How Green Was My Valley (44 page)

And my father is laughing so much that his glasses are having trouble to settle on
his nose. Owen and Gwilym are shouting for all they are worth, for Davy has the ball
and his forwards are all round him to push through the enemy. Shoulders and knees
are hard at work, men are going down, men stumble on top of them, fall headlong and
are pinned by treading, plunging boots. Red and green jerseys are mixed with yellow
and white, and mud is plenty on both. On, on, an inch, two inches, bodies heave against
bodies, hands grab, legs are twisted, fall and crawl, push and squirm, on, on, there
are the white posts about you, but red and green jerseys hide the line and form a
wall that never shows a gap. On, yellow and white, pack up behind and keep close,
pull the ball into the belly and shield it with your arms, down with your head, more
shoulder from the back, keep closer at the sides, push now, push, push, push. A red
and green down in front, another, who carries away a third. Another push now, and
the ball is slipping from him. A hand has come from the press below and grasps with
the strength of the drowning, but a wriggle to the side and a butt with the hip loosens
it and on, on, half an inch more, with an ankle tight in the fist of red and green
who lies beneath two yellow and white and only enough of sense and breath to hang
on.

Down with the ball now, fall flat, with eight or nine on top of you, and there is
the whistle.

The ball rests an inch over the line.

Then see the hats and caps go into the air, and hear a shouting that brings all the
women to the doors up and down the Hill, and some to lean from the back windows.

Again the whistle, and Maldwyn Pugh looks up at the posts, makes his lucky sign, and
takes his run at the ball that rests in its heeled mark, and kept there by the hand
of Willie Rees, who lies full length in the mud with his face turned away, not to
be blinded by the slop that will come when the boot leaves his hand empty.

Empty it is, and the ball on its way, and the crowd quiet, with the quiet that is
louder than noise, when all eyes are on the same spot and all voices are tuned for
the same shout.

The ball travels high, drops in a curve, turns twice. The crowd is on its way to a
groan, but now the wind takes it in his arms and gives it a gentle push over the bar,
no need for it, but sometimes the wind is a friend, and there it is.

We are a try and a goal, five points, to the good.

Red and green kicked the ball down to the line and as I watched it, I saw a handkerchief
waving below there, and looked, and Ceinwen Phillips was looking at me and her teeth
big and white and her eyes nearly closed, laughing red, with red and green ribbon
in her hair, and a big bunch of red and green ribbon in her cloak, and her hair the
colour of new hay long about her.

She came running toward me and I was in a mind to run from her, for I had no wish
to be seen with a girl, and I knew that my brothers would have plenty to say if they
saw us together. But she was too close to me now, and nothing to do but smile and
try to look as though I was glad she had seen me, instead of wishing her in the deserts
of Egypt.

“Huw,” she said, trying to hold her chest from troubling, “there is glad I am I came.
My father and Mervyn brought me. There is a good team you have got. They say your
brother will be in the international match this year.”

“Too early yet,” I said, knowing she was speaking only for the sake, “but he is playing
well to-day, indeed.”

“There is beautiful you look in your long trews,” she said. “I was looking and looking.
No, I said, he is just like Huw Morgan. But he is too grown up. A man, he is. Huw’s
big brother, I said, to myself, of course. And then I looked again when you were shouting
now just, and I waved my handkerchief to make sure. There is funny.”

“Yes,” I said, and blushing, and my hands in the way again, and hoping there would
be enough in the game to keep my brothers busy on it and not on me.

“There is hot I am,” Ceinwen said, blowing. “Is there a drop of water to be had?”

“Plenty up at the houses,” I said. “Hit on the door and ask.”

“I am a stranger,” she said, and pity coming to make soft her eyes. “And perhaps I
might meet a man, too.”

“Mervyn will take you,” I said, pretending to watch the game, but watching my brothers
from the sides of my eyes to see if they were turning round.

“He wants to see the match,” she said. “I asked him, but he was nasty to me. And I
am ready to drop, so dry I am.”

“Drinking is bad for you when you are hot,” I said. “Chew a bit of grass, girl.”

“Am I an old sheep to chew grass?” Ceinwen said. “A drink I want, to take the cracks
from my tongue. Three hours it took to come here, and no dinner before it, either.
O, Huw, give me a little drink of water, is it?”

A man made of thick iron would have to melt like a candle to hear a woman in that
voice, so small, so high in the throat, with something of baby, and yet all of woman.
But I was afraid to be seen with her, for I was bound to have a roasting from the
family, and my brothers would make life so hot to make of hell a bliss.

“Look,” I said, “I have got my brothers’ coats by here. I will ask one of my other
brothers to look after them, and while I am doing that, you go on over to the bridge
beyond the Three Bells, and I will catch up, is it?”

“Where is the Three Bells?” she asked me, helpless again.

“O, to the devil, girl,” I said. “Through the hedge and along the street to the right.
Go, now.”

“I know,” she said, and pulling a good pout, “you are afraid to be seen with me. I
will cry, then.”

So out came her handkerchief and, indeed, she started to cry among all those people
who knew me, and loud, too, with plenty of spit in the sobs.

“Hisht, girl, hisht,” I said, ready to kill her if only to stop her from making a
noise. “Will you have everybody to see you, now?”

“I want a drink of water,” she was saying, through breaths and sniffs and gulps. “There
is cruel you are.”

O, and then my father turned, full of cheering, for Davy had gone through again, and
with his mouth wide he saw me and looked at Ceinwen, and at that moment, off she went
again, with her mouth drawn down, and her eyes closed, and her face to the skies.
And me going from one foot to the other and an itch in my fingers to strangle.

“Only a little drop of water,” she said, but only us two would know what she was saying,
so full of chokes and coughs it was.

“Hisht,” I said, “I will give you a drop of water. You shall swallow the river. But
hisht, now, will you? Here is my father.”

And here he was, very stern, looking at Ceinwen and then at me, as he came. And my
brothers turning to see where he was going, and more people turning to see what they
were looking at, and then a crowd looking and some of them coming closer, and Ceinwen
having lovely times, and going off into a high pitch of moaning, with sniffs and to
spare.

“Good God,” my father said, “what have you done, then?”

“Nothing, Dada,” I said. “She only asked for a drink of water.”

“Drink of water?” my father said. “Will you lie to me?”

He looked at Ceinwen and put his arm about her.

“There, there,” he said. “Come on, now then. Tell me what he did.”

“I want a drink of water,” she said, with her head on his shoulder, and her fist fast
on his collar. “No dinner, I had, and three hours to get here, and so hot. I asked
him, but he said to chew grass.”

“Well, Goodness Gracious, boy,” my father said, “are you mad? Will you refuse a girl
what you would be in a rush to do for a dog?”

“I had the coats to mind, Dada,” I said, in the voice of a small fly.

“Coats, coats, coats,” he said, and to burn the skin. “Have you got a tongue to ask
one of us? Go, now, and take the young thing up to the house and ask your good mother
to give her all she wants, and quick. The girl will go from here thinking we are all
savages, indeed. Go, boy.”

“Yes, Dada,” I said. “Come on, Ceinwen.”

“Ceinwen?” my father said. “Do you know her name, then?”

“Yes, Dada,” I said. “She is in my school.”

“And you let the girl perish for a drop of water?” my father said, and in such anger
and surprise that there was little voice left in him. “Well, Devil throw smoke, I
am in a good mind to tear that suit from your back, you rascal, you. You deserve the
treatment of a bully. Wait till your mother hears this. Go from my sight.”

I walked from there like a mongrel with my eyes on the grass, passing all the people
who were looking at me, as though I had no notion they were there, and stepping a
little longer than Ceinwen so that she had to run to catch up. Outside the field I
stopped to wipe my forehead, and a full feeling was in me that made me careless of
what else might happen, even if the sun fell in chips in the middle of the street.

“There is a bitch you are,” I said to her.

She looked at me with a bit of a frown, and her eyes catching the sun with flecks
of pale light coming and going, and her lashes still stuck together with tears. And
she started to laugh. In the eyes, at first, to make you think she was going to cry
more.

Then altogether, loud, with almost as many tears as her crying, and stuffing the handkerchief
into her mouth, and pulling the cloak about her face, leaning against the wall for
weakness.

“Your face,” she was saying. “If you could see your face, now just. O, Huw, there
is sorry I am you had trouble.”

“Shut up,” I said, “I have got some more to come next time my father sees me, never
mind my brothers. Why did you cry? You could have had your old water.”

“I was only acting,” she said. “Not crying, I was. Acting. Was I good?”

I looked at her, and tried to see inside her, but it was like trying to look through
a wain full of corn, with bits sticking in your face and the ends tickling your ears,
and a weight on top of you and whispering all about you. Her eyes were full of many
lights, greys and blacks and perhaps blues, but so quick to come and sudden to go,
and would never be certain which you saw, or if you saw them at all. And as you looked,
a dead feeling, of weight, and closeness, pressed upon you, and your eyes would slip
down to her mouth and as you watched, you saw it moving within itself, crinkled, pink,
and the tops of her teeth just showing and the tip of her tongue riding them. Then
the soft pockets at the sides of her mouth would move upward and the crinkles would
be gone, and teeth would show and the tongue slip out, palely, shining, a narrow fatness
spreading a wet polish and going back to rest in comfort upon the tops of her teeth.
Up, again, with the eyes, past tight-shut nostrils that widen as you look, up the
straightness of nose to her eyes again, and more lights have come into them, with
something of that mist that you will see over the heat of the fire, when all things
are seen as though they moved under water. This, with the wind putting his fingers
into her hair and pulling, and throwing up and catching, to let fall again.

“Was I, Huw?” she asked me, in whispers.

“Let us go to the house for water,” I said, and turned from her, going quick up the
Hill and glad to have cold wind in my face and ordinary things to look at.

My mother said nothing when I told her what my father had said, but she looked at
Ceinwen with that little look that seemed to last for hours, and yet was only a little
look, and she nodded when Ceinwen dropped a knee. But no smile from her.

If it is said that a girl is a small eater, perhaps Miss Ceinwen Phillips was left
out of the reckoning. I am the last to wish any a small appetite, for good food deserves
stern treatment, and nothing is better than to see plates coming empty and the clock
taking the minutes and no notice taken of either.

But Ceinwen.

Well.

“Who is this old girl you have brought to the house, Huw?” my mother asked me and
cutting a thick piece of ham jelly pie. “Is she eating for the winter to come?”

“Well, Mama,” I said, and feeling disgraced, “she is a big girl, I suppose.”

“Big girl,” my mother said. “Hear it all.”

“Greedy, she is,” Bron said. “Did you see the way she had the apple pie?”

“She said it was too good to leave,” I said.

“She was eating too fast to taste,” said Bron. “You take her wherever you found her
after this, and leave her. It will be hours before she will have her feet in comfort,
so there is no danger to you. And come you home, straight. Is it?”

“Yes, Bron,” I said, and went out to stand by Ceinwen.

“O, Huw,” she said, and holding herself. “There is good. I will eat till my skin bursts.”

“Water it was, you wanted,” I said.

Ceinwen was rolling in comfort, taking crumbs from round her mouth with stretched
tongue.

“I am fat with goodness,” she said. “I will go and say thank you to your Mama, and
I will ask her to come to us when she wants, is it? Then we will go back.”

So she went inside to my mother, and I collected the empty dishes and set clean ones,
and wiped the crumbs from her place.

“Well,” she said, when she came out, “so there will be two weddings here to-day, then?”

“Yes,” I said, “but you will be far from both.”

“I have just been invited,” she said, and doing her hair at the back. “I am going
to wash dishes for a bit. So I will come back with you and see my Dada, and then come
back, is it?”

So back we went to the field, but I was out of patience with her, and in no mind to
watch the game because of it, so I was glad when the whistle went. Mr. Phillips went
up to the house with her, and Mervyn went for the horse and trap to take it nearer
to our back. I went to the Chapel hall, and put everything ready, happy to be by myself
and walk in my long trews up and down the wooden floor.

I heard the wedding party come down and go in the Chapel, and the murmur of the crowd
outside, then the singing, the laughing, the prayers, and more singing, with the crowd
coming more and more noisy, and deacons going out to them to ask for quiet, and telling
them to feel shame.