Evan's Gate Read Free

granted? I’ve been waiting to hear for a year now.”
    “In theory, yes.” Mr. Pilcher sucked through his teeth. “Of course you’ll have to have the listed buildings bloke take a look at it.”
    “Listed building? This?” Evan stared incredulously at the tumbledown ruin. “It was an old shepherd’s cottage before some English people gentrified it.”
    “Ah, but look at those walls, lad,” Mr. Pilcher said. He made his way gingerly across to the cottage and gave a halfhearted kick at the stonework. “Look at the thickness. Look at the mortar they used. These have to be pre-eighteen-hundred, maybe even pre-seventeen-hundred, which would make it automatically listed. And who knows about the foundation? It may have been built on the original foundation of a hill fort.”
    “A hill fort?” This was becoming more ridiculous by the minute. Evan had had several encounters with the National Parks Authority now, and each time he’d ended up feeling that he’d stepped into a twilight zone of bureaucracy.
    “Look, it’s just a bloody shepherd’s cottage, and all I want to
do is put a roof on it again and live in it,” he said.
    “Hold your horses, mate,” Mr. Pilcher said. “I understand your frustration, but these things can’t be rushed. It’s up to us to make sure that the integrity of the National Park is preserved.”
    “I don’t want to add a pagoda or a swimming pool or even put plastic flamingos around it.” Evan could feel his temperature rising. “I just want to make it livable again, the way it always was. Now what is so complicated about that?”
    “Look, lad, I can turn you down flat if I’ve a mind to,” Mr. Pilcher said. “The Parks Authority is all for reducing the number of residences within the park.”
    Evan had been staring past him as he spoke, trying to stay calm. His gaze followed the road up the pass, through the village of Llanfair, nestled directly below them, and then on until—he locked onto the Everest Inn.
    “Hang about,” he said. “What about the hotel down there? It was only built five years ago. How come they got permission? Don’t tell me that Swiss chalets were once part of the Welsh landscape.”
    “Ah well.” Mr. Pilcher cleared his throat. “From what I understand they made a generous donation to the CAE—the area development fund.”
    “If I’d known bribery would work, I’d have tried it last year, rather than waiting patiently to go through all these planning committees,” Evan said. “I was joking,” he added quickly.
    One quick glance at the man revealed that he obviously had no sense of humor or not one that matched Evan’s. Maybe a good chuckle when he had to turn down someone’s application, but irony would be beyond him.
    “Look, mate,” Evan tried another tack, “I’m getting married this summer. She’s set her heart on moving in here right after the honeymoon, and you know what women are like when they’ve made up their minds about something. This isn’t Caernarfon Castle, is it? It’s a little cottage that can’t even be seen from the road, and all I want to do is fix up the roof and move in. Is that too
difficult? If you do your inspection today and approve it in principle, then the listed buildings bloke takes his little look, and I can start work. I’m planning to do most of it myself, you know. And hiring out the skilled labor to local firms—boosting the economy, isn’t that what your development fund is supposed to be doing?”
    Mr. Pilcher had begun a circumnavigation of the cottage. During the two years that it had lain desolate, brambles had sprung up in what used to be a garden and Mr. Pilcher moved cautiously, stepping through the vegetation with distaste. “Nothing much to see at the moment,” he said. “You submitted plans, did you?”
    “In the file you’re carrying.”
    “Oh. Right. Let’s take a look then.” He opened the file. “Oh, dear me no. That won’t do.”
    “What?”
    “You’ll not be