Jones stuttered. ‘Going on, going on what, where?’
‘God Almighty, Jones. Surely I don’t have to give anybody like you the news. You almost seem surprised. I thought you knew it all.’
‘You really mean that?’
‘Some silly bitch that’s come to work for Blair and Wilkins in the High Street. Lodging at your place, isn’t she?’
‘Poor Thomas. He thinks she might fall in love with him.’
Geraint laughed, and said, ‘What a hope. Some people are plain blind,’ and laughed again, and with an abrupt ‘Ta ta,’ rushed away leaving Jones staring after him.
‘Margiad Thomas left her brother. How odd. Very odd. Always so strict she was, and he could see her now, in many places; the front bench at Penuel, the best tent at the Festival, the perennial collector for the African missions, the eternal enquirer after everybody’s health, the brisk, healthy trot through the town, the smiles. Jones once thought of Miss Thomas in heaven, serving tea, and wearing a big newly ironed white apron.
‘Poor Mr Thomas,’ he said. ‘So helpless. Couldn’t even cut himself a slice of bread, she was so close, so attentive, the hours and the minutes spent for him, so that he would be ever free to do his duty placing the word on the tongues of all. Her only brother, her good brother.’
And Geraint’s words passed in and out of Jones’s ears.
‘Just come by Ty Newdd now, their door wide open, nobody there, and then I saw Mervyn Thomas at the bottom of the garden, and his collar off, leaning on the wall.’
‘Well indeed,’ thought Jones. ‘Well indeed.’
Leaving her own brother high and dry. Just like that. Awful. Such a strong family they are, skin close you might say, just getting up and going back to Hengoed. Can’t believe it, really.
He thought of Thomas, he thought of his chapel, he even thought of Jones.
‘Used to go there myself one time,’ thought Jones, and a distant echo of the Word in his ear.
‘Gone. Separated. After all those years. Perhaps for good. What’ll Mervyn Thomas do? And he thought of God’s runner, and the chariot flying in his head, leaning on a wall in an empty house, and no collar, and the door wide open. This was news. A strange world indeed. Didn’t he, Jones, know, he’d only just managed to hang on to his own, clinging, clutching.
‘The last time I passed their house, I looked through the window, and there Margiad Thomas was, as she always was, sitting knitting by the fire, and her brother sat opposite her, smoking his pipe, just like all was right everywhere, and nothing had ever happened. It was a message to the town, it was the flag half mast. Garthmeilo would talk its head off.’
‘I came out here to think about my life,’ thought Jones, ‘to think about the hotel, about tomorrow, about Mrs Gandell, the place where the root lay. His life would now be altered. Perhaps Thomas will go to Hehgoed, too.’
He left the bridge, took the short turn, and walked on in the direction of Ty Newdd. He wanted to see the house; the whole thing was suddenly dramatic. ‘And only yesterday, I laughed at Thomas.’ And there it was. The once peaceful villa. Jones stood staring at it from the opposite side of the road, the open front door, a curtain flying wildly out of an upstairs window, and no smoke from a chimney, a garden gate wide. He crossed the road, peeped over a hedge. He listened. He looked down the garden, the wall was there, but no man leaned on it. He walked slowly down the path and stopped outside the door. Looking in he saw the sitting-room door open, the study door likewise. It was as though a great wind had suddenly passed through Ty Newdd.
‘Well indeed! No smoke, no fire, no sound, empty,’ and he stepped into the house, stood in the hall, looked stair-wards, listened again. ‘Empty. Dead. I can’t laugh now.’
He stepped into the sitting-room. Peeped into the study, and then he saw him. Thomas was sat with his back to Jones, and his heavy hands were clasped and lay on the desk, his head was bowed. He sat motionless. He was wearing only trousers and a vest, his hair was uncombed. He stared at the broad back.
‘Weakest part of any man,’ he thought. Thomas defenceless. Used to sit upright at that desk every morning, reading, studying, working it all out, asking the questions, getting the answers, planning the journeys, thinking of the souls, keeping the net tight. A course for the new day, and, after the meditation, striding the town, remembering the flock, and the names in it, forgetting none. Jones, at home with empty mornings, knew this was emptier still. A word could be warm now, any word. He moved nearer to the door. Thomas was still; Thomas had heard nothing.
‘Mr Thomas.’
The words were hushed, but they made Thomas jump.
‘Who is that?’ he asked.
‘Me,’ Jones said.
‘Who are you?’
‘Islwyn Jones.’
Thomas turned slowly round and stared at the visitor.
‘You,’ he said.
‘Me,’ Jones replied, and took a step into the room.
‘I was just passing, Mr Thomas, and I saw a door wide open, not usual it isn’t, and no smoke from a fire. And then I heard the news.’
‘News?’
‘Only one piece of news in the world this morning, Mr Thomas.’ He noticed the uncombed hair, the slack jaw, the bloodshot eyes. ‘Sorry to hear it, Mr Thomas.’
Thomas turned slowly again. ‘Well?’ he asked.
And Jones leaned against the door. ‘I .…’, but Thomas interupted him, turned again, and his hands fell to his knees, and Jones watched the fingers pull hard at the cloth of his trousers.
‘You’re an odd lot,’ Thomas said.
‘I could light a fire,’ Jones said, and Thomas said nothing.
‘I could make you a nice cup of tea, Mr Thomas,’ Jones said, and again, Thomas said nothing, but now rose, came up to Jones, stood over him, and said, magisterially, ‘The last time I saw you, Jones, you were drunk.’
And for the third time Jones said quietly, ‘I could light you a fire, I could make you some breakfast.’
‘I’m empty,’ Thomas said.
