The Year of Surprising Acts of Kindness

by Laura Kemp

  ‘Wicked out there, it is! Wicked! I’m Gwen, I am. The landlady. Now, what can I get you?’ she said, slipping behind the bar with a dazzling smile, followed by a thunderous shout towards the cobwebbed corridor which must’ve led to their home: ‘GWIL! CUSTOMER, IT IS!’

  Stunned but curious, Ceri ordered a latté because she needed a caffeine hit to work out what she was going to do next.

  ‘A what-té?’ Gwen said.

  Clearly it was instant coffee or nothing down these parts. ‘Don’t worry. Just a Diet Coke, please.’

  ‘So what brings you here? Because we haven’t had any tourists since last year, we haven’t. Well, I say tourists but they were a funny bunch, left first thing next day.’

  ‘Oh, I’m not a tourist,’ Ceri said, thinking she’d rather go to hell than come here for a holiday.

  Gwen narrowed her eyes, folded her arms and unveiled the biggest smile.

  ‘I know who you are!’ she sang, wagging a red nail at her and nodding.

  Ceri felt the urge to run. How was it possible she’d be recognised here? She took a step back, her heart racing.

  ‘You’ve come about the job!’

  Ceri stared at her.

  ‘You’re the first we’ve had in a month of advertising. You just can’t get the staff these days. People are a bit choosy, they are. Any experience?’

  She opened her mouth to explain. But was interrupted by Gwen bellowing, ‘GWIL! QUICK!’ before she raised the hatch and beckoned Ceri round.

  ‘Look, I think there’s been some kind of—’

  ‘How do, what’s your name?’ said a man-mountain who’d bowed his bald head beneath a beam to enter the bar. Gwil, she presumed.

  Ceri felt the cage rattling and debated whether or not she should tell the truth. She might be well known to a few people – around two million of them – but this pair weren’t in her demographic. And she wasn’t a liar.

  ‘Ceri. Ceri Price.’ She cringed inwardly, hoping it didn’t ring any bells.

  Gwen hesitated – and Ceri’s heart went like the clappers. Until Gwen shut her eyes and gave a long orgasmic ‘oooooh’.

  ‘Ceri! There’s a Welsh name, there is!’

  She didn’t have the heart to tell Gwen she’d actually been christened Cereza, the Spanish word for cherry, even though she’d only ever been known as Ceri.

  ‘I thought there was something Welsh about you. Could tell by your hair and eyes. Like Catherine Zeta-Jones, you are!’

  Funny, because the boys at the workingmen’s club had said she was a fat version of her, back in the day when she’d had time to eat. But that was her father’s genes. What was this woman talking about? And anyway never mind! She was being hijacked, blown off course. Why on earth was she even having this conversation?

  ‘The Welsh, they may leave but by God, they always find a way to come back!’ Gwil said, handing her a glass and pointing at the tap of Brains.

  ‘Come on, don’t be shy!’ Gwen said, waiting.

  Ceri needed to stop this, make her excuses. But her feet wouldn’t move, she was being hypnotised by their large smiles which were as warm as buttered crumpets. She didn’t want to disappoint them. And she was worn out. Resistance was clearly futile: they were one short of a six-pack of lager and the only way she was going to find out where she’d get the key from was by playing along.

  ‘The thing is,’ she said, as her fingers curled around the cold glass, setting off a memory and an unfurling instinct. ‘I’m booked into the Blue House.’

  Her hands went to work on autopilot, bringing back the quiet week nights when she’d help old Nobby do his crossword. ‘… And I need the key …’

  The smell of the ale felt like an old friend, reminding her of the rocking Saturdays of meat raffles and tribute singers they’d had at the workingmen’s club back home.

  ‘Do you know who has it?’ Ceri asked.

  There, the beer was done. She felt a simple satisfaction she hadn’t experienced in a long time. ‘I need to get it sorted quickly because time’s getting on.’

  Both Gwen and Gwil were exchanging looks of unparalleled joy.

  ‘The head is perfect,’ Gwil said reverentially.

  ‘Lovely smooth action too,’ Gwen echoed. ‘And did you see the way she knew when to stop the tap without even breaking eye contact?’

  Gwil adjusted the collar of his slightly-too-tight shirt and presented a mammoth hand.

  ‘The job’s yours, Ceri. The key’s over the road with Mel in Caban Cwtch.’ Ah, so that’s how you said it: the first word was the same as cabin, the second sounded like cutch except it rhymed with butch. All very baffling. ‘The can of pop, it’s on us, because you’ve saved our bacon, young lady.’

  The Diet Coke was slightly rusty and covered in dust. Gwil saw her hesitation and gave it a rinse. With a lick of his finger.

  ‘You see, Seren, our barmaid is having to cut her hours,’ Gwen said. ‘Genius child, she’s got, needs to be ferried to chess competitions and so forth. You must have been sent from heaven!’

  ‘Up north, actually,’ Ceri said with a weak smile.

  She was going to have to break it to them. This was deceitful. This wasn’t who she was. But Gwen was on a roll now.

  ‘It’s Six Nations Saturday tomorrow. All hands on deck for the rugby, we need. Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. I’ll just rustle you up something to eat, love, a nice lamb chop? You look half-starved you do. We’ll go through the ropes, get your details. Ceri Rees, did you say it was? A week’s trial, will that do you?’

  Rees? Where did she get that from? But she couldn’t speak up because she’d been flattened by this motormouth.

  ‘Gwil will go now to get you the key and light you a fire in the cottage. You must’ve been confident to book yourself in there! But after seeing you in action, you must’ve been born in a bar.’

  Gobsmacked. Astounded. And completely bloody knackered with not a drop of energy to put up a fight, she let them have their moment. There was no point arguing. Not now. All she wanted was something comforting to eat and to thaw out. This situation was entirely ridiculous. And yet she didn’t have the strength to own up. She wasn’t sure they’d even care it was a mix-up.

  Besides, here she was a nobody who just happened to be able to pull a decent pint. They did seem desperate and their kindness, well, she hadn’t been on the receiving end for years. She wouldn’t fail them – she’d tell them after the shift tomorrow. It would be one of those things she’d look back on and laugh, just a bit of fun.

  Who knows, she thought, you might even enjoy yourself, kid.

  2

  Melyn Thomas was counting down the days until her hill climb home from work would be in harmony with the sky, sliding from teal and terracotta to fire and love-story red all by the time she’d got her key in the door.

  Unable to take her eyes off the sunset, she’d walk backwards up an incline so steep that years ago she’d warned tourists their ears might pop. Arriving breathless at her cottage, it wouldn’t be from the effort but from the awe-inspiring, heavenly explosion delivering all the colours of the world to this tiny buried seaside village clinging to the edge of West Wales. Places like St Tropez and Italy, Morocco and … beyond, places she’d never been and would never go to. Because she would never be able to decide where to visit first. What to pack. Which bag to take. Or if she could ever leave Dwynwen again.

  That’s why she loved watching the sun going down – it would happen, no matter what: there was no procrastination about it. And as she’d sit on her front wall, the warmth of the stone seeping through to her pear-shaped bottom, when the lilac sky became mulberry then sapphire, she’d promise herself tomorrow she would start anew.

  But tonight the fuse blew on her glorious daydream as she stepped out into the murk of a storm. ‘Will you listen to yourself, you great big Glamorgan saus
age,’ she muttered as she locked the beach cabin, her mitts already solid like uncooked fish fingers. ‘Winter isn’t done with yet.’

  She felt sorry for the new barmaid who was staying in the holiday let next door but one to her. Mel had only had a quick glimpse of her but she didn’t seem the type to have brought a waterproof. She’d learn, Mel thought, if she lasted. She’d seen it all before: to stay here you had to have a bit about you and she was sorry to say skinny jeans were no match for the elements.

  Beneath a strawberry plastic hood, she peered through the soggy fret to the hug of crooked houses built into the hillside where hers, or rather Dad’s, was first on the left, overlooking the secluded bay of Dwynwen. They were all named as if they were in a tube of Love Hearts: the Pink House, where Mel lived, the White House, the Blue House, the Purple House and the Green House, the ramshackle uninhabited one, the only one apart from hers which wasn’t a holiday let. Not a trace of colour remained, though. They’d been stripped down to the beige of old bones by the weather, which was doing its worst right now.

  Heavy flint clouds squatted on the rooftops like Brillo pads. A raw wind blew in from the churning steely sea and the rain gave everything whiplash. Her lemon meringue hair swirling around her, tasting of salt, Mel set off, nearly knocked forwards by the gale. Hunched over, imagining she was in crampons, her feet crunching into grit, slow and heavy, she headed for the summit where the lane levelled off and doubled back on itself to the Pink House.

  At the crest, there was no dilly-dallying to take in the crescent of frosted sand and the ragged rocks which tumbled down to the water. It was a frantic fumble of fingers and keys, blind wet slaps on the wallpaper for the light switch, the abandonment of mac and boots, and scooping up of post. Home sweet home was topsy-turvy – two bedrooms and the bathroom were downstairs while the living area was above, to make the most of the view. When there was one.

  It meant she could get into her comfies before going up to start on tea. That’s how wild it got for her on a Friday night. Anyway, she had to have her sensible head on for work tomorrow. But first she had to navigate the narrow hallway. Dad always made a fuss about what he called her clutter but it was simple: hold back the overhanging coats and scarves, slide past the dresser so you didn’t knock off any of the paperwork waiting to be filed, skirt the ‘return to sender’ polythene parcels and Bryn’s your uncle. She liked it looking lived in – she was a busy woman after all, as the one people turned to for help. The spread of stuff made her feel warm and fuzzy. Cradled and safe. Although when she skidded on a bagged package she did concede a little tidy might be needed. But she’d do it now, in a minute, once she’d got out of her soaking skull leggings, sopping stripy rainbow knee-high socks and damp cerise jumper dress.

  Then it was on with her dolphin onesie, a nip to the loo and a guilty glimpse of towering boxes of unsold summer stock in Dad’s old room, in hibernation until she could set it outside the cabin without it taking flight all the way to the harbour.

  A trek up the stairs, on the left side because the right half was where she put things such as books and washing to be returned to shelves and cupboards when she was on her way. Not that she had her hands free, because of the mail and two cups of old tea.

  Still, she’d sort it later, because she was beyond hungry. But what to eat? Mel sighed at the prospect of her usual dilemma: would it be pasta, jacket potato, noodles, rice or chips? And what to have with it? If only she could make her mind up. She could never decide quickly enough and once she’d snacked on toast and crisps and cheese, she’d lost her appetite and ended up chasing whatever it was she’d made around her plate. At the top of the stairs, she turned up the thermostat and looked across the open-plan lounge-kitchen-diner through the French doors and beyond the balcony. Only the lights from The Dragon gave any hint of life out there in the mist which was silvery grey, in between slate and platinum, shiny almost because of the rainy sheen which gave it a myriad of tones. It was familiar, strangely comforting … and it struck her right in the heart.

  It was the same hue as Alwyn Edwards’s eyes. How they’d bickered over the colour: he’d insisted they were grey and that was that, but she had seen a million shades more. Yellows in there, blues too, a pigment of aubergine, even. He was one of the few she could talk to about this extra sensitivity, which the doctors called tetrachromacy. This rare genetic quirk meant Mel saw beyond the normal wavelengths of light and picked up a variety of colours more than one hundred times greater than most people. Al called her superhuman when she spoke of pinks and purples in the rocks. Her art teacher, Mrs Jones, said she was blessed with such vision, which her paintings reflected. Otherwise, though, she’d learned to keep her mouth shut at school because it only stoked the rumours she was a witch. She’d been left alone after Al thumped a couple of her bullies. Because he’d believed in her.

  The memory filled Mel’s eyes with tears. Al was gone, had been for nine years. They’d had one kiss, which had been the sum of all of her longing. But then everything had changed; as if her happiness had run out.

  Almost a decade ago, after she’d lost Al and was weak with grief, she’d come back to the cottage to recover and regroup: Mam had remarried and was miles away, in the next village, and Dad asked her to run the cabin for the summer until she got her head together. At the time, he was a cruise ship engineer, so he came and went and she’d have the Pink House to herself. She’d never spent a night away from Dwynwen again.

  The emptiness came to her, sucking the air out of her body, leaving her hollow. She held onto the banister to steady herself and to prove she wasn’t a ghost: she was here and whole. She was attached to the past and frightened of the future, that’s what this was all about. The present is where you are, she told herself, and breathe and keep breathing and fill the gaping hole inside of you … It gave her a quickening and she staggered to her dad’s battered sea chest where she had stored her childhood. Onto the wooden floor, flipping the buckles and lid, her hands scrambling for the things which reassured her. Collections of treasures, worthless to anyone else, but pieces of hers and Al’s history which slowly restored her soul. The smooth stones they’d collected from the shore, safe in a velvet drawstring bag, the colour of Eden. Faded notes they’d passed between their desks, trading juvenile insults in Welsh: he was a drewgi – a smelly dog – and she was a twmffat, an idiot. And, as she felt herself steadying, the stubs of her favourite Crayola crayons in a scratched Tupperware box. Scented with banana, jellybean, coconut and lime, there were teeth marks where she’d taken a nibble. Another with its torn label, called Soap, had lost its tip in a dare. Her prized one – pristine, unused, it was lemon yellow, over which Al had scrawled ‘melyn’… The gap was closing now and she was able to reset herself. Carefully placing everything back, she exhaled long and slow and got up to face the night.

  The post would divert her. There were a couple of bills which she placed on the pile on the worktop. A flyer from a mobile phone company boasting ‘even more coverage’ – but not here, where the mountains kept the village out of range. Even so, she kept it, just in case. And a letter for Mr L. Thomas, her dad, who used this address because when he’d taken early retirement due to his dodgy hip, he’d decided to live on a houseboat down at the harbour. Windowed and white, it looked official so she opened it in case it was urgent and scanned the words. ‘Thank you for your enquiry … please contact us for a valuation appointment … be aware it’s a difficult market, particularly given the location of the property …’

  My God, he was thinking of selling the cabin. It was like an earthquake going off. It couldn’t be. She reread it, hoping she’d got the wrong end of the leek, but there it was in black and white. And a bit of lily pad and peach. Caban Cwtch was just as its English translation, a cuddly cabin where the villagers came for their papers and milk, bread and cheese. For a chat and a cup of tea, a ham bap or chips. Mel prided herself on having whatever anyone wanted, be it a sewing ki
t or some batteries, a laugh or a shoulder to cry on. It was their lifeline and hers. It made her feel useful, it filled six days a week from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., and it didn’t point out that her one chance of love had gone.

  Yet deep down she understood why Dad wanted to sell. Ten years ago, it had been a goldmine of wetsuits and bodyboards, buckets and spades: the holidaymakers had come in herds from April to September, generations of families who’d stay in the static caravans on the hill or in the lets dotted around the village. But over time, they’d drifted away, up and down the coast to the towns which had piers and boat trips, trendy restaurants and boutiques, even wifi. People here poo-poohed their rivals at first because here was a traditional slice of life, away from the nonsense of the internet and Starbucks. Here in Dwynwen, things were simple. Sit and stare out to sea, perhaps go out on a surfboard, read a book, hike the coastal path and wash it down with food and drink while watching the dolphins from The Dragon.

  But when takings nosedived and the dolphins inexplicably went with them, the villagers had gone into a kind of shock, stupefied by the rapid fall in its standing. Mel included. She’d had plans to update Caban Cwtch, turn it into a craft shop too, add a gallery, improve the menu. But how could she do that when there was so much unsold and so little income? Okay, the winter was always hard, but this year it had been the worst.

  Why hadn’t Dad spoken to her about this? Or, to be fair, why, when he had spoken to her about this, hadn’t he made it clearer that it was getting serious? The ‘we might have to shut up shop’ was approaching fast and no longer distant on the horizon.

  Mel squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed her face. Where the hell did this leave her? If Caban Cwtch closed, she would have nothing but a gaping chasm leading to … she couldn’t bear thinking where. Because she was feeling giddy as it was. If a sinkhole opened up, she would topple in and they’d hear her screams as far away as … and she racked her brain to find somewhere exotic she’d been and could only come up with Cardiff. She was hopeless and—