'Well, I treat the whole thing as a joke,' Muriel was saying. 'Which I can just about manage to do most of the time if I keep my teeth well and truly gritted. Take it easy, lass, I tell myself when the adrenalin starts to flow - you've seen it all before and you've come through without a scratch. Well anyway you've come through. Say it slowly and calmly: you're in Wales, land of song, land of smiles, and land of deceit. Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief all right, and by Christ boyo Taffy has been keeping up the old traditions indeed in a bloody big way oh yes now look you.' The last couple of dozen words were delivered in an accent that sounded as much like a West Mrican one as anything else, Ghanaian, possibly, or Ibo. 'I thought counting the spoons was just an expression till I came to live down here. Nothing more than a colourful catch-phrase.'

Dimly recognizing this as the end of a section, and even more dimly aware of having heard something rather like it before, Dorothy Morgan looked up. She had lost the initiative a minute or two earlier. Astonishingly, she had found herself out of immediate things to say about New Zealand, the adopted home of one of the Morgan sons, a whole country gloriously unknown to anyone she was ever likely to run into round here and in many other parts, serving her as a magic wand or spell for reducing great assemblies to silence. Now, she missed her chance of coming in with alternative unanswerable stuff on what Percy had said to the County Clerk, or what she remem-bered of a magazine article about DNA she had recently happened to read. It was not of course that she was actually listening to what Muriel was saying, just that the continuous sound of another voice distracted her, put her off even the unexacting task of knocking one of her starters into shape.

What Dorothy had looked up from was the stylish Scandinavian table, made of different sorts of wood, in Sophie's apparatus-packed kitchen. It, the table, was strewn with the debris accumulated in twelve hours of drinking wine, smoking cigarettes and not eating all manner of biscuits, sandwiches, portions of cheese, little plastic zeppelins of pate. Muriel and Dorothy were the only two still present and active: Sian Smith was thought to be asleep somewhere upstairs and Sophie herself, never a keen partaker, had gone off to her sitting-room TV quite a while before, though at the moment she was in the hall on the telephone trying for the second 'or third time to get hold of the much-needed Percy.

'I think I may have told you about a long-service warrior I ran into in Monmouth,'

said Muriel now, sounding in no doubt whatever on the point. 'Twenty years up-country in the thick of it, doing something to do with reservoirs and pipes among the Welsh hill-tribes. Normally, of course, at home that's to say, Yorkshire people don't think a lot to Derbyshire folk, but it's different when you're abroad. Anyway he and I got on all right, and he was very knowledgeable about, you know, what makes Johnny Welshman tick. Quite fascinating. One day, he didn't explain how but I imagine it involved showing tolerance for local rituals and such, one day he found himself among those present when the village man of God preached a sermon in Welsh. Which no doubt would have meant plenty to you ... '

Here Muriel made an audacious pause, confident that she could gauge Dorothy's coming-round time to a nicety, and resumed on the dot, ' ... but, as far as he was concerned, the fellow might just as well have been rabbiting on in Apache. But one thing he did notice, did my chum. The fellow, the Welsh fellow, kept using a word that sounded like the English word truth. As in veracity, honesty and such. There'd be a flood of bongo-bongo chatter, and then, suddenly, truth, and then more monkey language. Apparently, when he asked afterwards, apparently it was, it had been, the English word he'd used. Why not use a Welsh word, he asked him. Well, he said,' and Muriel's accent shifted again to the Gulf of Guinea, 'there isn't a Welsh word with the same connotations and the force force of the English word. And if that isn't funny enough for you, he said, there is a Welsh word of the English word. And if that isn't funny enough for you, he said, there is a Welsh word truth, truth, same word, spelt the same anyhow, and it means falsehood. Mumbo-jumbo. As you well know. Talk about coming out in the open. I've often meant to check that in a Welsh-English dictionary. After all there must be such things. Just a matter of knowing where to look.' same word, spelt the same anyhow, and it means falsehood. Mumbo-jumbo. As you well know. Talk about coming out in the open. I've often meant to check that in a Welsh-English dictionary. After all there must be such things. Just a matter of knowing where to look.'

Sophie had come into the room in time to hear the last part of this. The sight of her went down remarkably well with Muriel, who liked holding the floor as much as anyone living but preferred a more normal audience, one that could safely be allowed a turn now and again. It would have been good if Dorothy had been listening too, especially to the yam just recounted, but then she had heard it, had had sound-waves bearing it strike her ear-drum, a couple of dozen times before, so there was a chance of its entering her mind by some route or other, perhaps by-passing the conscious part of it. As it was, talking to Dorothy, or rather in her presence, was a bit too close for comfort to being that type in the story who found himself shut up in a prison cell somewhere nasty with a mad murderous Arab for company, not a lot in the way of company because you very soon found that the only way of keeping him quiet was by staring him in the eye: take too long about blinking, let alone nod off, and you were for it. Muriel lit a cigarette in one continuous operation rather than as when addressing Dorothy - piecemeal, like somebody driving a car at the same time.

'Any luck with Percy?'

'Still no reply - it's not like him. I had Gwen on just before, phoning from that Eyetie joint in Hatchery Road. '

'Oh, Mario's, I know. What had she got to say for herself?'

'Fed up she was, according to her,' said Sophie, who had actually been prepared to pass on this information unprompted. 'Malcolm given her a big row.'

'No, really? That doesn't sound the gallant Malcolm's style at all. I can't imagine him giving any size of row to a cocklestall proprietor.'

After a short pause, Sophie said, 'Well, you know. She asked if she could come up, so -'.

'And how did you respond?'

'I thought why not, more the merrier.' Sophie glanced at Dorothy. 'Right?'

'Oh, every time. I couldn't agree more.'

'Maybe she'll have something to tell us about the great day trip.' Malcolm's excursion with Rhiannon had been speculated about earlier.

'Very possibly. I must say our Rhiannon has been going it a bit going it a bit recently. She can hardly have recovered from her piss-up with my old man.' recently. She can hardly have recovered from her piss-up with my old man.'

This time Sophie paused a little longer. 'I always think, the way you feel about the Welsh, Muriel, it must be fantastic, you and Peter seeing absolutely eye to eye on a thing like that.'

'I must go,' said Muriel. 'Well actually not as much as you might think. It's perfectly possible to go a long way with somebody on some point or other and then suddenly find you and the other chap are literally rolling over and over on the bloody floor floor about it. Easiest thing in the world.' She picked up a nearly full bottle of Corvo Bianco with a slight clunk against an unopened tin of laver-bread (from Devon), got a no-thanks from Sophie and poured unstintingly for herself. 'But of course it doesn't go very deep with me. More a matter of being a little bit naughty among friends.' This, driven home at need with a where's-your-sense-of-humour gibe, was her standard retort to any Welsh person who might take exception to being categorized as a liar, cheat, dullard, bully, hypocrite, sneak, snob, layabout, toady, violator of siblings and anything else that might strike her fancy . 'Yes, I'm a long way from getting my official invitation to join the Peter Thomas Anti-Welsh Brotherhood, and not only on grounds of sex, which I dare say the chairman's prepared to waive these days. No, it'll take a -' about it. Easiest thing in the world.' She picked up a nearly full bottle of Corvo Bianco with a slight clunk against an unopened tin of laver-bread (from Devon), got a no-thanks from Sophie and poured unstintingly for herself. 'But of course it doesn't go very deep with me. More a matter of being a little bit naughty among friends.' This, driven home at need with a where's-your-sense-of-humour gibe, was her standard retort to any Welsh person who might take exception to being categorized as a liar, cheat, dullard, bully, hypocrite, sneak, snob, layabout, toady, violator of siblings and anything else that might strike her fancy . 'Yes, I'm a long way from getting my official invitation to join the Peter Thomas Anti-Welsh Brotherhood, and not only on grounds of sex, which I dare say the chairman's prepared to waive these days. No, it'll take a -'

'Oh, and there's another way you don't qualify, Muriel,' said Sophie with a bright smile. 'Only Welsh people can join. Born Welsh. Peter must have told you, surely. I remember him going into it one time after Christmas dinner at Dorothy's. Very particular he was on the point. Two non-Welsh grandparents was too many, he said.'

After the sound of her name had triggered her dinosaurian reflexes, Dorothy lifted her head for the second time in ten minutes. The talk between Sophie and Muriel, animated to begin with, had lost its impetus and that too might have percolated through her nervous system. Behind the black-framed lenses her eyes steadied and focused. With majestic deliberation she drew in her breath. The other two struggled wildly to think of something to get in ahead with, but it was like trying to start a motor-bike in the path of a charging elephant.

'Of course you know in New Zealand they celebrate Christmas just the same as here,'

she said, showing a notable sense of continuity. 'Roast turkey and plum pudding and mince pies in the middle of the antipodean winter.' She pronounced the penultimate word correctly and clearly, as she did every other, as she invariably did while she could speak at all. 'I mean summer. Imagine roast turkey and stuffing and hot mince pies in July.

Howard and Angela have got some friends in Wanangui, that's in what they call North Island ... '

'I think I'll try Percy again,' said Sophie.

3.

'I'd just like an explanation,' said Malcolm. 'Just the merest hint of an explanation. That's all.'

'You're the feeblest creature God ever put breath into,' said Aloo. 'Why any woman should have spent thirty-three minutes married to you, let alone thirty-three years, defies comprehension. You've no idea in the world of what pleases a woman: in other words' - he seemed to be choosing these with care - 'you're not only hopeless as an organizer of life in general, you're a crashingly boring companion into the bargain and needless to say, er, perennially deficient in the bedroom. Correct?'

'That about sums me up. Oh, I'm also cut off.'

'Cut off?'

'Cut off from real people in my own little "pathetic fantasy world of dilettante Welshness, medievalism and poetry.' Malcolm drained his glass.

'Poetry? You ought to be ashamed of yourself, a great big hulking fellow like you. What are your other shortcomings?' You ought to be ashamed of yourself, a great big hulking fellow like you. What are your other shortcomings?'

'That's all I can remember for the moment. And as I say I'd love to know the explanation. There'd been no row before, no upset, nothing. It's most odd. Anachronistic in fact. She hasn't spoken to me in that strain for God knows how long.'

'M'm.' Alun pursed his lips and blinked at the wall, as if reflecting upon one or two mere theoretical conceivabilities, preparing to eliminate them for form's sake. He said, 'She didn't happen to, er, mention anybody else, I suppose, refer refer to anybody who in any way might have ... ?' to anybody who in any way might have ... ?'

'Not a soul. I'd have remembered if she had.'

'Yes.' Now an expression of considerable relief appeared for an instant on Alun's face before he added quickly, 'That's a, that must be a considerable relief to you. Well, quite a relief.'

Malcolm nodded and sighed. His neck was aching and he wriggled his shoulders around to ease it. 'But of course what's bothering me, what I'm trying to work out is the connection between this and the way she flew off the handle at you. Which I may say I'm very sorry ever happened.'

'The ... ?'

'Last night in the Golf Club,' said Malcolm, himself starting to blink slightly.

'Oh. Oh yes. Yes. Yes, I wondered when we'd get round to that. Yes, quite a little hatful of words, wasn't it? What did she say to you about it?'

'Well, I had to drag it out of her. But I wasn't going to let it pass.'

'Quite right, it doesn't do. Never. Anyway .. .'

'Well, she was tired, she'd had a few, she was a bit under the weather, and the rest of it was, quite frankly, Alun, I mean I'm being quite frank now, she was furious with you, no not furious, annoyed. Irritated. Some linguistic point which I must confess I didn't really -'

'Oh, I know. She grew up in Capel Mererid speaking Welsh and I didn't. I know. To be frank with you in return, Malcolm bach, bach, she thinks I'm a fraud, and worse than being a fraud I peddle Wales to the Saxons, so of course I irritate her. No no, don't ... We won't argue about it, it's not the topic under discussion. Talking of which ... ' Alun leant forward and said emphatically, but in a lowered voice, 'Don't take what she said at its face value, not any of it. There's something more basic at work there, and yes, you're right, it's connected with what she said to you this evening. Now, the whisky's in the front room.' He spoke to the purpose, in that he and Malcolm had retired to the kitchen for this part of their talk. 'Can I freshen that? Come on, it'll do you good.' she thinks I'm a fraud, and worse than being a fraud I peddle Wales to the Saxons, so of course I irritate her. No no, don't ... We won't argue about it, it's not the topic under discussion. Talking of which ... ' Alun leant forward and said emphatically, but in a lowered voice, 'Don't take what she said at its face value, not any of it. There's something more basic at work there, and yes, you're right, it's connected with what she said to you this evening. Now, the whisky's in the front room.' He spoke to the purpose, in that he and Malcolm had retired to the kitchen for this part of their talk. 'Can I freshen that? Come on, it'll do you good.'

'Do you really think it will? All right, just a small one.

Thank you.'

After getting up, Alun laid his hand gently on Malcolm's arm. 'It's all right, boy. I'll explain it to you now. It's not easy but it's all right.'

Malcolm sat on alone. He realized he must be drunk even if only slightly, a state unfamiliar to him for over thirty years, in fact about as long as he had been married to Gwen, until Alun had come back into his life. He felt confused but not dejectedly so, half reassured about Gwen, keeping Rhiannon at the back of his mind for later, not making any connections between the one woman and the other or what each might signify for him. Decent of Alun to come along and listen and, the chances seemed good, sort out what there was to be sorted out. And yet somewhere he felt an apprehension that faded away whenever he started trying to account for it and came creeping back again as soon as he stopped.

Since moving out to the kitchen he had intermittently heard a mumble of voices from the sitting-room, the music first faint then inaudible, once or twice Garth's laughter. Now Alun's voice was raised in some flight or other and more genera1laughter followed. No, he was not cracking a joke at his, Malcolm's expense - nonsense, paranoid even to think of it. And here he came straight away, not lingering, bustling responsibly back with the two drinks. All his movements were as lively as they had ever been.

Stem-faced, intent on seeing the thing through, he pulled his chair up to the table, which incidentally Malcolm had cleared earlier of most of the odds and ends of supper and earlier meals and nibbles Gwen had left there. He sat up specially straight in his own chair.

'Right,' said Alun in a military bark. 'Right. I'd give it to you in one word. Jealousy. Plain old-fashioned jealousy. Also envy, which isn't by any means the same thing, but no better. I was reading where someone made that point recently - envy's worse for a marriage than jealousy . Welsh writer too. Can't think who for now. Anyway. Something nice, something a little bit romantic has come your way, to wit, Rhiannon. Nothing like that has come her way, poor old Gwen's,' he said, staring quite hard at Malcolm. 'You have a nostalgic day out, you come back in triumph, she punishes you. Simple as that. Don't think hardly of her. Happens all the time wherever there are women. Like a reflex.'

'But I wasn't in triumph, I thought of that, I'm not a complete fool, I guarded against that. I said it was quite fun, food nothing much, bit chilly and so on and so on.'

Foreseeably, Alun had started shaking his bead before the 'last was half over. 'Listen, you come back after that son of jaunt anything short of minus your head and you come back in triumph, got it? That's how they all ... oh Christ.'

'But you're saying she was just trying to hurt me.'

'Check.'

'But I wasn't trying to hurt her.'

A fervent groan suggested the hopelessness of any kind of answer to that one. 'But she ... '

'She'd have forgotten she said it by tomorrow morning.'

'But I won't.'

'Yes you will, not by the morning but eventually, and the sooner the better. Repeat after me - no, you needn't literally but pay attention. She didn't mean what she said. She used words instead of howling and screaming. She was upset - rightly or wrongly doesn't matter. And you swallow it. That's an order.'

'Well, you'd know, I suppose.' Malcolm sighed again. 'All right, I'll do my best. Anyway, how's it meant to fit in with what she said to you?'

'M'm ... ' Alun had whisky in his mouth, in front of his teeth actually, and he held up a finger while he put it out of the way. 'More of the same, only pointing in the other direction. I mean seeing Rhiannon, probably seeing her talking to you, that did it. Gwen wanted to bash her but she couldn't bash her direct because they're old buddies and all that, so she got at her via me, not that she didn't get at me con con bloody bloody amore, amore, what? No problem. Jealousy ... and envy. More sort of direct envy in this case because it was one female's of another of roughly the same age and circumstances. Plain as the nose on your pikestaff. Happens every day.' what? No problem. Jealousy ... and envy. More sort of direct envy in this case because it was one female's of another of roughly the same age and circumstances. Plain as the nose on your pikestaff. Happens every day.'

Garth's laughter was heard again faintly, or fairly faintly.

Malcolm said, 'It sounds pretty devious to me.'

'Devious my eye. When you've -'

'Sorry, I think that should be tortuous.'

'All right, tortuous my eye then. Once you've - Christ - relinquished the perverse, pig-headed expectation that women should mean what they say and say what they mean except when they're actually lying, this sort of thing gets to be all in the day's work. Tortuous, or devious, my my ... ... eye. eye. Couldn't be more obvious and straightforward.' Couldn't be more obvious and straightforward.'

Alun's voice softened. 'I know Gwen's different in all sorts of ways, but she's the same in some other ways and this is one of those. Agreed?'

'Yes,' said Malcolm after almost no hesitation. 'Of course you're right. It'll just take a bit of getting used to. Well. Thanks, Alun.'

'All part of the service, boy. Now don't mention it to her again, right? Go on as if it had never happened. And be nice to her - but your own experience and common sense'll guide you there. And hey,' he went on as they rose from the table, 'what did you get up to with Rhiannon on Courcey, you old monster? The bloody girl was treading on air when she got back.'

'Oh no,' said Malcolm, turning his face away.

'Yes, honest. Looked about twenty years younger. Now just you watch it, Jack, okay? honest. Looked about twenty years younger. Now just you watch it, Jack, okay?

Sardis and Bethesda have their eye on you, see. Christ,' said Alun with regard to the time. 'Just before I go, it's marvellous to hear some of that old stuff again. Let's have an evening of it on our own without all these philistines and Ornette Coleman fans like Peter. But I was going to say, there was one of that lot used to appeal to me particularly, a trumpeter with a French name, would it be Matt, Nat ... '

'Natty Dominique, a great man .. Yes, I've got quite a few tracks with him on. Fancy you remembering him.'

'Perhaps we could hear just a couple before I take off.

Didn't he do a lot with George Lewis?'

'I think Dodds more.'

These last exchanges took place as the two were filing from kitchen to sitting-room, so naturally enough Malcolm missed Alun's transitory but enormous looks of release from tension, thanksgiving to tutelary powers, lubricious glee, etc. They found the Playbox inactive, though its ruby on-light still glowed, and Garth telling the others what he had done or seen on some occasion in the past. From the way he shut up at the sight of them it could be deduced that he had not only been talking for the sake of talking but for once knew it too. Peter sat with pursed-up non-specific displeasure. Charlie faced the blank screen of the television set, if not hoping it might spontaneously jump into life any second then merely happening to have his head pointed in that direction. Percy, half settled on the table where the gramophone was, half propped against it, indicated without word or movement that he was not with the others, in no way ill disposed, just belonging to a different party close by, though about ready for his flight to be called. Nobody seemed to be drinking. After bringing them this far, vitality had given out.

'I thought we might have a last record,' said Alun. 'And perhaps a small one for the road.'

'You have one,' said Percy. 'Of either or both. Thank you for your hospitality, Malcolm. Now I think some of us could afford to be on our way, don't you? Peter, you've got transport ... '

Garth drew himself up with a fierce exhalation of breath. 'I'm going to walk,' he said.

'Get some fresh air into my lungs.'

'Yes, well there's only Charlie to worry about and I'll take him home. I've got to go there anyway to pick up Dot.'

'You mean from our place?' asked Charlie, twisting round energetically in his seat.

'How do you know she's there?'

'Dorothy went to Sophie this morning for coffee and drink's.

'I mean how do you know she's still there? Have you rung Sophie?'

'She went to Sophie for coffee and drinks,' said Percy, speaking slightly louder but without in any way changing his placid, matter-of-fact tone.

'But you haven't rung Sophie.' It seemed that Charlie wanted this or something similar put into the file.

'Shut up, Charlie,' said Alun.

'Look now, the sooner we're away,' explained Percy, 'the sooner we can get our heads down.'

They were away very soon after that, all of them, including Alun, who might perhaps have been expected to seize on this capital chance of hearing his couple of tracks undisturbed, but he went off with the others muttering something about having to make an early start in the morning. So, nearly but not quite sure that Alun had come up with the right answer to the Gwen problem, and with his head swimming just slightly, Malcolm poured himself a glass of almost colourless whisky and water and played himself a last record, not all agog and on his feet now but sunk in his uncomfortable little chair.

The choice was what had once been a previously unissued alternate master of 'Goober Dance' (featuring Natty Dominique, comet). He kept the volume good and low for fear of provoking the retaliation, then or another time, of the reggae-loving butcher's assistant who lived on that side. When 'Goober Dance' finished Malcolm thought he might as well hear another couple of tracks, and fell asleep trying to think of Rhiannon but instead wishing Gwen would come home.