Eurig

You wonder only fleetingly why the cupid with the conch-shell seemed so flustered as he pushed past you along the path where the marram grass seemed especially spiky on the back of your legs. Catching sight of Dylan in the hollow, sitting on a bleached tree-trunk worn smooth by un-logged voyages in the Irish Sea, your mind races. Might yesterday’s mirage be exposed in the glare of a new day’s sun as no more than a brazen dune bum, randy for anonymous intimacy? Do your baggy shorts betray the sexual desire that quickens your breathing? Will you still find yourself in love, or be stung by your crass stupidity?

Dylan

The relief that you feel, once you’re alone again in the hollow, gives a clue to the extent of your surrender. Under the spell cast by the fleeting smile of the stranger for whom you now wait, you’ve dared to think again about love after a broken love. What must you have read into that smile in the hours since your meeting that has so besotted you? Are you making a complete fool of yourself? But when Eurig greets you with the most chaste of kisses on the cheek, you know these are the wrong questions.

They talked as they walked along the beach towards the island where Llanddwyn’s chaste isolation was held hostage by the low tide. Neither noticed the nude bathers that marked the transition from the gayer end nearer the point, nor the cute daddies – with their bikinied women and sunburnt children to protect them – who tended not to stray much beyond the forest boundary in the middle of Llanddwyn Bay. Immersed in one another’s intimacy, Eurig and Dylan revealed the bits of their lives they hoped the other would find relevant and engaging. Bound by the charmed circles that each had cast around the other, both dared to believe they’d discover the meeting points that might hold them together and give a context to the carnality each now knew they would share.

Sitting on lichen covered stones that might once have been part of Dwynwen’s convent on the island, Eurig told Dylan how, in the fifth century, King Brychan’s daughter suffered for love and had then, much later, become the patron saint of Welsh lovers. With a cheeky smile, Dylan said that they’d better steer clear of syrupy drinks in case their hearts turned cold like Dwynwen’s, or worse still, they both turned into ice like Maelon, her lover. Then Eurig led Dylan to Dwynwen’s well, where legend had it that the fate of lovers could be determined in the movements of the fish that swam there. Dylan laughed when he saw the shallow, miry puddle and with an exaggerated sigh at the prospect of doomed fortune he said that the fish obviously didn’t dance for the likes of them. Eurig waved his hands over the murky pit like a crazed, camp old witch, calling on the fish to reveal their secrets. Bending low over Dwynwen’s well he caught the glint of something brilliant in the mud.