Chapter 40
FORTY
ANNA
I found the church hall without difficulty, which was just as well because my train to Wales had been delayed, the connecting bus hadn’t turned up and I was late.
Late and stressed about my decision to leave the children alone, despite Lulu’s promise that they would be fine and Orla being next door if they needed anything.
I’d made the decision to come here on a whim. After being knocked back by the school receptionist, I’d managed to locate the former headmaster, Bryn Rhys-Gwynn, on – of all places – LinkedIn.
My late husband was a pupil at St Gwbert’s, I’d typed. Would you be able to share anything you can recall about his time there?
Then I’d thought, No. Far too easy for him to say that wasn’t possible. So I’d deleted that and found myself writing, I wonder if it would be possible to meet you for a chat? instead.
To my surprise, he had replied within half an hour.
I’m at Bethesda Chapel Hall on Saturdays from five o’clock, he’d written. You can find me there.
And now here I was – late, puffing and sweating – at the top of the hill where the unassuming white-painted building stood, recognisable mostly by its proximity to the starkly simple, slate-roofed chapel that stood next to it.
I paused a few metres from the entrance to the hall, recovering my breath and taking a few furtive puffs on my sour-cherry vape.
My feet were hurting, and I needed a wee, but those would have to wait – thanks to my late-running train and the irregular bus service, it was almost six o’clock.
From within the hall, I could hear men’s voices talking – a hum that rose to a shout of laughter and then dropped back to a hum.
I stepped through the doorway and the room immediately fell silent.
I blinked in the dim light, feeling blood rush to my cheeks before realising that the silence had nothing to do with me: there were men there, at least a couple of dozen of them, but all of them were gathered at the far end of the room and had their backs to me.
In the stillness, I could hear the buzzing of a fly and the thump of its body against a window.
Then a voice began singing, so softly at first I could barely hear it.
‘Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.’
It’s a choir practice, I realised – a Welsh male-voice choir.
Then the voice was joined by others, swelling in harmony as they sang the chorus:
‘Glory, Glory Hallelujah.’
And I found I could do nothing but stand and listen, the hairs on the back of my neck rising in awe.
By the time the song ended, I was wiping tears from my eyes.
There was another moment of total silence, and then the voices broke out again, no longer in close harmony but in chatter and laughter.
The men turned and began making their way across the room towards me, some wiping sweat from their faces, others tucking sheet music into their pockets.
They were all ages, from a couple of boys barely older than Barney to elderly men, one leaning on a stick as he shuffled across the wooden floor, a couple of his friends accompanying his slow progress.
He was tall with a head of pure white hair, tidily brushed.
He was wearing jeans and a yellow-and-black checked shirt.
When he saw me, he raised the hand that wasn’t on the cane, and I took a few tentative steps forward, meeting him in the centre of the hall.
‘Mr Rhys-Gwynn?’ I held out my hand.
‘Call me Bryn.’ His grip was dry and firm. ‘You must be Mrs Graham.’
‘Anna.’ I smiled.
‘I’ll see you at the Red Lion shortly, lads.’ His voice was deep and full, not at all frail. ‘I’ll just take a few minutes with this lady.’
‘Why does Bryn get all the girls?’ joked one of the younger men, but Bryn Rhys-Gwynn directed a silencing glare at him that was pure headmaster, and the young man scurried out with his mates.
‘Shall we go outside?’ he suggested. ‘Since it’s such a glorious evening?’
I kept pace with his slow steps as we left the hall, emerging into the daylight, startlingly bright after the gloom of the hall although the sun was already sinking.
Bryn led me to a bench overlooking the churchyard, which stretched away down the hill, punctuated by moss-covered gravestones jutting crookedly skywards.
I wondered whether Gray’s mother’s was one of them.
‘So.’ He lowered himself carefully on to the bench and turned to face me.
‘Your husband was a pupil of mine, back in the day. I can recall several boys named Graham – was this Peter, Daffyd or Nigel? There was also Tomos, but it can’t have been him because he was singing the baritone section back there a few minutes ago. ’
He might be frail, but his memory was sharp as anything, I realised. ‘Nigel.’
‘And he’s passed away?’
I nodded. ‘Earlier this year. Pancreatic cancer. It was very sudden, and it’s made me realise… well, made me realise how little I know about his childhood.’
‘I’m very sorry to hear that.’ He sighed. ‘I remember Nigel well. He was a pupil at St Gwbert’s from 1990 to 1996.’
‘Those were the dates on the reports I found,’ I confirmed. ‘And he was there on a scholarship?’
Bryn nodded. ‘St Gwbert’s was – and still is – fortunate in that several of our alumni left generous endowments, which are used to fund places for gifted boys whose families wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford our fees. Nigel was one of those.’
‘He was good at music, then?’ I asked.
‘Oh, yes.’ Bryn smiled, turning his face up to the sun as if he was hearing rather than seeing it. ‘Quite exceptionally able. It surprises me that…’
‘That I didn’t know?’ I felt my cheeks colour.
‘I mean, Gray – Nigel – my late husband, he had a good singing voice. I knew that. When we were in the car and a tune he liked came on the radio, or it was one of the kids’ birthdays, I’d hear him sing and it was lovely.
But he was never into music like some people are.
Actually, he said he hated it. Classical music especially. ’
Bryn smiled again, raising his eyebrows, and I felt my blush deepen.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m making it sound like you and your colleagues didn’t do a good job. I’m sure you did. He just never talked about school. Not at all. I assumed that – well, that he hadn’t been particularly happy.’
He sighed. ‘I’m afraid that pastoral care back then wasn’t what it is now.
The boys in our care – the scholarship boys in particular – came under a lot of pressure to perform musically, academically and on the sports field.
Nigel rebelled somewhat against that – against the latter two, at any rate.
There were discussions every year about not renewing his scholarship, but he was too gifted for us to let him go.
Besides, the impression I had was that his problems were at home, rather than at school.
Insofar as we could, we tried to provide stability – a place of refuge for him, as it were. ’
‘So he was happy at school?’
‘I don’t remember him as a happy boy generally, I’m afraid. He had one good friend, though. One boy – Joel Chamberlain. As the years went by, Joel’s family appeared to take Nigel under their wing. His own mother, you see…’
I pressed my hands between my knees, leaning forward on the bench. ‘His mother what?’
‘She was… I suppose these days you’d call it neglectful. I got the impression there were mental health issues at play.’
Oh God. Gray’s mother – her death when she must have been in her forties, probably the age I was now or perhaps even younger. Could it have been…?
‘I believe she passed away,’ I said carefully. ‘When Gray – Nigel – was at university.’
He shook his head wearily. ‘I did not know that. How sad.’
He hadn’t known about Gray’s mother’s death, and I sensed that there was nothing more he did know – nothing he could tell me.
But I asked, ‘Joel – Chamberlain, was it? Are you still in touch with him?’
He looked surprised. ‘Of course. He’s the Joel Chamberlain.’
My blank look made him laugh.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m not…’
‘Not a musical person. Of course. He’s a world-renowned violinist. One of our most famous alumni. He often returns to the school to play and give talks, and Seren, his mother, is on our board of governors. I’m sure she’ll be happy for me to give you her number.’
He scrolled through his phone and found it, and I entered the eleven digits into my own phone.
‘There’s one other thing,’ I said. ‘A song – Gray mentioned that it would have been played at his mother’s funeral, and I’m sure I remember him singing it to our children when they were babies.’
He smiled. Instead of a conventional answer, he began to sing, his voice low and clear in the golden air.
For the second time that day, I felt that prickling sensation on the back of my neck as I was transported back to the bathroom in the house on Damask Square, my breasts leaking milk into the warm water as I heard Gray singing to our baby.
‘Holl amrantau’r sêr ddywedant
Ar hyd y nos
“Dyma’r ffordd i fro gogoniant,”
Ar hyd y nos.’
‘What does it mean?’ I asked, my own voice sounding thin and high after his.
‘It’s a lullaby, and as you say, a funeral song. The original lyrics are somewhat untranslatable. But the title means “All Through the Night”.’
I thanked him for his time and watched him make his way painstakingly back down the hill in the direction of the Red Lion. Gray could have been there: could have been singing in the choir like Tomos Graham, joining his friends for a pint, alive and at home in the place where he grew up.
But he wasn’t. He’d chosen to leave it all behind, erasing his memories, his past, even the music that had been his comfort. Why? What happened in that neglectful home?
I swiped my phone to life and located Seren Chamberlain’s number. If I hurried, I could make the last train back to London – or, if she was able to see me, I could stay overnight. But before I dialled, something made me check my WhatsApp.
There was a new message from Laurel.
Hi Anna, I’m sorry to bother you. Lulu was meant to meet me tonight for a burger and a chat, but she hasn’t turned up. I can’t get hold of her. I thought you should know.
Shit. Feeling sweat springing out all over my body – but at the same time a creeping coldness – I sprinted down the hill to the bus stop, my fingers fumbling on the screen of my phone.
Pressing it to my ear, I listened as first Lulu and then Barney’s numbers rang out.
The last train back to London was at half past eight.
I’d assumed I would make it easily and be home by one as I’d promised the children, but I was cutting it fine.
To my relief, the bus arrived just as I did. I boarded and flopped into a seat, checking my phone again and hammering out texts to Orla and Barney. Then I tapped the Google Maps app, hoping to reassure myself that I’d make it back in time.
My heart plummeted when I saw the little warning icon on my journey plan. The flooding on the line that had caused the earlier delay had had a knock-on effect, and the late train from Swansea back to Paddington was cancelled.
Don’t panic, Anna, I urged myself. You’re in Wales, not the Australian outback. You have options.
But, as it turned out, I didn’t. After unsuccessful attempts to order an Uber, I dialled the two minicab office numbers that were displayed next to the closed ticket office, only to be explained to as if I was hard of thinking that the Ospreys were playing Cardiff and no drivers were available. My own driving licence was at home.
I was stuck here overnight, and my daughter was missing.