CHAPTER 61
Geoff looked hard at Hywel, obviously weighing him up. I got the impression that he had more than a little protectiveness in his nature, at least where his wife was concerned, and wondered what might have happened to bring that about.

He relaxed, however, as Hywel held out his spare hand with a smile.

“Hi, I’m Sarah’s cousin, Hywel, I used to play rugby against your wife. Is she still as mad?”

That broke the ice, and Geoff laughed. “They called her the ‘Smiling Assassin’, and ‘Psycho’, from what I’ve been told, but the only thing I can really say I’ve heard her opponents come out with is ‘Oof!’ as she hit them.”

He slipped an arm about his wife’s waist. “I just try very, very hard not to upset her”

Looking at them together, I hoped that Tony and I gave even half as much proof of our love for each other. They glowed when they looked at each other, and I couldn’t help feeling both jealous and smug at the same time. I had one of my own….

That set the tone of the evening. We sat out in the warmth of the late July sun after our meal as Jim and Pie tore about with a sequence of accompanying relatives, almost ‘bring me another one, this one’s out of steam’. Beer and other liquids were drunk, and while Alice was still deep in conversation with Arwel, when he went for his session with Pie she slipped seamlessly into the Little Old Lady group of Enid, Mam and Aunty Gwen, so smoothly that I had to ask myself how she had ever managed to pretend to be a man, even with the beard and the bald patch. Just like watching her with her knitting, her nature was clear for all to see, and as ever, passing strangers saw nothing apart from one of a group of LOLs.

I look back on that evening as one of those pivotal moments, a point in time that I would freeze if possible. The only raised voices were of a laughing child, or a call across the table to confirm what drinks were wanted by whom, or, the most fractious of all, a polite but loud difference of opinion over back row play or whether Andy Sheridan would have survived under the old rules against the Pooler front row.

That evening was not the pinnacle of my life, but it was up there with that moment when I had sat on a wall with my big man outside a Dover sports club, or in that quarry at that Welsh rally. All it needed was Steve and Arris and their brood…and the two whose names I kept alive, and to whom I owed everything.

Elaine spotted my tears before they fell, and got me to the ladies’, where I explained, and we both howled and wept with loss in the middle of joy.

Elaine broke the mood, asking if Jim was ‘well over four feet tall’ yet, and we started to laugh and cry together. Siá¢n came in to find out how we were, and so we just had to explain, and then there were three of us who had to do running repairs. Men ask us what we do in groups in the toilets, and that was one of them.

We share.

When we got out into the sun again, Jim was lying on the grass with a prostrate and inverted dog, who was enjoying the attention he was getting to his underside and making happy little dog-grunts in appreciation. Hywel was still deep in conversation with Steph’n’Geoff (I mean…what else can you call them?), and this time Suzy was sitting pressed up against him. I noticed one of his hands on her bare thigh…. My sisters were watching with obvious amusement, and probably placing bets. I joined Gethin, Dad and hubby for a cuddle which all three were happy to donate. That was something that made me proud of my Dad, his acceptance of me, and his brother in law was coming along nicely.

I had looked to the big city as a confused young person, with the idea that acceptance as a woman would be easier to find, yet it was here, in a rural overgrown village in West Wales, that the true acceptance came, from people who had known me all my life.

Elaine and her wife came over to me, with a petulant mock frown on Elaine’s face.

“Sarah, have a word with your sister in law, she’s being unreasonable!”

“Why? How? Your domestic, you’re the copper, you sort it! Anyway, what’s she doing?”

“Well, I bet her that Suzy manages to go home with Hywel so she can get her brains fucked out, and she won’t take the bet!”

Siá¢n smirked. “And if you wanted me to bet against the Pope being a Catholic?”

“Yeah, well how else am I supposed to get any beer money?”

“I never begrudge you a pint, I just want you to get me one at the same time!”

I interrupted. “Silly question, chwaer fawr, but isn’t her money yours, and yours hers, so where’s the problem?”

Elaine sniffed loudly. “It’s the principle of the thing!” she said stuffily, folding her arms just before collapsing into infectious giggles.

Siá¢n caught her breath first. “Did you really catch them at it in the ladies’, Sar?”

“Yes, I did, which means that for Hywel, the sex was…”

I paused, to keep the pain of the punchline back for a second, then “…pretty bog-standard”

Elaine spanked me.

And yes, Suzy did go back to Hywel’s with him, so that Alice and Enid didn’t have to share a bed, and the rest of us made our way home, Pie trotting along with Bamps while one young man rode asleep on Daddy’s shoulders. That was a little bit of life as it should be lived.

The next day, Arwel made the rounds with the minibus again.

“OK, you lot of miserable tourists, today it is going to be foreign territory, Little England Beyond Wales. The natives speak a heathen tongue, but they have beer, so all is not lost. We will go to the birthplace of the biggest turncoat family in our history, and then to a place where big boys’ toys can be watched, and then we shall head for where the fresh meets the salt and the land has to take a big step down, so make sure you have cossies, towels and picnic!

So off we went. Pembroke Castle, home of the Tudors, who chose to become more English than the English themselves, was followed by Castlemartin. Thankfully, somebody was selling ice creams and drinks outside, as the boys left us and crowded into the viewing tower to watch red-hot-glowing rounds leave the muzzles of Challenger tank guns and smash into targets, only to ricochet upwards and demonstrate why the coastal path was so often closed. Charming signs were everywhere: “Do not pick anything up, it may explode and kill you”

Big boys’ toys indeed. Been there, seen that, when I was a small boy.

Finally, after a lunch time stop at the St Govan’s Inn, we trod the familiar path through the trees past the lily ponds to what Jim called the “magic bridge” where freshwater gave way to sand and sea, and Pie could be released to charge straight into the waves, emerging looking half his weight as the water flattened his coat. The small lagoon enclosed by the beach was full, so we had somewhere safe for Jim to splash while his dad soaked up the sun and did his sun-cream duties on my back. Fair’s fair, after all!

We had changed in the ladies’, and while I was totally unsurprised at the Nice-style two-piece that Suzy sported, I was astonished at Alice. She had found a halter neck one piece costume that allowed her to keep her chest, and with the addition of a bathing cap when necessary she was ready to swim. I remembered my own early days, and just pointed, one eyebrow raised. She blushed.

“A little something Janet gave me…it holds all those nasty lumps out of the way”

It seemed there was a whole world of activities and interactions going on that I was completely unaware of. All this had started with me bringing people together, it seemed, and now even poor, shy Alice was spreading her wings. I felt oddly proud of her, and at the same time perversely irritated that she was, in her own way, growing to the stage where she might not need me. How pathetic could I be? I gave myself a mental slap on the arse for being stupid, and selfish, and got on with our day at the beach.

I hadn’t mentioned to Tony, of course, that this was a prime area for auks and chough, but I did take pride in pointing out the way the latter flew rings around other crows. It was a day for pairings, to be frank. Hywel and Suzy had clearly settled their differences, probably in bed, and were relaxing more and more with each other. Enid and Mam seemed joined by an umbilical of gossip, while my sisters were just a happily marred couple on holiday. Dad had started grooming Tony for apparent conversion to a proper son, Pie was ‘helping’ Jim make sandcastles, and Alice…she and Arwel seemed so natural with each other that it was difficult to remember that this was no romance, and without some radical changes never could be. I could never, ever see my uncle get past the purely physical aspects of Alice. Despite her budding breasts, she was still, in body, a man in a dress and a wig, or at that moment, a one piece swimming costume. I had a brief moment of terror at the thought of Arwel’s reaction if he forgot himself, but then calmed myself down.

The steps he had taken so far had been in public, and he had been very clear about his opinions on ‘nancy boys’, as well as making it plain what he considered Alice to be.

Life would never be simple for girls like us, but with care, and the right friends, it could at least be a life we could control.

That was when he started to do the sun-cream thing on her back.