Chapter 20 Heavenly Choirs
Heavenly Choirs
We set off back to St Melangell after our early dinner, the minibus full, not only with all the retreat guests, but also Nerys, Timon, Noel, Bronwen and Tudor.
Nerys drove this time, negotiating the narrow steep lane up out of the little valley with the ease of long practice – and no barn owl swooped low out of the darkness to startle her.
The venue for the choir concert was the village hall, a much larger building than the one in Seren Bach. We found it already half full, and Cariad, who was sitting with her friend Mel and her family near the front, turned and waved at us.
‘There are two whole rows of Prynnes and their other halves,’ Rhys pointed out.
Indeed, as we slipped into the row on the other side of the aisle, I could see several lint-fair heads, ruddy broad faces and pairs of light blue eyes.
I don’t know what I’d expected from a Welsh male voice choir, and certainly when they all filed in and took their places at the front on the stage, they looked very ordinary – except for the smart, dark suits and snowy white shirts.
Otherwise, they were a cross-section of any random selection of men you might find in the street.
But when an expectant hush fell on the audience and they began to sing, every thought was driven out of my mind by the sheer, combined power of their voices. It filled the hall and seemed to resonate thrillingly right through me.
In a mixture of Welsh and English, they sang Christmas songs, carols and traditional Welsh songs, including one beautiful one called ‘Myfanwy’, which was so sad that it made me cry – and I wasn’t the only one, either, for Pearl, sitting next to me, was also sniffling. I passed her a tissue.
At the end of the performance, the audience, me included, sat as if stunned before breaking into a storm of applause.
There were refreshments afterwards, and CDs of the choir for sale, too, so I had a splurge and bought one of traditional Welsh songs, and another of Christmas music.
Nerys told me she always played that Christmas one on Christmas morning, while the present unwrapping went on.
‘And then we put Elf on the TV. It’s odd how these habits, individual family customs, develop.’
‘It’s nearly Christmas!’ said Cariad, bobbing up next to me clutching a chocolate Santa – all the children seemed to have been given one – her cheeks pink with excitement. ‘I’ll be back home tomorrow, but in the morning I’ve got to help Mel get Walter ready for the Nativity.’
‘Who’s Walter?’ asked Toby.
‘A very naughty donkey,’ she explained, and then her friend Mel, a stocky, fair Prynne in miniature, came to seize her hand and drag her off in the wake of her parents.
It had been an almost magical experience and most of us at least felt it, for we were quite silent on the dark journey back, except for Nerys, commenting that she was glad someone had gritted the lane because it was fast freezing over.
There were even a couple of lazy flakes of snow hitting the windscreen as we came down towards Seren Bach.
Rhys, sitting at the front next to Nerys, said he thought it was just a token gesture.
‘I hope so,’ said Timon, ‘because there’s still the church carol service tomorrow at eight. It used to be midnight, but now its earlier because of the children, and we don’t want the road blocked by a snowfall.’
‘You can always get through on foot by the cliff path, because most of that is sheltered,’ Nerys pointed out.
‘You can count me out of any late-night yomping,’ said Verity, and there was a murmur of agreement from Kate.
When we got back, I felt tired out but still wired from the performance, and I think at least some of the others felt the same.
We had a nightcap – cocoa, in my case – and then, apparently another family tradition at this time of year, Nerys got out the board games and I found myself playing Monopoly with Toby, Pearl and Rhys while Ma was engaged in a ferocious Scrabble battle with Kate and Noel.
I knew who I’d put my money on.
*
I woke on Christmas Eve with a feeling of excited anticipation.
It would be lovely to watch Cariad open her presents from under the tree, and perhaps watch Elf, which was one of my favourite seasonal films. And last night I’d discovered I still enjoyed board games, so long as I wasn’t playing them with someone really competitive, like Kate or Evie!
I lay there savouring last night’s experience and thinking about the day ahead.
My work ethic seemed suddenly to have loosened to the point where it was now practically falling off, and when I finally got up and looked out of the window, the dark mauve-grey sky had lifted on the horizon to reveal a steely blue beneath.
There was no snow, just a light icy frosting again.
A tall, dark shape was moving up the long slope of lawn towards the house – Rhys, I was sure, on his way back from an early commune with his muse – and I drew quickly back and closed the curtains again, hoping he hadn’t seen me.
Taking a cup of Earl Grey over to the desk, I opened my laptop and started, finally, to seriously search for a new home.
*
When I mentioned what I’d been doing at breakfast, Evie said it was about time!
‘Where have you been looking?’
‘I haven’t been searching by area but by the type of cottage I want and my price range, then seeing what comes up,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to stay in Bedfordshire, but to start again somewhere new.’
‘If you’ve already moved out of your old cottage, then you’ll need to find something to rent for a bit, while you find it, won’t you?
’ suggested Timon, who, for once, was at breakfast. ‘We could probably find you somewhere locally to rent short term – and then you might find you like it so much, you’d want to live here permanently. ’
‘Yes, why not?’ agreed Nerys, warmly. ‘After all, you have friends here now.’
‘Oh, but I’m sure Ginny would feel cut off here, so far from London,’ suggested Verity.
‘I hate London,’ I said. ‘I only go about once a year, to see my agent and editor.’
‘You can get to London quite easily by train anyway, from Llandudno Junction, or Aberystwyth,’ said Timon, getting up to go. ‘Right – I’m off. It’ll be a busy day at the pottery, but we close at noon today, and then the shop and cafe shut at four.’
‘About that idea that you rent somewhere locally,’ Rhys said to me as Timon went out. ‘Since the Prynne family own quite a lot of local properties, I can ask them if they’ve got anything suitable, if you like?’
‘Great idea,’ said Nerys. ‘They don’t do holiday lets and only usually rent to local people, but then, we hope you’re going to become local!’
‘That’s very kind of you, and I suppose it would make sense while I’m searching for something to buy. I do like what I’ve seen of North Wales so far.’
‘I’ll show you a bit more of the area after Christmas,’ Rhys promised, ‘and anyone else who’d like a couple of trips out.’
‘And we can have a little online search to see what kind of thing is for sale locally, as well,’ suggested Evie, who appeared suddenly keen to plant me miles away from her.
Most of the others didn’t seem to have been bitten by the Christmas bug yet and dispersed for work, but somehow Toby and I found ourselves roped in by Opal to help carry the equipment the twins needed up to the oak grove, where they intended filming some preliminary work.
There, despite the freezing cold, after setting up the camera near the pool, she and Pearl took off their warm outer clothing – Pearl reluctantly – to shiver in floaty green tunics over leggings.
Among all the moss, pebbles and light filtering magically through the branches, they didn’t look quite as out of place as usual, even when they put on the masks and started to gesticulate in mirror image to each other through the folding frame.
As I watched with Toby, it occurred to me that, when not wearing the masks, they were less identical than they had been before. Pearl’s face already seemed to have filled out a little and her cheeks, when not frozen by cold, held a healthy pink tint.
But just then, her little pointed face was steadily growing more pinched and pallid by the minute, with the cold, which Opal didn’t appear to feel!
I was shivering even in my padded jacket and when Opal suggested we move our activities up to the tomb on the hill, Toby vetoed it with surprising firmness, saying that at this rate they’d both catch pneumonia and they had much better just go back down and thaw out.
‘Oh, yes – let’s!’ pleaded Pearl, and eventually Opal had to capitulate.
‘I suppose we can evaluate what we’ve got … but I just need to take a look at the tomb before we go down,’ she insisted.
But Toby, seeing Pearl give a galvanic shiver, was already helping her into her anorak and then pulled his own warm beanie hat over her head before leading the way back down towards the house.