down. If you were to look at a map – or if you were a bird – the little rec
tangle of the cottage would appear about equidistant between these two more-or-less-straight lines. They hadn’t, of course, broken down on the nearest point of their particular axis, but the situation could have been a good deal worse. On the other side of the road was a stile and, as the occasional rambler served to prove, the footpath did pass the cottage’s front door.

  Angus led the way along the edge of a ploughed field, a tattered rucksack on his shoulder with badges from Bolivia and Colombia tacked all over it. Inside, poking into his back, were the tapes, Paolo’s mobile, and a large grey ghetto blaster. The lines of the furrows stood out in moonlight and shadow. No-one was talking.

  He waited when he got to the next stile, watching Belle as she slithered towards him. Tim had mud smeared down his right-hand side. Fay had her hands in the pockets of her fleece. Her hair was tied back. She walked along the verge carefully, elegantly.

  – Jesus, muttered Belle, clambering over the stile. How much further?!

  She steadied herself against Angus’s shoulder then headed across a narrow footbridge on the other side, becoming catlike when she noticed the weed-covered pond beneath her.

  Tim had his carrier bag clutched to his stomach, like an old woman with her handbag. He whimpered as Angus pushed him across the bridge, pointing him at the thick wet grass of the next field. Belle draped herself around Angus’s neck, shivering, her right breast squashed indifferently against his chest.

  The sky was clear and, until they came to the top of the field above the cottage, there were no lights visible in any direction. A wood passed to their left, the trees thick and spindly, struggling sunwards and stifling one another in the process. Inside his mind Angus could still see the pinprick of whiteness: the burning’s remnant, shining steadily.

  – That’s it, Belle, he said finally. You can do the rest on your own.

  He moved her arm and let it fall against her side.

  – Bastard, she muttered, turning to look down the tractor tracks towards the cottage at the bottom of the hill.

  There were candles in lines along the kitchen and living-room windowsills, expanding window shapes issuing onto the wet ground. A ceremony of some sort might have been underway in there, an angel in attendance.

  Belle lit another cigarette and began to walk towards it. Fay was twenty yards away – still – watching her.

  – Say something, said Angus, when Belle was out of earshot.

  The moon was behind him. Fay’s face shone white with it.

  – Your turn, she said. Her voice sounded constricted.

  – Okay, he said. Well… I don’t think you can see in daylight. How about that? You can only even begin to see at night.

  Fay smiled faintly. She folded her arms across her chest and set off down the hill.

  – Hello, my lovely! Had a bit of fresh air, have we? Yes…

  Paolo, Pete and Nick were spread around the kitchen, apparently in an advanced state of shock. In place of the angel, Mrs Lloyd was grinning in a chair beside the roaring woodburner, a knackered-looking sheepdog on the floor beside her. She prised herself upright and headed across the room.

  – Hello, Mrs Lloyd, said Angus.

  – Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friends, then? she said, planting a maternal kiss on his cheek.

  – Er, sure, Angus stammered a moment. Mrs Lloyd. This is Fay. Belle. And, er, this is… Tim.

  Mrs Lloyd looked closely at Fay, and Belle, but when she got to Tim she drew her head back sharply. He was shaking uncontrollably, one side of his face coated with mud, and his sunken eyes staring straight through her fleshy red head, its huge brown eyes, short black hair and unlikely lines of lipstick.

  – Good Lord! said Mrs Lloyd, genuinely concerned. Are you alright?

  – No, he’s not, said Angus quickly. I… I think he’s coming down with something.

  – In fact, I was just about to put him to bed, said Fay.

  She shepherded him towards the stairwell.

  – Don’t worry, Mrs Lloyd, said Angus. He just fell in some mud, and he’s got a bit of a chill. That’s all… Would you like a cup of tea at all?

  – I’ve, er… I’ve got one, she said. Her eyes followed Tim across the room. Your friends here were very kind and put the kettle on…

  She returned to her chair, made a visible effort to recover herself, then picked up her cup and sipped at it illustratively. With some relief, Angus realised that she’d been drinking.

  – So, he said. What brings you down here?

  – Well, said Mrs Lloyd, inhaling deeply. Philip met a couple of these lads here up in the yard this afternoon, so I thought to myself: You’re going to have to get down to Hollow Cottage and see this with your own eyes! If Mr Angus Persey has some friends, well, it should be advertised! And I knew who that sounded like a job for… Besides, I was thinking: Where are these people going to wash and… attend to themselves? So I had a bit of a think, and I came up with an idea.

  – Oh yes? said Angus, looking up as Fay reappeared at the bottom of the stairs.

  – Is he okay, dear? asked Mrs Lloyd.

  – Much better thankyou, said Fay. Nothing that a good night’s sleep won’t put right.

  – That’s good news! said Mrs Lloyd. I… I was just explaining to Angus here that my sister Ethel – Ethel runs the pub just over the hill from here. Sun Inn, it is. Very nice little pub – Well, they have campers there in the summer but, of course, there aren’t any there at the minute, so I thought: Mary, those friends of Mr Persey down in Hollow Cottage might just appreciate a nice hot shower, not to mention making use of the, er, other facilities that Hollow Cottage isn’t so hot on, so I gave Ethel a bell – I was ringing her anyway, like – and if you’d like to go over there tomorrow, well, that’s fine by her. It’s only five or ten minutes over the hill…

  Nick had the Vladivar bottle on his lap and was frowning, staring around the room. Paolo was looking at what appeared to be a miniature hedgerow, woven from twigs on the table in front of him. Pete was cross-legged on the rug in front of the woodburner, resuming fiddling with vegetable and flesh sausages, two tins of baked beans and seven foil-wrapped potatoes in the fire. Belle put an arm around his shoulder, shivering pointedly. There was a trail of mud behind her, like snail slime.

  – Who the… motherfuck was that?! said Nick eventually.

  – That was Mrs Lloyd, said Angus. The landlady. Nick. Is that bottle empty?!

  – Er, yeah, Nick admitted. Sorry. Have you got any more?

  – No, I haven’t! Angus dropped Pete’s rucksack behind the door and sank into a chair. Jesus, Nick! That was the last bottle!

  – Angus has been horrible to me, Belle confided to Pete.

  – Oh! said Nick, spotting the stereo in the neck of the rucksack.

  – Where the hell have yous lot been, anyway? said Pete. Yous’ve been gone for hours.

  – Yeah, said Angus. Well, the radiator boiled on the main road, so we had to leave it in a layby… And we got a puncture on the hill. So it’s all taken quite a long time.

  Everyone stopped talking, except Belle, who was still trying to extract sympathy out of Pete. Then Nick began busily setting up the stereo on the sideboard. Paolo picked up his hedge and resumed work on it.

  – Jesus! said Angus. It’s not like we meant to.

  – That’s a bummer, said Paolo. Basically.

  – What happened to the spare, Pete? said Fay.

  There was a blast of very hard trance from the stereo. Nick turned it down hurriedly.

  – There’s one in the back, said Pete. Under the futon.

  – No, there isn’t, said Angus. The compartment’s empty… We looked everywhere.

  The music was thundering along at 150 bpm, various Peoww! noises darting across the top of it. Fay went through to the utility room, still worried-looking. There was the squeak – then rush – of the tap as she set about washing her hands.

  – Christ! said Pete, more confused than anything.

  – Porc
o Giuda! said Paolo phlegmatically. Sounds like you’ve had a bit of a time… Tell you what. I’ll take some water over to it now and drive it back to the yard. It was all of us who should have remembered to fill it up, after all.

  Pete looked at him, his left eye running over the bruise on the side of his face.

  – Paolo, he said. I don’t want to seem suspicious, but… you want to walk all the way out to the main road in the dark and fill up the radiator two minutes before supper?! I mean, you’ve been rolling me joints and making me cups of tea all day! Maybe you want to drive down the Congo, huh? Civilise a few natives…

  – Yeah, said Paolo. Why don’t you just rub it in? Why don’t you just fucking rub it in? Look… I’m glad we came, I really am. But, if you remember, it was me who talked about dealing on the phone. It was me who made everyone leave the house and drive across the country all night… I feel bad about it! Okay? I was trying to make it up!

  It was strange. Angus didn’t want Fay to look worried. It made him want to wash his own hands or, at any rate, do the equivalent: drink himself into a stupor or vanish into his story, or preferably both. If Fay would just look happy – the way she had on the hill – he knew that some sort of burden would evaporate. Whether it was a new burden, or the same old burden just dressed up differently, he really didn’t know. He didn’t really care either. He just wanted rid of it.

  Angus brought his desk into the middle of the room, pushing it up against the kitchen table before blocking the two level. Fay returned from the utility room, covering them with an off-white curtain and arranging the plates and cutlery while he went around blowing out candles for the sake of economy and moving a couple onto the table by way of garnish.

  – Do you want food, Tim? Pete shouted up the stairwell.

  Tim didn’t reply, so he spooned out the beans six ways: to Belle, who had sat herself at the head, then to Nick and Paolo on one side, and Fay and Angus who were on the side and the other head respectively, their knees almost touching.