Day Three (Wednesday)
It was his third day in Swansea. They were passing quickly. Edward woke up feeling suitably refreshed, after his museum visits the previous day. In his head, he’d already worked out a new itinerary for the day ahead. He was an organised man. He’d had to be in his work. He’d never lose that trait now, he realised. It would be with him always. Every day should have meaning and purpose. Time shouldn’t be wasted. He didn’t like to take things as they came, even on holiday. He liked to have a clear plan, even if to others it might seem merely like aimless drifting. It wasn’t to him. There were places he wanted to visit. Slowly one by one he’d get to them. At least that was his intention. He’d do his very best to achieve his aims.
Edward got up a little later than he had done the previous morning. He didn’t rush down to breakfast. He didn’t need to after all. He was in no particular hurry. He’d get it all done in his own good time. He found Alan Evans waiting for him, just as he had been the day before. Some of the guests were already seated and eating. Edward found a different table on this occasion. His preferred one by the window was already taken. That was the price to be paid for coming down later. It was a modest one though. Edward didn’t really care where he was sat. It made no huge difference to him.
‘Would you like the same as you had yesterday, or something different?’ Alan asked.
‘The same would be perfect,’ Edward answered.
He imagined he’d have the same breakfast every day for as long as he stayed. Perhaps he should have scrambled or poached eggs once, just to be different. He was a man of routine, however, and routines were hard to break. If he stayed long enough, he would have something different one day, he told himself firmly. He was on holiday after all. There were no rules, and if there were, he was allowed to break them. Besides, he made the rules. They were his to do what he wanted with.
After breakfast, Edward pottered about in his room for a bit before heading out. He still hadn’t contacted Alice. He wasn’t ready to yet. He wondered if she was spending her nights alone in the big house, or did she have Paul for company? Perhaps she’d already moved into his place? Perhaps Edward would get back to find all her stuff had gone and she with it? He wasn’t going to worry about that now. What would be would be. He and Alice had enjoyed a relatively happy ten years together. Perhaps that was enough.
Edward went out wearing his raincoat. There was cloud overhead, and knowing Swansea as he did, it would probably rain at some point. It wouldn’t matter all that much. He planned to spend much of the day inside. As on his other days in the city, he headed first towards the small coffee shop by the market. He hoped the friendly face of Meredith would be there to greet him. She was a cheerful, salt of the earth type, well-built and proud of it. He guessed she was in her mid to late thirties. She was of mixed ethnicity, but her accent was 100 per cent South Wales, an accent that always took him back to his days as a student.
‘What can I get you today, Edward?’ Meredith asked, when he walked in.
He was one of the first customers of the morning, although there were a couple of others outside, huddled round coffees and smoking. Inside it was virtually empty.
‘You remember my name. I’m impressed,’ Edward commented.
‘Do you remember mine?’ Meredith asked.
‘Indeed, I do. It’s Meredith,’ Edward announced, proudly.
He’d made a point in business of always remembering people’s names. It was one of the tricks of the trade, to put potential clients and associates at their ease.
‘Very good,’ Meredith complimented him. ‘So, what will it be?’
‘I’ll have a coffee, and do you know what, I think I fancy a donut today,’ Edward announced, offering his payment.
‘A wise choice. The donuts are excellent, even if I say so myself. You take a seat and I’ll bring them over,’ Meredith said.
Edward made himself comfortable and as on other days got his book out. It was only a short novel, and he was well on the way to finishing it. He’d have to start another one soon. He’d brought a couple more books with him. That might not be sufficient. He’d keep his eye open for a bookshop or two on his wanderings that day, he decided. He hoped he’d find one. He loved browsing old bookshops at his leisure and occasionally finding something interesting. There were usually plenty to choose from. So far, he hadn’t seen many in Swansea. The one or two he remembered appeared to have closed.
‘Are you here on holiday?’ Meredith asked, when she brought him his coffee and donut.
‘Sort of,’ Edward nodded. ‘It’s a mini break if you like.’
‘Got anything exciting planned for today?’ Meredith enquired.
‘I’ll take a look at the gallery and perhaps pop in the Dylan Thomas Centre. I haven’t been there yet. Later, I might wander down to the old university campus. I was a student there many years ago,’ Edward explained.
‘Oh really. So, you know Swansea quite well,’ Meredith commented.
‘I did. This was back in the late 1970s, early 1980s. It’s changed a bit since then,’ Edward admitted.
‘I wasn’t even born then,’ Meredith laughed.
‘Exactly. It was more of a provincial town in those days, I’d say. It has more the feel of a city now,’ Edward reflected.
‘I like living here,’ Meredith said. ‘It’s got shops, pubs and cafés, and the beach and the Gower Peninsula aren’t far away.’
‘I like it too,’ Edward agreed.
With that Meredith left him to his coffee and book, as another customer had wandered in, to attract her attention.
‘Many thanks,’ Edward said, when he’d finished, taking his empty cup and plate back. ‘I’m sure I’ll be in again later in the week,’ he added.
‘I’ll be here, I expect. I don’t have a day off until Saturday this week,’ Meredith said.
Edward only had days off now. That was the good thing about being retired. After leaving the coffee shop, he headed towards his first destination, the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery. It was located on Alexandra Road, near the railway station and opposite Swansea College of Art. Edward used to visit it sometimes as a student when he’d had pretensions of being an artist himself. Ultimately, he’d put those dreams behind him to make money instead. He’d got lucky. His timing had been perfect. He’d managed to jump on the bandwagon of Margaret Thatcher’s mid-1980s, mini financial boom. He’d done well then, although he wasn’t really a political animal himself. He still partly saw himself as someone with an artistic temperament. It had just gone largely untapped and to waste. He liked art and literature. He might return to those inclinations one day in retirement, he thought, when he had nothing else to do with his time. He had no grandchildren as yet. Neither Victoria nor Henry appeared to be in any great hurry to provide them. He’d need something else to keep him occupied.
To reach the gallery, Edward headed up onto the Kingsway. It was one of the main roads through the centre of Swansea. Once it’s side streets had been filled with popular, if slightly seedy, nightclubs. On Friday and Saturday nights, there had been long queues outside them, as they’d filled with eager clubbers, who’d descended from the valley communities. As far as Edward could see, all that had vanished. It reflected a general decline in city nightlife everywhere. Clubbing wasn’t as popular as in his day. Young people were far too busy with their phones, making posts on social media. Edward had no interest in that. It was all nonsense, as far as he was concerned. He’d leave that to the younger generations. It was too late for him to get started with that foolishness now, although his work had required he had a passing understanding of the internet and its applications, even if he personally chose not to avail himself of them greatly.
It wasn’t just the nightclubs that had largely closed, Edward noticed. Swansea had once been a mecca for small, working men’s pubs and clubs. There had been one or more on every street corner and in every residential road across the whole of the city. Some were tiny, little more than a front room in a terraced house. It appeared the majority were no more, victims of changing tastes and habits. Once they’d provided an after-work haven for the hard-working men of the local industries, but those industries had been in terminal decline for years, until they’d more or less ceased to operate altogether. So too had the pubs now, in a kind of unerring and unavoidable knock-on effect. That was progress if it could be called that. Of course, the old pubs weren’t for the likes of English students like Edward had been. They were pubs for the people of the local communities. Edward and his fellow undergraduates wouldn’t have been welcomed in any of them. Even at the time, Edward understood that and respected that fact. He and his friends mainly stuck to the student pubs in the vicinity of the main university campus.
From the outside, the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery was an impressive historic building in its own right. It always had been. Edward recalled that about it. Inside, it had clearly been refurbished since his last visit. It looked clean, modern, and new. A visitor’s café now stood to the left of the entrance desk. There were ten rooms in all to be perused. Edward started downstairs in the main entrance hall, where there was a visiting exhibition. To the sides there were rooms filled with more of the gallery’s permanent collection. It was bigger than he remembered it. He dutifully looked at every exhibit in turn, taking in what he could about them.
Upstairs, there were delicate, ornamental ceramics on view and a gallery he could look down from, onto the exhibits he’d already seen. Edward concentrated most attention on the main exhibition of fine art. This was the biggest and to his mind most impressive room. It had several sections. The paintings which struck a special chord with Edward were the ones of the Welsh coal miners and steel workers, staring sullenly out from huge pieces of painted canvas. The brush strokes were precise and well-executed by the artists concerned. The faces they’d captured were grimy, sad, and unhappy. These people hadn’t been content in their work, it was obvious. They’d been grudgingly accepting at best, hostile at worst. The images remained in Edward’s head for some days afterwards. Nothing else he saw there could quite match the way these paintings had moved him. Their beauty contrasted sharply with the daily horror of the ordinary, working, Welsh men’s lives they portrayed. It was a fitting homage to them and the lives they’d lived.
Edward sat in the café afterwards, quietly reflecting, over a pot of tea. When he was ready, he left the gallery and walked down the High Street and on towards Wind Street, in the direction of the Dylan Thomas Centre. Edward had vague memories of a pedestrian tunnel under the main road. But if it had been there once and he hadn’t just imagined it, it wasn’t there any longer. Edward had to wait for the traffic lights to change and the stream of fast-moving cars to stop, before crossing in safety. Once on Somerset Place, he made his way to the Dylan Thomas Centre. He hadn’t been there before. He was immediately impressed. There was an exhibition and shop downstairs and a restaurant upstairs. It was a fitting commemoration of the great man and giant of Welsh literature. Edward was no Dylan Thomas expert, but he was familiar with some of his work. He’d read Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog as a young man and had seen Under Milk Wood performed. He knew some of the poems like Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night, And Death Shall Have No Dominion, as well as Fern Hill of course. He liked them, though Dylan wasn’t a personal favourite. Edward principally considered himself an admirer of English authors George Orwell and JG Ballard, as well as the American surrealist Kurt Vonnegut.
Even so, Edward hoped to find inspiration in the words and images of Dylan. He hoped they might provide an answer and solution to his own problems and issues. Looking round at the memorabilia and photographs on display, it was hard not to be moved by Dylan’s short life and the literary impact he’d made, from a relatively humble upbringing in Swansea’s middle-class Uplands, to publication at an early age, a life in London, before eventually returning to Wales. A successful BBC radio career had followed and sell-out tours of America. He wasn’t even forty when he died, a life cut short by drink and chronic bad health that he’d been afflicted with since childhood. In those thirty-nine years, Dylan had crammed in more than most did in a lifetime. He’d done much more than Edward had done. Although in his lifetime at least, Edward was probably a richer man, he reflected with a touch of irony. Until the later years, when the radio performances and the American lectures became a success, Dylan had struggled to make enough money as a writer to live on. No doubt since, when it was too late, there would have been ample royalties from his estate to provide a generous income.
After taking in the exhibition, Edward sat in the café-bar upstairs and ordered lunch. Unusually for this time of day, he chose a pint of Welsh bitter to wash it down with. Perhaps it was in honour of Dylan, a keen imbiber of the local brews himself. Edward’s only concern was the beer might make him weary afterwards. It wasn’t a huge problem. He could always stop at the guesthouse for a brief nap on his way to his next port of call. This he did. He lay down on his bed for half an hour or so to recharge his batteries. It was early afternoon and it had started raining lightly, just as he reached the cover of the guesthouse. Luckily, it had largely stopped by the time he woke up and got ready to go out again. He continued on his way round the bay, towards the old university campus. He was aware a new purpose-built Bay Campus had now been opened on the Port Talbot side of the River Tawe, but the old Singleton Park site would always be the home of Swansea University to him. He knew nothing of the other, except that it existed. He didn’t even plan to visit it. Only because it held no memories for him, and memories were his business and a major reason for his being there.
It did make him realise, however, that modern-day Swansea was quite different to the one he’d known forty years earlier. It had grown and developed in his absence. It was a more cosmopolitan, multicultural, metropolitan city to the one he’d left. The many department stores may have closed their doors, but they’d been replaced by shiny, new, out of town, drive-in, retail parks. Swansea and the rest of the world had changed and moved on. Edward wasn’t sure he’d changed with it. He was still stuck in the past. It was where he felt he belonged. Now he was heading back to that past and the campus that had been his home from the ages of eighteen to twenty-one.
As Edward passed the St Helen’s Rugby and Cricket Ground, the clouds above him darkened again. He felt a large drop of rain on his cheek, then another, which ran down onto his shirt collar. Within moments it was raining heavily. He was getting soaked to the skin. He looked around for cover, but he knew from battling the elements along this stretch of the road many times in the past, there was little or none to be found. The strong breeze coming off the waters of the bay only made it worse. Edward decided to postpone his visit to the campus until the following day, when he hoped the weather would improve. Instead, he turned back and took a deter down King Edward’s Road, where he’d be slightly less exposed to the wind and rain. He meandered his way through the narrow, back streets and off one he noticed a small, second-hand bookshop, where he decided to take momentary shelter until the rain subsided.
He opened the door and went inside. Just being out of the wet for a moment made him feel instantly better. He shook some of the surface water from himself, before proceeding further into the shop. It was a funny little place, a bit dingy and not particularly well-organised by the look of things. Nonetheless, it was the kind of quaint, old, second-hand bookshop where he liked to poke about. If he was lucky, some rare book or bargain might jump out at him. That was his hope at least. If not, it wasn’t time wasted. By the time he left, perhaps the rain would have stopped. That in itself would have made it well worth the effort of interrupting his journey to go in. He started to browse the shelves of poetry and literature. Those were the areas that interested him most, together with history, ecology, and geography.
He’d been there a while, before a middle-aged lady, perhaps just a few years younger than he was himself, let her head emerge from a back office, to address him. She peered over his glasses, to take him in first, before speaking. Perhaps she was assessing whether he was a serious customer, intent on a purchase, or had just made a temporary escape from the inclement weather, as was indeed the case. Edward noticed a Golden Retriever, or some similar breed of dog, lay contentedly asleep in a basket at her feet. Edward was no expert on dogs. He’d never been particularly taken by the beasts, but he knew an animal of that colour was a Retriever or perhaps a Labrador. It was more likely the latter, he realised, on closer inspection.
‘Can I help you?’ the bookseller enquired, politely.
She had a gentle, courteous tone to her voice, as if her question was genuinely meant, and she wasn’t just trying to get rid of him.
‘I’m only browsing, to be honest with you,’ Edward admitted.
He felt a little embarrassed by the admission, but there was no point lying. He didn’t want to raise her hopes of a sale, though he wouldn’t hesitate to make a purchase, if he spotted anything there that he wanted. He was always on the look out for a good book.
‘Well, if there is anything particular that you’re looking for, just ask,’ she said. ‘I might have it somewhere.’
‘I’m always after vintage editions of anything by JG Ballard or Kurt Vonnegut,’ Edward said. ‘I also collect 1970s Fontana editions of the thriller writer, Eric Ambler.’
‘Is there anything on the shelves?’ the bookseller asked.
‘I haven’t seen anything yet,’ Edward replied, as he continued to browse.
He was still looking. There was much to go through. He’d only really scratched the surface.
‘The thing is, not everything I have is out. There are loads I haven’t had time to properly go through yet and price up,’ the bookseller explained.
Edward had noticed that. There were mountains of books piled up on the floor, that hadn’t yet found their allotted spaces on the shelves. All kinds of gems could be hidden there, among the many which clearly weren’t gems, at least not in Edward’s eyes.
‘The problem is I’m here on my own,’ the bookseller continued. ‘I could do with a bit of help really, but it’s not so easy to find, not the right kind of help anyway. Sometimes I can’t even open up if I have an appointment or have to go out for some reason. I have to close for a bit just to take the dog for a walk.’
‘That’s all right. I can see it’s difficult,’ Edward sympathised, getting a sense of the lady’s predicament.
‘I tell you what, come back in a day or two, and I’ll see if I can dig out something before then. How’s that?’ she suggested.
‘That would be perfect, but you needn’t go to all that bother for me,’ Edward said.
‘It’s really no bother,’ the bookseller said. ‘That’s what I’m here for.’
‘Well, it really is most generous of you,’ Edward enthused. ‘I hope I’m not just wasting your time.’
‘You won’t be. I have to do it anyway,’ she said.
‘Well, thank you again,’ Edward repeated, as he began to make his way towards the door.
‘By the way what’s your name, love? Just in case I find anything,’ the bookseller called out, as Edward prepared to leave.
‘Edward,’ he said.
‘OK Edward, I’m Jill and I’ll see you on Friday. I should have a chance to go through a few more of the new books by then,’ she said.
‘I’m staying just round the corner, so Friday will be fine,’ Edward said. ‘To be honest, I can pop in anytime, whilst I’m here,’ he added.
‘How long will that be for?’ Jill asked.
‘I’m not quite sure, but a while longer,’ Edward told her.
He realised he still didn’t know the answer to that question himself.
With that he excused himself and went back outside. The rain had eased a bit, but it made little difference to Edward, as he was already soaked. When he got back to his room, he took all his wet clothes off. He laid them neatly on the back of a chair and hoped they’d dry by the following day. At this point, Edward realised he hadn’t come prepared for an extended stay. He’d left in a hurry, with little idea how long he’d be staying for. He hadn’t really thought that part through. He only knew that he needed to get away. He only really had one change of clothes with him. He realised now that wasn’t enough. He might have to pick up a few more, to keep him going.
Edward got in the shower. He wanted to wash off the rainwater. As before, it wasn’t quite as hot as he’d have liked. He wanted it piping hot. It was far from that. It was tepid, though it was probably better for the planet and helping to keep energy costs down, he reflected. Edward still emerged feeling somewhat refreshed and better than he had. Even with his raincoat on, his shirt had been virtually stuck to his back. He’d been glad to get it off. Now he was back in warm, clean, dry clothes again. It was spring, not long before summer in fact. He hadn’t thought he’d need much in the way of outer garments. He’d been wrong. It didn’t take much wind and rain to feel cold, whatever the season.
Edward chose to have his evening meal at another old haunt on the Brynmor Road, washed down with large glass of red wine, not perhaps the fine vintage he might have enjoyed at his favourite wine bar in Oxford or the West End, but nonetheless, it hit the spot. Again, Edward went early before the pub became busy. He’d didn’t want to sit around and wait for the noisy football patrons to arrive, although he had nothing against the game. He enjoyed it in the privacy of his own home. He just didn’t want it to impinge now in his moments of quiet reflection.
Edward was back at the guesthouse by 7.30pm. He looked in on Alan and Gwen in the breakfast room that doubled as a lounge or living room in the evening. Or was it vice versa? Was it a lounge that doubled as breakfast room in the morning? Edward wasn’t sure. It didn’t really matter. Again, the couple were alone. Edward’s fellow guests evidently weren’t big drinkers. He liked a tipple but was no longer a big drinker himself. The heart arrythmia had put a stop to that, and other pleasures on top. Now Edward was committed to looking after himself and living out his retirement in reasonable health, or as good as he could manage.
‘Will you join us for one?’ Alan asked.
‘Why not? Just a quick one,’ Edward replied.
‘Whisky and soda again?’ Alan anticipated.
‘Yes, please,’ Edward said.
He’d just have the one, before going up to his room. He then sat down to recount some of his day’s adventures to Alan and Gwen, before heading upstairs, where he read and watched television for a while, before going to bed. He still hadn’t told them what had happened concerning his wife, Alice. He wasn’t sure if he ever would. For the time being, it remained his secret. He hadn’t told anyone else yet. He still didn’t like to admit it, even to himself. He was both too ashamed and too hurt that such a thing had taken place to him of all people. It had made him realise one thing. Alice had never meant as much to him as Angela had. Indeed, she never could. That was one thing he was happy to admit now. Being back in Swansea had reminded him of that fact once and for all. There was no question. Angela not Alice was the single most significant love of his life.
