Riding the Storm

by Susan Holliday

  ‘We’re doing things for the carol service,’ he said.

  ‘We’ve been working on the Lady of Llyn y Fan Fach. She reminds me of my mother.’

  Mrs Wellsman looked surprised. ‘However is that?’ ‘Hard, I suppose. Setting up conditions you have to keep or she’ll leave you. When I was a little boy I remember thinking she was beautiful, but always madeup and cold as if you couldn’t get to her real face. I never liked the make-up.’ He was silent for a while, thinking how close he’d been to the legend. ‘It’s as if I’ve slapped her for the third time. First I was upset because Dad went off, then I hated Tony and then I – but I didn’t mean to, I really didn’t mean to.’

  ‘So what else are you doing for the carol service?’ ‘I’m making the baby for the Nativity. I haven’t painted him yet.’ ‘Do you enjoy that?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, and the thought of the baby he was modelling brought his mind back to his sister. ‘Her name has gone out of my head,’ he confessed. ‘My sister.’ ‘Catrin.’

  ‘Catrin,’ he repeated. ‘I don’t know what made me forget. Has she grown?’

  Mrs Wellsman laughed. ‘That’s one thing babies do. They grow through thick and thin.’ He felt as if he had never seen Catrin. As if, now she I had weathered the storm, she was someone else. He was filled with curiosity. ‘Will she be going home soon?’ ‘Very soon.’

  ‘But I’ve got a bit longer,’ he said, lapsing into silence. ‘Would you like to see her?’

  He was only half surprised she could read his mind. He felt as if she was near to him, travelling along the edge of things with him. He didn’t remember feeling like that with any other grown-up except Dad.

  ‘Mam might not want to bring her in.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ said Mrs Wellsman, getting up from her chair and smiling.

  He felt unburdened again – as if his smile was no longer locked away. He wanted to see his sister more than anything else in the world.

  He hobbled down to the main door and looked out. Fresh snow covered the crisscross mark of tyres and footprints and birds. It looked as if the world was beginning again. Maybe that is what he had to do: begin again each day and not worry too much about what had happened before. Perhaps that was being like Huw and Sara and Olwen.

  Olwen! His heart warmed and he hobbled back and . stopped by her bed. Since her operation she looked paler and her hair seemed longer than ever.

  ‘You all right?’ he asked.

  ‘Hope so,’ she said. ‘I’ll be up soon. I’d better be.’

  ‘That’ll make two of us,’ he said as she sipped her tea.

  ‘Sara’s back tomorrow,’ she told him. ‘I wonder how she got on. Mrs Parry says coaches and cars are skidding all over the place.’

  She put her hands behind her head and stared at him. ‘Look at you!’ she said lightly.

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘You’ve grown taller,’ she laughed and Alun changed the subject. He nodded at the windows that were patched with snowflakes.

  ‘Wish we could go outside.’

  ‘Angharad used to take me sledging. She’s my auntie.

  My brother and I live with her and Colin, her husband. They haven’t any children of their own yet, but one’s on the way.’

  ‘What about your Mam?’

  ‘She and my father died. There was a pileup on the M4. It was a long time ago.’

  There didn’t seem to be a corner of any conversation that was not touching on something that mattered.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, feeling inadequate.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Olwen cheerfully, ‘I’m very happy. You’ve seen Angharad around, haven’t you? She’s a bit batty. That’s why she goes sledging – well, not now she’s having a baby!’

  Alun wondered why he had never asked Olwen about herself before. Then he recalled the terrible burden of his thoughts and how they had blocked out everything. Like a curtain of snow. No, not like the snow. The snow was different.

  He made his way towards the window and for the first time he imagined himself sledging, throwing snowballs, shouting, playing rugby. It seemed a long time since he had played. And he thought of the future when he wanted to be a doctor. Or was he muddling himself up with Rhiwallon? He turned and smiled at Olwen.

  ‘We’ll have a snowball fight when we’re better,’ he said and she looked at him in astonishment.

  ‘That’s not fair. You’re taller than me now. It must be that curly hair! They won’t know you when you go back to school.’

  Chapter Seven

  SARA’S RETURN

  Nurse pushed Olwen up the aisle in a wheelchair. Her hair had been washed and hung fine and shiny brown round her pale face. She had a pile of thick grey paper on her lap.

  ‘They’re talking to the Inspector,’ she said, nodding to a short balding man in glasses who was standing by the office, talking earnestly to Mrs Parry and Mrs Williams. ‘They sent me up with this, so we can get on. Background for the Nativity. We each have a piece of card to paint. It’s all labelled, sky or hill. You have to fill in stars or grass or sheep –’

  She turned to Alun: ‘Mrs Williams says would you be in charge please.’

  ‘Me?’ said Alun in surprise, but he took the pieces of card from Olwen and piled them on the table. Everyone at round and Olwen manipulated her chair towards two empty spaces. ‘One for Sara,’ she said. ‘She’s due back – that’s if she gets here.’

  Alun was shocked into a sudden awareness of the fragility of everything. Say Sara had an accident - say the car . . . He stopped himself. It was no way to think when he had a job to do.

  Everyone looked out of the window as if they wanted to rehearse Sara’s arrival. The snow had been scraped away so the ambulances could still drive up to the building. Elsewhere it lay deep and untouched, except for a snowman the nurses had made in full view of the ward. He was round with small eyes and a little head half buried under a snowy hat. He wore a scarf that was also encrusted with snow and from his mouth a pipe stuck, protected by the huge rim of the hat. He looked surprisingly like the Inspector.

  Morgan picked up his card and turned it round so the land and sky were the right way up. ‘While we’re at it, what sort of weather are we having for the nativity?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s snowing,’ said Alun. ‘It’s night. The flat roofs of Bethlehem are covered with white. Orange lights show in their windows. The black sky is covered with gold stars and white snowflakes.’

  Blobs of paint covered the bottom of yoghurt pots and Alun pushed them round the table and made sure everyone had water and a mixing saucer.

  ‘Black, please Sir,’ said Olwen and everyone else caught on and began to call Alun Sir. He found himself laughing. He almost felt as if he was laughing for the first time in his life.

  ‘Teacher,’ called Huw, ‘teacher!’

  ‘I’ve got the star drawn in my sky,’ said Bryn. ‘You know – the star. It’s really big. At home Dad hangs a lantern in the shape of star over our stable door. “You never know what’s going to happen,” he says. One year | two lambs were born on Christmas Eve.’ Alun slid the yoghurt pot with gold paint down the i table.

  ‘Thanks, Sir,’ said Bryn. ‘I can put gold foil on it as well, then it’ll really shine.’

  After a while Mrs Williams came down alone. It was difficult to read her face.

  ‘Well done,’ she said to Alun.

  ‘We’re doing our best,’ said Huw.

  Morgan looked over his glasses. ‘Are we for the chop?’

  Mrs Williams smiled. ‘Impossible to say. These inspectors don’t give much away. That means we must go on fighting whatever – and saying how much we need the hospital school. Perhaps you could write letters to The Journal – get your names in the local paper. In any case, the Inspector likes your work, says he approves of developing themes round a local legend. He’ll remember that.’

  Alun stared at the cupboard mirror. It reflected the shining snow of the world outside where the
y all longed to be. He nodded when Huw exclaimed, ‘I wish they’d let us go on.’

  Mrs Williams smiled. ‘You needn’t worry. You’ll be well out of it by the time they reach any decisions about closing shop.’

  ‘I’d still like it to go on, even without us,’ said Huw wistfully as they got back to work.

  Alun forgot everything as he painted the lambs in the field. Nothing mattered except what he was doing and where he was – Mrs Parry anxiously talking with the Inspector; Mrs Williams in some sort of argument with Sister, pointing at the furniture as if it was already up for sale; nurse walking by quickly, a baby in her arms; the telephone ringing. He wished the afternoon could stay forever.

  ‘They are already closing two wards,’ Mrs Williams told them when she came back and poured out more paint. ‘And from the way they’re carrying on you’d think we were already out of action!’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Morgan.

  ‘Sister tells me they’re going to take our big old cupboard. It seems they need it temporarily on Ward B. They’re not buying anything more, you see. When and if the hospital closes I suppose everything will be up for grabs.’

  ‘Our cupboard?’ said Huw in horror.

  ‘They’re coming some time this week,’ said Mrs Williams, nodding in approval at Bryn’s star.

  ‘But there’s no key,’ said Huw. ‘They won’t be able to open it.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘He just does,’ said Alun quickly.

  ‘That’s no problem,’ said Mrs Williams. ‘They’ll soon sort out the lock.’

  They were distracted by the sound of squeaking brakes as a car drew up outside. The next minute Sara was wheeling her chair down the ward with her mother behind. She was wearing a ski hat and a huge puffy coat that made her look like a giant Christmas present. She waved to everyone as she approached the table. ‘We nearly didn’t get through. If we hadn’t had chains on the wheels we wouldn’t have made it.’

  ‘After Bethlehem it wasn’t so bad,’ said her mother. ‘The snow eased off and I could see more clearly.’

  ‘That’s Bethlehem for you,’ laughed Huw.

  Sara looked round. ‘Who made the snowman? It’s really good!’

  Mrs Williams gave her a big hug. ‘The nurses,’ she said, ‘and you’re looking well. Do you want to tell us everything before we get on? What about you, Mrs Lloyd?’

  ‘I must get back,’ said Sara’s mother. ‘There’s still a lot of clearing up to do. We had a wonderful time.’

  ‘I couldn’t possibly tell you everything,’ said Sara, after she had kissed her mother goodbye. ‘Not in one go. There’s so much to say. I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. Not for anything. When we toasted Mamgu and Tadcu they both cried! Afterwards Mamgu talked to me about all sorts of things –’ she looked knowingly at Huw.

  ‘What sort of things?’ asked Mrs Williams.

  ‘All about legends and how they mean something although they are not real.’ She struggled with her coat and wheeled herself next to Olwen. ‘Mamgu always makes me feel different. More settled, I think. More -’

  She looked at Bryn’s star that was shining at her from the opposite side of the table.

  ‘I don’t know. As if–’

  But she couldn’t find the right words and simply smiled.

  No walking, ever, thought Alun. Knowing for sure she’ll never walk again. And yet she looks really happy as if she’s had a big adventure. Come to think of it, it wasn’t unlike what he had been feeling all the afternoon. As if a star was inside him and everything would be all right after all.

  It was early evening. The snow was swirling down again, padding out the snowman who was shining under a lamp-post. The few visitors had come and gone and supper was over. The television was blaring out local news, mostly about the disastrous effects of the weather in Wales. The ward was warm and light, and while the nurses were sorting out the babies the children huddled round the table where Sara was sitting.

  ‘I told Mamgu about the ghost in the cupboard mirror and how we think it’s Rhiwallon because of the little black calf. Do you know, she didn’t turn a hair!’

  ‘Go on,’ said Huw, his eyes shining. ‘Please go on.’

  ‘I asked her exactly where the cupboard came from and when she told me, things began to make sense.’

  ‘There’s no sense in ghosts and hauntings,’ insisted Morgan.

  ‘Isn’t there now?’ said Sara sharply. ‘Let me tell you, this very cupboard once belonged to one of Rhiwallon’s descendants who wrote about seeing the great physician in the mirror and being comforted by him. Mamgu’s mother bought the house where the descendant used to live and the cupboard was still there. When Mamgu got married she was given the cupboard and took it to Aberfan, where she and Tadcu lived. It was a year or so before the great tragedy – you know –’

  I know,’ interrupted Morgan importantly. ‘The Aberfan disaster. October the 21st, 1966. The slag heap was over one hundred and eighty metres high. Rain water, waste and sludge slid down on the village. Most of the people killed were in the village school. In all there were one hundred and sixteen children and twenty-eight adults who died. I did a project on it at my school,’ he added.

  ‘Did you say October the 21st?’ said Huw intently.

  Morgan nodded.

  ‘Is there anything you don’t remember?’ said Olwen.

  ‘Think of being one of them, the children,’ said Alun.

  ‘Please get on with the story,’ said Huw.

  Sara pulled her cardigan round her shoulders. ‘By the ; time the disaster happened, Mamgu was pregnant. It was very hard on her because she knew so many people who I lost their children. It was terrible to see it on television when rescue workers brought out the dead children. She wasn’t sleeping very well at all, as you can imagine, not after all that had happened. In fact she was very ill with it. Everybody who survived was, you see. Anyway the night after the tragedy she got up to get herself a drink. Tadcu had put the old cupboard in the hall to house all their coats and boots. As she passed it she saw this figure in the mirror. It was a young man holding a black calf.’

  ‘I don’t believe a word,’ said Morgan.

  ‘That’s what she told me, I promise you. She never saw the ghost again, mind you, just that once. Of course she knew the story of the Lady of Llyn y Fan Fach and her physician sons - everybody did, and she thought perhaps Rhiwallon had come to help the poor people of Aberfan, or maybe to help her, for she was in a dreadful state and very nearly lost the baby. That baby was my Mam so it was just as well she didn’t.’

  ‘I think Rhiwallon helped her keep the baby,’ said Huw.

  ‘It could be,’ said Sara, ‘though Mamgu said it was her prayers really. Anyway, soon after this they decided to move to Myddfai where Mamgu’s family had always lived. They took the cupboard with them and Mamgu was determined to find out more about it. It took her time, mind you, because there was a lot to do, what with the move and the baby.’

  Sara stopped to take a breath. All eyes were on her. Everyone, even Morgan, wanted to hear her story and she was enjoying the telling. ‘Luckily Mamgu’s sister was doing a family tree. It was she who found out that one of the Physicians of Myddfai was in our family and this cupboard was in the house where he had lived - and where she lived now. What is more, she found a few pages of the physician’s diary in the attic. I copied it out, look!’

  She fished out a folded sheet of writing paper from the pocket of her cardigan.

  ‘October 22nd 1798: Yesterday our beloved daughter drowned in the Tywi. That night, in the mirror of the old cupboard we kept in her room, I saw the ghost of my great great grandfather Rhiwallon reflected in its glass. He had come to comfort us.’

  ‘They say ghosts keep the anniversaries of tragedies,’ said Bryn. ‘My Tadcu has a story of someone dying on the farm and reappearing on the same day each year.’

  ‘Story is about the right word,’ said Morgan.

  Alun di
dn’t argue. Once he might have thought like Morgan but that was a long time ago, before his accident, before he had seen Rhiwallon with Huw, before he knew what it was to forget everything and then to remember and to be healed. He couldn’t put his recovery down to prayer, could he? There was no one to pray for him except Dad – who didn’t even know he was in hospital. Anyway, he and Huw had seen Rhiwallon. Or was it because they were ill and wanted to see him? That’s what Morgan would say. An illusion; a fantasy. But it didn’t feel like that. It felt as if someone had come into his life to help him, to heal him.

  Like Jesus, Dad would say. Think of the miracles, son, think of Lazarus who was raised from the dead. As Dad’s voice rang round his head Catrin came into his mind and he knew exactly what Dad was getting at. Rhiwallon was part of a local legend but there were more powerful truths than that.

  He sat stiffly in his chair. More memories came leaping into his head, like the salmon he’d seen jumping upstream when Dad and he had gone fishing. Thoughts of his father pressed down on him like clear water and overwhelmed him.

  He scraped back his chair and went into the toilet. He leant against the wall and wept for Dad, for all that happened and for the long path ahead. But it was a different sort of weeping, as if the memories had refreshed him and opened him up. He was weeping because he wanted Dad to know that he was growing up, that he was going to work, that despite everything he was going to make something of his life. Then the thought leapt out of the clear water like the big salmon he and Dad had caught together and flung back so that it could stay alive. He was going to become a doctor.

  In a sort of triumph he washed his face and scrubbed it dry with a handful of rough green paper. He was ready to go back.

  The next day Alun wrote a letter to the Health Authority.

  ‘Will you post it?’ he asked Tony when he came in.

  Tony nodded. ‘Have you seen this?’

  He dumped the local paper on Alun’s bed. ‘All about the closure. There was a big meeting. Pretty rowdy from the sound of it.’