Last Train to Gloryhole (12 page)

‘They told me you’re watching
Camelot
,’ said Gwen, with an angry look on her face. ‘Well, we’ll sit this one out, if you don’t mind, folks. I mean making a trivial song-and-dance out of our cultural heritage is not at all my idea of an afternoon’s entertainment. What do you say, Mam?’

‘But what about the men in tights?’ Doris asked her daughter, with a look of sincere appeal in her eyes.

‘Tights! But the men never wore tights back then, mother,’ Gwen told her sharply. ‘That’s all that slushy Anglo-French, medieval interpretation for you, that is. They’ve gone and turned our cultural history into a silly love-story between some poncy English king in drag and his pointy-hatted, bejewelled queen. What a total travesty, eh? Whoever heard of such nonsense.’

‘Whatever do you mean?’ Anne asked her, just as the large room’s lights were being dimmed.

‘I mean that all that Camelot crap is just so, so fake, dear,’ Gwen shot back.

‘But isn’t Camelot somewhere down in Cornwall?’ asked Anne. ‘I’m sure I read that.’

‘Correction - it’s at Glastonbury,’ Gareth chimed in. ‘Near to where they hold the music festival, you know.’

‘Pfuhh! Then you clearly don’t know your own history, young man,’ replied Gwen, shaking her head about with authority.

‘Why
my own
?’ enquired Gareth, determined now not to let the matter drop.

‘
Why!
’ Gwen snapped back. ‘I’ll tell you
why
. Because Arthur was a Welshman like you and I, and a tribal chieftain to boot, who united a whole host of disparate Celtic tribes under his brave, courageous leadership. And Arthur never spoke any English, either, I’ll have you know.’

‘Didn’t he?’ asked Gareth.

‘Of course not,’ Gwen retorted. ‘How on earth could he? Back then English hadn’t been invented!’

‘You know, I never knew that,’ interjected Anne.

‘And Arthur was never a king, neither,’ continued Gwen. ‘There’s no record of him ever having been crowned, for a start. And as for Arthur’s castle - his court, if you like – well, it has recently been verified as having been located in the very place my father’s family hail from.’

‘Where’s that? Do you mean Newport?’ Anne suggested, almost tempted to say Ireland.

‘Caerleon, yes,’ Gwen told her. ‘Right on the banks of the River Usk down there, on the outskirts of the town. And, you know, they’ve just discovered Caerleon’s ancient trading port there too, and found out that it was far, far grander than they had ever imagined.’

‘Well, I never,’ uttered Anne, mouth agape. ‘Why, you live and learn, don’t you, Gareth?’

‘So you mean that Camelot is just some Anglo-French, medieval scam of sorts,’ said Gareth.

‘Absolutely,’ replied Gwen. ‘As are all the French names you find in the slushy re-write. In truth they went and made a right pig’s ear of the actual facts in Arthur’s story just to satisfy the romantic appetite of the slushy French folk, and of the medieval English many centuries later,’

‘You mean long after he had died,’ said Anne.

‘If you like, dear. If you really believe that he
is
dead,’ said Gwen.

‘You mean - you don’t mean you still believe he -’

‘But that nice Richard Harris is Irish, Gwen,’ Doris told her daughter forcefully but to no real purpose. ‘Oh, please, love. Can’t I just see what he’s wearing on his lovely long legs? Please. Please, Gwen. Pretty please.’

The music that suddenly filled the room told everyone that the film was beginning. A hush gradually began to settle on all the aged, chatty, coughing, comfortably seated residents of
The Willows
care home, but a surly, stubborn Gwen turned her mother’s wheel-chair right round, and steered, a markedly less than contented, Doris straight out of the common-room, and back down the long, shiny corridor she had just minutes before arrived along, towards her distant, poky single-room.

With genuine sympathy, Anne watched the shawl-covered back of Doris as the speeding passenger was gracelessly chauffered from the scene, yet glancing back twice despairingly, before her taxi finally careered round a tight corner and disappeared completely from sight. ‘Poor dear,’ said Anne. ‘She’ll never get to see what Arthur was wearing on his lovely legs after all.’

‘Yes, poor Doris. But you know it’s lucky her mother didn’t show up for the film I showed last week, that’s all I can say,’ Gareth informed her with a grin, grasping her tenderly by the hand.

‘Why is that?’ enquired Anne, smiling.

‘Don’t you remember?’ Gareth asked her. ‘We showed them
‘Monty Python And The Holy Grail
.’

The bespectacled old man took the prized, recently polished, sheep’s jaw-bone from his knapsack, and promptly waved it before him towards the powerful wind that blew into his face from out of the high peaks of The Brecon Beacons to the north. He smiled, believing that he now knew the power that an ancient Welsh tribal chief must feel, exhorting his brave men to advance before him and drive back the hated Norman invader, so as to maintain independence, and the control which this implied over their native soil, their farms, their farm produce. The fossil finds may have been disappointing today, Tom told himself, but this last discovery, albeit clearly a contemporaneous one, was indeed something that he felt he could get his teeth into!

The old man laughed aloud, suddenly apprehending the sheer audacity of this last reflection. He peered into the distance. ‘And death to all of the Latin tongue!’ he bellowed out as loudly as he could manage before his tender throat promptly seized up in pain, and he succumbed to a horrible bout of coughing.

As Tom wheezed and spluttered helplessly, the echo of his deep, baritone voice could still be heard clearly right across the valley, which now lay, very gradually, darkening before him. The sheep nearby all turned their heads sharply to study him, their heavy coats shivering as they did so, one or two urinating resonantly into the short grass beneath them with palpable fear.

Just a few seconds later the distant, slim, male and female figures, which were by now making their way abreast of each other along the former railway-track, and towards the nearby woods, halted, and seemed to peer out in his direction. Although Tom could not quite see half as well as they could, he was able to tell that the boy with the gleaming, silver telescope was shaking his head with apparent disdain, and calling the flame-haired, young girl, whom Tom could see was carrying a bulky, black box, to his side, so as to share with her his new, magnified perspective, and his personal opinion concerning the old fool he now beheld upon the hill.

Tom watched the slim-figured girl intently. He already felt he knew exactly the thoughts that filled her mind, and he also knew that she would very soon fall out with the boy, who now stood behind her, having just handed her his telescope. After briefly ruminatng once more over his own long-lost love and marriage, Tom heaved a deep sigh, realising full well how, within that very hour, the slim, young girl’s hopes of love would literally come crashing down with the trees.

Chris carried the bulky, black radio-recorder into the deepest part of Vaynor Woods, placed the item snugly at the foot of a tree, turned on some music at full-blast, then took the axe from his shoulder-bag and began chopping. The noise he created was instantly deafening, so much so that he wasn’t able to hear Rhiannon’s sweet, high tones calling out to him from behind, and imploring him to kindly tell her what on earth the point was in his bizarre behaviour.

‘Chris! Chris! What do you think you’re doing!’ she pleaded, folding away his little, silver telescope and staring across in his direction. ‘You know this isn’t at all like you, don’t you? And you told me last week how you can’t even stand woodwork.’

Rhiannon approached apprehensively as her dark-haired lover carried on clubbing at the tree, finally finding herself becoming increasingly engrossed, and more than a little admiring, of his unfamiliar vigour, and even of his detached, self-absorbed attitude, as he went about carving a great, gaping notch near the base of the naked tree-trunk, little more than a foot or so above the soft, loose carpet of nettles, leaves, and bracken that surrounded it.

Chris had already stripped off his shirt, and now stood tall, his lean body brown, and liberally covered in beads of sweat, the odour of which, Rhiannon decided, smelt deliciously male and strong. She sat herself down on the horizontal, fallen trunk of an even larger tree, which she imagined he might perhaps have chopped down in a similar fashion on some previous occasion when he spent his spare time alone in the woods. Suddenly spying something exquisite in the long grass, she reached down and examined a beautiful, but frayed, long-discarded, satin glove.

The audio-tape that was playing
Eminem
at full-volume had already begun to infuriate her, and so Rhiannon walked over to the machine and flicked up the switch which instantly delivered them
Radio One
instead. A song off an album she had at home by Adele - was playing, and so Rhiannon smiled at her good fortune and resumed her seat. Yes, this was much more her kind of music, she told herself. She began to imagine what it must be like to have someone waiting ages and ages for you on your very own doorstep, but, however much she considered it, she somehow couldn’t quite see any boy she knew, Chris included, being that placid and patient, much less romantic. Did such boys actually exist? she pondered. If they did, then she certainly didn’t expect to encounter any of them in the close-knit Welsh valley she lived in. If truth be told, Rhiannon mused, she occasionally felt ecstatic if her boyfriend actually turned up to meet her on time, and was frequently grateful that he had decided to show up at all.

A few minuutes later the mind-numbing racket of the chopping suddenly ceased, and Chris walked over to the recorder and switched it off. He threw down the axe, and began to dry off his torso by rubbing himself vigorously in his crumpled shirt, gazng across at his girl as he did so. Just then he felt that Rhiannon looked so pretty, and so loyal to him, sat there as she was, waiting patiently for him to complete his task and move across and join her. Chris bent low and took from his bag a large ball of twine and unrolled it a little, then paused and looked up again. Watching Rhiannon slapping her two pretty knees together, and twirling the long tresses of her red hair securely behind her ears, he decided that it was now time to tell her why he had brought her there that day, although he felt a distinct urge to tease her just a little first.

Rhiannon looked up and noticed him watching her, and so, folding up the teen-magazine she had been reading, called over in his direction. ‘Do you know you can adopt a jaguar for just two pounds a month?’ she said. ‘Isn’t that amazing? I must remember to tell Dad.’

‘Really? But won’t it just mess up your house something dreadful?’ replied Chris, grinning.

‘It’s just an ad, silly!’ Rhiannon told him. ‘You know - for
endangered animals
. My Aunt Ada used to adopt quite a lot of wild creatures. Then she met Bamber!’ she announced, emitting a noise that resembled a snarl. ‘We all told her it wasn’t going to last, and do you know that once they had finished their relationship, and he had removed from the house everything he had bought while they were together, he told her he wanted her implants back. Can you imagine it? God! You could never be
that
crass, could you, Chris?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ her mischievous lover replied. ‘If I tried, I reckon I could. ‘
Crass Chris
.’ I actually quite like that moniker as it goes. Sounds cool. Anyway, if you remember, Rhiannon, it was only a day or so after we first started going out that I made you take your tits out, right?’ he told her, grinning. ‘So how is that any different?’

Rhiannon jumped up and reached out a fist to strike him, but he swiftly spun away from her. She sat down again. ‘But boobs is just - well, they’re just boobs, aren’t they?’ she told him. ‘But
implants
, for God’s sake! Well, I mean they’re -’

‘Bags of alien fluid unnaturally forced under a woman’s breast muscles and skin,’ shot back Chris. ‘Poisonous, even. That Bamber fella did your aunt a favour, if you ask me,’ he went on, bending at the waist and forcing the axe back inside his shoulder-bag, and then walking over to where Rhiannon sat waiting for him, her pretty, tanned knees now set slightly apart.

‘Well, no, he didn’t do her any favour, as it happens,’ she told him. ‘because my Aunt simply refused to return them. And can you blame her? After all, they were
hers,
not
his
. Bamber - her rich, but crazy, boyfriend - had just paid for them, that’s all.’

‘God - they’re only breast-implants we’re talking about, babe,’ said Chris. ‘Anyway, do you want to know what I’d feel like if I ever did what he did to a woman?’

‘What?’ asked Rhiannon.

‘A bit of a tit, as it goes.’

‘Ha, ha - very funny,’ said Rhiannon. ‘That’s so hilarious, that is.’ She leaned her head to the side and stared at him. Hey - are you’re making fun of me again, Chris? You are, aren’t you?

‘No, not at all. Why would I do that, babe?’ he asked, suddenly leaning down and grasping her head, and then kissing her full on the lips. Pulling back again he said, ‘Do you remember the time you didn’t believe me when I told you how the robin was the most reliant of birds?’ He tilted his head to the side and smiled at Rhiannon’s quite helpless level of discernment. Even this comment was plainly way over her head, he thought, and yet, just then, he found he couldn’t help himself. Yes, Chris realised that he still loved Rhiannon’s wonderful, unpredictable, girly innocence more than anything else he had so far discovered about her. He crouched close to her seated form and pressed his knee up against hers, then, quite without warning, his muddy right hand began to drift down inside her brassiere, almost as if it had a mind of its own.

Permitting his plunging, kneading, most tender of embraces, Rhiannon looked up into her boyfriend’s eyes, and stymied his second kiss momentarily, by asking him, ‘Chris, why did you chop down two trees that don’t even belong to you?’

‘Two! Only one, sweetheart,’ he replied, mysteriously. Then added, ‘The other tree I’ve been hacking at today we’re about to pull down between us.’