Open Secrets - Chapter 1

Open Secrets chapter 4

“I got the shop.”

Dave stirred under the duvet but didn’t respond.

“Hey, listen, we’re in the midst of a global recession, I’m quite old and fairly unemployable but I’ve got a unit in the new craft centre”

The duvet stirred again and infinitely slowly, Dave crept into the daylight.

“Unit?” he said sleepily.

“The unit in the craft centre, dumb ass, the one I’ve been after for months.”

“Ah.”

He subsided again under the duvet.

“Oh come on, for goodness sake, show a bit of enthusiasm!”

“It’s Saturday, I had a heavy night, I’m having a rest,” said Dave with owlish dignity.

“Rest later, drive now!” I said.

Two hours later, after some breakfast and some heavy negotiation, we were on the road west.  A little way from home, the road forked to the right.

“Let’s take a detour,” I said.  “Let’s go up to Carreg Bica.”

“What’s the matter with you Halle?” said Dave, amiably turning right.

That’s what I like about Dave. He’s incurably quixotic, but so am I. I adapt to his eccentricities just as he does to mine, so we make a good team.  A good team for each other, that is, profoundly irritating to others or so I’m told.

That’s why I’m unemployable  - I’m totally unamenable to discipline or being able to conform to too much expectation.  And I like my own company as well.  I’m not a loner, but I like my personal space and a respectable distance between me and the people I work with.  Maybe I mean respectful, not respectable.  Whatever.  My favourite story in the whole of the world is “The Cat Who Walked by Himself”, so that probably says it all.

“Okay, we’re here,” said Dave.

He parked the car and we got out to walk the short climb to Carreg Bica.

The ancient stone, about as high as a man and about the same shape too, stood amidst a huge number of smaller stones, overlooking Cwm Fedwen, all the way down the U shaped valley to the shores of the Irish sea.

These days, the valley floor was densely populated with houses, factories, roads, offices, hospitals and all the paraphernalia of modern life, but from the mountainside, standing by the stone, all you could really see was the shape of the mountains, the valley and the shoreline.  The human activity was blurred to a selection of bluish smudges by distance.

As I stood there looking out at the magnificent scenery with one hand on the rock, I suddenly felt as if someone had grabbed the back of my neck and moved me to some other place.  That’s not a good description.  It was mixture of the floaty feeling you can get when drunk and vertigo.

The feeling was accompanied by a flash of light, the sound of rain and voices screaming and shouting and a smell of  - well, a smell of blood, that raw metallic unforgettable coppery smell.

“Aaah!”

“What’s up,” said Dave, turning towards me, alarmed by my stifled scream. He had strayed off further up the mountain following the flight of a bird of prey.

“Bloody hell,” he exclaimed as he caught sight of my face. “You’ve gone a very funny colour. What’s up?”

“I don’t know. I  -  I feel a bit weird.  Maybe I’m not coping very well with the height.”