MORNING SERIAL
TO Anton he says, ‘Ya ne dumayu shcho ya budu tsym ryzykuvatyy.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Helen gazes directly at Maksim. She won’t let him exclude her anymore.
‘The Zone will be busy soon.’ He lights the roll-up and starts the engine. Pulls out of the parking area with a jolt.
‘What day is it?’ ‘Thursday.’
‘I mean the date.’ ‘Fourteenth.’
‘Of April?’ Helen has lost track of the days since the end of the tour but can’t have lost this much time.
‘March. Next month is anniversary. But it gets busy in the weeks before, lots of tourists remember, and the festival of Radunitsa. It is already on the news.’ Maksim smirks.
‘Every year it is a celebrity again, and I can show off my necklace for the news cameras.’
‘Maybe people won’t come this year,’ Anton says. ‘They will be told not to travel.’
The night in Ivankiv has faded behind the bike accident and the journey through the Zone.
‘What has happened? Are the protests still going?’ Helen asks.
Maksim looks at her, amazed, then grins, nodding again. She wants to reach out and use her hands as a vice, to hold his skull still while he talks.
Anton is hanging between the seats. Helen imagines what will happen if they crash, the force of sudden deceleration making his body a missile. He’ll be through the windscreen in an instant. She reaches for the seatbelt socket beside her and holds it tight.
‘Riots. The protests against the government spread from Kyiv. You know about the protests?’
Helen considers his words, thinking of the last few weeks. ‘So now the whole country is rioting?’ World War Three could be underway and they wouldn’t know.
‘Yanukovych is gone.’ ‘Gone?’ Anton leans forwards. ‘I saw on the news, they went to his house and found it empty, abandoned. His offices too.’
‘So, Putin has his chance to step in?’ The question is anxious, peppered with coughs. ‘Anton, he’s taken Crimea.’ Anton sits back as though he’s been kicked in the chest. Helen turns to him, watches his mouth open and close, but no words come out.
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CONTINUES ON MONDAY
keep telling him to be humble all the time, not like a star. Every game, I tell him ‘God be the glory, be humble all the time and keep your feet on the ground.’”
As for matches that stand out for him from Taulupe’s career, which includes three Lions tours, Kuli goes back to the early days with Wales.
“I went to New Zealand to watch the 2011 World Cup,” he recalls.
“I have big memories of that tournament.
“I always remember the famous game when they played against France in the semi-final. I think they should have won that game. They would have been through to the final then and who knows. But, at the end of the day, they lost. I still talk about that game with him.”
There have been some challenging times for Taulupe in the last five or six years amid a number of injuries. Once again, Kuli has turned to his faith for words of advice.
“I was lucky. I played rugby until I was 45 and I didn’t have any bad injuries,” says the former second row.
“When Taulupe moved to Bath, he got a lot of injuries there. I encouraged him all the time, saying that is part of the game. It is a physical game. That is the reality.
“It is very hard sometimes. You can have a bad injury, but you have to accept it.
“I have a strong faith in God. If you have a bad injury, that is part of the game. God will help you and he will protect you and keep your body safe. I always told Taulupe ‘Keep faith in God and he will bring you back to what you were at the start of your career’.”
Speaking further about the attitude he has encouraged in his son, Kuli continues: “Sometimes he has lost a game and all the time I tell him to just forget it, just move on and keep working hard for the next game.
“If you make a mistake, just forget about it. If you think about it too much, it’s going to lead you to make more mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes, but just forget about it and try and move on with the game.”
Happily, the injury issues are now in the past for the Cardiff No 8, while his form is good. He’s fit and firing again, capping a typically classy display against Italy last Saturday with a try as reward for his tireless graft.
Now it’s time for his landmark appearance at the Stade de France, where he will have plenty of family support on hand for the big occasion.
His Pontypool-based dad, who works in security for the council in Ebbw Vale, doesn’t tend to go to that many matches, generally preferring to watch on TV to study the action closely ahead of a debrief with his son.
But he will be in Paris this weekend, along with his wife and daughter, with Taulupe’s wife and their two boys also going over.
“There will be lots of family there to cheer him on,” says Kuli.
“Since Taulupe has played for Wales, I have maybe been to the Principality Stadium about eight or nine times.
“When I watch TV or even when I am at the game, I never jump up. I just want to watch the game.
“After he plays, we have a chat about rugby and what he still needs to improve and what mistakes he has done in the game.
“That’s why I generally prefer to stay at home and watch the match on TV.
“When the game is finished then, all the 80 minutes is in my head.
“So I know what we are going to be talking about on Sunday or Monday about things he needs to improve. We do it like that.
“But this time I have decided to go to France because it is going to be a big day for Taulupe.
“I am very, very proud of him and all the family is as well. It will be a big thing for the family.”
That’s what the Faletaus are all about.
Family, being humble and keeping the faith.