Bird Blood Snow Read online

  Contents

  New Stories from the Mabinogion

  Introduction

  Peredur

  a synopsis

  Afterword

  Acknowledgements

  Appendix

  for Dad, for books in the first place

  New Stories from the Mabinogion

  Introduction

  Some stories, it seems, just keep on going. Whatever you do to them, the words are still whispered abroad, a whistle in the reeds, a bird’s song in your ear.

  Every culture has its myths; many share ingredients with each other. Stir the pot, retell the tale and you draw out something new, a new flavour, a new meaning maybe. There’s no one right version. Perhaps it’s because myths were a way of describing our place in the world, of putting people and their search for meaning in a bigger picture that they linger in our imagination.

  The eleven stories of the Mabinogion (‘story of youth’) are diverse native Welsh tales taken from two medieval manuscripts. But their roots go back hundreds of years, through written fragments and the unwritten, storytelling tradition. They were first collected under this title, and translated into English, in the nineteenth century.

  The Mabinogion brings us Celtic mythology, Arthurian romance, and a history of the Island of Britain seen through the eyes of medieval Wales – but tells tales that stretch way beyond the boundaries of contemporary Wales, just as the ‘Welsh’ part of this island once did: Welsh was once spoken as far north as Edinburgh. In one tale, the gigantic Bendigeidfran wears the crown of London, and his severed head is buried there, facing France, to protect the land from invaders.

  There is enchantment and shape-shifting, conflict, peacemaking, love, betrayal. A wife conjured out of flowers is punished for unfaithfulness by being turned into an owl, Arthur and his knights chase a magical wild boar and its piglets from Ireland across south Wales to Cornwall, a prince changes places with the king of the underworld for a year...

  Many of these myths are familiar in Wales, and some have filtered through into the wider British tradition, but others are little known beyond the Welsh border. In this series of New Stories from the Mabinogion the old tales are at the heart of the new, to be enjoyed wherever they are read.

  Each author has chosen a story to reinvent and retell for their own reasons and in their own way: creating fresh, contemporary tales that speak to us as much of the world we know now as of times long gone.

  Penny Thomas, series editor

  “What giants?” said Sancho Panza

  To my editor,

  This is all I have. The police have asked for everything.

  I have made copies and transcripts of the material so far. The police records, Peredur’s testimonies, the tapes and interviews and medical case notes. In most cases I have removed my questions from the interviews to make things clearer. There are also some press clippings.

  You will see where I’ve started to write things up. It should give you some idea of the approach I intend to take, though it’s not quite there yet. The rest of the material I’ve just tried to slot in at the right point, so at least you have the key events. You will have to feel your way through it instinctively for now.

  There is also stuff from _______’s unfinished manu­script. It’s drivel. He has hijacked Peredur, tried to mythologise him. I’ve brought some of his many footnotes [bracketed] into the text to make things easier for you.

  I should never have had a lot of this material, but so be it. The police will see that through. There is an implication I am partly responsible for what has just happened. That talking with me brought it all about again. I hope this is not the case. I question, though, whether we are doing the right thing, dramatising this. In the words of one of his doctors:

  He shouldn’t be romanticised, he shouldn’t be revered. It’s all very well claiming he was a product of his environment, but we all are. He was a time bomb. And he had so many dead switches that any attempt to defuse him was always doomed to failure. Eventually he was going to go off. Big style.

  Well, I guess time was against us. What do you think? Is there enough here to make something of? This is everything I’ve accumulated so far. I doubt they will let anyone see him after what he has done now.

  Do let me know what you think.

  Yours,

  --------

  ...all look distant from behind this glass.

  I look down at the sprinkled shards of the skylight, at the black canister that’s come through it, up at the outside light.

  The black canister perches there, hard against the bright white of the floor, her starched uniform and the red drops of blood.

  I do not acknowledge the others coming now, their vain attempts at me.

  I look down at the black canister, strange bird bust through that window, and at the white ground and at the red blood, thinking of the woman that time, the bird dead in the snow. And the canister spits. A sharp snake of gas. A smoke.

  I told them not to touch my cups. Just don’t touch my cups.

  Bird, Blood, Snow

  After he’d seen the children he fetched his bike and brought it out into the yard. And then he set about upholstering it.

  The children had come into the place on their bikes and they were a great vision to him. Never before had he seen such things.

  Their bikes sparkled. The tyres were studded with blocks of rubber and the spokes adorned with dazzling reflectors. The struts of the beautifully painted bikes were aglitter with silver and gold stickers. The pedals and grips were of bold colours, and the saddles plush with pad. They were most proud things.

  The children themselves were adorned. Upon their knees and arms they wore bright pads. Their shirts were of vibrant design and on their feet they wore white trainers proud with ticks of gold and silver. The tongues of their trainers were rich and plump and stuck up from the shoe. With their helmets and visors and goggles, their heads were magnificent contraptions.

  The boy had pointed at these things and asked what everything was and when they had left he had determined to follow them. He did not recognise their mirth and disbelievement.

  When he told his mother that he wished to follow and to play with the children she sat down heavily in a chair. ‘No,’ she said. Her hands shook as she took another drink, and he went outside. Sometimes his mother was like this.

  He brought his bike out into the yard. It was grey and parts of it were rusted, and in some places the rust had lifted the paint. It was run through with bubbling scars. The chrome was mistled. Great chunks were missing from the saddle and it had been wrapped with tape.

  The boy took a cloth and washed the bike and soon he believed the grey to be bright silver, and the rust a rosy bronze. The tape he thought the finest leather.

  He broke a bottle from the long row outside the door and taped the glass amongst the spokes and the tyres he blackened with creosote. He peeled the labels from rubbish and stuck them to the bike and upon the stabilisers, and upon the plastic saddle box, and so it was made glorious.

  He went into the shed and looked among the boxes of his brothers’ things. They were not with him now, his older brothers. He had been brought out here to be apart from them.

  In the boxes he found shin pads and strapped them to his legs. And he found bright orange swimming bands.

  He changed into his most favourite t-shirt and put the crinkly swimming bands over his arms. Then he put a tin bowl on his head.

  When he set off his mother came to the door. In his hand he had a sharpened holly stick that was his knife and he began to pedal out of the yard.

  The creosote on the tyres left a tar line across the cracked ground and the smell of it came up richly. The grit spat and scattered under the bi
ke, and his mother began to shout: ‘That’s right, go then! Go and find your father’s sort. Oh! They’re real men. So kind. So brave.

  ‘You’d better pray you can handle yourself.

  ‘Here’s some advice! For out there. Take what you want. Food! Drink! Women. (She laughs.) Steal it all. Be like him.

  ‘Why don’t you bring me something back? That will make it all alright. That will make me love you!

  ‘Go on then. Go and be a big man.’

  A wailing harangue. He heard her tone turn with sarcasm, but all he gathered from what she said, with the rattle of the wheels, the clatter of stabilisers, the squeak of the chain, through the tin bowl on his head was, misheard, the first part: ‘That’s right, go then. Go and find Arthur’s court.’

  He had his mother’s blessing.

  The children of the estates were divided into groups and they were militarised. Their technology was medieval. They fought with scrap bits of metal and with sticks and stones and it was a wonder there were not more maimings.

  The area beyond the estates was a waste forest. Factories had been taken down, warehouses cleared. In the ground, railways grew over disused, like ancient forest tracks.

  Behind the land were the mountains, and it was as if the vegetation and wildness of them had made raid on this waste ground.

  In the more open spaces and the old industrial yards dandelions and buddleia grew, and willowherb had taken hold. Other places were thick with sallow.

  To a man this was a distraught place, but to a child this was a territory.

  NOTE: As I understand it, the boy’s mother took him from these estates to try to keep him out of trouble.

  His father made a living from crime and violence and had paid the price for that. His older brothers too.

  Peredur was the youngest son (of seven) and she did not want him ending up the same way.

  Seemingly she came to some arrangement with the owners of a nearby holiday retirement village and they moved into the run-down pre-fab that used to be part of the old farm where the holiday village was sited.

  It was a collection of lodges on tidy grounds, each served by its own garden. The only people around were meek old men and women who gave the boy no notion that such things as battles and weapons existed, and he spent his days playing among the cabins and the well-kept lawns. He could have been a sweet child.

  What do you remember of it?

  A glittering. The wires glittering...

  ...a throb in the earth.

  It is a growl, a thick hum. A bark of dogs. Winter. And he stands. Night time. A sad moon.

  He is not yet subject to myths of fright, an innocent.

  He stands before the high wire panels at the boundary of the village, watches the moonlight hit and travel in the mesh.

  And the deer hits. Like the sound of broken bottles. Buckles and he sees its flank pattern into the wire a guttural scream and bright lights come with the thwack of snapped sticks the silhouette of men. In the air around him the summery whizz of flies tracing out from the white lights and the dogs come, as the doe drops from the fence screams at its torn meat and the mesh comes alive, a tension in the metal, sparks, lights, with electricity.

  Poor deer. Poor deer. Peredur.

  Were you frightened?

  I was spellbound.

  Imagine how she felt when she saw him. The Wendy house sat up on decking and looked from the end of the neat garden out over the fields around and he rode up.

  The doors of the Wendy house were open and there was a plastic yellow chair near the doorway and in the chair sat the pretty auburn-haired girl. She was dressed up as a princess.

  About her forehead was a golden crown of plastic, studded with fake jewels, and she wore a thick gold ring of the same on her hand. On the floor of the Wendy house were books of fairy tales.

  Peredur was very hungry by now for he had been riding for some time. He dismounted from his bike and approached the girl. She asked him if he wished to play.

  Inside the Wendy house there was a table with a jug of squash and some mini sausage rolls. The girl thought that Peredur must be on a quest, for she was well acquainted with stories of chivalrous knights and crusaders.

  ‘Are you a knight in shining armour?’ she asked.

  The boy had never played with other children before and did not understand. So she showed him the books, and the pictures of the knights jousting and winning trials of combat.

  He said he was hungry, and the girl bade him take some food. He saw the gold ring upon her finger and asked for it.

  ‘Take it,’ she said, for she knew from the stories that it was right to give such a trinket to a brave knight as a token of her blessing. She giggled as he took the plastic ring off from her finger, and closed her eyes, waiting. Nothing came. She waited for his kiss.

  When she opened her eyes he had taken another handful of sausage rolls and was walking off. The shin pads were too big and slapped against his legs.

  When her father came into the Wendy house he was furious. He could see the tracks of the bike and of the lines of creosote marking the new decking.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said to the girl, ‘who has been here since I left you?’

  ‘Just a boy,’ the girl said. ‘He was dressed up all odd. We played knights and princesses.’

  ‘Did he touch you?’ asked the father. The girl did not understand. ‘Did he do anything to you?’ he asked again, and she shook her head, and she still did not understand.

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ her father said. He felt sick inside. He felt dizzy looking at the black tyre marks.

  ‘Get inside.’ And he banished the girl then from the Wendy house.

  The smell of the fire travelled on the wind and in it you could smell the things they burned.

  The gang sat around the fire and now and again attended it. They sat on tubs and bricks they had collected from about the distraught place. It was a demolished warehouse site and buddleia came up through the cracked concrete floor. Much of the brick that remained had begun to crumble and the lines of the walls were still visible. In some places they were a foot or so high. In that way, the space was something like a courtyard.

  The gang shied when the older boy came up to them. He was a few years older. He let his bike drop to the ground and walked up to them. Under his cap his head was shaven with a pattern. One of the girls there muttered under her breath.

  The older boy demanded that they share their drink with him. He grabbed the vodka bottle from the girl. The boastful talk amongst them had stopped.

  The older boy took a swig from the bottle and looked down at the gang. Each of them seemed to shrink. The girl who had muttered pulled her top around her and looked away. She had gone very red and the boy grinned down at her. He spat into the fire and the alcohol flamed up and showed the red in her face even more. He kicked a few things closer into the fire.

  There was broken glass about and on the one remaining higher wall was colourful graffiti. Something split in the fire.

  ‘Ignoring me, now, hey?’ he said. ‘Fuck off,’ she said, under her breath.

  He splashed the vodka at her and when she jerked up in surprise he struck her round the ear. The vodka was down her face and her top had fallen open again and the drink fell down onto her chest. Her ear reddened. The gang shrank.

  ‘Don’t want this back?’ he said. He poured the vodka very slowly out onto the ground.

  ‘Not going to stand up for her?’ The tears and the strong alcohol stung the girl’s eyes. ‘Pah!’

  The older boy picked up his bike. ‘Come and get it,’ he said, and he rode out of the courtyard to the old car park, sitting very low back on his bike, riding with one hand, swigging the vodka in his other.

  The gang hung their heads and didn’t look at each other. The older boy was much bigger. Something cracked in the fire again.

  Thereupon, Peredur came into the courtyard on his old grey bike. He saw the proud, well-atti
red gang around the fire and rode up to them.

  One of the taller boys, Kay, stood up. He was drunk from the vodka and he was drunk from the humiliation of the older boy.

  ‘Are you Arthur’s lot?’ Peredur asked.

  ‘What do you want with Arthur’s lot?’ Kay asked. He wanted to beat down on the ridiculous boy.

  The gang could not believe the look of him. His tin bowl was still upon his head and he looked ridiculous. They began to make fun of him and to throw sticks at him. They tried to forget the older boy.

  There were two younger children with the gang, a short girl and her brother. Their clothes were partly wet where they’d come off their bike fetching sweets for the gang and they were drying on them in front of the fire.

  The big circle around the fire was an ashy slake and it was full with nails from the burned palettes and boxes, and glass that had bubbled in the heat.

  ‘Are you a hero or something?’ asked the little boy.

  This angered the drunk Kay, and he struck the child. ‘What? You think he’s some hero?’

  ‘He’s cool dressed up like that,’ the little girl said. She was picking out nails that had rusted almost to wires in the fire. And again Kay pushed her down so she cut her hands on the sweets of glass.

  Peredur did not understand the tall boy’s behaviour but an instinct flared in him. He remembered how he had been treated before moving off the estate. He felt a strange and basic protectiveness.

  ‘Where’s Arthur?’ said Peredur.

  ‘What?’ said Kay. The gang felt bigger in themselves again now. ‘Go and get our voddie back.’