10
‘Apologise once more, William,’ Betty says, kneeling before him, ‘and I’ll hit you over the head with that radio.’
William feels his spine against the cold wall, the floor bearing into his bony backside. He clasps his shins, his body a tight, clutched package, while Harry and Jimmy look down at him. He notices that his shoes are filthy.
Betty sits next to William, legs outstretched, prises one hand from his leg and holds it in her lap.
‘To be honest,’ she says, ‘I feel the same when the Beatles come on. I can’t stand them.’ She turns her head to look at him, play in her eyes. ‘I’m going to do this next time my husband starts dancing around like an idiot to “Yellow Submarine”。’
Harry and Jimmy chuckle. Harry bends to make eye contact with William. ‘Sorry, mate, just turned it back on. Didn’t realise.’
‘You weren’t to know,’ William says, getting up, letting his hand slide from Betty’s, grateful, embarrassed. ‘I’m OK now.’ He lowers his gaze again, doesn’t want to look or be looked at. ‘It’s just that music.’
? ? ?
Uncle Robert is on the driveway before William has turned off the engine. It’s after 10 p.m. and he wonders if he can summon the energy to get out of the car. He leans into Robert’s embrace, feeling the pat on his back; tenderness disguised as vigour that has characterised his care of William over the last five years. The smell of his aftershave, the neat tie and woolly jumper bring tears to his eyes.
‘Hungry?’ He takes William’s elbow. ‘There’s a shepherd’s pie with your name on it.’
‘I’m starving,’ William says as they walk into the house. He takes off the shoes that tomorrow he will throw in the bin and leaves them by the door.
Howard is in the kitchen, oven gloves on, lifting out the casserole dish.
William shakes ketchup onto the side of his plate next to the rich mincemeat oozing from under mashed potato. Howard and Robert sit with him at the table but he’s grateful they don’t ask any questions, because although William is ravenous it’s a struggle to talk or eat. He clears his plate but says no to the tinned peaches and evaporated milk that Howard has taken from the fridge.
‘I’d best turn in. I haven’t slept.’
‘Gloria called,’ Robert remembers as William is getting up. ‘She sends her love and hopes you’re OK.’
William stops. Uncle Robert is studying him. Oh, how he wants this to be good news! How he wants that delicious rush of lust and love and certainty he had on the way to Aberfan, set ablaze simply by the thought of her, saturating his future. But all he’s left with now under Robert’s gaze is despair. He knows exactly what Gloria will want of him at some point in the future and has even spent a lot of the last year imagining just that. But after what he’s just experienced, he doubts he will ever feel able to give it to her.
‘OK’ – he nods at Robert – ‘I’ll call her, once I’ve slept.’
‘Goodnight, William, rest well. You’re home now.’
‘That you are,’ adds Howard, nodding.
Relieved to be alone, he strips and climbs into bed. The grandfather clock in the hallway strikes eleven. He thought he’d fall asleep immediately, but with the insistent tock of the clock, and the quarter-hour chimes that he doesn’t normally hear, quarter-hour after quarter-hour after quarter-hour, he finds he is not alone after all. Wrecked bodies, faces of parents entering the mortuary, moans and wails of grief. Aberfan, he learns, staring at the white tasselled lampshade above him, has set up camp in his body; it’s behind his eyes, in his ears, his nose, on his hands and running through his blood.
It’s just after 1.15 when he gets up to go to the bathroom. Opening his door he expects darkness, but the landing is buttered with a soft light from under Robert’s door. Glancing to his left, he notes that Howard’s door is open and his bed empty. William freezes at the sound of muted voices.
‘… she might be a comfort.’
‘If you ask me, we’d do better to put our hope in Gloria than his mother.’
William clears his throat and treads his feet heavily across the landing to the bathroom. When he comes out, the hallway is in darkness and Howard’s door is shut.
11
Black and silver, bumper to bumper over the bridge, glinting in the grey winter light; every hearse in South Wales, it looks like. From the narrow pavement, he could reach out and place his palm on the polished hearse rolling past, see his own outline imposed on the coffin.