by Howard Marks
On the back of the envelope was written ‘Patrick McCarty’. Both my great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather were named Patrick McCarty. Had one of them been born with a caul? The wallet also contained a small, faded black and white photograph of a narrow channel of rough sea bordered with sharp-pointed mountains. On the back was written ‘Patagonia’, the seeming home at various times of ancestors on both sides of my family. A feeling of comforting tiredness enveloped me.
I awoke about nine o’clock, my mind full of thoughts of Patagonia, and switched on the radio. It was St David’s Day, 1 March, the only Welsh holiday. I had completely forgotten, partly because February is always catching me out with its meagre ration of twenty-eight days, but mainly because I hadn’t spent a St David’s Day in Wales since I was a teenager. In other countries the patron saint of Wales is paid scant notice.
Both Merlin and St Patrick, another Welshman, foretold the sixth-century birth of St David, whose mother Non was a niece of King Arthur. St David was baptised by his cousin St Elvis, an effeminate bishop who had been suckled by a she-wolf, assisted by a blind monk named Movi, who held the young David underwater. Some of the water went in Movi’s eye and miraculously healed him of his blindness. St David went on to become a pupil of St Paulinus, whose blindness he also cured. Paulinus’ first sight was of a field of daffodils. David was tall, strong and gentle, and led a frugal life, eating only bread and watercress and bathing regularly in a lake of cold water, the only liquid he would drink. During a battle against the Saxons the saint advised the Welsh to wear the same clothes as the enemy but to put leeks in their hats so they could identify one another. The Welsh won the battle. He became Archbishop of Wales, restored Glastonbury, where his remains now lie, and raised a widow’s son from the dead on his way back from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. David lived for over 100 years. His last words were, ‘Do the little things.’
The Welsh remember him by wearing a leek or a daffodil on 1 March, the anniversary of his death. I resolved to do so today, for the first time in forty-five years. I thought I might drive to St David’s. It would take no more than two hours. I could even check whether there was a parish of St Elvis, as Eddie Evans had told me three years ago. I telephoned Marty Langford and asked if he wanted to come with me. He couldn’t; he had promised to take his mother for a drive to the seaside.
The radio played a few Welsh hymns and then broadcast a ten-minute programme on Patagonia, stressing that there too St David’s Day would be celebrated. I telephoned Gruff Rhys to wish him a happy St David’s day. He told me he was doing a solo tour of North Wales, but that he and his girlfriend Cat had just come back from Patagonia. They’d had a fantastic time; the place was wild. I told Gruff I was about to drive to St David’s, and he asked me to pay his respects to Haverfordwest, a small market town on the way, where he was born.
I drove west, stopping in Carmarthen to buy a daffodil for my lapel, sang a hello to Haverfordwest and reached St David’s by noon. Despite being the world’s smallest city and despite today being its very own day, St David’s had ample room to park. I joined the crowds, many in traditional Welsh costume, visiting the cathedral, and found a café serving my favourite Welsh dish of lava bread, bacon and cockles. Then I drove to a tourist information centre just outside the city and enquired about St Elvis. The woman in charge said there was a farm called St Elvis four miles away on the road to Haverfordwest near a place named Solva. So Eddie Evans was right after all. I asked if she had any books or pamphlets on St Elvis; she didn’t think so, but there were some on Solva – maybe they would help. I looked through the racks but none mentioned Elvis. By way of compensation, I found Solva Blues, the autobiography of Meic Stevens. A quote from Gruff Rhys, ‘A world-class guy – he’s my hero’, was on the front cover. Meic is one of my heroes too.
Known as the godfather of Welsh folk, he has been in the forefront of Welsh music since the 1960s. A Valium addict married to a chronic schizophrenic, Meic grew up in Solva and jammed with Pink Floyd founder Syd Barrett before crossing the Atlantic to look after the Grateful Dead’s touring stash of half a million acid tabs. He became a close friend of Bob Dylan, who described him as Britain’s greatest songwriter. I bought the book.
Solva lies around a natural harbour at the mouth of a winding river valley of small fields which have obviously been farmed for centuries. Its position made it ideal as a base for trading ships in the eighteenth century, and a strong seafaring and smuggling tradition developed. Now it is populated by painters, writers and gourmets. The chapel has been converted into an art gallery, and the old chemist’s and printing shops are restaurants, but the streets still stink of that ancient and fishy smell common to seaside villages. There are several pubs, including the Cambrian Arms, where I popped in for a pint hoping to run into Meic Stevens. The place was rammed, but he wasn’t there. I gathered from one of the customers that he was now living in Cardiff. A picture of Elvis – the pelvis rather than the saint – hung above the bar mantelpiece, and the radio, accompanied by thirty drunken Welsh people in full song, was playing Elvis’s ‘Crying in the Chapel’. We were reminded the song had first been released exactly forty years ago.
I asked the landlord for directions to St Elvis Farm, drove off and found a small sign on the roadside about a mile away stating I was entering the parish of St Elvis. Comprising two farms and fewer than 200 acres, it is the smallest parish in Great Britain. I turned right, came across a farm, stopped the car and rolled a joint. A young farm worker in denim jacket and jeans approached.
‘Lost, are you?’
‘No, not all. I was trying to find St Elvis Farm. They told me at the Cambrian Arms it was down here.’
‘Fair enough. You’ve found it all right. But the boss is away today, gone to St David’s for a bit of a booze-up, like, for the holiday. He’ll be too pissed to drive back tonight, that’s for sure. Can I give him a message or will you come back tomorrow? Are you from the university? What’s your name?’
‘No, it’s all right, thanks,’ I answered. ‘I haven’t come to see your boss. I was just looking around for anything to do with St Elvis.’
‘Well that pile of stones over by there is St Elvis Cromlech, and that pool is St Elvis’s Holy Well, and that’s about it. My dad, God bless him, a bit of a nutter, like, used to talk about it lying on the intersection of ley lines or something and being magical, but I think he just wanted to believe that because he was a fanatic Elvis fan. Are you an Elvis fan?’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘Thought so. You didn’t strike me as an academic researching Welsh saints. We get a lot of those wankers here. We get a few Elvis fans too, but nothing like as many as you would expect, given he’s a descendant.’
‘What! Elvis Presley is descended from St Elvis?’ I felt sure the kid was having a laugh but was enjoying the story too much to stop him.
‘Yes, on his mother Gladys’s side, according to my dad. And he was right about that. All sorts of people checked it out. Gladys’s great-great-grandfather, William Mansell, was a Welshman descended from St Elvis.’
I couldn’t let him get away with this. ‘Hold on. Like I said, I’m an Elvis fan and know a bit about him. All right, his mother was called Gladys, and Gladys is a Welsh name. But his father’s name was Vernon Elvis Presley, so Elvis’s name came from his father, not his mother. And anyway saints don’t usually have children.’
‘Some did, though they kept it quiet, like. St Elvis definitely did. He was a bit of a lad by all accounts. According to my dad, one reason Vernon attracted Gladys was because his middle name was the same as her ancestor’s. William Mansell married a Red Indian squaw called Morning Dove White. Dad said lots of Welsh and Red Indians married one another in those days.’
This at least made some sense. I made a mental note.
‘Is there nothing else here connected with St Elvis?’ I asked.
‘Only St Elvis’s Rock.’
‘What a fantastic name!’ I said. ‘Where’s that?’
‘On the beach. About an hour’s walk from here. I usually take the dog for a walk there every night, but he’s gone with the boss today. Today is the first day I haven’t been there for ages. Tell you what, if you give me a lift to the Harbour Inn in Solva, we could walk there in about ten minutes now the tide’s out.’
We got into the car. It stank of dope.
‘Nice smell. You are Howard Marks, aren’t you? My dad used to mention you a lot. Said he always wanted to meet you.’
‘Yes, I am. What’s your name?’
‘Can’t you guess?’
‘When did your dad die, Elvis?’
‘Five years ago. Went out in a sailing boat and disappeared. They found the boat but not him. I suppose he could be still alive, but I know he’s not.’
‘Where did he sail from?’
I knew the answer.
‘St Elvis’s Rock.’
Elvis and I drove to the Harbour Inn and walked past rows of disused limekilns towards the sea. Crossing over the brow of the low headland, Elvis pointed to a rocky outcrop close to the shore. On top was a wooden cross. We stared in silence. The wind picked up as heavy rain clouds frowned and wept and then billowed and bullied their way to land.
‘Let’s get going. It’s pissing down,’ said Elvis.
We walked back to the Harbour Inn. Gusty howls and sighs and hissing rain prevented conversation. We dripped into the bar, and I bought Elvis a pint.
‘You know where those winds came from?’ asked Elvis.
‘Tell me.’
‘They’re the south-westerlies. They come from Patagonia. If you went direct south-west from St Elvis’s Rock, the first thing you would come to after thousands of miles of empty ocean would be a Welsh fishing village, just like Solva. Dad would always tell me that. Strange, isn’t it? Well I’d better get back home. I live just around the corner. Thanks for the drink, Mr Marks. It was good to meet you.’
I didn’t need any more messages, signs or coincidences. I drove back to Kenfig Hill and made my plans to visit Patagonia.
Nine
PATAGONIA
The distant and alluring land of Patagonia occupies most of the southern parts of Argentina and Chile. Flying to anywhere in Argentinian Patagonia from outside the country usually means changing planes at Buenos Aires. I had decided I would spend a few days in the capital, rather than just a few hours at the airport. I could sample some city life before venturing forth into the deserted plains of Patagonia while at the same time work out why I was going there, what I was hoping to discover and how to go about it.
We were coming in to land. Buenos Aires is an enormous regular grid hovering just above sea level. Grand North American metropolis-type avenues, accommodating as many as fourteen lanes of traffic and lined with sixteenth-century buildings, cross one another at perfect right angles. High-rise office and apartment blocks dwarf the insignificant hills. London Docklands-type regeneration developments blend into active ports, colonial plazas, booming light industry plants, and malls of cafés and bars. Ezeiza, the international airport, is efficient, and I soon took my place in the orderly queue at the accommodation desk. Friends had told me there was only one hotel to stay at when in Buenos Aires, the Alvear Palace. It was full, of course, but the staff’s suggestion of the centrally placed Amerian Buenos Aires Park Hotel in Reconquista seemed acceptable.
Ninety-seven per cent of the thirteen million inhabitants of Buenos Aires, the porteños, are of European descent, two per cent of African, and a mere one per cent of Native American Indian. Accordingly, Buenos Aires seems more European than all the European capitals, which, for better or worse, now have immeasurably larger non-Caucasian populations. Despite the Spanish being the colonial masters of Argentina, inhabitants of Italian blood now easily outnumber them so Spanish, the official language, is spoken with an attractive Italian accent. Italian coffee bars and open-air restaurants sprawled along the pavements, French bakers churned out croissants and cakes, Spanish tapas bars provided their usual titbits, Irish pubs allowed smoking, while German delicatessens made every sausage imaginable. Culture vultures nested at café tables outside news-stands displaying copies of OK and Le Monde, as well as English translations of Machiavelli. Multispace venues offered courses on everything from tango to basic Portuguese. Multiscreens showed rare English indie films and forgotten 1960s French classics. Eclectism was the ideology. Both prostitution and public drunkenness had just been decriminalised. The streets were tumultuous, diverse and unpredictable, but appeared easy and attractive to explore.
I unpacked my belongings at the unpretentious and comfortable Amerian, switched on my laptop, took out my file of notes on Patagonia, and began to draw up a proper plan for my visit. I had to see for myself whether there still was a Welsh community in Patagonia’s Chubut Valley, not just a museum, theme park or other relic preserved for the tourist and travel industries. My failure to find any evidence of a Welsh colony in Brazil had made me sceptical about travel writers and the Internet. In addition, I had to find evidence, if there was any, of the existence of my great-great-grandfather, Patrick McCarty.
Bruce Chatwin wrote in his In Patagonia, ‘The history of Buenos Aires is written in its telephone directory.’ This was probably true of the whole of Argentina, so a search through the Patagonia telephone directories might help. I could have done this any time on the Net from anywhere, but I felt that coming to the communities themselves would increase the possibility of coincidence, give me a better chance to stumble fortuitously across a distant cousin. I also had lists of the hangouts in Patagonia of Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid and other fugitives from the Wild West. Many were in the Chubut Valley where, according to my Auntie Katie, Patrick had studied Welsh, so I would start my McCarty search there. Finally, I had to check if any of Bernie Davies’s ancestors were in the first group of Welsh colonists to arrive in Patagonia and whether any of his relatives were still there. I was about to linger on the possibly spiritual and probably mad reasons for Patagonia providing the solution to the problems of Wales and wondering whether I would see any penguins when the telephone rang.
‘Hi, Howard. Welcome to Argentina. It’s Martin, owner of Pacha’s in Buenos Aires. Dave Beer from Leeds told me you were coming here for a few days, and one of my associates happened to be at the hotel when you checked in. How are you?’
‘Very well thanks, Martin. It’s nice of you to call.’
‘Not at all. I was hoping we could meet but unfortunately I’m in Uruguay for another week.’
‘That’s a pity. Perhaps I could see you on my way back from Patagonia.’
‘For sure. And if you want someone to take you out tonight and show you the secrets of this wonderful city, I’ll give you the number of my good friend Eduarda, who will sort you out with Pacha’s VIP facilities. Enjoy Patagonia.’
I took down the number but immediately resolved not to go to Pacha’s. I knew what would happen if I did: I would get spannered for three days, fall in love with an Argentinian stranger, rent a flat in Buenos Aires, miss the deadline for this book and run out of money. I had to be disciplined. On the other hand, it would be good to spend just a few hours with someone who knew the place.
A few hours later I was at La Boca, a café and former brothel, drinking maté, Argentinian speed, with Eduarda, a sexy, fiercely academic woman of about thirty-five. She was staring with disgust at my torn jeans, but her duty was to entertain.
‘Martin told me you were here for just a short time. Do you like the maté? Argentinians drink five times more maté than coffee, usually in the form of a sharing ritual with friends, family, and co-workers. Every Argentinian is addicted to maté, plastic surgery and psychotherapy. We can commit suicide by jumping off our egos. As well as drinking maté, you must also eat our meat, watch professionals dance the tango, visit gauchos in the pampas, go to the Delta, and see our city’s many historical sites, cemeteries and museums. Try to see a football match too. Tonight we will do just two of these befor
e Pacha’s: walk down Caminito, the tango street, and eat some beautiful beef. By the way, have you noticed who else has visited this café? Look on the wall.’
Prominently displayed was a photograph of Bill Clinton, who had dropped in for coffee on a presidential tour. Even more prominent was a photograph of Maradona and some of his mates.
Along Caminito dozens of couples danced furiously to the tango while hundreds applauded, shouted and danced – less furiously – with one another. Sexual and musical excitement sent heartrates soaring. The tango, sometimes described as vertical lovemaking, was originally danced by men with men. European immigrants in Buenos Aires to seek their fortune visited bordellos to ease their loneliness and, while waiting their turn for prostitutes, invented a dance. Not surprisingly, it was symbolic of the struggle to possess a woman. When the men started dancing with the prostitutes rather than with each other, the dance became less melancholic and more sexual, resulting in the disapproval of the porteño elite and the enthusiastic support of their rebel offspring. The dance became a craze in Paris and then a religion in Buenos Aires.
Dusk fell. Eduarda had a Mercedes waiting for her. We drove to La Cabana, more of a museum than a steakhouse, to sample the world’s best beef. Argentinians eats kilos of the tastiest and most tender beef every day and almost nothing else. Vegetables are hard to come by; there is no demand. While some British believe cow consumers are playing Russian roulette with insane steaks, Argentinians consider vegetarians to be seriously mentally defective because of their aversion to eating the world’s best and most succulent beef. Their revered ancestors brought over herds of cows to graze in the country’s massive green pastures; it would be sacrilege to refuse the reward. A fossil of the world’s largest carnivore was found in Argentina. There is something about the place that makes one want to eat meat. The beef at La Cabana was first class, as was the wine, another Argentinian success story. Eduarda told me she held postgraduate qualifications in geography and anthropology, gained while living in New York.
