The Loney Read Online Free Page A

place either. It was just Miss Bunce trying to be different. She was young. It wasn’t her fault.
    ‘Glasfynydd. It’s a retreat on the edge of the Brecon Beacons,’ she said. ‘It’s beautiful. I’ve been lots of times. They have an outdoor church in the wood. Everyone sits on logs.’
    No one responded apart from David, who said, ‘That sounds nice,’ and sipped his tea.
    ‘Alright,’ said Father Bernard after a moment. ‘That’s one idea. Any others?’
    ‘Well, it’s obvious,’ said Mummer. ‘We should go back to Moorings and visit the shrine.’ And buoyed on by Mr and Mrs Belderboss’s murmurs of excitement in remembering the place, she added, ‘We know how to get there and where everything is and it’s quiet. We can go at Holy Week and take Andrew to the shrine and stay on until Rogationtide to watch the beating of the bounds, like we used to do. It’ll be lovely. The old gang back together.’
    ‘ I’ve never been before,’ said Miss Bunce. ‘And neither has David.’
    ‘Well, you know what I mean,’ said Mummer.
    Father Bernard looked round the room.
    ‘Any other suggestions?’ he said, and while he waited for a response he picked up a custard cream and bit it in half.
    No one said anything.
    ‘In that case,’ he said. ‘I think we ought to be democratic about it. All those who want to go to South Wales …’
    Miss Bunce and David raised their hands.
    ‘All those who want to go back to Moorings …’
    Everyone else responded with much more vigour.
    ‘That’s that then,’ said Father Bernard. ‘Moorings it is.’
    ‘But you didn’t vote, Father,’ said Miss Bunce.
    Father Bernard smiled. ‘I’ve given myself the right to abstain this time, Miss Bunce. I’m happy to go wherever I’m led.’
    He grinned again and ate the remainder of his biscuit.
    Miss Bunce looked disappointed and shot glances at David, wanting his sympathy. But he shrugged and went over to the table for another cup of tea, which Mummer poured with a flourish, as she relished the prospect of going back to The Loney.
    Mr and Mrs Belderboss were already describing the place in minute detail to Father Bernard who nodded and picked another biscuit from his plate.
    ‘And the shrine, Father,’ said Mrs Belderboss. ‘It’s just beautiful, isn’t it, Reg?’
    ‘Oh, yes,’ said Mr Belderboss. ‘Quite a little paradise.’
    ‘So many flowers.’ Mrs Belderboss chipped in.
    ‘And the water’s so clean,’ said Mr Belderboss. ‘Isn’t it, Esther?’
    ‘Like crystal,’ said Mummer, as she passed the sofa.
    She smiled at Father Bernard and went to offer Miss Bunce a biscuit, which she took with a thankyou that could have drawn blood. Mummer nodded and moved on. At Moorings, she knew she could beat Miss Bunce and her Glasfynydd hands down, being on home turf as it were.
    She had grown up on the north-west coast, within spitting distance of The Loney and the place still buttered the edges of her accent even though she had long since left and had lived in London for twenty years or more. She still called sparrows spaddies, starlings sheppies, and when we were young she would sing us rhymes that no one outside her village had ever heard.
    She made us eat hot pot and tripe salads and longed to find the same curd tarts she had eaten as a girl; artery-clogging fancies made from the first milk a cow gave after calving.
    It seemed that where she grew up almost every other day had been the feast of some saint or other. And even though hardly any of them were upheld any more, even by the most ardent at Saint Jude’s, Mummer remembered every one and all the various accompanying rituals, which she insisted on performing at home.
    On Saint John’s day a metal cross was passed through a candle flame three times to symbolise the holy protection John had received when he went back into his burning house to rescue the lepers and the cripples staying there.
    In October, on the feast of Saint Francis of Assisi, we would go