Group HUG

When it came to expressing themselves, her loved ones always hit the right note

- Alison Carter

Bron’s family were the living definition of ‘buttoned-up’. Sometimes Bron would watch a soap on TV, and be amazed at the way adults and children expressed their emotions to each other. She’d lean forward to watch glistening tears running down a character’s face, or four members of one family sharing an embrace in an ordinary living room. People talked about their sorrows and their joys on the telly. They got it all out, hearts on sleeves. In the Evans house, a gruff ‘all right?’, spoken on entry to the kitchen with an upward tilt of the voice, was as much emotion as you were going to get.

‘Is it the nonconformist in us, d’you think?’ Bron asked her younger brother.

She was home for a family Sunday lunch and the two of them were fetching the drinks.

‘We're so... reserved,’ she said.

Geraint shrugged. ‘Could be religion. I don’t mind, though, Bronno. I’m not into all that kissing on the cheek, myself. Are there enough of the tall glasses?’

Bron was fairly sure that a couple of centuries of Methodism had driven public displays of affection out of the Evans soul. That was OK, but she wondered if they would ever change. Already, her two small nephews offered a firm handshake rather than reaching for a hug.