CHAPTER 69
I cycled round to Alice’s place with Jim the next day, partly to see Alice, but mostly to have a word with my uncle, to see where he was headed in his mind.

If he was getting involved with her, in any way, I wanted to keep her safe. He was a very direct man, and that could be for good or for bad, and Alice couldn’t be more vulnerable. If she misread the signals…

Alice was in the conservatory, reading, her arm and leg stuck straight out, as Enid bustled round the kettle and Arwel lounged in an armchair with a copy of the Telegraph. Jim hugged Alice gently, and then asked the obvious question: could he sign her casts? Enid found a pen for him after she brought the tea, and the job was done. His signature looked a little lonely there, so the rest of us added ours, and Alice was smiling happily.

I looked at my uncle. “Can I have a word?”

We went out into the garden, and I could already see the ‘what have I done?’ expression forming.

“I need a bit of an explanation from you, Uncle Arwel. I’m not having a dig, or anything nasty, I’m just worried about Alice and wondering what you are actually up to”

He gave me a very old-fashioned look. “You think I’m taking the piss, or something like that?”

“I don’t know what you are doing, I just want to look after a very sweet and vulnerable friend. I remember what you said to me in the Oak, and I can’t see how that fits in with how you are behaving. I will not have her hurt”

He smiled, wearily. “You think I know what I am doing? I’ll try and make some sense here. Too many people hate each other, and while I am not averse to a bit of hating myself, I like to have a good reason for doing so. If I hate someone for being different to me, then I hate them for a particular difference, something they do.

“Look, I don’t love Arabs, but that’s not because they are Arabs, it’s because of the way they treat people. Like their meat, what way to treat a good sheep is that? Now, if you had one of them who didn’t believe in slapping women, or locking them up, or that stuff, then he would just be another bloke. Am I losing you?”

“You are confusing the fuck out of me. What has this to do with Alice?”

“I am trying to explain that I don’t hate things because I don’t understand them, but because they are wrong. Look, I don’t hate woofters and nancy boys, I just don’t understand them. If you fancy blokes, which I don’t understand anyone doing, then for fuck’s sake fancy a man, not a fairy.”

“I fancy blokes, Uncle”

“Yes, but you are a woman, aren’t you?”

“I am now”

“Yeah, but you always were a woman, Sar. We all know that. Like Alice, she’s no bloke”

“And you fancy her, do you?”

“No, I don’t. She’s not my type, even if there wasn’t a bit extra to her, but she is good company, good people, and I love her to bits”

He caught my stare. “No, Sarah, I am not ‘in’ love. Don’t tell him I said so, but I love your Dad. That doesn’t mean I want to get all personal with his body, does it? Same with the old woman there; I can’t think of anyone easier to spend time with. I don’t want to jump her bones, but she would make a good wife, if you see what I mean. Can you understand that?”

“I think she might want more, Uncle”

He sighed. “I know, but I don’t think I can give her that. I don’t know, Sar. Just be sure, I will never hurt her. This is confusing for me, you know, as you get older you get less able to adapt”

He looked off into the distance. “I thought she was going to die, and I thought how fucking typical, just as I found somebody I could actually talk to, she gets killed by some twat in a car who didn’t even have the good manners to be properly pissed. I mean, if he’d been drunk, he’d have had a bit of an excuse, but that boy was just a twat”

I was getting lost in his logic. It made an odd kind of sense, but my head span.

“You two stopping for dinner? Your Dad can look after the dog, can’t he?”

Tony was on lates…..”OK, what are you cooking?”

He laughed. “You know me, two women in the house and the kitchen is mine, I tell you, MINE! I’m doing lobscouse, but someone tells me you do very good dumplings, so I expect some help, aye?”

Back in the conservatory, two women were singing along to Mr Noone, while Jim sipped an orange juice and pretended to block his ears.

“Mum, can we bring our own music next time?”

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The lamb was just right, and we sat for a while letting our stomachs do their job until Jim and I were fit to ride back. I watched Arwel and Alice together, and despite his protestations there was more tenderness from him than ‘just mates’ called for. I suspected that he had a lot more on his mind than he was admitting to.

It was a steady roll back to Dover, culminating in the mad descent of Whitfield Hill on which I can, on a good day, break 40mph. Then we were laughing together down the more gentle descent of London Road to our house. Pie was, of course, ecstatic, and after Jim had made friends again I sent him off for a shower before he stiffened up. Eventually, he was off to bed, and when Mam took an early night Dad sat down next to me.

“You wanted to talk to Arwel, didn’t you? About your friend?”

He’s never been stupid. Pig-headed, yes, but never stupid. “Yes, Dad, I’m worried she might get hurt. I don’t mean that I’m worried he will do something, it’s just that she is not at her strongest and I don’t want any assumptions being made that might not be true.”

“And what assumptions might those be? That he has some romantic intention towards her?”

“That’s just it, Dad, he hasn’t, but I think she is getting a little attached that way herself. She’s not that experienced”

“Oh, Sar, I think from the way she handles you she has enough ‘experience’ to be going on with. Give her some credit, and perhaps she will prove a little stronger than you think, yeah?”

“Dad, be honest with me, what do you really think Arwel is up to?”

“I don’t know, girl. I think he’s fonder of her than he admits to, and he finds it hard to put it all together and get a proper picture. For once, I think you have to pull your horns in and just let them sort things out for themselves.”

He laughed. “Not your style, is it? You always like to sort everyone else out!”

“Couldn’t sort me out now, could I? That took Arris”

He came over and hugged me. I settled into his embrace, so like Tony’s, and his smell, of wool, and soap and a hint of the beer he had had earlier.

“You’re sorted now, though, aren’t you? Apart from this nastiness, I’ve never seen you so happy. You were made for this life. Alice is finding her own place in the world, and if she doesn’t have any bumps, she won’t learn. Arwel will be Arwel, for good or bad, and just remember he has a son to see married, so he won’t be looking to drive away his daughter in law, will he? The only things we can be certain of, so let’s just watch and wait, aye?”

Bloody fathers, they have had too long to learn how to be right.

Tony was in about eleven, after we had all gone to bed, and I am afraid that in my confusion and frustration at the day I sort of stopped him from getting to sleep for a while. I certainly wouldn’t be doing any long bike rides the next day.

A girl has needs, after all, apart from beer and chocolate.