sat on the terrace. It was shaded by its own steepness, and below them the river shone through the trees. “Hurry up then,” said Roger. “I’m cold.”
“Something happened just now,” said Gwyn. “There was scratching in the loft over Alison’s bedroom.”
“Mice,” said Roger.
“That’s what I said. But when I knocked to scare them away – they knocked back.”
“Get off!”
“They did. So I went up to have a look. There’s a pile of dirty plates up there: must be worth pounds.”
“Oh? That’s interesting. Have you brought them down?”
“One. Alison’s cleaning it. But what about the scratching?”
“Could be anything. These plates, though: what are they like? Why were they up there?”
“I couldn’t see much. I asked Huw about them.”
“Well?”
“He said, ‘Mind how you are looking at her.’ ”
“Who? Ali? What’s she got to do with it?”
“Not Alison. I don’t know who he meant. When I told him I’d found the plates he stopped raking for a moment and said that: ‘Mind how you are looking at her.’ Then you came.”
“I tell you, the man’s off his head. – Why’s he called Halfbacon, anyway?”
“It’s the Welsh: Huw Hannerhob,” said Gwyn. “Huw Halfbacon: Huw the Flitch: he’s called both.”
“It suits him.”
“It’s a nickname,” said Gwyn.
“What’s his real name?”
“I don’t think he knows. Roger? There’s one more thing. I don’t want you to laugh.”
“OK.”
“Well, when I picked up the top plate, I came over all queer. A sort of tingling in my hands, and everything went muzzy – you know how at the pictures it sometimes goes out of focus on the screen and then comes back? It was like that: only when I could see straight again, it was different somehow. Something had changed.”
“Like when you’re watching a person who’s asleep, and they wake up,” said Roger. “They don’t move, nothing happens, but you know they’re awake.”
“That’s it!” said Gwyn. “That’s it! Exactly! Better than what I was trying to say! By, you’re a quick one, aren’t you?”
“Can you tell me anything about a rock with a hole through it down by the river?” said Roger.
“A big slab?” said Gwyn.
“Yes, just in the meadow.”
“It’ll be the Stone of Gronw, but I don’t know why. Ask Huw. He’s worked at the house all his life.”
“No thanks. He’d give me the London Stockmarket Closing Report.”
“What do you want to know for, anyway?” said Gwyn.
“I was sunbathing there,” said Roger. “Are you coming to see how Ali’s managed with your plate?”
“In a sec,” said Gwyn. “I got to drop these in the kitchen for Mam. I’ll see you there.”
Roger changed quickly and went up to Alison. His bedroom was immediately below hers, on the first floor.
She was bending over a plate which she had balanced on her knees. The plate was covered with a sheet of paper and she was drawing something with a pencil.
“What’s this Gwyn says you’ve found?” said Roger.
“I’ve nearly finished,” said Alison. She kept moving the paper as she drew. “There! What do you think of that?” She was flushed.
Roger took the plate and turned it over. “No maker’s mark,” he said. “Pity. I thought it might have been a real find. It’s ordinary stuff: thick: not worth much.”
“Thick yourself! Look at the pattern!”
“Yes. – Well?”
“Don’t you see what it is?”
“An abstract design in green round the edge, touched up with a bit of rough gilding.”
“Roger! You’re being stupid on purpose! Look at that part. It’s an owl’s head.”
“—Yes? I suppose it is, if you want it to be. Three leafy heads with this kind of abstract flowery business in between each one. Yes: I suppose so.”
“It’s not abstract,” said Alison. “That’s the body. If you take the design off the plate and fit it together it makes a complete owl. See. I’ve traced the two parts of the design, and all you do is turn the head right round till it’s the other way up, and then join it to the top of the main pattern where it follows the rim of the plate. There you are. It’s an owl – head, wings and all.”
“So it’s an owl,” said Roger. “An owl that’s been sat on.”
“You wait,” said Alison, and she began to cut round the design with a pair of scissors. When she had finished she pressed the head forward, bent and tucked in the splayed legs, curled the feet and perched the owl on the edge of her candlestick.
Roger laughed. “Yes! It is! An owl!”
It was an owl: a stylised, floral owl. The bending of its legs had curved the back, giving the body the rigid set of an owl. It glared from under heavy brows.
“No, that’s really good,” said Roger. “How did you think it all out – the tracing, and how to fold it?”
“I saw it as soon as I’d washed the plate,” said Alison. “It was obvious.”
“It was?” said Roger. “I’d never have thought of it. I like him.”
“Her,” said Alison.
“You can tell? OK. Her. I like her.” He tapped the owl’s head with the pencil, making the body rock on its perch. “Hello there!”
“Don’t do that,” said Alison.
“What?”
“Don’t touch her.”
“Are you all right?”
“Give me the pencil. I must make some more,” said Alison.
“I put the lettuce by the sink,” Gwyn called. “I’m going to see Alison.”
