Story, Volume I

by Dai Smith

  ‘We thought of going to Nice for a fortnight,’ said Brazell – he rhymed it with ice, dug Skully in the ribs – ‘but the air’s nicer here for the complexion.’

  ‘It’s as good as a herb,’ said Skully.

  They shared an enormous joke, cuffing and biting and wrestling again, scattering sand in the eyes, until they fell back with laughter, and Brazell wiped the blood from his nose with a piece of picnic paper. George lay covered to the waist in sand. I watched the sea slipping out, with birds quarrelling over it, and the sun beginning to go down patiently.

  ‘Look at Little Cough,’ said Brazell. ‘Isn’t he extraordinary? He’s growing out of the sand. Little Cough hasn’t got any legs.’

  ‘Poor Little Cough,’ said Skully, ‘he’s the most extraordinary boy in the world.’

  ‘Extraordinary Little Cough,’ they said together, ‘extraordinary, extraordinary, extraordinary.’ They made a song out of it, and both conducted with their switches.

  ‘He can’t swim.’

  ‘He can’t run.’

  ‘He can’t learn.’

  ‘He can’t bowl.’

  ‘He can’t bat.’

  ‘And I bet he can’t make water.’

  George kicked the sand from his legs. ‘Yes, I can!’

  ‘Can you swim?’

  ‘Can you run?’

  ‘Leave him alone,’ Dan said.

  They shuffled nearer to us. The sea was racing out now. Brazell said in a serious voice, wagging his finger: ‘Now, quite truthfully, Cough, aren’t you extraordinary? Very extraordinary? Say “Yes” or “No”.’

  ‘Categorically, “Yes” or “No”,’ said Skully.

  ‘No,’ George said. ‘I can swim and I can run and I can play cricket. I’m not frightened of anybody.’

  I said: ‘He was second in the form last term.’

  ‘Now isn’t that extraordinary? If he can be second he can be first. But no, that’s too ordinary. Little Cough must be second.’

  ‘The question is answered,’ said Skully. ‘Little Cough is extraordinary.’ They began to sing again.

  ‘He’s a very good runner,’ Dan said.

  ‘Well, let him prove it. Skully and I ran the whole length of Rhossilli sands this morning, didn’t we, Skull?’

  ‘Every inch.’

  ‘Can Little Cough do it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said George.

  ‘Do it, then.’

  ‘I don’t want to.’

  ‘Extraordinary Little Cough can’t run,’ they sang, ‘can’t

  run, can’t run.’

  Three girls, all fair, came down the cliff-side arm in arm, dressed in short, white trousers. Their arms and legs and throats were brown as berries; I could see when they laughed that their teeth were very white; they stepped on to the beach, and Brazell and Skully stopped singing. Sidney smoothed his hair back, rose casually, put his hands in his pockets, and walked towards the girls, who now stood close together, gold and brown, admiring the sunset with little attention, patting their scarves, turning smiles on each other. He stood in front of them, grinned, and saluted: ‘Hallo, Gwyneth! Do you remember me?’

  ‘La-di-da!’ whispered Dan at my side, and made a mock salute to George still peering at the retreating sea.

  ‘Well, if this isn’t a surprise!’ said the tallest girl. With little studied movements of her hands, as though she were distributing flowers, she introduced Peggy and Jean.

  Fat Peggy, I thought, too jolly for me, with hockey legs and tomboy crop, was the girl for Dan; Sidney’s Gwyneth was a distinguished piece and quite sixteen, as immaculate and unapproachable as a girl in Ben Evans’ stores; but Jean, shy and curly, with butter-coloured hair, was mine. Dan and I walked slowly to the girls.

  I made up two remarks: ‘Fair’s fair, Sidney, no bigamy abroad,’ and ‘Sorry we couldn’t arrange to have the sea in when you came.’

  Jean smiled, wiggling her heel in the sand, and I raised my cap.

  ‘Hallo!’

  The cap dropped at her feet.

  As I bent down, three lumps of sugar fell from my blazer pocket. ‘I’ve been feeding a horse,’ I said, and began to blush guiltily when all the girls laughed.

  I could have swept the ground with my cap, kissed my hand gaily, called them señoritas, and made them smile without tolerance. Or I could have stayed at a distance, and this would have been better still, my hair blown in the wind, though there was no wind at all that evening, wrapped in mystery and staring at the sun, too aloof to speak to girls; but I knew that all the time my ears would have been burning, my stomach would have been as hollow and as full of voices as a shell. ‘Speak to them quickly, before they go away!’ a voice would have said insistently over the dramatic silence, as I stood like Valentino on the edge of the bright, invisible bullring of the sands. ‘Isn’t it lovely here!’ I said.

  I spoke to Jean alone; and this is love, I thought, as she nodded her head and swung her curls and said: ‘It’s nicer than Porthcawl.’

  Brazell and Skully were two big bullies in a nightmare; I forgot them when Jean and I walked up the cliff, and, looking back to see if they were baiting George again or wrestling together, I saw that George had disappeared around the corner of the rocks and that they were talking at the foot of the cliff with Sidney and the two girls.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  I told her.

  ‘That’s Welsh,’ she said.

  ‘You’ve got a beautiful name.’

  ‘Oh! It’s just ordinary.’

  ‘Shall I see you again?’

  ‘If you want to.’

  ‘I want to all right! We can go and bathe in the morning. And we can try to get an eagle’s egg. Did you know that there were eagles here?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Who was that handsome boy on the beach, the tall one with dirty trousers?’

  ‘He’s not handsome, that’s Brazell. He never washes or combs his hair or anything. He’s a bully and he cheats.’

  ‘I think he’s handsome.’

  We walked into Button’s field, and I showed her inside the tents and gave her one of George’s apples. ‘I’d like a cigarette,’ she said.

  It was nearly dark when the others came. Brazell and Skully were with Gwyneth, one on each side of her holding her arms, Sidney was with Peggy, and Dan walked, whistling, behind with his hands in his pockets.

  ‘There’s a pair,’ said Brazell, ‘they’ve been here all alone and they aren’t even holding hands. You want a pill,’ he said to me.

  ‘Build Britain’s babies,’ said Skully.

  ‘Go on!’ Gwyneth said. She pushed him away from her, but she was laughing, and she said nothing when he put his arm around her waist.

  ‘What about a bit of fire?’ said Brazell.

  Jean clapped her hands like an actress. Although I knew I loved her, I didn’t like anything she said or did.

  ‘Who’s going to make it?’

  ‘He’s the best, I’m sure,’ she said, pointing to me.

  Dan and I collected sticks, and by the time it was quite dark there was a fire crackling. Inside the sleeping-tent, Brazell and Jean sat close together; her golden head was on his shoulder; Skully, near them, whispered to Gwyneth; Sidney unhappily held Peggy’s hand.

  ‘Did you ever see such a sloppy lot?’ I said, watching Jean smile in the fiery dark. ‘Kiss me, Charley!’ said Dan.

  We sat by the fire in the corner of the field. The sea, far out, was still making a noise. We heard a few nightbirds. ‘“Tu-whit! tu-whoo!” Listen! I don’t like owls,’ Dan said, ‘they scratch your eyes out!’ – and tried not to listen to the soft voices in the tent. Gwyneth’s laughter floated out over the suddenly moonlit field, but Jean, with the beast, was smiling and silent in the covered warmth; I knew her little hand was in Brazell’s hand.

  ‘Women!’ I said.

  Dan spat in the fire.

  We were old and alone, sitting beyond desire in the middle of the night, when George appeared, like a ghost,
in the firelight and stood there trembling until I said: ‘Where’ve you been? You’ve been gone hours. Why are you trembling like that?’

  Brazell and Skully poked their heads out.

  ‘Hallo, Cough, my boy! How’s your father? What have you been up to tonight?’

  George Hooping could hardly stand. I put my hand on his shoulder to steady him, but he pushed it away.

  ‘I’ve been running on Rhossilli sands! I ran every bit of it! You said I couldn’t, and I did! I’ve been running and running!’

  Someone inside the tent put a record on the gramophone. It was a selection from No, No, Nanette.

  ‘You’ve been running all the time in the dark, Little Cough?’

  ‘And I bet I ran it quicker than you did, too! ‘ George said.

  ‘I bet you did,’ said Brazell.

  ‘Do you think we’d run five miles?’ said Skully.

  Now the tune was ‘Tea for Two’.

  ‘Did you ever hear anything so extraordinary? I told you Cough was extraordinary. Little Cough’s been running all night.’

  ‘Extraordinary, extraordinary, extraordinary Little Cough,’ they said.

  Laughing from the shelter of the tent into the darkness, they looked like a boy with two heads. And when I stared round at George again he was lying on his back fast asleep in the deep grass and his hair was touching the flames.

  AND A SPOONFUL OF GRIEF TO TASTE

  Gwyn Thomas

  You know how it is in our part of the valley. They are mad for singing in choirs. If you can sing a bit, you get roped into a choir and if you can keep your voice somewhere near the note and your morals facing due north where the cold is, someone with pull is bound to notice you and before you know it you are doing a nice steady job between the choir pieces. If you sound like a raven and cause the hair of the choir leader to drop out like hail when you go for a hearing, you mope about in the outer darkness acting as foot-warmer for the boys in the Exchange.

  I couldn’t sing at all. As a kid I was handy enough and did very well as one of a party at school that did a lot of songs about war and storms at sea, with plenty of actions showing how wind and death are when they are on the job. I must have sung and acted myself out with that group. I was good. I sounded like an agent for doom. I put the fear of hell up my father who was a sensitive man, often in touch with terror. He shook like a leaf and supplied most of the draughts he shook in. When I sang that very horrible part-song ‘There’ll be blood on the capstan tonight’, he averaged two faints a verse, and his head went up and down so often with the faints I could almost keep the time by him. That didn’t last long. When I was about fourteen I went bathing in that deep, smooth part of the river they call the Neck or the Nack. I dived in. When I came out my voice was broken, broken as if somebody had been after the thing with a hammer. At first I thought my father had dived in after me and arranged some submarine antic that would keep me away from part-songs for a couple of years. Then I was told nature works in this fashion, although some people get more warning. I could hardly talk till I was eighteen, let alone sing. I tried to get into a few of the local choirs as a background noise. I got nowhere near except when the conductor was giving a talk on why his choristers should keep away from rivers when an eisteddfod was coming up. It was only my father who had any use for me. He put me to stand behind the front door to frighten off the bum bailiffs. We had plenty of them coming to our place. It was like a training centre for them. There were new brands of debt that were named after my father. My job was to watch out for them and say in this funny croak I had that there was death in the house, much death, and didn’t they know that there was some respect due even to the poor. It always worked. I sounded just like death, gone rusty with the boredom of always pushing people in the same direction and hearing no more of them. Between my long experience with those churchyard chants I had learned in the part-song group and the ten-foot drop my voice had done, I bet those bailiff boys could almost see my scythe as I stood there mooing at them through the door. They would flee, wondering, no doubt, how much my old man still owed on the scythe.

  But here I am now, busily engaged in the building trade, driving towards the New Jerusalem at so many bricks a day, putting fresh heart into people in this town of Meadow Prospect who have been living in furnished rooms or sharing a belfry with the bats since the Rebecca Riots. I am the only man in our part of the vaIley who has found a place in such a tidy and dignified traffic without once having sung the Messiah or recited the whole body of Psalms backwards and forwards with an apple in my mouth or done a salaam before the wealthy.

  I didn’t want to be a builder. At the time I’d have been anything. I’d have gone around the roads collecting fertiliser for the Allotment Union if my father had managed to get me a permanent bucket. But I wanted to get away from behind that door. I was sick of being posted there as a scarecrow for the bum bailiffs. I croaked that statement about death being in the house so often and with such passion it wouldn’t have surprised me to see death sitting down with us at meals, chatting cosily and complaining about the quality of the grub, which it would have had every right to do, for the grub we had was rough. When I was about nineteen, my Uncle Cadwallader came to stay with us. He was great on doing jerks to get strong. It was a treat just to sit down and watch Cadwallader on these jerks, wondering what part of him you were likely to see next. He had the biggest chest ever seen in or around Meadow Prospect. At rest, the kitchen walls just about fitted it. But when he had the thing filled to the brim with air, and that was a favourite caper with him, someone or something had to be moved, fast. He was always jerking and practising to get bigger and stronger, and sometimes he looked so much like life’s final answer to death I thought he would keep it up until his muscles began to glow like lamp posts with a sense of perfection and eternity, and then Cadwallader would float off the earth and look for larger stamping grounds among the planets. Sometimes, when he came in from a night’s drinking at that pub, The Crossed Harps, he’d lift my old man clean off the ground and jerk him up and down. First of all, my father didn’t like this, and thought of laying the poker on Cadwallader. But after a while he said that he had grown to like this motion and that it made quite a nice change from just standing still doing nothing much at all except keep from falling. But I think he laid aside the poker idea because at the speed he went up and down in Cadwallader’s grasp, Cadwallader made much too blurred a target for any good work with a short weapon. On top of that, Cadwallader was working and paid well for his place. He never lost his job. This was a very rare thing in Meadow Prospect, and he was often regarded as a miracle or a mirage by those freethinking boys who gather in the draughts room at the Library and Institute and talk about life and do a good job between them of burying all hope. Cadwallader was dull as a bat and with his strength he could have picked up a colliery and shaken the thing hard to see if there was any coal left inside. He was a great comfort to all the wealthy and to the coal-owning wealthy in particular. We often had the womenfolk of the mighty come along to see Cadwallader, offer him sugar from their hands or a soft vegetable, coo names at him, stroke him, and generally treat him as a horse. If he could have got into the way of talking in sentences and praising the state of things as they were, he would have been taken up by the Government and made into a prince or a mayor or a rent bloke or something. But all he was was strong and daft, and that, they say, is not enough. He didn’t talk much at all, and he had a way of moving the muscles of his chest to show when he wanted something. We had to tell him to open the front of his shirt wider whenever we didn’t get the full gist of what he was saying. And Cadwallader got tired of having my father peering in to get the exact intonation.

  Anyway, he stopped lodging with us. He went up to the Terraces to live in what they call sin with a very big woman called Agnes who had thick red hair and a fine record in sin. This Agnes had worn out about forty blokes without getting any paler herself and she cottoned on to my Uncle Cadwallader when she saw hi
m throwing a cart at a horse that had nearly run him over. She said here was a man who would see her through to old age without going on the Lloyd George every whip stitch. The old chopping and changing had started to get on her nerves and give her religious thoughts.

  This was a big blow to my old man. He had actually begun to pay back some debts that had been going about for a long time past in short shrouds, with the money he got from Cadwallader. His manner with the bum bailiffs had become quite cheerful, opening the door to them four inches instead of three and calling them bastards once and with a smile instead of twice with a meaning frown. The only thing he could think of doing to keep hope alive was to take out a threepenny insurance policy on Cadwallader, with an eye on Agnes’ past record, and to keep away from that group in the Library and Institute whose forebodings filled him as full of shadow as a mountain of dirt. I told him openly that from what I had seen of Cadwallader, I would say that if there was to be any passing out, both parties would reach the door together.

  After a spell my father got the idea that if I went up to the Terraces where Cadwallader was living and pleaded with him, he might come back to us. I could talk in short simple phrases that Cadwallader could follow without going mad with nervous worry. That is why I was picked to do this pleading. I had also made up a short poem about his tremendous chest expansion that filled him with pleasure. But I could not shift him an inch from the side of Agnes. There was something like the hot middle of the earth in the thick redness of that woman’s hair, and I could get the feel of the grip she had on Cadwallader. I made no headway with him and one Tuesday afternoon I made my way up the Terraces for my very last bout of supplication with Cadwallader. By that time I was sick of the sight and sound of my uncle. He was a friendly enough man when he was not twirling you over his head like a club and praising toil, but it wore me down trying to argue him out of his desire for this Agnes, and to move him to pity with stories of my father worrying himself thinner than the poker that he had once thought of crowning Cadwallader with. The only thing that lit a light in his eyes when I talked, was my poem about his chest. He liked that, especially an easy couplet in the middle that got best rhymed off with chest. That notion was near enough to the ground for Cadwallader to see it plain without having to stand on tiptoe. But once off the poem and he dropped into a coma as fast as a stone. He rested in these comas. He got part of his strength from them.