‘It’ll be all right,’ the girl said when she was beside him. ‘I’ll just come home with you. You might need someone, all those bruises.’ She tapped his arm and began to precede him up the hill.
When they turned a bend and Nain’s cottage suddenly came into view, Eirlys stopped and stared at the building.
‘My grandmother lives there,’ Gwyn said.
‘Does she?’ Eirlys spoke the words not as a question, but as a response that was expected of her.
She passed the cottage slowly, trailing her fingers along the top of the stone wall, so that sprays of snow flew out on to her sleeve, but she never took her eyes off the light in Nain’s downstairs window.
Gwyn was tempted to take the girl in to see his grandmother, but it was getting dark and they still had to pass the furrows of snow that had drifted into the narrow track further on. He wondered how on earth Eirlys was going to get home. ‘What will Mrs . . . Whatsername say, when you’re not on the bus?’ he asked.
‘Mrs Herbert? She’s kind. She’ll understand,’ Eirlys replied.
They held hands when they reached the snowdrifts, Gwyn leading the girl to higher ground at the edge of the track, and once again he gasped at the icy touch of her fingers, and when Eirlys laughed the sound was familiar to him.
She was reluctant to come into the farmhouse, and when Gwyn insisted, she approached it cautiously with a puzzled frown on her face, and every now and then she would look away from the house and up to where the mountain should have been, but where, now, only a moving white mist could be seen.
‘Come on,’ said Gwyn. ‘Mam’ll give you a cup of tea.’
He opened the front door and called into the kitchen, ‘I’m back, Mam. Sorry I’m late; had a bit of trouble with the snow.’
‘I thought you would,’ came the reply.
His mother was stirring something on the stove when he went into the kitchen. She turned to speak to him but instead cried out, ‘Your face! What’s happened?’
‘I had a bit of a fight, it’s not anything, really!’ Gwyn said.
His father got up from the chair by the kitchen table, where he had been mending some electrical equipment; he was about to be angry, but then he saw Eirlys standing in the doorway. ‘Who’s this?’ he asked.
‘Eirlys!’ said Gwyn. ‘She helped me. She walked up from the bus with me, to see I was all right.’
‘That was kind of you, Eirlys,’ said Mrs Griffiths. ‘Take your coat off and have a bit of a warm. I’ll make a pot of tea.’
She began to help Gwyn with his anorak, exclaiming all the time at the state of his muddy clothes and the bruises on his face.
Eirlys came into the room and took off her hat and coat. She drew a chair up to the table and sat down opposite Mr Griffiths. He just stood there, staring at her, while his big hands groped for the tiny brass screws that had escaped him and now spun out across the table.
The girl caught one of the screws and stretched across to put it safe into his hand. Gwyn heard the sharp intake of breath as his father felt the girl’s icy fingers, and he laughed. ‘She’s cold-blooded, isn’t she, Dad?’ he said.
Mr Griffiths did not reply. He sat down and began his work again. Mrs Griffiths poured the tea and brought a fruit cake out of the larder. They discussed the snow and the school and the fight. Mrs Griffiths asked how and why the fight had begun and, although Gwyn could not give a satisfactory explanation, Mr Griffiths did not say a word, he did not even seem to be listening to them, but every now and then he would look up and stare at Eirlys.
When it was dark Mrs Griffiths expressed concern for the girl. ‘You’d better ring your mam, she’ll be worrying,’ she said.
‘She hasn’t got a mam,’ Gwyn answered for the girl. ‘She’s living with the Herberts.’
‘Oh, you poor love,’ Mrs Griffiths shook her head sympathetically.
‘They’re lovely,’ said Eirlys brightly, ‘so kind. They won’t mind. They’ll fetch me; they said they always would if I wanted, and it’s not far.’
‘No need for that.’ Mr Griffiths suddenly stood up. ‘I’ll take you in the Land Rover.’
Gwyn was amazed. His father never usually offered lifts. ‘You’re honoured,’ he whispered to Eirlys as Mr Griffiths strode out of the back door.
By the time Eirlys had gathered up her hat and coat and her school bag, the deep throbbing of the Land Rover’s engine could be heard out in the lane.
‘Good-bye,’ said Eirlys. She walked up to Mrs Griffiths and kissed her. Mrs Griffiths was startled; she looked as though she had seen a ghost.
She remained in the kitchen while Gwyn and the girl walked down to the gate. The door of the Land Rover was open and Mr Griffiths was standing beside it. ‘You’ll have to get in this side and climb over,’ he told Eirlys, ‘the snow’s deep the other side.’
Gwyn had never known his father to be so considerate to a child.
Eirlys stepped out into the lane but before she could climb into the Land Rover, Mr Griffiths’ arms were round her, helping her up. For a second the two shadowy figures became one and, for some reason, Gwyn felt that he did not belong to the scene. He looked away to where the frozen hedgerows glittered in the glare of the headlights.
Inside the house the telephone began to ring. Then the Land Rover’s wheels spun into movement and Gwyn had to back away from the sprays of wet snow. It was too late to shout good-bye.
He turned to go back into the house and saw his mother standing in the porch. ‘Mrs Davis, T
‘We’ve left Dewi with his auntie,’ said Mrs Davis.
Dewi had many aunties. Gwyn wondered which one had the pleasure of his company, and if Dewi was to be envied or pitied.
The Davises had come to ‘thrash out the problem of the nose’, as Mr Davis put it.
It was six o’clock. The tea had only just been cleared away and Gwyn’s stomach was already grumbling. They were sitting round the kitchen table: Mr and Mrs Davis, Gwyn and his parents – as though they were about to embark on an evening of cards or some other light-hearted entertainment, not something as serious as Dewi’s nose.
‘The problem, as I see it,’ began Mrs Davis, ‘is, who’s lying?’
‘Gary Pritchard, Merfyn Jones and Brian Roberts, all say that they think they saw Gwyn throw a stone,’ said Mr Davis solemnly. ‘Now, this is a very serious business.’
‘Very dangerous too,’ added Mrs Davis.
‘That goes without saying, Gladys,’ Mr Davis coughed. ‘Now, the situation is,’ he paused dramatically, ‘what’s to be done about it?’
‘How . . . er, how bad is the nose?’ Mrs Griffiths asked.
‘Very bad,’ replied Mrs Davis indignantly. ‘How bad d’you think your nose would be if it had been hit by a rock?’
‘Now wait a minute!’ Mr Griffiths entered the conversation with a roar. ‘First it’s a stone, now it’s a rock, and we haven’t yet established whether anything was thrown. Perhaps Dewi bumped his nose, we haven’t