Last Train to Gloryhole (22 page)

With my car’s windows open wide, and the evening breeze streaming in and carressing my face and temples from both sides, I eased back and listened to the Dire Straits’ album
‘Brothers In Arms’
on the car-stereo system, as I skirted the limestone hill to my right called
The Twynau,
and once again drove north towards the rural haven known as Pontsticill village.

Passing under the old railway bridge, I was soon faced with the usual choice between taking the left-hand turn, which crossed the Taff River at one of its prettier spots, followed by the short, but steep climb up the hill towards the village, or else taking the much longer, winding route that first invites the driver right down towards the water’s edge, and then takes him up once again along the longer, and much gentler incline, past the cottages and wooden barns on the limestone hillside to the right, towards the reservoir’s colossal dam, and the vast, sinuous lake of fresh water that, fortuitously, it held back for the best part of three or four miles.

I well remember that it was just after six when I drove across the great dam in the direction of its stone tower, rounded the hairpin-bend, entered the hill-top village, and parked up for my customary Sunday-evening drink in
The Butcher’s Arms.
I can even recall that, despite the fine weather, it was more crowded than usual inside the pub that evening, and that I therefore stood for some considerable time at the bar, admiring on the wall before me the array of framed images of all the famous, local sportsmen and women that our valley had produced over the years, such as boxers Johnny Owen, and Howard Winstone, and Eddie Thomas - the latter’s late manager, who had trained and guided him to winning a world-title - and even Joe Calzhage, the modern-day equivalent, who hailed from a neighbouring valley, but had achieved unrivalled fame by having never lost a single fight in his entire fifteen-year career, and who had only recently hung up his gloves as an undefeated world-champion.

‘
The Merthyr Match-stick
, they called him,’ the young red-headed barmaid declared, pointing up at the photograph of Bantam-weight Johnny Owen, and smiling at his lean, but pugnacious figure. ‘He died in the ring, they say,’ she added, pouring me my third, and final, frothing drink into a straight pint-glass.

‘Yes, I can remember it well,’ I told the barmaid with a sigh, pointing at the first image. ‘World-title fight in Los Angeles, nineteen-eighty,’ I told her. ‘The lad just happened to walk into the most powerful hook ever thrown by man, and fell heavily to the canvas, completely concussed, and more or less deceased already some say. I only just went over to see him about an hour ago.’

‘Eh?’ the girl asked, confused by my statement. ‘Oh, his grave, you mean?’

‘Well, aye,’ I retorted. ‘What do you think I meant, girl? His ghost?’

‘Well I wasn’t sure for a minute then,’ she replied, her brows arched widely. ‘Talking of ghosts, Dyl, the folk living round here tell me they’ve seen plenty of ‘em over the years. Including the one of that man who perished in the closed-up tunnel down your way. But you’ll pardon me if I just drop it there, won’t you, as I find I get terrified these days just thinking about it.’

I decided it was best to shut up and finish my beer. You see, little did the girl know but she was clearly referring to my brother Sam. And so I quickly finished my pint, slipped on my coat again, and, by the light of the solitary street-lamp, sauntered my way back to my parked car.

Chris was so shocked that he literally fell out of his tree when he saw who it was who had actually turned up to meet him on the narrow, country road that ran across the dam. From his shadowy lair he watched like a hawk as the pretty, dark-haired woman, whom the whole world knew so well and admired so much, stepped out of her cab, which straightaway drove off, then turned and walked languidly towards the stolid embankment-wall. There. standing up on tip-toe, she gazed above and beyond it into the far distance, perchance to see a trout fly, (just as Chris himself had done minutes earlier,) and seeking out the once-memorized-never-forgotten, though by this time barely visible, outline of the mountain landscape known as The Brecon Beacons
.

To Carla’s mind, the long, whale-backed outline of the three lofty peaks, known to walkers everywhere as
‘The Fans,’
could not help but resonate forever in the native’s living memory, she mused, in a similar way to the trilling song of the skylark, or an old Welsh hymn, or even the narrow-gauge, steam-train that gently runs its way along there from Pant to this day. The unique, serrated mountain-profile had countless times enlivened for her the long hours of a care-worn city life, much as if it were a throbbing, long-loved vein which ran joyfully through the collective unconscious of all the people who inhabited the lovely Taff Valley, including those, such as her own dead brother, who had gone before, and no doubt those mortals who were yet to come.

Her long, black hair circling her like a spinning veil, Carla spun round on the empty road, perhaps seeking out some human interraction, but the warbling sounds of the birds in the trees were all that she found to sustain her. Soon Carla began to shiver, discovering how alone she felt in this wild, exposed location, where she now stood for the first time since it had happened. She glanced down at the deep, dark water beneath the gloomy tower, and saw how the water-level was presently twenty feet at least above the level of the beach on which she and Will had fished for trout, then picnicked happily, on that summer afternoon many years before. Suddenly Carla felt something akin to a night-terror begin to overtake her, and. feeling nauseous, she dropped to her knees, and began to weep bitter tears that she knew only she could cry. After all, Carla told herself in a sort of silent scream, she believed that it had been her own stupid actions that had resulted in the needless death of her brother - her father’s beloved, only son, Will.

Though a striking success in the eyes of her army of fans, her fellow musicians, and music-critics right across the world, Carla saw clearly how she had been nothing less than a desperate failure in the realm of her personal life, in terms of love and relationships, and in terms of her family’s aspirations for her as their only daughter, and therefore as a potential creator of new life. Indeed, for years now she had felt that, instead of helping Tom and Carys to become the grandparents they had every right to anticipate they one day might become, tragically the sum of her efforts was that she had cost them a son. And, she told herself through gritted teeth and painful sobs, her poor mother had plainly withered appreciably and noticeably as a result of it. In contrast, her father, far more resilient and self-assured, and much less obsessed with filial devotion and responsibility as he unquestionably was, had taken the matter of Will’s death much more in his stride, had lived on into old age, and now, if you listened to what he had to say on the subject,
‘stood on the brink of the ultimate discovery that defined and united all life on Earth.’

The crouching Carla started at the scuffling sound of a squrrel, or a fox, perhaps, moving about amongst the golden leaves that formed a crinkled carpet, from which emerged the tall, slender pines that bordered each side of the narrow road leading towards
Pontsticill
village. In an effort to identify the cause, Carla screwed up her eyes for optimum effect and stared into the gloom. Amidst the deepening shadows she felt that she could make out the gleam of a white, polythene-bag at human hip-level, a flash of red above it, and two, adjacent white trainers sitting much closer to the ground. Then surely it had to be Chris, she told herself.

Carla stood up and approached the side of the road and peered even more intently into the shadows, until she was sure she could make out the boy’s slim, open-coated form, and what she felt were his flowing, dark curls. She paused near the fence, waiting for him to be the first to speak, but, when nothing of the sort occurred, Carla concluded that it was clearly down to her to break the eerie, evening silence with the first human sound.

‘Chris - yeah?’ Carla asked, smiling at the trail of leaves that traversed his clothes and hair. ‘What on earth are you doing
in there
?’

‘Christ! She didn’t have to make you come yourself, surely?’ said Chris, stumbling quickly out of the trees, plastic-bag in hand, and squeezing his slim torso between the vertical bars of the iron fence, then ambling out into the middle of the road to join her.

‘But that was me!’ Carla told him, smiling. ‘You rang my own personal mobile. Where on earth did you get my number from? Eh? Listening over the fence, right? You know you’ve got some nerve young man. Say, are you some kind of stalker then? Because I’ve had quite a few of those over the years, I can tell you.’

‘No way!’ Chris responded sharply, genuinely embarrassed at the comment, and from her of all people. ‘I’m a - I’m a dealer,’ he told her, and he opened up his bag so that she could peer inside and so verify his claim.

‘Of course you are, Chris,’ Carla replied, with a smirk. And what she saw when she looked inside the bag didn’t impress her any more than his demeanour had. ‘Do you mean a car-dealer?’ she asked. Dismayed, he looked down. ‘Where’s your car, by the way? Getting valeted? Circling the block? Taking a leak?’

‘My car!’ stammered Chris, pulling his bag back, and feeling both flustered and more than a little intimidated by her .

‘How old are you, anyway?’ she enquired. ‘Sixteen?’

‘Seventeen,’ he shot back. ‘And I’ll be eighteen soon.’

‘I bet you haven’t even got a driving-licence, let alone wheels,’ she told him. ‘I watched you dashing over the viaduct, by the way. Your mother was right. You ought to listen to her, you know, Chris. You’ve got school tomorrow, and there’s probably still a stack of homework you haven’t completed.’

‘Did she say that? The bitch!’ he ejaculated. ‘She knows very well I did everything yesterday morning. Except the modes and minors. And she knows I can only do them when I’m at school. You see, we don’t have room for a piano, according to her, not even a stand-up one.’

‘You play piano?’ Carla asked, brows raised.

‘Key-boards. Yeah, of course I do,’ he responded confidently. ‘And guitar. Don’t you believe me, then? You know, I can play most of your stuff, for a start.’

‘Except the minor pieces, right?’ said Carla, smiling at him. ‘And that would be about half of it.’

‘I don’t - I don’t have all the sheet-music,’ he told her, by way of explanation. ‘Your books aren’t cheap, you know. I just can’t afford it.’

‘Is that why you’re selling drugs, then, Chris? Yeah? Is it? Silly boy. Look, if you want my music, I could let you have all of it.’

‘You mean - do you mean for some weed?’ Chris asked her.

‘Well, if you like. No, no. Forget the weed!’ Carla answered firmly.’No. For nothing. Look, I’ll give you money for the drugs if that’s what you want.’ She handed him a few notes and took the bag out of his hand. ‘O.K.? You know, I bet you grow it in your parent’s attic, don’t you?’

Chris thought for a second. ‘I don’t actually,’ he told her truthfully.

‘That
Verve
song was right, you know,’ she told him. The drugs
don’t
work. Get yourself a girlfriend, why don’t you? That’s a lot safer. You’re not a bad looking boy, you know. A bit on the skinny side, maybe. Wiry. But you’d pass muster.’

‘I’m concentrated,’ he shot back. ‘Like Bob Dylan was at my age. That’s what Rhiannon says, anyway.’

‘Your sister?’ Carla asked, bemused.

‘My girlfriend. Well, my ex-girlfriend, as it goes,’ he explained.

‘Oh. And does Rhiannon know you sell drugs, Chris?’ she asked. He narrowed his eyes at this observation. ‘No? And what do you think she’d say if she found out you did?’

‘But she’s my ex, I told you.’ he replied, grinning weakly.

‘Of course she is, Chris,’ responded Carla, staring directly into his rapidly squinting eyes. ‘You know, I think you should ring her up again some time soon, that’s what I think,’ she added.

‘Why?’ pleaded Chris. ‘There’s plenty more fish, you know.’

‘Oh, now that’s a nice thing to say,’ Carla told him. ‘Most gallant of you, don’t you think?’

‘But Rhiannon is younger than me by almost a year,’ he told her. ‘She’s barely legal.’

‘Really?’ replied Carla. ‘So you’re basically admitting you’ve been intimate with the girl, then. Yes? Dear me, Chris. All the more reason to ring her up and speak to her then, if you ask me. You know, I fear you’re going to break poor Rhiannon’s heart, if you’re not careful, Chris.’ The boy shrugged his shoulders, then looked away to the side. ‘Now you wouldn’t want to do that, would you?’ Carla continued. ‘Well, would you, Chris? No, of course you wouldn’t.’

Chris shook his head, and, with fore-lock slightly bowed, turned and looked back in the petite, handsome girl’s direction. What the hell was happening here? he asked himself, quickly flushing up. Why all these silly questions for a start? And why on earth did the great Carla Steel have an opinion about what he - Chris Cillick - even did with his life?

‘No. I thought not,’ Carla told him, answering her question for him. ‘So take my advice, would you, Chris, and promise me you’ll speak to the girl in the morning, O.K.? Will you do that, Chris?’

Chris quickly realised that he simply couldn’t argue the point with her, and certainly couldn’t relate to her the two linked, troubling dreams he had about Rhiannon on the night after they had been in the woods together. Instead, and against his better judgement, he found himself nodding to Carla in agreement with virtually every word that the singer spoke - every single suggestion that the adorable, talented and tremendously sexy woman happened to come up with.

‘You’re not a little boy any more, are you, Chris?’ she asked him, reaching out to grasp his hand.

Chris smiled back at her and shook his head, then became aware of the sudden, warm stiffening that was taking place just below his waist-band. Horrified, he quickly turned his body to the side and stared out at the great, dark lake in the middle distance, in the hope that she wouldn’t get to suspect anything, and in the greater hope, perhaps, that its cool, sheen-like surface might have a settling effect on his soaring libido. Chris breathed deeply and let the cool, evening breeze fan his burning cheeks and forehead. Then he watched, taken aback, as a gleaming trout leapt high into the night air, then slapped itself back into the water. Chris bit sharply into his top lip and squirmed. This was not at all what he’d anticipated taking place tonight, he told himself, turning to meet her gaze. Now what the hell was going to happen next?