A Pen y ffrwd love story

Sometimes I run up the hill, and sometimes I ride Khyber up there. Now I am sitting on the Pen y ffrwd hillside looking out over the long grass of late summer, swaying in the early evening breeze, when he appears at my side.  On the left, always on the left.  I say appears, because I never hear him coming – or leaving.  One second he is not there, the next I feel his presence.  If I look out of the corner of my left eye, I can see his profile, although he always wears his hood up. I say he because the profile looks like that of a man to me, but clean shaven.  And his legs out in front of him in the grass are long, and I would guess he is taller than me.  So I call him a man, although truth to tell I do not know what he is at all.  I feel wary of turning my head to stare, as if I would stare him out of existence, as if he were a shy and wild animal which takes fright at the slightest movement.

We sit in companionable silence.  I have never tried to talk to him, nor he to me. I do not feel threatened by him.  He sits close enough to touch me if he wishes, but he has never tried. (More’s the pity, I would like a man to touch me again). Perhaps he has no hand to touch me with.  Perhaps his body is a projection that he thinks I will find not threatening, pleasing even. Perhaps he does not exist at all, and I have imagined him out of a lonely woman’s need.  Certainly, after I can tell he has left, the grass where he sat is tall and swaying, not flattened as the grass under me.

The seasons come and go on Pen y ffrwd, the sunlight and shadow of the clouds move across the heather and rocky outcrops at the top. Then the snow which catches in the branches of the pines lower down.  Then the sunlight and clouds again. I have grey in my hair and I walk up the hill now.  I no longer run.  Khyber, my mare, is old and unwell.  I sit and look at her instead of the hillside.  He appears more often now, and somehow I feel he is sad for her too. 

Khyber died this morning.  An attack of colic (to which she is prone) which she was too old and weak to fight off. She died before the vet even arrived.  Now I sit and look at the mound in the field below, covered with a tarpaulin.  The hunt kennels will come for her this afternoon. I cry and he comes to sit besides me.  I find this some comfort and I tell him so.  This is the first time I have ever spoken to him in all this time.  I think he nods but looking through my tear hazed eyes I am not sure.  Then he is gone. I look down to my left and the grass is, as always, unmarked.  But something tiny catches my eye.  Something tiny and shining, catching the sun.  I put my hand out to it, and hesitate.  It looks like gold.  Is there not some saying about touching fairy gold ?  But I pick it up and it is a tiny gold horse.  A perfect, tiny Khyber, with her dished face, large eyes and high tail.  There is a miniscule loop to wear it on a chain, if I can find one fine enough.

The next day he comes again.  I am wearing the horse charm round my neck on button thread.  The real Khyber has gone. Emboldened after yesterday, I want to talk to him again.  I say “what is your name ?”.  I hear a sound like the rushing of the wind, some clicking like two stones being tapped together, and finally the faint sound of bells.  “That’s your name ?  It’s lovely”.   This time I distinctly see him nod, since I have no tears to blind me.  I wonder if he will ask my name but he does not.  Maybe he knows it.  Maybe he doesn’t care.  Maybe he is still a projection of a lonely old woman’s imagination, as I know I would be told if I were stupid enough to tell anyone (which I have not).  And the charm, I would say, what about the charm ?  Dropped by a tourist would be the common sense reply.  Do you think Khyber was the only Arab in the world ?

The years come and go.  My hair is all grey now.  I find it hard to walk up to our meeting place (as I like to think of it).   I don’t go very often but when I do he always comes now.  To me he looks no different, I wonder if he can tell I have aged.  Perhaps he has no concept of time at all.

I can barely get there today, but I do. It is more of a struggle to get down on the grass than it was to walk up.  I wonder if I will have the strength to get to my feet today.  He appears and I do something I have never done in fifty years.  I turn my head left and look at him directly.  He puts his hood back and turns his head right and looks at me.  His face is as I have always imagined it.  Serious but not dour. Patrician. Neither young nor old.  He stands, and moves in front of me, his head tilted to one side as if asking me a question.  He holds out his hand and I notice that it is translucent, I can see through it to the grass and the tiny blue flowers beneath.  I take his hand and it feels, to my surprise, warm and solid and strong, and he pulls me easily to my feet in a smooth movement.  We stand, still holding hands, and he smiles at me.  I smile back.  I have never felt so happy.  I look down at our joined hands and realize, with surprise but no fear, that my hand is translucent too.  Then I see that I am still on the grass, but lying on my side slightly curled up, with my eyes shut, as if asleep.  And that other me is smiling too.