Justin

After the committal of the dead starling in a coffin that had been shaped from an empty Quaker Puffed Wheat carton, you drove off with Tirion to the nursery to look for Spiked Speedwells, Anchusas, Blue African Lilies, and anything else blue for the new border. Your vision for the six and a half acres of hill-side that rolled gently down to the river Clwyd included a succession of small gardens each planted up in one colour and linked by arbours of clematis and honeysuckle and climbing roses; Compassion was your favourite, with its pinky-apricot flowers and heady scent. Rhodri’s grand plan for Hafod Ilan Hall, which you bought after your office syndicate scooped nearly eleven million on the lottery, is to open the place up as a stress management cum retreat centre with workshops on reflexology and aromatherapy, relaxation and massage as well as courses on time management. There would be lots of beautiful, quiet places for your hefty-fee-paying executive guests to unwind from the self-importance of their corporate worlds.

Tirion

Driving together to the nursery, you weren’t sure what you wanted to ask uncle Justin, whom you knew very little about. You knew that uncle Rhodri was your daddy’s brother and that he’d been your mammy’s best friend when they were students in Aberystwyth. Perhaps uncle Justin had been in Aberystwyth too? It did seem to you as though he’d always been around, at least for as long as you could remember. There were pictures of him in the albums from the time when Penri had been born or perhaps a few pages before… But he wasn’t in Mammy and Daddy’s wedding pictures, so perhaps he hadn’t been in Aberystwyth! That he didn’t speak Welsh hadn’t been enough of a difference to arouse curiosity; after all, Mrs Gittins, the lady who cleaned the house didn’t speak Welsh and neither did your best friend’s father. For that matter, lots of the people your mother worked with at the university, who sometimes came to the house, couldn’t speak Welsh. You couldn’t remember when the shiny blackness of his skin had become tangible as the difference that had kindled your fascination in him. Perhaps it had been after seeing something on the television about Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda; you remembered how you’d liked the sound of those names, voicing them over and over and asking your mother if uncle Justin was from there. She’d laughed and said that he was from Liverpool, where you’d been once, to the theatre to see Joseph.

Rhodri

Watching his sister and uncle Justin driving away after the starling’s funeral, Penri threw a tantrum, jealous that Tirion was getting the greater share of Justin’s attention. Quietly regretting that you hadn’t taken Tirion for the morning, you tried reading to him from Prince Caspian, but still he cried. You sang one of the nonsense action songs you’d learnt at the Urdd summer camp at Llangrannog more than twenty years before (with thigh slapping, hand shaking and head tapping), but that made Penri screech even louder. You tried to lift him, to offer him reassurance, but Penri hammered his clenched fists against your chest. You thought about giving him a good slap across the back of his legs to give him something to cry about; that had been your own mother’s way and it had always seemed to have the desired effect. But you knew well enough that Gwydion and Eleri had never hit their children; their discipline was based on ‘time-out’ and loss of privileges. As sternly as you could, you sent Penri into the back living room and told him to stay there until he was ready to be sociable. To your great surprise the tactic worked; in less than ten minutes Penri came into the kitchen, his face bright and smiling (but still a bit red around the eyes) asking, ‘Can we let the chickens out and collect the eggs from the hen house?’