sheep now.’
‘You’re alone? No husband?’
‘Mrs Evans came here to buy her bread right up to the end,’ the baker said loudly, as if trying to drown out his wife.
‘You should get a dog,’ Awen said.
‘What would you like?’ the baker asked.
She wanted to ask what Mrs Evans had died of and how long ago, but the couple on the other side of the counter looked at her so expectantly and so inquisitively that she stuck to ordering two loaves of bread and two packets of biscuits.
‘See you later,’ she said, putting her purchases in her rucksack.
‘When you run out of bread,’ the baker said. ‘And soon we’ll have Christmas pudding.’
‘A dog,’ the baker’s wife called after her. ‘That’s a true friend.’
She pulled the shop door shut and studied the sky. It was grey. Grey and drab, but it wasn’t raining. She looked towards Mount Snowdon and remembered that she needed to keep the mountain on her left. She glanced back as she stepped off the pavement. The baker who didn’t have a name and his wife Awen were standing there motionless, watching her. They didn’t wave, they watched.
*
The route she took back wasn’t exactly the same; almost everywhere she had gone wrong on the way there, she went right on the way back. Almost. But somewhere she made another mistake after all and it took her a long time to realise she had branched off on a different dotted line. It was all so indistinguishable: the thorny hedges, the squat oaks, the pastures, the metal drinking troughs, the manic birdsong. She found that strange: it was late November, why were the birds acting like it was spring? Without planning to, she came out at the T-junction where she had first seen the mountain and suddenly knew where she was; she didn’teven need the map any more. She sat down with her back against a wooden gate, pulled a packet of biscuits out of her rucksack and ate half of them, giving herself plenty of time to study the mountain. Despite the grey weather it was covered with different colours: brown, ochre, green, even a shade of purple. It didn’t look difficult, she thought.
*
When she carried on to the drive, it was as if it were already twilight. She had to bend over and grab a tree. When she stood up straight, the pain had nowhere to go; crouched over, the dull twinges seemed to spread out a little, becoming more bearable. She couldn’t tell where precisely it was coming from: even in her arms and legs, it stabbed and nagged. She rubbed her belly and her upper arms, pressed a hand against her forehead and thought of her uncle. A little later, when she was picking her steps forward again, she saw Emily Dickinson before her, walking through her autumn garden, a first line in her head –
The murmuring of bees has ceased
– and trying to think how to help the poem along. No, never stung by a bee, our Emily.
24
The next morning she took her time over breakfast. She hadn’t been eating well, regularly skipping her evening meal. She still drank plenty. The clock said half past nine. When everything in the house was quiet, she could hear it ticking:sharp, spiteful little ticks. She didn’t want it, she didn’t want time in her kitchen. She wanted to stop the clock, but the thought of putting a chair under it was enough to make her feel sick with exhaustion. Stopping it, not just to get rid of time, but to thwart that oafish sheep farmer too. She thought about Rhys Jones a lot and it always wound her up.
She’d done her best to make something of the living room and the rooms upstairs; the kitchen was just as Mrs Evans had left it. There was a lingering smell of old woman around the sink and cupboards, an odour that, in the weeks she had lived here, she had gradually come to associate with herself. It even seemed to have impregnated the old-fashioned washing machine: immediately after she’d done a load, before she’d hung it out to dry on the rack at the top of the stairs, a musty air had already imposed
‘You’re alone? No husband?’
‘Mrs Evans came here to buy her bread right up to the end,’ the baker said loudly, as if trying to drown out his wife.
‘You should get a dog,’ Awen said.
‘What would you like?’ the baker asked.
She wanted to ask what Mrs Evans had died of and how long ago, but the couple on the other side of the counter looked at her so expectantly and so inquisitively that she stuck to ordering two loaves of bread and two packets of biscuits.
‘See you later,’ she said, putting her purchases in her rucksack.
‘When you run out of bread,’ the baker said. ‘And soon we’ll have Christmas pudding.’
‘A dog,’ the baker’s wife called after her. ‘That’s a true friend.’
She pulled the shop door shut and studied the sky. It was grey. Grey and drab, but it wasn’t raining. She looked towards Mount Snowdon and remembered that she needed to keep the mountain on her left. She glanced back as she stepped off the pavement. The baker who didn’t have a name and his wife Awen were standing there motionless, watching her. They didn’t wave, they watched.
*
The route she took back wasn’t exactly the same; almost everywhere she had gone wrong on the way there, she went right on the way back. Almost. But somewhere she made another mistake after all and it took her a long time to realise she had branched off on a different dotted line. It was all so indistinguishable: the thorny hedges, the squat oaks, the pastures, the metal drinking troughs, the manic birdsong. She found that strange: it was late November, why were the birds acting like it was spring? Without planning to, she came out at the T-junction where she had first seen the mountain and suddenly knew where she was; she didn’teven need the map any more. She sat down with her back against a wooden gate, pulled a packet of biscuits out of her rucksack and ate half of them, giving herself plenty of time to study the mountain. Despite the grey weather it was covered with different colours: brown, ochre, green, even a shade of purple. It didn’t look difficult, she thought.
*
When she carried on to the drive, it was as if it were already twilight. She had to bend over and grab a tree. When she stood up straight, the pain had nowhere to go; crouched over, the dull twinges seemed to spread out a little, becoming more bearable. She couldn’t tell where precisely it was coming from: even in her arms and legs, it stabbed and nagged. She rubbed her belly and her upper arms, pressed a hand against her forehead and thought of her uncle. A little later, when she was picking her steps forward again, she saw Emily Dickinson before her, walking through her autumn garden, a first line in her head –
The murmuring of bees has ceased
– and trying to think how to help the poem along. No, never stung by a bee, our Emily.
24
The next morning she took her time over breakfast. She hadn’t been eating well, regularly skipping her evening meal. She still drank plenty. The clock said half past nine. When everything in the house was quiet, she could hear it ticking:sharp, spiteful little ticks. She didn’t want it, she didn’t want time in her kitchen. She wanted to stop the clock, but the thought of putting a chair under it was enough to make her feel sick with exhaustion. Stopping it, not just to get rid of time, but to thwart that oafish sheep farmer too. She thought about Rhys Jones a lot and it always wound her up.
She’d done her best to make something of the living room and the rooms upstairs; the kitchen was just as Mrs Evans had left it. There was a lingering smell of old woman around the sink and cupboards, an odour that, in the weeks she had lived here, she had gradually come to associate with herself. It even seemed to have impregnated the old-fashioned washing machine: immediately after she’d done a load, before she’d hung it out to dry on the rack at the top of the stairs, a musty air had already imposed
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