Bron-32

Continued from Chapter 31: Bron-31 | ABCtales

The grey cloud over Vauxhall Cross seemed to darken, settle down a little lower above the growling, snarling traffic. Bron waited at the lights at the end of the bridge, hunched over the handlebars.

“So Bron. Things not working out for you here then? Found the streets were paved with crap and dust, not gold. It’s not as if you weren’t told.”

Bron grunted, shuffled in her saddle, looked down at the tarmac.

“Lost yer Dad. Lost yer workmate, might well lose the job. And now yer dreams have turned to dust. Well, shit happens, as the old hippies used to say.”

The lights were taking forever to turn green. Perhaps they were stuck.

“What you going to do now Bron? Go back to Lan-y-Blodwell, tail between yer legs? Maybe you could persuade that Gracie woman to come with you? She’s a gardener? Perhaps she’d enjoy being up to her armpits in pigshit on that crappy little farm of yours …”

Bron jerked her head skywards. “Fuck off, cunt,” she mouthed.

“It’s not Lan-Y-Blodwell, is it? Lan – fair – ym – moch … Lan - vire-ym-MOCH-nant? Not a bad effort for an old cockney, though, wouldn’t yer agree? Get to hear all the world’s lingos, dialects, ways of speaking, I do… even a few from that godforsaken little island of yours in North Wales … Chew them up, spit them out. Some survive, some don’t…” 

The growl of the traffic was by now drowned out by a cacophony of hooting at the malfunctioning traffic lights. A few cars started to edge forward, hesitantly, but were rebuffed by the maelstrom of trucks and buses now speeding the other way across the vast junction.

“You know, Bron. I would say I feel sorry for you, Bron. But I can’t. I can’t feel anything. I’m just brick, and steel, and concrete… These here lights are a rum do, aren’t they? Anyway, don’t think you’re anything special Bron. I mean, how many died in the Black Death? The Blitz? Well, everyone’s dead in the end, aren’t they? People get run over, they fall in and out of love. They get the sack.

“You’re just another little speck on the backside of the big shitty city, Bron. Dad died, lost your best mate, rough time at work, dreams not quite worked out. You’re not the first, Bron. Won’t be the last, not by a long chalk.

“As I said, Bron, I don’t do sympathy. Maybe it’s better for you that way. Anyway, so long now. Got work to do …”

Bron nodded, slowly. The lights at the end of Vauxhall Bridge Road were still stuck on red.

Bron looked to the right, at the male cyclist who had pulled up alongside on a rust-stained silver Peugeot bike with big, knobbly tyres. About thirty-five, maybe a couple of years older, brown hair just starting to recede from the forehead, clothes crumpled from cycling or perhaps some manual job. Not bad looking, if you were into crumpled thirty-five year old blokes.

“These lights are a rum do, aren’t they?”

“Yeah. Been stuck on red for, a dunno, ten minutes.”

“I’m giving it another minute. Then I’m going, whatever.”

“Think I’ll follow you.”

“From Wales?”

“No shit, Sherlock. How’d you guess?”

“North Wales, by any chance?”

“That’s right. Gog through-and-through.”

“Not Anglesey – Ynys Mon – by any chance?”

“Llanfair-ym-Mochnant.”

“The place with the windmill with three sails?”

“The very same. Well, only one sail now. Lost a couple more in the big storm two years back. And you?”

“Amlwch…”

“No! Really? But you don’t sound Welsh.”

“My parents came from England. But grew up there.”

“Siarad Cymraeg?”

“Tipyn bach, bach bach. Mae O Level gen i…You know, I’ve lived in London for, ten years. It’s the first time I’ve met anyone from Anglesey, just by chance.”

“Me too…”

They joined the convoy of traffic that had started to inch across the junction against the red light. In the space of five minutes’ riding, he told her his name was Chris … Chrstopher, that he’d ended up in London by way of Manchester, Coventry, and Birmingham. He worked as a freelance sub-editor for a small publishing outfit near the Houses of Parliament, but he’d like to write a novel.

“Is it well paid, writing novels?”

“Not really. Probably, most writers don’t make any money from it.”

“Why you want to do it, then?”

“Dunno. Leave some record of my passing on this earth, p’raps? Don’t have kids, probably won’t.”

At the next lights, he handed her a business card. “Look me up, if you’re ever passing by Westminster. Be good to catch up with old Ynys Mon…”

To be continued in Chapter 33