Getting It Out - A short story

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.