Peaks and Troughs

by Nick Perry

  So I put on the moon suit, making sure the gloves were over the cuffs, pulled the veil down over my face, and lit the smoker. Jack hung back while I lifted the roof of the hive and puffed smoke over the frames, whereupon an army of bees appeared, preoccupied, taking off and landing, and, dare I say it, extremely busy. We lifted out one of the frames, which were overflowing with honey, masses of it, set in the hexagonal cells.

  Jack had carried down Ros’s jam-making pan. He was wearing no protection whatsoever and once again bees were crawling all over his hands, but not one of them stung him. The secret lies in the chemicals the body gives off. That was my theory. Or perhaps Jack, being at ease, gave out no threatening messages. For some reason I spoke in whispers. Can bees listen in? Or are they on some other frequency, listening to cosmic radio waves, all highly tuned into a celestial world?

  ‘How many are we taking?’

  ‘Don’t let’s be greedy. Just the one.’

  I replaced it with an empty frame, one of many Jim Best had given us. Did they notice, I wondered, or would they, being of one mind, just work that little bit harder to fill it again before the cold weather set in. It felt as if we had burgled somebody’s house. Well, we had; it wasn’t as if they had given it up for some greater good. We were petty thieves.

  But the golden honey looked wonderful. I got out of my space suit and sat down with Jack on a rock in the afternoon sun to stick our fingers into the comb.

  ‘It’s the elixir of life,’ I said. ‘Maybe we will stay for ever young.’

  ‘Never get arthritis.’

  ‘Never go bald.’

  ‘You’re halfway there already.’

  Back at the house, Sam and Lysta were home from school. I told them to get Rob and Hamish; I had a special treat for everyone. I toasted the bread Ros had made from the wheat grown on the farm, spread it with the butter we’d made from Frieda’s milk and placed the honeycomb in the centre of the table. It was another of those satisfying moments that lifted the soul. We had achieved so much from what had all begun as a simple dream. It was a pity Ros wasn’t there to share it with us.

  I got the call when I was back in the house having breakfast. Gwyn had died at five o’clock in the morning, with Ros and Eryl at his bedside. I put my arms around Sam and Lysta, told them their grandfather, their taid, had died and gone to join the angels.

  It was unusual for Jack to come by so early. The geese chased him, running down behind the van, their wings flapping, honking, as they always did. We ignored this daily occurrence. Only Meg took any notice, trying to scatter them, until Jack called her. I told him the news.

  ‘He was a good man. I’ll miss him . . . I hope Ros will be OK.’

  ‘Why are you here so early?’

  ‘I need fifty quid in cash. Have you got it?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  Jack knew of a weighing machine for sale over in Capel. A ‘run through’, as he called it, with the scales above, fixed to a metal frame. You let the sheep in one end and out the other, better than suspending them in a canvas harness until they were quiet enough to take an accurate reading.

  ‘Fifty quid,’ I said. ‘Is that a good deal?’

  ‘They’re a hundred-and-fifty new.’

  ‘Offer him forty.’

  ‘God, you can’t help it, can you?’ Jack said, shaking his head.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You know what . . . just leave it to me.’

  I got the cash, giving him an extra five pounds.

  ‘What’s that for?’

  ‘Can you get some flowers for Eryl, from the florist in Caernarfon? You know the one near the cinema. They’ll deliver them.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll send them from us all.’

  After I told Rob and Hamish of Gwyn’s passing, we had to move thirty porkers into the holding area, to wait for Gitto to take them to FMC. He had already quoted me forty pounds cash. It annoyed me that he had no sense of time. I’d known him be over an hour late, for which he would say in passing ‘Sorry for the few minutes’ delay’, always putting it down to a mechanical problem. Whenever he left Dyffryn he would leave behind a puddle of oil. Once he left a wing mirror swinging on the five-bar gate at the end of the track. There was a tight turn there; he wasn’t the only one. The walls showed the telltale signs of scraped paint, all the colours of the rainbow. These roads were built when the mode of transport was a horse and cart.

  As we stood there waiting, Dewi came down the drive; surprisingly early for him. Opening the back doors of the van, he let two ewes jump out.

  ‘They’re yours,’ he said.

  ‘Where did you find them?’

  ‘I didn’t, Gethin did. Out on the Carmel road, where else?’

  ‘Gethin Hughes found our sheep, and gave them to you?’

  ‘He did, told me to bring them down.’

  I could not put into words what I felt. I stood in a daze, speechless.

  ‘Duw, you look like a man who’s just received the most astonishing news.’

  ‘Who would have believed it?’

  ‘There’s a man, I tell you, who has changed his ways. And that’s not all: he’s working a new dog now, Spider. A few rough edges, but a good dog in the making.’

  Before Dewi left, I told him that in all the years we had been at Dyffryn, I’d never met Gethin’s wife.

  ‘What’s wrong with her? Why does she never leave the place? I saw her the other day, couldn’t get a word from her.’

  ‘You and everyone else. She hasn’t got a word in her. She’s deaf and dumb, that’s why. Born like it.’

  ‘How did she meet Gethin?’

  ‘Duw, now you’re asking. That’s before my time.’

  ‘Dewi, before you go, there’s something different about you today.’

  ‘Surely you can tell? I’m wearing new glasses. Ma says I look like an owl.’

  What strange lives we live, and what strange relationships we form. What on earth went on in that house at Cae Uchaf, between the two of them? Why had they married? Maybe Gethin learnt sign language, and that’s how they courted. Who knows? I remembered he told me once that children ‘hadn’t come along with them’. And what had brought about this act of kindness, returning our sheep? What had turned the man from his malicious ways? Was it the fracas at Garndolbenmaen, or my going to him, telling him his dirty tricks were out in the open? Or maybe lying beside his silent wife he had become aware of a new door opening, that it was time to step through. All this swam around me as we waited for Gitto. That and the passing of Gwyn, wondering how Ros was coping.

  At last, and only forty-five minutes late, Gitto’s lorry appeared, the old rickety wagon swaying from side to side. When he got to us he jumped down from the cab, and before we could get in a word said, ‘You’ll never believe it, it’s that bloody clutch again.’

  Ros returned home as the last light of day slipped into the depths of a calm sea, squeezed between a bank of cloud that drifted along the horizon’s edge. Autumn’s bite was in the air, adding to the melancholy of the shortening days. She looked drained. We hugged, a long hug. I held her close with her head on my shoulder.

  ‘You’re not doing anything tonight,’ I whispered, leading her to the sitting room as Sam and Lysta came running in with Moss. We sprawled out on the sofa, each of us full of our own silence, remembering Gwyn.

  Seth crawled over Ros, trying to open his mother’s eyes. The day would not be forgotten. On any other night I would have told her about the remarkable change in Gethin Hughes. But there was no talk in me and Ros did not have the energy or the will to listen to something so dramatic.

  Together we fell asleep in the sitting room. Cat Stevens summed it up: it is indeed a wild world.

  12

  Do We or Don’t We?

  The funeral had the feeling of a state occasion. Caernarfon came to a standstill. The streets were lined with people who bowed their heads as the hearse passed on its way to Christ Church in North Road. All the dignitaries filed in, in
cluding the mayor and his wife. A constant stream of cars pulled up, doors opening to let out the well-to-do. There was not enough room for everyone inside the church, as the milling crowd around the entrance inched forward under the stone arch. We made our way through them, to the front pew where the rest of the family sat; Gwyn’s two sons Ian and Rhys, his brother Robyn and his children, nephews and nieces whom I hardly knew.

  The pall bearers carried the coffin down the aisle, followed by Eryl, her face veiled, wearing a black woollen coat. She acknowledged everyone at the ends of the pews with a polite smile as she came to sit next to Ros, who had Seth on her lap. There was no heating in the church and we shivered as we stood while the music resonated around the building. The acoustics confused me, as I could not see the organ pipes, or the organist or where the sound originated from. Gwyn’s coffin, covered with flowers, rested on a plinth draped with the Welsh flag. I wondered whose decision that was, for Gwyn was no nationalist, but a citizen of the world.

  Of those who came to the lectern to give a reading, or recite a poem, it was Dai Ellis who best summed up the man they all admired. He spoke of the selfless doctor who drove one winter’s night on the icy roads to Blaenau Ffestiniog, to see his sick boy suffering from tuberculosis, and in a snowstorm followed the ambulance back to Bangor hospital. His care had touched the family, who owed their son’s recovery after months of treatment to this man. ‘I’m just one of many who are indebted to the doctor. Byddwn yn gweld ei eisiau.’ We shall miss him.

  After the service there was a buffet lunch at the Royal Hotel. It was a muted affair, filled with the drone of sombre conversations between Gwyn’s acquaintances. For he had never, in the time I knew him, spoken of friends or mentioned an individual he was particularly close to. For his work colleagues he had, I think, not a fondness, but a feeling of mutual respect. Many would probably have said you did not get close to the man. But in his self-contained world, I always thought he had a place for me. He adored his grandchildren. The only sentimental quirk in his nature was the Valentine’s cards he sent every year to Ros.

  At the Eifionydd Farmers’ shop I saw Gethin Hughes loading his trailer with railway sleepers and I took the opportunity to go over and thank him for catching the ewes out on the Carmel road. I didn’t overdo it, neither did I hold back in showing genuine appreciation. He dismissed it, giving it scant regard, so I decided to say no more about it. To have forced a conversation with him, or tried to pursue a friendly chat, would have fallen on deaf ears. After I said hello to Spider, his young Border collie, I left him, bent over the sleepers in the cold drizzle of a February day. I would never get more than a few words out of the man, but at least the hostilities had abated.

  Several weeks had passed since the funeral. Eryl had gone on a cruise with a lady friend to the Canary Islands. Dewi told us that Arfon now farmed the Elysian Fields. He died in the cottage hospital with no meat on his bones, his heart worn out. I remembered that day at Henbant with him so clearly; I always would. Seeing his frailty then, I didn’t know what kept him going for so long. The farm would be put up for sale, the equipment auctioned.

  It was April 1976 when Tom and Agnetta told us their plans. They often dropped by, as friends do, never outstaying their welcome. During the day we had only minutes to spare. It was spring, everything in a rush; even the grass was in a hurry. Again we were growing wheat and potatoes; crops had to be rotated. Rob and I ploughed the top fields on the Massey. We worked into the evenings, with flocks of seagulls following the tractor. Cloud formations had changed in the lengthening days to wisps of silk that floated in the sky; over Cwm Silyn the light darkened, mauve upon the summit. The air was green with leaves unfurling, while dawn with its gathering brightness would wake us early with a chorus quite different from the one at dusk when the birds settled in the trees, until only a single thrush could be heard in the fading light. As one of these sweet evenings crept towards its quietness, Tom and Agnetta told us the scale of their adventure.

  Agnetta, ex-ice skater and full-time Danish beauty, was keen to get on with it. This plan had been a long time in the hatching. Having come into money, she wanted to spend it for the benefit of others and form a community with like-minded people here in North Wales. ‘People like you, who live off the land, growing your own food.’

  ‘I suppose in some ways we are a community,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, you are,’ agreed Tom.

  ‘But there’s more to it now,’ Agnetta went on. ‘We’ve worked out the details.’

  That was the beginning of a long night. We went through the practicalities of such a venture, who was going to do what. There would be a central pot, the bank, each person taking what they needed to pay their way in the world. Rob and I would run the community farm, Jack would look after the sheep, Ros would oversee a herb and vegetable garden. Everything in fact, that we did already. Tom would continue selling fish. All the income from Dyffryn and Tom’s business would go into the community bank. Agnetta would finance the whole project. We would trade as a limited company, in which we would have shares. It had come to the point where we had to decide whether we were interested in getting involved. We all looked at each other, not knowing really what to say.

  ‘It’s a lot to take in and just come back with an answer here and now,’ said Rob.

  ‘And you, Ros?’ asked Agnetta.

  ‘There’s so much to think about.’

  ‘Jack, does it appeal to you?’

  ‘I’m a bit of a loner. I’m not sure if I would have much to contribute.’

  ‘We need to consider it,’ I said. ‘You are asking for a huge commitment.’

  ‘Well, we’ve talked about it enough tonight. Why don’t we meet again in a week?’ suggested Tom. ‘It’s late. I’ve got to drive to Birmingham in about three hours.’

  So we agreed we would meet again, talk about it further.

  ‘We want you to be honest with us, otherwise it will never work.’

  In the morning, Harry cruised down the drive with two dead rabbits hanging round his neck, showing off to Sam and Lysta, ‘Look, no hands,’ skidding to a halt outside the kitchen door. He teased Moss with the kill he had brought for Ros to make a stew. He put his arm round me and pulled me to one side, whispering in my ear, ‘I’ve done it.’

  ‘Done what?’

  ‘Got engaged to Bronwyn Jones.’

  ‘The blonde barmaid at the Quarryman’s?’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘Congratulations, Harry! When’s the wedding?’

  ‘Hopefully before the baby’s born, which is in six months. Now I need to make some money, buy somewhere.’

  Harry lived with his parents on the edge of Penygroes, in an ordinary stone-built semi-detached house. They scraped by, his father living on sickness benefit, having been laid off with a lung disease caused by breathing in slate dust over the years in Dorothea quarry. His mother worked three nights a week in the fish and chip shop, which seemed to provide most of their diet. Every week Harry took home a basket of vegetables, but whenever I saw his parents they looked unhealthy. Their skin had a pallor, lacking some vital vitamin, or maybe just sunlight. Harry told me the ‘old man’ sat at home most days, reading the racing form, getting a neighbour to place his bets, not attempting to walk the few hundred yards to the betting shop in Union Street.

  ‘I’d marry her anyway. We’ve got a lot in common, you know: darts, shove-halfpenny, playing cards . . .’ he laughed.

  The news came as no surprise to Ros, who had heard snippets from Harry when he butchered the meat in the barn. He would confide in her, telling her things that men would never talk about between themselves.

  On the way to Pant Glas to get six more point-of-lay pullets, I called in to see my mother. I wanted to talk to her about joining forces with Tom and Agnetta, hear what she thought about it. When I walked into her kitchen, because I never knocked, she was having a cup of tea with Owen Bethel, who seemed embarrassed, as if I’d caught them up to something.

>   ‘Darling, I wasn’t expecting you. Is everything all right?’

  ‘I’ll come back. It doesn’t matter.’

  But Owen stood up, his tea unfinished, saying, ‘No, no, it’s inconvenient, I can see that.’

  My mother didn’t try to stop him, telling me she had some news, wanting me to stay.

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow evening, Dinah,’ he said, pointing to the box of Cadbury’s Milk Tray on the table. ‘I do hope you enjoy them.’

  ‘I will, I’m sure, and thank you for the book of crosswords.’

  We waited for him to put on his coat, passing the kitchen window, raising his hat as he disappeared down the garden path.

  ‘He’s a lovely man,’ she said. ‘Interesting and well read.’

  ‘I told you he would come calling.’

  My mother smiled and cleared the table, removing the evidence as if Owen’s gifts were better out of sight. She showed certain traits when something serious had to be discussed. Sitting upright in her chair, clasping her hands together, as if about to utter a prayer, or say grace before a meal.

  ‘It’s your sister. Her marriage has broken down, and she’s coming home.’

  Dale, two years older than me, married to a Canadian university lecturer, had gone to live in British Columbia and now had a three-year-old daughter, Freya.

  ‘It’s irretrievable,’ she went on. ‘He’s a philandering rogue, who would rather lecture his students in their bedrooms. It’s such a pity. I never thought he was that type of man.’

  On hearing this news I decided to keep quiet about my own. I knew my mother well enough. She would get flustered, believe the world around her was crumbling into uncertainty.

  ‘Of course, this changes my whole life, you realise that, don’t you?’

  ‘I’m not sure how it does.’

  ‘Well, she wants to return to Westbourne and study law. I shall have to help her. She’s a single mother, and she’ll need me to look after Freya.’

  I kissed her forehead, saying it was too early to decide anything. ‘Sit tight,’ I said. ‘Let things unfold. A direction will reveal itself.’