Something a bit different today. I wrote this short story back in 2010, with hopes of getting it published along with other shorts as part of a Valleys-life inspired collection (which obviously never happened). Found it whilst going through my computer earlier and thought I'd post up here. Hope you enjoy and can relate some of the characters or situations to things you've experienced yourselves. Leave me know your thoughts either on here or on Twitter at @markabraham89
It was a
mumble, or maybe it was more of a mutter. I don’t know. What I do know, is that
it was audible, which, with my mother, wasn’t something I wanted.
“You wha’?” said Mam, in that
kind of half-caring way that she had the ability to hit on the head. She was
definitely on to me though. She’d heard the mumble, or the mutter, whichever
one. She’d heard it and now she wasn’t going to let it go until I repeated
myself clearly for the world and its dog to hear loud and clear. I had, in
plainer words, been rumbled.
I knew it. I couldn’t keep my
trap shut. It was one of my lesser qualities. I ‘had a gob’ on me, or so my
aunty kept telling me. Fine one to talk she is, you dare not tell her anything
private. That is, not if you want it to remain private. There again, maybe I
did have a ‘gob’ on me.
“Huh?” she grunted.
Maybe by just pretending Mam
hadn’t said anything to me, it would magically be forgotten. I had serious
doubts about this plan of attack though. Mam was the kind of woman who would
hound you until you just caved in. I imagine she could have had a career with
relative ease somewhere like Guantanamo Bay. I can almost see her photo up in
the staff room, under the title “Employee of the Month”. She’d put them all to
shame, fair play to her.
“Oh! You know, sometimes I
think things go in one ear and out the bloody other with you.”
“Oh ai, you not wrong there.
He don’t know what day it is mun!”
I
don’t know what it had to do with my neighbour, but Gaynor seemed to think her
input at this time was needed, “Look at him. In a world of his own he is mun. I
bet he’s got some nonsense going on in that head of his.”
Gaynor was a good natured
woman for the most part. She had known Mam for years, even before they lived across
the street from one another. They had grown up in the same part of Penydarren
and had been friends as children. It was hard to think of her as a child now though;
I’d go so far as to say it was almost impossible. To me, Gaynor Lewis was a
nice enough lady, although her actions in “The Norton” on a Friday night did
make one wonder sometimes. If anything would make you laugh, cry, cringe and
freeze with disbelief all in one fantastic moment, it was seeing Gaynor hitting
pints of beer like there was going to be a drought. Many people wondered how
she’d be able to make it back up the hill to the house, whereas others just
assumed she stayed in the pub for the night when they’d see her the following
day. If you ask me, I think it was half and half. Sometimes she’d struggle her
way up the hill, grasping tightly onto windowsills to pull herself from house
to house, and other times, she’d be just as content sleeping in the bar.
Funnily enough, it was the latter that caused her to be sent home from “The
Rose & Crown” on many an occasion and why she now frequented “The Norton”.
We’d lived in Brynhyfryd
Street for as long as I can remember. Likewise, for as long as I can remember,
Gaynor had been our neighbour. She was just one of those people in life that
always seemed to be there and someone who, if they weren’t around, would
definitely leave a void. Number 67 was our house, with Gaynor occupying 66
across the road. The great thing about having her across the way from us,
opposed to right next door, was the tactical advantage. Or so Dad would tell me.
He would assess how much he could handle a conversation with her before
deciding whether he’d stay in the chair as she waltzed in looking for Mam or if
he’d make a mad action-film like dash for the front door, lock it and then
remain hidden out of sight until she decided she’d come back later.
It wasn’t that Dad didn’t like
Gaynor as such. It was more that my father wasn’t a woman, as many men aren’t
I’d hope. He could not understand for the life of him, how the women in the
street were able to socialise in the way they did best: spreading gossip. He
didn’t see how they could seemingly deduce that Mrs Coles down the street was
having an affair behind Mr Coles’ back just from the fact she wore a blue skirt
on a Tuesday and a mauve skirt on a Friday. Saying that, it doesn’t really make
all that much sense to me either, but apparently, Gaynor had it on very good
authority that this was not a fabrication. It was fact. The very best of luck
to whoever would want to dispute it.
That was one thing Dad made
sure not to do: have any sort of dispute with Gaynor. My mother, he could try
his luck with, he’d maybe even win a few little skirmishes. Gaynor, however,
was a different breed of woman. He’d knighted her with such distinguished
titles as “Battle Axe”, “Queen Almighty” and my personal favourite, “The Gob”.
Even my aunty, ever one to pass judgement on others before looking at herself,
refrained from challenging Gaynor to a verbal sparring contest.
“...and that’s what I said to
her. I said, ‘Listen now Marian’ I said, ‘I haven’t got the problem. You’ve got
the problem!’ I couldn’t believe the cheek on her!” said a flustered Gaynor, as
Mam went about washing whatever plates were left in the sink from dinner.
Even
Mam, who had an inspirational amount of patience, must sometimes want to bury
her head in the sand away from Gaynor. There has got to be some reason she
scrubs the plates to within an inch of their life when Gaynor gets into a rant,
other than Dad’s incessant need for everything to be spotlessly clean.
“I know what you mean love.
It’s wrong mun,” Mam said, with no real feeling on the matter, judging from the
tone of her voice.
“Oh! It gets me so bloody
riled! I tell you!” said Gaynor.
She’d
even exhibited a kind of shiver at that last bit of being riled up. Whatever
Marian had said to her, she had taken exception. This wasn’t uncommon, not when
it involved Gaynor anyway.
She was sat opposite me now,
stirring her tea so hard I thought she’d instigate a tsunami in the cup. Marian
had obviously got under her skin and the tea, cup and spoon, which clanged
against the sides of the mug violently, were paying the price. I would have
asked what was wrong with her but she beat me to it by questioning me instead.
“So, are you going to actually
tell us?”
“Tell you wha’?” came my short
reply.
I
had been so lost in thought I’d forgotten exactly what I could have been lined
up to say to the two middle-aged women before me.
“God! Planet Earth calling
Ieuan! Hello! Hello! Is anybody out there?” Gaynor’s comedic jab raised a
little bit of a smile from Mam, who had finished wiping any remaining dirt
particle that could have survived the scrubbing war she’d just won.
She
threw down the tea-towel on the counter and rested against it, picking up her ‘cuppa’
with a lot more care than Gaynor had managed to.
“Ai, c’mon. What did you say?”
No, she wouldn’t let this one
lie. She was determined as ever to get it out of me. It was one of those
moments in life where you instantly regret what you’ve said. It isn’t so bad if
it goes under the radar or even if it’s ignored by principle. That is something
I can handle. In fact, I’d embrace it right about now.
“He don’t even know what he
was gonna say himself mun Sue,” piped Gaynor.
She
did have a knack of sticking her oar into most facets of everyday life, I’ll
give her that. On this occasion however, she was very much wrong. That’s right,
the all-powerful Gaynor Lewis was wrong. I did know what I was going to say.
More importantly, I know why I’d mumbled it rather than gone out into the
middle of the street, rain or no rain, and screamed it across Penydarren.
It was a big decision for me.
That’s what someone like Gaynor had failed to realise. She was happy enough in
her day-to-day life. She had the very existence she knew she was destined to
have from a very young age. Yes, Gaynor Eileen Lewis of Number 66, Brynhyfryd
Street, Penydarren in the heart of Merthyr Tydfil, had achieved her goal. She
was a ‘Valley Woman’.
She was one of these women who
most ‘self-respecting’ people would cringe at if they were interviewed on the 6
o’clock news. Her voice was finely tuned and could have been used for a
comparison between an impressionist imitating a stereotypical Valleys voice and
the real thing. She knew everything about everyone, still did her shopping in
the grocers in town and had seen Tom Jones sing before he was famous. Yet, she held all these things close to her
heart. She had aspired to be looked at as one of these mythical creatures and
somehow, through years of toil, she’d gotten there. She was even so good at
living her role, I sometimes wondered if she had established a league of her
own. Mam was something, don’t get me wrong, but she was absolutely nothing in
comparison. Her group of friends looked like amateurs when you put them next to
each other.
What I really wanted to know
though, was whether I’d be content being a ‘Valley Man’. Did I have any fire in
me? Did I have any desire to want to change my set of circumstances? I wasn’t
entirely sure and it was that uncertainty that made me uneasy. I hadn’t had a
bad upbringing, nor was my standard of living bad. I couldn’t complain, as I
was often reminded by Dad, as I had it better than some. I suppose the real
question I had, deep inside my brain, was where did I realistically see myself
in ten or twenty years?
Would I be a doctor? Helping
save lives and making life-and-death decisions all day seemed like a
high-power, exciting job and there was always good pay for doctors. It was a
profession that wouldn’t go out of fashion, like undertakers, as Dad would
always remind me. He always told me if he was sacked from his job, which he was
threatened with about three or four times a year on average, he would become an
undertaker. He didn’t seem to mind the less appealing part of the job
description: the handling of a corpse, the constant funerals you’d be
attending, the general broody attitude you’d have to adopt to effectively look
like you belong in your job. I suppose he had a point though, it was definitely
a job that would always be around.
Maybe I could be a teacher and
pass my knowledge on to a younger generation. Saying that, it is important to
have a fair amount of knowledge yourself before you decide to attempt to impart
it on younger, more fragile minds. Plus, I remember how much disdain I had for
certain teachers in school. It didn’t fill me with confidence. I’d have to be
one of the ‘cool’ teachers who was in touch with the ‘kids’, opposed to the
slightly creepy teachers who, if you listened to some of the rumours started at
dinner time, preferred to get to know the children a little better than they
should. Maybe teaching was off the list then. Another possible job hitting the
bin of rejection hard and fast, joining astronaut, lawyer, ninja and president
of my own small country.
The ‘other’ option though, now
that was scary.
“Have you been down the market
this week Sue?” asked Gaynor.
They’d
obviously given up on what I had said under my breath; it was that or they’d
gotten bored of waiting for me to respond. No, I knew for a fact that they
hadn’t given up. They’d just decided that the two-for-one deal on scouring pads
in the regular Tuesday outdoor market was just far too important to let slip
into the recesses of their memories. For the love of all that is sacred, I could
not imagine how life in Merthyr would continue for these women if they didn’t
have scouring pads. I knew for a fact that Gaynor bought in bulk, like some
sort of weird dealer, so that she was always equipped should the time arise
when there was a scouring shortage in the Valleys. Shame is, the only shortage
would be when she’d bought the allocated stock for Cardiff, Swansea and Newport
and kept it under her sink.
“No. I didn’t manage to get down
there this week. That bloody get from the insurance firm rung. Oh! I tell you!
I was on the phone, wait for it...half an hour!”
“Never to God!” Gaynor shook
her head, with utter disbelief.
She
seemingly couldn’t fathom a half an hour conversation over the phone with the
insurance firm. It wasn’t unheard of, but to Gaynor, it was like nothing she’d
ever had to go through.
It was during this interchange
that I decided I’d switch rooms. The kitchen had been my refuge for a couple of
minutes. Those precious seconds had been stolen away though when Mam had come
in from hanging out the washing. The peace that I had been craving, and had
found in the kitchen, was instantly shattered moments later when Gaynor joined
the fray, sweeping into the room like some sort of dramatic caped crusader in
her coat. I’m not going to lie, normally I’d call her all the things under the
sun for running from one side of the street to the other in a coat. Today
however, I think the weather did warrant the wearing of an anti-rain piece of
clothing. The heavens had opened and it was lashing down, something akin to
what Noah experienced probably. But what Noah would worry about would only be
classed as a ‘light shower’ in Merthyr, where rain was part of the national
identity.
Also, in Gaynor’s defence, the
last time it had been raining and she’d made the dash from her house to our
house, Dad had decided it wasn’t a day he could cope with her and had promptly
locked the door. I had to admit, there was something funny about seeing Gaynor
having a fit, trying to clamber into the four or five inches of space the
alcove of the door provided, shouting that she had something really important
to tell Mam. Even Mam had laughed as we had watched Gaynor go to run back
across the street, only to be confronted with a woman in heels’ worst nightmare:
a puddle on a day of torrential rain.
Leaving Mam and Gaynor in the
kitchen, I wandered into the front room and sat myself down on the settee,
before realising that the television wasn’t on and for once, I couldn’t be
bothered to find a remote to rectify the situation.
The rain was hitting the
window with some force now, almost as if it wanted to break through the panes
of glass and begin to fill the whole house with water. There’s something odd
and hypnotic about watching and listening to rain hitting a window. It’s
calming in a way not many other types of weather are able to match. Finally, I
had a bit of peace to think. I could resume my mental probing, as I had been
before my fortifications had been stormed by Mam and Gaynor.
As soon as I’d achieved my
goal however, fate had other plans. The door opened, followed by a rasp of cold
air and rain and with them, they brought Dad. Or the man I assumed was Dad. He
was wrapped up in layer upon layer of clothing. His big thick coat zipped to
the top, buttoned for extra security, which I never understood really. It
wasn’t as if someone was going to come up to him in the street and steal the
coat off him by using the old unzip and run off with it trick. It was his
trainers that gave him away, brilliantly white in contrast to the rest of his
clothing, looking almost brand new. He’d had them for ages, but again, his
desire to have everything spotless meant that his shoes and trainers were
treated like an extension of the family. He was forever wiping them over when
out walking, stopping mid-stride if he noticed a fleck of dirt before bending
over and wiping it away, then continuing on his journey.
“Bloody Hell! Unbelievable out
there it is!” he said, out of breath.
I
bet he’d tried to run up the street, a battle he was sure to lose. He wasn’t
quite as fit as he had been when he was younger, though he’d never have you
believe that. In his mind, he was still the all star rugby player who all the
girls in school wanted to be with and all the boys envied. He kept on saying
about this try or that try, how he’d turned games around in the final moments
and was more often than not the most valuable human being on or anywhere near
that pitch.
“I wouldn’t have needed to
have gone out in it to tell you that,” I replied, which wasn’t even supposed to
sound sarcastic, even though it inevitably did as soon as it left my mouth.
“Oh alright you! Bloody clever
arse by ‘ere. Where’s your mam ‘en?” he asked.
It would be at his peril that he entered the
kitchen now but I decided it should be his choice and his alone.
“Kitchen.”
“Ah, good. I’m starving. Oh,
hiya Gayn,” I heard him say as he opened the kitchen door. He wasn’t in there
for five seconds before he came back into the front room, sat opposite me and
said, “’The Gob’ is ‘ere ‘en.”
“Ai. Came over to tell Mam
about Marian haven’t she?”
“Marian? What have she done
now?”
The scary thing, was that I
should have known this. I was in the room while Gaynor was explaining whatever
heinous crime Marian had committed but I had zoned out in there, lost in
thought, and if truth be told, I honestly couldn’t remember.
“I dunno. You know what she’s
like,” I offered.
It
wasn’t much of an offering at all but it felt better than nothing at all. It
was then that I caught Dad giving me ‘the look’. I knew ‘the look’ all too
well. I had encountered it before and here it was again, standing tall before
me and not giving any ground.
‘The look’ came out every now
and again, mostly when Dad suspected I may not be entirely at ease or when he
felt something wasn’t quite right with a situation. One time that sticks out
for me was when we were down at Porthcawl during the summer. I used to love
going down there, whether it was for a day out or even staying for a few days
in a caravan in Trecco Bay or Sandy Beach. It always felt like the seaside was
a million miles removed from the Valleys. Even though it only took about an
hour to get to in the car from Merthyr, Porthcawl felt like a different world
in a different dimension. It was like Tenby or the Mumbles.
It was on such a trip down to
the beach that I’d run into trouble with another boy. He was from Cardiff, or
so his accent suggested. There’d been a gang of us playing, mucking around as
only children can, happy enough in our own worlds. I remember now how this boy,
who was about a year or two older than me, had berated me for being from
Merthyr. I was called all the names going. I was ‘thick’, ‘scummy’, ‘common’. I
only wish that I’d had an insult dictionary as big as his at the time. My lack
of response didn’t make me look very much like a ‘ruffian from the Gurnos’,
which I came to understand was where anybody who’d heard of Merthyr assumed
everyone lived in the town and that we were all social reprobates. We were
portrayed as demons from a backwater town, like the bad guy from a Western.
The name-calling had taken a
toll on me though, try as I might to drive it from my mind. I don’t know why
this boy had such a profound effect on me. It wasn’t like I hadn’t had the odd
insult from boys in school from time to time. I could take it. It was banter.
Though banter was normally between friends and it was quickly established that
the child from Cardiff and I weren’t friends at all. Far from it.
I’d been sat on a deckchair in
the tiny patch of grass outside the caravan which was advertised as ‘a garden’,
yet felt more like a small island of green surrounded by paving slabs and
pebbled stones, when Dad had wandered out of the caravan. He had ‘those’ shorts
on, the ones that made me feel extremely uncomfortable being around him whilst
he was wearing them. Between the fact I don’t think he’d worn them since his
rugby days in school and the fact they were bright green, it wasn’t a look that
endeared me to him. Nonetheless, he could see that something had been bothering
me and when I told him what had been said to me by the boy from Cardiff, he had
laughed it off before straightening up and delivering one of those father-son
talks. It was rare that he broke them out. He was a man’s man, a ‘Valley Man’. He
didn’t show feelings or things like that but every now and then, he’d forget
what he ‘should’ be and be who he really was.
He told me that the boy didn’t
know what he was talking about, he’d never been to Merthyr and of anyone to
call ‘thick’, I was the least likely candidate for the role. He went on to say
how you should be proud of where you’re from, wherever it is on the map, as it
does help to shape you in the long run of life. He told me that when I lost my
perspective or felt like I was above and beyond my home, it was the day I’d
forgotten who I really was and he said he never wanted that from me. No matter
where I was from, I could achieve anything and everything I put my mind to, and
it would be sweeter when it finally happened.
I could feel ‘the look’
burning in to me now, as I snapped back to reality, with the help of what was
likely a clap of thunder. I couldn’t be too certain, I had gone into my own
little world for a moment and everything around me had ceased to be.
No, it was definitely thunder.
It roared again, primal and angry in the distance but with a sense of
inevitable approach.
“So, you gonna tell me wha’s
up with you ‘en? Or am I gonna have to be Mystic Meg uh?” asked Dad.
“Oh it’s nowt mun. Don’t
worry.”
I wasn’t the most convincing of liars at this
point. Even I wouldn’t have believed me. My poker face wasn’t the best in
Merthyr today.
“Fine. Have it your way, again.”
I couldn’t quite believe it.
He’d dropped it. Without so much as a fight, this was unheard of, and I wasn’t
sure if I liked it. Where was the struggle? The normality of the conversation
had just been lost. I was in uncharted waters now.
“What do you mean ‘fine’?” I
asked, almost annoyed.
“Well, fine innit? You know.
If you don’t want to tell me wha’s on you mind, you haven’t got to like.”
“Oh I see what you’re trying
to do.”
“What? What do you think I’m
trying to do? I’m not trying to do anything.”
“Ai, alright.”
I
rolled my eyes at this point, trying to show him that I’d worked out his
scheme. I don’t know what was worse, fighting to get a word in edgeways with
Mam and Gaynor out in the kitchen or being interrogated, albeit rather poorly,
by Dad in the front room.
“Oh! Don’t be funny now mun.
Just tell me wha’s wrong. I can see something is up with you. So you may as
well come clean.”
I decided at this point that I
was through with avoiding the subject. I couldn’t dilly-dally around it for
much longer. I had been brought up on the premise of there being a subject to
discuss and now, it was time to discuss it.
Discussing things was
something people in the Valleys could do for hours I found. Days and weeks if
the need called for such action. Gone were the days of industrial strikes and
action to get a point across, nowadays, we were much more happy to just talk
about it. Even then, it would be talking about doing something in order to get
ready to eventually do something. We’d wrap ourselves up in so many stages of
preparation that the something we meant to be doing it all for would be lost in
the ensuing mess.
Gaynor was very good at
discussing. Normally it was other people’s lives or habits, rather than matters
of the state or of national importance to Wales. Give her a cuppa and she’d
‘discuss’ for hours, as she probably would do tonight over here. I sometimes
thought Mam and Dad should ask for rent from her, as the time spent in our
house sometimes did make me question the need for her own house. There again,
Alan would need somewhere to live I suppose. Of everybody, he probably had the
best deal; he had his peace. He probably had the heating on and was relaxed in
one of their big new leather chairs in front of the television.
Anyone who had survived a
marriage to Gaynor for as long as Alan had, in my opinion, deserved some sort
of medal for outstanding bravery. I
believe they were up to something like 27 years at the moment, which by
anyone’s standards isn’t a bad run for marriage, especially when the woman in
question is Gaynor Lewis. I think some men would rather try their luck at
working behind enemy lines rather than entering into a lawful partnership with
that woman.
“You want me to tell you wha’s
wrong do you?” I said to my father, in a way that tried to almost dissuade him
from pressing me on the subject.
“Well,
as long as it’s sometime this century butt.”
He
let out a little snigger at his own jibe before composing himself and getting
himself ready for the big announcement that was coming his way.
The silence of the room didn’t
make me feel easier about having to just come out and say it. The rain on the
window had become less than background noise now, being barely noticeable and
Mam’s conversation with Gaynor was lost on the wind somewhere other than here.
Dad looked at me from behind his bright blue eyes, expectant of my news report.
Could I even look at him when I was about to say it? It was such a stupid idea.
One that would be instantly shot down, that’s one reason why I’d remained so
quiet in the kitchen when Mam and ‘The Gob’ had tried their hands at being the
Gestapo. I looked into my father’s face, of which I was apparently ‘the image’
according to all the women in the family, and prepared to risk complete and
utter embarrassment.
“It’s about my rugby it is.”
Even after I’d uttered it, the
room temperature seemed to plummet. I had shown a face full of doubt and
combined it with the mention of rugby to boot. My mind raced now, attempting to
think if I could swerve this somehow. Maybe I could avert disaster and make
something up.
No. He’d know.
That was one skill I never
took away from him: his uncanny ability to ‘know’. I aspired to learn this art
someday.
“Right...” cautioned Dad.
You
could tell by the rolling of his ‘r’ that he was as uncomfortable as me. I felt
like I’d copied answers from a child in school and was trying to explain myself
to a terrifying teacher, the ones who keep edging you for more information and
reasoning behind your crimes to humanity. He looked searchingly at me, waiting
for me to continue.
I was looking him right in the
eyes now.
I just had to come out and say
it. I knew it would go down like a Spitfire over the White Cliffs of Dover but
it needed to be put into words.
“Well I think I want to give
it up like.”
There, I’d gone and said it.
