‘That’s not really what I meant. Are you aware of anything that happened there in the past, which might have cast—?’
‘Like what?’
‘Something that…’ Careful now. ‘Something which might be thought to have left… an atmosphere?’
It could be a smell. Mothballs might bring on an image of an old woman moving around, counting the dresses in the wardrobe, a sense of sadness, regret, missed opportunities. Most people could do this if they spared the time, and the more they did it the stronger the sensations would be, the more vivid the images.
‘Mrs Thorogood, if you’re asking what I think you’re asking, I’ve heard that some poor chap once hanged himself in Back Fold, but not on my premises. That’s the only unnatural death I’ve heard of here.’
‘Who was there before you?’
‘It was an antique shop… well, more of a junk shop. Already empty when the agent took us to view. I thought that in turning it into a bookshop again I was doing something to reinforce the foundations of Hay.’
‘Why had it closed?’
‘Why do any of them close? I was told they needed bigger premises. Mrs Thorogood, I’d be most displeased if any unfounded rumours were to spread. And just to be absolutely clear, when I said no unnatural death, I meant people. More or less the whole of Back Fold had a single purpose at one time. Slaughter.’
Betty said nothing.
‘Of animals,’ Mr Oliver said.
‘When was this?’
‘Until comparatively recently, I believe. Seems to have gone back many years. Centuries. It would have been the castle abattoir. Right below the walls, so there’d always be fresh meat close to hand in the event of a siege or insurrection.’
‘Perhaps that’s it,’ Betty said. ‘We’re vegetarian.’
She watched Robin shifting uncomfortably in his sleep. There was a time when he’d slept like a dog slept, growling delightedly in pursuit of rabbits and squirrels.
She sat down on the sofa opposite his chair in a modern living room which, when they’d moved in, had had an atmosphere of anger and bitterness. If the middle-aged couple who’d sold them the bungalow weren’t divorced by now, Betty would be quite surprised.
Not that she’d ever tried to find out. She’d consulted some people and certain books and got down to softening the place. Making sure she and Robin hadn’t slept in the so-called master bedroom, which had become his studio, a place where he could safely fight with himself.
She’d looked in there this morning while he was taking a shower and found about a dozen photos of Hay taped to the walls, the basis for some watercolour sketches on a side table. All the pictures had been taken from Back Fold, mostly from low angles, looking up at the castle and the crinkly red chimneys of the Jacobean mansion which the medieval building had nurtured like a big cuckoo chick.
Robin did most of his work on a trestle table, but now the table had been removed, the trestles used to accommodate the sound part of a broken oak floorboard Robin had found in a reclamation yard. He’d sawn off the splintered end and gone to work with a plane on the surface, until it was ready for the black paint. Now it was a sign, waiting to be varnished. A sign that looked as if it had been a sign forever.
Thorogood Pagan Books.
She wondered if there’d be enough light for a studio. Pictures not as good as Robin’s best were on sale for hundreds, even thousands in Hay, drawing on an international market, tourists who’d fallen in love with the booktown, who wanted a piece of Hay on their wall. Why not an alluring Thorogood nocturne, woolly lights against softening stone? She could see Robin’s paintings eventually stealing window-space from the books.
A foothold to something better. As long as there were some books… enough to keep him in the system.
Robin’s eyelids jittered like moths’ wings, his eyes opened.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing,’ Betty said. ‘Everything’s going to be fine.’
* * *
Later, when Robin went back to work on his sign, Betty took the laptop into the bedroom and Googled antique dealers in Hay. Began emailing them, one by one, asking if they were the people who used to have a shop in Back Fold.
As the sun went down behind the pink-brick estate, she opened the oak chest in the corner, where the goddess lay in her box, along with the Green Man and the tarot cards, the remains of her crown of lights head-dress and a box of candles.
She found a bent green candle, the size of a courgette, set it down in a tray in the window, and concentrated.
Old habits…
10
A better place
THE CITY OF Hereford seemed to be dying, the way a venerable tree died, from the centre outwards – long-established businesses left to rot while councillors turned away to nurture their doomed, peripheral shopping mall, hand-feeding it with taxpayers’ money badly-needed elsewhere.