Last Train to Gloryhole (56 page)

As Chris watched her, he realised that Gwen seemed now to have forgotten completely all about his presence, while at the same time he began to sense that there was something strange, almost remarkable, about her that, as yet, he could not fully comprehend.

Chris stepped forward towards the bottom-right corner of the great picture so that he could discover for himself the precise identity of its subject, and also its creator. Bending his head low, he soon deciphered, then read out silently to himself, the words that he found stencilled there on a small, white card that was crudely glued on. ‘
ARTHUR OF THE BRITONS - by Wendy Rees and Avril Humphreys,’
he read.

Carla sat herself down cross-legged on the bedroom-carpet, and watched her Uncle Gary at rest, reclining, as he frequently did, his torso draped over the bed’s pillows, while her father sat in his customary seated position in the rocking-chair across from, and facing, the pair of them.

‘Brawd - do you believe that you possess a
secular
consciousness or a
sacred
one?’ Gary asked his brother, grinning a little, but clearly deadly serious in his enquiry. He anticipated no quick reply. ‘Because I believe that, unlike me, you possess the former, and that is what is at the heart of this silly euthenasia nonsense that I hear you’ve recently become obsessed with.’

‘Oh, you think so, do you?’ Tom responded, adjusting slightly the two cushions that had been helpfully placed behind him, and now sitting back even more deeply in his chair, so letting Gary know that he was ready, and willing, for him to do his worst, and fill him in - perhaps, literally - on this new and vital matter that had clearly fomented in his brilliant mind, and which he plainly could not resist sharing with his closest and dearest. ‘And if I do possess
a secular consciousness
, as you call it, then what of it?’ Tom added. ‘After all, it is mine, right?’

‘Then it figures that you clearly believe yourself to be the centre of your world,’ said Gary. ‘Your universe, you know.’ His brother looked up and frowned at him. ‘When, in fact, you are, if you’ll forgive me saying so, just one of over seven billion human beings scratching out a moderately miserable existence on the surface of one of nine planets -’

‘Eight, Uncle’ interjected Carla.

‘Eight? O.K. then - eight planets,’ said Gary, ‘that are, when all is said and done, but mere components of a tiny, spinning solar system within just one galaxy amongst millions of others.’

‘Wow! That’s quite a mouthful even for you, Brother Preacher Man,’ Tom told him, grinning.

‘And, like you, almost every other human being alive believes similarly that he or she is the centre of this universe. And so, as a consequence, intelligent people like ourselves understandably have a tendency to feel rather lost and forlorn amongst all this - this hugeness.’

‘Well, that figures I guess,’ said Carla, so far managing to follow her uncle’s analysis.

‘And, despite their supposed centrality, it is quite understandable, is it not, that they can all be forgiven for experiencing a sense of - of meaninglessness and - and -’

‘Insignificance, perhaps,’ his niece added once more. Though surprised by Carla’s second interjection, Gary nodded at her by way of acquiescence with her chosen expression.

Tom watched his two closest living relatives.seemingly collaborating quite amicably before him and already realised that contradiction would likely be pointless. ‘And
you
, dear brother,’ he nevertheless countered, staring across at Gary’s flushed, but scholarly, face. ‘Or, should I say, he of ‘
the sacred consciousness
.’ What of him, then? What of that man, if I might be so bold?’

‘Well, irrespective of the numerous faults and shortcomings which the man has,’ his elder brother replied with a smile, of course referring to himself, ‘in no way does he need to view himself at the centre of
any
universe, because, you see, he understands perfectly well that the centre of
his universe
happens to reside elsewhere, specifically in God. In the sacred - do you see?’ Ice-blue eyes flickering, Tom sat impassive and unmoving before him, considering deeply the point that Gary was making. ‘And interestingly, with his lack of centrality, he is happily much less likely than the secularist -’

‘Me,’ said Tom, winking across at Carla.

‘Yes, you, Brawd - to experience those terrible feelings of meaninglessness and insignificance. Because, you see, he sees himself in a meaningful relaionship
with
this Sacred Other -
with
this all-powerful, central force.’

‘God,’ said Tom.

‘Yes - God,’ said Gary.

‘Then I’d much rather you called Him by His proper name,’ the seated man retorted, ‘rather than some
Sacred Other
nonsense, which, after all, only serves to confuse everyone.’ Tom turned to his daughter for approval on this point. ‘If He’s God then He’s God, right Carla?’

Carla smiled benvolently back at him, and also at this very welcome evidence of her ailing father’s still sharp, perceptive mind, and silently thanked her Sacred Other for the same.

‘And so, what I hear you saying,’ Tom continued, a finger now circularly scouring his right ear, ‘is that the man with the sacred, rather than the secular, consciousness - namely
you
, Brawd - derives his sense of importance and his sense of meaning solely
from
that relationship, right?’

‘Why, yes. That is it precisely,’ replied Gary, with a smile. ‘And it is to your eternal credit that you appreciate the point.’

‘To my eternal credit!’ repeated Tom. He glanced at Carla, brows raised. ‘Pray, how, exactly?’

‘Well, as you can imagine, and knowing me as you do, from this basic premise, that you plainly appear now to have accepted, a very great deal must follow.’

‘Oh! Oh, does it?’ said Tom, pouting. ‘Then I guess you must want to unburden yourself of it.’

‘Then let me make us another pot of tea,’ said Carla, rising, ‘because I get the feeling that this discussion might go on for some little while yet.’

The two young people lay side-by-side on their stomachs in the long grass, the breeze from the high peaks blowing loose, curly strands of hair right across both their tanned faces.

‘Teasing you about sex! Carmen!’ exclaimed Chris. ‘But she’s just a child. She thinks BDSM is a Driving-School in Glebeland Street.’

‘Well, isn’t it? I’m sure I had two of my very first lessons with them.’ Rhiannon told him, stroking his hand.

‘Not in driving, you didn’t,’ he quipped grinning, then sitting up and gazing down at her. ‘Er - is there anything you want to share with me, Rhiannon?’

‘Like what?’ she asked him, not yet apprehending the cause of his jollity. ‘It was just before the nights started closing in. Then my father took over.’

‘Now that’s what I call too much information,’ said Chris, moving his forehead just out of range of the sudden slap she attempted to give him. ‘Why are you trying to hit me?’ he asked.

‘I’m not quite sure,’ replied Rhiannon, this time suddenly catching him on the end of his nose. ‘But you probably deserve a proper spanking.’

‘Oh my God!’ cried Chris, rolling over onto his back, and grasping his nose to verify that it was still attached. ‘You bitch! Rhiannon. Spanking, did you say? You’ve gone all BDSM all of a sudden. Why is that? Whatever next? Rubber masks? Whips and clamps?’

‘Stop it, Chris!’ exclaimed Rhiannon, knowing full well she had hurt him, and leaning on her elbow so as to tenderly cradle his face between her slender fingers.

‘Testicular teasing?’

‘That’s enough, now,’ she told him, kissing his head. ‘And you’re not really hurt, anyway, are you? It was only - it was only -’

‘My nose,’ he told her, grimacing, then seeking out her lovely blue eyes to check that his teasing hadn’t hurt her. ‘Look - I know it’s hardly a prize feature. I got it from my mother, after all, and definitely not from Arthur.’ Shocked at his own sudden utterance, the boy rolled away a few feet, and turned his back fully on her. At this a skylark shot out of its nest on the hillside not far from where they were, and, catching the thermal, and rising, sped higher and higher into the wide, blue cosmos, where the naked eye was hard pushed to catch sight of it, the golden bird’s song now a mad, rushed cadenza.

‘Who did you say?’ exclaimed Rhiannon, suddenly sitting up straight, and gazing after him with furrowed brow. ‘Is that your real dad’s name, then? Arthur.’ Rhiannon paused. She felt that, for some reason, Chris didn’t seem to want to reply to her. ‘Is it?’ she asked again. ‘Say - Chris. And however did you manage to find out about him? Tell me, won’t you.’ Rhiannon crawled on her bare knees over to where Chris lay and waited. ‘And how strange that it’s the very same name as
my
dad,’ she told him. ‘Though most people, except my mum that is, usually call him, Dyl, of course. So your dad is an Arthur, too, then?’ She smiled as she pondered this. ‘God! That must be a thousand-to-one chance at the very least, don’t you think?’ Chris didn’t reply, and Rhiannon was beginning to feel a little cross with him. ‘Say - why won’t you look at me, Chris?’ she asked. ‘What have I done? What have I said? Tell me, won’t you!’

Chris responded without looking directly at her, his voice barely audible above the background chorus of the searing birdsong. ‘Rhiannon - I met your mum in town last Saturday,’ he told her.

‘So what?’ she asked. ‘She’s got a part-time job in the library these days.’ He didn’t reply. ‘And? Did she warn you off me or something? She did, didn’t she? Chris - you can tell me, you know. You truly can.’

‘Well, not directly, no,’ he told her, staring at the ground, and pulling clumps of grass from it with both hands, and flinging them as far as he could manage down the sloping field before him.

‘Well, you simply must tell me, Chris,’ she continued. ‘Else I’m bound to start thinking the very worst, aren’t I?’

‘It
is
the worst,’ Chris told her.

‘Eh? What was that?’ she asked him, reaching out and grasping him round the waist. ‘Come on. Let’s have it. What did she tell you to break us up?’

There followed ten to fifteen seconds of silence, broken only by the sound of the skylark overhead, trilling away to the big, blinding sun and the bright, blue sky that presently encompassed them all around. ‘About Arthur,’ Chris eventually said, turning, and slowly, furtively seeking out Rhiannon’s eyes, so as to witness for himself the desperately sad sight that he felt he already knew the sweet, red-headed girl would make at the coming denouement.

‘What about him?’ Rhiannon asked, continuing to massage his tight abdomen, but stroking him more urgently now, the more confused she found herself becoming. ‘What about my dad? Eh? What has
he
got against us? Oh, hang on. Or do you mean
your Arthur
?’ she asked him. ‘Because now I’m getting really confused. Which is it? Tell me, Chris.’

The singing lark suddenly swooped so low to the ground that the final words he told her she lip-read more than heard him say.

‘He’s one and the same,’ Chris told her, averting his gaze again, finding now that he couldn’t bear to watch her, as he felt her slowly release the hold she had on his hand and edge away.

To scatter the maddening lark-song that filled his head, as much as to hide himself away, Chris leapt to his feet, and began sprinting headlong down the steep, grassy slope that ran towards the hazel-wood, and the narrow-gauge railway which threaded its way right through it. Leaping its line, he sprinted across the narrow country-road that lay just beyond that, and then hurtled down the steep, stony escarpment beyond and below that again.

Finally, his head dipped low, and throbbing madly from the sudden, jolting deceleration, the boy waded slowly, but determinedly, into the brown-hued, bubbling river - The Taff - whose fresh water swept along on its ancient, relentless course: a winding course that discharged its waters from The Beacons above him and to the north, down through
Gloryhole
and the Merthyr Valley, then on towards the Bristol Channel at its mouth, then into the Irish Sea, and finally into the vast, broad, fathomless Atlantic Ocean that lay yet further west again, and where the waters of all the world’s western lands finally became one and the same.

And Chris urged himself, between great gulps of air, and spurts of salty tears that criss-crossed his scorching cheeks before becoming washed away in the turgid stream, not to call a halt until his entire body was fully submerged within its deep and fearful flow.

Anne sighed quietly to herself and put down the newspaper for someone else to look at. She then stood up and moved to the bright side of the room, and looked out of the window at the lovely rose-garden of
The Willows,
where her thoughts often seemed to reside, whatever monotonous, depressing, or depraved task she happened to find herself having to carry out. Yes, the Spring just gone had unquestionably been the warmest on record, she thought. Even
The Sun
had said so! And, as summer was ushered in, there was still little sign of the rain that was desperately needed to top up the valley’s many lakes and reservoirs, and guarantee its local gardeners a second, consecutive summer without a hose-pipe ban.

‘Listen to this, Anne,’ said a young black woman called Sharon, who, clad in overalls, and seated beside her elder sister, was reading a small headline from the tabloid newspaper on the table before her. ‘ ‘
As unemployment rockets and the economy goes onto recession, David Cameron tells us to read to our children.’
Well, I’ll tell you this, Mister Prime Minister, my little girl can already read my Jobseekers’ booklet better than I can, thank you very much, and she has even been practising signing her name on the dotted line on the back in the most beautiful, flowing script you’ve ever seen. So there can be little doubt I’m playing my part in the national literacy drive, wouldn’t you say?’

‘No doubt about it, girl,’ her sister Evy told her with an encouraging smile.

‘And I see ‘
The Dai Jones Index’
is tumbling down, and austerity’s the only game in town -.’

‘Christ, Sharon!’ Anne exclaimed, grinning. ‘You’re a poet, and you didn’t even know it, girl.’