The HOPEFUL TRAVELLER Read online

  Kerren, coming across the garden, was surprised by the sadness in his voice. Sadness and John were incompatible. A sharp, swift grief, perhaps, cutting clean and sure as a surgeon’s knife, leaving him unmarked at the finish; but not the slow-worm of sadness. John, with his candid innocence, his bright confidence in people, would find doors open to him wherever he went. Yet there had been something in his voice as it came to her across the garden, some note she had thought outside his range, which gave a hint that he had the capacity for suffering. And as she looked at him, leaning on the wicket gate, the sheepdog at his side, both patiently submitting to the discomfort of the driving rain, the thought came to her that he might not be intended for happiness. It was an impossible idea, of course, utterly impossible. She felt an impulsive longing to put her arms around him and banish forever these dark premonitions; but the wet earth clogged each movement and when she reached him the gesture seemed ill-advised and she said, light mocking him:

  ‘Jonathan, are you grieving?’

  He responded immediately to her tone, ‘I’m wet and cold and I need to be loved and cherished. Do I hear any bids?’

  ‘Some other time, some other place.’

  ‘And some other girl?’

  ‘I think so, John.’

  ‘Ah, well!’ He placed his hand lightly beneath her elbow and steered her back to the inn. The sheepdog remained behind watching until the door closed behind them; then he padded away to the lavatory where he flopped down disconsolately, his chin on his paws, his eyes staring into the inhospitable night.

  Adam had succeeded in organizing supper in the private parlour. There was a promising frizzle of bacon from the adjacent kitchen and when the meal was placed before them there were two eggs on each plate.

  ‘I haven’t seen so many shell eggs since I was last in Ireland!’ Kerren sighed.

  ‘And I haven’t tasted bacon like this anywhere else for a long time,’ Adam told the old woman and won for himself another rasher.

  Although she waited on them attentively enough, their praise seemed, if anything, to increase the old woman’s suspicion of them.

  ‘She thinks we’re going to beg half-a-dozen eggs when we leave,’ Kerren warned when she had gone into the kitchen to fetch a pot of tea.

  ‘And we wouldn’t dream of doing that, would we?’ Adam murmured.

  ‘No, we would not!’ she said angrily. ‘You may have travelled all over the world, but this is one place I understand better than you. These’ people are probably very poor, and the farms are mean little places like the hill farms at home. They haven’t anything to spare.’

  Adam bowed his head over his plate and said with exaggerated penitence, ‘I promise not to ask for eggs when we leave.’

  ‘To blazes with that!’ John exclaimed. ‘I can’t see Barney Cartwright delivering farm machinery and coming away empty- handed!’

  ‘Barney!’ Adam repeated. ‘Is that really his name? Barney Cartwright. . . it’s altogether too predictable, isn’t it?’

  The old woman had come back with the pot of tea. Her ears were sharper than they had realized.

  ‘He stayed here once or twice,’ she said grudgingly, as though she had been cross-examined.

  ‘He’s had an accident,’ John seized his opportunity. ‘So we offered to deliver some machinery for him. To the farm. There is a farm near here, isn’t there?’

  The old woman gave him a vacant stare and then turned away; she eased herself into the armchair, a long, painful process, then took out her pipe, clamping her gums to it, and remained thus until the meal was finished and they bade her goodnight, when she removed the pipe to spit in the fire.

  ‘What did you mean, there is a farm near here?’ Adam said to John as they went up the stairs to the bedrooms. ‘You know the name of the place where we have to deliver this machinery, surely?’

  ‘Well, not exactly. But there’s probably only one farm in this area.’

  Adam turned round slowly, the landing was a small place in which to make large gestures and while he was manoeuvring. John hurried past him into the bedroom. Adam was left alone, remarking acidly, ‘I think that highly unlikely.’

  The problem of delivery was resolved by the old woman who announced at breakfast that she had to go to the farm and would take the parcel.

  ‘It’s not a parcel,’ Adam protested.

  But when they opened the boot of the car, this was all that they found. They had piled their cases in the back seat, assuming that there would be no room for them in the boot, but in fact there would have been plenty of room. Adam picked up the parcel.

  ‘There’s no machinery in that?’

  ‘Tools, I suppose,’ John said, without much conviction.

  ‘You can’t tell me that it was necessary to bring tools all the way from London by car. Or that the farmer couldn’t have got them just as easily from a local firm.’

  ‘I expect it’s specialist equipment.’ John took the parcel from Adam. ‘And it’s not our business, is it?’

  He went back to the inn and handed the parcel to the old woman. He was rather dismayed by the ease with which she tucked it under her arm.

  ‘If there’s been some mistake you must let me know,’ he said.

  ‘There won’t be any mistake.’ She was as aggrieved as if he had accused her of mismanagement. In return for the parcel, she thrust a packet of sandwiches at him.

  They planned to spend the day walking on the Beacons. When they started, Adam looked at the sandwiches on the back seat of the car and commented, ‘More tools?’

  ‘You’re letting this get out of proportion,’ John said uncomfortably.

  ‘Maybe. But I’d like to see that farm.’

  ‘We can’t search for the farm and walk on the Beacons,’ Kerren pointed out.

  As the Beacons had been the main attraction of the weekend for Adam, this decided the issue.

  They left the car outside Llangynidr and started to walk. John was wearing khaki battledress and army boots which he had omitted to return to stores when he was demobilized. Adam, in comparison, looked unbusinesslike in old slacks and a shapeless green pullover frayed at the elbows. He walked leisurely, yet in spite of this he seemed to cover the ground more quickly than the other two. They had a walk of over a mile to the foot of the Beacons, This they enjoyed and Kerren and John remarked on the invigorating effect of the fresh air and the sensual pleasure of grass beneath one’s feet. Kerren was inclined to be disappointed by the Brecons because they did not mass high on the skyline as did the Mournes. But she soon discovered that they had one thing in common with all mountains, the more one climbed, the taller they grew. After they had been walking just under an hour, and Kerren and John had begun to grumble about the grass beneath their feet, which was coarse and tufted, Kerren suggested that they should stop for coffee before they climbed any further.

  ‘Climb!’ Adam said. ‘We haven’t begun to climb yet.’

  ‘Walking is something you do on the horizontal,’ she said firmly. ‘This is climbing.’

  John was of the same mind. They had coffee from a large flask provided by the old woman. Adam begrudged the wasted time and made them start walking sooner than they thought necessary. Kerren, however, soon lost her resentment and began to appreciate the beauty of the scene. The sun came and went and shadows of cloud moved across the valley below; the colours changed constantly, at one moment the valley was a sombre study in grey and charcoal, the next it was a patchwork of green and gold, threaded with the blue of streams and rivers. Immediately below them, there were a few ruined outhouses around which sheep grazed, their dull grey fleeces making them hard to distinguish from the rough stones. Further away, a few old cottages straggled along the side of a disused railway track. After that, there was no sign of human habitation. A few ponies cropped the grass lower down the slope and above a buzzard hovered. The Beacons themselves had a primaeval quality, enigmatic giants facing the veiled sun. Adam pointed to a cloud that was like a dark cliff overhangi
ng the nearest ridge.

  ‘Cumulo nimbus!’

  ‘With its tuft of cirrus at the tip,’ she agreed ecstatically. ‘About four thousand feet at the top . . .’

  ‘And eighteen hundred at the base . . .’

  ‘And it means?’ John interrupted.

  ‘A storm,’ Adam answered.

  ‘When?’

  Adam shrugged his shoulders and Kerren said, ‘He never was a very good forecaster.’

  John, who was sweating rather a lot and very breathless, said, ‘I’ll give you my forecast. In about half an hour it will be drenching down, just like it did yesterday. And where shall we be then?’

  Adam began to sing:

  ‘There were ninety and nine that safely lay

  In the shelter of the fold

  But one was out on the mountainside

  Far off from the gates of gold . . .’

  Kerren joined in:

  ‘Away on the mountain cold and bleak

  Far from the tender shepherd’s care . . .’

  The track climbed steeply now. Far below there was a stream; three children were crossing it, a little girl, her skirts held up, treading perilously from boulder to boulder, and two boys wading, the clear water rippling round their thighs. A shaft of sunlight fell across the water and mirrored the pure green of a solitary larch. Beyond, a heavy shadow fell across a dense afforestation area and the evergreens were dark and sullen.

  Kerren said, ‘This is magnificent! Is that a reservoir in the distance?’

  ‘No. It’s Llangorse Lake. You can’t see the reservoir from here. But when we get farther up, round the shoulder of the mountain, there’s a magnificent view across mid-Wales.’

  He pressed forward, hungry for the view. Thunder grumbled in the distance. The track had given way to a barely discernible footpath and the other two followed more slowly. Adam said cheerfully, ‘Be careful where you walk. It’s boggy in parts.’ He might have been out for an afternoon’s stroll along the towpath at Kew. John panted, ‘This is one slope they didn’t find when I did my training!’ The footpath had petered out now, but Adam continued inexorably upwards and as he was the only guide they had, John and Kerren scrambled and stumbled after him. Kerren said, ‘When last seen they were headed for the top . . .’ Adam said impatiently, ‘This isn’t climbing! It’s a good walk, nothing more. And look at the view . . .’ His voice tailed off into an exclamation of exasperation. Ahead, the cloud was much lower and already the promised view of mid-Wales was obliterated. Thunder rumbled again, a prolonged, ominous rumble that echoed and re-echoed around them as though a bad-tempered animal was snapping and snarling, the sound finally dying in a long, throaty growl.

  ‘The mountain god demands a sacrifice,’ Kerren said.

  ‘I think you’re right.’ Adam said reluctantly. ‘I don’t think we should go any higher. This cloud comes down for quite a while sometimes.’

  ‘Right about turn?’ John asked hopefully.

  But Adam thought he remembered a path some distance ahead which would mean that they could get down without covering the same ground again.

  ‘Does that matter, if we can’t see where we’re going anyway?’ John sounded disgruntled. The army boots had been a mistake; they were too heavy and he had a blister on his heel; in spite of three years’ hard slogging his feet had never toughened up. He was rather ashamed about this, so he fell behind and waited until Adam and Kerren were out of sight before taking out his constant stand-by, a tin of adhesive dressing. He bent down. The thunder rumbled again and the long grass on the mountain slope began to tremble. The cloud came down suddenly and silently, like a curtain falling across a stage, and when John straightened up he could not see ten yards ahead of him.

  Kerren and Adam stumbled about calling to him, and occasionally they heard his voice, but it seemed to come from a different direction each time.

  ‘Be very careful,’ Adam shouted. ‘There are some nasty precipices around here.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll crawl on all fours!’

  ‘He’s gone further away,’ Adam said crossly. ‘The idiot!’

  ‘Perhaps it’s we who are going away?’ Kerren suggested.

  ‘Nonsense! I know the way blindfold.’ But soon after this he conceded that they had better sit down for a while and see what happened. There was an eerie stillness. Kerren whispered, ‘I can hear my heart thumping.’

  Adam said, ‘Let’s have more coffee.’

  ‘Poor John.’

  Then they remembered that John had the sandwiches and felt less sorry for him.

  The coffee was ersatz and made with powdered milk which had not dissolved properly; but it was very hot and cheered them wonderfully. Kerren wanted another cup, but Adam thought they should keep a little coffee for John who was presumably saving sandwiches for them.

  ‘Perhaps we should attract his attention,’ Kerren said. She shouted, but there was no answer. She picked up a heavy stone and hurled it in front of her, thinking that by some lucky chance it might make physical contact with him. There was utter stillness. The stone had not made contact with anything at all. Adam said, ‘Good God!’ He picked up another stone and tossed it a few feet ahead of them. Each held his breath. The silence was unbroken. Adam said, rather shakily, ‘Well, here we are and here we stay!’

  Kerren said, ‘A wonderful mountain guide you turned out to be!’

  He laughed and put his arm round her. ‘It’s important to keep warm.’

  The thunder came again, further away; the storm was circling them.

  Kerren said, ‘I don’t really like this very much. My aged aunt used to read me one of those Victorian children’s stories about two little tots who were found dead in the snow, locked in each other’s arms.’

  ‘You poor thing. I’ll sing to you instead.’ And he sang in a pulsing baritone:

  ‘There’s one that is pure as an angel,

  And fair as the flowers of May,

  They call her the gentle maiden

  Wherever she takes her way.

  Her eyes have the glance of sunlight

  As it brightens the blue sea wave

  And more than the deep sea treasure

  The love of her heart I crave.’

  He bent down and kissed her. ‘Every situation has its compensations, you know.’ He sang the second verse more lustily and kissed her more passionately thereafter.

  ‘You could have seduced me much more comfortably at the inn,’ she protested breathlessly.

  ‘But you wouldn’t have been so helpless,’ he pointed out. ‘Struggle and you’ll be like Pearl White, hanging by a thread half-way down a cliff!’

  She eased her hand beneath his pullover; the heavy, coarse wool scratched the back of her hand, a sensation that she remembered vividly afterwards. ‘I’d take you with me.’ She unbuttoned his shirt and moved her fingers lightly against his ribs. ‘I can hold on very tight.’ She closed her eyes, her lips repeating meaninglessly now, ‘Very tight . . . very tight . . .’ And all the time her fingers moved gently to and fro and she was filled with a great sweetness and tenderness and with a humility she had not experienced before. She wanted to cry and she was crying; and he held her closer and there was only darkness and warmth . . . And then, somewhere externally, there was the noise of some obscene thing thrashing in the grass, gasping, spluttering, laughing and drooling about sandwiches. Adam muttered, ‘Damn!’ and Kerren felt coldness that was sharp as a knife cleaving her flesh as he moved away from her.

  John said, ‘I thought I was never going to find you.’

  Kerren sat up. She said, between chattering teeth, ‘Be careful. There’s a precipice.’ She felt that this was a supreme gesture on her part, since it was the one place she wished him at that moment.

  ‘I’ve got the sandwiches. I’ve saved some for you,’ he said cheerfully.

  ‘And we have the coffee. At least, we had it . . .’ Adam explored the grass; he put as much concentration into the manoeuvre as if he had been Sherloc
k Holmes searching for a vital clue.

  Kerren sat hunched up, her arms round her knees, trying to draw her spirit back from the abyss. It will never happen again, she thought bleakly; this was our moment and it won’t come again and now that I know how much I want him I shan’t be able to bear it. Something was pawing at her shoulder. It was John, thrusting a ham roll at her. She took it and stuffed a generous portion in her mouth to keep herself from crying.

  ‘It’s not Spam, either!’ John said.

  Adam had found the coffee. He poured a cup for John who at first refused it.

  ‘Women and children . . .’

  ‘There’s enough for another cup each.’

  John drank and sighed deeply. ‘You’re going to be trapped here for days with two hungry men,’ he said to Kerren.

  ‘You terrify me,’ she answered drearily.

  She looked to her right and saw the packet of sandwiches lying on a flat boulder; that boulder must be at least a hundred yards away.

  ‘It’s lifting a little,’ she said.

  Adam passed his hand lightly across her shoulders and ruffled her hair.

  ‘The heroine is saved in the nick of time!’

  She jerked her head angrily. He got up.

  ‘Stay where you are. I’ll reconnoitre a bit.’

  The mist was clearing as rapidly as it had come down and below the valley was reforming, first one tree, then another appearing like marker buoys charting a channel. Kerren lay flat on her stomach and stretched out her hands; the fingers curved into space. She eased forward and peered down. Mist curled between tufts of grass and outcrops of jagged stone. They had had a lucky escape, but her mind did not register the fact; the only thought which came into it as she stared down was that if they had fallen John would not have found them. She stood up and dusted her raincoat.

  ‘Let’s go,’ she said to John.

  ‘But Adam . . .’

  ‘He’ll catch us up.’

  It was fine and sunny for the rest of the afternoon and they had their view across mid-Wales after all.

  The people at the inn greeted them with enquiring glances when they returned. It seemed that some process of reassessment was taking place.