~ Echoes ~

by

William E. Drake

I knew the day. The exact day: it was the eighth of May, four and a half years ago, the occasion of our first visit to Wales. I remember being over-awed by open landscapes and unplowed meadows, harking back to an England of half a century earlier. This was the day we went to view the cottage that was to become our home.

It was also the day I saw the arch for the very first time. I think some part of me recognized it for what it was, even then. Call it instinct if you will, but somehow I knew that thing was going to play a major role in our lives.

Cathy turned away from the vista to look at me. She reached across and rested a hand on my thigh. I smiled at the sight of the hole in the sleeve of her green turtleneck sweater. I’d lost count of the number of times I’d reminded her that she was no longer poor, that we could afford a new one. But she always became defensive and refused to part with it. I knew the reason, of course; it was the sweater she’d been wearing the night we first met, and I suspected that she would still be patching it up when she was an old woman.

I met her gaze and found her eyes bright with excitement. “It’s beautiful. I want us to live here,” she announced.

“We will,” I promised, “but keep in mind that whatever we buy is only for weekends and vacations. I need to live close to London when I’m working, within easy reach of the recording studios.”

“You’re always working,” she said. It was a mild rebuke. About to defend myself, I glanced at her again and caught that familiar impish smile playing about her lips. She resumed, “You need to slow down a bit, my darling,” she added. “You’re not getting any younger, you know.”

The disadvantage of marrying a woman thirteen years one’s junior is that one is never allowed to forget it. At the time of our first visit to Wales, Cathy had only just emerged from her teens, while I was already several birthdays into my thirty-something years.

“I’ll have you know there’s nothing wrong with this body,” I objected. “Not a week goes by when I don’t get dozens of offers from nubile young girls promising me sexual favors.”

“You exaggerate. You only had two last month.”

“You’re reading my mail?”

“Certainly. You’re married now, Christopher. No more using your fame to seduce minors.”

“I’ve never--” I began, then broke off with a sheepish grin. She had me.

“I was only sixteen when you first had your wicked way with me,” she pointed out, sliding her hand up my thigh until her fingers rested just a few inches from my groin. It was flustering me, as she knew it would.

“Okay, okay. But that was different.”

“I don’t see how.” Her hand moved up another inch. I glanced down involuntarily to see what she was doing, and ended up taking the next corner a little too fast. I compensated by giving the steering wheel a sharp twist, only narrowly missing the ditch. Cathy pulled a face of mock-alarm at this maneuver and withdrew her hand. “Besides,” she resumed as if nothing had happened, “it’s not your body I’m worried about. The mind is usually the first thing to go in your line of work. Too much loud music and drug abuse.”

We passed a sign that read Pontarfynach. The English translation in smaller print beneath it had been almost obliterated by black spray paint, reflecting the attitude of some of the Welsh toward the English, but it was still possible to make out the name Devil’s Bridge. “Want to know how this place got its name?” Cathy asked mischievously.

“No.”

“It says here,” she persisted, reading from the guidebook she’d bought in Aberystwyth, as if my answer had been yes please, darling, “that a monk from the Abbey of Strata Florida fell into a chasm gouged out by the Mynach River.”

“Fascinating,” I remarked drolly.

“It seems the villagers made a pact with the Devil who offered to build them a bridge over the chasm in exchange for the soul of the first person to use it.”

“Don’t tell me. The Devil kept his end of the bargain, and the villagers sent a chimpanzee over instead of a person, right?”

“It was a dog actually, mainly on account of the fact that there were no chimpanzees in England in the eleventh century.”

“Well if that’s true, where did all the knuckle draggers in this country come from?”

“You’re spoiling the story, Christopher.”

“Sorry.”

“Apology accepted. Now, where was I? Oh yes. The villagers rolled a round loaf of bread across the bridge for the dog to chase, and the Devil, extremely pissed off and spitting fire from every orifice, said”--we did this in unison in our best Arnold Schwarzenegger voices--“I’ll be back.”

“Ever thought of taking up teaching as a profession?” I inquired as she leaned her head on my shoulder. “The kids would love it.”

“I’d last about ten minutes,” she said. “Besides, I like being an artist.”

“Ah, you mean, someone who stays in bed until lunch time and drinks Cinzano at three in the afternoon?”

Her hand was back on my leg, the fingers squeezing my thigh so hard that my muscles contracted in a sharp spasm. My foot slipped from the brake pedal, and thinking this all part of the game, Cathy laughed happily. She quickly rubbed my thigh and then withdrew her hand again, turning her attention back to the passing scenery. Left to my own devices, I absently reached for the bag of boiled sweets wedged into one of the cup holders between the seats, and fumbled one out of its wrapper.

“Put that back,” Cathy admonished without looking at me. “You’ll grow love handles, my darling.”

I shrugged. “Okay, but I need something to take my mind off eating.”

She turned her head and smiled as she raised the hem of her skirt to the mid-point of her thighs. I regarded the exposed flesh for a moment before looking up to find her waggling her eyebrows suggestively.

“That will do nicely,” I informed her, and reached for my reward.

She repelled my attentions and pulled her skirt back into place as we passed a quaint little cottage signaling our arrival in Devil’s Bridge.

A minute later, I pulled into a parking space outside a small shop, probably the only one in the village. In faded letters above the bay-windowed front, the words Gegin Diafol were painted in a cramped script.

Raising a questioning eyebrow to Cathy, I said, “Break it to me gently.”

“It means Devil’s Kitchen.”

“Bloody hell.”

“Not too much blood, I trust,” she said, nimbly hopping from the car and heading towards the door of the shop. “Coming?”

“Why are you going in there?”

“I want an ice cream.”

Emerging from the BMW, I ran my eye over the shop window display and pulled a face. A giant, time-whitened Toblerone box hung at a rakish angle from the ceiling, looming like a zeppelin over a scatter of cans with faded labels. Cathy, following my gaze, placed a hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle.

“That window display,” I observed, “has not been changed since the Falklands War.”

“More like World War Two,” she said.

“No.” I shook my head decisively. “World War One.”

“You’re wrong, my darling. It was the Boer War.” She paused before adding, “Your grandfather fought in that, didn’t he? Oh wait. Silly me. It was you, wasn’t it?”

My left arm snaked around her waist and pinched her just beneath her left breast. She squealed and stomped on my right foot. We stood there in the street wrestling and tickling each other like a couple of kids, unmindful of what passersby would think of us. Finally breaking away, Cathy pushed open the door and dashed into the gloomy interior of the Devil’s Kitchen.