 
A HERO OF OUR TIME

By Ernest Marlin

A Wegworld Ltd Publication ©2013
A Hero of Our Times

Bats of Bethesda

By Ernest Marlin

A Wegworld Ltd Publication

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © Ernest Marlin 2013

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the publishers.

Events in this work are based loosely on real events, but have been changed and compiled to create a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents have been changed and are used in a purely fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Contents

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 1

David Llewellyn Evans sat at his desk in the solicitors' office in a southern English market town where he was employed. He was, in fact, a partner in the long established and well respected firm, the long dead or retired former partners of which looked down sternly at him from their photograph frames on the walls.

Monocled, stiff collared and stern, they belonged to a different age when lawyers were made of different clay to ordinary mortals. The grandson of the founder was now the firm's junior partner, but although he physically resembled his ancestor, the world in which he moved was radically different.

It was now the 1970s and England had changed. They even had women presuming to become lawyers. Only recently, they had received an application from a young woman for Articles; a form of apprenticeship preparatory to becoming a solicitor.

Not only had the junior partner who received the letter not immediately thrown it in the bin, but he had brought it up under 'any other business,' at the weekly partners' meeting. That in itself was a measure of how things had changed. The senior partner had almost choked on his glass of dry sherry.

They had all agreed, of course, that it was out of the question. Not only did nobody know the family, but in the unlikely event of her being accepted into the firm, she would not have been allowed, as a woman, membership of the local constitutional or golf club, so how would she have entertained important clients? Not only that, but it would cause all sorts of difficulties in the locker room. They would probably want mirrors and hair dryers, not to mention doors on the showers. No, the very suggestion was preposterous.

Into this cloistered world had one day appeared David Llewellyn Evans, a young Welsh solicitor who had moved to the area with his wife, Megwyn, from North Wales. The firm had needed an assistant solicitor to handle matrimonial and court work particularly, and it was plain from his references that he had a great deal of experience in those areas.

The fact that he was from Wales was initially a slight deterrent to the deeply conservative partners of the firm, but he charmed them at his interview and they all readily agreed to take him on. Not only was he very personable, a very important quality in a service industry, but some felt that the fact that he was Welsh even added a touch of glamour to the firm's image as well as serving to underline their commitment to equality and demonstrated how liberal they were. This was not a bad thing in the world of shifting sands in which they now practised.

Within a few years, Dai, as he was generally known, was the friendly, young face of the practice. In what seemed like no time at all, he was made a partner and prospered, moving to a bigger house to accommodate his growing family. As time went by, the firm had added more partners and Dai moved up the ladder in terms of seniority. As time had gone by, he had also grown more and more restless.

On this particular day, he was bored. It was Monday and there were two days to go before chukkas at the polo club. He consoled himself with the thought that he could go up to the club after work and have an hour or so stick and ball practice.

I must ensure, he thought, to ring the grooms to say he was coming so that they would have a couple of his horses ready for me. Although you could practice your swing and hitting the ball from a wooden horse, or even standing on a packing case, to do it on a real horse was preferable. This activity was described as 'stick and balling'.

Dai was a handsome man, now in his thirties, with a winning smile and a gentle Welsh accent. By now, he had no further professional ambitions. He was locked into a lifestyle of his own making, a lifestyle of crushing predictability and respectability. In reality, he had only two aims. One was to play polo, and the other was to shag as many women as he could before he turned his toes up.

He adored women, but his true passion in life was for polo ponies. To paraphrase Kipling, his view was that a woman was just a woman, but a polo pony was a horse and both were placed at his disposal for riding at every opportunity.

As a partner in the venerable long-established firm, he could pretty much do as he pleased and since a large part of his work consisted of preparing wills for clients, he had an excellent excuse for absenting himself from the office and visiting people at home. This, of course, was not strictly necessary. As often as not, people would come to the office, but occasionally, if for example, somebody was house bound, he would go to their homes to see them and to take instructions for the preparation of the will. Also if a client was in business and couldn't spare the time to get in to see him in his office, he would go to them. Naturally he would charge the client for such an attendance, but in fact he enjoyed getting out of the office and sometimes he used it as an excuse.

Thus it was that he had recently been visiting a doctor's wife, ostensibly to take instructions for a will, but in reality to give her a good rogering on the living room floor. He smiled to himself when he recalled how, when one of his colleagues had asked him how much longer it would take him to finalise the matter, he had replied that he was pretty confident that a couple more visits should be sufficient to enable him to put things to bed. He smirked at his own wit and reflected that a couple of further visits would be more than enough for him. He was already bored by the doctor's wife and he was now more interested in bedding Stella the local court shorthand writer who had a pair of thighs that made him go weak at the knees every time that he saw her.

He was not alone in that. When Stella was on duty, sitting impassively below the judge, typing away quietly on her machine, the court would slowly fill up with ardent admirers from the legal profession, who would sit, apparently waiting for their case to come on, but in reality admiring the comely form of the shorthand writer.

Before her arrival, the only person capable of exercising the same magnetic pull on the hardnosed advocates was a pretty little probation officer from Wales. Whenever she had been in court, there would be a similar increase in the population of advocates, all of whom wearing their most socially concerned expressions, would earnestly seek her views and listen in rapt attention as she answered them in her gentle Welsh lilt. Ordinarily they would not have the slightest interest in the little toe rag they were representing, but somehow, when this young lady was the probation officer in the case it was as if these hardened cynics had had a revelation like Saul on the road to Damascus and that they too had undergone a transformation and suddenly become more tender, loving and concerned.

It was quite comical to watch, in Dai's opinion, or at least that was what he thought on the occasions when he himself was not first in the queue for the young woman's attentions.

Stella's arrival had changed all that. Since she had become the court shorthand writer, there had been a seismic shift in her favour and the probation officer, no longer the centre of attention had returned to Wales in disgust.

Dai roused himself from his reverie. He looked at the pile of files on his desk without any enthusiasm and sighed. If it was not for women and horses, he thought, life would be tedious indeed. Why work at all?

He knew well enough what the answer was. Money was always a concern. He had a wife and four young children to support with a large family home in a nice suburb. He also kept a string of polo ponies at a nearby club. One might reasonably have wondered how it was that he was able to pursue such an expensive sport on top of his other commitments.

He had, however, solved that problem some time ago. Over the years, he had simply persuaded all the little old ladies for whom he had made wills and for whom he was invariably an executor to include a gift to a charity in the will. The charity he always recommended was one which was dear to his own heart, not only because it was located in North Wales where he came from, but also because in reality he was the charity.

He had come up with the idea years before when, whilst administering the estate of a deceased client, he had paid out substantial legacies to various charities. Some of the charities concerned were large or very familiar, or both of those things, whilst others were relatively obscure and small.

He had realised that once the money was paid over nobody knew what happened to it. You sent a cheque to some charity or other and that was that. They spent it on whatever they wished and you had no right and no means of knowing what they spent it on. It was gone. It struck him as the perfect way of supplementing his income. Never one to waste time on idle introspection, he had set to work at once.

He realised that the British think more of their pets than people and that to be successful the so-called needy object of help would preferably be soft and cuddly or at least have fur of some kind, either that, or a lack of it. In fact, the scraggier, the better from the point of view of plucking at the heart strings. Rats would not do, he realised. Strange though when you thought about it because squirrels did not get the same bad press and were often called tree rats. When he considered it further, he concluded that it was probably the rats' tails that set them apart. They could be quite endearing were it not for their tails which were, he had to concede, pretty repulsive. He looked carefully through the two inches thick tome that was the Directory of Charities for the UK.

God, he thought, it was enormous! What a business it was! It must be worth billions, all that money simply given away.

It really was a huge industry. That in a way might help. There were so many charities, many with a very high public profile. With luck nobody would notice his in the crowded world of those determined to press their good cause on the docile, soft-hearted and gullible public, some of whom in a fit of genuine compassion and others to exculpate their conscience would be persuaded to part up with their hard earned cash.

Virtually everything you could think of was already covered. There was no point in duplicating another charity, although there were numerous charities that did overlap one another, for example, for certain breeds of dog. As if one charity per breed was not enough! He, however, needed something original. He did not want there to be any competitors. He felt that if an existing charity got to hear about you and you were doing the same or similar things, then they might just look a little more closely at you, the competitor. He remembered one case he had dealt with of a rich testatrix who had died abroad leaving her entire estate to be divided between charities, both big and small and whereas the estate was in the process of being administered he had been surprised at the tenacity of the beneficiary charities and impressed by how determined they were to get their hands on every penny due to them.

This he most definitely did not want. He intended keeping a low profile. He was going to rely upon gifts by will from those he dealt with and who were daft enough to listen to him about those whom they should benefit on their death. After all, he reasoned the joy for the donor was in the giving and as far as he was concerned, he was helping them to gratify that urge.

He was, in fact, often asked by people about whether or not they should leave anything to charity and, if so, to whom? This tended to be women. Men were tighter and less susceptible to all things soft and cuddly unless it was a woman, in which case they were like lambs to the slaughter. There is no fool like an old fool, runs the old expression, and he could think of quite a few examples from his own experience of men who had been old enough to know better and yet who had not only left their entire estate to some young woman, usually from an impoverished country somewhere in the world, but also did so in the face of the perfectly reasonable expectations of their own flesh and blood, such as adult children of an earlier marriage or relationship. For this reason alone, contentious probate claims, that is to say the punch-up that happened after the death, were a useful source of work for lawyers like David.

Then, one day, he had an idea. He had been thinking about an address for the charity and had decided to use his aunt Bronwyn's home in North Wales. She lived in Bethesda, a depressed mining village which no-one was ever likely to visit. It was a real dead and alive hole that had never seen better days and which the only remedy for, if you had had the misfortune to be born there, was to either die young or leave as soon as you could. He had done the latter. Certainly, it was far enough removed from the beaten track to make visits unlikely from the donating public.

Anyway, it was when he was idly reminiscing about his batty old aunt, who amongst other things made face cream from plant essences extracted from the plants in her garden, that he suddenly realised he had the answer. BATS!

He did not know if there were any there or not, but that did not matter because neither would anybody else. They flew at night time and were difficult to observe at the best of times.

All he needed to do was to put up a number of bat boxes around Bronwyn's garden which covered about an acre, ostensibly for them to nest in and that would do it; some suitable photos for a pamphlet, courtesy of the Nature Section at the local library and 'Bob's your uncle'. He wasn't actually. It was Bronwyn's husband, Gwynfor Evans, but that didn't matter. It was only a daft figure of speech.

He put together some tables to show the alarming decline of the bat population which he cobbled together from tables showing the decline of everything from newts to butterflies. He borrowed their keywords, habitat, loss, intensive farming, competing species, conserve and so on and simply applied them to his own intended beneficiary.

The Bethesda Bat Sanctuary was born.

He did not bother to register as a charity of course. You did not have to and anyway he was careful not to describe it as a charity. He just let people think it was. It was to be a society for the protection of the native species of bats, formed to do all it could to reverse the alarming decline in the bat population, attributed to loss of habitat and competition from other species for food. He had no idea whether or not any of that was true. It might be. When he came to think about it, he couldn't remember when he had last seen a bat. He mentioned it to Bron when he asked if he could put up the boxes, that is he did not say anything about a charity, he simply asked her if she would mind if he put up some bat boxes in her trees for a sort of nature sanctuary. She did not mind. It seemed innocent enough and at least it did not have anything to do with women or horses, which she knew full well were his principal interests in life. So, Bronwyn's garden became the Bethesda Bat Sanctuary and, unbeknown to her, the hub of the new quasi charity. Bron did not have to do anything. Over the years, she was not troubled by any of the donors because not only did David have a PO Box address at the local post office, set up by him to intercept and direct all mail to him, but the donors were, by definition, dead and thus unlikely to call or write.

He had done very well out of it over the years. It had funded his polo habit and he had a very nice sports car that he privately called the Bat mobile. God, he would often think, what a clever chap I am and witty too, as he swanned around on sunny days with the top down.

Amongst other things, it had also helped him pay maintenance for young Owen, the result of a passionate summer afternoon spent in the Nant Ffrancon valley with Mary, the local girl he loved and left. Actually, she was one of a considerable number, but she was the only one that he had cared for, or at least so he told himself. She had never married and still lived in Snowdonia in a small village called Llanberis. In reality, of course, all he cared about was David Llewellyn Evans. Well, that and polo.

After work, he had driven to the polo ground out in the country, set in green fields and far from any village or town. He always felt a thrill of excitement as he drove down the lane towards the ground and caught sight of the goal posts set at either end of the two polo fields. The club had two fields which were just that, expanses or grass unadorned by anything other than the goal posts at either end, and planking along the two long ends placed there to keep the ball in play.

A polo field is larger than most people think. They vary in size, but it is often the size of three football fields. The two playing teams consist of 4 players each and there should be two mounted umpires umpiring the match in progress. Even in friendly club clashes there will be one mounted umpire whose, sometimes, unenviable task is to determine whether or not a foul has been committed. This is not an easy task in such a fast moving game with eight riders milling around at any one time and where excited players frequently dispute the umpire's call. Arguing with the umpire is strictly against the rules, but these rules in Dai's experience were often not adhered to and unless the umpire was the sort who commanded respect both on the field and off, then there could be a bit of unpleasantness from time to time.

'What are you, fucking blind?' would constitute a fairly mild criticism in those circumstances as over-heated, over-sized egos kicked in.

In addition to the two playing fields, there was a stick and ball field, much smaller but with its own goal posts where practice chukkas could be held or where you would practice on your own or with friends.

Here you were supposed to warm up before a game rather than on the hallowed turf of the playing field itself, carefully cut, dressed and rolled for the game. It made sense, of course. Horses' hooves, particularly in wet weather, soon made a mess of the turf which made play more difficult because the ball would strike a divot and bounce in an unpredictable way, or worse, take refuge in it and defy even the most determined efforts to dislodge it.

On arrival, he drove firstly to the pony lines where Mathias, one of the Argie grooms, had two horses ready for him and when he was ready to mount, held the horse and stirrups for him whilst he sprang into the saddle, whip and polo stick in hand.

Some of the Argentinian lads could leap into the saddle from the ground without using the stirrup. This he admired enormously. He would have loved to be able to show off by nonchalantly springing into the saddle but he didn't dare try. A failure would be just too humiliating.

Likewise, some skilled riders could pluck a ball from the turf whilst in the saddle. They made it look easy. He tried it himself once on the stick and ball field when there was nobody about, which was just as well because he found himself falling out of the saddle and doing a hand-stand on the grass whilst the horse looked impassively on at this novel way of dismounting. He didn't try that again.

Once in the saddle he gathered the double reins in his left hand, thanked the groom and eased the horse forward into a walk then canter and headed for the stick and ball field, a large football field size area of beautifully mown grass.

He cantered steadily around the field warming himself up and the horse. It was lovely to be out there on this warm, summer evening, away from the office and all the responsibilities that that entailed including the people it was prudent to be nice to. You didn't have to be nice, of course, but it was after all a service industry and the days were long gone when the public treated lawyers with any degree of reverence or even necessarily respect.

As a profession, solicitors were rigorously regulated by the Law Society, their governing body. This was something no sensible practicing solicitor took lightly. The Law Society had the power to discipline its members and did so rigorously, even striking people off the roll of practicing solicitors, in serious cases of misconduct.

Such thoughts were far from his mind as the horse cantered steadily onwards, David began to take practice shots at imaginary balls and then started to practice in relaxed earnest, hitting the cricket sized white balls lying around the place as he came up to them. Firstly, he contented himself with tapping the ball forward in a straight line, then turning it, an exercise that calls for considerable riding skill and ball control. He also hit the ball backwards before turning quickly and cantering after it. Then he practised forward and reverse shots on the nearside until both he and the horse had had enough. The horse obviously has the harder job, cantering around carrying his weight, but polo is a game which is very strenuous and tiring for the rider as well.

He changed horses, giving the first a pat as he did so. He liked that horse. It was a good, honest horse, really reliable, what was termed a schoolmaster, very forgiving and not likely to do anything unexpected. Like all horses though, you could not predict what it might do and the unexpected could happen even with a reliable horse.

Even this horse, his best, had once, whilst they were playing club chukkas one evening, decided it had had enough and was going to gallop back to the pony lines. Since these were at the opposite end of the pitch to where this occurred, it was a long gallop with David quite unable to either stop the horse or turn it. He had momentarily considered trying to jump off, but as anyone who has jumped off a still moving bus will know, you fall flat on your face and it hurts. He concluded, therefore, that the safest place was on top of the horse as they galloped up the pitch flat-out with him hanging on for grim death. As they galloped towards the unbroken line of parked lorries with ponies tied to the outsides, he was terrified that his horse was not going to stop, but would smash straight into horses and lorries, but upon galloping up to a lorry, it stopped abruptly sending him over its head and into the arms of the laughing Argentinian grooms.

'Take it eeezy!' they laughed.

Tell that to the bloody horse, he had thought.

David had not thought it funny at the time, but that was horses for you and as time went by and his experience grew, he had occasion to observe others being similarly discomforted and found that jolly amusing.

The second horse he rode that evening was much less satisfactory and had the irritating habit of stepping sideways sharply just as he swung the stick to hit the ball. Not only was this annoying because, as a result, he tended to miss-hit the ball or missed it altogether, but if he was not careful, he would fall off the horse. This was known as 'falling out of the side door'. That was one way of describing it, but whatever one called it, it was both inconvenient and painful.

When riding any horse, it is necessary to keep your bum firmly in the saddle; that being the most secure position. When striking a ball in polo, however, the player grips the horse tight with the inside of his thighs, rises slightly with his weight over the pommel of the horse, draws his right arm back and up twisting his body so that his shoulders are parallel to the horse's back, and then executes a swing for a full shot with his eyes firmly fixed on the little, white ball nestling in the grass. As can be imagined, balance, rhythm, concentration and the co-operation of the horse are essential and, of these, the last is perhaps the most important of all. Well, on this particular night, Woody, the name of the horse he was riding, seemed determined to shy away from the ball. Admittedly, he had clouted the horse with the stick by accident when executing a couple of practice swings, but this, he considered, was all in the day's work for a polo pony and the horse was now making a really rather unnecessary fuss about it – why it almost cringed as he drew the stick back for a swing. Eventually, David tired of stick and balling. It was not much fun if the horse was playing up, so he rode back over to the groom, the horse now stepping out smoothly, having realised that salvation was nigh and the session almost over. David handed the horse over to the groom and asked him to ride it a few times over the coming week to see if he could iron out the fault. The Argies were brilliant with horses. If they could not do it, nobody could. He then said, 'Ciao' and tired, but happy, strolled over to the clubhouse for a beer before heading home.

The clubhouse, a neat little building rather like a cricket pavilion, was situated on the edge of the club's number one pitch, the most important pitch where all final games were played in full view of the clubhouse where most of the spectators could sit in comfort and watch the proceedings with a drink in their hand.

Just beyond the clubhouse were the pony lines where the horses were brought by the grooms to be tacked up; that is saddled and prepared to play. Here they waited, for the most part, patiently until they were needed.

As David approached the clubhouse, Tel, the man who to all intents and purposes owned the club, trotted out of the pony lines on one of his horses. He stopped to have a word with David as the two men exchanged greetings.

'Done a bit?' enquired Tel, smiling at David's sweaty shirt and stained, white trousers, the inevitable consequence of close contact with a four legged friend.

'Yeah,' said David, grinning back at him with the nonchalance of one who has ridden and survived to tell the tale, affecting a stance suggestive (he hoped) of casual competence – easy enough when you were not actually on the horse.

'Couldn't make me mind up,' said Tel in his strong north London accent. There was no pretence about Tel. 'I said to meself,' he continued 'wot shall I do? Bit of stick and ball? Shag the wife? In the end, I thought fuck it, I'll ride the 'orse then I'll ride the wife!'

They both guffawed. David knew though that he meant it. Tel was a man after his own heart. The dilemma he had expressed, albeit rather coarsely, was pretty much the same one that he often faced himself.

Tel trotted off on his supercharged steed. Since Tel was a self-made, multi-millionaire, he not only did not care what anybody else thought, but could afford and bought superb horses to indulge his very real passion for the game.

Self-made, he may have been. Self-effacing, he was not. He was as assertive as such men are and shared not only their habitual desire for display, which as often as not found expression in the expensive cars that they drove and which, in his case, went one step further in that his car's number plate bore the legend JFD-1, which more or less summed up his attitude to life. In effect, as he drove around, he proclaimed the creed by which he lived. All in all, Dai rather liked him.

As he drove home that evening to his home in the suburbs, his thoughts turned to his next favourite occupation. He reviewed the possibilities and decided to challenge the girl just above him on the squash ladder at the local club. So far, his investment in the squash club, both in financial and physical terms, had not yet yielded a dividend, but he was now reasonably hopeful that that would change. He had been trying to get some time alone with Melanie for a while when an unexpected win on his part and a demotion on her part had brought her within striking distance. He would now be able to challenge her to a game, or rather three games. Whether or not you went up or down depended upon the outcome of the best of three games.

He did not particularly like squash. It was good exercise, but the real reason he had joined was that it was a good way of meeting women and, having played squash with them, then socialising with them afterwards.

Melanie was a married woman of course. He did not normally pursue unattached females. It wasn't that he didn't fancy them, but that he didn't want any long term commitment, or indeed any commitment at all. In his experience, a married woman was a much better bet for a brief fling. Nobody misses a slice or two off a loaf that is already started, as the saying goes. Long liaisons were out. The last thing that he wanted was another wife. He had one of those already and one was quite enough thank you.

No, life suited him very well as it was with Megwyn, his wife, at home with the kids and his various sexual adventures on the side. So far, he had got away with it and he didn't think for a moment that he would not continue to do so.

He did realise, of course, that none of this reflected any credit upon him. On the contrary, he realised fully that he was incredibly selfish and might reasonably be described as a real bastard, but then he accepted that. He knew that he was a real bastard. He was honest with himself at least, if not with anyone else.

In any event, he felt that he was a man of his time and that the tide of history was with him. When he had been young, back home in Wales, if you kissed a girl it was tantamount to getting engaged. Most of the girls he had grown up with had been married and had kids by the time they were 20 years old and their husbands had already given up on life and 'settled down'.

Then came the sexual revolution with the 'Right on Sisters' proclaiming the dawn of a New Age and the demonization of men. Whatever view one took of that, speaking purely for himself, he was wholly in favour, since, as far as he was concerned, it relieved him of any sense of responsibility. Sleeping with a woman no longer meant that you loved her or even liked her, and it certainly did not mean that you accepted any responsibility for her.

No, not at all.

It was merely indulging in a mutual desire as equals, nothing more. Women might not want to be treated as sex objects, but he was quite happy to be. Drag me into a field and do with me as you will, pretty well summed up his view of the situation. Women were now liberated, but so were men too.

One of the areas of work he dealt with was family law matters including divorce, but also including disputes between unmarried couples. One of the social consequences of the sexual revolution had been that fewer people married. That, for some reason, was regarded as outmoded and in any event no longer necessary. Unfortunately, David had had to explain to quite a few liberated but unmarried women that when their partner left them, perhaps with a child or children, they did not have the protection of the law in the same way that a married woman did in those circumstances.

This was not advice that pleased them. They still wanted the same protection that the law provided for married women and which for some reason they had assumed would be theirs.

David had, of course, spent his childhood in Wales, growing up together with three sisters. He had been the youngest and had been babied by them over the years in their small family house on the edge of Bethesda, nestling under a slag heap at the edge of the village. He loved his sisters and growing up in such close proximity to a group of young girls who by degrees evolved into young women, he had learned much more about girls than most young men ever do, simply by living in close proximity to them and learning all about the mysterious female gender by a process akin to osmosis.

He understood from an early age how to gain a woman's interest by simply being attentive to her, by making her laugh, by acting the fool, by just being around and listening to her. He realised that he might prefer to be playing football or rock climbing and being an action man, but the only people you were impressing by these activities were other men. If you wanted to get off with a woman, you had to devote a bit of time to it. He was no different to other men of course. His understanding of them did not alter that. His attentiveness did not last a moment longer than was necessary. His view was that there were twenty three and a half other hours in the day and he was going to fill them as he saw fit. When he had got what he wanted, he had no intention of spending any more time with them than was strictly necessary.

He considered that there was no particular pleasure in being around women for their own sake. They were more than capable of being bossy and domineering and even if you were perfectly happy festering in idleness, they might perversely find something useful for you to do. Quite why was a mystery to him! He did not understand why it was necessary for them to occupy his time for him when he was perfectly capable of doing that himself. Even his mother, who had worshipped the ground he walked on, imposed her will upon him. To a degree, of course, this was natural and necessary but he drew the line at shopping. His mother, however, was always adamant and as a consequence as a child, he had spent Saturdays being dragged around the shops in Bangor by his mother, whose steady progress from shop to boring shop was punctuated by lengthy pauses for conversation with other females and their offspring making a similar obligatory progress around the town. Resistance was futile.

There were only two bright spots in the entire exercise. The first was Jones, the fishmongers, where, when you eventually reached it, you could stand and look at the fish, wet and slithery as if just hauled from the depths, but most interesting of all was the large metal tank at the front of the display which contained eels, black, glistening and alive, wriggling around like loathsome worms or snakes. Their repulsiveness was, however, only part of the pleasure. The rest was the fascination, mixed with anxiety and horror, of watching, knowing that they were under sentence of death; waiting for a customer to ask for eels.

'Which one, love?' the fishmonger would say, 'This one?' grabbing one and lifting it wriggling from the tank.

'Yes, that will do nicely!' Followed by the doomed eel immediately being chopped into lumps and, still quivering, the bits were wrapped in newspaper and weighed on the scales. Oh, the horror of it!

When his mother's progress along the street continued and she led him away, he always felt guilty at having witnessed the spectacle. This did not prevent him, however, from looking the next time they shopped.

The remaining pleasure to be had, and the one that left him feeling not guilty but covetous, was the visit to the toy shop. That is the visit to the toy shop window, since his mother had very little money and the window, therefore, was as far as he got, save on those rare occasions when he had a few coins burning a hole in his pocket.

Apart from his sisters, his uncle, Gwynfor Evans, Bron's husband, had been the other formative influence upon him as he grew up. His own father had died and Gwyn had become a kind of role model for him from when he was quite little. Gwyn had himself had daughters and always seemed pleased to have a bit of male companionship, even in the diminutive form of David. They spent a lot of time together with David playing or just day dreaming whilst his uncle got on with work on his smallholding or tending to the prize chrysanthemums he loved to grow. Sometimes David would help his uncle, that is to say he would get in his way and ask questions all the time that the uncle patiently fielded.

One day, they had been looking at the hens together when the cockerel leapt upon the back of one of them and gave it a quick peck behind the ear.

'What's it doing uncle?' Dai asked innocently.

'It's giving it one, David,' his uncle had said calmly, before adding 'that's the way to treat 'em boy, a quick peck and then wallop! Mind you,' he added after a moment's reflection, 'it would be a brave man who would try that with my Bron.'

Dai had been impressed by this and it stuck in his mind. Although he liked to think he was a little more subtle than the average cockerel, the philosophy that David had adopted as he grew older was not that dissimilar, using and abusing women as he saw fit. It was to be some time before the more cautionary note sounded by his uncle would acquire any significance for him.

Polo is a male dominated sport but there are female players who are both skilful and good looking. There are also those who are simply good looking. Given that most players are young and fit, it would perhaps be surprising if they were not attractive and attracted to each other.

David was known to be married and although that did not preclude an adventure with the opposite sex, by and large he preferred to be friendly rather than intimate with the ladies who played at his club.

This applied also to the female grooms who were normally young and who although more often than not were coated in a liberal layer of horse sweat and shit, an inevitable consequence of close contact with extremely hard ridden horses, nonetheless had a considerable allure to a predatory male like Dai. A willowy young woman in tight t-shirt and jeans cut short left little to the imagination and the sight of a long pair of thighs was a challenging sight to a man whose blood was up and whose adrenaline was surging through his veins after a hard chukka.

Then there were the wives and girlfriends and decorative hangers on that could be expected at all polo matches, some of whom had been brought there by someone trying to impress and some of whom were there with a view to impressing and pulling. Polo as a sport has more than a little glamour and some men who play the game, often have a good deal of money and this represented something of a catch potentially.

David remembered at one particular match a winsome young girl who had positioned herself on the grass more or less immediately in front of the clubhouse steps, so that you had to step over her to get in and out of the clubhouse. Quite what she was doing there one could only speculate at, but, given the provocative pose and the skimpy clothes, it was possible to hazard a guess, with no prize for being right. Oddly enough, David, who kept a less than paternal eye on her throughout the afternoon, did not notice anybody take her up on what lawyers might term her 'invitation to treat'. It was not that she was not attractive – quite the contrary, but perhaps that she was a bit too public and anybody tempted would be seen clearly by all present which acted as a powerful disincentive. If she had been more discreet, she would have been snapped up in less time than it takes to say 'chukka'!

For a young woman, it was pleasant enough drifting around decoratively on a warm, summer day provided she was careful where she trod. In the winter though, when arena polo was played and when, of course, it could be bitterly cold, it was another matter, but even in really cold weather attractive young things wearing summer dresses and nothing else could be seen virtually frozen to the spot, but determined to be seen.

All of these ladies were fair game and David was never one to shrink from a challenge. David, however, had a golden rule about not muddying his own doorstep and left them alone. His wife knew other wives and quite often came to matches, sometimes without announcing her intention to do so, just to keep an eye on the competition. David, even if surprised, would always greet her enthusiastically and make her feel welcome. Since, on such occasions she would be in a good mood, or at least pretending to be, he was genuinely pleased to see her anyway. It was in any event good for his carefully cultivated image of loyal husband and decent chap. Behind Doctor Jekyll, however, there was the voracious predator Mr Hyde.

As a family lawyer, he dealt with cases of domestic difficulty between husband and wife. This was the usually the case but with marriage falling out of favour in some quarters he also advised unmarried couples who got into difficulties. Neither age, nor marital status had anything much to do with the way people felt or behaved and, although less likely to do so, a septuagenarian was just as capable of running off with another woman, despite having been married for more years than David had yet reached, as his younger counterparts.

Similarly, unmarried couples went through the same agonies even if the law was less than supportive to the unmarried state.

In 1969, a Divorce Law Reform Act came into force which effectively said that there was no longer to be a guilty party in divorce proceedings. All the old grounds were abolished. There was now to be only one ground, namely irretrievable breakdown, and in order that the court might assess whether or not the marriage had broken down irretrievably, it followed certain guidelines. These guidelines corresponded broadly with the old grounds, but as with all legal reforms, the legislators christened them with a new name so that 'cruelty' became 'behaviour', but a black eye was a black eye however you described the conduct that gave rise to it.

As the years had gone by, one of the things which constantly surprised him about women was the amount of bad behaviour that they were prepared to tolerate in a man. Not only did they labour under the illusion that they could change a man, in their opinion for the better, but also once they had formed an attachment to one, were prepared to forgive a great deal. This forgiveness was available and on tap provided the sinner grovelled sufficiently and went through an adequate display of contrition. David had many times had domestic cases at work where women had been badly beaten by some thug only to forgive him for the umpteenth time after he had spent a night in the cells at the local police station and made a grovelling demonstration of regret which would as often as not involve a promise to go to the doctor's to seek treatment. There is, of course, no medical treatment suitable for such a condition. A punch on the nose was in David's view likely to yield the best results in terms of altered behaviour, but then he was, already in his thirties and already rather out of date in many of his views.

The law could say what it would but simply changing the law did not change the way people behaved or felt about marital breakdown. You cannot legislate for feelings and, although the concept of guilt was largely removed from divorce in legal terms, emotionally it remained. Since the law now prevented people from fighting about the divorce itself, people now concentrated on fighting about the children or money. Change the law as much as you like. If people want to fight about something, then they will. Divorce work had expanded exponentially and divorce lawyers had benefited directly as a consequence.

David was not a violent man and, although well able to look after himself, would never dream of being violent towards a woman. Notwithstanding that, however, polo is a contact sport and players within certain limits are able to knock other players off their horses whether they be male or female. This presented possibilities, although given his golden rule, only if the female player belonged to another club.

He had himself employed this successfully on occasion as a form of rough wooing. Having knocked some poor woman off her horse during a game, he would go over to her afterwards and be solicitude itself, full of apologies and anxious to make amends. This would as often as not lead to a drink and a meal at a pub during which he would be the soul of attention and if he was in luck, he would end up in bed with her. Sometimes this could be the very same night. One well tried ploy was to suggest a remedy in the form of aunt Bronwyn's herbal creams as an effective way of drawing out the pain and preventing unsightly bruises. This he found usually appealed to the ladies. It was a natural remedy which they saw as an additional plus. What appealed to Dai, of course, was that not only did he supply the cream, but he insisted on applying it usually in copious quantities. The application, he would explain, was most important to achieve the best results. Fortunately, his aunt Bronwyn had entrusted in him the secret of how to do this and they could therefore safely trust him. In reality of course, he was about as trustworthy as a fox in a hen coop.

All in all, it was not a bad life he felt. That was until he got home. Megwyn, his wife, had plainly had a bad day. She was buzzing around like a wasp caught in a jam jar and every bit as pleased to see him.

'Had a good day, have you?' she asked sarcastically, adding before he could reply, 'I've had a terrible day,' and, 'thank you for not asking.'

It looked as if they were in for one of their regular deaf and dumb meals. Actually, he preferred the deaf and dumb meals to the meals where he was sniped at incessantly. On the other hand, it was probably academic. He was in the dog house in any event and short of some form of Divine intervention, he was in for a hard time. It never ceased to amaze him that whatever was wrong with his wife's life was his fault.

He knew from long experience that any protestation to the contrary on his part was utterly futile, as was any attempt to win her over. Similarly, any attempt at the sympathy ploy was doomed to failure with anything short of a terminal disease being contemptuously disregarded.

'Broke your ankle playing polo, did you?' she might say. 'Serve you right if you will play the bloody game at your age,' adding cruelly, 'anyway, I always thought that polo players were aged about twenty.'

She had a sharp tongue did Megwyn.

To put up a fight or resist in any way was not only futile but playing straight into her hands. She would react like a wounded animal and come at him in a fury. An argument to make her feel better was exactly what she wanted. The problem was that if you gave way to the temptation to have a go back at her, which you might if you were tired for example, or just felt angry, then it simply prolonged the unpleasantness. You would end up apologising in the end anyway.

If, on the other hand, you kept your temper and your mouth shut, you were in for an hour's worth of your apologising for all your failings both real or imagined, until she eventually tired and went to sleep. Put up a fight though and you were in for an all-night session of apologising for your very real sins, the chief of which and at the very head of the indictment was that you had dared to contradict her. He sometimes wondered what she would be like if she knew about his actual transgressions. He did not like to dwell on it. Death or the Foreign Legion would be preferable.

Making up when the storm had passed was still pleasant. That was if one of the children did not have some prior need which urgently required to be satisfied, or indeed anybody else higher than him in terms of priority. He had grown used to this over the years as the list had lengthened and he had slipped further down.

The order of priority was firstly the children, followed by friends and family other than himself, he being in a special ring-fenced category, followed by the pets, followed by every other bugger in creation and then last and very much least, him. He did not even rank with the cat, although his wife was trying to get him neutered in much the same way. Then, at last, he supposed they would have something in common, he and the cat, that is, who in all other respects was his enemy.

On this particular evening, he was in luck. Just as they were about to go to bed and he was steeling himself for a microscopic examination of his manifold faults and failings, followed by a gloomy assessment of his future and the limited prospects for his rehabilitation in her eyes, the phone rang. He answered it and she went to bed. It was a long conversation and by the time he went to bed she was asleep. Result! He crept into bed with the care of a man feeling his way through a minefield.

He did still care for her – intermittently when she was not in a bad mood for some reason or other and when he was not in the dog house.

Megwyn had not always been like this, at least he thought so when he tried to remember the way she had been when he first met her. He could not remember her as having been like that. It was actually a bit of a mystery to him. Whatever had happened to the sweet girl he had married?

Megwyn, for her part, was similarly mystified. She had known that David was a bit of a rascal and had an eye for the ladies. She also knew that he was keen on sport, but she had rather assumed that with her guidance and calming influence, he would be steered away from such distractions. She had a very clear idea what married life would be like with the man of her dreams. He would be a good father to her children, a sympathetic lover and an understanding, supportive partner who would also provide for them all and do exactly as he was told at all times. Simple enough wasn't it? What could be wrong with that? Surely, she was not expecting too much, this woman that he professed to adore? However, when this plainly did not happen, she fell back on the thought that he would grow out of it, but that had not happened either. It continued to puzzle her.

It still distressed him. It all seemed so unnecessary. It was as if there was some kind of war going on without war having been declared. For the life of him he couldn't work out what it was all about. He had been so upset on one occasion that he had taken himself out to the pub and there, on a table slithery with beer and in a deeply melancholic state, felt compelled to put pen to paper. This is what he wrote:-

'The shutters are down again tonight

a deaf and dumb meal for two

I'm not sure what it was I said

but it didn't do down well with you

so now there's the obligatory silence

and a chasm so deep and so wide

that you might as well be in Australia,

than at a table on the other side

there's nothing I can do about it

except grit my teeth and wait

for the temperature to rise a little

so I my apologies can make.

there is no point in rowing or fighting

for try as you blooming well might

the end result of that my friend

is apologising all night...'

Oh well, he thought resignedly as he drained his beer glass and stood up to leave, just part of life's rich tapestry, and left to return to the front.

He was not so sanguine by the time he returned home. He had been drinking and drink made him reckless. He was also tired and so, at the first provocation, rather than biting his tongue, he answered back. It was an act of crazy, reckless defiance. He knew that even as he did it, he would get no sleep that night. His impudence would be punished. He had transgressed beyond the bounds of what was acceptable. Sullen silence in response to a rebuke or jibe is acceptable. It was at least silence, a cowed, if resentful silence, the silence of the coward who prefers the quiet life. Now though, he had blown it. He was in for a long night until she fell asleep in fact, worn out at last by the effort of unceasing, angry recrimination. As he had known full well, nothing he said after indulging in the luxury of answering back, even when it amounted to the inevitable apology, repeated many times, had stemmed the flow until exhaustion had eventually silenced her. He simply had to put up with it. When she finally fell asleep, just before he too at last was able to close his eyes, he wondered briefly what she would be like if she found out what he was really up to. He shuddered and fell asleep, but did not sleep well.

So far as the ladies were concerned, she kept a close eye on him and so far had not been able to discover any actual transgression beyond a normal enough interest in the opposite sex. His interest in polo she saw as an obsession. This, she deeply resented. The time he spent at work was bad enough, but add to that the time he spent playing polo and she felt that she hardly saw him. It was not that she particularly wanted to spend time with him, but she felt he could have helped her more with the children instead of leaving that responsibility all to her. How could he prefer polo to her? His doing so amounted to a rejection of her and the children, and if she could not stop him, then she was determined to give him as hard a time as she could.

David had no intention of spending any more time with the children than he absolutely had to. Although he loved his children, whenever one of those happy family outings occurred where everything focused on and revolved around the children, he always had a vague sense of wishing he was somewhere else. In this, of course, he was not unlike many if not most other men. He did his best for the sake of appearances to appear interested, enthusiastic and engaged, even though as he did so he was conscious of an inner lack of conviction, coupled with an awareness that no matter how much he did, his strivings would be judged as falling far short of that which was expected of the muster modern male role model. In short, he was doomed to failure. He was pissing in the proverbial wind. There, for the moment, matters rested and an uneasy truce reigned.
CHAPTER 2

It is usually best to concentrate on the things that we are good at, and so about a week later he was in bed with an attractive young woman called Candy Fosdyke-Dixon. That is, he was curled up with her in the accommodation part of her capacious horse box surrounded by the smells and sounds of the polo field. It was night time and the day's play was long over but the sounds of partying in the clubhouse were still clearly audible in the night air.

It was a low goal tournament which had brought the players to the polo ground near Cambridge. The first day's play had been fierce and David had enjoyed it. He had been playing for a mate's team called The Blazing Saddles, which was a reasonable description of the way his friend rode not because of any particular ability on his friend's part, but because his mate's horses were all nutters, which suited his chum because he was a nutter too.

His chum Charles (please don't call me Charlie) Fotheringay-Harris was an old Ampleforth man and should, given the enormous expenditure on his education and future, have been not only a credit to his parents and an industrious man of commerce, but a gentleman to boot. Alas, he was none of these things. After three years of so-called Spanish studies at university which consisted of him spending every winter in Argentina playing polo, he had set up a business importing polo ponies for sale on the English market and, when not playing polo, had managed to scrape a precarious living ever since.

As a product of the upper middle class, Charles did not appreciate his name being shortened in any way shape or form. The scions of the working class, or what had once been the working class, within living memory, habitually either reduced a name to its barest essentials, or alternatively called you by another name altogether. This was not merely customary, it was actually, if not a sign of friendship necessarily, then at least an indication of acceptance.

Terence, by way of example, the club owner, would never had been called Terence by his circle of friends and acquaintances, by whom he would be called Terry at least or, more likely, Tel. The only person who called him Terence would have been his mother and then only when she was being disapproving. He would have had friends, whose real Christian name he had never known, but known them instead by some childhood nickname that had stuck.

Charles on the other hand, if called Chas or Charlie, would grimace slightly and then hesitantly, so as to not give offence to an admittedly lesser mortal, but one that was at least trying to be friendly in an inept vulgar sort of way, would say, 'Er, actually I'm more of a Charles than a Charlie, if you don't mind.'

That, of course, made him look a proper Charlie.

The buying and selling of polo ponies was like the second hand car market, a minefield through which it was very difficult to navigate your way safely. If you bought a horse from somebody you knew and which you had ridden yourself for a month or so before buying it, then there was a better chance that you would avoid disappointment and there would be less danger to life and limb.

If, however, you bought a horse from a professional player, particularly an Argentinian player, then you were more or less at their mercy in just the way you would be if buying a second hand car from a dealer. There came a point when you had to trust what they said. Therein lay the danger.

On one painfully remembered occasion, David had acquired a horse from an Argie pro, selling it on behalf of his patron which, after he had bought it, proved to have an obstinate disposition and a tendency to buck, on one occasion catapulting him into the air where he executed an elegant somersault and had time to think 'oh shit,' before landing very heavily and painfully on his back, from which position he was able to observe the horse looking back at him with what could only be described as a guilty look on its face. 'You bastard!' he had said between gritted teeth as the pain from his back shot through his body. The horse had done it deliberately and simply because it wanted him off. If he had had a gun, he would have shot it on the spot. Instead, he got rid of the horse for less than he paid for it, but he told the buyer exactly what the horse was like before he got rid of it.

He, he thought indignantly, had been honest enough to do that unlike the pro who had sold him the horse. At the time Dai had bought the horse, the Argie pro had said by way of encouragement when he saw David wavering in his decision as to whether or not to buy it, 'Heez an honest horse!' That generally meant a safe and reliable horse. Not so on this occasion.

Trying to take the horse back was also less than satisfactory. When the pro rode it, the horse would go like a dream and almost purr at you as the pro handed the reins back to you with an unctuous smile and said with a hint of criticism in his voice, 'Ee's fine, you must ride 'eem with gentle hand,' and then offer to give you riding lessons. In any event, you were stuck with the horse.

As soon as you were again momentarily in the saddle and the Argie had disappeared, you would again find yourself with a worm's eye view of the world, spitting out grass, or worse and watching the horse canter off gleefully executing bucks and kicks for all it was worth. It seemed a completely different horse.

You could, of course, agree to buy a certain number of horses unseen, which might be shipped over from Argentina by sea. In this case, you were buying a guaranteed mixed bag of spanners of doubtful quality. The Argies would see this as an opportunity to get rid of any old nag to the unsuspecting English and, although you might be lucky, it was highly unlikely that you would get a good horse by this route. On the contrary, it would be time to check the insurance policies.

At the end of the day, you got what you paid for, but even then the price charged in Argentina for some Argie farm horse which had seen better days was quite different from the price exacted from the gullible buyer in England. The old legal maxim BUYER BEWARE, or caveat emptor as lawyers of the old school liked to refer to it using the Latin tag because it impressed the clients and made them sound intelligent, was never truer than when buying some nag from an Argie with an innocent expression on his face.

The sheer ability and knowledge of the Argentinian rider was an almost insuperable factor in the equation. They could and did ride anything. They could iron out problems in a horse or make the horse look good no matter what. Once the horse realised, however, that the bum on its back was not Argentinian, then that is when the fun began.

If your name was Charles Fotheringay-Harris, however, you were indifferent to the qualities of the horse beyond its ability to go like an Exocet missile. All other considerations were entirely secondary to this requirement.

He was a plain speaking man and had acquired a smattering of Spanish, more by chance than any effort on his part and when galloping up the field on a horse he could neither stop nor steer, he could be heard yelling at his Argie pro in front of him, 'A LA VARECHIA!' - GET OUT OF THE FUCKING WAY!

Language apart, prudence dictated that that was the sensible course in any event.

He was a great chap to play with, provided you kept a careful eye on him because he was so dangerous that to be anywhere near him and his horse was risking life and limb in an unacceptable way. He went around the field at the same flat out speed regardless of whether the play had stopped for some reason or slowed. That was the simplest way of riding his horses that, like some punch drunk old street fighter, were so brain damaged that any speed faster than a trot engaged a little lever in their heads which said GALLOP! And that is exactly what they proceeded to do for the seven and a half minutes of each chukka until some internal clock would tell them that time was up, when they would turn and head back towards the pony lines in a determined fashion where both pony and rider would arrive covered in sweat and breathing heavily.

David had had the occasional misfortune to be on horses like that as well. On one occasion, he had hired a horse for a chukka from an old English pro who, once David was in the saddle and heading onto the field, had said laconically, 'Don't gallop that horse whatever you do – it'll kill you.'

This advice had come a little too late for our hero who had started to canter towards the centre of the field where the teams were already lined up for the ball to be thrown in by the umpire. As he arrived, the ball went in and they were off and so, he discovered, was he on a horse that quivered all over and then bolted around the field as if its life depended on it. In those circumstances, seven minutes can seem an awfully long time.

David had given up any attempt to play in favour of survival and had adopted his chum Fotheringay-Harris' technique of attempting to simply steer the horse, which was difficult enough in itself as the horse became more and more excited and careered around the field until it was in a lather and covered in white flecks of foam.

As he hurtled around the field as if he was on a motor bike on the wall of death, his progress would occasionally be remarked upon by his team mates who would enquire laconically when he was going to join them. That was actually exactly what he was trying to avoid doing since the horse would not stop and would have collided with the other horses causing untold damage and harm. The horse was completely out of his control. It was only a matter of time before something dreadful happened.

Then the inevitable happened. There was a foul and the play stopped to arrange a penalty, with the other players' horses in a group in front of him. This had no influence on the brain-dead horse that he was on who headed straight for them, flat out. Disaster loomed, only moments away. Desperately, David yanked the horse's head to the right and twisted with his body in the same direction and succeeded in altering the horse's trajectory a little so that when they reached the group he ricocheted off the side of one of them, a grey being ridden by 'Mad Dog' Neville, rather than t-boned into them. The horse did not slow down, but after the impact, rocketed onwards with David still on top and with Neville's insults ringing in his ears. Not for long, however, since in the collision David had lost his balance and fell off the side of the horse, mercifully without hurting himself.

Sympathy, however, was in short supply. On the contrary, there was much laughter all around and the following Saturday when he mounted up to play, his mates came over with a roll of sticky tape and proceeded to tape him to the saddle. Very funny, he had observed ruefully.

Charles had even shown an interest in the horse. It was not much worse than those he habitually rode. He would, he assured Dai, have no trouble in stopping it.

'If the bastard won't stop, I'll shove the polo stick between its legs! That'll stop the bastard!' It didn't seem to have occurred to him that since he would be on top of the horse at the time that would have had catastrophic consequences for him too. Still, that was Charles for you. Dai did not doubt for a moment that he meant it. The man seemed impervious to danger. Dai had been playing with him on one occasion when Charles, who was riding at a gallop immediately in front of him, had raised his massive frame out of the saddle intending to make a near-side shot to the rear, when the horse he was riding stumbled and both horse and rider had hit the ground hard. Even as he hit the ground, however, Charles was rolling away from the horse and onto his knees and then feet in one smooth action. By the time the horse got to its feet, Charles was ready to mount and then did so, galloping off without batting an eyelid.

Anyway, during the course of the day they had played the team in which Candy Fosdyke–Dixon was playing. Candy, David reckoned was fair game because she was not a member of his club and lived and played a good distance away. Furthermore she was married so David, who had had his eye on her for a while, decided to try his luck. He managed to knock her off her horse during the course of the game. He had chosen his moment carefully and done it when the play had been close and confused around one of the goals and both teams' players had been 'killing snakes'; that is hacking at the ball in a not very expert manner but with the horses in a cluster and at a virtual standstill. This meant he knew that when he shoved her over the side of her horse she would come to no serious harm. With luck, there would only be a few bruises for him to kiss better later.

She was a game individual who, despite having hit the ground with a thud, quickly got up and re-mounted whilst Dai held the reins of her horse and grinned apologetically saying, 'Sorry, Candy,' and adding when she was up again and rubbing her shoulder, 'Bit tender? I've got something that might help later.'

Later, after the chukka had ended, he had gone around to her lorry where she and her groom were untacking her horses he had been able to present his apologies and suggest a drink after the game. She had accepted with good grace, and so after the game they had some drinks together at the clubhouse.

They, like many other people, were staying overnight at the ground or nearby because, since it was a two day tournament, it was simpler to stay overnight rather than travel home with the horses and return the next day. It depended, of course. If the tournament was not far from home, then a player might leave the horses overnight with the groom and then return the next day to play.

It made a pleasant weekend to stay over after the game. There would usually be a party or at least a barbecue and everybody, players, spectators and grooms would mingle, relax and have something to eat and drink whilst talking over the events of the day.

For single individuals, of course, it was fairly easy for them to stay overnight and to make a weekend of it. For other, it was not so easy.

In David's case, it was more a question of what he could get away with. Megwyn did not take kindly to being left with the children over the weekend. On this occasion, however, she was visiting a friend in the West Country. The youngest child was with her and the other offspring were staying with friends in St Albans. David had promised to get back to collect them Sunday afternoon which meant that Saturday night he could concentrate on Candy and all those nasty bruises in tender places.

After the game and the horses had been washed down and put out to graze, they had gone to the clubhouse where the grooms already had a large fire going, over the embers of which they were going to roast half a lamb. The wine was beginning to flow, the tensions of the day had eased and people were relaxing.

They were a cosmopolitan bunch. On the one hand there were the grooms, both English and Argentine, and on the other the patrons and players all mingling together and laughing and joking about the day's play. Some people had bumps and bruises, including Candy, but no-one had been seriously hurt.

People could, of course, be injured. It was not for nothing that an ambulance and also a vet were in attendance at games. Occasionally, but fortunately not often, a player was badly hurt and occasionally so too was a horse.

They had a few drinks together and then Candy had tried to get up from the chair she was sitting in. She grimaced.

'Sore?' said David, fingers crossed.

'Mmm,' she nodded. 'I've stiffened up quite a bit,' she said rising slowing to her feet and standing uncomfortably by the chair.

So have I, he thought, saying aloud,

'I think I might have just the thing. My old aunt Bron swears by natural remedies and I've got some of her cream with me. It's perfect for drawing the soreness out and it stops the bruising a bit too.' He then added to make her laugh, 'It even works on the horses, so it will definitely work on you!'

That had had the desired effect and she had laughed and leant on him as they left the crowded, warm clubhouse into the now cool night air. Then they had then gone together in the gathering darkness to her horsebox where David had insisted on applying the cream for her, and as he had hoped one thing led, as it generally did, to another.

He had been obliged, after they made love, to listen to her life story and how unhappy she was with her husband, who simply did not understand her and who would not have been as sympathetic and caring as David had been. David realised that his part in all this was that of sympathetic ear, rather than that he was required to provide any solutions, which was just as well because that was the last thing on his mind. Still, he consoled himself, listening to her and making sympathetic noises from time to time gave him time to gather his strength for another go. A bird in the hand and all that...
CHAPTER 3

Meanwhile back in Wales, the Land of his Fathers, batty old Bron, as he called her, was on the following morning happily pottering around her garden collecting geranium petals for one of her potions. A comfortable, peaceful woman, she loved her garden blending as it did almost imperceptibly with the hills beyond. Although she lived on the edge of the village, it was a wild place which was why she supposed Dai had put up the bat boxes there. She had been quite happy about that. She loved all wild creatures and took great pleasure in observing the life around her whenever the opportunity presented itself. Although she disapproved deeply of the way her nephew, Dai, behaved, she had come to accept that this was just his nature and that he was no more able to behave any differently than the wild creatures around her that she so much loved to observe. She hadn't noticed any bats about, but concluded that, since they were nocturnal creatures, that was only to be expected.

She was thus a tolerant woman and fatalistic too. What would be would be as far as she was concerned and there was no point in worrying about it. Life was as it was and you just had to get on with it. Engrossed as she was in collecting the geranium petals, she failed to notice the arrival of her great nephew, Owen. She was also a bit deaf but would never admit it.

She had always been a bit deaf. Once when her late husband, Gwynfor, had been alive he had asked her to take the tax disc out of the car that he had sold and was mystified to hear her going on about the cat dish which she assured him she would move.

'Don't worry, Gwyn,' she had said. 'I'll move it.'

'Move what?' he had said.

'The cat dish, of course!' she answered, convinced that her suspicions that the old fool was going senile were well founded.

'No! You silly besom! THE TAX DISC!' he had shouted back at her.

'That's what I said, Gwyn, and there's no need to shout. I'll move it now. The cat's finished his food anyway.'

Was it any wonder that Gwyn had eventually given up the ghost and passed on to a better place?

Owen knew his great aunt was a bit hard of hearing, but he was very fond of her, as indeed she was of him. He often called in to see her for a cup of tea and a chat, particularly if he was meeting some mates and going climbing further up the valley in Ogwen or Idwal, on the mighty slabs of rock that sloped up from the Cym – Cym Idwal that is, as desolate a place as any on a rainy day. Even a sunny, summer's day did little to remove the sense of desolation, despite the Skylarks and the bright, blue sky!

He stood there for a moment or two and then realised that she had not heard him, and so went over to her and gave her a hug.

'Hello, Bron,' he said smiling his roguish smile.

Bron looked up, please to be hugged. She got very little of that these days now that Gwyn, her husband, was no longer alive. She liked the human contact, but she also liked Owen. He was a handsome, young man.

So like his father, she thought, pleased as always to see him. Makes you think that he's up to all sorts of mischief, which in the case of his father would invariably have been the case.

She knew David, her nephew, thought that she was a bit daft, but she was far from that. She had a weak spot for Owen though. Although he looked like his dad, he actually took after his mother and was an earnest and principled young man. Up to a point, that is. She knew full well that as a young man still in his teens he would be driven by the normal hormonal imperatives that drove young men, and that principles stood too little chance in the face of such irresistible urgings. In short, as far as she was concerned, he was a normal young man. Another characteristic he shared with other young men of his age was that he was always hungry.

'Had breakfast yet?' she asked. He had, but since he had walked over from his mother's place and he was a growing lad, a second breakfast would go down very well.

They went together into the kitchen where Taff, her old sheep dog, occupied a place so close to the AGA that it was a miracle his coat wasn't burned. As they came in, he didn't open his eyes but lifted an ear, identified them to his satisfaction, ascertained that his mortal enemy, the cat, was not with them and apart from that did not move a muscle even when Bron was clattering around on top of the range getting Owen some breakfast ready.

Soon it was cooked. Bron never wasted any time in preparing food. With her, it was no sooner thought of than done.

Owen sat at the kitchen table and took in the familiar sights and smells that constituted his great aunt's kitchen and which were so familiar to him.

It was almost like a witches' coven, he thought, with its herbs and flowers hung in bundles from the circular, metal ring that hung from the ceiling over the kitchen table, the stone-slab floor and the shelves and window ledges crammed with jars and vessels of all sizes containing heaven knows what potion, lotion or useful substance that his great aunt wanted to save.

In the chimney piece hung hams and cheeses, maturing slowly, and there were jars of honey and homemade jams in the cupboards. A pot with melted beeswax sat on the range and above it, strung on a long piece of string, were the wicks of the candles she was in the process of making.

The dog, master of all it surveyed, occupied its favourite position in front of the range where it was not only warm but from which it had a commanding view of all that moved in the room. Of particular concern was the whereabouts of its mortal enemy, the cat, whose haughty presence was the only thing missing from the familiar scene.

It occurred to Owen as he sat there how similar the old dog and Bronwyn were. Was it the dog that started to look like the mistress, or the other way around? He gave up such idle thoughts as the plate was slapped on the table in front of him.

Bron sat opposite him and watched him as he demolished a pot of tea, toast and eggs and bacon.

'You must eat your poor mother out of house and home,' she said with a smile. He smiled back. It was true. He liked food, good, plain, solid food and lots of it. He was nowhere near the age where he could have an attack of conscience if he as much as looked at a plate of egg and bacon, let alone dared to eat it without suffering acute pangs of remorse afterwards coupled with a determination to try harder in future to resist temptation. He could still eat what he liked and did. Owen and Bron had always been close.

'Any more toast, Bron?' he enquired.

Owen's mother, Mary, had not had an easy time when her pregnancy had become apparent. Life was not easy for an unmarried mother in a small and very conservative Welsh mining village. Although the putative father was not exactly spared the opprobrium of the community, nonetheless it was the woman who bore most of the brunt of it and who was the most visible target for jibes and remarks. Mary bore this stoically and even when her parents, who were upset and disappointed, threw her out, she did not lose heart. She found a friend in David's aunt Bronwyn who took her in and let her lodge with her. After she had had the baby, Bronwyn looked after him whilst Mary went to work during the day and then, a bit later, resumed her studies at a College of Further Education.

As time passed, Bronwyn grew to love little Owen. Her own children had long since grown up and left home and the valley to settle in America and Argentina. Her husband had died and it was lovely for her to have the company of the young boy and the joy of feeling useful again. It had given her a new lease of life and she had started experimenting with the old remedies and cures that her grandmother had taught her when she had been alive. In time, she had begun to sell them at fairs and soon had quite a nice little cottage industry going. As she mixed and stirred, she would smile at the little lad and talk to him, and so the years had passed.

After some years, his mother, by dint of hard work and sheer perseverance, had finally qualified as a teacher and been able at last to get her own little place over in Llanberis and Owen had gone with her, of course, to live in the tiny stone cottage in the meadow.

It was a small cottage on its own in a meadow on the hillside and of such antiquity that it was now an indivisible part of its surroundings and virtually indistinguishable from them. If you glanced up from the road in the valley bottom, you would easily miss it, surrounded as it was by the great boulders of this rugged valley and so like them in appearance. It looked as if it had grown there, like a mushroom, rather than been built at some time in the remote past.

It was a primitive, if beautiful, cottage. It consisted of only one large room with a great hearth at one end of the stone flagged floor. The bedroom, if such it could be called, was a sort of mezzanine wooden floor reached by a ladder where Owen's mother slept. He slept on the sofa bed in the downstairs room whilst the flames from the fire caste dancing shadows around the walls.

It had no bathroom and the lavatory was a shed situated directly over and straddling a small, fast-flowing stream which ran down the hill and entered the river the other side of the road. When you raised the wooden lid of the lavatory, you could see the water rushing by just underneath where you sat. It had occurred to Owen more than once whilst sitting there that they could have been really fashionable and had one of those French bidets if they re-arranged the seat a bit, although it might have been rather chilly, particularly in the winter, since the water came straight off the mountain.

The toilet paper was the newspaper they bought every few days, cut neatly into squares and stuck on a nail hammered into the wall for the purpose. At least if it was a long job, you had something to read as you sat there.

Despite its lack of facilities, both Owen and his mother loved the cottage. It suited them and their simple tastes, and it was the first real home that they shared together.

Bronwyn was not far away, albeit the other side of a mountain. She was only in the next valley and Owen would often pop in to see her, walking over the tops from the one valley to the next, and sometimes stay overnight. He had started to do this more often of late because after many years his mother now had a boyfriend and he did not want to cramp her style. He liked the chap and it was a very small cottage, so he would make himself scarce as often as possible. Not only did it allow himself to be spoiled by Bron but there was the added bonus that he could visit his own girlfriend on the quiet and so everybody was happy.

His girlfriend, Sian, he had known since they were little. They had gone to the village school together and been inseparable since childhood. When not at school, they had spent hours together on the mountainside nominally keeping an eye on her uncle's sheep, but in reality just playing together or, on the occasional sunny days that occurred even in North Wales, just lying in some hollow out of the wind, dozing and day dreaming whilst her dog, Skipper, their constant companion, sat under a rock and kept an eye on things, as happy in his surroundings as they themselves were.

As they grew, they came to know the mountains and each other intimately. They progressed from walking and scrambling to rock climbing at first without a rope and then, as they became more experienced and were given a few tips by an Englishman who befriended them, they acquired their first rope, a 150 foot length of nylon climbing rope which he generously gave them.

The Englishman, Jim, was a climbing bum or crag rat as they were sometimes called. Although he seemed very grown up to them, he was not actually much older but had lived a very different life. He was a Manchurian who had grown impatient with what life offered in an industrial city and who had instead chosen to make his life in the mountains.

As a very young teenager, he had hitched from Manchester on a Friday, having bunked off school, and would arrive literally in what he stood up in, often cold and wet, to sleep in one of the farmer's barns in Nant Ffrancon. He would sometimes have arranged to visit a mate and they would sit in the straw together and see what the other had been able to scrounge in the way of food. Normally, this was only a can of beans. Happiness was a tin of sardines as well, and they would pool their meagre resources and eat from the tins before going to sleep. In the early days, it was important just to be there. They did not go climbing and in any event did not know how, but as time passed by dint of watching others and after a few precarious attempts with Jim's mother's clothes line, purloined specially for the purpose, they started on the rocks. It may have been that, in Owen and Sian, Jim saw something of himself and his own first tentative steps that inclined him to assume the role of teacher to them.

He did not tell them his life history at first, of course, but in dribs and drabs as he got to know them and usually whilst sitting on a rock drawing mightily on one of his roll your own fags he invariably had with him. Owen would watch fascinated as he went through the elaborate, preparatory ceremony which, in Jim's case, involved carefully licking a piece of liquorice paper and then placing it equally carefully in a little set of rollers that he kept in a tin for the purpose before placing a few wisps and strands of tobacco in the paper and rolling paper and tobacco into a thin cigarette. He always made three, one to go behind each ear and one to light up. Once settled, he would begin to talk and they would sit at his feet and listen and learn.

His year began in the Highlands. After Christmas, he would head for Glencoe where he lived in a farmer's bunkhouse and earned a little money to keep himself, working behind the bar at the local pub. In his free time, he climbed – snow gullies high in the hills or rock climbed on the side of the Buachaille Etive Mor or in the Clachaig Gully which was right on his doorstep. Then, as spring came and the snow receded, he moved to North Wales where he rock climbed in preparation for a season in the Alps.

Whilst in North Wales, to save money, of which he had very little, he slept out under the boulders in the Llanberis Valley. The Cromlech boulders, as they were known, were huge boulders in the valley bottom, some with narrow caverns underneath or overhangs, and it was under one of the overhangs that he made his home, having first carefully removed the turds which decorated the place like stalagmites.

The next stop in the summer was the Mont Blanc Alps, les hautes montagnes, where having hitched across Europe he would arrive to spend a couple of months with others of his ilk who make the same pilgrimage and who all followed the same beaten tracks. So it was that you might meet a bloke in Glencoe in February and then on the Welsh hills later in the year, before perhaps bumping into him in one of the bars frequented by Les Anglais in Chamonix in the summer, where the talk would be of bad weather and desperate epics and how many climbers had so far 'got the hammer' that season.

Whilst in Chamonix, it was customary to bivouac in the Biolay woods near the railway station, a stretch of woodland, decorated on the outside edge with a thick layer of litter left by French picnickers and within by the turds they left behind after their picnics and which would need to be carefully removed with one's ice axe before lying down to sleep. The practice and consequential skill acquired in the same process learned under the Cromlech Boulders would now be useful.

Turds were by and large a favourite topic of conversation for Jim who, it turned out, had developed an interest in the subject of the underbelly of human existence during a stint one summer working for the local authority sewerage department. He was a repository for useless but sometimes fascinating bits of information. Did they know, for example, that a castle in France in the Middle Ages had been successfully stormed after a knight gained access by climbing in through the latrines? No, they didn't, nor did they know, as Jim assured them, it was that Napoleon's tent at Waterloo was surrounded by a carpet of turds left by his men. According to Jim, a brief inspection of the ground in the Biolay woods would suggest that the passage of time had done little to change French lavatorial habits for the better.

Jim, notwithstanding his spare existence, was no hermit and even had a girlfriend occasionally, albeit briefly. It was normally a young woman hitching her way around Europe and who had the doubtful pleasure of bumping into him as part of the experience. When such events occurred, he made a special effort with his personal hygiene, visiting the outside lavatory at the nearest pub for the purpose, where repeated flushing of the lavatory provided him with sufficient water for his ablutions. He used to joke that it was his ambition to wash his hair that way, but so far he had not managed it. Had he succeeded, he would not have been a pioneer exactly. Owen could still recall with a shudder the initiation rites at his secondary school.

In between imparting his philosophy of life, Jim taught them a great deal about rock climbing which soon became one of their favourite pastimes. The weather was not always good. It often rains in Wales and when it does, rock climbing becomes more hazardous as the rocks become wet and slippery. Not only that, but it becomes very uncomfortable as the climber reaching up to grasp a hold above his head is treated to any icy jet of water which travels up his sleeve, washes around in his armpit like a maelstrom and then glides down under his shirt against his ribs. Climbing in the wet is not fun. If the climber has travelled a long distance from home to climb, he or she feels obliged to venture out despite the obvious folly of the exercise. Owen and Sian, being local, could afford not to climb in bad weather and so it was only on fine days that they would be found on the crags high about the valley bottoms.

Owen did know who his father was. He was not around much when Owen was very young but he had an early memory of a man who turned up occasionally and who would take him to a café for a sausage sandwich and a cup of tea. His father had not been very adventurous in terms of outings, but Owen was happy enough, food always having been of paramount interest to him. He knew that his father lived in England, but when he was little, he had no idea where that was. All he knew about England then was that, according to his mates' fathers, they were not very good at rugby and did not speak Welsh.

When he was old enough, his mother had let him go on a visit to his father and his wife and children in England. He had felt a bit apprehensive about that at first, but he had been made welcome and enjoyed his visit, although his younger brothers and sisters had been a bit of a nuisance. They liked him and he liked them, but they woke up very early in the morning and liked nothing better than to kick the shit out of him – all in good fun, of course.

The first visit he had made, his half-brother, John, had had nightmares all night and his father had had to keep getting up to see to him. Then, just after Owen had managed to get to sleep, the dawn chorus started, the birds not only proclaiming their joy at the new day dawning, but also waking up his little half-sister, Jess, in whose room he was sleeping or at least that was the theory. Without opening his eyes, he had sensed her stir. He had lain rigidly still hoping and praying she would not wake up. In vain. There was a thump as a pair of little feet hit the floor and then the sound of those same little feet padding across the room. He lay still and kept his eyes screwed firmly shut as she paused by his bed and noticed him for the first time.

'Oo!' she said, 'a man.'

He was not a man, of course, but he was bigger than her.

'Hello,' she said. He reluctantly opened his eyes and there beaming at him was his little sister in her nightdress, who then presented him with a book for him to read to her and climbed into his bed next to him and made herself comfortable whilst he began to read aloud. There was to be no more sleep that night.

His father's wife, Megwyn, was also Welsh, but not from North Wales. She came from a doctor's family in Brecon and so was a cut above their own family, or at least she seemed to think so, being careful to remind people on occasion that she came from a genteel background. This was not stated bluntly, but hinted at in an understated, genteel sort of way. There would be no ketchup on the table at mealtimes. It would have to be asked for and would then be produced reluctantly wrapped, as it were, in a brown, paper bag from the recesses of a cupboard. Table manners were important and observed and, if not, a raised eyebrow was enough to record the fact that the culprit's failing had revealed their intrinsic uncouthness to the world. A serious failing was greeted with a slight shudder, and unspeakable behaviour was met by firmly pursed lips.

The unspoken assumption of superiority carried with it the inevitable inference that you and the Evans family were inferior in some unspecified way. None of this mattered to Owen.

Actually, she was perfectly pleasant with him and it had to be admitted she had taken on a great deal in managing Dai. Quite why she had done so was a mystery to Megwyn's father to that very day, but there it was, she had been attracted to him, his good looks and his roguish, extrovert nature. She had also made the error that many women make, as well as Magistrates when sentencing some malcontempt, namely of thinking that a good woman will have a positive effect on the behaviour of a dyed in the wool rogue. Quite why it is that women think they can change a man, or magistrates think that the presence of a woman will moderate a man's criminality, is one of life's enduring mysteries.

Owen finished his second breakfast that day and, with an effort, stood up. 'Oh well, I'd better get going,' he said, 'mustn't keep the lads waiting.'

Actually he was meeting his girlfriend in Idwal and planned a little jaunt to a high and little visited Cym for an intimate afternoon, but only after they had put up that new route that they had both had their eye on for some time. They now climbed regularly together and although a man and woman team were unusual in rock climbing, their partnership worked very well and when they were tired of rock climbing they had each other to enjoy.

'Bye, Owen - you take care now,' said Bron as he left. With the circumstances of his own conception in mind, he was determined to do so. Apart from anything else, he thought too much of Sian to do anything else.

*

As he had grown older, he had gradually learned more about his mother and his father, at least from his mother's side anyway. He loved his mother who was a gentle, loyal creature and who, he realised, had loved his father and who, despite the shameful way that he had treated her, literally abandoning her and his baby son, still never spoke ill of him. She was happy that his father was in touch with his son and not possessive of him in any way. She had not transferred her love of the father to her son or made him, however unwittingly, assume any responsibility towards her. In this regard, it had been quite helpful that necessity had required her to leave him with Bron whilst she worked or studied. That had been good for both of them in the long run, although it had not been easy on either of them at first. She never asked David for anything for herself or Owen. She was a proud, independent woman and determined to get by without the help of any man, and she had succeeded, slowly carving out a life for herself and Owen in the harsh surroundings of Snowdonia where the view might be lovely but it was difficult for most people to scrape a living.

Notwithstanding that and the whispers and sneers she had had to contend with, she was determined to remain. It was her home. She loved it. She belonged there. She had a tap root that went down from there to the centre of the earth and there she was going to stay. The place was not simply the backcloth against which she lived, it made her and framed her. In her spare time, she had started to write and, as the years had gone by, she had come to realise the extent to which she drew her inspiration from her family, her forebears and from her home.
CHAPTER 4

Back in the leafy summer green of England, which seemed a million miles away from the grim bare rocks and bleak stony landscape of the Ogwen and Llanberis valleys, the second day of the polo tournament had dawned.

In the early hours of the morning, Dai had stolen away from Candy's lorry amidst the deafening morning sound of bird song, shutting the door to the living accommodation of her lorry quickly and quietly, so as not to awaken her. He didn't want to be discovered in her lorry, wrapped in her embrace and besides, he needed to have a few hours' sleep if he was going to be able to play well later that day. Carefully in his bare feet he picked his way through the grass, wet with the early morning dew, being careful to skirt the piles of horse dung everywhere until he reached his own lorry parked under a large oak tree. In the distance he noticed a couple of the Argie grooms looking rather the worse for wear, with their heads under a cold water hose.

They had obviously had a good night, he thought to himself as unobserved and quietly he slipped through the side door of his lorry and then climbed rapidly to the compartment where the tack was kept to get a bit of shut eye. When you are really tired, even a pile of horse tack for a pillow and horse blankets and numnahs will be seen as a welcome refuge for the weary.

He awoke some hours later to the sounds of horses being shoed, or ridden and warmed up, by the grooms. He quickly brewed up on his primus stove and then whilst some bacon sizzled aromatically in a pan, he sat on the tailboard of his lorry and watched the activity around him. As always there was a lot going on and he continued to watch the preparations for the first match whilst he ate his bacon sandwich. Then he went back inside for another rest. It would be some hours before he played in a game and although tired and happy, he still needed sleep. He slept soundly until Charles came and banged loudly on the side of his lorry.

'What ho, what ho!' called Charles in a loud and cheery voice before climbing aboard and, upon seeing Dai raise a sleepy head, exclaimed, 'What? Still asleep! Come on old man, there's work to be done!'

As Dai sat up and pulled on his boots, Charles chucked a wet towel at his head by way of encouragement and then disappeared off to the pony lines.

Later, feeling relaxed, Dai rode out on to the field together with his team mates. His team, by dint of winning against Candy's team the day before, were in the final. Their opponents were the club owner Terry's team and the match promised to be not just a clash of arms but a mighty clash of egos too. That was not unusual in polo where many polo teams were run by self-made business men who were by definition egocentric and determined to win. Not only were they determined to win, they were prepared to pay for the privilege and pay they did, often through the nose. Polo is essentially a game run by professionals for the professionals' benefit, and fortunately for them there are enough successful men of business with large enough egos to keep them in business. It has been said, that in every polo team there is a fat man with a cheque book, and as far as David could see, that was the case. Not that Tel was fat. On the contrary, he was very fit as well as being determined, which made him a formidable opponent.

The sport has a glossy magazine type quality and, like hunting, the public tend to assume that players are of high social status, this illusion being reinforced largely by the involvement of various Royals with the sport. The reality is otherwise. Barrow boys on horseback would be more accurate. Successful barrow boys anyway. In all probability, successful entrepreneurs of whatever era have very similar personalities with time, money and education adding a veneer of respectability to their children and grandchildren. Mutton dressed as lamb, as David's old gran would have said, but the men who made the money in the first place were of an entirely different stamp.

Essentially polo is about money not class. It's about the people who can afford to play and also are prepared to pay.

The Argentinean pros who flock to the UK each year for the summer season are past masters at leaching their gullible clients. They play for them and are paid. They give them lessons in riding and playing and are, of course, paid, but where they really score is in the horses they sell to them and the holidays that they encourage them to take with them in Argentina during the English winter. An old English pro, who was admittedly biased, once said to David that the Argies were interested in two things only, namely your money and your women, in that order. That pretty much summed up David's approach to life also, but he was too polite to mention it and merely made an indistinct noise halfway between yes and no.

David rode his best horse for the first chukka. The opposition was formidable and was strengthened by the presence of not one but two Argentinean pros playing on their side. It was important to be well mounted because the pace was going to be fast and furious from the word go. These men meant business. They were hired guns and they knew their job. Even now, they were thundering around on the stick and ball field whacking the ball around for all they were worth with an accuracy and energy that was intimidating to observe.

David contented himself with a quick canter around and then took his relieved horse back to the lorry, telling himself that it was best to save his energy for the game.

David's horses varied in quality and reliability, but in any event, horses, like people, are animals, not machines, and they have their good days and bad days.

Dai's best horse was Woody, an Argentinian horse that he had picked up from an English pro who sold him on behalf of a patron who was thinning out his string. Dai had been incredibly lucky. He had had not the remotest idea what to look for and rode the horse for only about ten minutes before he decided that this horse, his first purchase, would do. This was as much from embarrassment as anything else. Anyway, he had been extraordinarily lucky. The horse was superb. It could play polo far better than he could, but so good and so fast was it that for many months after he acquired it, he was terrified every time he got on it. He had no idea whatsoever how to stop it and used to hang on to its mouth in an effort to stop it racing off. Fortunately for him, the horse was as tolerant as it was skilled and never once dropped him on the ground. What a horse! As Dai came to appreciate him, he often wished that he had a string of horses like Woody! What he might then have achieved!

He knew full well that to be well mounted is everything. His other two horses were less good and so he determined to ride Woody in the first and last chukkas. In effect, he was going to double chukka his best horse that would have the middle two chukkas to rest before being ridden in the last or most important chukka. It was asking a lot of him, but he was up to it.

His chum, Fotheringay-Harris, was determined to win and declared cheerily as they mounted up, 'We are going to win this, or my cock's a kipper!'

With this thought provoking remark echoing in his ears, David tightened his horse's girth and quickly mounted, one hand on the reins, the other clutching polo stick and whip, saying, 'If you put it like that old sport, I suppose we'd better!' They both laughed.

Both men were highly excited. David would not have changed places with anybody, not even for another night with Candy. He had done that anyway. Now it was time to get down to the real business of living.

As he cantered out onto the field, other players were already out there warming up. The pros had moved from the practice field and were now hammering around on the playing field. This was frowned upon in some quarters. You were supposed to warm up on the stick and ball field which was expressly for practise, but there was often a delay before starting a chukka and nerves alone made it imperative to do something rather than just sit there being psyched out by the opposition, whilst the horses fidgeted nervously.

The opposing team in this case was patroned by Terry, the millionaire owner of the club who had made his fortune in the second-hand car business when he had sold the business for a very large sum of money. Terry's name must have been Terence, but with the tendency of the English working class to shorten names, he was known as Terry by all apart from his innermost circle of toadies, by whom he was known as Tel, pronounced like 'well'.

The proceeds of the sale of the business had allowed him to trade in the old missus for a younger, sexier model, buy the sports car of his dreams, acquire a large country estate complete with polo fields and indulge his new found love of polo, which was a very addictive game and tailor-made for the self-made man in all his assertive primitive glory. It was, however, essential to win and so unimpressed by sporting concepts such as the game being more important than winning he set out to win at all costs.

An essential part of the process from the business point of view is for the Argie pro to ensure that the golden goose keeps on laying, and to do that his patron, as he is called, needs not only to win, furthermore he needs to look good doing it. His horses, sold to him by his pro, or by a relative of the pro, or by somebody who pays the pro a rake off, are schooled by the grooms and so when a large Englishman's backside is substituted for the groom's Argie bum, the horse does what it is required to do, regardless of the fact that the Englishman can perhaps hardly ride to save his life. The horse is so well schooled that it does the job regardless, or at least will do so for the duration of the chukka.

Even David had had some experience of this. If you are on a good horse and ahead of you somebody backs the ball, that is hits it in the opposite direction to that in which you are travelling, then the horse, if you are on a good one, is quite likely to execute a rapid turn whether you have asked it to or not to chase after the ball, now heading in the opposite direction. If you are not very firmly in the saddle, that can have unfortunate consequences.

Old hands at the game swore that some horses would follow the game even whilst waiting in the pony lines. Dai had no firm view on this, but certainly in his experience the horses often knew full well what was expected of them.

The pro will, if good enough, win the game for the patron, but the real skill is in making the patron look good by passing the ball to him at a suitable moment or leaving the ball for him with a clear shot at goal so that he thinks he has actually contributed to the win. Many a patrons' beaming face could be seen photographed after the game holding the cup aloft, face bathed in sweat, ego bathed in success. A success worth paying for, as many clearly thought, or at least did until the money ran out depending upon the vagaries of fortune and business.

For an opposing team, the involvement of professional players can be dispiriting and so unless they have an equally good pro or pros on their side, they are on a hiding to nothing.

Even if they do have their own hired guns, the top dog patron must win and, if necessary, orders will be yelled in Spanish to the pro playing with the opposing team if things are not going strictly according to plan, that is if the top dog patron is not winning and thus not getting his money's worth. It also helps if the umpire needs to keep on the good side of the most important patron and has the gift if not of a Nelsonian eye, then is short-sighted and somehow fails to notice fouls by the patron.

Charles Fotheringay-Harris now scorned the use of Argentine pros. This meant that on paper, his team stood little change against Terry's team with its two hired guns, his top pro Mathias and the second less skilled pro, reputed to be one of his cousins who also was over from Argentina on his first season in England. His fourth man was an average English player, whose main contribution was his very low handicap, which allowed the higher handicapped pros to play on Terry's side. This was because Terry had decided the two pros would outweigh any disadvantage there would be for himself in having the fourth man on his team.

It was time to begin. The umpire blew his whistle and the teams lined up for the ball to be thrown in.

'Sticks down!' he called.

Terry smiled the relaxed smile of the man whose team already has the game in the bag. Fotheringay-Harris smiled sweetly back and said 'Go easy on us boys! My girlfriend's watching...'

'Ha ha,' they all laughed, but Fotheringay-Harris and David had a plan. They reckoned that if they could get an early goal that that would unbalance their opponents and then if they could maintain that momentum, who knows what the result might be? It was a lot of IFS, but they had nothing to lose and David wanted to spare his chum the indignity of having a kipper for a cock at all costs.

They had already been given a goal advantage because of their lower team handicap, but they needed to build upon that and then to hang on to it.

Lady luck was on their side. The umpire threw the ball in and David was able to intercept it and to flick it to the left of the line of players. He was after it in an instant and Fotheringay-Harris, who had shot around to the right to the other side of the line, was waiting for the pass which David sent across to him.

Even Terry's top pro was taken by surprise by the speed of the manoeuvre and by the time he had turned his horse, Fotheringay-Harris was galloping his horse like a madman for goal, whacking the ball ahead of him for all he was worth. Everybody galloped after him, but he had a good lead and a steady enough head and hand to smack the ball cleanly through the goal posts. There was then the little matter of slowing and turning his horse, but he managed that as he gave a whoop of joy, waving his stick around his head in a helicopter-like fashion. 'Helicoptering' as it is termed is forbidden, but then Fotheringay-Harris never was one much for rules.

There was no joy in their opponent's team. Terry was shouting at his top pro, expressing his doubts about his paternity and outlining his hopes for his future unless he, as he put it, 'got his thumb out of his bum and did what he was fucking well paid for, he could fuck off back to Argentina!'

That was only part of what David overheard him saying as he cantered back to the middle of the field for the teams to change ends, following the goal being scored and for the ball to be thrown in again, but it indicated the general tone of the one-sided conversation between Terry and his top pro. 'Conversation' is, on reflection, far too genteel a word to reflect the merciless harangue to which the pro was subjected. Dai almost felt sorry for him, but then he recalled that the pro in question was perfectly capable and often did deliver ferocious tongue lashings to other individuals himself if all was not proceeding to his satisfaction. Polo was the sort of game where, if you are going to dish it out, you have also got to be prepared to take it.

There then commenced a desperate struggle.

They had knocked the other side off balance, but it did not take Terry's top pro, Mathias, long to get into gear and to start to earn his money. He was everywhere, like a streak of Argie lightening and he quickly put his team two goals ahead by the end of the first chukka. The problem that he had though was that one man cannot play the game on his own against determined opponents and Dai's team were determined and playing well. True, there was the second Argie pro but he was not a patch on the top pro who was like mustard and who took some keeping up with.

The weaker fourth man now began to count against them, since all he was capable of was galloping around the field behind the game, contributing very little.

Dai had always found that he actually played better when the game was fast and when playing against better opponents, than when playing a slower game against a weaker team. Today was no exception and he found himself playing at his very best with Woody under him responding to his every wish. It was uncanny, the horse seemed almost to anticipate the move required. When they were going flat out up the field, if he wanted a bit more there was no need to use the whip. He simply said gently, 'Come on Woody,' and the beautiful beast would respond instantly and run its heart out. What a horse!

As chukka followed chukka, Dai's team hung on grimly. They were helped by the other team being penalised for fouls, for which they were awarded penalties which resulted in goals for Dai's team. Soon they were neck and neck again. Mathias, the top pro, was almost incandescent with rage which did not help his playing. Neither did the continuing fury of his patron, or for that matter the patron's consequential fouls as his play became more reckless and which resulted in the penalties in the first place.

Ordinarily, the well-heeled patron could get away with murder. After all, he owned the place and it would be a bold umpire indeed who crossed him. That only really applied though when the umpire worked for you or was in some way dependent upon your good will. When not, as on this occasion, when the umpire came from one of the other competing clubs' teams, then it was a different kettle of fish. This particular umpire was himself a pro, in this case an English pro who was not only scrupulous but had no reason to love Terry, after Terry had stuffed him the previous season over a horse deal

He, therefore, applied the rules strictly. Now, in ordinary circumstances if you played with an Argie or indeed an English pro and fouled up, then you would be told so in quite clear and often painful terms. That did not apply to a patron of Terry's stature. So who could his pro, Mathias, take it out on? The answer was the other members of the team and, in particular, the other Argie pro playing for Terry, who was subjected to a loud stream of Spanish which, to judge by the expression on his face, could reasonably be described as criticism. This did not help his playing either. Frustrated, all he could do was to whip his hapless horse, since no cat was readily available. The horse had spirit and when it had had enough of being belted by its rider, it simply reared up on its hind legs and dropped him off the back and onto the ground - hard. This did not help his subsequent play either. Soon, everybody in the field was steaming, both riders and horses wet with sweat and, in the case of Terry and his top pro, there was also steam coming out of their ears and mouths.

It came to the last chukka and time to change horses for the last time. The teams were equal. Mathias was beside himself yelling at the Argie grooms in the pony lines who were sorting out the horses for the final chukka. They scurried around like the legion of the oppressed under the fury of their tormentor. They must have been relieved when the umpire blew his whistle for the teams to line up again. At least it removed the immediate cause of their discomfort, namely Mathias, who, thrashing his horse savagely, galloped back onto the field.

The remainder of the players in both teams cantered back to the middle of the field where the umpires waited to start. The atmosphere was tense and nobody said anything. Even the usually loquacious Dai was silent. His mouth felt dry and he fidgeted on his horse, Woody, whom he hoped was going to come up to scratch when it came to it. It was a strong animal but it had already given of its best in the first chukka. It was asking a lot that it do so again in the last, and he knew that. Nervously, he patted the horse's still sweaty neck and squeezed its neck affectionately with thumb and forefinger.

The ball was thrown in. Quickly, each side scored a goal, so that the teams were level pegging. Dai's job was now to stick to the second string Argie pro and to prevent him from backing up Mathias. The others concentrated on trying to win the ball and to keep it away from Mathias in particular. They were only partially successful in this but somehow no further goals were being scored.

Then the ball bounced off one of the player's horses and went wild landing a few feet from Dai. Dai asked and the horse responded with a bound and went straight into top gear. He was at the ball in a moment, leant forward and, slightly above the saddle, swung his stick back going for the half shot rather than a full swing and looked for the sweet spot on the small white ball sitting on the grass. He swung forward and as he reached the ball his stick connected cleanly with the ball with the satisfying crack which heralds a good shot. The ball shot forward a hundred yards or so and David followed it at a gallop. There was no doubt about it he thought exultantly as he hurtled forward, not even sex compared with the sense of satisfaction that accompanied a good shot. All you wanted to do was to hit it again. Nothing else mattered in the world. Forget about the horse, forget about everything, just, dear God, let me hit that ball again!

He could sense that others were coming up behind him fast despite the speed that he was travelling. He was about 70 yards off goal and almost up with the ball. Should he go for the safer tap shot? It was easier to hit the ball from a galloping horse with the half shot, or should he go for a full swing? The full swing was a chance to reach the goal in one shot rather than more than one and to run the risk of being caught and dispossessed of the ball.

He who dares sometimes pulls it off. He said a quick prayer and went for the full shot, relaxing his arm as he swung the stick forward and up and then with his eye firmly on the ball and concentrating with his whole being he swung down and hit it, lofting the ball into the air and watching with a feeling of ecstatic joy as it arched towards and through the goalposts.

His team were beside themselves with joy, whooping and yelling as they galloped up to him. Dai gave his horse a pat, his hand slithering along its sweat covered neck. The horse had made it possible and he had been lucky. It was just one of those days when it all came together.

As they cantered back to the middle of the field, the whistle blew for the end of the chukka. They had won the game and the Tournament.

As they left the field and dismounted from their steaming horses back in the pony lines, David's team were jubilant. David found himself being hugged by an extremely sweaty Fotheringay-Harris, which was a bit like being squeezed by a blubbery walrus with foam flecked whiskers. Either that or any of a number of moustachioed aunties that Dai could recall from his childhood.

He too, however, was jubilant. Fotheringay-Harris was wanting to organise a party, but Dai knew that he would have to give that a miss. Not only would his wife, Megwyn, be home, but he had to admit privately to himself that he was cream-crackered. It had been a hard game after a busy night with Candy, and he was quite worn out.

Oh God, he thought, I'm getting old.

And so he went home, but not before the presentation of the cup to his team as winners of the tournament, which was held aloft by a jubilant Charles Fotheringay-Harris as champagne was sprayed over him by his team mates. Afterwards, they stood together for a team photograph, tired but triumphant and beaming at the camera, buoyed up by the joy of the moment.

Then reeking of sweat, horses and champagne, he drove home leaving his grooms to sort out the horses and take them back to the yard in the lorry.

At home, the living antithesis of the weaker sex did not appear to be particularly pleased to see him. David guessed that something had gone wrong on the visit and he knew from the look on her face that it was likely to be his fault. The fact that he had been elsewhere would not save him. Applying the perverse logic of the female sex to such situations meant that inevitably somebody was to blame and that somebody would, without question, be him. He was right.

'Well, I suppose that you have had a good weekend?' she pronounced, rather than enquired.

You had to be a bit tasty on your toes in a situation of this kind. Fortunately, his instinct for self-preservation, coupled with a desire for a good night's sleep kicked in and he immediately assumed his most conciliatory and understanding persona.

'Actually, darling, I rather missed you,' he said quietly. 'I would have much preferred it if you had been there. There was a party on Saturday evening, but it was rather boring really, you know all the young lads getting rat-arsed and dreadful music. I must be getting old, but I didn't enjoy it much.'

That was unexpected and rather knocked her off balance.

'What?' she said sounding surprised, but interested nonetheless. 'Surely you enjoyed the game?'

'Oh yes,' he said, 'that was quite good really. We even managed to win by some fluke, but,' he continued, 'I found myself thinking about you and quite missing you.'

He was in luck. She softened and then told him about the argument that she had had with her friend which had spoiled her visit. He listened sympathetically and poured her a glass of wine. Then, he gave her a cuddle and suggested that he get a take-away meal for that evening, to which she readily agreed.

The upshot of it all was that he got a decent night's sleep.

You jammy bastard, he thought to himself as he turned the light out and immediately fell asleep.
CHAPTER 5

Next day at work, there was a partners' meeting.

Partners' meetings were held once a month in the library, a wood-panelled room on the first floor of the old office building from which, on market days, you could see the stalls and hear the cries of the vendors of all sorts of wares, some desirable and others not. Unfortunately, the room was right above where the fish monger's stall was positioned and you could smell it. It was, therefore, sensible not to hold partners' meetings on a market day, even if you had a particular love of fish.

The other partners had already started on the sherry by the time that Dai joined them. The decanter was passed to him by the senior partner, Carruthers, who was a solicitor of the old school, that is to say he was old fashioned enough to continue to believe that the law was a profession and not a business. To be in business was tantamount to being in trade, and that would never do. He was a man of great experience and under the craggy exterior a kindly man who would, however, not suffer fools gladly and who was accustomed to being obeyed. He was a solicitor and a gentleman.

Then there was George Daventry, a tall man who carried himself with an air of authority and who had a long beard which made him resemble a Greek Orthodox priest and who had the bearing and the presence of one of Her Majesty's Judges. He should have been a judge. He was a much better court advocate than many members of the bar, that is barristers who were specialist advocates. By and large though, judges were chosen from among the ranks of the Barristers rather than solicitors.

He was a modest, unassuming man, one of the many such men whose qualities were not recognised because they do not push themselves forward and are not self-publicists. Dai always thought that George Daventry was like the desert flower of the poem, born to waste its sweetness upon the desert air and to blush unseen, his talents unrecognised. Locally though, he was held in high esteem.

Old Smithers was there too, of course, in a threadbare suit inspecting the management figures produced by the bookkeeper for the meeting with his glasses pushed back over his forehead and the papers held close to his eyes as he squinted at the figures and frowned. He made your average church mouse seem profligate. In short, he was as tight as two layers of paint but not a bad bloke for all that. Talking to him about his favourite subject, stamp collecting, his passion, was the best cure for insomnia that Dai knew.

Then there was Arthur Jones, the rotund and larger than life partner who dealt with mainly matrimonial matters and who adored amateur dramatics, who was leaning on the book case and holding forth about something in his usual flamboyant manner to the junior partner who was trying not to look disinterested but clearly was.

Arthur enjoyed his work, that is he enjoyed the drama of some of it. On one occasion, in response to an hysterical telephone call from a woman client in a divorce case, he had not, as he might, telephoned the Police, but leapt upon his old Norton 500 motorcycle kept downstairs in the yard outside the kitchen door and roared off to the rescue, sweeping dramatically into the road where the woman lived, narrowly missing the milk float already there and incurring the wrath of the milkman, an Irish gentleman, whose usual tipple was something other than the milk he was carrying and who was not pleased at having to brake sharply to avoid a collision.

'What the bejez are ye doing?' he yelled after Arthur who, however, ignored him. He was on a mission to rescue a damsel in distress. That, he considered, was his job. She was also rather attractive.

When the rotund Arthur reached the front door, pen and notepad at the ready, he was dismayed to discover that the damsel in distress had effected a reconciliation with her brute of a husband and was already, to judge by her dishevelled state, well advanced in the conciliation process.

Crestfallen, he negotiated his way carefully on his motorbike back around the irate milkman and his milk float and returned to the office.

It was not unusual in David's experience for women to clammour for an injunction one minute and then be reconciled the next. The record in his experience was 24 hours from complaint to thanks, but no thanks, and he had long ceased to rush around in response to such tactics. Arthur Jones' experience though, in his view, had to count as some sort of record.

Then there was Robson, an earnest individual who, unusually for a solicitor, had a strong south London accent and a townie's interest in bird life. Weekends and summer evenings would find the bespectacled Robson, usually in an anorak with binoculars in hand and a birdwatcher's guide to our feathered friends, striding across the fields near the village in which he resided. He would be out for hours, but that he preferred to do rather than being anywhere near his wife, the female tyrant with whom he resided and who could not bear to see him idle. She always had a handy list of jobs to fill any idle moments that he might otherwise have. She was one of those people who always have any number of projects on the go and who liked nothing better than to get you to do them for her. This was fine when it came to decorating, because even she had to acknowledge that Robson should never be allowed anywhere near a paint brush. When decorating was required, she always had men in. His wife was never happier than when she had a number of men to boss around and she would be in her element, at least for the duration of the work. As a consequence, Robson was keen on having the house redecorated regularly, on which occasions he would fade chameleon like into the background or, better still, get sent on some errand which got him out of the house and then he was free! – at least for a while.

There were, of course, no women partners. Heaven forbid! It had not been all that long ago that women were forbidden entrance to the Law Society's Halls in Chancery Lane, the profession's Mecca or elephants' graveyard, depending upon your point of view. If it was absolutely essential, members could entertain a lady in 'the marble room' hidden away in the cavernous depths of the premises, but she had to enter by a rear door and with a blanket over her head. Even Dai, lover of ladies though he was, approved of this practice. There was, he felt, a time and place for everything. Giving them the vote was bad enough, but to allow them into the legal profession?! Heaven forbid!

The junior partner, Youngers, was an ambitious young fellow who was ruthlessly determined to drag what he saw as this venerable but old fashioned practice into the modern age. He was the third generation of the Youngers family to be in the practice which had been founded in Victorian times by his grandfather whose monocled face gazed down on them from the large photograph of him on the wall at the top of the large, oak staircase in the offices. Unlike his father, who had been an easy-going sort who preferred golf and bridge to the law, the grandson was made of the same stuff as the grandfather and already exhibited the same steely determination to get his own way.

He was also a friend of the doctor whose wife David had been rogering from time to time whilst supposedly taking instructions from her for a will.

David did not like him, and he did not like David. Youngers was in favour of systems and structure, management consultants, flow charts, targets, development plans and all the other paraphernalia of the modern business, without which he felt it was impossible to practice law. Unusually for a solicitor, he had a business brain.

In all of this, he was the complete antithesis of David who was fiercely independent and not prepared to be controlled or regulated in this or indeed in any way. This ensured that they would never get on. Both men were on speaking terms in the professional sense, but watched each other carefully. Each knew that the other was an enemy.

Currently, Dai was a bit worried about him because one or two things that Youngers had said in passing made Dai think that he was suspicious. His concern deepened when, as the partners' meeting was drawing to a close and people where making the noises that people make who are keen to get away but do not wish to appear as if they are, Youngers sidled up to him and asked with a faint smile. 'How are you getting on with Doc Adams' wife?'

Dai affected not to know who it was that was being referred to, but then said with simulated sudden realisation. 'Oh, you mean Pam Adams,' he said. 'I didn't realise who you meant at first. Anyway, why do you ask?'

'Well, isn't it customary to do a will for both husband and wife? I was talking to her husband and it seems that he hasn't instructed you to prepare a will for him. As you know, we are friends. Wouldn't have mentioned it to him first, but he raised it when we were playing squash the other day.'

David assumed his most affable smile, all the while hating the little bastard and said as nonchalantly as he could.

'Oh, I don't know, you know what people are like. I did mention it to her, but she is a very independent sort, you know has own bank account, uses her own name at work, all that sort of thing. No doubt she has her reasons.'

Youngers, however, was not prepared to be fobbed off and continued. 'It also seems to be taking quite a long time to finalise. Apparently, you have been around there a number of times?'

Dai was getting a bit pissed off with what was turning into a police interview. How had the doctor known how often he had been there? Did he really know or simply suspect and was Youngers just trying to catch him out?

By now they had reached the grand wooden staircase which led down to the street and Dai decided that it was time to beat a retreat.

'Oh, I don't think it has been all that often and anyway, as you know, it's a woman's right to change her mind,' he said in an attempt to trivialise the whole thing, adding as he skipped down the stairs, 'Like most women, she can't make her mind up! Sorry, must dash. I've got a match on at the squash club,' before disappearing out of the door leaving Youngers frowning and looking thoughtful.
CHAPTER 6

He was aware as he made his way to the squash club in his car that he was going to have to be careful. He decided that it would be best if he were to knock things on the head. He had been getting bored with Pam anyway. She was starting to get a bit too keen and that would not do, for heaven's sake! She had even begun to suggest how, in her view, he might improve his appearance. When they started to tell you, you needed a haircut, it was definitely time to move on. The only woman who had been able to get away with that was his mother and she had had the equivalent of a handful of aces. She fed him. Not only that, but she was quite capable of giving him a clout around the ear and indeed whenever she judged it necessary, that was exactly what she did.

If he had been born into a later generation, he could have telephoned the social services or the police and they would have saved him from violence of this kind and made his parents' life hell. In those days though, they saw it as simple discipline, an old-fashioned concept rapidly disappearing from the modern world.

He drove slowly through the town. When he turned into the squash club car park, he noticed that Melanie's car was already there.

She was keen, he thought.

He was keen himself, but on her rather than the game. The only consideration as far as he was concerned was whether or not he would get an opportunity to get on closer acquaintance with her.

He changed and made his way to the court. Luckily, they were both a bit early and, since the court was still in use, there was a chance for a bit of a chat. They exchanged the usual pleasantries. He said that he was a bit apprehensive of challenging her to a game because he had heard that she was a tough opponent.

Nothing like a bit of flattery, he thought. Since she smiled, he warmed to his theme and complimented her on her appearance. She smiled again and said, 'Oh Dai! You could charm the knickers off a nun!'

He was delighted and said with a roguish smile, 'I don't suppose it would work on you?'

She giggled. He was beside himself with lust and anticipation. God, if only they had not got to waste time with a bloody game of squash!

They played the game, she with lots of giggles and sidelong glances at him. He could not concentrate, so excited was he at the prospect of what was to come, or at least what he assumed was to come. He fooled around a bit. Girls like it when you play the fool. He was a good enough player to be able to mess around and to still play reasonably well. It was a balance between her being happy that he was taking the game and, of course, her seriously but at the same time not taking himself seriously. That never went down too well with the girls. If it had been a bloke that he was playing, then, of course, he would have been determined to knock lumps off him.

She won one game and he won the next. It was the best of three and the third game was very close. He was not sure whether he should let her win or not but she solved the problem by beating him fair and square anyway.

After the game, he suggested a drink, of course, but she surprised him by saying that she would rather have a sauna and would he mind joining her? MIND?! He couldn't believe his luck!

Thank heavens for liberated women, he thought.

He had a lovely time in the sauna, although it called for a degree of athleticism on his part to keep one foot against the door whilst making energetic love to Melanie, just in case somebody came along. Nobody came, apart from him and Melanie locked in fervent embrace in the steamy confines of the sauna.

Driving home later, he was feeling relaxed and rather pleased with himself. Even the silent hostility that greeted him when he opened the front door of his home failed to upset him. Even the antipathetic accusatory silence that greeted his cheery, 'Hello, I'm home!' failed to upset him. He merely sighed and went upstairs to change. When his wife did appear, she tried a different tack to provoke him by being rude in a rather pointed way, greeting him with, 'Did you remember to...?' or something entirely inconsequential. It didn't matter what it was. Some errand or other. Some little task that she would have identified for him over breakfast that day, not because it needed doing necessarily, but to impose her will and to make it clear who called the shots.

If, by some happy chance, he had remembered and actually done it, then instead of a thank you, his obedience to orders would be acknowledged with a sniff followed by a pause whilst she tried to think of something else to pull him up on.

On this occasion, as sadly on many others, he had not done as he had been bidden, but before she got started on a long examination of the, according to her, catastrophic consequences that would now ensue as a result of his negligence, he simply smiled, gave her a kiss on a cold cheek and said, 'Sorry, I'll do it tomorrow! I'm just going to change,' and disappeared promptly from her sight.

Life, he felt, was not bad. She would have another go later, probably when they went to bed. He locked himself in his study and pretended to work. Fortunately, he kept a bottle of whisky in there for emergencies and so his evening passed pleasantly enough.

Things, he considered, were going well. The win at polo and success with Candy and now Melanie seduced his common sense. Now, he felt recklessly he could do no wrong.
CHAPTER 7

The following evening, there was a party at the local police station. One of the senior officers was retiring and, as was customary, he threw a party for not only the police, but also the magistrates court and crown court staff, as well as local solicitors such as David who were well thought of and who, amongst other things, prosecuted cases in the courts for the constabulary.

These parties were always held at the top of the police station in the canteen area which also had a full sized billiards table and a well-used bar.

Parties were held regularly to celebrate promotions, retirements and successful prosecutions in important cases where some particularly unpleasant villain had been nailed.

David, who was no stranger to these celebrations, found them enjoyable and often highly entertaining, and revelled in the mainly male camaraderie of the evening. He enjoyed a drink which was important because prodigious quantities were generally consumed by all present under a dense pall of cigarette smoke.

There were women guests as well and included the female court staff and the occasional woman police officer. One of these, a raven haired beauty with a slim waist and a magnificent chest that her police blouse showed off to full advantage, was one of David's occasional interests. She was high up on his 'to do' list. He felt sure she would be there and indeed hoped that she would, for an idea was beginning to form in his head which he found exciting. Flushed by his recent successes and encouraged by the thought that Megwyn was going away to see her folks down in Wales for a fortnight, he suddenly had the crazy idea that he would see how many women he could bed in that time.

One part of his brain said he was nuts, but the more he tried to get it out of his mind, the more the idea intruded into his thoughts and appealed to him. He would rise to the challenge, he decided. He would have them queuing up and work his way through as many as he could. After all, he asked himself, what could possibly go wrong?

That evening, he made his way to the police station where the desk sergeant grinned as he let him in saying enviously, 'Hope there are no robberies tonight,' and adding ruefully, 'Some of us have to work,' as David grinned back and made his way up the stairs to the top of the police station.

The desk sergeant had been right, he thought. There wouldn't be much of a rapid response from the constabulary that evening in the hopefully unlikely event of a major crime.

As he drew near to the canteen, he could hear the hum of voices and the clink of glasses. The party was in full swing and he had to squeeze between the assembled throng, patting people on the shoulders and greeting them as he went. 'Hello Dick! Keeping out of trouble? Hi Pete! Good result in that case at the Crown Court!' and so on until he found the senior officers present. It was only good manners to pay his respects, but in any event it was prudent to do so. They gave him a lot of work which was a very valuable source of income for the practice. A quiet word from them to the admin office could end all that.

Whilst he was chatting to the chief superintendent, he discreetly surveyed the room, noting who was present, identifying all those that he needed to speak to and checking to see if there were any women present that he might be interested in. It was important to tick everybody on the mental list he had in his head whilst everyone was sober enough to remember him. Duty and pleasure would have to be juggled.

Helen, the buxom WPC, was there by the bar talking to a CID officer who obviously fancied her. Dai would have to tread carefully there, and there too he noticed at the far end of the billiard table was the equally buxom, but blonde rather than raven haired, court clerk in a group of other admin staff from the court offices. He caught her eye, or she caught his, he was not sure which, and she smiled and waved at him. That seemed promising.

Having chatted to the chief superintendent for ten minutes or so, who fortunately had shown an interest in fishing and it had not been necessary for him to merely feign interest, whilst the officer related the details of his recent visit to the River Usk in South Wales, which he assumed that David, being Welsh, would know. Wales was not very big was it?

The chief superintendent, who was a pleasant man, made the assumption that the English commonly make, that the Welsh are all the same without realising that the northern Welsh and those that live in the south where the River Usk is to be found, in this case Breconshire, are no more fond of each other than the northern and southern English.

That did not matter, of course. It had nothing to do with fishing which was a topic Dai was happy to talk about. He had spent many happy hours fishing in Snowdonia as a boy and one river is the same as another. As it happened, he had fished in the Usk near Abergavenny and so it didn't matter anyway.

When another guest came over to say hello, David, smiling, seized that as an opportunity to drift off towards the bar ostensibly to get another drink but in reality to draw nearer to the enticing WPC whose back at the moment was turned to him, but who shook her head a little from time to time causing her long, black hair to move gently in a way that made his skin tingle. The hunt, he felt, was on. This was almost as good as polo!

When he had managed to manoeuvre himself close to the bar, he was suddenly pounced on by a detective sergeant who was a witness in a case he was currently prosecuting for the police, and immediately engaged in conversation about it. He listened with one ear whilst straining to hear what Helen was talking about with the other, and at the same time struggling to attract the attention of the over-worked barman. The rate at which the drinks were going across the counter would have been the envy of any local publican, one of whom was actually present because he had a fruit machine business and whom David had noticed quietly emptying the cash from the machine in the canteen into a large, brown holdall, apparently oblivious to the party going on around. It struck David that there was something slightly bizarre about it, but nobody else paid any attention to it and Dai concentrated on the job in hand. This party would have done credit to any pub or club on New Year's Eve, so great was the crush at the bar.

He was still in limbo with his empty glass extended towards the bar, like a drowning man appealing for help, with one ear listening to the earnest police officer who was yelling in that ear to make himself heard above the din.

Mercifully, the officer paused whilst the publican with the holdall passed by him on his way to the exit saying cheerfully to him, 'Good haul tonight Tom?'

'Not great, but not bad, and sure half a loaf is better than none,' this son of the emerald isle answered sagely as he quietly made his way out.

This interlude, coupled with the desire to escape from the earnest officer, spurred David to act. He tapped Helen quickly on the shoulder saying, 'I'm sorry to but in, but do you mind if I squeeze past to get to the bar? I'm getting desperate here!'

He was too, in more ways than one. Helen obliged, smiling at him as she stepped to the side and allowed him to squeeze between her and her CID admirer at the bar.

'Thanks mate!' beamed David at him, ignoring the man's scowl.

How could she be interested in such a miserable bastard? he thought, continuing to smile at him, now happily wedged against the bar between Helen and her admirer, now reduced to disconsolately drinking his beer whilst rolling himself a fag on the beer-splattered bar counter.

Dai still had to wait for a drink which he did not mind because as he stood there he felt somebody's fingers inside the back of his jacket touching his lower back. This had an electrifying effect on him. Who could it be? It could only be Helen. He gave no sign as the fingers continued to explore his back and then moved down over his buttocks.

Good grief, he thought. This cannot be happening. But it was.

He had just managed to get his glass refilled and offer Helen and, reluctantly, the admirer a drink, which she accepted but he did not, when the detective inspector came over to him, pushing his way through the crowd. 'Sorry to trouble you on your night off,' he said, 'but there's a bloke in the cells who has just woken up and asked to see a solicitor.'

Shit, thought David.

'Er, alright,' he said, 'but aren't they a bit short staffed down there tonight?' whilst hoping against hope that he might be able to get out of it.

'True,' replied the DI. 'There's only the desk sergeant and he can't leave the front desk to go down to the cells. I know,' he said brightly, 'Helen here can let you in. You don't mind do you Helen?' he said turning to her smiling.

'No skip, not at all,' she said. She drained her glass and followed David though the crowd and out of the bar. David was still trying to work out the possibilities when Helen joined him on the landing.

'Shouldn't take long,' he said for the sake of something to say.

'You never know,' she replied.

Then they make their way down the stairs together, the sounds of the party fading behind them as they descended.

'Sorry to drag you away,' said Dai again, more for the sake of something to say than for any other reason. He suddenly felt rather awkward. Helen seemed quite relaxed.

'It's no trouble,' she said smiling. 'It's a relief to get away from Ted,' referring to her CID admirer, adding, 'He's been boring me rigid,' and again smiled at Dai.

Yippee, thought Dai.

They came to the bottom of the stairs, went through a locker room and then reached the cell block underneath the police station. There was nobody else there. All was quiet. Helen took the keys from behind the charge room desk and let them both in through the metal door between the charge room and the cell area. There was only the one prisoner in and he had been drunk out of his mind, either that or drugged, so had been left to sleep it off. Now, it appeared he had woken up and wanted legal advice, which was his right. Dai and Helen walked along the cell corridor. All was quiet. Helen slid back the door hatch to the cell that contained the prisoner.

'Well, well,' she said smiling. 'Chummy has passed out again,' adding enquiringly as she pressed her thigh against David standing next to her, 'What shall we do now?'

Dai would have had to have been made of stone not to have accepted that invitation. He kissed her gently and then with passion as she thrust her pelvis against his.

'Well, I suppose we've got a while,' he said rather unnecessarily. 'It might take some time to interview this prisoner.'

'And, we're locked in,' smiled Helen.

Conveniently, the cell block contained a medical room which was not the most comfortable place in the world, but did at least contain a bed and blankets. Here, amidst the finger-printing equipment and photographic gear, they enjoyed each other. It was only a single bed, but the potentially serious breach of Health and Safety, even within the confines of the police station, that citadel of the law, did not concern them at all.

Afterwards, as they lay together, Dai's tongue gently caressing the nipple of one of her magnificent breasts, Helen smiled and sighed, 'that was wonderful.'

'It certainly was,' murmured Dai. 'Beats doctors and nurses! Did you mind wearing your helmet?!' he joked.

Helen giggled and slapped his ear. 'Come on,' she said, 'we'd better get back.'
CHAPTER 8

Back upstairs, the party was still in full swing. Nobody, except perhaps Helen's ardent admirer in the CID, had noticed how long Dai and she had been away, but nothing about the length of absence was likely to cause any problems or arouse suspicions. The time it took to interview a prisoner varied enormously. Whilst Dai interviewed the prisoner, Helen would have had to have waited in the Charge Room to let him out when he had finished. Their absence passed without notice, save that to the astute observer, both Dai and Helen looked rather pleased with themselves.

When they returned to the canteen, both of them wandered off in separate directions. In the cell block, they had exchanged telephone numbers and now they were both at pains to mingle. Apart from anything else, Dai still had his eye on the buxom court clerk in whose company he now happened to find himself. He had contrived to bump into her and a colleague and exchanged greetings, upon which her colleague had offered to get them all drinks. It would have been impolite to refuse and it gave Dai time to speak to the clerk, Daisy, on his own.

They knew each other already, of course. Dai had often found himself in the same court over the months as the court clerk, whose duty it was to assist the magistrates with the day's list, a task which took considerable knowledge and not a little tact. The clerk was the person to whom the lay justices, none of whom were lawyers, turned for advice on points of law and procedure. Since the clerk sat immediately in front of the magistrates facing the court and the various assembled legal representatives, it was inevitable that they had both found themselves facing each other for many hours at a time whilst Dai waited for his case to be called or indeed whilst it was in progress.

Waiting for the case to come on gave them both the leisure to minutely observe each other. They would have done that ordinarily out of sheer boredom and for lack of anything better to do. Whilst waiting, some advocates, like Dai's colleague GD, would silently tap their way through a music score or, like another individual often in the court, work their way through The Times crossword. This particular individual Dai rather disliked, not only because he could do the crossword in an impressively short time, but also because despite looking like a rather scruffy vicar peering myopically through his glasses at his newspaper, he was a formidable opponent who invariably won arguments over points of law, which ability Dai found both irritating and, at times, inconvenient.

Whilst waiting, Dai's pastime was rather less cerebral. He would pretend to be writing, but would in reality be mentally undressing the court clerk whilst trying not to let her see he was. He was only partly successful in this and the young blonde was perfectly aware that he was interested in her. She found his eyes particularly exciting and had he but known it, was just as keen to get to grips with him.

David knew from a chance remark that he had overhead that she had a rather unlikely hobby for a young woman. Apparently, she liked fishing, so it was the subject that he now raised. Fishing, it seemed, following his conversation with the chief superintendent, was the theme of the evening. Daisy was quite happy to talk about her favourite hobby.

In response to Dai's enquiry as to where she could go fishing in their area, she told him about her favourite place on a river out in the countryside, but not far away, and where she had the permission of the landowner to fish whenever she wished. Dai knew the river which, in places at least, was more in the nature of a stream, but she assured him that where she went it was deeper. That section of the river had been part of a mill pond near a now non-existent mill and so had more depth. Dai said that he liked fishing too and to his surprise, Daisy, without hesitation, invited him to join her adding, 'I'm going next Wednesday on my day off, but I expect you will be working?'

'Well, funnily enough,' said Dai who was nothing if not impetuous, 'I'm seeing a client near there in the morning. I could perhaps join you for an hour or two around lunch time?'

'Alright then,' she smiled.

Just then, her colleague returned and after staying for long enough to thank him for the drink and to enquire about his health, Dai meandered off, hardly able to believe his luck.

He was beginning to feel more than a little pissed. He knew he had had a lot to drink. Was he imagining it or had he had an encounter of a horizontal kind with a WPC in the cells and was he now lining up the court clerk for a bit of the same? He pinched himself. He could hardly believe his luck. He was on a winning streak indeed. Perhaps he might head for the nearest bookmakers and put a few bob on? With his present winning streak, he could hardly lose.

He decided it was time to go home. Not only had he had quite enough to drink, but he needed to get his head down. He was playing polo at Cambridge the next day and that was to be followed in the evening by the club's summer ball. He did not want to miss that. Candy would be there. Would he have the stamina, he wondered? I'll find the strength somewhere, he resolved.

He said his farewells to the chief superintendent and any other officer that he happened to bump into and was then thoughtfully provided with a lift home by a very bleary eyed detective sergeant who, despite having consumed prodigious quantities of alcohol, still managed to safely negotiate the streets of the town and to deposit him safely outside his front door.

David thanked him for the lift and the officer, his eyes apparently mesmerised by the car's internal light which came on as David opened the door, smiled happily at him, hiccupped and, exuding enough alcohol fumes to have made a flame thrower of his breath had it encountered any exposed flame, wished him a pleasant evening and departed.

Megwyn had already gone, but there on the kitchen wall was a carefully drawn list of chores she expected him to deal with on a day-to-day basis and also a further list of the other tasks to be completed before her return. He looked at it briefly whilst he drank a cup of cocoa and then turned in.

CHAPTER 9

Saturday was bright and sunny. There was not a cloud in the sky and Dai enjoyed the drive to Cambridge where the Grantchester Polo Club were hosting a tournament. He would not have enjoyed the drive quite so much if he had travelled in the lorry bringing his horses to the event. A ride in a horse box was a noisy affair with the metal partitions, which separate the four or five horses, rattling and clanging the whole time, but it was not the noise that was the problem, it was the proximity to four or five, farting and defecating four legged creatures that made the journey something of an endurance test. Even if you drove with the window open, you could not get ahead of the smell and travelled gently up the motorway in a little fog of diesel and horse exhaust. On the way home, it did not matter. You would be so dirty and knackered and so ravenous that you could sit in the cab eating sausage sandwiches with a scalding mug of tea balanced precariously on your knees, completely indifferent to the all-enveloping atmosphere of exhaust fumes to which your own would now be added.

On this occasion, however, since the match was to be followed by the ball to be held in a marquee on the site, David travelled separately with his evening jacket and a complete change of clothes for the evening's festivities. His lucky grooms got to travel up with the horses in the lorry.

The polo club was situated out in the countryside, some distance from Cambridge itself and was surrounded on all sides by green fields stretching to the horizon. Seen, as on this particular day, under a powder blue sky which reflected the chalk of the landscape, it was quintessentially England.

On arrival, as he drove slowly over the grass and between the lorries disgorging horses and piles of tack, saddles, bridles and colourful saddle blankets, he saw many familiar faces. Horses were being led off the lorries and tied up along the sides where grooms got to work bandaging their tails and tacking them up ready to play. Dogs were everywhere.

What is it about the English and dogs, he thought. People who liked to be around horses apparently also liked to be around dogs, lots of them.

Lots of lovely canine crap too, he thought sardonically as he found somewhere shady to park his car.

Having parked and with time to kill, he decided to take a stroll. He ambled slowly through the lorries being careful to avoid the rear end of horses tied up to the sides of the lorries preparatory to their being tacked up to play. The last thing he wanted was a vigorous kick from a horse. He knew from something he had read somewhere that a measure of probability was linked to the number of soldiers in the Prussian Army who had been kicked to death by horses. That had nothing to do with anything very much, apart from confirming an already acute awareness of the damage that a kick from a horse, particularly a shod horse, could do.

As he walked, he nodded and spoke to the familiar faces and slowly made his way to Candy's lorry, which he recognised from afar, to say hello. As he drew near, however, he heard raised voices. That is, to be more exact, he heard Candy's voice saying angrily, 'Well, if that's the way you feel about it...' He peeped cautiously around the back of her lorry and saw that she was involved in some sort of exchange with a man that he recognised as her husband. She had sounded angry. He looked angry.

He had previously half overheard a conversation between them when it had seemed fairly obvious to him that the pair were not getting on. That had been some time ago. It appeared that things had not improved. At any event, it was not the moment for him to arrive or to deliver breezy greetings which would be neither welcome nor reciprocated. Also, of course, he would not be able to make an arrangement, as he had intended, to see Candy after the game. He could hardly do that with her husband there.

David decided promptly to give them a wide berth and, lengthening his stride, moved quickly towards another lorry where he noticed an English pro he knew sitting on the tailboard of his lorry, sorting his horses' tack. His wife, Susan, was tying up his horses' tails ready to play and smiled at him as he arrived.

Susan was quite attractive, even after working in close proximity to the horses all morning. He had noticed that before, of course. Unless he had imagined it, his interest in her had been noticed by her, but there had never been any opportunity to explore further or to try his luck. His instinct told him that he had a fair chance. Her husband lived, slept and dreamed polo. He was utterly absorbed by the game. It was his entire life. David reckoned that he was himself a total enthusiast, but this man lived and breathed polo. Notwithstanding that, they had a couple of young children. Quite where they found the time to conceive them, let alone look after them, was a mystery to Dai. Perhaps there had been a quick coupling between chukkas? Anyway, somehow they had managed and now two little blonde cherubs tumbled happily around on the tailboard of their lorry amidst dogs, puppies and piles of tack whilst their parents let them get on with it while they got on with the serious business of preparing for the game. Her husband, Matt, earned his living as a pro and Dai could see he was already descending into a Zen like state of concentration as he prepared to for the match.

She smiled at him when she saw him and asked him to give her a hand with a stiff chinstrap on one of the horse's bridles. This brought them close together whilst he too struggled with the stiff leather. Did he imagine it, he wondered? As he wrestled with the leather strap, she brushed her breast gently against his arm. He pretended not to notice. He decided that he had imagined it and, anyway, he had more than enough on his plate. Perhaps he could add her to his 'to do' list? It was an appealing proposition.

He saw his lorry arriving. He smiled at Susan and headed off towards it. There was work to do and a game to be played. That afternoon, they were playing a round robin tournament where there were three teams, Candy's, Tel's and Fotheringay-Harris' team, of which David was a member. The tournament was so arranged that Candy's team played Tel's first, but played only two chukkas. They remained on the field whilst Tel's left and then played Fotheringay-Harris' team for two chukkas. After two chukkas, they left the field and Fotheringay-Harris' team remained to face their old adversaries, Tel's team, for the remaining two chukkas.

Tel's lorries were already there, disgorging horses and men, through which Tel moved with a purposeful air. He had changed his line-up for the game. He had replaced his hapless Argie pro whose failure to secure victory in the game a few weeks previously had sealed his fate. He had fallen from favour and now Tel had gone native and was playing with two English pros, both of whom displayed the appropriate thuggish characteristics in their approach to the game. A little later, Dai saw them both before the game stared, clustered around the umpire who happened to be Argentinian and who was looking at the list of players.

Tel, who was in a cherry sort of mood, clapped the umpire on the shoulders and said equably, 'Giz a shufti!' indicating to those who understood the language of the sub-culture from whence he came that he wished to have a look. The Argie did not and looked questioningly at him.

'Queue?' he enquired.

One of the pros with Tel sought to explain.

'Ee wants a gander! Ee wants a butchers!' adding to the still unsurprisingly uncomprehending Argie, 'Wot's the matter? Don't you speak bleedin' English?' at which Tel and his hired guns laughed uproariously and walked off leaving the Argentinian mystified.

Dai, who with the rest of his team mates had all saddled up and were moving towards the field, felt a certain sympathy with the Argentinian at the unnecessarily brutish behaviour of Terry and his acolytes.

What, he thought, was so funny about being rude to a man who wouldn't understand what you were saying? Not only that, but although he might not speak English very well, he could speak it a lot better than any of them could speak Spanish. It seemed rather unfair to Dai who saw his chance of getting his own back for the umpire, by poking a bit of fun at Terry and his team mates who had all began to warm up energetically by contorting and thrusting their bodies into all sorts of weird and wonderful poses. They took this and themselves very seriously , particularly Terry who had a well-muscled torso that he was fond of revealing to the world, whether the world wanted to see the one hair on his chest or not, let alone the tattooed heart with an arrow through it and the world 'Mum' beneath it, which adorned his left shoulder.

Then, just as Dai and his team mates drew near, Terry threw himself face down on the ground and began doing press ups with a pneumatic energy, no doubt designed to impress the opposition, that is Dai and his mates, as well as the assorted spectators and onlookers. Dai was not impressed. He merely observed loudly and laconically as they passed, 'You're wasting your time Tel! She's already gone!'

The laughter this provoked from the onlookers, did not please Terence, who got to his feet scowling and stomped off to his horse, being held for him by a groom.

'I don't think he took that very well Dai old son,' observed Charles Fotheringay-Harris as they cantered on to the field. 'Who cares?' said Dai, 'The bastard needed pulling down a peg or two.' Then they forgot about Terry as they began to warm up for the game cantering around and taking practice shots, if not at the ball, then at some convenient tuft of grass or lump of mud. This was an essential part of the process, the idea being to psych out your opponents, as much as to warm yourself and your horse up for the game.

Dai's best horse hated warming up. It too was a pro, but one with its own view on how things should be done. Its view was that once you were mounted, then get on with it, get it over and get back to the lorry as quickly as you can and with as little energy wasted as possible. Dai was sympathetic to this view and anyway, loved the horse so much, he could indulge it and they would both simply stand and wait for the game to start, at which point the horse would be transformed into a running machine. What a horse!

The game got underway eventually and passed without incident, although Candy's team were hammered by both Fotheringay-Harris' team and Tel's team which, to judge by the look on Candy's face and the way she threw her stick at the groom on returning to the pony lines, left her in a rather bad humour. This did not bode well for the romantic interlude that David had planned for later that day. To make matters worse, Candy did not stop at the pony lines but got into her car and drove off at speed, which suggested to a rather crestfallen David that she had no intention of remaining for the ball later that day.

Oh dear, he thought, but had no time to dwell on the implications of her absence because Tel's team were thirsting for revenge after their recent humiliation and determined to win. What followed was a rough game with a good deal of vigorous riding off on the part of both teams.

Riding an opponent off consisted of getting alongside them and pushing or banging them away from the line of the ball. Contact was supposed to be made in as safe a way as possible, shoulder to shoulder, but it is a difficult exercise to carry out in the heat of a game when the players are perhaps travelling at a gallop. It calls for concentration and timing as well as a highly cooperative horse. Done well, it is highly effective. Done badly, it is highly dangerous.

Dai did not know who it was who, towards the end of the second chukka, rode him off the ball by slamming into his right side as he was about to take a nearside shot and ejecting him from the saddle head first onto the ground. Having used his head as a break, Dai had no recollection of what had happened at all since he was concussed by the impact. The last thing he remembered was swinging his stick to take the shot and then wham! The next thing he knew was he was sitting in the ambulance being asked by a St John's Ambulance man if he knew what day of the week it was. An ambulance was always required to be in attendance at tournaments. Likewise a vet has to be on standby in case of injury to the horses. Polo is a rough game and injuries do occur, fortunately for the most part not serious.

The St John's Ambulance man looked at him enquiringly and then repeated the question, 'What day of the week is it?' Dai thought about it carefully,

What day was it? He knew he should know, but he did not, nor could he immediately recall where he was. He confessed he did not know what day it was, but said he felt fine. He did feel fine. There were no aches or pains yet. They would come after the shock, which presently enveloped him like a warm blanket, wore off.

He failed the question about where he was. He knew he had been on a horse, but nothing else. After a little while, he eventually remembered where he was and then lay in the ambulance whilst there was a discussion on whether or not he should be taken to hospital.

He sat up. Hospital? He would miss the ball! He remembered that all right! He got up and did his best to convince the ambulance men that he was actually fine. The ambulance men seemed doubtful.

'Come on lads,' said Dai in a pleading tone, 'there's a party tonight and I don't want to miss that.'

Reluctantly, they agreed not to take him to hospital, but insisted that he must lie down and rest and that somebody should check on him at intervals.

The next thing he remembered was being put to bed in the back of the horse box on the platform that held the tack. At least it was flat and there were a few old blankets on it. He rested his head against a saddle and knew no more.

When he came to, it was dark. At first he did not know where he was and struggled to make sense of his surroundings. He rolled onto his side and as he did so his head throbbed. He groaned and sat up holding his head in his hands. As he sat there, a female figure was silhouetted in the doorway of the lorry. Despite the darkness and despite his aching head, he could not help but notice how attractive she was.

'Candy?' he murmured.

Fortunately he hadn't said it clearly enough because it was not Candy. It was Susan. Gone were the torn and dirty jeans and t-shirt, their place taken by a lovely, light summer dress transforming Susan from a grubby groom into the long legged lovely that had now appeared before him like a vision. She came closer.

'Ah!' she said as she drew near. 'You've woken up.' He remarked that that was true and added, 'What the hell happened?'

Susan explained that Tel had over enthusiastically ridden him off causing him to hit the ground. As a result, after they had carried David off the field, the umpires had given a penalty against Tel's team and sent him off for dangerous play. The penalty delivered a goal for Fotheringay-Harris' team who accordingly won the match. Tel was furious. He had calmed down eventually. He even felt a bit guilty, although not very guilty, at having hammered into Dai so hard. He now, together with everybody else, was partying hard in the marquee erected for the occasion and where, Susan laughed, Fotheringay-Harris was at that very moment drinking David's health.

David scratched his head and sat up. He could hear the sounds of the party, but suddenly didn't really feel in a party mood. He ached all over, his neck was stiff and his head throbbed.

'How do you feel?' she said bending over him.

'Lousy,' he replied attempting a smile, although he realised she probably would not see that in the darkness.

'I'll make you feel better,' she said gently pushing him back onto the blanket and climbing on top of him.

For a while, Dai thought that he had died and gone to heaven. He decided that he did not mind being knocked off his horse if this was what happened afterwards.

'Shouldn't you be dressed as a nurse?' he enquired as she undressed him.

Sometime later, Susan left him. She had to get back to the party, she explained. She had only been sent to check on how he was, but she couldn't stay too long. Dai was secretly relieved. Wonderful though her visit had been, after the excitement and sensual pleasure of her presence, it seemed as if the aches and pains in his body had returned with redoubled strength. Now all he wanted to do was sleep. His brain throbbed, his neck hurt, probably from the whiplash jerk on the neck as his body had hit the ground. He suddenly craved sleep and when Susan said she had to leave, he mumbled something indistinctly before falling back onto the saddle which served as a pillow and immediately fell asleep or passed out, it would be difficult to say which. Suffice it to say that by the time Susan had climbed out of the lorry, he was unconscious.

When Susan returned to the marquee, the party was still going strong and she had to thread her way carefully through a throng of bodies gyrating energetically to the sounds of the R&B rock group.

She had been a bit worried as she entered the tent that she might have looked a little dishevelled. She needn't have worried. The marquee was literally heaving with people in various states of disarray. Gone, with everyone's inhibitions, were the bow ties and jackets of the men who now danced like whirling dervishes or clasped a woman in a bear-like embrace as they gyrated around the dance floor. The rest of the floor space was packed with tables, now filled high with the debris of the meal they had consumed, plates, cutlery, glasses, bottles and yet more bottles adorning the tables like so much flotsam on a beach. Men and women shouted at each other to make themselves heard. Old friends and new friends embraced each other, glasses in hand, and guffawed in a blissful moment of shared friendship and joy.

Nobody noticed Susan was somewhat dishevelled, least of all Susan's husband who was by now paralytic and attempting to explain a complicated tactic he had employed successfully in a recent game, using glasses, salt cellars and anything else that came to hand to illustrate the point he was trying to make to an equally besotted audience of men who blinked uncomprehendingly, partly because they couldn't hear him over the sound of the music and partly because they were completed pissed.

She was able to slide onto a chair next to her husband and link her arm affectionately through his, and it was whilst she was in this position that Charles lurched off the dance floor perspiring heavily and beaming brightly like a lighthouse on a foggy night. When he caught sight of Susan, he collapsed thankfully onto another chair and asked how dear old Dai was.

Susan told him, or rather as loud as she could made encouraging sounds about the prostrate hero. Charles, touched and a little more than a little pissed, grabbed a bottle from the table, pulled himself to his feet and staggered out of the marquee with the firm intention of sharing a drink or two with his chum on his sick bed. That was his intention, but as he staggered into the darkness, he had only take a few strides when he stumped his right foot on the large wooden tent peg securing one of the marquee guy ropes to the ground and fell headlong with a yelp.

He lay there for a while and dozed for a few moments before rolling onto his back from which position he could admire the many stars in the summer sky. Fortunately, as he lay there, he remembered that he had a bottle with him and drank his friend's health as he lay there, quite unable to go any further.

Dai missed all this, of course. He couldn't even hear the party any longer, let alone see what was going on. The next thing he knew was when his groom appeared and climbed into the lorry the next morning bringing him a mug of tea and a bacon sandwich observing cheerily, 'I see you managed to get yourself undressed then!' By the time he managed to climb stiffly from the lorry, Susan and her husband had already left and so too did he, driving painfully homeward.

On the Monday morning, he rang into work sick. He ached all over and his brain felt like a soggy sponge that had been chucked hard against a brick wall, in this case the inside of his skull. If this was what happened when you had a helmet on, what might the consequences have been without the helmet? It did not bear thinking about.

CHAPTER 10

By the time Wednesday came, he was feeling rather better and determined to enjoy a picnic by the river with Daisy, the court clerk. He did not want to miss that so although he realised he was taking a bit of a risk by continuing to stay off work sick when in reality being well enough to go to a picnic, nonetheless that was what he determined to do. He knew that he was not just taking a chance. He was taking a liberty and what was even worse that he had become reckless. Still, he pushed all doubts and misgivings aside and on Wednesday drove to a spot a mile or so from the river and parked the car, walking the rest of the way. It was a lovely day. His headache was gone and his aches and pains had eased to the extent that he felt more or less normal. He was certainly well enough to go to work, but he had other ideas.

The pool which Daisy had described to him was nowhere near a footpath and was tucked away in a secluded little valley. The only way to get there was to trespass across the fields, and this he duly did. He was not worried about being waylaid by the landowner. Whoever saw a farmer actually working the land these days? It was not the pheasant shooting season, so there would not be anybody lurking behind a bush with a gundog by his side who might give him an unpleasant surprise. So it was that he was able to make his way unobserved and unchallenged across the fields towards the river.

He rounded a corner of a small hornbeam coppice and saw Daisy, the sunlight reflected off her blonde hair as visible as a lighthouse light to a ship on a stormy sea at night, warning of the proximity of the coast or reefs to avoid. Rather than stand out to the open sea and safety, he headed, metaphorically speaking, straight for the rocks suppressing even while he did so the still small voice of reason within him telling him to go back, to be sensible and to go back whilst he still could. Recklessly, he ploughed on.

She smiled at him as he approached, not in the least bit abashed that he had turned up, nor apparently concerned that she was alone in a remote spot with a man whose presence could mean only one thing. She knew, of course, that he was not there because of any love of fishing – in a funny sort of way that helped both of them because there was no shadow boxing, no enigmatic looks and no time wasting preliminaries. She simply took her clothes off and got into the river and David did likewise before they both lay, skins glistening with water, in the cool, green grass by the river.

Then a strange thing happened. Despite the attraction of the sexual smorgasbord laid out before him, David found himself completely impotent. He looked at this lovely, young woman's smooth thighs and firm breasts and felt no desire at all. He suddenly felt very embarrassed.

'Er, I'm sorry,' he stammered. 'I don't quite know what's wrong with me.'

'Don't worry,' she said, 'I'll help,' and she did, but that only made him feel even more embarrassed. Nothing of the kind had ever happened to him before, but what really upset him was the utter waste of an opportunity that he had spent months contriving to bring about and which, now it was there for taking, he was unable to grasp.

He lay there feeling incredibly uncomfortable and embarrassed. He tried to think himself into the mood. It was only a question of mind over matter, he told himself. It was no good. He realised that all he could think about were midges. Previous painful experience had taught him that anybody who bared their skin anywhere within twenty yards or more of a Welsh river or stream, or in the Highlands of Scotland for that matter, was either mad or a masochist and in either eventuality food for midges. Had these nightmarish experiences adversely affected him psychologically, he wondered?

Possibly, but it wasn't only that, although they were some distance from a footpath, he was also uncomfortably aware of the reflective qualities of human skin which can be seen instantly from a considerable distance. He had once, when out walking, one summers day spied a young couple making hay. That is he spied a large pair of what turned out to be male buttocks that were illuminated by the sun and sending signals in all directions for miles around.

He felt, to say the least, distracted, but there was also an inner core of anxiety rising in his mind, which he failed to stifle.

Surely this impotence, he thought, couldn't be anything more serious or even, it occurred to him with horror, permanent?! He couldn't bear to think about it. The prospect was too dreadful to contemplate.

Daisy, if disappointed, did not show it and when they had got dressed again she simply offered him a sandwich and a drink which he took gratefully, not because he was hungry, but simply for something to do to ease his discomfort. As soon as he felt he decently could, he excused himself mumbling something about not having recovered after falling off his horse and beat an abject retreat to his car and then home.

He spent the rest of the day wondering what was going on. Was there anybody he could ask or confide in? He could not think of anybody. He could try the doctor, which was Pam's husband! If he consulted him about impotence, then that would either clear him of suspicion of having an affair with the doctor's wife or perhaps simply convince him that that was what he was trying to do by giving himself a fool-proof alibi. No, plainly that would not do.

He was still lost in thought when the phone rang. It was his wife. His wife! He had almost forgotten about her existence in the brief time that she had been gone. He struggled not to sound surprised at the sound of her voice.

'How are you?' she said. 'I rang the office and they told me you were off sick. I rang this morning, but there was no answer. Are you alright?'

'Yes, yes! I'm fine now,' he said quickly. 'I'm feeling much better. I expect I was asleep when you rang earlier, I've been resting a lot.'

'What happened?' she said.

'Oh, I was knocked off my horse and landed on my head – rather shook me up,' he added in what he should have known was a futile plea for sympathy. He was right.

'I've told you before that you are too old for polo,' she said coldly. 'You should have given it up years ago,' adding for good measure, 'You will really hurt yourself one of these days.'

'How are you?' he asked in an attempt to steer the conversation away from him and polo.

'Fine,' she said, 'and thanks for not asking. I get the impression you would rather I had not rung.'

'No! No!' he said. 'I'm still a bit shaken.' He stumbled and fumbled and generally gave a good impression of a swimmer floundering in the water about to go down for the third time. The fact was that he had been severely shaken by his fall and he had not recovered. He was not his adroit self. He knew that he was at her mercy. Thankfully, she was not physically present or, he felt, she might have made mincemeat of him.

'Well, anyway,' his wife said impatiently, tired of his mumbling, 'I'll be home tomorrow and we can talk about it then.'

Tomorrow! That was earlier than expected. At least she had warned him and not just turned up. When he put the phone down, he quickly ran through events in his mind. It was important everything was in order when she returned. That meant amongst other things that he needed to get back to work. He was going to have to keep his head down for a while. With luck, all should be well.

CHAPTER 11

Megwyn had decided to come home early for a reason. The reason was the conversation she had had with Mary, Owen's mother, whom she had chanced to meet whilst visiting Dai's Aunt Bron.

Megwyn had called in to see Bron unannounced. She had meant to ring her before she called, but somehow, with the children being a bit fractious, she had not got around to it. Perhaps it was because she was undecided about whether to call at all. Having visited her parents in Bala, she was taking the children on a bit of a tour. The boys were interested in castles. They had seen Harlech and now wanted to see Caernarvon and Beaumaris. Megwyn had no problem with this. She was pleased that they had an interest in history and particularly pleased that they were interested in the history of Wales, so although she was not interested in towering heaps of old stones, she did not mind ferrying them around.

In any event, on this particular day, the journey would take them through Bethesda and Megwyn thought she would call on Bronwyn. At least she was in half a mind to do so. Her slight reluctance to do so and the reason why she was in two minds about it was that once you stopped to see her, it was difficult to get away again. Bron loved a chat and once started could talk for Wales.

In the event, she stopped and, although surprised to see them, Bron had welcomed them all into her house. She seemed particularly pleased to see the children. They were on their second pot of tea and Megwyn was beginning to make discreet noises about going when Mary arrived, again unannounced and unexpected. Bronwyn was equally pleased to see her and at once invited her into the house.

Megwyn and Mary had never met, but now here they were face to face in Bron's parlour. They both stood there for a moment, absorbing the fact of the other's presence and then Mary smiled.

She had a nice smile, Megwyn thought, and liked her, quite irrationally, but instantly. She had always wondered what she was like and particularly when she had first got together with Dai had wondered whether there might be some lingering residual attraction between them. After all, they had had a child together and Mary, she knew, had never married.

Bronwyn, who was a diplomatic old soul, made yet another pot of tea and placed it on the table with a large fruit cake and then shepherded the children into the garden to go down the river with her to try a bit of fishing. This immediately caught the boys' imagination with whom she then had trouble keeping up as they tore off down the garden determined, if she knew anything of small boys, to throw themselves in the river and if not actually drown, then at the very least to get utterly saturated. Their mother would not thank her for that she knew as she hurried after them.

Megwyn and Mary were left in peace. They both sat down.

'Well,' said Mary, 'Shall I be mother?' Megwyn nodded.

Megwyn did not engage in idle pleasantries. She got straight to the point saying, 'I've always wondered what you were like.' Then, without any further preliminaries, she asked Mary about Dai. Somehow, Mary's appearance had acted as a kind of catalyst for the doubts she had had about Dai for some time now and had not been able to share with anyone else. Although she did not actually know Mary, they both knew David Llewellyn Evans intimately, and who better than to share her thoughts with? It was a heaven sent opportunity to unburden herself.

For some time now she had been feeling unsettled. She did not know quite what it was, but she felt that something was wrong. On the one hand, they had seemed to be doing very well financially for some years, but on the other hand, where was all the money coming from? Dai played polo, which she knew was an expensive sport, and yet they never needed to scrimp or save on other expenses. He was, of course, a Partner in a well-established firm, but the other Partners did not seem to enjoy such a lavish lifestyle.

All of this she poured out to Mary as Mary sipped her tea, nodding sagely and listening attentively. She was a good listener. At last she spoke.

Mary agreed that it was a bit puzzling, but if they did not have creditors knocking on their door, then what could possibly be amiss?

'At least,' she joked in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere, 'you are not worried about him being involved with other women!'

'No!' Megwyn had laughed. 'I suppose it could be worse.'

Bron returned from the river with the boys, wet now despite her best efforts but happy, and then it was time to go. As she drove towards Caernarffon, Megwyn reflected on the conversation that she had had with Mary. She had liked Mary and they had both agreed to keep in touch.

What was beginning to worry her slightly though, now she came to think of it, was the reference to 'other women'. She had no reason to be concerned as far as she was aware, but decided nonetheless to cut her trip short and return early. For some reason she could not put her finger on, she felt uneasy.

Mary, for her part, had liked Megwyn. She felt instinctively, even without knowing her, that they had a god deal in common. After Megwyn had left, she too ran over the conversation that they had had in her mind. She was glad that she wasn't married to Dai. There was something about the man that it was difficult to trust, she felt, or, she wondered, was that just sour grapes on my part and born of the way he had treated me?

She thought about it a bit and concluded that since she felt no anger at him now and had no regrets, that it wouldn't be that. On balance, she felt she knew him well and with the objectivity born of time and distance, she considered that she wouldn't trust him even if he was standing right in front of her. Even then, and particularly if he opened his eyes and looked straight at you and gave you that innocent, little boy look, he couldn't be trusted. You never knew what was going to happen next.

Poor Megwyn, she thought, rather her than me.
CHAPTER 12

Back in England, Dai had turned up at work and been busy dealing with the accumulation of post and telephone calls. He was not surprised that there was a lot to do. Even though he had Partners who in theory could handle his work for him in his absence, he had long ago learned that this did not happen. All that they did, at best, was to tell people, 'Mr Evans is away at the moment and the matter will receive his attention immediately upon his return.'

That meant that after an absence, you returned to a tidal wave of work. So much for partners. Any support from that quarter was largely psychological.

He sighed and dealt with the more pressing matters and fielded the rest, although he knew he would soon run out of goodwill if he did not get on and deal with things. He instructed the receptionist to divert calls to his secretary where possible to give him time to get on with the work on his desk.

At lunchtime, he managed to get out to meet an old friend, a retired doctor, for a pie and a pint at a little pub at a short distance from the town centre. The pub, tucked away inconspicuously in a street of terraced Victorian houses, was neither fashionable nor, as a consequence, much frequented by people who were likely to know him. He wanted a bit of peace and quiet since he had decided that he must take some advice from somebody about his failure with Daisy, which had continued to trouble him. He had heard that as you got older this could occur, but he had never dreamt for a moment that it might happen to him. It was, he felt, really worrying, but he didn't know who to speak to about it.

After much thought, he had come up with Simon, an older man, who he trusted to be discreet and whose opinion he valued.

They met in the pub and, at Simon's suggestion, took their drinks and food into the garden where, under a Willow tree, Dai told Simon what was on his mind.

'It's never happened before,' he said concluding his brief account of the circumstances. 'I'm really worried – is there something wrong with me?'

Simon, who had listened thoughtfully, smiled and said, 'Well possibly, but unlikely.'

'But why did it happen then?' asked Dai.

'Well, everybody has their limits or maybe you just didn't fancy her. Did she say or do anything which discouraged you or put you off?'

'No, quite the contrary – she couldn't have been more available.'

'Well, I don't know, but that might have acted as a turn off. I don't know about you, but if I cast my mind back sufficiently far to when I indulged in these activities, the bit I enjoyed most was the chase or the romance.'

Dai looked thoughtful. 'You could have a point there,' he said. He had not really bothered to analyse what it was that attracted him to women. He had assumed it was the sex and the variety, but now he came to think about it, he wondered if it was not the challenge as much as anything else. Maybe Daisy had been simply too easy, too available.

'There was also my fear of insects,' he added shamefacedly, 'Well, not exactly fear you understand, just a couple of uncomfortable experiences, when instead of a passionate encounter, I was almost eaten alive by bloody midges!' Simon laughed.

'Don't tell me!' he said. 'I know what you mean, people who make films about lovers by a mountain stream have plainly never been anywhere near one – or at least have never been near one with no clothes on!'

They both laughed. Then, as if by mutual consent, they talked of other things, both relieved to have moved on to less intimate matters which, as men, they felt belonged more to the agony column in women's magazines than to a conversation between real men.

However, Dai had felt comforted by the chat with Simon. He felt slightly better and thanked Simon as they walked back to the town centre. He even managed a weak joke, which was safely within the realm of real men speak.

'Well,' he said with a smile, 'I suppose we can now add Daisy Droop to Brewer's Droop.'

To his surprise, Simon simply nodded and said, 'Enjoy it while you may – there's worse to come.'

Then he turned off down an alleyway, bidding Dai cheerio without enlightening him further. That would wait for another day.

That afternoon at the office, he continued to plough through the work on his desk and by the time it came to go home and face his wife, whose return he anticipated that very day, he was feeling quite virtuous.

It was not only his wife who was keen to see him. Pam had tried to ring him at the office a number of times only to be told that he was unavailable and then, after his accident, that he had injured himself playing polo. Whilst she understood that it was not life threatening, nonetheless she was concerned about him but unable to show more than a polite interest, since she felt that to do otherwise would raise suspicions. Her husband was already suspicious of her and the atmosphere in the home was very tense.

So far as Dai was concerned though, there was little she could do other than to wait, and that she did with increasing impatience as the days went by.

Despite her best efforts, her husband was now deeply suspicious of her and watched her like a hawk. He would enter the house quietly and unannounced and listen if she was on the telephone to somebody before entering the room. She suspected that he went through her mail and her credit card bills, looking obviously for some evidence of unfaithfulness on her part.

The relationship between them had deteriorated and they hardly spoke. She wanted to leave him, but unless David was going to be with her, she was frightened to do so. She did not know how she would cope on her own and she did not feel brave enough to try.

She had not been happy with her husband for a long, long time.

They had met on a liner travelling back from India after she had spent a year or so on the hippie trail. He was a mountaineer returning from a geographical society expedition to Bhutan. They had been thrown together on the voyage home to England and both been attracted to the other. They were both young. It was a long voyage and they had fallen in love. After they returned home, things took on a momentum of their own. At first she had had no idea of marriage. She had actually intended to go travelling again, but her new found love had the bit between his teeth and scarcely before she knew it, she was married and living in semi-detached respectability in the suburbs of a market town with a child on the way.

Then by degrees things had changed. The rugged adventurer she had found so attractive had, with frightening speed, metamorphosed into a staid and slightly portly partner in a medical practice. Their life was by most people's standards both affluent and pleasant, but over the years she had come to feel trapped in the middle-class world that they occupied. There was something relentless, she felt, about the round of dinner parties and drinks parties, charity and school balls that somehow ground her down. There was nothing wrong with their friends. They were all very nice people, but they all subscribed to the same social norm and she came to long for something different, for some kind of excitement and adventure beyond the summer party at the tennis club before drifting into retirement and attendance at lectures at some art society for the elderly.

Then she had met David, the rakish young solicitor with a roguish smile with whom she had flirted a little and who then had one day turned up on her doorstep on some pretext or another and before she knew quite what had happened, she was in bed with him. Life now contained an element of danger.

She found the sex exciting, largely because it was the enjoyment of forbidden fruit and it brought something different to her life and rekindled the desire she had felt when travelling, a sense that there was something better to be found. She was not sure what exactly, but something other than the humdrum existence of a country GP's wife.

David presented a stepping stone out of that living death, but how did he really feel about her? She needed to know and for the moment she could not get hold of him. She left messages with his receptionist to telephone her 'when he had a minute'.

Melanie, on the other hand, was not particularly fussed whether she saw David or not. As far as she was concerned, she slept with whoever she liked and whenever she liked. She and her husband got on very well but, by mutual consent, lived within an open marriage.

It had not always been so. She had been in love with him when she married him and when she had found out he was having an affair with a friend of hers, she had been thunderstruck and felt as if her world had fallen apart. He had protested his undying love for her, however, and although she found this difficult to square with his sharing her friend's bed, she had eventually forgiven him and the marriage had limped on. Then she suspected him of having another affair and so she had an affair as well in revenge and to try to rebuild her flagging confidence.

In ordinary circumstances, that would have been more than enough to end most relationships, but one evening when they had had a couple of glasses of wine and started talking about it, they discovered that they had both come to the same conclusion. It suited them. In all other respects, they got on well. Neither wanted anything more than variety, and so they happily agreed to go their own way. It was a relief in a funny sort of way. They could indulge their passions from within the security of their marriage. It was a get out of jail card or rather a means of avoiding any further social or legal entanglement when all they wanted was a one-night stand.

Melanie had enjoyed the encounter with Dai in the sauna, but she expected nothing more from him than random sex as and when the opportunity presented itself.

If Dai had been aware of this that this was her view, then he would have made sure that the opportunity presented itself regularly. Unhappily for him, he did not know. Had he but known it, he had at last found a soul mate. Melanie had the potential to be the answer to his prayers, subsequent events might have been very different.

Daisy had been very thoughtful since the encounter on the riverbank. She had not thought any the less of David, despite his failure. She had had a number of relationships in her young life, all more or less unsatisfactory, and what made him different and preserved her interest in him was the fact that he was a gentleman. Her other boyfriends had been decent enough boys, but tended to be of the 'let's pop out into the alleyway behind the pub for a quick shag' merchants, which she found not merely unromantic, but downright offensive. She wanted a man who knew how to treat her properly and the man she thought most likely to be able to do so was David Llewellyn Evans.

She was aware that he was not only older that her, but also married, but she had no scruples about either of those facts. Despite her romantic inclinations, she was a hard-headed young woman who had no intention of letting little details like that get in her way. He was, of course, middle-class and she had the instinctive awareness of the British of class that is so much a part of the fabric of society. That did not deter her either. In fact, it was a plus as far as she was concerned.

She was reasonably well educated herself but, having worked in the court system since leaving school, she was, to a degree, in awe of lawyers. She wanted a lawyer as a husband. Dai was the first opportunity to present himself and she was not going to give up on him easily.

Another person particularly keen to see David was Candy. Candy had discovered that she was pregnant and she knew that Dai was the father. True, she was married and, although they were not getting on very well, she still slept with her husband, but her husband had had a vasectomy and unless that had failed in some way, there was no possibility that he was the father, nor would he have any difficulty in concluding that she had been unfaithful.

He had had the vasectomy after the birth of their second child. They intended having the children privately educated, as indeed they both had been. They could not afford to do this for more than two children, however, and so the decision had been taken to go ahead with her husband's vasectomy.

Candy too rang David and met with the same lack of response as Pam. She contented herself with the thought that she would see him the following weekend at polo and would be able to have it out with him there.

Added to the growing ranks of those anxious to speak to Dai were Helen, the WPC, who since the encounter in the cells had been able to think of nothing and nobody else other than David Llewellyn Evans. She had fallen in love with him and was desperate just to see him again. She had been in love before, or thought she had, but this was different. This hurt. She longed simply to be in his presence. The problem was how to make contact with him? She knew that he was married, she had known that all the time, but that had not deterred her, nor did she have any sympathy for the 'other woman' as she saw the wife. In her eyes, there was no prior claim to her own. Nobody ranked in priority ahead of her, so completely was she besotted with the man.

The only woman who was not wanting to contact Dai, and indeed was wholly indifferent to him after all these years, was Mary. She had loved him once, but she was older and wiser now. She had long since ceased to invest her emotional happiness in such an unreliable repository as Dai Evans.
CHAPTER 13

David Evans, for his part, was for the moment blissfully unaware of the pressing concerns of his female conquests. He was like a man on the run who did not know that the police were after him. His concern was Megwyn. She was, for once, at the forefront of his mind and she was coming home early. Indeed, she would probably be at home to greet him when he returned from work. He hoped that the word 'greet' was the appropriate one.

During the drive home, he debated whether or not to buy some flowers for Megwyn. If he did, he reasoned that she would probably conclude that he had been up to something, and if he did not, that he did not care about her. He would be damned if he did and damned if he did not. After some deliberation, he stopped at a local Italian restaurant and reserved a table for two for later that evening and then continued on his way home.

Megwyn was there when he arrived. As he saw her, he inspected her face closely, trying hard not to appear as if he was doing so, searching for any signs of her frame of mind! There were no hints.

'Hello darling!' he said jovially, being careful not to sound too pleased. Overdo it and you raise suspicions. 'Did you have a good journey back?' and so on, standard stuff, neutral in content whilst circling warily and on your toes in the case of surprises.

He put the kettle on and she sat down at the kitchen table and told him about the trip. The boys had enjoyed the visit, particularly the castles. At this, he attempted a joke to test the water, but it was not received with great enthusiasm and so he reverted quickly to 'serious' and 'interested', listening attentively and nodding his head as she spoke.

'Well, and what about you?' she said when she had finished. 'What have you been up to?'

Here we go, he thought, but shrugged and said with all the nonchalance that he could muster,

'Oh, the usual, you know.' It certainly had been 'the usual'. In fact, it had been the usual to the power of four, that being the number of women that he had slept with, or attempted to sleep with, but hopefully she was unaware of that. She must have been unaware of it, he reasoned, or his rapidly cooling corpse would have been swinging on a gibbet over the front garden gate by now.

'I expect you know I had a bit of an accident on the horse?' then adding quickly, 'You know, I think you may be right about me being a bit too old for the game.'

Having created a diversion, he did not dwell upon it but said briefly that he had had a couple of days off work but was fine now and then added quickly, 'Oh and I nearly forgot. I've arranged a table for us tonight at the Italian. I hope you don't mind but I thought you wouldn't fancy cooking after the journey and, anyway, it would be nice to have a meal out together.'

It's not what you say, it's the way you say it. He had learned that over the years in the magistrates court appearing before the justices and gradually getting to know them and their idiosyncrasies. That, and the ability to think on your feet, to do mental somersaults without appearing to do so. These were the marks of the experienced advocate. Be that as it may, she was pleased and said she would get the children something and then get ready to go out.

Yippee, he thought. The female spider had taken the bait and he would live to fight another day.

Over dinner, she told him she had called in to see Bronwyn and had met Mary. This was not, he realised, to put him on the spot. She had thawed and was simply telling him about what had happened.

'How is she?' he had asked, partly out of politeness and partly because he was interested to know how she was. He had heard about her, but had not seen her for years.

Megwyn had told him all about Mary and her new man as well. Despite himself, Dai was interested and also a little jealous to hear mention of the boyfriend who, at least according to Megwyn, was the answer to a woman's prayer, strong yet sensitive, loving but 'respected her freedom', caring, hard-working and altogether, as far as Dai could tell, presented about as unlikely a specimen of a man as it was possible to imagine. But then, he realised as Megwyn waxed eloquent about the boy wonder, she was only doing what women often did, praise another man to make you jealous. Well, he concluded, that wouldn't work with him. He simply smiled and did not rise to the bait.

All in all, he and Megwyn had an enjoyable evening together and, later on at home, made love together when the children were safely out of the way. Dai was doubly relieved, firstly that all was well between him and his wife and secondly that the dreaded Daisy Droop had not repeated itself as he had worried that it might.

As he lay awake in bed that night, he reflected on events. He realised that he was going to have to be careful. He had overdone it and set too many balls rolling. He needed a breather, but he also needed not just a breathing space, but sufficient distance between himself and recent events to allow what he had started to die down.

He carefully considered the options.

He realised that he was at something of a crossroads. If he carried on the way he had been, then it was a certainty that his marriage would come to an end. Apart from the personal and emotional consequences that would spread out from the centre like the ripples on a pond until family, friends and acquaintances were all eventually engulfed, financially he would be facing a sentence of penal servitude. As a solicitor in a private practice, he was a sitting duck. He would be paying maintenance until his dying day. He was not like one of those feckless individuals he encountered in his work as a family lawyer who simply gave up work or upped sticks and left. He was admittedly feckless, but his feet were nailed to the ground.

And what if he exchanged Megwyn for a new model? How would life be different? Not only would he be going around the same route again of wife, children, work and retirement eventually if he lived that long, but he would be towing the financial responsibility of his first wife and children all the way. That was not an attractive proposition.

He had acted for men in those situations often enough over the years. Men who were old enough to know better and who might reasonably have been assumed to have learned a little about themselves and life, but who went weak at the knees over their black stockinged secretary with the nice bum and who quickly found that an affair led to divided loyalties between the existing wife and family and the new model who progressed from being compliant, sympathetic and understanding into a determined individual who insisted that he make his mind up. It was her or them! He found himself being pulled by a bollock in each direction and ended up pleasing neither of them whilst he dithered and fell apart in between. Then there were those who acted like born-again Christians who had just discovered the true faith in the physical and shapely form of the young lovely on their arm and who felt themselves invigorated as they quoted the old chestnut about you being as young as the women you feel, overlooking another old chestnut which said that, 'there's no fool like an old fool'.

Neither of these prospects appealed to him one bit. What a fool he had been! He cursed his own arrogance and stupidity as he lay in the dark being haunted by the little devils, not of conscience, but of anxiety and fear about how on earth he was going to get out of this situation unscathed and away from all these women whom he had stirred up. Talk about poke a hornet's nest! He came to no conclusions, but eventually fell into a fitful and troubled sleep.

As he drove to work the next morning, his wife's affectionate, even passionate, kiss still wet upon his cheeks, he was a miserable man. He knew full well that the hunter was about to become the hunted.

When he arrived at work, his secretary presented him with a sheath of telephone messages that he looked through in the privacy of his room, quite a small room really for a partner and tucked away from the other partners' rooms at the back of the building. He quite liked it with its view over gardens to the cathedral.

He sat down putting his feet on the desk and read his secretary's neat notes. There, amidst the usual calls from clients, other solicitors and banks or building societies, were no less than three messages from Pam asking him to ring her. Each successive note was worded in stronger terms beginning with, 'Please ring Pam – about her Will' to, 'Wants to know why she hasn't been telephoned,' to finally the latest message from the day before, 'Must hear from you today without fail.'

He leaned back in his chair and gazed at the wall seeking inspiration. The wall didn't answer. He looked out of the window at the cathedral as if to implore divine assistance. None appeared.

He sighed. He was going to have to bite the bullet. He rang her. She answered the phone.

'Hello Pam,' he said brightly. 'Sorry I've not been in touch, but I had a bit of an accident on my horse...'

'But you've been back to the office since Thursday. You could have rung me,' she interjected.

That was true. He tried the sympathy card again, but from a different angle.

'I would have done, but I've been snowed under,' he pleaded. She was having none of it.

'So, I don't rank very high in your priorities then?'

He had often thought that it was just as well that more women are not lawyers. They could leave the men for dead when it came to cross-examining a witness. It did not matter which way you tried to wiggle, you would be backed into a position from which all you could do was splutter just as he then did.

So much for being a natural advocate, he thought ruefully, saying aloud,

'Er, not at all! Er, it's just that I had to get on with...'

'More important things,' she said pressing home her advantage. He was in trouble and resorted to an old ploy that he had often used with good effect. He suddenly said, 'Hold on a moment,' and then, speaking to an imaginary secretary as if she had just entered the room, 'Thank you, just put it over there would you... what? No, I can't see him now. Tell him I'm busy... oh, very well!' and then turning again as it were to the telephone conversation saying with a note of infinite regret, 'Look, I'm awfully sorry, but there's something that has come up and needs my urgent attention. I'll have to ring you back. Are you in later?'

Reluctantly, she put the phone down. He breathed a sigh of relief. That had earned him a brief respite. What to do next? He buzzed his secretary.

'Is Pam Adams' will ready for signature yet?'

'Yes, Mr Evans, ready to sign. Do you want me to send it to her?'

He considered that briefly. It had attractions, but the job had to be done properly. The firm invariably supervised the signing of a will to make sure it was done properly.

'Actually, I'd like you to ring her and make an appointment for her to come up to sign it today.'

'Certainly. Shall I put the appointment in your diary?'

'No, the trainee can do it and you and he can act as witnesses. I've got to see that client – you know, the one with the arbitration case, in conference at counsel's chambers, so I'll be tied up, but I don't want to delay the signing of the will. Mrs Adams is obviously getting irritated by the delays.'

'Alright, Mr Evans. I'll make the arrangements.'

He breathed again. He would just have to make sure he left the office in good time so as to avoid bumping into Pam. There would be no more home visits and he would just have to avoid her. Hopefully, she would get the message and leave him in peace.

That afternoon, he attended the conference arranged at the barrister's chambers and then, having returned briefly to the office to sign his post, learned that Mrs Adams had been in to sign the will.

'She seemed a bit surprised not to see you, Mr Evans,' the trainee had said.

'Did she?' he answered equably. 'I did tell her I was busy, but you know what clients are like, they think that theirs is the only job you've got on.'

The trainee smiled. Clients, he knew, did like to believe that they enjoyed a special relationship with their solicitor who had no other clients and who always had their affairs at the forefront of their minds.

'Shall I lodge the original will at the bank for safekeeping?' he enquired. That was the usual practice. The wills were kept in large, metal boxes lodged in the bank's vaults. Placing a will in them or getting one out was something of an exercise, since the boxes had to be brought form the vault and a room set aside to open them in private. Still, it was good exercise the bank staff and the trainee who invariably undertook the task.

'Fine,' said Dai and that was the end of that, at least as far as he was concerned.

By now, it was Friday evening.

Doing alright so far, he thought as he drove home.

CHAPTER 14

The following day, he had agreed to umpire a polo match at the club ground. He was not playing but would act as one of the two riding umpires during one of the games. He half expected this to go down badly with Megwyn, but she was still in a good mood and even joked a bit with him before he went saying with a smile, 'Hopefully, this time you won't be carried off on a stretcher.'

He had laughed, but secretly heartily endorsed that view. Even though he would not be playing, acting as an umpire was not without its perils.

One difficulty that the umpire encounters quite often is the quality of the horses provided for the purpose. Usually, they are not of good quality and the horses are either so knocked up and knackered that it is difficult to get them out of a trot or are half crazy like an old punchy boxer or street fighter and difficult to control.

Dai had once been asked to umpire at a club in the London area. Just before the game started, he had looked suspiciously at the horse provided for the purpose that was being held by an Argie pro with an unusually innocent expression on his face. Dai didn't like the look of the horse which had an evil look in its eye.

'Is this horse alright?' Dai had asked as he put his foot in the stirrup.

'Eeze fine,' said the pro reassuringly.

Dai swung up into the saddle and the next thing he remembered was waking up in A&E at the nearest hospital. He never did recall quite what happened. Apparently, the horse had waited until he was on its back and then reared up dramatically, throwing him backwards onto his head, from which position he was picked up by the ambulance men and carted off to hospital.

Apart from the 'umpire' horse, a hazard which can be overcome by the umpire providing and riding his own horse, whose eccentricities he is at least aware of, the principle problem that an umpire encounters is the players. People tend to get excited when playing competitive games and when, as many polo players do, they have large egos and even worse an exaggerated idea of their own ability, then it is not long before player and umpire are on a collision course. Whether the umpire calls a foul against the player or fails to award a penalty when the player considers he has been fouled, he is likely to be vilified by one side or the other and sometimes by both at the same time.

The umpire needs to establish his authority as early on during the game as possible. One technique Dai used for this purpose was, as swiftly as he could after the first chukka started was to impose penalties on both sides for the slightest fouls. That way, with luck, he demonstrated even handedness and also that he would take no nonsense and the theory was that the players would be careful not to foul their opponents. This sometimes worked. Still, it was a thankless task and one for which the umpire needed a very thick skin.

When Dai got to the ground, he saw Candy's lorry and, although he could not at that stage see her, knew she was there somewhere. He had hoped that she might be playing elsewhere because his strategy with her, as with Pam, was going to be quite simple. He was going to keep his distance and to avoid any amorous encounters.

So it was that when, after the game, which passed off without incident, she waved to him, he had simply waved back and then tapped his watch to indicate in sign language that he was in a hurry and, without waiting for any return signal, had headed for his car.

Unfortunately, half way to his car he was waylaid by the irate captain of the team which had lost who was determined to question him about some of the penalties he had awarded in favour of their opponents. By the time Dai had shaken him off, Candy had beaten him to his car and was waiting for him with a grim expression on her face. It looked like he was in trouble. She did not beat about the bush.

'I'm pregnant,' she said as he drew near. He was stunned.

'What? Surely not,' he floundered. 'Er, does your husband know?' adding foolishly, 'Are congratulations in order?' He was fortunate that they were in a public place for the look that Candy gave him was one of fury, but she controlled herself with an obvious effort and said through gritted teeth, 'No, my husband had a vasectomy some time ago.'

'Oh dear,' said Dai. He was staggered. He didn't know what to think. He couldn't think. He had absolutely no idea what to say or do. Candy spoke first.

'What are we going to do?' said Candy now looking as if she was going to burst into tears. Dai grasped the nettle saying quietly, hating himself as he said it, 'Are you prepared to have an abortion?'

'So, that's how much you think of me!' she said angrily. 'I might have known! Well, I suggest you come up with something better than that,' and with that she ran back to her lorry where the grooms were loading the horses ready to depart from the ground.

Dai got into his car and quickly left before he could be nobbled by anyone else or presented with any more bad news.

He drove the long way home. He needed to think.

What else could go wrong? he thought to himself as he drove along. What had seemed just a bit of fun was slowly turning into a nightmare. Had he not been married with children at local schools and a partner in a solicitor's firm to boot, he would have made himself scarce. He might not have joined the French Foreign Legion exactly, but even as he thought about it, he could quite see the attraction of just going and, as he imagined, leaving all his problems behind him. Perhaps, he day-dreamed, there might be some cataclysmic event like a war or some other national emergency that would take matters out of his own hands and spare him the necessity of making a decision.

Whilst he was occupied with such thoughts, he had not been paying a great deal of attention to his driving and as he glanced in his rear view mirror, he noticed a police car behind him about 100 yards back. He suddenly felt guilty. He had not done anything wrong as far as he knew, but then he had not exactly been paying attention and there was that pint or two of beer he had drunk quickly after the game. He broke out in a cold sweat as he thought about it. On an empty stomach, that might well put him over the limit. If he was stopped by the police for any reason, they might decide to breathalyse him.

Oh God, he thought, my cup runneth over. On the other hand, the police car might not be following him. He decided to turn off the main road and take a detour home through country lanes. There was a lane, he knew, coming up and he quickly indicated and turned left accelerating as he entered the lane. He had gone a couple of hundred yards when he looked in the mirror again. The Police car had turned off behind him!

His mind raced. If he accelerated, that would be no good. Even if he managed to get away from the police car, they would have checked his home address against the index number of his car by now and if he got away from the car following there would be one waiting for him as he arrived home. That had happened to more than a few of his clients in the past. They thought they had got away, but as they turned into their home road with a sigh of relief, there would be a squad car waiting patiently for them to arrive.

He slowed down and drove as carefully as he could. It was just possible that this was a coincidence and if it was, he must not give the officers any reason for stopping him.

With a sinking heart, he remembered a colleague of his who had said outside court one day that travelling at 28 mph, one foot from the kerb late at night was tantamount to an admission that you had been drinking. Still, he had to give himself every possible chance.

He drove steadily on through a tiny hamlet and then across a broad common. The police car remained behind him. It did not have much choice actually because the lane was quite narrow.

When it came to a place where there was an old quarry on the side of the road, the police car put on its flashing light and signalled him to stop. With a sinking heart, he pulled into the old quarry and stopped, sinking his head in his hands. He was in that position when Helen tapped on the driver's window. He looked up and saw Helen.

'What are you doing frightening the life out of me?' he gasped.

'Why? Have you been up to no good?' she said and then added authoritatively, 'Right! Get into the back of the police car. We've got some questions for you!'

'But, Helen!' he protested.

'No arguing!' she said sternly. 'Do as you are told!' She looked really severe, so he did as he was told and climbed into the back of the police car. There was no other officer. Helen was alone. Helen got in after him as he sat there wondering what would happen next. Then, to his amazement, she sat astride him, took off her helmet and started to unbutton her blouse.

'Do you think I'm sexy?' she said.

'Helen!' he protested.

'Answer the question or I'll handcuff you.'

'Er, yes, I do.'

'Good,' she said as she eased herself out of her bra revealing her chest in all its splendour. 'What shall we do now?'

Dai would have had to have been made of stone not to have risen to the occasion. After they had made love fiercely in the back of the police car and whilst they were smoking a cigarette afterwards, Helen's radio spluttered into life. She answered it. Dai heard her say she was just dealing with a road traffic matter and would be back to the station directly afterwards. She turned to Dai saying, 'I'll have to book you for something to explain where I've been and what I've been doing.'

So it was that he was booked for speeding along the stretch of main road – fifty miles an hour in a forty limit. That gave them both an alibi in case one was needed.

Dai continued home. His strategy was not working, but for the moment at least he felt quite happy about that. He consoled himself with the thought that he hadn't really had much choice and promised himself that he would try harder.

CHAPTER 15

The following day at work seemed normal enough at first. He had spent much of the previous night in bed trying to work out what to do. He had come to no conclusion when his wife, who was in an unusually amorous and loving mood, made it plain that she was after what lawyers, or at any rate old lawyers, called her 'bundle of rights'. In short, he was obliged to make love to her. Ordinarily, that would have been a pleasure and as easy as falling off a log, but after the passionate interlude with Helen, it called for a degree of determination on his part. He managed it, to his relief.

Good grief, he thought as he drifted off to sleep, this is turning into aversion therapy. The next day, he had got up and gone to work in a resigned mood. He had given up trying to find a way out of the mess in which he found himself, caught in a spider's web of infidelity created entirely by himself, and for once concentrated on his work. He quite enjoyed it. It made a change. Then about mid-morning, his phone went and his secretary asked if she could send his next client up to see him.

'Who is it?' he asked. He had not realised that he had a client that morning. It must have been an appointment made for him by his secretary.

'It's a Ms Griffiths – wants to see you about a divorce,' said his secretary.

'Fair enough,' he answered equably. 'Send her up.'

He was engrossed in the papers of a file he was working on, so when there came a tap on the door, he simply said, 'come in,' without looking up.

When he did look up, Pam Adams was standing in front of him wearing a long over coat.

'Pam!' he exclaimed. 'What are you doing here?!'

She smiled and undid the coat to reveal that she was wearing nothing underneath, save her underwear, stockings and suspenders.

Oh my God, he thought. There was a limit to even what he could manage. It was also the exact opposite of what he wanted. He was trying to turn over a new leaf. Why were all these women making it so difficult for him?

'I've missed you,' said Pam. Dai's feelings of panic and surprise changed. She really was very attractive and she was wearing that lovely perfume he adored. She wasn't wearing much else either, which added quite a bit to the overall impression. His good intentions withered on the vine and he surrendered himself to the moment.

'You'd better lock the door,' he said. Then he pressed a button on the wall which illuminated a sign outside – red for engaged, so that nobody would disturb him or, to be more precise, them.

*

Later that day, he went for a walk through the old part of the town, through the old and, of course, now defunct monastery gates and into the cathedral, a magnificent symbol of man's spirituality that impressed even a died in the wool hedonist like himself. Even his towering ego felt humbled in the majestic and stately surroundings of the ancient building. He went there occasionally, not to pray, he was perhaps still too young for that, but to reflect, to try and get things in perspective. It did not always work, but it invariably had a calming effect on him.

Near the high altar, there was a little chapel set aside for private prayer and it was to the privacy of this little place that he now found himself heading. He needed to think in a solemn way. He needed to make some decisions. His felt that life could not continue as it was, but what was he to do?

He sat down on a little wooden chair and looked at the little altar at the end of the cell-like room adorned by a plain wooden cross.

He tried hard to get into a meditative frame of mind, but this was made no easier by the noise created by a party of French school children being shown around the cathedral. He had nothing against the French, providing one excluded their rugby team from the general feeling of goodwill, but it was a bit much to conduct a noisy tour with everybody speaking volubly when he was trying to get to grips with his conscience.

The noise continued, the efforts of the school teachers with the group to quieten their charges, if anything, only added to the unholy din.

He sighed. It was no good. Perhaps it was a sign of some sort of Divine disapproval. He couldn't concentrate. He couldn't still his mind. He gave up and left.

As he walked back to his office, the sun was shining and his spirits picked up. He must, he decided, look upon the bright side. At least, he murmured to himself, I'm firing on all cylinders. He smiled. If nothing else, his two most recent encounters had demonstrated that the dreaded Daisy Droop problem had gone away. He still did not know what had caused it, but now it didn't matter and he thought no more about it.

*

For the next few days, an uneasy peace prevailed. Nobody troubled him, not Candy, not Pam, not Helen. He knew that the respite would not, could not, last but he was at a loss to know what to do and, therefore, did nothing. Was this the calm before the storm? Only time would tell.

For a change, he did some work. So industrious was he that even the junior partner, who was no admirer of him, was, despite himself, impressed by Dai's apparent zeal. Dai's secretary, accustomed to a much more lackadaisical and easy going regime began to feel the strain. Previously, her most taxing occupation had been fielding telephone calls from people anxious to speak to him, but unable to do so. Now, she did not have time to take messages. She worked her typewriter so hard, it almost glowed. Soon, she needed support from other secretaries in the firm as Dai continued to bury himself in work and act like a trapped man trying to dig his way to freedom.

It was whilst he was thus engrossed I his work that the door to his office opened one morning and the trainee poked his head around it.

'Mind if I come in?' he enquired.

'Do,' responded Dai.

It transpired that there was an urgent bail application to deal with that morning before a crown court judge. Nobody else was available. Could Dai do it? He could. He was on top of his work load and could spare the time to pop over to the crown court. It wouldn't take long.

'Is it in chambers?' he enquired getting up from behind his desk.

'Not sure,' said the trainee looking doubtful.

'Ok, well I'll take the Batman gear anyway,' said Dai laconically reaching for his court gown from behind the door, 'just in case'.

Bail applications were often, but not always, in chambers, that is to say not in open court, and where that was the case, then it was not necessary for the advocates to wear gowns or the use of barristers ' wigs. Solicitors did not wear wigs. By taking his gown with him, Dai would be able to slip into the robing room at court and change from his usual shirt to the one that has stiff, court collar and studs attached to and then to don his gown and appear properly dressed before the judge. If he appeared incorrectly dressed, the judge might refuse to hear him which wouldn't do the client any good who was languishing in custody and who wanted bail.

He made his way over to the court where a flustered usher met him outside court No 2 and explained that the judge, a short-tempered individual with a very high opinion of himself, wanted to know what the delay was.

'Delay?' enquired Dai, 'It's not 10:00 am yet. He doesn't sit until 10:00 am, does he?'

'No,' answered the usher, 'but he wants to deal with this before he starts the trial. It is part heard and is hearing this bail application before resuming the trial. He wants to get on with it.'

'Fair enough,' said Dai, 'so this will be in open court?'

'Yes,' said the usher disappearing back through the doors of the court. 'The judge says he expects the parties in in two minutes.'

Dai just had enough time to dash into the robing room and change before turning to the court. Striding through the door, nodding to his opponent, a young not unattractive female barrister, and then to bow to the judge as was customary as the judge entered and took his seat.

'Yes,' said the judge crisply without wasting time on any preliminaries.

Dai had been before enough judges to know that the message he was being given was, 'Get on with it'. He did so, said his piece in support of his client's application for bail and sat down.

Counsel for the crown was rather more verbose, which plainly irritated the judge as Dai could tell as he watched the judge's right eyebrow twitch with impatience as the barrister rambled on.

'Nyess,' the judge said through his nose as the barrister finished a point which meant, I've heard enough. Shut up!

The barrister, young and inexperienced, failed to twig this and rambled on. The judge turned a delicate shade of puce and pursed his lips even more firmly as he repeated, 'Nyess,' and then added to make it entirely clear, 'Nyess, thank you Miss Farquharson,' and looked at her with an icy smile that would have made a strong man shudder.

Counsel sat down.

Bail was granted on conditions and Dai headed back to the robing room, pleased to change again before heading back to the office. He couldn't walk through the town in his court robes. He could, but it would attract attention and seem highly eccentric, so it was best to change.

He made his way to the robing room and as he turned into the corridor where the room was situated, he saw ahead of him and going in the same direction the figure of Helen, the court clerk, who had obviously been sitting as a clerk in the crown court, since she too was robed in the black, court gown used by the clerks for that purpose.

He followed her into the robing room and watched as she shook her hair after removing her wig. She glanced at the mirror on the wall and noticed him watching her.

'Yes?' she said enquiringly with a raised eyebrow. 'What do you want?'

She seemed cool and distant. Had she now recognised him? Unusually for him, he felt a little tongue-tied.

'Er,' he stammered, 'nothing exactly. I've just come in myself to change out of my robe.'

She turned to face him and perched on the edge of a table whilst she continued to observe him closely as if she were looking for something.

She looks, Dai thought, very attractive in her gown, open at the front to reveal a spotless, white blouse, grey skirt and black stockinged legs. Her blonde hair, the wig removed, fell untidily, but attractively, upon her shoulders.

The look she's giving me, he thought, seems almost like a challenge, so defiant, did it appear to him. He suddenly felt aroused and, despite his recently formed good intentions, he couldn't resist accepting the challenge. He cut to the chase.

'You look awfully attractive,' he said and smiled.

'You didn't seem to think so last time we were together – you weren't a bit interested in me,' she replied.

He stepped closer and put his hands on her waist. She offered no resistance.

'Well, it's different now,' he said adding, because he felt some form of explanation was still necessary, 'this time I haven't just fallen off a horse have I?'

He kissed her. She responded with passion and virtually before he knew it, he was making love to her as she sat on the edge of the table.

This was a high risk strategy. The robing room was used by all the advocates at court that day and one of them might enter at any moment and catch them, as lawyers so tactfully say, in delicto.

They, therefore, had to be quick and as if by some unspoken agreement, they were, so when not long afterwards a couple of barristers entered, they were both by then at opposite ends of the room, combing her hair in Daisy's case and putting his robe into a bag to carry it back to the office in his. They went their separate ways. He gave her a wink as he went through the door. She ignored him.

He went back to the office, a dyed in the wool philanderer, just as he had always been despite intentions to the contrary. It was almost, he felt, as if the Fates were pushing him along a particular road and he was powerless to resist. Some people, he realised, would regard that as a very lame excuse, but it did seem to him as if he was fated. Women mesmerised him. He couldn't resist them. He sighed. He would just have to make the best of it.

After all, he considered, you are a long time dead.

Had he but known it, Daisy was less than impressed with Dai. The sex had been alright, but rather mechanical. The lack of any emotional interest or commitment on his part had not merely disappointed her, it liberated her from any interest in the man whatsoever. She was grateful for that. She was grateful that she had found out soon enough and had not become involved with him. She wanted more from life than quick couplings in a court robing room. It was, she felt, like a couple of dogs in the park. She resolved to have nothing more to do with him. Although he didn't realise it, Dai had lost an admirer and as a consequence his potential problems had now been reduced by two, namely Melanie and Daisy, both of whom had now fallen by the wayside.
CHAPTER 16

One morning, there was a phone call which introduced a new element into the situation. It was a call from a residential care home. Mrs Sylvia Twelvetrees had died.

Dai remembered her. She was a frail and spidery old lady in a local care home who kept changing her mind about her will. This was due largely to the fact that on the one hand she was being almost suffocated with attention by a former lodger of hers who had befriended the old lady for reasons that Dai thought were not too difficult to speculate at. On the other hand, she suddenly had an equally attentive nephew, one Silas Satterthwaite, a Yorkshireman, whom she had not seen for most of his life, but who now hovered vulture-like around the old girl reminding her as often as he could that he was her only surviving relative and that he had always cared for her and always would. These were easy assertions to make because the old lady's memory was poor and, although he had hardly ever visited her, she could not really remember if he had or not. As to the other protestation of readiness to assist her, this was unlikely to be a burden to him since the lady received 24 hour a day care, so his promise to help was an empty one. This did not stop him from making it.

As with the lodger, it was not difficult to form a view as to the reason for his sudden interest in the frail, old aunt. He was after her money too.

Alas, as a consequence of this sudden interest in her welfare, the poor old dear was pulled in different directions, caught in a tug of war between the greedy lodger and the equally greedy nephew with each determined to win the prize, namely the old lady's not inconsiderable estate.

Depending on which of the two protagonists was in the ascendant, she changed her instructions to Dai for her will, first in favour of one, then the other. Over a period of a few months, Dai prepared a number of different wills, one benefiting the former lodger, an overweight middle-aged woman who had never worked and who was on benefits, and the next benefiting the nephew, a balding, bespectacled, overweight middle-aged man who was determined that he and not the lodger should benefit on his aunt's death. The lodger was equally determined he should not.

One day, when Dai was at the care home at the old lady's request, she was about to sign the latest will he had prepared when she suddenly dropped the pen saying firmly, 'I'm not going to leave it to either of the vultures,' and then turned to Dai and said, 'Who do you think I should leave it to?' looking helplessly at him at her wits' end. At that moment, had he so wished, Dai could have got her to leave it all to him. He didn't suggest that, however, but for a moment he knew he had been tempted.

To be fair to him, Dai did his best to encourage her to decide. It was her money. Who did she want to leave it to? He would carry out her wishes and prepare the will accordingly.

He suggested tentatively that she might divide it between both the lodger and the nephew in whatever shares she felt appropriate. This suggestion she debated with him endlessly. What would her nephew think if she left money to the lodger, she asked? Dai, who privately acknowledged that it was a woman's privilege to change her mind, was beginning to get a bit impatient. After all, what did it matter? By the time any such problem arose, she would, of necessity, be dead, so it would hardly be a problem for her.

He told himself he must be patient and reminded himself that she was after all paying him on a time spent basis. For that reason alone, he consoled himself. She could take hours if she wished. She could afford it and all he had to do was to sit and listen to her circuitous monologue as she debated the options aloud. Ultimately, she wasn't really asking his opinion. It was like buying curtains with his wife. His opinion was asked, but his task was to aid in the decision, not to make it.

In the end, she decided that that was the answer was to divide it between them, and instructed him to prepare a will accordingly. This, he was going to have to do at the office. The will he had brought with him which she had signed did not now reflect her wishes. He arranged to return the following day.

That night, she died.

When he received the phone call the next morning, he knew at once he had a problem. Her new will was ready, but unsigned. That left her last will as her valid will for probate purposes. With a sinking heart, he turned up a copy. It was as he suspected. This one benefited the lodger!

What this meant was that the nephew would fight the lodger over his aunt's estate and, when the pair of them had finished fighting each other, who would they have a go at? Simple. Him. Whichever one lost would want to recoup their losses from him as the solicitor who had drafted the will.

There was every incentive to sue your solicitor. Solicitors were obliged to carry professional negligence insurance for which they paid through the nose to the insurance industry who, fully aware of their obligation to have insurance, charged accordingly. As for the client, there was potentially a pot of gold at the end of every rainbow if they could make a claim stick. Given the very high standard of care imposed upon solicitors and given the readiness of their bewigged brethren at the bar from whose ranks most judges were drawn, to find fault with solicitors many claimants were on to a good thing.

Sure enough, later the same day, the odious nephew rang and insisted on seeing him. Dai had no option but to do so.

Silas Satterthwaite, for that was his name, was ushered into Dai's office and invited to sit down. So it was that they sat looking at each other across Dai's desk that very afternoon. The nephew did not beat about the bush, addressing Dai in a broad Yorkshire accent.

'Well?' he asked, 'what does her will say?'

Obviously overcome with grief at the loss of his dear old aunt, thought Dai sarcastically. He didn't say so though. No sense in pouring petrol on the flames. Instead, Dai, who had a copy of her last will on the desk before him said, 'The main beneficiary is Mrs Simkins...'

'The lodger?!' interjected the nephew.

'Er, yes,' said Dai as matter-of-factly as he could. 'I believe that she had lodged with your aunt for some years. She maintains that she cared for your aunt...'

'Rubbish!' said the nephew contemptuously. 'The only person she cared for was herself,' adding, 'she was just after her money.' He paused. 'Who was the other beneficiary? You just said that she was the main beneficiary.'

'Oh!' said Dai as dismissively as he could, although groaned inwardly, 'She left a bequest for some charity or other...' Again, the nephew interrupted.

'Charity?! What charity?! She hated charities. She never spoke to Jehovah's Witnesses. She wouldn't even put money in a Salvation Army collection tin. She was as tight as two layers of paint!'

Dai had had enough of this. He was not prepared to be cross-examined by this little, self-interested shit. Not only had he come to loathe the sight of him, but the charity, of course, was his own. The last thing he wanted was for the spotlight to fall on the so-called charity. So far as this man was concerned, he needed to say as little as possible beyond that which was consistent with his urgent desire to get rid of him.

'Look,' he said coolly. 'I can see you're upset, but that is the position. Now, I am the executor under the will and I prepared it. If you want to challenge the will, then you will, I'm afraid, have to do so through another solicitor.'

The nephew stood up, obviously angry, saying, cheeks wobbling, 'Rest assured you will hear from a solicitor acting for me. I'm not standing for this!'

With that, he left the room and stomped off angrily along the corridor. Dai's secretary appeared, poking her head around the door and saying, 'He's not a happy bunny, is he?'

That was putting it mildly, thought Dai as he sat there, his mind racing with thoughts about what might happen now and how that would affect the firm and indeed him at the edge of the storm.

'No,' replied Dai. 'Hope he doesn't bump into Mrs Simkins on the way out!'

It was true. The odious nephew was to be followed almost immediately by the equally odious lodger, Mrs Simkins, who shortly afterwards entered Dai's office triumphantly and almost smacking her lips at the prospect of her 'windfall' as she described it.

Although on any purely objective view, Dai would have considered it difficult to imagine anybody less attractive than the nephew, on now encountering the lodger he realised that people even less attractive did indeed exist.

He knew little enough about the corpulent woman who sat in front of him, self-righteously asserting her claim to the estate of the lovely old lady whom she had so assiduously cultivated over the years. She hadn't done much, just a bit of shopping or popping in for a cup of tea every so often, the sort of actions that a decent neighbour might have carried out, but which now formed the basis for her assertion that she had been the old lady's carer. The only person she cared about was herself. Now, presented with the possibility of the pot of gold being snatched from her greedy grasp, she was indignant and aggressive.

When Dai pointed out that Mr Satterthwaite appeared intent on challenging the last Will, Mrs Simkins was not impressed.

'Let him try!' she said defiantly. 'I'll sort him out! I'm on benefit! I'll get Legal Aid!' adding as a sudden thought struck her, 'Ere! When I get all that money from the old girl's estate, that won't affect my benefits will it?'

Dai neither knew nor cared. Even if he had known, he would have felt no inclination whatsoever to share his knowledge with the self-seeking woman in front of him.

He advised her too that she would need a separate solicitor because, as the executor, in the event of a dispute he would be 'piggy in the middle' as he explained it in simple terms.

Mrs Simkins left, confident of success, but equally determined to get her own solicitor to fight her corner for her. As she swept out of his room without so much as a 'thank you', let alone a 'cheerio', she announced, 'I'll show him!' and with that she was gone. Dai heard her say, 'You see if I don't!' aggressively as she stamped along the corridor.

When she had finally gone, Dai stood up and went to stand by the window overlooking the rooftops of the old town. Now, he knew he had another problem. Without doubt, there was going to be a fight. He had been a lawyer for enough years to know that if, as he suspected, the guns would eventually be trained on him, then he could expect no sympathy from the bewigged judiciary, some of whom plainly took a degree of pleasure in putting the boot in to solicitors being sued.

Most judges were drawn from the rank of barristers practising at the bar. Given that they were always instructed by a professional client, the solicitor, there was a gulf between them and the lay client which they were careful to maintain. One of the consequences of this was that they had no idea what it was like to practice as a solicitor who, much of the time, were forced by circumstances to fly by the seat of their pants. Barristers , on the other hand, could assess cases clinically and objectively in the cloistered calm of their chambers, free from interruption or distraction.

As he stood there brooding, Dai could imagine the cross examination in court by a disdainful member of the bar.

'Surely, Mr Evans, in those circumstances as an experienced solicitor you would have ,' and his action, or lack of action, would then be dissected and the entrails examined minutely before it would be suggested that alas he had failed woefully to discharge his duty of care in one form or another. In these circumstances, he was under no illusions. The beast that was the legal system demanded to be fed and nothing but his blood would do.

The day of the funeral dawned. It had been incumbent upon Dai to make the arrangements. The little old lady had entrusted all that on him when she appointed him to act as her executor. This was a duty that often fell upon him and which rake, though he was, he was always concerned to discharge faithfully. He viewed it almost as a sacred trust. If someone was prepared to trust you to carry out their last wishes then he could be relied upon to do it. Some people, when asked about disposal of their material remains would shrug and say light heartedly that they didn't care, he could 'just chuck them on the compost heap'. Others took the matter more seriously and some even knew and specified the hymns that they wished to be sung at the funeral service. Sylvia Twelvetrees had belonged to the last category. She had already paid for the funeral in advance and there was a plot waiting for her in the cemetery alongside where her husband already lay, waiting for her to join him. Dai was charged with carrying out her wishes and he did his best to do so.

When the day of the funeral arrived there were more people in attendance than he had expected, but then in his experience that was often the case. People he had thought of as lonely and isolated in their lifetimes, often had more human contact than he had realised, had they not come to see themselves as lonely or alone, or at least, so it appeared to judge by the people who attended the funeral. On the other hand, perhaps these people had neglected the deceased during their lifetime and, if the truth be told, their attendance at the funeral was more to assuage their conscience than anything else.

People's motives are, quite naturally, mixed. In the midst of their grieving, there is also the quiet satisfaction of knowing that you at least are still alive, and for the beneficiary of the deceased's estate there is also expectation, expectation of the bonanza to come, however modest. It's like having won a raffle – your lucky number has come up.

On this occasion there were two competing beneficiaries, the lucky but repulsive lodger and the unlucky and odious nephew. They faced each other across the grave into which Sylvia's body was lowered after the vicar had intoned the prayers committing the body to the cold earth. It always seemed such a long way down to Dai who often wondered if it was really necessary to dig the grave so deep that the coffin lay so far beneath the earth that there was never the slightest chance that the sun's rays would ever reach the coffin through the earth placed above it.

As the coffin was slowly lowered, the eyes of the two protagonists met and Dai noted that they reflected not sadness, but hostility as they glowered at each other before each threw some earth on the coffin, now lodged in its final resting place far below, and then moving away. Dai was thankful that at least they went in separate directions. He had been afraid that there might be a shouting match, but that at least, did not occur.

There was a brief reception at a local hotel, where the mourners ate an overpriced buffet and drank indifferent and overpriced wine, murmuring the usual clichés that are expressed on these occasions, before shuffling off, each about their own business, leaving Dai to settle up with the hotel proprietor.

As the odious nephew left, having, as far as Dai could tell, done his best to demolish as much of the buffet as he could lay his hands upon, muttered to Dai, 'Hope you didn't spend too much on this,' before leaving without waiting for an answer. Dai thought he saw sandwiches protruding from his pockets. A little something for the journey perhaps? It was a long way back up to Yorkshire.

Sure enough, the battle lines were soon drawn up. The solicitors acting for the nephew immediately accused the lodger, Mrs Simkins, of undue influence, that is to say that she had used her influence over old Mrs Twelvetrees to get her to make a will in her favour.

Given the extent in which she had inveigled her way into the old lady's life and confidence, this, thought Dai, was quite possibly correct and it was true that on at least on occasion she had come to the office to ask him to go down to the care home to see the old lady about her will. When he had arrived there shortly afterwards, it was to see her coming out of the old lady's room before he went in to see her.

On the other hand, he remembered what the old lady had said to him from time to time about how much she appreciated the help she had from Mrs Simkins who, unlike her own distant family, that is the nephew, who did nothing but send her a Christmas card expressing the pious hope that she was well, actually visited her regularly and ran little errands for her.

Until recently, the nephew did not bother to visit the aunt to see if that hope expressed in the Christmas card was a reality. In these circumstances, it had seemed perfectly natural to Dai that she should want to benefit the lodger rather than the distant relative that she never saw.

It was all, in Dai's view, a question of fact and degree and the only person who could have explained her reasons in any detail was, of course, dead.

If the nephew could get the will, which benefited the lodger, overturned on the grounds of undue influence, then an earlier will in which he was the main beneficiary would then be the relevant will for the purpose of dealing with the old lady's estate. The stakes, therefore, were high.

Dai was aware of what was going on but played no part, not only because it was not appropriate to do so, but also because he judged it prudent, as his old grandfather who had survived the First World War used to say to 'keep his head below the parapet'. This, he duly did, not only because as the solicitor who had prepared the wills he was the reserve target for the disgruntled, but also because he was aware that all the wills, including the last one being argued over, contained a large bequest in favour of a certain charity. The charity, of course, was the Bats of Bethesda which he knew was not only not a charity, but in reality a vehicle for the financial benefit of one David Llewellyn Evans.

Nobody had yet made any reference to the charitable bequest. They might not. He kept his head down. Least said, soonest mended.

CHAPTER 17

He was obliged, of course, to advise his other partners that there was a dark cloud on the horizon, but nobody had actually made a claim of any kind. Nobody had even threatened to take action. If they had, the firm would have been obliged to notify their public liability insurers.

The firm, like all others, were obliged to have insurance, and indeed in a litigious age it was essential cover for the partners to have who would be personally liable to the full extent of their individual assets in the event of a successful claim.

The firm was justly proud of its no claims records. It had been in existence for many years, having been founded in Victorian times by the grandfather of one of the present day partners. Apart from what was regarded as a little unpleasantness around the time of the First World War, involving the will of a local farmer, they had had no claims brought against them at all.

The trouble around the farmer's will had left a deep scar in the collective consciousness of all the partners of the firm, both past and present. It was never directly referred to by anybody and only mentioned obliquely as 'the little bit of unpleasantness'. Although it was seldom mentioned, when it was there would be a reflective, collective silence. The smokers among them gripped the stems of their pipes more firmly in their mouths whilst the others frowned and looked serious.

As a consequence of that claim, the partners of the firm had always been very nervous and indeed touchy about even the possibility of any claim being made against one of them. As partners, they were jointly liable. They stood or fell together. So, it was inevitable that when Dai mentioned the matter at the next partners' meeting, the assembled partners were thunderstruck, that is to say they pursed their lips and said, 'Hmm,' and the senior partner looked at Dai and said, 'No doubt you will keep up advised?' before moving onto the next item on the agenda.

The bombshell had, however, been dropped and the threat of a legal claim against the partners hung in the room like the smell of cordite after an explosion.

The junior partner, who spoke to Dai after the meeting, was more voluble than the stiff upper lipped others. He nabbed Dai as Dai tried to make his escape, grabbing him by the arm as he passed saying, 'Do you think that you could spare a moment, Dai?' Although expressed as a request, it was more in the nature of a command. Since he had a firm grasp on Dai's arm, Dai had little option other than to allow himself to be pulled into the junior partner's room.

Once inside, the junior partner shut the door firmly. He looked grim.

'Look,' he said, 'some of the others may not have fully grasped what you said about the possibility of a claim, but I can assure you that I do.'

Dai had no doubt, but that they would understand perfectly well. They, however, were gentlemen, that in his view did not apply to the pushy, young upstart in front of him.

'Well, it hasn't come to that yet,' responded Dai equably. There was no sense in deliberately provoking him.

'No, but it very well might,' continued the junior partner. He had long been dissatisfied with Dai's contribution to the practice, his habit of absenting himself whenever he felt like it, his supercilious attitude and his obvious contempt for himself. Had these accusations been put to Dai, he would have pleaded guilty to each one. As it was, he simply listened to the junior partner fully aware that the junior partner had it in for him, 'And,' the junior partner went on, 'I want you to be aware that if this goes the way I fear it may, that I shall hold you personally responsible.'

That was only stating the obvious. Although the partners shared a joint responsibility, they could seek an indemnity from him.

This bloke has obviously got a first class Honours degree in stating the bleeding obvious, thought Dai angrily. He did not say so however.

'Fine,' said Dai quietly, 'thank you for making that clear. Now, if you don't mind ..,' his voice trailed off as he turned and left the room. As he left, it occurred to him that what he should have said was what he thought which would have been,

'Thank you for stating the bleeding obvious, you pompous, self-satisfied little prat. Now, if you have finished crowing, I'll be off.' He didn't, but left quietly. Why is it, he wondered fleetingly, that the British never say what they mean?

Although Dai affected not to be concerned about the possibility of a claim, he was nonetheless worried. Even though he heard nothing for a few weeks, he knew that the silence was the calm before the storm. The very air, he felt, was pregnant with the threat of a claim.

CHAPTER 18

When the claim did eventually materialise, in the form of a letter from Mr Satterthwaite's solicitors, it was almost a relief. Dai read the letter carefully in the privacy of his office. It was written in the usual ponderous language of such letters, heavy with threat and laden with menace and all written with the cardinal legal principle kept firmly in mind 'never use one word where ten will do'.

'Sir,' it commenced in peremptory fashion. This did not indicate respect. On the contrary, it was a preliminary to what lawyers term 'a letter before action', that is to say a letter putting you on notice of a claim. In this case, the solicitors for Satterthwaite were notifying Dai that their client was going to look to him for the damage he has suffered as a consequence of Dai's negligence, pointing out that such damage 'included, but was not limited to...' and notwithstanding what was specifically mentioned in the letter, the solicitors purported to 'reserve their client's rights to take such action against him [Dai] as was necessary'.

Dai groaned. It seemed unjust to him. It did not matter how hard you tried not to put a foot wrong or to what extent you were the victim of circumstances. When you fell foul of the law, it was pitiless. He himself had said many times to clients faced with litigation that law had nothing to do with justice or fairness. It was a system and if you found yourself on the receiving end, then woe betide you. He now found himself on the receiving end. He was about to undergo the sausage experience, being pushed through a machine, unable to do anything except go along with the process until he was pushed out the other end minced and stuffed.

Essentially, Satterthwaite was hedging his bets and coming at Dai from more than one direction. He was asserting Dai owed him a duty of care as a beneficiary and that Dai had failed in that duty of care by allowing his aunt to make a will excluding him and in favour of the lodger when he ought to have known there was a danger of undue influence. His solicitors then went on to put it another way saying, as lawyers do, 'further or in the alternative' that he had been negligent in not getting her last will to her in time for her to sign it before she died. In either case, he, Satterthwaite, had lost out.

Had Satterthwaite been in front of him, Dai had no doubt that he would have added assault to the list of injuries in respect of which Satterthwaite sought redress. In short, he would have given him a good thumping. He would not, of course, but that was the way he felt as he finished reading the letter.

He sighed. He was going to have to hand the letter to his firm's insurers who would instruct solicitors to act for them. The merry-go-round was about to begin.

Just as bad, he was obviously going to have to tell his partners and he could only speculate at the consequences of that, particularly bearing in mind the declared hostility of the junior partner.

Still, there was nothing for it and, bracing himself, he prepared a memo to circulate privately to the partners putting them on notice of the position. Then, he went out for a walk. He felt that if the junior partner had come in to crow, as he suspected he might, then there was a danger that he would add murder to his growing list of sins.

Just when he thought that things could not get any worse, they did.
CHAPTER 19

The first bombshell landed when he was at work the following day. The office receptionist rang through to him and said that Pam Adams was on the line. He did not want to talk to her, but did not dare not to and so told the receptionist to put her through, having pushed the door of his office shut.

Pam's voice was agitated.

'My husband knows about us,' she said.

'What?!' he said, suddenly deeply alarmed. 'How?' he said involuntarily.

'He knows everything,' she said.

Dai said nothing. What could he say? In any event, his mind was spinning. Events were taking over.

'He knows that we love each other and want to be together,' Pam's voice continued.

'What?!' David almost shouted down the phone.

'Well, we do love each other, don't we?'

David ignored that one and said instead, 'Look, just tell me what happened.' He listened with a sinking heart as she recounted the events which had led to her phone call.

'He just came out with it when he came home from work. He caught me completely off guard. He just asked me point blank whether or not I was having an affair,' she sobbed and continued whilst David listened hardly able to believe his ears. Was he dreaming? This could not be happening.

She continued, 'I blushed, of course – couldn't help it and that he took as an admission. I was going to deny it but then I thought well, why should I? We love each other and I don't care if the whole world knows.'

David was stunned. His mind was in a whirl as he struggled to cope with this sudden development, which had such serious implications.

What about Megwyn? What if she found out? She was bound to find out. He thought, oh my God, what am I going to do?

It proved unnecessary for him to make an instant decision because that was made for him, when the receptionist again rang him on the intercom to say that Doctor Adams was on his way up to his office.

'I'm sorry, Mr Evans,' she said sounded flustered. 'He wouldn't wait and just pushed past me. He seemed in a tearing hurry.'

David hardly had time to put the phone down before the aggrieved Mr Adams burst into his office.

'What the hell are you doing bursting in like this?!' he said in a futile attempt to bring order into chaos. Mr Adams did not bother with explanations but ran around the desk and swung a punch at him, crying, 'I'll teach you to cuckold me, you slimy Welsh bastard!'

David had recovered from his shock sufficiently by that time to be able to dodge the blow aimed at him, by stepping swiftly to one side. As he did so, he punched the doctor hard on the nose, partly in self-defence but largely because he felt like it. He was thoroughly cheesed off and needed to relieve his feelings. The doctor's nose served admirably for that purpose.

The doctor fell heavily to the floor clutching his nose which began to bleed profusely. Some of his partners and other staff came into the room, attracted by the commotion.

The doctor lay on the floor holding his nose. Everybody else just stood there aghast. Suddenly, David's phone rang again. The receptionist said, 'It's your wife on the phone.'

David sighed and thought to himself, my cup runneth over, and then said aloud, 'Put her through.'

He braced himself, waiting for the tiger to burst from the bushes. There was no escape. All he could do was take it on the chin, England, or rather Wales, expects and all that. He didn't have long to wait.

Megwyn spoke slowly and calmly, carefully enunciating each word.

'I always knew you had an eye for the ladies, but I didn't think that you would sink as low as this.'

When you are in the shit, it is best to say nothing, so he said nothing. He could not think of anything to say anyway. His mind was still reeling.

Dai looked around the room. Doctor Adams was now sitting in David's chair whilst the office first aider administered first aid. That is to say she rubbed his face with a grubby wet tea towel from the kitchen. The doctor appreciated her ministering to him. She was, after all, young and attractive, and said gallantly in a voice suggestive of deep suffering endured bravely, 'It's very good of you, but please don't spoil your towel.'

The secretary smirked at him. He was quite good looking actually and everyone knows that a doctor is a good catch and by all accounts this one might be foot loose and fancy free fairly soon.

'Don't mention it,' said David sarcastically, having watched their brief flirtation with irritation. He had always fancied that secretary, but left her alone on the grounds that she was far too close to home. He felt the need to say something unpleasant and sneered, 'I think the dog will have got over his sense of indignation by now.'

This may have been too obtuse a remark for the assembled throng, all of whom ignored him and continued to fuss around the doctor, now quite enjoying the attention.

'What are you talking about?' said his wife's voice at the end of the phone breaking into Dai's thoughts.

Oh God, he realised he had forgotten about her.

'I'm coming home now,' he said, more as a means of getting out of the office than because he had any desire to go home. Then he mumbled something about being in the following day to the assembled throng and fled.

The ensuing harangue at home was everything that he had anticipated it would be as his outraged wife gave it her histrionic best. He even had the distinct impression that she was quite enjoying it when with every surging shrill crescendo she would put in a little trill and then hold it, as if for full effect, whilst she listened to it in an objective, detached sort of way. It was as if part of her was merely observing the proceedings. The part of her that was engaged was vigorous enough though. Perhaps understandably, her anger knew no bounds. After the first outburst, she paused as if to reflect, but in reality to gather strength.

She had retreated a little distance from him and sat down by the fire place and fixed him in her sights and then proceeded methodically and without haste to tear him to shreds, savouring every little slice as she did so. The indictment was a long one.

She recounted the sins that he had committed prior to her marrying him which she made clear she had done merely as an act of charity, as one would from motives of pure selfless humanity, to lift a poor benighted heathen from darkness. She expressed sympathy with his poor mother who, saint like creature that she was, had suffered like a martyr under the weight of his manifold sins and transgressions.

There was much more in the same vein. He could not help remembering what a well-known actor was reputed to have said when asked about what constituted his ideal women and is said to have replied 'a deaf and dumb nymphomaniac'. When first he had heard that, he had thought it a little cynical. Now, the recollection of it came back to him with some force and it occurred to him that that would have suited him admirably.

Alas for David!

Eventually, having analysed and reviewed their married life in an unfavourable light, highlighting his failings as a husband and father, source of comfort and affection, love and support. In short, he had been an abject failure. She had often asked herself why she stayed with him, but again as an act of selfless charity, she had done so and born her suffering like the martyr she undoubtedly was. She didn't put it quite like that, but that was what Dai understood her to mean. Then Megwyn came up to date.

She explained how she had had a call from doctor Adams and how if she had been a weaker person it would in all probability have done for her. David suppressed the thought which popped into his mind and remained silent until she paused for breath which she was bound to do eventually. He knew that it would not make any difference if he said something anyway. After all, what could he say? Nothing. He had been caught with his trousers down and now she had him where he suspected she had wanted him for quite a long time. He knew that the marriage was finished. How could it survive after that?

The upshot of it was that she threw him out which at least meant that his ears had a rest. Had she thought about it objectively, she might have realised that it would be far more satisfactory to have him where she could see him and harry him unmercifully, but she slipped unwittingly into women's magazine mode which required a grand gesture - namely casting him forth. The dramatic effect was all well and good, but once she had done it, that was it. He was beyond her direct control. True, she could settle back and snipe at him from afar, but that rather depended on her knowing where he was. Had he needed to crawl back to see the children, she could have been as difficult as she liked, although she told herself she never would. She would not stoop to that, nor would she belittle him to his children.

They would be able to form their own view when confronted with the heroic grief of their wronged mother. All of this though rather depended upon him wanting to see the children in the first place, which was not actually on his agenda. He'd had enough of children and enough of marriage and was determined, once the shock had worn off a bit, to go his own way.
CHAPTER 20

The immediate problem was where to live. He solved that by moving into his horsebox whilst he looked for a flat. That night he slept surrounded by the horses tack, their saddles, bridles and general paraphernalia. He slept soundly and awoke the following morning with difficulty. He was not sure where he was at first as he opened his eyes and peered blearily at his surroundings from under the prickly, woollen blanket pulled up over his ears. The light that filtered in through the small windows along the side of the box soon revealed where he was and in an instant everything that had occurred came rushing back into his mind. Part of him wished he was still asleep, but he was not and, although reluctant, he had no alternative other than to get up and face the music. It was from the horsebox that he went to work the next day screwing up his courage for what he anticipated would be a difficult day.

*

He was not disappointed. As soon as he got in to the office, he was met by a grim faced junior partner who asked him to accompany him to a meeting in the senior partner's room. He did not have much option but to agree. The secretaries and other members of staff that they passed pretended to be engrossed in what they were doing, but there was an atmosphere of tension and expectation that was tangible. The heavy sound of their footfall as they strode along the wooden floor of the hall echoed eerily around the building. Nobody spoke. It was as if everyone in the office held their breath.

When he entered the large oak panelled room, he saw that all the partners were present. They all greeted him unenthusiastically and some of them looked at him with evident reluctance. They gave the appearance of being deeply embarrassed as they stood there silently.

'Sit down, David,' said the senior partner breaking the silence.

'I'd rather stand, I think,' said David.

'Just as you wish,' the senior partner continued.

Everybody else sat down around the long, mahogany table used for partners' meetings, leaving him standing before them all at one end. As he stood there it reminded him of a painting he had once seen of a small child, the son of a cavalier standing on a stool before seated roundheads, quizzing him about the whereabouts of his father, whom they were obviously sent to get hold of. It was entitled 'and when did you last see your father?'.

He now stood before just such an inquisitorial tribunal, ruthlessly enquiring, or about to enquire into his deeds and misdeeds. There was a pause. The long case clock in the corner ticked steadily away as it had done for years. The photographs of the long dead partners of the firm looked down on him in a superior sort of way. The sounds from the street outside drifted in through the windows. The senior partner spoke again.

'I'm sure you know why we are all here?' Without waiting for an answer, he continued. 'We are not interested in your private life which is entirely a matter for you, save and insofar as it impinges upon the practice.'

David remained silent and waited for him to continue. The senior partner grasped the nettle and go to the point.

'We take the view,' the senior partner continued ponderously, 'that by your actions you have brought the practice into disrepute and we, as well as you, could well find ourselves facing disciplinary proceedings brought by the Law Society.' He paused. There was silence in the room. Then he continued, 'You appear to have had a relationship with a client, namely Pam Adams and what is perhaps even worse, you assaulted her husband which, if he makes a complaint to the police, would not only result in criminal proceedings being brought against you but would also drag the good name of the firm through the courts which is unthinkable. The potential damage to the firm's reputation is colossal.'

You could hear a pin drop in the room. What he said was the simple truth. All of their professional reputations and livelihoods were at stake. David was fully aware of that. Not only that, but what was not said was that the recent claim notified against them would not have helped. Any goodwill he might have been able to rely upon otherwise had been pretty well dispelled by the news of that claim.

Dai thought he detected the trace of a triumphal glint in the eyes of the junior partner. On the other hand, he may have imagined it. Either way, it did not much matter now. With the exception of the junior partner, whom he cordially detested, they were not a bad bunch and the least he could do was to try to minimise the damage to the practice and by definition to them. They had not done anything wrong, being straight-laced and boring were not criminal offences, and so he offered to fall on his sword. They were going to give him the push anyway.

'Of course I'll resign,' he said.

There was an almost audible sigh of relief from the other partners there. Apart from the now delighted junior partner, they all liked David, whose presence had brought much needed colour and character to their practice. Solicitors tend to be rather staid, if worthy souls and David had certainly enlivened things.

On the other hand, their concerns were real enough, not only would his actions land him in trouble but, given the fact that they were partners with him, the Law Society, their archaic and out of touch governing body, could be relied upon to have a go at them as well and had the power to put them out of business.

All of that was a distinct possibility even if he went. Nonetheless, Dai leaving the practice would help to create the right impression in the minds of The Law Society. There would be no need to blame Dai directly. It would be enough to make an oblique reference to him 'no longer being with the practice'. That would be sufficient to indicate that they had done whatever was necessary to purge the practice of the canker it had contained. They would have done the decent thing. Given their standing and reputation, that might be enough to save them from any form of disciplinary sanction. There was still the little matter of the claim against the practice being brought by Satterthwaite, but that was now being handled by the solicitors appointed by their insurers, a large London firm that specialised in dealing with such claims on behalf of insurance companies.

The partners stood up and made 'must get on' noises. As they left the room, they all shook his hand and wished him well. All, that is, except the junior partner who simply walked out without a word.

Soon they had all gone, save one.

'What will you do now, David?' the senior partner asked him, lingering in the room for a while.

'Don't know really,' he answered honestly enough, for indeed he had no clear idea. 'Might pop down to Wales for a bit to take stock.'

'Good luck then,' said the partner and also left.

He was left alone in the room with his thoughts and with the photographs on the wall of the former partners still staring imperiously down at him. He suddenly realised that he had always felt that he never really belonged there. The feeling had never really crystallised into a thought, but now he found himself standing there alone with his thoughts, tinged with regret for he knew not what, he felt that he had always been an outsider, a square peg in a round hole, and that the right thing now was for him to go.

Things were falling apart with depressing speed, he reflected. You spent years creating a house of cards which, when it came to it, collapsed in the blink of an eye.

He left the offices of the firm, he imagined, for the last time, pausing only on the steps in front of the ancient door to the building. He stood for a moment looking around at the familiar landscape of buildings reflecting the long history of the old market town, and then descended into the street and walked away without looking back.

As he walked, he passed people he knew who nodded and smiled on seeing him. They didn't have any idea what had happened, of course. He nodded and smiled back and perhaps exchanged a greeting, as was customary in such situations.

He might have thought that he might slip away quietly down to Wales, but he was not going to get away that easily.

Soon, he reached the little side street where he had parked his car, but as he was about to get into it, he was hailed by a solicitor friend, Tom Jenkins, whom he had known for years. He stopped and waited whilst Tom came over to him.

'I've heard about your spot of bother,' he said sympathetically.

Spot of bother, thought Dai. Here we go again with that British understatement. It had been a bloody disaster, but he too played the game saying with a smile,

'Yes, a little local difficulty.' They both laughed.

'Still, I hear on the grapevine that Megwyn is instructing that woman solicitor,' and he mentioned the name of a lady lawyer in a nearby town with a well-earned reputation for hanging errant husbands out to dry financially on behalf of their female clients.

'Oh dear,' said Dai genuinely concerned and added, 'thanks for the tip,' before getting into his car and driving home. That is, he drove to his horsebox that was now the place that he called home.
CHAPTER 21

Megwyn had indeed consulted a lady lawyer with a formidable reputation. The solicitor, Miss Ellis, was the wrong side of fifty years of age, tall, thin, bespectacled and had, by virtue of hard work and ability, succeeded in a male dominated profession, indeed a male dominated world. This was very much to her credit, but the struggle had left its marks upon her. She had never married. She had never had children. She did not suffer fools gladly and she was very prickly and over sensitive to what she perceived as criticism or opposition. She did not negotiate, she demanded. Her idea of a negotiation was that she set out her demands and her opponent simply acquiesced. On one occasion, a genial middle-aged male solicitor had tried to be friendly during a telephone discussion, partly out of desire to facilitate negotiations on behalf of a client, but largely because he was genial by nature. She cut him short by screaming down the phone, 'Don't patronise me!' before slamming the phone down.

As a consequence, over the years she had acquired the reputation of being very competent, but was also regarded as a nightmare to deal with, at least by solicitors acting for the husbands of the women she represented. In short, she was ideal for Megwyn's purposes which were to extract every last penny that she could from Dai. Megwyn was a woman on a mission and Miss Ellis was her avenging angel.

When she met with Miss Ellis to instruct her to act on her behalf, she was assured that no stone would be left unturned. It would cost her, of course. Miss Ellis was nothing if not clear about her fees. She did not come cheap, but Megwyn could rest assured the money would be well spent. She would hang Dai out to dry.

There was the little matter of serving him with notice of the proceedings. Did Megwyn know where he was to be found? It occurred to Megwyn that she didn't have any idea where he was living.

'With a friend or relative?' suggested Miss Ellis.

Megwyn didn't know. Miss Ellis suggested she make enquiries whilst she prepared the Blitzkrieg that she was about to unleash on Megwyn's behalf.

Megwyn started with the firm. She rang and spoke to the junior partner to no avail. All that he could tell her was that Dai had just resigned his partnership and left. There was no forwarding address.

Megwyn was not unduly concerned. He was probably, she thought, staying with one of his polo friends. She would make some enquiries and she would soon, she felt sure, ferret him out.

*

Dai's horsebox was parked in a farmyard by arrangement, of course, with the farmer who allowed him to do so free of charge because Dai kept his horses there in livery. Full livery meant that the horses were fed, watered and exercised by grooms and, during the summer at least, that is the arrangement that Dai had. In the winter, when there was no polo, the horses had their shoes knocked off by the farrier and would be turned out in the farmer's fields to graze until the spring. They might be rugged or given a bit of hay if the weather turned really cold, but by and large they were left to their own devices until the spring when they would be caught, cleaned up, clipped and shod and brought in to exercise for the start of the summer polo season in May. Exactly when the season started depended on the weather, but if the ground was dry enough, a start could usually be made in May.

The farmer, a crusty, old son of the soil, was happy enough to have horses in livery. It supplemented the ordinary farm income and, since he had grazing for sheep, it was in a way complimentary to the other activities of the farm. The farmer, Toby, did not know that Dai was actually living in the horsebox, but was unlikely to object anyway since the horsebox was parked around the back of some barns and invisible from the farmhouse or the lane which ran past the farm. This was advisable, since otherwise the scourge of the countryside, variously described as travellers, tinkers, dids or pikies, would nick the lorry or, at the very least, its gear box and spare wheel. In the past, Dai and other had had all sorts of items pilfered. Somebody had even, on one occasion during the night, pinched all the rugs from the horses turned out in the fields. To combat that, Dai had had the farm's postcode painted on all the new rugs he bought to replace the stolen ones. Now the horses moved around like numbered boats for hire on a river or boating lake.

When Dai reached his accommodation, he parked his car behind the horsebox, had a quick brush-up, which was of a necessarily limited nature, given his accommodation, and changed into casual clothes and then walked across the fields to a nearby village where he had arranged to meet Fotheringay-Harris for a drink and a chat.

Fortheringay-Harris had heard about Dai's trials and tribulations. He knew that Dai's wife had slung him out and, despite his bluff exterior, had offered a shoulder to cry on. Although Dai had not been entirely sure how well his chum was equipped to play that role, he had welcomed the offer of a drink and a chat. A trouble shared is a trouble halved, was his view.

They met in the bar of The Dog & Whistle, an ancient, beamed pub which always had a log fire roaring in the grate, save on the warmest days.

Actually, Dai often wondered about the name of the pub. Although he had no dog himself, he had often observed others who did and it seemed to him that the words 'dog' and 'whistle' scarcely belonged together in the same sentence. He had often observed dog owners blowing a whistle for all their worth which emitted a sound scarcely representative of the effort put in and which every dog he had seen either did not hear or chose to ignore.

A police inspector he knew told him that he had found a more effective method. When his dog did not come when called, when it did condescend to turn up, he kicked it hard in the balls and the next time it did what it was told and when summoned, came.

Fotheringay-Harris was sitting in the chimney seat by the fire clasping a pint when Dai came into the bar. It was a quiet night and there was nobody else in the bar at that moment.

'What are you having?' he enquired as Dai greeted him.

Having arranged refreshment to meet their immediate requirements, they moved to another little cubbyhole further away from the bar so as to be as private as possible. Dai did not want the world knowing his business. The barman was only a few feet away and, although apparently engrossed in polishing glasses, nonetheless might listen in on their conversation.

Fotheringay-Harris proved to be a better listener than Dai had expected. Dai told him not only about his wife and what had caused her to throw him out, but also about the loss of his partnership.

'Good Lord!' said Fotheringay-Harris when he had finished. 'I had no idea you had so much on your plate!'

'It gets worse,' said Dai grimly. Then he told him about the fling he had had with Candy, and Candy claiming to be pregnant. He had told nobody else about that up until now and now that he had blurted it out, he wasn't sure if he felt relieved, ashamed or embarrassed.

'Good grief,' said Fotheringay-Harris, his eyes wide with admiration. 'Where do you get the energy to play polo?'

'It's no joke though,' said Dai. 'Last time I spoke to her, she said she was pregnant!'

'They all say that, old sport!' said Fotheringay-Harris, adding firmly, 'It's just to get you going, to make a commitment of some kind.'

'Surely not?' said Dai looking puzzled. 'Why would she say something like that if it were not true?'

Fotheringay-Harris leant across the table and he patted Dai affectionately on the hand. His face wore a friendly, almost fatherly, expression as he patiently began to explain the ways of the world and women in particular to Dai who, to him at least, seemed an innocent abroad. He approached the subject as gently as he could. It was apparent to him that Dai knew very little about either women or the ways of the world. Dai plainly needed the benefit of his experience. Quite what that experience was was anybody's guess. Charles was not noted for spending much time with the fair sex. He was not married, had no long-term girlfriend and not often seen in the company of women. In some circles, there might have been speculation about his sexual orientation, but since he was bluff, cheerful, good hearted and mad about horses, he was seen instead as what is usually termed a confirmed bachelor. To many, he led a charming, if somewhat precarious, existence, hunting to hounds in the winter when not, that is, visiting Argentina for the season there and playing polo in England in the summer. Shooting and fishing filled whatever spare slots there might be in his calendar. In short, he led a life many men could only dream about. How did he manage without women? Charles, although not the brightest of individuals perhaps in the academic sense, had solved that problem long ago. The urgent imperatives of nature that he felt just like any other young man he had satisfied by arrangements that were strictly business and strictly for fun. Thus it was that, apart from the occasional visit to a house of ill repute, he was able to devote the majority of his time to doing exactly what he pleased. This was not public knowledge. Nor did he intend to make it so, but it placed him at something of a distance from his contemporaries and gave him an objective and philosophical view of the human condition.

'Look, old sport,' he began as if explaining something self-evident to a child. 'She's been unhappy with her husband for some time. Like most women, she needs a stepping stone out of that relationship and you were it, or at least a possibility.'

'But pregnant?!' enquired Dai.

'Not a bit of it to judge by the way she's been playing recently, she's been tearing around like a wild thing – even managed to frighten me once or twice!'

He laughed. Dai sat there looking bemused and not sure what to think or believe. He had genuinely believed Candy. Surely she would not have lied about something as serious as that?

Fotheringay-Harris had bought another couple of drinks for them whilst Dai pondered the unplumbable depths of the female mind. Where did they get this reputation from of being 'the weaker sex'? He took a sip or two of his drink as Fotheringay-Harris continued.

'... and,' he said, 'you ought also to be aware that she has actually left her husband and is now living with a Polish count, or at least that's what he says he is – rather older than her but with pots of money,' then added, 'and I don't mean to upset you, but she had had her sights on him for some time.'

Dai could hardly believe his ears. How was it possible that the desperate woman who had confronted him and who had seemed determined to make her life with him in some way had already got an alternative lined up?! Talk about hedging your bets!

'You mean ..,' he began but Fotheringay-Harris interrupted him.

'Absolutely, old sport. You are off the hook.'

Dai had not felt so relieved since he got off, or rather fell off, that nutter of a horse that they had made him umpire on. He lifted his glass to Fotheringay-Harris and said, 'Cheers!' and he meant it.

That still left, however, the warning that he had so recently received about his wife's intended solicitor and what that entailed for him. He voiced his concerns about that to Charles as his initial elation at the resolution of the Candy problem had subsided.

Charles lit his pipe. He did this whenever he was presented with a particularly knotty problem which required serious thought and could not simply be dealt with on the hoof, or winged as was his preference.

'Hmm,' he said at length. 'Life's certainly a lot easier with dogs rather than women,' continuing with a look of deep sympathy at Dai, 'I feel really sorry for you old chap. You certainly pay a high price for your pleasures. Me, I prefer to pay for my pleasures in advance.'

'That's all well and good,' said Dai, 'but what am I do to do?'

'To be candid old sport,' pronounced Charles whilst knocking out the remains of his pipe on the fireplace, 'I haven't got a clue.'

CHAPTER 22

Dai didn't blame Charles. Why should he expect him to know how to solve his problems? He had at least given him the good news about Candy.

That was one worry less, a major one certainly, but it still left plenty of other problems for him to face. Living in the horsebox as he did meant that people were not able to get hold of him. It also meant that he was out of touch and had no idea how things were with Megwyn and the children, let alone the various other loose horses in his life charging around like race horses who have lost their riders in the Grand National, a danger to themselves and to others.

Dai felt at a loss to know what to do. He was living in limbo. He had been cast adrift and had not yet decided in which way to paddle. He realised that his marriage to Megwyn was over and that even if there was the chance of a reconciliation, he did not want it. He was, however, still tied to her by the bands of marriage and he owed it to her and the children to sort things out decently, he felt, before setting off on whichever new course in life awaited him. Perhaps, if they could speak sensibly to one another, it needn't involve courts and lawyers?

As a consequence, he decided to ring his wife. He hoped that they might be able to discuss what needed to be done reasonably amicably. Perhaps they might be able to meet and decide how to divide things up. After all, they both had to live and there were things in the family home that were purely his personal belongings that he would like to be able to retrieve from any division of property.

His hope for an amicable conversation proved to be over optimistic. He rang her the following morning, having scribbled down a list of items he would like to collect. These were largely items of sentimental value, photos, old records he had had since he had purchased them as a teenager, one or two books, his letters, some cups he had won playing polo and his Masonic apron. He knew that she couldn't have any use for any of those items.

'Yes?' said Megwyn coldly when she answered the phone.

'Hello Megwyn. I was wondering if we could perhaps discuss sorting out the finances?' he said brightly.

'Sorting them out?' she enquired sarcastically.

'Yes, you know, what to do about the house and other things.'

'You've got a nerve,' she said angrily. 'You make us a laughing stock, leave us high and dry, abandon your family and now suggest there is anything at all to discuss?'

She warmed to her theme.

'Let me tell you, there is nothing to discuss, do you understand me? Nothing!' she shouted. 'Whatever there is to salvage from the wreckage, I and the children will need, believe me ..,' she concluded menacingly, 'and we will have!'

Then Dai said a silly thing, largely because for once in his life he could not think of anything to say. He just opened his mouth and the words came out.

'Can't I even have my old Masonic apron?' he said pathetically.

'You have got a better chance of getting a fish up your arse!' his wife screamed at him before slamming down the telephone.

The answer is no then, said Dai quietly to himself.

Then she rang him back. Her voice was now calm again and she spoke very precisely. 'I've been to see a solicitor.' Dai, of course, already knew this, having been forewarned a few days ago by his chum, but he decided it would be best to say nothing other than, 'Righto.'

'She'll be in touch with you very soon. Please do not ring again. Neither I nor the children want to have any dealings with you. All communications are to be through my solicitor.'

Then, almost as an afterthought, she added, 'By the way, where are you living at the moment?'

Dai lied. 'I've been staying with Charles,' he said as convincingly as he could. 'I'll expect I'll be there for a bit until I can get myself a flat.'

He knew that Megwyn knew Charles' address. He silently apologised to Charles for having used him, or at least his address, but he felt he had no choice. He had to say something and so now he had bought himself a little time in which to try to decide what to do.

In any event, Megwyn was satisfied. Without saying anything further, the phone was put down again.

As a family lawyer, he had handled numberless financial disputes over the years. When he thought about it and looked at it in that light, he felt he had been incredibly naïve, not to say stupid to expect any other response from Megwyn. Well, she had now made her intentions very clear. She didn't want him, which was perhaps understandable, but she did want everything he had.

In his experience, only a small proportion of people were able to resolve financial matters amicably on divorce. Either one or both feels hurt or angry or both and the temptation to fight and be hurtful was all powerful. Very often, the objects that they fought the hardest over were in themselves of no intrinsic value. They would fight about the pets – who was going to have the dog. In one case, the fight was over who was going to have the dog's ashes, still in an urn on the mantelpiece. One man, he recalled, had been so incensed by the endless arguments over who was to have what contents within the matrimonial home that he had taken a saw and sawed everything in half, including the living room sofa. He was, of course, cutting off his own nose to spite his own face, but he had told Dai with a satisfied smile that it had made him feel better. He was free not just of the objects themselves, but the worry of it all.

As far as Dai was concerned, he was not going to go down that road. The one thing that he had gained from the telephone conversation was a very clear indication of what he had to expect. He would leave it alone. Megwyn clearly would not, but in order to be able to bring claims against him, she would have to start proceedings in a court, and to be effective those proceedings would need to be served upon him in some way either by post or personally. As a lawyer, he was fully aware of that. It was plain to him now that he had very little to gain by sticking around. The sensible thing was to leave and he determined to do so at the first opportunity before any papers were served upon him. That, he hoped would put a spanner in the works. He was not now, he decided, going to make it easy for them.

First though, he rang Fotheringay-Harris and arranged another meeting at a pub with him. He wanted him to look after his horses and horsebox. Somebody had to do it. He was not going to be around and he could not afford now to keep them in livery at the farm. Fotheringay-Harris, or rather Fotheringay-Harris' grooms, he knew, would take good care of them whilst he was away.

CHAPTER 23

Fotheringay-Harris, when he met him at the pub, was in his usual high spirits. Dai told him that he was planning to leave. Charles readily agreed to look after the horses and it was agreed that he could play them whilst he kept them in compensation for their keep. It would also be good to keep them in work. Fotheringay-Harris was quite tickled by the idea. As he himself put it, he had never been on a horse that he could stop and so it was going to be a new experience for him.

'Before you go though, Dai, what about a game this Saturday at Cambridge? You won't believe it, but Tel and I have buried the hatchet. He's asked me to play with him and his English pro, and there's a shirt going for you too if you'd like to play. He particularly asked for you, if you are free.'

'Hmm, I don't know,' said Dai, not at all sure that it would be a good idea.

'Look,' said Charles assuming what he fondly believed to be his most persuasive manner, but which in fact, with his bloodshot right eye and a broken front tooth, the legacy of a recent polo stick in the face, was rather like being cozied up to by a bare-knuckle fighter, 'I know he knocked you off your horse, but no hard feelings eh?'

That was fair enough. It wasn't that anyway. He was just a bit concerned about hanging around and being served by Megwyn's lawyers. He explained his concern to Jack who winked and said, 'Let 'em try!'

As the evening wore on, the two friends enjoyed each other's company and Dai drank rather too much. He knew he was over the limit when he left the pub to drive back to the farm, but he took a calculated risk in his view by driving because his route home lay along lonely, country roads for the most part and only touched once upon the edge of a built-up area.

It was quite dark when he set off. He drove carefully, but he was tired. He smiled and said to himself, tired and emotional, that is pissed!

All went well until he reached the edge of the built-up are where, upon taking a sharp left-hand bend, he swung rather more across the road than was necessary. As he straightened up, he saw parked in a lay by a police car stationary with its lights off. He kept driving, looking into his rear-view mirror without moving his head, although he realised that that was ridiculous since it was dark inside his car and nobody could have seen whether he moved his head or not.

The police car turned its lights on and followed him. His heart sank and then he thought, it's Helen. This may have been irrational on his part, but it was what, with a little whoop of glee, he assumed was that case.

He had not seen Helen for some weeks and suddenly realised that he missed her. He also realised that there was nothing he would like more than to be taken into custody by Helen in her own distinctive way. First though, he decided to have a bit of fun. He accelerated. The police car accelerated. Soon, they were tearing down the lanes engaged in a weird game of vehicular kiss-chase, or at least that is what he hoped it would be. As he drove, he worked out where he would allow Helen to catch him. There was a track that led into a small wood not far ahead. They could be off the road there and she could do the rest. He began to feel quite excited at the prospect. Would she keep her helmet on, he wondered.

He pulled into the farm track, and after about 50 yards into the woods he stopped and undid his seat belt. The police car pulled in after him, blocking the track behind his car. He prepared to surrender himself to his fate.

Somebody got out of the police car. To his horror, he saw in its headlights that the somebody was not the nubile, leggy Helen, but a man who was quickly followed by another policeman who got out of the other side of the car. He couldn't see who the officers were, but there was no mistaking that they were men and only a few strides away from his vehicle.

He had to do something. He was over the limit. He had driven dangerously and he would now be nicked, spend the night in the cells, followed by a humiliating appearance in the morning before the magistrates that he would, of course, know, having appeared before them professionally many times. Apart from the humiliation, given that he had no fixed address now, there might even be objections to bail. All this passed through his mind in an instant, and in the next he was out of the door and running for all he was worth.

Much had been written over the years about the various defences available to a motorist caught in delicto as he had been. He had had clients who swore by the hip flask defence and who would carry one with them everywhere and have a swig before they were caught in an attempt to interfere with the police testing procedures. There were others who had changed places with their wife or girlfriend, even when the car was moving, so as not to be the driver. There had even been one hero who had driven three times around the town roundabout with the front nearside of this car scraping along the road surface and emitting a shower of sparks, being hotly pursued by the squad car. This individual had finally driven up onto the roundabout and came to rest in a bed of antirrhinums before being seen to jump out and climb into the back seat of the vehicle where he was found by the officers cuddling a bottle of whisky and saying, 'You can't touch me – I'm not the driver.'

Dai had no doubt that the only really effective defence was to ''ave it away, 'ave it on yer toes, scarper, leg it' as it was variously described over the years by his clients, and that is exactly what he did. By and large, police officers were no fitter than the average population and if you could put enough distance between you and them and then not go home, by the time you did fall into the hands of the constabulary, you would have sobered up. Dai called it the 'running shoe defence', not that he had had the time to put any on, but to run and to run fast was the general idea.

The one potential drawback to this strategy was if you had the misfortune to find yourself being pursued by a certain PC John Higgins, the police cross-country champion, a fitness fanatic who was a legend in his own lifetime, you were on to a hiding to nothing. He ran everywhere and was a man from whom you would be unlikely to escape.

Fortunately for Dai, whose run of luck had been pretty poor recently, on this particular evening Lady Luck took pity on him and the officers pursuing him were of the average kind and not keen on pursuing a suspect in the dark across the fields. It was not long before the invisible elastic that connected them to the squad car pulled them back to it and to get on the radio to arrange a reception committee for the fugitive at his home address.

They were not to know, of course, that the registered owner of the vehicle no longer resided at the registered address. Dai knew that all things being equal, even in the now seemingly far off days when peace reigned between himself and Megwyn, he could not have gone home because he knew the police would be there ahead of him. Tonight as well, having disturbed and annoyed Megwyn, they would wait for him in vain.

He slowed to a walk when he realised that the pursuit had ceased. Sometime later, he arrived tired, muddy and now sober at the horsebox. He changed out of his muddy clothes, went into the farm tack room where the stove was still alight, gave the fire a prod, put more wood on and a kettle on top, and sat down in a battered, old armchair to take stock of his situation.

He leant back, put his hands behind his head and thrust his feet towards the stove. He relaxed and took in his surroundings. Saddles and tack for a dozen or more horses decorated the walls under the names of the horses written on a card and stuck to the wall. Horse blankets and rugs occupied one whole wall and the rest of the space was occupied by a sink with a dirty tea towel around the taps, and some battered, old furniture upon which various dogs and cats had left clear evidence of their territorial claims. On the draining board to the side of the sink, there were some chipped and stained old mugs, that had been given a cursory wipe waiting to be used by the next individual wishing to build up his or her resistance to germs, and Dai used one of these to make tea in, when the kettle boiled. He found some biscuits in the cupboard above the sink that had somehow escaped the attention of the cats and returned to his armchair into which he sank with a sigh of gratitude.

All in all, he realised that, although recent events had on any objective view been an unmitigated disaster, for the moment at least he felt quite happy. He did not even have a car now, but at least he had a mug of tea, a biscuit and a fire to warm himself by. What's more, there was the prospect of a last game of polo before he made himself scarce.

Sod the lot of them, he thought amiably as he sipped his tea and debated whether to sleep in the lorry or the tack room.

The tack room was appealing. It was warm and he was already beginning to nod off. On the other hand, he knew that people who kept their horses in livery at the farm would often call at the farm early before going on to work to feed or check on their horses. If they were not in full livery, then the owner had the responsibility of looking after the animal. Dai did not fancy being found sleeping in the tack room, so he roused himself sufficiently to stagger back to the horsebox where, cold or not, he soon fell asleep.
CHAPTER 24

The next day, he asked to use the farm telephone and rang the police station. He needed to get his car back, and so he was going to have to undergo the humiliation of attending at the nick and going through whatever procedures that were necessary. This, he knew, would be potentially as embarrassing for them as for himself. Still, there was nothing for it. The officers had a job to do and he wanted his car back.

The phone call confirmed that the car was indeed at the station, in the compound at the rear of the building The officer he spoke to said that they would like to speak to him. Would he mind coming in? He had no option but to attend and did so, scrounging a lift from one of the do-it-yourself livery individuals whose journey to work took them that way.

He did his best to tidy himself up, but the effects of living rough in a horsebox are not easy to disguise, and so it was that when he attended the police station, he resembled a traveller more than the professional man that they had known him as.

The desk sergeant asked him to take a seat. Before long, a young copper he did not know stuck his head around the door and asked Dai to follow him. Dai felt happier that it was not an officer that he was familiar with, but the feeling soon turned to discomfort when he found himself seated in an interview room with a keen, young police officer with a determined look on his face. He did not waste any time, but got straight to the point.

'So, why did you run away from your car then?'

This was a difficult one to answer. He had been thinking about that on the way to the station. He knew that he would be asked, but the only possible answers he had been able to come up with had seemed pretty farfetched.

'Aren't you supposed to caution me?' he prevaricated.

'We don't know or have reason to suspect that you have committed an offence as yet do we, or is there something you would like to get off your chest?'

Dai remembered an old solicitor, now long dead, whom he had much admired. He had told him how, when he himself had been young many, many years before, he had been taught the basic principles of advocacy by the solicitor to whom he was articled. It was quite simple, he had been told, if the law is in your favour, hammer the law. If that is not the case but the facts are, then hammer the facts. If neither is true, hammer the table.

Dai concluded quickly that in his situation that was pretty much his only option if he was going to say anything at all. He would not hammer though. That was not really in his nature. He would quietly dissemble, which was very much in his nature.

'No, not really,' he said quietly.

'Well, why did you do a runner then? Or ..,' continued the officer sarcastically, '... are you going to tell me your car had been nicked and it wasn't you driving it?'

That had been one of the possible explanations he had thought to offer. Now, he quickly shelved it.

Dai opened his eyes wide and assumed his most angelic expression, something akin, he liked to think, to a choir boy on a Christmas card in all his angelic innocence.

'Good heavens no, man,' he said laying on the Welsh accent with a trowel. 'Of course it was me driving!'

'Well, why run off then?' almost shouted the young officer who had now asked that very question no less than three times without getting an answer.

'That's obvious, isn't it?' said Dai.

'No, it isn't!' yelled the officer.

'Oh!' said Dai and looked crestfallen. Just then, the door opened and there stood an inspector that Dai knew.

'What's all the noise about?' he asked. The young officer leapt to his feet.

'Er, nothing Skip. I'm just asking this ..,' and he waved his hand in Dai's direction, 'some questions.'

'Not necessary to shout is it constable?' said the inspector with a steely look in his eye. The constable was nonplussed.

'No Sir, not at all ..,' he began, but the inspector briskly interrupted him saying, 'Well, then don't. Now, I suggest you let me deal with this.'

'But..,' stammered the young officer. The inspector looked sharply at him and the young officer read the look accurately and promptly bolted from the room. The door shut behind him. The inspector smiled at Dai and then winked at him before pulling up a chair to the table and sitting down.

'Thanks, Ted,' said Dai and then added, 'he was only doing his job.'

'Not very well, it sounds like. Have you had a cup of tea?' Dai had not, so that was arranged and over a cup of tea and a fag – the inspector smoked, Dai did not – they chatted about their mutual interest – women.

The inspector, whose name was Robin, had something of a reputation for being a ladies' man to the extent that in the Force he was known as Cock Robin, a nickname that he was secretly quite proud of. He smiled again.

'Hear you've been putting it about a bit, Dai.'

'Can't deny that, Ted,' said Dai. 'Got myself into a bit of a pickle in more ways than one,' wondering how it was that the inspector had found out and indeed wondering how much he actually knew.

The inspector tapped his nose and said in a confidential tone, ' A little bird told me that a certain WPC has been keeping observation on you – even stopped you once, I believe?'

So, he knew about Helen.

'Er, yes,' said Dai, unsure of what was coming.

'And I imagine that last night when you found yourself being pursued by a police car, you feared that it might be the young lady in question... again!' he said with emphasis.

Good grief, thought Dai, surely he can't have found out about Helen 'arresting' him! The only person, he quickly reasoned, who could have told him would be Helen. If it was Helen, why had she told Robin? Unless...

The inspector leaned forward confidentially and lowering his voice said,

'I think you may have realised that I too have an interest in a certain young police woman with a magnificent body and,' he paused as if to relish the memory, 'if I may say so, distinctly nymphomaniac tendencies.'

The inspector had, Dai knew, done a degree in philosophy as well as criminology and loved to see life through a Nietzschean prism. Although he didn't follow the philosophical reference, he knew well enough that he was referring to Helen who had obviously added the inspector's scalp to her long list of conquests and drivers. He didn't know what to say and so he simply smiled weakly and waited for the inspector to continue. This he duly did. 'And,' he continued, 'as you were unwilling to find yourself in a compromising situation, you tried to evade her and then eventually abandoned your car in a desperate, last ditch attempt to avoid her?'

This was beginning to sound a bit like the phantom dog story, the dog being the one that drivers would mysteriously encounter in the middle of the night, usually when they had been drinking and which they would have to swerve so violently to avoid that their car usually ended up in a ditch, obliging them to walk home, rather than remain at the scene. Descriptions of the dog varied, but the one thing that all the incidents had in common was that a dog was never found. No doubt the culprit still roams the highways and byways to this day, lying in wait for upon unsuspecting motorists.

Helen, in the inspector's version, appeared to be standing in for the dog.

'Absolutely,' said Dai in genuine admiration, adding hastily, 'I wouldn't want the young woman to get into any trouble.'

'There is no fear of that. My lips are sealed. Here are your car keys.'

Dai took the keys gratefully and left. After he had gone, the desk sergeant observed dryly to the inspector, 'He's a lucky man, Skip.'

'Yes,' said the inspector thoughtfully, 'but then think about it Sarge. Who would we have got to prosecute him?!'

Then he went to his office, pulled on his overcoat and left. He was meeting Helen after work for a drink.

CHAPTER 25

Dai made his way back to the farm where his horsebox was kept and where he temporarily resided, now parked partially concealed behind various dilapidated farm buildings.

The idea of a temporary residence on a farm might appeal to many people. Some, he believed even paying out money to go on holiday in one. Quite why mystified him. This farm like many others he had seen was full of dilapidated ugly metal and corrugated iron buildings and had piles of metal and old farm machinery everywhere, with nettles and weeds growing through it. The original farm house was attractive, at least from a distance and also a rickety building nearby, which perhaps had been the grain store, standing askew on the stone mushrooms which kept it off the ground and thus, in theory at least, away from vermin. Add to this picture of rural squalor, heaps of dung and the odd chicken pecking around on a straw and debris strewn yard with the occasional pile of horse manure to compliment it, completed the scene.

Dai parked by the horsebox and went to it intending to gather the few clothes and other belongings inside, only to find that the driver's door lock appeared to have stuck for some reason. That seemed odd. He fiddled with it for a bit and then tried the other door and could not get in. A suspicion began to form in his mind. He checked the side door of the lorry and the suspicion crystallised into a realisation. Someone had superglued the lock so he could not get in! Who could that have been? There were quite a number of possible contenders for the offender. Who knew where the lorry was being kept and would be angry enough to do something like that? He went through the various individuals in his mind and then gave it up. What was the point? The doors were closed to him and at least any wandering thieves would be prevented from pinching the box whilst he was away.

He decided to have a quick word with John, the farmer, just to tell him he would be away for a while and to mention what had happened. He went over to the farm house kitchen door, outside which two old sheepdogs looked at him warily without moving from their position. They were lying across the threshold, acting as a consequence as a couple of hairy draught excluders. Sheepdogs obviously had a variety of uses.

The dogs made no move when he knocked on the door thumping the ancient metal knocker in the shape of a fox's head against the heavy wooden door. He had to do it several times before, after some barking within, door creaked open to reveal John surrounded by yet more dogs, Jack Russells this time, that clustered around his feet and growled threateningly at Dai.

John was a large sturdy man wearing a pair of old corduroys which, together with his braces, fought a losing war between his stomach and gravity. He stood there unshaven and with a mop of unruly hair which he scratched vigorously as he smiled a welcome at Dai.

'Come in Dai,' he said holding the door wide. Dai stepped in, over the sheepdogs who chose not to move and around the Jack Russells, who now circled him threateningly as he stood on the paved floor of the hall. A pile of horse tack was slung over the banister rail of the staircase and the kitchen door was ajar, through which Dai could see the large kitchen table strewn with objects of all kinds including a pheasant in the process of being prepared for the pot. John was very fond of pheasants.

'Come in Dai and have a cup of tea.' Dai was glad to do so and soon found himself sitting at the table on a rickety old chair ringed by the Jack Russells who sat on their haunches and stared at him. The tea, when it came, was served in a chipped china mug which bore the legend 'No surf too rough – no Muff too tough'.

'I didn't know you liked surfing,' said Dai looking at the mug and then back to the corpulent figure of the farmer.

'I don't,' said John, 'it's my grandson, he spent all summer down in Cornwell, living rough and surfing with his mates. Hard life isn't it?'

'Sun, sand, sea and sex,' said Dai smiling. 'Can't see what they see in it myself.' They both laughed.

Dai told him about the lorry locks and asked him if many people had been to the farm that day. Not many, it seemed, only the regular liveries, but then he added, 'Oh and a young woman called Candy popped in asking for you, but when I told her I didn't know where you were she left without leaving any message.'

That was it then. It must have been Candy Fosdyke-Dixon, thought Dai yet he was slightly puzzled. According to Charles, she was ensconced with her Polish count. What could she have wanted with him? Raking over old coals perhaps? He didn't know and didn't plant to stay around to find out. Yet another reason for taking a break somewhere.

He paused only long enough to finish his tea, rose carefully to his feet with one eye on the Jack Russells who continued to watch him as if waiting to be fed, and shook John's hand bidding him farewell at least for the time being.

His mind was made up. It was time to get right away and he determined to set off that very day for Wales, renegotiating the sheepdogs still welded to the threshold, as he left the farm house.

He didn't know why exactly he decided to go to Wales. Perhaps it was some old invisible umbilical cord pulling him back like a piece of stretched elastic, or equally because he couldn't think of anywhere else that he might go.

Dai knew, of course, that word of which had been going on would have filtered through to Wales. After the initial shock of it on Megwyn had worn off, he had no doubt that she would have served up her own version of events, at least to the nearest and dearest in Wales, but then, he conceded, it was only natural that she should look to her family for support.

Makes a bloody change, he thought dryly. It's usually been the other way around.

Dai had no time for his in-laws and they had very little time for him except when they had needed to touch him for money when suddenly he would find himself basking in unaccustomed favour.

It would usually be approached obliquely with some casual reference being made, perhaps not even to him, but by his wife on the telephone speaking to a friend, but a conversation or remark that he was intended to overhear.

'Yes,' his wife would say in a sympathetic voice, 'it is a pity she's so far away – I mean, Australia! It's so far isn't it? It's not as if you can go for the weekend.'

That would be the initial foundation stone upon which the case would be built, brick by brick, for her parents to be provided with the funds to enable them to visit Megwyn's sister, now living in the back of beyond somewhere in Northern Australia.

'They've never seen the grandchildren and it would be so good for the grandchildren to get to know them.'

Dai concluded that the whole scheme would obviously be of enormous benefit to everyone, apart from him, since by now he could see who was going to fund this 'trip of a lifetime' – him.

Still, every cloud has a silver lining and in the case in point his wife, Megwyn, also piggybacked on 'the trip of a lifetime'. Any irritation he felt at underwriting everybody else's needs, since the idea of him going too never entered anybody's minds, was lessened by the prospect of several weeks on his own, free from any control and able to pursue his own favourite hobbies.

It's an ill wind indeed that blows nobody any good.

For a short time, a very short time, they would all be grateful to him and then whilst expressing not very convincing expressions of disappointment that he could not join them, in the next breath ask him for a lift to the airport.

They exuded a certain faded gentility, his mother-in-law helping at the church fete, visiting the library regularly and gossiping only if she was forced to, whilst his father-in-law kept an allotment and was, of course, on the committee, a position for which his superior education well qualified him. After the collapse of the old industries, Wales exported its sons, many of them, to work as teachers amongst the Saesneg, as the Welsh term the Saxons, and Dai's father-in-law had been no exception coming too to England to live and work, although he had never lost his love of Wales and had returned there as soon as he retired to live out his days, keeping out of his wife's way and growing prize chrysanthemums.

They had never thought very much of Dai, but their initial disapproval of his wild man from the north had subsided when he became a solicitor and moved to England where, to all intents and purposes, he did very well. Now, the old animosity would return and it would occur to them to remember that they had always had their doubts about him right from the start.

Dai could not care less. Apart from anything else, he was not going to South Wales where they lived. He was going home, to the north, so there was no chance of bumping into his parents-in-law or any of their extended family for that matter, all of whom lived in Breconshire.

CHAPTER 26

The day of the tournament dawned. Dai might have felt subdued. He had after all lost his partnership and his wife. Not only that, but he was being pursued not only by lawyers acting for the loathsome lodger and the repulsive nephew, but also by a man-eating lawyer acting for his wife who was determined to provide her client with her pound of flesh – his flesh!

Dai realised that it would not be long before a middle-aged man in a raincoat would tap him on the shoulder and present him with the court papers that he had no doubt that his wife's solicitor was itching to serve upon him. He had told her he was living with Charles and that would be the address at which the middle-aged man in a raincoat, or enquiry agent as they were more generally known, would serve him, or try to serve him with the court papers. Once that had happened, it wouldn't matter if he made himself scarce, the fact that the court papers had been served upon him would enable the court process to proceed in his absence, notwithstanding that he took no part in the proceedings. If, on the other hand, they were not served, then it would stick a spanner in the works and it would be unlikely that the proceedings could go ahead. By moving into the very address at which he had told his wife he could be found, Dai was sailing close to the wind. He knew that, of course, but he refused to allow it to trouble him. He felt quite fatalistic about it and anyway he had not been able to resist the prospect of a game before he left. He, therefore, left it up to the Gods.

In point of fact, a certain retired police officer, one Dave Cuthbertson, now working as an enquiry agent, had received instructions from Dai's wife's solicitor to serve papers on him. He had already collected the papers from the solicitors' office and was planning to visit Charles' address which had been given to him to serve David Llewellyn Evans. He was in fact quite looking forward to it. He knew Mr Evans well, at least by sight, since when he had been a serving police officer, he had often found himself standing in the witness box being cross-examined by that very man who had often seemed adept at tying him up in knots. A colleague had once, on hearing who was acting for the defendant, said to him, 'Oh, it's Dai, is it? Well, I can tell you mate, he'll be absolutely charming, but you'll lose!'

Dave Cuthbertson had not believed him, but so it had proved. At the end of the case, as Dai had summed up his arguments on behalf of his client, Dave had listened disbelievingly as Dai, who was addressing the magistrate, who happened to be Welsh. As he spoke, Dai's gentle Welsh lilt became more pronounced and he spoke in a more rhythmic and emphatic way, the effect of which on the Welsh chairman of the bench seemed to be positively hypnotic. As Dave watched and listened, he was dismayed to see the effect of Dai's sonorous tones. The Chairman was not only moving his body gently to the rhythm of what was being said, but almost joining in!

'Mmm,' he said quietly in his own pronounced Welsh accent. 'I see what you mean, Mr Evans. Mmm, well yes! There's strange!'

Christ, thought David. It's like a bloody Welsh love in! They'll be singing Land of my bloody Fathers next!

He listened whilst Dai concluded his address.

'You, your worship will I know come to the right decision and allow my client his freedom.'

And they did! Not guilty!

So, although Dave had nothing against Dai personally, he was quite looking forward to serving him with the papers. It would be a bit of revenge, he felt. How the wheel of fortune turns!

He duly presented himself at Charles' address, a farmhouse at the end of a long, pot-holed lane. When he arrived in his car, a less than friendly farm dog kept him in it for a while, growling and snarling by the driver door of the car to such an extent that he really didn't feel he wanted to get out just yet. In fact, he quite liked dogs, but this one looked a killer. Eventually, a young girl clad in jodhpurs and carrying a couple of buckets with something evil smelling in them came around the corner of a barn. On seeing him, she came over to the car.

'What's up?' she enquired, paying no attention to the dog. Dave was impressed. She showed no sign of fear at all.

'Would you mind hanging on to that dog when I get out?' he asked through the window.

'What? You're not afraid of old Ben are you? Look!' she added grabbing the dog by the scruff of the neck and lifting it up so he could clearly see its face, 'it's got no teeth!'

It was true. The dog sounded ferocious, but instead of sharp looking fangs, the dog was revealing only red and slobber-covered gums as it snarled at him through the window. Feeling foolish, he climbed out of the car at last and walked towards the door of the farmhouse whilst the dog, undaunted by its lack of teeth, attempted to gum him.

It actually had quite a nasty bite, he thought, teeth or no teeth.

With the dog still hanging on to his leg, he knocked on the door of the farmhouse. The young lass who had remained in the farmyard called over to him.

'I don't know what you want, but there's no-one in. They have all gone to a polo match.'

Great, thought Dai. He sighed and, still trailing the dog, made his way back to his car.

'I don't suppose you happen to know where?' he enquired in a tired voice. An enquiry agent's lot was not always a happy one.

'No, it could have been at Cambridge or Chelmsford. I'm not sure which.'

In fact, unbeknown to the enquiry agent, it was neither. He was in for a long day. He decided to try Chelmsford first.

In fact, the game was at a polo ground to the west of London in the opposite direction altogether, and Charles and Dai had left early to get there in good time, whilst the groom came by lorry with the horses.

Dai and Charles were in good spirits. It promised to be a really good game. They were even looking forward to playing with Terry. They decided to call him Terry, that being halfway between Terence and Tel. Whilst not, or not yet anyway, on such intimate terms as to justify calling him Tel, a name reserved for those of his inner sanctum, nonetheless Terry was matey and nothing like as formal or distant as Terence.

Terry, dead keen, was already there when they arrived, pacing up and down in an excited fashion.

'Good Lord,' said Charles on catching sight of him. 'He'll have to calm down a bit or he'll wear himself out long before the game starts.'

'What ho boys!' yelled Terry as he saw them approaching. 'Come on! Hurry up! Time to get tooled up! I'm really up for it today!'

And he meant it. His mood was infectious, not that Charles and Dai needed any particular encouragement. They too were excited and without question 'up for it'.

'What about the English pro?' Terry nodded to the tail gate of a green lorry parked by some trees. Sitting on the tail gate cross-legged in an attitude of Zen-like concentration was the hired gun, Jim. Dai recognised him. He had seen him play. He was a superb horseman with blonde hair and piercing blue eyes who lived for nothing else than the game of polo. Nothing else mattered in the world to him. Famines might strike, governments fall, countries be overrun by foreign armies or his home burn to the ground. When he was on a horse, noting else mattered. Time stood still, or rather was reduced to the time it took to play a chukka flat out on his favourite horse.

Their opponents were a team of Americans who had happened to be visiting the UK as part of a world tour and who, when they discovered that it was the polo season, had decided to enliven their stay by playing. They played well and with a distinctly North American, boyish enthusiasm that is anathema to the Englishman for whom even in modern Britain to be too enthusiastic is unwholesome. Although good natured, their enthusiasm as they warmed up for the game caused the combined hackles of Terry, Charles and Dai to rise.

'We really must stuff this load of amateur cowboys,' said Charles through his teeth as the Americans, Chuck, Hank, Chas and, unfortunately for him, Randy, cantered around whacking the ball about for all they were worth to an excited accompaniment of, 'Hey! Wow! Gee! Swell!' and many other expressions of joy, loathsome to the Englishman's ear.

Terry and Charles were for once in complete agreement.

'I'm with you Charlie. Come on, let's turn 'em over,' said Terry heading for his horse. Even the use of 'Charlie' instead of 'Charles' did not in the circumstances upset Charles who also in complete agreement headed for his horse, Dai and the pro, Jim.

The two teams lined up in the middle of the field facing each other and wished each other luck, with adequate of lack of sincerity on the part of the Englishmen who wished their opponents anything but luck, determined as they were to wipe the floor with them.

That proved harder than they had anticipated. The Americans were good. They called to each other as they played. They were quick on to the ball and they backed each other up. Once they had the ball and were in attack, it was difficult to regain possession of the ball and the Englishmen had to ride hard to stay in the game.

One says 'Englishmen'. Dai didn't mind being described as English, even though nothing could be further from the truth, but he wasn't a stickler for Welshness. He wasn't prickly about it and he certainly wasn't a supporter of the Viet Taff merchants who specialised in burning down holiday cottages owned by the English in Wales. For the purpose of their common enemy in this game, the Americans, he was prepared to be regarded as English.

At the end of the first chukka, Terry, the captain of the team, his appointment a generous concession by Charles who liked to lead, called them together as they changed horses.

'We've got our work cut out here lads!' he said as they put their heads together in a council of war. He was only stating the blindingly obvious, since they were all breathing heavily after the effort of the first chukka. Nonetheless, he expressed their joint view which also reflected their growing determination to triumph over their loquacious foes.

They agreed that they had to work harder and to be quicker on the ball. How best to use their pro? He was good, but he couldn't win the game on his own, although in the first chukka, he had been trying to do just that. Dai found this particularly intimidating. Several times he had been called off the ball by the pro, that is to say just as he was about to take a shot, there would be a yell from behind from the pro, 'Leave it!' followed by, 'Get out of the way!' which it was wise to heed. The pro would then speed past, take the ball and race up the field towards the goal. However good a player you are, it's not easy to hit a ball well from a galloping horse, particularly as in this case whilst being harassed by your opponents trying hard to hook your stick as you took the swing or to ride you off the line of the ball.

No, it was a team game and there were three other players. Terry was decisive. The pro would play number 4 position at the rear. He would be the last line of defence and his job would be to feed the ball up the field to the other three who would play as far ahead of him as they could. He had a magnificent swing and could send the ball easily two-thirds of the distance up the field, or even further. Playing wide apart had its risks. If they lost possession of the ball to the other side, they would need to get back down the field fast to act together in defence.

The second chukka began. The Yanks took early possession of the ball, but Dai hooked the lead player cleanly, then the ball was backed by Terry as he reached it. Charles received the pass and sent it on down the field to the pro, Jim, who swooped on the ball and, being clear of the opponents, was easily able to take the ball down the field and to tap the ball through their goal.

They now had the advantage. The opponents were unbalanced and out-played for the rest of the chukka, by the end of which Charles was chortling happily and Terry so far forgot himself as to slap Dai on the back on the way back to the pony lines.

The third chukka was not so successful. Terry, who had become quite excited, yelled at the top of his voice, 'Yee ha!' and, as he did so, his startled horse, who was plainly not familiar with cowboy films, skidded to a halt and then stumbled, sending Terry over his head like a missile to land with a thump on his face and, when he had slid to a rest, lay still. Play was stopped. Dai was concerned. It had been a nasty fall. Charles was completely unabashed and merely observed sardonically, 'I know we agreed to use our heads, but I'm sure that didn't mean as brakes!'

The joke was lost on Terry who, completely dazed and shaken up, sat on the ground for a while whilst his horse waited patiently for him to remount. He did get back on and played on, but for the rest of the chukka his game was not his best, perhaps unsurprisingly. By the end of the chukka, the opponents had drawn level with Terry's team. The early advantage had been lost and the outcome now hung on the final chukka. Both teams knew it and the tension rose accordingly.

The Americans had given away a penalty at the end of the third chukka and so Terry's team started with a hit in from the back line. They varied their usual routine of the pro taking the long shots. Dai was given the honour this time, the pro was to be used for attack. It was high time to field their best man for that task.

Dai cantered his horse in a warm-up circle and, as he did so, he eyed where the ball lay in the grass, just behind the line, measuring the distance to it mentally. As he cantered slowly around working himself and the horse up for the shot, he could see out on the field his team mates wide apart being closely shadowed by their opponents who stuck to them like glue. That only needed three of them, of course, and left one waiting on the 30 yard line for Dai to hit at the ball. Once he had done that, hit or miss, he would be fair game and the opponent could go for him. If he could get the ball off him, he would be only yards from the goal and a goal would be a near certainty. That had to be avoided at all costs. Dai had to hit that ball and to hit it well.

He forced himself to relax. He forced himself to concentrate on the ball. As he straightened up to come in for the shot, he waggled his stick in the direction of the pro who was ahead and to the left about 100 metres down the field. The intention was to suggest that he was going to hit the ball to the pro. That would have been the sensible move anyway, since he was their best player. That was not, however, the intention. In the break between chukkas, they had agreed that he would hit the ball to either Terry or Charles, whichever one was not being covered too tightly. In the event, his movement caused one of the Americans to place his bet on where the ball was going and move towards the pro who had called, 'To me, Dai!' to add to the impression and to start moving his horse towards the American goal whilst looking over his shoulder for the pass. That convinced the man covering him and in a matter of moments, Jim, the pro, had two opponents shadowing him and watching him like a hawk.

Dai cantered up to the ball and hit it as hard as he could. He was rewarded with the sound, sweeter than the sweetest song, the sound a ball makes when it is hit well. When you hear that sound, you know the ball will go well, and for a moment, just for a moment, you feel that life is perfect after all and feel a better man, at peace with yourself and even generously inclined towards your opponents. After all, without them there would be no game.

He savoured that moment, but only for the briefest of moments as the ball hurtled towards Charles who was already cantering down the field with Terry close behind him backing him up.

The ball landed just to the rear of Charles, which didn't matter because Terry was there about two horse lengths behind, and he swooped upon the ball, scooping it up and passing it forward to Charles calling, 'Keep going!' as he did so. Charles kept going as if his life depended upon it. He picked up the pass and tapped the ball forward with a half shot, Terry hard on his heels now hard pressed by an opponent glued to his side and trying to ride him off sideways at a gallop. So determined was the American to ride him off that he was leaning so far over against Charles he was almost in his lap.

Charles countered this by accelerating suddenly, an action which left his opponent hanging off the side of his horse, wrestling with gravity. Charles, of course, left him to it and galloped after Terry who was close enough to the goal to go for a goal shot. That last shot can be the hardest. There you are in front of an open goal with no opponent near and you swing at and miss the ball, or hit it badly. Nerves or excitement, whatever the reason, the ball remains outside the goal and as you hurtle on through the goal desperately trying to slow or turn your horse, all you can do is groan or curse as the distance between you and the ball grows and your opportunity for that easy goal recedes into the realms of might have been.

Not so on this occasion. Terry was being properly backed up by Charles who, on seeing what happened, continued on and tapped the ball over the line. Goal!

Joyously, they cantered back to the centre line for the ball to be thrown in by the umpire and play to resume.

Now the task was to try for more goals, of course, but as far as possible to keep their opponents off the ball. They were ahead and if they could maintain their lead, then the match was theirs.

They were all tired, including the pro, but he worked his socks off. They all did. Horses and men gave of their best. Dai became so completely absorbed in the game that he forgot about the horse. You can't play polo looking at the horse in any event, but you play best when you forget about it altogether and just play. Strangely enough, the horse in these circumstances plays well too. Plainly, they cannot become part of one another, but in some mysterious way, the horse responds to the mood of the man and they play as one. Those are the very best moments in a man's life when he is at one with the world around him, in harmony with his surroundings and alive in that moment.

They won the game. Afterwards, when the final whistle had blown and men and horses were making their tired and sweaty way back to the pony lines, they congratulated one another and shook hands with their opponents who were now no longer opponents but comrades who had shared the same struggle and the same hardship. There was no disgrace in losing and no triumph in winning, but there was a quiet satisfaction.

Terry wanted them all to have a drink together, but Dai didn't dare linger. He had taken a bit of a chance, he knew, by hanging around for so long. Now that the game was over, he had a wash-down under the pump, said his farewells and drove out of the gate without noticing a certain Dave Cuthbertson who drove in as he did so. Neither man noticed the other.

Dave Cuthbertson had had a frustrating day. He had been to two other polo grounds that day already in his efforts to find Dai, to no avail. At the last one he visited, he had learned at last where Charles and Terry were playing and assumed rightly that that was where he could find Dai. Unfortunately for him, by the time he reached the place, he discovered that Dai was no longer there. It wasn't his day and Charles, when he found him pouring an ice-cold beer down his throat in the clubhouse, was less than helpful. When he introduced himself and learned that Dai was no longer there, he had asked rather innocently what he should do. Charles had calmly observed that he had better piss off back where he had come from before proceeding to pour another beer down his throat.

This, considered Dave, was unnecessarily rude. He was only doing his job. In the circumstances though, he had little alternative other than to do so as Charles had suggested.
CHAPTER 27

Dai meanwhile was on his way to North Wales. He was in no particular hurry. He took the old Holyhead Road, the A5 that crossed into Wales near Oswestry and then wound its way north to the mountains of Snowdonia. It was a lovely day and he took his time, relishing the bends in the road and the often dramatic steepness of the slopes on either side. He did not stop but kept going, straining for his first sight of the distant Snowdon peaks that he knew would be there just waiting for him like old friends, eternal, constant and unchanging as old as time itself at least as far as mere mortals were concerned.

When he first saw their outline on the horizon, the tops were shrouded in cloud, which promised a wet welcome, but as he drew nearer to Bettws, the cloud drifted apart and the summit of Moel Siabod peeked at him, the prodigal son returning home. But, returning home to what?

He realised that apart from old Bron and his son, he had no close relatives. His parents were dead, so why on earth was he going home in the first place? Not only that, but why did he think of it as home at all, those grim, grey valleys with some of the highest precipitation in the UK and where he had not lived for so many years?

It was a mystery to him. He did not know the answer but reasoned that something was drawing him there, some invisible umbilical cord which bound him to the past, to the world whence he came.

There was the little problem of where to stay which David solved by booking into an old pub at Capel Curig, which he had known since he was a boy. He had worked at the pub for a while behind the bar when he was a teenager, partly for the money but largely because the pub employed a steady stream of Danish waitresses. He had always had a taste for the exotic. Why, therefore, he had married Megwyn was a mystery to him.

They were different, the people of South Wales. They did not usually speak Welsh for a start, but they were also softer, more English somehow. Now he came to think about it, the first thing that had attracted him to Megwyn was not only that she was pretty, of course, but also her polished exterior, the middle class veneer that encased her and represented a challenge. He had wanted to ruffle her feathers.

She had played very hard to get which he was unaccustomed to and which served as a further spur to his ambition. Before he knew it, he was signing on the dotted line and had been well and truly landed. Still, he had been young then and a little thing like being married was not going to cramp his style and so indeed it had proved over the years, at least until the recent bit of unpleasantness. Still, he reasoned, he wasn't going to let that get him down. He was in Wales and home again.

The pub, when he got there, had not changed. The pub, which was also a hotel, was situated on a wind-swept pass and, as often as not, all but obscured by heavy rain, but not this day. Dai parked his car in the little car park and scrunched across the stony, uneven ground to the doorway set in the ivy covered walls. It was a bit like entering a cavern. As he opened the door, a familiar smell of beer mingled with wood smoke and tobacco greeted him and he stood there for a while on the flagstones of the hall and allowed memories to wash over him.

Then he perked up. I wonder how that girl from Caernarvon is getting on these days, he wondered. Hilda was her name if I recall correctly.

The pub had not changed at all since David had last been there. That was part of its attraction. It still employed the same old Welsh chef from BLAENAU FFESTINIOG, a grim and depressed mining village nearby. Given that Bethesda, where David was from, was grim, BLAENAU was bloody grim and in terms of grimness left Bethesda far behind.

Why, it made a wet day in Bethesda seem like the south of France by comparison, he thought with a smile.

The snug with the open fire still had all the relicts of past mountaineers and their glories now enshrined in the black and white photographs that lined the wood panelled walls beneath the smoke-stained ceiling. The room, like the pub, was a time capsule through which, as a guest, you were permitted to move savouring not only the present, but also the past in all its distinguished glory.

He had arrived mid-afternoon and, since it was some time before dinner, he decided to walk up Moel Siabod, the mountain opposite the pub and that he had seen whilst driving. It was a steep but grassy walk and it would do him good to stretch his legs after the long drive from the south.

It was a bright fine afternoon as he put his head down and tackled the steep initial slope opposite the pub, having, as usual, got his feet wet in the bog at the bottom. No matter how hard one tried or how dry the weather had been, short of wearing waders it was impossible to avoid getting your feet wet on a Welsh hillside. He had learned by long experience that the best thing was to pretend that was what you had intended to do all along, especially if there was somebody looking. Real men did not notice wet feet.

Women did, of course. He had learned again from long experience that women companions and Welsh hillsides can present something of a challenge to one's patience and diplomacy. Short of giving the woman a piggy back up the mountain, it was inevitable that she would get her feet wet. That would be your fault.

'I thought you said there was a path?' she would observe critically as she sank slowly into the moss in the midst of a peat bog ridden swamp-like Welsh moor.

'Er, well not a path exactly ..,'

This would cut no ice with your companion. Raised perhaps in a world rendered civilised, but boring of pavements and street lights, she would insist on her creature comforts even here on the wind and rain swept hillside.

'Well, there must be a path somewhere!' she would pronounce firmly. 'Where is it? We wouldn't have this trouble if we were on a proper path.'

It was futile to argue. He had learned that the most effective tactic was to let the slope, which was steep, reduce the companion's capacity for criticism which would have to be suspended in order to be able to ascend it.

With these cheery reminiscences in his mind and with wet feet, he reached the point where the slope eased and he was facing a broad plateau riddled with bogs and peat hags. The wind caught his hair and brought the scent of the hills to his nostrils. He paused to look around him. Towards the sea there ran the lovely valley of Nant Gwynant where, long ago, he had loved Owen's mother and where the boy had been conceived. That was not a memory that he wished to dwell on particularly, so he looked up and to the left of the valley.

Beyond and still further away was Cnicht, a mountain visible on the horizon, like a woman's nipple against the sky. Then, by moving his head slowly to the right again, he could see the half circle of mountains called the Snowdon horse shoe and there, in the centre, was Snowdon itself, the peak that had looked down impassively on men's puny lives for centuries and at which men still gazed in awe, not because of its height or difficulty, both of which were modest enough, but for the history it represented and the feelings that it inspired. So much of the very fibre of a man was contained within these hills.

He continued to turn his head to the right towards the mountains of the Glyders and the shattered pile of stones called accurately Castle of the Winds, until he could see traces of the Miners' Track, a rough path over which many men, including his grandfather and great grandfather, had trudged to work in the mines below Yr Wyddfa, as the Welsh called Snowdonia many years ago. The mines were no longer there, but for Dai somehow the spirit of those men still was. If he listened intently, he felt that he could almost hear their voices, feel their presence with him.

He was filled with a feeling of calm, tinged by sadness, sadness at the sense of loss he felt after so many years away, sadness at the loss of his grandfather and great-grandfather as well as the companions of his youth and whose ghosts accompanied him as he made his way to the summit. As he stood at the top looking around him at the hills and mountains, he enjoyed being there and realised how much he had missed the place and how at home he felt amongst these hills. He knew now why he had come here. These surroundings acted like a balm on his bruised and troubled soul. It calmed him and helped him to get things into perspective. Here he was not distracted by any of multitude of things that distract us on a daily basis, chasing around trying to do too many things at once. Here he rediscovered stillness.

After dinner that night, he thought, time to go and see Bron.

CHAPTER 28

It was time to check on the affairs of The Bat Sanctuary. He rang Bron and arranged to call down to see her the following day. She said she was glad he was there because there was somebody who had called to see her, wanting to ask her about his late aunt's will. Apparently, the aunt had just died and left part of her estate, a legacy in fact in a not inconsiderable sum, to the Bat Sanctuary. He had called to see her and was asking all sorts of questions which she did not know how to answer. David reassured her but groaned inwardly. The tenacious Yorkshireman was obviously digging further and had now got his teeth into the charitable bequest to the Bat Sanctuary. He had thought that he had left all that behind him, but not only had he not left it behind, it had got there before him. This, he realised, would take some careful handling. Still, at least he had been forewarned.

That, however, was for the morrow. For the moment, he was determined to enjoy being at the pub again, this time as a guest. He spent a very convivial evening in the snug swapping stories with other guests and enjoying a drink or two before bed into which he sank with some relief after a pleasant day spent on the hills.

The next day, he had breakfast at the pub. He could not possibly leave without feeding the inner man and breakfast at the pub was what he called a proper breakfast from the days when people were not obsessed with calories, blood pressure and weight, and believed in starting the day with a good meal inside them.

His particular favourite was eggs. He loved eggs, whether boiled or poached or scrambled or fried. At any time of the day, there was always room for an egg or two.

Whilst at work as a younger man, if he was due to appear at the magistrates court, he would get into the office early and do whatever was necessary to keep things ticking over there whilst he was out at court. He would then leave well before the time that he was due to meet the client outside court, so as to give himself time to prepare, that is to have another breakfast on the way to the courthouse, reading the case papers as he did so.

His usual port of call was an ancient family-run cafe with a septitudinarian staff who scuttled around faster than many people half their age, bearing steaming plates of Welsh rarebit, pots of tea, toasted tea cakes and beans on toast.

The old lady stationed at the till by the door was a charming old Welsh woman, who had an encyclopaedic knowledge of not only the customers, but also their friends, family and relations. This could be rather unnerving, particularly if you had not the slightest idea about who the individual was that she was referring to.

'I saw your friend, John, the other day,' she would remark brightly on catching sight of you. 'He asked to be remembered to you and said he was seeing you shortly.'

'Er, oh right,' David might reply and then spend the remainder of the day trying to work out who on earth John was and whether or not he was about to get a visit from him.

His favourite waitress was Phyllis, now a lady in her seventies, whose divorce he had dealt with some years before, since which time he had enjoyed the preferential treatment more usually afforded to Heads of State or rock stars. No sooner would he enter the door of the cafe, when Phyllis, emerging from the kitchen with plates full of food, travelling at her usual speed, that is to say as if she was on roller skates, would upon catching sight of him and without pausing, execute an immediate U-turn and head back at once to the kitchen, calling as she went, 'It's Mr Evans, the solicitor! Two poached eggs on toast and a pot of tea!'

Scarcely had he sat down when the aforementioned refreshment would be set before him with a flourish by a beaming Phyllis, whilst all around him there would be murmurings of discontent from all the old dears who had been there for some time and not yet been served.

'Ere, I was 'ere before 'im.'

Dear old Phyllis, he thought. She turned with a speed that would have done credit to a polo pony.

His penchant for eggs was well known. Clients would lure him to their houses rather than bother to travel to see him at the office, by tempting him with offers of eggs on toast, which he could seldom resist.

Anyway, on this occasion he did not want to keep Bron waiting and made do with porridge followed by haddock and poached eggs, before setting off along the long road to Capel, and then turning left into the broad valley of the Ogwen and down towards Bethesda.

CHAPTER 29

He stopped when he reached the Ogwen cottage at the end of the lake and below Cym Idwal, to look down into Nant Francon, his favourite valley. He did not know why it was his favourite. It was not as pretty as, for example, Nant Gwynant where Owen had been conceived, but there was just something about the savage grandeur of the place lying almost within the shadow of the stony vastness of Tryvan, the bleak conning tower like mountain that dominated the valley and which, on a wet day, would appear slate grey through the driving rain, the summit buried beneath the tumbling clouds.

A little farm nestled in the uppermost part of the valley or rather; he thought as he looked at it, clung to its sides and was approached only by a steep and precipitous path. He had often wondered what it would be like to live there surrounded by the sounds of only the wind and the bleating of sheep.

The sheep might get to be a bit much, he thought, and continued on down towards Bethesda.

The valley softened as he approached the village, some 4 miles or so further on and was more heavily wooded. Bron lived in an old mill by the river next to an ancient stone bridge covered in moss and ferns, so it was damp most of the time, but then it wouldn't have been Wales if it hadn't been damp. Beyond the bridge and a little distance further on, there was a village tucked into the hills. Bethesda itself, grim, grey and desolate, lay still further down the valley.

As he got out of the car in the old mill yard, the sound of the rushing water pouring and gurgling over the stones of the river greeted him and as he walked to the house he was again surrounded by ghosts, the ghosts of yesteryear, re-enacting the scenes of his past and theirs, a shared past never to be recovered, but equally never forgotten, simply lying dormant in the recesses of the memory until vividly brought back to life by some sight or, in this case, sound. He knocked on the door of the mill and Owen opened it. The sight of Owen, which was rather unexpected, disturbed his sentimental reverie. Owen did not appear in the least bit abashed at the arrival of his father. If he was surprised, he didn't show it. Bronwyn must have told him I was coming, concluded Dai.

'Come in, Dad,' he said. David stepped in. He found himself in the familiar kitchen, a fire crackling in the grate and a large metal kettle about to boil on the stove.

'Aunt Bron not home?' he asked looking around him not sure what to say to Owen.

'She'll be back in a bit,' said Owen who had in fact been surprised to see his father, but was determined not to show it. He lounged casually against the wall wondering what his father was doing there. There was an awkward silence which was ended by the timely arrival of his girlfriend. 'This is my girlfriend, Sian, by the way,' gesturing towards a very pretty girl who joined them in the kitchen smiling. Owen continued, 'Sian, this is my father, David.'

David was pleased to meet her and envied his son immediately. Sian said, 'Hello,' and then added diplomatically, 'I'll go and fetch Bron from the village – she's only gone to do a bit of shopping.'

'Attractive girl,' said David as she left.

'Yes,' said Owen.

Conversation is difficult with people who are monosyllabic. Dai wished the girlfriend had remained. He felt certain he would have enjoyed talking to her. They both sat down but Owen appeared uncomfortable, so after they had had a quick cup of tea, David suggested a walk to stretch their legs and Owen agreed. They walked in silence for a while along a narrow path by the river, which twisted its way around rocks and trees and was seamed by gnarled tree roots and slippery wet patches where care was needed to avoid wet feet. It meant that they walked one behind the other with Dai behind his son, from which position he was able to observe him, noting the lean, athletic body and the easy, unhurried stride.

His hair, he thought, was just like his mothers. They passed by a small waterfall where they paused. After a while, David said,

'I've been away so long I'd forgotten how lovely it is around here.' Owen did not seem to agree. He stood there frowning, his hands in his pockets, shifting from one foot to the other.

'Well, it might be,' he said, 'but you can't live off a view.'

'What do you mean?' asked David, although he knew well enough what his son meant.

Hadn't he himself left for pretty much the same reason? He wanted to engage his son in conversation and learn a little more about him.

'Well, there's no work as you will remember, so you can't get married and have a family,' said Owen.

'Why do you want to get married?' said David surprised. Given that he was not quite 20 years old, if he remembered correctly, the mention of marriage seemed a little premature.

Unless his girlfriend is pregnant, he suddenly thought. That, though, had not stopped him from avoiding marriage and abandoning Owen's mother. Who was he then to make any kind of judgement on his son, let alone to offer advice?

Owen was unaware of his father's circuitous thoughts. He and Sian had been together so long now, it seemed to both of them that the most natural thing in the world would be to get married. He answered his father.

'Why is that so surprising? I would if I had a job.'

'Why don't you leave like I did?' asked David.

'I would if I had some money to go get a start. It's catch 22 really. You need money and if you haven't got any, you can't leave to find something better.' Then he added, 'Don't suppose I could come and stay with you and Megwyn for a bit until I got on my feet?'

Previously, that might well have been a possibility, but circumstances had changed completely now.

'Er, no,' said David, 'that wouldn't be possible now I'm afraid.'

'What do you mean 'now'?' asked Owen. Owen knew nothing of Dai's marital problems.

'Well,' David began, but then Owen interrupted him and said bitterly, 'Sometimes I wish I'd never been born.'

David thought briefly, you wouldn't have if I hadn't used that old Durex, but decided not to. He liked the boy and did not want to hurt him. He said instead, 'Don't be so daft.' He was actually quite relieved that he didn't have to go into his domestic difficulties, not yet anyway. There would be time enough for that later.

It was true though that the Durex had been defective, or perhaps worn out more like it. He'd used it numerous times, rinsing it out afterwards and drying it secretly in the potting shed down the garden behind the rabbit snares. It may have been a bit odd, but it was not that he was tight. It was simply that he did not want everybody to know his business. The only place in Bethesda you could get Durex was the barber's shop and all the men in the village had their hair cut there. Fart, and they knew about it as far away as Bangor the next day. No, he did not want people to know how busy he was thereabouts. Anyway, he had reasoned it was made of bloody rubber, why should it not last? But it had not.

'What's it like being married?' asked Owen, cutting across his thoughts. David thought for a moment, then thought he might as well be honest and said, 'Bit like owning horses – mainly work with the occasional ride.'

Owen looked at him questioningly, but said nothing.

He was a strange man his father, he thought. You never knew if he meant what he said, or if he was joking. There was an edge to his humour. Was he really as cynical as he made himself out to be? Today he seemed really world weary. He found himself almost feeling sorry for him.

They had turned as if by common assent and were retracing their steps back to the mill. They walked on silently until they reached the old mill, each sunk in his own thoughts. They paused by the gate and looked at each other. It was as if both wanted to say something to the other but didn't feel quite able to do so.

'Look son,' began Dai eventually. He had had the glimmering of an idea.

Perhaps, he thought, he could loan his son some money. The only funds available were in the bat sanctuary account, but if he kept a bit back for himself, since he had no other form of income now, there would still be enough to give Owen a start. 'How about if I lend you some money?' Owen was taken back. This was not like his father at all.

'Are you sure?' he said looking at him closely. 'If you don't mind me saying so, this is not like you at all.'

He's inherited his mother's straight talking nature, thought Dai to himself. Anyway, he was right, what on earth was he doing? Surely not the decent thing? He examined himself inwardly. He hadn't been drinking, he had no alternative motive and as far as he knew this was not one of the first signs of dementia. Could it be that he was about to perform an unselfish act? Perhaps he ought to go and lie down. It took only a moment for these thoughts to pass through his mind.

He suppressed the naughty demon on his shoulder and ploughed on doggedly.

'Yes, I'm sure,' he said. 'It won't be a huge sum, but all you need is a deposit on a flat and perhaps 6 months' rent. That should enable you both to get a job and get on your feet.' Owen was delighted. The old devil meant it!

'Well if you are really sure, dad?'

'Yes, son,' said Dai feeling rather pleased with himself. He was actually about to do something unselfish for a change. Mind you, though, he cautioned himself, mustn't make it a habit, otherwise who knows where it might end.

Owen, to his father's surprise, gave him a hug and said, 'Wait till I tell Sian!' and with that he disappeared into the house. Dai started to follow him wondering if he was dreaming. Had he actually done something decent?
CHAPTER 30

Reality kicked in as he found himself confronted by the stern figure of his aunt Bronwyn who met him on the doorstep with her arms folded.

'Thought that you might be turning up sooner rather than later,' Bronwyn said calmly. 'Come on into the parlour, why don't you?' she added without any obvious enthusiasm.

Owen made himself scarce, leaving David and Bronwyn alone.

'Well, here's a fine pickle you have got yours into,' she said.

'Get straight to the point, Bron,' replied David.

'Well, what the hell did you come here for if you aren't in some kind of trouble?'

So, the news had not reached Bronwyn, but she had guessed right enough, that he was in trouble. He was silent. The truth was he did not actually know why he had come except that perhaps he was seeking some kind of sanctuary and not in this case the bat sanctuary. He was irritated by the reception, but then what had he really expected? He was also somewhat taken aback by Bronwyn whom he had never seen in such an assertive mood. He began to wish that he had not come at all when Bronwyn said, 'Well, do you want to tell me about it?' He suddenly realised that he did and must have looked unusually crestfallen before Bron's attitude softened as she said, 'Sit down and I'll put the kettle on.'

He sat down. Apart from Fotheringay-Harris, he had confided in no-one and now he realised that that was what he wanted to do. He told her the whole tale, or at least most of it. He did not mention all his adventures with the female sex, but there was no point in not telling her about Pam Adams, so he told her about his fling with her and how things had begun to unravel what with that and then the threat of a claim against the practice which had provided his erstwhile partners with all they needed to justify to themselves getting rid of him.

Bronwyn listened to him without interruption, occasionally sipping her tea and when he had finished, she placed the cup and saucer firmly on the little table by her chair and said, 'Well, you did deserve it Dai. Surely you don't think you have been hard done by?'

'No, not really,' he conceded. It was true, he didn't. He had many faults, but self-pity was not one of them.

'You made your bed and you'll have to lie in it,' she said firmly.

That was true enough, although perhaps a little inappropriate given the number of beds he had in fact lain in. It was just as well Bron did not know all of it, he reflected whilst sipping his tea.

Bronwyn poured more tea for them both, then tutted and said it had stewed and that she would make some more. Dai wasn't concerned about the tea. There was a much more important matter to be dealt with. He grasped the nettle with both hands. It was time to deal with the odious nephew. Bron had not yet mentioned it and so he thought he better had. Again though, whilst not actually lying, he judged it might be prudent not to tell the whole truth. So, he began obliquely, 'This chap who has been round to see you is a strange one.'

'He certainly is,' said Bron, 'turning up here without so much as a by your leave and then cross-examining me about some charity I've never heard of.'

'Well, I suppose he has his reasons, but I can tell you he's a strange chap. He turned up at the practice's offices when his aunt died and since then has been contesting her will with a lodger who was the main beneficiary.'

Bronwyn felt confused. What on earth did this have to do with her?

'Well, where do bats come into it? It's nothing to do with those bat boxes you put up years ago is it?' she said impatiently.

'No, not really. I think he has just got the wrong end of the stick. As I said, he's an odd fellow, but don't worry about him, I'll meet up with him and sort him out so he won't trouble you again. As for the bat boxes, they are so old I'm surprised that they haven't fallen off the trees yet,' he concluded in a feeble attempt at a joke.

She looked a little puzzled. He knew that too much explanation was invariably a mistake, so again he tried a diversionary tactic. 'Any more tea in the pot Bron?'

Given that she had already established it had stewed, she rose to her feet. She made a fresh pot of tea looking thoughtful as she put the teapot on the table and changed the cups. Then she sat down and began in a voice he had never heard before. Then she really gave it to him straight.

'You think that you can have it all your own way, that women are just your playthings to be used and then discarded, but you're wrong. They have what you want and you are always chasing after them to get it. Well, nothing comes free in this life boy and you have to pay just like the rest to feed the monkey on your back. You think that you call the tune, but you have to pay the piper.'

She was right, thought David, taken aback by her directness. You end up paying for your pleasures one way or another, but at least she had changed the subject from the bat sanctuary.

'So, you have lost the lot then! No wife, no job and you might even be prosecuted before the Law Society strike you off? Well done boy,' she added sarcastically, 'and,' she continued, warming to her theme, 'you were the one who had it made. There's many a man hereabouts would give his right arm for the opportunities you have had and thrown away.'

All of that was, of course, true, but Dai was not interested in a post mortem. He wanted to move forward. Bronwyn, however, had the bit between her teeth and there was a bit more in this vein until Dai was beginning to think that the shame and humility were being overdone when he was saved, if that is the right word, by the reappearance of the odious Yorkshireman. There was a knock on the door which Bronwyn opened. There stood the nephew in all his plump, bespectacled splendour, perspiring slightly at the effort of walking a hundred yards or so from his now parked Jaguar motor car.

He had, of course, already met Dai at the firm's offices and if he was surprised to see him there, he did not at first say so, but simply stepped into the house uninvited saying, 'Excellent, the very person to whom I need to speak about my aunt's preposterous will.'

Under ordinary circumstances, David would have given him very short shrift, but these were not ordinary circumstances. He was painfully aware that not only had he prepared the will, his so-called charity, Bats of Bethesda, was the charitable beneficiary. The arrival of a relative questioning the will was bad enough, but if the link between himself and the charity came to light, then all hell might break loose. He could conceivably end up in prison.

So far, it did not seem to have dawned on the nephew to wonder what it was that he, the solicitor, was doing at the address of the charity. Softlee, softlee catchee monkey.

Off we go down the wing again, he thought to himself, but said,

'Would you like a cup of tea?' David enquired sweetly with an ingratiating smile.

Bronwyn went to put the kettle on and David and Mr Satterthwaite sat down by the parlour window.

David assumed his best solicitorial persona which was quite useful for keeping people at bay and situations under control.

'Now, how can I help, Mr Satterthwaite?' David asked ponderously and in a tone which implied he would of necessity have to be quick because he had other more pressing matters to attend to.

'Well, I've got a copy of the will here,' said Satterthwaite, producing the document with a flourish, 'and it makes no reference to me, her only surviving relative.' He continued adding, 'but then, of course, you already know that, but ..,' he paused and looked at Dai enquiringly, 'It makes reference to this charity – some sort of bat sanctuary – what's that all about?'

David was, of course, aware that there was litigation pending in the dispute between the lodger and the corpulent nephew, and normally he would have kept as aloof as possible, even though he was not as yet directly involved. He was a potential witness in any such litigation and needed to avoid appearing partial. These, however, were not normal circumstances. If things were bad for him at present, they could get much worse if the truth about the charity ever emerged. He, therefore, played along trusting to luck. Although he had not been very luck of late, Lady Luck had generally been kind to him and he had during his life so far elevated 'winging it' to an art form. So, he commenced cautiously.

It was better he felt not to start with the charitable bequest at once. First, a diversionary tactic. So, he said, 'I'd need to check the notes I made at the time she instructed me to prepare the will, but it may be,' he said guardedly, 'that she made a conscious decision not to benefit you.'

The nephew looked shocked.

Good, thought Dai, diversion working.

'How could that be?' said the nephew raising his eyebrows. 'I saw her regularly in the Home and although, as I'm sure you realise, I wasn't interested in her money, the subject did come up ..,'

I bet it did, thought David as he looked at the podgy nephew positively perspiring with anxiety of the thought of not getting his hands on his aunt's money.

'And, she always said,' continued the nephew, 'that as her only relative, I would be her beneficiary when she died.'

Oh Christ, thought David. He remembered perfectly well the aunt's views as expressed to him by her about her money-grabbing nephew, as she called him, but this was a very delicate situation and had to be handled with care. He had to manage the problem. Could I work it through somehow?

He did not want to get embroiled in the ongoing argument between the nephew and the lodger, but he could try to defuse the position in relation to the bat sanctuary. Now that the nephew was focused on the loss, as he saw it, of his inheritance for some inexplicable reason, the gift to the charity would pall into insignificance. Now was the time to mention what had already occurred to Dai as the way forward. He just must not make it sound too easy.

'Well,' he said as gravely as he could, 'I've now retired from the practice and one of my former partners will deal with your late aunt's will, although of course I'll still be the executor.'

'What's that got to do with the bat sanctuary?' Satterthwaite asked.

Dai continued as if slightly reluctant, saying, 'Well, nothing directly, it's just that given the dispute over the will which I happened to mention to one of the trustees of the charity, they said that from their point of view they would rather refuse the bequest rather than perhaps become embroiled in a dispute.'

'Really?' said Satterthwaite, surprised. That seemed to him to be a step in the right direction.

'Yes,' said Dai nodding his head slowly to add emphasis. 'I saw him this very day and he told me that it was his intention to write directly to the solicitors rejecting the bequest on the charity's behalf so that as far as the charity was concerned that would be an end of the matter.'

He didn't mention, of course, who 'him' referred to. There was no 'him' unless he had had the conversation with himself in a mirror. Satterthwaite did not in any event enquire further.

'Well,' said Satterthwaite sounding relieved. 'That would be wonderful,' adding, 'a bit more money in the pot!'

He even ventured to smile at Dai. Dai felt uncomfortable when he did so. On balance, he considered he preferred Satterthwaite to be his usually repellent self. Furthermore, Dai did not think it polite to point out that the pot, or lap, it fell into would depend upon whether the will was upheld or not, but that was not his concern. He simply wanted Satterthwaite off his back and for the spotlight of enquiry to fall elsewhere.

Satterthwaite finished his tea and left. Dai was glad to see him go. He decided to send the letter from the trustee, no less a person than himself, of course, that very day. That would get both him and, as a consequence, Bron off the hook.

That was a close one, he thought as he returned to his chair to have a further cup of tea before composing the letter.

Fortunately, Satterthwaite, whose eyes were fixed on his late aunt's money, did not think to draw any conclusions from Dai's presence at the very bat sanctuary that his aunt had mentioned in her will – a will prepared by that same solicitor! If he had thought about it, it must at least have struck him as a curious coincidence.

Thank you, Fairy Godmother, murmured Dai as Bron came back into the room. He suddenly felt cheerful. Even Bron's scolding, which had begun to irritate him, however accurate her observations may have been, no longer depressed his spirits. Indeed, it was perhaps because her comments had been so accurate that he had begun to feel irritated. The truth is usually hard to swallow. That had finished now though and with the odious nephew seemingly neutralised, at least in a small way, he suddenly felt better.

'That's all right then!' he greeted Bron cheerily as she entered.

'What are you so happy about?' she said looking at him quizzically. 'For a man who is virtually ruined, you seem remarkably cheerful.'

'True on both counts,' he said and then with mock gravity and an exaggerated bow, he added, 'I plead guilty to all the counts on the indictment milady and throw myself on the mercy of the court.' Bron was no fool and she knew her nephew inside out.

'What are you so pleased about?' she asked. 'What's happening about this man and these bloody bat boxes?' she had had enough by now of both David Llewellyn Evans and his bat boxes. Besides, she had things to do without playing host for too long for him. Dai was alright in small doses, but as far as she was concerned he was an incorrigible rogue whose mere presence caused the milk to curdle. She now wanted rid of him.

'Don't worry, Bron, I'll take the boxes down – or rather get Owen to do it. You won't be troubled by them or that fat twerp from Yorkshire anymore.'

'Well,' said Bron with a look of less than sympathy on her face and in a tone which Dai thought carried a hint of triumph, 'you may have got rid of the fat twerp from Yorkshire, but I believe there's someone else who is keen to have a word with you.'

Dai's heart sank and he must have looked quite crestfallen because Bron added in a more sympathetic tone, 'I expect it's nothing much, but a WPC from Caernarvon called in yesterday and said that if you showed up, perhaps you would give her a ring?'

Good grief, thought Dai, bad news travels fast! Why on earth did the WPC want to speak to him unless, he wondered, Doc Adams was intent on pursuing a complaint of assault.

He had heard on the grapevine that rather more than the doctor's pride had been hurt by the thump on the nose that Dai had given him. He had been off work for a while. If the nose was broken, that would be GBH, far more serious even than ABH.

Assault charges went up in degrees of severity from a common assault, that is a shove, or something of that nature, where there is no real injury, all the way to murder. Happily they were well short of that, but nonetheless GBH or grievous bodily harm was serious and if he was prosecuted, that would almost certainly lead to him being struck off the roll of practicing solicitors for misconduct, quite apart from what penalty the criminal court would impose. He might even be sent to prison! That would put paid to his legal career for good.

All this went through his mind in the brief time that it took him to digest what Bron had said to him.

'Well?' she said.

'Well what?' he dodged.

'Well, will you ring her?'

'Oh, I expect I shall give her a ring in a day or two,' he said as casually as he could. 'It's probably nothing serious, perhaps somebody has pinched my horsebox or something.'

'Well isn't that serious?'

'Yes and no – at least it's insured, and anyway, if it has been stolen, there's not much I can do about it. Anyway,' he added, 'don't worry Bron, I'll get on to the office and sort out whatever the problem is.'

Before she had the chance to enquire further, he rose from his chair and said decisively, 'Well, I'd better be getting back to the pub. There are some things I want to do before dinner.'

He gave her a kiss and left, leaving her at the doorstep looking after him with a thoughtful expression on her face.

As Dai drove back to the pub where he was staying, he pondered how best to deal with his latest problem. He could simply move on, but sooner or later the police enquiry, if that was what it was, would catch up with him, so, on balance, he concluded reluctantly, he might as well get it over with. At least he was on home ground.

When he got back to the pub he rang the number Bron had given him for the officer. A young woman's voice answered the phone. He introduced himself.

'Ah yes,' said the voice on the other end, 'I've been asked to make some enquiries by a police force in England, about an alleged assault.' She said it in a very matter of fact way. Her voice, thought Dai, sounded rather pleasant.

'Really?' he said trying to sound surprised and then tried a diversionary tactic. 'Certainly I'm happy to meet you, but don't they give that sort of enquiry to the uniformed branch to carry out?'

'Sometimes,' she answered equably, 'but I'm working with the CID at the moment and I've had this matter passed to me.' She paused then went on, 'I bet you don't remember me.'

'Er, should I?' said Dai.

'Well,' she continued, 'I was very, very little when you and my brother used to be friends together – you know Tim Parry, I'm his little sister Blodwyn.'

Dai couldn't believe his luck, his mate Tim Parry's younger sister! He dimly remembered a younger sister when he thought back, but she was at least ten years younger than him and he had hardly paid any attention to her, but still! What a stroke of luck!

Thank you, Fairy Godmother, he thought. Then he said,

'Well, well, how extraordinary! How is Tim?'

'He's living and working in South America now. I'm hoping to go and see him one of these days.'

'Look,' said Dai as persuasively as he could, 'you obviously have to do your job, but it would be lovely just to catch up on the news of Tim and the family. Would it be too unorthodox to suggest you join me for dinner tonight?'

To his surprise, she agreed. 'That would be lovely,' she said, and they arranged to meet at the pub for dinner at 7.30 pm.

Dai changed for dinner. He wanted to look is best and also hoped to impress Blodwyn. It was in any event customary to change for dinner at the pub, which was served in the old panelled dining room with the log fire, the table set with damask tablecloths and napkins.

Blodwyn arrived promptly. That is, Dai was standing by the bar when the door opened and a beautiful young, dark-haired woman with pale skin and sparkling blue eyes stepped in. He knew without asking that not only was this Blodwyn, but that the Gods were with him.

About bloody time, he thought referring to the favour of the Gods rather than that Blodwyn had kept him waiting. He smiled and stepped forward, genuinely pleased to see her.

There then followed a really pleasant evening. Dai was surprised at how pleased he was to hear all about his old chum and completely bowled over by the lovely Blodwyn who had a personality to match her looks.

'How is it that you are not married Blodwyn?' he ventured to ask.

'I haven't met the right man yet,' she answered him with a steady gaze, 'and anyway,' she added after a pause, 'I want to see a bit of the world before I settle down.'

The subject of the assault on doctor Adams did not come up until much later when they were seated together in the snug by the fire, enjoying a glass of port. It was Dai who raised it.

'I did thump him, you know,' he said. He felt so mellow unusually for him, he was not going to prevaricate or beat about the bush.

'I expect he deserved it,' she murmured smiling. She leaned forward to pour two cups of coffee from the coffee pot on the table before them and as she did so, Dai caught the scent of her hair. He felt dizzy.

Good grief, he thought, this can't be happening, but stammered instead,

'Well he did lunge at me and I only hit him the once.'

'Obviously self-defence,' she said firmly and handed him a cup of coffee.

When she had left, Dai stayed at the bar and had a couple more drinks. He needed to think. Drink, he knew, was not conducive to clear thought, but he did it anyway. Normally, he knew, he would not have been able to resist making a pass at a beautiful young woman like Blodwyn, but she was special somehow. Instead of acting like the sexual predator, with her he was more like a bashful boy.

Eventually, none the wiser and rather more befuddled by drink, he went to bed.

Alone, he thought as he turned the light out, that makes a change.

CHAPTER 31

The next day he went for a walk by himself, alone in the hills. There was no path. He just followed the stream at first, up in the Cym where the boggy ground forced him to walk up a rocky shoulder to the right to avoid getting his feet wet. He followed the shoulder up to the top where the ground plateaued out and then climbed to the top of a shattered heap of rocks and sat perched on the top shielded from the wind, with his back against a large stone, looking at the mountains all around.

He didn't think about anything in particular. He stared and stared. It was as if he was searching for inspiration in the landscape. Perhaps it could provide him with the answer, or maybe a clue. What was he to do? He had made a complete mess of things and as if to rub salt in the wound, admittedly a self-inflicted wound, but a wound nonetheless, fate had now brought him into contact with Blodwyn, a young woman so attractive that he could think of nothing else.

It was as if fate was mocking him at the same time as tempting him, by holding up Blodwyn as a sort of carrot to induce him to go through the whole macabre dance again. This time it would be different, it seemed to say. What wouldn't a man do for the chance of happiness with a woman like this?!

Suddenly he became aware of someone nearby. He looked over and was staggered to see Mary, Owen's mother.

'Penny for your thoughts,' she said smiling.

'What are you doing here?' he asked, amazed to see her on the top of a mountain.

'I live here, remember?' she said. 'I often bring the dogs up here for a walk. More to the point, what are you doing back here? I thought you had shaken the dust of this place from your feet years ago.'

As they spoke, they each examined the person who stood in front of them, the mental image that each had of the other when they had last met years ago slowly dissolving into the present reality of the person who now stood before them. Mary was still very attractive, he noted.

'How are you?' he asked smiling.

'Pretty well, thanks. You?' She did not smile.

'Fine,' then he added, 'No, not really.'

Mary, though, knew him well enough. She looked at him quizzically and said, 'And the rest?' Dai sighed.

'You know me too well, Mary,' he said.

'Probably better than most people do. Can't fool you, can I? Yes, you are right, there have been one or two... what shall we say?'

'Little indiscretions?' she asked.

'Peccadilloes really, but nothing serious mind. I don't know what comes over me. I can't seem to resist it.'

He felt suddenly relieved. Unburdening himself in this way, a way he certainly had not intended but which had just happened, eased his mind somehow. It was as if Mary was administering a confessional. It may have had that effect on him, but as far as she was concerned, it had an equally cathartic affect.

Over the years, since he deserted her, she had managed to build a life for herself and had put David Evans and all that he had once meant to her behind her. She had consigned him to the dustbin of history. When she had learned of his return, however, it had knocked her off balance and brought the past vividly back to life in her mind. It was not that she was still in love with the man, not at all, but his reappearance shook her.

As she listened to him, she realised how lucky she had been that he had left her and how wretched her life would have been had he stayed with her. She had no illusions about human nature. She knew full well that people seldom change and that Dai was a good example of that. He was a serious adulterer and now it seemed that had caught up with him at last.

There was no point in spinning her a line. He told her briefly how things had fallen apart. The storm clouds were gathering. Everybody was soon going to want a piece of David Llewellyn Evans. His former partners were fielding requests from the Law Society who were preparing disciplinary proceedings against him. The local police wanted to interview him about the alleged assault on a pillar of the local medical community. His wife, Pam Adams, wanted to live with him. Megwyn's solicitor wanted to serve divorce papers upon him and Megwyn wanted to claim every penny he possessed. She did not want him, but she did want everything that he owned in the world. His immediate future looked bleak. He didn't mention his various amorous adventures.

There was no point, he thought, in making matters worse.

Mary listened without interrupting him and then said quietly,

'Well, to be honest, you did have it coming to you Dai.'

That was putting it mildly, she thought. Dai though was still too engrossed in himself to think that his once youthful impishness that had so appealed to women and his charm might be beginning to fade and to lose their effect.

'Not you too,' he said playing the sympathy card. He misjudged her and did not realise it yet.

'Come on,' she said impatiently at last. 'You know as well as I do what a bastard you are, so don't come the hard done by one with me. Face it. You are a bastard and you always will be. Now move on.'

All this was said quietly and without the slightest trace of rancour or anger on her part. Had she shouted and screamed at him, it could scarcely have had more affect. Her calm delivery went through him like a knife.

'Well,' he said, struggling to hold on to a modicum of dignity, 'that puts me in my place, but,' he paused, 'you don't hate me, do you?' She wondered why it was important to him. What could it possibly matter?

'No,' she answered. 'You are a bastard, we all know that, but I don't hate you.'

They remained silent for a while. The wind sighed across the plateau. Finally, Mary spoke breaking the silence between them.

'What will you do?' she asked. She was only mildly interested, but felt she had to say something if only to break the silence. She was also beginning to get a bit bored if the truth be told. She felt no real sympathy for him. He had made his bed and now he must lie in it. She wanted to go. She wanted to get on with her life. She did not want her thoughts contaminated by concerns about David Llewellyn Evans.

'Well,' answered Dai slowly, 'I've been considering a change of scene.' He had not actually, not until that very moment, but as she asked the question, he realised what he must do. There was nothing for him here. He needed to go and the further he could go, the better.

Since he had not explained quite what he had in mind, Mary gave him a prod.

'Foreign Legion?' she enquired sarcastically.

Dai chose to treat it as a joke and laughed saying, 'Good heavens, no! Far too much like hard work and anyway, I'm too old for that. No, I was remembering Bron's eldest.'

Mary wrinkled her brow in concentration as she thought about it.

'You mean the one who lives in Argentina?' she asked after a bit.

'That's the one. Coincidentally, the home the polo,' he added jauntily, having recovered his usual sense of self-assurance. 'Thought I might pay him a visit.' She looked at him, shrugged her shoulders and laughed before turning to leave with the dogs who had been sitting patiently in the lee of a rock all this time.

'Time to be off!' she said and then after a few strides, turning to look at him, smiling at last and adding, 'Hasta la vista, baby!'

Then she continued on her way leaving Dai alone with the wind.

Dai watched her for some time crossing the plateau until she dropped finally out of sight and her by now diminutive figure was hidden by a fold in the ground.

She had not looked back again. He continued to stand there reflecting on what might have been and then shrugged and himself made his way back down the mountain.

When he got back to the pub, the barman told him that Blodwyn had left a message for him. He took it and read it in his room as he packed his few belongings into his case. She had written him a short note suggesting they meet for a pie and a pint in Tremadoc after she finished work. Part of him would have loved to, but it was time to go. She had been a nice girl too. He had liked her and maybe, momentarily at least, he thought that just possibly, he had messed up enough peoples' lives.

He had a chum, a consultant surgeon, for whom he had once acted in divorce proceedings who was mad keen on sailing and who had mentioned to him that he had a trip planned to sail to South America. He had jokingly suggested that Dai might like to crew for him. David had never done any sailing and had politely declined, but in the circumstances he decided that he ought perhaps to reconsider. A spot of sea air would, he considered, do him good. He might even stay on for a bit in Argentina where the polo season would start at just about the time that they would arrive there.

He paid his bill and left. In Capel Curig he stopped, got out of the car and gazed back along the valley for a few moments, saying goodbye before getting into his car and continuing on his way.

Some months later, both Bronwyn and Mary each received a card that Dai had sent on arriving at the Azores that bore the simple legend, 'Weather fine – sailing good. David.'

