One Moonlit Night
Page 15
She came into sight again as she went down the Hill, walking briskly, and I watched her until she went out of sight again at the bottom of the Hill. I sat at the window for a long time, thinking that I’d be able to see her again coming into sight on the Mountain path, over the top of the plum tree in front of the house. But there was mist on the Mountain and it had started to go dark, and I didn’t see her again. And there I was, sitting in the window and looking at the mist and imagining that I could see her walking along the Mountain path, all on her own. Then I went back to bed, miserable, and started crying like a baby with my head in the pillow, completely unable to stop.
When Guto came to bed with me and started talking, I couldn’t answer, I just pretended I was asleep so he wouldn’t see I was crying. But next morning, when we were having breakfast at the kitchen table, with me with my arm in a sling and eating with one hand, Guto was full of complaints about me.
I didn’t get a wink of sleep with him, Mam, he said to Auntie Ellen.
You don’t say. What was the matter with him?
Crying in his sleep, he was.
Are you homesick? said Auntie Ellen.
I was sound asleep, I said. I didn’t know I was crying.
And shouting, said Guto. And kicking all night. My legs must be black and blue.
You can both go and pick a few bilberries for me today, said Auntie Ellen, after asking how my arm was. Catrin can make a bilberry tart for tea.
Catrin was eating her breakfast and not speaking to anyone, just staring at my arm in a sling.
Watch his arm, said Aunt Ellen as we were setting off with a little pitcher each to pick bilberries in the field on the other side of the Hill. There was a stile to get over the wall into the field from the Hill, but there was no need to go down the other side, cos the field was level with the top of the wall. Dew, and the place was packed with bilberries when we walked to the far side of the field. It took us hardly any time at all to get a little pitcherful each. And then we sat down in the sun and ate bilberries till our mouths were black. And Guto showed me how to make a necklace out of bilberries and grass stalks.
We’ll take it home as a present for Catrin, he said when we’d made a really long one. You can see Snowdon from here, you know. There it is, look, with its head in the clouds.
Lor, I thought Snowdon was a long way away. It’s close, isn’t it, Guto?
Yes, but I bet you can’t see the Queen of Snowdon.
Dew, I can’t see a queen anywhere. And you can’t see one either. You’re having me on.
No, honestly. I’m looking at her now. But it’s not everybody that can see her.
Is she a real live woman, Guto? I can’t see anybody.
No. It’s the mountain over there that makes the shape of a woman against the sky, and it’s only on clear days like this that she comes into view. She’s lying down on the side of the mountain. Now look.
And Guto put one arm around the back of my neck and pointed with his other arm to the mountain next to Snowdon’s summit.
Do you see the steep slope over there where the sheep are grazing?
Yes, I see it.
Well, look over that, following my finger, a bit to the left-hand side by the top of the slope. Can you see the shape of a woman’s head, lying down?
Yes, I think so.
And then her chest a bit further down.
Yes, I can see it.
And then her belly, all swollen.
Dew, yes.
And then her feet, just showing below her skirt.
Lor, yes. I can see all of her now.
There you are, then. That’s the Queen of Snowdon. When you’ve seen her once, you can always see her after that.
Why do they call her the Queen of Snowdon?
Because she’s on top of Snowdon, of course.
Yes, but why do they call her a queen?
Cos she owns Snowdon, of course. And they say that if she ever gets up and comes down the mountain, it’ll be the End of the World.
Lor, can we take these bilberries home now?
Yes, we’ll go now. After dinner, you can stay in the house and read while I clean out the cowshed and feed the pig and cut some hay.
Where’s that over there, Guto? I said when we stood up, with our backs to Snowdon.
It’s Anglesey and Beaumaris and the sea down that way. Hey, Beaumaris is a nice place, boy. It’s the finest place in the whole world, Beaumaris.
I can’t see any sea, Guto?
No, you can’t see the sea from here. You have to go up to the top of Snowdon to see the sea properly. Or to Beaumaris to be right beside it.
Lor, I’ve never seen a sea, except in books.
I’ll take you on a trip to Beaumaris one day, when you’ve learned to swim properly. And we’ll go for a dip in the sea. And we can sit on the beach and watch the tide come in.
Dew, that was one of the greatest weeks I ever had in my life, going around the Bwlch with Guto, with my arm in a sling. I wasn’t the slightest bit homesick after that first night, and Guto didn’t complain once that I’d kicked him or been crying in my sleep. And when Mam came to collect me the next Wednesday, I didn’t want to go home with her.
Can I stay with Guto for another week, Mam? I said when she’d given me a kiss and asked how my arm was.
No, you’d better come home with me today, she said, so I can fix that old arm for you.
It doesn’t hurt at all.
Yes, well you’d better go home with your Mam today, said Auntie Ellen.
And Mam and me were wonderfully happy walking home along the mountain path that afternoon, with me helping to carry the bag even though I had one arm in a sling.
* * *
But it was on the path over the side of the Foel that I saw the sea for the first time ever. It was the year before Canon died, and I was on a trip to Glanaber with the Church Choir. And instead of going all the way on the train, we’d decided to walk over the side of the Foel down to Post Lane and catch the train to Glanaber there. I’d never been on a train before, either.
It was on a Saturday. We all met by the Foel Gate first thing in the morning, and there were more people in the Choir that morning than on any Sunday morning in Church.
Hey, it’s a fine day, isn’t it? said Huw, who’d arrived before me, with his cheeks all red and smiling from ear to ear. I’ve brought a bit of bread and butter in my pocket in case we don’t get enough to eat.
Me too.
How much money have you got to spend?
Two shillings, and eighteen pence from the Choir.
Dew, we’re rich. I’ve got half a crown in silver threepenny bits. And with the eighteen pence Choir pocket money we’re getting in Glanaber, I’ll have four shillings. Are you going for a trip on the steamer when we get there?
Yes, if they let us. And I want a donkey ride, as well.
Me too.
And we chatted like that as we went through Foel Gate with the mist rising from the grass and the gorse just as though someone was turning back the bedsheets and there was a green blanket underneath.
When we’d gone halfway up the side of Foel, we were getting tired. Huw had gone ahead with the others, and I was the last in the line, and the others were getting further and further ahead of me. Everyone except Frank Bee Hive and Ceri, Canon’s daughter. They were walking together behind the others but ahead of me when the others had gone out of sight over the side of the Foel. I saw Frank put his arm round Ceri’s waist, and she pulled his arm away and stopped and started telling him off. Then Frank went ahead on his own, and disappeared from view over the side of the Foel like the others, and Ceri was walking very slowly ahead of me.
Suddenly, she stopped and turned round and saw me coming up. And she walked back to me, with a big smile on her face.
Hello, my boy, she said with a bit of an accent due to being away at school in England. Are you tired?
A bit, I said, puffing like a train and blushing to the roots of my hair.
The view was as though the sky in front of us had suddenly opened like a curtain and revealed the Heavens to us, and the floor of Heaven was like I’d imagined it when I was lying lost on Foel Garnedd looking up into the sky. The floor was the bluest of blues, and the sun was shining on it, and it stretched far far away and then joined the silver wall of Heaven in the far distance. Then, on the left, there was a green carpet of trees in full leaf and the sea was going into it just like the hallway in a great house like the Vicarage. And that one was blue as well, the same colour as the sea. And there was a castle standing on the green carpet and from a distance it looked like a toy one, but it must have been huge when you were standing next to it.
Everything was like I’d imagined it in Church whenever I sang A Better Land in which to Live, and about healthy people without any pain or fear after they crossed the River Jordan. And specially when I was listening to Mam singing as she did the ironing.
Se-ee beyond the mi-ists of time
O-o my s-o-oul behold the view,
O-o my s-o-oul behold the view,
Whe-e-re the breeze is e-ever tender,
Whe-ere the sky is e-ever blu-ue,
Whe-ere the sky is e-ever blu-ue,
Ha-appy pe-eople
Ha-appy pe-eople
With fa-aces t’ward this pla-ace
With fa-aces t’ward this pla-ace.
God lives in that castle, for sure, I said to myself. And Jesus lives there with his Dad now, I bet, fully recovered after being crucified.
I’d let out a gasp when the Heavens opened before me and made me stop and squeeze Ceri’s hand. But I didn’t know I was crying like a baby until I heard Ceri say: You’re tired, aren’t you? Let’s sit down here for a minute.
No really, I’m happy, I said as I dried my eyes with my coat sleeve, and started laughing. It’s just as though we’re in Heaven, isn’t it?
Ceri put her grey coat down on the dew and sat down, and I sat beside her, and she put her arm round my shoulders, and my head was leaning nicely on her side, and it was soft, just like a pillow, and I could smell her perfume.
Well, I’m in Heaven now, anyway, I said to myself.
Do you see that castle down there in the trees? said Ceri.
Lor, yes.
Can I tell you a story about it?
Oh, yes. Is it a true story?
Yes, certainly. How old are you?
I’ll be ten in November.
Once upon a time, many years ago, a king lived in that castle and he had one daughter, and she was eighteen years old.
The same age as you, then?
Yes, and one day a wealthy young man came from London to the castle on a white horse, and asked the king for his daughter’s hand in marriage. And when she heard her father say: Yes, you may marry her, she ran upstairs to the highest room in the castle and locked herself in, and her father looked everywhere for her but he couldn’t find her. And that night, her sweetheart, a young man with blonde hair and blue eyes, who lived in that great white house over there, on the other side of the river, came very quietly to the castle in the dark and whistled beneath her window. And she made a rope out of the bedclothes and lowered herself down the side of the castle to him. And the pair of them ran away and nobody ever saw them again.
I was just going to sleep listening to Ceri telling the story when she took her arm from around me and made me open my eyes. All the others were down at the bottom, about to disappear into the woods that grew along the side of Post Lane.
We’d better go now, or we’ll never catch them up, Ceri said. Can you run?
Course I can.
Down we go then.
And she started down the Foel, running like the wind with her hair billowing out around her head.
And I was flying like a bullet behind her.
13
IT STARTED BADLY, that day after the evening of the South Choir. No wonder it finished worse. It was raining stair rods in the morning and I was sitting in school with wet feet cos my shoes leaked. I couldn’t concentrate on what Price the School was trying to say, I just watched the rain hammering against the window as though a lot of evil spirits were crying and wailing, and looked at the great puddles of dirty water in the playground.
Price was giving us Geography, and he’d been drawing a map of Africa on the blackboard and telling us what a hot country it was, full of black people who sometimes ate each other, and the sun beat down on their heads all day, from morning till night. Then he went on to tell us the story of Doctor Livingstone preaching about Jesus to the cannibals and getting lost in the jungle. But my feet were too wet to listen, what with the noise on the window as well. So I put my hand up and asked could I go out to the toilets.
But really I wanted to dry my feet. I had a pair of dry socks in my coat pocket in the cloakroom, and some brown paper to put in my shoes after changing my socks. And after taking off my shoes and changing my socks and putting the brown paper in my shoes and putting them back on again, I found a cigarette end in my waistcoat pocket. I’ll go to the toilets for a smoke, I said, even though I’d told Huw the night before that I was never going to smoke ever again.
There I was, creeping along the dry strip under the eaves to the toilets behind the School. Dew, I nearly had a fit when I saw him. There was Will Ellis Porter, lying flat out on the toilet floor, and he had such a great gash in his throat that I thought his mouth was open, and the whole place was swimming in blood. I just took one look at him and ran like the devil to tell Price the School, and I was shaking like a leaf, and he couldn’t understand what I was trying to say.
W-W-Will E-E-Ellis P-P-Porter, sir, I said. L-L-Lying ou-ou-outside th-there. Η-He’s d-dead.
Price shouted for Shorty Williams from Standard Four and they both went out to the toilets. Then we saw Shorty Williams through the window running like lightning across the playing field through the rain without his coat and hat.
Gone to fetch my Dad, said Little Will Policeman.
And Price came in as white as chalk and said we had to go home and there’d be no afternoon school, and no one was to go near the toilets. Little Will Policeman’s Dad had arrived by the time we’d been sent outside, and he was talking quietly by the School door to Price and Shorty, who was soaking wet through.
What did you see? said Huw when we’d crossed the street and were standing in the doorway of the Sixpenny Ha’penny Shop to shelter from the rain and watching to see if we could see them bringing Will Ellis’s body out of the toilets.
There he was, lying flat on his back in the toilets, I said, and all the lads were standing around me with their mouths open.
Was he dead? said Johnny Beer Barrel.
Yes. The blood was pouring out of his throat, and his cap had fallen off his head, and his mouth was crooked, and one eye was open as though he was winking at me. And a big knife, like Johnny Edwards Butcher’s on the floor beside him, and that was all blood-stained as well.
I was rattling away like a machine gun because talking was the only thing that was stopping me from shaking and I didn’t want to let the lads see that I was frightened. And every time I did stop talking, I felt as though I wanted to be sick.
Did he say anything to you? said Davey Corner Shop. He was a daft ’un, young Davey.
Give over, you fool. How could he say anything if he was dead?
He was alright on Saturday, said Johnny Beer Barrel. I saw him going down the street to the station with a big box on his back.
David Jones’s, that box, Ann Jones the Shop’s brother, going back to America, said Huw.
I saw him last night, said Davey Corner Shop.
Saw who?
&
nbsp; Will Ellis Porter, of course. He was on the side of the Braich singing at the top of his voice.
You’ll have to go to the quest, Little Will Policeman said to me.
What’s a quest?
That’s where they say how he died, and decide if he killed himself or if somebody else killed him.
He killed himself, for sure.
How do you know?
It was me that saw him, wasn’t it?
Yes, that’s why you’ll have to go to the quest, so they can question you, so they can decide properly if he killed himself. How do you know someone else didn’t take him to the School toilets last night and cut his throat?
Maybe he was drunk, said Davey Corner Shop.
Give over, you fool. How could he get drunk on a Sunday?
And suddenly I thought about Uncle Will, and thought maybe he had killed Will Ellis Porter while he was drunk, and that he’d be hanged. Serve him right as well, I said to myself. Then I told myself: Shut up, you fool.
And there we were arguing until it had stopped raining. And all we saw of Will Ellis Porter was Davey Corner Shop’s Dad’s motor going round the back of the School and being driven away quick as a wink, and Little Will Policeman’s Dad sitting in the front with the driver. I couldn’t bear the idea of going home on my own.
Are you coming to help me chop sticks in the shed, Huw?
Yes, boy, said Huw. But I’ve got to be home by dinnertime to see the men from the South Choir before they go away.
Alright then, let’s go.
Dew, they’re nice men those two South Choir blokes who are staying with us, said Huw as we went up the Hill. Look what I got off one of them.
And Huw went into his pocket, and brought out a hell of a good pocket knife, not like that one I got from Humphrey Top House ages ago, but a black one with two blades in it, a big blade and a little blade, and both as sharp as razors.
They’re not starving, you know, like we thought last night, said Huw. Mam had made a hell of a supper for the two of them but they didn’t eat much at all.
Dew, they deserved a proper supper, too, after singing so well.