It was a quiet summer's evening, just the hum of a bee, a robin blowing a delightful orchestration, and Rosie Thomas ambling her large Jamaican bulk along the wild garden path.

She stopped to pick a single stem of forgetmenot that grew gregariously in the tangle of her overgrown lawn.

"You is a perfect li'le plant,' she whispered to it and smiled at the memory of the day her son, Dylan, had picked her a bunch once when still a toddler.

"My oh my," she'd gushed, dipping an awkward curtsy. "Such tiny blue flowers. Why brave sir, you make a gal blush so." He had giggled delightedly and had listened intently as she'd explained, "Each li'le flower is nature's womb and a bloom in the womb fills up a momma's heart."

"He's a good boy, that he is," she whispered to the sky. "He came almost too late, but I'm thanking you all the same 'cause he's worth his weight in gold." Then, with an exaggerated flourish of her corpulent arm, she crushed the tiny petals against the deep ebony of her flaring nostrils, tasting with visible joy the sweet fragrance wrapped in memories. Then, stretching her eyes across the smooth curves of Carn Wen, the hill that dominated the blissful valley, she watched the light from the slow arcing sun, kiss and dance with the river through the lattice boughs of an Oak. She turned slowly, breathing in the full bloom summer scents, and beamed proudly at her quaint farmhouse nestled snugly on the southerly slopes of the Welsh Preseli hills. For forty years she'd lived here. This is home, she thought and felt sure she could see happiness shining through the rafters.

The sudden tyre-ripping screech of a hard braking car shattered the still evening air.

Never having missed a single event in this uneventful valley, Rosie hurried as fast as her peculiar gait would allow, across the garden, across the farmyard, towards the country lane. All was quiet once again, but for the harmony of murmuring insects and the plaintive melody of a song thrush adding his voice to the robin.

At first, all Rosie could see was a small car parked a little askew beside the gateway to the lower meadow. Then she noticed an attractive, slim Asian girl standing in the gateway gazing towards the river. Perceiving the girl's deep melancholy, Rosie decided not to intrude, but in taking a step backwards, she snapped a twig, startling a group of finches feeding in the hedgerow. They took off in a cloud of beating wings, berating her with clamorous noisy beaks.

"Shut up ya nonsense," she bellowed at the birds now melting away and tut-tutted self-annoyance when she realised she'd inadvertently alerted the girl to her presence.

The girl turned to see an immense West Indian woman waving a plump arm earnestly whilst short legs pistoned their gargantuan burden at an ungainly trot towards her.

"Ya's alright, gal?" Rosie asked, once she had breathlessly completed the short distance. The question appeared foolish. The moment Rosie looked into the young girl's eyes the choking pressure of drowning tears was obvious.

"I wanted to do it?" the girl spluttered, struggling to swallow her anguish. "I wanted to kill myself . . . But I couldn't . . ." Retching hard on her deep hurt she lost control and, falling against Rosie's mountainous chest, she released convulsive grief in a storm that rained in Rosie's heart.

Slowly the girl's torrent faded to a whimper. Never one to mix words, Rosie quickly established that the girl's name was Varsha, and told her sternly that she looked awful and that it was a cup of tea she needed, then she could tell her all about whatever troubles she had.

"I like a good natter," Rosie said with a quaking chuckle.

"The car?" Varsha sniffed wetly. Feeling humiliated, she desperately wanted to excuse herself, but Rosie was already bustling her towards the house, telling her that her son Dylan would take care of that later.

Too weak to refuse the bouldering woman, Varsha obediently allowed herself to be hugged and billowed by Rosie's insistent arm. She even, almost, managed a smile as she watched Rosie's boundless body defy gravity as they tiptoed, at times precariously, around cow-patters that appeared to grow deliberately in their path.

Within quarter of an hour Varsha was sat in a large, dusty living room with a hot mug of sweet tea in her tightly clasped hands. There were small square windows at each end of the room that allowed in a little of the evening light, helped by a glowing fire that flickered new ghostly life into the gold-flocked wall paper. The furniture was large and chunky and Varsha found herself lost in a single comfy chair whilst Rosie sat opposite in a chair where the cushions had been squashed flat by her vast backside and in places had burst, allowing the stuffing to balloon through the tears.

Rosie's moon face creased in sympathy and her large eyes rolled round and wide like two-polished marbles as Varsha lamented her story between blowing and sipping her tea. She told Rosie everything. About how she had fallen in love with a white man who had been caring and kind; about how his father was racist and had forbidden his son to see an Asian girl; about how proud she had been of David, her boyfriend, when he'd defied his father and asked her to marry him; and about the most cruel blow of all, how his father had said he would disown his son and any half-caste kid's they might have. David had given in to his father in the end and broken off the engagement. She had argued with the bigot that she was Welsh by two generations, but he had only sneered in delight at her discomfort.

"You's a dif'ent culture to's us. You's want's to stick wit' you's own kind in you's own country," he'd growled with sinister intensity.

"If your definition of culture is immediate environmental influence," Varsha had answered, with lip-biting control of her anger, "it would make me as culturally Welsh as you. But if you define culture as an appreciation of the arts, music and literature, then I probably contain more culture in my little finger than could ever be found in your head." She had also accused him of being a hypocrite, reminding him of the how he had cheered Colin Jackson upon the black 110 metre hurdler winning Commonwealth Gold for Wales, even accusing his imbecilic countenance of being German because he had blond hair and blue eyes. But it had all been to no avail; his ignorance prevented him from ever being able to see the truth.

The humiliation, the shame, her broken heart, had become too much to bear, so earlier that day she had set off from Swansea in an attempt to escape herself; escape her colour, willing her car to ram into each post and tree she had passed.

Why she had found herself here on the Preseli's, she couldn't rightly say. But she could guess . . . It had been in this valley, beside that very river, that David had proposed to her.

"It's just so unfair!" Varsha had finished. The word unfair clung to the tip of her tongue and rattled awake her confusion.

Rosie had listened with deep understanding. "Unfair?" she said quietly. "Life's never been 'bout being fair, gal. If it was, den we'd all have been born de same colour? What a boring world it would be den, hey? Look on de bright side, after all ya's could have been born white?" Rosie laughed heartily in an attempt to cheer her inconsolable guest.

Varsha watched Rosie's capacious flesh jiggle like blackberry jelly and the merest hint of a smile teased her lips.

Glimpsing the faint response encouraged Rosie back to her usual booming tones as she told Varsha that her son Dylan was a half-caste, and about how, whilst still a boy, he had returned from school in tears because the other boys' had been calling him nigger. "I looked down to dose big wet brown eyes, and told him he was a beautiful coffee colour, and dat dose white kids sun'd demselves crazy to look like him," she said, her head tossing in rhythmic joy as she recounted the story.

Rosie's laughter infected Varsha, causing her to climb above her own sorrows and pop a smile at the surface. Talking had helped.

"So your husband was white then?" Varsha asked.

"White as snow!" Rosie yelled, quaking the floor. "He was a red-head! Stood naked side to side we was like piano keys we was! Bit of sun and he burnt bright like a lamp. Threatened to use him as a torch many a time!"

Varsha chuckled more freely, and Rosie, happy that her prescribed medicine was working, told how she had met her man.

"He was like some randy peacock," she exclaimed, as she described how he had strutted around the dance floor in Kingston. "My father was going to beat him to pulp . . . 'No daughter of mine is marrying no white man,' he'd shouted. Dat was 'til he finds out dat Huw was to inherit a two hundred acre farm with a hundred or so head of cattle . . . My father had me packed and ready 'fore ya could say Rumplestiltskin."

Unable to suffocate the infectious amusement any longer, Varsha smothered an erupting fit of giggles that threatened to force her emotional anguish aside.

Recognising the opportunity, Rosie continued to tell Varsha how it had caused a scandal when Huw had brought his newly wed black bride to this farm in Wales. She told how the locals had talked in whispers, and never to her. She told how she had been lonely to return to Jamaica, but how their love had been too strong.

"Ya see, gal? If it's right, it's right," she finished. "Don't go worrying yaself over dis feller, it's clear to me he ain't right for ya. Wouldn't stand beside ya see?"

Both the women pensively sipped the cooling brew. Varsha digested Rosie's wisdom whilst Rosie plotted a plan.

"What ya's need is a man like my Dylan; he'd see ya right!" Rosie bluntly stated, the whites of her eyes cart-wheeling in excitement at her own idea.

Varsha nearly choked on her tea and hurriedly attempted to change the subject. "Where's your husband now," she asked innocently.

For the first time in their short friendship, Varsha watched, uncomfortably, the face of the dear lady fold into deep melancholy. A tear forced its way into Rosie's eye, holding for a moment, precariously balancing at the root of her long curved eyelashes, until another tear added its weight. Together they broke free, tumbling out from her eye to roll down her large round cheek, leaving a wet shiny trail on the deep gloss of her rich ebony skin.

"He's dead now, gal," Rosie barely whispered before explaining how he had fallen under a combine harvester.

Varsha was shocked and thought she heard Rosie mumble something under her breath about how Huw would be happy to know he'd ended up as fertilizer on his beloved fields.

Rosie forced a smile back onto her face and wiped the tears against the thick flesh on the back of her hand, returning the cuff of her moth-chewed cardigan to deal with the mucus from her nose.

"'He was a poet, was Huw. De night 'fore he died he says to me, 'We's is one in dis bright coloured light completing de circle of truth.' Nice dought ain't it?" she finished faintly. "If only it was true."

Varsha watched the broad round shoulders tremble under the pressure of more threatened tears and despairingly thought that at least Rosie had had his child and some happy years together.

Shaking the memories vigorously from her head and heaving her great size from the crushed chair, Rosie went over to a cupboard and rummaged in a cluttered draw.

"Dylan follows after his Dad," she said, plucking a single, creased scrap of paper from a crammed pile. She forced it into Varsha's hand insisting that she read it. "My eyes are bad, gal. Struggle to see nowadays."

Not surprising in this light, Varsha thought, but didn't say anything.

Peering closely at the scrap of paper, Varsha could see that it was a poem. She asked if Huw had written it.

"No, Dylan," Rosie proudly declared. "Got his Dad's tongue for words dough, ain't he?"

Varsha reluctantly climbed out from the secure embrace of her chair and made her way closer to a window for more light. And earning her cup of tea, read the poem to Rosie, who sat contentedly beaming with delight.

"The colours are different,
Through different seasons,
Through different eyes,
For different reasons,
Coloured by a different light.

After Varsha had finished reading, she was alarmed to see a tall, athletic man standing in the doorway.

"Ha!" exclaimed Rosie. "Dis's Dylan! Dylan meet . . . huh? Sorry, gal . . . What did ya say ya name was?"

Varsha didn't answer. She simply looked up into the chocolate brown eyes of the poet and thought silently, Yes, you are a beautiful coffee colour.