THE DISAPPEARANCE

I peered at the empty space. ‘The Birth of St David’, a painting inspired by his birthplace at St. Non’s on the Pembrokeshire coast, wasn’t in its usual place, above the mantle shelf in my son’s room. There was just a grimy smudged outline of where the frame had been. I made a mental note of the wall needing painting .Perhaps my husband who’d painted the picture, would know. It was n’t like his usual style. It was dark like most of his work, but more semi-abstract than his usual landscapes with splashes of jade green and cobalt blue. A distant glimmer of white light had lifted it, giving it a sense of mystery, of the spiritual. When he’d first painted it I thought it was based on the temples of Angkor Wat that we had recently visited; tropical lush, roots and branches weaving their limbs around the ancient remains. But no, he wasn’t aware of that he’d said. It was the place itself that had inspired him. Yes, Madoc must have moved it.

        But on questioning he denied all knowledge of moving the painting. He rarely goes into our son’s room since the accident. Whereas me, I spend a lot of time there, laying on Dewi’s bed, gazing at the painting, thinking about him as he was, as an active little boy.  I went back up to the room, and checked the wardrobe, the drawers, even under the bed. Then I scoured the other rooms in our tiny terraced house. I looked out into the back yard.  I had become forgetful since the accident, but surely I would have remembered putting it in the outside cwtch. Not there. Not in the garage.  I went out further into the garden, stalked through the unmown wet grass and into the shed which was my husband’s studio. At first glance, nothing.  I felt my throat dry and the back of my neck shiver. I was starting to panic, flipping through his canvases stacked up for his next exhibition, rummaging through his prints, pulling out drawers. Nothing. I had a thought. Perhaps there’s been a burglary? Has anything else gone missing? I rushed out of the studio, and back up the garden into the house.

    ‘Find it?’ Madoc yawned.

    ‘No,’ I replied. ‘It’s very weird. Is there anything else missing? Perhaps we’ve had a burglary?’ 

   ‘Yeah, and perhaps it was an art thief.’

   ‘Don’t mock me, Madoc.’

       I always use his full name if I want to get the upper hand. He hates it. But the shortened version irritates him too. I turned and ran back upstairs checking our bedroom, my jewellery box, not that I had much that was valuable, more sentimental; Mother’s wedding ring, my engagement ring, an old pearl and emerald necklace given to me by my late aunt, Non.  All there. Lap top, i pad, a small wad of cash in an envelope for emergencies in a tin hidden up in the fireplace. All present and correct. Perhaps Mad was right. I’d just read Donna Tartt’s novel, ‘The Goldfinch’, which involved the theft of a painting by the Dutch artist, a student of Rembrandt. What was his name? Fab, fab, Fabritius, that’s it. Carel Fabritius.  

    ‘I’m flattered, but I hardly think we’re in the same league, do you? ‘ my husband said, as he yawned again and turned on the TV.  ‘I’m sure It will turn up. There must be an entirely rational explanation. Can we watch the news now?’

     ‘You’re probably right,’ I said, sitting down on the sofa, as Huw Edwards appeared on the screen.

     ‘There’s news just breaking. The spring that is said to be the birthplace of St David, born in a thunderstorm in the sixth century, has disappeared suddenly, overnight. The ground around the spot is barren and dry as if the spring never existed. Experts are puzzled and looking for scientific explanations. Local people are asking whether this is work of the devil, trying to deny the existence of the saint, and are afraid of the consequences for their city. We will bring you further news once we have it.       Now, onto the rest of today’s news…’

 

 

Janet Daniel, November 3 2014.

FROM THE MOORS TO MAMETZ

 

 

Gwen brushed a strand of straggling hair away from her face. She was perspiring. Her long skirts were muddy and wet, clinging to her legs.  She’d been out on the bog for what seemed like hours. Her back ached. She could do with a cup of tea, but Mrs Read was a hard task mistress.

        ’ Get your backs into it girls,’ she’d shouted. ‘Our lads are doing their best in France. We don’t want to let them down, do we?’

       ‘It’s not as if I’m getting paid,’ she thought, and looked over at the forty women, pulling out clumps of soggy sphagnum moss from the bog. There were some elderly men, some who’d fought in the Boer War, now too old to fight, but willing volunteers in gathering moss for the war effort.

       It was mid summer, there was a weak drizzle and the light was fading. Gwen looked up at the Victorian towers of Princetown Prison rising out of the moor, and shuddered. ‘This place gives me the creeps,’ she said to herself. Then her thoughts turned as they often did to John, her fiancé. He’d been one of the first from the 8th Devonshire Regiment to be sent out to the battlefields. ‘I wonder what he’s doing at this moment? It can’t be any worse than this.’ ‘Silly girl!’ she heard him reply, and saw his smiling green eyes, just like in the photo he’d sent her of himself in uniform. ’I miss you, Gwen,’ they said. ‘I miss you, oh so much, John, ‘she muttered, and plunged her hand back into the slimy peat and pulled out a clump of gold sphagnum moss.  ‘I will write tonight, my love. Promise.’

        It was almost dusk by the time the volunteers had reached the prison officers’ lawn tennis court.  The drizzle had stopped and the air was steamy.

      ‘Empty your bags, and we’’ll rake the moss so it can dry,’ Mrs Read said.’ Well Done, girls. Good work. Your sweethearts would be proud of you.’

      It had been the Germans who had first thought of using sphagnum moss for wound dressings, although it had been used since ancient times. The Vikings are said to have used it for nappies and sanitary protection. Its antiseptic properties and ability to absorb fluids up to 20 times its weight made it a viable alternative to using cotton dressings, which were expensive and difficult to come by. It was estimated that 50 million sphagnum wound dressings would be needed during World War 1.

    ‘I need you to work inside today, Gwen,’ Mrs Read said the following morning, as she handed over a white uniform. ‘Heard anything from that fiancée of yours lately?’ she asked. Gwen’s anxious face gave Mrs Read her answer.

     ‘Tears aren’t going to help the war effort,’ she chided. Then more warmly, the older woman put her arm around Gwen’s shoulder. ‘We’re all in the same boat, dear. I haven’t heard from George or Harry for a while. We just have to believe-and pray- that God will look after them. Come on, work helps. And imagine, God forbid, if John was hurt or wounded, it could be one of your dressings that saves his life.’

     ‘Thanks, Mrs Read,’ Gwen said, as she twiddled her tiny diamond engagement ring around her finger, thinking ‘Bloody useless war.’

The moss had been moved into the house by some of the men, and was heated by the hot air from a furnace. The sphagnum was no longer green or gold. It was the colour of hay. It reminded Gwen of happier times, haymaking, when she and John had first met. She joined a group of women who had already started picking over the moss, removing twigs and bits of debris from its soft masses. It gave them a chance to gossip, share news of the war, and of loved ones.  Later it would be passed through a purifying solution by a worker wearing rubber gloves, squeezed through a mangle, and dried again. Dartmoor was the biggest centre in England for the collection and processing of sphagnum for wound dressings. The Prince of Wales himself would later visit and applaud their efforts. But now, was the part in the process that brought the reality of war home to Gwen, the making of the dressings themselves. Each dressing consisted of two ounces of moss, packed into a small flat muslin bag.  The bag would be folded and stitched.  Holding these little packages, she tried not to think of their consequent use. Later once perfected, dressings were made into packets of a dozen each, wrapped in papers for overseas, packed in bales of a hundred and covered in waterproof sheeting, ready for despatch.

       Gwen was forcing dried sphagnum into a muslin bag, her letter to John in the pocket of her white uniform, ready to post, when the news came through on the volunteers’ grapevine.  July 1st 1916. 163 men from 8^th and 9^th Devonshire Regiment killed, and many more injured in the battle for Mametz.  John’s name among the casualties.

IN ANTICIPATION OF HOUSE SIT MEXICO

It's three weeks before we go and over a month since I signed up to www.Mindmyhouse.com after a cursory reading of a Guardian article on house sitting in Costa Rica. Around the house I've had post- its reading, 'What's the big idea for 2010?' This seemed to fit the bill, that is before I saw a consultant about my arthritic hip. After suggesting he compare mine with Rhys' pre-op, he said,
'On a scale from mild to severe, I would say...'
He must have seen me dragging my leg up the corridor, like Chester in the 60's cowboy series 'Matt Dillon', except I hadn't been shot or had polio. I was born with a dislocated hip and in those days there weren't regular checks so at the age of nearly eighteen months an aunt noticed my Chester impersonation and brought it to the attention of my mother, who must have had other important things on her mind. Most children at that age would have been able to stand and walk. I just crawled dragging one leg behind the other. I was hospitalised at St Ormond's Children's Hospital and scolded by the ward nurse for crying when I saw my parents on the other side of the port- hole window abandoning me to her mercies. (The NHS had no child/ parent friendly policies then.) I believe it accounts for my anxious separation attachment style.
My legs were pulled apart under anasthetic into plastered splints. Once removed I was subjected for several years to my father's nightly physiotherapy while we listened to 'The Archers on BBC Radio. With scrunched up toes on my left foot I picked up hundreds of marbles one by one out of an old Dundee fruit cake tin and placed them carefully in another. Then reversed the procedure until the programme had finished.
It worked. By the age of seven I was given the all clear, but taken round the Children's Ward to see limping children in brown leather and steel calipers and reminded of how lucky I was that Aunt Queenie had noticed me in time.
'...it's severe,' Mr Jones proclaimed. 'But I must say Great Ormond Street did a great job for the time. It's amazing it's lasted this long. I think you should have a hip replacement very soon, before it collapses and gives you and me big trouble.'
I didn't like to tell him I'd already signed up for the whole of April to mind Larry's houseplants in San Miguel Allende, Mexico.
When I told my daughter she immediately took on the personality of Saffie in 'Absolutely Fabulous '
'What do you know about this...Larry'?
'Why does he want someone to come from Wales to look after his houseplants in Mexico?'
'Why can't he get someome local to do it?'
'Could house plants be a code for something else?'
'Where is San Miguel?' What is the place like?'
I couldn't answer any of these questions and hadn't even thought of asking.
'Mother!'
This was to be the big idea for 2010. That was before my hip replacement operation, provisional date 18 May. Leave for Mexico via Houston March 30. Holy Week and according to the Rough Guide, the time when the whole of Mexico is on the move. Return May 3. Lots of time for Mexican adventures looking after a retired nurse's 'house plants.'
In Mexico, it seems, you are guilty before proved innocent.