THE HIGH NIGHTS OF HAFODYRYNYS Chapter 1: The Hound of Hafodyrynys - Last Part XI Sara hadnt been asleep when Lonnie came to call. No, she was sat at her trusty Singer sewing machine busy creating a dazzling dress that would one day be worn to woo her own wild man. She was a tidy little seamstress and an eternal romantic and, as she ran the fabric of the frock under the needle of the machine, was singing Georgie Fames Sitting In The Park romantically ruminating on the possibilities - Sitting in park waiting for you, Yes Im sitting right here, Waiting for you my dear, Wondering if youre even gonna show, I dont know youre gonna show, And my darling gotta know, Nevertheless I said you got me waiting, Sitting in the park waiting for you... And then she paused, hearing the sound of the door open and close and a wallop from the room below. Casting around for a weapon she quietly, and with more stealth than the stand-in Scooby-Doo, slipped downstairs. At the bottom of the stairs she looked through the open door into the shop and saw the figure bent over gathering something off the floor. Tooled up as she was, she walked through the doorway and flicked the light switch. When Lonnie realised that the light was not a good sign for him, he turned to see the source of the illumination, made to rise and hit his head on a wash basin, slumped in a pile on the floor and dropped half his ill-gotten gains when he rubbed his banged bonce with his hand, Will there be no end to my pain tonight, he thought. Sat there he saw Sara standing in the doorway wearing a night gown cut above the knee and Lonnies wee-willie-winkie went on high alert, Hell shes beautiful, he said to his head noting that she wasnt wearing a bra. Then he noticed the bra, she was clutching it in her hand and the one end was considerably weighted, she looked every bit the barbers Barbarella. She also looked bad tempered. Sara was fired up and had every intention of braining the intruder with the bra. In the absence of anything else, shed grabbed the over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder and loaded it with a pile of metal bobbins from her sewing basket. When she saw the forlorn Lonnie though she realised she couldnt do it. She recognised him instantly of course, despite the fact that hed come camouflaged as the mountain. He looked pitiful. And she pitied him. You want to explain yourself, matey, she said rhetorically with a smile. And the warmth of that smile washed over Lonnie where he sat on the floor and, in a way he couldnt explain, somehow began a healing, and pretty soon he was pouring out his entire sad tale: how hed been drawn to his Mistress Moon from a very early age; that he knew he was a wolf; why hed attacked Maldwyn Pritchard; his time as a slave sleigher; why he had to see The Wolf Man at Llanhilleth Playhouse but couldnt go through the Swffryd because of the Swffrydites so hed gone by way of the mountain; how the film had changed his life and how hed been bitten on the way home; but that something had gone array and the change proper had never come; and how hed thought that covering himself in hair would make all the difference and hence here he was. And Sara listened and took it all and resolved to help Lonnie Llewellyn, who it appeared had been a lonely outsider all his life. As she listened, and he closed in to the end of his story, a creative idea began to shape itelf in the mind of Sara Marshy. You ever read comics when you were younger Lonnie, the ones with the superheroes?, she asked. And he nodded because hed liked those type of comics and had thought Batman was great. And then she outlined the rest of the plan, at the end of which it was Lonnies turn to smile, and do you know what, Sara thought it wasnt half bad all things considered. Putting down the rest of the hair, Lonnie said goodbye to Sara but promised to come back the following day. And Lonnie did. And Sara, true to her word to help, had been busy. Entering the empty shop Lonnie shouted into the back, Sara, its Lonnie. Come on up, a voice came back. Upstairs in her living room Sara was sat at the Singer putting together his costume. Listening to his tale and disappointment at the no show of the wolf, shed concluded that if the wolf wasnt on the in, then let the wolf be on the out. And to that end shed been up most of the night creating a masterpiece, a magical Marshy make-over was soon to take place and Lonnie had come for his first fitting. The following day he came again for adjustments; and on the third and final day he came to the shop to be transformed. Lonnie sat patiently watching Sara put the finishing touches to the outfit and then she rose with the finished article which promptly slipped from her fingers. Bending over to pick it up, she was rather shocked to say the least that the wolf bit her. Sara was the only person he ever bit. He couldnt resist it, he bit her square and plum on the perfect peach of her bum. Now, theres no defending that kind of behaviour and clearly Sara had every right to go ballistic...but after the initial shock of the bite, she connected a pleasure with the pain and though she scolded Lonnie something else passed between them. It would be years and years before they both realised what this meant, and lives would be led in the meantime, but here right now in this moment we are witnessing something. And when Sara picked up the wolf costume and presented it to Lonnie he sheepishly took it and apologised profusely for his action before putting it on. And then he was something else. The creation that Sara had crafted resembled something of a catsuit except it was clearly a dog-suit. And what shed done, inspired by the outfit worn in The Bride of Frankenstein by Elsa Lanchester, was to get a load of bandages from her friend, Nurse Ali, Brown the Bandage, pinned them to the suit and glued on the off-cuts of hair from the shop floor. The reason for pinning the bandages to an inner lining, was to create an outer skin that could be freshened up with new hair as it became available and the old hair wore off. The finished article resembled a hairy babys romper suit and Sara had excelled with the headpiece, a magnificent mullet rising up from the back and flowing into a Billy Fury flourish at the top. Lonnie was complete and exuberant and thrilled with his very own Dr Frankenstein who he embraced with ecstasy. And then he was out the door to finally be the wolf man, and were almost at the point at which we came in, listening to the intermittent howling of the wolf on a mountain under the Moon in the small mining village of Hafodyrynys. Lonnie had somehow, remarkably in many respects, got to be where he needed to be, comfortable in his own, and another, skin. And that other skin of discarded hair from the people of the village somehow gave him the strength of the wolf, like a reverse Samson, the collective hair of a community channelled as canine chi to power the wolf man. And some people took strength from the fact that he was up there, on the mountain, the guardian of Hafodyrynys, looking down, watching, waiting and wild. Aided and abetted by his new found friend, Sara Marshy, who had styled him with a very special SOS that only she knew how to deliver, she had brought Lonnie to the zenith point of his life - dog man star! THE END
Posted on: Tue, 29 Oct 2013 19:20:58 +0000
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