Eighteen
With autumn closing in, the velvety greens of summer that cloaked the timeless hills were giving way to the reds and golds of early fall. Thorny bushes bursting with plump, ripe blackberries lined the hedgerows, and the fields were dotted with grazing sheep, their fleeces thick and heavy against the coming winter. It had been almost two months since Penny had been sketching and she missed it. In the company of an artist friend or two, she enjoyed the leisurely Saturday morning or Sunday afternoon rambles along the pathways, across the fields, and up into the high hills with their panoramic views of the towns and villages spread out below.
By lunchtime, the fine mist that had shrouded the town as folks made their way to morning church services had dissipated, and the afternoon promised to be clear but cool. Dressed warmly in anoraks and sturdy boots, and carrying their painting gear, Penny and Alwynne strolled alongside the Conwy River and then cut across the fields toward Gwydyr Forest, on the eastern edge of Snowdonia National Park. Alywnne had chosen their destination, saying to Penny she had a hunch the spot she had in mind would intrigue and interest her.
The way was steep for the first couple of kilometers, as the path led them away from the valley and up into the shadowy glades of the forest. Finally, they arrived at a small clearing where they set down their wooden painting cases and shrugged off their backpacks. Alywnne produced a flask, and they sat on their small painting stools, wrapping their hands around warm mugs of tea and lifting their faces to the sun.
“Would you like to set up here?” Alwynne asked, “or carry on to the lake? I’d prefer the lake, but we have to keep an eye on the time. It gets dark so early now, we should aim to be back in town by six.”
“The lake, I think,” said Penny. “The view here is wonderful, but the lake isn’t much farther, and in this light I expect it will have a lovely shimmer to it. I’m sure it’ll be worth it.”
They packed up their tea things and carried on climbing.
“You know,” puffed Alwynne, “I do envy those ramblers who just have to worry about themselves. They don’t have to do this climb carrying all the gear we’ve got.”
“That’s true,” agreed Penny, “but we have something interesting to do when we get where we’re going. They just eat lunch.”
They continued along the path, which had been laid down a century ago by miners working the nearby, long-abandoned lead and zinc mines. They headed deeper into the forest until they caught their first glimpse of Llyn Parc, a long narrow lake surrounded by thickly wooded slopes leading down to the water’s edge. They found themselves in a sheltered glen and watched for a moment as a kestrel circled slowly overhead, casting a long, sweeping shadow.
Penny put down her painting case, folded her arms, and looked about.
“I’m not sure if I’ve been here before,” she said. “It looks vaguely familiar, but I know I’d remember that trek and I don’t. And I don’t think I’ve ever painted here.”
“But someone you know has been here,” said Alwynne, pointing across the glen.
Penny followed the sightline of her finger and gasped.
In front of her was a stand of what looked liked tall, dying weeds, but she realized that in early summer it would be a mass of brightly blooming wildflowers.
“They were here!” Penny exclaimed. “This is it! This is the spot where the picnic paintings were done. Emma and Alys were here.”
She looked around more carefully. “Of course, it’s much more overgrown, but I know this is it! I can feel it.”
She headed toward the edge of the clearing, set down her stool, and started removing painting items from her case. Out came a portable easel, a sketchpad, and pencils.
“I’m going to set up here.”
“I’ll set up right beside you,” said Alwynne, “but I’m going to face the other way and paint the lake.”
They were soon deeply engrossed in their work, the sound of their pencils and brushes occasionally drowned out by birds calling to one another across the treetops.
“Penny,” Alwynne said hesitantly.
“Hmm?”
“Something’s been bothering me.”
Penny stopped sketching, her pencil poised in mid-air, and looked at her friend. “What is it, Alwynne?”
“Well, it’s like this. If Emma and Alys were, you know, what you said they were, it surprises me that you haven’t found any photographs of them together. Or at least you’d think Emma would have had photos of Alys. It seems to me rather strange that you’ve given the cottage a pretty good going-over and haven’t turned up any photographs. Doesn’t that seem odd to you? Don’t most people keep photos of the person they love?”
Thinking of the one photo she had found in the Harrods pencil case, the young blond woman with the fox terrier pup, Penny nodded in agreement.
After about an hour, Alwynne stood up and rubbed her hands together. “My fingers are starting to get a bit numb with the cold,” she said, reaching into her pockets to see if by any chance she’d left a pair of gloves in there last winter. “We’re going to have to pack up soon and start heading back to town, I’m afraid.”
Penny nodded vaguely and continued sketching, raising her head now and then to look at the scene in front of her.
“So I’m going to take lots of photos of the site for both of us so we can carry on with these at home,” Alwynne said.
Penny nodded again, and Alwynne strolled around the clearing, snapping photos of the site from all angles for Penny and the view of the lake for herself. She replaced the camera in her backpack and began gathering up her sketching materials.
With a sigh, Penny began to do the same.
“You’re right,” she said reluctantly, looking at the sky and then back to the tall grasses in front of her. The sun had shifted toward the west, taking with it the light that had given the scene intense colours just an hour earlier. Long shadows began to creep in all around them. “We’re losing the light.”
The women finished, packed up their gear, and as they prepared to leave, stood for a moment looking around them. Alywnne touched Penny’s arm. “You’re thinking of them, as they were that day.”
Penny felt the salty sting of unshed tears and nodded.
“I can almost feel them here.” She gave Alwynne a fleeting glance and then shifted her shoulders to position her backpack more comfortably.
“I’ve been thinking that if we’d known then what we know now, it might have been nice if they’d been cremated and their ashes scattered together here.”
Alwynne pursed her lips. “You might be right,” she said gently.
They set off for home the way they had come and eventually reached the clearing where they had had a cup of tea on the way up.
“There’s a bit more tea left,” said Alwynne, “if you’d like to stop and rest for a few minutes. I’ve got a couple of Welsh cakes here, too.”
“You have the tea,” Penny said. “I’ve got a bottle of water, but I’d love a cake.”
Alwynne unwrapped the small, flat, raisin-studded cakes and offered one to Penny.
“Mmm, this is delicious,” Penny said. “Where I come from, we’d almost call this a pancake, but it’s sweeter. This one isn’t store-bought, is it?”
Alwynne shook her head and laughed.
“My husband makes them. He was looking for a hobby when he retired, and I thought he’d take up gardening or lawn bowling or rambling, like any other man would do, but he chose baking. It all started, really, when he was clearing out his mother’s house and found his grandmother’s old bake stone. Couldn’t bear to part with it. So he cleaned it up and started using it. Says it brings back memories of his grandmother’s baking when he was a boy.”
“Hmm,” mumbled Penny with her mouth full, waving a hand and shaking her head to decline Alwynne’s offer of a second cake. She swallowed and then commented, “I imagine his pastime doesn’t do your waistline any good, but other than that, it seems harmless enough.”
“Oh Penny, it’s easy to see you’re not married. If you were, you’d know that the downside is that it doesn’t get him out of the house!”
She wrapped up the remaining cake, tucked it into her backpack, and they continued on their way.
As they approached the scattered buildings that signaled the town was about to come into view, Alwynne returned to the topic she had raised earlier.
“I think you need to keep looking for those photos, Penny. I’m sure Emma would have had pictures of Alys that were taken while they were together, and she would have kept them stashed away somewhere. They’ll turn up, you’ll see. You’ll find them.”
They trudged on and soon reached the town square. Alwynne was planning to drop off her painting gear at the town museum where she worked and meet her husband in the pub. The two women stopped for a moment to say good-bye, and then Penny continued the last leg of the journey home on her own.
As she turned off to walk the last few hundred metres down the lane that led to the cottage, she heard a vehicle coming up behind her. The sound grew louder, and as she turned her head, an SUV approached. As it came nearer, she realized that it was not slowing down and she moved quickly to the side of the road. She was almost on the grass verge when the speeding car brushed by her. Just as she dropped her painting case and dove into the rowan bushes that lined the narrow lane, she caught a fleeting glimpse of two lads in the car, laughing and shouting over loud rap music. And mixed in with the music was the sound of a barking dog. The meet was over in a moment and the vehicle disappeared.
Penny landed on her side and instantly felt a sharp stab of pain shoot through her right shoulder. Holding her arm, she struggled to sit up and then shakily raised herself until she was standing. She stumbled out of the undergrowth and back onto the lane.
“Oh, no,” she groaned. The wooden painting case that she had taken everywhere with her since her student days lay in splinters all over the roadway, smashed tubes of paint leaking Winsor & Newton colours everywhere. She picked up what she could carry and then, because her cottage was only a few more metres farther, decided to go home, phone Gareth, and return to the scene with a bag to pick up the tubes of paint before it got dark.
“No, I’m okay,” she said when she reached him on the phone. “My shoulder hurts a little where I landed on it, but I’ll be fine. No, I don’t want to go to casualty. I’m going back to get the paints and what’s left of the case, and then I’m going to have a bath.”
Gareth suggested that she should not be alone and that he could be there in about an hour, and she gratefully agreed and rang off.
After grabbing a plastic bag from a drawer in the kitchen, she returned to the lane, and as the sun started to slip behind the tall trees that ranged in the distance, she hurried toward the remains of her painting case. Making sure the roadway was clear, she bent down in the middle of the lane and scooped up the pieces of the case and its contents. She returned to the cottage and, after locking the door behind her, went upstairs for a bath.
The pain in her shoulder had become constant and throbbing, and she hoped the warmth of the bath would soothe it. Soaking seemed to help, and half an hour later, wearing clean jeans and a chunky sweater, she came downstairs, closed the drapes, turned on the lights, and then looked around in the fridge to see if there was anything she could offer Gareth for dinner. Scrambled eggs, maybe, if he wasn’t too fussy.
A few minutes later he knocked on the front door, and, smiling, she let him in. He put his arms gently around her and held her.
“You poor thing! I’m glad you’re okay,” he said as he released her, “but you’re bound to be a little shaken up. Come and tell me all about it. I’m afraid I’m going to be in policeman mode. Did you get a good look at them? What about a license plate number?”
They sat on the sofa, facing each other. Penny tucked one leg under her.
“It all happened so fast,” she said. “All I saw were two lads, but I doubt I could describe them. It was a silver-coloured SUV. Land Rover, I think. Couldn’t see the license plate number, but I heard very loud rap music. Oh, and they had a dog with them. It was barking really loudly. Almost frantically, now that I think about it.”
Gareth leaned toward her.
“A barking dog, eh? We’ve just had a report from a farmer out Pen-y-Pass way saying his prize Border collie’s gone missing. Well, this helps. At least we know what kind of car we could be looking for. Excuse me, I’ll just phone that in.”
Penny stood up and, wincing, reached for the bag of painting materials she had collected from the laneway. She waited until Davies was finished with his call and then held the bag open so he could see inside it.
“Look at the mess they made of my case. And not only that,” she said, pulling a few pages of sketching paper from the bag, “they ruined my afternoon’s work. It took Alwynne and me hours to hike to that clearing and back, and I spent a couple of hours on those sketches. And wait until you see what those nasty little beggers did to it!”
She turned the sketch over, with a smile, and there, in all the red, blue, yellow, green, and black glory of Winsor & Newton paints, was a clear tire imprint.
Davies laughed.
“I hope you’ll let me buy you a new case and set of paints. The boys at the lab are going to love this.”