‘I’m sorry?’
‘My friend, I would say the best gift you or any man could give to this –’ he paused in a way that cast doubt on the trustworthiness of the next word – ‘friend, as you call him, would be to stop classifying him by that disgusting epithet.’
‘Which one?’
‘Spotter.’
‘They don’t use that word?’
‘Only those who revile them call them that. Call him a cranker, or a basher, and he will thank you far more sincerely than if you were to buy him a model signal box, which I suspect is what you with your limited understanding had in mind when you came in.’
‘Cranker?’
‘It’s their chosen term.’
‘Do you use it?’
‘I am just the dealer. I supply what my customers desire. I take no sides. I’m not proud of what I do, but neither am I ashamed. A man must make a living in this world and there are worse ways of doing it.’
I began to sweat around the collar.
‘Oh look, Louie!’ Calamity cried in a voice suffused with insincerity – the voice a wife in a farce uses to deny the presence of her lover in the wardrobe. ‘Look at this!’
I allowed my attention to be diverted to a model layout of the Fairbourne railway.
Fairbourne is a small town just below Barmouth on the Mawddach estuary, about thirty or forty miles north of Aberystwyth. The estuary is even more beautiful than the one we have at Aberdovey, if such a thing is possible. But Fairbourne itself is not so interesting, apart from a lovely beach and the little train that runs the entire length of it.
I bent forward to take a better look. ‘This looks very accurate.’
‘It is,’ said the shopkeeper. ‘Only the magnificent pointlessness of the journey is missing.’
‘No, not that,’ said Calamity. ‘I meant this.’
It was a scale model of Clip the Sheepdog. I moved across and the shopkeeper dutifully stalked me from behind the counter. If any of this was fooling him he was doing an excellent job of concealing it.
‘We sell a lot of those,’ he said.
‘He must have been an amazing dog.’
‘Yes.’
‘I saw the movie. Quite a famous victory.’
‘Yes, famous,’ he said in a voice that suggested he didn’t think so.
‘Wasn’t it?’
‘Who am I to say? I just sell the little toy soldiers, I don’t comment on the broader historical sweep.’
He gave me the obsequious smile that the private detective in Aberystwyth comes to recognise like the yelp of a faithful dog. The smile that says: my lips are sealed and can only be unlocked by a special pass key, available from all good off licences. I took out a flask of rum and waved it in front of his obsequious face.
‘Why don’t you break the rule of a lifetime and comment on the . . . what was it?’
‘Broad historical sweep.’ He pulled over a teacup. ‘What are rules for if not to be broken?’
I poured a generous measure into his cup and took a gulp from the flask because I hated to see a man drink alone.
‘It’s difficult to know where to begin,’ he said.
I poured another shot into his cup. ‘Does this make it any easier?’
‘A bit of lubrication never hurt.’ He gave a wan smile, full of understanding of human frailty, especially his own.
‘Just so long as we don’t flood the engine. Tell me about the Mission House siege. What happened there?’
‘Wooh!’ He pretended to be startled and rolled his eyes as if the task was beyond the compass of mortals.
‘Look, buddy,’ I said, snatching his cup away from him, ‘I’m not sure if you understand the mechanism at work here. I’m pouring libations into your cup not because you’re a darling of the gods but because I want you to tell me something. Information that in any decent town I would get for nothing.’ He reached for the cup and I held it up by my ear, out of his way. He watched it like a dog watches the butcher.
‘Does that make sense to you?’
He nodded, still staring at the cup.
‘What was the mission about? What was the objective? Surely you can tell me that?’
‘Great mystery surrounded the precise nature of the objective. It seemed to involve a lot of getting shelled; a lot of stealing enemy barbed wire; a lot of walking across open ground towards machine-gun outposts.’
‘How do you steal barbed wire?’
‘Not easily, that is for sure. And not without a terrible loss of life. But General Llanbadarn wanted them to bring some back. No one knows why. He had just come back from Buenos Aires. He kept a woman there, so it was said. Not that that explains it, but there were some who suggested the objective stemmed from a boast he made to his mistress.’
‘Stealing barbed wired seems like a pretty crummy objective,’ said Calamity.
‘It was certainly no Monte Cassino. But it was always the same when he came back from Buenos Aires – he invariably had a new plan, one which was distinguished only by being more completely stupid than the previous one.’
‘Are you saying the men weren’t allowed to run?’
‘They were told to proceed at walking pace so as not to destroy the symmetry of the lines. The cameras were there, you see. Although they did not last long.’
‘I don’t understand why anyone would order his troops to walk into machine-gun fire.’
‘That’s because you aren’t a military man. General Llanbadarn was old school. He learned his tactics by studying the great battles of World War I, particularly the Somme.’
‘Was the Somme great?’
‘In magnitude, yes. The magnitude of the carnage. In terms of troop dispositions there are arguably far better models in the annals of military history: Salamis, Agincourt, Custer’s last stand . . . but the Somme had one factor which made it especially attractive for a strategic thinker of General Llanbadarn’s rare mettle, namely, he had heard of it.’
‘He sounds like an idiot.’
‘Military historians are a disputatious lot but on that point there is unanimity.’ He stopped and pointed at my ear. I put the cup back down in front of him and refilled it.
‘The men were, of course, terrified. They had heard the rumour that the general wanted the barbed wire to give to his mistress as a trophy. There was talk of a rebellion. That’s when they saw the angel. She filled their hearts with the fire of courage and off they went. And this is where the true story parts company with the version portrayed on screen.’
‘They were all slaughtered?’
‘Yes, of course. But there was something else. Something truly terrible happened that day, even worse than the slaughter. But no one knows what. They refuse to speak about it. A handful of men limped back to camp; Clip died in mysterious circumstances; and the chaplain went mad.’
‘How mad?’
‘Oh, utterly, utterly bonkers. The neurobiological equivalent of a man’s hair turning white overnight.’
‘But you don’t know what happened?’
‘It’s a military secret. You could ask the chaplain; he preaches at the community shelter by the war memorial; but, as I say, he lost his marbles and has never recovered them.’
I held the flask in front of his face and waggled it. ‘You sure you don’t know?’
‘Sincerely I don’t. As I say, no one will talk about it. Is there anything else I can help you with? If you’re thinking of modelling the battle you’ll need some of these.’ He placed a curatorial hand on some toy soldiers. The label said, ‘32nd Airbourne’.
‘Is that how you spell airborne?’
‘Alas, no, they were not really the airborne – they had no planes. They were from Fairbourne. Dropped the “F” in a hopelessly misguided attempt to big themselves up.’
I walked to the door and he held it open with a cloying smile.
‘What makes you think I want to model it, anyway?’
‘All that stuff about the trainspotters was a smokescreen. I
knew as soon as you walked in what you were after. Goodbye. Oh, and if you do want to make a model of the Mission House siege, don’t forget this.’
He handed me a small plastic figurine of an angel.
Outside the door Calamity looked peeved and said, ‘It’s not supposed to work like that.’
‘I guess he must have read the Pinkerton manual before you. You can’t win them all.’
She gave me a sour look. I sent her off to check up on the dead student, Emily Bishop, to see if she had a roommate who might talk. I had an appointment with Myfanwy.
* * *
Something about the way the date with Tadpole ended last night had made me uneasy about leaving Myfanwy in her care. I went back to the office, picked up her LPs and made the climb up to the top of the hill. Everything seemed fine when I arrived. Myfanwy was asleep again and Tadpole was combing her hair and spreading it out over the pillow. It seemed to me to be an unwarranted invasion of the patient’s privacy, and not really within her remit, but I wasn’t sure whether I should say so. She looked up at my entrance and we locked glances. It was one of those moments, the first meeting after a quarrel or something like it.
She beamed at me. ‘Louie, I’m so glad you’re here, I was so worried. About what happened, you know, last night. I was horrible, I don’t know how you will ever forgive me.’
‘It’s OK, don’t worry about it.’
‘But how can I not? I cheated you. I said I’d give you the man’s name and then I didn’t. No wonder you hate me.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Look, here it is, I’ve written it down for you.’ She handed me a slip of paper on which was written, ‘Caleb Penpegws. Corporal or something. In the army. The one that went to Patagonia’.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t know all the details.’
‘This is fine.’
‘What have you got under your arm? Looks like records.’
‘The doctor told me to bring them in. They might cheer Myfanwy up.’
‘Oh, how lovely! Let me help you.’ She took the records and put them down on a table. ‘I’ll see if we can find a record player.’ She walked up to me and looked into my face. ‘Do you forgive me, then?’
‘There’s nothing to forgive.’
‘But I was horrible last night.’
I waved the slip of paper and put it in my pocket. ‘This more than makes up for it.’
‘You forgive me, then?’
‘Of course.’
‘Oh, Louie! You are so wonderful!’ She threw her arms round me and pulled me in and kissed me on the lips. I tried to struggle free but they obviously do a lot of press-ups at the Soldiers for Jesus boot camp and I found her grip hard to break. She continued pressing her lips on mine, making a long drawn out “Mmmm” sound. I found myself staring over her shoulder at the sleeping face of Myfanwy. And Myfanwy was staring, eyes wide open, at me.
Chapter 9
OUR GAZES LOCKED for the briefest fraction of a second before she closed her eyes again; not simply closed, but pressed tightly shut like a defiant child’s. I drew up a chair and picked up a magazine, to give the impression of one settling in for a long wait, but really hoping for Tadpole to leave. Eventually she did after wasting time doing needless and irritating tidying-up chores.
I put the magazine down. ‘Stop pretending, I know you’re awake.’
No reaction. She carried on feigning sleep.
‘Oh, come on, Myfanwy.’
Still no reaction.
‘Oh, please, Myfanwy. I know what you saw but it was nothing. She was just thanking me.’
Silence.
‘I know you can hear me.’
Silence.
‘This is ridiculous. You don’t seriously think there’s something between me and . . . and that thing, do you? They call her Tadpole. It’s an insult to frogs.’
Silence.
‘This is silly.’
Silence. Or was that a slight, stifled ‘Hmmmph’?
‘You’re not supposed to sound exasperated if you’re asleep. You want to pretend to be asleep when you’re not, that’s fine. But you can’t go “Hmmmph” as well.’
There was a pause and she said, ‘Are you still here?’
‘If you’re going to speak you might as well open your eyes.’
‘I didn’t like what I saw last time I did that.’
‘That wasn’t what it seemed.’
‘How many times have I heard that?’
‘You think I want to kiss a girl who looks like that? It was like being a kid again, getting grabbed by my auntie.’
‘Is that how you talk about me when I’m not around?’
‘Are you nuts? How could you think such a thing?’
‘Oh, I wonder how. Maybe because I saw you snogging my nurse. What sort of guy does that? Has a fling with the nurse right by the bedside of his dying girlfriend—’
‘You’re not dying.’
She opened her eyes. ‘How do you know? I might be.’
‘Myfanwy.’
‘Nobody would care if I did.’
‘Everybody would care.’
She closed her eyes again.
‘Open them up, for God’s sake.’
‘Don’t have to if I don’t want.’
‘That’s childish.’
Another stifled ‘Hmmmph’.
‘I risked my life for you. Do you hear that? Risked my bloody life.’
She opened her eyes. ‘I didn’t ask you to.’
‘You didn’t have to. I would have done it whether you wanted me to or not.’
‘So stop boasting, then.’
‘Huh?’
She was smiling. And then she said in words suffused with a warmth I hadn’t heard for months, as if the splinter of ice in her heart had finally melted, ‘Oh, Louie, I’ve missed you.’
She lurched forward into my arms. I grabbed her as one catches a child about to run into the road, and hugged her.
‘Oh, I’ve missed you so much,’ she said. ‘Even when I was sick and far away I knew I was missing you, even then. I just felt it. I can’t explain how . . .’ She broke free of my embrace and brought her face up close, inches from mine, as she tried to explain with a strange urgency. ‘I don’t know how, but it’s like being in a deep dream and yet still knowing . . .’
‘It’s OK, it doesn’t matter.’
She considered for a second and smiled. ‘No, I s’pose not. You’re here now. Just stop chasing the nurses, OK?’
‘I’ll do my best but it’s not easy when they look like Tadpole.’
She giggled. ‘Where’s my present?’
‘It’s on order.’
‘What is it?’
‘You know I can’t tell you that. It would ruin the surprise.’
‘But you don’t know what I want.’
‘All right, what do you want?’
‘A white Christmas.’
‘That’s what I ordered.’ She grinned and let her head sink back onto my chest.
In the corridor on my way out I ran into Miss Evangeline, the blind woman who had visited Myfanwy’s room the last time I was here. She had been waiting for me.
‘Come with me,’ she said. ‘I want to show you something.’
She ambled along the corridor, feeling the wall gently with her hand. She took me to a small bedroom and bade me sit on the bed. The room was bare, almost monastic. I suppose if you are blind you don’t need to put much up in the way of decoration. She opened the drawer of a bedside cabinet, took out some photos and held them out to me. They were pictures of her thirty years ago as Borth Carnival Queen. She sat regally aboard a float, surrounded by lesser members of the royal household: carnival princesses, I guessed; along with courtiers and ladies in waiting. She wore a one-piece swimming costume with a satin sash across her chest. On her head sat a tiara and in her hand was a sceptre. Her face was gentle and heart-shaped, almost overwhelmed by the beehive hair-do and severe kohl-rimmed eyes that mimicked Dusty Springfield. On h
er face that bright look of expectancy, the one we wear in our teens on the threshold of life, the look full of latency, the one that pierces us when we see it years later in a snap at the back of a drawer. She had been a good-looking kid and I presumed that was what she wanted to hear.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I was desired once. Ooh! Did you hear that?’ She grabbed my arm and became still. We listened, Miss Evangeline’s hand resting on mine. The bandages on her hands were fresh. Two safety pins glistened.
‘How did you hurt your hands?’
‘My hands? Oh yes. I can’t remember. It’s so long ago.’
‘Aren’t they getting better?’
‘The doctors say so, but what do they know? Listen!’
‘I can’t hear anything.’
‘It was the horse. In the paddock, do you hear? I often hear her whinny. She’s got a foal. Listen. There it is again.’
‘You’ve got sharper ears than me.’
‘I’m not making it up, if that’s what you think.’
‘Of course not.’
‘People say I make things up.’
‘Oh! I heard it that time.’
‘One day that little foal will be a mare with a foal of her own. I had a child once but they took it away. I wonder if she ever thinks of me? Do you think she does?’
‘I’m sure she does.’
‘Now you’re making things up. She probably doesn’t even know about me. She was too young to remember. It was different in those days . . . What if they never told her about me? She would never know. Oh, there she goes again. She loves her foal, doesn’t she?’
‘I never met a mare that didn’t.’
‘One day they’ll both be boiled up for glue. The glue will stick the boards of my coffin. And they’ll plant me in the garden so the worms can eat me, and shit me out to fertilise the soil, and make the grass grow. And the foal will eat the grass and all that will be left of Miss Evangeline is a whinny. Do you ever think of things like that, Mr Knight?
‘Yes, very often.’
‘You should. None of us have very long.’ The distant, dreamy expression on her face clouded with a vagrant urgency. ‘Promise me something, Mr Knight. Will you do that?’
‘Only if you stop calling me Mr Knight.’
‘Louie?’
‘Yes.’
Don’t Cry For Me Aberystwyth Page 9
