WESTERN WAYS 3
Jim’s third stripe had only come through a fortnight before, but that stripe was all the runner needed to see.

“Boss says he’s going to throw the towel in, Sarge. Stand ready to disable weapons and break cover, but at his command only”

Dinger Bell was the first to speak, as always.

“Fucking Nora, why?”

The runner shrugged.

“Sent a few lads out on a shufty, and they say the Krauts have got round the back of us with some of their armoured cars. No way round them. Pass it on, Sarge; I’ve got to go”

CHAPTER 16
“Got everything? Last chance!”

Dad was shutting the car’s boot as he spoke, so I just nodded and joined Alys in the back seat, her bag already in the back along with our sleeping bags. Dad slipped into the front passenger seat, clicking on his seat belt before turning to us as Mam pulled away.

CHAPTER 1

The weather had stayed dry for a few days, so Natasha didn’t have to worry quite so much about the dry cough Jim had developed. They had managed to find a few shrivelled roots in one of the burnt-out farm sheds they had passed three days ago, and there was still a little remnant of the black bread and sausage the four Soviet soldiers on horseback had given them the day before that.

CHAPTER 13
In the end, we had it at ours, because it was closer to the Bunkhouse, and there was a club booked in for the whole week and a bit of the holidays. It meant a little bit extra work for us, but the group did their own decorations, and actually did quite a decent clean-up job afterwards, although they could have done a better effort at separating the recycling. The thought was there, though.

The run-up to the holiday itself was fun, in its own way. The Woodruffs were down for a few days, which meant a mass visit to the folk club, and for once they chose to stay at the Bunkhouse rather than camp. I collared Steph about that choice, and she grinned.

CHAPTER 11
That holiday finally came to an end, after a few trips out in the car to see what Mr Edwards called his ‘Specials’, which were a trio of castles ranging from a really picturesque coastal ruin via a huge, square and intact monster of a place to the real destination, a tiny little thing perched on an outcrop on the island with the tidal road, where Alys and I roamed the dunes on the north coast as huge white birds plunged into the sea, wings folded back, and she photographed every flower she couldn’t name. Once again, I was content in her presence, not needing anything more from my life in those moments, but she was keen to talk in between each little burst of nature-naming.

“What are you doing when we get back, Enfys?”

“Helping Dad out till school starts again. It’s what I would be doing if I wasn’t here”

“And school?”

CHAPTER 10
We spent a boring time indeed on the M6 as far as Carlisle, and Alys and I ended up falling asleep together in the back seat. I woke up with a mouthful of her hair, which was even further from that Mills and Boon idea than ever. Joy.

Yes, actually: joy. Perhaps not the shouting and grinning sort, but a deep warmth that I felt in my bones. Breathing the same air, next to her, that was enough, even if it meant inhaling her hair.

We’d got it down to a fine art by then, even though it had to involve the Youth Hostel Association and two of their nicest buildings. Once Keith had finished work on the Friday, the Little Kat was loaded with tank bag and throwovers and once I had managed to settle my bum onto what passed for a pillion on a Suzuki GS550 Katana, I could let the shoulder straps out on the frame rucksack I was wearing, so that it sat on the tailpiece of the bike and I could actually straighten out my neck.

CHAPTER 8
School was ‘back to normal’ on Monday, and more of a crash landing than a bumpy one. The time with Alys had been more than I had dreamt could happen, and the Woodruffs had taken my climbing to similarly exotic heights, but it was now back to the mundane, apart from one important exception: I had my school subjects to select.

CHAPTER 6
Alys was back at the school gates on the Wednesday morning, looking apprehensive as she spotted me. I locked my bike up carefully before walking across to her.

“What’s up?”

She did her usual trick of looking around for attentive ears, then shook her head.

“Nothing really. I mean nothing now. Sort of”

“Is it what I said the other night?”

CHAPTER 4
It was one of two funny days we had in our pattern of lessons, where two hours of the afternoon were allocated to ‘special’ projects’, alternating week by week. The previous week had been set aside for the school orchestra, so I had spent it partly in trying to get a tune out of a harp, and partly trying to get the harp into tune. That afternoon’s ‘special’ was my alternate one, climbing. How could anyone live surrounded by rock, and not feel even the slightest of urges to try their hand on steeper ground?

CHAPTER 2
I hadn’t always lived in the rain, though. Mam and Dad were originally from Luton, of all places, and Dad was particularly scathing about the place.

“Enfys, love, if any god ever wanted to give this world an enema, that place is where he would stick the tube. Absolute shithole, it is. Only good thing about it is the M1 northbound slip road”

CHAPTER 106
We pulled off the motorway at last, the minibus feeling heavy as I started to handle bends rather than sweeping curves, turning right at a roundabout and then past the airport. There were three more roundabouts, and then a turning into a field by a tiny little river, tents scattered over the grass. I stepped out to stretch my back, Frank’s hands on my shoulders to massage the tension away, and the younger girls went looking for someone to talk to as Alun parked his own car and started dragging out his and Alicia’s kit.

CHAPTER 104
I spent the next few days in a mess of indecision. I was going to be married, it seemed, and I had no real idea of how that had happened beyond finding myself caught up in the news from England, about Diane’s friend and her own wedding.

Was it the right thing to do? Did I really want it for myself, or was I ticking boxes for Frank’s sake? What about the House, and the girls? I ended up doing what I normally did, and ran the whole thing past Rosie while sitting in that welcoming pub near Cowbridge.

CHAPTER 102
As the weeks dragged by in their usual seasonal misery, I found my worry about Diane’s resilience increasing steadily. She called me at home one evening, suggesting a meal out, and it took the verbal equivalent of a kick up her backside before she mentioned Frank.

We sparred a little, and in the end agreed that if it was just going to be her and her little boy, we could meet up at an Italian place near hers. I just knew that it would mean a grilling, so my devious mind pulled a favour from Charlie.

CHAPTER 100
So once more our Christmas arrived, and we ended up at The Usual Suspect’s, where I spent the first half of the evening watching Frank and Marlene dance around each other. It had taken a while for me to tease out what the details of their disengagement were, but in the end it was a simple story: Marlene had been crapped on by her family, and how I understood that, and Frank had been too young to see what that really involved.

CHAPTER 98
I sat basking in my smug satisfaction in seeing two girls, who had arrived at the House so utterly broken, now standing up and making the world their own, along with a future. Charlie then dropped a bombshell to match Marlene’s.

“Got my own news, as well! Got a letter on Friday, from the clinic. All sort of fits together with last night”

I had noticed some of her own smugness that day, even though it had almost evaporated in the heat of her time with Seb. Unfortunately, she then started spraying tea as she struggled with laughter,

CHAPTER 96
It felt odd to be home, as always, partly because after weeks sleeping on a campong mat any bed felt as if it would swallow me in softness. There was also the simple fact that I was now arranging my calendar around things other than the girls and my delivery roster.

Those ‘things’ were a real novelty, because they meant spending nights away from the House, because I kept to my rule about overnighting men. Sharing space with another person was another steep and worrying set of lessons.

CHAPTER 94
I woke in some confusion, unsure where I was, until the bedroom door opened as Frank came in with a mug of tea and a small cloth bag.

“Morning, you”

I shuffled up in the bed, still naked under the duvet.

“Morning…”

CHAPTER 92
I had worked on the basis of there being no pressure in getting into the club, as such places are rarely sold out. Frank had changed into much the same rig as myself, a pair of extremely well-worn jeans, a dark blue fleece jacket and some plain black trainers, clearly taking a lead from my own presentation. I didn’t tell him where we were going, but as I parked up, someone walked past in a pair of those silly patchwork trousers, a squeezebox case in hand, and he laughed in the most relaxed way he could manage.

CHAPTER 90
I held it together for the next few days, at least in public, although it was nearly impossible when Rosie let me know the time and place of Carl’s funeral, because the only thoughts going through my head right then were variations on ‘Not FAIR!’, and that wasn’t a good way to approach my life. I had duties, I had obs, I had girls who had survived far more than I had ever head to face, for they had done it without my amazing luck in finding Mam and Dad. For the funeral, I would have my sister with me. What had my girls been left to keep them safe?

CHAPTER 88
I was unable to speak for a long time, that name cutting the strings that had stopped me slumping onto the bed as Kim did. So solid, so ready to pull Kim into a cuddle, find out what her problem was, to ease her pain, and thump.

Oily. Happy, smiling, cheeky, gorgeous man Oily. Rosie and Carl’s brother.

‘Shooting’.

CHAPTER 86
Marty must have had his chat with Gemma, for she asked for a house meal the next Friday evening, which brought a flurry of urgent requests for additional places to be laid, one of them for a much smaller person. No Blake, however, as it turned out he was doing some coppering job or other. What the hell; I had asked Paul and Paula as well, so it was the second dining room, as ever, for a full House. Gemma insisted on doing the cooking, really pushing the boat out with little savoury nibbles to start with followed by a full-on chicken dinner with more trimmings than a Mod’s Vespa, and as she bustled around the kitchen, directing some of the other girls to ‘pour this’ or ’peel those’, I found myself looking properly at Marty, as he sat in an alcove, as much out of the way as he could manage, given his size.

CHAPTER 84
It was odd, in that I felt almost as tired as Di must have, just with the waiting around. Once we were all back at the House, and Paula had departed with her man, I slept the clock round. Of course, that might just have had something to do with what we drank at Harry’s, but I did my best to claim otherwise, even if only to myself. I rattled round the House on my own that day, the girls all being either at school, work or on some teenager mission of other to the city centre.