by Nick Perry
‘We’ll do our best,’ I said.
‘Lonely, as well.’
Then he fixed a benevolent gaze upon us, a reflective look, maybe remembering himself as a younger man. He might have been in his late forties; it was hard to tell under the helmet.
‘Go on then, boys. Good luck to you.’
I started up the car, wishing him again a happy New Year.
‘You’re overweight,’ he said.
As we left Ledbury behind us, nerves dancing, I could feel my heart thumping against my ribs. Why hadn’t he asked to see my licence, taken our names and addresses? I told Jack I couldn’t go through that again. I would take my driving test as soon as we had settled in.
We calmed down singing along to Otis’ ‘A Change Is Gonna Come’, together reclaiming our composure.
After we had passed through Betws-y-Coed the road narrowed; for the next half an hour I never got out of second gear. Around sharp bends stray sheep stood staring at us, their eyes illuminated, blinded by the headlights. A dishevelled motley crew, with tangled coats, loose wool hanging in great balls from their fleeces, these early morning stragglers were indifferent to any danger. I was constantly having to avoid them. I didn’t know what the sheep population of Wales was, but I didn’t want to reduce it through careless driving on my part.
For the first time on the journey my eyes blurred. Sleep floated up, until suddenly I heard Jack shouting my name. He said the car was veering across the road into a stone wall.
‘Don’t be so dramatic!’
We opened both windows, letting a vicious wind blast our faces; I was wide awake now. I kept telling Jack, ‘It’s okay, I’m awake.’
Ahead of us was a stretch of flat road, a chance to conserve fuel. Over the hills an aura of light broke along the ridges; on either side of us conifer plantations appeared out of the darkness. The countryside opened up. Dotted against the backcloth of this barren landscape, balancing on sheer rock, a few suicidal sheep stood staring down on us.
‘Sheep have all the best views,’ I said to Jack.
As the light increased we could see a ruff of small clouds skirting the peaks. Almost transparent, they vanished like a whim in the high breezes. I was filled with a sense of having crossed over from one country into another.
Then our journey came to an abrupt halt.
Ahead, a herd of cows swayed towards us. Following behind I could see the flat-capped figure of a farmer waving his stick, shouting into the wind. There were fifty of them at least, so we reversed some two hundred yards and sat waiting.
Then followed a sequence of events that whetted Jack’s appetite, capturing the magical relationship between a man and his working dog. Suddenly a collie jumped on to the stone wall and raced along the jagged edges, perfectly balanced, overtaking the whole herd in a matter of seconds. Leaping down, lying in front of them ears pricked, swerving rapidly, running between their legs, never barking, holding them on course.
We got out of the Traveller, thinking we could be of some help, at least by waving our arms to steer them through an open gate into the field. But we weren’t needed. We could hear the herdsman’s short, sharp whistles and see the dog responding, nipping at their hocks, retreating, lying down, tongue flapping, then leaping up again to head after a cow who had taken a fancy to the open road. Moving swiftly, she brought her back to the herdsman and he closed the gate behind her.
He was a drab figure, wearing a hessian sack like a shawl over his shoulders, carrying his crook across his arm. She waited affectionately for his hand to stroke her face.
Jack shouted over to me, ‘What did you think of that? Did you see it? The concentration, the swiftness of every movement. It was beautiful.’
‘Balletic,’ I said. And I meant it.
Jack was enthralled; I’d never seen that expression on my brother’s face before.
‘How old is she?’ he asked the herdsman.
‘She’s three now . . . I had her mother before her,’ he said, leaning on the gate, taking a tin of tobacco from his trouser pocket. Eyes a watery blue, words softly spoken, his weather-beaten face seemed to glow with a rusty hue. His deeply lined forehead gave the impression of a frown even when he smiled. Thumb and forefinger were missing from his right hand. He rolled a single-paper cigarette with dexterous fingers, using only his left hand. Even holding a box of Swans, taking a match and striking it, showed a skill that had been refined well beyond adapting to an impediment. As the match lit in his calloused hand, his palm curved elegantly around the flame, sheltering it from the wind, an art well practised.
‘Her name is Jess,’ he said, exhaling smoke from both nostrils and mouth. We recognised that he was a man at home in his world. On that quiet stretch of road we talked as dawn spread its light over boulder and stone and the silvery grass. We quite forgot about continuing our journey. He was open about himself and Jack, eager to know more about the dog, questioned him with a new enthusiasm.
‘Discipline and praise is the secret to having a good dog,’ he told us. ‘Start them off at six months. Easy on them, mind you; no more than lying down till you call them. Remember, it’s in their blood to work.’ He clicked his fingers, and she was up at his side. ‘You see, they never switch off. They listen to every word. Get away, Jess,’ he whispered and she was gone in a flash, tearing up the asphalt. Bringing his hand to his mouth, he stopped her with a whistle.
‘Remember, a whistle travels further than a voice in the wind.’
He turned and left her there, asked us where we were going, what we were doing out so early on a New Year’s Day. We told him our plans. Listening to the naïve aspirations of two city boys, he gave not a clue as to what he was thinking, passed no judgement, said only that we were young men with plenty of time to fail or succeed.
‘But you,’ he said, looking at Jack, ‘I see the shepherd in you.’
Then he whistled to bring Jess back to his side. ‘Good luck to you,’ he said walking away, dog at his heel. We watched them slowly disappear back into the landscape, our hands numbing in a stiff breeze.
It was nearly nine o’clock. On the deserted road with the morning still brightening we continued on the last leg of our journey. I thought of Ros and the children, stopping at a telephone box, ringing to wish them a happy New Year. But it was too early, and to get a disgruntled Eryl out of bed was not a good way to announce our arrival in her homeland.
‘No more than five miles to go,’ said Jack as the landscape changed from the barren wildness we had seen coming from Capel Curig into the Nantlle valley. Hills of slate spilled over from the Dorothea quarry encircling the terraced houses of Talysarn with an oppressive greyness. Now for the first time I recognised where we were. Talysarn had stuck in my mind when we had driven through it looking at smallholdings in the area. It weighed on me then just as it did now, surrounded by the waste of an industry that prevented any view to please the eye, a constant reminder to all who dwelt there of the lives given to labouring down a huge hole.
No sooner had we passed out of Talysarn than we came into Penygroes, the two villages separated by the secondary modern school whose stone buildings dwarfed the squat dwellings that flanked it. Penygroes was not a place of architectural interest, but a rather drab cluster of narrow streets whose faded front doors, once brightly painted, had the flaky look of a community down at heel. The main road ran through the middle, on its way to Porthmadog or Caernarfon.
We turned right and climbed the steep hill out of Penygroes. It was demanding on the Traveller, but she kept going, drinking the last dregs of fuel, until we arrived at the rusting metal gate, the faded sign Dyffryn Farm skewed at an angle, flapping in the wind. It was 9.50 a.m., and the whole journey had taken just under ten hours. There was no celebration, not even a sigh of relief, just silence as we sat there, my head slumped on the steering wheel.
We put together a couple of roll-ups and got out of the car, taking in everything around us. In the distance the calm Irish Sea mirrored the quietne
ss of the morning. Cwm Silyn rose as a shadow, its peak sharply defined by the blue background of a cloudless sky. Above us the hills, the irregular shapes of sloping fields. Out of this landscape steel pylons towered, stretching their cables, buzzing with electricity over the grazing flocks. Squawking gulls floated overhead on the sea air breezing in, no doubt eyeing up the newcomers.
We drove down the stony track that cut between the fields of one of our neighbours, Hughie Catchpole, to the middle gate that opened onto the top acres of Dyffryn.
Facing us was a barn with corrugated roofing, surrounded by outbuildings, including a small milking parlour. The drive down to the house was lined on either side by larch trees. Adjoining the house stood another barn, and opposite it a hovel used by a shepherd during lambing, where the keys to the house were hanging on a nail behind the door.
Now that fatigue which follows the endurance of a long journey swept over us. Just to unload the car seemed like a mammoth task. We needed sleep, and although I wanted to speak to Ros to tell her we were here, the phone was dead. Even if I could drive to Penygroes to call her, I doubted I would make it back. It was all we could do to empty the car, unroll two mattresses and shake out our sleeping bags. We got into them fully clothed, for the house was damp and cold. I pushed the button on the cassette player and drifted off listening to Fats Domino’s ‘Blueberry Hill’.
I wondered what thrills lay ahead for us.
2
Moving In
I woke amongst a pile of clothes, tins of food, a stack of LPs, a few bottles of Mateus Rosé. I had no idea of the time, and felt as though I’d slept an incredibly deep dreamless sleep. What with the journey and the sea air, I lay in a semi-conscious state. Through the window grey-flecked clouds were passing at speed, the odd bird floating in the wind. All I could see of Jack was his head poking out of his sleeping bag. It was as if he were cocooned within it. I could hardly hear him breathing. Maybe some kind of metamorphosis was taking place.
I unzipped myself and got up knowing there was no electricity, but tried the light switch anyway; one always does out of hope rather than expectation. On the mantelpiece I saw an envelope, my name scratchily written by what seemed like an elderly hand. I opened it. The writing sloped across the page, words smudged by drops of ink from a leaking fountain pen.
Welcome to Dyffryn, the place that has been my home since I was a child. I know you have come with your own children and these hills, so long a part of my life, are now yours to farm. I wish you well and good luck making a living from this land.
Daphne Musto
P.S. Beware of your neighbours.
I read it again. What did it mean, beware of your neighbours? Why was she warning us?
I left Jack sleeping and went outside. Those first deep breaths filling my lungs woke me up, invigorating and clean, so different from London’s polluted air. I wanted to find some wood to make a fire; surely there’d be a few logs around the place. I walked up to the top buildings, empty but for some old mildewed bales of hay, half-doors blowing in the wind. I shivered. There was a ghostly feel to the farm. I stood in what once had been the milking parlour, its stone troughs covered with bird droppings. A bundle of baler twine swung from a beam; metal chains that once tethered cows hung from the walls. I could sense the history of the place passing through me.
I was kidding myself if I thought I was going to find a pile of logs. There were some fallen branches which I broke over my knee. I unearthed a wooden box that had once held apples to use as kindling, but the best find was a few lumps of coal in the hovel opposite the house.
I made a fire, Jack still sleeping in the same position as when I left him. Upstairs were four bedrooms that I had to lower my head to enter, all with stripped pine doors and those old, pre-war brass knobs. The master bedroom at the front of the house showed the view across to Cwm Silyn in one direction, the shoreline of Dinas Dinlle beach in the other. This was where I would be sleeping with Ros whenever that would be; weeks away no doubt.
I toasted a slice of bread over the fire.
‘Jack,’ I shouted. ‘Come on, wake up.’ He didn’t stir. I held the toast an inch from his nose. ‘Smell that.’
‘Is it breakfast?’
‘More like afternoon tea.’
‘What time is it?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
I heard the sound of a car pulling up, the blasting of a horn. It was Ros in Gwyn’s VW Beetle with Sam and Lysta in the back. After all the hugs and kisses we sat with children on our laps in front of the fire. Ros had come with much-needed supplies, including boxes of candles and two folding chairs. There was a table strapped on to the roof rack.
‘You’ll find a sack of potatoes in the boot, and a saw to cut wood.’
Ros also brought a book of addresses and telephone numbers, including a plumber and an electrician. The telephone would be connected on the fifth of January, MANWEB would be here on the sixth. So a bit of hardship for a few days, we could cope with that. Ros lit a couple of candles.
‘No television. What on earth will the two of you do?’
‘Read my Farmers Weekly, or War and Peace, I haven’t made up my mind.’
‘Ma and Pa have invited you for supper tomorrow night. You’ll need a good meal by then.’
As I got the sack of spuds from the boot, Ros told me to take the can of petrol. ‘Pa said there won’t be a garage open anywhere today.’
We carried the table into the sitting room, put a chair at either end.
‘Look,’ I said, ‘we’ve moved in already.’
I asked Ros if she would leave her wristwatch.
The following day, after ten hours’ sleep, I awoke in a fog. It had to be sea air, the fresh winds. Or was it withdrawal symptoms, no longer breathing in petrol fumes? It was a struggle to enter consciousness, let alone get up motivated. The night before I’d had only one thing on my mind: to wake early and cut as much wood as possible. It was twenty past ten already.
‘Jack,’ I shouted. ‘Come on, let’s get on with it.’ No response whatsoever. So I shook him awake.
We drank tea, ate four slices of toast. Rain lashed against the windows, a wind whistled under the door. I could feel it on my ankles through my socks.
We apparently had two thousand larch trees, not only the ones down the avenue to the house, but a wood full of them bordering the lane that led to the lower fields.
We were dressed in loose-fitting boiler suits, bobble hats, and three-quarter length raincoats that came down just below our knees. We put on wellingtons and went out into a gale-force wind blowing in from the Irish Sea. With saw in hand I entered the wood to start cutting out those trunks that were spindly enough to get my hands around.
Jack had set himself the task of cleaning the holding tank. The stream that crossed the higher fields ran into it and became our water supply. It was the most primitive set-up, simply following the laws of gravity and flowing down through a metal pipe no more than five inches in diameter whose end was covered with a fine mesh. This is what we relied on to fill the tank that fed the house. That morning when we washed, the basin had filled with a muddy brown liquid the colour of oxtail soup.
I worked for three hours, my clothes completely waterlogged. I had long discarded my raincoat; I couldn’t cut wood with it on, unable to get into a rhythm. My pullover had put on weight, absorbing every drop of rain that fell. Even my underpants were soggy, and water sloshed around in my wellingtons. I had reached saturation point, and the result of this hard labour: a pile of logs that wouldn’t burn anyway.
I stood there, a dripping mess amongst the swaying trees, a howling wind in my ears, and had to laugh. I could see myself, but thank goodness Ros couldn’t. I think she might have given up hope there and then. The first thing to learn about farming: dress appropriately and buy a chainsaw. ‘Call it an initiation,’ I said to myself.
When I got back to the house, Jack was bent over the kitchen tap throwing crystal clear water over his face.
We boiled a saucepan on the Calor gas stove, and had our first proper wash and shave for three days.
After lunch the wind dropped and the rainclouds drifted away over the sea. We worked under a blue sky, stacking logs in the hovel. We knew they wouldn’t burn; they’d just spit when we laid them on the fire.
It was cold. Already on my soft hands a blister had appeared.
We were sitting on a stone wall outside the house smoking roll-ups when we saw him. A solitary figure walking down the drive, with his Border collie beside him. He approached with a heavy step in hobnailed boots, brass bands over the toecaps, wearing a threadbare serge coat held together with baler twine tied around the waist, and a well-worn flat cap with a split in the peak. He was pink-faced, myriad tiny blood vessels covering his cheeks in red patches. In his gnarled hand he carried a crook with a curved horn handle. His dog walked to heel. At a guess in his late fifties, he had the look of a life hard lived. He came with no handshake, just pushed his cap back above a deeply lined forehead.
‘I’m Gethin Hughes, your neighbour. Came over to say hello,’ he said without a fuss of words or wishing to elaborate further, or broaden the welcome with a smile. He had delivered the message and nothing else needed to be added. Uncomfortable as people are in silences, Jack and I were much more forthcoming. Through a light-hearted banter we extracted, rather than were given, some basic information about the man. He farmed eighty acres at Cae Uchaf, mostly sheep and fattening store cattle to beef. Married thirty-odd years to Ceinwen; no children. ‘They didn’t come along with us.’ Jack walked over to the collie lying behind him, always happy to be in the company of a dog.
‘Don’s his name. Eight years old,’ said Gethin. ‘A good dog until there’s a bitch on heat.’
He asked nothing of us, what our plans were at Dyffryn. Maybe displaying an interest would have put too much of him on show. Gwyn had told me that these hill farmers kept what they were thinking very much to themselves, the isolation of their lives resulting in not so much a problem with language as little practice in the art of conversation. Despite his reticence, he did not hold back in telling us the law of the land.