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that was it. A Scottish-sounding name, or an Irish one, he wasn’t sure which, he just knew it wasn’t a good Welsh name. And anyway, what could a motherly woman do for him? He had lost the only mother he wanted, now he must take the man’s path.
    As he sat on the cliff edge and glowered, unseeing, at the sea, a man walked across the beach below him, then looked up and shouted.
    ‘Dai, bach, what’s up wi’ you, mun? I’m baitin’ lobster pots; goin’ to give me a hand?’
    It was Meirion.
    Meirion stood on the shingle with the bag of fish pieces swinging from one hand and watched Dai scramble down the cliff towards him. Dai came down with his black curls bobbing on his head, his strong legs carrying him easily and swiftly over the rough going, his eyes intent on the ground at his feet. Like his Da, Dai Evans was good to look upon and the girls vied for his favours, but to Meirion, Dai was special. Fond of Dai he was, like brothers they had been all their lives, and worried he was at the way Dai had taken Bethan’s death.
    Darkly. That was how he had taken it. Meirion was used to his friend’s eloquent eyes reflecting his moods, but of late those eyes had seldom sparkled and had looked opaque, angry. Then there was the girl Menna. No one approved, but there were those who understood, though Meirion was not one of them. How Davy Evans could take a brassy piece like her into his home, with Dai still so hurt by his loss, Meirion could not understand, and there was talk amongst the women – who knew everything – that Davy had always been a one for the girls, that having a bedridden wife for fifteen months before her death had tried him more than it would have done some men, that he had been visiting Menna in her father’s public house in Amlwch for more than a twelve-month ….
    Dai crashed down the last few feet of cliff and crunched across the shingle towards Meirion. He looked better, less haunted, Meirion decided, considerably relieved. The curly grin which revealed the white, even teeth was splitting Dai’s tanned face and his eyes warmed when they met Meirion’s in much their old way. ‘Aye, I’ll give you a hand with the pots, bach. Meirion, my mind is made up. I’ll be leavin’ Moelfre as soon as I can get a berth on a ship out of Amlwch. I’ll ride over tomorrow – want to come?’
    Dai had an old motorbike, his pride and joy after the Sweetbriar . He and Meirion had taken it to pieces and then put it together again half a hundred times; they knew it as they knew the palms of their own hands, and loved it, too. They both rode it, sometimes one in the driver’s seat whilst the other rode pillion, sometimes the other. For years and years everything they did they had done together – taking the Sweetbriar to sea, bringingin the catch, selling it, lowering each other down the cliffs on a rope to rob seabirds’ nests, digging for cockles, chasing the giggling holidaymaking girls in the summer, flirting with them, teasing them … then turning back to the local girls for real companionship, to sensible Rhona and sweet Wanda … even their girlfriends were friends.
    ‘Goin’, Dai? What for? Why, in God’s sweet name?’
    Meirion’s voice was shocked, he couldn’t help himself. If Dai went, how on earth would he go on? His instinct would have been to go too, to set off for Amlwch the following day and never return if that was what Dai wanted, but it was impossible. His Mam needed him, he had been the man of the house since his Da had been lost at sea. They had a good garden, good crops, but times was hard, they needed him, and not on some little coaster miles from here, either. He must be here, on the Isle of Anglesey, looking out for them, guarding them.
    ‘Why?’ Dai sighed, picked up a lobster pot and began to insert the bait. ‘Oh, Meirion, bach, you must know as well as I do that I can’t stay here and see that woman take my Mam’s place! What’s more, she do hate me very heartily, and