CHAPTER 76
So, off we went in a little armada of cars to the site of my rebirth, where Tony had reappeared that first time to bring me my second family, second life.
You could say I have a soft spot for the old building. The bar was open, the DJ was still setting up, and after the first drinks went down Andy and Bev did the traditional twirl around the floor before the rest of us got down and dirty.
Tony was right, I do love my dancing, and it is very much a girl thing. It is what hair is for, after all, to feel it fly as you rock on to the sound and emotion of the music. Unfortunately, but only in a small way, the selection was a little less rock-oriented than I would have liked, but I kept reminding myself that this was not my day, but theirs, and as I saw the happy, soppy, puppy-like grins of two mothers and a father, not to mention Andy and Bev, I soaked up whatever taste-insulting dross the DJ threw at us, and concentrated on getting sweaty. I did make a point, though, of smilingly informing him that any temptation to play anything involving “push pineapple”, or even resembling it, would be hazardous to his health in the extreme.
He grinned back. “I’ve got some older stuff buried, nothing too heavy, but would you accept some T Rex with the bass cranked up a bit? Or perhaps some older Bowie? Oh, and I have some Stones…”
I bought him a pint. He was doing his best, good man that he was, and there are few songs better to strut to than ‘Brown Sugar’ or ‘Jean Genie’, and ‘20th Century Boy’ does have a wonderful bass line, if you can ignore Bolan’s voice, which I tried to. I’m a rock chick, OK? Tony came up with me a few times, and as we cuddled into a slow dance, he whispered “You move so much more sweetly in jeans, love”
“I move just the same, my sweet man”
“Yeah, but I can see it in jeans!”
In the ladies’ later, I was accosted by Suzy.
“Have you clocked Anne? She’s losing lipstick at a faster rate than she used to put it on!”
“Jon?”
“Who else? He’s like a rabbit in bloody headlights, that boy, absolutely mesmerised. Which reminds me…Hywel is still being slow”
“Remember what you said? If he doesn’t, you will?”
I thought for a while, and an idea came, as they sometimes do, even when I am sober. This one didn’t involve John Fowles or Meryl Streep, though. “Suze, follow my lead, OK?”
We cleaned up, and I walked over to Alice. “May I borrow your beau for a few minutes?”
She nodded and I dragged Arwel off a little way.
“Uncle, what is your take on Hywel and Suzy?”
The scarred old monster just grinned. “He’s besotted, he is”
“So why doesn’t he do something about t?”
“He’s scared, aye? You forget, living over here, we’re not the same as you. She’s a professional woman, educated, he’s just a bit of rough, a bit of fun”
I despair of my family sometimes. Fiercely protective, solid together beyond anything I could hope for, but still with that thing the Aussies call a cultural cringe. It’s a Welsh thing, to value education, literacy, and to feel lessened without it. Sod it.
“Uncle Arwel…” I explained what Suzy had been saying at the weekend, and he started to grin.
“He’ll never believe that from me!”
I set out my plan. His grin got wider.
I collared Suzy again, and told her to watch Arwel and me, and to join us at my nod. Arwel and I walked over to the boy, and as he put his pint onto the bar and turned to say something to Tony, Arwel caught him with an armlock that would have made Elaine proud, and turned him from the bar to face me.
“Hywel Powell, you are accused of avoiding responsibility, and what is worse, trifling. We will not have trifling in this family, it stops now!”
He was confused, to say the least, stammering something that seemed to consist mostly of “what?”, and I gave the nod to my friend, who came over to stand in front of him. I continued my accusation.
“You are also accused of being a fuckwit. There is a girl standing in front of you that is in love with you. I am told by a reliable source that you are in love with her, ‘besotted’ was the word. Now, you are going to put that right now, or she will put it right for you. We are going to leave the two of you alone now, and you are going to be sensible, Hywel, or I will come back for you when you are least expecting it and we will have a serious falling out! Release the prisoner!”
Arwel dropped his arm, and muttered “I think you two need to have that serious talk, and outside in private, aye?”
Hywel just nodded, the hint of a smile playing on his lips, and taking her hand headed off towards the exit. Arwel, turned back to me.
“Sometimes I despair of that boy. He has been moaning about how unfair everything is, and she’s just been waiting for him to wake up. Diolch yn fawr, girl. Hopefully he’ll stop mooning about now and get back to being my boy”
“I think he might be Suzy’s boy, now, if you take my meaning”
“Aye, I have that!”
He took a sip of his pint, and almost reading my mind, “Your Alice…I wanted to talk to you about her, girl”
He took me out to a corner of the rugby field where we could talk, trying not to stare at the two figures in the distance who seemed to be engaged in mutual cannibalism.
“I find myself very confused, Sar, and I do not know what to do. This is not an easy one for me. I look at you, and while I remember Sam, you are not him, even though you are, and that makes me realise that there never was a Sam, not really.
“I look at you and I see a middle-aged woman-ow, that hurt, you sod! I see a mother, a wife, and even though I am your blood relative, a lovely bum, and I understand why that good man of yours loves you more than life. He does, you know, so don’t argue.
“Just listen for a bit. I like that old woman an awful lot, she’s the first to get anywhere near understanding me, and she makes me smile, but she is a man, after all, and I am not that way”
“She’s not a man…”
“That is the problem, cariad, she is. I look at her and know that she has padding for breasts and a cock, and it knocks me back”
“Not quite right, love. You may have noticed her chest has shrunk. Those are all hers, now. And I had a cock in my knickers for most of my life, you know that”
“I don’t know how to put this, lass, but it’s like looking at two photos, one over the other. I see the woman who makes me smile, and I get all soppy, and then I see this bald bloke in a dress, and it repels me, aye?”
He drew a deep breath, and with a shock I realised he was crying.
“I love the old bat to bits, you know, she makes me comfortable, makes me happy in my skin, but she is still a man, and I can’t handle that side of things. No, don’t correct me, I know she’s a woman, I told you what I think about pansies and woofters, and she isn’t one of them. I just can’t get past the bloke bits.
“What the fuck do I do, Sar? I don’t want to hurt her, but I can’t get past that bit and make her happy! What do I do?”
Alice’s great dark man was at breaking point. There was only one thing I could suggest, as I hugged him to me.
“Talk to her, love, talk to her. She cares deeply for you, and anything you can offer she will seize with both hands. Talk to her, I will be there if you want”
I held him for a while, then wiped his face for him, and we rejoined the rest. As we went back n, I spotted Suzy at the bar with a grinning Hywel. She gave me a very rude one-fingered salute, I thought, then realised which finger she was holding up. I hugged Arwel again.
“I think those two have just sorted things out!”
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breaking point
'Alice’s great dark man was at breaking point. There was only one thing I could suggest, as I hugged him to me.
“Talk to her, love, talk to her. She cares deeply for you, and anything you can offer she will seize with both hands. Talk to her, I will be there if you want"'
He is a good man. I hope they can make it work.
"Treat everyone you meet as though they had a sign on them that said "Fragile, under construction"
dorothycolleen
Dancing.
Got to go with Sarah on the dancing side of things. I just love to Dance and strut my stuff despite being a white haired old farty.
I thought Alice was up for the op then Arwel should find things a bit easier to cope with.
Glad to see that 'somebody' has finally got her other cousin Hywel sorted. Dda iawn cariad!
I might not be commenting every ephisode for the next couple of weeks. I'll be too busy clubbing and growing old disgracefully.
probably out dancing most nights.
Seeya gurl!
Love and hugs.
Beverly.
Growing old disgracefully.
Thanks Dot, Bev
This is turning into a much longer story than I had originally planned, as Alice has grown without the benefit of the 'one pill'. It was always going to be her story, but my secondary characters have grown on me, and I can't let them disappear into the night without resolution. That is why I am sort of concentrating on development of one or two at a time.
I've said it before, but the title sums up what I am trying in my poor way to examine here: irresolution, cowardice, gwan galon, and the loneliness that comes from fear and old wounds. Arwel is a man's man, an old bruiser and in his youth a downright thug, based very, very closely on a cousin of mine, who still scares the local police but has a wife and daughters who wrap him round their tiniest finger. A man of old violence and constant intelligence, who has no prejudices but much lack of understanding that he recognises in himself and tries to compensate for. I love him to bits.
Arwel is someone who cuts right through the BS in life to the core, and is very direct about it, but he is obviously, from my own writng, falling for someone who confuses the hell out of him. I remember a very pretty CD I once knew, and when he dressed, for he was never in any way a woman apart from clothing, it was almost impossible to look at him because my mind kept shouting "man-woman-man-woman" and I couldn't focus. I have learned to see, or to look for, the person, and while he was a man, and wanted to be a man, he made such a good-looking woman that it threw my perceptions off kilter.
I have another (TS) friend who is one of the roots that Melanie grew from, and while she is not exactly a delicate Scots rose, she is so clearly a woman that her unforunate genetics do not impede how I and other friends see her. I hope all that makes sense.
I am also trying to get across the idea that love does not necessarily have to involve a need to do messy things. The op, as Bev says, may or may not be on the cards. What is important is not the ability of Arwel to do that to Alice, but his perceptional shift.
Does it work
'that' salute using the third finger? I doubt it, but it does get another message across. Ah you make me smile at times. Others I frown and now and then I'm confused, not a seriously hard thing to do maybe. I love the way you..play is wrong, show and tell maybe, the relationships and people in this mad mob of a family. Sometimes I recognise it, others it's wide of my own world, but that's cool. Cultural cringe huh, gack, should have seen assorted pollies and what have you with Oprah in town last week, dear me. Pretty close, but not the same and that's just fine. It's a small big world.
Kristina
Cultural Cringe?
Surely not us.....Never!
It's like that old canard about whingeing Poms (Welsh are included in that generic description). They don't exist since they kept the Ashes....Haven't heard a whinge for weeks. They just walk around looking smug and snigger all the time.
You do like to play with the old heartstrings, don't you? Very effectively too,
Joanne
Fear
It is so sad that when we allow fear to hold us back from what truly makes us happy. One of the most important of my decisions to live my life as a trans woman was to turn away from living in fear. It has made such a big difference.
Here, it is Arwel and Hywel, both afraid to take that final step, and working to overcome those fears. Though, now that I look back, defeating fear is a common theme with most of the players in this story. Maybe it is what makes the story so fulfilling. Because people are working through their fear into living a better life.
Bright Blessings,
Cassie Ellen
Fear
It's a common theme in my stories, hence the title of this one. I have tried to write Arwel as a man of deep convictions, with a solid moral code, that means that the outer appearance doesn't hint at the person within. He is just as frightened as everyone else here...