Dead Man's Embers by Mari Strachan Page B

sums and Non fills the column, asking Meg to take Osian’s birthdate as the day he came to them, the day that she and Davey had given to the registrar as his birthdate. And who is to say it was not?
    Meg sighs theatrically at her request. ‘His birthday was only yesterday, Non. An idiot could work it out. Seven years and one day.’
    Non quickly runs down the sex column, nothing to argue about here, she thinks. Four males and two females. How unlike her own family, all those dead girls, come and gone before they ever appeared on a census return.
    â€˜What next, Non?’ Wil is beginning to fidget. ‘I’m meeting Eddie in a while, I can’t be late.’
    â€˜Marriage or orphanhood,’ Non reads. ‘If you’re over fifteen you have to be single, married, widowed or . . . divorced.’
    â€˜Divorced!’ Meg is animated. ‘Do we know anyone who’s divorced? It’s very . . . racy, you know. Fancy putting it on that form.’
    Racy! Where has Meg come across a word like that?
    â€˜Hold your tongue, Meg,’ Davey says. ‘You get carried away about matters where you’re too ignorant to have an opinion.’
    Meg sulks, her expression exactly like her grandmother’s. So, that is where she gets it from, this whole tedious sulking thing. Non does not recall anyone ever saying Meg’s mother was a sulker. She shrugs slightly at the photograph of Grace hanging over the fireplace. Her angelic beauty belies the tales Non heard about her before she was married to Grace’s widower.
    â€˜I have to put you down as single now that you’re over fifteen,’ she says to Wil who blushes scarlet at the very thought.
    And then, while Meg and Gwydion are laughing at Wil’s red face, she slips in
Mother Dead
against Meg’s name, and
Both Alive
against Osian’s, according to the instructions at the head of the column. It is enough to confuse utterly any descendants.
    â€˜Shall I put Harlech down as the birthplace for all the children?’ she asks Davey.
    He begins to nod then pauses for a heartbeat as his eyes flicker towards Osian. ‘Harlech,’ he agrees. There is doubt that Osian was born here, then. Where did he come from? She wonders if there is a penalty for giving the wrong information on the form, it must say so somewhere. She leafs through the papers that have come with it. Here it is, signed by the Registrar-General – a fine of £10. And the moral enormity of giving false information that will carry on down the generations for as long as the paper does not turn to dust! She is not at all sure about this. And yet, here is Osian, and as far as the authorities are concerned he is their natural son. And it may not have been a complete lie, she thinks. Although, contrarily, she wishes it were.
    She returns to the form. ‘Everyone at school has to have whole-time next to their names here,’ she says, ‘so, that’s you, Meg, andyou, Osian. What does it say about university education, Davey? What do I write next to Gwydion’s name?’
    Davey’s concentration is intense. Is he, too, thinking of Osian’s parentage?
    â€˜Whole-time,’ he says. ‘I don’t think we have to count the work he does in his holidays.’
    â€˜I rather like the idea of being put down for posterity as an archivist or researcher,’ Gwydion says.
    â€˜Is that what you’re being at Wern Fawr?’ Meg pulls her chair closer to his.
    â€˜Well, no, just sorting out the man’s books, Meg. But it sounds grand, doesn’t it?’ Gwydion puts his arm around Meg and gives her a casual hug until she pushes him away, her face as scarlet as Wil’s. ‘Anyway, I may not be going back to university after the summer.’
    Not studying for his doctorate as his parents expect? No wonder he’s afraid of telling his mother about his plans.
    Then Davey slaps his hand on his thigh and says,