“We’re curst for living here”, Maori says. “Scrabbling in the black, for lumps of black, has given us all black hearts, obvious to all is that”…

Ring-pull Maori

a short story from the south Wales valleys, circa 2015

Alex Anders

1

Ring-pull Maori

Pass that building as fast as you can, run your hand down the rat cage of a steel fence as you go. Feel the badness of the place, and shiver. Down the hill and over the bridge, and you’re in the town. This way dozens of times, nay thousands, then up the other side. Knackering it is, and all for what?

Can’t think like that. “Only way to think, butt”. Beyond thinking, only the ache in the belly.

“Stop your belly aching now”, as my old gran would say, ha, ha. What tins will they have? Sardines, baked beans, custard, spaghetti… the usual mush, Mush. Ha, ha…

“Dog food, do you have dog food?”

“We don’t do dog food. Contact the PDSA they may be able to help”.

Never have dog food - think we’ll eat it. Won’t say, but that’s why.

And all for what? For what for all? To get to the Ebenezer, that’s for what. The Ebenezer, ha, ha…. It’s a church, a chapel, something like that. God, these hills… these bastard hills, God made them. But for what?

“For praying, that’s for what. Get down on your knees and send up a prayer. GO ON! What you waiting for? Nothing else is going to help around here, IS IT? Don’t shout, they’ll hear. They won’t hear, they can’t hear, they’re effing deaf. No, not deaf, but beyond hearing. They listen, BUT DO NOT HEAR”.

Ha, ha, that’s good too, ha, ha - you’re keeping yourself going son. Yourself going, you are keeping…

She don’t like swearing though, that’s for sure. Knew that from the start.

Started whimpering whenever I used the effing F word. What a racket that was. Like someone was torturing her. So only ‘effing’ to be used in Princess’s presence now… Nar, got to clean up my mouth. Finished with the effing. Must’ve been the previous bugger who treat her bad….bastard…

Nearly there now butt. Have a gasper before going in…..

2

They call me Maori after all the tattoos I have on my face. New Zealanders aren’t they? Native New Zealanders. Yeah, well I’m a native too. Native to here. That’s what native means, where you’re from… So that’s why I done it, because I’m from here, and I don’t want to forget that, and I want others to know I’m from here, and for them not to forget that either. Frightens some people though, can see them flinch when someone new sees me in the street.

Won’t be going far with a face like mine, that’s for sure. Far going, won’t be.

Up the hill, just about make it to the bench, have a look at the view, open a can, a couple of cans. Cold though, bleeding cold… need to think, bench best place, and no one about there….

Kestrel lager it is. Fitting for a place like this, overlooking the town. Hovering I am after a swig or two, looking down on it all, though I can’t see anyone, just hear their noise… bus grinding up the hill, dog yapping, wind whistling in the wires overhead.

Glug the lager and open the sardines. Ring-pulls for me all the way. Down the hatch they slither, one, two, and three. No, on second thoughts I’m not a kestrel, I’m a gannet… ha, ha. Another slug of Kestrel and I’m hovering again. Hovering fine now with some food inside me. Plenty of sardines at the Ebenezer, but Princess won’t touch them, picky she is. Can’t say I blame her though, ha, ha…

Pits all down this valley once. You wouldn’t believe it now what with all the clearing up they’ve done. Nice place now, on the surface, there’s no denying it. Black it must’ve been then, with heaps of muck all over the place and the trains chugging right up into the hills with the engines belching steam and smoke. Jobs for anyone who wanted one. On your doorstep. Hollowed out underneath it must be now, though they say there is still plenty down there…

And hollowed out people up top, that’s for sure. Forgot about them, didn’t they. Before Maori’s time. But the same blood that flowed in their veins still beats in Maori’s veins… in Maori’s veins still beats… and not just Maori’s….

“Gotta move Maori mate, your teeth are chattering”. Tucker for the princess next. She’s a big dog see, needs a lot of food to keep her going. It’s why she was booted out, happens a lot around here when money’s tight. Cruel it is. Constant battle to keep her alive...

3

Move these bones of mine along the road to where the dragon and Princess are. Frozen daft sat here musing on my lot in life and worrying over the mutt. Day to day and hand to mouth for both of us it is … rescue the princess from the dragon, ha, ha, the dragon. More fearsome than any Maori, but good to Princess. Thinks I’m a waste of space, but will look after Princess when I can’t. My sister Catrin, mind you don’t get burnt, ha, ha…

That fachgen, what’s to become of him? Do I care? Course I care, he’s my frawd, isn’t he? Looking at him though, you wouldn’t believe it. That face of his, why’d he go and do something like that? Never get a job with a face like that…

Not true, cos according to Bethan, not everyone is looking to employ your average looking person…

“Explain yourself Bethan”, I said during an idle few minutes at Boone’s, and she replied, “Maori might do well in the acting business, specialist roles like”. It was eye-catching what Maori ‘d done to his face, see. TV and film people were interested in that sort of thing. This stopped me in my tracks for a bit. But then I came back with “Yes, Bethan, but how many TV commercials do you see featuring the All Blacks doing a haka?”

Undaunted, she continued, “well, that could just be a start, then you move on to other things – admittedly it would have to be weird things - before eventually appearing on talk shows, once you’d built up a name for yourself”.

I just stared at her speechless for thirty seconds or so. Trust Bethan to come up with a seemingly perfectly reasonable career path for the frawd, just like that.

“Bethan” I said, “don’t you mention any of this to Maori, he’s very impressionable you know, and likely to think it’s something he could actually do, rather than it being more Job Centre bollocks.”

Bethan had done a stint in the benefit office, before ending up in Boone’s, with the rest of us. Some days it was like she still worked there.

A customer rattled an empty glass on the counter, “any service round here?” I held my ground, and eventually Bethan had to go and serve, and that was the end of that particular conversation. She’s a bit friendly with the management is Bethan, otherwise I might have gone and served the punter myself.

4

Whatever the future holds for that lad, it won’t involve chat shows. He can damn well lump it around here with the rest of us, and get on with it. Forget the Manics, forget Tom Jones, and forget Richard Burton and the rest of that crowd of arty types….

…cos it’s Zero hour contracts here at Boone’s, meaning the hours we work varies from week to week depending on how busy it is. In such circumstances you don’t know what wage you’ll get from week to week. So you’ve got to tell ‘em, the punters that is, that if they don’t come in and drink themselves stupid every day, it has implications for their lovely bar staff. Though we don’t quite put it like that with the regulars. Some of the girls get over pally with some of the clientele too - though they know what they are doing of course, well, they think they do, crap it is…

…what the likes of Bethan and the benefits people don’t understand is that a Welsh person out of Wales is a lost person. Tom Jones is the only exception to this rule, and that’s because he took a bit of Wales with him in the form of his missus.

Princess is no house dog, and she needs a good stretch at least twice a week. So we’re on our way up to the tops. She’s a hunting dog really. Don’t know much about all the different breeds there are, but I was advised by one of the locals that Princess looked like a lurcher….

“No”, I said, “she’s quite steady on her feet”. Ha, ha, that cracked me up, ha, ha… “Quite… steady… on… her… feet…”

Yes, they like their exotic breeds of dog around here.

Up we go now, leave all the crap behind us for a few hours. Princess unleashed and snuffling the undergrowth, trying to get a scent on something. And Maori with a few cans left in his pockets. Rarely see anyone going up. Just as well really, the way I look. Don’t want to give a troupe of ramblers the shock of their lives, do I?

You just keep on going up, through a conifer plantation on a winding path. Up and up. It makes you a bit out of breath, of course. You don’t see many folk up here, it’s too exhausting for most folk, and too silent. You can rest awhile in the plantation if you want. Gloomy it is. Makes for a good place to stop to feed the scraps the dragon has collected from Boone’s to Princess…. bits of sausage,

5

bacon, chicken, all sorts…. two pieces for Princess and one for me… two pieces for me and one for Princess, till it’s all gone…

It’s a place I don’t mind though. Fallen trees lying around all in a jumble and weirdly shaped stumps of long dead trees poking up into the air, looking like miniature totem poles. Dead silent, except when there’s a bit of breeze, and then there’s creepy, creaking sounds, as the trees scratch up against each other…

But no, you shouldn’t get stuck down there for too long. You need to get up to the tops where the trees end, and the ground becomes more or less flat, and it’s just scrub and whinberries. Easier to walk about once you get to the top, relax a bit. Princess goes bananas when she’s up there. Got to watch the sheep though. Once they realise there’s a dog around, they tend to clear off, and then we have the place more or less to ourselves. There’s no shelter up there, so if it’s raining, it’s no good, no good at all. But apart from that there’s no better place to be. It’s good for shouting and yelling, getting stuff off your chest, and no one around to hear.

I have a special place I walk to where I know I won’t be bothered. There’s nothing there apart from a raised bit of ground which has a hollowed out bit, like a bomb crater. Inside are some ashes from when I sometimes have a fire, and, you might’ve guessed, a pile of empty cans. It’s got to be a hollow in the ground so we can be pretty much out of sight - just in case. Otherwise they’ll be carting me off to the loony bin. But once we’re in that hollow, we’re invisible….

If the conditions are right, Maori does a dance. Late in the day is best, when the light’s fading, going from day to night. Best of all is if there is a moon, then it’s perfect. Watching it rise out of nowhere, big, pearly white and just awesome. Sink a couple a cans first of course, getting into that hovering frame of mind is very important.

There’s nothing much to the dance really, I just start moving in a circle down in the hollow doing little jumps, and letting rip with a few shouts, grunts and whoops – “Yah, Yah, huh, huh, whooha, whooha”, just keeping it going over and over again, getting the rhythm of it, hands and arms flailing the air, “Yah, Yah, huh, huh, whooha, whooha”. Sometimes the sounds are just screams, hoarse at first and then more shrill as the throat warms up. And Princess joins in too, leaping into the air and doing her own yowling and yelping. Round and

6

round we go until our heads are empty of everything, apart from the noise we’re making.

“Yah, Yah, huh, huh, whooha, whooha”…

Yeah, I know, it’s just like in that Kevin Costner film…

Eventually I fall over exhausted, and silence takes over again, mind empty and no sodding idea of where I am, or what I’m doing there. Mostly I go to sleep, there and then, without a second thought. Not for long though, because good old Princess will slaver her tongue over my face, checking to see if I’m still alive, or not. And then we’re ready for the trek back…

“We’re curst for living here”, Maori says. “Scrabbling in the black, for lumps of black, has given us all black hearts, obvious to all is that”…

Princess tugs at me and we stagger off through the darkness towards the orange glow of the valleys town where we exist. We exist there, but it can’t be called living, now can it butt…?

7