Story, Volume I

by Dai Smith

  But just when we were taking the sharp turn out of Heol Wen at the White Hart corner, breaking into a trot again, suddenly, without any warning, we came upon Tal y Fedw’s big grey mare, a hulking, hairy carthorse standing out at right angles from the pavement, with her thick hind legs well forward into the narrow street. Without hesitating for a moment my father leaned over and took the turn, and the axle-hub struck the big mare a stinger across her massive haunches as we passed, sending her bounding forward and then in a twist up into the air on her hind legs with pain and fright. The Tal y Fedw brothers, two short black little men, ran out at once cursing and swearing into the road to get hold of her head which she had torn loose from them. I was shocked and excited and I clung to the mudguard because the light trap with all the leathers wheezing rocked over on its springs as though it was going to capsize with the suddenness of the blow. And Flower, frightened by the shouting and by the unexpected shudder of the cart behind her, threw back her head and tried to swerve away across the road. I looked up anxiously at my father. He was grinning happily, showing the big boards of his teeth in his reddish face. He didn’t stop at all when Tal y Fedw swore and shouted at him, he only whipped the mare up instead.

  My father sold Flower after all to a man he met in the bar of the Three Horseshoes, the inn where we put up. Then, after the business was over, we went across to the large flat field which the farmers used for the horse fair. We wandered about for a time talking to many people and listening to the jokes of the auctioneers but I was downhearted because I wouldn’t see Flower any more. And in the end my father bought a lovely slender mare with a pale golden coat to her shining the wing-gloss of a bird and a thick flaky cream-coloured tail reaching almost to the grass. She was shod but she seemed wild, only half broken, with wide-open black nostrils, and a thick-haired creamy mane and large dark eyes curving and shining like the balls of black marble on a gravestone. In a nearby field a fun fair was opening and each time the loud roundabout siren hooted the tall filly started as though she had received a slash with a cutting whip, her large black nostrils opened wide with fear at the sound, and she began dancing up her long slender legs off the grass as though a current of terror were shooting through her fetlocks. She edged warily out of my father’s reach too as long as she could, keeping at the far end of the halter-rope, and when he put out his hand towards her dark muzzle she shied away in a panic, peeling open the terrified whites of her eyes as they stood out black and solid from her golden head. But he wouldn’t have that from any horse and after a time she became quiet and docile, fawning upon him and allowing him to smooth, with hands that were almost the same colour, the glossy amber of her flanks. Then telling me to fetch her over to the ’Shoes, he handed me the halter-rope and walked off laughing with the man who had owned her before.

  It was hot and sunny in the open field then, so bright that if a man threw up his hand it glowed crimson like a burning torch in the sunlight. The great golden mare trod heavily behind me, a thick forelock of creamy mane hanging tangled over her eyes, and her frightened ears pricked up sharply on her high head like rigid moonpoints. I didn’t want to lead her, perhaps she was an animal nobody could manage, but I was ashamed to show my father I was afraid. I was almost in a panic going in the heat among the tall and awkward horses that crowded in the field, I was afraid of being trampled down, or of having a kick in the face from the hoof of a frightened horse. And most of all I dreaded that the fairground hooter would begin its howling again and scare this wild creature up on to her hind legs once more with terror and surprise. It became more and more frightening leading her across the crowded field with the hot blast of her breath upon my flesh, I was sweating and in agony expecting her to shy at any moment or to rear without warning and begin a sudden stampede among the horses that crowded around us. My panic and helplessness as the tall blonde mare came marching behind me, large and ominous and with heavy breath, were like the remembered terror rippling hotly over my flesh one night as I sat alone in our kitchen through the thunderstorm, waiting for the endless tension of the storm to break.

  But all the time my father, using long and eager strides, went ahead with the other man, waving his cigarette about, enjoying himself among the crowds and slapping the horses recklessly across the haunches with his yellow hand if they were in his way. ‘Indeed to God, Dafydd,’ he shouted, jeering at a sallow man with a fresh black eye, ‘you’re getting handsomer every day.’

  At last the gate came in sight, my hopes began to rise that I should get out of the field before the siren blared into the sky again. To leave the fairground we had to cross a shallow ditch which had a little stream in it because of the rain, and over which someone had dropped a disused oaken house door to act as a footbridge. As soon as the mare heard her front hoofs resounding on the wood panels she recoiled powerfully with fright and flung herself back against the rope, she began plunging and shying away from the ditch with great violence, her nostrils huge in her rigid head with surprise and terror and the fiery metals of her shining hoofs flashing their menace in the sun above my upturned face. I was taken unawares, but I didn’t think of letting go. The halter-rope became rigid as a bar of iron in my hands but in spite of the dismay I felt at her maddened plunging and the sight of her lathered mouth I didn’t give in to her. I clutched hard with both hands at the rod-like rope, using all my weight against her as she jerked and tugged back wildly from the terror of the ditch, her flashing forefeet pawing the air and her butter-coloured belly swelling huge above me. My father, hearing the noise and seeing the furious startled way she was still bucking and rearing on the halter-rope, ran back shouting across the wooden door, and quickly managed to soothe again. Meanwhile I stood ashamed and frightened on the edge of the ditch. I was trembling and I knew by the chill of my flesh that my face was as white as the sun on a post. But although I was so shaken, almost in tears with shame and humiliation at failing to bring the mare in by myself, my father only laughed, he made nothing of it. He put his hand down in his breeches pocket and promised me sixpence to spend in the shows after dinner. But I didn’t want to go to the shows, I wanted to stay with my father all the afternoon.

  After the meal I had the money I had been promised and I spent the afternoon by myself wandering about in the fairground eating peppermints and ginger snaps. I was unhappy because my father had been getting noisier during dinner, and when I asked him if I could go with him for the afternoon he said, ‘No, don’t wait for me, I’ve got to let my tailboard down first.’ I was ashamed, I felt miserable because he never spoke to me that way or told me a falsehood. In the fair-field the farm servants were beginning to come in, trying the hooplas and the shooting standings and squirting water over the maids from their ladies’ teasers. I stood about watching them and when it was teatime I went back to the inn to meet my father as we had arranged. My heart sank with foreboding when they told me he wasn’t there. At first I waited in the Commercial, hungry and homesick, pretending to read the cattle-cake calendar, and then I went out and searched the darkening streets and the muddy fairground, heavy-hearted and almost in tears, but I couldn’t find him anywhere. And after many hours of searching I heard with dismay a tune spreading its notes above the buildings and I saw it was ten by the moon-faced market clock. The public houses were emptying, so that the badly-lighted town was becoming packed with people, the fair-night streets were filled with uproar, and drunken men were lurching past, being sick and quarrelling loudly. I stood aside from them, near the fishes of the monumental lamp, weary with loneliness and hunger, glimpsing through my tears the ugly faces of the men who crowded swearing and singing through the green gaslight, wondering what I should do. And then, suddenly I realised I could hear someone singing a hymn aloud in the distance above the noise of the town. I knew it was my father and all my fears dropped from me like a heavy load as I hurried away because at last I had found him.

  I ran along the dark and crowded street until I came to the open square outside the market entrance wh
ere the two lamps on the gate pillars had IN painted on them, and there I saw a lot of people gathering into a thick circle. I failed to get through the crowd of men, so I climbed on to the bars of the market wall at the back where the children had chalked words and looked over the bowlers and the cloth of the people. There was my father, his black hat sitting on the back of his head, standing upright beneath the bright gas lamps in an open space in the middle of the crowd, singing ‘Gwaed dy Groes’ loudly and beautifully and conducting himself with his two outspread arms. But although he was singing so well all the people were laughing and making fun of him. They stood around in their best clothes or with axle grease on their boots, laughing and pointing, and telling one another that Pantathro had had a bellyful again. By the clear green light of the pillar globes above the gates I could see that my father had fallen, because his breeches and his black riding coat were soiled with street dirt and horse dung, and when he turned his head round a large raw graze was to be seen bleeding on his cheekbone. I felt myself hot with love and thankfulness when I saw him, my throat seemed as though it were tightly barred up, but I couldn’t cry any more. He soon finished his hymn and the people began cheering and laughing as he bowed and wiped the sweat off his glistening head with his red handkerchief. And soon the serving men were shouting, ‘Come on Wat, the “Loss of the Gwladys”, Watcyn,’ but I could see now they only wanted to make fun of him while he was saying that sad poem. I couldn’t understand them because my father was so clever, a better actor and reciter than any of them. He cleared away one or two dogs from the open space with his hat and held up his arms for silence until all the shouting had died down; he stood dark and upright in the centre of the circle, taller than anyone around him, his double shadow thrown on the cobbles by the market lamps pointing out towards the ring of people like the black hands of a large clock. Then he spat on the road and started slowly in his rich voice to recite one of the long poems he used to make up, while I muttered the verses from the wall to help his memory. As he recited in his chanting way he acted as well, gliding gracefully to and fro in the bright light of the ring to describe the pretty schooner shooting over the water. Or he held his tall, pole-like body rigid and erect until something came sailing at him over the mocking crowd, a paper bag or a handful of orange peel, and at that he cursed the people and threatened not to go on. When I saw them do that I went hot with shame and anger, because my father was doing his best for them. Then suddenly he stood bent in a tense position, shading his eyes, still as a fastened image with a peg under its foot, his eyes glittering under their thick brows and the big bars of his teeth making the gape of his mouth like a cage as he stared through the storm at the rocks ahead. Rousing himself he shouted an order they use at sea, mimicking a captain, and began steering the schooner this way and that among the dangerous crags, pointing his brown finger to the thunderous heavens, burying his face in his hands, embracing himself and wiping away his tears with his coat sleeves. Every time he did something dramatic like this, although he imitated it so well that I could see the mothers kissing the little children for the last time, all the people listening laughed and made fun of him. I didn’t know why they couldn’t leave him alone, they were not giving him fair play, shouting out and jeering all the time at his good acting. When the ship struck in the imitated howling of the wind he shrieked in a way that made my blood run cold, and began chasing about the open space with his arms outspread and a frightening look of terror and despair on his face. He was acting better than ever he had done for me in our kitchen, the sweat was pouring from him now because he was doing all the parts and yet the people were still mocking at him. Sinking his head resignedly into his hands and dropping on one knee in the middle of the circle he sang a few bars of the pitiful death hymn ‘Daeth yr awr im’ ddianc adre’, in his beautiful bass voice. It was so sweet and sad I was almost breaking my heart to hear him. Some of the farm boys took up the tune, but he stopped them with an angry wave of his hand, which made them laugh again. And then suddenly he gave up singing and as the sinking decks of the ship slid under the water and the mothers and the little children began drowning in the tempest he crouched down low on the cobbles with his hands clenched in agony before him, asking with the sweat boiling out of his face that the great eternal hand should be under him and under us all now and for ever. He forgot he was a drunken actor reciting before a jeering ring of people, he ignored the laughs of the crowd and behaved like a man drowning in the deep waters. He wept and prayed aloud to the King of Heaven for forgiveness, sobbing out his words of love and repentance, and when the ship with her little flags disappeared under the waves he dropped forward and rolled helplessly over with a stunning sound, his face flat downwards on the cobbled road and his limp arms outspread in exhaustion and despair. Just then, as he sprawled still and insensible on the cobbles like a flimsy scarecrow the wind had blown over, one of the spaniels ran up again with his tail wagging and lifted his leg against the black hat which had fallen off and lay on the road beside my father’s head. The crowd laughed and cheered more than ever when they saw that and I could feel the scalding tears trickling down my face. I jumped down from the market wall and started to hurry the six miles home with angry sobs burning my throat, because the people had laughed at my father’s poem and made him a gazing stock and the fool of the fair.

  All the afternoon I had dreaded this, and in the dark street before finding my father I had wept with alarm and foreboding at the thought of it. I knew I should never be able to manage the golden mare alone and bring her in the night all the way up to Pantathro. And now I was doing it, holding the whip across the reins like my father, and the tall indignant creature with her high-arched neck was before me in the shafts, walking along as quietly as our Flower and obeying the rein as though my father himself were driving her. I had prayed for help to God, who always smelt of tobacco when I knelt to him, and I was comforted with strength and happiness and a quiet horse. The men at the Three Horseshoes who had altered the brown harness for the mare said when I went back that if I was Wat Pantathro’s son I ought to be able to drive anything. I had felt happy at that and ever since I had been warm and full of light inside as though someone had hung a lantern in the middle of my belly. At first I wished for the heavy bridle from the horn hanger behind our bedroom door for the mare’s head, but now I didn’t care, I felt sure I could manage her and bring her home alone. There was no one else on the road, it was too late, and no dogs would bark or guns go off to frighten her. And beside, it was uphill nearly all the way. Only, about a hundred yards from the railway I pulled up to listen if there was a train on the line, because I didn’t want to be on the bridge when the engine was going under, but there was not a sound spreading anywhere in the silent night.

  And what made me all the happier was that my father was with me, he was lying fast asleep under the tiger rug on the floorboards of the spring body. His pretty horseshoe tie was like a gunrag and the blue jay’s feather was hanging torn from his wet hat beside me on the seat, but he was safe and sleeping soundly. When the men at the ’Shoes lifted him still unconscious into the spring body they examined him first, holding his head up near the light of the cart lamp. I saw then the whole side of his face like beef, and when they pushed back his eyelids with their thumbs the whites showed thick and yellow as though they were covered with matter. And on the inside of his best breeches, too, there was a dark stain where he had wet himself, but I didn’t care about that, I was driving him home myself with the young mare between the shafts and I was safe on the hill outside Lewsin Penylan’s already.

  The night was warm, the moon up behind me and the stars burning in front bright and clear like little flames with their wicks newly trimmed. And in the quietness of the country the yellow trap-wheels made a pleasant gritty noise on the lonely road and from time to time the mare struck out bright red sparks with her hoofs. We passed the vicarage where one light was still lit, and came to Parcglas where Harri’s snow-white nanny pegged on her chain chu
ckled at us like a seagull from the bank. I thought the mare would be frightened at this, so I spoke soothingly to her to distract her attention. She just pointed her sharp ears round and then went on smoothly nodding her high-crested head, her golden toffee-coloured haunches working in the light of the candle flame thrown from the two cart lamps stuck in the front of the spring body.

  The sloping hedges slipped by me on both sides of the white road. I wanted more than anything else to please my father after what they had done to him, shouting he had dirtied on the swingletree again and was as helpless as a load of peas, I wanted to bring him home safely by myself with the golden mare, and I knew now I should do it. Because at last I saw a star shining over our valley, a keyholeful of light, telling me I was home, and I turned into the drive of Pantathro without touching the gateposts with the hubs on either side.

  REVELATION

  Rhys Davies

  I

  The men of the day shift were threading their way out of the colliery. The cage had just clanked up into the daylight, the tightly packed men had poured out and deposited their lamps, the cage swishing down again for the next lot, and, hitching their belts and shaking themselves in the sunlight, these released workers of the underworld began their journey over the hill down to the squat grey town that was in the bed of the valley. As he was passing the powerhouse, just before depositing his lamp, one of these colliers heard his name called from its doorway: