Bron-57

Continued from Chapter 56:

“Oh, Tommy, stop! Don’t touch them. You might catch a disease.”

Three skulls grinned vacantly from the, chaotic, disordered heap of rib-bones in the hedge. “Bloody Huw Prytherch. Never looks after his sheep. Too bloody tight to get the fallen stock man in to deal with them. Probably expects us to clear up the mess.”

“Bron-Mam? Will Mummy be all bones now? Now that she’s not moving any more?”

“Mummy was cremated. You saw the big wooden box go into the oven.”

“But there’ll still be her bones? Even if she’s all burned?”

“Oven’s so hot, even the bones. Mummy will just be ashes. Like what we clear out of the grate in the morning.”

“Mummy’s all asses?”

“When you die, when you stop moving, you don’t need your body any more. So best thing is to turn it into ash.”

“Couldn’t they just leave her? Grannie and Grandpa could put her in their bath. They don’t need it. They have a shower.”

“No Tommy, that wouldn’t be very nice. When people stop moving…when they’re dead, they get very smelly. And they can make other people very ill. That’s why we have to get rid of the animals on the farm when they’re dead. So we don’t catch the diseases. Like XXXX should have done with his sheep. Bastard…”

“Bron-Mam?”

“Yes, Tommy?”

“You will come back to Axe-shon? You won’t stay in Tanny-Bring?”

“Don’t worry. I will be back. I just have to help Mam with Bronco. He has to go to another farm to help the mummy cows make baby cows. Then I’ll get the train and come back, all the way to London. Rwy’n addo.”

“Azzo?”

“Addo. I promise.”

“Bron-Mam?”

“Yes?”

“Could you and Grace-Mam make babies?”

“No. We’d need a man to help us. But we’ve got you already. Don’t need to.”

Mam insisted on loading them with carrier bags and carrier bags of food. Pork sandwiches, beef patties, her own recipe potted carrots, ten pounds of potatoes from Tan-y-Bryn’s garden. “We do have shops in London, Myfanway…” said Grace. “It’s not a famine zone.”

“Oh, you don’t want to be eating all that shop stuff. Not when you can have good Anglesey produce.”

“Well, it’s very, very kind of you,” said Grannie Marjorie. Isn’t it, Timmy?

“Sure is. Won’t need to go shopping for a fortnight.”

They carefully stowed the bags in the back of the minivan.

“Got the carrier?” said Grace.

“Coming up.” Bron retrieved the pink cat-carrier from the porch. Two small faces, one black, one white with a light brown splash over his nose looked dubiously through the mesh. “Gwyn’ll be company for Megan. Stop her being homesick,” said Bron. “When I get back, I’ll start putting the adverts out again.”

“Think Megan’s got what it takes?”

“As good as Petouche in her prime. Better even. Got half a dozen from the old barn yesterday. Gwyn’s more like Pork Chop.”

“Useless, then.”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

Mam beckoned to John-John. He wound down his window. “Well, I’ll be seeing you all again in four weeks. You three at any rate. End of June?”

Bron nodded. “Yes, Myfanwy. We might just about have got through all your lovely food by then.”

“Plenty more where that came from ,Cariad. Tara now!”

To be continued in Chapter 58