Rhonda watched the fluffy seed parachute twirl its way through her window in the breeze. It reminded her of a small child in a tutu and took her back to warm memories of dance classes in the Memo on Tuesday afternoons. She had been a slight and graceful confection then, a small strawberry blond twinkle. Her mam was always lucky on the bingo and had saved enough winnings for Rhonda to have a precious little pair of ballet flats from old Guiseppe Morgan’s shoe shop in the high street.

Age 6 she too had been a fluffy little seed fairy dancing on the breeze. However, by the time she was 15, as far as seed analogies go, she was more of a coconut. Puberty had not done her any favours and her twinkling days were far behind. As this darker recollection emerged, Rhonda saw the seed fluff become snagged in the dusty old web on her ceiling. Being a teenager in a South Wales town in the 70’s and being called Rhonda had been no joke for her. Rhonda’s mother had been an avid cinema fan and Rhonda Fleming was one of her idols. So of course, when she found herself to be the proud owner of a red-haired baby, she naturally thought - what better name?

By 1976, however, no one under 30 remembered Rhonda Fleming and at any rate Rhonda Jones bore no resemblance to her, with her dull straw hair, her acne and her tree trunk legs. What the name did provide was an apt geographical taunt of great value to the local boys, which was usually some kind of variant of – keep away from her lads, we don’t want to go up Rhonda’s valley! Hence, being no competition, Rhonda was chosen as a messenger for the other girls – Megan fancies you, will you go out with her – Megan is chucking you. Rhonda was made to walk ahead of her girlfriends when passing a group of boys so as not to detract from the desired aesthetic. She was told with great confidence by her cousin that she would never be married and may never have a boyfriend.

As Rhonda remembered these humiliations she relived the hot flush of shame. Sat here on her crumpled bed, the wistful Sunday mood threatened to evaporate, her skin prickled, and her breath snagged. She looked out of the window, past the weatherworn shutters and the webs, across the valley to the tracing paper mountains of the dusky evening. The bell for church service tolled from the silhouette of a campanile in the nearby village.

Rhonda looked down at the resting shape in the bed beside her, Guiseppe Morgan’s grandson, beautiful Italian Welsh boy who had kissed Ronda at the christmas disco in 1978 after they head banged together to Hawkwind. He had married her, and they went to live in his grandfather’s village in north Italy in 1982, where on just such mild languorous evenings over the years, he had paid no heed to warnings and made many happy visits to Rhonda’s valley. With which thought, Rhonda felt the breeze kiss her cheek and looked up to see the little dancer dislodge from the web and float on out across the valley.