Lettuces and Cream by John Evans Page A

Keith had met at a New Years do in Newcastle. They never really liked her, and in private his father called her a tart.
    ‘Aye, but she manages well enough,’ Keith said somewhat disparagingly Keith continued eating, his thoughts turning back home to Chris. He had been cheated into marriage. Chris told him that she couldn’t have babies – hence Alison their eldest and marriage. Initially he had accepted the situation and they were happy enough. But after the early rosy days of the marriage he had become more resentful of the ‘miracle.’ With their busy life style and their independent natures they had never really known each other and were now even further apart mentally, but not physically, Chris’s appetite saw to that and he had never been short of sex. But he had suspected for a long time that she had been with other men when they lived close to Newcastle and perhaps even now, out in wild Wales. He even believed that her evening out at the drama group was an excuse for meeting someone. Particularly as she had of late, been later than usual returning home. The idea of her being with other men made his head pound with anger, it bruised his ego, yet mixed with this was an element of sexual excitement. He would like to watch them without them knowing- it would give him a kick -but in this case knowing would also give him back his feeling of masculinity, of being in control. He didn’t like anyone trying to put one over on him –no one did that to Keith. He wanted to have something on her – and whom ever she was with. And he had a plan –a very crafty plan.
    ‘More coffee Keith? And there’s some bacon left.’
    ‘No thanks Ma, and no more coffee.’
    His Dad lit up another cigarette and took a drink of his breakfast cup of tea, ‘Do you do much competition rifle shooting nowadays, son?’
    Before his marriage Keith had been in the Territorial Army, and although he had never seen any action, he still liked to imagine himself as a super ex-commando. Though in reality he was a bit of a softie.
    ‘Haven’t done any for a couple of years or so, but I still do a bit with the shotgun.’
    ‘You’ve still got all your cups and shields though?’ Ma said, with a hint of pride in her voice for her little boy.
    ‘Oh, Aye, but Chris has put ‘em away, to much cleaning she says.’
    Ma and Pa looked at each other and raised their eyebrows as though to say, how typical of Christine.

E IGHT
    ‘This map Keith gave us isn’t much use, is it? He said it was only two miles outside Llanddewi Brefi, we’ve done four already. The kids will be back from school if we don’t hurry up,’ Mike said irritably.
    ‘I think it’s up here, on the right. This track is awful rough, it’s worst than the one to our place,’ Jan remarked.
    ‘Yeah this could be the place, there is some sort of building up ahead, and you’re right, this track is bloody awful. Steep too, the house must be on top of a bloomin’ mountain. I bet they grow that wacky baccy stuff that Keith told us about up here, its remote enough.’
    The newly acquired van bounced and banged its way over the pot-holed road getting ever closer to the ramshackle collection of buildings.
    ‘Huh, we thought our place was a mess, but this is bloody disgusting.’ To their left was the simple two stories, two up, two down stone built house, just like the kiddies draw, four windows and a door in the middle. It even had a childlike plume of smoke curling from the chimney. It stood on the higher part of what was just an open gently sloping field, no yard boundaries, just a few broken bits of fencing dotted here and there, everywhere covered with cow-pats. How or why the mixture of stock stayed where it was supposed to be, was a mystery. To the right, were three bent, buckled and rusty corrugated iron sheds and strewn all over the ‘yard’ were bits of trees branches, dirty plastic buckets and broken bits of machinery. The whole vista topped off with an old fridge and the