Creating a fairer Britain
Bryn Williams sat in the sagging easy chair by the fire, a mug cupped in his swollen, bent fingers. He supped his tea between rasping gasps for breath. Deliberately avoiding the table, where the only offering from the postman lay discarded with the remains of his breakfast, he took in the poky, nicotine-brown living room with its gallery of photographs; his life in dusty picture frames. Anwen, who’d put two logs on the embers before she’d made his toast and porridge, didn’t take after her mother; if Bryn asked her to do a bit of cleaning she’d usually scoff and say something about her college education putting her above housework, and she’d whine about him not having a home-help. With the reviving warmth of the flames in the hearth he felt the old resentments rise.
“They used to send buggers to prison,” he snapped.
Washing-up the dishes her father had stacked on the draining board in the two days since her last visit, Anwen rinsed off her irritation with the soap suds.
“They used to send them to mental hospitals too,” she said matter-of-factly. She hadn’t known this until she’d read the book Dylan had sent her. “They used to give them electric shocks; some kind of aversion therapy.”
“During National Service they were dishonourably discharged… and now they can get married; it’s a bloody sham. I don’t know what that Tony Blair was thinking about.”
“It’s called a Civil Partnership, Dada,” she said from the kitchen door, an indulgent grin on her face displacing her exasperation.
“Nothing civilised about sodomy,” he said into his tea.
“Oh, come on Dada,” she quipped, beginning to clear the table. She looked at the invitation her father had tossed aside earlier. “Dylan’s been with Eric for over twenty years, and now that the law has changed they want to celebrate—
“Don’t give me that rubbish; celebrate be damned,” Bryn said, his voice raised, croaky and broken. “It’s shameful… a damn disgrace on the whole family.”
“But he’s your only boy, Dada. He’s flesh and blood.”
“Better that we’d only had you girls then,” Bryn spat. “I don’t know what your mother would make of it all; turning in her grave she’ll be.”
“Mama would have been on the first bus to Wrexham to buy a new hat, and you know it,” Anwen said, and turned back into the kitchen. “She loved a party, and she loved us kids enough to want us to be happy, no matter what.” She heard him wheeze as he pulled himself up from the chair. “And besides, Mama liked Eric.”
“Suppose you’ll be going… to this charade then?” Bryn said, waving his empty mug and the invitation in his left hand, his right grasping the door frame to steady himself as he fought for breath. He still believed it was all the medication that was making him breathless; nothing to do with the forty-a-day over fifty or more years that had caused the emphysema.
“We’re all going, Dada… of course,” she said with a sigh. “The boys have asked Medi to be a bridesmaid.” As soon as she’d spoken she regretted her choice of words; she should have said flower girl or ring bearer, but somehow bridesmaid had just slipped off her tongue.
“Jesus Christ!” Bryn fought for air. “Which one of them’s the bride then, wearing the bloody dress?” His fingers, grasping the doorframe, turned white. “I always thought that Eric was a bit like a female impersonator. And you’re letting my only granddaughter be exposed to that? It’s… perverted! My little cariad Medi shouldn’t be—”
“She’s only seven, Dada… and she’s so excited.” Anwen pointed an accusing, sudsy finger at her father. “Don’t you spoil it for her. She loves her uncles, and I won’t have you telling her it’s wrong. Eric’s a lovely lad and he makes Dylan happy; that’s what’s important. The world has moved on you know.”
“Moved on? It’s gone off the rails.” He slid the empty mug onto the draining board and shuffled back to the chair by the fire, mumbling curses.
Eric stood in his Harrods-monogrammed dressing gown and turned the wooden spoon quickly in a pan of simmering water, à la one of those over-rated, over-paid TV chefs, before pouring the cracked egg gently from a cup into the vortex; his hips swayed gently, seductively, with the stirring. Because it was Saturday, Dylan fussed with the coffee; always Illy… three flat scoops… four cups of water… always drunk with hot milk and brown sugar – Muscovado, not Demerara. The Today programme on Radio 4 was churning out more bad news about the crunch of capitalism, but between the coffee and Eric’s bum, Dylan wasn’t listening.
“Perhaps we shouldn’t have sent your dad an invitation,” Eric said, extracting a perfect poached egg from the pan with a slotted spoon. “We already know that he won’t come and the last thing we want to do is upset him.”
“But it’s not for us to decide for him, Eric; he’s got to make that decision for himself,” Dylan said, pouring their coffees.
“It’s probably better that he doesn’t come. He’s not well; Anwen says it’s made him really bad-tempered.”
“You’re just being kind now. You know, as well as I do, that if he did come he’d be obnoxious; he’d like to see hanging brought back for the likes of us.”
“That’s too extreme, Dylan. Bryn is just a bit of a dinosaur.”
“No – for all his union militancy, fighting for every worker’s cause under the sun, he never got his head around sexuality as a rights issue… and if it hadn’t been for Mam he’d have cut me off when I first came out.” Dylan pierced the yolk of his egg with a toast soldier.
Eric savoured his coffee and then dipped his croissant into it. “Anwen will come with us when we take Medi to buy her wedding dress,” he said, half question, half assertion.
“She better had be coming with us,” Dylan said, a trickle of free-range-yellow yolk on his chin. “I don’t know the first thing about dresses for little girls.”
Anwen came through from the kitchen. “I’ll get you some fish when I go down the market,” she said. “A nice piece of yellow haddock, yes? You can put it in the micro in a bowl of milk. It’ll be lovely with some brown bread.”
Bryn ignored her. He threw the invitation into the grate and watched as the white card buckled and the gold calligraphy melted. Then the flames charred the affront of it all.