Rhodri and Eleri were drinking red wine and preparing supper in the kitchen when you returned to the house just before six. From the almost empty bottle of Cahors and the glint in her eye you didn’t have to be a detective to deduce that she’d abandoned any idea of driving on to Anglesey. Putting your jacket on the peg you saw that the children were quiet in the back living room, colouring-in with the new set of crayons and colouring books Eleri had bought them (out of guilt for being away a third weekend on the run). She’d been slow to warm to you when you’d first met, but now she kissed you affectionately and said, ‘Penri’s too embarrassed to say sorry for his little accident that morning.’ You shrugged and smiled and said it was nothing. Your relationship had never been easy; unsurprising, since she and Rhodri had been engaged. At first you’d thought it was because she had a problem with blacks, but about a year after you and Rhodri got together the whole bizarre saga in Aberystwyth had been dredged up at a boozy family do. How Rhodri broke off their engagement when he finally came out to himself and she had married Gwydion within a year. After that little closet had been sprung open and its secrets aired, you found yourself feeling a little more sympathy for her rancour. But from then on you’d been left with the feeling that you’d won her prize and that you owed her something. Knowing all this hadn’t really helped you to be at ease with her.

Rhodri

Penri liked bacon but didn’t like liver or olives. Tirion didn’t like olives either… Or mushrooms… Or bacon. You swapped bits of the casserole around the children’s plates and quietly cursed Eleri for not saying something sooner because they could have had grilled chicken breasts instead. Justin asked her about the conference. She said it was awful and was about to elaborate when Penri asked her if she and his daddy had met on the television.

‘What do you mean?’ she asked, puzzled. Penri described the girl asking three boys some questions and cutting him off she asked, with an edge of disbelief, why they’d let the children watch such rubbish.

‘Eat your supper and don’t to be so silly,’ she snapped at her son, turning again to her ongoing complaint about the conference speakers. In the lull in her soliloquy Tirion offered with great seriousness, ‘I’d like to find a husband on telly when I’m older.’ You laughed, but seeing Eleri scowl you offered, ‘You’re too gorgeous to have to look far for boyfriends.’ Penri, pulling a face at his sister, said, ‘You’re not gorgeous – and anyway, I don’t want to go on the television because I’m going to live with my best friend, Aled, just like uncle Justin and uncle Rhodri.’ Both you and Justin wanted to acknowledge Penri, but Eleri gulped her wine, splurting, ‘The liver is very tender!’ And then Tirion asked her mother why her teacher hadn’t told her class that black slaves in Jamaica had made Thomas Pennant rich and made Welsh children orphans because their daddies were killed digging for slates.