Escape to Ikaria Page 24

  ‘Not really. Ros says she’ll come round in her own time.’

  We pulled into Ledbury, sleeping quietly in its timber-framed buildings. You wouldn’t have known here in rural England that it was New Year’s Day. The houses were dark and silent, only an occasional Christmas tree lighting a window, the pub where we parked draped in the orange glow of fairy lights flashing Happy New Year. We got out to stretch our legs, whispering to each other, as one does when surrounded by silence. We sniffed the air, taking in the smells of the night, tasting damp grass blowing in on the breeze from the darkened fields.

  ‘Wood smoke,’ said Jack, ‘the sweet smell of wood smoke,’ coming from the chimney of an old thatched cottage. However, our little trip into the olfactory delights of the night evaporated in an instant. Ahead of us the local police constable was shining a torch into the back of the Traveller, bending close to the window, looking at the contents with a suspicious eye. The one thing I feared was now happening; why hadn’t I listened to Ros?

  As we approached, I turned to Jack. ‘Let me do the talking.’

  ‘You had better be good at it.’

  ‘Officer, a very happy New Year to you.’

  A jovial response was not forthcoming. Instead he gave us the policeman’s look: the up and down, or is it the once over?

  ‘Where are we off to, at this time of night?’

  ‘To North Wales,’ I said.

  He stepped back from the car, directing the torchlight onto the front and back tyres.

  ‘Bit overweight, aren’t we?’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘I know so.’ He nodded purposefully, walking round to the windscreen, checking the tax disc.

  ‘To North Wales you say . . . and all this stuff in the back? Going camping, are you? A little late in the season,’ letting a sardonic smile make the point that he was onto us and knew our game.

  ‘No, no, we’ve bought a farm near Penygroes. What’s in the back is just the basic essentials,’ I said. Surely he could see the truth of that.

  ‘The house we’re moving into is unfurnished,’ said Jack.

  ‘New life, new beginning, New Year.’ I could tell he enjoyed the way that tripped off his tongue. ‘Tough life, farming,’ he said, kicking a front tyre. I’ve never known why people do that.

  ‘Who’s the owner?’

  ‘It’s mine,’ I said, ‘given to me by my father-in-law.’

  ‘Who’s driving?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Hop in, will you. Turn on the lights . . . full beam . . . now dip them, please . . . left-hand indicator . . . right-hand indicator.’ He walked to the back of the car. ‘Put your foot on the brake pedal.’

  Everything worked. I wondered what he was going to do next. I was waiting for him to take out his notebook, start writing down our personal details, ask to see my driving licence.

  ‘You two don’t look like farmers to me. You’re too young. Where have you come from tonight?’

  ‘London,’ I said. ‘Left at midnight. We just stopped here to stretch our legs.’

  ‘You haven’t got the build. There’s not enough meat on you. You’ll be lucky to make ends meet. It certainly wasn’t for me; I got out of it and joined the force.’

  ‘We’ll do our best,’ I said.

  ‘Lonely, as well.’

  Then he fixed a benevolent gaze upon us, a reflective look, maybe remembering himself as a younger man. He might have been in his late forties; it was hard to tell under the helmet.

  ‘Go on then, boys. Good luck to you.’

  I started up the car, wishing him again a happy New Year.

  ‘You’re overweight,’ he said.

  As we left Ledbury behind us, nerves dancing, I could feel my heart thumping against my ribs. Why hadn’t he asked to see my licence, taken our names and addresses? I told Jack I couldn’t go through that again. I would take my driving test as soon as we had settled in.

  We calmed down singing along to Otis’ ‘A Change Is Gonna Come’, together reclaiming our composure.

  After we had passed through Betws-y-Coed the road narrowed; for the next half an hour I never got out of second gear. Around sharp bends stray sheep stood staring at us, their eyes illuminated, blinded by the headlights. A dishevelled motley crew, with tangled coats, loose wool hanging in great balls from their fleeces, these early morning stragglers were indifferent to any danger. I was constantly having to avoid them. I didn’t know what the sheep population of Wales was, but I didn’t want to reduce it through careless driving on my part.

  For the first time on the journey my eyes blurred. Sleep floated up, until suddenly I heard Jack shouting my name. He said the car was veering across the road into a stone wall.

  ‘Don’t be so dramatic!’

  We opened both windows, letting a vicious wind blast our faces; I was wide awake now. I kept telling Jack, ‘It’s okay, I’m awake.’

  Ahead of us was a stretch of flat road, a chance to conserve fuel. Over the hills an aura of light broke along the ridges; on either side of us conifer plantations appeared out of the darkness. The countryside opened up. Dotted against the backcloth of this barren landscape, balancing on sheer rock, a few suicidal sheep stood staring down on us.

  ‘Sheep have all the best views,’ I said to Jack.

  As the light increased we could see a ruff of small clouds skirting the peaks. Almost transparent, they vanished like a whim in the high breezes. I was filled with a sense of having crossed over from one country into another.

  Then our journey came to an abrupt halt.

  Ahead, a herd of cows swayed towards us. Following behind I could see the flat-capped figure of a farmer waving his stick, shouting into the wind. There were fifty of them at least, so we reversed some two hundred yards and sat waiting.

  Then followed a sequence of events that whetted Jack’s appetite, capturing the magical relationship between a man and his working dog. Suddenly a collie jumped on to the stone wall and raced along the jagged edges, perfectly balanced, overtaking the whole herd in a matter of seconds. Leaping down, lying in front of them ears pricked, swerving rapidly, running between their legs, never barking, holding them on course.

  We got out of the Traveller, thinking we could be of some help, at least by waving our arms to steer them through an open gate into the field. But we weren’t needed. We could hear the herdsman’s short, sharp whistles and see the dog responding, nipping at their hocks, retreating, lying down, tongue flapping, then leaping up again to head after a cow who had taken a fancy to the open road. Moving swiftly, she brought her back to the herdsman and he closed the gate behind her.

  He was a drab figure, wearing a hessian sack like a shawl over his shoulders, carrying his crook across his arm. She waited affectionately for his hand to stroke her face.

  Jack shouted over to me, ‘What did you think of that? Did you see it? The concentration, the swiftness of every movement. It was beautiful.’

  ‘Balletic,’ I said. And I meant it.

  Jack was enthralled; I’d never seen that expression on my brother’s face before.

  ‘How old is she?’ he asked the herdsman.

  ‘She’s three now . . . I had her mother before her,’ he said, leaning on the gate, taking a tin of tobacco from his trouser pocket. Eyes a watery blue, words softly spoken, his weatherbeaten face seemed to glow with a rusty hue. His deeply lined forehead gave the impression of a frown even when he smiled. Thumb and forefinger were missing from his right hand. He rolled a single-paper cigarette with dexterous fingers, using only his left hand. Even holding a box of Swans, taking a match and striking it, showed a skill that had been refined well beyond adapting to an impediment. As the match lit in his calloused hand, his palm curved elegantly around the flame, sheltering it from the wind, an art well practised.

  ‘Her name is Jess,’ he said, exhaling smoke from both nostrils and mouth. We recognised that he was a man at home in his world. On that quiet stretch of road we talked as dawn sprea
d its light over boulder and stone and the silvery grass. We quite forgot about continuing our journey. He was open about himself and Jack, eager to know more about the dog, questioned him with a new enthusiasm.

  ‘Discipline and praise is the secret to having a good dog,’ he told us. ‘Start them off at six months. Easy on them, mind you; no more than lying down till you call them. Remember, it’s in their blood to work.’ He clicked his fingers, and she was up at his side. ‘You see, they never switch off. They listen to every word. Get away, Jess,’ he whispered and she was gone in a flash, tearing up the asphalt. Bringing his hand to his mouth, he stopped her with a whistle.

  ‘Remember, a whistle travels further than a voice in the wind.’

  He turned and left her there, asked us where we were going, what we were doing out so early on a New Year’s Day. We told him our plans. Listening to the naïve aspirations of two city boys, he gave not a clue as to what he was thinking, passed no judgement, said only that we were young men with plenty of time to fail or succeed.

  ‘But you,’ he said, looking at Jack, ‘I see the shepherd in you.’

  Then he whistled to bring Jess back to his side. ‘Good luck to you,’ he said walking away, dog at his heel. We watched them slowly disappear back into the landscape, our hands numbing in a stiff breeze.

  It was nearly nine o’clock. On the deserted road with the morning still brightening we continued on the last leg of our journey. I thought of Ros and the children, stopping at a telephone box, ringing to wish them a happy New Year. But it was too early, and to get a disgruntled Eryl out of bed was not a good way to announce our arrival in her homeland.

  ‘No more than five miles to go,’ said Jack as the landscape changed from the barren wildness we had seen coming from Capel Curig into the Nantlle valley. Hills of slate spilled over from the Dorothea quarry encircling the terraced houses of Talysarn with an oppressive greyness. Now for the first time I recognised where we were. Talysarn had stuck in my mind when we had driven through it looking at smallholdings in the area. It weighed on me then just as it did now, surrounded by the waste of an industry that prevented any view to please the eye, a constant reminder to all who dwelt there of the lives given to labouring down a huge hole.

  No sooner had we passed out of Talysarn than we came into Penygroes, the two villages separated by the secondary modern school whose stone buildings dwarfed the squat dwellings that flanked it. Penygroes was not a place of architectural interest, but a rather drab cluster of narrow streets whose faded front doors, once brightly painted, had the flaky look of a community down at heel. The main road ran through the middle, on its way to Porthmadog or Caernarfon.

  We turned right and climbed the steep hill out of Penygroes. It was demanding on the Traveller, but she kept going, drinking the last dregs of fuel, until we arrived at the rusting metal gate, the faded sign Dyffryn Farm skewed at an angle, flapping in the wind. It was 9.50 a.m., and the whole journey had taken just under ten hours. There was no celebration, not even a sigh of relief, just silence as we sat there, my head slumped on the steering wheel.

  We put together a couple of roll-ups and got out of the car, taking in everything around us. In the distance the calm Irish Sea mirrored the quietness of the morning. Cwm Silyn rose as a shadow, its peak sharply defined by the blue background of a cloudless sky. Above us the hills, the irregular shapes of sloping fields. Out of this landscape steel pylons towered, stretching their cables, buzzing with electricity over the grazing flocks. Squawking gulls floated overhead on the sea air breezing in, no doubt eyeing up the newcomers.

  We drove down the stony track that cut between the fields of one of our neighbours, Hughie Catchpole, to the middle gate that opened onto the top acres of Dyffryn.

  Facing us was a barn with corrugated roofing, surrounded by outbuildings, including a small milking parlour. The drive down to the house was lined on either side by larch trees. Adjoining the house stood another barn, and opposite it a hovel used by a shepherd during lambing, where the keys to the house were hanging on a nail behind the door.

  Now that fatigue which follows the endurance of a long journey swept over us. Just to unload the car seemed like a mammoth task. We needed sleep, and although I wanted to speak to Ros to tell her we were here, the phone was dead. Even if I could drive to Penygroes to call her, I doubted I would make it back. It was all we could do to empty the car, unroll two mattresses and shake out our sleeping bags. We got into them fully clothed, for the house was damp and cold. I pushed the button on the cassette player and drifted off listening to Fats Domino’s ‘Blueberry Hill’.

  I wondered what thrills lay ahead for us.