Dead Man's Embers (6 page)

‘And how long are you intending to stay, young man?' Mrs Davies turns to Gwydion as she speaks.

‘Until Non and Davey throw me out,' he replies, with a smile. But Gwydion's charm leaves Mrs Davies unmoved, exactly as it did when he last met her.

‘That contraption of yours made a commotion when it arrived. It disturbed us all.' Mrs Davies purses her lips into what Wil calls her cat's-bottom mouth. Non buries her mouth in her napkin at the thought.

‘I borrowed it from my professor,' Gwydion says, but Mrs Davies continues to be unimpressed.

‘Davey tells me . . .' She dabs delicately at her mouth with her napkin as if she is about to impart something that might soil her lips. ‘Yes, he tells me that you are going to be doing some sort of work for this . . . person that lives in Wern Fawr.' She leans towards Gwydion slightly and lowers her voice. ‘He is a socialist, you know. Would throw out Lloyd George like that.' She flicks her fingers at Gwydion.

‘So would I,' Gwydion says. ‘But I'm only going to catalogue Davison's library for him, unfortunately, not help him plot the overthrow of the Government.'

Catherine Davies gasps and rears back from him. ‘You're not one of these socialists, are you?' She fans herself vigorously.

‘No,' he replies. ‘If anything, I'm a nationalist. I don't think we should have an English Government leading us into wars and other mischief that have nothing to do with us.'

A look of utter horror appears on Catherine Davies's face. She
turns to her son. ‘Davey?' she says, and waits for an explanation.

Wil jumps in. ‘Tada's a socialist, too, Nain, didn't you know? He and Ianto Hughes are setting up a Labour Party branch right here in town.'

Catherine Davies recoups. ‘Nonsense,' she says, and carries on eating her dinner, or her luncheon as she had explained to Non she preferred to call it, using the English word.

The lull does not last long. Davey lays down his knife and fork and leans towards his mother across the table. ‘Well, no, Mother,' he says. ‘Not nonsense. Though I'm not sure I'd call Davison a socialist. Anarchist, maybe?'

His mother stares at him. She chews her mouthful of food rapidly and swallows it with a gulp. ‘Anarchist?' She looks around the table. ‘Aren't they Bolsheviks? Is he a Bolshevik?' She begins to fan herself again, her napkin dipping into the gravy on her plate and splattering the tablecloth with brown specks. ‘They kill their betters, the Bolsheviks. I'll never feel safe again, never. A Bolshevik!'

‘He's not a Bolshevik, Mrs Davies.' Gwydion makes the mistake of laughing at her.

Catherine Davies narrows her eyes at him. ‘I don't want him mentioned in my presence, whatever he is – or isn't.'

‘Listen, Mother.' Davey looks at everyone around the table, as if he is addressing them all.

Non puts down her own knife and fork; she can't keep up the pretence of eating. What is Davey doing?

‘The world is changing. It has changed,' Davey says. ‘Working people aren't going to put up with the sorts of conditions they had before the War. We have to . . . to band together, and look after each other.'

‘No one knows better than I that the world is changing. I, who
have lost so, so much.' The napkin comes into play again as Catherine Davies dabs her eyes with it.

Gwydion turns slightly in his chair so that he faces Davey. Osian is seated between them. Over the boy's head Gwydion says, ‘You think the workers in England care about the workers in Wales, Davey?'

‘They've more in common with us than with their own upper classes, Gwydion. I saw that over in France. Think about it.'

‘Well, you have the advantage, Davey. You were there. But those aren't the stories I've heard. What about the bigotry? What about the name-calling? What about not being able to write home in Welsh?'

Davey shrugs. ‘That was ignorance, not malice, Gwydion.'

Gwydion shakes his head. ‘The English have bled us dry, Davey. And you think they're going to stop? Hah!' He hits the table with the flat of his hand, causing everyone except Osian to jump. Osian is intent on his food and oblivious to the argument raging above his head.

‘Can I have the rest of these potatoes if no one else wants them, Non?' Wil, too, has been eating steadily. ‘And some more meat?'

Non nods at him. She looks at Meg who is sitting with folded arms, her plate clean and pushed to the side. She gives her a little conspiratorial shrug but Meg ignores her.

‘It's time we took our fate into our own hands, Davey. The Irish are doing it. So should we.'

‘It won't work for them,' Davey says. ‘And it wouldn't work for us. What would we gain?'

‘Freedom?' Gwydion says. ‘Self-respect?'

‘They're just words,' Davey says. ‘They don't mean anything. Solidarity between working men of all nations, Gwydion – can't you see the strength it would give us?' He turns around in his
chair to the bureau behind him and rummages inside the top until he brings out a fat notebook, which he waves at Gwydion.

‘You're saying that working men aren't as greedy as their employers,' Gwydion says, ignoring the book being shown him. ‘There's always going to be someone who wants more than his fair share.'

Old William Davies rouses himself out of whatever alternative world he occupies and bangs on the table with his knife. ‘Hear, hear,' he calls, but there is no telling who or what he is agreeing with.

Gwydion picks up his fork from the table and wags it at Davey as he orders his thoughts, and Davey jabs his forefinger at one of the pages in his notebook and shouts, ‘Clause Four, Gwydion. Clause Four. It says it all. Listen . . .' He begins to read, in English, from his notebook. ‘To secure for the workers by hand or by brain – see, it means you, too, Gwydion – the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution . . .'

As Davey reads on panic surges through Non. How will this end? Fisticuffs? She gulps down a hysterical giggle. She wants to join in the argument, she wants to shout at them to be quiet, she wants to push Catherine Davies off the chair where she sits like a martyr, she wants to smack Meg for her insolent stare. When Davey pauses, she says, ‘Is anyone going to have some pudding?'

After an afternoon spent under the shade of the butterfly tree in the garden Non has recovered. Supper is cold lamb and bread and butter, and salad leaves for those who want them, and they all seem lost in their own thoughts during the meal. When she leans over Davey to clear away his supper plate the strong smell of his father's pipe tobacco rises from his hair and clothes and makes her cough. Though William Davies forgets many things, he never forgets his pipe of tobacco after his meals.

She takes the plates, and the salad leaves that had wilted before they could eat them, across to the sink. The kettle is already tinkling on the fire in the range and she takes the poker to the coals to bring it to a boil. She may let the fire die down then; they can do without their late evening cup of tea in the interests of cooling down a little.

Davey had come home exhausted from helping his mother fill in her census return, exhausted in a way he rarely became after even the hardest physical work. When he arrived at his parents' house, it was to find that his mother had locked his father in the small room in the roof all afternoon. Old William Davies was
distressed by the heat and lack of water and had cried when Davey released him, telling him he wanted to go home, that his mother would be worried about him. Catherine Davies could not see that she had been wrong to lock her husband away. She had told her son, He is nothing but a nuisance. Then, when Davey sat with her to fill the census return, she insisted that Billy's name should be on it because he was still there with her in spirit. His refusal to include Billy left his mother in a greater sulk than the one she had fallen into at dinner time. Davey had forged his father's signature as the head of the household. He told Non that he was thankful they no longer had to fill in a column about the mental health of any person on the form. He wouldn't have known what to write about either of his parents.

All day Non has been glad to think that the people she loves best are with her for this occasion; that the census will be completed to show that her family is all together on this one night in 1921, that it will be written down and made true so that generations into the future her descendants will see that it was so, and no one can ever deny it. Now she begins to be concerned that the picture it will present may not be the absolute truth.

She carries their cups and saucers into the parlour, a room they tend to use only for special occasions, for which Non is sorry because it is a well designed and pleasant room, looking out to the north and the peaks of Eryri. Plumes of smoke snake into the sky from the distant foothills; they have heard tales of spontaneous fires occurring on the hillsides where the grass and gorse has withered and dried under the relentless glare of the sun.

And here is her family sitting waiting for her, for their after-supper cup of tea, and for this once-in-a-decade event to begin. Meg is excited, Non can hear it in her high voice and giggles. Davey will be irritated by her girlish silliness before the evening
is out. He has already laid the form on the writing table behind the sofa, filled the inkwell, and has two pens lying in wait on a pristine sheet of blotting paper. Gwydion is attempting to read the form over his shoulder and, from the expression on his face, failing.

‘Strictly confidential,' Davey says, pointing to the words printed boldly at the top of the sheet.

Non is not sure whether he is joking or not. As she goes back to the kitchen to make the tea she remembers how full of jokes and laughter he used to be, and her heart leaps at this sign that maybe the old Davey is still there, somewhere. In the same instant she remembers his treachery, and her heart steadies.

She returns with the tray bearing the teapot, the sugar bowl and a jug of milk she hopes has not noticeably soured, and deposits it on the table next to Davey. ‘You can pour, Meg.'

Meg busies herself, and Non sits and waits for Davey to begin.

‘We've got to get this right first time,' he says. ‘No blots, no crossings-out that suggest we're incapable of it.' He picks up a pen and dips it in the ink. ‘The example they've given shows that I have to put my name first, then yours, Non, then you children in order of your age, then Gwydion last because he's a visitor.'

‘I don't suppose it matters as long as they have the information,' Gwydion says. ‘Does it?'

The pen shakes in Davey's hand and a drop of ink falls on the table. ‘Quick, a cloth!' he cries.

Non fetches a cloth and mops up the ink. The tremor in Davey's hand is something as new as the attacks that send him under the table to fight his war all over again. Why have his nightmares turned into something so physical? Surely he had done his duty, more than his duty even; he had been made a corporal, he had been mentioned in despatches. Why does he have to bear it all
again? She wishes she knew if any of the other men who returned suffer in this way, but no one talks of the War: they all want to forget it, to leave it safely in the past where it belongs. She wonders how many others find it erupting into their present.

‘Non, you fill in the form.' Davey has moved to sit on her chair while she was returning the cloth to the kitchen. ‘Your writing is much clearer than mine. I'll dictate what you have to write, so I can sign the form knowing they are my words on it.'

Non sits and takes up the pen and looks expectantly at Davey. He avoids her gaze.

‘First, David William Davies,' he says. ‘We'll do a whole column then go on to the next one, Non, rather than travel across. I think that will be easier. They need to know so much.'

Non scratches away with the pen, dips it in the ink, scratches some more.

‘It doesn't hold much ink, that nib,' Davey says. ‘Try the other pen.'

She could do this in quarter the time, left alone to do so. She waits for Davey to tell her what next to write.

‘Rhiannon Davies,' he says. ‘What am I doing? Just write our names in age order, Non . . . but leave Gwydion till last.'

Obediently, Non writes their names in the first column. There we are, she thinks, together for posterity on this piece of paper, that much is true – we are all here physically in this parlour on this sultry evening in June.

‘Next column,' Davey says. ‘Head, Wife, Son, Daughter—' He stops and looks at Osian. ‘Son.'

‘You can't say that,' Meg says. ‘He's not your son, is he? That would make him my brother, and he's not actually, is he?'

‘Surely you can say son if he's your adopted son?' Gwydion says. Non and Davey have never admitted to anyone that they have
registered Osian as their natural son. Osian sits to Davey's left, unconcerned by all that is happening around him, his face and the way his hair grows so like Davey's that Non cannot believe she has never noticed it before.

‘Son.' Wil's voice is strong and sure. ‘He is your son, Tada. What else would you put?'

Before anyone can argue about it, Non writes
Son
against Osian's name, and wonders exactly what Wil can have meant by stating so strongly that Davey is Osian's father, whether he meant more than she would have seen in his words only yesterday morning. She puts
Visitor
against Gwydion's name and blots the column to dry the ink before moving on to the next one.

Here, their ages are required. ‘Meg, we need years and months for this. You're very good at your numbers, so will you work them out for me?' Meg does the sums and Non fills the column, asking Meg to take Osian's birthdate as the day he came to them, the day that she and Davey had given to the registrar as his birthdate. And who is to say it was not?

Meg sighs theatrically at her request. ‘His birthday was only yesterday, Non. An idiot could work it out. Seven years and one day.'