CHAPTER 67
I was back in the Brenin two days later. The trip back up had passed in almost complete silence, and it was only that evening that my self-absorption had lifted enough for me to realise that my sense of loss must be weighing at least as heavily on her parents as it did on myself.

Mam had been her usual self, bringing a mug of hot chocolate to my room as I lay dry-eyed on my bed. Sitting down beside me, she put a hand to my shoulder and squeezed.

“Seems like an age since we had that chat, love. An aeon. You going to be OK for the Brenin?”

“Have to be, don’t I?”

“Yes, you do. Got responsibilities now, haven’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Alys. She’ll be the same, worried about you. Your responsibility now is to help her feel she hasn’t betrayed you”

“What? How?”

“Leaving you on your own, my love”

“Yes, but she has the placement, the degree, everything!”

“She does, and I had my own job to do when I left your Dad”

“Mam, that’s not the same. You did it for the right reasons. Look at us now: if you hadn’t done that, would we be here? Would I even be here?”

Another squeeze.

“And think of her, then. She wants… She spoke to her own Mam, you know, when she first chose the placement. Said she wanted to be the best she could for you. Enfys?”

“Yes?”

“Nansi told me what you asked for, that birthday. Alys told her. ‘Wear something nice’, wasn’t it?”

I couldn’t help my tears, but Mam simply sat them out until I was dry and sane again.

“Enfys, my love, I know. Neither of you has been dealt the easiest of hands, but both of you, ah. You’ve played them so well. All of us, both of you, we are so proud”

We sat for a while in silence, before she gave yet another squeeze.

“Face wash and up? Club night, and your harp’s down at the Cow. And Neil’s here”

That sat me up, but before I could ask a question, Mam smiled.

“Yes, he knows. Took a couple of days off work, love. Cares about the two of you, he does, especially after… Well, he cares. You with us tonight?”

Duty. I sat up, squeezing Mam’s hand in return for her love.

“Yes. Time to get rolling, then”

“Thanks, love. Done a sandwich for you, and we can grab something from your friend’s place after”

No rain as we walked down, and almost as soon as I had settled into my chair, Elen was there, Warren in tow, and Sali, Nea, half my school class, and Neil made some comment about being surrounded by young folk, better hide his Zimmer frame, and so on. The guest act was from somewhere down Wrecsam way; it was almost all in Welsh. He did several Meic Stevens covers, as well as some from Ar Lôg’s repertoire, so I was dragged out with my harp to accompany several of those, and it wasn’t until the interval that I really spotted how busy I was being kept.

Elen and Sali were book-ending me, and it was the former who opened the can of worms.

“You’ll be missing her, Enfys. That right?”

I simply stared at her, until it was me that had to back down, her return stare being that flat and steady, and she simply smiled, a little sadly.

“Yup, I get that. We all get that. We weren’t sure, you know? With, about you two. Same as we were, well, start of school, ah?”

She looked at the others, and Sali continued what felt like a confession.

“Ifor wasn’t the only one, but how could anyone know her, talk to her, and not bloody SEE who she was? What she was? And then, well, lesbians, aye? What were we to think? But, well…”

Warren, as ever glued to Elen’s shoulder, chipped in.

“What they are trying to say, Enfys, is that they understand where you are. Without her, yes? None of us is blind, and we, well, we understand. Me and Elen…”

She took his hand.

“Yeah, not the most usual of starts, normal way of getting together. Half of that’s down to you two, of course, but I think, well. I believe I know what he’s trying to say, and that is that we don’t want to be apart, like you two, and we owe you, and we’re here for you, and stuff”

Warren nudged her, and she grinned.

“And oh yes: you’re a bridesmaid, if you want. November 20th, the Chapel. You started it, you finish it!”

Rude words burst out of me, as Sali and the rest just grinned, and when I had pulled my jaw back up, I had a sudden switch of emotions.

“That means Alys won’t be there”

Warren was still grinning, which confused me, while several of the others were struggling to hold their laughter, and I was getting more and more wound up, until Sali waved her hands.

“You lot are evil sometimes! Put her out of her misery, one of you. Elen: explain it to her!”

Warren put on a well-crafted air of bruised innocence.

“Just because I forgot to say which year! That’s not being evil”

Elen calmed herself, with some difficulty.

“Enfys, love. We aren’t all on sandwich courses like yours. Warren’s idea, and he can sometimes have some good ones. Our courses all over by next Summer, and you two will both be back at Bangor. Timing, yeah? We’ll have had our results, everyone else finished Uni, and there are still places warm enough for a decent honeymoon. Just, well, we’ll---I mean I’ll try not to let him get as hot as he did on that volcano walk”

Warren did the usual trick of waiting till some of us had a mouthful of our drinks before making a cheeky comment about unexpected benefits, and I was relaxing finally. I still missed her horribly, but the company I was in, decent people who also counted her as a friend, was picking me up. Home, and it always would be, and she would be back with us soon.

I might have gone a bit flashy with the harp that evening.

The next morning I was on Skype. That first call was a steep learning curve, but once we had the connection, she was there, in colour and sound, and it didn’t look like she was in a hotel room. I didn’t care.

“Hiya love. How was the flight?”

“Oh hell, love. I mean it was so long, couldn’t tell whether it was night or day in my head, and it was all wrong outside. I just want to crawl into bed and pull the duvet over my face, and it’s not a duvet, they call it a dooner here, and oh god I am missing you so much!”

“Where are you?”

“Oh! Mate of Mike’s was waiting for me. He’s a nice man, and, well, that Mike, is he always so generous?”

“Is he already back there?”

“No, but he has a mate, well, a family, and they’ve put me up. They say they know our parents as well. Mike’s been pulling strings. He’s due back next week, and I’ll be staying with him and Ish”

“Who’s putting you up now?”

“The Butt family. They live in Joondalup, somewhere north of the city centre, except they call it the CBD, god knows what that means. There’s a lake nearby, they say, and well, first bird I saw, at the airport, it was only a ‘welcome swallow’, and then some parrots, and stuff, but all I want to do is sleep, and they say I can’t, not till they do, or [‘ll feel awful, and not to walk in the park cause of tigers, and I’m rambling, aren’t I?”

I wanted to reach through the screen and hold her.

“Just a bit, love. Hardly surprising. Bit surprised you’re with strangers, though”

“Ah, it was like that first time at Shrewsbury, when Jan picked us up. He had a print-out of an e-mail from Mike, and another one from Dad, and their house is even air-conditioned. Not running now; it’s Spring down here. We’re off somewhere in a little bit to eat and stuff, and then they say I can sleep, but… Home? News?”

A little touch of cruelty took me just then.

“Ah, Elen and Warren. Set a date, they have. Asked me if I want to be a bridesmaid”

“Magic! When and where?”

“Oh, the Chapel. November 20th. All arranged”

Her answer came in a very small voice, a simple “Oh”, and I immediately regretted teasing her.

“No, love. Not in a month. Next year. They say they wanted to make sure everyone was finished at Uni, apart from us two as we are daft enough to do an extra year of it. I do believe it’s an invitation for both of us. Sorry; they played the same joke on me. Tell me about the place you’re at”

“Oh, it’s all built up, but it’s got lots of green places. Got a list of ones I want to see when I’m not seeing double, but it’s all so different. Different birds, different trees”

“Tigers?”

“Oh: snakes. They say I mustn’t walk around in grass till I’ve been shown the right way…”

My introduction to the variety of things that country held that could kill you if you were careless. We ran down the conversation in soppiness and nothings, until it was time for her to head off for her meal, but made sure we had some times set aside for further calls. I went off to the Brenin feeling an awful lot happier than I had, for while she wasn’t ‘here’, she was still ‘there’ in front of me, to see and to hear. I could, would cope.

Work settled down after my mini-break at Heathrow, so much of it seeming to involve drying the kit out, but Ross the manager was keen to make sure I covered as wide a range of activities as possible. That showed me that I wasn’t just there as a favour to a friend, but as a real and solid introduction to the profession. I spent quite a bit of time in the K1s (thanks, Matt!), and when my classmate Ricky finally joined us, taking over some of the walking and climbing duties, I was pushed hard on the dry ski slope. Three times a week, though, was devoted to my laptop and a long session on Skype. I heard about the birdlife, many of which came my way as e-mailed photographs, and there were accounts of the work at the research centre that left me lost in technicalities about saprophytes and parasites, soil types and salinity. I worked with children, many of them from local schools, and regularly saw Mr Lewis.

That wasn’t quite as odd as it might have been, for we had been treated as adults in sixth form, and after two years of University, I was a lot more relaxed about it. When he spotted me, he grinned, turning to his pupils with a cry of “Class! Here’s one I made earlier! Miss Hiatt here was someone I used to teach, but she climbs far, far harder than I ever could. She really does know her stuff, so pay attention. Oh, and I can guarantee that she doesn’t bite”

Work was interesting, often actually fun. Ross and Sue kept me on the right track, Ricky was funny, Mr Lewis was happy, some of the clients were lovely, and those that weren’t usually left us with some happy character assassination for our gossip, but not even our sessions online could compensate for a Christmas without her.

I got a real card, though, and it held several real pictures of her, including one where she was stood in front of a herd of cows, all looking absolutely unremarkable, until you spotted the emus amongst them. Another was of her, Ish and what I assumed was the Butt family, on a beach with the whitest of sand and the bluest of seas, two pelicans in the background, and my lover in her swimming costume.

Ten months more. I would get there.