Riding the Storm

by Susan Holliday

  Then darkness covered him and he felt Rhiwallon’s hand in his. Perhaps Rhiwallon was leading him away into a past that existed before his nightmare was born.

  When he opened his eyes he couldn’t move. His hands, his arms, his neck, his head, his body, his feet, his tongue were quite rigid. He was lying on his bed again.

  There were voices in the background but they were a long way off and inside he was frozen into an awful silence. They had drawn the curtains and he thought Sister and the doctor were watching him. He listened to the silence. It was like a frost that curved round his horizon, a chalk pit that choked him with white dust. It seemed as if he had lived in the silence for a lifetime and there was no way out.

  Sister and the doctor went away and there was Mrs Parry and Mrs Williams bending over him, smiling, trying to make him comfortable. Then they disappeared and for a long time he lay surrounded by the curtains with their folds and their blood-red flowers. After what seemed an age, Huw’s head appeared between the curtains. He quickly smiled and placed Myddfai in Alun’s hand and withdrew again as if he should never have come.

  It was after this, from somewhere far away, Alun heard it: a low thin scream that grew and grew into the silence, louder and louder until it cut down the silence and the silence itself turned into the scream.

  His scream.

  Sister and Mrs Parry rushed in, gave him water, stroked his hand. He was shaking and crying. As tears streamed down his cheeks, Mrs Parry wiped them gently away with a tissue. Sister went off, ‘to get something that would calm him down.’

  ‘A good cry always does you good,’ said Mrs Parry. Her voice was so gentle he found himself speaking to her, holding nothing back, not even those words that were like pieces of ice and burnt his mouth.

  ‘It was the wind, see? It was in my mind, so I couldn’t think. I threw her down and there was this blood on her head. She didn’t move; I couldn’t bear the way she didn’t move. Don’t you see, I must have k-k-killedher!’

  His breath came and went in fits and starts and Mrs Parry gently wiped away his tears.

  ‘I didn’t mean to. I really didn’t. She was Tony’s, see, and I hate him, but I didn’t mean to.’ He looked up through his tears. ‘Will they come for me, Mrs Parry?’

  ‘No, no bach, of course they won’t.’ He began to cry again and she said firmly, ‘A glass of water. Now take deep breaths. Like this.’

  When he was calmer she settled him down on the pillow and Sister brought in the tablets. ‘Two now,’ she said, ‘and more water to help them down. We’ll leave the curtains round so you can have a good sleep.’

  When they had gone Alun held Myddfai tightly until he became drowsy and his mind wandered back and back to the other place and the other time when he was quite small and had nothing on his mind: Dad was holding him by the hand. They were at the foot of the Black Mountain. Calves were running alongside their mothers and down by the river Myddfai was standing on the bridge, reaching up for his mother’s udder, his rope of a tail shaking as he drank.

  Chapter Six

  THE VISIT

  During the night snow had wedged against window sills and doors and turned trees and grass into an untouched world of white. A feeling of quiet mystery hung over the hospital grounds; jets of cold air spurted through ill-fitting windows into the warm ward.

  ‘Listen to this,’ said Morgan, adjusting his spectacles to read the small old print.

  ‘In 1813 the Towy was frozen over for three weeks affording a solid support for skates and a promenade of two miles in length for youthful rambles.’

  ‘What a way to write,’ said Huw.

  ‘Tadcu remembers the great snowfall of 1947,’ said Bryn. ‘He lives with us, see. All he does is to tell stories and tell Dad farming is not what it was in his day.’

  The children looked longingly outside.

  Alun turned from the window.

  ‘Where’s Olwen?’

  ‘She went up for her op this morning, when you were still asleep,’ said Morgan.

  Alun wished he had given her Myddfai as a mascot. That was what he had meant to do until – but he was pleased nothing was said about his strange fit, as if it was part and parcel of what normally happened in hospital. The others went on chatting excitedly and there was even a feeling of close companionship as if in such weather no one could ever reach them again.

  ‘It’s still coming down,’ said Huw. ‘I wish we could go out and sledge.’

  I wish I was home,’ said Bryn. ‘We have a big log fire, see, and sometimes Mam brings in a late-born lamb and puts him in the oven, to thaw out. We can’t afford to lose lambs these days,’ he added, sounding more like his grandfather than a boy.

  ‘Your dad should go in for computers like mine,’ said Morgan. ‘You have to move with the times.’

  ‘Do you now?’ said Bryn. ‘My family has been on the farm for three hundred years. You must be joking.’

  ‘I wonder if Sara will get back,’ said Huw. ‘The snow might go on and on. Perhaps they’ll just forget our school. Without Sara and Olwen there’s not many of us.’

  “That’s the trouble,’ said Morgan. ‘The Inspector won’t be impressed. In the end it’s numbers, you know, not what we do’ – he pointed to the displays of their work round the walls.

  Alun looked round. An air of festivity had already touched the ward. The nurses had put up some decorations and a few Father Christmases hung from the green pipes and smiled down at Alun. He was soon distracted, however, by the group of adults who stood in a cluster outside the nurses’ office. Mrs Parry was speaking in a low voice to Sister and nearby Mrs Williams was nodding and shaking her head. She unfolded a large piece of paper and read it quickly. Had the letter from the police come? Would they turn him over? It was funny: he felt detached, as if the weight he had carried for so long had at last been given to someone else and he was simply left watching and wondering.

  Yet when Mrs Parry came down to start afternoon school it was as if nothing had happened.

  ‘I can see we’re not going to get much done this afternoon,’ she said, ‘so it might be an idea if we rehearse the carols. We’re not exactly a male voice choir but we can do our best.’

  ‘Can we go out?’ asked Morgan.

  ‘It would be nice, wouldn’t it? But let’s be honest, none of us are up to it. So we’ll sing instead. Not me, as it happens. You see, we’ve just had bad news and I’ve got things to do. But as you know, Mrs Williams sings like a lark.’

  So it has happened, thought Alun, wishing for a moment that he could simply run out into the snow and lie down and sleep forever. Then he remembered Olwen and wished he could take her with him and start again somewhere.

  At that moment a toddler came through from the babies’ ward and Mrs Parry picked her up.

  ‘Do you want to join in?’ she asked. The little girl nodded and Mrs Parry stood her next to Alun. ‘Just you make sure you look after her,’ she said firmly.

  Mrs Williams sat at the piano, playing and singing ‘Away in a Manger.’ The little girl put her hand into Alun’s as she sang. He felt a real charlie, but there was nothing he could do.

  ‘Away in a manger, no crib for a bed, The little Lord Jesus lay down his sweet head.’

  Perhaps it was the image of the baby in the crib that made everything go even more distant. Mrs Williams seemed to him to be miles away, her fair hair moving as she played, her tiny mouth opening and shutting as she sang. She asked him to read out the words from the next carol and told him he sounded like a robot that had not been wound up.

  ‘Is it your eyes?’ she asked him and Alun shook his head. ‘Shall we try again?’ she said gently.

  Then everything came back into focus and his voice sounded louder. But it still wasn’t his voice. It was deeper than usual and from time to time it squeaked. He looked outside. The snow was falling softly and the window still framed that white unmarked place he longed for. Now the door to the garden was opening and only the little girl stoppe
d him from running out. Then everything went remote. It was Mam coming into the ward.

  She waited at the other end, smaller than he remembered, a neat, trim lady with blonde hair and a sharp face. He recognised the shining handbag Tony had bought her and a rush of feeling took hold of his heart. He stopped singing and let go of the child’s hand.

  ‘How are you?’ asked Mam, a little later, when the tea-lady was pushing the trolley up the ward. Alun was sitting on his bed and she was in a chair beside him with a cup of tea in her hand.

  ‘All right,’ said his new gruff voice.

  There didn’t seem anything else to say. Mam opened her shining handbag, took out a tissue and blew her nose.

  ‘They asked me to come up,’ she said stiffly, looking hard at him. ‘It’s been bad, I can tell you. If it wasn’t for Tony I couldn’t have got through it. He’s tried to help you as well, and all you’ve done – Well.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘They asked me to let you know the baby’s getting better. It was touch-and-go, I can tell you. Poor little thing. I didn’t think she’d pull through. But they said if I stayed with her it would help.’ Mam’s voice went high and squeaky.

  ‘It took a long time but she’s on the mend now. They said you ought to know.’

  She didn’t smile and Alun’s mind kept her at the wrong end of the telescope.

  ‘That’s wonderful,’ he said but he wasn’t sure whether to believe her.

  Mam blew her nose again and fiddled in her bag. ‘I don’t know how you could have done it to me, Alun. I tell you, it’s beyond me. Then going and getting yourself run over – you know as well as I do what it is down Castle Hill. All that traffic going out of town – and on such a night – if only I had known!’

  He wondered why she covered her face with the handkerchief and made a funny noise.

  ‘Why didn’t you come before?’ his deep voice asked.

  She sniffed, pressed her lips together and answered abruptly, ‘I sent Tony, didn’t I? I sent a note. No reply. Nothing.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mam,’ his voice said.

  ‘I was sleeping up there for nights,’ she went on. ‘Watching Catrin, wondering which way it was going to go. Do you understand

  what that means?’

  ‘Yes, Mam. I’m sorry, Mam.’

  ‘No proper sleep. No proper living. Just waiting and watching, while poor old Tony . . .’ She gave Alun a long hard look. ‘That’s what I had to do, all because . . .’ She pulled her coat fussily over her shoulders and sipped her tea.

  They sat in silence again and he reached for his own drink that was getting cold on the locker.

  So he wasn’t a murderer after all. But the relief didn’t come. His mother had saved the baby and he felt like her enemy.

  They sat stiffly together, drinking, until Mrs Parry came up and put a hand on Mam’s shoulder. ‘Well there we are,’ she said cheerfully. ‘This one’s on the mend too.’ She patted Alun’s head.

  Mam looked up sharply, on the defensive. She didn’t smile like Huw’s Mam and offer chocolates and ask him how he was getting on.

  ‘We’re really pleased with Alun,’ said Mrs Parry as if she wanted to hold on to the conversation. ‘He should be home soon after Christmas. It might be an idea if we could talk about that.’

  Mam nodded but her mouth had set and Alun knew instinctively, deep down in his heart, that she was afraid of him. Of what he might do. Again. But she hadn’t turned him over yet, to the police or to anyone else, so she must care some way or another.

  ‘I’ve asked the social worker to come,’ said Mrs Parry conversationally, ‘She’ll have a talk to Alun in a day or two and visit you at home, Mrs Roberts, when it’s convenient.’

  Mam nodded but her look was veiled. Alun knew what she thought of those! She had no time for ‘Bits of do-gooders.’

  Maybe she would change her mind. Maybe she needed a social worker now, to guard against him. In case there was another hurricane and he went mad again.

  He felt confused. The black birds were flapping in his head. Would he ever feel at home now his bedroom had turned yellow and his posters were screwed up on the floor? And the new ones were nothing to do with him, or Dad for that matter.

  ‘Where will I sleep?’ he asked.

  ‘Where you always do, of course,’ Mam said, in a small quick voice. ‘We’ll have to have the baby in with us.’

  Protecting her, thought Alun.

  He lay back and shut his eyes. Despite the marvellous news he felt cold, as if Mam had brought a handful of snow and thrown it over him. She’d only come because they’d asked her to, he thought.

  Outside the trees groaned and lurched in the wind. Snow splattered the birds as they circled round, looking for somewhere to perch.

  ‘It’s not easy,’ Mrs Parry was saying to his Mam. ‘But I believe there’s always a way through. I promise you, we’ll do all we can to help.’

  That night Alun lay in bed for a long time listening to the wind as it scuffed the snow and the river and the Black Mountain. His mind wandered by the glacial lake and he imagined the Lady of the legend rising from the dark water to visit him, but when his mind peered closer he saw that she was his mother. It was then it came, the great sense of relief that pulled him up and up as if he was riding the sky on the back of the snowy wind. He was flying high at last and nothing, not Mam’s fear or Dad’s absence or his broken leg or his battered head or his dark thoughts or his yellow bedroom could stop his elation. Tears ran down his cheeks.

  His little sister was alive and one day he would see her again!

  It was as if the snow had chosen them. It covered Mid Wales and part of the South but elsewhere it was sunny, though cold. The Tywi was still flowing in Carmarthen, but Mrs Parry said the lake at the back of their house was frozen up and they were invaded by ducks and moorhens.

  ‘What about Sara?’ said Huw, and Alun imagined her on the Black Mountain, throwing away her crutches, walking in the snow, smiling. Funny how she always kept hold of the smiling and he never did. It was true it had stayed with him all night, even in his dreams. But this morning he had locked his smiling away again somewhere inside his mind. It was the thought of this social worker, he told himself. Mrs Wellsman. Who knew what she would do? She was part of the official lot, like the Inspector, the ones Mam said never listened and did just what they wanted. He sat up in bed, with the curtains round, waiting.

  When she came she had bright blue eyes and was much older than he had imagined. Her hair was grey and her voice sounded a bit like Mrs Parry’s, a sort of clear, bell-like voice. ‘Is there anything you want?’ she asked, pulling a chair near his bed.

  ‘Nothing.’

  She waited so Alun said daringly, off the top of his head:

  ‘My bike.’

  Saying that was like turning a key. To his surprise he found he could speak quite easily to her.

  ‘That’s not possible,’ she said firmly. ‘It was a wreck. You can never have your bike back. You have to face that, Alun.’

  She waited again. Her blue eyes were patient, not like Mam’s, shifting and unhappy.

  ‘Will the police still come for me?’ he asked abruptly.

  ‘No,’ she said in her peaceful, straightforward way so he believed her. ‘Your Mam never went to the police and I’m here to try and help you.’

  Outside it was still snowing. Layers of white turned the trees into strange shapes and everything was silent. It was like he had felt for the past few days. Under a white blanket so he couldn’t see or hear much though he knew there was this sunny patch inside. A bird swung across the window and he said without thinking:

  ‘Black birds.’

  The social worker looked startled, but ignored the comment.

  ‘What do you want?’ she asked again, gently.

  ‘Tony painted my bedroom yellow. He pitched out my posters and bunged up some from the museum. He only went in because he was passing by. Not like me and Dad.’

  Silence.

 
; ‘It’s not my bedroom any more, even if I sleep in it.’

  ‘Whose is it then?’

  ‘Tony’s,’ he said flatly.

  Her patient blue eyes made him feel safe.

  ‘I hate Tony. My dad walked out because of him.’

  She nodded and waited.

  ‘I didn’t hate the baby,’ he said suddenly. ‘Only sometimes.’

  He rolled the edge of the sheet round his fingers and spoke slowly.

  ‘I can’t live with Mam. She hasn’t forgiven me.’

  ‘She’s been through a lot, too,’ said the social worker quietly.

  ‘She hates me.’

  ‘No more than you hate your half sister.’

  ‘Sister,’ he said quickly and added: ‘Nothing’s the same without Dad.’

  ‘Have you any idea where your dad is?’

  Alun shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘Where did he work?’

  ‘On the railway. Neil Roberts the tickets. Look -’

  He showed her the padlock dangling from his wrist.

  ‘It’s from the bicycle he bought me. He saved up. I know he saved up.’

  She waited as he cried unashamedly and after a while he said again, ‘I want my bike.’

  ‘Isn’t it your dad you want?’ she said.

  He lay back and put the white sheet over his head. He and Dad were together, running down the Black Mountain. He was laughing, looking at the cattle in a distant field. Then Rhiwallon came running towards them, hands outstretched, welcoming them both.

  Mrs Wellsman took the sheet away, held his head and made him open his eyes.

  ‘Don’t go away. That’s not the way to do it. The truth is, Alun, they need you as much as anyone else. Think of that.’ She handed him a tissue.

  He blew his nose loudly and couldn’t help saying. ‘When Mam came I thought she’d smile.’

  ‘Well, all the others are smiling, all your friends here,’ she said gently.

  It was true. Huw and Bryn were shaking with laughter and even Olwen was joining in from her bed. As he looked round they seemed to include him in the laughter even though he didn’t know what it was about.