The Secrets of Pain

16

Halfway across the square, under the amber wash of the fake gas lamps, Jane lost the certainty. Not cold feet exactly, just the need for a second opinion. Why ruin Mum’s night? She hadn’t seen Lol for days.

She slipped into the shadowy sanctuary of the little oak- pillared market hall, pulled out her mobile and called Eirion’s phone.

Eirion’s answering service kicked in.

‘It’s me,’ Jane said.

She’d give him two minutes to call back and then walk across to the Swan, see what kind of mood Mum was in. Let the fates decide.

She was alone under the stone-tiled roof of the market hall which sometimes looked even more ancient than it was, like a prehistoric burial chamber. In her plan of the Ledwardine henge, the market hall was just off-centre, maybe marking a confluence of energies. A fair bit of energy had been expended here, all those shadowy couples exploring each other’s bodies up against the pillars.

Which made her think about Eirion at university, with all its temptations, although he’d sworn to her…

Sod it. Jane tucked away her phone and walked across to the Swan, reaching the bottom of the three stone steps just as the door opened. She backed away as someone stumbled out, the porch lamp lighting his face and his slobbery mouth.

Oh God, no.

Still here? Weren’t they all supposed to have gone home to their penthouses? How long did these bloody courses go on?

Still here, still pissed.

I’ll be seeing you… girlie.

Bad, bad news. Jane slid into the alley which led to the Swan’s backyard. He might not even remember her, probably tried it on with a few more women since then, but it wasn’t worth the risk. She stood leaning against the wall, waiting for him to go.

Obviously not the time to talk to Mum. Too many negative signs.

The phone shuddered in her pocket. She eased it out of her jeans, moving further into the alley, holding it very tight to her ear.

‘I was finishing a curry,’ Eirion said. ‘Some things must never be interrupted. And, before you ask, yes, it was a vegetable curry. Not easy to obtain in this part of Cardiff.’

‘Well, that-’ Footsteps, someone grunting. ‘Irene, I’ll have to call you back.’

‘Jane-?’

‘Sorry.’

She killed the signal, edged a little further against the wall. There was a sigh and a liquid splatter. Steam and stench. G ross. Jane turned away and waited until it was over, expecting him to go once he’d finished, but…

Damn, damn, damn. He was coming into the alley. Jane moved all the way into the inn yard. There was an old brick toilet block at the end, long out of use. Jane slid around the side of it, stumbling into a pile of rubble.

Only just making it in time. The kitchen door was opening. A splash of light. Jane saw Dean Wall standing in the doorway, wearing an apron. A local thug, basically, unless he’d changed since she’d been at school with him. Somehow, he’d persuaded Barry to take him on as an assistant chef, which probably meant he was responsible for sweeping the yard. Essentially, only a few years, a degree from the LSE and probably a Swiss bank account separated Dean from Cornel, who was standing on the step, one arm inside a plastic sack.

‘Tomorrow’s dinner, mate.’

Something was pushed at Dean, who went kind of duh, but it was crisply overlaid by Barry’s voice.

‘I’m sorry, mate.’

‘Don’t apologize, Barry. Just take it.’

‘You misunderstand. I told you once, I’m not accepting this. This is the country. There are rules.’

‘Wha-?’

‘Rules. Take it away.’

‘No, mate,’ Cornel said. ‘In the country, there aren’t any fucking rules that can’t be broken.’

‘Son, you don’t know anything about the country.’

‘You reckon?’

‘Season ends on February the first, and it’s now very nearly the end of March. That make sense to you?’

‘What?’

‘Pheasants. The rule.’

‘Did I mention pheasants? Did I? ’

Jane saw white moonlight rippling in the black plastic of a bin liner, bulging. Cornel was holding it up with both hands, something hanging out of it.

‘It deserves to be fucking eaten,’ Cornel said. ‘By me. That make sense to you?’

Barry didn’t move. Cornel pulled the bin liner open at the top and held it out to him. Barry stayed in the doorway, very relaxed-looking, not touching the bag.

‘How’d you kill that? You all get together and beat it to death?’

Jane couldn’t see what it was and didn’t want to. She felt herself going tight with hate.

Cornel said, ‘You’re really not gonna-?’

‘Goodnight, son.’

Barry at his most no-shit.

‘Wha’m I s’posed to do with it?’

Almost screaming now.

‘I should put it back in your car boot, mate, and dispose of it very discreetly.’

‘You’re no fun, Barry. You’re no fucking fun.’

‘Actually,’ Barry said, ‘this is me at my most fun. You want to see me at my most no fun, you’ll leave that thing behind on these premises. You get where I’m coming from?’

There was a scary kind of deadness in Barry’s voice. Jane had heard stories about what Barry had been known to do, the odd times it had got rough in the public bar. The yard went momentarily black as the door was shut, and – oh, shit – the mobile started vibrating in Jane’s hip pocket. She was gripping the phone through the denim as Cornel totally lost it, started snarling at the closed door.

‘This is not over. It’s not fucking over!’

Just like the other night. I just want you to know it doesn’t end here. Only losers walked away. Limited repertoire. Tosser. Jane stayed tight between the perimeter wall and the toilet block, trying to breathe slowly in the stale-beery air, not wanting to think how Cornel might react if he found her here, witness to his humiliation. Again.

The moon showed her Cornel’s foot coming back, maybe to kick the closed door, and then it got confusing.

‘Didn’t handle that very well, did we, Cornel?’

Another voice. Someone had come into the yard from the alley.

‘Pick it up, eh?’

An ashy kind of voice. Not Barry. A bit Brummy.

‘I thought you’d gone,’ Cornel said.

‘Thought? Yow don’t think, Cornel, that’s the problem. Now pick it up. Take it somewhere and bury it, then go and cry yourself to sleep.’

Cornel’s voice came back, petulant.

‘Why are you doing this to me?’

‘Go home any time y’want, mate. No skin off my nose.’

‘You’re just a-’

A movement. Not much of one. A chuckle. Then a short cry, more shock than pain.

‘ Uhhh! ’

‘Ah, dear, dear, you’re really not ready. Didn’t see that that coming either. Not as hard as we thought, eh? Long way to go, Cornel, still a long way to go, mate.’

Jane breathed in hard, through her mouth, and the breath dragged in something gritty.

‘I’ve told you,’ Cornel said. ‘I’ll pay the extra.’

‘It’s not about money. It’s about manhood.’

An indrawn breath, full of rage, a scuffling, like Cornel was finding his feet. Jane tasted something disgusting, realized she was inhaling a cobweb full of dead flies.

Cornel was going, ‘You sanctimonious fucking… Awwww…’

From the yard, a bright squeak of intense agony. Piercing violence lighting up the night like an electric storm, and Jane, choking, clawing at her mouth, was really scared now, sweat creaming her forehead. Trying to meld with the toilet wall, breathing through her nose, holding her jaw rigid, not even daring to spit.

‘Come and see me again, look, when your balls drop,’ the guy said.

This kind of tittering laugh. A sound you’d swear was the guy clapping Cornel on the back in a don’t take it to heart kind of way.

Departing footsteps, light and casual in the alley, but in the yard there was only retching and then Cornel going, ‘ Shit, shit, shit, shit…’ like he was walking round in circles, while Jane clung to the jagged stones in the toilet wall, her head ballooning with a suffocating nausea.

‘…shit, shit, shit…’ from the alleyway now, receding.

Cornel had gone.

Jane sprang away from the wall, coughing out the cobweb and the flies, coughing and coughing, wiping her mouth on her sleeve as she went staggering out into the warm smell of new vomit in the yard.

She was at the top of the alley, where it came out onto the square, when she saw Cornel again.

He was on his own, dragging the black bin sack across the cobbles like some vagrant. He was moving jerkily, his body arched. Jane saw him stop. She saw him pick up the plastic sack with both hands, his gangly body bending in pain like an insect which had been trodden on.

Cornel dumped the sack into one of the concrete litter bins on the square, ramming it in hard before walking crookedly away.

Jane didn’t move until he was long gone and the village centre was unusually deserted in the amber of the fake gas lamps.

Beyond the glow, gables jutted, like Cornel’s chin, into a cold, windless night sky, and the church steeple was moon-frosted as Jane moved unsteadily across to the concrete bin.