The Dreamers (6 page)

Arianwen exists alone now. Her parents have stopped trying. They have realised they c
annot reach her. Arianwen does not want to be reached. She longs to be alone, to let the blackness surround her. She welcomes the emptiness for it brings her ghostly lover; only then is she happy. In those moments, she does not care about Blodwyn, only about her sweetheart, her
cariad
.

Blodwyn’s wedding is approaching. Arianwen will have to go. She will have to be there and watch Blodwyn marry her fine young man. She will pretend to be joyful for a match made under God. She will pretend not to notice the disgusted looks Blodwyn will send her way.

She can feel all this, feel the hurt she knows Blodwyn has caused her. But it is not constant. She wonders about that, why she should feel so close to the pain one moment and then so far away from it. It is her lover who takes her away. When she is at home, at her piano or in her bed, she can feel her lover there with her and nothing else seems to matter.

At night, when darkness fills the cottage, Arianwen sits at her piano, strokes her fingers over the keys. She always feels her lover close to her when she plays and sings. Sometimes, she can hear her lover singing the words with her. It
does not matter what she sings, as long as she does.

Arianwen begins to play. The music is soft, whispering sound into the corners of the room. She sings.

Holl
amrantau’r sêr ddywedant

Ar
hyd y nos.

‘
Dyma’r ffordd i fro gogoniant’

Ar
hyd y nos.

Golau
arall yw tywyllwch,

I
arddangos gwir brydferthwch,

Teulu’r
nefoedd mewn tawelwch

Ar
hyd y nos.

She knows her
cariad
does not understand the words, though she can hear her listening. She wants her to understand. She wants to share the beautiful words with her lover.

All the stars’ eyelids say,

All through the night,

‘This is the way to the valley of glory,’

All through the night.

Darkness is another kind of light

To show true beauty,

The Heavenly family in peace,

All through the night.

As she sings the words again, in English, her lover
’s singing joins her. Her voice is soft but, underneath the sweet tones, there is sadness. Arianwen wonders what has caused the sadness, if her cariad feels alone like she does.

Arianwen wants to take her to bed and comfort her, hold her close and give her pleasure.
She wants her life to be only their dreams together. She wants to be everything to her lover.

Her lover is already everything
to her.

I
T WAS A SATURDAY
morning. Jennifer woke early, feeling brighter than she had felt in a while. She got dressed and had breakfast. Her cottage really felt like her home now. She felt as though she had been here forever. Her life back in the flat with her dad seemed a different lifetime. She had been happy though. She and her Dad had muddled along just fine together, had done since she’d been five years old and her mum had run off.

Jennifer glanced at the photograph of her dad she’d placed in her living room. There he was, all smiles, as always. He’d never moaned, not even when he’d had to spend his last days stuck in bed. That was
him though. He muddled through, as always. And so would she.

She headed out, taking her camera with her. This was the first time she’d been out since finishing things with Ceris. She felt her insides twisting at the thought of running into her.

She reached the chapel and stopped. She hadn’t intended to go in; she didn’t even believe in God, but something drew her. She tried the door and it opened.

Inside, silence thrummed against her
eardrums. There was no one else here. Perhaps there was a minister somewhere but he didn’t make himself known. She walked up the aisle to the front. On either side of the altar were stands of candles and a collection box. A few candles were lit.

Jennifer hesitated, then took out a few coins from her purse and slid them into the collection box. Then she picked up an unlit candle and held the wick to an already flickering flame. She thought about her lover.

‘I know she believes in God,’ Jennifer whispered. ‘Maybe he is real, like she is.’ She glanced up at the altar. ‘If you are real, God, would you let us be together? I keep feeling this sadness from her, like she’s all alone. She wants to be with me and I want to be with her.’

Jennifer sighed and sat down on the front pew.
She was seeing ghosts, she was talking to God. This wasn’t like her. But she needed something. She needed more than what she had. She needed her lover.

Saturday morning, the Saturday of Blodwyn’s wedding, is bright and sunny. The water sparkles, clearer than ever and everybody is smiling. Arianwen has dressed in her best clothes. She looks at herself in the mirror
. Her clothes are pretty. She wears a soft blue dress which shows off her slim figure, though the corset pinches her and she feels crowded by the wide skirt. She tries to smile but it makes her look haunted and strained. Her eyes look empty, like the eyes of a corpse. She thinks of the brother she once had; his eyes were like that.

Arianwen turns away from her reflection. She
does not want to face this pain. She closes her eyes and tries to feel the presence of her
cariad
. She reaches into the darkness and finds nothing. There is no answering caress, there are no soft words whispered into the stillness. She is alone.

She takes a deep breath. Determined not to let her sadness show, she goes to the wedding with her parents.

The whole village has turned out to see Blodwyn marry. She is marrying into the richest family in Cilfachglas. Was that why she was marrying young Mr Evans? Did she even love him? Arianwen sits near the front with her mother and watches her father prepare the altar. Most people are taking their seats now, bustling about and chattering like squirrels. Arianwen hates them. They are not anything like her.

She focuses her eyes on the prayer candles at the front. Several
are lit. Many times, she has come in here by herself and lit a candle. She wants to light a candle for her lover; she does not even know her name.

She wants her lover there now. She wants to hold her hand, let her presence steady her.
But she is not here. Why is she not here? Why can she not be with her all the time?

Arianwen focuses hard on the pale light of the candles flickering in the cool air of the chapel. She
does not feel as though she is really sitting here in the pew. Her eyes blur as she stares at the candle. The people become a haze around her. They are not really there. She is here with her lover instead. If she imagines it hard enough, perhaps God will let her have it?

She does
not watch as Blodwyn says her vows. She keeps staring at the candle. She can feel her
cariad
with her now.

‘If you are real, God, would you let us be together?’

Arianwen wants to cry out, plead to God for them to be together. But she keeps silent.

‘I keep feeling this sadness from her, like she’s all alone. She wants to be with me and I want to be with her.’

She is right. Arianwen is alone. She looks around herself. The people do not seem real. They are not really there. She is sitting here alone. No, not alone. She is with her lover. She closes her eyes and just feels her. She knows Blodwyn has a happy normal life, which Arianwen will never achieve; but Arianwen has her lover.

Afterwards, there is a gathering in t
he village hall. Arianwen does not go. Her parents object but she returns home. The cottage is quiet but it does not feel peaceful. There is a darkness about it. It surrounds her, making her shiver inside.

She goes to her piano. She needs its comfort. She drifts through the house in the darkness and takes a seat. Eyes closed, she lifts the lid and places her fingers on the keys. She takes a deep breath and presses down lightly.

A shock goes through her, discordant chords clashing against her ears. She leaps backwards and stares in shock at her piano. It is covered in dust. The keys are yellow and tuneless. She looks around. There is nothing left in the room but the piano. Her things have disappeared. The darkness has become empty. She is forgotten and alone, existing here in a void.

Is she dead? Is she in hell?
Is she being punished for her perversion?

Beside the sea my sweetheart lives

She raises her head as a snippet of music reaches her ears but all too soon, it fades into the stillness of the cottage, merely a fragment of life.

Arianwen sinks down on the filthy floorboards, feeling a sob rise up in her throat. She curls her arms around herself, presses her face into her knees and begins to cry, sobs wrenching from her body.

The abandoned cottage is filled with the sound of desperate weeping.

Jennifer
left the church abruptly. The urge to be at home was irresistible. She was needed somehow.

Her cottage felt strangely empty when she shut the door behind her.
All her things were the same yet something was different. The presence, which had been there, was missing.

Immediately,
Jennifer went to the piano. She stroked the smooth keys, then pressed down lightly. The soft tone of Middle C resounded through the room.

‘Where are you? Please
come back. I don’t want to be without you. Please.’

She listened to the silence.
Her breathing seemed to echo between the walls. She pressed the piano key again, allowing her fingers to make a pattern of sound to fill the emptiness.

If only she could really
play, she was sure she could bring the presence back then. She, Jennifer’s lover, loved music so much, she was sure to come to the piano’s song. Jennifer could not play a single note of the beautiful music her lover had played for her, but perhaps she could sing it.

Beside the sea there are red roses

Beside the
sea there’re lovely lillies

Beside the sea my sweetheart lives

Asleep at night, awake at morning.

Her voice sounded wooden and echoed in the silent house yet she sung, making her voice as strong as she could manage. It seemed as though something,
someone
, was listening to her singing.

She sang the words she could remember, then
her voice faded and the house was silent once again.

Then, from the quiet, emerged a sound.

Jennifer’s chest throbbed as she realised it was a desperate sobbing.