We made idle chitchat until we eventually reached the local church and cemetery. Guiding me around, he explained his Irish Catholic heritage.
“Do you still believe in God, after what happened to you?” I asked as we moved slowly down the church aisle. Ruadhan was admiring the images in the stained-glass windows.
“If anything I believe now more than I ever did. The Purebloods came from Hell, and Gabriel came to us from Heaven,” he said.
He bent his head in silent prayer at the foot of the altar before we ventured back outside.
Drifting through the cemetery in winter was eerie, but Ruadhan took his time, reading the inscriptions engraved into the headstones. “It’s amazing, isn’t it? To think I am more than a hundred years old, but yet here I am, and here they are.” He looked down at me. At over six feet tall and burly, he was quite impressive.
“But that is the normal order of things, Cessie. You will grow older and you will die one day, and that’s how it’s meant to be.”
He seemed humbled. Little did he know, I was actually far older than he was, and as far as I knew, I could never have an end of any kind.
We left the cemetery and walked down the narrow street, passing by a wide property that looked as though it dated back to the Tudor period.
“That was used as a school in the nineteen hundreds. It’s been converted into a house since,” he explained.
I could tell. It was an old-fashioned one-story building from a bygone era, with windows stretched from the bottom right to the very top. I could almost hear the excited children running and giggling as they stood in the playground waiting to go inside.
Opposite was a row of terraced cottages; they were all painted white with a short picket fence running the length of them. They were small, but looked very cozy. The properties were more clustered along the main road, but you could see farther back that the houses got bigger on the streets that continued off this one. We approached a tall sign that swung and creaked in the chilly wind; it featured a picture of a horse’s head surrounded by the words THE WHITE HORSE.
“Local boozer,” Ruadhan said.
We neared the entrance and the prospect filled me with pleasure: another single-story brick building, which looked more like someone’s home that had been converted than a purpose-built public house, with its old-fashioned black and white beams and array of benches outside sheltered by enormous umbrellas. Of course, no one was actually using them because it was freezing, but inside you could hear that the place was brimming with people.
Ruadhan offered to take me in and treat me to a Sunday lunch.
“Sure. That would be lovely, thanks,” I said as he chivalrously held the first of two doors open for me. I still didn’t have much of an appetite, but I wanted to go in and escape the frost for a while.
Stepping inside, I was suddenly reminded of the life I had been living up until recently. While the building and the thought of the families inside enjoying their Sunday dinners had initially made me feel warm inside, that sensation was quickly replaced with the cold reminder of the loneliness that I had come to associate with my existence in these places.
It was tightly packed and ahead of me was a large wooden bar with an overworked barman trying desperately to attend to five raucous customers at once. There were logs burning in an open fireplace, heating the whole room, which instantly took the edge off the chill. The room felt even more snug thanks to the low ceilings, and I noticed Ruadhan wasn’t far from hitting his head on the thick beams that ran the whole length of the room.
“If you walk down and to the right, there’s a set of double doors. They have another seating area out there covered by a tent with heaters; we’re more likely to get a table in there.”
“Okay, great.”
“What would you like?” he asked.
“I’m happy with anything, I’m not that fussy.”
“Aye, and what about to drink?”
“Just a juice, please,” I replied, and began squeezing through the standing patrons to reach the double doors.
Sure enough, a table at the far end was available, so I ventured over to claim it. I peered out of the clear plastic of the tent onto the sloping gardens at the back and glowed as I watched the children playing on the swings and running about with their dogs. It was charming and rustic; just how an English pub should be.
Ruadhan spotted me at the end of the tent and, joining me, placed a pretend saltshaker that said TABLE 6 on it. Drinks in hand, he passed me a cranberry juice and plonked a pint of Guinness in front of himself.
I noted it curiously before asking, “Do you eat and drink normally?”
“Drink, yes; eat, no. Being a, well, you know … alcohol is actually far more intoxicating than it is to normal folks like you. Food, well, you know the score there. Luckily for you I have had years of practice on this stuff!” He laughed heartily as he guzzled his pint, leaving a frothy white mustache on his top lip. I giggled and wiped it away for him with a napkin.
“So tell me, Cessie, where are you from? Where are your parents?”
I hesitated a little before I replied. I had instantly liked Ruadhan, and I felt guilty for being dishonest with him. So I tried to stick to the truth as best as I could, just omitting some of the detail. “Well, not much to tell. I was orphaned, if you like. Always been on my own as far as I can remember. I was working in a pub in Creigiau when I came across Jonah on my way back home. You know the rest.…” I trailed off, taking a sip of my juice.
“Home? I went back there; it was more of a shell if you ask me. What’s a nice girl like you doing staying somewhere like that?”
I’d forgotten that he had gone back in search of my things.
“Well, I don’t have any family. I wasn’t making much money, and that house was just sitting there.…” I said. “And what about you? I bet you have a much more interesting story than mine.” I wanted to change the subject, but he seemed unnerved as he shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
“I’m from the Emerald Isle originally. ’Course you probably gathered that.” He paused for a moment, slurping his beer while he considered the rest of his story. “I wasn’t a young man when I was turned, and served for over ten years before Gabriel found me. He saved me from my Gualtiero and he helped me rediscover my humanity.”
His face became drenched in regret and sorrow; I would have thought being saved would evoke a different emotion. I leaned in, hoping he’d tell me more.