by Dai Smith
He had taken Narine, the boy and the baby out to the coast last summer. The little boy had played in the waves as if they were something new and unique, especially provided for him. Narine had prepared dahl and chappattis which they ate on a rug placed over the sand. He could feel the stares; unease or novelty, he couldn’t be sure. He tried to ignore them. The beach was packed with children, kites, dogs, sandcastles, the debris of a day out. Naz had been filled with the wealth of summer, the God-willing luck that had provided him with a wife and child. Narine couldn’t swim, but she went into the water in her suit. The boy had played with the ball, and the waves had played with him. It had been a good day. He would be a father again in the spring, but that was a long way back through the winter now.
The traffic lights held him on the corner of Bute and James Street. An ambulance streaked past. Blue lights flooding the cab. The man in the back leaned over to get a better look at the road.
‘I didn’t think it was going to be like this?’
Naz looked up at the mirror to see the man’s face. Lines of stress seemed to have cut into him.
‘It’s the time of night.’
‘No, not the traffic. The city, this country. I don’t understand it.’
The lights allowed the car to move forward. Naz checked his watch.
‘What time is your meeting?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
The man seemed to collapse back into himself.
‘It is your country?’
‘Yes, but I can’t escape from it.’ The man struggled in his pockets for money.
The edifice of the Assembly building rose out of the rain. It was spotlighted but seemed unsure of itself on the stage in this new half-country.
Naz pulled the car into a lay-by opposite the building. Four pounds forty was displayed on the clock. The man handed him a five pound note. Naz knew he would require change.
‘Can I have a receipt, please?’
Naz scribbled the amount on the back of a card. His writing had never been as good as his speech, but he was OK on the numbers. The man pocketed his change and the receipt. He got out of the cab and shut the door. Naz pulled the car back onto the road and headed into town.
He didn’t like calls at the university. They were usually students. There were too many students in the city. The city swelled with them every October, gorging itself on their easy money. But by December he was tired of their jokes, their endless enthusiasm and the way they threw up in his car. Today was the last day of term. He kept up with these events. He used them to mark his time in the city. Six years now. Six years with a new wife and now two children. The first one was a boy, that was good. The next a girl. That was good also but maybe more expensive. Still he loved girls and the way she opened her eyes to him. He would earn enough money. He would be successful in this city. His father-in-law had offered to lend him some money to start a business. It was good to be in business. In business for yourself. He knew about the cars. There would be younger men keen to work longer hours as the city expanded. He wouldn’t be a younger man much longer. Then he would need to make a business.
The car pushed itself along the flyover that cut back into the centre of the city. The road rose steeply, soaring above the railway line and the units that lined its route out to the east. From the top the city was all briefly visible before the road crashed into the walls of the prison and the horizon reduced itself to streets again. The traffic slowed him again at the law courts. He wasn’t sure if the fare would still be waiting at the university. People called through then forgot about it.
The students reminded him. There had been a ripple of meningitis cases last winter. He had seen their faces in The Echo. Bright, young, hopeful, dead. It took them so quickly. A few days of coughs and headaches and then a sharp coma. There had been a man working in a restaurant he had heard about, a Hindu. He was working on Monday night, in hospital by Tuesday. He had only lasted two days. There was a picture of him behind the counter in the restaurant. A big smiling man. The boy was a fighter. A strong boy. He could feel the determination in his arms as he clambered around his shoulders, mouthing words in two languages. It had been too many days, the dark days of winter in the city. He called back into the radio. He was signing off for the night. There was a brief complaint from the operator on the far side of the call. Then he put the handset down.
A month ago he had followed the cars to the cemetery. They had been given a plot out in Ely, a few miles to the west of the city. The graves were new. They had been cut deeply into the soft Welsh loam. Each new mound, a life ending out here, many miles from the start in a dusty village on the Indus plain, or the crumbling walls of Lahore or Karachi. The cities themselves had changed their names, as if able to disown their children. They couldn’t return to a place that no longer existed. They had cut themselves off and would now be the first to die in this new place where it rained through the long winters. He had thought of their hopes. Many of the graves carried pictures of them as young men. Faded, overexposed pictures of dark men in poor new suits, eager for a go at the world. Most had thought they would go back.
They had listened solemnly in the mosque off Crwys Road. The walls dripped with the sounds of his childhood and the cool mornings in Peshawar before the sun got too high. The time to work. His father had been keen on education, avoided politics. The future was commerce.
The new mosque had been a factory, making clothes. They bought it with donations and optimism. He never attended much himself. The community was growing. He could buy Halal meat now and vegetables he hadn’t seen since he left Manchester. His wife bought clothes from people who could speak Urdu.
The meat was good but to be avoided in memory of his father. But it was there, fresh and available. They had some strength now, numbers, a community. The boy would be starting school in a year. He would learn English properly then.
There were casualties. His closest friend ran a chip shop in Llanrumney and was living with a woman called Ruth. He had given up the cars. He was too old for the abuse and the girls who wouldn’t pay you and the men who simply walked away. He would trust in Allah, he had claimed, and now he was sending money to a woman he had married and living with one he hadn’t. But Naz couldn’t leave the faith. It was part of him. The inscription above the door convinced him. Allah is good. Allah is great. And indeed he had been. But now, with his son at the hospital, he wasn’t so sure. The little boy had committed no sin, but then he remembered his own nights on the riverside in Manchester.
He drove the car along Richmond Road, across the junction. The lights favouring his flight. He pulled up at number forty-seven Mackintosh Place. The lights were on in the front room. He could feel the tension in his fingers as he cut the engine and opened the car door. The door to his house was ajar; he could smell the good smells of cooking flood through him. He found Narine in the kitchen. She was sitting at the table slumped over, her head resting. He touched her hair. She stood up and folded into him. He knew his daughter was being cared for; he knew the boy had gone.
MUSCLES CAME EASY
Aled Islwyn
Muscles came easy, I said. Looked like a bulldog at eight, size fourteen collar at thirteen and captain of the senior school rugby team at sixteen.
He was impressed. I could tell. Shuffled his arse on those pussy-sized stools they have at the bar at Cuffs and offered to buy me a drink.
Now normally, I don’t. Don’t talk. Don’t look ’em in the eye. Don’t do nothing once I’ve fucked ’em in the darkroom. Them’s the rules. Walk straight out of there. Maybe have a drink on my own, or talk to Serge behind the bar, as I did tonight. Then go back a little later to see if it’s busy in there by then.
Guess this guy just happened to see me there at the bar. Well! Let’s face it. You can’t miss me.
French, apparently. From Lyon. A businessman on his way down to Tarragona. Married. I wouldn’t be surprised. But no ring. Not your usual Cuffs customer at all.
Asked me if
he could see me tomorrow. How naïve can you get? Didn’t disillusion the sad fart. Didn’t seem right to, somehow. Said my day job at the gym kept me busy. Wanted to know the name of the gym. And I told him. Said he’d look it up next time he was in Barcelona.
Yes, do that, mate, I said. But, frankly, I wouldn’t recognise him if he pole-vaulted onto this balcony right now.
Then – big mistake! – he grabbed me by my upper arm and tried to lean over to kiss me. Jesus, man! How gross can you get? But I still didn’t have the heart to tell him to fuck off, or that Serge paid me to prance around in the darkroom with no shorts on. It’s Serge’s way of making sure the facilities get well used if it’s been quiet in there for a couple of nights. I start the ball rolling in there if they seem a bit on the shy side. Pick someone I’d normally go for and give him a blow job. Sometimes it develops into a free-for-all. Sometimes not. But they’ve got to feel they’ve had a good night out, these saddos. That’s what they’re there for… supposedly.
For the most part they’ve got to grope around in the dark for themselves and find their own bit of fun, but Serge reckons someone like me making himself available for a while helps get things going. And it’s always the start of the week he calls me. By Thursday, apparently, they need no encouragement. Never get these club jobs on a weekend.
Wouldn’ t have touched that French guy with a bargepole in my own time. Just didn’t have the heart to tell him the truth. Should have really. I’m just too soft. Always have been, see!
Got up and left him after the kissing fiasco. Went straight back in there and fucked two more. Condoms worn both times, of course. Part of the game ever since I’ve been at it. Surprised how many of the older ones still ask and check. Guess they remember a time when it wasn’t the norm.
Seeing the traffic going backwards and forwards kept Serge happy, I could tell.
Then the last dumb trick I pulled must have had this thing for armpits. Licked me sore he did, the bastard. Not really my thing. But he was good at it, I’ll give him that.
Glad of that shower though.
First thing I always do when I come in from these club jobs. Check Mike’s asleep (and he always is) then get cleaned up. Check myself over. Thorough. All part of the routine. Important. Never fail.
And so’s this brandy. Part of the routine, like. Just a small one. Few minutes to myself out here in the fresh air. Mull things over. How it all went and that. Well-toned body. Well-honed mind. All that shit they pumped into you at college. Well! When all’s said and done, it’s right, like, isn’t it? When you really think it over. Has to be… for the life I lead.
I refused point blank. Told him straight. I’m not dressing up in cowboy boots and stetsons for nobody – and no amount of extra euros.
O, si, he said, but line dancing is all the craze now!
That may be so, I said back, but I told him straight… he’s running a great little health studio there, Raul. Legit. The genuine McCoy. Not some poof’s palace where a lot of poseurs prance around pretending to lift weights and keep fit.
I’m strictly a one-on-one guy. Personal Trainer is what I’m employed as and that’s what I am. Press-ups. Rowing machine. Circuit training. All the stuff I know really works. I work with clients individually. One-to-one. Assessments. Supervision. Even down to diets and lifestyle choices. A proper trainer.
OK, I do some aerobic stuff with the women clients, I grant you. But they just like to hear the word used often. Don’ t think half of them know what the hell aerobics means. And told him that’s all the pampering to fashion he’ll get from me.
Oh Joel, you not mean it! You think it over, Joel… please… for Raul!
Love the way Raul says my name. And he knows it. They’re not used to it here – Joel – which is strange. I always find. Spain being a Catholic country and all. You’d think they’d know their Bible.
He makes it sound like Hywel. Reminds me of home. Our geography teacher was called Hywel Gordon. Had a hell of a crush on him at one time. He’d been a very promising full back, but some injury had put paid to that. No sign of injury on him from what I could see. But there you go! Guess it was the bits of him I never did get to see which needed scrutinising the most.
Raul’s been good to me these last four years. Him and his missus. Helped me with my Spanish when I first arrived. Fed me. Gave me a job. I only want best people work with me in my fitness studio, he’d say. And I want you.
They speak Catalan together. Raul and his wife. And their kid gets taught in it at school. Like they do with Welsh back home, I suppose.
Not me, of course.
My nanna could speak Welsh quite a bit. Chapel and that. But I couldn’t sing a single hymn at her funeral. And felt a right nerd. If there’s anything of value to lose, you can bet your life my mam’ll be the first to do so.
Couldn’t be arsed with all that, really, were her thoughts on Welsh.
Then one day she lost her purse on the bus. Huge kerfuffle in our house. A whole week’s wages gone. No wonder my dad left. I’d have been OK if it wasn’t for her with the glass eye from Tonypandy confusing me with all that talk about her Cyril! The only explanation anybody ever got from her on that little incident.
Poor cow has even managed to lose a breast. You’re one nipple short of a pair of tits, Mam! I tease her rotten sometimes. She laughs.
You’ve got to laugh in the face of adversity, she says… except sometimes ‘adversity’ slips out as ‘anniversary’. It’s a miracle I’m as well-adjusted as I am.
And I bet Raul has me taking these bloody line dancing classes any day now. I can see it coming!
Don’t know why you won’t get yourself a tidy job, she said.
I knew as soon as I picked up the phone she was going to take a long time coming to the point.
Come back home and be a teacher. Papers always say they’re crying out for them round here. And there’s you there with all them qualifications…
I already got a tidy job, I said. Why I bother explaining every time, I don’t know. She’d never heard of a Personal Training Instructor ’til I started calling myself one – as she’ll happily tell anyone who’s sad enough to listen.
Didn’t take a blind bit of notice. She never does. High as a kite ’cos of something. I knew it when she first came on the line. I could always tell, even as a child. Her voice almost croaking with that hysterical shriek she puts on when she’s dying to tell you something.
Our Joanne’s pregnant again. At last she came out with it. In one great torrent. The washing machine’s on the blink. And to cap it all, the real biggy was her final punch: Oh, yes…! And Dan Llywellyn has cancer.
Then silence.
I felt nothing, really.
Said I was sorry to hear that, like you do without thinking. But I couldn’t honestly say I’d thought of him at all for several years.
She didn’t know where it was. Somewhere painful, is all she’d heard. The talk of Talbot Green Tesco’s last Saturday, apparently.
He had it coming, I suppose. But I couldn’t tell Mam that. Wasn’t glad. Wasn’t sad. Felt nothing.
Still don’t know why you started calling him Dan Dracula. She was chipping away on an old bone, hoping she’d catch me on the hop. Always thought it was cruel of you, that, after all he’d done for you.
It’s because of all he’s done to me, Mam. That’s what I wanted to tell her. But didn’t.
He’s also the one who introduced me to weights. Saw my potential. Dan Llywellyn is the one who saw our Joel’s full potential. That’s what he’ll always be credited with. Showed me the ropes. Gave me definition.
You’re everything you are today ’cos of that man, she declared with conviction.
She was right, of course. And she meant it at face value. Wouldn’t know what irony was. Not my mam. If she can’t get it cheap on Ponty market, she doesn’t want to know.
Her kitchen floor was completely flooded, apparently. Took three bucketfuls of mopping to clean it up. And today
it rained there all day.
You call me a Muscle Mary one more time and I’ll fucking give you a good hiding, I said.
I haven’t called you a Muscle Mary once yet, he replied, playing child-like with my left bicep.
Well! To be fair he hadn’t. Not during today’s debacle.
Pussy-boys are so predictable, I said. I always know what’s coming next with you.
You’re just a slave to your ego, Joel, he retorted. And that’s a very subservient place to be for a man of your physical stature.
On the bed, Mike rolled on his stomach as he spoke, and lowered his voice to that detached level which always places him beyond any further verbal bruising. It’s a ploy he’s mastered to perfection. The aim is to intimidate me and exonerate himself. It’s a tactical illusion, of course, rather than a sign of true superiority. It’s a part of our game. A futile duel fought in a darkened room, while our neighbours, all around us, bathe in a siesta of rest and serenity.
Maybe that’s why we laughed. Lying there bickering in our Calvin Kleins on that vast double bed this afternoon. It was the only thing to do. Our last hope of not looking ridiculous, even to ourselves.
We’ve lived together long enough to be both comfortable and bored with each other in equal measure.
I slapped his arse and told him to go make a cup of tea. And that’s when my mobile rang, just as he opened the door to the living room and let the light in.
This guy’s from Valencia, right. The one who rang. Owns a club, it seems, and wants me down there next Tuesday night to work his back room. Personal recommendation from Serge, apparently.
I jumped off the bed and stood upright to talk.
Two things, I said. One: Valencia’s too far, man. Must be four hundred kilometres, easily. Don’t know how much that is in miles. Gave up converting long time ago. But then relented when he mentioned the fee. Said I’d think it over. Oh, yes! And the second thing, I said: I’m strictly a top. Hope Serge made that clear. This boy’s arse is an exit only. Period.