Dead Man's Embers by Mari Strachan

wants to make sure he is well nailed down in a sturdy oak coffin.
    The letter rustles in her skirt pocket as she turns around to look out of the door. She has read the words so many times that they whirl in her mind. And she has written down the return address in case Davey wants the letter back.
    She had hoped Wil would take Osian off with him to the back of the workshop somewhere, as he usually did when they went there, and keep a watch over him so that she could talk to Davey.
    But Wil is not here and Davey is too busy.
    â€˜What can we do to help?’ she asks.
    â€˜I don’t need help,’ Davey says. ‘I just need to finish this coffin. Take the boy home. He’ll only hurt himself or damage something without Wil here to look after him. You know how he is.’
    Osian is clumsy in many ways, and yet, watching the intensity with which he examines the different kinds of wood stacked in the workshop, Non knows that he will be at home and safe here amid the aromatic shavings and dusty air. She runs her hand along a piece of wood Davey has shaped and sanded and laid aside while he makes the coffin for old Evan Williams. It is warm and smooth as flesh, a living thing that leaves a sweetness on her hand for her to inhale. Is this what Osian senses, a life in the wood that he awakens with his whittling knife and his dexterity?
    â€˜This is lovely, Davey. What is it for?’
    Davey has his back to her, sanding one side of the coffin. The muscles clump in his shoulders. He is as overwound as a stilled clock. He did not use to be like this before the War. He has to hold himself tight to keep everything, whatever everything is, inside him. She thinks, He inherits that kind of control from Catherine Davies. But he never used to exercise it.
    â€˜A cabinet to go into the library at Wern Fawr when your nephew’s finished sorting Davison’s books for him.’
    â€˜What wood is it?’
    â€˜Cherry. He had it brought here ’specially for me to work it. First time I’ve made anything with cherry. See what a fine colour it is, that brown, and how different the grain is compared to the pine and oak?’ Davey, too, strokes the wood, he lifts the piece to breathe in the scent of it. His shoulders relax. ‘It’ll polish to perfection, this.’ His love of his work cannot be disguised. She wishes he did not have to spend so much of his time making coffins, but he is employed by Albert Edwards, Carpenter & Undertaker, and has to do what is needed when it is needed.
    Osian has come out of his hiding place to wander the length of the workbench, stroking and sniffing at the coffin until Davey fetches a small block of light-coloured wood from the woodstore and gives it to him.
    â€˜See what you can make out of that,’ he says. ‘It cuts like cheese, that wood.’
    Osian turns the block around, smoothing it with his hands, rubbing it on his cheek, licking it and studying the change of its colour.
    â€˜What wood’s that? It’s got no grain at all.’ Non peers at the block.
    â€˜Lime. It’s lime.’ Davey is impatient. He really does not wantthem here. But he is not happy in whatever false world he has made for himself, either.
    Osian has scurried back into one of the upright coffins and taken his knife from his pocket. He will not hurt himself, this is one thing he is not clumsy doing, this working with wood.
    â€˜We’ll be off then, Davey,’ Non says. ‘But you should have some rest or you’ll be ill. I’ll make supper ready early tonight so that you can have a longer evening.’
    She will speak to him then, when he is rested. She will ask him about Angela. About Osian. About all the things that have remained hidden.
    â€˜I’m off to a meeting tonight, straight from work,’ Davey says. ‘If we’re to have a proper Labour Party branch here, we have to get on with it. It’ll be election time before we know it.