Читать книгу A Night In Annwn - Owen Jones - Страница 5

William bent over despite a twinge of back pain to inspect the soil. There had been a little rain the day before and he didn’t want to have to cope with wet grass or slippery mud. It was still soft to the touch, so he chose to walk along the road that day and head upwards towards the summit of the hill that they lived on. His was not the only farm on this hill, but there was none higher than his, so from here on up, he considered it to be ‘Jones Peak’, although only by default, not by law.

His family had lived in that farm for at least eight generations according to the family Bible, the earliest date in which was 1742. All Joneses and all shepherds. The only change that had taken place in thousands of years was the road, which the government had paid for during the early years of the Second World War so that they could drive a spotter team to the summit to look out for sneaky incoming German planes.

It had been a complete waste of time and money and seemed symbolic of the whole war itself. The only people who had benefitted from the road were his own family, although at the time, his grandfather and grandmother had not wanted it there in case it encouraged tourists and other unwelcome outsiders. They need not have worried. William rarely encountered more than one or two cars a month and they were always owned by villagers wanting to take their dogs for a walk or their family for a picnic.

He and his wife, Sarah, had done that with their Becky when she was still in school too. They had tried to find the time for an outing, for that was their euphemism for it, at least once a month. He had never owned a car though, so a lot depended on the weather which was as unpredictable as the sea.

The mountains formed an efficient windbreak against the worst of the Atlantic weather, but the wind, mist and drizzle that got over them landed on Jones’ Peak, from where they would descend down the hill to envelope the village, which he would be able to see in thirty minutes as they rounded that side on their corkscrew journey upwards.

He checked his bearing and stood up straight. He had been finding recently that he had a tendency to stoop if he didn’t keep take care. He didn’t want that. He used a staff, but he always had done, ever since he was a boy. You could not be a proper shepherd or even an amateur hill walker without a decent staff. In the old days, he had used it to frighten off the occasional snake and tap a dawdling sheep, but he had never used it to help him walk, not like he did these days.

He watched Kiddy race on ahead on the other side of the road – the safer side, away from the edge. She didn’t care for the view down like he did and preferred the soft grass beneath her pads. She had caught the smell of something and was looking for its source behind the rocks and boulders that lay scattered about. She was twelve years old, and so was technically older than he was by nearly twenty years, but she could still manage a turn of speed. A short burst when the excitement of the chase took her. This would probably be a rabbit or a hare, but she would chase off snakes too.

It was a darn sight more than he could do these days, he thought sadly. He couldn’t even chase a pretty girl nowadays, but worse still, he wouldn’t even want to.. Where had all his energy gone? He had been able to run up and down this hill as much as he had wanted to for decades and now he was having trouble walking up the last section with a straight back and a stick.

It was at times like these, when he was alone, which was most of the time now, that he wondered what the point of it all was.

In a hundred yards, he would come to the boulder where he had first kissed Sarah, and where two years later she had accepted his proposal of marriage and made him the happiest man alive. He had never told anyone about that rock, because he was sure that his father would have told him that it had not always been there; that the army bulldozer had pushed all the rocks to the inside of the road rather than carry them down.

He would have said something to spoil the memory and the dream that that smooth rock had been there for ever, or at least since the Ice Age, which was long enough ago for him to still think of as romantic. He had never witnessed one tender moment between his grandparents, on either side, or his own parents. They had been tough, hard, no-nonsense people, suited to their times, whereas he had had the relative luxury of growing up in the post-war years when there was hope and prosperity. Not that it had affected or even reached their little hill, but it was evident in the media that a New World had dawned.

“About bloody time!” he remembered his father saying one day. “I hope it’s a bloody sight better than the old one!” His mother had scolded him for bad language and he had taken his pipe out into the back garden ‘for a bit of peace’.

He reached the boulder gratefully and sat down. Kiddy put her paws to the surface beside him, stared at him with her still-bright eyes, surrounded by white-grey hair and panted. William was almost panting too, but he stroked her hair, as he had Sarah’s all those years ago, and she was just as happy as his then future wife had been.

“There’s a good girl. You’re a good girl you are. A good girl!” and Kiddy appeared to show satisfaction with the praise by licking his forearm. He gazed out across the narrow road and wide valley before him. “My Mam and Da used to tell me that witches, fairies and pixies live in these hills and valleys… and my grandparents did! And I believed them…” he said to his dog. “Until I became all grown up and educated.

“I didn’t want to seem like a stupid farm boy then… I was a New Man in a New World and the Old World was for silly old people. Aye, and so were the witches and The Fair Family – Y Tylwyth Teg. But, it’s funny, you know, Kiddy, my girl, the older I got the more them old stories made sense to me… and now? I fair believes ‘em again.

“Are you with the Fair People, my lovely Sarah or are you back in the cottage. I would like to think that you’re sitting by me on our love seat of stone now…”

Tears did not come, but he thought that they would have in ‘normal’ people. ‘Too much of my Da in me to cry in public!’ he said aloud, but only because there was no other human being for miles around.

“I’m a silly old bugger, that’s what I am, aren’t I, Kiddy? A stupid, silly old bugger… Come on, let’s get on with it”.

He slid off the rock to his feet and the dog put her front paws on his thigh, looking for another pat and thrashing her tail because she could feel her master’s mood lightening. They set off and he checked his posture again.

Thirty-odd minutes later, they were walking across the patch of concrete on the summit of Jones’ Peak, or Bryn Teg – Fair Hill – to give it its real name. His goal was the bench in the corner of the concrete slab. In his earliest memories of the hilltop, the small shed where the army lookouts could get out of bad weather had still been there and when it had fallen into disuse, courting couples had taken it over.

After years of complaints from parents, and more than a few shotgun weddings, the council had taken it down. It still made him smile to remember a letter some wag had sent in to the readers’ opinion column. He had likened the shed to a pimple on the bald spot of a middle-aged man’s head. Well, the pimple had disappeared now and to mark its historical role was this park bench. If you sat on it with your back to the mountains, you felt as if you were sitting on top of the world and could see for miles.

As for the courting couples, they still went there but they all had cars these days, and contraception, or most of them anyway.

It was a lovely day. There was the inevitable breeze, but it was as weak as it got. It made his hair fly about, but it was exhilarating and made him feel glad to be alive again, although he knew that the effect was only temporary. As soon as they left that magical spot, he would wonder what it was all about again. He had known when he had had a family, but he couldn’t remember any longer.

“Come on, my lovely girl, let’s be heading back down”. It was a signal to her for a treat before starting for home. William usually took an apple or a bar of chocolate with him for energy for the homeward journey and he always gave his dog a biscuit as well. She came over to him wagging her tail in expectation.

“Good girl, Kiddy”, he soothed stroking her head with one hand while she ate the biscuits out of the other. “That’s the lot, off we go”.

As William was getting up, a car appeared on the concrete and it flashed its lights. A man of William’s age got out and so did a young girl.

“Hello, Bill. The number of times I come up yer and don’t see anyone. Anyway, I’m glad I’ve bumped into you actually. It’s my birthday today and I’m having a little do in the village pub. I’m just showing my granddaughter the magnificent view from our hill, then I’ll take her home and go on down. Do you fancy it?”

“I don’t know, Dai. Happy Birthday by the way”. He waved at the girl who remained the other side of the car stroking the dog.

“Come on, I’ll take you and your dog down in the car. Better than watching daytime TV, surely?”

“It is that without a doubt. Yes, go on then. My daughter asked me if I wanted to go down this morning. I said ‘No, I’ll leave it till tomorrow’, but this is a good reason to change my mind. You’re on!”

“Good man! Good man! If you’d been on the phone I would have rung you to give you an invite, but you won’t have one will you?”

“No fear! Bloody waste of money up yer, man… nothing works. No signal, no bloody electric half the time neither”.

“No, the world that time forgot, that’s where you live. It’s like going back a hundred years up yer… maybe two hundred…”

“If it wasn’t for this concrete slab, nothing has changed for thousands of years, Dai, thousands and thousands”.

When Dai had shown his granddaughter around the hilltop, he promised her an ice cream and they all got into the car to start their descent.

That old dog of yours pongs a bit, doesn’t she, Bill? Don’t you think it’s time she had a bath?”

“No, I do not! She is a farm working girl, not some floozy. She wants to smell like a dog so other dogs will find her attractive, not like some city girl. You won’t find another dog readier to jump into a stream than old Kiddy, but I ain’t putting no powders and perfumes on her so’s people thinks she smells nice. I don’t believe in poncifying dogs.

“She’s a dog, and if you wants a dog, you ‘as to accept that dogs don’t smell like us”.

Dai looked at his friend and agreed, but wondered whether his friend didn’t need a little ‘poncifying’ himself.

Dai drove past a shop near the village, bought his granddaughter an ice cream and took her home, then they walked a little further on down the hill to the ‘Bryn Teg’, the village public house. It was nearly four o’ clock.

William entered the pub first, but turned to hold the door open for his friend without looking inside. As Dai walked through the door, the sound of ‘Happy Birthday’ erupted. They both looked around the bar in amazement at the decorations and trimmings. The landlord and landlady, Harry and Joyce, led the birthday song accompanied by ten or twelve men and women, all of about retirement age.

“Well I never!” he said to everyone as he and William took stools at the bar and Kiddy lay down in her usual spot under a table by the door.

“Pint of bitter, Dai?” asked Harry.

“Yes, please, Harry. Who did all this?”

“It was Joyce’s idea, but a few of your friends here helped us decorate the place. Bitter for you too, Bill?”

“Aye, thanks, Harry. I’ll get these”.

“Happy Birthday, mate!” he said clinking glasses with his friend when their pints had arrived, “and many more of them”.

“Thanks, Bill. All the best, mate. I’m glad you could come. I wasn’t expecting all this though and that’s for sure. Thanks for all the trouble you’ve gone to for my birthday, everyone”, he said standing up and raising his glass to everyone. “I don’t think I’ve had a birthday party since the kids left home. It was a very kind thought. Thank you, Joyce”.

When the initial excitement caused by Dai’s entrance had died down, most of the men went back to watching a rerun of a recent football game, while others exchanged anecdotes about village life and hill farming in general.

“Fancy a game of Crib, Dai?”

“Sure. Usual stakes?”

“Aye, penny a point. Harry, the cards, please”.

Harry nodded and reached for the set. He knew what they were talking about because they had been playing Crib together for all of the nineteen years he had been the landlord of the Bryn Teg, and he had been told that they had been playing it for just as long before he had taken over.

“Shall I give Kiddy her usual as well?” asked Harry.

William looked over his shoulder to see his dog panting back at him, her tail wagging as usual whenever he paid her attention.

“Yes, please, Harry. It’s her wages for having to wait for me, and she’s come to expect them now”.

“How long has she been coming here? Ten years?”

“Twelve, but she wasn’t what you would call a regular until I sold the flock five years ago”.

“Twelve years, is it? Doesn’t time fly?” he said pouring a half a bitter into the bowl that William left behind the bar for her, and topping it up with water. He put that and a packet of Smokey-Bacon flavoured crisps on the bar and walked around the counter.

“There you are, old girl”, he said putting the bowl on yesterday’s newspaper and emptying the crisps onto it. Kiddy waited patiently, her tail wagging and her tongue hanging out. The moment that Harry had finished patting her head, she tucked into her treat.

“I love to do that for her. I actually look forward to it”, said the kind-hearted landlord.

The afternoon passed quickly, and after several games, most of which Dai won for a change, William made ready to go.

“Not going already are you, Bill?”

“Aye, I’ve had my three pints and two hours and you’ve had my money - birthday boy’s luck, so it’s time to hit the road”.

“Aw, come on, I’m enjoying winning for a change. I’ll tell you what, stay another hour and not only will I buy you a pint, but I’ll give you double stakes”.

“Oh, I don’t know”, he said but he was considering the proposition. His friend had not had to buy a drink all afternoon and he had ninety-eight pence of William’s money.

“All right, but I got to take the dog outside for a Gypsy’s first. Her bladder’s not as strong as it used to be”.

“You could say that about all of us”, replied Dai. “You do that and I’ll nip to the gents’ as well”.

Kiddy coupied down in the car park and looked away from William shyly as she always did when going about her business and then started to walk home. William whistled and held the door open for her. She hurried inside and they both resumed their places.

“I needed that”, said Dai holding the deck of cards out for William to cut them, “and it looked as if she did too”.

“She thought she was going home for her dinner, so I’ll only stay another hour. Cheers, Dai. Thanks for the pint”.

“My pleasure”, he replied.

“I’ll get my money back out of you now”.

“Never! I’m going to whip your arse. I’m on a roll, I can feel it”.

Ninety minutes and two pints later, William got up to go again, and Dai didn’t try to stop him.

“A quick visit to the bog, and then we’re off. I won’t get home until eight o’clock now. I’m not as fleet of foot as I used to be you know. Oh, and a packet of peanuts, Harry, please”.

“None of us are, mate. Thanks for the lesson in Crib, but I nearly had you this time. You’re a jammy sod, you get some incredible luck, you do!”

“That’s skill, my boy! I’ve been trying to teach you the game for forty years. Don’t you think it’s time you packed it in and tried snooker instead?”

“I’ll have you next time”.

“In your dreams. Enjoy the rest of your birthday. Bye everyone, time to get up that hill and home”. He looked around the room, but already knew that no-one could give him a lift even part the way home. When he opened the door, Kiddy was in front of him.

Kiddy usually led the way out of the village, and he would follow on two and a half yards behind her. He had never been sure why she liked to walk like that, but he suspected that she was trying to force the pace. When they got onto the hill road, she wandered more freely ahead, behind and to the right of him.

Five pints was more than William was accustomed to these days and it made him sing to himself quietly as he tried not to trudge up the hill. He liked to sing the hymns that he had learned in school and chapel. He didn’t know a single modern song, except for some Max Boyce that they sang in the pub during a rugby international, and he was proud of it. Most of the hymns he could sing in Welsh and English, but preferred the Welsh versions.

Forty minutes later, William was approaching a corner which would reveal another rock that they always rested at on the downhill side of his house. He felt his jacket pocket for the packet of peanuts he would share with Kiddy before they tackled the last short leg home. It was more of a treat to stop there than a necessity. They both enjoyed their breaks, their snacks and taking their time in their new lives of retirement. As he rounded the corner, he was wondering where Kiddy had got to. It wasn’t like her not to check up on him every few minutes.

Then he saw her. She was lying on the ground just before the rock. It immediately struck him as strange that she wasn’t sitting in her usual place on the right-hand side of it.

He hurried his pace. Fifty yards from her, she gave a kick, arched her back and was still. He started to run and called her name, but she made no attempt to respond.

He dropped to his knees hurting them on the hard surface, but the tears were not because of that. He could see that his friend had suffered a heart attack and not survived it.

William drew her up onto his lap and wept like a child. Some thirty or forty minutes later, he scooped her up with his right hand and tried to stand up, but he could not. His knees were too weak, so he crawled to their rock and used his left hand to help him up. He sat on the rock with his dog on his lap and the tears started again. ‘She hadn’t even had her peanuts!’ he was thinking as a pain grew in his left arm. The iron grip of a vice squeezed his chest and he was groaning as he and Kiddy slipped off the rock onto the sparse grass below it.

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