Aberystwyth Mon Amour

by Malcolm Pryce

  I put the newspaper articles down flat on the window ledge of the Tropicana Milk Bar and took a drink from my strawberry milk shake. It was nearing the end and the straw made that loud plug-hole sound, which filled the whole restaurant with a grotesque burbling. Perhaps if Brainbocs had still been alive he could have turned the attention of his genius to solving that one.

  The Tropicana was a great place to sit and watch the world go by. Like a lot of cafes round town it hadn’t succeeded in making the leap into the last quarter of the twentieth century by acknowledging the existence of cappuccinos and espressos, but the shakes in lurid, primary colours were good and you could also get burgers and hot dogs and the juke box wasn’t too loud. There was a set of Formica tables in the centre, with seats screwed to the floor, and along the window where I was sitting there was a shelf at chest height with stools covered in red vinyl. Pandora and Bianca walked past the window and waved when they saw me but they didn’t stop. I watched them mincing down the Prom, Bianca with such an exaggeratedly impudent gait it was if she had springs inside her legs. And Pandy the cabin girl with the knife in her sock.

  As I watched their two behinds wiggling up the street a hand passed in front of my gaze and waved about as if checking whether I was blind or not.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Calamity, ‘I thought you’d turned to stone.’

  ‘I was thinking.’

  ‘And I know what about as well.’

  She climbed on to a stool and I offered her a shake.

  ‘No thanks, I can’t stay, I’ve got double maths after morning break.’

  ‘You’re actually going for once?’

  ‘This one, no choice. He checks.’

  ‘So what have you got for me?’

  ‘Actually, I will have that shake. Strawberry.’

  I groaned, but went and fetched it all the same. Calamity unloaded the fruits of her research between sips.

  ‘It’s pretty clear the other kids were all done in because they copied Brainbocs’s homework,’ she began, reminding me of what I already knew.

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘I know you know, I’m just being thorough. Point is,’ she continued, ‘what was he writing about? The word on the playground is, there’s a copy floating around.’

  ‘Copy of what?’

  ‘The essay. It’s probably what the Druids were looking for when they turned your place over.’

  ‘He made a copy of it?’

  ‘He always did. It was his modus operandi.’

  I looked at her askance and she gave her nose the sort of tilt that suggested she used the expression every day.

  ‘OK, he made a copy. Now what was the essay about?’

  Calamity took a long, tension-inducing slurp and then said casually, ‘Cantref-y-Gwaelod.’

  I said nothing.

  ‘Cantref-y-Gwaelod,’ she repeated.

  ‘Cantref-y-Gwaelod?’

  ‘The fabled dark-age kingdom. They say Lovespoon warned him off, told him to write about something else. But Brainbocs wouldn’t listen.’

  I was so surprised I said nothing for a while. Calamity stared nonchalantly out of the window as if the revelation that the Welsh teacher had killed a pupil for writing about a mythical kingdom was nothing more than you’d expect.

  ‘This is the legendary kingdom that lay between here and Ireland? The one that sank beneath the waves ten thousand years ago?’

  ‘Yes. They say on moonlit nights you can hear ghostly bells ringing across the sea.’

  ‘I know.’

  Do you believe that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Neither do I.’

  ‘It’s just a folk tale.’

  ‘I’m just telling you what I hear.’

  ‘But I can’t see what’s so bad about it.’

  ‘Me neither. I once painted a picture of Cantref-y-Gwaelod in art. Scary.’

  She slipped off the stool as if to leave and put a scrap of paper down on the counter.

  ‘I got this, too. It’s the address of Dai Brainbocs’s Mam.’

  * * *

  I put the paper in my pocket and walked down Terrace Road towards the station. Like most kids who went to school in Aberystwyth I was familiar with the Cantref-y-Gwaelod myth. The folk tale version told how the kingdom lying in the lowland to the west had been protected from the sea by dykes and during a feast one night someone had left the sluice gates open. Similar stories were found all round the coast of Britain and seemed to be a folk memory of the land that was lost with the rising seas following the last ice age. A process that would have taken thousands of years, but which was telescoped into an overnight party in the popular version. Ghostly bells pealing across the waters on moonlit nights were also an integral part of the stories. The stories had some basis in fact – at low tide you could see the remains of an ancient forest on Borth Beach. And Mrs Pugh from Ynyslas had once famously won a rent rebate because of the bells keeping her awake at night. But there had never been any suggestion before that writing about it was bad for your health. Out of curiosity I walked through town to the Dragon’s Lair on Station Square. A bell tinkled as I entered; it was one of those shops where you had to stoop to look around because there was so much stock, half of it hanging from the ceiling: a mixture of carved slate barometers, fudge and tea towels with recipes and, towards the back, a more serious selection of books. I headed for the tea towel section where I knew I could find a potted history of the kingdom which wouldn’t make too many demands on my attention span. Geraint, the owner, came out from the back to greet me and we exchanged bore das.

  ‘Haven’t seen you here for a while, Louie! Are you looking for anything in particular?’

  I picked up a tea towel depicting a history of the lost kingdom of Cantref-y-Gwaelod.

  ‘Well, now,’ said Geraint, ‘you DO surprise me!’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘You’re the last person I would expect to be asking about that. How many shall I put you down for? Two, three? Or is it just for yourself?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Tickets?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Tickets for Cantref-y-Gwaelod – that’s what you meant isn’t it?’

  ‘You’re selling tickets?’

  ‘I can’t promise anything, I can just put you on the list like everyone else.’

  ‘I thought the place sank ten thousand years ago?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘Day out on a submarine, is it?’

  ‘Not quite. Exodus.’

  ‘Exodus?’

  ‘Lovespoon is taking his people back.’

  ‘Back where?’

  ‘Back to Cantref-y-Gwaelod of course. Look, if you’re not interested, that’s fine. I’ve got plenty who are.’

  ‘But how can he take people back. They don’t come from there.’

  ‘They did originally. Everyone did. Don’t you know the story? When the place was flooded everyone who escaped went east. We’re all descended from them. Even you.’

  Geraint was grinning from ear to ear, but he usually did that anyway.

  ‘So Lovespoon is masterminding an Exodus?’

  ‘Take the folks out of servitude, like. Let my people go!’

  ‘Who’s in servitude round here?’

  ‘You don’t need chains to be in servitude, Louie. You should know that.’

  ‘I suppose not. Won’t it be a bit wet?’

  ‘They’re going to reclaim the land. Don’t worry, it’s all worked out. They’re going to rebuild the sea defences and drain the land like in Holland.’

  ‘How are they going to get there?’

  ‘Ark.’ Geraint crossed his arms with an air of smug satisfaction. ‘It’s not finished yet of course, but she’ll be a real beauty when she is – four stabilisers, two hundred cabins with en suite, global positioning system and four cappuccino machines.’

  ‘And all made out of gopher wood, I suppose.’

  ‘Gopher wood and South America
n hardwoods from sustainable plantations. And modern high-performance plastics for below the water line.’

  ‘Where’s the ship?’

  ‘Up at the school; special woodwork project.’

  ‘And you’re selling tickets for it.’

  ‘Me and the other travel agents.’

  ‘Are you going?’

  Geraint faltered. ‘Er … not immediately! Someone has to mind the shop.’ He burst out laughing. ‘Hey don’t be going on at me! I get ten per cent on each ticket, so where’s the harm? At worst they’ll have a nice day out on Lovespoon’s new boat. Come on. I’ve just put the kettle on.’

  Outside the shop I took out the slip of paper Calamity had given me and looked at the address. Clarach. Four miles out of town and I could make a detour past the school on the way. It was lunch break when I arrived but though the playgrounds were full of children the games field was deserted. It was one of those numerous paradoxes that govern school life. Vast stretches of green fields which the municipality had set aside for play were out of bounds during playtime. Armed with the knowledge from Geraint I could see now that the new building, which I had initially thought resembled an upturned beetle, did indeed look like the beginnings of a ship. An Ark. Brainbocs, the finest schoolboy scholar of the century, had written an essay about the lost kingdom of Cantref-y-Gwaelod. Now his teacher Lovespoon was masterminding a scheme to reclaim the land and sail there in an Ark. What did it all mean? And, more to the point, how on earth were they going to get the boat to the sea? It was five miles away.

  *

  I found Dai Brainbocs’s Mam in her cottage overlooking Clarach. It was the side which faced north and, permanently shielded from the sun, lived in sodden perma-gloom like the homeland of the Snow Queen. I parked my Wolsely Hornet in a lay-by set aside for undiscriminating picnickers and walked along the path cut into the side of the hill. The leaves underfoot squelched and the air had the cloying dampness of a tropical rainforest. The stones of the mouldering cottage had a cheesy consistency and water dripped from the eaves; where the drops fell there were malevolent looking white flowers that probably didn’t grow anywhere else in Britain outside Kew Botanical Gardens. I knocked and called out, but getting no answer I pushed the door and went in.

  Ma Brainbocs sat moving rhythmically back and forth on a rocking chair in the kitchen. She didn’t see me, her head had fallen forward on to her chest and as she rocked she intoned the words ‘all gone, all gone’ softly to herself. I stood in the kitchen doorway and watched, aware as I did of a dark rheumatic chill seeping insistently up my legs from the floor.

  ‘All gone,’ she moaned, ‘all gone, my lovely boy.’

  ‘Mrs Brainbocs?’

  ‘All gone, all gone.’

  I placed a hand gently on her shoulder and she looked up with unfocused eyes.

  ‘All gone, my boy, all gone.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He’s gone. I’ve come to talk to you about him, about David.’

  A gleam of comprehension appeared in the waters of her eyes and the mauve iris of her mouth slowly opened like a sea anemone’s vagina.

  ‘Dai?’

  I nodded.

  ‘He’s gone.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘They took him.’

  I knelt down and looked into her eyes.

  ‘Who took him, Mrs Brainbocs?’

  ‘That teacher.’

  ‘Lovespoon?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Do you know why?’

  She looked at me now, her eyes slightly narrowing and whispered, ‘Because of what he wrote.’

  ‘About Cantref-y-Gwaelod?’

  There was no answer and for a while there was silence in the room except for the sound of her hoarse rasping breath. I looked around. There was not much: a spinning wheel; a festering mattress in the corner; empty sherry bottles. I walked over to the stove to make her a cup of tea. There was no food in the house; instead I picked up a baked beans tin from the floor and washed it out under the tap, then I filled it with rum from my hip flask.

  ‘This will do you good,’ I said, holding it under her nose.

  Two cold trembling hands gripped mine and drew the tin upwards. As the fiery spirit flowed inside her, she began to speak again with renewed strength.

  ‘It was the Druids.’

  ‘They took your boy?’

  ‘Killed him.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  She nodded and looked up at me, with a new determination.

  ‘Of course I’m sure.’

  ‘What was the essay about, Mrs Brainbocs? Can you remember?’

  Her eyes dropped and focused on the hip flask in my coat pocket. I refilled the tin and handed it to her. She snatched at it and drank too greedily. A cough erupted from her throat and the pale warm liquor mixed with her saliva and dribbled down her bearded chin. I patted her on the back as if she were a baby.

  ‘Please try and remember!’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said when the coughing subsided, ‘I told the police everything I know.’

  ‘Did he make a copy of it?’

  This time she looked directly me with the fire of certainty burning in her eyes. ‘Of course he did. Boy always did that. Always made a copy. ’Case anything happened.’

  ‘Do you know where he put the copy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  My heart leaped. ‘Yes!? Where?’

  She grabbed my forearm and pressed weakly as if confiding her last secret. ‘He hid it in a well-known beauty spot.’

  ‘Well-known beauty spot?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Which one?’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. He didn’t say.’ She reached out again for the baked beans tin. I refilled it but this time held it out of her reach.

  ‘Which one?’

  She shook her head back and forth like a frisky horse.

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know …!’

  I poured some of the rum on to the floor and she gasped in horror.

  ‘No … no … please don’t!’

  ‘Which beauty spot, Mrs Brainbocs?’

  Fear crept into her eyes. ‘Please give me a drink. Please!’

  I turned the rum flask upside down. The liquid started to gush out. She jerked herself forward and the words tumbled out as she said anything that might stop me wasting the precious rum.

  ‘I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me. He couldn’t. Boy was so excited he could hardly talk. Wouldn’t hardly eat. Then he went away for a whole week. That’s when he met her, y’see. That’s how he knew for sure. Wouldn’t eat at all when he got back.’

  ‘Knew what?’

  ‘Everything. Knew it all then, after he saw her. Knew the lot. She told him, y’see. Told him everything. Why shouldn’t she? She didn’t care. Bitch. When he got back he was pale as a ghost. Wouldn’t sleep or eat or anything. Just walked up and down all night. I told him he’d wear out the hinge on his calliper, but the boy wouldn’t listen. Said: Ma if something happens to me in school tomorrow, remember: I want to be buried next to Dad.’

  I let her grab the rum and watched in pity as she sucked it down making a noise like water emptying from a bath. She paused for a second.

  ‘Who was this person he met?’

  ‘Gwenno.’

  ‘Gwenno who?’

  ‘Just Gwenno.’

  There was another pause; Ma Brainbocs was panting like an athlete now.

  I patted her gently on the shoulder. ‘Mrs Brainbocs, are you saying this Gwenno told him something? Something Lovespoon didn’t like?’

  She looked at me, the fire in her eyes declining like an oil lamp being turned down for the night. ‘Yes.’ For a moment, her forlorn gaze held mine and then her head slumped forward on to her chest. The faint light of understanding had gone out. ‘All gone,’ she intoned monotonously once more, ‘all gone.’

  As I started to leave, the rocking began again, rhythmically in accompaniment to the forlorn mantra of a mother’s woe
: ‘All gone, my boy, all gone.’

  Chapter 8

  DID NOEL FIND her? After the typhoon the family of Hermione Wilberforce was dragged dead from the sea by local fishermen but Hermione was not among them. A search was conducted and nothing was found. And that should have been the end of the matter. If she wasn’t dead the pirates infesting the coast off Borneo would soon make her wish she was. But then the strange stories started filtering out of the jungle. Absurd, impossible tales of a white woman seen residing there. No one who knew anything about these things believed them. Not the authorities in Singapore; nor the Rajah in Sarawak. But Bartholomew did – that daft Sir Galahad who soldiered on against all advice, even after all his guides and bearers abandoned him. The journal for which the bishop’s wife traded the brass kettles peters out, after six weeks alone, in a fevered, malarial scrawl. ‘I have seen her’ he wrote in the final week, riddled with sickness and unable to move. I have seen her, and after that the last words, ‘faith is to believe what you do not yet see’. Was it just a hallucination brought on by the madness of fever? Of course. There can be no other explanation. The chances that the woman was even there in the jungle in the first place were incalculably small. The possibility that he managed to locate her was zero. There was no real surprise about his fate, no mystery at all. Except for one thing: he took a camera with him.

  *