The day Myfanwy Prosser went to Cardiff for the very first time was a momentous day.
You see, Myfanwy Prosser never went anywhere except to the local Aldi store. Tescos’ was closer and had more choice but Myfanwy had always been a frugal woman, known for her liking of a bargain and she never minded if her cupboards were crammed full of little known brand names. She’d seen an article in one of those magazines in the doctors’ surgery once which stated that the major firms sold off the exact same goods to smaller firms which were then repackaged and sold to stores such as Aldis’.
She never went out if she could help it. Quite content with life at home she was, tending to her hanging baskets, which were her pride and joy. Apart from her weekly shopping trip to Aldis’, the only other place she ventured to was the local post office on a Thursday to pick up her pension and to post her competition entries. She had a liking for competitions ever since she won a years supply of cat food some ten years before. She never had a cat mind and no one ever knew what became of the prize. Rumour had it that she used it to fill in her home made meat pies, but that’s only rumour.
She married, but had been a widow for fifteen years, ever since 1980. Never had kids. Something wrong with her tubes it was, although she never seemed to mind. Her husband, Albie had been an evacuee from London. They met in the local school in 1944 and had married in 1954, when she was eighteen and him a year older. No one gave it much hope of lasting, after all who ever thought of marrying anyone English! In the village of Cwm that was unheard of. There again they seemed happier than most.
She kept herself to herself in the main, although she did go to chapel every Sunday afternoon. She wasn’t religious mind, but she did love to show off on the organ. Myfanwy had a liking for those old Methodist tunes and played Cwm Rhondda with the panache and touch of a classical soloist. She also liked the musty smell of the place which reminded her of her old dad, a fire and brimstone preacher who travelled throughout the mining villages of the South during the 1920s moralizing about the dangers of the demon drink. Ironically it was the drink that did for poor Evan Evans Mint Imperial, (suffered from wind he did, and he said the mints helped), when he crashed his bike into the pavement outside the Red Lion, Pontardawe. He was hurled head over heels through the pubs’ open cellar door and crashed, head first into an open barrel of Irish whiskey. People still say it was the happiest corpse they’d ever seen!
Myfanwy Prosser seemed content with her lot. She even took a part time job cleaning at the local vicarage after Albie passed away, although she left after a fortnight having disagreed with the vicar about the merits of Charles Wesleys’ merits as a hymn writer. She left muttering that the Church of England had no good tunes of its own.
So for fifteen years, Myfanwy Prosser had lived a prudent and penny wise life. She was
polite and courteous to her neighbours, always paying her bills before the final demand, always contributing to the Oxfam and Poppy Day appeals and even made sure that the children were given sweets on Halloween, although she never really agreed with the Americanisation of a custom which belonged to the ancient Celts.
So it came to pass that Myfanwy Prosser took a trip to the big city. Having lived so close to Cardiff for most of her life, it came as a surprise to everyone when they found out.
“ ‘as she got a secret lover then?”
“She’s one the Lottery she has. Going to pick up the cheque.”
They asked her down at the post office and outside the chapel.
“What you going down there for Myfi?”
She always replied with a look that said mind your own business, but Elsie “Fur coat, no knickers” said that she heard she was going for a new pair of shoes.
“Worn out her best pair on the organ pedals, she ‘as. And she‘s got funny feet. Can‘t get a pair local like!“
So on July 2 1996, at the ripe old age of sixty, she stepped onto the local Red Motors bus to make the forty nine mile journey to the capital. They never saw her in Cwm again.
Her disappearance created something of a stir. In fact not since the great sheep dip scandal of 1954 had an issue captured the imagination of the whole village.
“Probably been murdered. Serve her right, going off to the big city at her age”
“You don’t think she converted to the Roman Catalysts, do you?”
“If she’s ‘ad an accident, I hope she got clean underwear on.”
“I wonder if she ever bought those shoes?”
The police investigated, but only because Myfanwy was the chapel organist and they had a few weddings planned for later that month. All enquiries however were all to no avail and Seion Chapel had to install a tape machine for the weddings. Mrs Hatpin Hughes had a go at playing, but “I do like to be beside the seaside” is no substitute for the Wedding March.
“There is no sign of foul play here.” said Inspector McWilliams, a straight laced Presbyterian of Scottish descent, from Cardiff. It was unfortunate that Myfanwy’s disappearance coincided with the kidnapping of the Chief Druid, Eifion ap Llewelyn Jones. Without the chief druidic bard there would be no National Eisteddfod later that month. It was a point that divided the nation, as some said it would be better to let the kidnappers keep him as his poetry was mediocre compared to the strict metre poets, but he was a Mason as was McWilliams, so the priority to find an aged Methodist woman who’d probably taken a wrong turning by the Taff was not high on the agenda. She did merit a three inch paragraph in the Western Mail and two thirty second slots on Radio Wales, but really no one cared. No one outside Cwm anyhow.
The council owned her house and after three months let it out to a single mother from Caerphilly. Most of the village didn’t like it but in one of his Sunday sermons at Seion Chapel, Parry the Preach reminded them to love their neighbours and also told them that it could have been worse. She could’ve come from Newport!
Anyhow ten years passed, then Mrs Jenkins Post received a postcard from Cairo. In half an hour most of the village had congregated in the little post office.
“Gone overseas then.” muttered Morris the Morbid. “No good’ll come of this, mark my words!”
“Is Cairo in Cardiff dada?” asked a little girl.
“I think it’s North Wales.“ he replied. “Foreign see!“
“Thinking of you, it says. Very hot and sandy. Love Myfanwy”Mrs Jenkins Post passed the card round and shook her head. “She could never stand the sands in Porthcawl when she was small.”
Myfanwy Prosser sipped a mint tea on the terrace of her Cairo apartment and took in the hustle and bustle of the street below. She wondered what they‘d make of her card back in Wales. She’d been in two minds whether or not to send it, after all her fate had been a mystery, but she had a mind to drop another little bombshell.
She missed the chapel organ, especially at first and often thought of those Wesleyan hymns but then again she had other interests now. She smiled as a young Egyptian man came up to her, humming Cwm Rhondda and kissed her on the cheek and recalled that day and the search for shoes.
It had been a life changing moment when she’d seen that last minute deal in the travel agency window. She’d always liked a bargain, hadn‘t she?
© Alun Williams