Story, Volume I

by Dai Smith

  ‘No, I haven’t been there.’

  ‘Tom spends every Sunday under the pier,’ the pug-faced young man said bitterly. ‘I got to take him his dinner in a piece of paper.’

  ‘There’s another train coming,’ I said. It tore over us, the arch bellowed, the wheels screamed through our heads, we were deafened and spark-blinded and crushed under the fiery weight and we rose again, like battered black men, in the grave of the arch. No noise at all from the swallowed town. The trams had rattled themselves dumb. A pressure of the hidden sea rubbed away the smudge of the docks. Only three young men were alive.

  One said: ‘It’s a sad life, without a home.’

  ‘Haven’t you got a home then?’ I said.

  ‘Oh, yes, I’ve got a home all right.’

  ‘I got one, too.’

  ‘And I live near Cwmdonkin Park,’ I said.

  ‘That’s another place Tom sits in in the dark. He says he listens to the owls.’

  ‘I knew a chap once who lived in the country, near Bridgend,’ said Tom, ‘and they had a munition works there in the War and it spoiled all the birds. The chap I know says you can always tell a cuckoo from Bridgend, it goes: “Cuckbloodyoo! cuckbloodyoo!”’

  ‘Cuckbloodyoo!’ echoed the arch.

  ‘Why are you standing under the arch, then?’ asked Tom. ‘It’s warm at home. You can draw the curtains and sit by the fire, snug as a bug. Gracie’s on the wireless tonight. No shananacking in the old moonlight.’

  ‘I don’t want to go home, I don’t want to sit by the fire. I’ve got nothing to do when I’m in and I don’t want to go to bed. I like standing about like this with nothing to do, in the dark all by myself,’ I said.

  And I did, too. I was a lonely nightwalker and a steady stander-at-corners. I liked to walk through the wet town after midnight, when the streets were deserted and the window lights out, alone and alive on the glistening tramlines in dead and empty High Street under the moon, gigantically sad in the damp streets by ghostly Ebenezer Chapel. And I never felt more a part of the remote and overpressing world, or more full of love and arrogance and pity and humility, not for myself alone, but for the living earth I suffered on and for the unfeeling systems in the upper air, Mars and Venus and Brazell and Skully, men in China and St Thomas, scorning girls and ready girls, soldiers and bullies and policemen and sharp, suspicious buyers of second-hand books, bad, ragged women who’d pretend against the museum wall for a cup of tea, and perfect, unapproachable women out of the fashion magazines, seven feet high, sailing slowly in their flat, glazed creations through steel and glass and velvet. I leant against the wall of a derelict house in the residential areas or wandered in the empty rooms, stood terrified on the stairs or gazing through the smashed windows at the sea or at nothing, and the lights going out one by one in the avenues. Or I mooched in a half-built house, with the sky stuck in the roof and cats on the ladders and a wind shaking through the bare bones of the bedrooms.

  ‘And you can talk,’ I said. ‘Why aren’t you at home?’

  ‘I don’t want to be home,’ said Tom.

  ‘I’m not particular,’ said his friend.

  When a match flared, their heads rocked and spread on the wall, and shapes of winged bulls and buckets grew bigger and smaller. Tom began to tell a story. I thought of a new stranger walking on the sands past the arch and hearing all of a sudden that high voice out of a hole.

  I missed the beginning of the story as I thought of the man on the sands listening in a panic or dodging, like a footballer, in and out among the jumping dark towards the lights behind the railway line, and remembered Tom’s voice in the middle of a sentence.

  ‘… went up to them and said it was a lovely night. It wasn’t a lovely night at all. The sands were empty. We asked them what their names were and they asked us what ours were. We were walking along by this time. Walter here was telling them about the glee party in the “Melba” and what went on in the ladies’ cloakroom. You had to drag the tenors away like ferrets.’

  ‘What were their names?’ I asked.

  ‘Doris and Norma,’ Walter said.

  ‘So we walked along the sands towards the dunes,’ Tom said, ‘and Walter was with Doris and I was with Norma. Norma worked in the steam laundry. We hadn’t been walking and talking for more than a few minutes when, by God, I knew I was head over heels in love with the girl, and she wasn’t the pretty one, either.’

  He described her. I saw her clearly. Her plump, kind face, jolly brown eyes, warm wide mouth, thick bobbed hair, rough body, bottle legs, broad bum, grew from a few words right out of Tom’s story, and I saw her ambling solidly along the sands in a spotted frock in a showering autumn evening with fancy gloves on her hard hands, a gold bangle, with a voile handkerchief tucked in it, round her wrist, and a navy-blue handbag with letters and outing snaps, a compact, a bus ticket, and a shilling.

  ‘Doris was the pretty one,’ said Tom, ‘smart and touched up and sharp as a knife. I was twenty-six years old and I’d never been in love, and there I was, gawking at Norma in the middle of Tawe sands, too frightened to put my finger on her gloves. Walter had his arm round Doris then.’

  They sheltered behind a dune. The night dropped down on them quickly. Walter was a caution with Doris, hugging and larking, and Tom sat close to Norma, brave enough to hold her hand in its cold glove and tell her all his secrets. He told her his age and his job. He liked staying in in the evenings with a good book. Norma liked dances. He liked dances, too. Norma and Doris were sisters. ‘I’d never have thought that,’ Tom said, ‘you’re beautiful, I love you.’

  Now the storytelling thing in the arch gave place to the loving night in the dunes. The arch was as high as the sky. The faint town noises died. I lay like a pimp in a bush by Tom’s side and squinted through to see him round his hands on Norma’s breast. ‘Don’t you dare!’ Walter and Doris lay quietly near them. You could have heard a safety pin fall.

  ‘And the curious thing was,’ said Tom, ‘that after a time we all sat up on the sand and smiled at each other. And then we all moved softly about on the sand in the dark, without saying a word. And Doris was lying with me, and Norma was with Walter.’

  ‘But why did you change over, if you loved her?’ I asked.

  ‘I never understood why,’ said Tom. ‘I think about it every night.’

  ‘That was in October,’ Walter said.

  And Tom continued: ‘We didn’t see much of the girls until July. I couldn’t face Norma. Then they brought two paternity orders against us, and Mr Lewis, the magistrate, was eighty years old, and stone-deaf, too. He put a little trumpet by his ear and Norma and Doris gave evidence. Then we gave evidence, and he couldn’t decide whose was which. And at the end he shook his head back and fore and pointed his trumpet and said: “Just like little dogs!”’

  All at once I remembered how cold it was. I rubbed my numb hands together. Fancy standing all night in the cold. Fancy listening, I thought, to a long, unsatisfactory story in the frost-bite night in a polar arch. ‘What happened then?’ I asked.

  Walter answered. ‘I married Norma,’ he said ‘and Tom married Doris. We had to do the right thing by them, didn’t we? That’s why Tom won’t go home. He never goes home till the early morning. I’ve got to keep him company. He’s my brother.’

  It would take me ten minutes to run home. I put up my coat collar and pulled my cap down.

  ‘And the curious thing is,’ said Tom, ‘that I love Norma and Walter doesn’t love Norma or Doris. We’ve two nice little boys. I call mine Norman.’

  We all shook hands.

  ‘See you again,’ said Walter.

  ‘I’m always hanging about,’ said Tom.

  ‘Abyssinia!’

  I walked out of the arch, crossed Trafalgar Terrace, and pelted up the steep streets.

  THY NEED

  Gwyn Thomas

  Whit Monday was the first day of brilliant sun after a week of mist and rain. Spring was nearly always a wet, diffident affai
r in the hills around Meadow Prospect and the people were delighted to see the burst of sun, for this Monday was a day of festival and gala. The sixth annual sports organised by the Constitutional Club was being held. The club flag was at the top of its pole, washed and fresh. The junior section of the club had its wooden premises decorated and filled with tables for the tea that was to come off at five that afternoon, and from about noon there had been groups of members’ children hanging about the club’s front door getting their teeth ready for the start. With these young elements circling for the swoop, Meadow Prospect wore an even hungrier, more watchful look than usual.

  Most of the day’s sporting events were over when the three friends, Sylvanus, Verdun, and Elwyn sat down on a bench in Meadow Prospect square, near the spot where Lodovico Facelli had his ice cream barrow. It was getting warmer all the time. The boys had their best suits on and were wearing the tight, white, long-peaked collars which were the current fancy among the young of the district. Their faces were red under the strain of strong sun and slow strangulation. Verdun ordered three threepenny wafers from Lodovico. The Italian made them extra thick and, after having handed them over, leaned on the barrow and stared at the boys as if the sight of them gave him genuine pleasure. Lodovico was considered too dreamy and generous to have much of a future in business, but he seemed to manage. Verdun waved his hand genially at Lodovico every now and then to show that the kindness of his expression and the thickness of his wafers were not wasted.

  ‘What you boys been racing in?’ asked Lodovico.

  ‘We’ve been stewards.’

  ‘Stewards? What you do?’

  ‘We were doing little jobs for Mr Marsden, who is the brains of the Con Club. If Mr Marsden sees anything that needs knocking into the ground, like a nail or a stake or some voter who won’t listen to the judges, he gives us the mallet and the signal to proceed.’

  ‘So you wait for the tea now?’

  ‘There’s one more race, the last of the day. The walking race,’ said Sylvanus. ‘My uncle Onllwyn is entered and he’s going to blind them with science.’

  ‘He good?’

  ‘They used to call him the White Horse, on account of his long snowy drawers and his fine strong stride,’ said Verdun. ‘He’s got a trick in starting, too, a way of twisting his legs and shooting forward like a bullet that is magic. It’ll make it useless for the other blokes even to get off the mark. The start is important, because this race is short. Honest, Lodovico, I feel sorry for those other boys when I think of Uncle Onllwyn and the way he shoots off. I’ve seen him practising in the back lane when things are quiet and I know. I call him the White Flash, because all you see is dust and his butts getting smaller. It’ll be a big day for him, too, because things have never gone right for Uncle Onllwyn, and this is the first walking match they’ve held here, and he’s never had the chance to shine before.’

  ‘I hope he win,’ said Lodovico. ‘I know Onllwyn. He’s a kind old voter. He’s sympathetic.’

  ‘He’ll win all right,’ said Verdun. ‘Tell Lodovico about the dung, Syl.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Sylvanus. ‘That’s supposed to be a secret, and anyway Lodovico wouldn’t want to hear about a thing like that, not with him in such a clean line of trade as ice cream.’

  ‘Dung?’ said Lodovico, still smiling intensely at the boys, but clearly puzzled. ‘Is this why they call your uncle the White Horse?’

  ‘No. I’ll tell you. Onllwyn heard about a famous runner called Gito who once lived among these hills. He was fleet as a bird, that Gito. Started after sheep and caught hares, that sort of voter. Uncle Onllwyn, who is a great reader, came across an old book about Gito, and it said Gito kept so supple by sleeping on a bed of old dung. So Onllwyn made a long coffin-shaped box and half filled it with dung, and that’s where he’s been sleeping for the last week, in this box in the shed behind the house, getting suppler all the time. He was so supple after the second day he was waving about like that flag over the Con Club.’

  ‘Good God,’ said Lodovico. ‘He must be very poor. Not even in Italy they sleep in dung. But I hope he win.’

  ‘That is certain, Lodovico, because in addition to being supple he also has his grips, home-made contraptions of solid rubber that he fits into his mouth to bite on whenever he feels his wind coming a bit short.’

  ‘Don’t tell him about those,’ said Sylvanus. ‘He’s in a fog now after what you told him about Onllwyn sleeping in the box.’

  ‘Those grips are more interesting than the dung, I reckon. He looks full of grip when he’s got them fitted in and his teeth seem to come right out at you. Between you and me, I think they called Uncle Onllwyn the White Horse as much for his look as for his stride or his drawers.’

  ‘What Onllwyn going to do with the money he win?’ asked Lodovico.

  ‘He’s got that all worked out. He’s buying gardening tools. He’s been very keen to get some of those for a long time. He spends so much time staring into the window of that Phineas Morgan the ironmonger that Morgan has got into the way of giving Onllwyn one flick with the dusting rag for every two he gives the window. Onllwyn wants these tools because he is keen on the earth and wants a smallholding. So long, Lodovico. We’re off to The Little Ark, that pub down at the bottom of Gorsedd Row.’

  ‘You drink?’

  ‘No. The race starts from there. It’s the landlord of The Little Ark, Hargreaves, who’s giving the prize. It’ll be the first time Onllwyn ever made anything out of the drink trade.’

  The three friends made their way towards The Little Ark. It was one of the older taverns of Meadow Prospect, low-roofed, a rust-red in colour. From a distance they could see Hargreaves the landlord standing in the small cobbled yard which fronted it, giving greeting to the first entrants and their supporters. The boys saw Onllwyn coming towards them down a side street. Verdun and Sylvanus looked at him wonderingly, for the last time they had seen him he had been radiant and lithe, with a hint of mastery in his every word and step. Now he walked slowly and his face was thoughtful and shadowed even beyond the point of darkling pensiveness normal in Meadow Prospect. In his right hand he carried the cheap suitcase which contained his racing equipment. They waited for him to come up with them.

  ‘What’s up, Uncle Onllwyn? What are you looking so sad for? You bad?’

  ‘No. I’m all right. I feel quite painless.’

  ‘You look down in the dumps. Come on, Uncle Onllwyn. I’ve been telling everyone what a champion walker you are. We’ve been telling everybody that you’re going to win.’

  ‘I’m not going to win. There are many things that are certain. One is, I’m not going to win.’

  ‘The bookies have been at him,’ said Elwyn, who knew more about these things than his friends.

  ‘You and your bookies,’ said Onllwyn, looking at Elwyn with a calm contempt. ‘It’ll all be due to Cynlais Moore, if you want to know.’

  ‘Cynlais, the bloke with the limp?’

  ‘He’s got a bit of a limp: That’s the boy. He came to see me two days ago. Cynlais seemed to be in the deepest sorrow I had ever seen. You know how I get when I see somebody in sorrow.’

  ‘You go daft, Uncle Onllwyn.’ Sylvanus’ tone was sharply unpleasant. ‘You’d be better off deaf when the sorrowful come around. But why ever did you listen to Cynlais Moore? Cynlais is known to be the biggest liar in Meadow Prospect.’

  ‘Cynlais is alive. Men alive change. It is likely that truth may have come to a better understanding with Cynlais.’

  ‘All right then. If you don’t want to get on, that’s your look-out. There’s too much pity in you. You’re a clown for stroking the sorrowful, that’s your trouble.’

  ‘He came to me and told me about his wife, Elvira Moore, who has been ill for a long time and is taking up a lot of money in tonics. Her bill from the chemist makes the Social Insurance look very trivial, says Cynlais. So he wants to make some money. He also has a young son called Maldwyn Moore. This boy has a fine soprano voice a
nd drives people half mad with religious fervour and the wish to be off on a crusade with his rendering of such songs as “Jerusalem, Jerusalem”.’

  ‘I’ve heard that Maldwyn,’ said Verdun. He had never heard Maldwyn sing a note. He wished only to counter Onllwyn’s current of thoughtless compassion. ‘He’s ronk. He sings like a frog. Cynlais was on form with you, Uncle Onllwyn. Mostly he tells the truth about just one item on the list to keep his hand in, but with you he seems to have gone the whole hog.’

  ‘Boys change. He may now be like a lark, this Maldwyn. So an uncle who lives in London tells Cynlais that there are fine openings for young Welsh boy sopranos in those parts. The voters are making big money in that quarter, and they like listening to these boys sing when they are getting tender over their drink. But this Maldwyn is ragged. He likes going down slopes on his backside, and he takes the seat out of a pair of trousers as quickly as you would say hullo. So if Cynlais gets enough money he is going to pack Maldwyn off to London, where he can make a fortune singing, and where it’s flat, so that he won’t forever have to be putting out money in patches. So Cynlais argued me into letting him win this race.’

  ‘Of all the nerve! Honest, Uncle Onllwyn, you’re being silly. Are you forgetting the way you were crying and trembling with excitement when you first read about this Gito the fleet one, and how you said he was the boy who ought to have been the patron saint of the Celts because he was one voter who would have shown nothing but speed and scorn to the Saxons and the coalowners when they came around for their collection of scalps and profits. And are you forgetting the trouble you had waiting for bits to fall off every coalhouse in the street so that you could build the box which would let you try out Gito’s recipe of the dung?’

  ‘He’s been bewitched by this Moore, if you ask me,’ said Verdun. ‘They say this Moore is such a liar he hasn’t even given the same reason for his limp twice.’

  ‘He knows I’m the best walker about here. He’s heard from somebody who used to live down in Carmarthen about how I would go flashing about down there beating all the other boys with my skill and stamina. And he said, “If anybody’s got the knowledge and the craftiness to win me the prize, it’s Onllwyn Evans.”’