The Testimony of Taliesin Jones (13 page)

'Tss.
Y
ou s
hould ha
ve
h
eard w
hat bl
oody
rub
bish t
hey
we
re
say
in',
'
s
he r
ants. '
Jason Ball
sa
id th
at we s
hould l
ook fo
r
Go
d in
s
pace. Lik
e
H
e
i
s
in the
s
ky
o
r
so
mething
.
H
e
'
s
n
ot j
ust u
p
in th
e s
ky
.
H
e's i
n p
eople as we
ll,'
s
he
says,
pl
anting a fi
n
ge
r
i
n th
e m
iddle
of
her
c
hest
.

Thi
s so
unds
far
-fetched, e
ven
mor
e
far-fe
tched th
an
t
alk
in
g
p
igs
pl
anning a
r
evolution.
T
aliesin
h
asn't
t
aken
hi
s
i
dea o
f
Go
d b
eyond '
the hand’
s
y
et. M
ean while,
Juli
e
D
yer
pu
shes
o
ut h
er c
hest
a
nd
says
th
at
G
od is i
nside h
er.
H
er s
imple th
eology
h
as co
mplex
impli
cations
.
If
Go
d
is i
nside p
eople
th
en
d
oes
th
at
m
ean
that th
ere
i
s
m
ore
of
Him in
fa
t t
all
p
eople
th
an
s
mall th
in
peopl
e
;
m
ore
G
od i
n Juli
e
D
yer
than h
im;
more Go
d in
a
n
el
ephant
th
an a s
parrow
.
And
i
f
Go
d
is i
n
him, w
hich p
art o
f him d
oes
H
e i
nhabit? A
nd
th
en
th
ere
is
t
he
bu
siness
w
ith H
ooper.
H
ow
co
uld
s
he k
iss
H
ooper a
nd b
elieve
i
n Go
d?

Coach calls out the stop. 'Read me some more tomorrow,'
Julie Dyer says
.
She winks at him but he can't respond with anything more
than a nod to the floor. The bus shudders impatiently as he gets off. Coach r
evs
the engine,
wanting to get moving, begrudging the stop
.
Taliesin is the only one for Cwmglum
.

Outside the cloud has now lowered and become a grey
oppressive weight
.
He holds his satchel over his head and walks behind the
bus before cro
ssing
the road
.
He hears a tap at the back window and he sees Julie, her
face pres
sed
ugly
against the glass, steaming it up with her breath. She makes a pig-like
snorting motion and laughs. The pneumatic doors hiss shut and the bus drives on
.
The gargoyle girl
grins and recede
s
in the drear
.

Taliesin wishes h
e'd
worn the jumper that his mother had given him for his
birthday, the one with lanolin. And he should have worn his mack. It is much
cooler now and the rain more spiteful. Clouds arrive and puncture on the high
hills and mountains of Wales, forming a layer of billowing architecture,
beneath which the rain com
es
down in cascades, trying to match the feats
.
of rain in deepest
darkest Africa or the rainforests ofSouth America
.
This rain would make dark purple
on the rainfall chart in his atlas. He sees the rain coming down, showing off
,
full of confidenc
e,
strutting in sheets
.
Welsh Rain is
enthusiastic and generous
.
It wants to make sure everyone and everything ha
s
some. It tops up
lakes and swells rivers
,
cleans the roads, soaks the old woman's hat, kisses
bulbs, gets in socks, embraces dryness like a long lost friend
.
It baptises notes in
milk bottles, drenches trees; it finds the cat
's
milk saucer and the small of a boy's back
.

Through
th
e
gloom Taliesin can see his home
,
see his father's sheep, slightly luminous in the
dark fields. Thank
fully they are too -stupid
to think up anything
as clever as 'Four legs good, two legs bad.' He can see where the fields pour
together and form a valley, the farmhouse and its squat outhouses, the figures
of his brother and dog moving across the field towards the house, the dog
weaving in and around imaginary sheep mapping out a figure of eight.

The farml
and
is a patchwork of grey
-browns
and grey-greys, spreading out like a dour
quilt covering a fat king in his bed. Farm houses, slate-roofed and slanting in
the rain, stitch the edges of the chequered landscape together. The slate roofs
have many hues
.
They can be purple-blu
ish
like mussel shells or green like the sea
,
or just plain grey
.

The lane to his house is half a mile long and hedgerows
grow tall on either side
.
It rise
s
and then falls and at the halfway point on top of the
hill there is just enough light to see the farm outhouse
s
and the purple
fields beyond
.
In the fields the water irrigates the summer earth,
turning everything to mud. A l
ightning
fork
i
lluminates the panorama for a second, framing it in
electric blue, and only a second later Heaven rumbles. In this half light the
blackberry bushes, cow parsley, pink campion and dandelions are no longer
flowers. Their brilliance loses its identity in black. The rain paints
everything the same colour.

At this cross-over time of day things blur and become
other things
.
Bushes curl into triffids, leaves flicker warnings, and there is
always someone behind him
,
sniggering at the passing of the light.

Taliesin
walks fast without showing fear to any who might be look
ing
.
Ifhe met something
along this path there would be no escape. But despite the rain he mustn't run
because then his fear would only follow him faster. He must walk quickly but
calmly
a
nd try to focus on 'normal' things;
things so mundane that even the creatures that thrive in a lively mind are not
stirred
.
He thinks about pencil sharpeners
and maths, but somehow the pencil sharpeners are too sinister, too suggestible.
He thinks about his mother b
ut
somehow that
brings him to snakes
.
He think
s
about sheep but that only leads him back to pigs
.

H
e s
tarts t
o
run throu
gh
th
e
r
ain
tr
ying
in
va
in t
o
d
odge
th
e
m
illion wate
r
ar
rows. H
e
thin
ks
h
e c
an h
ear
pi
gs
runnin
g
.
upri
ght
o
n th
eir
h
ind
l
egs c
hanting,
'F
our
le
gs goo
d, t
wo
l
egs
b
ad',
-th
at
b
ook
i
s ge
tting t
o
h
im.
Ev
en a
s
h
e
run
s
th
e
d
ark
d
escends.
H
e ca
n
'
n
o
l
onger
di
stinguish
th
e s
ky
fro
m th
e
e
arth.

He
wonders if God is angry. He wonders about God being in him. It seems that his
childhood ideal of the parting out s
pread h
ands
of Go
d i
s
in
nee
d
of
upd
ating
and r
evision-
like
so
m
any of
h
is c
hildhood id
eals.

At
this cross-over time of life things blur: what to believe, what not to believe;
what to discard, what to keep; what to l
earn,
wh
at
n
ot
t
o
l
earn; w
hat t
o
r
ead, w
hat n
ot
t
o
r
ead; w
hether t
o
b
e a c
hild
o
r
a Grow
n-Up; wh
ether
t
o
b
e af
raid
o
f th
e da
rk
o
r n
ot af
raid. H
e ca
n't
i
magine
a
tim
e w
hen h
e wo
n't b
e a
fraid
of
th
e
d
ark.
H
e s
till l
eaves
the d
oor aja
r
a
t n
ight e
nough t
o a
dmit a thin
eye of
li
ght
from th
e
l
anding
.
Wh
en
h
e ca
n
s
leep
wi
thout th
e
li
ght
from the landin
g
h
e wi
ll
k
now h
e's a Grow
n-Up.

His
father's dog, Moss, smells him coming from a hundred yards away and starts to
bark as if he were a burglar. At fifty ya
rds M
oss
is s
training
a
t
t
he
c
hain
a
nd t
wisting
h
imself
i
n
a
n
effo
rt t
o ge
t
to
him
. On
ly when h
e is
cl
ose
up d
oes
th
e a
nimal
stop i
ts lun
atic
b
ehaviour.
O
nce it
h
as
r
ecognized
h
im it s
tarts
to wag
it
s who
le b
ody an
d
ma
ke
ecs
tatic
w
himpering n
oises
.
T
aliesin
i
s wa
ry
o
f th
e
d
og's
unpr
edictability;
h
e fi
nds
i
t h
ard
t
o
tru
st a
nimals
a
t th
e
m
oment a
nd accordin
g
t
o
Mr
Or
well d
ogs are o
nly m
arginally
m
ore
tru
stworthy
th
an pigs.