Suddenly Alun jerked himself upright and started waving vigorously to the buffet-car steward who had come into sight at the far doorway. The man was smiling and nodding and coming for them at top speed, but Alun still waved. In the rear another, younger and subordinate, buffet-car steward approached less swiftly.
'Sorry for the delay, Mr Weaver.' The first steward looked and sounded really cut up as he unloaded a miniature of Whyte & McKay, a can of Idris ginger beer and trimmings. 'Always a crowd before Newport,' he added.
Then his manner changed momentarily to conditional consternation. 'You did say no ice, didn't you, Mr Weaver? Now you have got everything you want, have you? Mrs Weaver? Are you sure? Nothing to eat?' He looked swiftly over their shoulders and back again and went on, mouthing the words to show that they were not for all ears, 'Toasted sandwich, bacon or Danish Blue and ploughman's pickle? Are you quite sure now?'
Alun said he was, and reeled off a string of heartfelt appreciative expressions while he paid and moderately tipped.
Maintaining it had been a pleasure, Emrys said, 'Now here's a young man who as good as went down on his bended knees to me to be given the chance of meeting you. May I introduce Darren Davies. This is Mr Alun Weaver, OBE.'
The lesser steward was brought forward. He looked rather uneasy and not at all the type to go out of his way to meet an elderly Welshman famous for something unintelligible, but he managed a smile.
Alun sprang up and stuck out his hand. 'Actually, it's CBE. How do you do, Darren. What part of Wales do you come from?'
'Llangefni. Anglesey.'
'Yes, Darren's a North Walian,' said Emrys in the un-shocked tone he might have used to announce that the lad was a soccer-player or a Roman Catholic.
'Anglesey's beautiful. I was up there two years ago. Aberffraw. Now Emrys I mustn't keep you any longer from your duties, it wouldn't be fair on other people.'
'Very well, Mr Weaver. But before I go I want to say just this. Everybody is delighted to learn that you and Mrs Weaver have determined to come and live among us here in South Wales. Proud too. Honoured.'
When Alun had said he was grateful and very touched and had shooed Emrys and Darren away and beaten down some of the stares from nearby passengers, not all of them reverential, nor all comprehending, he turned to Rhiannon and raised his eyebrows in a rueful, resigned way. 'You've got to do it,' he said as he had said many times before.
'Of course you have,' she said likewise.
'He'll be telling them in the pub tonight how he had that boring old fart Alun Weaver on-his train.' He had said something like that before too but less often.
'Nonsense, he was thrilled, you could see.'
'Anyway a bloody sight more thrilled than he'd have been if I'd asked him to actually produce a bacon bloody sandwich.'
At Cambridge Street station it looked for nearly a minute as though there was not going to be anything that Alun had got to do, but then there appeared a squat man in a white raincoat with what Rhiannon considered was a very small piece of machinery in his hand.
'Alun Weaver?'
'Yes indeed - BBC?'
'Jack Mathias. No, Glamrad,' said the fellow hoarsely, referring to the local commercial radio station.
'Oh. Oh, very well.' Alun peered vainly about for a moment longer, then switched himself on. 'Good to see you, Mr Mathias, and thank you for coming. I hope you haven't had to wait too long. Now what can I do for you?'
Mathias seemed to be suggesting that he and Alun should conduct their business on a public bench on the station platform. They were under cover but drizzle came gusting in from the open and there was a good deal of noise of people and trains.
'Can't we go somewhere warmer?' asked Alun. 'And quieter?' He tilted his head in an unnatural way to keep the wind from blowing his hair out ·of position.
'Sorry, we need the noise for the actuality.' Mathias was efficiently setting up his recorder on the bench beside him. 'The ambience. One, two, three, four, testing, testing.'
'Are you going to need my wife for any of this?'
'No,' said Mathias. The question evidently puzzled him. 'All right.' Dissatisfaction with the proceedings showed in Alun's face, but also acceptance. He said to Rhiannon, 'Go and have a cup of tea, love. No need for you to stand about here.'
She felt the same, but thought she would stay and just see or rather hear the start. Soon, so soon as to constitute a vague put-down, Mathias was ready. He had not yet looked either of them in the eye.
'Alun Weaver, Cambridge Street station, take one,' he said to nothing in particular. 'Tell me, what does it feel like to return to live in Wales after all these years away?'
'Many things grave and gay and multi-coloured but one above all: I'm coming home. That short rich resounding word means one simple single thing to a Welshman such as I, born and bred in this land of river and hill. And that thing, that miraculous thing is - Wales. Fifty years of exile couldn't fray that stout bond. Heart is where the home is, and the heart of a Welshman...'
The warm, lively voice was soon lost when Rhiannon started to walk towards the barrier carrying the overnight case that Emrys had fought so hard for Darren to be allowed to carry. She held herself very straight and still answered physically to most of Malcolm's description, though her grey eyes had never held the touch of blue he had said he saw in them.
On her two recent trips to these parts she had travelled by car and she had not seen the station for over
