“Owen?”
“Rees?”
“You’re there.”
“Where else would I be?”
There was a pause. Phone at my ear, I looked around the hallway, trying to remember what I had been doing.
“Sorry about the cock-up yesterday,” Rees said.
“You should be.”
“Lost the plot. She told me off.”
“Tanya?”
“Keisha.”
I took the phone into the living room and sat down. “Keisha?”
“My girlfriend.”
I wondered: was this the “someone else” he was supposed to have been bringing to dinner? Hardly surprising that neithert of the dad showed. Rees had never been able to maintain a settled relationship.
“A girlfriend,” I said carefully. “That’s nice.”
“We met at the support group.”
“Oh?” I didn’t like the sound of this. “Is she—what does she do?”
“She’s a nurse. At the centre. I’m teaching her chess.”
It was hard to know what to say to this. “Is that so? Do you mean generally or at this very moment?”
An over-emphatic laugh. “You’d like her, Owen. She’s funny.”
I couldn’t resist it: “Peculiar or ha-ha?”
“Ha-ha,” he replied, as though it had been a perfectly serious question. “We laugh a lot.”
“Well,” I said, “they say that laughter is the best therapy.”
No response to this.
“How long have you two been together?”
“Just a couple of weeks. I think dad might like to meet her.”
“Dad?”
“She says she’s up for it. I thought we could all go.”
I wasn’t expecting this. “All?”
“Me and Keisha and you and Tanya.”
His voice had the usual edgy quality it always took on whenever he had to speak at length on the phone. He disliked not being able to see the person he was talking to. He also tended to make inappropriate comments and suggestions. It wouldn’t occur to him to consider that Father might find a visit from four people rather overwhelming, especially since two of them would be strangers.
“I’m not sure that would be appropriate, Rees. He’s always better with one person at a time.”
“When did you last see him?”
I tried to think. “Well, it was a while ago. A few months. Six, maybe.”
“I haven’t seen him in nearly a year. We’re overdue, bro.”
“I’m not ready for it at present.”
“Might b just the tonic you need. Remind you that there’s always others worse off.”
I stifled my surprise. It was rare for Rees to make a non-subjective observation.
He went quiet again. His telephone silences always made you feel you were in danger of losing him, that he was already shunting off down a mental siding where the conversational track would abruptly end.
“Funnily enough,” I said, “he phoned last night. Left a message.”
After a moment: “How did he sound?”
“The usual. Vague and confused. I didn’t actually speak to him. Does he know about my accident?”
There was a silence suggestive of the idea that he was thinking about it.
“Would he remember if anyone told him?”
“Probably not.”
“Perhaps Tanya’s been in touch. Did you ask her?”
“No. Are you sure everything’s all right, Rees?”
“Ticketyboo, bro. Ticketybro, boo.”
He sounded a little manic. “You taking your medication?”
“’Course. Keisha makes sure of that. She’s a stickler.”
“Can I speak to her?”
“She’s in the kitchen, cooking dinner. Bean curry. Some like it hot.”
It was an L-shaped bedsit, the kitchen tucked in one corner. I couldn’t hear any sounds of cooking in the background.
“How old is she?” I asked.
“Five five.”
“Fifty-five?”
He sniggered. “Squared. We’ll come and see you soon so you can get to know one another.”
“Really?”
“Honest. Listen, got to go. Think about what I said, eh?”
It was dark, the square practically deserted. Owain drained the last of his pint and belched, tasting the curried pastie he’d eaten earlier. The pub was popular because street vendors called in, offering leftovers at bargain prices.
There were two other empty glasses in front of him. The crowd in the pub had thinned a little but the bar was still busy. He could hear darts thudding into a board above the hubbub. The TV was now showing an old black-and-white Hollywood movie. Men and women in dinner jackets and gowns moving around an elegant apartment with a skyscraper horizon visible beyond the window. Even more people had crowded into the alcove to watch it.
Fog was starting to fill the square. With the wagons and stalls gone Owain had had an unimpeded view of all approach points to the alleyway until now. But there was still no sign of Rhys. His brother hadn’t returned—at least not via this route. Soon the fog would prevent him from knowing even if he did. He saw to his surprise that it was after six o’clock. He couldn’t wait any longer.
Getting down off the stool, he almost fell forward. As he traversed the bar he heard peevish voices and realised that he had walked across the line of sight of the darts players. He found the door, lurched outside.
The cold lunged at him. He took a few steps and threw up into the snow. Rummaging in his jacket he found a handkerchief and swabbed his face. His thoughts were tumbling over one another. Giddy myself, I couldn’t get a grip on them.
