Peter Davies - The Welsh Girl

But then, the loaf still clutched in her hand, a slice half sawn, she has to sit, her legs rubbery, shaking. It must be the unaccustomed exercise of the bike ride, she thinks, suddenly breathless.

When Arthur comes in from milking, he takes one look at her and asks if she’s all right.

Fine.

“You’re as pale as milk.”

“I’m fine.”

He knows it’s a lie, she’s sure, but something in the way she says it — so flatly, without appeal — leaves him unable to challenge her, as if the lie is so nearly naked that to uncover it would be cruelty. He slurps his tea, crams down a slice of bread and butter, and stamps out. At the door, he pauses. “Boy all right?” he asks, and she can only nod. “Quite a night he had.” She just shrugs, not trusting herself to speak. She watches him go then, feeling an urge to call him back, but instead shouts for Jim to get up, at once grateful and oddly resentful for the distraction he provided her the previous night. Besides, he’s been late to school the last few days and she’s newly determined to put an end to it.

There’s a scuffle of feet in the corridor, and Jim stumbles into the kitchen, disheveled and bleary from his late night, the bandage a bright halo around his head.

She butters a slice for him, and for a treat scatters half a teaspoon of rationed sugar over it, watches out of the corner of her eye as he gobbles it down, the smile spreading on his face. She’s never seen him in such a hurry to get to school, but he has stories to tell. Absently, he strokes the dressing at his temples as he chews.

“Let me change that for you,” she says, and he submits, still chewing, but once she unwinds the bandage, and he sees the coppery bloodstain like a penny at it’s center, he insists on keeping it, and she has to settle for washing the wound, gently dabbing around the scab. He’s cheerful, fidgety with happiness, and when she wants to know why, he wonders shyly — not quite sure if he’s dreamed it — whether he can see his bike now.

“You’re sure you can ride one?” she asks, and he nods so emphatically she worries the bandage will slip.

Course!

At first, watching him weave across the yard on the bike, she can’t believe he knows how to ride one, is sure he’ll end up with another knot on his head or worse, half raises her arms to catch him. But he refuses to let her adjust the seat or the handlebars. He loves the height, though it means he has to mount the bike from the bottom rung of the gate. He wobbles back and forth and then gets the measure of it, swooping around her, laughing gleefully, the dogs racing after him, barking, even Arthur coming to the barn door to watch. “See!” Jim cries. Then he’s gone, flying down the lane, legs spread, feet off the pedals, his bandaged head a blur. Fearless, she thinks as the echo of the last bark dies away, and she suddenly wishes she’d kept the bike, could throw herself headlong down the hillside.

“Where’d he get that, then?” Arthur asks, and she calls over her shoulder that he found it.

“Found it?” The village boys, he knows, are not above a bit of thievery.

She shrugs. “Someone lost it. He found it.”

She stares after Jim until he rushes out of sight, and when she looks round, the dogs and Arthur have disappeared and she is alone in the cobbled yard, apart from a couple of hens pecking in the dust. She goes back inside and fetches the black kettle to the pump, fills it brim-full with six sharp cranks of the handle, carries it slopping to the stove. She sits and watches the faint wisps curling from it’s forked spout slowly braid themselves into a taut line. She watches the windows fog with condensation; the claw feet of the kettle begin to smoke and glow. It looks as if it’s standing on tiptoe, shrieking, and she thinks, If I can stand it, so can you.

She levers it off the plate finally, allows herself to cry only until she’s sure the kettle must be cool, so that she can fill it again without risk of cracking the cast iron. Then she washes every piece of linen in the house — the sheets, the tablecloth, Arthur’s nightshirt, her drawers — boiling them with soda. She works them against the zinc washboard in the scarred wooden tub, just as her mother would have, her hands red as berries in the sudsy water, and then she puts them through the mangle, watching with grim satisfaction as the grey water wells up around the rollers and falls away. She hauls the load up to the garden above the house, shakes the linens out piece by piece until they snap, hangs them on the line. It’s a good day for it, bright and blustery, though the wind makes her eyes run. The cold corners of the damp tablecloth lick her ankles in the breeze, and once a whole sheet rises up before her, pressing itself to her lips and nose until she can smell the faint tang of soap, but she holds on tight, pegs clenched in her teeth, and waits for the wind to drop. Arthur, spying the wagging white sheets from the yard, calls, “Who are we surrendering to?” And she yells down to him fiercely that the clothes are filthy.

The kettle’s rarely off the hob the rest of the day. She scalds the table, scrubs the slate floor, then the whitewashed walls, even the ceiling, losing herself in work. She shuts the doors and windows and swats every fly in the house.

“Bit late for spring cleaning, isn’t it?” Arthur asks her at supper, as if she’s lost track of the seasons. When she ignores him, he nudges Jim. “Never mind D-day, lad, it’s wash day!” She gives him a sharp look, and he tells her quickly the place hasn’t looked cleaner since… he doesn’t know when.

Although she does, she thinks: since her mother passed. Arthur used to tease his wife for keeping the house spotless in case her old mistress came for inspection, and she’d tap her heart: “I’s me own mistress now.” Esther has to clutch the back of one of the chairs for balance, so overwhelmed is she by the memory.

“Declared war on dirt,” she hears Arthur whisper to Jim. “And she’s not taking any prisoners, mind.” It’s rare that he deigns to speak English, let alone joke with the boy, but Arthur’s been in an odd, giddy mood ever since Jim told them that the local lads haven’t wasted any time spreading the word of the camp’s purpose, and the village is in an uproar. She can’t remember when Arthur’s paid as much attention to Jim’s prattle.

“You keep away from those lads,” she tells him, but he just smiles tightly. “They’re all right,” he says. She passes him her portion of meat, and he wolfs it down as if she might change her mind, before belatedly thanking her.

“How’s your head?” she asks.

“Good! I mean sore. But I can take it.”

“Doesn’t sound like it knocked much sense into him,” Arthur tells her in Welsh.

“What did he say?” Jim demands, and Esther looks at her father steadily and tells him, “He said you’re a brave lad.”

At a quarter to seven Arthur pulls on his mac and offers to walk her down the village. It’s not his usual evening for the pub, but he gives her a wintry smile. “I’d not miss tonight for the world.”

“I was thinking of stopping in with Jim,” she says, “keeping an eye on him. Jack can manage for one night.” She puts a hand on the boy’s shoulder, but he shrugs it off.

“Don’t mollycoddle him,” Arthur tells her. And to Jim, “You’re not her baby, are you?”

Looking down, she sees the plea in Jim’s face, and understands that if she stays now, she’ll shame him. Her hand is shaking when she takes down her coat, and she makes Arthur wait while she hurries back to her room to pocket the scissors from her sewing kit.

He’s leaning on the wall when she comes out, peering at the sheep. He’ll start the dipping tomorrow, and the shearing as soon after as the weather allows. She looks at the placid sheep and wonders if they know what’s coming. It doesn’t hurt them, the men say, yet every year she sees them buck and roll their eyes as her father pulls them to him. She has a sudden image of herself sorting fleeces, her job each year, the occasional bloodstains on the wool where the shears have nicked flesh.