The Second Branch of the Mabinogi has, for me, always been one of the hardest tales of our mythology. It is one that I have never told publicly in full, and not only because the lists of names are so difficult to remember. There is so much brutal violence in it, though I could find words for it, the telling always leaves my soul disquieted.
It is a mythic tale of exaggerated proportions, where the hero and his army of British men lay waste the whole of Ireland, slaying everyone in the process but five pregnant women. If it were history, it could be acknowledged as past, yet because it is mythology there is some sense of there being an importance in the tale, a message that should continue to be retold; and this is not a message I feel comfortable retelling. Perhaps that is a flaw of my gender or nature. Certainly, there are scores of twists and colours in the tale that are valuable, not just as softly spoken guidance, but as the cries of our heritage that can still be heard in the wind. But in telling it without the apocalyptic warfare, the tale is at risk of being too altered.
Nonetheless, this is what I have done. The tale of Bran the Blessed I offer here in a very different form. The reader who knows the Second Branch well will pick up the occasional line that is almost intact, or the way in which I’ve translated or adjusted names and characters for my context, placing them within the essential plot which is very broadly unchanged. For the reader who does not know the tale, I would encourage that the original also be read.
What I’ve taken as important are the themes of tribe, belonging, loyalty and innocence, and how those are valued and expressed within a harsh environment. What I feel I have lost most in this telling is the sense of deity, for in the original as in many myths there is an undercurrent of the key characters – usually the female protagonist – as a representation of something much more than themselves. Here, I have no gods or goddesses, but I have tried to express the way we perceive heroes, and how those individuals can be so close to gods for us.
Some readers may not like the way I have expressed Branwen. To guide the tale’s telling, I have used the idea that this more commonly used form of her name may be a mutation, providing a closer bond with her brother Bran (see Sioned Davis, ‘The Mabinogion’, OUP 2007). Bronwen could well be an earlier version of the name and translates as ‘White Breast’. This makes more sense to me, emphasising her beauty and innocence as a key theme throughout the story, and sits more easily within this interpretation given here. If some feel I have made her a victim, I don’t believe I have done so any more than the original myth. I hope I express her nature as almost archetypally pure, a goddess. Yet, like the jewel of a raindrop in the light of dawn, she is as ordinary as she is extraordinary, as is her world.
As a warning for the faint-hearted, there is violence in this story, no more than in the myth as written down in the original Welsh, but placed here perhaps in a more accessible context.
The Tale
It was a night in June when it all began.
An ordinary evening, sometime around nine, and most of us were there, letting the time quietly slip away. It was easy to do in those days, when the clouds weren’t rolling down off the hills or coming up from the coast. That evening, I remember, we lay there on the grass bathed in a golden light, watching the sun slowly falling towards the sea. Next to me the other two were chatting softly, giggling about something, assuming I was listening, and although I made the noises and smiled at them, I was dreamy that evening.
I could hear the lads talking, a hundred yards away in the bandstand, jibing and laughing, the clink of their beer bottles on the stone floor. Perhaps a part of me was listening out for the Raven’s voice – perhaps I always did – and when I heard him, his deep purring voice, I sat up and looked towards them through the low branches of the trees.
The bandstand was old, crumbling. It was hard to imagine what it must have looked like in its heyday, when our town was rich with the iron foundry. But I could see how the men who made it had had some glorious vision. It was built onto a huge rock that created a promontory, looking out over the whole shabby town. From up here you could see the river, cutting our town in half, and follow its path through the old works buildings and out to the sea. You could see the hills rising, covered in their winding roads and little terraced houses, until they shook off the mess of our decaying community and stretched out as the open moors.
Our dad used to bring us up here when we were little. He’d show us the important places in his life, where he’d lived as a kid, where he met our mum, the different parts of the foundry and the boatyards where he’d worked. Then he’d make us imagine what it would have been like up here when there was just this great big rock, before the town was built, when there was nothing but the wooded valley, the river and the moors. I took the spliff from Beth and watched the Raven, remembering him when he was ten years old, my great big brother, proud to be standing next to his dad.
Sat on the low wall with his big black boots, his black jeans, black tshirt, his black leather jacket, his mop of thick black hair falling over his eyes, my heart was full of love. Everyone called him the Raven now. He had that solitary look, like it didn’t matter how many people were with him, how many people loved him, he was always somehow alone, holding some ancient sadness. Of course, to his face they just called him the Boss; he was so much bigger than anyone else, standing over 6 foot 5 and so broad with muscle, with that look in his face, nobody messed with him. He looked after us.
It’s strange to think of everyone who was there that night. It was the last summer when we gathered like that. There was Manny, our brother: at nineteen he was younger than the Raven, three years older than me, back from doing a stretch in the navy and quieter than he was before he went away. He used to spend his days doing up some little tug, figuring he’d make a living out on the water one day. There was his close friend Tetch, who the girls all fell for with his skyblue eyes and this great big smile. We called him that not because he was tetchy, but his mum was: his dad had thrown her out for behaving badly when he was little, and she was always nervous she’d lose him again.
Of our stepbrothers, Nathan was there, but luckily Ethan wasn’t. Nathan was a good bloke, worked hard and was good to our mum before she died, but Ethan was a monster. He had no thought for anyone but himself; he was reckless and selfish to the point where we were always grateful if he was messing up someone else’s life and leaving us alone. I blamed their dad, the man our mum married when our dad died. He’d played in some local rockabilly band when he was young, and behaved as if he thought the sunshine shone out of his own backside.
Of the rest of the gang, there was Darren, Ig, Harvey, Glue, and half a dozen more. A few of them had their bikes parked up around the bandstand, and Tetch was on the floor with oily hands and a spanner working some mechanical magic on the rusty heap that was his. I suppose the fact that others had brought their pushbikes says it all. They weren’t bikers. We were a tribe, gathered within the protective bounds of the Raven. This was our park and on a lazy evening like that one there was nothing to do but share some spliff and a crate of beer, talk about the football and tinker with the bikes.
It was some of the younger ones who saw the scabs walking towards us. We called anyone a scabs who came from the other side of the river; it was something to do with the strike that closed the foundry. It wasn’t long before we could see it was some lads from the Storm. Matt, who headed up the gang, wasn’t with them, but they were still looking sleek and confident, and totally purposeful. Rhan prodded me, and Beth giggled – they knew I fancied Matt with his cheekbones and long hair tied back, but I shushed them and made sure we were hidden in case there was trouble.
We could hear Darren yell over the bandstand railings as they came up the path beneath the rock. “What are you bastards doin’ here?” The Stormboys put up their hands, and smiled nervously, one replying, “Hey, chill out, man. We just here to parley, yeah?”
Tetch, Nathan and a few others made their way down from the bandstand to see what it was all about, no doubt on the Raven’s direction.
“Our boss wants to talk with the Raven,” one said.
“Oh yeah, about what?” Nathan said, looking down his nose at the scab.
“About his sister,” was the reply. I sat back, feeling myself go dizzy. The girls looked at me, wide-eyed. “He knew it were best to ask first, know what I mean?” Our lads were obviously quiet. I could imagine them just staring at the scabs, amazed that they even had the courage to ask. “Thing is,” the Stormboy continued and I moved forward again to see, “we’ve been at war for a long while, over the water, your families and ours. It’s not good for any of us. Matt thinks a lot of the Raven’s sister – ” At this he once again put up his hands in surrender, making sure our lads didn’t think any insult was intended. “He figured that if the Raven agreed, it might be a way of making peace between the Storm and the Mighty.”
While the others stayed with the Stormboys, Tetch made his way back up to the Raven and we heard them quietly talking, all the while Beth digging her fingers into my arm and squealing under her breath. I could feel my heart pounding and bit my lip hard, waiting to know how my brother would respond. When Tetch made it back to the scabs he said, “The Raven says you’re to meet us at the Harlech Arms tomorrow night”.
The Harlech was our pub, not far from the park, and we all knew it would be an expression of Matt’s commitment, and the Stormboys’ willingness to take his orders, if they were to come to the Harlech and not end up in trouble. The next evening at around eight, not sure what to expect, we were gathered around a couple of the tables in the pub’s back yard, and in walked Matt with six of his boys.
The weather wasn’t great, with rain hanging above us in clouds rolling off the sea, but the Raven never liked being inside the cramped pub, and we were used to getting cold and wet under the skies. Matt smiled about to comment on the chill, but thankfully thought better of it. He smoothed back his long hair, gave his gofer some cash and offered to buy the gathering a round. It was a simple way of saying all that needed to be said in the way of a greeting, and I watched as the Raven gazed quietly into his face. He motioned to Glue who stood up, giving his place to the scabs’ boss.
Strangely, thank the gods, it turned out a good evening. The rain mainly stayed off, the beer tasted good, and plenty of spliff was passed around between the Storm and the Mighty keeping the laughter easy and the energy mellow. If Matt or one of his lads told a funny story, the Storm sat quiet for a while, waiting for one of the Mighty to take centre stage. It was funny to watch, and that’s all we girls did: watch.
Only once did Matt look at me, and when he did it was an obvious move and he knew that the Raven was watching him. He smiled at me, as if he really liked me, and I blushed, glancing up at my brother. The Raven’s face was calm; he made the slightest gesture at Tetch who stood up and, knowing what the Boss wanted, encouraged Matt to go check out a bike. Matt understood, gathering up his boys, and with Tetch they headed out to the curb where the bikes were parked up.
Without them, my big brother leaned over towards me and said softly, “Do you want him?” I shrugged, but my smile and my blush gave him the answer.
The following Saturday we were all to gather on Ma’s Island – Mighty territory, being part of the boatyards on our side of the river, but closer to the other shore than the Harlech Arms. It was a good thing we had the shelter too, because the rain was coming in and we knew it would be a wet night. Nobody seemed put out though. The girls and I went down in Nathan’s car, turning up just as Ig arrived with his brother’s van, heavily packed with beer and people. A couple of the lads had set up a rough-made barbecue and were roasting fish; we teased them that they’d caught the tiddlers themselves, but they told us they’d got them for free from Ig’s uncle at the docks. A pot of ‘anything’ stew was bubbling over a fire, and Maev had brought the day’s bread and cakes that hadn’t sold at her dad’s bakery. It was the makings of a feast.
The Storm came over the old works bridge further down towards the estuary, mostly on bikes, and as we heard them coming many of the lads stood out in the road. There was that moment of awkwardness, when nobody knew if there was going to be a fight, but Matt strode forward and smiled, and the Raven quietly nodded. Someone got the gennie working and, with music blasting through the derelict buildings, the party tumbled into its rhythm.
I was nervous and rather clung to Beth and Rhan for a while, but when Matt came up and asked me to dance I had to accept that the whole party had been put on for us, so I smiled and took his hand. We danced for ages, until I was hot and dizzy, and he put his arm around me and led me outside to the river’s edge. The music was pounding behind us, but somehow the water gave us some quiet. I shared his beer.
Drawing me against him, he murmured, “Bronwen,” and I tingled with the sound of my name on his lips. “You are so beautiful, sweet girl, you are, even more beautiful close up than I’d imagined.” He breathed me in and I looked into his green eyes, and we kissed.
That night seemed to go on forever. It felt like a new world was beginning, with lads from the Storm and the Mighty laughing together, completely laid back as if they were good mates. There were barrels of beer and bottles shared, spliff passed around, everyone dancing, chattering about the football and bands, gossiping. There were moments, when Matt was telling some exaggerated story and everyone was captivated, enjoying every twist and joke, when I even saw the Raven smile.
Though I knew we were never entirely alone, one of the Mighty always close by taking his turn to watch over me, I found myself charmed by Matt too. His body was strong and lean, his eyes green as the moor. He seemed genuinely to like me. When we lay on the old mattresses and sheepskins in some room off the warehouse, Ig standing guard outside the door, he moved his fingers so slowly over my body, whispering in wonder at how soft and pale my skin was. And in the candlelight that night, with the rain playing on the roofs above and the hum of the party, I almost fell in love with Matt of the Storm.
Waking the next morning, I felt important.
Matt, in just his jeans, was gazing out through the broken windows at the river, the rain softly falling, making that noise on the water. I sat up, feeling the chill in the air, and when he turned, seeing I’d woken, he hurried to my side, kneeling on the mattress and wrapping me up in his jacket. “Oh, you sweet sweet girl,” he murmured. And he held my face gently and kissed my forehead.
But then it broke, my precious moment, like a twig under someone’s boot. Suddenly there were voices outside the door, Stormboys yelling. As they rose into anger, all my hopes for a new world sank. I supposed we’d lived in the shadow of violence for so long, just as our parents had done before us ever since the strike, somewhere inside we knew it wouldn’t last: we were expecting it to break. I dropped my head into my hands. Matt stared at the door and swore, again and again, shaking his head. Someone clearly wanted to come in, and whoever the Raven had left to guard us wasn’t letting it happen. Taking a deep breath, he pulled on his boots, his tshirt over his head, and he strode to the door, walking out, shutting it firmly behind him.
I wanted to hide, to slip back into the candlelight, into the dream of Matt and me, making love so tenderly. It already felt like a silly fantasy.
It was Rhan they sent to tell me what had happened. Pushed into the room, indignant, “Alright, alright!”, she closed the door behind her and said, “Come on, sugar, quick, get yourself dressed. It’s all falling down something serious out there.”
“What’s gone wrong?” I asked, feeling a familiar dark hole growing in the pit of my stomach.
“What’s gone wrong? It’s your bloody brother Ethan what’s gone wrong!”
No one had seen or heard from him in over a fortnight. But in the early hours, hitching back into town from wherever he’d been wandering, he’d bumped into a few of the Mighty and, high on the newness of it all, they had told my sociopathic stepbrother all about the parley and the party. Apparently Ethan had showed up at the island and laid into the Storm’s bikes with a length of iron.
“But where’s the Raven?”
“He’s already gone. He left before Ethan showed up.” She shook her head, swearing. “When Ig pulled him off the bikes, he was yelling that he hadn’t given permission for you to sleep with Matt and someone had to pay.”
All of us would pay.
It was Nathan who knocked on the door and escorted us out, but as he left I saw Matt through the broken windows. He looked more bewildered than angry, shaking his head, saying to his boys, “It’s so strange. If he’d wanted to insult me, why did he give me such a fine girl to sleep with? In the name of the gods, he gave me his sister! He’s insulted her too!”
“Listen, Matt,” Manny was walking towards him, his hands out in a gesture of peace, his voice calm and quiet, in that way that made us think he’d seen more violence than any of us. “The Raven knew nothing about this. You know Ethan’s out of order, a twisted bloody psycho. Please, mate, just don’t leave angry. Let me find the Raven and tell him what’s been done. He’ll fix it. I know he’ll want to fix it.”
A few others, who’d gone in with Manny, offered to make them all a brew, offered spliff, beer, bacon sandwiches from the cafe on the docks. “While we’re waiting, yeah? Please, just don’t go before you talk to the Raven.” Behind us, Ig and Harv had sparked up their bikes and were skidding off up the road.
Seeing them go, Nathan pushed me to get into his car, but only then did I realised I was still wearing Matt’s jacket. “Wait?” I mumbled, and I ran before he could grab me, between the muddy puddles and through the open door. Everyone turned, but all I saw was Matt’s face. He looked so hard and cold. I looked down at the dirty grey floor, my heart thumping, and walked towards him, realising with a dread that if I gave him back the jacket he might take it as rejection.
He swore softly and I looked up into his face. “I don’t wanna give it back,” I whispered. “I mean, I don’t wanna steal it, I just – ”
He put his hand up to my cheek, lifting a lock of hair that had fallen over my eyes. “I think you better.”
A couple of days passed. The Raven had offered to get the bikes fixed, and they’d all been carted down to the garage run by Darren’s cousins. The word was that Matt had been offered much more. “A whole silver bike and a golden helmet,” quipped Rhan, but nobody really laughed.
It was up in the bandstand that they met again. The Mighty had got in bottles of beer, but the only two sitting inside were the Raven and Matt. The Stormboys were lounging over benches on the path below, and our lads sitting around further up on the grass. Nothing was gelling. I don’t know why but I crept closer, just to hear their voices, the purr of my brother and the man I’d been given to who’d given me back.
“You started the peace, Matt, and I honour you for that. You know just how much I’ve put into it. I’m serious, I don’t want that to have been in vain.”
“I’m aware of that.” He sounded more sad than angry.
There was a long silence, then the Raven said, “How about I offer you one more thing. We’ve a stash of KT. I’ll give you the lot.”
I heard Matt get to his feet, “You’ve got some KT?”
“Yeah, you’ve heard of it?”
“You’re kidding. Takes away every last flicker of pain, makes you feel strong even when you’ve had your head kicked in! You can’t talk but you can keep fighting! Where did you get it?”
“From a lad called Blue and his wife Kimmi. I thought you’d have heard of them.”
“Blue the Switch? Of course! I can tell you the whole sordid tale. They turned up one day, up on the hills above the new housing estate, Lakeside, this massive fat ginger bloke, bitterly ugly, with his whale of a wife – ” I could hear the Raven murmur agreement. “The bitch was up the duff, about to drop a kid, so we took them to the squat down on Furnace Lane. For a while they were alright, but then they just bloody wound everyone up. It wasn’t long before people hated them, coming to me complaining, saying I had to deal with it. Well, the bitch had had the kid by then, so I asked the boys what should be done, asked the squatters too. It wasn’t nice. They got them wasted on crispy gin, locked them in one of the works buildings, and set the place ablaze. Coppers didn’t find anything, so we knew they’d got away. Came over the water, did they?”
“They did. But I sent them down the coast. I hear they’re doing very well selling weed to the tourists.”
“No way?” And Matt laughed, my brother too, and their laughter was loud enough for both gangs to hear. That broke the ice. Tetch and Manny strolled down offering beer to the Stormboys. I saw one of them drift up towards Beth, and soon things seemed pretty chilled again. There was even a bit of warmth in the last of the evening’s sunshine; it gave me the courage to go up to the bandstand. Standing on the step, Matt gazing out over the sea, I looked at the Raven. He smiled, nodded, stood up and strode past me, Matt turning to find me standing there alone.
My heart skipped a beat.
“Hello, sweet girl.”
That’s how it all began, how I came to be living over the water, in a cramped little terrace house, Matt’s mum on one side with a couple of his sisters and their babies, another sister with all her kids on the other, and a dozen brothers, cousins and other Stormboys forever asking for food or money, sleeping, arguing, turning up the music, and me exhausted every moment of the day.
In the beginning it was alright. I learned all their names and made everyone mugs of tea. I showed his little sister how to sew tassels on a jacket, and suddenly every girl in the street wanted to know. I gave his cousin a pair of my home-made earrings, trying to be friendly, but then everyone wanted some and wouldn’t leave me be until they’d emptied my box. But it wasn’t so long before they stopped coming round: Bronwen-from-over-the-water wasn’t a novelty anymore. And that was nice for a while. Matt got sick of all the women in the house with all their little kids. We were almost happy, when he was home. He was good to me. He was never as tender as that night on Ma’s Island, as if he never quite trusted me after Ethan’s tantrum, and because of that I don’t think our love had a chance to get any deeper. It wasn’t helped by some of the Stormboys who took a jibe at me or about me at any opportunity.
Once, in the early hours of the morning, after we’d made love and he was gazing out the window, like so often he did, I said, “Are we alright, babe?” I was pregnant then. He turned to me, and for a moment I saw such sadness in his face, but he crawled back onto the bed and curled me up in his arms. “Course we are, my sweet girl, of course we are. I’ll look after you.”
I don’t know if things got worse after Alder was born, or just that I couldn’t cope with it so well. It may have been that Matt just wasn’t so happy with the little fellow taking up so much of my time, waking us up through the night. He didn’t come home much after a while, except with a crowd of the boys, and I’d be cooking and clearing up after them, and looking after little Alder. I suppose I was just really tired.
The first time he hit me, Alder sitting in his little high chair, I’d burned his tea. They wouldn’t let me go shopping, I never had a penny to spend, his mum or one of his sisters dropping a few bags off now and then, and it was hard to stretch it, not knowing when I’d get more food and often having to cook for half a dozen of the Storm. So when I burnt the bacon and there was no more to try again, I think he felt bad, but he took it out on me with the palm of his hand, slapping me so hard I broke plates as I fell. It was shocking, that first time. As he slammed the door, it was like he’d slapped me again and everything blurred. But once I’d got up, calmed the baby and cleared up the mess, I found a way of coping. You do, don’t you? And when he came back an hour later, he was so tender and sorry, holding me so tight, for a moment I thought he might even cry. By that point, I’d run out of tears.
The second time was worse. I’d taken Alder to the little patch of grass down the road, and some local lad was talking to us, just a geek, not a Stormboy. Someone must have seen us and when he got home, Matt thumped me in the face. I couldn’t hide the bruises, and after that nobody talked to me except to complain. The weight of loneliness was almost too much to bear. I longed to go back to the Raven, but every time I considered it, all I could think was how badly it would turn out. I was here to make the peace last, and for a while that thought kept me going, through the criticisms and blows, the aching of the bruises and my broken heart.
Since Alder had been born, there had never been the time to go back over the water; I’d no money for a bus and the walk was too far with the baby. Now and then folk had come to visit me, Beth with her boyfriend, and even Manny. But time started to blur when the beatings got bad, and now and then I’d sit on my bed and try and remember the last time I saw any of the Mighty, any of my family. I realised later they were hiding me, knowing how the Raven would react if knew the state I was in, but at the time it was hard to think.
Then one day he went too far. I was folding up his clothes and came across the tshirt he’d worn that night of the party on Ma’s Island – it was a soft deep green, like a misty version of his eyes, and I was remembering how I’d given myself to him. My eyes were closed and I was holding the tshirt, breathing in the memory that felt like a dream, when suddenly there he was, shouting at me, “What you doin’?” His face was twisted with suspicion. I knew he’d been sleeping with someone else, I could smell it on him, and he must have assumed I was checking his clothes, but I was long past that. He strode over and yelled into my face, “What d’you think your doin’?”
“Washing,” I whispered, my heart sinking, slipping away into the numbness. And he hit me so hard that I crashed into the wall, which hit me again. When I came to, the baby was shrieking. It took me a while to get to my feet, but when I picked him up I could feel real fear in his little body. That’s when I realised that Matt could kill me, and the belief that I’d been holding onto so intently – that I was some precious amulet of peace – had already dissolved into mist in my hands.
I wrote a note and kept it in my pocket, waiting for an opportunity, and it didn’t take long. Perhaps the last bang on the head cleared my thinking. I was late putting the rubbish out that week, the truck rumbling down the street reminding me, and by the time I put the bag into the bin the bloke was heading towards me to empty it. I recognised him and whispered, “Are you from over the river?”
He saw I was nervous of being overheard, saw the bruises on my face and arms, and came close before he said, “Yes, love. You alright?”
I pushed the note into his hand, beseeching him, “Take this to Brian Jones, for me? Number 27 Brook Lane – ”
“I know Brian,” he nodded, speaking under his breath as he clattered the bin, “giant of a bloke, known as the Raven? He fixed my mum’s plumbing when the council wouldn’t do it.”
“He’s my brother,” I whispered, and as I said it tears slid down my cheeks for the first time in many months. “He’ll look after you if you do this for me. What’s your name?”
“Starling,” he said, “Jimmy Starling.” And hoisting the bags onto his bag he strode off down the alley back to the truck.
It took him less than a day, a day I spent calculating possibilities, imagining what time Jimmy would get off work and make it to my brothers’ house, how long it would take the Mighty to make a decision about how to get me. By the time I was putting Alder down to nap that afternoon I figured someone would come for me by tea time: one car and three or four of the lads, quietly done. I put the few special things I wanted to take with me, most of them Alder’s, into a bag and hid it under the bed.
It took a few days longer than I thought it would, but there were more than three or four.
The tale has it that the Raven was so furious he sent word to gangs all over the district, up on the moors and down to the docks, even through the coastal towns, pulling in old favours and offering new deals, reminding folk where their loyalties lay. When they gathered on the Mighty’s side of the river, there was an army of nearly a hundred lads, every one armed and ready to fight. I can imagine it now, a few crossing by the road bridge, cars and bikes, but many simply leaping the stones and fallen tree trunks, the Raven striding through the water barely aware of the current. Confident in their numbers they took their time.
The first I heard was when some Stormboy crashed through the door into the house. Matt and his boys were lounging, drinking beer, lazing away another afternoon, Alder and I hiding in the bedroom, and I heard the boy holler, “There’s something happening on the river! Phaz and Neil saw it from the hill, there’s kids dancing, loud music, drums – ”
Matt’s voice, “What you on about?”
“No kiddin’, something’s up.”
There was a pause, then the door to the bedroom opened slowly and Matt stood there, his deep green eyes cold as the moors, “Do you know anything about this, Bron?”
I looked into his face and murmured with all the strength I had left, “That’ll be the Raven, coming to get me”.
He walked to the chest of drawers and picked up his hair brush, released his long thick hair from the elastic band that tied it back, and slowly he brushed it through. Putting the brush back quietly, refastening the pony tail, he looked at me for what felt like the last time. I could see the fear and the anger, the bitter resentment, I could even see his broken heart, though his expression never changed. Leaving the room he didn’t close the door.
All he said to the Storm was, “We’re going up to the Folly. Armed. Someone bring the girl.”
The Folly was a derelict pub high on the hills, with the town below, the valley that opened out to the sea. Bundled into a car, holding Alder tight, and clutching the bag I’d grabbed from under the bed, I was driven up there along the top road in a car filled with lads, each one with a length of iron or wood, many with blades, the music blaring through the open windows. Bikes growled all around us, revving past us.
At the top, the Storm stood around with their wooden bats, pipes and knives, and on his direction one of his boys came and took Alder from me, dismissing my objections with a cruel and cutting word. The little one reached out to me, whimpering, and I murmured useless words of comfort, and watched as Matt took him, his firm hands holding the baby so tightly he couldn’t struggle.
Then we sat there and waited as the tide of the Raven’s army made its way through the town, taking the hill roads and paths, many on foot, some on bikes, in open vans and pickups. Everyone hung back until the Raven arrived, striding up the steep path as if it were a stroll on the beach. I longed to run to him and perhaps if I’d had the strength I would have done, but without Alder in my arms I felt so weak. Tetch walked to his side, murmuring something to him, and they both turned towards me. He didn’t smile, he simply nodded.
Matt stepped forward, Alder in his arms. It was only then I realised that he knew he had lost.
Smiling, his charm and determination rising through, he said, “We welcome the Mighty and their friends as guests here.” And he held our squirming baby out before him, adding, “Let there be peace.”
There was a pause, then the Raven said, “You dishonoured my sister.”
Matt took a few steps closer, as if trying to regain the connection they’d once had, a little more than a year ago. But surrounded by lads armed to the teeth, it made a mockery of that evening at the bandstand. “What can I do to make amends?” he shrugged, smiling. The Raven glared and waited, his eyes never moving from Matt’s face. “A party, how about a party? Let’s have a party!” The idea had clearly just come to him, and he turned to the whole crowd and hollered, “How about a party, lads? Up here, it’s a nice night. On us. We’ll get in the barrels, some flooze, the Trawlermen are playing at the King’s Head, we’ll get them up here. What d’you say?” Used to his slippery charm, the Stormboys were backing him.
The Mighty and the rest of the Raven’s lads were waiting for a sign, but he was silent, staring at Matt. I couldn’t bear it, not with my baby in Matt’s arms. Getting to my feet, I ran to my brother, stumbling on the grass. Tetch caught me, murmuring, “Steady, girl,” and holding me as I begged him, sobbing, “Please, Boss, don’t let there be fighting. Please, say yes, you’ll come to the party. I couldn’t stand any more fighting. Please!”
A few hours later, the band were playing off the back of some truck, fiddles and guitars rising over the gennie’s steady rumbling. A great bonfire blazed, made of old chairs, doors and crates from the pub, a pile of wood growing beside it to keep it going. Barrels of cloudy homebrew are emptying fast, there are bottles of local spirit, what they call crispy gin, and a few of Matt’s boys were wandering around, making sure there is plenty of spliff in the crowd. But the energy was caustic. I don’t know how much it was fuelled by the gin, but it felt as if everyone were simply waiting to fight.
In that electric tension, we sat on the grass, Manny, Nathan, the Raven and me, each of them taking it turns to hold Alder, making him giggle as if it eased the load. It was Tetch who came up and gave us the news: Ethan had arrived. Nathan got to his feet.
“He’s been smashing people’s heads in,” Tetch said, “anyone he thinks is hiding, back of a truck, in the sheds, convinced that the Storm has set up an ambush.”
“Maybe they are,” Nathan said, looking around.
“Sit down,” the Raven growled, and smiled at Alder who was toothlessly engaged in biting one of his great big fingers. “Sit.” And they did, knowing it was better to stay calm and not antagonise the crowd.
The next moment Ethan wandered up towards us. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen him, but it must have been almost two years before. He looked thin and wired, as if the bitterness in his soul were eating him alive. The others ignored him, as we so often do with someone who just wears us down.
“So this is the kid,” he snarled. He leaned over and prodded Alder’s round cheek. “Even if he weren’t the centre of this whole sad farce, he’d be a cute little bastard, hey?” And standing up again he said, “So can’t I hold him? Same as all you other bastards, I am his uncle.”
In many ways what happened next is the point of my story: the only reason I need to tell it. I’ve heard others talk about those times and everyone has a point, as if they are digging out the moral argument that teaches the next generation not to do the same. For me, it isn’t about good and bad, right and wrong; it’s about pain. Sometimes I think we need to tell the tales of our lives because if we don’t the pain is like a pool of stagnant water that grows more and more acidic. Somehow, saying the words is like breaking the dam. Letting it go. Trying to let it go.
For a stupid moment, I felt sorry for him. I’m amazed now that I had the capacity to feel anything, but I wonder if seeing Ethan’s chronic bitter misery I somehow empathised with him in that moment. “Course you can,” I murmured, and I stood up to let him hold my baby. He smiled at me, and at the bundle of innocence I placed in his arms.
“Considering he’s the spawn of that scab, he’s quite cute, isn’t he, quite cute, though he’s spawn of scum.” And he turned, holding my baby, searching for Matt. Matt, sitting close enough to keep us in his sights, had been watching it all. Glaring at me for allowing Ethan to touch his son, he stood and nervously walked towards him.
Perhaps it was Alder’s innocence he couldn’t cope with, the idea that the baby was actually blameless. Or maybe he saw in Alder some scent of humanity that reminded him of all he hated, all he’d lost. Whatever it was, some final thread must have broke inside my stepbrother in that moment, and he threw him, my baby, our baby, right into the fire. His tiny weight must have broken wood that was almost burned through, because he didn’t sit on the top, but tumbled crashing through into the very heart of the blaze.
Matt screamed, falling to his knees. Tetch grabbed me and held me tight: I must have been running to save my child. The Raven and Manny ploughed into the fire, throwing off burning planks, but it kept on collapsing. Manny, his clothes ablaze was pulled out by someone and rolled in jackets. His hair burned, his skin black, my big brother fought the fire, but what he brought out was not my Alder. It was charred, reeking and dead. And all I could hear was Matt still screaming, howling, alone, on his knees, his head in his hands. And I stared.
I’m not sure quite when it began, but slow I became aware that all about us the gathering had erupted into war. Broken bottles and knives, planks of wood, bricks and bats, everyone was yelling, smashing, gasping, moaning, shrieking. I remember trying to crawl towards Matt, holding the black bundle in my arms. Someone tried to pick me up, but then they fell. I don’t remember any more.
The word the papers used was ‘carnage’. I don’t suppose many of the boys who fought that day knew whose side anybody else was on; in the end everyone was simply fighting. What made it worse for the Storm was the drug. Apparently, part way through one of Matt’s boys had brought out the KT and was giving out tabs, so with broken bones and half their minds wiped they carried on fighting, brutalising themselves when they should have fallen. Tetch told me it was Ethan who stopped it in the end: seeing it was giving the Storm an advantage, he had joined the queue for a tab and when he got there, he thumped the lad and downed the lot. He was dead within a few minutes.
Twenty three died that night, including Alder. Twice that number ended up in hospital. It put our little town on the map.
Most of the dead were Storm.
Matt survived, though I don’t believe he wanted to. When he came out of hospital, his mum made sure he got away; I think he had family across the country. Because it was our child who died, we got the worst of it from the press, photographers waiting at the door, reporters chasing us, headlines declaring us the sad faces of the nation’s degenerate youth. I was too sick with grief to care, but Matt’s mum would have been frenetic. Thinking about it now, I almost makes me smile. I think most of his sisters were pregnant at the time, none of them married: it wouldn’t have been an easy place to be.
Of our lads, Manny, Nathan, Tetch, Darren, a good few of the others, got through alright, burns, cuts and bruises healing in time. Though the Raven was on drips up at the hospital, not just badly burned but with a couple of stab wounds, we all thought he’d make it. While he was laid up, our uncle, Charlie Sunshine, stepped in as the Mighty boss, making out he doing the Raven a big favour; but because he’d not been at the Folly nobody much respected him. When the Raven died, those who were left asked Tetch to take over, but he had no stomach for it.
When he died, I was still lost in the thick, cold, damp fog of shock, already numb with grief, not sure how or why I was still alive. The night of his funeral, with everyone up at the Harlech, I remember them all drinking a toast to the Raven, his black bike helmet sat on the table, silent and so present, just like he always was. And I remember the birdsong, the scent of the wind, as if he were reminding us that there was life and beauty still out there somewhere. The beer tasted sweet that night. But it was a fleeting moment before the fog closed in again.
It was that night seven of the lads decided to get on the road. And they did, travelling from place to place for a good long while. And what of me? A cousin from over the moors had come down to help out, and a few days later we headed back north to her place. Her husband had a couple of hundred sheep, a dozen milking goats; it was land to be alone in, drenched in sky and emptiness, with hens and rows of cabbages and rambling woods. I spent days in tears, crying, longing for the Raven, or Matt, or Alder, not quite sure who it was who had died. And slowly the fog lifted, leaving a gentle mist. I wouldn’t say it got any better, but I got used to how it felt.
That was where I was living when the lads showed up, still carrying the Raven’s helmet. We gave them all a great big tea, with eggs and beans and bread, and they told me their news. I noticed how they were careful not to mention the past, chattering about their life on the road and no more. It was as if they were sharing it with the Raven, him in that big black helmet which sat on the table, the iridescent blue-black of the little raven picture on the back.
I didn’t have much to say; silence has been easier since that day at the Folly. Perhaps seeing me, and my quietness, provoked them to think about all they’d been avoiding. I knew I had changed, the hollowness was visible, and I could see it was hard for them to see me, especially Manny who kept looking at me so sorrowfully. But it was Vinny who brought it up.
After a long pause in the conversation, he said, “I’ve been thinking, maybe it’s time to go home.”
Everyone was quiet. My cousin smiled, saying, “Didn’t your dad run the off-licence on River Street?” Vinny nodded and she added, with a tender encouragement I’d heard her use with me so often. “Would you get a job in your dad’s shop?”
He frowned, not because he was thinking, but because of the feeling. “Perhaps, yeah,” he said softly.
Then Nathan put his hand gently on the Raven’s helmet. “We should bury it”.
“At the rock,” murmured Manny.
That’s where I’m sitting now, as I write this tale, murmuring its words into the wind as I commit them to paper, up in the bandstand overlooking this bloody, shabby old town. My heart feels moulded into the shape of the hills, the deep valley, cut through by the old river that keeps on and on spilling itself into the sea. I barely breathe, gazing out over the reach of my brother’s kingdom.
A part of me died that night at the Folly.
And sitting here I remember that evening when, hiding from their view, I’d listened to their voices, my heart trembling with love, my great big brother and the man he gave me to, when I was so young and still believed in heroes.
Emma Restall Orr
May 2008