Cold Enough to Freeze Cows

by Lorraine Jenkin

  It was an important moment of realisation. All those years they had been telling themselves, and other people, that Louisa couldn’t get on with living in the same way as other people her age did, because she was looking after her sick mother. It was as if, in her mind, she returned home after a long day in the bank to a lump slumped on the sofa wrapped in a blanket that she had to feed, water and wash. Poor little Cinderella would then make the meals, clean the house and read her mother a story before carrying her to bed on her own frail back. Reality, of course, was a mother that struggled in her own life, but the only tangible effect of this on her daughter’s existence was that her onions tended to be a little more roughly chopped than she would prefer.

  Louisa looked embarrassed and ashamed. “I s’pose I just felt I couldn’t leave, in case…things got…worse?” It was lame and limp and everything else that was pathetic. David could see, deep in his heart, that his precious daughter quite simply couldn’t be arsed. She’d got used to being mollycoddled in the same way that he’d got used to mollycoddling and it had had repercussions far beyond their initial intentions. He’d turned into a drab old stick who bullied his wife and indulged his daughter and she’d turned into a lazy slob who couldn’t make decisions for herself and whose acceptable level of risk-taking was putting her hand into the multi-pack of crisps without looking to see which flavour she was heading for.

  In the same way that Louisa couldn’t be bothered to choose a job that she might actually enjoy, or make her own sandwiches, she also couldn’t be bothered to look for or pay for her own flat. She couldn’t be bothered to sit on a second-hand sofa when there was a deluxe corner unit at her disposal at home. Why live with people you were bound to fall out with over abandoned pubic hairs and dirty coffee cups when you could stay with people who’d fought out all the ground rules before you were even born?

  “I think,” she began, beginning to blush, “I think I need to get a move on…”

  “That’s my girl,” smiled David. “Always the adventurer!” Then they both squirmed, so he collected an abandoned teacup, made his excuses and left.

  CHAPTER 7

  Fel twll tin ci ar yr haul – like a dog’s arse in the sun (dull, without sparkle)

  Iestyn was settled in front of Animals Do the Funniest Things when lights flashed across the kitchen ceiling indicating that someone had just driven into the yard.

  “Who’ll that be?” asked Tomos craning his head around his chair.

  “Dunno, Dad, can’t tell by just the lights.”

  “Well, have a look, lad, might be someone important.”

  Iestyn groaned and dragged himself out of his chair and padded to the window. Brechdan. What the hell was he after? Iestyn wasn’t sure that he could handle Johnny’s enthusiasm for life, tonight. All he wanted to do was to have a long soak in a warm bath and then sit and slob in front of the TV. Unfortunately, the bath was full of Isla’s mackintosh which was being re-waterproofed, with one of her ancient remedies that the packet had disintegrated around, and unless he wanted to go and sort that out, he had to make do with being grubby and sitting on the sofa in front of the TV.

  By the time Iestyn had reached the door, Brechdan was in the kitchen. “Evening all, how is everyone today?”

  “Grand, boy, grand,” came the call from the winged chair.

  “How’s things at Cwmtwrch, Johnny? Had a good Christmas?” called Isla. She had been good friends with Johnny’s grandparents since they’d taken Johnny on as a child after the death of his parents, and she always enjoyed the boost in atmosphere that Johnny brought to any room he was in.

  “Yes, thanks we’ve had a lovely time, but tonight I have been thrown out.”

  “Oh? Why’s that, boy?” asked Tomos, knowing it would be something stupid that Johnny was cooking up.

  “I’ve been thrown out to go and take my old friend Iestyn out for a night on the town. A pre-New-Year’s-Eve night out. Those were my orders: take him out and cheer the miserable git up.”

  “Nah, you’re all right thanks, Johnny, I’m not really up for—”

  “Well, what a lovely idea,” said Isla. “Thank you, Johnny; he is a bit of a miserable git at the moment, isn’t he, Tomos?”

  “Yes, yes, you’re right, he is.”

  “Oi, bloody charming that is – if I am a miserable git, it’s because I live with you two and I get all the shitty jobs and the bath is full of mother’s bloody swedeing mac and—”

  “All the more reason why you need to come out with me then,” chipped Johnny. “That OK with you folks? Can you do without his miserable face for the rest of the night and maybe give him a little lie-in in the morning?”

  “Course we can. It would be a pleasure. Thank you, Johnny, for taking him off our hands.”

  “Absolutely, and look, here’s thirty quid to pay some tart to cheer him up good and proper…” said Tomos, taking his wallet from his back pocket and handing the money over to Johnny.

  “Tomos!”

  “Well, the boy’s been single for bloody years m’n,” he replied. “It’ll go black and fall off if he’s not careful. It needs to be used, boy, otherwise it’ll forget what it’s there for.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” smiled Johnny. “Thank you, Tomos, now come on, Iestyn, you have five minutes to douse yourself in enough Christmas aftershave to get rid of your stench and then I want you back down here in your finest togs.”

  Iestyn grumbled and muttered as he slouched across the floor and crashed through the door at the bottom of the stairs, “…well, as long as you know that I don’t actually want to go…” he mumbled, whilst Johnny sat down and made himself at home.

  Esther pottered in the kitchen, drying the last few bits of cutlery and wiping over the surfaces. She knew that she would be called on for tea and had re-boiled the kettle twice so that it would be near to the boil when they put their request in. Funny really, she could hear that Taggart had started – they would be missing the crux of the storyline now if they weren’t quick, then there would really be trouble.

  As she gave the table another wipe over, her eye caught sight of the local newspaper, sitting by David’s lunch box, packed ready for the morning. She began to flick through it; usually she knew a few of the local deaths and sometimes a marriage.

  She idly turned the pages. Mayor Plants Tree with Schoolchildren. Bowls Club Buys New Mats and Woman Breaks Ankle in Council Pothole. Then a picture made her look twice: the woman standing outside the café with a piece of paper in her hand looked familiar. Then the headline made her catch her breath: Anon Letter Turned Out to be Business Turning Point

  Esther’s heart pounded as she scraped out a chair and sat by the table to get a better view – it couldn’t be? Surely?

  Café owner Pat Marshwood of The Tasty Bite café on King Street, Tan-y-Bryn, was initially upset and angry by a letter that landed on her doormat with no name or address on it, but it eventually became the turning point that her business needed.

  Pat, 52, has run The Tasty Bite café for fourteen years with husband, John. “But when John became ill fíve years ago, more and more of the chores became down to me and, in hindsight, I really haven’t been coping,” said Pat. “When you are in the service industry, it can be the little things that make the difference, and, unfortunately these were the ones that I had let slip.”

  Esther blew out a breath and wiped off the sweat that had formed on her face on a sheet of kitchen towel. She sat down again and could barely bring herself to read on – had she, Esther Harrison, really written a spiteful letter to a woman with a sick husband who was struggling to run their business? Yes, she had – and she was rightfully ashamed, nay, appalled by her actions.

  She read on, peeping through her fingers as if the barrier would help shield her from her wrongdoing.

  “However,” said Pat, “after the initial upset, John and I sat down and looked at it again and decided that we needed extra help. My sister has been able to step in and it has made a world of a d
ifference in just three days! I’ve done a spring clean and John has revamped the menu – oh, and the tables no longer wobble…” laughs Pat.

  We asked Pat what she would like to say to the anonymous writer: “Well, if you’d asked me that on the morning I got the letter, you wouldn’t be able to print it; it hasn’t exactly been the best Christmas present we could have received from one of our customers! However, I now thank that person for their time and honesty, and if they ever want to own up, they can choose lunch from our new menu and sit on a stable table by our clean windows and enjoy themselves!”

  So, if you know who the anonymous business advisor is, call the Tan-y-Bryn Gazette on the usual number…

  Esther leant back in her chair and released a breath. No one must ever know it was her ever, ever, ever. Perhaps she’d got away with it this time, but she may not be so lucky again. And she certainly wouldn’t fancy her name blazed across the front page of the Tan-y-Bryn Gazette. As she stood up, she felt a little shaky and steadied herself on the back of the chair. The shock probably: she didn’t tend to have much excitement in her life. She looked up into the mirror that hung between two cupboards on the kitchen wall and saw a red flush creep over her face. She felt her cheeks and then giggled slightly. Hugging her little secret to herself, she set the kettle on to boil again and went to see what was going on in the world of prime time television…

  “Right then, Iestyn, what’ll it be?”

  “Dunno, pint I s’pose.”

  “Two pints of Best and a double whisky chaser, please, mate,” said Johnny to the barman.

  “I hope that’s not for me,” grumbled Iestyn, “I don’t fancy whisky tonight.”

  “Iestyn, we’re in the smartest bar in town, it’s a Wednesday night, you’ve got Joe’s best clothes on and you don’t have to get up in the morning, plus the tightest old man in the world has given you thirty quid to get pissed on, so you’re going to have a bloody whisky chaser, OK?”

  Iestyn shrugged and then took a big slurp out of his pint, then smiled. “Thanks, mate, this is nice.”

  “Course it bloody is, now drink up; I want this on the head.”

  Iestyn did as he was told and soon a smile started peeping onto his face. He sat on the shining stool and surveyed the room. “Hey, it’s bloody nice in here now, they’ve done something to it I think?”

  “Done something to it?” said the guy behind the bar. “Mate, the owner’s just spent over fifty grand making this place look good, plus another two grand on bloody Christmas decorations! Surely you can say something better than that!”

  “OK then, it’s very nice,” grinned Iestyn.

  “Thank you. Same again, boys?”

  “Yes please,” said Johnny.

  “Hang on, how come I’m getting the chasers and you’re only drinking pints?”

  “Iestyn, your dad only gave us thirty quid, and anyway, someone has got to look after you and hold your coat whilst you’re busy and— Hey, look over there…”

  “Where?”

  “There, you dick,”

  “At what?”

  “For God’s sake, Iestyn, the most beautiful women in the county have just walked into the bar wearing pink bunny ears and you haven’t noticed them? For fuck’s sake: Tomos was right about you…”

  Johnny walked over to where the women were settling themselves down, managed to find that he knew one of them and was quickly offered a seat. He turned and beckoned Iestyn over and so Iestyn picked up his various drinks and mumbling quietly to himself, followed his opportunistic friend to his doom…

  Iestyn was feeling drunk. He often had a few pints a couple of times a week, but it was usually whilst sitting in the Bull, and at a measured pace. By the end of a given night out, he would have slugged down the same sort of amount as he usually did, had the same amount of wees and two bags of crisps: one ready salted and one Monster Munch, or one for the mouth ulcers as Ed would call them. By the time he had walked home, he would be just about sober enough to drink a pint of tea, eat a pile of cheese sandwiches and fall into bed without any severe repercussions. Mornings after weren’t exactly pleasant, but he could stagger through them and by the time he had cadged a lift back for his truck, all would be well.

  Tonight, he had a feeling that it wouldn’t end that way. Johnny was on sparkling form with the ladies. They were a hen party of eight women, all hell bent on having a good night and letting their hair down. Somehow Johnny and Iestyn had joined the kitty and were drinking whatever it was the person visiting the bar would get for them. Iestyn was sure that amongst the Smirnoff Ices and the Bacardi Rogos, he was also having a few more chasers of his own, courtesy of Johnny. As the night wore on, he was becoming less and less sure of what it was that was going down the hatch, but it wasn’t his usual pints of Best, that was for sure. He was finally beginning to enjoy himself. The women were a good laugh and he was getting into the swing of things.

  Suzy, a bridesmaid-to-be sitting beside him, was chattering away and he was laughing and chatting back. She’d been given the task of planning the night out and was taking it very seriously, taking novelties out of a bag of tricks at her feet at intervals, all to peals of laughter.

  Johnny was sitting across the table from him and already had some rabbit ears on and a pair of comedy Y-fronts over his trousers. Iestyn didn’t want to tell the women that the Y-fronts he had on under his trousers were actually more vile than Johnny’s… A raspberry Mad Dog, tasting suspiciously of whisky, was washed down and then Iestyn had to extract himself to visit the gents. He climbed over the back of the sofa, to prevent everyone else having to get up, and the women either side of him tugged at the legs of his jeans. “Gerrof!” he yelled, still with a measure enough of self-preservation to be concerned that his orange pants might be revealed. The women just laughed and emptied a bag of peanuts down the exposed crack of his arse.

  He wove his way through the chairs, clutching on to their backs for stability. There weren’t that many people in tonight, just a few tables’ worth dotted around, and once out of the reach of the hen party, the atmosphere was more civilised with people chatting together rather than screeching, and sipping rather than necking. He felt a little oafish, but he also felt good; it was good to let your hair down occasionally, and he and Johnny were doing it in style tonight.

  He glanced in the mirror as he washed his hands. Joe’s last-season clothes were holding up well, especially with a strand of red tinsel draped around the shoulders, but his hair was a little wild and his skin was flushed and open-pored. Never mind, he thought: get back out there into the dimmed lights and he would be fine.

  As he stumbled back to the table, he saw that Suzy was by the jukebox.

  “Iestyn! Oi, Iestyn, come over here! Come on, you choose one!” she shouted. Over he went and pressed a random collection of numbers.

  “Oi, you shit!” Suzy cackled. “You’ve put on bloody ‘Unchained Melody’!”

  “Sorry,” giggled Iestyn as he headed back for his seat. Someone had plonked a bottle of WKD in front of him and as a decent song ended and ‘Unchained Melody’ started, the women all grabbed their bottles and started singing, using their new props as microphones. Before Iestyn knew it, he too was standing, singing, his arms draped over his neighbours’ shoulders, wearing a hula wreath over his tinsel and his own pair of rabbit ears.

  Everyone climbed on the chairs and the sofa, yowling as they tried to reach the high notes. Iestyn was on soft ground as his feet slid about on the sofa’s cushions. Suzy was hanging onto his shoulder on one side and Rebecca was tugging at his belt hoops for stability on the other side. It was bound to happen and as the crescendo was reached, they all started to topple backwards. Someone made a grab for Rebecca, giving Iestyn a second to get one leg over the back of the sofa. But, it wasn’t enough and the three of them crashed to the floor, Iestyn on the bottom of the pile.

  As he lay on the floor pouring WKD over his own face, two women with rabbit ears lying on top of him, he heard someon
e shout, “Piley-on!” and six other women and Johnny Brechdan ran round the side of the sofa and dived on top of them. His head was sticking out and despite his hysterical laughter, he groaned every time another woman landed. He could see feet with stilettos on sticking out of the pile, he could see stocking tops and pink fingernails trying to wriggle skirts down and he could see Johnny’s face grinning into his from the top of the pile. “Fuckin’ marvellous!” he winked at Iestyn, before rolling off onto the floor.

  There was the sound of bar staff coming over, “OK, folks, OK, folks, that’s enough I think. Come on, everyone up! Time to go home!” and the hens were hauled to their feet, dusted off and encouraged in the direction of the door. Iestyn was still at the bottom of the heap and was left on the floor, crushed, covered in sticky drinks, his hula wreath squashed flat and peanuts beginning to itch in his backside. No member of the bar staff seemed to want to tackle the fifteen-stone pissed bloke, so they left him there, assuming he would do as his mate had done and follow the women out of the door, like a dog stalking rabbits.

  Iestyn woke a while later with someone shaking his shoulders. “Iestyn, Iestyn, time to go home now. They want to close the bar?”

  “Wha…?”

  “Come on, time to go home. Come on, up you get.” The voice seemed familiar, but Iestyn could not place it, what with the fug in his head. “Can someone give me a hand, please!” the voice shouted. “I can’t lift him!”

  Two strong arms hauled him to a sitting position and then dragged him to the door, his feet bouncing along the carpet. “Are you sure you want to take this twat home, love?”

  “Not really, but I live nearby, I can tip him out within crawling distance.”