MORNING SERIAL
LET it go, I thought. A rash is a rash and you shouldn’t scratch it. But the splurge made me itch. If no-one had thought any of this out, well, no surprise there, any more than the blue-black bruise of a Stasi-type police station. New public symbols, beyond any thoughtful purpose, and the official mind was invariably blank. Blank enough usually for someone else to profit. And no-one would have been quicker to do that than Maldwyn, whose house, larger than the rest, turreted and screened by monkey puzzle trees, I thought I could glimpse on the lower slopes.
You entered the house via the back entrance. A few steps down off the street and a solid woodpanelled door. New. With a brass knocker, one that was both shiny and new. It doubled as an electric bell push. I pushed. The sound of the National Anthem – the “Gwlad! Gwlad!” bit – jangled electronically from my finger. I let go. The straining choristers were choked off from a reprise, and I heard a dog bark in compensation, or maybe better judgement, in their place. Then a loud chesty coughing. Footsteps and chains being released behind the door. It opened. I expected to see Mal Evans, entrepreneur supreme and my replacement at Bran’s side. Instead I found myself looking down at a very small man, just 5ft tall, around 60, with a puffy red face set on a body whose dimensions, and solidity, resembled a Tate & Lyle sugar cube. He didn’t say a word. From inside the house, past the entrance porch, down a freshly painted passage, a voice reached us.
“Oi! Wheelie, who the fuck is it?”
Wheelie, with me sagely assuming his duties went beyond opening doors to driving the Lexus I had seen parked outside, said nothing. Just looked. I helped out.
“Tell him it’s Billy,” I said. “Billy who?”
I pretended alarm, as if after this length of acquaintance I didn’t expect speech. Not on our first date. Wheelie wasn’t into mockery, whether mine or home-made. He shuffled powerful shoulders and teetered on the balls of his feet. A boxer, then. Certainly a fighter. Wheelie glared. I supplied the cue.
> The Crossing by Dai Smith is published by Parthian in the Modern Wales series www.parthianbooks.com
CONTINUES MONDAY