Chapter Five
It’s Hagrid. Right out of Hogwarts School of Magic. Walking in a halo of rain and mist.
I shake my head and hope that when he gets closer he’d resolve into a normal man. But no, the closer he gets the more Hagrid he becomes. By the time he’s level with my window, he’s twelve feet tall, complete with bushy long hair and bushy long beard that covers his face.
When I just stare, he knocks on my window and mimes winding down with his hand. A normal human hand, not a gorilla’s.
I press the button to lower the window.
“Are you lost?” he speaks English.
But so does Hagrid.
“Er…yes.”
He bends down so his face is level with mine. Among all the hair, his eyes are surprisingly clear, and at the risk of sounding like my mother, he reminds me of a young Jude Law. The same grey-green eyes, the colour of pale sage leaves.
“What are you looking for?”
“Llancaradoc village.”
He looks a bit surprised at my answer. “You’re a couple of miles away from it. There’s only farms here. Llancaradoc’s on the other side of that hill.” He points up the track behind me.
I turn to see where he pointed but all the hills look the same from here. My expression must tell him something, or at least the way I continue to stare at the rainy countryside without putting my car into gear.
“I can show you if you like.” He glances at my passenger seat, then at me. “I…I can walk up and you can drive behind me.”
Something about this, his awareness that I might not trust a gorilla-man in my car, his willingness to put himself out to help me, makes me feel ashamed of my unkind thoughts.
“Get in.”
He hesitates, so I lean over and open the door.
He walks round to the passenger side and slips off his coat. “Don’t want to get your seat wet.”
Under the coat, he’s in a baggy jumper the same colour as his beard, so it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. In his favour, I can now revise my estimate of his height to a more normal six feet, or thereabouts. A good thing, or he’d never have been able to fold himself into my little Fiat.
He guides me back to the same crossroads where my phone went offline, then he points down a different road.
“No.” I pause, with my foot on the brake. “That’s going to Croeso.” I point to the sign.
Hagrid rubs a hand over his moustache and nose. It takes me a second to realise he’s hiding a smile.
“Croeso means welcome in Welsh.” He pronounces the word like croy-so. “The sign should have said Welcome to Llancaradoc, but it’s been vandalised. Oh—” He suddenly leans forward to read the other signs. “You followed that one, didn’t you?” He indicates the one that says to turn right. “That’s why you ended down there among the farms.”
“Yes.”
He shakes his head. “Bloody kids. The Welsh part actually saysLlancaradoctrowch i'r chwithwhich means you should turn left. They love nothing better than to cause mischief and mislead visitors.”
There’s no mistaking the Welsh lilt in his own voice. Not strong, but definitely there. It somehow softens him, makes him more musical, less gorilla.
So, we drive down the other side of the hill and sure enough, there’s that view from my Google search. A small village squeezed between the hills. Pastel coloured houses clustered up north and south from a central green and a church. This is where my biological father lives.
My heart begins to jump inside my chest.
Which house is his? Will he be in or is he a go out for a walk in the rain kind of man? There aren’t many people on the street, three women and a tall, stooping old man.
“Anywhere specific you need?” Welsh Hagrid asks.
