Prose
Trellech and the Wye
Debbie Robson
I live in Australia but back in the 1970s I worked briefly at a place called The Priory, a picturesque 19th century house overlooking the Wye River at Llandogo, South Wales. The Priory is now a nursing home but in 1976 it was a hostel for school children. A bus of the boisterous primary schoolers would arrive Friday mornings often crossing paths with the previous residents that were, thankfully, leaving.
In a moment of recklessness, three months into my overseas holiday, I had left my travelling companions at a very small train museum at Tintern, to grab a lift with the manager of the hostel. He could offer me board and a small wage in exchange for general duties and cleaning for about 24 hours a week. Perfect. I paid for my last week of food and petrol and said goodbye to the remaining three Aussies who were heading east. I did have a brief moment of anxiety as their campervan drove away but brushed it off and happily got into the manager’s van. And after a little while, there it was – The Priory. A lovely white gabled house of warm stone, not unlike Sydney sandstone. There was also a stone balustrade surrounding the front of the house to enclose the view down to the Wye.
I can still remember setting the dining tables for breakfast as the mist lifted off the curve of the river. Each morning when I started my shift the mist would lie along the whole length of the Wye. I couldn’t actually see the river itself as the banks were too high, but I knew where it was by how the mist hovered above it. Gradually the mist evaporated until there would be just the odd puff drifting off. By this time the tables were set; I would stop for a moment and count my blessings before the boys and girls arrived, chattering loudly to each other and scraping chairs. And then it was all hands on deck to feed them.
Only a week later I decided that the cook was pretty cute. He had long dark hair and small even features. And appeared to be shy. Things became heated very quickly and soon my room was empty every night as I squeezed into his small single bed. On Saturdays we would go to the pub, The Sloop, down in Llandogo for a drink and one day the cook (who would later become my husband) suggested we go for a walk up through Trellech Forest for a drink at the Lion Inn in the village. He told me somewhere nearby, seven hundred years ago, there used to be one of the largest settlements in Wales but no one had been able to locate it.
One night with a full moon, we set off into the woods above The Priory. I now know the names of the trees that seemed to move closer to encircle us: larch, spruce and Scots Pine. I remember branches hanging low and the twilight sweet smelling. Suddenly the cook was a low way off. He had forged ahead ignoring my pleas to wait for me to catch up. I lay down on a bed of pine needles and watched branches sway above me, with the moon a friendly light chasing clouds.
He had been difficult lately. Demanding my attention and not wanting me to go on excursions to the nearby towns. I liked to see new places, but he wanted me to stay with him at the Priory on our afternoons off. He also didn’t like me being friendly with other staff and the new teachers that arrived each week. His behavior was making me tired. I felt sleepy and just wanted to rest and listen to the trees; trees so different than in Australia. Their branches swooped at the ends as if in a smile and they were swaying, whispering to me: Stay here with us. Sleep here tonight.
Faintly in the distance I could hear the cook yelling, “Where the hell are you? Can’t you just keep up!” Can’t I just keep up? No, I’d rather lie here with the trees. It was summer. I could stay here all night: wait until he was cleaning out the accommodation in the old stables, grab my backpack and go. I had enough money for a train trip. To Dorset maybe. Perhaps before I left, I could visit the village of Trellech. See it without him and wander around trying to work out where the settlement was.
That moment was the proverbial fork in the road. If I had chosen to stay there overnight, he might have found me, but I might have also eluded him and visited Dorset and Trellech village, places I never ended up seeing. I wouldn’t have had the children I have now but I would have escaped years of abuse and what we now know as controlling behavior and gaslighting. But because I was 19 and naïve, I got up eventually and yelled out, “I’m coming,” and walked towards my destiny.
Just as the seeds of his behavior were there from the beginning so were the stones of the old settlement deep underground at Trellech. In the early 2000s the Lost City of Trellech was discovered, just a few years after I found myself.
In a moment of recklessness, three months into my overseas holiday, I had left my travelling companions at a very small train museum at Tintern, to grab a lift with the manager of the hostel. He could offer me board and a small wage in exchange for general duties and cleaning for about 24 hours a week. Perfect. I paid for my last week of food and petrol and said goodbye to the remaining three Aussies who were heading east. I did have a brief moment of anxiety as their campervan drove away but brushed it off and happily got into the manager’s van. And after a little while, there it was – The Priory. A lovely white gabled house of warm stone, not unlike Sydney sandstone. There was also a stone balustrade surrounding the front of the house to enclose the view down to the Wye.
I can still remember setting the dining tables for breakfast as the mist lifted off the curve of the river. Each morning when I started my shift the mist would lie along the whole length of the Wye. I couldn’t actually see the river itself as the banks were too high, but I knew where it was by how the mist hovered above it. Gradually the mist evaporated until there would be just the odd puff drifting off. By this time the tables were set; I would stop for a moment and count my blessings before the boys and girls arrived, chattering loudly to each other and scraping chairs. And then it was all hands on deck to feed them.
Only a week later I decided that the cook was pretty cute. He had long dark hair and small even features. And appeared to be shy. Things became heated very quickly and soon my room was empty every night as I squeezed into his small single bed. On Saturdays we would go to the pub, The Sloop, down in Llandogo for a drink and one day the cook (who would later become my husband) suggested we go for a walk up through Trellech Forest for a drink at the Lion Inn in the village. He told me somewhere nearby, seven hundred years ago, there used to be one of the largest settlements in Wales but no one had been able to locate it.
One night with a full moon, we set off into the woods above The Priory. I now know the names of the trees that seemed to move closer to encircle us: larch, spruce and Scots Pine. I remember branches hanging low and the twilight sweet smelling. Suddenly the cook was a low way off. He had forged ahead ignoring my pleas to wait for me to catch up. I lay down on a bed of pine needles and watched branches sway above me, with the moon a friendly light chasing clouds.
He had been difficult lately. Demanding my attention and not wanting me to go on excursions to the nearby towns. I liked to see new places, but he wanted me to stay with him at the Priory on our afternoons off. He also didn’t like me being friendly with other staff and the new teachers that arrived each week. His behavior was making me tired. I felt sleepy and just wanted to rest and listen to the trees; trees so different than in Australia. Their branches swooped at the ends as if in a smile and they were swaying, whispering to me: Stay here with us. Sleep here tonight.
Faintly in the distance I could hear the cook yelling, “Where the hell are you? Can’t you just keep up!” Can’t I just keep up? No, I’d rather lie here with the trees. It was summer. I could stay here all night: wait until he was cleaning out the accommodation in the old stables, grab my backpack and go. I had enough money for a train trip. To Dorset maybe. Perhaps before I left, I could visit the village of Trellech. See it without him and wander around trying to work out where the settlement was.
That moment was the proverbial fork in the road. If I had chosen to stay there overnight, he might have found me, but I might have also eluded him and visited Dorset and Trellech village, places I never ended up seeing. I wouldn’t have had the children I have now but I would have escaped years of abuse and what we now know as controlling behavior and gaslighting. But because I was 19 and naïve, I got up eventually and yelled out, “I’m coming,” and walked towards my destiny.
Just as the seeds of his behavior were there from the beginning so were the stones of the old settlement deep underground at Trellech. In the early 2000s the Lost City of Trellech was discovered, just a few years after I found myself.
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Debbie Robson’s novella has been published by Alien Buddha Press in August 2023 and previously her novel Crossing Paths: the BookCrossing Novel with Mary Celeste Press. Her poems, micro, flash and short stories have been published internationally, in print and online. She tweets at lakelady2282.
www.debbierobson.net |
