Free To Dream of the Dead by Phil Rickman Page B

Eirion said.
    ‘I was
not
—’
    ‘Jane, you’re doing your smoky voice.’
    ‘I’m trying to be
discreet
, you smug Welsh git! I’m at school, in the bog.’
    A silence. Eirion drew breath.
    ‘A proper name would help. Jane, look . . . seriously, we haven’t really seen much of each other since the summer, have we?’
    ‘If you remember, you went off to university.’
    ‘It’s
Cardiff
. It’s less than a two-hour drive away, and I’m home at weekends. As you know.’
    ‘A lot can happen at university. You’re young – young
ish
– and unattached. Universities are full of loose women.’
    ‘Let’s not go into all that again,’ Eirion said. ‘I can assure you there hasn’t been anybody for—’
    ‘Longer than one night?’
    ‘For just over four months, I was going to say. Which, in case you’ve forgotten . . .’
    ‘No, I—’ Jane’s voice died on her. But could she believe this? ‘I haven’t forgotten.’
    ‘So I was thinking . . . Well, my dad and Gwennan were supposed to be going to France for Christmas, with the girls and I was thinking you could maybe’ve come over here.’
    ‘Where we’d have the house to ourselves. Kind of thing.’
    ‘Only that’s not going to happen now. Sioned sprained an ankle skating and they’re putting it off until the New Year, when you’ll probably be back at school. So I was wondering about maybe coming over there. Like for a few days?’
    ‘And stay where – the Black Swan?’
    ‘Yeah, on my massive student grant. I was actually thinking . . . the vicarage? You’ve got a lot of spare bedrooms. I’d pay, you know, reasonably normal rates. B-and-B?’
    ‘That’s—’
    ‘What do you think? Just to see if there’s . . . you know . . . anything left? You know what I’m saying.’
    ‘Irene, we were childhood sweethearts. It’s a phase.’
    ‘A phase.’
    ‘And like, if you really don’t know if there’s anything
left
—’
    ‘On
your
side. I meant
your
side. My side I know about.’
    ‘Oh.’
    ‘Jane, would I really be sitting here getting all sweaty and embarrassed and stuff, if I wasn’t still . . .?’
    She didn’t say anything. She realised she was smiling.
    Realising he’d never really gone away. That her life was full of Eirion cross-references. Although that wasn’t necessarily a good thing, was it? They were young, they were supposed to be putting themselves about.
Why
was she smiling?
    ‘It was just a thought, all right?’ Eirion said.
    ‘Of course, if the dig’s on in Coleman’s Meadow,’ Jane said, ‘I was supposed to be, you know, helping?’
    ‘And that’s limited, is it, to people who’ve belatedly applied for archaeology courses on account of they’ve been watching
Time Team
and
Trench One
and can’t think of any quicker way to get on TV?’
    ‘
Au contraire
, Welshman, I believe I can bring to the study of antiquities something new and meaningful.’
    ‘As distinct from your usual pseudo-pagan New Age bullshit.’
    ‘And I’m thinking, could I stand this for a whole week?’
    ‘Jane, you’d love it.’
    ‘I’ll talk to Mum,’ Jane said.
    Somehow excited. Despicable, really.
    Sophie, nun-like in her long charcoal-grey coat and her silk scarf, was walking rapidly across the Cathedral Green towards the Castle Street entrance, furled umbrella under her arm.
    She lived back there, in one of the posh terraces behind the cloisters and the Cathedral School. Her husband was an architect, semi-retired now, the golf club a second home. An adopted son lived in Canada.
    Merrily watched her from the office window. Some domestic crisis? Domestic, for Sophie, usually meant the Cathedral. Which she
served
. Living within its ambience, more a part of it than any of the bishops she’d worked for. Whatever had happened, it had to be serious for Sophie to be walking
away
from the Cathedral at not yet one p.m. on a working day.
    When she passed out of sight, between the bare trees, Merrily switched on the computer,