Desire Line (45 page)

I popped three
 
's at a go under the running tap, feeling both exhausted and an intruder and checked messages to bring me back to myself. The first four, no five stacked up were all from Glenn— all ending 

 

 
 

I don't need to hear. The opera's cancelled. I don't need to hear. Your parents killed Sara, Yori. Leave it at that. Don't need to—

Notes

*
See 
Appendix D

Chapter 31

It has to be perfect.

The construction must be practical, the meaning open and readable by anyone who uses it. Material is crucial. Not just in itself. Consider its provenance, the connections. With each element immaculate, the whole can be transformed, cut free from the act of making.

He's reading from an old report, recently obtained, on his chosen quarry:
Welsh slate, for hardness, is unsurpassed…
The Ancients sometimes roofed with Marble…
the expense of the material… cost of labour… of no account
.
The use of Tiles for Roofing purposes may be based upon the fact that they are more artistic than Slates, but those who have built with Tiles, in search of the Artistic, have often found that they have grasped at the shadow and lost the substance.
Extraordinary. An auditor's report that included this sort of language.
Before iron, probably before antler and tusk, by the virtues of stone animals were killed and butchered, bellies filled. Flint, shale, slate all had their uses. They named an age.

I sat up. Opened my eyes trying to think what day it is and what was this contraption I'm in and where am I? And
butchered?
How had that got there?
The virtues of stone —
well, OK, but
butchery?

‘Yori! Are you awake? I'm coming through.'

‘Huh? Er-m-' The tartan rug turned traitor. Having covered my entire body it was not up to being pulled round the waist. A fringe caught in the chair's handle became a hitch and the reclining mechanism reversed, shot me upright. On my feet now, with the rug sarong-like, the garment undid its own knot. My mother entered the living room, palmed the switch and was treated to the sight of bare buttocks as I groped around my own ankles. ‘Hang on. I'm—'

‘Don't worry,' she said. On her way to the kitchen, dressed, she was wearing much the same as last night. Unless it was the same. ‘You fell asleep with the light on. I had to come and do it. And that's nothing I haven't seen before.'

But perhaps she was embarrassed— it was
very
clipped North Oxford this morning. I heard the tap running, cupboards banging, speculated about whether I could get into my stiff-looking pants before she thought of returning. Just made it. My undershirt lay with spread arms raised across one sofa— shot and lifeless. No sign of trainers or jacket, though, or a belt. I was her prisoner.

‘So,' she said as we sat in the kitchen, the table between us, the tea pot between us, a five year separation back between us that had smoothed over last night and turned jagged again, ‘you were going to tell me what you've been up to. I guess that's why you've come.' Her hair hadn't been properly brushed out and tangled at the ends but her attitude said fully awake. ‘Town Architect?'

‘A joke. Senior Design Consultant, Project Forward Rhyl. I'm planning things.'

‘Such as?'

‘Well—'
uh, the brightness of those eyes
‘—before I came away, I started a new project.
Just
got the go ahead. Yesterday. For a path.'

Thanks to Glenn's persistence last night, the subject of PalmWalk was a pleasure now and I felt like selling it. But her mouth – an unimprovable mouth, peach and open slightly, Sara had described it, and still a girl's mouth though fifty would be here in a few years— lifted at each corner. ‘Oh, a
path
.' I was glad to see that mouth screened by her RSPCA hedgehog cup.

‘Not just a path. Obviously. It'll be part of the regeneration scheme.'
Come on! You could manage a nod. It was your town for eight years.
‘Connecting key elements along the Promenade— from the bridge, up West Parade, then East,' I prompted.
You walked me along there. To play on the sand, to the shop— later on for my short career at school.
‘The path's important.'
That's one reason why it's important.
‘Also it's the line everybody wants to take. But things got muddled and Rhyl forgot why it was there. The beach.'

She was considering. For one heady moment I thought she was going to turn inquisitive,
These links,
say,
are they your next project?
I framed a reply. But the far side of the window it was getting naturally light. A dog barked and was joined by another and then another in a rousing dogs' chorus. She jumped to her feet almost upending my tea.

‘Their breakfast's imminent.'

‘I'm thinking of slate for the Walk,' I said. ‘For lots of reasons. It cleaves beautifully, wafer thin if you need. But can take immense pressure. It's
formed
under pressure and it's local. Six good sources in North Wales alone, still. I've found a really special one over in Pantdreiniog.' All my correct pronunciation got me was an
oh-h!
She had her boots on now, was looking around for something to pull over her grey T and leggings, the eyes still showing amusement as she searched at this half-Japanese that could do Welsh. She could've passed for sixteen. ‘There's two seams of it, one purple, one blue. I like that, two shades from the same quarry. I thought mix them, you can get the feel of their layers, their nature, from something like that. Mix them, cut them absolutely exactly, of course, then—' she pounced on some fallen object behind the industrial-size waste bin. ‘—there's the other aspect of it, the one where you're thinking slate, yes, protective,' my gesture was a steeple, up in the air, ‘but
whoa!
' Now a halt signal. ‘Look. It's being used for something under your feet. A foundation.'

A sweater, old and very shaggy, was what she straightened up with. ‘Sounds very, um, good. Your shoes and things are down here by the way. Are you coming to help? In the yard?'

‘Of course. I'll get something else on.'

I sacrificed stretches and lunges (again) but not showering and a shave in the newly-installed bathroom, the tiling not grouted and the shower the latest Watermiser model. When I emerged it was to stop-dead facing the room directly opposite with a door just open a crack— into the only part of the bungalow I hadn't entered. So far. Hers and Henri's. I reached out to give it a push but didn't. Why Henri of all people? Apart from her being smart and patient and optimistic and even-tempered and funny, I mean. Who could smile when hit full in the face by a football.
Eurwen, forget it
–
it was an accident
–
and anyway, time we were off!