The Owl Service by Alan Garner Page A

don’t want this rubbish here, isn’t it?”
    â€œShift your barrow, will you, so we can get in.”
    â€œThat’s right, Mr Bradley,” said Gwyn, and went on sweeping.
    â€œThe barrow, laddie,” said Clive. “Smartish.”
    â€œYes, sir,” said Gwyn. He worked a fragment of plaster towards the shovel, holding the broom in his other hand, close to the head. He followed the plaster round the billiard table and trapped it against one of the legs. He swung the shovel up, carried it to the barrow, and dropped the plaster in. “At once, sir.”
    Gwyn pushed the barrow through the doorway and bumped it down the steps to the path at the back of the house.
    â€œDumb Insolence, as near as a toucher!” said Clive.
    â€œNever mind, Dad. Come and see this.” Roger put his photographs on the billiard table. “What do you think of our mural? – Oh, Dad!”
    He was looking at a bare wooden panel.
    â€œThe vindictive beggar! He’s scraped it off!” Roger ran to the steps. Gwyn was wheeling the barrow. “Hey! You! Gwyn stopped. “Come here!” Roger jumped the steps. “What did you have to wreck that painting for, you Welsh oaf?”
    â€œMaster Roger,” said Gwyn, “there’s asking for a poke in the gob you are, indeed to goodness, look you.”

C HAPTER 15
    W hen she heard the shouting Alison rolled off her bed and went to the window. It was Roger’s voice. She opened the fanlight. Gwyn appeared below the window, wheeling a barrow towards the stables.
    The sun had warmed the ledge. Alison leant her head against the glass. Some distance away the long stone fish tank by the lawn sparked where the inlet broke from the ferns, and she saw herself mirrored among haloes that the sun made on the water. The brightness destroyed the image of the house, so that all she saw was her face.
    I’m up here, and down there, thought Alison. Which is me? Am I the reflection in the window of me down there?
    Gwyn came back from the stables. He was walking with his shoulders hunched, and he kicked at every pebble. He sat on the edge of the tank, right next to the Alison in the water: he seemed to be watching her.
    Now am I here, and you there? Or are we together? If I’m the reflection here then we’ll be able to talk to each other. “Hello, Gwyn.”
    Gwyn said nothing. He reached out to touch her hair, and she was at once gold and whiteness over the water, and Alison was back in the window and the metal frame was hurting her cheek. And Gwyn looked up.
    He had not expected to see her. He had been fighting his anger all the way to the rubbish dump and back. The water was calm, and he tried to slip his hand into the stillness without breaking the clear light, but ripples sprang from his fingers. He looked up.
    Alison was in the window. She did not move. The stillness he had tried to enter was now all round him, and Gwyn sat, and watched. But the gong sounded for lunch, and Alison hurried downstairs, while Gwyn went to drain the potatoes and put them in their dish in the serving hatch.
    â€œWhat you been up to?” said Nancy after the first course. “He says you’re not to wait on at table today.”
    â€œI offered to thump his son and heir a few minutes ago,” said Gwyn.
    â€œWhat for?”
    â€œBeing personal.”
    â€œDid you hit him?”
    â€œNo. Daddy broke it up.”
    â€œPity,” said Nancy, and carried the cheese board through to the dining-room.
    Gwyn frowned after his mother. Pity? Then he cleared the dirty plates from the hatch and stacked them at the sink. His hands trembled at the idea. There was time, but he had to be quick, and quiet.
    Five boxes. Two from each wouldn’t be missed.
    He tried the sitting-room first. One box. He opened it, and it was full: at least a hundred cigarettes. He took ten straight away, but that was too many, and he fed them back until the box