The Lost Days of Summer (36 page)

However, she said nothing, but followed Owain as he opened the door. ‘I wonder where they got the stone from?’ she asked idly as they entered the building. ‘Was it the shore, do you suppose? How would they get the stones up the cliffs?’

‘They couldn’t have,’ Owain said. ‘They would have ploughed them up and put them aside for the building of the very first tiny, one-roomed dwelling. The great advantage of a longhouse is that as family circumstances improve, and children are born, the occupants simply add extra rooms as necessary. Fortunately, the ground here is very stony. In fact, when the Romans built a road on the island, they used local stones to pave it for their legions to march on. Some time after the Romans left, the family then occupying the Swtan – they were Joneses, of course – tore up the bigger, flatter stones and used them to pave their own small yard and the approach to the cottage door.’

By now Owain and Kath were standing in the first room of the Swtan. Above their heads, thick cobwebs swung from the rafters, and Kath chuckled when she saw a tiny bird’s head pop through a thin part of the thatch. Owain, oblivious, was still talking. ‘This is the dairy, where the woman of the house made butter and cheese. Because the window is very tiny in here it stays cool, so the milk doesn’t turn.’ Owain glanced swiftly around the room, which was empty save for a large old-fashioned churn, a long wooden table and a couple of benches, though there were a number of stout wooden shelves screwed to the wall. ‘The children would have hated this room because they were always the ones who had to churn the milk into butter, a long and tedious business. When I was a boy at Ty Hen I had to take my turn at butter and cheese-making, when I would far rather have been riding my pony, or bird’s-nesting, or lying up in the hayloft with a book and a bag of apples.’

Kath laughed with him, then followed him through a narrow doorway into what he told her was the Swtan’s main living quarters. This room was larger than the dairy, and it was where the family cooked, ate and slept. Here, the father would mend his fishing nets, sole the family’s shoes, read a book or smoke his pipe whilst his wife cooked, patched and darned, spun fleece into yarn and wove the yarn into cloth. There was a blackleaded range, where the fire would have been alight every day, no matter how warm the weather, since it was the only means of cooking. Even the farm manager had eaten here at least once a day, though he would have been up at Ty Hen for the midday meal. In this room the windows, two of them, were very much larger and there was what Owain called a wall-bed, a contraption which folded up into an alcove during the day and was occupied by old grandparents who could not manage the steep ladder up to the croglofft. The croglofft was where a child would sleep until he was twelve or thirteen, when he would be moved down to a small room built on to the main one. Kath peeped through the doorway of that room and saw that it was almost entirely filled by a huge brass bedstead. She turned to Owain. ‘It must have been a real treat to have that lovely big bed all to yourself once you were old enough to be moved downstairs,’ she commented.

They smiled at one another. ‘I expect it was,’ Owain agreed. ‘You really like it – the Swtan, I mean – don’t you? I was afraid you would despise it, not understand why the family love it so, but you don’t, do you?’

‘No indeed. I think it’s delightful, and I wouldn’t mind living here myself,’ Kath owned cheerfully. ‘And all things being equal, I suppose I might easily do just that when you and I are old and can’t manage Ty Hen any more.’ She looked at Owain from beneath her thick, curling lashes. ‘Of course, by then we might have a grosh of kids, all eager to see us retire to the Swtan so that they can try out modern ideas, just like their old dad did when he first came into the property.’

Owain put his arms round her, his face alight with surprise and love. ‘Oh, Kath, those are the nicest words I’ve ever heard,’ he said fervently. ‘We’re going to make a go of it, I know we are.’

For the first time, and completely of her own volition, Kath reached up and kissed him, and did not pull away when he gave a little moan and deepened the kiss. Then he put her away from him and she saw that his tanned cheeks were flushed and his eyes shining. ‘I love you, Kath Jones,’ he said huskily. ‘But we mustn’t forget that we came here for a reason. Do you think my grandparents will be happy here?’

Kath laughed. She felt so happy she thought she could have jumped over the moon, but instead she nodded vigorously. ‘Of course they’ll be happy here, because they’ll be away from me. But we must make it beautiful for them; give them no excuse to tell folk we’ve treated them badly.’ A sudden thought struck her and she grabbed Owain’s hand in both of hers, raised it to her mouth and kissed his knuckles, kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss. ‘Tell you what, Owie, suppose I do the place up myself? You can help with things like mending the thatch, buying stock and provisioning the smallholding, but I’d like to clean it all really thoroughly and then furnish it, right down to bedlinen and blankets, carpets and curtains, pots and pans, china and cutlery. Perhaps if I did that, Nain and Taid might realise that I want to help them, and to love them, for your sake.’

Owain thought this an excellent scheme, though he pointed out that there was plenty of bedlinen and kitchen equipment at Ty Hen which could easily be spared. This made Kath laugh. ‘A Welsh tight-wad you are,’ she said in Welsh and then, reverting to English: ‘They say a Welshman is a Scot shorn of his generosity.’ She laughed at Owain’s crestfallen expression. ‘Only teasing I am; God knows you’ve given me everything – and more – that I’ve ever dreamed of having. But your grandparents, when moving to a different home, should have everything crisp and bright and new. And if they know that I’ve worked for weeks to make it nice for them, perhaps they won’t hate me quite so heartily.’

‘You’re right as always,’ Owain said at once. ‘And now let me introduce you to the shore. I’m certain you’ll love it as I do.’

He took her hand and led her along the cliff path, putting his arm round her and giving her a squeeze when she grew nervous of the drop from cliff top to sands. ‘You’re safe with me; I know every inch of Church Bay and the cliffs like the back of my hand,’ he told her. ‘Here’s the little path that will take us down safely. Isn’t it a wonderful day, and aren’t I glad you agreed to have our picnic on the beach instead of in the Swtan?’

For the rest of that golden afternoon, Owain and Kath forgot they were adults with adult worries and fears and became children once more. Kath looped up her long, heavy skirt, took off her shoes and rolled down her stockings, and Owain shed his own shoes and socks and rolled up the legs of his trousers. Then, as the tide slowly went out, they explored the rock pools, paddled in the little creaming waves and collected shells and long streamers of dark green and brown seaweed. Tired out at last, they sat down on a flat rock to eat the picnic which Kath had prepared and Owain had carried in a knapsack on his back. They had brought a bottle of raspberry syrup and two Bakelite mugs, but since they were both very thirsty and the syrup had to be diluted with water, they were forced to cut their stay short and leave the beach when the sun was still beginning its long descent into the sea.

They had moved the pony from the mounting block to one of the outbuildings once their first examination of the Swtan was done, and now Owain went and fed her with the remains of their picnic, lacking the bundle of hay which would have been available had the Swtan been occupied. Kath, meanwhile, climbed the hill to the well, wound the empty bucket down and brought it back up half full of water. It was hot still, so she made up the two mugs of raspberry drink and then settled back in the shade of the well’s thatched roof to wait for Owain to join her.

From here she could see the green-painted door, and when it opened she expected to see Owain. Instead, an elderly, white-haired man wearing a sacking apron over shabby trousers appeared. Kath gasped and leaned forward, blinking against the sunlight, then sank back into her former position with a puzzled frown. It must have been her imagination, for it was Owain himself who was coming out from the shadowed doorway into the sunlight, turning to close the door and giving her a wave as he set off to join her.

On the journey home in the pony trap, Owain kept up a constant stream of suggestions as to their renovation of the Swtan, but though Kath tried very hard to answer him, and indeed to make suggestions of her own, she could not have succeeded too well because, as he swung the pony trap into the yard at Ty Hen and got down to go to Jemima’s head, he turned to his wife with a quizzical smile. ‘What’s up, sweetheart? Several times I asked you something and you answered at random. I thought you liked the Swtan and enjoyed our day out – well, I’m sure you did – so what made you go quiet all of a sudden?’

Kath sighed. ‘I didn’t want to tell you, because I was afraid you might think I was making it up. And it was awfully hot, so I suppose I might have dreamt it. But just before you came out of the cottage I saw the door swing open and – and a white-haired old man appeared. I blinked because the light was so dazzling, and when I looked again he had gone and it was you emerging from the doorway. But you were all alone down there, weren’t you?’

Owain looked uncomfortable, but gave her what he clearly believed to be a reassuring smile. ‘Yes, I was alone in there all right,’ he said. ‘Did you imagine I’d got meself a girlfriend tucked away?’ They both laughed before Owain went on: ‘But heat can create illusions. I remember once seeing a sort of ghost ship up in the sky, only it wasn’t a ghost, it was one of the Irish ferries, and some combination of effects had thrown its reflection up into the clouds. And I’ve seen a great puddle ahead of me on a tarmacked road, gleaming in the sun, but when I reached it it had gone and the road was dry as a desert.’

Kath nodded. ‘I’ve heard of men almost dying of thirst who see a mirage – a sort of picture of an oasis – when there isn’t any water for a hundred miles,’ she admitted. ‘Only this wasn’t a phen . . . phenomenon, but an elderly man. I’m sure it was just a dream, or my imagination.’

‘Well, if so, you aren’t alone; others have seen such things at the Swtan,’ Owain admitted. ‘That building was there before the Romans came, you know. I don’t believe in ghosts, but maybe folk leave a – a sort of picture of themselves, like a photographic plate, what they call a negative, in the air of a place they have loved.’ He looked anxiously up into Kath’s face as he helped her out of the trap. ‘Would you rather someone else prepared the place for my nain and taid?’

‘No indeed; not now I understand,’ Kath said stoutly. ‘As for ghosts, I don’t believe in them – and if there’s one listening, I’m just joking!’

Within a week of her first visit to the Swtan, Kath had laid her plans sufficiently well to start work. Without saying a word to anyone, she got up at the crack of dawn, even before the cows were brought in for milking, and went straight to Jemima’s stall, where Owain had left all the cleaning materials she thought she would require. For her part, she had packed sandwiches and a bottle of cold tea, as well as a baking of scones and bara brith. She led the pony out of the yard, treading softly and keeping to the big flagstones which made less noise when crossed than the cobbles. As soon as she reached the lane she climbed into the trap, and very soon she was at the Swtan and beginning her work.

When she got home that first night, tired but content with what she had achieved, she asked Owain whether she had been missed, which made him grin. ‘Nain looked round at dinnertime, but made no comment, but when the meal was over Taid asked me quietly if you were quite well. I told him you’d gone to help out a friend and he gave me a long look. I don’t know what he saw, but it seemed to satisfy him, and of course you’re back in good time for supper.’

The conversation took place in the stable where Kath, having unharnessed Jemima and let her into her stall, was brushing her down with a wisp of hay. ‘How did you get on?’ Owain asked, beginning to work on the pony’s fetlocks.

‘I think I did all right; the main room, the dairy and what I would call the spare room are now as clean as a new pin. Tomorrow I’m going to put a coat of whitewash on the walls. It will make the place seem very much lighter and will be easier to keep clean than rough stone. After that I’ll tackle the croglofft. What about you? Without my help, you must have had to work even harder than usual.’

She was teasing, and smiled when he gave her a playful cuff and shook his head. ‘You cheeky young varmint! I managed the farm without you once and can do so again, but in a few days I’ll be coming to the Swtan myself to do the things that you can’t do, such as mending the thatch, cleaning the chimney, rehanging the front door and making good the outbuildings. When we were there I noticed that the hay racks in the cowshed needed attention and the calf house window could do with reglazing. It’s in the direct path of the wind off the sea, which wouldn’t do the calves any good when they arrive. Then I’d like to get the garden tidied and sown with winter cabbage and so on. And there’s a deal of work hedging and ditching, as well as ordering a boat . . .’

‘I thought you said you’d been running the Swtan land along with our own,’ Kath said. ‘And what’s this about a new boat? I remember you saying your taid would mend his fishing nets in the winter, so doesn’t he have one already?’

‘Well, he did,’ Owain said as they approached the back door. ‘My manager never bothered with it, never even thought to pull it high up the shore when the autumn gales began, so no doubt the old craft became driftwood long ago. But there’s a fellow who builds boats in Bangor; I’ll get him to knock up a tidy little craft which Taid will be able to manage, using the mast and sail in a breeze and the oars when the weather is calm.’

At this point they entered the farm kitchen to find old Mr Thomas seated at the table whilst his wife, tight-lipped, glared across the room at the newcomers. ‘What sort of time do you call this?’ she asked, her very tone a challenge. ‘I told you supper was at six o’clock—’

Owain cut in immediately. ‘And it’s just on six now,’ he said, giving his grandmother his most loving smile. ‘Oh, Nain, how foolish you are! You never used to be so fond of finding fault. Kath and I will have to give you lessons in treating others the way you would like to be treated yourself.’