THE HEADMASTER'S FLAME, BRITISH NOVEL BY LS EVANS, 18+ ONLY

Quick note from the author...

I'm thrilled to give you Chapter 60. Sorry I had to leave you on a painful cliffhanger so long... I was travelling, and researching... ;)

Now we're going to find out what happens to poor Natalia...and get set for a whole new adventure. 

Please be aware it contains violence, and a whole lotta fun.

LS x

Closed inside the bathroom, with the monster of a man she thought was her dad rapping on the thick brown door asking again if she’s ready, Natalia felt sure her heart was about to collapse like Dinkey’s. 

‘Errr… nyet!’ Did she just say not yet?

‘Ho ho, so you know some Russian huh?’ he called hollowly. ‘I can teach you more, blyad!’

‘Er… da, papa!’

She can see the amusing side of this. She can. Can she? Shit, she’s supposed to be stripping off her clothes, not blowing her nose. With the messages still undelivered, she had to get her phone out there to get some signal. And it would take Neill at least ten minutes to get here, if he hadn’t fallen asleep. Thank god she’d worn a bra today, as she unbuttoned her dress. 

Pulse booming in her temples, hugging the linen cheetahs to her chest, with the phone back in the pocket, on silent - she turned the bolt and pushed down the handle.

His fat Slavic grin was right there, one arm up on the doorframe as she stepped under the bridge of his elbow. ‘Ohhh, so sexy, huh’ - as she cringed her dress tighter in her arms - ‘but you could have done that for me out here. Never mind! You can take them off, slowly, for me.’

‘Slowly. Yes…’ 

She tries to walk two wobbly legs like a sultry cat’s to the window where she tossed her dress to the armchair. Anton’s burger breath was right behind her, leechy hands latched to her bottom, but the bathroom sojourn had injected the start of a new fighting spirit - if he thought she was a great actress, she will continue in that vein. 

‘Sh-shall I do you a show? Lay down on the bed… papa.’

He jumped back instantly, heavily, onto the bed with his feet up and the smarmiest look. That was easy. She glanced to the door. The door’s right there, she thought. Why not just walk, walk straight out? 

‘Wait—’ she smiled as genially as she could, and paced over.

Not that easy. 

‘Hey, hey!—’ In a trice he’d shot up, wrenched her arm like a ragdoll as she cried out - but in that last second, her other arm swung hard, stretched heroically like Mr Tickle to discreetly swipe the keycard from the slot, expecting now the room would fall dark; she could kick this fucker in the nuts and get out. But Natalia, not knowing that hotels put a delay on them, was gaping in despair that it didn’t happen, whilst Anton had seized her at each elbow.

‘Spokoyitsa!— calm down…!’

‘But I wanted to, I wanted to go down…’ She looked earnestly into his face whilst she strained her hand behind her waist to slip the keycard into her knicker hem.

‘To the lobby?!’

‘Down…’ she motioned her eyes, ‘on you.’

‘Ahhh… but why here?’ He jolted her forward. ‘Why not on bed?’

‘Because I wanted to go back to the beginning. Pretend we have just arrived in the room, you know! I am the hero-iiine!’ 

It was a lame comeback - that worked. His grip softened as he deigned to let her slide down his body, smoothing her palms over his black shirt buttons as slow as she could whilst repulsion chalked in her belly.

‘This is better, huh. Much better. Now come to the bed…’

‘Shush, shush… papa.’ After ten seconds fiddling on each shirt button, eye-level with his waist she saw the silver glinting thing she’d feared in his pocket - and it was only a Vauxhall key fob. She looked up to notice him lick his nasty bottom lip, knowing from Neill this was often a prelude to men closing their eyes in delirium. He was nudging her head to the bulge in his pants that she was avoiding, when the room fell dark and he grunted in surprise.

‘You turned off the lights?’

‘Shhhh….’ Forget kicking him in the balls, her hands were as frail as fly legs against a cladded boiler, travelling down to where his belt was flapped open. Kneading his thighs like a cat aimlessly kneads a duvet cover, she bided time for the other hand to tremble round and flip the keycard out of her knickers. 

It fell between her heels, where she pushed it back with her calf, then her toes - till she finished the trajectory of the keycard all the way through the crack under the door. She took his hand - now jostling its own impatient way to his bulge - and led him, drunken on her touch, like a donkey to the bed. 

‘Lay back, daddy.’ 

In the greenish lamp-post light through the crack of the curtains she began dancing her hips. Like the notes of the pungi in Marrakech, she will make the snake charmer’s cobra levitate ten feet in the air, grunting ee ba gum, go slow Anton…

God Neill be quick. 

He laid back grinning in the dark as she squeezed her breasts in her bra and plucked the elastic of her knickers to and fro, till she froze at the sight of his white-pale pork chop he was now stroking as the elevator pinged outside.

‘Take off your lingerie, Lo-lee-dta,’ grunted the pork chop. ‘I’ve waited long time, travelled all this way. All off, now.’

She needed him facing her. Facing away from the door. 

‘Let me lay down.’ Heart flapping, she clambered alongside him, elbowing his thigh rather hard - then following it with a big smile, ‘and you can do it for me!’ 

He plodded onto his knees as she bum-shuffled over, wishing she could have put her underwear on with superglue. Hurry, Neill, hurry. 

A shriek of laughter came from the corridor, and female voices passing. Then, nothing.

Anton was now straddling, rising over her like a pot-bellied Hercules as she began to cry inside. She had had her chance by the door - the spurt of adrenalin to kick him, stab him in the eye with the keycard - anything she couldn’t do, now she was trapped like a ladybird under a kid’s looming thumb. Rustling came at the door - was it still those harpies passing through? Now a tug at her knickers, as her vulva shrivelled like a walnut. 

‘Oh, ohhh daddy—’ she reaches her palms to his ears, and feels for his balls between the balls of her feet, crushing them almost, as he grunts, ‘gently, divotchka, gently.’ Damn his arrogant oblivion. She must believe, she must believe he’s coming - before this ape does. Maybe she could break his neck otherwise? She touches it. It’s thicker than two of her thighs.

Her hands back on his ears, straining her hearing whilst obscuring his, massaging his spiky hair as he groans in stupid fervour and she chimes more soppy words, till her breath stalls at a triangle of light appearing now behind him. A hinge squeak makes her heart piss itself. Now Anton’s frowning, trying to turn - as she rubs his ears more, and out of pure desperation pushes her mouth to his - as it gapes wide, like a shark about to devour her, reeling her right into its silver molar fillings - as a deafening howl subsumes her, thrums her skull from ear to ear like she is being sucked into the meaty-breath hole of death. 

Except that it is him being sucked, wrenched back into a whirlpool as though by a poltergeist, and she realises he is being pulled off the bed by his testicles, limbs flying as THWACK - DUFFF - AHHH! He silences upon an almighty punch in the face from a hooded figure who is now kicking, grunting, panting, then looking in her direction and speaking, as though an audio recording of smooth-talking Neill was playing in the corner to commentate the Grim Reaper himself.

‘Well I do hope I got the right room.’ 

She jumps up, terrified and excited all at once, wanting to run and hug him, but instead scrambles in shame to the chair for her dress, and pulls it over her just as the light flickers on and there is Neill’s face inside the hood, closing the door and putting one shoe back on.

‘Where’s that creepy black raincoat from?!’

‘Saved it for a moment like this, obviously…’

‘Why are you wearing one shoe!’

‘Hitched the door open to avoid it clunking. Glad we got the important questions covered, but can we get the fuck out of here?’

They looked down at Anton, splayed face down, jeans and pants at his knees, groaning.

‘The fucker was about to rape me!’

‘Fair enough. Let’s fuck him up.’ 

‘Can we?!’

There was a knock at the door and a young male voice. ‘Staff here! We heard shouts from this room. Are you alright in there?’

‘Yes, yes! Just the game, it’s a shocker isn’t it!’

There was a chuckle. ‘Pretty standard for Bolton. Keep the noise down please for other guests.’

‘You heard him, mate…’ Neill had switched on the TV, flicked to the football and turned the volume up. Then he grabbed the purple Premier Inn bed strip and began tying it around Anton’s face.

‘Wait!—’ Natalia ran into the bathroom and brought out a bar of soap. ‘This’ll wash out those fucking Russian words he kept coming out with. What was that one about asking too many questions? Punch-yer-mooka?’ 

In a moment, Anton was gasping on the soap, mouth wheezing ‘puhh-zzjalsta’ through the fabric, trying to get up.

‘I need to tie his arms. Give me your bra.’

‘I’m not wasting one on him! Use the long ends of the gag as you do so expertly!’

‘Good thinking.’

All trussed up, their prisoner began to wriggle more frantically until Neill took a step back, raised the sole of his boot and blootered him straight in the chin. Natalia winced to watch two droplets bloom like black roses through the fabric.

She turned the other way. ‘Do it again! Fucking drub him!’

‘Don’t you want a go at punching-yer-mooka?’

She turned to the sight of the purple-wrapped Cadbury’s mummy held toward her like a horrific court exhibit.

‘Kick him! Right in the cake hole! If you don’t, you’re going to wish you did, my darling, and we haven’t much time…’

Natalia pulled off her strappy heel and aimed a whack between Anton’s legs to a muffled howl.

‘Hit, it, hit it!’—’ 

‘I did, I did - his ugly cock instead!’ 

‘I was talking to the football,’ Neill turned and surveyed him. ‘Bloody hell, he might be impotent. Let’s make sure’ - he kicked him again, then with a swivel and another punch in the face that made Natalia gasp, concluded, ‘now he’s blind, so he’s got bigger fish to fry.’

‘After we plant this up his rectum!’ She tossed a miniature bottle from the bathroom. ‘You do it - you love shoving things up arseholes!’

‘Thought Premier Inn didn’t do body lotion?’

She shrugged. ‘He must have got it from Reception.’

‘How helpful of him. Shall I open the lid end to give him some lube?’

‘He doesn’t deserve that. But he deserves something written on his face.’ She went to tap her phone by the window whilst Anton frothed and groaned and Neill was making not dissimilar noises as he persisted in his quest.

‘Svo lach. Means trash, scum, jerk—’ She flashed the screen at Neill.

Сволочь.

‘Good luck with that. Use the biro by the phone.’

Anton was making a horrendous muffled shriek as Natalia stayed facing the other way. ‘Are… are you finished? The hotel staff might come back—’

‘All yours, Tolstoy.’

Shielding Anton’s bludgeoned face with one hand, she scratched the pen nib on his forehead. ‘Won’t fucking work!’

‘Try it on the paper first.’

‘Hold the phone so I can copy it…. C - is that a B? Is that an N?’

‘One of those funny Russian Ns. Followed by a zero then an upside down H. Goodness Natalia, I’m going to have to punch the fucker again at this rate and with all the excitement he’s pushed out the body lotion.’

‘Wedge it up with a teaspoon.’

In a few moments Anton was face-down onto the bed, trussed up like a turkey in a ribbon, white toilet brush sticking from between his pasty buttocks, and Neill standing urinating between his shoulder blades.

As he jumped down, Natalia climbed up and squatted at his crown. 

‘Go then.’

‘I am, I am…’ Three drops came out followed by a fart.

‘I think I can do more. One turtle head at least,’ she strained. ‘Oh, forget it.’ She jumped down, grabbed her Malibu and Coke, and just as Neill promptly held back Anton’s head, splashed the lot into his face. 

‘There’s your fucking family hehh-loom!’ she finished, just as cheers resounded from the football game. 

‘Well! Leeds beat Bolton 2-1!’

‘And Birmingham.’ They stared at the sight on the bed.

‘Premier Inn’s next ad campaign? Come on, our turn to take the back exit.’

Her giddiness didn’t last the car ride. By the time they’d turned at the last roundabout on Wetherby Road, her adrenalin had quieted into apologetic glances, surging sinuses, and tears rolling like rain off a windshield. Pulling up, her head was down in her knees in a dead silence that was even worse to Neill, his own bravado giving way to choked despondency for her to come to bed, come to bed, we’ll talk later about everything - walking into the cottage with her head glued to his chest; four criss-crossing feet trampling their way like a pantomime horse. They got as far as the sofa where she wept, bawled, so long and hard that she went into a fit of sorts, eliciting Neill’s curt beseechment of did he do this, did he do that? - answered by her verse of crying negatives then chorused by her screams of self-reproach, backscored by his utterances of optimistic rationale with each kiss at her hairline feeding a cue for her next question, the next reassurance, till she repeated to fade… frosted over in exhaustion and vocal cords shot completely.

Sleeping fitfully, waking half the night with a brain in overdrive, inhaling his forearm hair put her back in deep dreamless slumber, waking to a world that could be afternoon or three days later for all she knew. Neill’s throat-clears had a sigh to them, in between rushes of the kettle and his warm fingers feeling her head and feeding her pills before disappearing downstairs again. Banging kitchen door bolts and clinking cups melodised a comfort whilst being haunted by dark clouds wafting in and out of her mind, cringing to the painful sting of remembrance that burned hot in her palms and her bunions and all the places she’d touched that disgusting imposter.

Another mug at her lips - this time she can smell lemon and honey, replacing the milk and sugar since the coughing fit he must have heard. He’s feeling her head again, like her stupidity must be bursting through her forehead. ‘Goodness. You’re still quite hot.’ Exploring her neck and lingering on her pulse, he pulled down the cover and felt her wrist and chest. ‘Those pills haven’t helped your fever. Can you speak? Try softly?’

She could only moan, eyes closed again, hearing him mutter about A&E and they’ll ask who-is-he, when half an hour later she feels his thumbs at her armpits and his shoulder as her pillow. 

‘Are you t-taking me to Wuh—wuh—ales…’

‘Not quite… you see Natalia, I don’t want you to worry,’ he whispers at her forehead, as her fleece-socked feet brush the wall down the stairs. ‘But I’ve called Dr Brown. He’s coming to check you over.’

‘Whahh… why…’

‘We need to make sure you’re ok, darling. In case you need any stronger pills than I have. I can obtain weed, heroin, ecstasy… but not antibiotics, and he will help us out.’

‘Is… it… safe…’ as she was laid on the couch.

‘Always safe where cash is concerned.’

‘But, mon-ey… you’re short of muh…’

‘We’ll sort that later. Remember your name is Natasha, ok? No funny business trying to kiss me or touch my cock, either - remember you’re my offspring.’

She groaned faintly.

‘That’ll be him now,’ he bustled to the door. ‘Afternoon, Dr Brown!’

‘Ah! Mr Neill, good to finally meet you!’

‘Please, call me Richard. Many thanks for coming out at short notice.’

‘No problem, no problem!’ Sweeping into the lounge was the scent of clinical sterility hit through with rum and clementine. ‘Sorry you are dealing with a misfortune this holiday. You say your daughter has a fever and sore throat?’ 

Natalia’s eyes flicked open to see Dr Brown, this time tieless and in a grey suit, perched on the foot of the couch, Neill on the coffee table, and judged that the hoity-toity banter between the Two Little Dicky Birds would be worth the achy ping-pong of her eyes to bemusedly spectate what was better than a TV show from the black screen between them.

‘I’m concerned about her fever as ibuprofen failed to reduce it after two doses. She’s rather miffed she might not make it away with her friends for Duke of Edinburgh. If it’s bacterial, and she needs meds… well, I was once in hospital for tonsillitis myself as a child—’

‘No problem, no problem Richard, we’ll take a look at her. Hello, Natasha…’

‘Call her Nat, that should do.’

Dr Brown pulled out a thermometer and swiped a reading from her forehead. ‘Hmm. How does your throat feel, er - Nat?’

‘Bahhd,’ she croaked. ‘Throbbing. Pounding. Like the last problem I came to see you about.’ 

She enjoyed the little wing bristle from both Peter and Paul.

‘Will it be ok to sit up for a moment, Nat, and I’ll take a look inside your throat.’

He had her open her mouth and say ahhh. He shone a light into her throat, looked inside her ears, felt her lymph nodes, asked her to follow his pen with her eyes, concluded it’s viral and that she needs plenty fluids and bed rest. 

‘Difflam 3mg Lozenges,’ he wrote down.

‘You’ll give me a prescription for those?’ asked Neill.

‘Oh, you can buy them over the counter,’ Brown tore off the note. ‘And really, just the usual for a viral. Honey, lemon, a bit of fresh air in your garden there. Certainly no travels. Is she under stress?’

‘Oh rather, with exams and the like. Sure she doesn’t need a round of Amoxicillin?’  

‘No, no. We wouldn’t want to deplete her. No schoolwork for now, she’ll be glad to hear. And you, ah - is she, still taking the contraceptive pill?’

‘Well, ask her.’ 

‘Er, Nat? You’re still taking Microgynon 30, correct?’

‘Yeah…’

‘No migraines?’

‘No.’

‘No bleeding, or sore breasts?’

‘Sore breasts sometimes, but… sometimes it’s hard to tell what caused it.’

‘Well,’ he glanced to Neill, ‘do try to avoid, er - stress, in all areas of life…’

‘You mean have a break from my horny teenage boyfriend.’

Brown’s eyes shot back to Natalia. ‘Ah! Ha - well, er, well—’

‘Thing is, I can’t tell if my breasts are sore because the pill made them bigger…’

‘Oh! Er—

‘They feel like ostrich eggs, you know? Have you seen ostrich eggs? On I’m A Celebrity…?’

Brown’s eyes went like marbles back to Neill.

‘I know nothing of these things,’ Neill swiftly arose and exhaled, ‘and she’ll be going nowhere under my care. Thank you very much Dr Brown,’ putting out his hand, ‘you have given us a great deal of reassurance.’

‘That’s quite alright, that’s quite alright.’ Brown tore off a bill. ‘BACs ok? It being Easter Saturday there’s a rate for double time as agreed, my good man.’

‘I’ll have this settled by today.’

‘Take care, Richard, take care.’

On their way to the door the Two Dicky Birds twittered about ‘something to help her sleep? A spot of…’ something-something, Brown replying ‘they don’t prescribe it for under 18s,’ then upon Neill’s uniquely irrepressible, man-to-man whispering exhortations that would sell ice to Eskimos, a reply that ‘a quarter, a quarter will be ok.’ 

Front door shut, he scoops her up again. ‘Two hundred fucking quid to tell me to buy cough sweets. I’m glad to see you laughing. Come on, let tit-squeezer put you back to bed.’

There was a certain witchcraft to have a man smelling of anaesthetic cream look into your tonsils and say you’re ok. Magic cream, they called it when she was a child. He must rub it all over himself every morning to anaesthetise himself from billing guilt, she smiled, laying now after a two hour sleep, into which she’d spun out fairly promptly after Neill thumbed a sharp tablet fragment into her mouth before the last syllable of ‘they don’t prescribe that for under eightee—’ was drowned by a rim slosh of water. 

Now he was back, setting a tray down and pulling up her pillow, as he faintly smiles, and she too smiles, then they smile that they could both still smile, with the modestest mutual flash of teeth.

‘We play pretty good nurses to each other, I must say.’

‘Neill. Take my cheetah dress back to the shop,’ she croaked as he straightened the bedcovers. ‘It cost £100 and I never want to see it again. That will pay half Dr Brown’s fee.’

‘Ahh, don’t worry. We’ll sort it. How are you feeling?’

‘A bit better,’ she coughed. ‘Didn’t you need to see Karen again today? To find my tie and the photo?’

‘I haven’t wanted to leave you. But I do need to go to the postbox at the end of the lane.’ He brandished an envelope. ‘Do you know what this is?’

‘…Sympathy card?’

‘It’s my resignation notice to the Chair of Governors. I’m leaving Thornwood in 12 weeks’ time - the end of term.’

‘Oh! …Neill, what if he goes to the police? The… horrible man, Anton?’

‘To tell them about the 16-year-old girl he unsuccessfully raped in a budget hotel room? He’s more likely to complain to Premier Inn that their toilet brush handles are shit stained.’

‘What if they question him at the hospital?’

‘Natalia, I’ve already said he’ll be fine. He won’t really be blind and impotent - sadly.’

‘Oh-k.’

‘But Natalia,’ he sat down next to the tray, ‘I realised something when I clobbered that cream-faced loon. I could have killed him, in fact, I would have very much liked to.’

‘Ohh…’

‘It’s a good thing Dinkey went how he did,’ he looked fixedly at her. ‘Because I would not have liked to do what I now realise I would do. You were right.’

‘Uh…’ she coughs, ‘about m-murdering h—’

‘About having balls. I hung my head in shame and was prepared to go to my own crucifixion and next time, Natalia, that will not happen. I bear a bigger responsibility for you, I see that now. No one will threaten us without feeling the full fatal wrath of the consequences. And mark my words, it will done so swiftly, so insidiously, there will be no chance of repercussions. I would whisk you away if I had to, passport or not, I would slither from the grip of the law like a fucking salamander with an earthworm in its jaw. Do you understand?’

Her whole bloodstream, in its fluey rush-throb, was standing, saluting, daddy O’Neill on steroids.

‘You do, don’t you?’

She nodded. ‘Yehs, Neill.’

‘Good, now eat up. Get your strength up for our holiday - for we are going on holiday - and we’ll get you right as rain.’

He arose and left, whilst words she was desperate to choke out to him hung like a hairball in her throat. Next time, next time he comes in… she swallowed her words back down again with Comté  cheese sandwich and hot gulps of lemon tea, hearing the front door bang, and then, about forty minutes later, after she’d eaten even the most russet-black crust for the best impression she could give - he was placing a box from the chemist next to the lamp.

‘Take one of these cough sweets.’ He flourished the tray with its clean plate to the door. ‘Goodness I could put this straight back into the cupboard!’

‘Neihh—’ she coughed, ‘Neill… wait - I need to tell you something… urgently, about the green faced goon…’

‘Yes?’

‘As I said, I, I was friends with him on Facebook… well… a few days ago on my status I wrote I’m going to Wales. I’m so sorry. I mean, I wrote south Wales…’

He put down the tray. ‘Let me have a look please.’

‘I… I’ve blocked him now of course,’ as she passed him her phone, ‘so he can’t see my profile or message me anymore on Messenger. That’s where he convinced me he’s my dad.’

He vaguely scrolled his finger. ‘I doubt he will be of any danger or come after us. He looked like a pretty sad old fart taking his chances.’

‘Ye-eah.’

‘And if in any doubt,’ he tossed it back on the bed, ‘Ed has a gun.’

‘A g-gun?’

‘Well, an air rifle. He shoots pigeons out there.’

‘Oh. Well, er - do you think I should delete my whole Facebook? I wanted to, but I’ll lose the Messenger conversation, but you’ve seen it now, so…’

‘Up to you. You could screenshot it beforehand.’

‘Neill - there’s something else…’

‘Another confession? Am I the priest now?’

‘Ye-es… well, please don’t be angry…’

He raised his eyebrows.

‘Maybe sit down.’

‘Oh, good Lord. Just tell me.’ He stayed where he was, as she took a deep breath. 

‘Someone else knows about us—’

‘What! Who?’

‘B-Becky, but—’

‘Becky? Big Tits? Knows about us?’

‘Yeah - because, well actually I saved us from Williams going to the governors about us - when you sh-shagged me in your office I had to lie and say I was in the sick room - but Becky said I wasn’t… anyway… I threatened Becky.’

‘Oh Christ!’ His hand shot to his forehead.

‘No, no, it worked you see, because she busted me back…’

‘Jes—’ 

‘But in a kind of smiling way! And the next few days she became my sort of salacious aunt, she totally supports us! She’s kind of fucked up… anyway, she knew what was going on with Sam and then Dinkey. She’s been backstage support - you know that!’

‘Salacious aunt?’

‘But think about it, Neill! She helped all along!’

He stepped to the window, blowing out his cheeks as Natalia stammered out in greater detail what had happened between her and Becky. 

‘Well, it certainly explains why she’s jumped to do all these favours for me lately. Goodness! …Even Dinkey mentioned her, the last time I talked to him. Said Becky was singing my praises for half an hour the evening before. That I’ve brainwashed everyone but him. Now it makes sense. I’ll have to give her a pay rise when we get back to school. Or do you think she’ll take it as dirty money?’

‘No. She wants it to fix her wonky kitchen.’

‘She’d be better off fixing her wonky eyes. I should give her a call,’ he frowned. ‘Remind her, most genially, who’s boss. Anything - or anyone - else I should know about?’

‘No, no. No more secrets… that’s all… I promise. I’m sorry… I’ll have these now.’ She opened the packet and threw two cough sweets in her mouth.

‘Good girl. Then get some more sleep.’

‘When are we going away?’

‘Tomorrow. Early. The sooner we get out into the mountain air free of our anonymity, the sooner this illness of yours will clear up. Plenty good food and a change of scenery, yes? So I need to take kitty to his kennel.’

‘You said to Mr Brown Cow I’m going nowhere.’

‘Technically, Wales is. I’ll be back in under two hours. Will you be ok?’

‘You’re taking Ras to stay with your friend?’

‘Yes. She’s an old school teacher. He’ll be fine. Text me if you need anything.’

Her chest lightened as she re-packed the things she’d drawn out from yesterday’s getaway bags, until exhausted again, she sunk back under the covers as darkness swept over the room, waking briefly but staying motionless when Neill weighed in beside her.

The first forty minutes went smoothly, Neill was pleased, as he turned up the volume and glanced to the blanket bundle next to him. She’d shivered to the first blasts of cold aircon on the steamed window and was back snoring after two sips of tea. He’d got past Rochdale on his tank till needing to refuel at Prestwich, grab a coffee, and park at the far end of the services to step out for a fag - when he noticed through the windshield to his horror, Natalia struggling frantically with her blanket as though the car was underwater. 

He threw the whole cigarette under his foot and clambered through the back door. 

‘What’s wrong? What’s wrong?’

‘The stars… the stars! I’m such an idiot, I fell for it! I was tricked, he was laughing at me… always laughing faces!’

‘But there’s no stars.’ Then he looked up, and gave a soft groan to see the purple Premier Inn logo with its moon and stars, floodlit in front of them.

‘Natalia… you must try, try to give your brain a break from all of this,’ he hauled her into the back seat with him, ‘to help your body get better, yes? You—’ 

‘Turn this song off! What is it? Turn it off!’

Neill snapped off the player as she wept bitterly, clinging onto him, fiery hot. ‘Goodness, we need that doctor all over again.’

‘I just need you…’ Her eyelashes clumped with tears. ‘You’re my daddy.’

‘Well… of course, of course, I love you to bits, you know that—’

‘I don’t wanna look for my dad anymore.’

‘Darling we can, and we will, once you’re—’

‘No, I don’t! I don’t! I don’t! He never existed, he’s as good as dead!’

‘Ok, ok, shush, shush…’

‘I won’t shush, I can’t shush!’

‘Listen, listen. I need you to get some rest. Lay down on the back seat here and take some deep breaths. I just hope we don’t need to call Rape Crisis right now—’

‘You are my Rape Crisis.’

‘That doesn’t sound right.’

She began growling her throat like a stop-start diesel engine as Neill glanced nervously round the car park. There was one other car, driving out the exit.

‘Scream then,’ he pulled her face into his coat.

‘Hmmh?!’

‘Scream. Scream into me.’

A few seconds of comprehension, preparatory sobs building, then quickening - she screamed volcanic stuffy lemon breath into his chest, and then toward the window as his hand gently took her mouth back into him, stroking where her hot shoulder blades were tautened like boat ropes as she bawled tenfold what she did on Thursday night.

‘I l-let him be all nice to me! Nice and courteous! To lead me on… to what he wanted from me!’

‘Oh my darling, you’ve done nothing wrong. Nothing at all… you’re a beautiful, beautiful person, who thought the best in people. That’s all it is, you know that, don’t you?’

Her whimpers ebbed, gladly hoovering a fragment of tablet from his fingertips with a flush of tea, her fluttering heart held to his - for what must have been fifteen leg-cramping minutes, he couldn’t see the clock - till her mouth gapes now only in silence, and he gently lays her down in the back, pulls over the blanket and the seatbelt and jumped back in the front. Wales, getting to the daylight of Wales will make everything ok, he is sure, somehow.

The bed was squeaking. On and on, to a thunderous techno beat, and his eyes were flashing, flying fragments of seaside blue whilst she travelled at supersonic speed, her braless breasts jiggling, her bottom lip hanging, till bright light blazed through her eyelids and hit her with his laser beams! Now she blinked them open, to see blue motorway signs whizzing past, her head feeling like a prune, but otherwise serenely calm as she rose up in his rear view mirror.

‘Guten morgen. Is my tea cold?’

‘Ohh! Guten morgen!’ Neill beamed. ‘Just look at that bedhead! This one is surely tepid,’ he passed it back in his hand like a relay race, ‘but I didn’t expect you for a while! How are we feeling? Marginally alive?’

‘Not… not too bad. A bit groggy from whatever you gave me.’ She sipped her tea as she took in the playing track that was intermittently spewing, hit me with those laser beams! ‘…Is this the wanker song?’

‘A remix yes. An earful of Relax helps the Valium go down, better than the world’s greatest lullaby did, it seems - to resurrect you on Easter Sunday of all days! Wasn’t long ago you sat in here going as red as that blanket when I mentioned your—’

‘Shut up wanker,’ she sipped hoarsely.

‘Haa! Good times!’

‘Great times. Wanker.’

‘You are so shameless now, you could wank off right there without so much a blink.’

‘How do you know I’m not.’

‘Sick when she’s sick. Now that really is my girl.’

‘How long have we got?’

‘Forever darling.’

‘To get to Wales.’

‘We’re coming off the M56 now. As soon as you see the road markings turn into gobbledygook, we’re there. Slow becomes Araf, and Welshman gob hangs off the lamp posts.’

‘How soon till we get deported for your xenophobia?’

‘That’s not xenophobia. That’s just facts. Wales has Araf for Slow, and Welshman gob hanging off the lamp posts.’

‘And where do we stop to hang my gob off your lamp post?’

‘Oh! Long words and now a rude incitation! You really must be getting better.’

A castrated squeal of an ambulance raced past, as she thought about Dinkey, who was far from getting better, and from that time on the Haworth coach when he sat in front of them and Neill nattered about his ‘friend’s holiday home in Snowdonia,’ now he was extinguished altogether, and she was thoroughly in the moving mouth of daddy salamander going to the faraway den of that gun-toting friend. She breathed deep as an M&S truck trundled by, and glanced to him. ‘Shit! We’re really going on holiday! And I can’t believe you’re quitting Thornwood, sir! We’ll be leaving at the same time!’

‘You’re quite right darling.’

A long giddy ‘ohhh!’ as she rubbed her fleece-socked feet together till they sparked static. ‘What are you going to do? Be a headmaster somewhere else?’

‘I haven’t the foggiest yet.’

The motorways became A-roads, as Neill ruminated on money and selling his cottage and maybe going here and maybe going there, and then roundabout after roundabout, as Natalia’s wonderment at how they could possibly live a normal life together was sent round and round her head. Then B-roads, like pencils shooting through flat plains with iron-fisted overtakings of ‘slow old Gogs, that’s what North Welshmen are called,’ had her clinging on for dear life, till even sparser, smaller roads forced boy-racer to 20mph with bends, brooks and single passageways. Now the morning rays of sun began to illuminate the sweeping hilly vistas and the plunging valleys of the Welsh countryside as Natalia sat bolt upright, staring through all six windows.

‘Wow! We’ve driven into a 3D postcard!’

‘Welcome to the Vall-eeyys!’

‘It’s like a different world!’ The last strip of mist broke over the distant trees, from which a burst of swallows fluttered out like from a magician’s hat. Through the sunroof a hawk of some kind hovered before flapping its great wings off again. The bright yellow-gold of daffodils, like the new life that Easter brought on this first day of April, popped out like a revision highlighter over the dormant grasses.

‘I saw one! I saw Araf!’

‘Darling I’ve seen about fifty Arafs. Have you got sleep in your eyes?’

‘Welcome to Gwaney-gwigggy-niggy-nog. Welsh is almost as weird as Russian!’ 

The novelty of unpronounceable signs for Llanrhaeadr or Gwaynynog, as well as the peace of no traffic in sight for up to ten minutes, had her laying back in leisurely captivation letting her chin rumble away from road bumps, till an oncoming Range Rover drew Neill to a halt, then into reverse, as it bullied its nose over a bridge sized for goblins.

‘Bet he’s thinking, bloody English, driving through our vell-age!’

‘Neill, Arafwch Nawr! It means slow down!’

‘Pretty sure that’s not how you pronounce it,’ Neill sped a hairpin bend as Natalia keeled to one side.

‘Urgh, I’m feeling a bit sick back here—’

‘Climb into the front then.’

She dipped one leg as he took a swerve and she fell into his arm. ‘Neill!’

‘I just wanted to see how much better you felt.’

‘My bum, or—’

‘Ysgol! School! Where you can learn how Y, S and G go together!’

‘Forget school,’ she groaned, turning down the aircon. ‘How about a pit stop for another tea now?’

‘Not sure anywhere is open round here, at this time on Easter Sunday, but we can try. We are now here in…’ he peered at a village sign coming up - ‘Past-Pastynog! A pasty would be nice.’

‘Here—! Is this one?’

Neill screeched with a dust-chucking tailspin into what looked like a 1950s petrol station, with one antiquated pump, beyond which was a sign with a dragon symbol: Caffi’r Ddraig.

‘I take it that means Dragon Cafe. And the dragon’s in,’ he spied a figure in an apron bustling at the window. ‘She’ll either feed us or eat us.’

‘Where are my shoes?’

‘Those ballerina slippers of yours are down there. Your others I threw in the boot.’

They climbed out of the car, Natalia now unblanketed in her long white nightie, shivering where her fleece socks were removed for her slip-on flats. 

They exchange a momentary gaze across the bonnet, before he crosses over with his coat, wraps it round her and kisses her - and she kisses back shyly, for her mouth feels dry and stale, but as their hair mingles in the soft breeze he merely comments on how good it feels. ‘Better here, better than it does in England, for now I have you smuggled, banished from the Land of Thornwood, my little Easter eggs-zile!’

‘Chocolate. Ohh, I need chocolate now.’

‘We’ll get everything we need. Chocolate bunnies galore. Come!—’

He lifted her into the air then spun her round - dipped her back over the bonnet and snogged her harder, and she is laughing and beaming and bobbing her feet, her groggy head easing in the medicine of this moment, and the delight it gives to share their love in the open public air as though they are discovering each other anew.

‘Well that’s more than a cwtch!’ 

‘A what?!’ They turn to see the head of a grinning woman, with at least three chins and her hair in a bun, sticking out through the window.

‘That’s some loving hugs!’

‘Are you doing breakfast, little Welsh lady!’

‘Looks like you’ve already had yours!’ She flourishes the glint of a saucepan at her pudgy waist, as Neill mutters that he could say the same, then to Natalia’s surprise - hoists her up across his arms and bounds to the cafe with her like stolen goods, landing her on her feet laughing, as his coat falls from her white nightie.

‘My! Are you newlyweds?’

Arm still around Natalia, Neill leaned and planted a kiss on the woman’s rosey cheek. ‘I’ll cheat with you, little Welsh lady!’

‘Well knock me down with a grouse! You go sit, you cheeky mares!’ 

Two laminated menus were placed on a red gingham-clothed table, as Neill drew Natalia into his lap on a plastic garden chair that made a sharp precarious creak beneath them. 

‘What do you think, Natalia Neill?’

‘Well if she’s doing food.’

‘I meant the name!’

‘Oh! Natalia, not Natasha?’

‘Depends which kind of legally binding document you want.’ Neill called to the woman now toddling into her little kitchen, replete with gaudy-patterned china, mixing bowls and pans stacked like jerry-built skyscrapers. ‘What’s your name, little Welsh lady!’

‘I’m Gladys!’

‘Well, Glah-dys! Get us both a Welsh brew would you dar-len, for me and my new wife! And all the food you’ve got, now - not in a minute! Yaki dar!’

‘Why! Hav’yer climbed a hill this morning?’

‘Well… have you?’

She pulled her head out of a cupboard and beamed. ‘Ah, I’m not fit for it, but you two are.’

‘That some sort of Pagan thing?’

‘Ha! Customary in Wales on Easter Sunday, ya know! To climb a hill before the sunrise and see the sun dance!’

‘Will we be allowed into Wales if we haven’t?’

Natalia muttered, ‘is that like the Russian tradition to not eat on Good Friday till you see a star in the sky? What that bastard told me.’

‘He was seeing stars by the time we finished with him.’

‘Will you be trekkin’ up Yr Wyddfa?’ Gladys waddled over, panting as though she’d just done it herself.

‘Is that a euphemism?’

She cackled as she set down serviettes and cutlery. ‘Snowdon of course!’

‘The Earl - rather difficult with him six feet under. The mountain, over 1000 metres tall - also difficult as I forgot my boots. Well, in truth, we’re here to see a friend, and have a break from work…’

‘Ah! Spring’s the Welsh signature season, you’re here at the best time! Snowdon will be without the masses that summer brings. Waterfalls are the most beautiful now, nurtured by the winter rains! You should see Rhaeadr Fawr - two mile drive from Abergwyngregyn!’

‘Did you write that down darling?’ Neill’s tired but clear eyes magnetised Natalia’s as she laughed, their hands clasped around each other’s waists as they shared another deep, writhing kiss as though they hadn’t seen each other for a hundred years.

‘You’ll catch my tonsillitis…’

‘I dun’nee give a fuck!’

‘Ooh, you two! Have you decided what you want to eat yet, or is that just each other?’

‘Just each oth-ahh!’

‘Are you going to be doing that accent the whole day?’ Natalia giggled.

‘Na! Just the whole holiday!’ Turning Natalia forwards in his lap, he groaned, ‘read, read for me wifey. I can’t interpret menus right now.’

‘Bacon, sausages, cockles, laverbread— ooh!—’ 

‘Just make us two Full Welsh Breakfasts, Gladys! Put the finest sausage you have between the finest baps and it’ll be nothing like what we can do!’

‘Neill!—’

Gladys cackled and swung a teatowel at him. ‘You’re a right pair!’

‘Black pudding, oatmeal, eggs, fried mushrooms, tomatoes, smoked fish,’ Natalia finished.

‘Great! We’ll have it!’

‘All of it?’ Their rotund waitress exclaimed. ‘It’ll take a little while!’

‘That’s fine, we’ll take a room meanwhile.’

‘A lay-by would do for you two!’

‘You know all the good ones?’

‘Ya know - I’ve got one room upstairs if you want it, but I’m not sure I’d like to see what you’ll do to my bedsheets!’ 

‘Glahd-dys, lend us your room for half an ow-ah, and for the breakfast I’ll pay you dabb-ell!’

‘That won’t cover the energy I’ll need to wash my sheets on 90 degrees!’ she shrieked.

‘Well then I just won’t use the bed, Glah-dys!’

‘Oh, you’re not going to stop! I guess if it calms you two down! Come with me!—’ Natalia and Neill swapped delighted looks, as Neill muttered, ‘come with her? Filthy mare does want to pay us after all!’ - scooping Natalia up again to follow Gladys in a volley of creaks up a stuffy dark staircase, Natalia curling her head and feet from bumping the sides, as light emitted through a door Gladys was opening at the top of the thin-carpeted, wonky landing.

‘There you go. It’s not the Hilton, but it’ll do ya till I fry up your lot downstairs.’

‘I’ll fry her downstairs alright.’

‘Neill—’

‘Come, come…’ They stepped into a room with a maroon-purple carpet, a sunken double bed next to an oak dresser, and a faint scent of Mr Sheen, whilst Neill took a moment to work how to shut the door.

‘Bloody latch is older than her staircase. Come here, you—’ He hooked her neck and began ravishing her, from jawline to collarbone, pulling down her top as a whiff of her acrid armpit makes her self-conscious, and even more so about the direction he was travelling in, mouth now at her knickerline.

‘Er, wait, Neill… I really need a wee. And well, I need a shower. I’m so stinky—’

‘Go, go—’ he pushed her toward a door with ‘en suite’ in faded font, chucking a powder blue towel from the foot of the bed.

‘No - please ask Gladys. I can’t just use her water, and towel, you know…’

‘Alright, alright.’ He took a moment to unbolt the door again whilst she stepped into the bathroom. 

Tinier even than Premier Inn. Silver mixer taps and yellowing sink, waft of Toilet Duck. Her head felt like it was folding in for a moment, the funny little tinny sound you get in your ears. A lump rose in her throat as she looked down at the toilet lid, then up at the shower curtain and she felt like she couldn’t breathe.

She swung the door back open to see Neill lounging on the bed, one arm behind his head.

‘She says it’s fine. I told her you’ve been ill. Are you… ok?’

‘Y-yeah.’ She took a deep breath, smiled and shut the door again. Stop being silly. It’s Neill, he came quicker than any policeman… as she fiddled with the shower knob from cold to hot, cold to hot, whilst Neill nattered out there on the phone to someone, she fancied she had time to sort her lank hair with the last squirt of a bottle of Pantene. But there was no conditioner, so she only washed the front.

Finally she reappeared, turban-wrapped like a timid sultan at the foot of the bed.

‘Ahh, look at you!’ He jumped up and took her face in his hands, kissing in slow renewal of his southbound trajectory as she moaned softly, the towels fall and so too her wet hair in clumps, her eyes fixed open.

‘Are you ok with this?’ He stroked the last shower drops from inside her clavicles.

‘I’m, I’m ok… it was just… the bathroom.’

‘Oh, of course. And this room I guess. Fuck! I didn’t think.’

‘No - it’s ok, kiss me again… I love it… I love you…’

He sits down on the bed, perching her on his denim knee, her head inclined in his jaw as his hand strokes between her knees, which would normally open like a spring - certainly with the prelude of more kissing that past thirty minutes than they’d done in days, and as three fingers push through her thighs’ join to the springy tuft there, he wouldn’t blink surprised at the friction of her vulva from having just washed, were it not accompanied by a shudder in her hips.

Where he might say, ‘hey, hey, are you ok?’ she feels a stop in his throat, like he already knows, his hand forms a fist, and she can feel the rise of bile in his face, turned away where his lips must be pursed, but the voice from them was as soft as the light spilling at the window and the distant bleat of a lamb.

‘Is this what he’s done to you?’ 

‘Neill, Neill… I’m happy, happiest in the world to be with you, here… now… I don’t know… my body is… I’m just…’ she began to tremble, ‘I don’t know, I’m sorry. I hate myself for feeling like—’

‘Stop. No more sorries, about anything.’

‘Uh, ok.’

‘But I need you to listen carefully, very carefully - and understand this. Look at me—’

‘Breakfast is rehh-dy!’ came a call through the floorboards.

‘By the end of this holiday, I promise - look at me - all that, all that vile toad… all that… is going to be wiped from you, utterly wiped. Gone. Do you hear?’

‘G-gone…’

‘Gone like Adam from the pub. Gone like Marcia from the school. Gone like Dinkey from this world. Whether I have to walk you off-road in the fresh Walian air from morning to night.’

‘Is that a typo?’

‘Walian is a word.’

‘Walking me off every day.’

A faint acknowledgement flickers as he re-composes and strokes her head. ‘Whatever it has to be. Come on, dry your hair - well, half of it,’ he frowned. ‘Look, I pulled you some fresh clothes from the car. Let’s go feast.’

Kiss stormed the speakers as he drew his hand away from hers to navigate another bend, finally deigning to take Wales with grace the deeper they drove into its rural maze. Chewing Wrigleys, she rubbed Vaseline on her lips, sitting in a coral pink crop top - a one-piece joined to hot pants by laces at the side, exposing her midriff, that she’d bought when she was thirteen. It was the first thing that Neill, when he’d rushed to fetch clothes from the car, pulled from a torn hole in the side of her bin bag of teenybopper clothes that never went to the clothes bank. It had had both he and Gladys marvelling at where all the breakfast went, till Natalia pointed to a dribble of baked beans down one thigh. 

‘Wow! My god!’ A breathtaking view fell over the vast bowl of the sides of a humongous ridge shuttling past them. ‘This is scarier than Haworth!’

‘Message just buzzed in from Ed. Take it out of the cradle and read it darling.’

‘Ed says join the party at a place called… Siff-dy. C-y-f-f-d-y.’

‘Sure he said something different before, but I suppose that’s the Welsh name. Programme it into GPS please. He’s already texted the code for the key deposit box. I told him if we get there first we’re bagsying the best room.’

‘Is… this the driveway?’ 

‘Christ no, it’s a passage narrower than yours. There’s not even a passing place, god forbid we meet an oncoming smart car, let alone a tractor—’

‘Two miles up this road, he says - then turn right at the donkeys. …There! There, I see two donkeys!’

‘I almost missed them. Goodness, they are dinky.’

‘He reincarnated that quick? Can we feed them a digestive biscuit?’

The road led them up a hill even further till the hedges opened up and a side road appeared, snaking up to a glass-fronted building. 

Natalia stared. ‘Ed owns a Grand Design?’

‘No - we’ve come too far,’ Neill was squinting down into his phone, ‘the GPS says Ciff-dy was back down there…’

‘Nope, that sign didn’t say Ciff-dy,’ Natalia clung on as he swung the car round. ‘It must be those buildings,’ she pointed over a curve they’d missed. ‘Much more oldy worldy …there, Ciff-dah-doody! I see a sign!’

She hummed down the window as the tyres crunched gravel, taking in the sight of the textured sandstone, grey slate roofs and chocolate windowpanes of multiple charming buildings, overhung by elder and birch trees that lit up in fiery patches of morning sun like a lady’s red hair.

‘I didn’t know he owned three cottages!’

‘I don’t think he does,’ Neill pulled them in beside a black Volvo. ‘I guess there’s people staying in the other two. I didn’t know we’d have neighbours on our holiday - Ed didn’t mention it - but hopefully they’re buggering off after Easter Monday.’ He turned off the engine and peered at the nearest door. ‘Well, I guess we’ll all be rather cosy in here, but which cottage is it?’

‘He said the top one.’

‘I… guess this is the top one.’

They got out and stretched their arms into the sky as the car’s hot engine finally ticked into rest. 

‘Brrr!’ Natalia shivered. ‘Spring’s nicer inside your car,’ as she pulled her coat from the boot. 

‘Probably best you cover up that outfit before Ed gets here. Leave the bags - let’s go take a look first. Where’s this combination box then?’

Natalia scanned around the door. ‘Nothing here.’ 

‘Is there a key left in?’

‘No. Wait! It’s open. Look here - the key’s on the other side!’

They pushed in and turned on a spotlight that illuminated a lino-floored hall that led one way down to the kitchen, the other way up to the lounge, and the other way to the bedrooms.

‘Surprised Ed’s gone for that cheap LED shit,’ he muttered. 

‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s blue-tinted. Daylight temperature.’

‘Oh. But look - Ed even provides hiking boots for those who come to Snowdonia without!’

‘Only because they’re sitting in boiling water in the bathtub. They had blood on.’

They went up the two steps to the living room. A huge triangle of brown beams supported the walls and ceiling like hard rice pudding. A TV was set beside a log burner before a neat corner sofa. 

‘Wow! It’s like your cottage but bigger!’

‘Think I prefer the natural light in my place. And it’s so… brown.’ 

Natalia opened the curtains to emit light from a tiny window. ‘Oh, I think it’s lovely!’

‘Well at least the log stove’s loaded with a forest of wood. Cleaner hasn’t left the place very tidy,’ Neill picked a cushion from the floor, frowning at a Radio Times beneath. 

They went down the steps to the kitchen where they met with two empty Tesco bags on the dining table.

‘This really does not feel like a cleaner has been,’ Neill grumbled. ‘I feel like the Three fucking Bears. Is Baldilocks here already?’

‘Does Ed have a Volvo?’

‘No, he has a dick and it’s hairy. And like the dick that he is, perhaps he’s come and gone out again.’

Natalia went down to the bedrooms whilst Neill pulled the light in the bathroom. ‘Godawful office lights in here too. Smells like Ed’s had a curry—oh! What is it?’ 

She was clutching at his arm in fright. ‘Neill, Neill… the bed… there’s… there’s… someone in there!’

‘What? Must be Ed—’

‘There’s two people in there!’

‘There can’t b—’ Neill began, as they both turned to a grunt at the bedroom door. 

A man who was decidedly not Ed, who must be over sixty, stood there with his belly hanging over his green boxers and greasy bangs hanging at his eyes, as Natalia stifled a scream into her hands and the man’s eyes went as wide as theirs.

‘What in the wide world! Are yer burglars?’

Neill pulled Natalia to him. ‘I think there’s been some misunderstanding here. We’re supposed to be staying here, it’s our friend’s place. Ed Saunders?’

‘We’ve rented this place till Wednesday. Ring Sykes Cottages, ask ‘em yourself!’

‘I guess I should call Ed. He only uses Airbnb.’

A thin blonde woman appeared behind him, staring like a ghost. ‘Alan, Alan… careful, I heard them say blood…’

‘Is this,’ Natalia pulled her coat tight around herself, ‘the top cottage?’

‘The what?’ frowned Alan.

‘Is this Ciff-dah-doody?’

‘This one’s Arenig!’

The two burglars were now bamboozled.

‘Wait, wait - Ed told me the English name the other day. Here…’ Neill scrolled back through his texts. ‘The Coach House.’

‘This ain’t the Coach House. This is Arenig, of Cyffdy cottages. Kuff-deh. C-y-f-f-d-y.’

‘Neill, Neill - it must be one of the other two! Let me go look at their names!’

They stepped outside. Natalia ran to the other two cottages, fur coat flaring like a cape behind her pink skimpy pants whilst Neill stood lighting up a fag with his phone to his ear.

‘Fuck’s sake. No answer.’

‘D’ya have to smoke right there, man? My wife’s asthmatic!’

‘I’m what… five metres away?’

‘Regulations say six,’ Alan stood on the doormat in his boxers. ‘As of July 1st 2007, ’tis illegal to smoke in any substantially enclosed public place - that includes accommodation…’

‘Alan, leave it!’ came his wife over his shoulder..

Neill turned, and took one large step forward.

‘Aran!’ called Natalia. ‘And… Tegid!’

‘I think his name’s Alan,’ Neill looked back at the couple huddled at the door. ‘And the poor lady’s only cold because she’s the second woman I’ve seen today standing outside in her nightie.’

Natalia ran back over panting, ‘what did you say the English name was?’

‘The Coach House.’

‘I saw that, I saw that, I’m sure - on that big glass fronted house at the top of the hill!’

‘Right. Well, Ed’s not answering. We’ll try the other place, and this time we’ll knock. Lady, and gentleman!—’ Neill chucked his fag, stubbed out, then hastily picked up the stub - ‘we’re terribly sorry for disturbing your Easter morning,’ he curtseyed, ‘pray, do go back to sleep…’

‘Some April Fool’s this was!’ grumbled Alan.

They slammed back into the car and steamed back up the hill to the glass-fronted house, this time snaking all the way up the driveway till the Merc nose edged through a stone archway. 

‘Well, this is no turgid little hovel!’

‘I see a key combination box!’ Natalia ran over. ‘What was the number he gave?’ A second later she was swinging a key. ‘It worked! It worked!’

They stepped inside a sprawling modern living room awash with warm ceiling spotlights. A large stove burner ran its piping all the way up expansive white ceilings where light flowed from a top hatch window. A polished coffee table and tan leather sofas with turquoise cushions and deep-pile matching rugs were set before a massive wall-mounted TV, presided over by a huge clock with polished gemstone roman numerals that ticked along to their astounded breaths.

‘Woww. Now this is amazin’…’

To their left swept an open plan kitchen and dining room, its floor gleaming chessboard-chequered. Duck-egg green cabinets and a kitchen island matched four velvet-top bar stools.

‘Some sort of barn conversion? Look at the view through that!’

A pentagonal green-paned window, at least 10ft high and 6ft wide, framed the patchwork fields leading to distant Snowdon like nine neat paintings. Next to it a spectacular staircase with thick, floating beech treads like perfectly arranged triangles of golden baked cheese, spiralled inside a gleaming silver spindle balustrade up to the first floor.

‘Well I hope to God this is the place Neill!’

‘Oh, it is. What was the last thing Alan said?’

‘Get back in love, get the kettle on.’

‘Before that.’

‘Erm—’

‘April Fool, the git said. April Fucking Fool. With it being Easter Sunday, I forgot! According to this article, the last time they happened together was over 60 years ago and won’t again till 2029!’ He tossed down his phone. ‘I’ll fetch the bags so you can change out of those hot pants.’

Natalia had already thrown off her coat and was running up the staircase. 

‘Wait—! Let me check the bedroom this time, Natalia!’

‘Too late! Oh, my god!’ 

‘What! The other half of the swingers’ party?’

Two spacious and sumptuous double rooms, smelling as good as they looked, were set in mute whites and creams with wooden dressers and wardrobes, warm with light from their generous windows.

‘Ohh, yes,’ he stepped up behind her. ‘Bigger one’s ours. Problem is, that one’s a sleigh bed. I can’t tie you up to that. …Well! 

They were now admiring the dark marble bathroom twinkling like an ice rink.

‘Jesus… swept. Literally!— This cleaner has been!’

‘Did Ed afford all this by writing sleazy action tales, in your words? We could write our own!’ she laughed, as they filed back down the stairs.

‘Thought you already were?’

‘I stopped. I was too busy living it.’ She swept her hand over the long wooden dining table set with a crystal fruit bowl and six chairs.

‘Pine, or something.’ Neill knocked on it, shook it, and it rattled on its legs. ‘Ed. Such a let down.’

‘Oh, look! Scrabble! Resurrected - it’s a newer one!’ She ran over to a shelf by the window loaded with games and magazines, then double-glanced through the glass. ‘Is that a pool wrapped up outside?’ 

The doorbell suddenly chimed ten-to-the-dozen as Neill strode over. 

The door swung open. ‘Well, hel—’ 

‘Ed! You stupid fucking bastard!’ He gave Ed a shove right in the chest that sent him falling on his heels over the porchway.

‘Neill! His dining table’s not that bad!

‘Hello to you too!’ Ed welped.

‘April Fool? To send us to the wrong house?’

Ed stifled a wry grin as he scrambled up, dusting off his khaki trousers. ‘Why, what happened?’

‘We gatecrashed someone’s holiday like a pair of human fucking cockerels, that’s what happened!’

‘What!’ Ed chortled. ‘How did you get in?’

‘It was unlocked—’

‘No-one locks their doors round here!’ added Natalia.

‘Wouldn’t their car be parked outside?’ said Ed.

‘For any one of three cottages!’

‘We were sniffing round each room,’ went on Neill, ‘till a codger and his wife came out in their pants and nightwear like a police raid at Christian Minge-Mingle.’

Ed clapped his hands slowly, ‘my, my! May I say, I did not expect that to work so well!’

‘Are you fucking kidding?’ Neill fumed.

‘You’re both travelling up on the morning of April 1st, after telling me you’re going to jail, and suddenly you want my address to bagsy the best room like a German with his towel so you can shag your bobbie-soxer girlfriend whilst I’m stuck in a Greggs waiting for the M40 tailback to clear? What do you expect of your deviant friend, fella?’

‘Bobby who?!’ Natalia chimed.

Neill shook his head. ‘That man could have hurt Natalia. Or what if that old lady was all alone and I walked in to traumatise her?’

‘Hey, hey, relax Rich! I didn’t know you’d gone all neighbourhood watch!—’

‘No, I’m just not a bastard!’

‘It’s ok Neill,’ Natalia pulled his arm.

Neill huffed. ‘Natalia, make sure you thoroughly mark yourself over the best bed like a leg-cocking lady would.’

‘Already have.’

‘Lady? I see only your fourteen-year-old concubine straight out of Smash Hits. Did you beat me here by painting her hair with racing stripes?’

Natalia started to colour. ‘Really is a fucking bastard. I’ve had a rough journey here to your holiday home in the arse end of fucking nowhere.’

‘What, you had a shag stop?’

‘We beat you even with a shag stop,’ Neill retorted, ‘and an April Fool’s, and with Natalia in her condition.’

Ed’s grin froze.

‘That’s why we had a rough journey, Edward. Morning sickness. She needed to get to a bathroom and she ended up going in that couple’s cottage. Carnage.’

Ed blinked down the beans stain on Natalia’s thigh, and gulped: ‘You’re—?’

‘Not going to ask you to be godfather,’ she answered.

‘Jeez. I mean! Er, congrats… guys?’ Ed stared at her belly. 

‘Oh, there’s plenty of teenage pregnancies in Leeds. I’ll fit right in.’ Natalia looked down, realising her posture and food baby was more convincing than she wanted - took a deep breath in, then put her thumb to her nose and cocked a snook at him.

‘The look on his fucking face. April Fool’s, Ed!’

‘You fuckers!’ Ed flopped back on the ground as the other two laughed, high-fived and pretended to close the door and lock him out - till he darted up, slapped Neill on the back and hooped Natalia’s neck, kissed her head and said, ‘lovely to see you, darling, lovely to see you, how are you?’ 

‘Very good, thank you,’ she nuzzled back politely, awkwardly butting heads as she expected a London two-kiss and he only did one.

‘Shag stop was that good, was it?’

‘Whack him, darling, whack him.’

As the giant gemstone hands click-clocked to twelve, she could finally be sure there were no more pranks from Ed or Neill - for between them on their mellow tour of the grounds, there was confusion on where the April Fools ended, when Neill scoffed at Ed’s declaration that he has a supermodel staying over half of the week and Neill and Natalia will need to take the couch.

‘Well you tried joking that your Deputy dropped dead!’

‘That wasn’t a fucking joke.’ 

Now, out on the decking necking four Coronas between them, Natalia lazed by the shelf in a wicker chair on the other side of the glass, after having a mini heart attack rifling through two holdalls for her makeup bag that contained her contraceptive pill. Safely matured in two licks of liquid eyeliner and the long, cinched-waist ivory shirt dress that Neill had first bought her, sipping her tea and pretending to read a local magazine, spying the shift of Neill from stiff-lipped Head to holiday bloke was the main local attraction to behold. His gait had slackened, his sentences were shorter and his laughs twice as loud, elbowing Ed in between puffs of his third fag, whispering jibes with his eye on her that would make Ed turn and grin, and she mime back ‘what?’ for the tenth time till the door opened and they strolled back in. 

‘Jacuzzi works, we’ll get her warmed up at some point if you’re polite guests,’ Ed said - then farted, which was matched by Neill.

‘He never farts around me!’

‘Aw! It means he loves me more!’

‘Is this the lavvy?’ Neill yanked a handle. ‘It’s bloody locked!’

‘That’s the cellar. Loo’s that one. Going for that tip out? Do it upstairs!’

Neill had already shut himself in. Ed sighed and sat down on the sofa opposite Natalia, the late morning sun gilding his vulpine features like golden sand beneath his more subtle thin-framed spectacles, a change from the heavy black rims and tweed jacket back on the wintry Leeds visit.

‘Ok, Natty?’

‘Yeah! Thanks for the Easter eggs. I was just saying to Neill I need chocolate!’

‘Sorry they’re only Cadbury’s, it’s all Tesco Express had left. And PG Tips ok?’ he nodded to her clasped mug.

‘Oh, yeah!’

‘I know you like tea. Rich told me you fell in love over two cups. I wasn’t quite sure what cups he was referring to, but—’

‘My… PG Tips, obviously.’

‘Parental Guidance?’

‘Pert Goddess,’ she blinked, as he laughed just as coyly, the flush gushed and Neill returned, plonking down next to him. 

‘You two ok? Being polite?’

‘Well, I was.’

She grinned.

‘How about we take it easy today and explore the local sights? Natalia’s still a bit rough from being ill. Natalia, come here, let me feel your head… hmm. Warm. How’s your throat?’

‘She was sitting directly in the sun, mate.’

‘Let me feel something else then…’

‘I hope not her throat.’

Natalia smirked back to the shelf.

‘Anything going on in the local village, Ed? We saw it briefly as we drove through.’

‘Bala’s alright. Hardly Kensington, but worth a look.’

‘Here, Neill - here’s a local brochure I was reading.’ Natalia tossed it over, then with her arms stacked with a boardgame towered with leaflets, she lowered herself to a sunlit patch of rug in front of the two men.

‘Sibrydion,’ Neill flicked through. ‘Where to find Welsh cider, your nearest opticians or bell-ringing group.’ He tossed it. ‘Sibrydion. What a name. Isn’t a sibrydion one of those cock-shaped masturbation machines?’

‘That’s a Sybian,’ said Ed.

‘What, in there—?’ 

Natalia had unboxed Pop-Up Pirate and was assembling a plastic barrel and pirate’s head.

‘Picked that up at a kids’ junk fair when Airbnb advised me to provide games for young guests,’ Ed nodded.

‘Guests like her?’

The two men alternately swigged their beers and watched as Natalia stabbed a coloured plastic knife into the side of the barrel with a precarious ‘oooh!’

‘So what do you want to see whilst you’re here?’ 

‘Snowdon itself of course. Ya Wafer, or whatever it’s called in Welsh. We’ve talked about Portmeirion, and she wants to go Llandudno. She needs a holiday to bring her to life and you, Ed will bestow it. Show us everything North Wales has to offer!’

‘Shall we start with a slap-up lunch down the pub?’

‘Well, she ate twice her body weight in breakfast earlier and I’m still stuffed myself. Certainly no supermarkets today.’

‘Let’s see the lake, have a walk, and build an appetite for an Easter feast somewhere - as long as we’re back in time for the game.’

‘Game?’ Natalia’s eyes shot up. ‘This? Scrabble? Or there’s Monopoly?’

‘Football, Natalia.’

‘Humph.’

‘FA quarter finals.’

All three of them jumped - as her push of the tenth plastic knife made the head of the pirate shoot two feet into the air and land between Ed’s own.

‘Rather rude,’ Neill cleared his throat. ‘Reminds me of something we’ve done.’ 

‘I don’t dare to imagine,’ Ed rolled the pirate head back over, as Natalia hurriedly stuffed it all back in the box and took up a handful of leaflets, screwing her nose.

‘Barmouth Estuary 2011 tour guide. Are we going back in time? …Erdigg Castle. Colywn Bay. Pilli Palas Nature World in Anglesey! …Oh, and a Penguin paperback!’

‘Someone must have left that,’ Ed squinted down at Henry James’ What Maisie Knew clasped in Natalia’s hands. ‘I don’t leave books in my Airbnb, they’ll just get swiped.’

‘By her you mean?’ Neill nodded.

‘We haven’t got this one,’ she was belly-slithering over the rug and gazing at the cover illustration of an oil painting of a little girl with blonde-brown ringlets, standing in a pinafore, arms behind her back, black stockinged legs akimbo in flat black shoes. ‘Neill’s only got The Portrait of a Lady.’

‘She knows my library better than I do,’ chuckled Neill.

‘I know because you gifted me it, then I brought it back where it belongs.’

 ‘Well, I know what portrait of a lady I prefer,’ Neill nudged Ed, watching Natalia’s kicking feet idly pooling her shimmering skirts down around her knees.

‘Lovely dress,’ remarked Ed. ‘Some sort of silk cotton?’

‘I gifted her that.’

‘What in tarnation was she wearing earlier? That from a junk fair too?’ 

‘Was almost in the clothes bank. But now it’ll be a sperm bank.’

Ed chuckled, as Neill leaned to place his empty beer bottle on the table and reach for a leaflet laying at Natalia’s elbow. 

‘Mmm. Whisky Distillery in Bangor…’

‘Want to go to Bangor, Rich?’

‘Sounds lovely. Sounds like the ideal holiday. Now let's bring this dress back where it belongs...’ He chucked the leaflet, grabbed and hauled up Natalia by one elbow as the book dropped to the floor with her gust of surprise, to be swiftly bent back over his knee, his mouth plastered on hers in a squealing frisson that bicycled up her dress like a flag in a gale.

Ed blinked away. ‘I would say get a room, but…’

‘We’ve already got yours.’ Neill propped her back up, brushed down her dress and felt her rosey head. ‘Yep. We need to lake-dip this fever.’

It was a short drive in Ed’s Audi Q7 down to ‘Wales’ largest natural lake!’ he practically shouted over the drumbeat of The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine as the other two bounced and fell about in the back. ‘Sky of blue, and sea of green!’ he hollered as the freshwater glacial lake came into view, looming across the main road in the glimmering sun.

‘Ed, you’ll be wearing a wig of laverbread and cockle-vomit if you don’t stop driving like me,’ Neill warned, till Ed pulled in and pointed to numerous signs.

‘Sailing, rowing, windsurfing, fishing! They try charge you a fiver in parking just over there, but here by the cafe it’s free. Come come, my tourists! Grab the towels and bags!’

When Ed had asked Natalia if she’d ever been wild swimming, she remarked she had no swimsuit - till she remembered the red leotard had been shoved into the binbag. It now lay warm and reborn under her clothes, and in her mind, would stay that way.

‘Lynn Tegid. She’s looking good today!’ 

‘Rather a good day for a dip, there’s no wind.’

‘What, get in right here?’ Neill watched three sets of dog walkers ambling past.

‘No, no - we’ll walk down for a half a mile at least.’ The two men swung the bags over their shoulders as Natalia ran up alongside, down the wide pebbled path that curved with the lake. The bushes built up as they went, working them into a light pant for fifteen minutes, till Ed jumped off onto a patch of sand by the water shouting, ‘here! Perfect!’ He’d already whittled down to his trunks and was wading in as Neill followed suit. 

Natalia stood biting her lip at the men’s shouts at the cold water.

‘Come on in, Lynn!’ called Neill. ‘Don’t be so Tegid, turgid and frigid!’

‘I might get more ill! Or iller?’

‘Water’s a Victorian cure for all ills!’ yelled Ed.

‘I’ll just watch you two today!’ Hugging her knees, comparing Ed’s pallid hairless pecs to Neill’s light golden body beard, then comparing their bulges with a smirk, as a pulse of deep lake defined both outlines, till they submerged to their cheeks, dipping their heads back, Neill’s head unfamiliarly reshaped by flat-laying wet hair, Ed flipping his feet to the sun.

‘Go grab her, Ed!’ 

‘I’m already in her doghouse!’

‘Do I have to do everything myself?’ Wet-dark hairy shins waded out, bucketing water and a thoroughly defined bulge now coming toward her as she promptly scrambled the other way.

‘Neill!—’ She shrieked as he grabbed her. ‘Don’t you dare. I’ve never wild-swum before…’

‘All firsts with me, remember?’ He’d already shaken off her dress, with at least two button casualties, as she folded her arms around herself.

‘Ahh, the dress I first spanked you in and now the leotard I watched you vibrating in. You’re a walking palimpsest of filthy history.’

‘Stop! I don’t want to get my hair wet—’

‘Which end,’ he laughed, scooping her up bride-style again, and she, realising lest she look like some shivering paraplegic or devil spawn being lowered into an unwanted baptism, she’d better be game to lower her own legs into the - ohh! - ice cold surface, arms around his neck as her knees, then bottom, then chest were submerged, shivering at his neck as he guided them further and further out. ‘Hold onto me, you don’t have to get your hair wet—’

‘Ok, ok— OH!’ He’d splashed her down and then up again, forehead spattered - and then again, to her nostrils, the water icing the back of her head - ‘But you only washed half earlier!’ - ‘Don’t let go, don’t let go, ok!’ to his insistence he wouldn’t, and that look in his eye that confirmed the limit of his mischief, the boundary that had perhaps been crystallised by his new neighbourhood-watch-concern Ed himself had disproved, to take care of her and not traumatise her, that he’d realised this past couple of days with some sobriety was fully possible from unwanted advances onto a girl. 

‘Put your hands down my pants.’ Or maybe not.

‘What!’ she laughed.

‘Put your hands down my pants,’ he carried her out deeper, ‘and feel for something hard.’

She rubbed against something hard - and angular.

‘Neill, you’ve got your phone in here! Oh, no! You’ve drowned your phone!—’ She took out the dripping metal shell, missing its battery. ‘What the frick?’

‘Now, whose phone is that?’

‘Oh my god—’

‘Yep, it’s Dinkey’s. Throw it. Toss it. See if you can hit Ed on the head with it. And let it drop to its final resting place just like Ryan’s in the Cock Beck.’

‘Goodbye, Vettriano!’ She splashed it the other way. ‘Sob!’

‘Rest assured I gave it the last rites. We’re just going to keep making a lot more unphotographable Vettrianos on this trip, hmm?’ 

Ed turned to see their necks entwined, snogging each other’s faces off. 

‘See! She’s better already!’

Encouraged to swim off and get warm, she paddled her limbs - earnestly at first, as though needing every flail to catch her breath - then tried to relax, turn onto her back and enjoy the sun radiating on her face whilst the men larked around pulling each others’ legs, then gushing powerful crawls after each other whilst Natalia demurely breaststroked after them them. Then, feeling something flutter at her leg, she screamed, lost her confidence and tried not to flail too wildly for Ed’s nearby shoulders, finding herself involuntarily intimate with their flesh in each her fists till taxied to Neill, then back to the shore, murmuring ‘some creature touched my leg! And not Ed!’ - ‘Natalia. There isn’t a creature in the whole of Wales that wouldn’t want to touch your leg’ - before she was wrapped in a huge towel, not as huge as her grin, watching Neill and Ed’s glistening wet chests as they changed behind the rocks, and marvelling that her screaming fit in the services this morning already felt like a week ago.

‘I bet that was a gwyniad,’ Ed pulled in behind a lady just leaving her parking bay. ‘A type of fish only found in Lake Bala, no other lake in the world.’

‘It’s gone twelve, Ed. No jokes.’

‘It’s true! Google it.’

‘Bollocks. How can they prove it? I bet that fish lives fucking everywhere.’ 

Natalia dropped her hair from its towel wrap, grumbling at Neill for making it wet again as he gave it another vigorous rub and threw her a hat from Ed’s boot. They took in the sight of Bala village. A sedate sprinkle of mostly old people; a bright-red Plas Coch Hotel; a stone-built restaurant with a tacky gold name, and various shops closed for Easter Sunday as Neill feigned straining indecision as to which direction to go down the ‘Stryd Fawr! High Strreeet!’

‘Rich - keep your fucking Welsh racism down,’ Ed frowned as Neill proceeded to ‘av a butcher’s at the butcher’s,’ exclaiming ‘‘ow much! You know I’m a Yorkshire man!’ at the Snowdonia Black Bomber and Green Thunder cheeses, whilst Natalia wandered to a shop next door that overflowed its wares onto the pavement. Plastic boxes of toys, crockery, old children’s shoes, and second-hand fleeces hung on hangers at the door.

She smelt Neill’s smoke trails behind her as she rifled through a box of £1 birthday cards.

‘Well at least the best places are open. Anyone need a stuffed gorilla?’

‘Just remembered it’s my mum’s birthday on Friday. I should send her a card.’

‘I don’t think that’s a good idea darling. She’ll see the postmark. Send her an e-card.’

Ed appeared with a Spar carrier. ‘Picked us up some breakfast provisions. I’ll drop it in the motor and catch you up,’ as Neill and Natalia wandered down the parade, and Neill waved his fag aggressively at a green-mossed man in his stone gown.

‘Who’s this statue of? The plaque’s an anagram!’

‘Tom Ellis,’ Natalia read the English on the other side, ‘Prominent Welsh liberal politician originating from Ba—’

‘Sinema! Spelt fucking wrong!’ He was now gazing up at an Art Deco-style, blue and yellow painted building, ‘looks like something out of a Kubrick film!’

‘Kubrick film on?’ Ed strolled up.

‘Get in, get in - let’s warm up. Her hair’s still damp thanks to your lake-dipping idea.’ 

The reception was unmanned. Neill opened a door and sounds of booming action led to the auditorium. 

‘Shall we?’ 

‘Neill… Ed—!’

‘There’s literally no-one to pay. Must be free for Easter or someone forgot to turn everything off before the holiday.’

They padded into the dark flashing screen room and Natalia tentatively followed, pulling down a seat at the end.

‘Patrick McGoohan. Wasn’t this a TV show? 1960s, must be Danger Man.’

‘No, no, it’s The Prisoner. Look at the buildings,’ Natalia gladly volunteered her YouTube research. ‘It’s Portmeirion!’

‘Clever girl,’ remarked Ed. ‘Is her hair dry yet?’

‘As dry as the roast we’re going to eat. It’s almost five.’

‘Pub o’clock then. Will she be staying dry to drive us back? She told me you’re going to teach her. Nineteen, about time!’

‘What, to drink or drive?’

‘Both, in our case.’ 

‘Natalia, are you going to drink more than a saucer of Malibu and Coke?’

‘Not Malibu, ever again.’

‘Fancy the Bulls Head, The Goat, or The Eagles?’ Ed asked.

‘Whichever lived the best life before I eat it.’

‘So long as it’s not a Brown Cow,’ Natalia trailed behind.

She gazed up at the hanging baskets, flanking the Welsh flag gently swaying over her, and repeated, ‘yeah, I’m ok, mum. We had a disagreement, a small one, but we’ve gone away for a bit. Scotland. Scotland, yeah. It’s your birthday on Friday isn’t it? Oh, Thursday. Always got confused between 5th and 6th April. Tax year start and end, you always said. Daz’s taking you to what? A cocktail masterclass! Did he get lucky on Groupon?!’ 

Neill looked over at her, laughing bye, bye mum - from where he was doing that last-big-trombone-suck of his fag, nodding and appointing Ed to ‘get us a table, while I finish up,’ and now Ed was walking over as she slid her phone away, thinking she had something new in common with her mum. And not just throwing a phone into a lake today. The fear of calling the police on Friday night had made her since consider that Neill was onto something when he suggested back in January that her mum had a transgression to hide. Not, of course, taking a kebab stick to her dad - in that slimeball’s fairytale - but what if her mum had a secret like hers? Neill’s joke about pregnancy was on the nose with his condom phobia. What if Natalia herself had been born through forbidden love like her and Neill’s?

‘I’ve been summoned to bring you to dinner… ma’am,’ her bald butler bowed and took her arm, heaving open the door of The Bull’s Head to a burst of noise and waft of kegs, rustic wood tables warmly lit by flames from the inglenook fireplace set within its stone walls. A bottle wearing a thick collar of dripped wax was set on every table, and every table occupied by rugged men in smart-casual and women in their pressed Sunday best.

‘Gadzooks. Already busy.’ Ed’s breath came down at Natalia’s ear: ‘If we get IDed in here, do you have some?’

‘Er, no…’

‘No driving licence then… passport?’

‘I… I don’t have that either,’ Natalia’s eyes shot to Neill.

‘I guess you could show them a bankcard if they ask—’

‘Shut the fuck up Ed. The only bankcard you need to show them is yours.’ Neill violently shoved him toward a bar lady who was wearing what looked like a dress of doilies.

‘Hello, what can I get you?’

‘Excited.’

Her thin pencilled eyebrows pushed up her forehead like a puffer jacket.

‘And fed, please darling,’ added Neill.

‘Have yah booked?’ 

‘Oh. No,’ frowned Ed.

‘It’s Easter Sunday, and we have Sibrydion in tonight.’

‘Sib… the newsletter?’ said Neill, as Natalia giggled.

‘No.’

Ed gasped. ‘The machine!’

‘The band. From Cardiff.’

‘Oh.’ They glanced to three men clanking out a drumkit, keyboard and guitars, plugging in the mic with a long whine. 

‘Listen,’ Neill leaned over, ‘we’ve travelled from a long, long way away, and we even climbed a hill this morning. Before sunrise! How many of your patrons can say that?’

‘I can also tell you,’ continued Ed, ‘that we’re so famished and parched we’ll spend at least two hundred Welsh quids here tonight. Would you rather see that money go to the Goat or Eagles?’

‘Yah’d be lucky to get into a Wetherspoons tonight, mah love!’

‘Can’t you build us a little table there by the fire? It might be hot but our lady here’ - Ed tapped Natalia, and Neill pushed her forward - ‘loves being roasted.’

‘My hair’s wet, you see,’ Natalia hurriedly added. ‘We swam in a river after climbing the mountain.’

‘Furthermore,’ Neill clapped her shoulders, ‘she’s a diabetic and anaemic who needs her blood sugar replenishing with food and hops, pronto. She’s twenty, and look how small she is! Are you the innkeeper who would really make us walk like donkeys to be turned down at Shiverspoons?’

‘Plîs!’ said Ed.

‘Plîs?’ frowned Neill. ‘Yis! Plîs! Helpu friendu!’

She sighed, her blue eyes twinkling. ‘I can try squeeze you over there in a minute, it’ll be a bit of a squash—’

‘As long as we’re not drinking it. Tab for Eddie! Right, I’m ailing for ale. I’ll have a Double Dragon! Wait!—I’ll try some Dark Side of the Moose…’

In a few moments a table was improvised with a small cast-off from another party, arranged with bar stools and fast laden with drinks as the three of them crammed around in a complacent cackling commotion, whilst a groomed grey-bearded gentleman about two metres away, sitting with his wife, glanced repeatedly in bemusement.

‘Helpu friendu,’ scoffed Ed. ‘I can’t believe she didn’t march us out when you said that.’

‘Helpu ffrind,’ suddenly smiled the old man.

‘Oh!— About right,’ Ed muttered. ‘Jammy fucker accidentally spoke Welsh. …Diolch!’ Ed called back.

‘Croeso,’ the man replied.

‘Wow, you do speak Welsh!’ smiled Natalia. 

‘He could be calling me a cunt for all I know.’

‘What’s this you’ve got me?’ Neill tapped his glass. ‘A Guinness with an inch missing?’

‘Dark Side of the Moose. Dark crystal malt roasted, thought you’d love it.’

‘More like you ordered it and regretted it.’

‘Come on - we’ve even got a decent view of the band,’ Ed nodded. ‘Specials up on the board - they’re doing lamb, half leg of ch—’

‘Lamb,’ said Natalia. ‘Definitely lamb.’

‘You never eat lamb chops,’ scoffed Neill.

‘On Easter I do. Lamb of God, you see. It’s very good.’

‘She’s right,’ Ed added, ‘it’s Lamb Henry. It will be more aromatic than the pages of Mr James she was sniffing earlier. Lamb for thee and lamb for me!’

‘Make it lamb three. Off you go order at the baaa.’

‘Aren’t we doing starters?’ frowned Ed. ‘Famished after that swim.’ 

‘Na! Just order extra potatoes, cauliflower cheese, and a big load of their spring veg. Bucket of gravy for each plate. And get me a normal ale!’ Neill called. ‘There he rises again,’ as he pulled Natalia onto his knee, kissed down her temple and lowered to the whisper that she loved, ‘feeling a bit better? I’ve just realised… are you ok in a pub?’

‘Yes, yes… I’m with you… and by a fire,’ she sighed, smiling back politely at the old man whose soft tender eyes glanced over in between mutters to his wife.

‘So what’s this?’ Neill’s middle fingers excavated a knot in her belly.

‘Ah… haa,’ she was gazing at a pie being served. ‘You know… that’s another thing I don’t understand. He even tricked me with pork pies.’

‘Pork pies?’

‘When we were messaging. I know my dad liked pork pies so I asked if he likes them still. He put this big smiley face and said, ohh you got me! I mean, why would he do that? A coincidence he likes pork pies?’

‘Pork pie is slang for pussy.’

‘Ohh.’ She flopped forward dejectedly onto the table.

‘Heyy, sit up. Come on. It’s also slang for porkies… lies…’ 

She sat up and tapped her phone. ‘Oh, look, Urban Dictionary also says when you pork pie someone, you’ve ignored them. That makes sense! Let me check the screenshot of the chat…’

‘Oh, darling—’

‘Yes, look! That was when I was waiting all day for him to reply! And then he said, ohh, we must talk!’

‘Either way he wasn’t thinking of Ginsters. Put that away, Ed’s back.’

‘Lana’s just messaged…’

Ed was carrying over another two ales concentratedly, as Neill nudged Natalia. ‘Look, look at him’ - she looked up and giggled to see one head sploshing as Ed’s hip banged into a table.

‘Well!’ Ed lowered the drinks and wiped his sleeve. ‘The last time we were in a pub together was on the Embankment! Princess of Wales, wasn’t it!’ 

They both looked at Natalia as Neill slid her back to her stool. ‘All pandered, fed, bathed, and adored, yes?’ Neill pinched her cheek.

‘How much are we going to spoil her all week?’

‘Well I’m glad you understand the purpose of the holiday,’ she smiled coyly.

‘You’re going back Saturday, Ed? …Try this Dark Moose, Natalia, before I get shot of it?’

‘If it makes you wince, I can only imagine.’

‘Leave it, I’ll have it,’ said Ed. ‘Yup, Fri or Sat dependent. Now that I don’t have to worry about her… you know.’

‘Ooh, Ed’s single! Let’s find you a nice Welsh bird!’ Neill cooed.

‘A Red Kite will do me… either the national bird of Wales, or the ale. Hic!’ 

‘I think I saw one of those on our way in,’ mused Natalia.

‘Rich drink-driving again?’

‘Not like the drink-jiving I see coming from Ed,’ Neill replied, as the band test-plucked their guitars, and they picked up their glasses in a toast, Natalia’s dainty shandy dwarfed by a circle of four pints, parroting ‘Yaki dar! Daki yar!’ …‘Tacky bar!’ - ‘Neill!’ - till the old man raised his white wine too, seeming more interested in them than his sleepy frizzy wife still sawing her way through her chicken.

‘How’s studies then, Nat? Where are you again, Leeds Art College?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Funny, I looked that up and it said it didn’t exist.’

Neill made a low cough.

‘Till I saw you changed your name last August,’ Ed nodded. ‘Leeds Art University, very swish.’

‘Ohh yeah, yeah,’ Natalia thumbed her hair behind her ear. ‘We all just go on calling it that.’

‘But you’re 19, so you must be doing a degree now?’

‘Yep. In Art.’

‘BA Hons in Fine Art,’ added Neill.

‘Show us your painting masterpieces then. This rude bastard never does!’

‘Ed, don’t be nosey. She’s not fucking Rolf Harris.’

‘Swerve the razor for a few days, mate, and she will be.’

‘You, foul deformity, speak a great deal of nothing—’ Neill aimed a whack that knocked Ed’s glasses down his nose.

‘Hey! I’m only showing interest in your ladies - for once!’

‘Well, you know,’ Natalia demurely sipped her shandy, ‘it’s exam time now and all our material is confidential till results.’

‘So what did you paint as your main?’

‘It’s coursework Ed, not a fucking course dinner.’

‘Actually, I painted one in the style of Jack Vettriano - of us, you know,’ Natalia smiled. 

‘Oh? Like The Kiss?’

‘That’s Klimt,’ interjected Neill.

‘Well it’s all I see you two do.’

‘For good reason, perv.’

‘The Singing Butler was hanging on my nan’s wall for years. Always thought it was more fart than art but apparently these Leeds college girls have canonised crappy old watercolour smut.’ Ed threw back another four inches of ale as silence fell.

‘So… Neill says you’re writing a novel? I was, at one point…’

‘Yep, just a teeny, weeny bit fed up writing the layperson fodder, the idiots’ guide to everything.’

‘Oh, you wrote those?’

‘He’s just being figurative Natalia.’

‘The Joe Bloggs blether! Tantamount to writing the slips in fortune cookies.’

‘I remember you said in London you want to write your own stuff?’

‘I thought lets make use of my holiday home for the kind of getaway the old greats used for inspiration to write something remotely edifying. Ed. Ed-ifying! You see? My name’s the game! That’s why I let you two come’ - Ed’s face twitched closer, Natalia shifting awkwardly - ‘to help me out, see? The artist and the English professor! Hic!’

‘That lamb better hurry. The drink’s going straight to his brainstem.’

‘What genre? Rich said sleazy action?’

‘Oh, he would. Well, you know how you get romance and fantasy,’ Ed leaned back talking smoothly again, ‘romantasy, you youngsters know all about. Wanted to try my hand at romance meets action. Sort of… well, aptly for our incoming grub, the guy who wrote Silence of the Lambs, Thomas Harris - meets Jackie Collins.’

‘Oh, we just watched Silence of the Lambs! What’s the book like?’

‘Well, there’s some differences, as you’d expect in a novel to film adaptation. So, for example…’ Ed strained his face.

‘You’ve caught him before the Welsh ale busts his one remaining brain cell. Good timing darling.’

One of Ed’s eyes faltered.

‘Or maybe not,’ Neill added.

‘So… the famous bit where Hannibal asks Starling to come ‘closer, closer’ with her ID. It doesn’t happen like that in the book. The ward is asked to put the card in the drawer and Hannibal takes it out, sniffs it and puts it into his mouth.’

‘Why, does it smell like her cunt?’ said Neill.

‘Language at the table!’ chuckled Ed, glancing to the old man. ‘So also, the perspex window was a film idea to make it easier to see Hannibal’s face without bars in the way. Apparently the sound guy hated the idea - until they put holes in it.’

Natalia asked, ‘what about Miggs and his confetti—?’ 

‘Cumfetti!’ snorted Neill.

‘…Does that happen in the book?’

‘Yeah, Miggs chucks his… load, at her. They even kept the quip of Hannibal’s when he tells Starling to run, he doesn’t reckon Miggs can manage again so soon! Corker of the book.’

They all laughed. ‘Hopkins is a Welshman, too,’ Neill added.

‘But we’re going to disturb your reason of coming here, aren’t we?’ Natalia said. ‘If Neill and his foul mouth is here bringing constant shame to the reputation of your village compadres?’

‘See she doesn’t sound Yorkshire at all when she talks like that.’ Ed pushed aside his empty glass and began the second. ‘Nah, don’t worry, luv. Got a bit of writer’s block anyway. A bit like sorrow - best thing to do is drown it. And if you’re stop-starting your novella then we can be blocked together and I won’t feel alone,’ he winked. 

Natalia laughed politely. There was a moment of pause as Ed eyed the old man getting up for the gents, then spoke quietly:

‘So, did you get all the stuff with the pigs sorted?’

‘Oh, yeah, yeah. False alarm,’ Neill replied.

‘Right. So did you,’ Ed coughed, barely moving his lips now, ‘bring that blow?’

‘What, are we planning on a rave in Bala?’

‘Come on,’ cajoled Ed with a grin. ‘We didn’t last time, and we’re out in the sticks with you thoroughly off headmaster duty, and you’re even quitting soon! So stop being a good boy - not that you need encouraging.’

‘What’s… blow?’ Natalia whispered.

‘I do have it, Ed,’ Neill returned as tersely as he, ‘because it happens to be secreted in the motor. I was going to sell it to get some cash back.’

‘Is it what you got off… Mr Welsh?’ murmured Natalia.

‘Ooh, how apt! Trade you for Girls’ Scout all holiday. As well as being your tour guide de excellence.’

‘That’s grade A, isn’t it?’ frowned Natalia. ‘A boy in Bramley died last year taking it with alcoh—’

‘Deal. Ah, meals!’ 

The doily-dressed bar lady was lowering two heaving plates of steaming beige shapes, exclaiming ‘will y’ave room for all this?’ - as a skinny man in a chef’s jacket followed with the third plate and an array of sides: buttered green beans, honeyed carrots, white-gunged cauliflower, mint sauce and several gravy boats, which were promptly decanted and dumped onto the plates with an ebullition of oohs and aahs that Natalia had long missed, along with those gentlemanly comments that toed the line, and a request for ‘more cooroo!’ - ‘Yes, cooroo! …whatever that is!’

‘C-r-w-r… no, c-w-r-w… well it’s fucking Welsh for beer, anyway,’ said Ed.

‘Goodness, look at the size of these Yorkshires!’

‘I was thinking the same thing,’ Ed’s eyes ping-ponged them.

‘Is that a rude comment, Edward!’

‘Carry on, I’ve been waiting two weeks for the pill to do this,’ smirked Natalia, as Ed and Neill’s simultaneous hoot of laughter made three heads turn, to her satisfaction.

‘So you two are doing it now that you’re living together?’ Ed ventured as Natalia’s eyes went to Neill, ‘it was only, what, six weeks since she was all niminy-piminy virgin struck po-faced by Truth or Dare?’

‘Oh, she lost it less than three weeks ago. But in that time I’ve done more to her than most porn stars get in their career.’

Ed spluttered on his beer whilst Natalia felt a blush begin and then quickly dissipate as Ed said, almost a little forlornly, or it might have a piece of lamb bone he was spitting into his serviette - ‘Andrea used to be… you know, game for everything.’

‘What, fifty shades of it? What did you two get up to out here apart from shooting pigeons? Is there a sex swing stashed in that locked cellar?’ probed Neill.

‘Hardly! Just boxes of old stuff I haven’t sorted through for a year. Mostly pellets for the air rifle. At the start, we were very kinky,’ Ed’s voice lowered again. ‘Met her when she was 24, you know. But corporate London life over the next ten years made her a square.’

‘Oh, I know those women,’ Neill exhaled. ‘Was she calling her bajingo a yoni and lighting up enough nag champa to wake Highgate Cemetery?’

‘I can’t imagine London life doing that,’ Natalia blew a huge roast potato on her fork. ‘London is so exciting.’

‘For you, a nubile Northerner, of course,’ Ed nodded. ‘But it does that to some people.’ 

‘Didn’t she needle you to have a family?’

‘She was like your wives were, Rich. Too focussed on work. And I went the same way, working for Arnies on solid sensibles for years. Funny, I first had the idea to buy a holiday home not only to make wonga but let loose from the city shackles. In the last couple of years though, she didn’t have the time from work so I came a couple times on my lonesome. Even going up to Leeds to see you two was a release valve—’

‘Oh, we saw that,’ Neill remarked.

‘Of course, we never tied the knot, so when we split last month, I didn’t have to share anything with her. And I was fucking glad. I thought, fuck Andrea, fuck the corporate life and fuck Arnies even if I have to sell this place. And then you’d never believe what happened,’ Ed’s eyes widened dramatically.

‘Who’s… Arnie?’ Natalia blinked back.

‘Arnold Press,’ nudged Neill.

‘Oh—’

‘So come on what happened?’

‘What happened was soon as I thought that, my uncle in the Maldives corked it and I found myself with a windfall. What a nod from the universe! Sorry, Trevor.’

‘Oh, we know that feeling of seren-deputy,’ Natalia nudged back Neill.

‘Serendipity. Golly she wants to be a writer?’

‘Joke’s on you, Ed. As well as the drinks for the rest of the night!’ 

The bar lady arrived with more booze, as they duly chimed, ‘diolch! Danke schön! Thanku friendu!’

‘Well,’ Ed smacked his lips, ‘at least it’s good to see someone’s infatuated with each other. And doing more than tongue-thrashing finally. Have you let her go on top yet?’

‘Ed—!’

‘She gets it how normal grown up women get it, if not worse.’ 

‘Normal grown women!’ Ed guffawed. ‘You make it sound like she really is fourteen.’

‘She’s twice that in intelligence and perhaps… 1.5 that in emotional maturity. For being… er, nineteen. Had to think for a moment there,’ Neill’s face began to wobble.

‘I’m how old? With him, I forget too,’ Natalia giggled.

Ed looked bemused. ‘Just off to the gents. So starving I held it.’

‘God, he’s done all the talking and finished his roast first. And you’ve eaten nearly all Shaun the Sheep, I’m impressed! Even though you didn’t suck out his marrow. …Oh, now you have, well done! Feeling better, Princess?’ Neill nuzzled into Natalia’s hair.

‘Well there’s one thing that will make me feel better, like, Princess-of-Wales-better…’

‘Oh, I know. My turn for the gents next and I’ll aim it straighter than Ed-would.’

‘Ed-ward… funny, cos Lana, well… she says she might not be able to use her SIM in Thailand…and she’s still waiting for a picture of me and him.’

‘Pardon?’

‘The boyfriend she thinks I have called Edward.’

‘You want a photo with Ed?’ he chuckled.

‘Mmm… maybe.’

‘Natalia, I’m joking. Of course we can’t send a picture of myself nor Ed to anyone.’

‘I know, I know… nothing major, just something to prove I have a boyfriend because she thinks I’m lying.’

‘What sort of a friend is that?’

‘It’s not her fault. I’m telling her stuff, and I keep having to say it’s secret, and…’

‘Natalia you are being preposterous. We just got rid of a Vettriano that would have me behind… punch-holed perspex right now, if it weren’t for life’s serendeputy. Do you want to get us into trouble?’

‘No. Of course not,’ she glumly swirled her last inch of shandy.

‘Come on, keep your chin up,’ he sighed and kissed her. ‘I need that food to digest in you properly and get your strength up, hmm? How was mum when you rang?’

‘Yeah, she’s fine.’ She looked up to Ed looming back over.

‘Saw a poster in the bogs for The Prisoner convention in Portmeirion. They must have been playing it at the cinema like an advert. Another Dragon, Rich?’

‘Let me get them,’ Neill arose, ‘I know you’re desperate to play Jeeves to us all holiday but we’ll give you a lunch break. Plus I need a fag. Sit, sit with Natalia’ - he took Ed’s shoulders, ‘and make sure she doesn’t run off or take any photos of you.’

Ed scoffed and sat down. ‘Are you ok, Natalia?’

‘Yeah, yeah…’

‘What were he gassin’ on about? You say gassin’ on, up North, don’t you?’

‘Well, usually just gassin, without the on.’ She stifled a scowl as the band frontman in dark glasses blared ‘one, two!’ forcing her to speak in spurts. ‘Oh… it’s nothing. I just… hope I haven’t pissed him off.’

‘What’s he mithering about, eh? You were positively smitten a minute ago. That’s it, I’ll deck him!’

‘Well,’ she smirked, ‘it’s… my college friend. I promised her I’d send her a photo of us… but, you know how it is with me and Rich - we can’t be in any photos, not till he’s resigned, and even then he’ll probably be cautious…’

‘Ooh aye, after having the pigs sniffin’!’

‘Mm.’

‘Tell him you need a photo reference for another painting,’ he grinned.

‘Well… I suggested just posing with someone else.’

‘What, any old stooge?’

‘Yes.’

Ed chortled. ‘Is this what uni girls are like! Tell you what, give me it here and I’ll send her a dick pic right now. My knob’s bigger than Rich’s anyway.’

She squealed. ‘Ed!’

‘Show us a picture of what this bird’s like at least.’

She hesitated down at her phone.

‘And I might help you.’

‘Not with your dick pic.’

‘Give it here, give it to Uncle Eddie—’

‘Wait, wait!’ Natalia shielded the screen till she’d found an appropriately mature picture of Lana in a ball gown. ‘Here.’

‘Awww! So purdy!’

‘I’ve been gone eight minutes and she’s sexting you already?’ Neill lowered two more drinks as Natalia took back her phone.

‘But not as pretty as you, Natalia, obviously…’

‘Oh Lord. She’s showing you her lushes.’

‘What’s her name?’ asked Ed.

‘Erm…’

‘We call her Lana Del Ray. Because her attitude is as miserable as the songs.’

‘Neill!’

‘Come on. She’s a disingenuous bitch.’

‘She is not!… She did my hair, Ed. Although I’m not sure I want to have blonde highlights anymore.’

‘Why?’

‘Too passé?’

‘It attracts the wrong attention…’

‘I was joking with what I said earlier,’ said Ed.

‘She knows she’s gorgeous,’ Neill tousled her head.

‘No, no,’ she suppressed a blush, ‘there was another bloke, who messaged me after I updated my profile picture with it… and made a pass at me - now I know why.’

‘I bet Rich thrashed him.’

The band began drumming and the pub filled with their first song, about falling and catching and shooting for the stars, Neill and Natalia watching, as Ed faced them, wryly grinning at their interlocked fingers as she sunk further into Neill’s merino shoulder.

‘Sit round next to us so you can watch, Ed…’

‘I’d rather not.’

‘Come on. It makes Natalia feel so safe especially as she knows you have a gun.’

‘Like I carry that thing in my pocket!’

‘Not what his ex thought.’

The lively song finished on the male singer’s long note and guitar strum till applause and whistles resounded all around.

‘Hardly the Beatles,’ yawned Ed.

‘Better than Butlins,’ said Neill.

‘Better than the band you got for the school Valentine’s,’ Natalia laughed. ‘I, er - helped him out, Ed. With the catering.’ She could have kicked herself. Luckily Ed seemed consumed in watching drinkers step up to clap the singer on the back, then he leaned to Natalia.

‘How about we get you posing with Taffy and you can send that to Loony Del Ray?’

‘Oh my god!’

‘But Ed… she’ll have to pretend to be the biggest fan of The Sybian!’

Ed was already gesturing Natalia up. ‘Hey, mate! She’s your fan. Can we have a pic?’

‘Oh, sure, sure…’

‘Away from the drum kit though, mate,’ Neill added. ‘Over here, take a pew.’

‘Let’s mop his head a bit’ - Natalia watched amused as Ed grabbed a serviette, whilst Neill ran his fingers through the man’s hair, leaning into his face like an impromptu stylist with the breath of four Dragons. 

‘What’s your name?’

‘I’m Meilir.’

‘Listen, Amelia - my girlfriend’s rather taken a fancy to your music tonight—’ Natalia went red, not least from this delicious public declaration, oh, does anyone who’s not been boxed up in forbidden love, know the joy of emancipating it!… for even now, the old man was delightedly spectating this whole charade, and even his sleepy wife looked up. ‘But even more so a fancy to you, so just put your arm right round her for a photo and have a half pint of Dark Moose on us. Dark crystal malt roasted, you’ll love it.’

Ed discreetly poured the ale into Natalia’s glass, then became mock-photographer with her phone. ‘Big smiles for me, hold her closer, Amelia—’ Meilir side-glanced cautiously up to Neill towering beside him - ‘ok now hold it, hold it!’ 

Five minutes later Natalia scrolled through the eleven pictures Ed had taken, smiling ear to ear whilst Neill tickled under her chin. ‘Ahh look at her so happy, little cutie pie. She’s so stunning, isn’t she Ed?’ whilst Ed concurred politely. Oh, that more than made up for ignoring her questions earlier. Oh, Wales was better than London. 

A moment later: ‘She’s texted back already!’ Ed perched beside her and read out:

‘Every opportunity to brag about her tropical holiday,’ muttered Neill. ‘Clarifies everything I suspected about that girl.’

‘Thank you thank you thank you guys. You’ve made my day!’ Natalia draped her arm around both of them, just as the couple were leaving, the man tipping his hat. 

‘Nos da! Goodnight!’

‘Nosstar, nosstar! Yaki darrr!’ they resounded in tipsy unison, Natalia giddier than Ed, dipping a finger into each of their fresh ale froth till Neill pejoratively flicked it off her lip.

‘Stop it, you promiscuous fangirl. I’ll have to take you to the toilet and spank you.’

Ed chortled. ‘You spank her?’

‘Oh all the time. First time was in that dress.’

‘That why the top two buttons are missing!’

‘That was earlier.’

‘You spanked her already? Holy moly! But does she find it a punishment or a reward?’

‘The latter normally, unless I use my belt and she knows it.’

‘Leeds girls!’ he wheezed. ‘And the headmasters are no better! You two in Bala Lake are rarer than the fucking gwyniad. Give me that Larney girl’s number, sharpish, and I’ll show her a head spanking in the toilet!’

They cackled like three witches as Natalia elbowed Neill and kicked Ed, half thankful and half remorseful the cauldron of this deep topic was promptly extinguished upon the waitress collecting their plates, and Ed sedately pulling out his phone.

‘Well, we missed the Premier game,’ Ed tapped. 

‘Who’s playing?’

‘Chelsea and Tottenham. Started at four.’

‘Don’t tell me the result. Let’s watch the catch-up.’

‘He hardly ever watches football!’ 

‘I did on Friday night when you were transcribing that Russian for me darling.’

‘Ah! You’ll be doing more writing than me, now I’ve got him! Right, Rich - chocolate brownie or crème brûlée?’

‘Anything but brown,’ said Neill and Natalia in unison.

Ed had insisted that Neill drive, he’d only had five pints and Ed had had six - and Neill said Ed had better drive, his car’s huge and he knows these roads better than him. Natalia, laying in the back in exhaustion and food coma - and sugar crash from the slab of strawberry cheesecake they’d watched her spooning daintily after demolishing their crème brûlées like wolves - somehow trusted that between them, they’d get home safely, even after Ed almost steered them twice into the bushes and then nearly missed the Coach House driveway altogether.

‘Here, Ed, here - we don’t want to gatecrash Alan again!’ Neill took hold of the wheel, glancing to Natalia pretending to be asleep. ‘This one’s done. I’ll take her up and you get the game on.’

The mattress was like a firm, soft cloud, buttressed further beneath by the somehow comforting sounds of whirly crowds and the commentator’s excited shouts; Neill, his sidekick and somewhere his gun, hundreds of Arafs from home. The only holiday she’d known was London, which taught her the power of being in a different place for just one day. And then she began to wonder if night stars really made her lament her dad, or just crave to see the world, like Meilir sang. 

And as she drifts into vignettes of blue lakes and black pudding and green underpants, there came mutters on the landing: ‘Fancy Snowdon tomorrow? I know a lovely place… Betty’s Cupboard... I’m too pissed to remember the name. Like a Swiss mountain village...’ the door now opening briefly to a shaft of light, then leery beery lips on hers, saying are you ok darling, are you ok, do you need any night-time tea, and she says no, no, just you, come to bed, cuddle your worm, Mr Salamander— and he climbs in saying just for a bit, just till you sleep, the game’s still on. After a few minutes of squeezy, gropey spooning she turns habitually onto her stomach and pulses her bum in the air. 

‘Ohh, my little college girl. Let’s have a look at this…’ A hand slides into her knicker hem as she takes a deep slow breath, two or three fingers dragging softly up and down. 

‘Are you still taking your pill?’ 

‘Which one, doctor…’

‘The one that swaps your eggs for ostriches’.’

‘Yehhs…’

‘Ahh, well doc think’s you’re getting there,’ one finger slid inside as she contracted - ‘I bet you liked being looked after all day, yes?’ She brought up her face to reply to him, only to be nudged back down. ‘Say ahhh.’ 

‘Ah!—Y-yes…’

‘I saw you blush a few times. I bet that was those cunt-rushes you get when you’re all embarrassed. Am I right?’ A little wriggle.

‘Yehss…’

‘When Ed said naughty things? Or when you said naughty things back to Ed? Or when I said naughty things to both of you?’

‘A-all of them… well Ed’s a knob, but— AH—’ 

‘That’s good to know, my little holidaymaker,’ the probe now withdrawing, and she sensed he was rubbing it against his thumb, not raising her face again until the cue that he was done, and because well, this almost felt as good as a wank, even whilst her head was dead with tiredness.

‘Mm. I was completely right that the holiday will get you right as rain. Because rain is what we want down here - and this is drizzle. This is Joan-wet.’

‘Only Joan wet!’

‘Yup, Joan wet. It’s not Natalia-wet. It’s not why I married you. …Shush! —I’m drunk and confused. Or maybe, I just have brewer’s droop and can’t get it up. Listen. Whilst me and Ed are watching the game, I want you to wank this,’ he tapped, ‘get to know it again and make friends with it. You can have as many as you want.’ 

‘But Neill, you’re—’

‘Relax, we’re on holiday time. I will fuck you eventually, dry or not.’ 

‘…Such a cunt.’

‘No, you are.’ He toppled her back under the duvet. ‘Now wank, little cunt. Ed, yes!— I’m coming.’