“No,” said Johnny, “that cobweb there was the early one. That one was made during our Hooch phase.”
“So, Johnny,” said Joe, “how’s the farm going?”
“Not too good I’m afraid – so bloody cold this winter…”
“Don’t tell me!” interjected Iestyn. “So bloody cold that lambs will be born stunted as their mothers spent so much time hunched up. Come on, Johnny, please don’t turn into my dad!”
The door ground open once more and a gust of wind wrapped around the table.
“Menna!” called Johnny, “you’re late!”
The windswept woman in lumberjack shirt and jeans slammed the door behind her and ran her hand through her tangled curls.
“Phew, bloody cold out there. All right, Ed?” her voice rang out through the pub and all its occupants grunted their greetings to her. “And it’s bloody hot in here, Ed, have you been pinching Dai’s oil again? Drink anyone?” she called over to Iestyn’s table as she dragged off her shirt and rolled up the sleeves of the rugby top beneath. Iestyn cringed as he hadn’t seen Menna yet since the morning after the rabbit ears night, and he really hadn’t worked out how he should play it. Ed passed Menna a pint and she strode over to Iestyn’s table, turned a chair around and sat astride it.
“Hi all,” she breezed, “how’s it going? Poured any bottles of WKD on your face recently, Iestyn?”
“Ah, yes, sorry about that, Menna, and thanks again. How’s the truck? Did I get all the bits out?”
“Well, most of them. I put the dog in there in the end, she did a better job; five-day-old puke is no joke when you can’t keep the windows open. It’s OK until I put the heaters on full, and then it still smells a bit of…raspberry funnily enough.”
Johnny laughed. “Excellent! The raspberry: now that was Hannah’s round, unless I am mistaken!” Menna gave a quick glance towards Iestyn and then looked back down at the table and pretended to inspect her pint.
Iestyn saw that it was definitely time to move the conversation on: something about that night was simply not funny to Menna, and not just in a way that having a bloke throw up in your truck per se isn’t funny.
“OK, enough now, Johnny. Menna, I don’t think you’ve met Sima before? Sima, this is Menna. Menna, this is Sima, Joe’s girlfriend.”
Menna blushed awkwardly as she took in the immaculate Sima and then shook her hand, wiping her own first on a denim-clad thigh. “Sorry, just been out checking the sheep. Had to drag a few of them round.”
“Never mind,” smiled Sima, “lanolin’s good for my skin!”
Menna looked at her beautifully-manicured hands and then held out her own stubby chapped ones that were still swollen from the earlier cold. “Lanolin’s never done mine any good,” she laughed and sat on them, as if they were better hidden out of the way so that they couldn’t be compared to Sima’s.
Joe laughed, “How are you going to drink your pint now, Menna?”
“Oh, I’ll find a way, I usually do.”
Sima picked up the glass and held it to her lips and Menna took a healthy slurp.
Sima laughed; she loved coming to Joe’s farm and the village in which he grew up. She loved the simple pleasures of a family that got on and enjoyed each other’s company. The people seemed real with real work to do, the weather was real and the mud was really real. It was no bad thing to be reminded sometimes that you shouldn’t wear white jeans and pumps in mid-winter.
In Pencwmhir, they didn’t have a thermostat that allowed them to wear satin camisoles and shorties to relax of an evening all year round: it just got bloody cold. Slippers, dressing gowns and five layers were needed. You simply got dressed and undressed as quickly as possible and it was a good idea to leave your three tops inside your jumper so that they could all be put on as one.
Pencwmhir’s shower was feeble and lukewarm, even the bath was too cold to luxuriate in – Sima found that her breasts stuck out the water and became chilled, much to Joe’s delight. The product that scoured Tomos’ grime from it played havoc with her skin and her feet would get so dusty and hairy from the bathroom floor when she got out, that she never felt properly cleansed anyway.
However, Sima would use her visits as grounding ones. She knew that her lifestyle in London was beginning to become a parody of what she preached to her clients. She’d begun doing affirmations and writing down her goals and they’d started coming true. At the beginning of her career as a self-employed life coach, she’d worked out a good hourly rate, incorporating all her business costs, then felt cheeky one day so doubled it. Twice as many clients started ringing.
She went to the gym three times a week and her body became a temple of fitness and health. She didn’t drink eight glasses of water a day, she drank nine, and her skin glowed. She didn’t bother with the one about jelly cubes for her hair and nails, thinking it scientifically flawed – but her talons and locks grew at a rate that allowed constant restyling, keeping her one step ahead of her peers.
However, Sima was beginning to feel that she was likely to implode in a frenzy of perfection and success. Joe said that the only reason he was allowed to enter her flat was to give her cleaner something to clean up after and the only reason he was allowed in her bed was to stop her disappearing up her own backside. And that, too, was why she liked Pencwmhir. After the initial shocks that the indoor wildlife gave her, she began to enjoy the experiences – mushrooms under things that had dropped onto the bathroom floor, mice lying in traps in the cupboards that the cornflakes were in and Tomos drenching his chips in vinegar that had pickled fruit flies in.
She also never met women like Menna in her circle of friends in London. Menna Edwards was only a few years younger than her, but seemed wise and strong as an ox. Joe had told her about Menna, how she would wear unisex clothes just because they were there and they kept her warm. Her hair was a tangled mess of reddish curls that ended up in a ponytail secured by an elastic band that looked like it had come into her possession wrapped around a wad of post.
Sima was concerned for the condition of the girl’s skin, as tonight it looked as if it had been buffed with a scouring pad, obviously chapped by the wind, and she desperately wanted to suggest a daily application of sunblock as a barrier. Yet her blue eyes had a twinkle which suggested that perhaps Menna wasn’t bothered. However, there was obviously something a little uncomfortable for Menna about that recent evening – of which she’d heard a little from Isla and Tomos. Sima made it her business to try and find out what was really going on…
Menna smiled at Sima and then turned back to the table. “What’s the Jeep like on rough ground, Joe?” she asked. “I’m assuming that that highly-polished beast out in the car park is yours? Unless Iestyn and Johnny have sold their souls to the devil and clubbed together, of course.”
Sima quietly got to her feet and muttered about getting the next round, knowing that she wouldn’t be missed, nor would she miss out.
Ed was not his usual self. He was standing upright, polishing glasses with a clean cloth and his own glass held water.
“Sima,” he said, slightly self-consciously, “same again?”
“Thank you, Ed,” and Ed glowed once more at her smile. “Although I think that Menna’s just started hers.” He raised an eyebrow, and Sima turned to see the last drop of ale trickle into Menna’s mouth. “Bloody needed that,” Sima heard. “Perhaps another one for her, too, please…”
As Ed pottered behind the bar, lining up the drinks, Sima eyed her new gaggle of friends. Menna was a kind of woman that she rarely met. Not asexual in a deliberate way, but undeveloped. Like an eight-year-old out with a group of older girls.
Then Sima saw a shine in Menna’s eyes. A loud laugh at Iestyn’s comment about the mouse in Isla’s wellie, and a glance that settled on him just a little too long while he was looking elsewhere. Iestyn? Did Menna really want to drive Iestyn’s tractor? Surely not: they’d been friends for years! Perhaps that was what the discomfort was about? To Sima, it all s
tarted to make a bit more sense – Menna looking down into her pint when Johnny had talked about the other women in the bar, actually being bothered to drive a drunk Iestyn home in the first place and now sitting smiling at him and laughing at his jokes. Sima loved her work: the untangling of things to find out what was really going on in someone’s life was a mission to her and here was as good a place to start as any…
“Hey, Ed,” she beckoned as she passed him a new twenty-pound note. “What’s the story with Menna? Single? Boyfriend? Gay? What’s the score?”
Ed shrugged. “Dunno really, just Menna I s’pose. Never really thought about it. Hard worker though, dieu, dieu. Not gay though – been with blokes in her time – more a case of not got round to it much lately, I think.” He took the crisp note and handed her back a pile of sticky fifty-pence pieces. Sima debated putting them in her purse, decided against it and stuck them in the Sooty charity tin.
“Thanks,” said Ed, “that’s probably more than we’ve had all year in that bloody thing. People are more than happy to draw breasts on poor old Sooty there, but are they willing to put more than a few coppers into him? Are they bollocks.”
Sima smiled, took the tray and walked back to the table just in time to hear the end of Johnny’s alternator tale – apparently it was a classic.
CHAPTER 10
Mae brân i frân yn rhywle – there’s a crow for a crow somewhere (there’s a partner for everyone somewhere)
Iestyn loved this time of the evening on Joe’s visits. Joe would accompany their father on his rounds of checking the animals as his years away from the farm had turned it into a novelty for him. Isla was in the draughty little office catching up on paperwork and Iestyn was assigned the role of keeping Sima company: it was the best job of the farming year.
It wasn’t that Iestyn coveted his brother’s girlfriend; it was just that there was no one else like Sima – apart from the occasional film star. She was nearly six foot tall with a fit hourglass figure. Her hair was exotically tousled, and was never messy, even after coming in from the token trip around the yard. Her skin was like warm cocoa, soft and inviting and was enhanced by impeccable make-up.
Iestyn simply liked to be in her presence and enjoyed just looking at her. She must to be used to it, as she never seemed to mind. To compare her to the local women he knew would be like comparing a Rolls Royce to a mountain bike with a shopping basket on the front; there was no point, they had different purposes. Sima’s role was to light up the Bevan’s kitchen, whereas the local women were great to help unload a trailer of feed sacks or to herd a bullock into a clamp. They were great fun to pass an evening with over a pint in the local, but it wouldn’t be right to harry Sima into getting her round in, to send her walking over a sticky carpet, to rest her arms in a puddle on the bar next to Boring Bob or Bad Breath Ken. Sima should be sat at the best table in the house, being waited on by the maître d’ himself.
Yet, there she would sit in Tomos’ battered wing chair, resting the sleeves of her white shirt on the arms that usually held a dribbling teacup, a pile of biscuits or a bitten-off fingernail. Her feet nestled amongst ash and the grit that had fallen from the treads of Tomos’ slippers. She seemed oblivious to all the dust, the woodlice and the howling draughts.
Iestyn knew that Sima’s flat was immaculate. Her kitchen had only cooked salads, or heated up fresh ready-meals purchased from the deli. Her windows never opened to the noise and fumes of the city and her immense wardrobes were shrines to order and the dry cleaner’s packaging. Iestyn could only think that in coming to Pencwmhir, she steeled herself in the way that she taught her clients to when they had a speech to make or an interview to attend. He passed her a chipped mug and threw a few more logs into the Rayburn.
“Thank you, Iestyn, a lovely cup of tea. So, tell me, how is life going for you?” Sima was the only person who spoke to Iestyn in such a personal way. She wasn’t nosy; she was just interested. Johnny Brechdan would ask, “So, what’s news?” and his father would occasionally ask, “All right, boy?” but they never really meant any more than an opening to a conversation and would be very uncomfortable if he poured out any of the things he talked about with Sima.
“Well, not a great deal different to when you asked last, to be honest!” He sat down opposite her and took a sip from his own chipped cup – one stating Frankie Says Relax. “The cattle are doing well this winter and we got a good price for that young bull that you saw when you came last time.”
Sima nodded, as if she were genuinely interested, “And, what of your personal goals? What of your love life?”
Iestyn winced a little, “Ah, not doing as well as the bullocks I’m afraid. Bit bleak there still, I’m sorry to say.”
“You said you wanted to get out more – have you been able to do that?” It was as if he was one of her clients and she couldn’t help slipping into her counselling role; he half expected her to move to a kitchen chair behind him and start taking notes.
“Well, I did go down the local a bit more often at first, but I kept getting nobbled by Bad Breath Ken, so there was little point really. He put me off the beer that I couldn’t afford anyway, so it all became a bit of a waste of time. And they all took the piss out of me as I wore Joe’s old shirts – calling me the Chelsea Farmer – occasionally Menna comes along too, but well, she’s not interested in anything apart from farming really, so there’s no point in trying to cultivate anything there…”
“Are you sure? She seemed really nice the other night.”
“Oh, Menna’s great,” Iestyn shrugged, “good laugh, great farmer, really knows her engines too – always good in a crisis is Menna. She’d make someone a lovely husband one day…”
“What about Johnny, how does he fare?”
“Johnny? Well, Johnny has the knack of having beautiful women falling out of space and landing on his todger, but when things get thin, he goes and tupps Tanya Dan-y-Coed.”
“Tupps?”
“You know, what a ram does to a ewe.”
“Tanya Dan-y-Coed?”
“Yes, she’s got a great new trailer and her bull is good stock – but it does help that no one can lay hedges like Johnny Brechdan…”
“Hedges? A proper hedge, or a family of women called Hedge?” Sima smiled. She always laughed at the way that the Bevans talked, their mutterings that were completely obvious to one another and anyone else in their world, but nonsensical to an outsider such as her.
“Iestyn, we’ve got to change this mind set – you and your friends can’t go on shagging neighbours whenever you want to borrow a piece of equipment; it’s not right. Plus this strategy falls down when the ram you need is owned by Bad Breath Ken. No, you need to become a bit more adventurous, or we’ll be having the same conversation in six months time. Why not, well, why not look a little closer at what’s around you? You know, see what’s closer to home – with new eyes?” Sima looked to Iestyn as if she was trying to put a plan into action, but he didn’t know what she was talking about. “You might be surprised as to what’s on your doorstep? Other than that, I’ll have to ask Joe to set you up with one of his London floozies, but you’re too good for them and they can’t mend tractor engines to save their lives…”
The door blew open and Joe and his father came in. Joe stamped his feet and rubbed his gloved hands together. He was muffled up in an arctic-quality down coat, a woollen cap with ears and a pair of waterproof trousers over his fleece leggings, but still shuddered from the biting cold. Tomos removed his body warmer and rolled up his shirtsleeves. “You’re getting soft, boy; it’s not even proper winter yet. Too used to central heating and hot chocolate, that’s your trouble.”
“He’d never survive back here now, would he, Tomos?” called Sima from her spot next to the fire. “We’ve sucked him into city life and made him good for nothing else!”
Tomos laughed and went to collect the kettle to make them a drink. “Here, Dad,” said Iestyn, getting out of his chair and motioning for his fath
er to take his seat, “I’ll get it. Another cup for you, Sima?”
“Gosh, no, I’ve already had three today!”
“Only three?” said Tomos, “I had that many for breakfast…”
Iestyn smiled as he wandered over to the kitchen cupboards. What had Sima been getting at? Closer to home? What did she mean? Tan-y-Bryn? That was close to home. Perhaps she meant for him to look there? Perhaps he’d type Tan-y-Bryn into the Internet later and see what he came up with; it would be nice to have his own Sima sat by the fire next to him one day…
Esther sat in the hairdresser’s chair and breathed in the fragrant scent around her. Her hair was wet and scraped back from her face revealing her age blotches and the wrinkles around her eyes, but she felt good.
She looked in the mirror and saw Mona Mathews eyeing her up from the other side of the salon and then slowly walk over. She was wearing a white cotton blouse and a new apron. In fact, all the stylists had new overalls and it gave the salon a lift; those frayed royal-blue nylon ones really had seen better days.
“Hello, Esther,” said Mona, running her fingers through Esther’s hair. “What will it be today?”
Esther felt elated as she chattered away about nothing much. Mona Mathews was clean and fresh and it was a pleasure to be in her company. Normally Esther would be nervous as Mona moved around her and would keep her coffee near to her face, dreading it if Mona fumbled across her to untangle the wires of the dryer, the smell of stale sweat making her gurn.
However, today there was none of that. It looked as if the nylon three-day blouses had been banished, with fresh cotton being worn in their place. As Mona moved from side to side, dabbing on the dye and wiping stray dribbles with her clean cloth, Esther got a little more adventurous, even turning slightly to sniff the air. No, no more sour curry smell, no perspired fish, only the smell of freshly-cut flowers.
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