Welsh Journals

I walked in and out switching the wireless off and on (we had no television then), all the time being told I was dissatisfied and why didn't I do some homework. I finally borrowed one-and-six till Friday from my uncle and said I was going up Aunty Kitty's. Whether or not I would get there I didn't know. It was a good enough excuse to get out. I shut the door quickly so as not to hear 'Don't be late'. When I was crossing Splott Bridge again, I noticed the short figure of Mr Woodward, a quiet bachelor who lived up the street. I smiled broadly as he passed, asked how work was and said goodnight over the bridge and I felt him look at me, so I exaggerated my swift nonchalant walk and, conscious of his appraisal of me, clutched my shoulder suddenly. I walked down Constellation Street feeling powerful like a patriotic rebel who is leaving now the scene of a plot, throbbing with his as yet secret knowledge. Near the end of Constellation Street by the slaughterhouse I saw a boy and girl about my own age suddenly fuse into an embrace. The acridity from the sleeping animals hung in the coolness and I stood watching them, acutely conscious of my own adolescence, experiencing the great sensuality, trying to understand the real vulgarity of it. I wasn't cynical, as I might have wished, only curious and rather left out of things. I had many fancy concepts of truth and reality but most of all I felt the realness in an understood moment. I walked away savouring the lingering reality of my loneliness and saw that it was practically dark as I crossed Adamsdown Square. POVERTY Suppose a beggar were to lead The armies of Islam, The infidels, scared of his dunning, As far as China would be running. (translated from a beit of Sa'di) lain Forbes White