‘I’m sorry,’ he says, blinking against the instant burn of tears.
Gloria stands steady, glaring at him. ‘I was going to tell you I was pregnant. I was trying to work out the best way to do it. Then there was that awful bloody christening. And then you just … just left! How could you do that to me, William?’
The cool breeze strengthens. His hands are cold; he wants to take hold of Gloria’s. ‘I wanted you to be free of me.’
Gloria shakes her head, lets out a sorry laugh.
‘Please come with me to Aberfan.’
‘When?’ A strand of hair is blown diagonally across her face, but she does nothing to move it.
He shrugs, glances round at the departing cars. ‘Tomorrow?’
Her green eyes seem to give up some of the animosity, searching his face for something. ‘All right.’
He lets go of the breath he didn’t realise he was holding. ‘Thank you, Gloria.’
‘I’ll need the loo a lot,’ she says, not returning the smile.
‘Of course.’
She turns her back on him and heads for the church. ‘Now leave me be for a bit,’ she says over her shoulder, ‘I can’t take too much of you at once.’
‘OK,’ he says, watching the familiar swing of her hips, the purposeful heel-toe of her walk, conscious he’s watching so much more than Gloria; part of himself, part of them. ‘Thank you,’ he shouts.
She raises her arm as she walks away and he can’t tell if it’s in dismissal or acceptance.
64
Once she’s eaten the sandwiches William made for them in Evelyn’s kitchen this morning, Gloria sleeps all the way from Swansea to Merthyr Tydfil. When she wakes, she still doesn’t speak, turns herself away from him to look out of her window. It’s disconcerting. From the moment William met Gloria, she has talked. His adult life has been narrated by her. Driving through the valley villages – Cilfynydd, Troedyrhiw – she would normally have laughed, attempting to read them out loud. So many times, he wants to start a conversation with her, but feels he has no right until she has said what she needs to say to him. In spite of all this, unbidden arrows of joy keep piercing him as he steals glances at her.
‘You’ve probably got a lot to get off your chest,’ he finally says, as they drive through Pentrebach, two miles from Aberfan. ‘I understand, so feel free.’
Gloria continues to gaze out of the passenger window, across the valley, yellowed by the afternoon sunshine. ‘Let’s do this first.’
In William’s mind, Aberfan knows only the night-time; with the roof of Pantglas school forever crumpled, poking at weird angles out of the landslide like a broken umbrella. Aberfan’s streets are forever dark and tacky underfoot.
To arrive in broad daylight, with green trees vivid against a blue sky, disturbs him, as has passing the new school on the edge of the village, with children all over the playground.
Where the coal waste bulldozed through stands a community centre, behind which he parks Martin’s car. While Gloria goes to find a toilet, William walks a few paces to stare at an electric-blue climbing frame and roundabout, at some swings with cheerful red frames.
He hears Gloria approaching from behind. She stands by his side.
‘This is where the school was,’ he says. A small dog waits for its elderly owner to catch up, then sniffs at the roundabout.
How human imagination and will could contrive to transform the Aberfan he knew to what it is now utterly confounds him. He finds he doesn’t want to stare at a playground, a community centre. He’s come to see heroic men crawling over the carnage, with blackened skin, haunted eyes and shovels in perpetual, desperate motion. He’s come to feel the slurry underfoot, hear the lorries groaning in and out of the village.
‘I’m going to look at the memorial garden.’ Gloria walks on past the playground. She pushes the iron gate inscribed with the words, This is the site of the Pantglas School. William follows and they stroll amongst the neat rectangles of manicured lawn with small trees and plants bordering tidy, clear paths. ‘It’s the footprint of the school.’ Gloria points at the patches on their left and right. He wonders how much more she knows. How much time she’s spent finding out about this place that has such a hold on him.
He nods, momentarily transfixed by the marigold orbs in the borders between the path and the lawns. The calm order of the place offends him. For all she thinks she might know, Gloria has no idea. No visitors will have any idea of what happened here. He turns his back to the mountain and looks across at Moy Road. The old houses to the right look so normal, so intact, their windows edged with brick surrounds, like gappy white teeth. Who’d know that he peered through those windows and saw black piles of filth, with branches, bricks, toys, parts of broken piano sticking out of them? He remembers a stiletto shoe poking out from a black mound halfway up a staircase, white and bone-like.
The air smells of grass. A magpie lands on top of a small cherry tree. To the left, sloping down and away from them, are two rows of modern houses. This was where the original houses were completely destroyed. Is one of them Betty’s? Is she still alive? William looks to the right, the route from the school to the mortuary.
‘I want to go to the chapel. You don’t have to come.’ He’s starting to wish he was alone. He has nothing to say about this Aberfan to Gloria.
‘I’ll come.’ Gloria puts her hands in her pockets.
They walk along Moy Road for a few yards, then left down a short, steep side street that leads to the chapel. William doesn’t remember the gullies that run between the houses, grass poking up through the tarmac and washing hanging across them. He doesn’t remember anything beyond the chapel and the school, but this metal handrail that runs down the path he does, because he saw a woman hold on to it when her knees buckled.
Halfway down the incline he stops dead.
‘What?’ Gloria says. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘It’s gone.’