Candlenight by Phil Rickman Read Free Book Online

the local
reporter who didn't even drink, even when it wasn't Sunday. Getting absolutely nowhere.
Dreadful times, old boy."
    Giles Freeman sighed. "Look,
that's . . ."
        A restraining hand went up.
Nobody deflected old Winstone Thorpe from his punchline.
        "So, what I did in the
end. I went over to the local chapel and picked a name off a bloody gravestone.
Emrys Lloyd—never forget it. And I wandered back to the pub and button-holed
one of these local shepherd-types. 'Look here, I suspect this is a long-shot, old
boy, but I don't suppose you knew this great-uncle of mine. Emrys Lloyd, his
name. Told he used to live in this neck of the woods . . .'"
    He paused while everybody laughed,
except Giles. 'Told 'em my name was Ivor Lloyd and I'd been born in Wales but
moved out at an early age, always regretted I'd never learned the good old language,
all this bullshit . . . Well, dammit, you couldn't stop the sods talking after
that. Gave me everything I wanted. No longer one of the enemy, you see. I could
be trusted. They even felt sorry for me because I was a bloody exile in
England, can you believe that?"
        "No," said Giles
Freeman loudly, something catching fire behind his freckles. "It's utter
bollocks. You made it up. You've always made things up, you old bastard."
        Winstone Thorpe looked hurt.
"Not a bit of it, old boy, that was precisely what happened. And the thing
is—"
        "Utter balls." Giles
said contemptuously. He glared across the table at Winstone. "You're just
a boring old con-man."
        And that, Berry perceived, was
the point at which the other guys decided that Giles, irrespective of the
amount of booze he'd put away, had overstepped the mark and should be dealt
with for pissing on a national monument.
        Giles didn't notice the guys
exchanging glances. "You know why the Welsh are suspicious of the
English?" he demanded, slapping the table, making waves in all the
glasses.
        "Actually." said
Shirley Gillies, one of the BBC's political reporters, "I once—"
        "Just hang on a minute,
Shirley. Listen. I'll tell you why. Because we're so . . . bloody . . . smug.
We think we're the greatest bloody race on earth. We think we're great by tradition.
And the idea of people here in Britain, in our island who don't want to speak
English . . . we think that's a joke. Because ours is the language of
Shakespeare and Keats and Barbara bloody Cartland . . ."
        "Actually." Shirley
Gillies repeated, as if Giles was some stray drunk who didn't really belong in
their comer. "I had rather a similar experience of being frozen out in
Wales. Only I wasn't as clever as you. Winstone. I rather left with egg on my
face."
        And this mention of egg
reminded Charlie Firth, of the Mail ,
of the time he and his wife had gone into this Welsh snack bar for a meal just
as it was about to close. The waitresses had muttered to each other—in Welsh,
of course—and eventually served Charlie and Mrs. Firth a couple of scrambled
eggs which had left them both with seriously upset stomachs. "Had to stop
off at about seven public lavs on the way hack." Charlie said. "Like,
you expect it in Spain, but . . ."
        "Poisoned." said Max
Canavan, of the Sun . "They poisoned
you on account of you was English, yeh?"
        Voices had risen, everybody
grinning, suddenly having fun thinking up horror stories about Wales. Or more
likely, Berry figured, making them up as a communal putdown for Giles. Other hacks in the bar, not part of Winstone's
farewell pissup, were gathering around, sensing that electric change in the
atmosphere, noses almost visibly twitching. The pack instinct was always strong
among British national journalists. Guys from papers which were bitter rivals
hung out together like a street gang.
        "Oh dear me. look."
Old Winstone said. "I didn't want to start—"
        "Always been like that,"
said Brian McAllister of the Press Association. "I remember once I