The Stranger House (37 page)

“Us Winanders? Are there many of you?”

Thor frowned and said, “No. In fact there’s only me.
I am the end, there is no more, there’s an apple up my arse and you can have the core, as the poet said.”

Under the coarse flippancy Mig detected that this was a source of genuine pain.

“You never married?” he said.

“No. When I was younger I never saw the need for it; later I was past my sell-by date. But all things good and bad come to an end, eh? Must be something in the scriptures to cover that, Father. Sorry. Miguel.”

“Mig,” said Mig, “On the contrary, I think the scriptures are more about infinity than the finite. What is good is forever.”

“That’s what you think, is it? Well, no one minds the smell of their own crap. Sorry, I didn’t ask you in to be offensive. It’s just that old Illthwaite is dying on its feet. The school’s gone, the post office is gone, even the bloody Herdwicks look like going with hill-farmers feeling the pinch and selling up or trying to make a living out of cream teas and tourists. No more Winanders after me, no more Appledores after Edie, not much chance of there being any more Woollasses. Even the bloody Gowders have ground to a halt unless they’ve got a couple of mad wives locked in their attic, which wouldn’t surprise me as you’d have to be mad to marry a Gowder.”

“They seem a not very prepossessing family,” said Mig with careful neutrality.

“You’ve noticed? Brutes and bandits, that’s what they’ve always been. Seems only fitting that they should end up putting their neighbours under the ground, which is more or less what they’ve been doing for the past five centuries! But you’ve probably had it with Illthwaite. In fact, I’m surprised you’re still here. Someone should have warned you how sensitive the
Woollasses are about their precious Father Simeon. Even Frek.”

“Frek did not strike me as being much concerned about such matters,” said Mig.

“Not on the surface, maybe. But you’ll soon see red Woollass blood coming through if you scratch Frek’s fair white skin. Not that there’s much chance of you doing that.”

Mig found himself flushing, partly with embarrassment, partly with annoyance.

Was it so obvious that he’d been stricken by the woman?

And was it common knowledge already that she’d turned him down?

Winander was looking at him curiously.

“Forgive me for asking, old chum, but you get on well with the fair Frek, do you?”

“I think so,” Mig replied, trying not to sound too brusque.

He downed the rest of his coffee. The rum gave it a darkly decadent flavour.

“Now I must get back,” he said, “Thank you very much for your kindness.”

“But you haven’t bought anything! Come to think of it, neither did young Sam. I can’t have two tourists in succession getting out of here with their wallets as full as when they arrived. Let me show you my workshop.”

Reluctantly Mig let himself be led into a high airy room full of light from three huge plate-glass windows.

“Have a look around,” said Winander, “If you see anything you fancy, just shout.”

Mig wandered round the workshop, counting the minutes till the demands of politeness would have been satisfied and he could go.

“This might interest you,” said Winander, “A kind of companion piece to the angel.”

He drew a piece of sacking away from the reclining nude.

Mig recognized the face instantly, and as he took in the blatant sexuality of the splayed legs, he felt a knot of anger form in his chest at what seemed a deliberate and malicious provocation on Winander’s part.

But the man was chattering on, unconcerned.

“After I’d done the angel, I tentatively suggested a nude. The pose was Frek’s choice. Always been a bit of a game between us ever since she told me she was gay, her still trying to get me going, me demonstrating my indifference. It’s intellectual with her, I think. The theatre of the absurd, she calls it, watching men jump through hoops in the hope of earning a treat. Daren’t let Gerry see it, of course. He’s old-fashioned enough to come after me with a horse whip!’

It took Mig several moments to let the meaning of what he was hearing penetrate his anger. First came disbelief, then shock, and then a slow unravelling of the knot in his chest as he took in not only what Winander was saying but his motives in saying it. And his methods. He was letting him know that Frek was a lesbian, but doing it as if assuming that Mig had recognized this all along and hadn’t let himself be made a fool of.

No. He corrected that. He’d made a fool of himself. All that Frek had done was … nothing. Why should she? And she’d brought matters to a halt when it must have been clear he was on the point of taking direct action.

Father Dominic, talking of the vow of chastity, had said that it had nothing to do with morality as many
supposed, and everything to do with the power of sex to cloud judgment, squander energy, divert the will.

“That’s why among your list of things coming to an end in Skaddale, you included the Woollasses,” he said, trying for a man-of-the-world tone, “But surely nowadays it is almost a commonplace for lesbian women to start families.”

“Not Frek,” said Winander, “I asked her and she said that happily the maternal impulse hadn’t been tossed into her cradle by a malicious fairy godmother. When I said that old Dunny must be distressed to foresee the end of his line, she laughed and said not as distressed as he’d be at the thought of a Woollass coming out of a test-tube. Funny world we live in, ain’t it?”

Mig did not respond. He’d turned away from the disturbing wood carving and was staring out of a window into the yard where his gaze had been drawn to something which gave him a shock less definable than the news of Frek’s sexuality, but for some reason even more powerful.

“What is
that?”
he demanded.

“What? My wolf head, you mean? Or perhaps I should say Frek’s wolf head.”

“Frek’s?”

“Yes,” said Thor, “She commissioned it, so to speak. That’s how she came to be my model. Come and have a closer look if you want.”

As they crossed the yard, he told the story of his deal with Frek, but Mig wasn’t listening. His gaze was riveted on the huge wood sculpture. There was something truly menacing about it. He came to a halt a couple of feet away, then took a further step back.

Winander said, “Interesting. Most people can’t resist
touching it. Little Sam almost wrapped herself around it. But you look like you’re scared it would bite.”

“Do I?” said Madero. Then added, more to himself than Thor, “It feels alive.”

“Thank you kindly, sir,” said Winander, taking this as a comment on his carving.

Mig didn’t correct him. He didn’t care to share the sense he got that this towering lump of wood was vibrant with intent, and it wasn’t good.

“Where did it actually come from?” he asked. He felt he knew the answer.

“Didn’t I say? It came out of Mecklin Moss,” replied Winander, “You’d have expected anything in that acidy bog would rot away in no time. But this is absolutely solid.” He gave it a slap and laughed, “Reminds me of an Eskdale lass I once knew. Finest Cumberland wrestler I ever met, only the rules wouldn’t let her enter at the shows, so she had to make do with best of three falls in the hayfields with the likes of me!”

His laughter gave Mig strength to turn away from the Wolf Head and make his farewells. Common sense told him Winander was right. There was no way this could have any connection with the ordeal of that other Miguel four hundred years before.

But as he walked away down the hill he was both glad and ashamed that he hadn’t found the courage to touch that smooth and sensuously curved slab of old wood.

That same evening at six o’clock prompt, Miguel Madero entered the bar of the Stranger House.

As he pushed open the door, a memory from childhood of the old Western films he’d loved (and still did) flashed into his mind. The hero enters, the chatter of conversation dies away, the piano tinkles to silence, the bartender freezes in the act of pouring a drink, and the man he’s pouring it for turns slowly to face the door, smiling a welcome at the newcomer even as his hand adjusts the Colt in his holster.

It was a ludicrous memory and the fact that the room was empty made it even more so. But still he felt like a Western hero, come for the showdown.

Back at the Stranger, he had headed straight up to his room but only been there a couple of minutes when there was a tap at his door.

He opened it to find Mrs Appledore standing there, holding a plate with a sandwich on it.

“Thought you might fancy a nibble after your exertions,” she said with that discomforting Illthwaite assumption of knowing exactly how he’d spent his morning, but her warm smile more than redressed the balance.

She must have been a very attractive woman in her
younger days, he thought, as he took the sandwich with a smile of thanks. In fact even now it would be very easy for a man to stop thinking of her as comfortably motherly and start thinking …

Oh God! Stop this! he commanded himself angrily. Just because he was no longer committed by formal vows to the celibate life didn’t mean that lustful thoughts were any less sinful. But he knew he was reacting less to the idea of sin than the memory of the way his adolescent fancies had made him such an easy target for Frek Woollass.

As if the thought had nudged Mrs Appledore’s memory, she said, “By the way, Frek Woollass just called. She said to tell you she’s passed on your message and are you going to be here in the pub tonight? If you are, fine. No need to ring back.”

Meaning presumably that Gerry didn’t care to have him back in the Hall but, having listened to his daughter’s report, was willing to talk on neutral ground.

“No time was mentioned?”

“Round here, tonight’s a time,” she said, laughing.

She was an easy woman to make laugh. That was one of her many attractions …

¡Mierda!
There he went again with that knee-jerk prurience.

“You’ll be wanting some grub, if you’re staying in,” she suggested.

“That would be good,” he said. He certainly did not intend to sit in his room, waiting anxiously.

“Sausage or ham?” she asked, “And what time?”

“Let’s make it early, before you get too busy,” he said, “Six? And sausage.”

“Six and sausage it is,” she said.

And now six it was, and the sausage wasn’t far behind.

“Evening, Mr Madero,” said Edie Appledore from the bar, “I’ve reserved the table in the nook for you. Let me get you a drink, then I’ll see to your grub. Will it be a sherry to whet your appetite?”

It was a kind thought but he did not care to think how long a bottle of sherry in this bar might have been standing open.

“No thanks,” he said, “A half of bitter, please.”

“When in Rome, eh?”

She drew a half-pint, looked at it critically, and poured it and another three away before she was satisfied.

“First of the night,” she said, “You don’t want stuff that’s been lying in the pipes.”

If only they took care of their wine as they took care of their beer, he thought.

He carried his glass to the table in the corner by the fireplace and chose the chair with its back to the wall.

A good shootist never sat with his back to the entrance door.

Would Frek come with her father? he wondered. Knowing what he knew now, how would he react to her? Down by the river she’d played him like a fish, hooked him, landed him, then left him floundering on the bank. He had told her everything. She had told him nothing. Unlike his exchange in the kitchen chamber with Sam, there had been no sense of sharing, of giving and taking comfort. Theirs had been an enforced intimacy, but it had been an intimacy for all that. Yet he couldn’t accuse Frek of being deceitful. She hadn’t created an illusion, simply allowed him to create one for himself.

His life so far had been defined by phantasms.
Perhaps it was time to move on. But not without putting to rest the ghost of that other Miguel.

His thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of Mrs Appledore with a plate fully occupied by a monstrous coil of sausage and a small mountain of chips.

He began to eat. It was really excellent this sausage. He wondered how well it held its flavour, cold. Chopped into small slices, he could envisage it taking its place among its more highly spiced cousins on a
tapas
tray.

The door opened and Thor Winander came in. He gave Madero a friendly nod but made no effort to join him, taking a stool at the bar. A little later the old ex-policeman they called Noddy Melton appeared. He came straight to the table and shook Mig’s hand.

“Good evening, Mr Madero,” he said, “I hope I find you well. It was good to meet you last night. My sources tell me we were right about the bones’ antiquity, so I may have touched the head of a saint. I do believe my rheumatics were a little better this morning. Will your friend, Miss Flood, be joining us this evening?”

“No, she’s gone, I’m afraid.”

“Really? Then I look forward to seeing her on her return.”

“I don’t think she plans to come back,” said Mig.

“Ah yes, but there’s plans and there’s life, Mr Madero.”

With this faintly enigmatic comment the little man went to the bar, nodded at Winander, paid for the pint which the landlady had already drawn for him, and took a seat just inside the door.

Others arrived over the next fifteen minutes or so. Some he recognized, like the Gowder twins, who ignored him completely. Others he thought he recollected from
the crowd protesting at being shut out of the bar the previous night. Certainly all were local. And no one showed the slightest inclination to come near his table, not even Pete Swinebank, the vicar, who did however give him a friendly wave before settling down alongside a couple of farmers who looked more baffled than blessed.

Mig’s sense of being in a movie returned. Probably all that had happened was that Mrs Appledore had mentioned to each new arrival that his table was out of bounds as he was expecting company from the Hall. Yet he couldn’t see why the imminent arrival of Gerry Woollass should cause such a tension of anticipation. A man of influence, certainly, but hardly a charismatic figure.