question came, by talk of a swift removal to a modest place of one's own and a single half-amused glance about. At this stage he had not yet fully worked out minor finesses like that, but he was a great believer in thinking as far as possible round any subject beforehand.
Now he set out to ingratiate himself with the crew, but circumspectly, not in the style which had been good enough for Emrys on the train. He sensed that a little went a long way with this sort of youngster, especially a little of anything that could be described, however unjustly, as Welsh flannel, Taff bullshit, etc. Having done what he could in this out-of-the-way mode he turned his attention to the interviewer, a fair young man in a wine-coloured jacket who had nothing discoverably Welsh about him and who let it be known, with enviable speed and clarity, that this morning's task was no more than the sort of thing he was prepared to go through with while waiting briefly for a proper job a long way away. In other circumstances Alun would have sorted him out in five seconds flat, but as it was he concentrated on pretending not to have noticed and on not trying to make the young shit like him - that had to come naturally or not at all.
The interview went well enough. Alun soon saw the fellow had no particular approach, was in the manner of such fellows merely concerned to establish his superiority to the overall run of the play. So the angle to go for had to be knowing a lot, seeing a lot, caring a lot but only in unpredictable ways, or ways that could be passed off as unpredictable. It was not an occasion for pulling out the stops, but near the end, after magnanimously letting pass a touch of ignorance about the Attlee governments' policies for industry in South Wales, Alun took the chance of getting into his stride rather.
'It's all too easy for an exile come home to stay where he lands up, to cultivate his garden and never look over the hedge, to become something of a vegetable himself. That won't do for me, I'm afraid. I'll be going out, out in search of Wales, looking at things, looking at people. A small private voyage of discovery. I'm sure I'll find plenty of changes, for the worse, for the better, but there are some places where change can never reach... '
He went on to list, rather fancifully, perhaps, a few of that kind. In the normal way he forgot everything he had said in a broadcast as soon as it was finished, and good riddance - remembering might interfere with spontaneity next time. But now for once some of it stuck. Cultivating his garden he could dismiss right off, as anyone might who· was as keen as he on what you could get up to indoors. In search of Wales, on the other hand, sounded distinctly good, might become _In Search of Wales__ one day; it was a pity that old Brynford had done those programmes so recently. Meanwhile, the pursuit of a nebulous project of this sort would be just the thing for getting him out of untimely invitations and the like, and also covering any sudden disappearances he might feel impelled to make.
When Rhiannon came into the drawing-room after the TV lot had gone, she found him full of enthusiasm for his new scheme, full of ideas too: trips to Courcey Island, to Carmarthen, to Merthyr Dafydd, to Brecon; visits to metal works at Port Holder and Caerhays; rounds of the pubs in Harriston, in Cwmgwyrdd, in Bargemants Row; a pilgrimage and a piss-up in Birdarthur, where Brydan had settled after his last trip to America. As he talked, she moved here and there round the room in an unsettling-way. 'What are you doing? he broke off to ask.
'Nothing. I'm listening. I was just making sure everything is all right.'
'What? How do you mean all right?'
'Just nothing's been broken or anything like that.'
'Don't fuss' he said, but not sharply. 'You tip-toe round this place as if you're afraid to chip a bloody saucer. These blokes are very professional, you couldn't tell they'd been here if you didn't know.'
'All right, but I am afraid to chip a bloody saucer, and so should you be. People get attached to their things. Anyway, how did it go?'
'Uh? _Oh.'__ He tossed his head, indicating that the presumably meant interview was nothing, no trouble, of no significance, already forgotten but satisfactory. 'I was thinking, I thought I might look in at the Glendower for lunch, you know, toe in the water kind of thing. See if it's any good. Why don't you... '
'There's this cleaner turning up, and then Rosemary's train gets in at 2.40,' said Rhiannon, naming their younger, unmarried daughter. Rosemary was taking a long weekend off from St John's College, Oxford, where she was reading law, to come and help her mother look at houses round about. 'Be a bit of a rush.'
'Oh God, four to one again. Still, it's only for a couple of days, I agree.'
'Come on, let's hear it.'
'I told you before and don't pretend you don't know perfectly bloody well in the first place. Any man in the company of two women is outnumbered four to one however amiable they may be. By definition.'
'So when it's just you and me I outnumber you two to one, is that right?'
'Affirmative. And it's not twice two when there are two of you. I mean if we had Frances on the party it would be nine to one. What they call a square law.'
'You will have your little joke, won't you, _was__? And I'll go along and glad to as long as we all know it's a joke. You outnumbered. That'll be the day.'
'Oh now now girl, easy by there, _cariad__,' he said, taking it off wicked of course but getting something out of it at the same time, or fancying so. 'No ruffled feathers now.' He put his arms round her.
'Relax, boyo,' she said.
The family car was Japanese and why not? - Alun would tacitly claim a special Welsh exemption from any lingering sense of duty to drive an 'English' model. It had been brought down from London earlier that week by a minor character from his publishers, minimal in fact and male too, thus rating no more than a gulped-down whisky before being packed off to the station. Today Alun took it into town and parked it in a building contractor's yard just behind Broad Street. A long-nosed man in a yellow helmet came out of a shed as if to order him away, but Alun's face with the distinctive quiff was well enough known to be familiar even when not actually recognized, and a clap on the shoulder and a bellowed but unintelligible greeting did the rest.
The state of play in the grill at the Glendower, half full or more on a weekday lunchtime earlyish, suggested that the concern was doing well enough. It was a big part of Alun's stock-in-trade to seem to know things like what sort of people were sitting at the tables, but he would have tried not to be challenged on this lot. Part of it was that nobody dressed properly any more. Another part was that it was no longer just the young who were too young to be distinguished between. He cast his eye round the room. Tradesmen, he said firmly to himself. Housewives. When he had hung about for a minute or two without anyone coming near him or even looking up, he made for the door, noticing on the way that an attempt, pretty pathetic but not on that account less offensive to respectable sentiment, had been made to give the place a Nineties or Edwardian look with plush, iron, brass, wall-mirrors and long white aprons on the waiters. An ancient map of South Wales (c.1980) hung between the windows.
