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.

“What are you up to on Friday, love?”

Charlie looked at me with clear and abundant suspicion.

“What have you done, Nana?”

I found my laughter bursting free.

“I trained you that well, then?”

She grinned back, and I explained.

“Di wants to give Frank the once-over, and, well, I wondered if you and Seb were free”

“Really? Why us?”

“Normality, Charlie. Boring, ordinary, unexciting young couple to take the heat off my Heathcliff-a-like and me”

She stayed silent for a few seconds, then smiled gently.

“You really are settling into this, aren’t you?”

My mood changed immediately, and it wasn’t a crash and burn, but a sudden surge of regret that I tried to put into words. Always the same thing for me.

“Shit, love. Sorry. Yes. Yes, I am. Problem is realising how many years I let go down the toilet, years we could have had. You and Tiff, Kim, Gem… That is going to come out sounding wrong. Make me sound jealous, when what I am is grateful that you have all bypassed what I had. What I am… Yeah. Grateful, that’s the word. You think Seb will be up for it?”
She nodded, then flashed a grin.

“He does what he’s told, Nana! Sometimes, anyway. Four of us are out on Saturday, so can’t be late. Where we going?”

“Near Radyr station. That okay for you?”

“It will be. Ride up with you on the train, yeah?”

“Yeah. Please. It’ll give us time to warn Seb about Diane”

Charlie burst out laughing, and in response to my puzzled look, she explained that at least the little boy was well past his offensive-weapon-nappy stage. Gemma, as reliable as ever, agreed to cover the House for the evening as well as the Saturday breakfasts, and in return Frank and myself were left with the Saturday bakery duties. My life was getting more complex with each sunrise.

We walked into the Italian place as Rhod, in a voice that wasn’t exactly among the world’s quietest, was attempting to describe what he called ‘smelly bread with cheese strings and green bits’. I spoke past Di’s shoulder.

“Do you mean garlic, Rhodri?”

That was the evening’s first clue that Diane was crumbling, as she had evidently not noticed our approach. The boy, though, didn’t miss a beat.

“My Mam calls me Rhodri. When she thinks I’ve been bad. Mam, what’s garlic?”

Di started a little as I spoke, then found her groove again.

“What they put on bread to make it smelly, son. Hiya, you lot! Rhod, this is your Aunty Deb, and that’s her friend…”

Frank got the unspoken hint.

“Hello Rhod. I am Uncle Frank, this is Aunty Charlie, and Uncle Seb”

“You’re not my uncle. I only got one uncle and he’s Uncle Sean”

There is a particular way that small children have of stating the bleeding obvious in long and pedantic detail, and then Rhod changed direction seamlessly.

“Saying you is my uncle, is that mean you are friends of Mam and Dad? Dad’s at work. He’s called Blake Sutton and he’s a plismon, Aunty Lainey says”

Frank simply followed Rhodri’s lead

“You are a very sensible young man, Rhod. Yes, we are all friends, but saying Aunty and Uncle is being polite. And some people like to hear it. Charlie hasn’t any people to be an Aunty to, so could she be yours?”

“Yes! Smelly bread, Mam?”

I took a look at Charlie, and her face was almost glowing with delight at the acceptance. We took our seats, and there was the usual dance with menus and drink orders, and of course we had garlic bread, with mozzarella on it for the boy’s ‘cheese strings’, which meant that his main order of a pizza didn’t exactly tick a lot of different food groups. One night, though; he would cope. Frank had beer, I had wine along with Charlie, and to my surprise, Seb stuck with water. I was watching Diane, and the lines were obvious, the fatigue waving from the shadows under her eyes. Her tank was empty. The chat was neutral, and absolutely empty.

Just as we finished our dessert, Seb slipped a napkin over to me, and on it he had scribbled ‘I see what you mean about her’. I gave him the slowest of nods, as Di turned away to wipe chocolate fudge off her son’s chin, and Seb started speaking.

“I think I know when I am being interviewed, assessed, whatever, Mrs Sutton!”

Her head came up with a jerk.

“Di. Please”

“Di. Me and Frank here, together, isn’t it? Both under the magnifying glass?”

“Not how I meant it, Seb”

“Not really a problem, Di. Frank? You OK if I say a few words? If I go out of line, just say so”

I felt Frank’s hand on my knee, and realised he was passing his own note, almost word for word what Seb had written He nodded to the young man, and let him speak. Seb looked at his bottle of sparkling water, grinned, and ordered a beer. When it arrived, he took a slow mouthful, before nodding at Frank.

“Bit of Italian Dutch courage, isn’t it? Anyway, no secrets at this table, are there? I mean, Deb and Charlie. All over the papers, those trials. Mam and Dad were glued to the story, and, well, you as well, Di? Couldn’t hardly miss it, could I? And Frank, I mean he’s got the other girl, Gemma, working for him. No secrets, right?”

Both Frank and Di nodded, and he was off, looking a little embarrassed as he spoke, Charlie hanging on every word.

“Charlie and Tiff were always together at college, ever since they began there, and the other lads, they were talking about… Small persons. They were all talking about them liking each other a lot, but it was Jake who saw. He said to me one day, when we were in the refectory, yeah? He says ‘Seb, look at them, they’re not fixed on each other, they’re looking outwards, like meerkats’, and he was right. And just then, Tiff made some rubbish joke, and Charlie here, she gives the most theatrical snort. I thought she was trying to vacuum the room. Honest! Then they both laugh, and Jake says, about Tiff, he says ‘look at the life there’ and… Charlie? You OK?”

The tears were there in her eyes, and she dabbed them away before asking him, “So you two like plotted together, then?”

“No, love. We just saw a couple of girls we realised we should, we HAD to get to know better. And we were right. I know I was, and I think Jake feels the same, Now, it looks like Rhod needs a wash, and even though we don’t have college tomorrow, I wouldn’t mind seeing Charlie home. Just the two of us would be nice. It’s not a warm night, and I think we might be forced to snuggle up together. We’re seeing Jake and Tiff down the waterfront tomorrow. You OK with that, girl?”

A nod, the soppiest of smiles, and she was off, Deb the one to wipe her eyes that time. As the restaurant door closed behind the two young lovers, and that was so clearly the word, Frank turned to me with a grin, making a slightly cheeky comment about it being his turn, but all I could see was how deeply two young people were in love.

The door clicked behind them, and Frank ordered another beer, before the oh-so-familiar story of our meeting, our first and only night out together, and then our reunion. Familiar to me and him, but all new to Diane, and I had another little moment of insight as I watched her process the tale.

Frank and I had indeed gone through all of that dance, and where we were was in a different place entirely to where we had been a year before, but Diane seemed to be seeing us as absolutely fresh to our life together. My worries about her ramped up several notches. One moment, though, one alone, where her old spirit showed itself, as Frank mentioned Cooper, and Diane, with just a quick check on her boy, almost snarled an answer.

“Trust me, Frank. I know what went on, and you do not want to know anything more than you do already”

The depth of pain in her eyes was awful, and for a few seconds I saw Pat’s face, as she spoke of the loss of her own husband, but Frank was as steady as I had come to know and appreciate. Before he could continue, a waiter offered the little boy a set of pictures to colour in, along with a bundle of crayons. My man followed Seb’s example, dwelling on his beer for a few seconds before speaking again.

“Things had changed a lot in the years we’d been apart. I mean, we were never actually together, but you catch my drift, isn’t it? I knew who Nana Deb was now, knew what I had been chatting up all those years ago. There she is, and I am telling myself ‘man’ and still seeing ‘girl’, and I mean that word, because it took me straight back to Tesco’s and what should have been a good night out if I had had the sense god gave me, and she just says ’Hello, Frank butt’ and I am caught. I know what she is, and then I realise that I really know, and all the history is just that, and then…”

He paused, smiling down at Rhod for a few seconds before continuing.

“And that’s it, Di. I drop straight into daydream land, she’s going to just smile at me, whatever, and of course she’s closed up tighter than tight. Not letting anything get to you, were you, Deb?”

Bloody tears: where did they come from? I gave the only answer I could, wondering how I had managed to lose control of the conversation.

“Couldn’t, could I? Had my girls to protect”

“Yes. Focus, that’s what I thought she was calling it, and it was just displacement. Strangest thing, Diane. There she was, fuelled by hatred and fear, and it comes out as love and protectiveness. Alchemy, isn’t it? Base metal into gold… Anyway, she says hello, still all closed up, and then tells me about Gemma, and I make the right noises and do the right thing, and I have to ask myself what my own reasons are. Am I doing it for Deb, or for Gemma, or for me?”

God, how I loved him just then. I took his hand, and gave him my answer.

“Does it matter?”

He was silent again, as he put his thoughts together, and then smiled.

“You know what? I don’t actually care, now. I have a wonderful pastry chef, baker, whatever she wants to call herself, and I have an old friend talking to me again”

I did my best to laugh through the moisture leaking from my eyes.

“It was after Carl’s funeral, Di. I thought, well, I just thought clearly for once. Two men, yeah? Both of them willing to take time, neither of them pushing at me, and in the end, it was a release. I let go of my Carl… I let go of the one bit of history, the one part of my life I had been clinging to, and I didn’t fall over. So I thought to myself, Deb, after all this, it’s time to live. So, I went and got two things. One was a stone, and, Frank, Di understands. The other was some info. Then I drove down to the shop, by way of the Norwegian church. One quick splash and then I knocked on his door. I was… little ears. I was nervous. Very nervous, and he opened up, and I said my bit, and he just laughed and said ‘Awright, then!’ and off we went”

My man burst out laughing.

“Di, it tickled me, it did! Deb had clearly never forgotten, not at all, that utter disaster of a night out, and she gets me sorted out in the right kit, we pile into the van and she drives out to Rumney, of all places, to a church. I am wondering what on Earth, aye? And then I see someone in silly trousers, with a melodeon case, and I realise what is going on”

I made my confession.

“Folk club, Di. Got it wrong, though, and it was all in Welsh again!”

Frank muttered something in Welsh, and to my astonishment a little boy replied before I could.

“That’s what Mrs Pugh says!”

I put on my best Aunty-face for him.

“Does she tell you what it means, Rhod?”

“Yes, Aunty Deb. She says it means we have to learn Welsh!”

I had an ambush memory of Alun asking for three Arab women rather than pints in that Bethesda pub, and snorted some of my wine out of my nose, which made Rhodri yell with laughter. Frank said some other things, but they had no effect on my mood other than to bring more tears, and make me love him even more, but we agreed that yes, we all needed to learn some Welsh, and Rhodri would learn with me.

The boy’s conversational input was something I had never really encountered, as my life hadn’t really let me engage with young children either as mother (bloody obviously) or as an aunty, and it was surreal in the extreme while still making abundant sense, as long as I kept my mind’s eyes squinting and maybe a little crossed. We got chapter and verse about their Christmas camping trip, which included folk music, and probably the most bizarre comment that Rhod gave us.

“Yes. It was good. Uncle Eric said Aunty Steph is barking. She wasn’t a dog, though, Mam”

The names were starting to make sense as Di did her best to intercept the most erratic of Rhodri’s sallies and reattach them to reality. ‘Annie’, playing flute, would be that trans woman that got blown up, and the ‘barking Aunty Steph’ the Woodruff woman that had done the honours for Sparky’s old comrade. I needed to meet her, I thought, especially after Di revealed the sort of music involved. I had asked, teasingly, “Not more… Not more folk music, Di?”

She put on her most serious and dishonest expression.

“Um, sort of. Flute, fiddle, guitar, that sort of thing. Mostly folk, but they did get a bit mad later in the evening”

“How mad?”

“I am told it was stuff by someone called Jethro Tull”

Not too bad, I thought.

“Oh. I can live with Tull”

Her expression became even more dishonestly innocent.

“Yes, I thought you might. How about Metallica?”

What the hell?

“Metallica? On flute and fiddle?”

“Absolutely. You wouldn’t believe how well it worked”

Rhod hit us with a question that set all sorts of trains of thought going.

“Mam?”

“Yes, son?”

“Sassie and Tone said there’s more camping there. In Summer. Can we go when it’s warm?”

Di looked surprised, and Frank guffawed.

“Who is supposed to be the clever investigating copper here, then? You or the boy?”

There was only one answer I could give to that, of course, and we had a date in June

We said our goodnights a little later, and it was such a contrast. Rhod was absolutely blasé about having the two of us trot along to meet all his friends, and Di simply looked relieved. Relieved, gratified, as happy as she could be, but utterly out of steam.

Frank and I rode the train back to the city centre, spending the night in his place so as to be able to set the ovens going in the morning, and neither of us commented at all in how Diane was falling down.

Only a few weeks later, after a quick heads-up from Rosie, and I was watching her team in the TV news; I wanted to be sick. There were pictures of the surviving dogs, of bullet holes in police vans, and a series of mugshots of those Di and her mates had nicked. Funnily enough, the next call I got was from Marlene.

“Hiya!”

“Hi, Debs. Bit of a shitty call, I’m afraid”

“Oh. Not about Frank, is it?”

She sighed, long and loud.

“Seen the news? Your copper mates?”

“Shit. Yes”

“They were in here last night, after, well, you know what they had. Bastards, some people. Need retroactive fucking family planning, they do. Anyway, just thought I’d give you a heads up, because they are good customers that give me lots of money, as well as being proper fucking human beings who actually give a shit about my people. Anyway, that boss of theirs wants a word. You okay with that? Got his number for you, if you want”

Sammy, no doubt.

“Yeah, go on”

I scribbled it down, and I rang him the next day, when we agreed to meet at Ruth’s place a couple of days afterwards. I was on that part of the driving roster with the long runs, so with some judicial swaps I was back home at a reasonable hour and off round to the Olive, where he was nursing a pot of tea at the table in the back. His face tried to light up as I came in, but it was clearly an effort. Kim sorted me a fresh pot and a couple of slices of carrot cake, and as I set the plate in front of Sammy, he sighed.

“The Missus would kill me, but fuck it, just for today. Seen the news?”

“How is… no. I was going to ask how Di is, but it’s the whole team, isn’t it? I mean, Jon’s a sensitive lad, just for starters”

He nodded, shoulders slumped.

“Part of what I was asking you about before, Debbie. You know how to lift people up, so, well, turns out Di has an idea”

“What is she thinking?”

“Camping up in the mountains”

I couldn’t help it, and started to laugh, holding a hand up to soothe any hurt feelings.

“Sorry, Sammy, but great minds, aye? You don’t want to be in tents at this time of year, and I can… Hang on”

I talked him through the stay Pat had organised at the Brenin all those years ago, along with the cottages, and I could see him nodding.

“Yeah, sort of thing Diane was talking about”

“Well forget ‘talking about it’, because I did some research after that chat we had, and I actually ran the idea past them. Give me a second”

I dialled the number I had saved on my phone, and it was answered after no more than five rings. The person at the other end sounded out of breath.

“Plas y Brenin and all the usual Welsh bits, sorry, but I can’t! Can I help you?”

“Hi. Is Enfys in tonight?”

“Give me a minute and I’ll grab her. Who’s calling?”

“Debbie Wells. Tell her the one from the Cow with all the girls”

“Hang on!”

Twenty seconds later:

“Hi, Enfys speaking: that Debbie?”

“Yeah. We spoke a little while ago, about an idea I had? Group visit?”

“Oh, I remember, ah? The girls?”

“No, different lot. Can I pass the phone across to a friend? Sammy, Enfys”

As I sat listening to one end of a conversation, I realised I should have handed him the number rather than my own phone. Bad planning, Petrie. I waved to Kim for another pot of tea, and worked through it as Sammy negotiated activities and group rates, before ending the call and handing me my phone with a rueful smile.

“Sorry about hogging your phone credit, Debbie”

“Not to worry. Anything sorted?”

He nodded, pouring himself another cuppa.

“We have an urn in the office, Debbie. Always fresh tea on the go. Sorry, yes. I think we have a plan; I just need to do some fine-tuning with the Suttons, let them think it’s all their idea”

A mouthful of tea, and then a softer smile.

“She has a really good friend in you, Debbie”

I squeezed his hand.

“Two way street, Sammy. Will you be all right, all of you, that is?”

Another long sigh.

“I hope so, woman. I really hope so”