The Sound of Her Name

One
But when Tim arrived at the town of Clarrach, in the far west of Wales, it was not in the least how he'd pictured it, not the quintessential English village with half-timbered, deep-thatched cottages and riotous flower gardens, with a green pasture and a pond at its heart. Clarrach was an undistinguished gray town hanging on a cliff above a pallid and empty expanse of ocean. It just went to show how flawed memories could be. Even those of his father.
The town appeared to be totally carved out of stone, with narrow stony streets that wandered chaotically up and down steep hills, stone houses that abutted directly onto the sidewalks with no front yards or lawns to soften them and no trees for shade. Not that shade was necessary that day. A damp gray mist hung low over the dark slate roofs, muffling sounds, obscuring the light of morning.
Not in the least how he'd pictured it.
Nothing was turning out the way Tim had pictured it. Instead of an ancient grandeur, the British Isles seemed undersized andminiature to him, everything too small and contained. Pinched. Claustrophobic. Even in London, where he'd hoped for great things, buildings crowded into less than noble streets that meandered around in a circuitous fashion, following no grid or discernible pattern, so he rarely knew if he was heading north or south, east or west. The randomness of direction confused and disconcerted Tim and made him more aware that he hadn't much idea where he was going or what he was heading for. Or why. He'd come to Clarrach on a whim, because he'd heard his father speak a woman's name. At least he could catch the ferry to Ireland from here. Except he didn't have much idea what he was going to do in Ireland, either.
He'd hitched a ride on a truck from Cardiff, early in the morning. Lorry, he told himself, remember to call it a lorry. The journey was slow, the truck laboring up the hills, unable to pass the other traffic, but beggars couldn't be choosers and the truck driver was cheerful enough and told jokes until Tim had fallen asleep. Now he'd been dropped in the middle of the town of Clarrach, and it might have been better if he wasn't standing right by another of those unsettling war memorials that haunted every town center of every town and village in Britain. This one was a group of stone soldiers, stony heads bent in sorrow, stone rifles turned downwards. After only one week, Tim had already seen too many memorials. Most of them dated from World War I, an unimaginably distant war to Tim, but his stomach still twisted in a knot whenever he came upon one of them, each an echo of tragedy and human stupidity, a grim reminder of unbearable loss in every small community. Somehow he'd imagined he'd come to Europe to escape such reminders.
As he lingered uneasily beside the stone soldiers, the damp sea mist clung to Tim's face and hair, seeped around his neck, and dampened his spirits. What he needed was a cup of coffee, hot and strong and black. He was pretty sure he wouldn't find any decentcoffee, but at least he might find somewhere to get inside off the street. Tim was discovering he didn't enjoy hanging around streets by himself. Travel, they said--his father had said--broadens the mind, but he wasn't too convinced about that anymore. So far, travel had made his mind shrink down and concentrate on minutiae, whether the coffee would be strong, whether the bed in the hostel would be lumpy, whether he'd find anything resembling real orange juice for breakfast. He might not be cut out for traveling.
Around the square, several small stores were opening their doors, a newspaper and candy store, a dress shop with old-fashioned, blank-faced mannequins, a shoe store, a greengrocer's, a butcher's. Tim sniffed at the morning air for a hint of coffee and caught instead a pervasive odor of fried fish and chips and stale beer, and from the dark stone church opposite, a cloying, funereal scent of lilies. This highly developed sense of smell was proving yet another handicap on his foreign travels, his sensitive nose detecting, all too readily, unwashed bodies, unsanitary restrooms, centuries of dust and soot in the old buildings, the unsettling redolence of bloody unwrapped meat in the butchers' shops. Never before had Tim realized how deodorized daily life was in the United States, so wrapped in plastic, so safe. And if it was like this in Britain, a country supposed to be the most akin to America, how would it be when he got to France? He'd heard about France, garlic and Gauloise cigarettes on everyone's breath, toilets mere reeking holes in the ground, just thank heaven not to be female in those conditions.
He couldn't smell any coffee, good or bad, but set off in search of it anyway, because he had to head somewhere. He was fairly confident he'd come across one of those places that catered to people much smaller than he, lintels too low at the door, tables too tiny to accommodate his knees. The whole country made him feel like an awkward giant. He wandered down a side street and came upon a door bearing the sign, "MORNING COFFEE," andpushed at the door. A bell tinkled above his head, reminding him, just in time, to duck, and a mouthwatering aroma of newly baked bread wafted over him, mixed with the unmistakable, unbelievable smell of fresh percolating coffee. He could hardly believe his luck.
Easing the backpack off his shoulders, Tim dropped it with a thud on the ground. The café was tiny and crammed with dark wooden tables and chairs, all empty of customers, but a girl with dark curly hair and rosy cheeks, pretty in an unformed teenage way, was mopping the counter, almost hidden behind glass cake stands and heaping white china cups and saucers. Her mouth dropped open at the sight of his backpack, as though she'd never seen anything like it before. "Goodness!" she exclaimed. "What on earth do you have in that enormous thing?"
She spoke with a funny lilting accent, up and down a scale in a singsong fashion that made Tim smile. She smiled back at him, shyly, her teeth crooked. It felt as though weeks had passed since anyone near his own age had spoken to him.
"Sleeping bag, bedroll," he explained. "A change of socks."
"Goodness!" she said again. "And how far are you going to carry it?"
"To Ireland. I'm taking the boat to Ireland. Then after that I'm going to France and Italy, perhaps Greece. Ever been to Greece?"
"Greece? You must be joking. I've never even been to London."
"Not been to London?" Tim was amazed. "I just came from there. Via Oxford and Bath and Cardiff."
The girl leaned on the counter and wriggled her shoulders. "Oh, Cardiff. I've been to Cardiff. But London's hundreds of miles away. Are you American, then?"
"American," Tim agreed. "And what I'd like is a cup of coffee, hot, strong and black, no sugar, no cream, just the way they make it in America. Can you do that for me?"
"I don't know. I've never been to America, have I, so I don't know how they make their coffee there, do I?"
"Okay, I'll take whatever you've got."
She swiped at the crowded countertop with the damp rag. "It's not ready yet. Not for another few minutes. People don't usually come in till well after ten, you know." There was a faint accusatory note in her voice, as though he'd violated some unwritten rule of coffee shop hours, but she lifted the glass lid of a cake stand with dainty fingers. "Want a sticky bun?"
Tim gazed at the array of luridly colored cakes. "Sure. Why not?" As he settled on one with the least amount of frosting, the girl wrinkled her forehead.
"Is it today you're catching the boat to Ireland? It doesn't go till three, you know. That'll be one and sixpence, please."
By now he'd learned how to cope with the complicated currency, pulled a heap of coins out of his pocket, let them lay on his open palm, and watched as she picked out a few, delicately, so her fingers didn't touch his. He smiled again. Most girls he knew weren't that way at all. Not at all.
"I know the boat doesn't go until three. Only five hours to kill. But as a matter of fact, I was hoping to look up someone my father knew during the war."
"The war?" Her voice flew upwards, high and amazed. "The war's been over for more than twenty years. It's far too long for anyone to remember that far back." She thought about it for a moment. "Was your dad a soldier, then? I've heard there were American soldiers stationed here before D-Day."
"I guess that's when it was."
"So who is he, this friend of your dad's? Maybe I know him?"
"It's a she. Her name was Gwyneth Griffiths. I believe she's married to a Dr. Edwards." But Tim knew without doubt it was Dr. Edwards because he'd listened carefully to what the stranger had told his father.
"I know who Dr. Edwards is, of course. Everyone knows Dr. Edwards. I don't know what his wife's name was but I bet my dawill know. He knows everybody for miles around." Opening a door behind the counter, she called out, "Dada, are you there?" and then she strung together a bunch of totally incomprehensible words in a completely foreign language. From somewhere in the depths of the building came a muffled reply and the girl closed the door. "He'll be right down."
"What was that?" Tim asked. "That language?"
She stared at him as if he were some kind of idiot, her eyes round and astonished. "Welsh, of course. Haven't you ever heard Welsh before?"
"Welsh? It's a language? A whole different language?"
"You didn't know that? Fancy not knowing that! Fancy! Don't you know you're in Wales?"
"Forgive me." Tim was humble. "I thought Wales was just a part of England."
She laughed then, spots of color running high in her cheeks, like a pretty painted china doll. "You'd better not say that to my da."
Placing his elbows on the counter, Tim leaned closer to her. "So what's your name?" She blushed and turned away, lifted the glass pot, poured the coffee in an unsteady stream into a thick white cup, pushed it towards him, and in an embarrassed whisper, as though she'd never had to confess her name to anyone before, muttered, almost under her breath, "Eirwen. Eirwen Price."
"Eirwen?" Tim repeated. "How do you spell it?"
"E-I-R-W-E-N."
"That's charming. Eirwen. I've never heard it before. Is it a Welsh name?"
"Of course it is." The color in her cheeks deepened. "I think it's a stupid name."
"But we all think our own name is stupid. Or too ordinary. Mine's ordinary. Tim. Tim Bruce." He reached out across the counter to shake her hand.
She seemed uncertain what to make of such confidences andmoved away from the counter cautiously, putting distance between the two of them, and at that moment the door behind the counter creaked open and a short, thickset man came through it. His face was the same round shape as the girl's and he glowered at Tim. The street door tinkled and two women came into the café, immediately launching into an animated conversation in the same strange tongue. Retreating to one of the tiny tables with his coffee and frosted cake, Tim listened with uncomprehending interest. Fancy, indeed, not knowing there was such a language. Wales might be more amusing than he'd thought so far.
The women wore identical short tweed coats and little felt hats. They were small and dumpy, just the right size for the tables and chairs, and as they collected their coffee from the counter, they glanced surreptitiously at Tim and looked away just as quickly. He smiled at them, but they didn't smile back, as if unwilling to acknowledge his presence, as if he were an intruder on private territory, and they carried their cups and saucers to a table in the window and whispered to each other with furtive bent heads.
Eirwen said, "Dada, this chap is looking for someone his father knew in the war." She said "war" as though there were only ever one war, as if right now there wasn't another war going on that threatened to engulf and doom someone like Tim, as wars had always engulfed and doomed young men. The women at the table in the window paused in their conversation.
"World War Two," Tim explained.
Eirwen's father frowned. "Are you American?" There was a challenging note in his voice and Tim wanted to say, "Something wrong with that?" but instead he said, "Yes, sir. My dad was stationed here in the war."
One of the women at the window spoke up. "There were Americans up by Cwm Glas, right before the invasion. You remember, Billy. In that big camp up by Cwm Glas."
"Of course I remember," he said, and there was a pause as they all seemed to think about it.
"So who was it your father knew?" Eirwen's father asked at last. He sounded suspicious, as though Tim was trying to pull some kind of scam. "I know everyone around these parts."
"Her name was Gwyneth Griffiths. I'm told she married a Dr. Edwards."
Over by the window, the women sat up straighter and exchanged sideways glances, their eyes small and somehow disapproving.
Tim looked at them. "You know who I mean? Someone called Gwyneth who's married to Dr. Edwards?" Their eyes slid away from his.
"Everybody knows Dr. Edwards," Eirwen's father said. "That would be his wife. Her name is Gwyneth."
The women looked at each other again, mouths tight and pursed, and one of them nodded knowingly. "Yes, Gwyneth Griffiths. That's who she was."
Tim couldn't believe his search had proved to be so easy, and after all, wasn't sure he really wanted it to be. So what if he found this Gwyneth, what was he going to say to her? Maybe it had all been a stupid idea. But the women's reaction made him curious. "You know where I can find her?"
"Well, she'd be at home, wouldn't she?" one woman said.
"And where's home?"
"Well, they live out at Llanberis. Isn't that right, Billy?"
"That's right. Llanberis."
"Is it far?" Tim was uneasy now. "Will there be time to get there and back before the ferry leaves?"
Everyone looked at the clock on the wall behind the counter, a big and old-fashioned clock with large black hands, like a school clock. It was ten-fifteen.
"Llanberis is four or five miles away. Easy with a car. I'll give you directions."
"I don't have a car. I've been hitchhiking."
There was another small silence, as though no one was willing to believe him. Their faces seemed to say, "You're American and you don't have a car?"
Eirwen smiled at her father, a toothy, winning smile. "You could give him a lift, couldn't you, Da? You're going that way. It wouldn't be any trouble, would it now, Da?"
Tugging at the peak of his tweed cap, he cleared his throat reluctantly. "I suppose not. I was just leaving, as a matter of fact."
"I wouldn't want to take you out of your way, sir. Perhaps we should call first?"
"No, no. I don't think that'll be necessary. If she isn't there, you can just come on back with me, can't you? I've only got a few deliveries to make."
"Well, thanks a million." Tim wasn't sure quite how thankful he was really, and hesitated for another moment, but since he seemed stuck with the decision, he heaved the backpack off the floor and drew little gasps from the women in the window.
Staring at the backpack, Eirwen's father laughed suddenly. "Dew, boy, I don't know there's room in my little van for that monster. Come on, though, we'll give it a go." He lifted the flap of the counter to let Tim through.
"See you later," Tim said to Eirwen as he passed close by her and she blushed again, winningly. He followed her father along a narrow dark hallway, the backpack lurching against the walls, and emerged into an alleyway where a parked white van almost filled the space between buildings. He squeezed the backpack behind the passenger seat, among baskets of sweet-smelling bread, and crushed himself into the front seat, knees bent toward his chin at an absurd angle.
"Hold on tight, boyo," Billy Price said, throwing in the clutch, and rocketing the little van down the alley as though there was no time to waste, skidded around the corner, past the front of thecafé, around the square and the war memorial, down a steep hill out of the square, and over a narrow, humped one-lane bridge. The oncoming traffic seemed to pass only inches away from Tim as he huddled nervously in the passenger seat.
On the other side of the bridge, after another steep hill rising between high fuschia hedges, they were all of sudden out of the town, on a smooth and empty road in brilliant sunshine, the mist left behind. For a moment, the sun blinded Tim and he had to blink away from it. Ahead of them, a radiant expanse of water met the horizon in a shining blue arc; on the right-hand side of the road, smooth green hills rose to craggy tops and were dotted with whitewashed cottages, and on the left-hand side of the road, the hills swept down to sharply defined cliffs, each indentation and curve clearly etched in the bright morning light. Far below, the ocean's edge tumbled and curled against black rocks and slivers of pale yellow sand.
"Jeez!" Tim leaned forward in the seat. "It is beautiful. After all, it is beautiful."
Billy Price grinned. "Yes, it's pretty enough round here. Lived here all my life. Wouldn't dream of living anywhere else."
"Were you here in the war?"
"I was off fighting Rommel in the desert, boyo. With Monty. You heard of Monty?"
"Montgomery? Sure I've heard of him."
"Bloody marvelous general, he was. If you want to know how to fight a war, go ask someone like Monty."
Tim had absolutely no desire to fight in any war, and that wasn't what he'd heard about Montgomery. He'd heard Montgomery was nothing but an arsehole, a pain in the butt, a thorn in the side of the people who'd done the real fighting, the Americans, but he guessed it was probably wiser not to voice that particular opinion at this particular moment. Before he could think of something diplomatic to say, Billy Price swung the van across theroad into a narrow opening between high hedges, and the abrupt maneuver threw Tim hard against the door. Downshifting the gears in quick succession, Billy Price revved the small engine hard, and hummed to himself as though he'd forgotten he had a passenger.
Soon they were climbing even more steeply, higher and higher, the engine laboring. The hedgerows and houses vanished, the fields turned to open heath, and black-faced sheep lifted their heads to watch them pass. Tim could hardly credit it was still the same country, the scenery had changed so abruptly and dramatically. The van climbed the narrow curving road towards the crags.
Pointing to the rocks, Tim remarked, "They look exactly like castles."
Billy laughed. "No, no. They're just rocks, that's all. But we do have a few castles round about. The English built them, you know, to keep the Welsh down. Didn't succeed, of course. The Welsh were always a problem for the English."
They seemed to be going nowhere, the landscape growing emptier, and the houses vanished, when Billy Price suddenly announced, "Here we are then, boyo." He brought the small vehicle to a screeching halt before a wide iron gate. "This is where she lives. Gwyneth Griffiths as was. Hop out and open the gate for me, there's a good lad."
Uncoiling from the passenger seat thankfully, Tim climbed out of the van, wondering what the hell he was doing here, why on earth he'd come so far on a foolish whim. He stood at the gate for a moment and the air smelled sweet and fresh, of hawthorn and bracken and the faint tang of salt water. Pine trees rustled overhead and there was the sound of birds high on the hillside, but otherwise everything was extraordinarily quiet. Far from anywhere.
He swung the gate open.
Beyond the gate, a graveled driveway wound up to a long, low,whitewashed house, a house with small deep-set windows and a steep roof of dark slate. The front door was painted a shiny bright blue and it stood open. Like an invitation. As though he were expected.
Copyright © 2005 by Mary Morgan. All rights reserved.