Twisted Winter by Catherine Butler

Author:Catherine Butler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2013-05-26T16:00:00+00:00

Losers

Frances Thomas

The best part of the day, Brad thought. The light was growing dull, and the school bus in its fug of misted windows slowly wove its way through narrow lanes, spiny bare hedges scraping against the window, everything cold and bleak outside, and waiting for him at home, hot tea and maybe a big peanut butter sandwich, or a wedge of homemade cake, the Rayburn stove filling the kitchen with warmth and the old dogs barking in the yard. English homework tonight, but he wasn’t going to do that if he could help it, silly cow. Waste of time, school, his dad always said. It wasn’t school learning that had got him the biggest farm in the valley, money stashed away, and the respect of all his neighbours. Teachers, said his dad, were losers, just like those daft folk in the cottage at the bend.

Thinking that made Brad sit up in his seat and look out for little Rhys, sitting two in front of him in his old yellow anorak, hunched up as usual. No doubt thinking of all the fun Brad was going to have when they reached that bend in the lane, halfway between his cottage and the farm, where no-one could see what you got up to. Oh how Brad looked forward to that bend in the lane!

Leesers Cottage, it was called, probably something from the mashed-up Welsh that got used round here, but of course his dad always called it Losers, and the name had stuck now, even in the village. They’d always been losers, from way back, folk who lived in that cottage. Stock got sick, crops failed, bankruptcies; one lot of losers moving out and another lot moving in. Then that story of the girl drowning herself. That was a long time ago, way before anyone could remember, but they still told the story. No-one knew why, but she drowned in the lake, down the Cae. The Cae his father wanted to have, only the old witch wouldn’t sell. Just her and that Rhys, now, the current lot of losers. A hippy, Dad called her, with her long drippy hair and wooden necklaces. Only a bit of land left to Losers Cottage now, a few chickens and a few vegetables, what sort of a living was that? And whatever had happened to their old man? Walked out, his dad said, couldn’t take being stuck with a witch like her, and that fool of a lad. Sometimes, she’d be at the mouth of the lane waiting for her boy as he got off the school bus, and there’d be nothing Brad could do about it. But mostly she worked, four days a week in the community centre in Llanwen. Brad’s mother had never had to go out to work a day in her life. She knew what being a farmer’s wife meant: stay at home, look after your menfolk, be there for lambing and haymaking, the important stuff. Not sitting all day on your backside in a stupid office, earning pennies.

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