CHAPTER 92
I had worked on the basis of there being no pressure in getting into the club, as such places are rarely sold out. Frank had changed into much the same rig as myself, a pair of extremely well-worn jeans, a dark blue fleece jacket and some plain black trainers, clearly taking a lead from my own presentation. I didn’t tell him where we were going, but as I parked up, someone walked past in a pair of those silly patchwork trousers, a squeezebox case in hand, and he laughed in the most relaxed way he could manage.

“What’s up, Frank?”

“What do you mean?”

“Not quite the carefree laugh there, butt”

He shook his head.

“Memories, girl. I stuffed up last time with Dafydd Iwan, then…”

I held up a hand to stop his flow before the waves got too choppy.

“No you didn’t. My life was what stuffed us up last time. Fresh start, okay? Hi; I’m Debbie Wells. I’m single and I run a homeless shelter. Pleased to meet you”

His laugh was much more honest that time.

“Hi, I’m Frank Prosser. I run a bakery, and I am now single again. Pleased to meet you”

I linked my arm in his, pushing things just a little, and we walked into the hall, where a little man with one of those brimless embroidered caps was taking the admission fee. He looked up at us, smiled happily at what he clearly saw as fresh customers, suitable for paying an annual membership fee, selling for body parts and so on, then said the words.

“Croeso i ein noson ffolc fach ni. Mae gynnon ni heno’n…”

Frank’s laughter was even more relaxed at that.

“Popeth Cymraeg, butt?”

The little man grinned back, looking at my face as it clearly fell.

“Wrth gwrs! Dyw hi ddim…?”

“Dim o gwbl! Does dim lwc ‘da hi, dw I’n meddwl”

He turned back to me, struggling to hide his grin.

“Yup. Night is all in Welsh, and I have just confirmed that as per usual, you are shit out of luck, as the Yanks say”

The little man grinned at me.

“Wouldn’t say that, love! Leave this one here if you want, and there’s plenty of other girls would snap him up. I am guessing that won’t be your plan, eh?”

I shook my head, pleased at his comfortable cheekiness.

“Na; not doing that again. It’s just that the last time we did this, it was Dafydd Iwan. So the joke’s a little stale now”

Another grin.

“You used to folk clubs, love?”

I nodded.

“Yup. Go to one up North every so often”

“Aye. I can hear the Gog in your accent. Your man going to teach you, then?”

Frank was still chuckling.

“Do my best, aye? As long as you don’t mind a bit of whispering between numbers, I’ll translate for her”

“Tidy. That’ll be six pounds, then. Chwe phunt, os gwelwch yn dda”

They had teas available, so after Frank had pushed my hand away when I went for a tenner from my purse, I sidestepped him to buy a couple of teas, which brought another grin from him.

“Tables turned, Debbie? Used to be my job, sorting out the hot drinks”

“Well, you just concentrate on keeping me up to speed with the acts!”

“Do my best. Where’s this club you mentioned, then?”

“Oh, Bethesda, on the A5 just before Bangor. We, the girls and me, we go up there in the Summer. Camping and hillwalking. Girls like it, or seem to, but then there’s the, um, Perving Slab”

“Hmm?”

“Rock climbing place. Lots of young lads in short shorts and not much else. They take a flask of tea, some snacks and their cameras. Bit of a tradition now, it is”

“Keep that up, Debbie”

“Keep what up?”

“Sense of humour. Now, grab a seat?”

That part of the evening worked as well as Frank could help it to, and the music was rather good, even though I missed a lot of the banter, although I did realise that one thing about folk clubs has always been an abundance of in-jokes. Frank was chuckling at one of them, where a clearly nervous mandolin player stepped out to play some tunes, and as the audience laughed at what had obviously been a joke, Frank explained it to me in English.

“He says that while all his bits are purely instrumentals, they all come with the same traditional chorus, ‘Bugger!’, so feel free to swear along”

The man played, he fumbled a note, and together with the rest of the audience, and the musician, we all shouted “Bugger!”, as while I might not know how it might be written in Welsh, the sound was the same, and there was that twinkle in so many eyes that I had come to know and love in the Spotted Cow. The paid act was some group or other with guitar, fiddle, pibgorn and harp, and once it was all over Frank did the traditional bit, buying a copy of their ‘latest CD’. Which actually seemed to be their only one. I was a happy woman as we walked back to the van, despite the bloody language problem, and Frank was smiling and still talking to me. More importantly, he was still looking at me. My nerves were building steadily, though, and once again, he read my mind.

“Fancy a drive over by the Central, Debbie? I know a little chippy there”

His own nerves were twitchy, as my mind reading skills were telling me: would retracing our steps so closely break the spell or merely confirm our curse? I squeezed his arm where mine was linked, and just nodded.

He tried out the new CD in the van as we drove across the city, and I found myself nodding along again. Not bad at all. We were in the early part of the week, so commuter traffic was done and dusted, the weekend a long way off, and parking was a simple matter. Pie, chips, peas, fizzy drink, the air heavy with the smell of vinegar, as Frank kept the conversation on safe topics such as his love of the hills round Snowdonia.

“Got a favourite spot, Debbie?”

I thought for a few seconds, so many choices competing for the prize.

“Mixed bag, Frank. Top of Y Garn, has memories, from the first time I took Kim out. The Cantilever was my first real walk, with Pat, that friend I mentioned. Then there’s the little hut on Foel Grach. Lot of memories tied up there…”

“Debbie?”

“Yeah?”

“You drifted off for a minute just then”

“Ah, sorry. That hut: loads of memories for Pat, and we went up once, and someone had used it as a toilet”

“So, you put that right? Made better memories?”

I nodded, then looked at him properly, and yes, that revelation I had been given so many years ago still held, and he was yet a good-looking man.

“That what we are doing tonight, Frank? Revisiting, making better memories?”

He reached across the table to squeeze my hand.

“I hope so, Debbie. Ones we can make with our eyes open”

I pulled my hand back, just enough to allow me to lace my fingers in his, an elderly woman at another table smiling at the sight.

“Frank? Fancy a walk?”

We left the café and headed for the riverside, our hands linked until I broke the grip to allow me to slide my arm around his waist, and somehow my hand slipped into his hip pocket as his own arm went around my waist. A couple of lesser blackbacked gulls flew off from a rubbish bin they had been raiding, and as my head turned to follow their flight, I found myself nose to nose with a tall and attractive man, and so I simply leant in a little closer for the kiss I had broken far too many years ago.

No grabbing, no squeeze of my bum or hand on my tit, just the gentlest of kisses that still managed to be utterly sensual, and then he pulled down the zip of his jacket so that my arms could go around him in the warmth of the fleece and of his body. A slight pull away, and a smile, one that was only ever for me.

“This is where I do my best not to stuff up again, Debbie”

Memories of Cooper… This time, though, they were of a lump of stone leaving my hand at speed by the Norwegian church, of a broken and powerless old bastard, cut to pieces by the tongues of Brian Dennahy and Peter Nicol-Clements, Benny standing proudly with the whole of the Elliott clan, and Doc Thomas had been so, so right, for it was a choice I had never spotted, even though it had been sitting waving for my attention for so, so long.

I pulled my hands from his waist, out from under his fleece, and before his fear could grow, I took hold of his head in both hands, pulled it towards me and kissed him with more than forty years of stifled passion. Just a wobble from him, and then he was kissing me back, just as hard, a word that almost made me giggle when my thigh brushed the front of his trousers, oh god, and all I wanted to do right then was drag him over to the van, climb in the back and…

“Not tonight, girl. Done a lot of reading, I have, and I know… This isn’t a ‘No’, Deb, as you can bloody well tell. I just think…”

I reached down, and he almost whimpered.

“I’ve read the same stuff as you, Frank. I got detailed instructions for it when they sorted me out. You don’t think I came out here tonight without keeping my options open?”

He started to object again, so I just moved my hand up and down a couple of times, and then there were no objections; there was a quiet spot we found before climbing into the back of the van, where I had laid out a mattress and sleeping bag, memories of an old Commer, raindrops drumming on its roof, safety inside. I had the little bottle of slippy stuff I had bought before coming out to his shop, and in the end, all I took off were my trousers, boots and knickers, and oh dear god.

Thank you so, so much, Mister Hemmings.

We lay there for about an hour afterwards, stuff drying on my skin, until I found myself looking into the eyes of a man I could possibly start thinking of as ‘mine’. He was smiling, stroking my cheek.

“I had all sorts of ideas about this, Debbie. Going to make it a really special night, if we ended up doing, well, this. Hadn’t really planned, well, back of a van on a side street”

“Complaining?”

“Depends. Was it… are you okay?”

I nodded.

“I am sorry, Frank, but it was something I really needed to do, to get that bastard out of my system”

He chuckled, a happy sound once more.

“So, you got him out of your system by getting me right into it?”

I laughed, and once again he had a grin in place for me.

“Now, I need to be rude, woman. Got a business that needs to open up early tomorrow. I need to get home, and to bed, and… Debbie, I have never liked single beds, and my flat is over the shop, and if you want, you could stay over”

The temptation was fierce, but I had my own obs, still.

“Frank, this is not a dismissal of any kind, just a responsibility thing. I would like nothing more than, well… It’s not just the sex, Frank”

“It was crap, then?”

“Teasing sod, and you know better! It’s being held, it’s being… it’s being treasured. I haven’t had that since I lost Mam and Dad, so, yes, we will share that bed, but I have girls to look after, so much as I would love nothing better than to see exactly how…”

I was running out of strength right then, as I was realising how hard I had pushed him into the sex, and of course I wasn’t real, but he lifted me up once mire, with his smile and his words.

“I have a decent walk-in shower, Debbie, which means I get to see all of you naked. Get me home, get yourself back to your girls, and we look at our diaries, and… Oh. I think… Want some more proof I fancy you?”

“Such as?”

He kissed me again, rolling on top of me, and that was all the proof anyone could ever ask for. We helped each other dress after that second round, with the occasional happy laugh breaking free from both of us, and I drove him home before returning to the House, where I found Gemma and Marty sitting up and waiting for me, both of them grinning happily as they caught the lingering aroma of purest Frank on me. Once I was settled, and they had left for their own place, I made sure I took a long shower.

The flowers that filled my room had obviously come from a petrol station or convenience store, actual florists being shut at that time of night, but there was a lot of them, and the card had been signed by everyone from Alicia to Kim, Gemma having clearly been busy.

The message read ‘Welcome home, Nana’.

It didn’t help me sleep; I spent the whole night asking myself what I had just done, and why.