CHAPTER 55
I prodded Tref a few more times over those few days, as his story of the Cardiff trans girl intrigued me. Alys, for her part, avoided those discussions, but she grilled me on that subject when we were in bed.

“I don’t want to slip up, Enfys. Come across as too interested; show out, as they say on the police programmes. Say too much. That bit about the other girls?”

I had been teasing the story apart bit by bit, like a badly coiled rope. Tref was more than a little curious at my obvious interest, and Alys’ avoidance of the subject now made abundant sense. It was indeed like one of those ropes. No matter how well you think you’ve coiled it, it always turns into a messy tangle, and it’s only after some arm-aching struggles that it suddenly starts to run free. That was Tref, Jordan dropping in his own occasional questions as things struck him, and the obvious one was Trefor’s description of the ‘gay scene’ in Cardiff.

“Well, there’s a lot of places there, cause of all the students, Mam says”

He stopped at that point, looking directly at Jordan.

“Sorry about your own Mam. Time, aye?”

The young man shook his head.

“Don’t think so. Her… Best thing she came out with was ‘Couldn’t you have waited till I was dead?’. Not much hope I can pick out of that comment, is there? Forget that. I want to know about your city, what’s there to see. Please”

“Ah, loads of stuff, as long as you watch where you go. Usual queer-bashing there, just like Brum, but it’s not like your gay village”

Jordan snorted.

“What would I know about that, with my family?”

Tref grinned.

“Point taken! I mean, I don’t know it, but I know about it, aye? London, it has a main gay area in Soho, but there are other places, sort of satellite villages, shut up Lee”

The Geordie lad huffed.

“I was only going to say---”

“Yes, we know. The only straight in the villageS, would it have been? Anyway, Manchester, I’m told it’s all in one area, not far from the centre, but Birmingham’s way out, the other side of Chinatown. That’s what’s different in Cardiff: there are a couple of streets with a cluster of places, but the main ones are spread around the city centre. None of them far from Caroline Street, of course”

I slipped in my own question then, just in case the men had forgotten I was there.

“What is it about Caroline Street?”

Jordan laughed out loud.

“Tref already told me about that! We’ve got the Balti Triangle in Brummagem, all curry houses and that, and Cardiff has Chippy Lane”

His boyfriend was nodding.

“Aye, loads of pubs around it, on the edge of the pedestrianised shopping area. To the East of that you’ve got the men-only places, which aren’t my sort of thing, and to the West and South you’ve got some better ones, on Queen Street—thank you, Lee. Here’s another one: St Mary’s. So you’ve got the Golden Cross, and Mary’s, and the Smuggler’s as more open sorts of thing, and as I said, they’re mixed in with the straight places. Little islands, sort of thing”

Jordan was clearly making plans, or perhaps dreaming; at the very least, he was fishing.

“So… If I came down to Cardiff, where would you recommend I go?”

Lee was on a roll.

“Yes, tell us, Tref: where would you take him? Sod it: if any of us came for a visit, where would we, where would you take us?”

Tref stared into his mug of tea for a while before speaking, and his tone was a little darker.

“Honest truth is that I wouldn’t have gone anywhere near any of them recently. Been a really nasty series of attacks. Young men gang-raped”

We all muttered something similarly rude, before Tref shook his head, a hint of a smile there.

“Ah, yes. Bloody nasty. It was ages before I realised who those two coppers were, the ones who arrested the gobby man. For once, the police actually did something, and put together a task force thing. Load of arrests, really BIG jail time for five of them, and suddenly the pink places are busy again. I remembered the man with the scar being on some of the news reports”

I pushed again.

“You a regular at those places, then, Tref?”

“Me? God, no! How old am I? Going to look in a bit more now, though, especially if I get guests coming down. And no, Lee: I will answer that question. I like Mary’s, usual mix of stuff, drag acts and discos and that, but it’s right in the middle of a load of other bars and pubs, straight ones. Golden Cross goes up and down, I’m told, but never been in, so don’t know.. Smuggler’s, though, that’s more my sort of place. Really mixed clientele, including a few straights, but the owner is always on top of problems before they start, almost. I went there a couple of times after I got smacked, and the second time, Scarface is there, and of course he’s gay too, got his man in tow, and not just that. The pastry girl is there, with her boyfriend, and he’s all over me like a rash, saying thank you, buying me a drink. Then they’ve got a load of other friends as well, and they all want to do the same. Don’t know how I got home, or didn’t. Mam says it was a police car”

Lee guffawed at that.

“And? What did the magistrates say?”

Tref was shaking his head, grinning in a slightly confused way.

“That’s the thing, mate: it wasn’t like that. Mam told me in the morning. ‘That copper who brought you home, love: said they wouldn’t put you in a taxi in your state. Said you had stood up for a good friend of theirs, when you got that eye, and they were happy to return the favour’. So I had to explain it all to her, all over again, and she just says to me not to make a habit of coming home by police car; sets the neighbours talking. Then that afternoon, the baker’s there at our door, the man, not the pastry girl, with a cake, and he says ‘Bryn told Gemma where to send this, and she says thank you and hopes the hangover’s not too bad’. Mam didn’t stop taking the piss till I left for Uni again”

We all laughed, dutifully, and Jordan squeezed Tref’s knee in a comfortably casual way, which said an awful lot, before turning his face to Tref’s with a mock frown.

“So: tell me about this Smuggling pub, then”

“Smuggler’s”

“Whatever the name is. Tell”

“Well, big place. Bit of a maze, lots of rooms. There’s usually a disco or something in one, other places to sit and laugh, or just be somewhere comfortable for a bit of a read or whatever. All sorts of folks there, as well. Young, old, male, female, some I don’t know what they are. Loads of students and lots and lots of CCTV cameras outside”

He paused, taking a sip of his tea before continuing.

“The place was one of the main targets for the gang, they told me. Everybody there knew someone, or knew of, who had been given a kicking or worse. That’s what’s getting me about Jordan and his family, what reminds me how lucky I am. Enfys?”

“Yes, Tref?”

“I think you and Alys understand that as well, am I right?”

I had a surge of memory: Ifor Watkins and his crew; I could feel my mouth twisting.

“You could say that. In both senses. Lucky with our families, anyway”

Lee shook his head.

“Not just that, pet. You’ve got real friends over that way. I spent a while talking to them in the pub, as well as when we were climbing. That lad with the chip shop, he was going to say something, but his girl slapped his arm”

Jordan was emphatic in his own nods.

“You were saying that about the cave diving man as well”

“Neil?”

“Yes, love. Enfys, please tell us when we are getting too personal, but we are beginning to think you’ve both had a bit of shit, you and Alys. Don’t need to know, do we, Lee? Yes, I’m looking at you, because I already know what Tref thinks. Whatever it is, you tell us if and when you need to, and that’s all we need. Now, changing the subject, and I know it’s early to be thinking about it, but Christmas. Are we all up for the Cairngorms, with the exception of Alys, that is? Just, well, if we are, we really need to sort out the personal kit. Got loads of waterproof kit, just not that much pukka winter equipment”

Lee raised a hand.

“Matt says that the Uni will provide a lot of that. Axes, crampons, ice screws and so on. I’ve got a decent pair of rigid boots, so that’s a start. Done plenty of snow stuff, just nothing on ice”

I gave them the quick version of my times out around Twll Du with Steph’n’Geoff, and started to relax. Subject nicely changed, diverted away from dangerous topics. I would need to sound either Tref or Neil out, find out how much had actually been leaked before extracting any necessary agreements concerning silence. Keep that change of subject going, Hiatt.

“Was talking to my friends a while back, the ones who went climbing with us in the hols. You say you haven’t done any ice climbing, Lee?”

“None at all. Heavy snow, the odd cornice and that, but no front-pointing sort of thing”

“Well, Steph’n’Geoff told me about some really unusual front-pointing stuff. Down at Dover”

Jordan looked puzzled.

“Do they ever get enough ice down there?”

“They don’t do it on ice”

“But how can they do ice-climbing without… No! You are kidding!”

I winced at him.

“Wish I wasn’t joking, but no, it’s real. Bloke called Mick Fowler started it, Dad says”

Yet again, Lee’s head was shaking as emphatically as Jordan’s earlier nods.

“Just tell us one thing, Enfys: climbing bloody chalk cliffs is NOT part of our course!”

Subject changed, but that had been close.