‘Mrs Gandell,’ he said, shyly, whispering it, ‘Mrs Gandell?’
‘What Jones?’
He looked up at her. ‘I know that sometimes you laugh at me,’ he said.
She laughed now, saying, ‘Well, you are sometimes funny, Jones.’
‘So long as you don’t laugh all the time, Mrs Gandell. That’s all.’
She shook her head, gave him another smile. ‘Come along, Jones.’
‘Yes, Mrs Gandell.’
And in silence they began to prepare the lunch. ‘It’s late,’ she said.
And Jones thought, ‘I know now. She won’t go. She really means it; and I’m not lost.’
And not for weeks had Mrs Gandell heard him singing to himself.
‘Mrs Gandell?’
‘What, Jones?’
‘Can I go out this afternoon?’
She tossed potatoes into a pan. ‘If you want to,’ she said.
‘Thank you.’
‘Where are you going, Jones?’
‘Nowhere,’ Jones said, and after a pause. ‘I want to think.’
9
Jones walked quickly away from the hotel, and, having turned the corner, slackened his pace, walking leisurely in the direction of the bridge. Jones talked to Jones every bit of the way.
‘She’s lying. She’ll sell. No, she won’t sell, she couldn’t. Said so, swore to it, can’t do without me, she knows it, she does know it.’
He halted a moment, took a precautionary look at the sky. ‘Never even told me she was going to the bank. And last time I went. Even went to The Lion. Settled up with Hughes.’
To Jones it seemed a lot to happen in a single morning; on so many others nothing at all happened. He took another look at the sky. He cursed Garthmeilo. ‘Almost have to cry for the sunshine.’ He leaned over the bridge, watched the swirling waters go by. ‘I’ll close my eyes,’ he said, and closed them. The waters below roared in his ears. Somewhere in the distance he seemed to hear the Lancashire shouts, saw the bright mornings, and the feet that trailed from the beach to the hall, the sand on the carpet, the sand on the stairs, the cries of a fisherman with one lone trout, and busy Mrs Gandell rushing anywhere and everywhere, and Jones handy twenty-four hours of the day. It cheered Jones up, and when finally he opened his eyes he had a feeling of giddiness, and he turned away from the bridge. He did not notice the approaching figure of a man. The first thing he saw was an advancing umbrella, and when it reached the bridge, the man beneath it. And as the figure drew nearer, he exclaimed, ‘The man from The Labour.’ It was.
‘Hello,’ Geraint said, ‘and what are you doing all alone here?’
‘Hello,’ Jones said. ‘You’re a bloody long time finding us someone for Mrs Gandell. Six weeks now.’
Geraint came close, put down the umbrella.
‘It’s not raining.’
‘It will,’ Geraint said, ‘any minute now.’
‘Any hope?’ asked Jones, ‘it’s nearly March.’
‘That Mrs Gandell is very hard to please,’ Geraint said. ‘We’ve sent her two already.’
‘The last one was terrible.’
‘Gone back to Ireland,’ Geraint said. ‘Remember that one. Bone lazy.’
‘Time’s getting on,’ Jones said.
Geraint guffawed. ‘It’s always getting on, Jones. That’s the trouble, it won’t stop for anybody. By the way, heard the news?’
‘What news?’
‘Mervyn Thomas’s sister has up and left him.’
‘Left him?’
‘That’s right. Walked out this morning they say, and took a train back to Hengoed where her sister is.’
‘Gone?’
‘That’s it.’
‘Count of the way he’s going on,’ Geraint said.
