Tom glanced at his sister, desperate to laugh. She returned the look with mortification.
‘So, let’s all bow our heads a minute, is it?’ And his voice changed gear, sinking down an octave, becoming intense and mysterious, yet still delivering words with machine-gun-like rapidity. ‘Lord-Jesus-Christ you are the light-an’-th’-hope. Deliver oh Lor’ our servant Catherine—’
‘It’s Catrin, it is—’
‘Ssh,’ hissed Liz, her eyes firmly closed.
‘… that she may stay safe-in-yer-care, as like Sain’-Chris’pher the patron saint of travels she travels herself to the far’way lands of Greece, an’-that.’
Tom couldn’t control himself and exploded in a snort.
‘Amen.’
Huw and Liz in unison said, ‘Amen.’
‘Sorry, can I ask something?’ Catrin interjected.
‘No. Ssh,’ said Huw. The priest had turned to his bag of tricks once more and was rustling around inside.
‘But how can the prayer work if he got my name wrong? I mean, did he even say my name right when I got baptized?’ Catrin pleaded in hushed tones.
By now Tom was having to stifle his hysteria with his mother’s Tower of London tea towel, stuffing almost half of it inside his mouth.
‘Ta dah!’ announced Father O’Leary, producing a small blue box. Catrin noticed the vinyl was peeling on one edge. He opened it and nestled inside on a cushion of grey plastic sponge was a gaudy-looking silver-coloured necklace.
Catrin looked closer and realized it was a tacky St Christopher charm, the kind they sold in the dusty cabinet at the back of the church.
‘What d’you think of that then?’ said Father O’Leary with gleaming eyes, as if he was showing her the Koh-i-Noor diamond.
‘It’s to keep you safe on yer hols!’ announced Huw.
‘Lovely!’ declared Liz. ‘Now let’s get it on you, shall we? Let it start doin’ its job!’
Catrin looked at her mother in disbelief.
Tom had tears streaming down his face. ‘It’s absolutely beautiful, Karen,’ he announced. And nobody detected his sarcasm. Except Catrin, of course. Who stood there resplendent in her khaki money belt and nickel-plated St Christopher charm that looked more like an SOS medallion, only not as subtle.
‘Hey now doesn’t that look the real deal!’ declared Father O’Leary.
The phone rang in the hall.
‘I’ll get it!’ Catrin screeched, desperate to get out of the kitchen. She leapt into the hallway and grabbed the phone. ‘5-0-6-5?’ she said.
‘Cat, it’s Lana.’
‘Oh, thank God! Look, the sooner you get here and we bugger off to Greece, the better. My family is actually deranged. My mother has only gone and—’
‘Babe, we got a problem.’
Catrin caught her breath.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked, worried.
On the other end of the phone, Lana sighed.
‘It’s Judith. She’s not fucking coming.’
2
Judith
After checking her bedroom for anything she may have forgotten, Judith picked up her bulging rucksack to test the weight and heaved it on to her shoulders. She couldn’t wait to leave. Focusing on the trip had buoyed her up through the pressure of exams. A little beacon in the otherwise murky mass of revision timetables, instant coffee, late-night cramming and nervous stress. But now she could put all that behind her: soon she’d be flying to Athens for the adventure of a lifetime with her two best friends.
A loud banging from the back yard disturbed her reverie. Going to the window, she watched as her father called the cats over for their food, clanging a spoon against the tin bowl. He did it with the same rhythm and velocity every single morning. He loved those cats. ‘Betty! Betty! Come on! Twister! Breakfast!’
She watched him stretch and look out over their modest back yard, sighing deeply. I know you’re unhappy, she thought, and a sudden lurch of sorrow clutched at her heart: would he be all right without her? As if sensing she was there, he turned and looked up. ‘All packed?’ he called.
‘I think so!’ she replied, injecting as much jollity as she could to stop him feeling sad.
‘Got time for a game before you go?’ he said with a smile.
Twenty minutes later they were sitting in the sunshine on two nylon-backed camp chairs, sipping strong Glengettie tea: hers made with three sugars and top-of-the-milk cream, his weak and black. The backgammon board was laid out in front of them on an old coffee table he’d once rescued from a skip. Whenever in use it had to be stabilized with a folded-up beer mat. Judith threw the dice and made her move, the two of them sitting in comfortable silence like they always did when they played. Betty and Twister lay on the warm paving stones near their feet, indulging in a post-breakfast nap.
As Judith moved the checker around the board she stole a glance at him: the father she had loved as her own since she was six years old. To any onlooker she could easily pass as his flesh and blood. Her thick dark shoulder-length hair, scooped up now and pinned back with a tortoiseshell clip, was the same colour and texture as his – at least, his when he was younger. And her brown Bambi eyes and gentle frown could give her a very serious look, just like him. Though when she smiled, her joy was infectious.
Adopting the voice of a sports commentator, she whispered, ‘It’s getting tense now, ladies and gentlemen. World backgammon champion George Andrew Harris is worried his crown is about to be nicked!’
He laughed, picked up his own dice and threw.
George wasn’t her stepdad’s real name.
Nor was Andrew or Harris. But when he’d arrived in Wales from Cyprus in 1973 he’d quickly discovered that nobody could pronounce Georgios Andreas Charalambos. Even though they’d had no problem getting their tongues around Rhosllanerchrugog or Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. Judith had always loved hearing how Georgios became George: how the foreman at the building site where he’d first found work had told him, ‘You’re gonna have to change it, mate. People are funny round ’ere with foreign names an’ that.’ And so overnight he became good old George Andrew Harris. And whenever he told the tale, he said it with a laugh in his voice, making it into a joke. But Judith knew her father secretly missed his real name. On more than one occasion she’d heard him saying quietly to the cats, ‘My name is Georgios Andreas Charalambos. Pleased to meet you!’
They finished up the game. He had ‘allowed’ her to win – Judith knew this but she didn’t let on. As she started packing the board away, he picked up the red set of dice – his dice – took out a small hand-carved box from his pocket and placed them carefully inside.
‘Where d’you get that from?’ she said, admiring its craftsmanship.
‘Ha, I found it when I was clearing out the shed.’ He snapped it shut. ‘I must have made it years ago when I was bored.’ He handed her the box. ‘I want you to take it with you. Who knows – you may play the backgammon on your travels, eh?’
She knew by this he meant, You may play the backgammon when you visit Cyprus on your travels. It was strange how they never really talked about his homeland. She’d often tried to, but her questions were always met with one-word answers or an abrupt change of subject.