The air smells of grass. A magpie lands on top of a small cherry tree. To the left, sloping down and away from them, are two rows of modern houses. This was where the original houses were completely destroyed. Is one of them Betty’s? Is she still alive? William looks to the right, the route from the school to the mortuary.
‘I want to go to the chapel. You don’t have to come.’ He’s starting to wish he was alone. He has nothing to say about this Aberfan to Gloria.
‘I’ll come.’ Gloria puts her hands in her pockets.
They walk along Moy Road for a few yards, then left down a short, steep side street that leads to the chapel. William doesn’t remember the gullies that run between the houses, grass poking up through the tarmac and washing hanging across them. He doesn’t remember anything beyond the chapel and the school, but this metal handrail that runs down the path he does, because he saw a woman hold on to it when her knees buckled.
Halfway down the incline he stops dead.
‘What?’ Gloria says. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘It’s gone.’
‘What’s gone?’
He rubs his temple to stop the buzzing and walks to the bottom of the path. He stares at the dark building with its modern brick tower that only now, he notices, has the shape of a cross embedded into the stone.
‘This isn’t it!’ He looks left and right to see if he’s got the wrong place.
‘They must have knocked it down and rebuilt,’ Gloria says softly. ‘You can understand why.’
Something moves across William’s scalp, like a twang of elastic. ‘Why? We didn’t do anything wrong in there!’ He hears how high and broken his voice sounds. ‘They shouldn’t have knocked it down!’
He steps closer to the bleak building and touches the metal railing. It all seems so empty and still without the mothers, headscarves tied under their chins, winter coats held across their chests, without the coal-dusted miners, exhausted and determined, the Salvation Army with their tea, Kit Kats, and the kindness of whisky and cigarettes.
It’s all so ordinary.
An explosion behind them makes them both jump. They turn to see an old Ford Cortina race down the narrow street, the driver’s window wound down.
‘This is where they had to wait,’ William says turning back, rubbing his hand along the railing. ‘The parents.’
‘Where you had to hold up the little boy’s shirt?’
He feels the slide of warmth and the pressure around the side of his palm as Gloria slips her hand into his.
‘But it wasn’t like this.’
‘That’s good, isn’t it?’ Gloria speaks quietly, not taking her eyes from the chapel. ‘You wouldn’t want it to stay the same forever, for all the people who have to go on living here? Would you?’
He shakes his head and frowns. ‘But if none of it’s here … if it’s only in my head …’ Something is falling within himself. He sounds mad. He doesn’t want Gloria to think he’s mad. He exhales; a bark of breath. ‘It’s an adjustment.’
‘Of course it is.’ Her grip tightens. ‘But you can do it. Just like with your mum.’
‘What do you mean?’
She continues to look at the chapel. ‘You’ve realised people change; in fact, they couldn’t stay the same, even if they wanted to.’
He looks ahead too, holding her hand. He’s holding her hand. Maybe he’ll be all right.
‘I think I’ll visit the graves,’ he says, ‘but it’s a bit of a climb. Do you want to sit in the car, or on that bench in the playground?’
‘No, I’ll come.’ She looks at him. ‘I’ll just have to take it slow.’
They walk back up the side street and turn left, away from the memorial garden and community centre and then right onto the lane that leads to the mountainside cemetery. The oldest graves sit at the bottom, skewed and sunken; grey, green and white with lichen and moss. But higher up the mountain, white semi-circles loop their way across the slope in two long rows; giant Polo mints, bright against the sky. William wants to run to them, but it would look odd and Gloria is by his side, so he slows his step and stares ahead.
‘Bloody hell, don’t they like their hills?’ Hands on hips, Gloria breathes heavily for a few seconds before starting again.
Eventually they stand on a level path before the graves. Graves, William reflects for the first time, that have been here for seven years now. Although he’s close enough to touch them, he has the strange feeling that he’s moving further away. The years feel fluid, as if they are draining through him. The emptiness he felt staring at the new chapel starts to inflate, to fill with a lightness that lets him breathe.