Morfudd Jones and Alwena Jones watched the orange streaks fade in the sky over Bardsey Island and waited for the last of the less mobile residents to be escorted to their bedrooms. When they were finally alone, Morfudd poured a good joch of whisky into each of their cocoa stained mugs from the flask she kept in her handbag.

‘You do some lovely things to keep Buddug’s spirits up,’ Alwena offered by way of thanks as Morfudd passed her the mug.

‘She’s had so much disappointment in her life,’ Morfudd said, ‘especially the way that Michael of hers has turned out.’

‘But he comes to see her, Morfudd fach, which is more than I can say for any of my three,’ Alwena answered.

‘My Aled comes when he can,’ Morfudd countered with an eagerness that betrayed her disillusionment. She wiped the spit from her chin and took a slug of whisky.

‘Do you think about your Lewis sometimes?’ Alwena asked after a while. ‘Now he was a lovely boy. He and our Nesta were very thick for a time… remember?’

‘I never think about him!’ Morfudd spat, and hoped that her tears would drown in her watery eyes.

‘Duw – it’s such a different world now,’ Alwena mused.

‘You see them in the magazines all the time; boys with boys and girls with girls….’

Morfudd took another slug of whisky. Its fiery sharpness couldn’t raze the memory of finding her Lewis hanging from a beam in the attic just hours after his father had bawled that no son of his –.

‘Gerard was even telling me this afternoon that they’ve been accepted by the adoption panel,’ Alwena interrupted Morfudd’s thoughtfulness. ‘They’re hoping to make Buddug a nain before Christmas; now won’t that be nice for her?’

Morfudd swallowed her revulsion and tried hard to force a smile.

Gifts

Gifts

I watched Rhun as he skimmed through the glut of Christmas post. Among the round robins, those often meagre attempts to sum up ‘the year in the life of’ were those from people we didn’t particularly care about and hadn’t seen for years. These he tossed aside after only a perfunctory glance. Some of the Christmas cards, however, brought smiles and joyful sighs. About half way through the stack he took a slurp of wine and quipped, ‘No surprises this year then?’ He might have been anticipating a greeting from someone we’d lost touch with whose company we’d enjoyed or someone we’d fallen out with over something totally inane, but I knew he was thinking of an evening just like this exactly a year ago.