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This story explores the developing emotional and sexual relationship between a young man in his mid-twenties and his Aunt Angela, an impoverished widow in her late fifties, living in Merthyr Tydfil in the Welsh valleys of Great Britain.
The build-up is a little slow but I hope you enjoy it and, as always, would appreciate any feedback.
* * * * *
It all started with my cousin’s wedding. He’s called Huw, a Welsh name, and a very Welsh family, going back generations. My mother’s parents, Grandad and Grandma Williams, lived in Tredegar, a coal mining town at the head of one of the mining valleys to the south of the Brecon Beacons. Solid, chapel-going folk who worked hard and expected little out of this life, their reward, presumably, coming to them afterwards. Angela, the eldest daughter, married a coal miner from Merthyr Tydfil, a couple of valleys to the west. Katie, the middle one, married a car dealer from Ebbw Vale, next door to Tredegar; he was considered to be a bit flash: they owned their own house, on the outskirts of the town, and went to Marbella for their holidays instead of Barry Island. My mother went a few steps further, she left the valleys and went to university in England, London in fact, and got a degree in history. Grandad and Grandma Williams were thrilled that a daughter of theirs had achieved so much and disappointed that she’d not chosen Swansea or University College Aberystwyth. She compounded this misdemeanour by marrying my father, an Englishman, and settling in the capital, where I was born in 1954
This story starts in the spring of 1978, when I was just twenty-four and living in my own (rented) flat in Notting Hill and loving every minute of it. I’d got a first from LSE in maths and statistics and was working for a big insurance company as an actuary. If you don’t already know, an actuary assesses insurance risks based on statistical data, so it’s the backbone of the business and they pay accordingly. So I guess I was a bit flash too, or thought I was. I dressed well (in the now excruciating fashions of the mid-seventies), drove a two-year-old Ford Capri — the three-litre version — and took the firm’s unattached secretaries and admin girls to expensive restaurants. So I wasn’t that thrilled when Cousin Huw’s wedding invitation landed on the doormat. The celebrations started with a family get-together on the Friday and continued with the ceremony and reception on the Saturday. That meant a whole weekend away from London with its bars and buzz and glittering people. I did start a conversation with my mother about not going but she was firm.
‘Your aunt and uncle would be offended if you didn’t turn up. And you’ve always got on well with Huw and Brenda.’ Brenda was Huw’s sister, also my cousin. ‘And I’m sure they wouldn’t mind if you took your girlfriend.’
‘I’m sort of between girlfriends at the moment,’ I said. That wasn’t strictly true, the truth was that I was a bit embarrassed by my provincial relations, which is much more of a reflection on me and my post-adolescent snobbery than it is on them. But somehow I couldn’t imagine introducing Suzie to Uncle Hubert and Aunt Katie. Mum was right, I did get on with Huw and Brenda but for the past five years my contact had been limited to an annual visit to Tredegar just before Christmas to exchange presents and listen to Aunt Katie exclaim how much I’d grown. The upshot of all this is that I did go, otherwise there would be no story.
Huw and his fiancé, Sonia, lived in Merthyr, so that was where all the wedding celebrations were being held. They had a place on a new estate on the eastern edge of the town. Merthyr Tydfil in those days was a bit limited, especially if you were used to London. But it did have a few hotels and Huw’s invitation had stated that a room would be booked for me and all I had to do was settle the bill on departure. A week before the wedding another note from Huw arrived. This one said that they had been unable to find hotels for the majority of guests as there was a Welsh folk festival in the town that weekend. He apologised but said that room would be found for everybody with friends or family although this might entail a bit of driving. Having already accepted the invitation six weeks before, I was now obliged to go. Had that not been the case, the balls-up with the accommodation might have been reasonable grounds for refusal. Typical bloody Huw, I thought. Bags of misplaced confidence. In this case confidence that there would be hotel rooms available for fifty-odd guests in a provincial Welsh town whenever he chose to call them and book.
I left London mid-afternoon on the Friday and drove west along the M4 towards Cardiff for about three hours then turned north. In those days South Wales was still an active coal mining area and the green valleys were dotted with slag heaps and the headframes for the pit lifts.
The family celebration was being held in a working men’s club in the centre of town. I parked up and found the place and found Cousin Huw and Sonia inside, tokat escort helping set out tables and ferry crates of booze from the pub next door. As soon as I walked in he came straight over and hugged me. He’s a typical Welshman: Celtic black hair and pale skin, and not over-tall. People say we look the same, though I’m an inch or two taller.
‘Great to see you, David,’ he said in the sing-song accent of South Wales. And if you’re not familiar with that accent I urge you to go on U-Tube and listen because it’s the most beautiful accent in the world. Precise and melodious and with a small but enchanting stretching of the first syllable. ‘And this is Sonia.’ We shook hands and I pecked her on the cheek and she excused herself and went back to the preparations.
‘Sorry about the cock-up with the hotels,’ began Huw. Never thought about the bloody folk festival. Why’d they want to hold it in this dump anyway?’
‘So where am I staying?’
‘Ah, you’re alright boyo. I’ve got you staying with Aunt Angela. And she’s walking distance from here so you can leave the car and have a drink or two.’
I’d forgotten that Angela, my mother’s oldest sister, lived in Merthyr. Her husband had died about ten years ago of miners’ lung — pneumonoconiosis. I’d gone to his funeral, under duress. She had no children and lived alone in a tiny, rented bungalow on the less fashionable side of town. In those days the National Coal Board hadn’t got round to taking responsibility for killing its employees, unless they were directly involved in a pit accident, and she had to subsist on a tiny pension, eked out by mending and altering clothes for her equally impecunious neighbours. Of my two maternal aunts, she was the one I knew least well, although we’d always got along ok when we met, which hadn’t been for a few years. She still sent me birthday and Christmas presents which I guess she could ill afford. I remembered a tall, thin, rather shy woman with a permanently worried look. Not surprising, really, given her circumstances.
‘She’s got a spare bed?’ I said, surprised. ‘I thought her place was tiny.’
‘She’s got a bed-settee,’ replied my cousin. ‘I slept on it once. It’s a bit uncomfortable but after a skin full you’ll never know the difference.’
‘Well, that’ll be something to look forward to.’
Huw laughed and punched me on the arm. ‘Not what you’re used to in the big city eh?’
Family and friends were dribbling in by this time and I was much taken up with meeting relatives and explaining what it was I did at work and seeing their faces go blank with incomprehension, or more likely boredom. My mum and dad arrived then and I got us all a drink and we bagged a table in a quiet corner of the room.
‘Where are you staying tonight?’ I asked.
‘The Central Hotel,’ said mum, with a trace of smugness. ‘Huw managed to get rooms for us and his parents. What about you?’
‘With Aunty Angela, apparently. On her uncomfortable bed-settee.’
‘Well you’d better go and say hello then, she’s just arrived.’
I went over to the entrance lobby where she was hanging up her coat, a non-descript tweed affair with a faded felt collar.
‘Hello Aunty Angela’ — I’d always called her aunty instead of aunt, for some reason.
She turned and her face broke into a big smile. ‘David! It’s been such a long time since I saw you. My goodness you’re looking well!’ Her accent was pure Welsh valleys. She stood and regarded me for a minute, which, I suppose, is a convenient time to describe her. She was largely as I remembered: as tall as me in her one-inch heels and thin without being skinny. Not much in the way of hips or bust but with pleasant legs, what I could see of them below the knee-length tweed skirt and encased as they were in thick, black tights. I think she was fifty-six, or fifty-seven though she could have passed for sixty. Lank, collar-length brown hair, streaked with grey, framed a narrow face with a sharp nose and slightly oriental looking brown eyes. Goodness knows where she got those. The somewhat severe features were softened by surprisingly full, well-defined lips and a round chin; she also had quite large front teeth that ever so slightly protruded and came into focus when she smiled. Perhaps that’s why she did it only rarely. Age and worry had also given her crows’ feet at the corners of her eyes, faint vertical lines above her upper lip and the beginnings of looseness in the skin of her throat. She wore little make-up and no jewellery apart from a plain wedding ring.
‘I’m well. How about you?’
‘Oh, you know. Can’t complain,’ she replied. Her generation rarely did.
‘I’m staying with you tonight and tomorrow night, right?’
‘Of course it’s alright. I’ve only got a bed-settee I’m afraid, well you know my place, can’t swing a cat, let alone put in another bed. So I’m taking the bed-settee and you’ll have my bed. No, no arguments.’ — I had actually opened my mouth to thank her — ‘you’re my guest and that’s that. Now tell tokat escort bayan me all about London and your job. Are you still with the Prudential?’
I was surprised and pleased that she knew who I worked for and I started to tell her about the job and she asked about life in London and what films I’d seen and which museums I’d visited and whether I’d met anyone famous and I got us both a drink and we went and sat down at mum and dad’s table. My parents were embarrassing themselves on the dance floor with all the other mums and dads so Aunty Angela and I sat and chatted for ages about all sorts of things — mainly about me, although I did ask her some questions about herself. I think it was the longest conversation I’d ever had with her and I found that I really liked talking to this unassuming lady who showed such an interest in her nephew. She had a gentle sense of humour too and she laughed as I recounted anecdotes from work and about friends and acquaintances.
‘I expect we’ll all be getting invitations to your wedding in the not-too-distant future,’ she said at one point, giving me a mock-coy smile, and I laughed and went for more drinks then we had some food from the buffet that was laid out on trestle tables against one wall and we talked on about the family and what it had been like in the valleys during the war and before I knew it, it was ten o’clock and the music was slowing down for the final few numbers.
‘Would you like to dance, Aunty Angela?’ I asked, on the spur of the moment.
‘Well I’m not much of a dancer nowadays,’ she hesitated. ‘But this slow stuff’s easy enough I suppose. Sorry, that doesn’t sound very grateful. Yes! Thank you, David. I’d be honoured. And please drop the “Aunty,” you make me feel even older than I really am, and that’s old enough,’ she smiled, her teeth very big and white in the gloom of the place.
We stood and walked to the dance floor which was packed by this time. She faced me and I put my right arm around her waist and she put her left hand on my shoulder and we clasped our free hands together and started a slow shuffle around the floor, keeping about five inches apart. She had lovely hands — slim, with long, slender fingers and perfect oval nails. The noise and heat were tremendous and the air was thick with cigarette smoke. I smiled at Angela and she smiled back and another couple cannoned into us and we moved awkwardly towards a clear space but by the time we got there it was full and then someone trod on Angela’s toe so I steered her to the edge of the dance floor and we stopped moving but stayed in our loose embrace. I could feel the dampness on the small of her back and there were beads of sweat on her forehead. I too felt hot, stifling in fact.
‘This isn’t much fun, is it?’ I mouthed at her, over the racket.
‘I was thinking of heading home,’ Angela admitted. ‘You don’t have to though,’ she added hurriedly. ‘I’ll still be up until you get there.’
‘I’ve no idea of how to get to your house, Angela. I was about twelve the last time I visited. And anyway, I’m about ready to go. It’s been a long day. It’s nearly a hundred and seventy miles from London, and I was at work at eight o’clock this morning.’ She seemed relieved by this and we said our goodbyes, which weren’t extensive because we’d be seeing everyone for round two the next day and I got her coat from the lobby and helped her on with it, which seemed to please her disproportionately.
‘Where’s your car?’ she asked as we passed out into the comparatively fresh air of night-time Merthyr.
‘In a car park in the centre of town. I’ve had way too much to drive.’
‘Don’t worry,’ she smiled. ‘There’s no way I’d have let my little sister’s boy get behind the wheel tonight. It’s not far to my place. About half a mile, I suppose. We’ll go via the car park and pick up your bag.’
We set off, side by side and after a few minutes she slipped her arm through mine. It was a perfectly innocent move for those times. I’d have held my arm out for her if it had occurred to me; it would have been the gentlemanly thing to do. But innocent or not, it had, for me, the first stirrings of intimacy. Five hours ago the thought of any such feelings about my Aunt Angela would have been ludicrous. Distasteful even. But I’d had such a lovely time talking and laughing with her that it seemed natural rather than the opposite. If I didn’t turn sideways to look at her I could imagine that I was walking one of the typists home after a disco.
Her house was in a cul-de-sac of similar properties: semi-detached one-bedroom bungalows, built as retirement homes for miners — those that reached retirement age. Inside it was neat and tidy. Spartan was probably the word. The television set looked like one of John Logie-Baird’s earlier attempts and there was no phone. The floors were bare tiles apart from a tatty carpet on the living room floor and a rug in the bathroom. There were a few knick-knacks on the mantelpiece in the living room and some framed escort tokat photographs on a table by the window. One of them, I noticed, was my school photograph, aged about seven. Furniture-wise there was a half-height bookcase and a single easy chair opposite the television. And there was the bed-settee, and that was about it. For the first time, probably, I realised just how impoverished Aunty Angela was and a wave of compassion broke over me.
‘There’s no way you’re sleeping on the sofa-bed,’ I began.
‘My house, my rules,’ she replied, firmly. ‘Now I’ll get a couple of glasses and you get that bottle of red wine out of your jacket pocket that I saw you stuff in there before we left the club.’
I laughed and pulled it out and Angela came back with two mis-matched wineglasses and I poured us drinks and we sat and chatted about the evening and about tomorrow’s wedding and the time passed and it was fun. Then, with the bottle empty, I removed the throw from the bed-settee and grasped the strap between the cushions and pulled. The base of the settee rose about a foot, until it was at an angle of about thirty degrees, then there was a graunching noise and it stuck, solid. I tugged and pushed but it wouldn’t budge and I felt ashamed that my aunt had so little and of what she had got I’d now broken a substantial part.
‘Well neither of us can sleep on that,’ she said, looking dispassionately at the jammed sofa-bed. ‘So that settles that argument.’
‘I’ll sleep on the floor,’ I said, quickly. ‘I’ll use the cushions from the sofa.’
‘Nonsense. They’re tiny.’
‘Well I’ll just sleep on the floor then. Have you got a spare duvet?’
‘I haven’t got a duvet at all,’ she replied. ‘Just sheets and blankets.’
We stood there staring at the floor for a few seconds then Angela seemed to come to a decision.
‘You’ll have to sleep in my bed. There’ll be plenty of room. Neither of us has got much meat on our bones, as my mother used to say. You have got pyjamas haven’t you?’
‘Well I’ve got boxers and a T shirt. That’s what I normally sleep in.’ In fact I normally slept in the raw, but Aunty Angela didn’t need to know that.
‘That’s fine then. You use the bathroom first and I’ll tidy up in here and wash the wineglasses.’
I couldn’t imaging the tidying up in the living room taking very long. I felt uncomfortable with the idea of sharing my aunt’s bed. I wasn’t a child any longer. But I could see no way out of it and I did need some sleep. So I scooted into the bedroom, found my washbag in my overnight grip and went and brushed my teeth and rinsed my face. Then I went back into the bedroom and stripped to my boxers and put an old cotton T shirt on. I didn’t know which side of the bed my aunt slept on, but on one of the bedside tables there was a book, so I took the other side. I also took a book out of my grip to cover my embarrassment and started reading.
A few minutes later Aunty Angela appeared and smiled at me. ‘Ok, David?’
‘Yes, fine, Angela.’
She got a winceyette nightdress out of her wardrobe and disappeared into the bathroom where I heard the toilet flush and then water being run and the sound of her brushing her teeth. I tried concentrating on the book but all I could think of was my aunt coming back in and getting into bed with me.
She came back in about five minutes later and I pretended to read as she threw back the blankets on her side and climbed in, giving me a glimpse of her legs, bare to the knee and smooth. She picked up her book and put some reading glasses on, which made her seem older. We read in silence for about fifteen minutes before Angela yawned and put her book down.
‘I’m sorry, David, I’m sure it’s way too early for you to go to sleep but I’m all-in. Read as long as you want, it won’t bother me.’
‘Absolutely not. I’m ready to drop.’
We switched out our bedside lights and Angela turned away from me and I turned away from her and shut my eyes and tried to sleep. The room was in semi-darkness with light coming in through the thin curtains from the streetlights outside. I lay still for what felt like an agonisingly long time, listening to Angela’s breathing become slow and regular, a faint whistle discernible like the sound of a distant steam train. Eventually I felt my body relax and sleep start to overcome me. My last conscious thought was of my aunt’s bare legs, and a blurred mental picture of what lay at their confluence.
I don’t know how long I slept but when I was startled out of sleep by a low moan from my aunt. It was very dark in the bedroom; the streetlights went out at midnight, I believe. At first I thought I’d imagined it, but then she groaned again, louder, and muttered something in her sleep. I wasn’t concerned by this apparent dream, although I was wondering how I’d get back to sleep, but then she gave a great scream and shouted: ‘Get out, get out of my house!’ Now she was thrashing around, throwing the sheets and blankets off her, twisting about and crying incoherently.
I leaned over and put my hand on her shoulder. ‘Angela, wake up! You’re having a nightmare!’ She didn’t respond to me so I shook her shoulder and repeated my mantra, louder. Suddenly she stopped moving and went silent and I could hear her breath coming in great gasps and her teeth chattering.
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