Creating a fairer Britain
I never understood why I should have to walk around Merthyr asking people whether they could speak Welsh or not. I had a stupid red clipboard. Leanne had one too. We looked like right duppers. Leanne stood there in her school uniform. She was tiny, Leanne. Well tiny. And she had popping-out eyes and loads of make-up on all the time.
I can’t be bothered, I said, I’m well embarrassed. I hate people stopping me on the streets when I’m out shoppin’ so why should I do it to other people? And especially about something I already know the answer to. Duh!
We walked for a while, starin’ at different people. I could see Jamie Bryans and Ceri Tripp on the corner doin’ the same thing. We had an hour until we were all supposed to meet up again, and jump on the bus. Drizzle came from everywhere and the questionaire paper on the clipboard began to get soggy. Mam had warned me that mornin’ to keep my hood on my head, but I didn’t want to look sad.
Excuse me, I asked, do you speak Welsh? Stopped this old man. He said that he didn’t. I thought that would be the end of it, as I looked at the wrinkles on his face. But the wrinkles started moving.
“Always wanted to mind. My Mam spoke it, with her Mam. But then, times have changed 'avent they. You don’t know whether they’re still doin’ two for one on gaviscon in Savers do you girls?”
The old man looked like a bird. I don’t know which bird, but sometimes people look like certain animals. And this bloke definitely looked like a bird. He had a small hooked nose and triangle pokes as cheeks. He had a little mouth, the size of a red wine gum.
Leanne tapped down her hair in the drizzle. I looked down at the paper on the clip-board. It only let you tick – ydy, nac-ydy or weithiau. It didn’t leave any room for the extra bits that man had said, so I put a tick near nac-ydy. He didn’t speak Welsh.
We went into the sweet shop. Looked lush. All the colours of the rainbow danced about me and spit came into my mouth. Leanne walked up to the counter, and noticed that the boy who worked there was hot. She looked embarrassed, didn’t want to ask the question.
“We are doin’ a survey. Wyt ti’n siarad Cymraeg?”
The boy looked funny at us. His big brown eyes swallowed me up. He hadn’t shaved. Looked rough. Made me think of sex in a swimming pool.
“Don’t speak Welsh anymore,” he said. “Don’t remember it. Did it in school. You girls want somethin’ else or are you just here arsin’ about?”
Leanne smiled clumsily and tried to show her teeth. Teeth that had been hiding for years behind braces. The boy looked like he fancied her for a minute, which I felt really jealous about. Bitch. But I didn’t say anything. I just said thanks, and looked down at the paper. Ydy, nac-ydy or weithiau. I put a tick in the ‘no’ box. He didn’t speak Welsh anymore, even if he used to.
I’d had a complete guts full of doing this work. I was thinkin’ about Darren Wilkins by now. Wonderin’ whether I’d get a chance to catch a glimpse of him on my way to maths this afternoon.
“The library,” Leanne said then, “lets go in there, is it?” She said that loads of weird people are always in libraries. Perhaps we’d find someone who could actually speak Welsh there.
We went in, and library smells wafted up my nose. I made a comment about this to Leanne and she looked at me weird, as if she didn’t understand what I was talking about.
The only person we could see in the front section was the man who worked there. Behind the counter. He was on the phone, and made eyes at us that we would have to wait a minute before gettin’ his attention. As he spoke, I couldn’t help but notice that white spit sat in the corners of his mouth. He put the phone down, wiped his mouth and looked at us. His hair was runnin’ backwards towards his neck and his forehead skin was all shiny.
“We are doin’ a survey?” I said, as if I was askin’ a question. He had a quick look at our uniform, read the school badge on my jumper. And there was me, thinkin’ he was perving for a moment.
“Wyt ti’n siarad Cymraeg?” Leanne asked, leanin’ on one leg and swingin’ the other one.
“Me?” he asked, with a snort. Another ‘no’ then. I reached for the correct box with my pen, “completely pointless language,” he spat.
I looked up at him. Leanne was starin’ too. I hadn’t expected that answer.
“What?” he said, leanin’ on the counter and lookin’ down at us, “you don’t think it’s pointless?”
I shrugged. I hadn’t thought about it before really.
“See! You think it’s pointless too and you even know how to speak it!”
He smiled, he wanted us to challenge him. For some reason, he was getting on my nerves. But I don’t know why.
“And it’s a waste of money too,” he went on, holdin’ a red paper clip in his left hand. “We should get rid of those Welsh schools in the valleys. What’s the point in speakin’ it?”
By now he had placed his hands flat on the counter. I don’t know where the paper clip had gone. The phone rang and he reached for it. This gave me time to think. Why was I angry with him? He told some woman on the phone that the history section in the library wasn’t as extensive as Cardiff’s.
“So?” he said, “you’ve got ewer answer.”
“Maybe it’s not pointless,” I said nervously. “Maybe I’d want to ask for somethin’ in Welsh … in a shop or somethin’....”
The man laughed, and his eyes crinkled up.
“Where around here is someone goin’ to understand you if you ask for somethin’ in Welsh in a shop? My best mate’s daughter goes to a Welsh school. Never speaks a word with no one. Does her exams in Welsh, and that’s it.”
Leanne looked vacant. I don’t know what that meant. Did she know what she thought? Maybe she wasn’t listenin’.
“It’s my right to learn Welsh, if I want to,” I said.
“Your right!” he scoffed again, crossed his arms across his chest, “rights are things like bein’ able to drink clean water, not bein’ killed by fascists and ‘avin’ treatment for free in hospital.”
“Yeah, fair enough, but I’ve got a right to speak Welsh too,” I said. Although I don’t know why I said it. Maybe it was Dad speakin’.
“Bollocks have you got a right to it! You’re lucky enough to be taught it, then you don’t use it! I’ve got more of a right to it than someone who chooses not to speak it like you.”
“It’s not like that,” I said.
My eyes grew big and Leanne’s became smaller. He was bein’ really aggressive now, spittin’ his words over the counter. Chuckin’ them sometimes.
“And anyhow, I do use it,” I said slowly.
“When?”
“I speak it with my Dad. He’s from Llanelli.”
“That’s ‘cause he wants to speak it with you. But not with your mates, you don’t speak it with your mates do you!”
My cheeks were red hot now.
“Sometimes,” Leanne said, quietly. I didn’t even know she was listenin’.
“When?” he shot his word from his gun mouth.
Leanne considered. “When we want to slag someone off who doesn’t speak it.”
He smiled. She smiled too.
“In front of the teachers too”, I said, “and in netball when we’re playin’ against an English school.”
He smiled again. A weird, ironic smile. And then, just like that, he closed up, like a fan. He had nothin’ else to say. He’s said it all. I looked down at my paper on the clip-board and put a cross in the box. He definitely didn’t speak Welsh.
That afternoon, we had Cymraeg for our Gwers 5. I dragged the results we’d found from the bottom of my bag. A bit of old banana had rubbed over the left hand part, but it was still readable. And anyway, I knew all the answers.
Mrs Morgan asked everyone for their results. She looked at Leanne and me. Leanne didn’t look as if she’d been standin’ in drizzle this morning. She’d been in the toilets amser cinio puttin’ foundation on.
“Naeth ni ddim ffeindio neb sy’n siarad Cymraeg yn Merthyr miss.”
We never found no-one who could speak Welsh, I said. Don’t worry about that, said Mrs Morgan, all flustered and annoyed. How many understood it then? But I didn’t think that was the point. I thought the point was how many people actually spoke it. After the lesson, me and Leanne went up to her to ask about the Clwb Cinio that was on tomorrow lunch time.
“Ti’n joio bod yn athrawes miss?” asked her whether she liked bein’ a teacher. She just told me to be quiet. I suppose it was out of order to ask such a question. Felt a bit guilty then. I wanted to tell her that she obviously didn’t enjoy bein’ a teacher. I also wanted to tell her that there was a man in the library who should be a teacher. But I never said a thing.
Miss Morgan left for the staff room to check out whether there was Clwb Cinio tomorrow or not.
“Ti moyn dod i ty fi heno?” I asked Leanne whether she wanted to come up mine tonight.
Leanne looked around, checked the door.
“Wha’ you speakin’ Welsh for? She’s gone.”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“Dunno,” I said, before we both left the room and ran for the bus.