Beauty Chorus, The Read Online Free Page A

brother, the way he had teased her on his last
leave, tickling her until she was breathless with laughter, pinned to the cool summer grass on the lawn. Whenever they got together it was as if they were small children again. Now he was gone.
‘What do the Davies cousins know about flying? Nothing!’
    ‘They know about business, love. How can you manage all this and the farm on your own?’ Rhodri said tenderly. ‘Your ma and I aren’t getting any younger.’
    Megan glanced at him. It was true. They had married late, and Nia was forty when she had Megan. Since receiving the news that Huw was missing, presumed killed on a bombing raid, it was as if
they had aged ten years overnight. Her father’s kind, dark eyes were red-rimmed, with fresh wrinkles circling them.
    ‘They know about money,’ she said bitterly. ‘They couldn’t care less about whether the airfield reopens after the war. They’re just after the farm. This is our
family business, and I’ll run it alone if I have to.’
    ‘It’s too much,’ he said as they entered the farmyard, chickens scattering ahead of them. ‘You’ve not got enough experience flying, or with the business,
love.’
    ‘But I will have! I’m going to be flying all sorts of planes, Da.’ She looked up as a young man in shirtsleeves stepped out of the milking parlour. He stooped to the well and
pumped water into a cast-iron pail. ‘I’ve got Bill, too. He’ll help me with the animals.’
    Rhodri sighed and put his hands in his pockets. ‘After you’ve done the cows can you take Rex up to the barns and check the sheep, Bill?’
    The boy glanced up, swept his dark hair away from his face. Megan blushed. The first time she had seen him, last summer, he was fly-fishing in the stream down in the valley. She had thought he
looked like Errol Flynn. ‘Yes, Mr Jones. Hello, Megan.’
    ‘Bill.’ She lowered her eyes as he smiled at her.
    Rhodri caught the exchange. ‘Come on.’ He took her arm. ‘They’re waiting.’ As they took their boots off in the porch, he frowned. ‘You’re not to spend
so much time with him.’
    ‘What do you mean?’ Megan couldn’t look at her father.
    ‘He’s a good lad …’
    ‘But not good enough for me? Is that what you mean?’ She flashed him a quick, angry look.
    ‘He’s a hard worker, but …’ He brushed a strand of hair from his daughter’s face. ‘You’re young, Megan, and he was working in the fairgrounds when he
came here.’
    Megan thought of the silvery scars on Bill’s face, reminders of the bare-knuckle fights and baying crowds. She could never reconcile his gentleness, the way he could calm any animal, or
his stillness when she read to him, with his brutal past.
    ‘I’ve been helping him with his reading and writing, that’s all,’ she said defensively.
    Rhodri tilted his head. ‘Megan, I can see the way you look at one another. I was young once too, you know.’ Megan gazed over her father’s shoulder as Bill strode up the hill,
the dogs bounding along behind him. ‘Perhaps it’s a good thing you’ll be away for a while.’
    ‘Ma doesn’t think so.’
    ‘Leave your ma to me.’ Rhodri put his arm around her. ‘She’s just worried she’ll lose you too. I think it will be good for you to get on and do something, meet some
new people. Perhaps it will help.’
    He opened the door to the kitchen and a warm draught carrying the scent of roast beef met them. Nia was at the range, making gravy from the scrapings of the roasting pan. Megan’s two
cousins sat at the table, napkins already tucked into the necks of their shirts. They reminded her of the photographs of crocodiles she had seen, the way their eyes swivelled hungrily towards
her.
    ‘Hello, Megan,’ the plump one said. His fingers were laced over his pot belly. His skinny brother carried on chewing the end of his pipe, adjusting his wire-rimmed spectacles to get
a better look at her. She lifted her chin in silent greeting.
    ‘Now then