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day some three years ago when Tom had drawn something similar at the lunch table at Meadowcroft. It was shortly after Tom’s wife had left him, and thus a time of particular concern for his well-being. It had been Lizzie’s idea to invite him for Sunday lunch. Tom bicycled over, arriving an hour early, so Hugh suggested a walk. Tom had only one walking speed, which was fast. Spurning the footpaths as too crowded, though there was only a single dog-walker visible in the far distance, Tom struck out across country, leading the way over fences, ditches and boggy pastures, Hugh following as best he could, breathlessly, with the occasional unscheduled halt to extricate himself from barbed wire. After half an hour at the same furious speed Hugh pleaded an arthritic knee and they returned at an easier pace, though Tom had a job keeping to it, often surging ahead without thinking, slowing with an effort. They talked about serious walking, which for Tom was hill walking, the steeper the better, while Hugh told of his early childhood in Llandeilo, close to the Black Mountains, with his schoolteacher parents and two sisters, and moving to Swansea when he was ten, where he had missed the mountains, the sight of them, and the summer walks. Tom preferred winter walks, he said; not so many people and less chance of getting overheated. Then,darting Hugh a faint smile, he declared, ‘It was you being Welsh that swung it.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘When I came to see you that first time. You keeping your accent, not having ditched it for something snotty. I thought you’d probably be okay.’
    Hugh laughed, wondering at the slender thread by which the decision had hung. ‘It’s a poor Welshman who ditches his accent.’
    ‘That’s what I mean.’
    They had drinks on the terrace. Tom downed his first beer at the same rate he did his walking, seriously fast, but the alcohol did little to lift his mood, which had plunged for no apparent reason, leaving him morose and uncommunicative. Even Lizzie, who had a rare talent for drawing people out, struggled to get more than two words out of him. Nor did the appearance of Lou, in all her freshness and serenity, rouse him; if anything he seemed to retreat further into his shell. It was Charlie of all people who saved the day. Charlie had got home at ten to four that morning; Hugh knew to the minute because he’d heard the voices, the slam of a car door, and had fretted miserably over who was driving and how stoned or otherwise off their heads they’d been. Now, having slept through the best part of the day, Charlie had dragged himself out of bed at the third time of asking and arrived at the lunch table pale, unkempt, eyes screwed up against the light. Perhaps Tom recognised a fellow traveller, perhaps he sympathised all too readily when the crash of a pan lid caused Charlie to flinch, but after a while the two of them exchanged a few words, and when Hugh next broke off from his conversation with Lou and Lizzie it was to hear them discussing cabinet-making, how much more it was than mere carpentry, how much artistry was involved, and how there was a big demand for bespoke pieces if you could only break into the market. Producing a notepad from his pocket Tom sketched out a couple of designs for tables and chairs, drawing quickly, skilfully, while Charlie madeappreciative noises. Hearing him say, ‘Hey, that’s cool,’ Hugh felt a pang, not just for the paucity of Charlie’s vocabulary – everything was cool when it wasn’t a drag – but for the transience of his enthusiasms, which, with the notable exception of dope, came and went with bewildering speed.
    After Tom left, Lizzie said, ‘He looks like he’s on the edge.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘What support is he getting?’
    ‘As much as humanly possible. But short of hiring someone to watch over him . . .’ And for a split second, in a confusing flight of fancy, Hugh might have been talking about Charlie instead of Tom Deacon.
    The definitions of