10

For the next two years in the County School nothing occupied Owen’s mind except his work; and he couldn’t understand how it could ever have been otherwise.

In his last year, Twm started in the County School, having also won a scholarship, and since Owen was already lodging in town, their parents thought it would be best for Twm to lodge there too so that Owen could keep an eye on him. Ifan and Jane Gruffydd always thought that some of their children could keep an eye on the others, and in this way they could rid themselves of some of the responsibility of parenthood. Neither of them could ever be called a disciplinarian. The children were like them in this, and so they never discharged their duties of ‘keeping an eye on’ their siblings. Owen had enough to do to keep his eye on his Latin and Greek. But he couldn’t help but notice Twm when he was actually in the same lodging house as him. He couldn’t do otherwise. Twm was actually an exceptionally handsome boy – similar to Sioned his sister in looks, but more genial and open in his ways. When Owen had passed the exam to get into the County School, Twm had been just a little whippersnapper of seven, trotting around everywhere with his sister Bet, so that Owen had not really known him as well as the other children.

All kinds of Schoolwork was child’s play for Twm. He was a feather of a child, floating past everyone so lightly that no one really noticed him. He did his homework in a few minutes, then sat in a chair, whistling.

‘Get on with your work,’ said Owen.

‘I’ve finished it,’ said Twm.

‘You can’t have finished it so quickly. Let me see.’

And Twm, still whistling, and tipping his chair back nonchalantly, would pass him his exercise book. Owen found that it was all done correctly.

‘Look, you need to get some books from the library, so that you have something to read.’

‘I’d rather go out.’

‘Well, go on then, for tonight, but don’t be too long.’

In about two hours Twm returned, smelling of the chip shop.

‘Where have you been?’

‘Down to the harbour with the lads and afterwards in the chip shop.’

‘What lads?’

‘The town lads, those in the same class as me. Davey and Arthur.’

And that’s how things went most of the time from then on. Twm enjoyed himself in the town. Owen never saw him. The lodging house was just a waiting room for Owen to do his homework in, and he himself never went out. He never really got accustomed to the heavy atmosphere of a town house, an atmosphere he always associated with dangling sticky paper for catching flies in late September. Houses with their closed, garden-less backs to each other, and their clothes lines outside weighed down with grimy washing. But before Twm had been in the town a couple of months he already knew where the best chip shop was, where to get cheap windfall apples, where every back lane led to, and where the best hiding places were in the harbour. He knew every town boy in the School, and every madman and odd character who used to loiter on street corners and in the marketplace. Owen was left in peace to do his homework, and since Twm always did his own, he wasn’t bothered.

Sometimes Twm went along to Revival* meetings, more out of curiosity than anything else. He managed to get Owen to go too once or twice, but Owen was really not interested in them, and he had by this time managed to keep himself and his work quite separate from the world outside. Twm went to the Revival meetings regularly for a while and then grew tired of them. But he told Owen funny stories about what had happened there sometimes.

He started visiting Elin at her place as well, and had supper with her, and often money for his supper in the chip shop on the following evening. Twm was more of an unknown brother to Elin even than to Owen, and as such Elin delighted in him as in a new discovery. She got out of him every story he knew about home and about Owen, yes, and about Sioned. In his wanderings around town after closing time, Twm often came across Sioned, all dressed up, walking out with some boy or other. Through his friends he found out that he was a town boy, a clerk in one of the shops. He told Elin these stories enthusiastically, because talking about Sioned closed the gap of estrangement between them, and because he liked talking and took an interest in other people’s lives. When Elin had her night off on Saturdays Sioned would be working late, and she would walk home or take the last brake, so Elin never saw her, and though she urged her to come and visit her at her place, Sioned never did. So, Twm’s news about Sioned was of interest to Elin.

‘What did he look like, Twm?’ she said.

‘Some hobbledehoy of a chap,’ said Twm. ‘Hobbledehoy’ might not have meant much to most people, but it told Elin all she wanted to know.

‘It would be much better for Sioned to go out with quarry-lads, instead of going for milksops like that. She’ll find out one day that these townies are no match for her.’

‘Or that she’s no match for them,’ said Twm.

‘Don’t you be so sure,’ said Elin, ‘Comic Cuts is about the deepest thing that most of them can understand.’

After going back to his lodgings, Twm told Owen everything, including Elin’s remarks. They talked while lying in bed since the landlady didn’t approve of wasting lamp oil.

‘Don’t you say anything about this at home,’ said Owen.

‘Do you really think I would be daft enough to say anything?’ said Twm, hurt.

‘Well, alright, I was just giving you a bit of a reminder, because there’s already been one big fuss over Sioned at home.’

‘What was that?’

And as he told his brother the story about Sioned in the darkness, Owen felt that he was beginning to get to know his little brother better.

Recalling the derision heaped on him by the lads like Sioned’s boyfriend who used to walk into town, Owen couldn’t help saying, ‘She’s a damned fool.’

‘But the town lads aren’t all like that,’ said Twm.

‘Even if they were like angels, they’re still different from us,’ said Owen.

Within the year, Owen went to College in Bangor on a twenty-pound scholarship, with the intention of training to be a teacher. Only one other thing was thought to be suitable for him, and that was to be a preacher. But that didn’t run in the Ffridd Felen family, and Owen had never been drawn in that direction. For three years afterwards Twm had to walk all the way home rather than lodge in the town, a fact which made him very sad at first.