Riding the Storm

  Riding the Storm

  Susan Holliday

  To ‘the old boys’

  with love

  PIP POLLINGER IN PRINT

  Pollinger Limited

  9 Staple Inn

  Holborn

  LONDON

  WC1V 7QH

  www.pollingerltd.com

  First published by Pont Books 2000

  This edition published by Pollinger in Print 2007

  Copyright © Susan Holliday 2000

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  A CIP catalogue record is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978-1-905665-22-8

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise, without prior written permission from Pollinger Limited

  CONTENTS

  Preface: A story

  THE LADY OF LLYN Y FAN FACH

  Chapter One

  WAKING UP

  Chapter Two

  THE CHALLENGE

  Chapter Three

  HURRICANE

  Chapter Four

  THE CONFESSION

  Chapter Five

  BREAKING THE SILENCE

  Chapter Six

  THE VISIT

  Chapter Seven

  SARA’S RETURN

  Chapter Eight

  MYDDFAI TAKES HIS PLACE

  Chapter Nine

  THE CAROL SERVICE

  The fairy tale is like a good angel, given us at birth to go with us from our home to our earthly path through life, to be our trusted comrade throughout the journey and to give us angelic companionship, so that our life itself can become a truly heart- and soulenlivened fairy tale.

  Ludwig Laistner (1848-1896)

  Preface: A story

  THE LADY OF LLYN Y FAN FACH

  Many years ago, some people say in the twelfth century, there lived a poor widow, near Llanddeusant, in Carmarthenshire. She had an only son who was well built and good looking. Every day he drove his mother’s cows up the side of the Black Mountain, to graze. One day he came to the edge of a deep lake called Llyn y Fan Fach. Imagine his surprise when he saw a beautiful young girl standing on the calm surface of the water. She was singing softly to herself and arranging her golden, curling locks. Shyly he held out a piece of his barley bread, hoping that she would take it from him. She came to the edge of the lake but no further, saying as she came:

  Cras dy fara

  Nid hawdd fy nala!

  (Hard baked is thy bread,

  Hard it is to catch me!)

  With these words she dived away out of sight.

  The young man was instantly overcome with love for her. That night when he had brought his cattle safely home and he was sitting by the fireside with his mother, he told her all about the beautiful young girl.

  ‘She must be one of the Tylwyth Teg (the fairies), my boy,’ said his mother. ‘Take with you some unbaked dough tomorrow and see if that will tempt her.’

  Early on the following morning her son once more drove the cows up to the lake. All day long he waited but the young girl did not appear. However, just as he was giving up all hope, one of the cows strayed rather too close to the edge. It slipped into some soft mud and fell. The young man rushed to help the cow, and as he did so, the beautiful young girl once more rose out of the lake. With shining eyes he held out his bread, unbaked this time. But again she refused it, saying:

  Llaith dy fara

  Ti ni fynna!

  (Too moist is thy bread,

  I will not come to thee!)

  With these words she plunged back into the lake.

  Early next morning the cowherd went back to the lake once more, this time bringing bread that was neither too moist nor too hard. The young girl appeared again and she seemed to be very pleased with the moderately baked bread. There and then she took it and agreed to be his wife.

  ‘Before we are married there is one thing I must tell you,’ she said. ‘You must never on any account whatsoever strike me three blows without cause. If you do I shall go and never return.’

  She plunged back into the waters and within a few minutes, a grey-bearded old man arose from the lake. With him were his three daughters who were all exactly alike!

  ‘These are my daughters,’ he said. ‘If you can pick out the one you asked to be your wife, then you shall have her.’

  The young man was puzzled. He really couldn’t tell one daughter from the other. Then he remembered his lover had worn fine, laced sandals so he looked down at their feet. To his joy one of the girls was wearing sandals while the others were barefoot! What was more, the one with the sandals thrust out one of her feet as if to catch his attention.

  ‘That is the girl I want to marry,’ he said.

  ‘You’ve made the right guess,’ said the old man, ‘Take her, and with her I will give you plenty of cattle so you will never want for anything. But remember this: never strike her without cause. If you strike her three times for nothing, on the third time she will leave you.’

  As the young couple went down the slope of the hill they were followed by herds of cattle who came out of the lake and walked five by five.

  For a long time all went well. Then one day the young couple were invited to attend a christening, some distance away. The husband fetched a horse so they could ride, and as he helped his wife on to the horse’s back, he tapped her with his glove, playfully on her shoulder, crying out, ‘Dere! Brysia!’ which means ‘Hurry.’ She gazed at him with sadness in her eyes. That was the first of the three blows!

  As time passed three sons were born to them. They were very handsome and very clever too. The eldest who was the most handsome and the most clever was called Rhiwallon.

  One day the man and his wife went to a wedding. While everyone was celebrating the wife began to cry loudly. Her husband tapped her gently on the shoulder and said: ‘Why are you crying?’

  ‘That is the second time you have given me a blow without cause,’ she sighed. ‘The third time, remember, I shall leave you.’

  Her husband felt very cross with himself for having been so thoughtless, but as time wore on, he almost forgot about it.

  Then one day, years afterwards, he and his wife were present at a funeral in the house of another neighbour. Without a word of warning, his wife burst out laughing. ‘Why do you laugh when everyone else is crying?’ asked her husband. But she didn’t stop laughing so he patted her on the shoulder, and asked her again what was the matter.

  This was the third blow! ‘When people die they leave their troubles behind,’ said his wife, ‘and so do I.’

  As suddenly as she had entered his life, she left him. She chanted the following rhyme so that her cows would follow her:

  Brindled cow, white speckled,

  Spotted cow, bold freckled,

  with the White Bull

  From the court of the King,

  And the little black calf

  That is hanging on the hook,

  Come thou also, quite well home!

  And the little black calf that had just been killed, and was hanging from a hook, became alive and well and followed the rest of the herd. They went back into the waters of Llyn y Fan Fach and disappeared, never to be seen again.

  They say the husband died soon afterwards of a broken heart. As for the sons, they used to walk by night round the edge of the lake in the hope of seeing their mother again. One night she appeared to them near what is now called Llidiad-y-Meddygon, the Doctors’ Gate. She told her eldest son Rhiwallon that he and his brothers must learn how to heal the sick. Later on, she appeared again, this time at Pant-y-Meddygon, the Doctors’ Dingle, and
showed her sons plants and herbs that were well-known for their powers of healing. Rhiwallon and his brothers became renowned physicians and their fame spread through the length and breadth of the land. The graves of the Physicians of Myddfai can still be seen in the little churchyard in the village of Myddfai that nestles at the foot of the Black Mountain.

  Chapter One

  WAKING UP

  At first Alun didn’t know who he was. He struggled up from some dark prison, deaf, blind, bars over his legs and ankles. Then he heard muffled sounds and a sharp anxious voice he recognised. It was Mam’s voice pulling him up and up as if its sharpness cut cords and sent him floating above the prison. ‘Alun, Alun, I can’t wait much longer!’

  He opened his eyes and knew immediately he was Alun Roberts. But he didn’t know where he was or why he was there. Mam smiled and he felt happy, because for some reason he had been expecting her to frown. She stood beside his bed, holding her handbag tightly, upright in her close-fitting black dress. Her hair was fairer than he expected, her mouth thinner.

  ‘I just had to make sure you were . . .’ She paused. ‘You look a right sight with all those bandages and no hair to speak of and so pale. But at least your eyes are open and that’s the main thing. Tony will be in next. Before I go, is there anything you want?’

  He watched her move to the end of the bed. His steel padlock floated into his mind, his little key. At least he remembered they were safe in his bedroom in the second drawer down, under the tee-shirts they had bought at the car rally in Cardiff. His secret drawer.

  Where did it come from, this sudden clear flash of memory? Mostly he remembered nothing.

  His voice came out in a whisper: ‘My padlock.’

  Mam nodded. ‘I’ll tell Tony to bring it in. It’s all that’s left, I can tell you that.’

  What did she mean, all? He struggled to remember, but she was going, and he couldn’t find words.

  ‘I must get going,’ she said stiffly, waving goodbye.

  He shut his eyes again and felt he was drifting back to the prison, where pain tapped like a stick in the dark.

  ‘Don’t go to sleep,’ said a cheerful voice.

  The young boy in the next bed was holding out a doughnut.

  ‘For tea. Don’t you want any?’ His friendly voice cut away more of the mystery. ‘The food’s good in this hospital.’

  Alun lifted his head. It felt heavy. A bandage stopped just above his eyes. His right arm was in a sling. His legs were held down by weights. His voice scraped like an old man’s.

  ‘How long have I been here?’

  The boy shrugged his shoulders. ‘Mrs Parry told me you had your op yesterday morning. But you’ve only been next to me since last night.’

  Alun watched the boy eat his doughnut and drink his milk. He wore a red rugby shirt decorated with a giant leek. He was sitting on the bed with an exercise book on his lap.

  ‘What’s your name?’ asked the boy.

  ‘Alun. What’s yours?’

  ‘Huw. Huw Gwynne. I broke my left leg playing rugby. Now they’ve found something wrong with the other one.’

  Alun tried to sort himself out though it was not like him to ask questions. ‘I know I’m coming up fourteen,’ he said slowly, ‘but I don’t know where I am.’

  ‘Glan Tywi – the hospital school ward. You know, near Carmarthen –’

  Alun looked at the green pipes along the ceiling and the red flowered curtains drawn back at the bottom of his bed. Beyond there was a row of beds and beyond that the sound of babies crying. With difficulty he turned his head to the right. He saw a tall chest of drawers by the window and a big old cupboard with a glinting mirror against the far wall. A small thin lady bustled among a group of children, collecting books and putting them into brown bags. One girl with fair hair was in a wheelchair with her legs covered. She looked familiar. Others were sitting round a table, talking loudly.

  ‘You got off school today,’ said Huw grudgingly.

  The thin lady looked up and came across, all smiles.

  ‘Not for long,’ she said, leaning over Alun. ‘In a day or two you’ll feel up to it . . .’ She had a fine tiny face and a kind smile. ‘I’m Mrs Parry. Mrs Williams helps me run the smallest school you’ve ever been in. At the moment we have two girls, Sara and Olwen

  – both from your old school. Then there’s Morgan, our memory man; Huw is next to you and Bryn the redhead is over there. He tells me he’s going to be a farmer. Not an easy life these days, as my husband would say, but Bryn is quite certain that is what he wants to be.’

  Alun felt confused. He looked at the bed opposite where the ginger-haired boy was eating and reading. Then he found himself lifting his gaze above the boy to a small dusty pane that might never have been opened. It reminded him of the window in the kitchen larder where – but his mind was in a muddle and all he could see was Mam with her back to the larder, warding off Dad, and Tony hiding inside, unable to get out.

  He forced himself to watch Mrs Parry again. She had moved over to the next bed and was putting Huw’s exercise book into a brown bag. Huw lay back with a comic. ‘Aberflyarff,’ he said, ‘talk about a laugh-a-minute rugby club.’

  Alun couldn’t understand. He painfully lifted himself up on one elbow and watched Mrs Parry disappear from sight.

  The afternoon sun lay across the beds. Its rays collided and crumpled on the cupboard mirror, shining like silver foil. Above the cupboard a cobweb networked up to the ceiling. A spider was sitting up there, a tiny black blob. Alun winced with pain and collapsed back. He shut his eyes: Tony was the spider in the web and Dad was the fly.

  ‘Looking better,’ said Tony cheerfully. He was too big for the chair. His leather jacket strained over his stomach and he undid the buttons. He pushed his greased black hair away from his red face and rubbed his blunt shiny nose.

  ‘Thought I wasn’t going to make it,’ he said. ‘Road-works everywhere. Can’t move for orange cones.’

  ‘Did you bring it?’

  Tony clapped his thick hand over his mouth then stuck his finger in the air.

  ‘Here we go.’ He stood up and shoved his hands into his pockets. He pulled out the padlock and put it on the locker.

  ‘It’s no use to you now,’ he said looking doubtfully at Alun. ‘I’ll put the key in the drawer so it’s safe and sound.’

  ‘I can’t reach the padlock up there,’ said Alun. ‘Can you tie it to my wrist?’

  ‘You must be joking,’ said Tony. ‘You haven’t much of a wrist left.’

  ‘Please.’

  It was important to have it close to him so no one could take it away.

  ‘Here we go then.’ Tony reached down in his pocket and came up with a handful of string and elastic bands. ‘Always come in handy.’ He threaded two elastic bands through the steel loop of the padlock and circled Alun’s left wrist.

  ‘Won’t it pull on these bruises?’

  Alun drew in his breath. The touch of the padlock brought back a vivid image of his mountain bike. Shining handlebars, blue crossbar, silver mudguards. ‘What happened to my bike?’ he asked, trying hard to remember.

  ‘Scrapped,’ said the coarse, cheerful voice. ‘It came but of the accident worse than you. Mangled up. October 20, a bike. October 21, scrap yard material.’

  Alun’s mind slumped. ‘I want to go to sleep,’ he whispered.

  He closed his eyes and put his bike together again. It gleamed; the spokes of its wheels were sharp and silver. It was chained to the railings, a leashed animal ready to go.

  He moved his wrist so that the padlock flopped into the palm of his hand. He tightened his fingers round it. He wouldn’t let it go, not for anything. There was nothing else left of the bike. Or of Dad, for that matter.

  ‘You were lucky to come out of that little packet alive,’ Tony said, helping himself to the green grapes on the locker. ‘Cheer up. You’re going to get better.’

  Alun hated the way Tony sat there eating, his red hands on his
thighs, his brown eyes darting.

  He didn’t want to talk, least of all about the blank that surrounded the pictures in his mind, the blackness he couldn’t escape. After another long silence, Tony stood up.

  ‘I’ll come again when you’ve got more to say for yourself.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I got a removals early tomorrow. Got to plan the route, with all that traffic. Have a good rest, Alun. They say there’s nothing like sleep.’

  Alun sank back. He was in a prison at the foot of a black mountain, so tall it cut off all possibility of light. The prison windows were blocked with bars of pain; the bed was covered with thistles. Tony had gone where he belonged – back to Bath, and Dad was standing there with a sad, lopsided look on his pale face. He was speaking very slowly in Welsh but Alun couldn’t hear the words.

  He woke in the middle of the night. A baby was crying in the next ward and busy footsteps passed his bed. He lifted his head but the pain slumped him back on the pillow. He tried to remember what had happened but nothing much came into his mind. Perhaps he had lost his memory forever. Then he remembered a great wind rushing in his ears as he whizzed down the hill to the station. The sound hung in his mind without any rhyme or reason.

  He turned towards the cupboard where the mirror gleamed in the lamplight – or was it moonlight that came through the flimsy blue curtains? He groped for the name of the hospital. Glan Tywi, that was it. And Tony had come. But not Mam. Not this time. His eyes filled with tears. For some reason he thought Mam might never come again.

  His thoughts were interrupted by Huw in the next bed who suddenly sat up and stared intently at the cupboard. He turned to Alun and whispered excitedly: