Will Thomas - Some Danger Involved

It was one year to the day since my wife's death. Her death, her illness had led to my arrest and trial, and my eight months' sentence. How had I not remembered the date until now? What kind of husband was I that I couldn't even remember the first anniversary of my wife's death? While it was true that my time had not been my own since I had been hired, I still felt a crushing weight of guilt on my chest.

I paid the tuppence toll and crossed the bridge, walking aimlessly. Jenny was her name. Memory conjured up her face before me. Her hair was soft and brown, and her large eyes hazel. I had loved the shape of her ears and the way the curls in front of them spiraled. I had loved everything about her. We had been married less than three months. The old loss came back, the loss that had made me howl in my cell, that had taken a young boy of twenty summers and turned him into an old man.

Gradually, having wandered for hours, I felt the enormity of what I had done begin to sink into my troubled brain. I had walked out on my position, after all Barker had done for me, after the expensive clothes, the room, the meals. I was a complete ingrate. I had left him much out of pocket, and now I was back against the wall again, no savings, no position, no prospects. Perhaps I would be swimming in the Thames yet. I recognized the hand of Fate by now, and her cruel little jokes.

Eventually, finding myself with nowhere else to go, I returned home. I passed a curious Mac and made my way upstairs. With a stoical sigh, I reached under the bed and pulled out my old battered suitcase, the one Barker had rescued from the dustbin. It had become my oldest friend. Inside it was the meager suit I had worn to my first interview with Barker. Had it only been a week? Somehow, it seemed longer. I changed into my old clothes again. After wearing some of the finest apparel available in London, I saw that the suit looked shabby indeed, mere refuse for the stalls in Petticoat Lane. A pity. I would have liked to own a nice suit in which to be buried.

There was a knock at the door. I was so deep in thought I didn't notice, until it came again. It startled me. Nobody in this household knocked. Barker bellowed, Maccabee barged right in, and Dummolard never came upstairs. I got up and opened the door. It was Mac.

"Mr. Llewelyn, Mr. Barker requests that you join him in the basement."

"The basement, did you say?"

"Yes, sir." He bowed and left.

So, that was it, then. I was to be dismissed in the basement, unless he intended to shoot me instead. I would have preferred the office, where it all began, but the basement was as good a place to be sacked as any.

I went down the stairs and opened the door. In the middle of the room, Barker was seated at a small deal table of indeterminate age. The table was without benefit of a tablecloth but was covered with plates of bread, cheese, and a cold joint.

"Yes, sir?" I said. "You wanted to see me?"

Barker got up and went through a door leading into the lumber room. "Have a seat. I must say, you had me going," he said, while I heard him rummaging about. "I didn't quite know what to make of it. Then I remembered. Your wife passed away a year ago today, didn't she?"

"Yes, sir. How did you know?"

"I went to Oxford that second day, while you were cramming those first books. Interesting reading. Your files, I mean." He came out again and put two pint glasses on the table. "Why didn'tЧ My word, what are those rags you're wearing?"

I looked down at my suit. He was right. Compared to what I had been wearing the last week, they were rags. "My suit, sir. The one you hired me in."

Barker seemed a bit short-tempered, as I would expect him to be under the circumstances. "I thought I told Mac to burn those. What are you wearing them for?"

"They seemed as good as any to be sacked in, sir."

"Sacked? Who said anything about being sacked? Have I told you that you are sacked?"

"No, sir." I watched him go back into the lumber room again.

"Your records at Oxford were rather vague. The charges were theft and assault, but the full particulars were mislaid. For a city the size of Oxford, I found the constabulary quite bucolic. The sentence seemed very stiff for such a small crime. According to the report, the total worth of the stolen property was exactly one sovereign. Here it is!" He came out with a small barrel, very dusty and cobwebby. "Give me a hand here, lad."

I held the barrel, while he pulled the peg and opened the spigot. A brown liquid filled the glass, producing a tan collar on top. It was porter. He transferred the tan froth to his mustache.

"Eminently drinkable," he pronounced, and poured me a glass.

"What are we doing, sir?"

"That should be obvious. We are getting drunk and hearing the story of your life. Where was I? Yes. You are not the sort to suddenly refuse to do work that is required of you. Something of immense personal import to you made you leave the office suddenly. Obviously, something that happened before your employ, unless, of course, my numerous foibles finally grew to become too great. So, come, lad. Spill it. Confession is good for the soul."

"But, sir," I protested. "I saw you sip at the stout at the pub the other day. It is evident that you dislike it."

"There you go inferring again, without evidence, Llewelyn. What you have taken for dislike is in fact an overfondness. I could pour this stuff down my throat by the gallon, and did, in fact, during my wilder days. But now I must be abstemious, save upon an extraordinary occasion such as this. Tonight we shall drink ourselves into a stupor, and tomorrow morning conduct ourselves once more as sober men, and this occasion need never be discussed again. So tell it, man, and no blubbering. I can take anything but blubbering. Good porter, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir. Excellent."

"Mac makes it himself. Never trust a butler that can't make first-rate spirits."

"I shall remember that." I was trying to put together all the disjointed thoughts in my head and to be coherent. This was a subject I had never spoken of with anyone before. I wanted to get it right.

"Well, sir, I first met my wifeЧ"

"No, no," Barker broke in. "You're making a hash of it already. Go back to the beginning, Thomas. Tell me about your family and your village."

I took another sip of the porter, then a large gulp. I'd never had the luxury of being drunk in my entire life, but this seemed as good a time as any.

I was born in Cwmbran,in Gwent,sir, the sixth of nine children, and the fourth son. My father was a miner, and my mother took in wash to make ends meet, not that they ever did. We also had a grandfather living with us, my mum's dad, who was retired from the mines after a lifetime underground. He used to take us on long walks around the hills, as a means of coughing up fifty years' worth of coal dust from his lungs. His years in the hole were secondary in his mind, and in that of the town. He was primarily a bard. The townfolk were proud of old Ioan Llewelyn, for he'd won several eisteddfods, storytelling competitions, traveling as far as Cardiff. Granddad used to tell us children stories on our long walks, to entertain us and to keep his skills sharp, and so I grew up on the old tales of Pwyll and Math, and the brave queen, Rhiannon. The stories meant little to my brothers and sisters but were all the world to me. When I was younger, I was sure they were all true, as if they'd just happened. I trembled in terror at the thought of the dark underworld of Annwn more than any glimpse of Hell's fire and brimstone imparted to us children by our Methodist minister. But I was nothing special, just number six of the Llewelyn brood, destined for the coal mines, a family distinct only because my grandfather chose to spell the family name a little differently from the established and royal spelling.