Dead Man's Embers (7 page)

Non quickly runs down the sex column, nothing to argue about here, she thinks. Four males and two females. How unlike her own family, all those dead girls, come and gone before they ever appeared on a census return.

‘What next, Non?' Wil is beginning to fidget. ‘I'm meeting Eddie in a while, I can't be late.'

‘Marriage or orphanhood,' Non reads. ‘If you're over fifteen you have to be single, married, widowed or . . . divorced.'

‘Divorced!' Meg is animated. ‘Do we know anyone who's divorced? It's very . . . racy, you know. Fancy putting it on that form.'

Racy! Where has Meg come across a word like that?

‘Hold your tongue, Meg,' Davey says. ‘You get carried away about matters where you're too ignorant to have an opinion.'

Meg sulks, her expression exactly like her grandmother's. So, that is where she gets it from, this whole tedious sulking thing. Non does not recall anyone ever saying Meg's mother was a sulker. She shrugs slightly at the photograph of Grace hanging over the fireplace. Her angelic beauty belies the tales Non heard about her before she was married to Grace's widower.

‘I have to put you down as single now that you're over fifteen,' she says to Wil who blushes scarlet at the very thought.

And then, while Meg and Gwydion are laughing at Wil's red face, she slips in
Mother Dead
against Meg's name, and
Both Alive
against Osian's, according to the instructions at the head of the column. It is enough to confuse utterly any descendants.

‘Shall I put Harlech down as the birthplace for all the children?' she asks Davey.

He begins to nod then pauses for a heartbeat as his eyes flicker towards Osian. ‘Harlech,' he agrees. There is doubt that Osian was born here, then. Where did he come from? She wonders if there is a penalty for giving the wrong information on the form, it must say so somewhere. She leafs through the papers that have come with it. Here it is, signed by the Registrar-General – a fine of £10. And the moral enormity of giving false information that will carry on down the generations for as long as the paper does not turn to dust! She is not at all sure about this. And yet, here is Osian, and as far as the authorities are concerned he is their natural son. And it may not have been a complete lie, she thinks. Although, contrarily, she wishes it were.

She returns to the form. ‘Everyone at school has to have whole-time next to their names here,' she says, ‘so, that's you, Meg, and
you, Osian. What does it say about university education, Davey? What do I write next to Gwydion's name?'

Davey's concentration is intense. Is he, too, thinking of Osian's parentage?

‘Whole-time,' he says. ‘I don't think we have to count the work he does in his holidays.'

‘I rather like the idea of being put down for posterity as an archivist or researcher,' Gwydion says.

‘Is that what you're being at Wern Fawr?' Meg pulls her chair closer to his.

‘Well, no, just sorting out the man's books, Meg. But it sounds grand, doesn't it?' Gwydion puts his arm around Meg and gives her a casual hug until she pushes him away, her face as scarlet as Wil's. ‘Anyway, I may not be going back to university after the summer.'

Not studying for his doctorate as his parents expect? No wonder he's afraid of telling his mother about his plans.

Then Davey slaps his hand on his thigh and says, ‘Whole-time. We're doing this census for this exact time here on the nineteenth of June and never mind what you were doing a week ago or what you think you'll be doing after the summer. Whole-time. Write it down, Non.'

Non scratches the words on the form. A photograph is a picture of a few moments captured by the camera when they dare not move, but this census is capturing a picture in words where they have jumped about like . . . like fleas. Does that mean it will be blurred? She does not want to hand down a blurred photograph.

And what will be happening in another ten years' time when it is done again? Where will they all be? It is hard to remember where they all were ten years ago. Davey married to Grace with no idea that she would soon be dead. Wil started at school and Meg playing
with her dolls at Grace's knee. No thought of Osian on anyone's mind. Gwydion just about to start at the County School with his future stretching before him, a clever and graceful boy already. And she, a student teacher in lodgings, already at nineteen, it seemed, meant for a single life, looking after other people's children. No children for her or she would be dead. And it is true that the descendants she imagines will not be flesh of her flesh.

‘Next column, Non,' Davey says. ‘It's easy, look, carpenter for me, housewife for you, apprentice carpenter for Wil.'

Dip, scratch, dip, scratch. Non fills the form with her bold handwriting. Her father insisted on absolute clarity when she wrote first the Latin names, then the Welsh, on the labels for the herbs and concoctions and decoctions and ointments and pills that he made, for fear of anyone mistakenly taking or applying the wrong and dangerous remedy.

‘Then put Albert's name down in the next column as my employer and Wil's, then the workshop address in the last column.'

‘But Albert's never there, you say he lets you do what you like,' Meg says.

‘He still employs me, he pays my wages,' Davey says. ‘He still puts food in your mouth and clothes on your back.'

‘It's your hard work that does that,' Non says as she blots the ink.

‘Is that it? Is it finished now?' Wil stands up. ‘I've got to see Eddie, Tada. I promised.'

‘Two more columns,' Non says, ‘but you can go, Wil. One's to say which language we speak – Welsh or English or both – and the other's putting an X by all you children's ages here. I don't know why it has to be done again when it's already on the form. Ah, well. See you later, Wil. Try not to wake Osian and Gwydion if you're very late.'

Wil vanishes from the parlour and a moment later they see and hear him leaping down the front steps and running down the hill.

‘Oh – to be footloose and fancy free,' Gwydion says, making a face at Meg that makes her giggle.

Non gives the form to Davey for his signature. The tremor has vanished from his hand and he signs it neatly.

He would have made such a performance of it, the old Davey. He would have had them all laughing at him. The last thing Non wants is still to be like this in ten years' time. She has to find what is troubling him. It is something more than that wretched nurse, that Angela, she is sure of it. How would she go about finding someone who served with him in the War? Would the War Office tell her who his comrades were? Maybe she can concoct a story, pretend he is ill and needs to see his old army friends. She does not know where to begin. And she has no idea where it would all end. But anything would be better than this. Wouldn't it?

She recalls what she had thought last night, anything would be better than this. Is it a memory from last night that has brought on Davey's attack this morning? She has not seen the start of one of his attacks; she cannot fathom what might bring one upon him. She remembers the way his hand trembled and swallows her tears. Tears are of no use to Davey or her.

She settles on her chair. By now, she has discovered the best vantage point for seeing Davey without being in his line of sight. She glances at the clock. Five past six, and the sun is already hastening over the back end of the garden. There is no coolness even at night, no dew to soften the edges of the heat. The clucking the hens make sounds cross already; they have become so bad-tempered that they will peck her hand at the least provocation. Only two or three of them are still laying; she will have fewer eggs than usual to give to Lizzie German today.

Herman waddles in through the door, skirts around Davey without looking at him, and flutters up onto the back of Non's chair. He pulls gently at her hair with his beak, cawing softly now and then. She puts up her hand to stroke his head; she has missed
him over the last few days and is glad of his company. He is almost the same age as Osian; she wonders if this is old for a crow. She remembers the tiny bundle of feathers Herman Grunwald had brought for her, jostled, he had said, out of the nest by his brothers and sisters as they fledged. The skills her father had taught her enabled her to mend the chick's broken wing. Sometimes she thinks she lavished more care and attention on the crow than she had on Osian. Herman was the one who spent time with Osian, huddling up to him in his cradle or in his perambulator – much to the horror of the town's women who peeked under the hood to catch a glimpse of the new and mysterious baby. Non had soon stopped wheeling the perambulator through the town and instead had taken the boy and the bird for walks along the roads and tracks that led up to the farms in the hills.

Davey is lying completely still under the table, except for a slight twitch in his shoulders and the tensing of his forefinger on the trigger of his imaginary rifle. Is this what it was like for him in the trenches? Did he have to lie as still as death in the mud, in the rain, in the snow, in the heat, in the stench? She has no idea what it was like.

No one had any idea what it would be like. Seven weeks after Davey brought Osian to her, four weeks after Herman Grunwald presented her with the crow, Britain had declared war on Germany. Some of the town's younger men, mere boys, had rushed to join up immediately, sensing a big adventure waiting for them. Everyone said it would be all over and done with by Christmas, the enemy routed, the proper order restored. We'll show them, the young men had promised, cheerfully and confidently, as they waved their goodbyes. Non wipes away a stray tear from her cheek. The War had gone on and on. Lloyd George had encouraged reluctant Welshmen who felt the quarrel was not theirs to realise it was
their duty to fight. And Davey had always been dutiful, she thinks, always dutiful. It won't be for long, Non, he had said as he held her close to him that last night before he left, I'll soon be home. She had tried her hardest to be brave with him, for him, but already the lists of the dead were daily growing longer in the
Liverpool Echo
that the early evening train delivered without fail.

Herman is becoming impatient with her. He pecks more vigorously at her scalp, so that she moves her head away from him sharply. He caws his disapproval, and flaps his wings. Davey gathers himself into a crouch, shoulders his rifle and peers out through the fringe of the tablecloth. His head bobs like a kestrel's as he searches for his prey, his eyes beady with concentration, his mouth contorting with unspoken words. Herman flutters from the chairback and lands on the floor in front of Davey who jerks backwards then strikes out with his arm and sends Herman bowling across the flagstones. Davey, Non thinks, who would not harm a soul. She jumps from her chair to go to Herman but he stands up and ruffles his feathers, his beak pointing upwards in umbrage, and trundles out through the back door. Non does not know whether to laugh or cry.

Behind her, Davey mutters. Then he screams, ‘Down, Ben, keep your head down', and dives to the floor. It is to do with Ben every time, Non thinks, that much I know, but I feel as if I am circling the meaning without finding my way any nearer to its core.

Davey's eyes are closed and he seems to have fallen asleep. She is never there at the start of his attacks but she is never there at the end either; she does not know what his reaction is to finding himself lying under the table. Does it not puzzle him? It is not something she can ask him while the chill of that look is so fresh in her heart. She walks out through the back door, following Herman's affronted footsteps, and along the path to the far end of the garden and her bad-tempered hens.

On Wednesday, when they arrive outside a small terraced house in one of Portmadoc's back streets at that awkward time just before dinner, Non's first thought is, Whatever am I doing here? The house has a large number thirty painted on the door but the street's nameplate is overgrown with ivy and impossible to read. It is a wonder they have arrived here at all. Catherine Davies took them in all directions to throw anyone who might be watching off the scent because she was so worried that someone would find out that she was in Port to consult a medium. In a séance. It is hard to believe that such a creature exists in Port, it is such a practical sort of place, full of shops and businesses and ships of all shapes and sizes coming and going in the harbour. Non wonders how Mrs Davies found out about the event, it is hardly the kind of service that is advertised in the
Cambrian News
. Go with her, Davey had said yesterday, she cannot go on her own, God knows what might happen to her. Go with her and keep an eye on her.

She knows that Catherine Davies's illness may be affecting what she thinks and says, so she had, dutifully – there is that word again – trotted down with her mother-in-law to catch the mid-morning
train to Port, only to find on the way that Catherine was pretending that the visit to the medium was for the sake of poor Elsie Thomas, and that she had persuaded Elsie that she would find out exactly what happened to her Benjamin if she went along. So, when they reached the station, there was Elsie, sweltering in her best dress made of winter-weight black wool, waiting for them.

Their first knock on the door of Number Thirty has produced no result.

‘Knock harder, Rhiannon,' Catherine Davies says. She prods Non with her parasol, black in respect to Billy. ‘I wrote a week ago – we are expected.'

Expected! So this has been arranged, letters through the post back and forth, time taken. This has been on the knitting needles for some time. Non knocks sharply on the door. She does not know anything good about mediums nor these meetings they hold with the dead, these séances. She knows they are all the rage among the well-to-do and the gullible and the heartbroken people left behind without hope by the victims of the War, people who find it difficult to believe their husbands and sons and brothers are dead when they have no bodies to bury and grieve over. She knows they take advantage of desperate people like Elsie.