CHAPTER 51
I wandered into the kitchen a bit later in search of a coke, and as I came out I spotted a figure standing in the driveway under one of the large horse chestnut trees.

“What’s up, Tone?”

The porch light caught his face as he turned, and it was definitely wet.

“Talk to me, cariad. What is it?”

I went over and wrapped him in my arms. “Tony?”

His breath caught as he drew it in, and I realised he was close to sobbing. “Tone? Speak, please”

“Thought you didn’t do blokes, Lainey”

“You’re not a bloke. You’re family”

“Ha ha”

“No, seriously. Family is what you are, so share, aye? Families share”

A long pause, then he spoke, quietly, bleakly.

“It was different when we met her, Lainey. Not as in your face, yeah? Not as clearly herself, and tonight, well, there she is in widescreen, HD, whatever you call it. So Annie, yeah?”

“And… Is that somehow a problem, love?”

Another pause. “No, Lainey. It’s just… It’s just the name, yeah? Would have been my Annie’s birthday last week. Tonight’s just, you know, brought it home to me, and then I look at Sar and I think, should I feel this way, should I still be thinking of another woman when, you know, and the way she is with Jim and how he is with Sar, and just, fuck. I should be able to let go, surely?”

I pulled him to me, kissed his cheek. My own tears were there now.

“You think we don’t miss her too, Tone? There was so much life in her, love, she couldn’t be forgotten. You think Sar doesn’t feel guilty?”

He turned in my arms, concern for his wife lifting him from part of the cloud that had buried him.

“Guilty? Why?”

“Look at her, cariad. She is what she is, and she’s always seen herself as less than that, aye? Not real, not whole, so she hides herself away for years, dying slowly, and suddenly you’re back in her life, and Jim, and she gets her moods, we all do, and what she sees then is that she cashed in on someone else’s misfortune”

“Bollocks did she! I mean, what she’s done for me, and Mum, and Jim, Jesus bloody wept, she’s--- She really feels that way?”

I made it more of an embrace, and it was odd, because he was so much bigger than me it was like a role reversal, and I almost whispered into his chest.

“Not so often these days, love. Jim has done a lot of good there”

“He’s a good lad”

“And where does that come from? From you, you and the other Annie, and your Mam. That’s where. And Jim, well, that’s Annie there, in the flesh, aye? Something precious, something from both of you. That’s what we see, that’s why the two of us asked you for such a huge gift, because we see a real man, a human being who cares and isn’t ashamed to admit it. I have known you a long time, Tony, and if me and Siân hadn’t seen that in you, we would never have let you anywhere near our sister, but we did, and we were bloody well right.”

There were far more tears coming from him now, so I settled against him and added some of my own.

“Look, big man. We’ll just stay here quietly for a while, remember her, aye? Then we go back to the living and we do our very best for those we love. OK?”

He nodded, and we stood for a while in silence before he squeezed me and kissed me gently on the mouth, beard tickling my face.

“Thank you, love. Come on; I have a wife and son to see and some beer to drink”

Sod it. I kissed him myself. “No tongues, ever, aye?”

That brought the much-needed laugh, and we went hand in hand back to the party, where that huge, gentle man found a beer and a seat where he could rest and smile fondly at his wife’s backside as she danced her heart out.

We packed the older ones off to the Travel Lodge far too late, but they had some pass code thing, and Suzy and Hywel weren’t far behind them. Sar and Tony had already left Jim in the hands of a couple who I assume included the young girl’s social worker or other minder, and when I made my sobriety-induced rounds, she was buried under a pile of duvets with Steve and Arris’ lot. I stayed out of sight s best I could, but there was a sound that warmed my heart, especially after those moments with my poor brother-in-law, and that was giggling. If someone so abused could still find that in her, there was hope for the world.

My wife, though, was not someone I could slip past, and as we lay in our bag she came straight to the point.

“You’ve been crying, cariad. I can always see it in your eyes. Anything I should know?”

I tried to slip past her, nevertheless, and of course it didn’t work. She was persistent.

“When I say ‘anything I should know’, Lainey, it means I should know everything, aye? What is it?”

“Oh hell, Siân, it’s Tony. Did you know it would have been his Annie’s birthday a week ago?”

“Oh hell indeed. I didn’t think… is he OK?”

“I think so, cariad. Just needed to do the unmanly thing a bit, you know, out of sight. He’ll be fine”

“You sure of that?”

I realised I was. “Aye, I am. Chwaer fychan has her issues, but this is one thing she’s done well at. He’s stuck on her; just a matter of helping him understand he’s guilty of nothing but being a good man”

So she smiled, and kissed me, and, well, there was stuff for breakfast in the morning and we were able—eventually—to borrow a shower. We had another long drive ahead of us, but that was a given with how far Sar had run. I offered up a little nod of thanks to whatever that she had run, in the end, right where she needed to be. Sometimes this life wasn’t so shitty after all.

I collared Annie as we were all packed up, and had my own little moment with that name. She was so much like my sister, for now she was able to be herself it was clear what she had always been, and old Adam blurred in my memory. She was woman, and I’d seen her raw, I thought, and any temptation to giggle at that dreadful pun was wiped out by the memory of a woman, alternately sobbing and screaming while another woman just sat on a crash barrier and wept.

I had to haul back the strength of the hug I gave her as we left, for whether she realised it or not, half the world seemed to have their hopes invested in her. Her tall friend Ginny was more than a little protective, and in an unhinged way that actually scared me a little. Tony had dropped down on the same side, while Sar and some of Annie’s girlfriends quite clearly saw her as a project, a work in progress. She was safe, that was the main thing, the tale I could carry back for Diane. Even Hywel had picked up on her vulnerability, though. He had collared me just after they had all rolled up from the hotel.

“She still has kin back home, Lainey?”

“Aye, I think so, but don’t know who”

“Yet, aye?”

“Aye. I’m going to do a bit of digging, see if there’s a way to help if she needs it”

“She’s got a good man there, aye? Steady, he is. Bit skinny, though, like that Geoff”

“That Geoff broke his hand punching someone, aye?”

He laughed. “And with how hard his missus used to hit, Duw, I won’t be making assumptions about Eric, aye? We just keep our powder dry for the new girl. Agreed?”

“Agreed”

So I held Annie, and tried not to let my anxiety show too much, but she was a copper and she could read me just as I read her.

“Why the concern, Elaine? I’m fine here, especially with this lot around me”

“We try and keep tabs, Annie, keep a check on our boys who move away. Girls. I should know this by now, what with the old and young trouts”

“You call your sister a young trout?”

I found a grin from somewhere. “Aye, why not? No, Annie, when you went, we all knew you were on the edge, and seeing you like this, well, it’s good, aye? Promise me you’ll come over our way some time. A girl has to go home, especially if it’s her first trip”

She laughed, and there was only a little apprehension there. “Aye, I still have some family down West. Be nice…”

“Be nice to have family at your wedding, aye? I mean, this lot, they’re family, in a way…”

“Aye. But not blood, that’s what you mean, and you’re right. Look, I’ll let you know, aye? And thanks for everything. Sarah, Alice, they give me hope, aye?”

“Aye. Look, if you don’t mind, photo with the four of us? Alice? Do the honours?”

So it was that a week later I sat with Blake and Diane in some coffee place or other, toasted sandwiches to hand, while she worked through some of the photos I had downloaded onto my laptop. Two caught her eye: the one with the four of us together, cuddled in pairs, Annie’s hair all over the place and happiness shining from her expression, and one particularly dramatic shot of her, heels and LBD powering her flute through some tune or other while Steph matched her for apparent insanity.

Diane cuddled up to her man. “You know, Elaine, sometimes I get things right, even if only by accident. Thank fuck I never made a proper pass at her!”