“I’ve got something for you, too,” I said, grabbing his hand and leading him to the barn. He followed behind me up the ladder and I reached into my secret cubby to retrieve the small bag which contained his gift. “It’s not much but this is for you. It seems a bit rubbish now compared to your gift but I hope you like it.”
He opened the bag and pulled out the book that I had bought for him while we were in Aberystwyth.
“It’s A Christmas Carol,” I said. “It’s my favourite. I thought you might like it but if not, I can change it.”
“I love it,” he said, then he leaned in and kissed me again, pushing me down onto the pillow as he did.
A little while later, leaving Gwyn where he lay, I threw on my shirt and rushed back to the house to get us drinks and grab my coat under the pretence that we were still outside chatting and smoking.
“Are you two alright?” Mrs Hopkin asked as I reached for two glasses and filled them with brandy. “You’ve been outside for a while.”
“Just putting the world to rights,” I replied. I snuck a glance over at Mair who raised a disbelieving eyebrow at me. “And Gwyn is trying to encourage me to smoke cigarettes.”
“It’s bad for you,” Mair said. “I don’t care what they say.”
“I’ll bear that in mind,” I replied. I grabbed my coat from the hook and then hurried back across the yard into the barn.
“Gwyn, I can’t climb the ladder with the drinks,” I shouted up through the hatch but got no response. “Gwyn? Gwyn?”
Worried that he’d gotten cold feet and run off I set the drinks down on the floor and rushed up the steps to the second floor.
“Tom, what’s this?” he asked, his voice shaking. He was sitting on the hay with a blanket strewn across his middle and my wallet upon it. In his hand he was holding out my driving licence with my picture displayed clearly on the front next to my date of birth; 1971.