MORNING SERIAL
THE autopsy had been performed and nothing unusual was found so now it was up to my mother and I to arrange his funeral. His will also said that he was to be cremated and his ashes to be scattered in Carmarthen Bay.
It was a sad time. My mother and I and two older local fishermen were the only ones at the funeral. They seemed to know something of Father’s past but were unwilling to talk about him.
One of them offered to take me out in his boat to scatter the ashes. I respectfully declined. It was something that I wanted to do by myself when the time was right. The urn sat on the mantelpiece over the hearth awaiting my readiness to perform his final wish and say my last goodbyes. The sign with the blue lettering about becoming a story teller remained by the window wall but the summer was nearly over. It would have to wait until the following year if at all. In the meantime, there was Grandfather’s log and book of poems to be studied and more importantly the real story that Father had never shared.
CHAPTER 9
I STARTED with the book of poems. I’d never been a reader and my command of English was quite poor, but I remembered what Father had said when he was telling me about Grandfather’s passage through the Magellan Straits. He was disappointed when I told him that I didn’t read much if at all and when I questioned him about a bird that I’d never heard of, the albatross, he told me to read the poem and my questions would be answered. Was there more to that reply than I’d understood at the time, I wondered? He said that the albatross was a lucky bird, and it must have been because it led Grandfather through the Magellan Straits into the open water of the Pacific, but the poem told the opposite because the Ancient Mariner shot the albatross that led to his incredible bad luck.
CONTINUES TOMORROW