MORNING SERIAL
HE’D better talk to her. She’s got a piece missing. Like a wall with a stone laid wrong, or missed out. He’d better get her that piece.
He spent the afternoon writing a letter to her in his head. It made sense the letter, but it was in English. It was a nice letter. It’s alright, it said. It’s alright.
She would get the letter, and she’d be alright.
They finished that section of the wall early, so he went home an hour ahead of the normal time, walking back along the igam ogam road, with the holey fence, where the bullocks could come through if they wanted to enough.
Today they didn’t. The sun was low, and the light from it slanted onto the fields, the brambles, the gorse of the hillside. Pigeon was full of space inside him. Peace it was called, but that was a grand, flimsy word for something so specific and still.
He’d talk to her, and then it’d be alright. Finally it’d be over. Iola would come out of that place in his head, and he’d get the words back, one by one. But he was going in the right direction. He was finally going in the right direction. It was something to do with Elfyn and the walls that’d done it.
He walked into the crooked house through the front door. Lately he’d started doing that. Using the front door. It felt good.
He walked past his mam in the dark living room.
He opened the curtains, went to the kitchen to put the kettle on, grabbed a tea bag from the jar, and another one, for his mam.
He stood, watching some birds in the wide sky outside, until the kettle boiled.
He poured the water over the bags, stewed them, added milk for his mam, three sugars for him, one for his mam.
He carried it through, placed his mam’s on the table at her side, picked up a notebook, started the letter.
Iola, he wrote. It’s Pigeon. I hope you’re alright.
He stopped. Crossed out the last sentence. Sat with the pencil in his hand.
Where did you begin untelling a story? He couldn’t find the end of it, or the beginning to begin unravelling from.
> Pigeon is the winner of the Wales Book of the Year and the Rhys Davies Fiction Prize. Published by Parthian
CONTINUES TOMORROW