31 Aug 07
He woke up at just before dawn. It was quite cold. It always was, of course, at 5 15 am. He wanted to pull the blanket over him, but he knew it was too late for that. He had to get up; it was time to get the day underway. People had to go to school and work, and this family was no exception. He sighed, and got out of bed. He did a few semi-yoga stretching exercises, watching, at the same time, his wife sleeping. He would let her have a bit longer in bed; she worked hard as a self-employed person, trying to persuade people to buy home products. It was hard work; you sold a lot, and the money was fine. You sold nothing, and you got nothing. He sighed again. He pulled one of the curtains, and looked out into the garden. It was a uniform grey. There was almost no light; he went to the back and switched on the gas to heat the water. Then, he began to lay the table. He got the bread and biscuits, then took the fruit and butter out of the fridge. He poured a glass of water. It was quite cold, but he knew it was good for health. The doctors had told him – and millions of others, too. Eight glasses a day are a must. He drank it, and then poured another. He drank half, and put the cup on the worktop.
‘Ah, it’s the beginning of a new month. It’s March 1, St David’s day. Happy Birthday, Cymru’.
Then he paused. ‘It’s not a birthday… or is it?’ He made a mental note to find out.
It wasn’t really that important; there were people who might disagree, but the reality was that it was not even a public holiday.
He looked out of the window. It was still too dark to make out the sky. The neighbours’ rear light silhouetted the trees. The washing machine was full with clothing and water from the night before. He did that to make up on time in the morning. He went to switch it on.
‘That way,’ he thought, ‘I can get it on the line early.’
He went back into the bedroom. It was quite cold, and he shivered slightly. She was fast asleep. He didn’t disturb her.
‘I’ll let her sleep a bit longer.’
He got into bed again, and lay there, and yawned. He had slept well though. He thought of many things. He was very careful not to fall asleep again; he had done that on a few occasions, resulting in a deep sleep that was hard to get out of, and left him groggy. No, once you were awake, it was better to get up right away. Then, you remained awake. The cold air of the morning helped you, too. After what seemed like an hour, although it was just a few minutes, he got up to check the clock. It was about time for them to get up. They had to be in school early.
He went back to the bedroom and began to wake her gently, by rubbing her back. She groaned, and asked what the time was. He told her.
‘Ten minutes,’ she said.
He worked his hands up her back to the neck and shoulders. He continued doing this for a few minutes, and then came down to the lower back.
‘Ah, that’s good,’ she said.
After a few minutes he stopped and got up. He looked out of the back window again. It was getting a little lighter now, but the sky was overcast.
‘It might be rain; it looks like it,’ he thought.
He went out. The washing machine was coming to the end of its cycle, in the final spin. It worried him a bit, because in addition to the unexpected noise, the thing also shook. But so far it hadn’t made any trouble; in fact, it gave an extraordinary good wash, and drying too. The kettle whistled, and he switched off the gas, and poured the water into the teapot. The children were beginning to stir. They weren’t the quickest in the morning. They came into the back and put their heads on their arms on the table.
‘Come on, you two,’ he said. ‘Get something inside you, and drink plenty.’
He didn’t like to push them too much in the morning. They were good children and if one of their weaknesses was being slow in the morning, then it was nothing to worry about. It wasn’t the most important thing in the world. They worked hard in school, kept themselves occupied with after-school activities, and had decent people in their playgroups.
‘It could be a lot worse,’ he thought.
Their mother came in.
‘Hurry up, we’ll be late. I don’t want to get caught in the traffic.’
No ‘Good morning’ or ‘did you sleep well’ here.
The main reason that he wanted the children to get a move on was to avoid giving his wife the often-taken opportunity of nagging them if they were behind schedule. She was one of these women who liked the sound of her own voice. She worked in business in the small town not far from the house. He had often thought she should have joined the Army. She would have made a good Regimental Sergeant Major. The troops would have had first hand experience of terror. But she meant well; he was sure of that. She had many good points. Early morning diplomacy just was not one of them.
The children finished their breakfast, and left the table. He collected the breakfast things and washed them. The food was put away. He poured another cup of tea. She came back in. She was wearing tight jeans and a blouse. To look at her from behind, one would not guess she was her age. She really did have the figure of a much younger woman. She took her weight watching pretty serious.
‘Oh, you’ve done the dishes.’
‘I do them most mornings,’ he answered.
She looked at him, gave him a little kiss on the cheek.
‘Thank you,’ she said, and went out.
He looked out of the window. It was quite light now, but it was a cloudy morning, a typical grey beginning to the month.
‘It should be the national colour,’ he thought. What was it that Dylan Thomas had allegedly said? It was something like ‘Land of my Fathers? My Fathers can keep it.’
It wasn’t that bad, although the times he had returned across the bridge into Gwent on the coach and it was raining were many. The scenery was a good as you might find anywhere, and better than most. No, it was the combination of cloud, rain, wind, cold, grey and expense that made it such a nice place.
‘I’m only joking,’ he murmured to himself.
‘Hurry up,’ she called from the other room.
There were assorted mumbles from the two children.
‘Yes, the national colour is grey. And come to think of it, the national rugby team had begun to wear a grey tracksuit tops when waiting whilst the national anthem was being sung.’
That jolted him. The night before, he had found a recording on Youtube, of the singing before one of the games. He had thought he would play it for the children before they went to school in the morning.
Actually, it was not a legal or official national anthem, although many people ere unaware of this. In fact, its name was not the original title either. Most people knew it was written by Evan James, and the music was by his son, James, both of them from Pontypridd. The original title was Glanrhondda, or ‘On the banks of the Rhondda’. It wasn’t written as a national anthem, but as a song explaining why Evan James wanted to remain in Wales, rather than migrate; love of the country and all that. He thought that, if the two of them were to come back and see the place in the present, they would both be on the first coach to Heathrow and the first flight to Australia or Argentina.
He thought of the street violence, murder, rape, paedophilia, the problems with alcohol, graffiti, fraying tempers, rudeness, lack of respect, rubbish, poor housing, high tax, a poor quality of health, bug-infested hospitals etc. It made a gloomy picture, and one thing was for sure; things weren't going to get any better, not whilst you had this government in power.
He sighed, in part in sadness, and in part, annoyance. What a place, he thought, and it could be such a wonderful place to grow and spend your life. Yes, he thought, could be. But it isn’t now, and the last twenty or so years of neglect and decline had taken their toll on both land and people. He thought of the people he had met in the past three months or so; apart from two, everyone else had negative opinions about almost anything. It was a depressing scenario; that was true.
He went to the computer, and logged on. He found the thing he was looking for.
‘Right, that’s ready,’ he thought. ‘Now, I’ll have to wait until they go.’
A few minutes later, they came in to the lounge. The girl looked smart in her prefect’s uniform. Her name tag read ‘Rhiannon’.
‘Bye, Dad,’ they said. ‘Have a nice day.’
‘Bye,’ he said. ‘You have good day too, and work hard, play hard, and have a good time.’
He said the same thing every morning. They might have thought he was getting soft.
‘Here’s something for you on St David’s Day. The Welsh team at the Millennium’. He switched on the recording. ‘Mae hen wlad fy nhadau, yn annwyl i mi... .’
It wasn’t too bad, the recording that is, apart from a strange clinking sound; it sounded like the same note of a glockenspiel being played over and over again. Perhaps it was a technical error in the recording. Or maybe it was the instrument helping to keep the elderly choir in time.
The children and their mother got into the car. The pulled out of the car porch into the road and were away. The anthem faded into cheering and the team sprinted off. He switched on the recording for a second listen. It was a good tune, certainly. It was not too long, and not too short. The Australian one was a bit on the short side, he had often thought. They tried to make it longer by having an artificial, it seemed to him, fanfare at the beginning; he was quite fond of it, and would sing along when the Wallabies were playing. The Italian one was altogether different. The first time he heard it, he wondered when it would end, and when it did, he was taken a bit by surprise. He thought it would be at home in La Scala.
The recording finished, and he clicked onto the BBC and began to read the news.
‘The Walnut Tree’ restaurant near Abergavenny was closing. That was bad news. He read about the fine reputation it had enjoyed for over forty years. It was nice, too, that they made a special effort to use local produce in the inn. That was good news. He wondered a little; it irked him that whenever he typed ‘Abergavenny’ on the keyboard, it came up on the screen underlined, and the suggested change was ‘Aberavon’. He had nothing against Aberavon, but thought that millions of people throughout Britain knew Abergavenny, whereas only the inhabitants of Port Talbot and a ten-mile radius, and older generation of rugby watchers knew Aberavon. The ten-mile radius was a bit artificial too, as half the circle was in the sea.
He read on. The hospital by Abergavenny was infected with a bug. Abergavenny was beginning to ring a bell. He then thought of the man who had blasted his neighbours with a shotgun; that was Abergavenny, too. Ah, joy riders in their cars. The thoroughfare in the town centre was sealed off at night.
Maybe Aberavon was better.
He proceeded to read the rest of the UK news, and then the international headlines. Twenty minutes later, he stopped, and switched the machine off.
‘I must get ready for work,’ he said quietly, turning in the chair. He glanced at the clock high on the wall behind him
‘Goodness, nearly eight thirty.’
He went into the kitchen, and had another cup of tea. He took the washing out of the machine, and placed it in a large bowl. He would use this to carry the clothes into the garden. He looked up at the sky again. It looked as is it were going to rain, thick grey clouds everywhere; not a break of sunlight.
‘No, I think it’s going to rain,’ he said, realising in a split second he was stating what was quite apparent to the most hung-over or exhausted. ‘Idiot,’ he muttered to himself.
He went in, and began to do some of the housework; he swept the floor, and then put the breakfast things away, wiping down the surfaces to make sure they were both dry and clean.
He went to the front of the house and looked through the window. The grey lane was beginning to fill with cars taking people to work. The orange streetlamps were still on, emphasising the raw dampness of the remains of last night’s rain. He sighed for no real reason, and then went into the bathroom. He emerged some ten minutes later, stroking his jaw as if to convince him that the shave was in fact complete. He walked back into the rear, and looked into the garden.
The clouds were quite grey in place, but a few patches of sunlight suggested any rain might not last too long. The weather could be, as everyone knew, quite changeable.
‘I’ll leave it for a bit,’ he thought. ‘I don’t want to begin work, and then have to break off, that’s happened before, and I don’t like it.’
He was one of these men who like to finish one thing before beginning the next, rather than having several things on the go at the same time. He disliked interruptions with a vengeance. If it were something serious that he was working on, then off went the phone. But it didn’t happen often, or at least, not that often. He made another cup of tea, drinking it sitting by the table. He thought of the work he had to get through this morning. ‘No good thinking; get up, and get things under way, boyo.’
He emphasised the ‘boyo’, as a joke; it wasn’t a term he actually used himself, although a common enough one to hear when one was walking round the town.
He went into the bathroom to clean his teeth, and then thought for a minute.
‘I’ll have shower when I’m through,’ he thought. ‘Not much point having one now, and then one a short time later’. He got dressed. He wore a pair of khaki shorts, and a grey tee shirt.
‘It matches the sky’, he thought.
He went to the back of the house and opened the door to the garden. It was still grey, but getting brighter all the time. Even now, it was quite hot. The bamboo tree rustled in the breeze. He closed the door behind him, and went to get the mosquito spray that he kept near the patio table. The birds were out in fine form; an oriental robin magpie was perched as usual on the clothesline.
‘Hi, fat bird,’ he said. ‘I’ll get you some bread in a minute.’ A couple of hundred yards away, two tall coconut trees touched the morning high air.
© Richard Homer 2008
