had skipped up the Heather Terrace, a prettily named, if scant, footpath, through the eponymous heather, that was pocked with steep drops down to the valley. At the summit were two stone monoliths, about ten feet high, known as Adam and Eve. After agreeing to become husband and wife, Mum and Dad had held each other’s hands, and then leapt from one rock to the other, a distance of just over a yard. Then, apparently, they got lost in mist and almost walked off a precipice on their way back down.
I followed Mum’s gaze as she drifted with the swing, now moved only by the breeze. I wondered if she realised that Tryfan was across the estuary. A few summers earlier, at Mum’s request, Rupert and I had carried Dad’s ashes back to the mountain, passing them between us, taking it in turns, and then tipped them out and left them, blowing furiously between Adam and Eve.
When Evie was ready to leave the playground Mum asked if we might visit the Convent. When I first told her that I had found the place by chance, she had simply said, ‘Well, we always knew you were a Catholic,’ and this had silenced any further discussion. This trip to the beach, this picnic engineered by Mum, was something new, and unexpected. We set off in the direction of the house.
The sisters were welcoming, just as before. You’re the one that was born here? Marie Therese? Come in! I glanced at Mum but she didn’t react to the use of the discarded name. When Sister Maria explained to Evie that this was my first home, Evie suggested that we all move in. Mum seemed wholly at ease as she chatted and laughed with Sister Maria and the older nuns. They talked about recipes for fruit cake. When it was time for us to go Evie crammed her pockets with biscuits.
Careful directions from Sister Maria brought us to a cemetery. It was within a field, far enough from the sea to prevent the water from permeating the graves. A cluster of yew trees, poisonous to the cattle, creaked safely inside the walls. The sisters’ plot was in the farthest corner, and marked by two large headstones. I scanned the memorial list of names and stopped at S. Marie Therese Fay, Canoness of the Augustinian Order . Evie made a shrine from things she had brought from the beach: bottle tops and razor shells, bladderwrack and sea cabbage. Stones. We planted sedum, careful not to crush its squashy leaves and winking suns. We hoped it took. Mum clapped her hands to bring warmth back to her fingers, then took Evie’s hand in her own. The flat sky lightened marginally as the sun slipped beneath the cloud line. We told a decade of the rosary, and then went home.
Notes on Mersey
Afon Geirch
Evie wiggled a forefinger through the widening gap at the top of the car window. She was striving to point something out to me and she couldn’t express herself fast enough.
‘Look, Mummy! Look!’
Three fox cubs bounced down the hillside, hot loaves knocked out of their tins. As I slowed the car to a stop they righted themselves. A wire fence, tufted with wool, acted as a buffer against a roll into the road. Their faces heaped together, as neat as party sandwiches. After appraising the car and the two of us inside it they circled back where they had come from, ululating, warbling, snout to brush, repeatedly glancing behind them, the next shunting tumble not far off. We marvelled till the cubs were lost – it was over before there had been time to steal a picture – and when they were gone there was just the Jew’s harp buzz of the wind in the grass and the dropping notes of skylarks. We had stopped the car on the natural border to the Llŷn Peninsula in the midst of three peaks known as the Rivals, which gives a combative and brotherly ring to the Anglicisation of Yr Eifl, meaning the strides. Below us, at the bottom of the hill, was Nefyn Bay.
Evie called this place the Misty Moor, after a line in a children’s prayer: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, hold my horse
I followed Mum’s gaze as she drifted with the swing, now moved only by the breeze. I wondered if she realised that Tryfan was across the estuary. A few summers earlier, at Mum’s request, Rupert and I had carried Dad’s ashes back to the mountain, passing them between us, taking it in turns, and then tipped them out and left them, blowing furiously between Adam and Eve.
When Evie was ready to leave the playground Mum asked if we might visit the Convent. When I first told her that I had found the place by chance, she had simply said, ‘Well, we always knew you were a Catholic,’ and this had silenced any further discussion. This trip to the beach, this picnic engineered by Mum, was something new, and unexpected. We set off in the direction of the house.
The sisters were welcoming, just as before. You’re the one that was born here? Marie Therese? Come in! I glanced at Mum but she didn’t react to the use of the discarded name. When Sister Maria explained to Evie that this was my first home, Evie suggested that we all move in. Mum seemed wholly at ease as she chatted and laughed with Sister Maria and the older nuns. They talked about recipes for fruit cake. When it was time for us to go Evie crammed her pockets with biscuits.
Careful directions from Sister Maria brought us to a cemetery. It was within a field, far enough from the sea to prevent the water from permeating the graves. A cluster of yew trees, poisonous to the cattle, creaked safely inside the walls. The sisters’ plot was in the farthest corner, and marked by two large headstones. I scanned the memorial list of names and stopped at S. Marie Therese Fay, Canoness of the Augustinian Order . Evie made a shrine from things she had brought from the beach: bottle tops and razor shells, bladderwrack and sea cabbage. Stones. We planted sedum, careful not to crush its squashy leaves and winking suns. We hoped it took. Mum clapped her hands to bring warmth back to her fingers, then took Evie’s hand in her own. The flat sky lightened marginally as the sun slipped beneath the cloud line. We told a decade of the rosary, and then went home.
Notes on Mersey
Afon Geirch
Evie wiggled a forefinger through the widening gap at the top of the car window. She was striving to point something out to me and she couldn’t express herself fast enough.
‘Look, Mummy! Look!’
Three fox cubs bounced down the hillside, hot loaves knocked out of their tins. As I slowed the car to a stop they righted themselves. A wire fence, tufted with wool, acted as a buffer against a roll into the road. Their faces heaped together, as neat as party sandwiches. After appraising the car and the two of us inside it they circled back where they had come from, ululating, warbling, snout to brush, repeatedly glancing behind them, the next shunting tumble not far off. We marvelled till the cubs were lost – it was over before there had been time to steal a picture – and when they were gone there was just the Jew’s harp buzz of the wind in the grass and the dropping notes of skylarks. We had stopped the car on the natural border to the Llŷn Peninsula in the midst of three peaks known as the Rivals, which gives a combative and brotherly ring to the Anglicisation of Yr Eifl, meaning the strides. Below us, at the bottom of the hill, was Nefyn Bay.
Evie called this place the Misty Moor, after a line in a children’s prayer: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, hold my horse
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