Bron 7

Continued from Chapter 6: Bron-6 | ABCtales

Chapter 7

The brakes thumped on the final time on the five-hour journey. The night had closed in at Abergele, but Bron recognised the patch of reedy marshland to the right of the tracks. Valley Station flashed past in the dark, then the low rumble across the Stanley Embankment, the lights of the town and port winking across the water. 

Bron pulled her black holdall down from the luggage rack, letting it bounce off the blue moquette of the seat, releasing a cloud of dust. She coughed.

Holyhead was a strange place for an intercity from London to end up. The Euston trains went there because of the ferry to Ireland, but hardly anyone travelled that way these days, now that you could get flights for the price of a pair of jeans, as the adverts said. Holyhead was an afterthought, a huddle of grey pebbledashed terraces up the hill, a few shops, a handful of pubs, hardly more than a village really.

She peered up and down the darkened station concourse. When she’d rung her Uncle William to let him know she was coming, she’d also asked him to ask her brother JohnJohn to pick her up in his minivan, if it hadn’t broken down again. But the station approach was deserted; either the van was out of action, yet again, or the message hadn’t been passed on, or JohnJohn had just ignored it, the bastard. Probably seeing his woman on the Maesgeirchen estate in Bangor.

With a sigh, Bron shouldered her holdall and trudged off into the drizzle. Only six miles to Tan-y-Bryn Farm. Good thing her sprained leg had healed quickly.

The house hadn’t changed much in the six months since Bron had left. The gutter, with its peeling black paint that stretched incongruously past the panes of the upper dormer windows, was still askew, perhaps listing a bit more to the right than before. The rusting, orange red Massey Ferguson tractor was still in the little lean-to shelter to the left of the house. Weeds in the front garden, though patches of freshly dug soil suggested that someone – Mam, almost certainly – had tried to tidy things up a bit before becoming disheartened.

Bron rattled the rust-spotted letterbox. No lights on. “MAM! MAM! Dw i yma! Bron!”

A muffled shuffling, bumps, then a light glowed through the murky frosted glass of the door. Slippered feet stumped a rapid tattoo down the uncarpeted stairs. A rattle of locks and bolts, then the door was flung open.

“BRON! BRON! Rydych chi'n ôl!” Mam seized Bron by the shoulders and swung her around, to and fro. “Bron! Bron! Bron cariad!” Mam was a good three inches taller than Bron. Her Dad was small.

Mam’s delighted surprise suggested that Uncle William had failed to pass on the message.

Panting slightly, Mam ushered Bron through the hall into the back sitting room, almost as if she feared that her daughter would change her mind and head back out into the night again.

Bron dropped her bag on the floor, then shrieked: “MAM! Mae chickens…cac - cac ym mhobman! Ych afi!”

A large Rhode Island squawked and swiftly jumped off the back of the mottled green sofa where she’d been roosting in the dark, followed by a scuttling retinue of smaller birds – bantams - orange, black, white. They took up station behind and on top of the TV, eyeing Bron warily.

“Sorry Bron. There was a fox. HE didn’t mend the coop. I asked him but, you know how it is. Had to bring them all inside…”

Bron inspected the sofa, picking off the larger bits of chickenshit, then threw herself down.

A crunch, then a warm trickling sensation in the small of her back. “O, Mam…”

“Sorry Bron. I’ll get a cloth…”

Bron hadn’t spoken to Mam since she’d gone to London. There was no phone at Tan y Bryn, hadn’t been since Tad had taken the bill money into the Buckley Vaults instead of the post office a year ago. She’d tried passing messages on through forgetful Uncle William but that was hardly reliable.

What Bron had done to Mam, or her sister Sian upon whom the brunt of the farm work must have fallen in her absence, wasn’t nice - she knew that. One Saturday in March she’d gone to London on the overnight train with her friend Mynwen for a day trip. They’d roamed the city all day, Oxford Street, Piccadilly Circus, Buckingham Palace, the huge park that stretched all the way from Hyde Park Corner to Bayswater, then, heads spinning from the roaring traffic and neon lights, ended up in the King’s Arms in the afternoon. A couple of Norwegian lads had offered to let them sleep of the floor of their hostel room. They’d said ‘no’ and headed back to Euston for the early evening train. But just as they were about to go through the barrier, Bron said: “Tell my Mam I’ve decided to stay in London for a while.” Before Mynwen could answer she’d turned on her heel to walk the two miles to the Quentin Hotel in Bayswater.

If Mam resented Bron’s sudden disappearance, she didn’t show it. Just like the story of the Prodigal Son in the Bible classes.

“Beth wyt ti'n wneud yn Llundain?”

“Dw i mewn ffilm, Mam…”

“NO! BRON! O, congrats! Er…dim yn rhywbeth PORNO, Bron?”

“No mam! Dw I peilot Americanaidd.”

“Rwyt ti'n ddyn yn y ffilm?”

“No! Peilot...pioneer woman pilot in America.”

“Oes yna beilotiaid benywaidd yn America?”

“Oes! Ond dw i cyntaf…Roedd yn 1940.”

Bron decided not to mention Metalmasters, at least for now.

The alarm clock with its yellowing dial ticked away on the mantelpiece; nearly midnight, it said, though it was always 20 minutes fast.

“HE’LL be home from the Farmers, pretty soon,” said Mam. “Want to stay up, say hello?”

“No mam, I’ll make myself scarce. Don’t tell him I’m here, please.”

“Understood. Can’t blame you after all that…all that he did.” Mam dabbed her eyes with the edge of her apron.

Bron shouldered her bag, unlatched the back door and made her way across the uneven yard to the cowshed and climbed the ladder, dragging her luggage behind her. Her ‘secret’ bed – a single mattress with its pale blue cover and mismatched red and blue pillows - was still in the loft. Mam must have given it a once-over with the duster every so often. An upended cardboard box did duty as a bedside table; a picture of the Jones’ much-lamented old collie, Gor, acted as a paperweight for a few sheafs of old letters, and there was a small wind-up travelling alarm clock in a red case.

It probably wasn’t really a secret from Tad, but it was easier for Mam to deflect him from the cowshed than her actual bedroom, just across the landing from the parents’ room. Tad’s nightly visits to the Farmers were a blessing, in that respect; made him easier to handle, liked a drugged bull calf. Mam must have faced a nightly battle to head him off, holding the pass.

To be continued in Chapter 8