See How They Run (12 page)

Now, standing in the hallway with its pattern of blood and sand-coloured tiles, he sensed that there was no one there – the building had a cold, empty
feel. He called her name, quietly then loudly and
insistently, but there was no response. He bounded up the stairs and poked his head round all the doors, but every room held the same sarcophagal silence. Upstairs was like a morgue without a body; the
newly painted nursery jangled his nerves and he
experienced a few moments of panic and sickness.

Wondering what to do next, he wound up the Birdytweet mobile hanging over the empty cot and watched seven little plastic birds circle the empty nest below, moving their wings jerkily and twittering a mechanical dirge as their little beaks opened and closed. Lou was overwhelmed by sadness, and he was forced to sit down for a while. It was a tristesse which started with his own birth and then passed like a
shadow over the tragi-comic minutiae of his life,
before passing over the life of his unborn child also, through every rainy day and every small reversal, until the time came, many years in the future, when the child would wind up his own plastic birds in his own newly decorated nursery and feel the same timeswept sadness.

What if Catrin was ill? More importantly, was he culpable if she’d lost the baby? Had he been attentive enough? Had he actually cared enough, had he really meant it when he’d promised to be a good father? Or had the last few months indicated to Catrin that his own agenda was far more important to him than
fatherhood? What had he been doing while her
belly swelled and her mind fronded delicately in the luxuriant gardens of impending motherhood? Had he been there for her, his parental promise shining in his eyes? No, probably not. His distraction may have been evident as he pursued the Big M story; maybe they’d disengaged and drifted apart from each other, she retreating to her friends and her books, he to his corrosive microworld inside the memory sticks.

Lou had a resigned air when he walked downstairs, because by then he felt sure that Catrin had gone, possibly for ever, in the way that women sometimes make monumental decisions at crucial times, and then stick to them unerringly. Downstairs looked the same as it always had since Catrin became pregnant. She’d become obsessively clean and tidy; the worktops gleamed and the flowers beamed as usual in their vases, but there was one stark difference: Catrin’s absence was almost a physical presence. The
lower rooms sat there in dumb resignation, as if they were three hostages who had been gagged,
blindfolded and trussed up by burglars. But as he
turned away from the sitting room he noticed an
envelope leaning against the fruit bowl on their newly bought Ikea coffee table, with a scrawl on it. Closer up he saw his name – the Welsh version, Llwyd – underlined decisively. It had all the appear
ance of a Dear John letter, and when he opened it he saw that it contained two items. The first was a
simple home-made card showing the view from his college window (when had she taken that?) with a short message inside:

Gone away to the coast for a few days to think things over. It’s been like living with a stranger recently, a stranger I don’t like very much. What happened, Llwyd? Did I do something? Why have you changed so much since I fell pregnant? I need to sort my head out. Catrin.

PS The Vice-Chancellor delivered this on his way to the airport, said he’d been very busy and he’d forgotten about it. He also said he hadn’t seen you for a while and he seemed worried about you.

The object she referred to had fallen onto the glass surface of the table when he removed the card. It whirred and tinkled, giving off a sparkling rotating light before wobbling to a standstill. Lou was fascinated by it and he toyed with it for a while, spinning
it around in the palm of his left hand. It was just like the others, holding its silvery innards in a pretty
plastic jacket; the only difference was that this one
was light blue in colour. Once again he had the
feeling that he was being toyed with. So the vice-chancellor
had just happened
to drop it by on his way to the airport. A likely story. And there was another thing which struck him: the first memory stick had
come to him via a minor academic; the second
had come from a professor, and this last one had come from the top dog himself. Lou was puzzled. Why would academia want to play silly buggers with
a lowly pawn like him? Perhaps it was all a huge
coincidence. Perhaps he was imagining things.

Catrin was already forgotten by the time he’d jabbed the blue memory stick into his laptop in the study. He watched the tail-light flashing its firefly signal; and since he had no mouse now he used his finger
pad to open its contents. It seemed to hold a number
of documents, but again they were being corrupted by his software and he encountered a wasteland of meaningless symbols and signs before he found anything comprehensible. Two of the documents were virtually indecipherable, but a few subtle clues led
him to the conclusion that they contained all the
information which had come to him on the green
and red sticks, but which he’d killed off on his
computer at the college. He blanched. All that vitriol he’d shown had been a complete waste of emotion. Pissing in the wind. He’d spent an enormous amount
of malign energy and sadistic forethought to no
purpose. All the information had survived on this
stick – and on many others, probably. He’d been
outwitted, and once again the feeling came over him that he was being used. Powerful forces were at play, and he was being manipulated. Worse still, he had no idea who was playing cat and mouse with him, or why he was being kicked like an under-inflated ball from one end of the academic field to the other.

According to the blue memory stick, Big M and Ziggy had made occasional visits to the leper huts by the hospital to visit Rhiannon and Pryderi, but both inmates had become locked in some sort of mother-son complex, or a wordless relationship like Olaf the Peacock and this mute thrall-woman. By now they were living in their own submersible bubble, a diving chamber floating way below everyone else in a lagoon of silence. And because of official protocol the two on the outside weren’t allowed to know any details of their condition. Big M and Ziggy could only assume that an old trauma had been reactivated. Although facts were in short supply, they knew that Pryderi had been separated from his mother when he was very young, and that neither of them had been able to talk about the issue at any time in their lives. Perhaps the gunshot at Hotel
Corvo had lit a slow fuse, or maybe the incident with the badger had acted as a catalyst. There was
something about the smell of a badger, pungent
and porcine, which came straight from prehistory; it
had a musk-like ability to arouse primal fears and
desires.

However, after months of getting nowhere, Big M and Ziggy had visited less and less frequently, since the drive over to the unit took a tankful of
petrol and they were running short of ready money – Pryderi was the keeper of the purse, and he’d kept all the spondulicks in his back pocket. After many months like this the situation had become desperate
and the duo on the outside were forced to dream
up an alternative plan. They had to act quickly in the end because a new and more pressing problem arrived to drive them on. This problem was well
documented in the blue memory stick. Having trawled through it, and having spent a lot of time
knocking out the corrupt matter and deciphering
its absurd jumble, Lou was able to recover and isolate a new segment at the end which shone a new light on this period in Big M’s history. It was in the form of a diary, probably an extract from a much larger document. The diarist was obviously Ziggy, and her starting point was the very end of autumn that year, when she was staying in the boarded-up Hotel
Corvo with Big M, just the two of them thrown
together now. It had been a difficult time, evidently. Ziggy had really missed her husband, and she was
also worried that she might succumb to Big M’s
legendary charms. She confided in her diary that a storm was brewing, in more ways than one. Two erotically charged, sex-starved people benighted in a ghostly hotel with nobody else in sight was a recipe for disaster. The diary entries began on her thirtieth birthday.

October 21 – Happy birthday (not) to me. What a way to celebrate – I already hate being thirty, lines around my eyes and nothing to wear on my first date with Mr Gravity. Checked for stretch marks & cellulite etc, OK for now but the only way is down. Massive depression, not helped by the fact that P won’t talk to me, squats in his hut with the other maniacs and holds hands with his mum, what does that mean? Where am I in all this? Lost in wild Wales with no company, not much food, and as of yesterday no electricity either. Cut off. M gave me a kiss and promised to cook me a smurfday dinner. Told him I needed a big party with loads of people but he waved at the outside world and
said
you find me some people and I’ll organise the party
.
So I went into a bad place, got grumpy with him. He tried to cuddle up but I wasn’t having any of that, dirty sod, I know where he’s been.

October 21 evening – Fair play, he made a real effort. Bless. I was sitting upstairs in my room, looking out over the sea, feeling low – can’t concentrate on anything, this last year always on my mind. Hotel Corvo boarded up, everyone gone. All those good times we had, hotel heaving, party every night. Sea wild today, crashing on the cliffs in huge white waves and throwing foam and spray all over the lower fields. I could
hear the roar, awesome. Decided to make an
effort for my birthday in the afternoon so got dolled up, went downstairs and suggested a run over to the psychiatric unit. Big mistake, P wouldn’t even see me today so I walked out feeling really shitty and we came back in silence, M trying to be supportive and loyal as usual,
which only made things worse. Running out of fags so feeling very tense. Worst birthday of my life. Then, when I was back in my room
wondering if things could get any worse, a knock on the door and ta-rah! M was there with a trolley – he was wearing his chef’s hat with the blue band, big meal laid out in no time, really good of him. Delish food with two magnums of Moet & Chandon – trying to get me pissed by the look of things. Sitting there like a couple of lovebirds, he went off on one about birthdays and star signs; he’s into astrology (or pretends to be). Said he’d cooked the perfect meal for a Libran like me, romantic and ideal­istic, and he was generally mega charming. Found myself flirting back at him but after a while I started to feel drunk & a bit paranoid
because I know from bitter experience that
Librans are gullible and easy to fool so I went all quiet and broody. What’s up says M, did I say something? No, just feeling a bit vulnerable I say. He puts his paw on mine, looks at me with those big blue eyes of his and I get suspicious,
pull my hand away and ask him if he’s trying
it on. God no, he says. I could trust him completely, blah-de-blah, usual ape-talk. I say I know about the other women.

Ach, says M, they were just a bit of fun.
Rhiannon knew all about them, she also knew
that they meant nothing to him. So I reply
typical
male, double standards
, and he just laughs, it’s just a joke to him.

You won’t be doing any sex god stuff with me I can tell you now, says I, you can keep your mitts to yourself and no mistaking. Then I get hiccups and he laughs even more. We end up talking about star signs, how desperate can you get, but I wanted to start a row so I could put some space between us. Turns out he’s Taurus
and he says he’s typical – practical, reliable, stubborn, laid back, comfort-loving, stable,
tenacious, strong, successful.

But don’t worry luv, Taureans and Librans aren’t compatible, he says all nonchalant, sit­ting
back with that annoying habit he has of put­
ting his feet up on the nearest chair after a
meal. What I don’t tell him is that Libran girls and Taurean males get on just great between
the sheets, good sexual chemistry, but after that there’s nothing, not enough to keep them
together for a day. But I don’t say that in case he gets funny ideas. Actually, says M all innocent, Librans and Taureans are supposed to have terrific sexual rapport. Both born under Venus, lots of passion.

That was enough for me, I grabbed one of the bottles and went upstairs without another word, locked the door and got stonking pissed. Woke up in the night, face down on the bed in a puddle of champagne.

October 24 – He’s not there in the morning,
returns at noon with his rod and a bag over his shoulder. He’s all over me when we meet on the stairs, sorry this sorry that, head down like a naughty boy. He says
for God’s sake Ziggy, I
absolutely promise you that I wasn’t trying to take advantage last night. Just fooling around, you know me. And you’ve got to admit you were pretty flirty yourself.

I was pissed, keep well away from me you
animal, says I.

He holds his head in his hands and says
no no no
in a quiet voice, sounds desperate. You’ve got it all wrong, he moans, and he looks at me
imploringly.