Last Train to Gloryhole (25 page)

Dafydd’s chubby little body began shaking and he started to cry. Two of the girls in the class quickly ran over to comfort him.

‘Like we said, Mr. Drew - this shit is way above yout head,’ announced Jake, checking that his bag of drugs was well tucked in under his shirt for their impending exit. ‘Any road, we’re off back to work now.’

‘Say - shall we give your love to Anne?’ Steffan asked in a sinister tone, opening the door for him and Steffan to leave. ‘Shall we, Daddy Drew? You know, most of the old blokes locked-up there already have, by the way. Only they’re all too doped-up to even realise what they’ve been doing with her.’

The two youths laughed out loud, then left, slamming the classroom-door behuind them.

Dafydd suddenly hurried forward and embraced his quivering teacher round the chest. ‘You’re my favourite teacher, Mr. Cillick, Sir,’ he told him through a flood of tears. ‘And you know I’m really going to miss you when I go off to Special School, I really am.’

Without thinking about it, a number of girls followed Dafydd’s lead and rushed over to their teacher to do the same.

The family’s cat had completely disappeared and couldn’t be found anywhere. Anne ran out into the back-garden and called out to her, ‘Emily! Emily!’ but no avail. ‘God, I hope she hasn’t fallen off the bridge!’ she shrieked, running over to the fence, and staring eastwards into the mist that now shrouded the viaduct, as her husband and her limping son - both in shirt-sleeves - joined her on the patio.

‘Don’t worry, darling. Cats always fall on their feet,’ Drew announced, illustrating the point with his two hands gliding down slowly like a parachute, then lowering his fingers and settling them on the wooden table-top.

‘It’s a hundred feet high, you clod,’ Anne responded fiercely. ‘She’s bound to be dead unless she fell straight into the river. And even then. What’s more the poor dear can’t even swim.’

‘I know it’s sad, Mam, but cats have nine lives, remember,’ Chris told her, walking round to embrace her. ‘Even Persians. And if she did fall, and got crushed into a bloody pulp on the rocks down there, then she’ll probably be back here again next week for her meals, though obviously with a brand-new make-over.’

‘Though maybe not as a pussy,’ Drew added quietly, as an after-thought.

‘What are you talking about, you stupid boy!’ Anne screamed at her son. ‘How do you know this wasn’t her
ninth life
? I mean her very last one. I’ll never forgive myself if we ended her entire series through pure negligence, and she got finished off while living here with us in Wales.’

Her husband listened attentively, but couldn’t quite fathom his wife’s logic. ‘If you want my opinion,’ Drew told them reassuringly, but with a playful smirk on his face, ‘I bet she’s probably down there in the woods right now, doing what all felines like her enjoy doing sooner or later,’

‘Behave, will you!’ Anne shot back at him. ‘Trust you to be thinking about
sex
at a time like this.’

‘I’m only saying that if I was a cat -’ Drew began explaining.

Anne was starting to get angry now. ‘You know, Drew, don’t think I didn’t know where you were going with this, the moment you called our dear cat a pussy.’

‘But that’s precisely what she is, isn’t she?’ said Drew, brows aloft.

‘She! Just listen to yourself,’ shot back Anne. ‘Our cat’s name is Emily. And Emily is one of the family - right?
She
, indeed! She’s not the cat’s mother, you know.’

‘Well, not yet, anyway, but if she’s loping about where I said she is -’ replied Drew, who, rightly seeing how livid his words were making his wife, instantly ducked his head to avoid getting struck by Anne’s swinging right hand. It turned out to be the right move, but only just.

It was past seven o’clock already, and Chris had been hobbling up and down the only road in
Gloryhole
, knocking on doors and asking folk if they had seen his family’s missing cat. As he arrived back where he had started, he realised there was only one house left to enquire at, and that was where Carla Steel was presently staying with her father. With more than a little trepidation, he walked up their path and rang the door-bell. There was no reply. He tried again. It didn’t seem to be working, he told himself, so, instead, he rapped loudly at the front-door.

Eventually Carla slowly opened the door, and then stood back and stared at him. ‘Why. it’s you, Chris!’ she exclaimed. ‘Are you selling door-to-door these days, now, then?’

‘Funny. We’ve lost the cat,’ he told her.

‘Well,
we
haven’t got it,’ Carla shot back.

Tom’s head suddenly appeared round the door, and he stared at the boy until he thought he recognised who he might be. ‘You’re the chap from next-door, aren’t you lad?’ he said. ‘Chris, is it? Do come inside. We’re so slow around here that we’re still having breakfast, I’m afraid. Brunch - my daughter calls it. Same thing. Would you care to join us?’

‘Do you like muffins?’ Carla asked him, sensing his dilemma, her eyebrows raised in anticipation of a positive response.

‘Mm, yeah,’ replied Chris, crossing the threshold, and following Carla’s lead into the lounge, and thence into the kitchen. ‘You know, your house is arranged very like ours,’ he told them.

‘Except yours is a lot cleaner, I bet,’ Carla suggested, pointing out an empty chair for him to sit on at the table.

‘Well, that’s my mother for you,’ Chris replied, taking his seat rather cautiously. ‘She seems to clean up after people all day at work, and then feels compelled to continue in the same vein when she gets home. She works at
The Willows
, by the way.’

‘Oh, I know it well,’ answered Tom, who filled the kettle for them all to have some tea. ‘It’s in Dowlais, isn’t it? Near where the steel-works is, or used to be, at any rate. I had an aunt who lived in Dowlais. Do you know I can go back half a century and more, to when I used to stay with her there, and I can still remember how the night-skies used to get lit up a bright orange colour from the flares of the blast-furnaces that used to get fired up there both day and night during its hey-day. Yes, a beautiful orange, the sky used to be.’

‘My dad’s favourite colour,’ chipped in Carla, with a smile.

‘What was that, love?’ enquired her father. ‘Why, I can still remember how just getting to sleep at night could be a right battle back then, I can tell you.’

‘Yeah, I learned about that big foundry in History,’ Chris replied. ‘And my mother told me about it too, although she actually grew up a few miles further down the valley.’

‘In Aberfan, yes?’ Tom added, warming the tea-pot under the hot-tap.

‘Yes, that’s right,’ Chris replied. ‘And I’m sure you know far more than I do about the terrible disaster that happened at the primary school down there, right? In 1966, I believe it was. It seems that the whole world was shaken up about it. Mr. Philips-History told us how people as far away as America and Japan and Australia sent loads of money to the fund set up for the benefit of all the bereaved and the survivors of the tragedy that happened in the village.’

‘Of which I guess your mother was one?’ cut in Carla.

Chris’s head dropped slightly. ‘She was, as a matter of fact, although she doesn’t like to talk about it very much. But you can understand that, can’t you? You see she lost most of her closest friends on that awful day.’

‘Wow! That must have been crippling for her,’ Carla responded with genuine empathy. ‘Was she - was she one of those that got rescued, then?’

‘No,’ Chris told her firmly. ‘No, the weird thing is - she didn’t choose to go to school at all on that particular day - that Friday.’

‘Do you mean - surely you’re not saying she had a - a premonition, or something?’ said Carla.

‘I don’t think so,’ Chris told her. ‘I remember her telling us that she had to go the clinic on that morning, about her teeth. And that when she got there - and I know you’re not going to believe this, as my father certainly didn’t - they told her she didn’t need to have any dental work done after all. Her teeth were perfect, they said. But she thinks the man may have given her a little filling, anyway, she told us! Now doesn’t that sound ridiculous? These days she even jokes about it probably being the only filling in her mouth that has never fallen out!’

‘I once wrote a song about all that, you know. The tragedy, I mean,’ Carla told him. ‘But my Dad explained to me how the - the wound of Aberfan was still a very sore one - still raw and open, you know, even after all this time - and so I….shelved it. The music was never actually written down or demo-ed, although I sometimes feel I still have it up in my head somewhere.’

Tom sat himself down in the chair opposite Chris, closed his weary eyes for a few moments, then suddenly opened them once again, and gazed straight into the eyes of the handsome boy sitting across from him. ‘She’s in a dark tunnel, you know,’ the old man told him strangely.

‘My mother!’ stammered Chris.

‘No, Emily,’ Tom replied, closing his eyes tight once again.

‘Who’s Emily?’ Carla asked him.

‘Our cat,’ replied Chris ‘Did I tell you her name, then, Mr. Davies? Well I guess I must have.’

‘Yes, you must have,’ Carla told him. ‘When you first walked in, I think. Right Dad?’

Chris watched the old man’s heavily lined face intently, wondering what he was now thinking, and what would be the next words to come out of his mouth. ‘Which tunnel would that be that Emily’s in, Mr. Davies?’ he asked. Tom said nothing and kept his eyes tight shut. ‘The one down the line, that runs under Pant, do you mean?’

‘Well, I can’t say for sure,’ Tom replied slowly. ‘But it is very dark there, and exceedingly wet.’

‘You
know
that?’ shot back Chris, his eyes wide open with shock. ‘But if you’re saying Emily is in a tunnel somewhere, how is it that you can know that? Do you mean you’ve actually seen her there?’

Tom gazed deep into the boy’s eyes and nodded.

In the silence that ensued Chris felt that he was beginning to understand what was happening, and that the strange old man might actually possess a gift that it was best right now not to question - best to just accept, especially if it meant recovering his mother’s precious cat for her. ‘Is she - is she still alive?’ Chris enquired, and waited until Tom opened his eyes again and responded.

‘Emily couldn’t swim, could she?’ Tom told him sadly.

‘I don’t think so,’ responded Chris anxiously. ‘But I could check to be sure, if you like.’ He made to get up.

Carla grasped him by the wrist and spoke. ‘I think my Dad means - he is telling you she
couldn’t
, Chris.’

‘Oh, I see,’ said Chris, sitting back down again. ‘And is our Emily dead, then, Mr. Davies?’ asked the boy, biting into his top lip, in dread of the man’s impending response.

‘Well, soon she is going to begin floating out of there - that I know,’ the old man replied, his wrinkled eyes closed-up tight again. ‘Just as soon - just as soon as the water-level rises sufficiently. But - yes - she is gone there now.’

‘Gone there! Gone where?’ asked Chris, confused, and now beginning to tremble like a leaf.

‘On the last train,’ Tom told him, now with his weary, glazed eyes wide open once more, and smiling jubilantly, almost joyously, right past him. ‘That long, last train we all catch in the end.’

Rhiannon was walking along the road to school with two of her closest girl-friends, eating together from a packet of crisps, when up ran a short boy with dyed, blond hair, who tried to grab her round the waist. With her hands held high before her, she managed to push him away.

‘Ger-off Brian!’ Rhiannon shrieked. ‘Prat!’ She returned to addressing the two girls. ‘Where was I? Oh, yeah. We had a wonderful Libyan teacher once called, er - er - Miss Ratah, I think her name was. Taught us R.E.’

‘Yeah, of course you did,’ Brian cut in. ‘And we’ve got a Libyan boy in our class called Ben Ghazi. Rides a camel to school sometimes, he does.’ The other two girls began giggling despite themselves. ‘Always has Halal sandwiches in his lunch-box, and a tea-towel over his head that he usually pulls down when he’s finished to wipe his mouth with.’

Rhiannon wanted to laugh, but decided she daren’t. Brian had offended her and she wasn’t prepared to put up with it. ‘You’re racist, that’s what you are, Brian Flynn!’ she told him.

‘How am I?’ the boy responded, moving towards her and bringing his freckled face up very close to hers.

‘Without any feelings for anyone but yourself - that’s how,’ Rhiannon told him angrily. ‘And your little brother Danny is even worse I reckon.
And
he does drugs. You’re his older brother, you know, Brian. You should step in.’ Plainly disgusted, she turned away

‘What are you trying to say, Rhiannon?’ the boy shot back at her, trying to get her attention once again.

Rhiannon ignored him completely, and instead grasped her friend’s hand tightly. ‘Let’s walk on, shall we, Carmen?’ she told her. ‘Perhaps
then
the idiot will just go away. Say, what do you think, Sian?’

‘Yeah, she’s right, Brian,’ said Sian. ‘You’re the one who needs to wipe your mouth with something.’

‘Or
wash
it out - much better,’ added Carmen, illustrating with her free hand the action required.

‘And preferably with soap and water,’ said Sian aggressively.

‘Or maybe just the soap,’ chipped in Carmen, turming to Sian and laughing out loud.

‘Yeah, carbolic would be good,’ said Sian, making such a horrible face that they could practically taste it. ‘Eughh!’

‘Or worse - Camay,’ Brian called out, suddenly running along in front of the three of them, and trying to befriend them all again, in spite of their directed comments.

‘Oh, I like Camay, I do,’ cut in Rhiannon, stroking with her fingers her pale, but attractive face.

‘Do you, Rhi? Oh, I don’t,’ Carmen told her.

‘Nor me,’ added Sian. ‘Mind you, there’s not a lot it can do with the face I’ve got, is there?’

‘Well, that’s true,’ shot in Brian, preparing to duck any swing she might elect to take at him.

Instead Rhiannon ran after him so as to thump him on Sian’s behalf, but, nefore she could strike him, Brian reached out and grabbed her arms tightly, and, with his superior power, managed to turn her slim body right round, and, while pinning her securely from behind, proceeded to first bite, and then kiss her voraciously on the back of the neck.