11
The town felt it, and it turned its back on wind and sea. There was a woman on the shore, walking, walking where? Let her walk. The town was sense, and it leaned to its fires, but there was nonsense on the shore, under the sky, close to the sea, that this day was grey, foam-tossed. Cartref had closed its doors and windows. March was strangling February. Even Mrs Gandell realised this, sat at her table in the dining-room, the eternal cigarette dangling from her mouth, and she watched for the door that would open. And where on earth was that man Jones? Gone over an hour now, with a basket on his arm. An altogether new duty for him, and it still surprised. She wished he would come. She hoped that a hot breakfast wrapped in a white napkin, and a flask of hot coffee would sustain a minister on a very strange morning.
‘I still can’t believe his sister would go off like that,’ she thought, even as she got a glimpse of Thomas outside her hotel, sneaking about, hovering, waiting and watching and listening for the sharp steps on the stones.
‘Is that you, Jones?’
It was. He came in, put the basket down on the table, and sat down.
‘No good, Mrs Gandell.’
‘No good?’
‘Wasn’t there.’
‘Wasn’t there?’
‘I said it, Mrs Gandell,’ and he watched her unwrap the napkin, put the breakfast on the table, remove an untouched flask.
‘Perhaps he’s still in bed,’ she said. ‘Did you knock hard?’
‘Front door locked, but I managed to get in at the back, and I called and called. No answer. Looked in his sitting-room, his study, went upstairs, called again. Looked in the rooms. No answer. Not there, Mrs Gandell. Empty.’
‘I’ve seen him once or twice at the Blue Bird place,’ she said, recalling two fugitive visits into Garthmeilo.
‘Perhaps,’ Jones said. ‘I’ll bring it in, Mrs Gandell.’
‘Do.’
And Jones went off to the kitchen for the lunch. Over breakfast they had discussed the minister.
‘He’s not used to being on his own,’ Mrs Gandell said.
‘And now he’s finding out,’ Jones replied.
‘Whatever you may think of him, something should be done.’
But Jones didn’t hear, remembering at that moment only a new Miss Vaughan.
‘Did you see her this morning, Mrs Gandell?’
‘Of course I saw her. I thought she looked rather nice in that new get up of hers.’
‘Think she’d been crying. Watched her clean her specs.’
‘You told me she never cried, Jones, that she couldn’t.’
‘Red eyed this morning. Had a bad dream, I expect. Not all dreams have sugar in them, Mrs Gandell,’ and when she did not reply, gripped her arm. ‘Well, have they?’
‘If it pleases you, Jones. No.’
During lunch he astonished Mrs Gandell by clapping hands, shouting ‘Hurrah’, as children do, and he smiled across at her. ‘February’s gone, Mrs Gandell. Actually, truly gone.’
‘I did notice. Have you seen March,’ she said, and directed the Jones glance to the window.
Like Jones, she too, had forgotten Thomas, was thinking of tomorrow, her new arrivals, Mr Prothero and friend. They would bring with them a new colour, especially to clash against a perpetual grey. Already she could hear the Prothero chortles, the peals of laughter; she made play with his jovial nature, listened to the coarse joke, accepted a fake heartiness, and more important, drew the coin from the Prothero pocket.
‘Think of it, Jones. Tomorrow. Two of them.’
Jones’s voice lacked enthusiasm, he said that he was aware of the fact.
‘I don’t much like him, Mrs Gandell,’ he said. ‘Call him plastic John. Talks too much, too loudly. Don’t you think so?’
She didn’t think so, and said so in no uncertain manner.
‘One shilling, Mrs Gandell, for services rendered,’ and she noted the disgust in his voice. ‘One shilling. Think of that.’
‘No need to think about it at all, Jones, since you accepted it.’
‘Tegid Hughes said that if you gave him a kick in the backside, six more backsides would grow in its place at once,’ Jones said. She wasn’t listening, and she wasn’t going to laugh. It didn’t seem to matter.
‘Clear away, Jones.’
‘Yes, Mrs Gandell.’
‘Here,’ and she flung him a cigarette.
‘Thanks.’
