Story, Volume II

by Dai Smith

  Cynlais was making noises like a pump, and writhing. Milton Nicholas was standing over Cynlais and looking as if the cam paign had reached some sort of crisis.

  ‘Put your head between your legs and squeeze hard, Cynlais boy. That’ll cool you off.’

  Cynlais tried to do this and went into a brief convulsion. Several voters told Milton Nicholas to mind his own business, which was gas fitting. And there were a few very shrewd elements in the group who said they would not be surprised to find that Milton Nicholas had laid a week’s wages on all the other runners but Cynlais in that race at Trecelyn.

  ‘The aim of Nicholas,’ I heard one of them say, ‘is to get Coleman into a knot and let him choke.’

  Gomer Gough turned to Willie Silcox, who had not taken his eyes off Cynlais.

  ‘Well, Willie. What’s your diagnosis?’

  ‘Easy,’ said Willie, and from the offhand, flippant way in which he said it we thought he was going to suggest that Cynlais be saddled in harness with Wilkins’ goat and told to forget about foot-racing. ‘Easy. Do you notice the way he seems to pause sometimes in his running and look back?’

  ‘He does it all the time,’ said Uncle Edwin. ‘He hardly ever looks straight in front.’

  ‘That’s a habit he got into while acting as the Mad Mahdi. All fanatics are persecution maniacs and anybody who introduces Mahometan overtones into the Celtic fringe was bound to hit some kind of top note. Cynlais has now got into the way of looking over his shoulder even in the middle of the waun where his shoulder is about the only thing in sight. And again, that band of Cynlais’ contains some torpid boys even for gazooka players, and Cynlais is so fleet he has to keep turning to make sure that he and they are still in the same town. But Coleman’s real trouble is love.’

  ‘Love?’ asked Gomer Gough and Uncle Edwin and it was clear from their tone that they were now both sorry that they had brought Silcox up the mountain at all.

  ‘Love,’ repeated Willie Silcox in exactly the voice of a sanitary inspector making a report to the borough surveyor.

  ‘But Cynlais told me only two days ago that he was no longer worried about this impulse.’

  ‘I’ve only got to look at a man and I can sniff the urge to love and be loved, however deep and quiet it flows. For months Cynlais has been hopelessly in love with that girl, Moira Hallam.’

  ‘Moira Hallam? That dark, blazing-eyed girl from Sebastopol Street?’

  ‘That’s the one. The thoughts that that girl inspires in a single day would fill a whole shelf in the Institute and you’d need a strong binding to keep them in the case.’

  ‘And she’s turned Cynlais down?’

  ‘She looks at him with disgust and treats him with contempt.’

  ‘But wouldn’t this make Cynlais run even better, to show off?’

  ‘You don’t know, Gomer, what a cantankerous article the mind is. Even as he runs Cynlais looks down at the fine, big chest under his singlet and becomes aware of his frustrated passions. It’s a wall, a cruel blank wall. His heart breaks his nose against it. His limbs wince and they lose pace.’

  ‘Willie,’ said Gomer, ‘I can never listen to you without feeling that you put a new and terrible complexion on this planet.’

  ‘Anything to oblige. And let me warn you about this Moira Hallam. She is an imperialist of the flesh, very ruthless. You know that old widower, Alfie Cranwell. He had money saved to provide the deposit on a headstone for the grave of his de ceased wives. Blew the lot on a watch for this Moira Hallam. But he would have found the headstone softer. She works in that cake shop they call the Cosmo. Cranwell kept hanging about the shop nipping in and wolfing cakes despite strong warnings about sugar from his doctor. Died of a surfeit. All this Moira did was boast about the bonus she had from the man ageress of the Cosmo on the brisk selling she had done to Cranwell in the last weeks of his passion.’

  Gomer and Uncle Edwin tut-tutted as if this girl was just another in a long series of obstructions they had found giving life a dark and strangled look.

  ‘Well, thank you, Willie. We’ll bear your report in mind.’

  But Willie Silcox was not listening. He was staring past Gomer at some member of the group around Cynlais, beneath the apparently bland surface of whose days Willie’s dowser had sensed some concealed runnel of trouble. This man was smiling quite broadly at something Milton Nicholas had just said and he did not know how lucky he still was with Willie Silcox standing at a safe distance from him.

  Later that evening I was walking along the main street of Meadow Prospect with my Uncle Edwin, helping him to make a casual check on the number of people who seemed to be at ease on the earth. The first person we found who really seemed to be so was Gomer Gough the Gavel, and before Edwin could tell Gomer about this Gomer was hurrying the both of us down a side street.

  ‘Where to now, Gomer?’ asked Uncle Edwin tartly.

  ‘Moira Hallam’s.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘To talk her out of this nonsense of frustrating and slowing down Cynlais Coleman the Comet. You heard what Willie Silcox said. Between being a dervish and a disappointed lover, it’s a wonder Cynlais can walk, let alone run at his old Powderhall lick.’

  ‘Oh leave me out of this, Gomer. Here were Iolo and I, on a serious social beat, staring at the voters and trying to estimate how many mental inches separated them from the County Clinic. Leave us be. I’m not interested in Cynlais anymore and I don’t know this Moira Hallam, except to feel vaguely grate ful to her for having helped to shuffle off Alfie Cranwell, who was, as a ram, indiscriminate, irrational and a nuisance.’

  ‘I want you to come along to Moira’s house for the very reason that you’re called Edwin Pugh the Pang. You are so full of pity the sight and sound of you would bring tears even to the eyes of Nathan Wilkins, the only gorsedd stone ever to opt for hillside farming and working in trousers of heavy cor duroy. You can play on the feelings of this Moira. Don’t be surprised if, at the door of the Hallam home, I introduce you as Cynlais Coleman’s father, who took up thinking instead of sprinting.’

  Uncle Edwin was on the point of opening his mouth to tell Gomer Gough to go and jump into the deeper reach of the Moody, our river, when Gomer stopped outside one of a long row of identical houses and said: ‘Here we are.’

  I was about to move off but he held me back and said he preferred a mixed delegation.

  ‘If we need a statement from the youth of Meadow Prospect, Iolo, to support our own pleas, we’d like to have you on hand. Just turn a possible statement over in your mind while you’re waiting.’

  The door opened to Gomer’s knock. Mrs Hallam, the mother of Moira, was a big, vigorous woman whose eyes and arms gave the impression of being red and steaming.

  ‘Oh good evening to you, Mrs Hallam,’ said Gomer, with what he thought was a courtly bow copied from Cunninghame Graham, whom he had once seen at a socialist rally, but Gomer was at least a foot too short to make this gesture look anything but an attempt to duck for safety. Mrs Hallam sprang back into the passage, thinking that Gomer was going to butt her.

  ‘What do you want?’ she said. ‘If you are after my husband to join that old Discussion Group again you can save your wind. The last time he went the topic was capital punish ment and hanging and so forth and he had the migraine for a week. Anything about pressure on the neck and the poor dab is off.’

  ‘No, we are not here about that. It’s about your daughter, Moira.’

  ‘All day long there’s a knock on the door and it’s the same old tale. Moira, Moira, Moira. But you are the two oldest per formers to turn up so far, I’ll say that. Why don’t you two boys stick to debating?’

  Uncle Edwin groaned and came to flatten himself against the patch of wall against which I had already flattened myself trying to think out what the youth of Meadow Prospect might have to say to Mrs Hallam. Uncle Edwin spoke in a dramatic whisper:

  ‘Here am I, my senses in this field of carnality out for the count since 1913, and
I have to stand here and listen to this prattle.’

  Gomer pulled Edwin back into the field of play.

  ‘We are here, Mrs Hallam, on behalf of that fine runner, Cynlais Coleman.’ It was clear from the drop of Mrs Hallam’s jaw that she had never heard a sentence she had followed less well.

  ‘What’s he running for? Whenever my husband runs he gets the migraine.’

  Gomer slipped into his voice the fine bel canto effect he used when he quoted the Bible at public meetings to support social change.

  ‘Mrs Hallam, Cynlais Coleman loves your daughter.’

  Uncle Edwin groaned again and I, hoping it might help us to get off that doorstep, groaned with him. There was also a short whimper from beyond the dimly lighted passageway which I took to be Mr Hallam switching on to a fresh track of his endemic migraine. But Gomer went straight on: ‘He’s losing sleep and health over her, Mrs Hallam. We were wondering if you…’

  ‘Not a hope,’ said Mrs Hallam, and she seemed triumphant that after thirty years of indeterminate and depressing interviews at that front door she had at last come across one topic about which she could be utterly final. ‘Moira was in the Trecelyn Amateur Operatics last winter. They did Carmen and now she’s daft about that baritone Moelwyn Cox, who took the part of the toreador. You ought to see his velvet coat and his satin breeches. So tight, so shiny, a treat.’

  Edwin pulled strongly at Gomer’s coat.

  ‘Gomer,’ he said, very softly, ‘could I make a short statement here that would cover both love and bullfighting?’

  ‘No,’ said Gomer, so quietly Mrs Hallam thrust her head forward to keep a check on what was going on. ‘Sebastopol Street is no place to be discussing ethics. You know that, boy.’ He raised his voice and then said to Mrs Hallam in a voice that came as close to the bedside manner as Gomer would ever get on the street side of the front door: ‘Mrs Hallam, how is your husband’s migraine now?’

  Mrs Hallam looked at Gomer suspiciously. She was probably marshalling in her mind memories of some of the gloomy specifics for mankind’s many ails which had been recommended at the Discussion Group of which her husband had been a transient member.

  ‘Oh, not bad,’ she said. ‘Twice a week he wears a turban of brown paper soaked in vinegar and it’s like having chips in the house. A treat.’ She raised her arm and smiled as if wish ing to convince Gomer that she regarded this turban motif as the last word, and she wanted no hints from him or Uncle Edwin.

  ‘Will you put in a word with Moira for Cynlais Coleman?’

  ‘I’ll mention it. But only because you asked about the migraine. Sympathy is what matters. But I can tell you now, Moira is daft about Moelwyn Cox.’

  We made our way back down the street. Darkness had fallen. Our steps were loud and had a flavour. Gomer Gough was staring at the great-looking shape of Merlin’s Crown. Uncle Edwin was shaking his head in desperation and warning me in general terms not to get mixed up in anything, not with Gomer Gough or Silcox as a partner anyway.

  On the day of the Trecelyn Sports a large body of us left Meadow Prospect to see Cynlais run. There was a huge crowd and the sports field, converted by the flimsiest manoeuvres from being an ordinary field, was full, well-flagged and happy. Cynlais was right in the middle of us and he had been on edge during that walk to Trecelyn by having Uncle Edwin sidling up to him on the pavement and giving him a little supple mentary massage.

  ‘Stop doing that, for God’s sake, Edwin. You never know what people will think.’

  He broke away from us as we entered the field, glad, for a few seconds, to be rid of us.

  ‘How do you think Cynlais is feeling, Gomer?’ asked Uncle Edwin.

  ‘Fine, Edwin. Can’t you see he looks fine?’

  ‘Frankly, I think there is a very lax, bemused look about him. He doesn’t seem too solid on his pins to me. Milton Nicholas says he’s been over trained and worn down to the canvas by having to dodge those molehills up on the waun while travelling faster than light, and making sense of the axioms of Willie Silcox the Psyche while travelling mentally not at all.’ Uncle Edwin thrust his lips out to show that he was sick and tired of giving consideration to Cynlais. Then his face lit up. ‘They’ve certainly enjoyed full employment, those moles up on the waun. What the hell is their motive in shifting all that earth?’

  Milton Nicholas, a nature lover, was going to explain when Gomer Gough broke in roughly:

  ‘Don’t go saying things like that to Cynlais. The race is due in twenty minutes and I don’t want to upset him. For temperament he’s worse than any tenor. I told him that Mrs Hallam was going to do all she could for him. That’ll buck him up a bit. But I’m taking no chances. You know how upset he was last Monday?’

  ‘Last Monday?’ Edwin for a week had been busy preparing a monograph for the Discussion Group proving that the Celt must at one time have been half drowned in ale and half crazed by lust to have been so busy scalping the drink trade and the flesh ever since.

  ‘What happened last Monday?’

  ‘Cynlais’ band and the Boys from Dixie went to the carnival at Tregysgod and Georgie Young didn’t finish last only because Cynlais was there before him. It’s enough to drive Matthew Sewell the Sotto off his head notes. Cynlais’ band lost points for obscurity and brazen indecency, so the judges said, and Georgie’s platoon was denounced as too sombre, too austere. It was a terrible day for Meadow Prospect. So I went to Kitchener Caney.’

  We drew closer. We were all astonished. Caney was a whimsical mixer of simples, a most inaccurate herbalist and healer.

  ‘Caney the Cure?’ asked Uncle Edwin. ‘Caney the Herbs?’

  ‘That’s him. Compared with Caney, Merlin was a learner. He was most interested when I told him about Cynlais. He says that slowness and sadness are both great evils and that somewhere in fields is some tiny plant that has the full answer to them both.’

  ‘And Caney’s the boy to find it. And when he spreads it around there’ll be no one around to be sad or slow.’

  ‘He gave me a herbal concoction for Cynlais. He made no charge although the bottle he gave me was the largest I’ve seen containing herbs. It’s called “Soul Balm”. That’s what it says on the label. It makes the heart serene and oblivious and it sounds to like the sort of thing most of the voters ought to be belting at the livelong day.’

  ‘Cynlais is certainly oblivious,’ said Edwin. ‘Look at him over there now. He looks as dull as a bat.’

  ‘I got Tasso to slip Cynlais the balm in his last cocoa and for the next few hours his mind will be sunlit.’

  Cynlais came towards us. He was dejected and he was shooting his limbs perversely in different directions.

  ‘Here he is now,’ said Gomer, very cheerfully. ‘Just look at him, Edwin. I’ve seen taller men, wiser men, but fitter and faster, never!’

  Cynlais gave us all a plaintive, pleading look. ‘I’ve just seen Moira over there, by that flagpole.’

  ‘I see her. Eyes made to glow like headlamps by some artifice or other and her skirt three inches shorter than it was last week. Is this blatant provocation or is she tucking the thing up for wading?’

  ‘Could I nip over and have a chat with her, Gomer?’

  ‘Not before the race. She’s got even the flagpole bending over for a look. Keep your mind on the job in hand and think of the prize money that will get you out of those shameful cos tumes you wear as dervishes.’ Gomer scanned the field. ‘I see some very keen-looking athletes here. Boys who pause only to breed and feed. You’ll have to stay calm as a rock and sharp as a knife to win the prize against this competition. If you linger for any traffic with that Moira Hallam we’d have to launch you from the starting line on a stretcher and the Trecelyn Silver Band over there would have to switch from “Anchors Aweigh” to that very slow piece from Saul.’

  Cynlais took one look at Moira Hallam. It was too much for him. He went bouncing towards her, using the same clownish and ataxic gait as before.

  ‘Come back here, yo
u jay,’ shouted Gomer. ‘Oh, dammo!’

  ‘Caney the Cure is at work here,’ said Uncle Edwin. ‘He probably put some ingredient in that mixture that blows every gonad into a flame. In a moment you’ll see that Moira Hallam shinning up that flagpole and Coleman will be just one hot breath behind her scorching off the paintwork.’

  Gomer took me by the shoulder and told me to stay close to Cynlais and keep reminding him of his duty to Meadow Prospect, and Uncle Edwin gave me a few discouraging things about romantic love to pass on to Cynlais if the chance arose.

  Cynlais stood a modest five or six feet from Moira. I stared at Moira, my senses candent and amazed. Her eyes had the searing, purposive lustre of opened furnaces and in the hem of her skirt, almost as far away from the ground as the flag on the pole, a new dimension of arrogance was given to sex. Moira’s body and urges were meant to last and it was a relief to turn from her to study the resigned limpness of the flag, from which the starch of a dynamic tribalism had long since been laved.

  Cynlais just stood there with a dropped jaw and I had to give him a nudge to remind him that if he did not want Gomer and Milton Nicholas and the other fanciers to be closing in on him and applying violence, the best thing he could do was to deliver some simple message to Moira and marshal his thoughts for a bit of foot-racing. Cynlais pulled his jaw back into posi tion and a beauty of longing settled on his face. In that mood he could have come out with a splurge of words that would have struck a new top note in bedroom rhetoric. But all he said was:

  ‘Hullo, Moira. Oh, it’s good to see you again after so long.’

  ‘Don’t talk to me, Cynlais Coleman,’ said Moira. Her voice was sharply impatient, but even Moira’s wrath had an edge of lubricious softness. ‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself. First of all jumping about like a madman at the head of that band, half naked and putting the preachers on edge, then sending those two jokers to my front door to get around my mother, indeed. What kind of serpent are you developing into, Cynlais?’