Dylan’s complexion turned the colour of cheap household candles and his mouth seemed to fill with dry, gritty sand. There were questions he wanted to ask, but his usual fluency with language and lucidity of thought were shunted into a siding… and in his mind’s eye there was only Seimon Gwyn, smiling.

Medi’s Wedding Dress

Medi’s Wedding Dress

Bryn Williams sat in the sagging easy chair by the fire, a mug cupped in his swollen, bent fingers. He supped his tea between rasping gasps for breath. Deliberately avoiding the table, where the only offering from the postman lay discarded with the remains of his breakfast, he took in the poky, nicotine-brown living room with its gallery of photographs; his life in dusty picture frames. Anwen, who’d put two logs on the embers before she’d made his toast and porridge, didn’t take after her mother; if Bryn asked her to do a bit of cleaning she’d usually scoff and say something about her college education putting her above housework, and she’d whine about him not having a home-help. With the reviving warmth of the flames in the hearth he felt the old resentments rise.

‘They used to send buggers to prison,’ he snapped.

Washing-up the dishes her father had stacked on the draining board in the two days since her last visit, Anwen rinsed off her irritation with the soap suds. ‘They used to send them to mental hospitals too,’ she said matter-of-factly. She hadn’t known this until she’d read the book Dylan had sent her. ‘They used to give them electric shocks; some kind of aversion therapy.’

‘During National Service they were dishonourably discharged… and now they can get married: it’s a bloody sham. I don’t know what that Tony Blair was thinking about.’

‘It’s called a Civil Partnership, Dada,’ she said from the kitchen door, an indulgent grin on her face displacing her exasperation.

‘Nothing civilised about sodomy,’ he said into his tea.

‘Oh, come on Dada,’ she quipped, beginning to clear the table. She looked at the invitation her father had tossed aside earlier. ‘Dylan’s been with Eric for over twenty years, and now that the law has changed they want to celebrate–’

‘Don’t give me that rubbish, celebrate be damned,’ Bryn said, his voice raised, croaky and broken. ‘It’s shameful… a damn disgrace on the whole family.’

‘But he’s your only boy, Dada. He’s flesh and blood.’

‘Better that we’d only had you girls then,’ Bryn spat. ‘I don’t know what your mother would make of it all: turning in her grave she’ll be.’