CHAPTER 16
I didn’t have time to really poke around asking people what they thought of Evans’ and Pritchard’s fall from grace, but there were enough people seeming to go out of their way to give me a little nod or smile. I suppose that is what people like those two arseholes never see. I was sitting with my lover in a tea shop a few days later, and the man at the next table was reading the Daily Mail.

Like so many of his kind, ‘reading’ actually meant ranting to his wife about the stories that that particular foul rag is notorious for. One spoof headline read “Swan-eating illegal immigrants caused cancer by lowering house prices”, and that was the sort of thing this idiot was saying very, very loudly. It wasn’t just the opinions he was expressing, it wasn’t just the volume at which he was speaking, it was the certainty. Here was somebody who felt that he inhabited the Middle England (even though we were in Wales) of Daily Mail myth, and all of his nasty little prejudices were being reinforced by what he read.

To him, it would be inconceivable that anybody could possibly hold a different opinion, so when he spoke he would merely be reflecting the views of the silent majority around him. That was the world Evans and Pritchard inhabited, where OF COURSE Johnny Foreigner should be sent back home, women should know their place… and dirty little shirtlifting queers should understand that a good slap was all they should expect.

Siân spotted one of my unconscious signals, and took my hand.

“Your forearms were going, cariad”

Apparently, whenever I start to get stressed or angry, the tendons and muscles start to stand out on my arms. She stroked the offending limb with her other hand, and I heard a sharp intake of breath from my vocal neighbour. I gave him a smile that was probably a lot like Rod’s.

“Think carefully before you make any more remarks that could be construed as incitement to hatred, SIR. Yes, I am. Door’s that way”

I held his eyes till he folded and prepared to scuttle off with his ugly wife, and then turned back to my lovely woman.

“You sure about that one? How can I help if you won’t let me see it?”

“Got Sar on that job, aye, and your Mam, and Arris. Traditional, aye? You’ll see it in two weeks”

I felt the glare from the other table as he rose to leave, and couldn’t resist it.

“No sooner do I see it, then, than I get to take it off you…”

“Oh yes indeed, my darling love”

The couple left so quickly at that point that they knocked their tray off the table in a clatter of cutlery and breaking cups, and my own darling love laughed so much she snorted something nasty out of her nose.

“Lainey, fy nghariad, you are going to have to stop winding people up like that. I know he deserved it, but, well, your boss putting you forward for sergeant, aye? Responsible woman I am marrying, not wind-up merchant, aye?”

She waited till I took a mouthful of tea, the cow, before informing me that I could, indeed, wind her up later.

A fortnight to go, two arseholes gone from the Force, my wedding to come, and Sarah did a runner. I cornered her in her flat that Sunday.

“Why now? Thirteen days to the wedding, and you are off to bloody Kent?”

She was looking past me, which usually meant she was trying to build a better lie.

“I need to see if I can sort out a place to stay, aye? Only a few weeks to go till I start, need to get my feet on the ground”

“And you’ll be back when? Day after my marriage? A month after? Never?”

“I….”

She folded, all at once. I could see what she had been trying to do, how well she had deceived herself. Get an excuse to get away from us, lose her ticket or whatever, not have to sit through the sight of others becoming happier. She didn’t want to share our happiness simply because, in the end, she had none of her own to offer in return. Raped.

I held her for a while till it was time to clean ourselves, both pairs of eyes back under control, her shakes stilled.

“Chwaer fychan annwyl, this is not the way to go. I want you with me on the day, aye? We both do. And Mam, Dad, it would break their hearts”

She slumped into me. “And who should I be, that day? Sam? I can’t be Sarah here, can I? Not real, is it?”

“Ah. You run away, hide, nobody knows, never any friends, is that it?”

I understood her plans all too well. The rubbish she spoke about being Sam was exactly that, and we both knew it. There was no ‘Sam’, and there never had been. She was Sarah, had always been Sarah, would always be her. We had both known that from childhood. All she would do would be to live her life as Sar, and by life I understood she meant get up, go to work, come home---and lock the door to the world. She would cope by making damned sure she never had a challenge, never left herself vulnerable. The worst of all was that I knew that, in the end, there was nothing I could do to change her plan.

“Sar, would you like company on this, this scouting trip? I could squeeze a few days off?”

This time, she looked me in the eye, and I could feel the decision forming in her. Be strong, girl.

“Lainey, I have to do this on my own, and you have your wedding to prepare for. I promise… I promise I will be there for you. But I have to go. There is nothing here for me, aye? Nothing at all. Soonest started, soonest mended”

She left it unsaid, the answer to that other question: would she ever come home again once she left? I suspected even then that I already knew the answer. She took the train the next day.

She was back three days before the wedding, and I offered a little prayer of thanks to the chapel god I didn’t actually believe in that I had a sister who held to her promises. Clearly, my chapel god was a kinder one than that of Angharad Roberts.

Mam was fussing around me, right up until I told her to stop.

“Mam, this is my uniform, aye? I know how it goes on! Off with you and check on the, er, bride, aye?”

“Your sister and her friend are there, with your cousins, aye? Their job, not mine”

Her voice softened. “And her own mother it should be, not all from our family. I know what we said, your Dad and me, but this is when she truly becomes one of ours, even in name. Why that decision, Elaine?”

I sighed. “If you had seen the face of her Mam, aye? Heard her words? Siân warned me, but I had to be sure. The hate that woman gave us, Mam, I have never seen anything like that, and she was her mother!”

I paused as awful memories of the woman’s expression rose up. “It was Siân’s choice, Mam. I was all set for a fight over Roberts-Powell or Powell-Roberts, but she simply says ‘No. They have made their bed, and your parents have opened the door freely’. And… Mam, she also said that any child would take our name, let Roberts die out. They disown their child, they lose any grandchildren”

Mam was actually blushing at that one. “Lainey, how could there be any? Twmi and I, your Dad and me, well, what with Sarah being, you know, we had given up hope of such a thing. Is this something that you are already planning?”

“Mam, I can’t answer that one. I mean, Siân, aye? She loves the idea of children, but I am not so sure. This is all new, aye? We get grief just for being two of us; would it be fair to a child to bring them into that? I promise, though. We will talk to you before we make any final decision, aye? To you and Dad”

All of that was true. My bride-to-be had been the first to raise the subject, and the memory of that nasty little Mail-reading shit had been at the front of my mind. I could already see the headlines: child forced to have two mothers, child without a father, child of perverts. We had each other; that must be enough, and it was more than Sar had.

There was a knock on the door, and it was Kevin. “Car’s ready, Lainey. Looking good, girl”

“It’s just a uniform, butt!”

He grinned, and almost, almost, but I was indeed fully on that famous other bus, and I had what I wanted and needed just a short drive away.

“There are men who will pay very good money to watch someone dressed just like that! Come on; bride to see, beer to drink”

The ceremony was nothing special, I have to admit. I mean, it was a registry office, and strictly speaking it wasn’t a wedding, but, well, just ‘but’. In front of various friends, uncles, aunties and cousins, I stood with a beautiful red-haired woman in a dress of layered net and said what I meant, meant what I said, and joined our lives together forever. That: that was special.

There were only two fights at the reception, and Sarah left three days later.