MORNING SERIAL

OUTSIDE, Sir Ceri’s black, chauffeur-driven Audi had pulled up. I saw Gwilym simultaneously emerge from a shoal of notables like an oil slick in search of a better beach. That would be Ceri, then. In the old days, between old friends, a nod of the head and the grip of a handshake would have sufficed. But, here, now, Gwil actually embraced Ceri, who, in turn, did not stiffen. They were almost kissing.

Ceri turned, smile at the ready, and then the wince did come, in the shape of a frown directed my way. I had been standing so as to make sure that I would be in his eyeline. I positively beamed. My mouth cracked open so wide that it could have accommodated the San Andreas fault line. He looked hard at Haf. He would have read the letter. This was my counterstrategy. And I could tell it had disturbed him. Then things got even better.

Maldwyn’s nose was squashed into a wrap-around bandage. His eyes were two small blood oranges, peeled, and the cuts and abrasions to his cheeks were a homage to the beating the Tonypandy heavyweight champ Tommy Farr took in the seventh round from Joe Louis in 1937, as told to me by the old man. I don’t recall Tommy having a broken arm after his slugfest with Joe, but my Tommy had given Mal one, for sure, if that sling was anything more than a fashion accoutrement.

The conspirators huddled together. Ceri had changed colour when he saw Mal up close and personal, from ruddy to off-white. Gwilym had coloured in the contrary fashion. And Mal just stood there, his facial tints way off the chromatic scale of any palette used since Matisse completed a painting of his wife in green and crimson. I wondered about his teeth since his full, oh-sokissable lips were split and scabbed. He opened them, with some difficulty, to spit something out. I muttered an “Oh” out loud with a soft purr of appreciation since there were at least two teeth missing, and his smart-arse tongue was swollen into inarticulacy.