Hosts of Rebecca

drawers it is with Willie O’Hara, so watch it or he’ll have you.”
“One word from you …” she whispered, her finger going over her throat.
“Get on, get on,” I said. “He’ll be no good to you freezing.”
She laughed then, head back, and ran to the gate. I stood there as she took Willie’s hand and he swung her down the road to Ferry.
The wildness of her made me afraid, but I would not have changed her for any woman in Carmarthen, save perhaps one.
Never in my life will I forget that first Christmas at Cae White; the service at Chapel with Dai Alltwen roasting the Devil up in the front pews, then back home, Grandfer leading, for he always reckoned on Chapel for Christmas Day. Back home now and I hit out a poor little chicken from the henhouse and plucked him and handed him to Mari who was cook at Cae White, and the smell of him was all over the house, with Jonathon crowing and Richard toddling around the kitchen for peeps at him on the spit. Blistering and browning he turns above the fire and the fat drips and flares. Up at Squire’s Reach they had a little dog to do it, says Morfydd; climbing the circle of the stepped wheel, panting in the heat, tongue hanging out, coat singed, shrinking to a prune for the lusts of humans. Wonder what the baby Jesus would say if he saw that little dog, I wondered, for I was sweating for two in the glow, with Mari dashing around with her spoons and pans, working herself to death for that Christmas dinner, our first meat since we came to Carmarthenshire, Boiled potatoes and cabbage and gallons of gravy, and she always made pints because she knew I loved it. If a woman can make gravy it is enough to ask of a wife, I think, and anything she has after that is only grist to the mill. The seven of us at table now, Grandfer going at the chicken and tongues wagging arid the boys banging spoons, with Mari scooping up the vegetables and handing down the plates, me last, though she fixed me with a leg while nobody was looking. Into it now, smiles all round, and isn’t it delicious and thank God for Grandfer who was enjoying himself for once. And there is nothing like a plate when a dinner is finished, I think, and you get the bread in a putty and wipe it round, making the old thing shine. Polished is a plate by the time I have finished with it, saving the washing-up if I had my way, but doing it under the eagle eye for I always sat next to Morfydd.
“O, look, Mam,” said she. “Tell him to behave.”
“Leave him be,” said Mari. “He is enjoying it.”
“I will not have beastly eating,” said Mam, her fork up. “There’s plenty of room for that in sties. Jethro!”
Another bit of bread, with your eye on Morfydd’s gravy, she being finished and glaring. Couldn’t get enough those days – eat her, too, if she slipped on the plate.
“O, God,” says she, disgusted.
“Stop it this minute!” shouted Mam, hitting the table and bouncing forks.
“You have raised it, woman,” said Grandfer. “It is you who should stop it.”
Eyes cast down at this.
“More?” whispers Mari from the top of the table.
“There now, you can start again,” says Mam. “And knife and fork like the rest of us, no need for piglets.”
So I gave the thing to Morfydd to pass up.
“I am off,” says she. “I can get this in barnyards, no point in coming to table.”
“You stay till the rest of us are finished, Morfydd!”
Grandfer at the top, whiskers drooping, getting well into it, and everyone else pretty busy, so I gave Morfydd one with the hobnails as she passed the plate down with looks to kill at me.
“Eh, you bloody little devil!”
“Morfydd!” Mam now, pale and shocked, glancing at Grandfer who didn’t bat an eyelid.
Everything in the county from bishops to lay preachers, cassocks flying, up and rushing.
“I beg your pardon,” said Mam.
“Mam, he booted me.”
“Never touched her,” I said. “Hell and Damnation she will have for that, mind, straight to Hell’s sulphur.”
“And hush you, too!” Mam shouting now, flushed and ashamed, for a bloody or two could be mortal sin on a Sunday, never mind Christmas Day. I gave Morfydd a glance in the pinging silence, for even Grandfer had raised his head now. In disgrace, poor soul. Head low she sat, face pale, sending me threats from the corners of her eyes.
“And where did you learn such language, pray?” asked Mam, solid ice. “Not in this house, I vow. Thirty years old, is it? Old enough to give an example, especially to the children. You will keep a clean mouth, do you understand?”
“Bloody, bloody, bloody,” cried Richard, hitting his plate.
“Do you hear that?” asked Mam, and Mari clouted Richard and he opened his mouth and howled.
“Go to your room this minute,” said Mam. “Christmas dinner or not I will make an example of you.”
No reply from Morfydd and I was into the gravy again.
“Do you hear me! Stop eating this minute, Jethro – leave the table!”
“Me?” I asked.
“Away this minute, and do not come down till I tell you.”
“She did the swearing, mind.”
“And you the booting to make her swear. Up this instant or I will take a stick to you, big as you are.”
“Go quick, Jethro,” whispered Mari, agitated.
Left the plate with half an inch of gravy, and Morfydd jerking her thumb at me under cover of the tablecloth. Could have killed her. One word from me about her and Willie O’Hara and Mam would have roped her for razors. I got up and went to the door.
“Now you,” said Mam, and Morfydd rose, which sent me a bit faster for the lock on my bedroom door. Twelve months back she got into me and I wasn’t having it again, for she swung and hooked