A Night In Annwn

“All right, but I got to take the dog outside for a Gypsy’s first. Her bladder’s not as strong as it used to be”.

“You could say that about all of us”, replied Dai. “You do that and I’ll nip to the gents’ as well”.

Kiddy coupied down in the car park and looked away from William shyly as she always did when going about her business and then started to walk home. William whistled and held the door open for her. She hurried inside and they both resumed their places.

“I needed that”, said Dai holding the deck of cards out for William to cut them, “and it looked as if she did too”.

“She thought she was going home for her dinner, so I’ll only stay another hour. Cheers, Dai. Thanks for the pint”.

“My pleasure”, he replied.

“I’ll get my money back out of you now”.

“Never! I’m going to whip your arse. I’m on a roll, I can feel it”.

Ninety minutes and two pints later, William got up to go again, and Dai didn’t try to stop him.

“A quick visit to the bog, and then we’re off. I won’t get home until eight o’clock now. I’m not as fleet of foot as I used to be you know. Oh, and a packet of peanuts, Harry, please”.

“None of us are, mate. Thanks for the lesson in Crib, but I nearly had you this time. You’re a jammy sod, you get some incredible luck, you do!”

“That’s skill, my boy! I’ve been trying to teach you the game for forty years. Don’t you think it’s time you packed it in and tried snooker instead?”

“I’ll have you next time”.

“In your dreams. Enjoy the rest of your birthday. Bye everyone, time to get up that hill and home”. He looked around the room, but already knew that no-one could give him a lift even part the way home. When he opened the door, Kiddy was in front of him.

Kiddy usually led the way out of the village, and he would follow on two and a half yards behind her. He had never been sure why she liked to walk like that, but he suspected that she was trying to force the pace. When they got onto the hill road, she wandered more freely ahead, behind and to the right of him.

Five pints was more than William was accustomed to these days and it made him sing to himself quietly as he tried not to trudge up the hill. He liked to sing the hymns that he had learned in school and chapel. He didn’t know a single modern song, except for some Max Boyce that they sang in the pub during a rugby international, and he was proud of it. Most of the hymns he could sing in Welsh and English, but preferred the Welsh versions.

Forty minutes later, William was approaching a corner which would reveal another rock that they always rested at on the downhill side of his house. He felt his jacket pocket for the packet of peanuts he would share with Kiddy before they tackled the last short leg home. It was more of a treat to stop there than a necessity. They both enjoyed their breaks, their snacks and taking their time in their new lives of retirement. As he rounded the corner, he was wondering where Kiddy had got to. It wasn’t like her not to check up on him every few minutes.

Then he saw her. She was lying on the ground just before the rock. It immediately struck him as strange that she wasn’t sitting in her usual place on the right-hand side of it.

He hurried his pace. Fifty yards from her, she gave a kick, arched her back and was still. He started to run and called her name, but she made no attempt to respond.

He dropped to his knees hurting them on the hard surface, but the tears were not because of that. He could see that his friend had suffered a heart attack and not survived it.

William drew her up onto his lap and wept like a child. Some thirty or forty minutes later, he scooped her up with his right hand and tried to stand up, but he could not. His knees were too weak, so he crawled to their rock and used his left hand to help him up. He sat on the rock with his dog on his lap and the tears started again. ‘She hadn’t even had her peanuts!’ he was thinking as a pain grew in his left arm. The iron grip of a vice squeezed his chest and he was groaning as he and Kiddy slipped off the rock onto the sparse grass below it.

(back to top)

3 SARAH

“Where am I?” asked William of the people standing around him. “Am I in hospital?”

“Yes, you can call it that. You are very sick, but you have recovered a great deal since we found you, so there is every reason to believe that you will make a total recovery”.

“Thank you, doctor. My mind is a little foggy. I think I must have a hangover. I had a little more than usual to drink... It was a friend’s birthday...”

“Yes, we know, but don’t worry about anything like that now you need rest more than anything”.

“Kiddy, my dog, died, didn’t she?”

“Don’t worry about her either. She is in good hands. We are taking good care of her too. You will be able to see her again shortly”.

“I don’t understand… who found me? Nobody goes up on the hill at that time of night. I must have been very lucky... Oh, unless it was a courting couple...”

“Please”, said the doctor “try to rest. You will learn everything you want to know in good time, but not now”.

“All right, doctor, you know best. I am very tired. So long as my Kiddy is all right I’m happy... I don’t know what I would do without her...”

William drifted off into a deep sleep in which he felt warm and comfortable. Kiddy was at his feet with her head on his knee.

When he awoke he felt a lot better.

“I had a great sleep”, he said to the woman at his bedside. “I’ll know better than to drink that much again... my head has cleared though. Did I have a heart attack? Is that what landed me in here?”

The woman drew closer allowing him to see her clearly for the first time. “Hello, Willy. Yes, you would call it a heart attack”.

He scrutinised her face and figure. “You look very much like my wife did at your age. She was the only person who ever called me Willy. It was her pet name for me, her private joke. She never once used it in public, because of its, er, connotations, if you know what I mean. In those days, women were a lot more modest in public”.

“Yes, the good old, bad old days, eh, Willy?”

“It’s amazing, the likeness, I mean, it’s amazing. You could be my wife’s daughter or younger sister. Do you have any relatives in Bryn Teg?”

“We are a big family, I have relatives almost everywhere”. Her smile broadened as if she had told a cryptic joke.

“What is it? Come on, you can tell me. Have I got food stuck in my teeth? You know, the more we talk, the more I feel that we have met before”.

“Do you really not recognize me, Willy? I can assure you that we have done a lot more than just meet. That would be some euphemism!” This time she laughed out loud.

“Sarah? But how can it be you? I mean if you’re Sarah, doesn’t that mean that I am dead as well?”

“Does it, Willy? You tell me. You were telling Becky only this morning that we have spoken many times in the cottage”.

“Yes, all right, but this is different... I can see and talk to you now as if you were really here...”

“I am really here. I never really left. Oh, I could have gone away... many people do, perhaps even most, but I couldn’t leave you all on your own. Did you think that I would?”

“No, I just thought that we probably had to learn how to communicate again...”

“Yes, there is a lot of truth in that, but people have to want to do it as well, which is why most people only see friends and relatives”.

“So, er, can we really be together?”

“We are together...”