Story, Volume II

by Dai Smith

  Public life could never be that easy. The blonde bookseller, and his daughter’s bosom friend, had this horrid uncle who wrote a column in the local paper and haunted council meetings in search of scandal and the raw material of muckraking.

  ‘Planning.’

  He answered briefly, in the vain hope of heading off further discussion.

  ‘Well, that’s your committee, isn’t it? Your special baby!’

  ‘We are running out of landfill sites,’ he said. ‘In a high consumption society, this is becoming a problem.’

  ‘Everything is a problem with you Alderman Paylin. It’s not problems we need. It’s solutions. What about this cyanide business?’

  ‘Cyanide? Who said anything about cyanide?’

  He was provoked and his stew had gone cold.

  ‘Moi Twm’s Uncle Ted. And when Ted’s your uncle you can smell monkey business a mile off. Who is the Treasurer of the golf club these days?’

  ‘Ennis Taft. And has been for years. As you well know.’

  ‘Taft Bronco Products. With cyanide drums to dispose of before they can sell their redundant premises for redevelopment.’

  The Alderman raised his hand to his brow and Maristella looked at him anxiously. Plainly her genial benefactor had been struck by a sudden headache. The Alderman rubbed his forehead and wondered why the resemblance between his dear wife and only daughter should be so superficial. Laura was a romantic and an idealist in her own way. She had none of this unwholesome passion for smelling rats and conspiracies all over the place. It had to be a generational change of consciousness. This was just the kind of philosophic thing his friend Morus loved discussing. Perhaps it was time to take a holiday in the Dordogne. Summer should be a time to relax and reflect and recuperate. Perhaps he was getting too old and shouldering too many responsibilities.

  ‘It’s up to you to put a stop to it, Tada. They’re our quarries after all.’

  Did ‘our’ mean she was anticipating her inheritance? Why should she make these hints and threats when all he had done, all his life, was cherish her. At the first opportunity he excused himself and made for an early bed. Whichever way he laid his pillows, sleep eluded him. This was an annoyance in itself. He was a man who depended on and cherished eight hours solid sleep. His window was open and as the sun went down there was a noisy commotion among the crows’ nests in the tallest trees above the house.

  It seemed as if he could cope with anything except what was left of his own family. Long ago the family had been a source of strength and encouragement. He had his mother’s resolve and courage to emulate. When his father was lost at sea, she went out to work as a daily domestic in order that her Mihangel should enjoy a proper education. They had lived in a small terrace house with his grandmother and both women had seen to it he was well fed and given peace and quiet to study before the open fire in the little parlour. The initial objections to his marriage to the heiress of Penllwyn Hall were overcome and the family background and family backing were enlarged and immensely strengthened. His father-in-law became his mentor and patron. Now it was all gone. All that remained was a cantankerous maiden aunt and a headstrong daughter.

  The sad fact was that he enjoyed more encouragement and companionship in the golf club than in his own home. After a prolonged tussle in the Ways and Means committee where else could he turn to for a drink and a joke and a measure of innocent relaxation? Old Ennis Taft would be waiting there at the bar, ready to slap him on the back or on the shoulder and say things like, ‘Now then San Fihangel, what are you going to have?’ Ennis was on all the committees raising funds for all the charities God sends. It helped to soothe his conscience. He said so himself. ‘Not that I’ve got all that much. It’s drinks and laughter and fair play and decency. And a bit of a sing-song. Those are things that mark the man of goodwill, San Fihangel. Now then, how about another?’

  It was possibly Ennis’ whisky-soaked lips that let those wretched drums of cyanide out of the bag. He was too fond of boasting about his wealth and influence. Uncle Ted had his spies in the golf club. What harm could a few drums of cyanide do buried deep in the bottom of the quarry? Poison the water supply once the drums had rusted away. Always ready with an answer, Iola. How could a man sleep in peace in his own bed in his own house?

  In the end he fell into a trouble-haunted sleep only to be awakened by a piercing scream and then the wail and whimper of a child crying. He sat up in bed seething with indignation. There was a full moon and in the wardrobe mirror he could see a white ghost that was nothing more than his own dishevelled image. A man devoted to public service deserved a decent night’s sleep. There were more committees tomorrow and he would need all his wits about him to steer through a minefield of amendments. There were enemies on all sides ready to oppose the creation of positive compromise. He was in the chair precisely because of his ability to steer though the waves of controversy to the calm water of any other business. Was there singing going on as well as wailing? He could never get back to sleep. He was the victim of his own benevolence.

  There was a piercing scream, he swore, sufficient to shatter the universe. He had to get up and register stern disapproval. This was the kind of disturbance that should not be allowed to continue. It may be a city was going up in flames and his mother was lying unconscious in the street and the tentacles of anarchy were tightening around his little throat so he had to scream; but it had to stop. Down a moonlit corridor he saw Maristella sitting on the floor outside the door of the little boy’s bedroom. She was in a skimpy nightdress, nursing a large white bath towel. She said she was waiting there in case little Nino woke up again.

  ‘They come sometimes,’ she said. ‘These nightmares. Soaking in sweat. I think it is my fault.’

  He could only respond with a sympathetic stance.

  ‘I’m afraid he will disturb Iola,’ Maristella said. ‘Iola can’t function without her eight hours’ sleep.’

  The phrase was so obviously his daughter’s. Repeated in this soft exotic accent it sounded like a confession of faith. He was abruptly reminded of his own long-suffering mother and his own childhood.

  ‘I had nightmares,’ he said. ‘When I was small. I used to think I was drowning. Sinking to the very bottom of the sea.’

  This was another mother trying to bring up a fatherless son. An emblem of anxiety, patience, and suffering.

  ‘If it is my fault,’ she said. ‘He may grow up to hate me.’

  The alderman smiled to reassure her.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘I don’t think so at all.’

  She raised a hand to let it rest on his arm. The scent of tender feminine concern was a comfort he had forgotten.

  ‘You are so good to us,’ Maristella said. ‘So good. We thank you.’

  When he returned to his bedroom it seemed emptier than when he left it. There were forms of consolation, beyond language, that could still exist.

  VI

  A series of meetings of local government specialists called the alderman first to Cardiff and then to London. He fussed over the preparation but it was a relief to get away. At meal times when he was inclined to make polite inquiries into the kind of life that his guests had emerged from, it seemed incredible that such a docile creature as Maristella had been turned out of a prosperous home in Bordighera. Iola would commandeer the conversation with more probing questions about the Council’s planning policies and particularly about the extension of the landfill in Cloddfa Quarry. When Iola spoke Maristella lapsed into respectful silence. It was difficult too for him to establish any reaction on her part to Iola’s sporadic and rather crude efforts to push the unmarried mother in Moi Twm’s direction. Could both the creatures be so much under his daughter’s thumb that they would go to any length to please her? It was none of his business and yet he had a right to know what was going on under his own roof. He found Moi Twm’s increasingly frequent visits distinctly nerve-racking. He claimed now to have established contact with a R. J. Cethin Societ
y, in Toledo, Ohio, through the internet. He also claimed that Dr Derwyn the college archivist was showing a keen interest in his discoveries. He even had the temerity to suggest he interviewed Miss Keturah Parry. He was certain the old woman would have more information about the affair with the organist’s daughter. In such a closed society, he argued, knowledge of such a scandal would be vigorously suppressed but not forgotten. There could even be papers still kept under lock and key.

  The meetings in Cardiff and London were pleasant occasions. His expenses were paid and comfortable accommodation provided. There was the mild excitement of brief conversations with celebrated politicians. Old acquaintances were renewed and new friendships made warm with promises of being useful in the future. An old farmer who used to accompany him earlier in his civic career called the process ‘setting out mole traps.’ A more recent phrase he learnt was ‘networking.’ The meetings resembled social occasions enlivened with a measure of pomp and conviviality. Consensus or a genial agreement to postpone were both easy to arrive at. This led him to observe to jovial colleagues that government on the larger scale was infinitely more tractable than squabbles on the home patch.

  However diverting the excursion, he was always glad to catch the first glimpse of Penllwyn in the taxi from the station. The old minister had set that stark strong square house on the brow of the hill and it still exuded its own endowment of mid-Victorian confidence. He had designed the place himself, and in a sense it would have been true to say he was monarch of all he surveyed: the theocratic ruler of pulpit and workplace, composing sermons and hymn tunes, and opening quarries and investing in ships that seemed to have gone down in storms with monotonous regularity. There was something about the old man’s arrogance that made the Alderman shudder slightly and he had been relieved when his late wife removed the full-length portrait in oil from the drawing room to the attic. The past was to muse upon at leisure, the present was alive with problems that cried out to be solved. There were clouds scudding along high in the blue sky above the hill and he was glad to be home.

  The house was empty and it was the sound of the little boy’s laughter that led him to the orchard. There his mother was rocking him to and fro in the swing Price the gardener had put up for him. She pushed the swing with one hand and with the other held on to a floppy hat that threatened to fly away in the breeze. She wore a thin pink and white frock, and mother and son together made an attractive picture. He took his time before making his presence known.

  ‘Where is everyone?’

  It was something to say. He didn’t really want to know. It was agreeable to have the place to themselves.

  ‘They have gone to the Rally in Caernarfon,’ she said. ‘In support of the coffee workers of Nicaragua. Iola leaves me to look after your house. And my son of course.’

  ‘You mean Iola and her partners in crime.’

  Maristella took time to interpret the phrase and decide whether or not the alderman was joking. She offered to make tea and he was pleased to accept. She was a good listener whether or not she understood everything he was saying. For too long the house had lacked the attentions of a woman prepared to listen to a man of some consequence who returns from a conference primed with telltale fragments of the gossip of high politics. Ministers spoke more freely in a convivial social context. Would Maristella be interested to know that the minister had pulled a grim face and said something needed to be done about the Teachers Union? Her response would be more satisfying than his daughter’s. All he would have got from Iola would be yet another disparaging remark.

  ‘Alderman…’

  She had something to ask. Was it too soon to suggest she used a less formal mode of address? Was there too wide a gap between his title and his first name? Would she have been able to pronounce Mihangel? Iola’s frivolous modes of address could well have confused her, which was a great pity. Youth was so obviously the antidote to all the uncomfortable premonitions of old age.

  ‘I have seen the piano in the drawing room,’ Maristella said. ‘Would you allow me to give my Nino music lessons? He is not too young to learn.’

  ‘But of course.’

  It was such a pleasure to be generous and gracious. This would be an opportunity to inquire more closely into her background. It was an operation that needed to be conducted with a degree of delicacy and expertise. He had a reputation for success in interviewing candidates for all sorts of posts. These enquiries of course would be far more friendly and intimate. Maristella had gone to the kitchen to make tea and left the Alderman and the little boy gazing at each other in a state of benevolent neutrality. There was the sound of tyres on the gravel outside. Parry-Paylin saw Dr Derwyn emerge in some haste from his economical little car. He became aware instantly of trouble afoot. Derwyn was not his usual restrained and urbane self. Something serious had ruffled the slippery smoothness of his feathers.

  ‘I’m so glad you are back,’ Dr Derwyn said. ‘Something of a crisis I fear. Keturah Parry has locked herself in the chapel.’

  Derwyn’s small mouth was twitching. Under different circumstances, at a distance perhaps, the disclosure could have been amusing. A nonagenerian had caught up with the methods of the age of protest.

  ‘I have to admit, to some extent, the fault was mine. That notion of Moi Twm Thomas’ about a museum for R. J. Cethin. Professor Dwight Edelberg of Toledo was quite enthusiastic about it. On the e-mail. Americans when they’re enthusiastic are always in a hurry, aren’t they? They like to get things done. He was all for a joint operation by his department and mine. I told Moi Twm Thomas to wait until you got back. But your daughter was all for striking while the iron was hot. And they made matters worse, you see. I told them the approach was too crude. Turn Soar into an R. J. Cethin Museum or see it demolished for the new road scheme. This is her response. She’s locked herself in the chapel.’

  Maristella appeared from the kitchen with the tea tray.

  ‘Shall I get another cup?’ she said.

  The alderman was too angry to answer. He stalked out of the house. Dr Derwyn hurried after him.

  ‘I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news,’ he said. ‘She’s taken her paraffin stove into the chapel. A lamp on the communion table. And blankets. And a chamber pot. She’s ready for a long siege.’

  ‘That woman is the bane of my life.’

  Dr Derwyn stepped back in the face of such a blaze of indignation.

  ‘And that young devil… mischief makers have made matters worse.’

  ‘I did stress that it would be wiser to wait until you got back. I did stress that.’

  Alderman Paylin raised both arms and let them fall again. This academic had no idea how to handle people. He was just the type to rush in where any sensible experienced angel would fear to tread.

  ‘She’s mad,’ the Alderman said. ‘And she’s been mad for years. Do you realise we had an electric stove installed in that cottage thirty years ago? She had it taken out. She sold it and gave the miserable price she got for it to the LMS. She lives in a nineteenth-century time warp. You’ve seen it for yourself. She’s completely out of touch with reality.’

  He waved a hand to specify the unique solidity of their surroundings, the house and the gardens and the woodland above them: the view of the noble mountain range: the honourable scars of the quarries: the sea on the western horizon. This was reality.

  ‘Did you speak to her yourself? What did she have to say? As if I couldn’t guess.’

  ‘She said R. J. Cethin was a heretic and a scoundrel and the sooner his name was forgotten the better. She said I should be ashamed of myself not giving the sermons of five glorious ministers a place of honour. She said I had joined the worshippers of the Golden Calf. Both of them she said. The English Calf and the Money Calf. It was quite upsetting.’

  The Alderman allowed himself a grim smile.

  ‘She said something else too. The organist’s daughter was one of your family. On her mother’s side. It was a terrible secret!’

&
nbsp; ‘One of her hobbies. Making family trees. I used to tell her if we went back far enough we’d find we were all related.’

  ‘Will you speak to her Alderman Parry-Paylin? She’s in quite a state.’

  The Alderman shook his head. At least he could give the archivist a brief lesson in the exercise of authority and the management of people.

  ‘Let her stew in her own juice,’ he said. ‘She’ll soon get fed up in there. Chamber pot and all.’

  VII

  Iola was the first to point out that in the kind of community in which they lived people would soon start talking. Since when may he ask had she and her ilk worried about what people were saying? He slumped in his chair at the head of the table as though he were sitting for a portrait of a brooding monarch. He could see that his bad mood was disturbing Maristella and her little son; whereas Iola was just treating the whole affair as a joke. The only way he could wipe the grin off her face would be to threaten to turn the strangers out of the house. That would be worse than a futile gesture. It would deprive him of the few crumbs of comfort available. In the worst possible case if he tried to turn his only daughter out she would go around the place screaming that he had deprived her of her mother’s heritage. And that would cause more talk than the scandal of the old woman locking herself up in Soar chapel. The only measure of discipline he had been able to impose was to insist that Moi Twm be kept out of his sight. However this did nothing to diminish the frequent mutterings and chatterings that took place at the back of the house or down by the road gate.

  Within twenty-four hours he was perched precariously on top of a tombstone trying to communicate with his aunt through a chapel side-window above the level of green opaque glass. To maintain his balance and make himself heard he was obliged to lean forward and place his hands on a stone sill that was covered with green slime. The grass grew high between the gravestones. He was made to realise that the volunteer caretakers had become too old to cut the grass. A cloudy drizzle was looming to put a damper on everything. Soon the place would be overrun by creeping brambles and briers and what on earth was he to do about it?