CHAPTER 39
It was a musical non-music night, if that makes any sense. In short, the actual folk club wasn’t on, but several of the regular musicians were up for a play, and as the ‘club’ was in reality just an extension of the pub’s normal commercial activities, it ended up much as would be expected. The clientele were mostly locals that night, apart from that woman with ‘Pat’ again, and a larger group of girls. Sali whispered to me as we carried a couple of trays of drinks back to our tables.

“Those girls over there, the Hwntw lot? I think they’re all…”

She took a couple of breaths, eyes closed, before continuing.

“I suspect it is really bad manners to try and spot people like Alys, but I think all of those girls might be, you know”

She gave me a grin almost devoid of humour.

“It was actually Elen that pointed them out. I’ll steer Colin’s attention away, if I can. I don’t think Warren’s capable of noticing anything but Elen right now!”

I looked over towards the older woman and her taller friend, who had eight or nine young women with them, and yes, I could see it. What caught my attention was the mixture of moods I picked up, even with such a quick glance. One of the girls, a dark-haired and very slim one of maybe my age or slightly older, looked more cocky than relaxed, but several of the others were clearly nervous. I caught little twitches from them every so often, subtle signals that they were fine with their own group but far from comfortable when strangers, outsiders, Came too close.

Leave them for now, Hiatt: file it away in ‘examples of healing by outdoor activities’ for University, and concentrate on Elen and her not-so-new friend.

That was a neat parallel to the party with Pat, for where Colin and Sali were utterly relaxed with each other, Elen had Warren’s hand in hers almost without a break, and most of that time she had their linked hands on one or the other’s knee, in a very clear signal of ‘Mine!’. I wasn’t entirely sure who the signal was for, but I didn’t care. People I liked were smiling, and that was all that mattered. It was such a teen cliché, in many ways, the story so often told in both dreams and teen magazines, where all The One needed was the opportunity to see the dreamer as they really were.

No, I wasn’t just watching Elen and Warren. I was also watching Alys, and so was her mother, and as my girl ensured the-fulfilled-dreamer-called-Warren was steered into a detailed account of what we had seen, and where, and then a frankly hilarious account of his very personal research programme into odd Spanish dishes, Nansi slipped me a wink which held more than a hint of pride.

I sat, smiling and watching, and remembered Mam and Dad talking about biker magazines, on one of their tag-team, beat the other to the punchline sessions. Dad was holding forth, glass in hand.

“So we had this friend, years ago, in That Place We Left”

I nodded.

“Mike?”

“Yup. But he had another name he used, when he was writing. He used to write all sorts of stuff for one of the biker lifestyle magazines; called himself ‘Bear’. To be honest, I lost count of how many Bears we met, back then, and so many of them were arseholes, sorry, but he was more Teddy than Grizzly”

Mam had snorted at that comment.

“Mike wasn’t a pushover, love. Saw him, um, react a couple of times. Remember that knob throwing the cans at the band at the Magna Carta, Keith?”

“Oh god, aye. His heels left furrows in the arena floor, Enfys, Mike moved him away so quick! Anyway, he has a good way with words, does your Uncle Mike, and he wrote for AWOL and a couple of the others. Did a great piece on the Ogwen Valley, oddly”

I couldn’t work that one out, and after Dad had explained the insane plan to run a six lane motorway down the A5, Mam had started giggling.

“You’re on about that ad analysis, aren’t you?”

“Yup, once more! Enfys, the mag had some woman wrote in about the personal ads. She had done a summary of what men asked for, and what women wanted. The men all wanted physical stuff, like slim women, with long hair and so on, while the women advertised for personality things. Sense of humour, caring nature, that sort of thing. Said it showed how shallow men are. Mike replied, and explained that he recognised the text, as he put it, getting all posh and academic, but he explained that the letter writer had missed the subtext”

By that time, Mam had started snorting once more, while Dad had adopted his ‘about to deliver a dreadful punch line’ face. He had continued after a short pause.

“In Mike’s summary, women asked for all those personality traits, which were all that they wanted, AS LONG AS they were contained in someone who looked like a young Mel Gibson”

I had worked out what he meant, and shrugged.

“And the men? What did he say about them?”

“Oh, they all wanted long-legged, long-haired, slim, etc, but they’d settle for…”

“Yes? Settle for what?”

“A pulse”

Both of them had dissolved in snorting laughter just then, as I wondered whether sanity was as overrated as Ginny had suggested. Oh dear.

My pride in Alys was refreshed a few days afterward, when, without a word of warning to me, she received a brand-new full driving licence to match her passport. My girl; my pride, but I kept my thoughts about Elen and a young Mel whatever to myself. At least Warren seemed happy for the moment.

It had been a superb night in the Cow, and it set the scene so well for the rest of our Summer. Shrewsbury came along in what was becoming a very regular way, and the insanity was just what we needed before what turned out to be a painfully long journey for Vic Edwards’ castle-spotting. What hurt most on that trip was the realisation that we had gone so much further, in a fraction of the time, on our Tenerife adventure, and there we were, queuing to get out of our own country, queuing to get past a three-car collision on some road in England, queuing in Portsmouth to get onto some big French ferry, queuing for everything on it, queuing to get off it on arrival in Normandy the next morning, queuing to get out of the first town, and finally queuing to get through the entry tollbooths for the first section of French autoroute. And it was raining. Not in a downpour, nothing so interesting; just a steady miserable drizzle from a miserable grey sky. I slumped in the back seat with Alys as we rolled steadily south, and whispered to her, “Remind me why we are here, love”

She wriggled into me, getting comfortable.

“Shush. I need to get some more sleep before my stint”

“Sorry?”

“Got the licence, on the insurance, these roads are safer than the smaller ones. Shush. Wake me only if you see a lammergeier”

In the end, it was Alys who woke me, as she and her mother swapped places at a service area just outside Le Mans, Vic Edwards making a series of awful jokes about Le Mans starts when Alys stalled the car as we pulled away again. He took the wheel again just before Tours, as he knew the area and “Don’t trust the driving round here; too many rubberneckers”, and so it went, in a three-handed relay that left me feeling absolutely useless, until we pulled into what seemed like an endless set of warehouse-style shopping outlets south of Poitiers and parking up in front of a branch of a hotel chain that seemed dwarfed by the surrounding car showrooms and DIY megastores.

We all stumbled out into the warm sunlight, the rain having stopped somewhere in Normandy, and almost in unison began a series of stretches to ease backs and backsides. Nansi checked her phone after a last wriggle of her spine.

“Got two rooms reserved here, or we should have. These places are almost all on the edge of the town, but there’s either a restaurant or bar nearby, or they do food themselves. Cheap and cheerful, I’m afraid, but clean”

That was a moment that knocked me sideways: two rooms.

What had I ever done to deserve such love?