The Old Devils

       Alun could only think of saying, at the cost of some damage to his sense of justice, that he had had a most pleasant chat.

       'No kidding?' The youngster looked more closely at him and his large face broke into a smile. 'Hey, I know you. Seen you on television, haven't I? What IS it, the Welsh something, the Welsh side of things? Tell me now, that, what's he called, Bleddyn Edwards, is he a great mate of yours?'

       'No, I don't think I've even - '

       'Well, I'm no expert but it's perfectly obvious to me he's not up to the job - you are. All the difference in the world,' said the young sod with an authority his alleged ancestor would have had to acknowledge. 'No comparison.'

       'That's very nice of you.'

       'Get away, marvellous to have met you. Good luck, and thanks for putting up with old buggerlugs here.'

       'Well, that was all right,' said Alun as he and Rhiannon came out of the pub a little while later. 'Not like life at all.'

       She squeezed his arm against her. 'Good boy for not going for that old fart.'

       Whit with one thing and another he felt quite pleased with life for the rest of the evening. Pre-eminent among the things there featured prominently and foreseeably the provisional clearance, or seven out of ten, he had awarded the existing portion of _Coming Home__ - the sterling anti-trendy title for the complete work he had somehow captured over the last hours. The elevated mood lasted long enough to prompt him to make love to Rhiannon when in due course they got into the surprisingly cosy little bed.

       They stayed lying there for a few minutes with the light on uttering contented mild animal sounds as they had done at such times for thirty-four years. Something about the bedside lamp was setting up a bit of a hoarse sort of screaming noise, but it was quiet enough in general to hear the waves breaking on the beach, not all that far away because by now the tide had come in again nearly to the full.

       'Lovely day it's been,' said Alun. 'I'd forgotten how nice it was here. '

       'Jolly good about your work.'

       He shushed her and made disclaiming faces but with less conviction than earlier. 'They haven't managed to bugger the place up totally yet.'

       'You must be tremendously relieved, or a bit relieved rather. It must be all right to say that.'

       'What? Oh yes, I'll have another look at it in the morning.'

       'Do you good to stay in one place and put your feet up for a couple of days. '

       'Yeah, well... '

       'I thought you were looking a tiny bit peaky, you know, just one per cent. There's nothing worrying you, is there?'

       'No.' He was not going to let on about bloody Gwen, not now, not with no exterior limit on the discussion. He would have to see if he could pick a spot like three minutes before the arrival of a television team. 'No, not a thing. Bar wondering how long they'll go on making Scotch the way that suits me.'

       '... Good,' she said without much sense of relaxation. After more silence, he said, 'What time are they due tomorrow?'

       'Twelvish. Evidently Charlie doesn't want to start drinking too early. '

       'Oh I see. Well I'd better get some shut-eye if I'm to do any good before they turn up.'

       The thought of television had set going something he had left unexamined in the meantime: the identity of Bleddyn Edwards, said by the young sod in the pub to be inferior to him, Alun, but still mentionable in the same breath. The name was not unfamiliar, the face and everything else stayed out of view. What a pissy poser to be stuck with at this time of night. He fell asleep before he had got anywhere with it.

2

Alun went out early the next morning and got newspapers. On his return he stood facing the bay in pale sunlight, took some deep breaths and thought to himself, if a waft of industrial pollution had ever been perceptible here there was no question of any now. When other thoughts, to do with time and age and all that, started to occur to him he rather consciously went indoors to breakfast, a scheduled fatty's flare-up presenting two boiled eggs turned out on to fried bread and fried potatoes as well as bacon and tomatoes. While he ate it he worked animatedly at the _Times__ crossword. 'You _fiend__,' he said, writing in a solution. 'Oh, you... you _swine__.'

       At the typewriter afterwards he got through another half-page of dialogue, very rough, almost token. It had turned out hard for him to concentrate: he felt fit, the sun was shining on the water and Sophie and Charlie were on their way. Several times he glanced up from his table, fancying lie heard or saw them. When they finally appeared he ran out on to the path with whoops of welcome, snatched their suitcases from them, chivvied them indoors. Some who knew him used to say that Alun never came nearer convincing you he meant it than when he was being glad to see you.

       Like other enthusiastic hosts he had definite ideas about how the party was to be organized. Coffee and drinks went round in the front room while the Norrises' offerings - a fresh sewin picked up in Hatchery Road that morning, a 57% Islay malt whisky - were brought out and admired. The women were not hindered from going off on their own, for - the moment only as far as the kitchen. Alun refilled Charlie's glass and said, 'I want you to do something special for me if you would.'  'I'll have you know I'm a respectable girl and never touch kinky stuff.'

       'No, it's... ' Alun had rehearsed this part but he still had to squeeze it out. 'The thing is, I've started a sort of novel, it's supposed to be a serious novel, a proper one, you know, with no ham or balls or flannel about it, look you to goodness boy _bach__, but it's hard for me to tell. So if you could just sort of glance through the first pages of the thing, not bothering about merit or the plenteous lack of it, but just seeing if... '

       'If I can give it a free-from-bullshit certificate.'

       'Exactly.'

       'Well... ' Charlie's glance was uneasy. His familiar battered look seemed intensified without actual bruising or laceration, as though he had been perseveringly beaten with padded cudgels. 'Unless I give you my honest - '

       'I'm not asking for a bloody bunch of roses - of course you must speak as you find. Please, Charlie. Go on, you old bugger, you're the only one.'

       'As long as you... All right. Where is it?'

       'Here, but don't look at it now. In a few minutes I'll herd the females into the village, where booths and bazaars of hideous aspect and degraded purpose display wares of varied and arresting squalor. But - they are useless, and they are for sale. What merit more demands the female heart? I'll go up to White's and see you in about half an hour or three-quarters. If you run out of water there's plenty in the tap.'

       Wearing among other things the new cashmere pullover Alun did much of what he had promised, but before making for White's he looked in at Brydan Books. He told himself that it could do no harm and that he had never much cared for sitting about in pubs on his tod. But as soon as he was fairly inside the shop he was recognized and plurally shaken hands with. Customers were introduced and all asked for his autograph, a copy of his old _Celtic Attitudes__ miraculously appeared and received his uninhibited inscription, and an elderly lady in a Brydan Books, Birdarthur, Wales apron who had no other obvious connection with the trade was brought from the back of the premises simply in order to have sight of him. He left bearing a newish book on the Rebecca riots that nobody would take his money for and telling himself now that the whole concern was a lot of bloody nonsense.

       The bar at White's Hotel was filling up, but he achieved the same seat as the previous evening. He looked round quite eagerly but in vain for the white-hatted sod, whom in his· present mood he would have thoroughly enjoyed seeing off, doing so with a minimum of exertion, furthermore, like a whatever-it-was Black Belt. Just as he was starting to wonder whether it had been such a good idea to shut Charlie away like that with a bottle of whisky, in he came. His face seemed to have smoothed out slightly in the past hour or less, no doubt through assisted abatement of hangover. Nothing was to be read from his expression.