by Rhys Bowen
“It would have gone quicker if we hadn’t stopped so many times to let that bloody sheep stretch his legs.” Evan was feeling irritable. He put it down to the egg and bacon pie, plus several of Mrs. Williams cold beef and pickle sandwiches sitting heavily on his stomach, although the thought of an imminent meeting between Bronwen and his mother could also have had something to do with it.
“It’s stupid that there is no direct road from North Wales to South Wales, isn’t it?” Bronwen went on. “You’d have thought they’d have put one in by now.”
“You know how most people feel—the less contact between North Walesians and South Walesians, the better.”
Bronwen chuckled. “We’re a funny lot, aren’t we? It might actually have been quicker to have gone back to England and picked up the motorway.”
“Yes, but not as pretty, eh? We’ve seen some lovely country today.”
“Before it started raining.” Bronwen peered through the streaked windscreen at the gray mist.
“Funny, this is how I always think of Swansea,” Evan said. “It always seemed to rain a lot. Especially when we were playing rugby.”
“Let’s go and visit your old rugby club. That will be fun.” Bronwen rested her hand on his shoulder. “I’m really looking forward to hearing tales of your misspent youth.”
The outskirts of the city came into view—large, uniform housing estates sprawling over hillsides. Evan was beginning to have serious second thoughts about the upcoming encounter. As they drove past row after row of gray, terraced houses, past pavements slick with rain and women in macks and headscarves scurrying home from the corner fish shop, it occurred to him that this could be a very big mistake. Bronwen was, after all, from another world. He hadn’t yet met her family, but she referred to her parents as Mummy and Daddy. And she had been to Cambridge. Therefore she was several rungs above him on the social ladder.
Usually such things didn’t bother Evan, but suddenly he was reluctant to let Bronwen see the plain row house where he had spent his youth. If he could have come up with a credible excuse, he would have turned around and driven away. Instead he gritted his teeth and kept driving until familiar landmarks came into view: the railway station and the castle ruins, the new Quadrant shopping center, the museum, and beyond it the upscale new waterfront development where the most depressed dockland area had been. Then they could see the old prison with its prime waterfront position and great views across Swansea Bay.
“This is nice,” Bronwen said as the bay itself opened up on their left, gray sea merging into gray sky in the rain, with just a hint of hills visible on the far shore. “I hadn’t realized Swansea was on the seafront.”
“Bristol Channel, actually, but yes, they’re always comparing Swansea to the French Riviera. The resemblance is obvious, isn’t it?”
Bronwen gave him a sharp look. “I think it’s attractive,” she said, “and I like all these old houses. They’ve got character, haven’t they?”
“You could say that. And I’m glad you like them because my mother lives in one.” The road swung inland from the seafront and started to climb. Gray mist had washed out the hilltops. Townhill Road appeared through the mist at last with its gray stone, terraced houses, all alike. A whole world of gray.
“These used to be workers’ cottages once, when the steel mills were flourishing,” Evan said. “One of the first housing estates.”
“Great views for a housing estate.”
“Actually all the housing estates are on the hills in Swansea.”
“A very proletariat kind of city.”
“The rich don’t live in the city at all. Ah, here we are then.” He came to a halt outside one of the identical gray stone cottages. He had forgotten how small it was, not much bigger than the tiny two-up two-down he now inhabited in Llanfair. Small and ordinary looking. He thought he saw the lace curtain tweaked as he pulled up. Sure enough, the front door opened while he was still helping Bronwen from the car.
“Here you are at last then.” His mother stood in the doorway. She seemed to have shrunk. “I thought something had happened to you.”
“It’s a long drive from North Wales, Ma.” Evan continued to hold Bronwen’s hand as she stepped onto the pavement.
“I know that, but there are so many terrible drivers on the roads these days, aren’t there, and all these dreadful big lorries coming across from the Continent and breaking the speed limit, isn’t it?”
“We’re here now and we’re fine.” Evan went up to her and enveloped her in a hug. She felt small and bony, and he couldn’t feel her hugging him back. “So how are you?”
“Not so bad, considering. The doctor doesn’t quite like the sound of my chest yet, but then at my age, what can you expect?”
“Your age! You’re only sixty-five.”
“Don’t shout my age for the whole street to hear.” Evan’s mother looked around, then her gaze fastened on Bronwen. “Does she understand us? Ydych chi’n siarad cymraeg, Miss Price?”
Bronwen laughed. “Of course I do. I teach in a Welsh school.”
“Oh, well, that’s nice. It will be a treat to speak my own language for a change.”
“What do you mean, for a change?” Evan asked.
“Nobody speaks Welsh in Abertawe any longer,” she said, giving the city its Welsh name. “It’s all changed. Full of outsiders.
“What about your friends at the Welsh club?” Evan asked.
“Well, they’ve almost all gone now, haven’t they?” Mrs. Evans said angrily, as if they had left on purpose. “Gladys Jones and Mary Roberts both died last year. Dropping like flies, they are.” She suddenly seemed to notice that she was getting wet. “Well, don’t just stand there in the rain then. Come on, inside with you.”
Bronwen looked at Evan. “Do you think Prince W. will be all right in the car a little longer?”
“There’s a shed in the back garden. We can put him there until …” He glanced at his mother.
The older woman picked up instantly. “You haven’t brought a dog with you, have you?”
“No, Ma. Not a dog. A sheep actually.”
Mrs. Evans laughed and gave him a playful shove. “Go on with you! A sheep—what, to remind me of my childhood home, is it?”
At this point a plaintive baa was heard from the interior of the car. Mrs. Evans peered out into the rain. “Escob Annwyl! You haven’t really got a sheep in there? You’re not bringing a sheep into my house.”
“It’s a pet lamb, Ma. Bronwen’s been looking after it for one of her schoolchildren, and we couldn’t just leave him at home. It’s all right. Don’t look like that. We can keep him in the shed when it’s raining, and he can be out in the back garden when it’s not.”
“And have him eating all my petunias?”
“We’ll tie him up then. He’s really no trouble. He’s been as good as gold all the way down here in the car.”
“Pet lambs! What will they think of next?” Mrs. Evan shuffled back into the house, her carpet slippers flapping on the linoleum. “I’ve got the kettle on. So what would you fancy for your tea, Miss Price?”
“Please call me Bronwen. And just a cup of tea would be lovely. We’re a little late. We don’t want to spoil our dinner, do we?”
Mrs. Evans gave her son a strange look. Bronwen also sensed she had said something wrong. Evan put a hand on Bronwen’s shoulder. “My mum always has her main meal at midday and just a light meal at night. So it’s dinner in the middle of the day and tea in the evening.”
“Oh, oh I see.” Bronwen flushed. “Well, anything you like at all, Mrs. Evans. I’m not a fussy eater. I’m sure whatever you have prepared will be lovely.”
“We’re just working-class people, you know,” Mrs. Evans said. “Never did get into these fancy ways of lunch and dinner. Your dad was always home for dinner at one when he could make it, wasn’t he, Evan? And then we’d have something simple at night.”
“I’m sure it will be lovely,” Bronwen insisted. “Ca
n I help with anything?”
“No, it’s all ready, apart from the eggs. I thought I’d do poached eggs on welsh rarebit if that would be acceptable.”
“Lovely,” Evan and Bronwen said in chorus.
Evan’s mother had led them down a long narrow passage that opened into an old-fashioned kitchen. Willow-pattern plates were stacked on a Welsh dresser. A table was set with a pretty lace-edged cloth. It was piled with a cottage loaf, a large wedge of yellow cheese, and a cake stand with several kinds of cakes and biscuits on it.
“We have a proper dining room,” Mrs. Evans said quickly, “but I usually eat in here. It’s less lonely somehow. Cozier.”
“Of course it is.” Bronwen smiled at her. “Evan and I always eat in the kitchen at my place, don’t we, Evan?”
“You like to cook, do you, Miss Price?” Mrs. Evans asked as she poured boiling water into a teapot, popped a crocheted cozy over it, and set it on the table.
“I love to. I took a course in French cooking last year, and poor Evan had to sample all my mistakes.”
“French cooking — well, we don’t go for that around here much. Plain, simple Welsh cooking has always been good enough for my husband and my boy.”
Evan came to Bronwen’s defense. “You should taste the way she does leg of lamb, Ma — she puts little pieces of garlic under the skin.”
“Garlic? I wouldn’t want my breath smelling like a Continental myself.”
Evan laughed. “I’ll pour the tea then, shall I?”
Tea was poured. Eggs on cheese were produced and they sat down to eat. Evan was glad they had something to keep them all busy for the moment. He had hoped that his mother would take one look at Bronwen and embrace her as a future daughter-in-law. This obviously wasn’t going to happen. And he supposed he hadn’t really expected it to.
“So how is it that you have the Welsh then, Miss Price?” he heard his mother asking. “I thought only poor folks grew up speaking Welsh, but you sound like you’ve got the hang of it rather well.”
“I spoke it as a child, Mrs. Evans. My father worked for an international bank and was posted around the world—sometimes to places that were not very safe for families. So I was left at home with my grandmother near Denbigh. My father’s family were the local squires and of course he didn’t speak the local language, but my mother was the schoolteacher’s daughter. So my Nain always spoke Welsh to me. My parents were rather angry when they found out I preferred speaking what they thought was a backward language to English. That’s when I was sent away rapidly to boarding school.”
“A backward language, indeed.” Mrs. Evan sniffed. “One of the oldest, finest languages in the world, isn’t it? We had poetry when the English were still running around in goat skins.”
“I agree completely,” Bronwen said. “I always made sure I spent as much time as possible with my grandmother just to keep up my Welsh. Of course now I use it all the time, so it’s become my first language again.”
“And you’re teaching at the school, Evan tells me.”
“The village school, yes. I only have twenty-five pupils, all ages, so it’s quite a challenge. And the building is ancient. Have you seen it?”
“No. I haven’t yet been invited to visit my son.”
“Oh, come on, Ma,” Evan said quickly. “You know you’re welcome. It’s just that I only had a room, lodging in someone else’s house, until recently. And what I’ve got at the moment isn’t properly furnished yet.”
“When we’re married, you can come and stay with us,” Bronwen said.
Evan’s mother gave her a sharp look. “Oh, so it’s getting married now, is it? I hadn’t heard more than you were courting.”
“We didn’t want to tell anyone officially until we had met each other’s families.” Evan glanced across at Bronwen. “But yes, we’re planning on getting married some time soon. We haven’t set a date yet, or a place.”
“And where are your folks then, Miss Price?”
Evan noticed that she was not going to abandon the formality.
“They live in Monmouthshire now. My father retired from the bank, and they bought a property in the Usk Valley. Very pretty.”
“And you’re going there after this?”
“That’s right.”
“You’ll only be here a few days then, is it?” She looked wistfully at her son.
“This time, yes,” Bronwen answered for Evan. “Evan’s going to show me all his old haunts.”
“Old haunts? Makes him sound like a ghost.”
Bronwen laughed. “I meant his school and the rugby club.”
“Speaking of the rugby club, you’ll never guess who I saw at the market the other day.” Mrs. Evans’s face brightened up. “Maggie. Looking very fit and well, she was. Asked after you, Evan. She seemed very excited when I told her you were going to be here, so I asked her to drop by whenever she felt like it.”
“Ma, you didn’t! I wish you hadn’t done that. What makes you think I want to see her again? And I’m sure Bronwen doesn’t.”
“A lovely girl, Maggie, even if she didn’t speak Welsh properly. We always liked her. She had a lot of get-up-and-go, didn’t she? She used to make your dad laugh. He always said she was a real looker.”
“I doubt if Bronwen and I will be home much while we’re here. There’s a lot I want to show her, and I suppose I should pop down to the police station and visit my old mates.”
“They’ve moved the police station,” Mrs. Evans said. “Now they’ve got a spanking new one, all glass and purple tiles. Whoever heard of a purple police station? I think it’s the ugliest thing on God’s earth.”
“So where is the new one?” Evan asked.
“Just down the street from the old one, but I doubt they’ll have much time for you at the moment.” Mrs. Evans shook her head. “They’ll be too busy with this dreadful murder.”
“A murder? In Swansea?”
“Just over a week ago, it was. I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it on the news. A lovely young girl raped and murdered and her body left on the family’s doorstep for them to find. Dreadful, it was. One of those posh houses along Oystermouth Road. The father is a bigwig—on the city council and owns a factory.”
“What’s the name?” Evan asked.
“Turnbull. Alison Turnbull was the daughter.”
“Turnbull—didn’t he own a steel works that closed?”
“He did, but now he’s started up a new business. Something to do with computers. That kind always seem to fall on their feet, don’t they?” She got up and began clearing away plates. “Swansea’s not what it used to be. Full of riffraff and minorities. You remember that chapel you sang at when you were a little boy? I went past it the other day and you’ll never guess what it is now—a mosque, that’s what it is. You could have knocked me down with a feather when I saw that heathen writing outside. And women with scarves around their heads.”
“Ma, you wear a scarf around your head. I’ve seen you.” Evan laughed.
“Yes, but only when it’s raining and not in the middle of summer. In fact if you want to know what I think—”
She broke off at the sound of knocking on the front door.
“Now who could that be?” she asked, reminding Evan of his former landlady, who always asked the same question.
“I’ll go, shall I?” Evan got up from his seat. He had a sinking feeling that it might be his old girlfriend, and he’d rather face her on the doorstep.
When he opened the front door, it wasn’t a girl at all. It was a uniformed policeman. He looked startled when he saw Evan, then a smile of recognition spread across his face.
“It’s never young Evan? Well, this is a surprise. Bill Howells, remember me?”
Evan shook the outstretched hand. “Of course, Mr. Howells. You used to belong to the bowls club with my dad.”
“Well, what a treat for your mum. She talks about you all the time. She still misses your dad terribly.”
“Don�
��t we all?” Evan opened the door wider and motioned to the man. “Well, come inside, Mr. Howells. Mum will be pleased to see you.”
“I don’t know about that,” the officer said, giving Evan a strange look. “Not when she hears the news I’m bringing her. But I thought she had a right to know.”
“To know what?”
“They’ve got the bastard who killed that young girl. And you’ll never guess who it turned out to be. Tony Mancini — the one who shot your dad.”
Chapter 5
“Well, I never.” Evan’s mother reached out and grasped Evan’s hand as she digested the news. “I knew he was no good the moment I set eyes on him. And those psychologists were saying he was just a young boy led astray and didn’t know what he was doing.”
“Well, he knew was he was doing this time,” Bill Howells said, sitting to accept the cup of tea that Mrs. Evans had poured him. “Dumping the body on the doorstep too, for her poor parents to find. That’s an added touch of nastiness, if you ask me.”
Mrs. Evans had produced a handkerchief from her pocket and was dabbing at her eyes. “This would never have happened if they’d sent him to prison like he deserved.”
“We were unlucky enough to get that soft-hearted judge.” Sergeant Howells accepted a Welsh Cake from the plate and took an appreciative bite. “Four years in a young offenders institute and then out on the streets again. That doesn’t seem a big enough price to pay for a life, does it?”
“Especially not for a good man like my Robert.” Mrs. Evans put a hand over her mouth to control her emotion. “Well, I hope that judge is regretting it now.”
“This time he’s not a young offender any longer,” Sergeant Howells said, looking up at Evan. “This time we’ll put him away for good.”
Evan had been observing this interaction as if the participants were somehow remote from him — characters in a play he was watching. When he finally tried to speak, he found it hard to form the words.
