Well, why not? Seven tasty days and nights with her in that holiday camp, fifteen years ago. She’d said she lived in the Swansea valley, place beginning ‘Ys’, on an estate. Probably married now and moved. Probably wasting his time.
Atop Ystalyfera, a couple of streets clinging to a hillside, a deep valley dizzying below. A faded place: dogs, kids, toys on the pavement. Even the evening sun seemed grubby. He was getting in the car, about to go, when, standing by a front door, a blonde, thirties, curvy, nice.
‘Sue?’ he said. ‘Paul. Pontins, Bracklesham Bay?’
No reaction. He noticed the glass in her hand. Drinking early. Bored?
‘Come in,’ she said, like she was expecting him.
Once inside: hell, what a tip. Do people live like this? Mould on the ceiling; the toilet not been cleaned in weeks. A girl, ten or so, chubby, was sucking her thumb and eyeing him suspiciously. A single mother, fond of a tipple? And a fling maybe? Even so, a proper pigsty. If she weren’t an attractive piece, he’d have been out of there pronto.
‘Bracklesham Bay?’ she said, her stare as straight as her daughter’s. Then she laughed, loudly, lustily. ‘Good times! Oh yes!’ She fingered her glass slowly, not taking her eyes off him. ‘Like a drink?’
‘I’ll have what you’re having,’ he said.
‘Warm sunshine: whisky with a lot of ice does the business.’ And she took a swig like a fish in a bowl gulping water.
‘Just the two of you?’ he said.
‘Stuart works away all week. Hinkley Point. Drives a ten-ton digger. You need strong hands to drive one of those boys.’ Another quaff.
‘Must be kind of lonely, him away? You remember me then? I was passing through. Just started in this part of the world as an agricultural rep. Staying in a hotel in Swansea.’
‘Oh, I remember you.’
‘How about sending your daughter out to play while you and I renew old acquaintances?’
‘Ha!’ she said, her face becoming ugly. ‘You haven’t changed. I turned you down, didn’t I? So you got off with Sue instead.’
‘You’re not…?’
‘She said you spoke about me all week. You even called her Kath in the middle of doing it.’
‘You’re…?’
‘That’s it, go on. Say my name.’ She had a big, brassy voice, as if a Salvation Army band was in her tonsils. ‘Couldn’t have me then. Can’t have me now.’
‘Who said I…?’
‘You’re here, aren’t you? Like playing away, do you? And not telling the wife.’
‘I was looking up Sue, actually.’
‘You know why I said no? I was engaged to Stuart. Now I’m married to him. Commitment. You want to try it some time.’
He backed out. She shouted after him: ‘And, you’ve got a son in Ystradgynlais!’
Ystrad…? Of course! That was the place Sue was from. – A son?
For an instant he considered going there. Mould, grime, bath scum seeped into his brain. He drove on.
