Page 71 of All the Things We Never Knew

By the time the song ended, I was wiping tears from my eyes. There was another moment of total silence, and then the voices broke out again, no longer in close harmony but in chatter and laughter. The men turned and began making their way across the room towards me, some wiping sweat from their faces, others tucking sheet music into their pockets.

They were all ages, from a couple of boys barely older than Barney to elderly men, one leaning on a stick as he shuffled across the wooden floor, a couple of his friends accompanying his slow progress. He was tall with a head of pure white hair, tidily brushed. He was wearing jeans and a yellow-and-black checked shirt.

When he saw me, he raised the hand that wasn’t on the cane, and I took a few tentative steps forward, meeting him in the centre of the hall.

‘Mr Rhys-Gwynn?’ I held out my hand.

‘Call me Bryn.’ His grip was dry and firm. ‘You must be Mrs Graham.’

‘Anna.’ I smiled.

‘I’ll see you at the Red Lion shortly, lads.’ His voice was deep and full, not at all frail. ‘I’ll just take a few minutes with this lady.’

‘Why does Bryn get all the girls?’ joked one of the younger men, but Bryn Rhys-Gwynn directed a silencing glare at him that was pure headmaster, and the young man scurried out with his mates.

‘Shall we go outside?’ he suggested. ‘Since it’s such a glorious evening?’

I kept pace with his slow steps as we left the hall, emerging into the daylight, startlingly bright after the gloom of the hall although the sun was already sinking. Bryn led me to a bench overlooking the churchyard, which stretched away down the hill, punctuated by moss-covered gravestones jutting crookedly skywards.

I wondered whether Gray’s mother’s was one of them.

‘So.’ He lowered himself carefully on to the bench and turned to face me. ‘Your husband was a pupil of mine, back in the day. I can recall several boys named Graham – was this Peter, Daffyd or Nigel? There was also Tomos, but it can’t have been him because he was singing the baritone section back there a few minutes ago.’

He might be frail, but his memory was sharp as anything, I realised. ‘Nigel.’

‘And he’s passed away?’

I nodded. ‘Earlier this year. Pancreatic cancer. It was very sudden, and it’s made me realise… well, made me realise how little I know about his childhood.’

‘I’m very sorry to hear that.’ He sighed. ‘I remember Nigel well. He was a pupil at St Gwbert’s from 1990 to 1996.’

‘Those were the dates on the reports I found,’ I confirmed. ‘And he was there on a scholarship?’

Bryn nodded. ‘St Gwbert’s was – and still is – fortunate in that several of our alumni left generous endowments, which are used to fund places for gifted boys whose families wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford our fees. Nigel was one of those.’

‘He was good at music, then?’ I asked.

‘Oh, yes.’ Bryn smiled, turning his face up to the sun as if he was hearing rather than seeing it. ‘Quite exceptionally able. It surprises me that…’

‘That I didn’t know?’ I felt my cheeks colour. ‘I mean, Gray – Nigel – my late husband, he had a good singing voice. I knew that. When we were in the car and a tune he liked came on the radio, or it was one of the kids’ birthdays, I’d hear him sing and it was lovely. But he was never into music like some people are. Actually, he said he hated it. Classical music especially.’

Bryn smiled again, raising his eyebrows, and I felt my blush deepen.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m making it sound like you and your colleagues didn’t do a good job. I’m sure you did. He just never talked about school. Not at all. I assumed that – well, that he hadn’t been particularly happy.’

He sighed. ‘I’m afraid that pastoral care back then wasn’t what it is now. The boys in our care – the scholarship boys in particular – came under a lot of pressure to perform musically, academically and on the sports field. Nigel rebelled somewhat against that – against the latter two, at any rate. There were discussions every year about not renewing his scholarship, but he was too gifted for us to let him go. Besides, the impression I had was that his problems were at home, rather than at school. Insofar as we could, we tried to provide stability – a place of refuge for him, as it were.’

‘So he was happy at school?’

‘I don’t remember him as a happy boy generally, I’m afraid. He had one good friend, though. One boy – Joel Chamberlain. As the years went by, Joel’s family appeared to take Nigel under their wing. His own mother, you see…’

I pressed my hands between my knees, leaning forward on the bench. ‘His mother what?’

‘She was… I suppose these days you’d call it neglectful. I got the impression there were mental health issues at play.’

Oh God. Gray’s mother – her death when she must have been in her forties, probably the age I was now or perhaps even younger. Could it have been…?

‘I believe she passed away,’ I said carefully. ‘When Gray – Nigel – was at university.’