How Green Was My Valley

by Richard Llewellyn

  The ball rests an inch over the line.

  Then see the hats and caps go into the air, and hear a shouting that brings all the women to the doors up and down the Hill, and some to lean from the back windows.

  Again the whistle, and Maldwyn Pugh looks up at the posts, makes his lucky sign, and takes his run at the ball that rests in its heeled mark, and kept there by the hand of Willie Rees, who lies full length in the mud with his face turned away, not to be blinded by the slop that will come when the boot leaves his hand empty.

  Empty it is, and the ball on its way, and the crowd quiet, with the quiet that is louder than noise, when all eyes are on the same spot and all voices are tuned for the same shout.

  The ball travels high, drops in a curve, turns twice. The crowd is on its way to a groan, but now the wind takes it in his arms and gives it a gentle push over the bar, no need for it, but sometimes the wind is a friend, and there it is.

  We are a try and a goal, five points, to the good.

  Red and green kicked the ball down to the line and as I watched it, I saw a handkerchief waving below there, and looked, and Ceinwen Phillips was looking at me and her teeth big and white and her eyes nearly closed, laughing red, with red and green ribbon in her hair, and a big bunch of red and green ribbon in her cloak, and her hair the colour of new hay long about her.

  She came running toward me and I was in a mind to run from her, for I had no wish to be seen with a girl, and I knew that my brothers would have plenty to say if they saw us together. But she was too close to me now, and nothing to do but smile and try to look as though I was glad she had seen me, instead of wishing her in the deserts of Egypt.

  “Huw,” she said, trying to hold her chest from troubling, “there is glad I am I came. My father and Mervyn brought me. There is a good team you have got. They say your brother will be in the international match this year.”

  “Too early yet,” I said, knowing she was speaking only for the sake, “but he is playing well to-day, indeed.”

  “There is beautiful you look in your long trews,” she said. “I was looking and looking. No, I said, he is just like Huw Morgan. But he is too grown up. A man, he is. Huw’s big brother, I said, to myself, of course. And then I looked again when you were shouting now just, and I waved my handkerchief to make sure. There is funny.”

  “Yes,” I said, and blushing, and my hands in the way again, and hoping there would be enough in the game to keep my brothers busy on it and not on me.

  “There is hot I am,” Ceinwen said, blowing. “Is there a drop of water to be had?”

  “Plenty up at the houses,” I said. “Hit on the door and ask.”

  “I am a stranger,” she said, and pity coming to make soft her eyes. “And perhaps I might meet a man, too.”

  “Mervyn will take you,” I said, pretending to watch the game, but watching my brothers from the sides of my eyes to see if they were turning round.

  “He wants to see the match,” she said. “I asked him, but he was nasty to me. And I am ready to drop, so dry I am.”

  “Drinking is bad for you when you are hot,” I said. “Chew a bit of grass, girl.”

  “Am I an old sheep to chew grass?” Ceinwen said. “A drink I want, to take the cracks from my tongue. Three hours it took to come here, and no dinner before it, either. O, Huw, give me a little drink of water, is it?”

  A man made of thick iron would have to melt like a candle to hear a woman in that voice, so small, so high in the throat, with something of baby, and yet all of woman. But I was afraid to be seen with her, for I was bound to have a roasting from the family, and my brothers would make life so hot to make of hell a bliss.

  “Look,” I said, “I have got my brothers’ coats by here. I will ask one of my other brothers to look after them, and while I am doing that, you go on over to the bridge beyond the Three Bells, and I will catch up, is it?”

  “Where is the Three Bells?” she asked me, helpless again.

  “O, to the devil, girl,” I said. “Through the hedge and along the street to the right. Go, now.”

  “I know,” she said, and pulling a good pout, “you are afraid to be seen with me. I will cry, then.”

  So out came her handkerchief and, indeed, she started to cry among all those people who knew me, and loud, too, with plenty of spit in the sobs.

  “Hisht, girl, hisht,” I said, ready to kill her if only to stop her from making a noise. “Will you have everybody to see you, now?”

  “I want a drink of water,” she was saying, through breaths and sniffs and gulps. “There is cruel you are.”

  O, and then my father turned, full of cheering, for Davy had gone through again, and with his mouth wide he saw me and looked at Ceinwen, and at that moment, off she went again, with her mouth drawn down, and her eyes closed, and her face to the skies. And me going from one foot to the other and an itch in my fingers to strangle.

  “Only a little drop of water,” she said, but only us two would know what she was saying, so full of chokes and coughs it was.

  “Hisht,” I said, “I will give you a drop of water. You shall swallow the river. But hisht, now, will you? Here is my father.”

  And here he was, very stern, looking at Ceinwen and then at me, as he came. And my brothers turning to see where he was going, and more people turning to see what they were looking at, and then a crowd looking and some of them coming closer, and Ceinwen having lovely times, and going off into a high pitch of moaning, with sniffs and to spare.

  “Good God,” my father said, “what have you done, then?”

  “Nothing, Dada,” I said. “She only asked for a drink of water.”

  “Drink of water?” my father said. “Will you lie to me?”

  He looked at Ceinwen and put his arm about her.

  “There, there,” he said. “Come on, now then. Tell me what he did.”

  “I want a drink of water,” she said, with her head on his shoulder, and her fist fast on his collar. “No dinner, I had, and three hours to get here, and so hot. I asked him, but he said to chew grass.”

  “Well, Goodness Gracious, boy,” my father said, “are you mad? Will you refuse a girl what you would be in a rush to do for a dog?”

  “I had the coats to mind, Dada,” I said, in the voice of a small fly.

  “Coats, coats, coats,” he said, and to burn the skin. “Have you got a tongue to ask one of us? Go, now, and take the young thing up to the house and ask your good mother to give her all she wants, and quick. The girl will go from here thinking we are all savages, indeed. Go, boy.”

  “Yes, Dada,” I said. “Come on, Ceinwen.”

  “Ceinwen?” my father said. “Do you know her name, then?”

  “Yes, Dada,” I said. “She is in my school.”

  “And you let the girl perish for a drop of water?” my father said, and in such anger and surprise that there was little voice left in him. “Well, Devil throw smoke, I am in a good mind to tear that suit from your back, you rascal, you. You deserve the treatment of a bully. Wait till your mother hears this. Go from my sight.”

  I walked from there like a mongrel with my eyes on the grass, passing all the people who were looking at me, as though I had no notion they were there, and stepping a little longer than Ceinwen so that she had to run to catch up. Outside the field I stopped to wipe my forehead, and a full feeling was in me that made me careless of what else might happen, even if the sun fell in chips in the middle of the street.

  “There is a bitch you are,” I said to her.

  She looked at me with a bit of a frown, and her eyes catching the sun with flecks of pale light coming and going, and her lashes still stuck together with tears. And she started to laugh. In the eyes, at first, to make you think she was going to cry more.

  Then altogether, loud, with almost as many tears as her crying, and stuffing the handkerchief into her mouth, and pulling the cloak about her face, leaning against the wall for weakness.

  “Your face,” she was sa
ying. “If you could see your face, now just. O, Huw, there is sorry I am you had trouble.”

  “Shut up,” I said, “I have got some more to come next time my father sees me, never mind my brothers. Why did you cry? You could have had your old water.”

  “I was only acting,” she said. “Not crying, I was. Acting. Was I good?”

  I looked at her, and tried to see inside her, but it was like trying to look through a wain full of corn, with bits sticking in your face and the ends tickling your ears, and a weight on top of you and whispering all about you. Her eyes were full of many lights, greys and blacks and perhaps blues, but so quick to come and sudden to go, and would never be certain which you saw, or if you saw them at all. And as you looked, a dead feeling, of weight, and closeness, pressed upon you, and your eyes would slip down to her mouth and as you watched, you saw it moving within itself, crinkled, pink, and the tops of her teeth just showing and the tip of her tongue riding them. Then the soft pockets at the sides of her mouth would move upward and the crinkles would be gone, and teeth would show and the tongue slip out, palely, shining, a narrow fatness spreading a wet polish and going back to rest in comfort upon the tops of her teeth. Up, again, with the eyes, past tight-shut nostrils that widen as you look, up the straightness of nose to her eyes again, and more lights have come into them, with something of that mist that you will see over the heat of the fire, when all things are seen as though they moved under water. This, with the wind putting his fingers into her hair and pulling, and throwing up and catching, to let fall again.

  “Was I, Huw?” she asked me, in whispers.

  “Let us go to the house for water,” I said, and turned from her, going quick up the Hill and glad to have cold wind in my face and ordinary things to look at.

  My mother said nothing when I told her what my father had said, but she looked at Ceinwen with that little look that seemed to last for hours, and yet was only a little look, and she nodded when Ceinwen dropped a knee. But no smile from her.

  If it is said that a girl is a small eater, perhaps Miss Ceinwen Phillips was left out of the reckoning. I am the last to wish any a small appetite, for good food deserves stern treatment, and nothing is better than to see plates coming empty and the clock taking the minutes and no notice taken of either.

  But Ceinwen.

  Well.

  “Who is this old girl you have brought to the house, Huw?” my mother asked me and cutting a thick piece of ham jelly pie. “Is she eating for the winter to come?”

  “Well, Mama,” I said, and feeling disgraced, “she is a big girl, I suppose.”

  “Big girl,” my mother said. “Hear it all.”

  “Greedy, she is,” Bron said. “Did you see the way she had the apple pie?”

  “She said it was too good to leave,” I said.

  “She was eating too fast to taste,” said Bron. “You take her wherever you found her after this, and leave her. It will be hours before she will have her feet in comfort, so there is no danger to you. And come you home, straight. Is it?”

  “Yes, Bron,” I said, and went out to stand by Ceinwen.

  “O, Huw,” she said, and holding herself. “There is good. I will eat till my skin bursts.”

  “Water it was, you wanted,” I said.

  Ceinwen was rolling in comfort, taking crumbs from round her mouth with stretched tongue.

  “I am fat with goodness,” she said. “I will go and say thank you to your Mama, and I will ask her to come to us when she wants, is it? Then we will go back.”

  So she went inside to my mother, and I collected the empty dishes and set clean ones, and wiped the crumbs from her place.

  “Well,” she said, when she came out, “so there will be two weddings here to-day, then?”

  “Yes,” I said, “but you will be far from both.”

  “I have just been invited,” she said, and doing her hair at the back. “I am going to wash dishes for a bit. So I will come back with you and see my Dada, and then come back, is it?”

  So back we went to the field, but I was out of patience with her, and in no mind to watch the game because of it, so I was glad when the whistle went. Mr. Phillips went up to the house with her, and Mervyn went for the horse and trap to take it nearer to our back. I went to the Chapel hall, and put everything ready, happy to be by myself and walk in my long trews up and down the wooden floor.

  I heard the wedding party come down and go in the Chapel, and the murmur of the crowd outside, then the singing, the laughing, the prayers, and more singing, with the crowd coming more and more noisy, and deacons going out to them to ask for quiet, and telling them to feel shame.

  “Glad I am they are all strangers out there,” James Rowlands said to me when he came in and bolted the door. “If they belonged to our Valley I would be ready to go to my grave for disgrace. Such conduct indeed, while two are being joined in sight of God.”

  “How long, now, Mr. Rowlands?” I asked him.

  “Not long, my little one,” he said. “They were beyond better or worse when I came from there. Two better couples I have never seen. Me and your poor father have not stopped to cry. Beautiful, indeed.”

  So up and down I went again, and very good it is to be with yourself in an empty room, to walk as you want, and say as you want, with no thought for what others may say or think.

  The singing of the last hymn came through the noise outside and the crowd heard and joined in. The doors were opened in Chapel, and people began to come out, pushing everybody from the porch to let Davy and Wyn, and Blethyn and Ceridwen through. I was on a chair looking out of the window to watch them go, and indeed I will swear there were differences in our Davy and Ceridwen even in so short a while. It was in the smile they had, in the way they waved, in the way they stood and even in their walking. It was as though they had lost something, but found something better, and yet still ready to worry for what they had lost if only they could find out what it was.

  Thomas the Carrier took them up the Hill in carriages with flowers and ribbons, and all the people in front pulling them with ropes, or crowding about and behind them, throwing flowers, singing different songs in any key to hand, shouting, and jumping up to try and catch a look from Davy, and people leaning far out of bedroom windows to shout, and wave, and throw more flowers, and fling toffees at the crowds under them, and the sun beginning to think of bed and his light going, and a fine dust rising from the road and powdering overhead.

  “Well,” Bron said, “where were you in Chapel, then?”

  “I did the candles and set the fires in by there,” I said. “Dada was angry with me, so I stayed in the quiet.”

  “Where is that old sow of a girl, with you?” she asked me, and taking off her cloak. “Have nothing to do with her, Huw. One look and I was finished.”

  “She is doing dishes up at the house,” I said. “She was asked because she said she liked Mama’s cooking.”

  “Then let her stay up by there till it is time to go,” Bron said, “and you stay down here. Is it?”

  “Yes,” I said, “if I am with you.”

  “Plates,” said Bron, “and in plenty, over by the cakes. And small spoons in the box by the cups and saucers, or they will drive us mad for a spoon, again.”

  “Why have you come from the house, Bron?” I asked her. “I thought you were going to have wedding tea with them.”

  “Mr. Gruffydd came up,” Bron said. “And I saw him looking. The house was shouting full of Angharad, so I put my cloak on and said I had a headache.”

  So we went to work on the food and drink for the Eisteddfod, and when the other helpers began coming in they found there was little to do but sit down and eat again. But it was only a few minutes after that, and the choirs began to come in to take whole rows for themselves, and people putting hats and coats and pieces of paper on chairs, and others trying to push them off and put their own down on the sly, with words coming high and faces going red, and deacons pushing through the crowd with frowns t
o find the cause of the trouble and put all at peace again.

  I had saved good places for my mother and the boys in the middle of the front row, so when they came I was proud to show them in. But I had forgotten Ceinwen and Mervyn and Mr. Phillips, and my mother said she would go back home rather than sit, with guests left standing. So Gwilym gave his seat to Mr. Phillips, and Mervyn sat on a couple of coats on the floor between his father and Owen, and my mother told me to take Ceinwen behind the tables to Bron and do a bit of helping.

  So there I was with Ceinwen again, and as soon as we were out of the crowd and away from eyes, round in the back where we boiled the water, she put her hand in mine and put her arm round my neck.

  “Go from me, girl,” I said, and pushed her off.

  “Be sweethearts, Huw,” she said with pity, and soft. “Your brother and sister are married, see, and everybody happy excepting only us two. Nobody we have got, only an old father and mother, and brothers. Be sweethearts, Huw. Then we will have somebody. There is lovely.”

  “No,” I said. “Soft, that is.”

  “Huw,” she said, and put her arm round my neck again, and kissed me.

  My mother kissed with dryness, a touching upon the cheek or forehead, an assurance that we were her own. Bron kissed softer, with more of crispness, and with a little sound in it, but always upon the cheek. My aunts kissed as hens take bits from the ground.

  But Ceinwen kissed.

  The softness of her mouth was a glory of surprise, and cool, not even warm, with an easiness of moisture, and the tip of her tongue making play in idle strolling, lazily, and yet full of life, and her weight lying heavily upon me, her hair falling about our faces, shutting out the light, and all other smells save that of her, that was the perfume of the broad, sweet lands of the living flesh, that rose from her, and covered her about and followed her as she walked.

  Then my mouth was cold, empty, and she was looking down at me.

  “How many girls have you kissed before?” she asked me, as she would ask to pass lettuce.

  “None,” I said, and going cold to go from her.