Morfudd Jones rocked the soggy stub of her third cigarette into a clean, pale blue patch of the Wedgwood ashtray – the one that Alwena Jones had given her for her birthday the previous September. It had come from a small but treasured collection of Jasperware, which Alwena displayed on the Victorian chiffonier in her room. Before, Morfudd had always used a heavy glass one that the home had grudgingly provided… though Matron generally disapproved and had made her promise that she wouldn’t smoke in bed. After a sigh – that might have summed up how tiresome she found this awakening before five, or was perhaps just an expression of the disdain she felt at another day being added to the thirty odd thousand days she’d already endured – she wiped the drool that had dribbled down her chin onto her wizened breast with a crumpled tissue and heaved her stiff legs from beneath the covers. The first few steps were always a bit of a wobble now, but with a hand on the bedside table and the smooth curving mahogany of the vitrine that held her last few precious knick-knacks, she eventually steadied herself. With a straight back, she walked into the bay and pulled back the curtains.

It had rained again in the night: July was proving to be a washout. The Pines Rest Home stood on an exposed outcrop above the town, taking all the weather blown in off Cardigan Bay. Morfudd sulked at the wild, white stallions that charged onto the sandy beach beyond the council houses and the heavy, grey clouds that closed the town in on itself. Perching herself on the arm of the easy chair where she sometimes sat to watch the life of the town through a pair of cracked binoculars, she started to day-dream. It was only when her red-ringed, rheumy eyes fell on the crescent rose bed in the front garden below her window that she remembered Buddug Jones.