Aberystwyth Mon Amour

by Malcolm Pryce

  ‘When did all this happen?’

  The Legendary Welsh Chanteuse stuck her tongue into one cheek like a schoolgirl doing a hard sum.

  ‘It started last autumn. At Christmas he stopped coming. Then at Easter he … he died.’

  I nodded and wondered at the casual precision with which she recited the dates. Wasn’t it all a bit late in the day for a revelation such as this?

  ‘So what happened when they sent you out to speak to him?’

  ‘He said, “Myfanwy, please don’t do this.” I said, “Do what?” (like I didn’t know); and he said, “Work in this establishment.” Just like that, “Work in this establishment”, like he was straight out of Oliver Twist.’

  ‘And then what?’

  She sighed and lowered her eyes back to the board. ‘So I said, “What do you want?” And he didn’t really say anything for a long time. He just kept looking at me like he wanted me to know but didn’t want to say it. So I said it again, “What do you want? I’ve got to go back to work.” And then it started to rain and I told him again I really had to go back inside. And then he put his hand on my arm. A hand like a girl’s and he said, “Myfanwy, I love you.” Just like that, and I laughed. And then when I saw the look on his face, I sort of stopped laughing. He looked like …’ The words trailed off. Myfanwy’s jaw moved silently as she struggled to find an expression appropriate for the abyss of misery to which her careless laugh had condemned the lame, unworldly scholar. But she couldn’t. There was no experience in her carefree life to match his despair. How did I know? I, who had never met Brainbocs, and had never observed the scene in the rain outside the Moulin Goch? Oh, I knew. I just knew.

  ‘Anyway,’ she said finally, ‘he looked really hurt.’

  Clip-clop, one and five.

  ‘And he asked me if he could buy me an ice cream the next day after he finished school. At first I said no. And then he pleaded and still I said no. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to, I just knew that if I said yes, that look in his eyes, I just knew it would come to no good. Then Mr Jenkins appeared in the doorway across the road and tapped his watch. I said again that I had to go. And again he begged me to have an ice cream with him. And then something awful happened.’

  She looked up from the board and straight at me.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘He started unbuckling that metal thing he has on his leg. The what’s-it-called?’

  ‘Calliper?’

  ‘And I said, ‘Dai what are you doing?’ And he said he was going on his knees!’

  I shook my head in sympathy at the sad scene.

  ‘So of course I agreed to have an ice cream. But only on condition, I said, that he never came waiting outside the Club like this again and that he didn’t go round telling everyone he was my boyfriend, just because I had an ice cream with him.’

  ‘Did he agree?’

  ‘Yes. Next day I met him at Sospan’s, but it was a cold day and so we went to the Seaside Rock Café and over a plate of humbug rock he proposed. He asked me to marry him. I told him not to be so stupid. And he said, “It’s my leg isn’t it?” I said, “No, of course not.” And then he said something strange. He said, “Myfanwy, what is the one thing you want more than anything in this world?” And I said “Nothing.” But he wouldn’t listen. He said there must be something I wanted. He said I must have a dream. I said no. And he said everybody, even a beggar, has a dream. But again I said no. And he went all quiet. Paid for the rock and left. That was in November, and weeks went by and I never saw him. Then as I left the Club on Christmas Eve, there he was again standing in the doorway as the snow fell. And do you know what?’

  I raised my eyebrows.

  ‘He had one of my school essays with him. From long ago. I hadn’t a clue where he got it. It was about how it had been my dream to sing in the opera in Patagonia, and how I would give my hand in marriage to the man who made my dream come true. I’d forgotten I’d written it. And he held it under my nose and said, “See, you have a dream!” And I laughed sarcastically and said, “No, David, I had a dream. I don’t have a dream any more. Now I’m just a Moulin girl with no time for dreams.” Then he said, “One day I will make your dream come true, and then you will marry me.” I was going to laugh but the look in his eyes … well I knew I shouldn’t. So I just stared at him. And then he walked away. That was the last I saw of him. Limping off into the snow on Christmas Eve. Then a few weeks later a package arrived for me. There was no letter, just the essay. All about Cantref-y-Gwaelod; I didn’t even bother reading it. Then one day I read that he’d been killed.’

  ‘And what did you do with the essay?’

  ‘I gave it to Evans the Boot.’

  *

  It was sometime between two and three when I pulled up outside the Orthopaedic Boot store on Canticle Street. I was dog-tired and made only the vaguest attempt at parking straight before climbing the sad wooden stairs to my office. It was like climbing Everest. I didn’t bother changing, just collapsed on to the bed. As soon as my head hit the pillow I was asleep and as soon as that happened the phone rang.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Where on earth have you been?’

  ‘Uh?’

  ‘You’ve got to come quick.’ It was Bianca.

  ‘Bianca? What’s up?’

  ‘I’m in trouble. I haven’t got much time. Can you come here now?’

  ‘Why what’s happened?’

  ‘I’ve got the essay.’

  The hair on my head would have stood on end if it hadn’t been too tired.

  ‘You’ve what?’

  ‘The essay. I’ve stolen it, when Pickel catches me he’ll –’ There was a scream, and the line went dead.

  When I arrived at her flat in Tan-y-Bwlch her front door was ajar. Furniture and fixtures were thrown across the floor, crockery was smashed, papers littered the carpet. There were bloody handprints on the wall and smeared down the gloss white of the door. I looked at the phone and knew I should call Llunos. Things had gone far enough. And for all I knew, the police could be on the way here right now. I looked at the phone. I really should call the police, but I didn’t.

  Chapter 14

  I FOUND HIM sitting next to the cauldron in a belfry that smelled faintly of gin. Alerted by the sound of stair-climbing he was already looking at the entrance when I walked in.

  ‘What do you want? This is private property.’

  There was no wind, no sensation at all except the steady whirr of the clockwork, and the faint smell of gin.

  ‘Where is she? And don’t say “who?”’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  The floor was a series of boards suspended high up in the tower. In the middle there was a gaping chasm and beneath it the fabulous iron and brass monster of the clockwork mechanism. It was from here that Mr Dombey had fallen or been pushed into the shark’s jaw of the cogs. And at the moment it separated me from Pickel. I started to walk round towards the other side.

  Pickel picked up a brass rod from the floor. ‘You stay where you are.’

  ‘The deal is very simple, Pickel. Tell me where she is, or I throw you into the clock.’

  He waved the rod uncertainly and took a step back. ‘That’s close enough.’

  I continued walking and ducked under the horizontal spindle that turned the hands.

  ‘I’m warning you!’

  I took another step. ‘There was blood on the walls.’

  He stepped back again and shook his head. ‘Not me.’

  ‘If you’ve harmed her, I’ll kill you.’

  ‘You’ve got the wrong man.’

  ‘Why don’t you tell me who the right man is?’

  I looked down at the precipice. Lying on the floor a few feet from the edge was an old blacksmith’s anvil. Covered in dust and cobwebs now, but probably used at some point in the past to repair a piece of the machinery. Pickel’s gaze landed on it at the same time and the same thought went through both our heads.

  ‘No!’ howled Pickel.
<
br />   I smiled.

  ‘Don’t you dare!’

  He made a jump towards me but stopped like a fly hitting a window pane the moment I rested my foot on top of the anvil.

  ‘Don’t what?’

  He was standing on one foot, poised like a relay racer waiting for the baton. Immobilised by the terror that any movement of his might induce me to slide the lump of iron over the edge and into the teeth of his beloved clock.

  ‘Don’t do it,’ he cried in a softer voice. ‘Please!’

  ‘Where is she?’

  He held his hands out in supplication. ‘I don’t know.’ It was a simple statement delivered in the beseeching, wheedling tone of a mother begging for her baby back.

  I pushed the anvil a bit further until it was lying at the very edge of the precipice. The clock was well built, but still extremely delicate. An anvil crashing through it would do a lot more damage than the emaciated frame of Mr Dombey.

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  I could see fear in Pickel’s eyes. If I had threatened to throw his mother out of the window, he probably wouldn’t have batted an eye, but the prospect of seeing his clock destroyed was too much. I pushed the anvil even further until it was now teetering on the brink, held in place only by the slight extra weight from the sole of my shoe.

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Please, they took her.’

  I looked at him impatiently.

  ‘Lovespoon and his tough guys. She stole the essay from me, y’see – the stupid bitch. I mean I had to tell them. They’d have killed me if they’d found out; probably will anyway.’

  His eyes were riveted on the anvil.

  ‘Where did they take her?’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. Really I don’t.’

  I let the anvil swing a bit to refresh his memory.

  He cried out. ‘Why the fuck would they tell me, anyway?’

  ‘Look, you pile of shit, I don’t care what they will and won’t tell you. I’m trying to find that girl before any of you monkeys harm her. Now either I leave this tower knowing where to find her, or your clock is fucked.’

  He sank down on to the floor and supported his head in his hands.

  ‘Lovespoon is up at the school.’

  ‘What’s he doing up there?’ I asked in surprise.

  ‘He goes there every night … to his study … to write … and –’

  He stopped.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘And to look at his Ark.’ He shrugged. ‘That’s where he goes.’

  ‘Even at four o’clock in the morning?’

  ‘He’ll be there. He never sleeps any more.’

  I pulled back the anvil and walked to the door. If you’re lying, I’ll be back with my own anvil.

  Nothing had changed: the squeaky floor, the stale smell of feet and disinfectant, and the skeletal coat pegs, empty except for the occasional lonely anorak. But night gave it an alien, ghostly appearance. Breaking in was as easy now as it had been twenty years ago when we used to come and piss in the sports trophies in the assembly hall. I crept down the corridor, my shoes squealing on the tiles like birds in the rainforest. It was difficult to believe Lovespoon would be here at four in the morning, but Pickel was right. At the end of the corridor, across the foyer, I could see a shaft of light coming from the door of his study. The section where the senior masters had their offices was set off from the main foyer and used to be called the Alamo. A powerful Pavlovian reaction, dormant for two decades, was set in motion as I approached. Mouth went dry and ears began to throb in anticipation of being cuffed. I wrestled with the force inside me which was turning me once again into a subservient, defenceless schoolboy. A target for board rubbers, someone to be lifted bodily by the ear and pulled by the hair. To be upbraided with inferior sarcasm and terrorised into not answering back. How would I find the courage to stand up to him? To accuse him of murdering five of his own pupils? What business is it of yours, anyway, little boy? What if he had his cane? I hesitated outside the door and a voice came from inside:

  ‘Come in, boy, don’t stand out there dithering!’

  He was at his desk, side-on to me, hunched over and marking essays. Without looking round he raised a hand and waved it in my direction, indicating that I should wait. I stood up straight and took my hands out of my pockets and then cursed myself for the cringing subservience. The only light was the lamp on his desk, and from outside the window the reflection from the huge wooden Ark which now filled up most of the scrub grass to the left of the games field. It shone in the intense white glare of the lights, and security patrols could be seen wandering up and down in front of it. Lovespoon finished marking with a dramatic flourish, closed the last exercise book and looked up.

  ‘It’s about that girl, isn’t it?’ And then adding, as he transferred his entire attention from the marking to this new subject, ‘Such a silly girl.’

  I said nothing and stared.

  He scrutinised my face, trying to place me in the endless stream of pustulating, squeaky-voiced adolescent boys that had flowed through his life, boys who perhaps grew to be as indistinguishable as the leaves that littered the drive each autumn.

  ‘Mr Ballantyne the careers master tells me you’re a private detective?’

  I didn’t answer and the old Welsh teacher sucked on his tongue as he considered the merits of my career choice. ‘I always had you down for something more clerical. Drink?’

  He pulled a bottle of wine out from behind the angle-poise lamp.

  ‘I’m not thirsty.’

  ‘Ffestiniog Chardonnay, the ’73. Really quite good.’ He poured himself a glass and added, ‘I was under the impression that hard-boiled private eyes were constrained by the requirements of stereotype to drink on every possible occasion.’

  ‘Fuck you!’

  The teacher flinched slightly and then said, ‘Ah!’ before drumming his fingers softly on the desk.

  ‘Where is she?’

  He smiled weakly and made an almost imperceptible shrug. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Try again.’

  ‘No, really I don’t.’

  He leaned slightly closer and peered at me. ‘I don’t remember teaching you actually.’

  ‘You chipped my tooth when you threw the board rubber.’

  He reached and picked up a pen, and then put it down again. ‘This is all a terrible mess. Apparently she did it for you.’

  Even in the dark I couldn’t disguise my reaction.

  Lovespoon laughed. ‘So romantic. Still, you’d make a better match than Pickel, I dare say. So one can hardly blame her.’

  ‘Just tell me where she is, and I won’t hurt you.’

  ‘Hurt me?’ he said in phoney surprise.

  ‘Not that you don’t fucking deserve it, I owe you plenty.’

  The Welsh teacher tutted at my language, and ran a hand lovingly along the ornately carved wooden arms of his chair. It was like a throne.

  ‘Do you know what this chair is?’

  I knew he was playing for time, trying to think of a way out or hoping someone would come, but it was difficult to resist the drift of his conversation.

  ‘It’s the bardic chair from the Eisteddfod. You won it for the poetry.’

  ‘Three times. That’s why I got to keep it.’

  ‘Like Brazil in the World Cup.’

  He winced. Then stood up wearily and walked through the darkened office to the window.

  ‘That’s the trouble with people like you, Knight, you only know how to mock. How to break things. You don’t know how to create anything. You never did.’

  ‘Where does killing your pupils fit into the picture?’

  ‘Brainbocs was unfortunate.’

  ‘You’ll be telling me you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs, next.’

  He shrugged and turned back to face me. ‘It’s not a bad philosophy.’

  ‘Is that what Bianca is then?’

  ‘Surely you’re not going to
get all sentimental about a tart?’

  I jumped and lunged at him; he stepped back in time and I ended up grabbing his arm. As he struggled to break free we both fell on to the desk, scattering photos, half-marked essays and a pair of scissors.

  ‘She’s worth ten of you.’

  He laughed wildly. ‘She’s not worth one of my farts.’

  ‘Tell me where she is!’ I shouted. We rolled off the desk on to the floor. Lovespoon struggled to push me off and I fought to get above him, to push him down. He was strong but I had twenty years on him. Soon I was kneeling on his chest. The struggle had knocked the table lamp over and the thin yellow beam pointed at his face.

  ‘Where is she?’

  Lovespoon was breathing hard and spoke in gasps. ‘I told … you … I … don’t know.’

  I balled my fingers into a fist and raised it. He looked straight at me with clear, calm grey eyes. There was no fear in them. It was then that I noticed the scissors on the floor. They were those heavy craft scissors with black-painted finger holes. I picked them up and held them hovering above his face.

  ‘Don’t make me do it.’

  He sneered. ‘You haven’t got the balls! You never did have, did you? You were too much of a milksop to play rugby – yes I remember you; and now you think you can come here threatening me?’

  I brought the scissors down so low that the point was almost touching his eye. The eyelashes brushed against it. I could see him visibly forcing himself to remain composed.

  ‘You can’t frighten me, you know. I fought in Patagonia.’

  ‘With Gwenno Guevara.’

  He sneered. ‘You’ll never find her, you know. Brainbocs managed it but he died, and you don’t have the brains.’

  ‘What have you done to Bianca?’

  ‘Since when did you care so much about Pickel’s tart?’

  I tightened my grip on the scissors. ‘If you don’t tell me where she is I’ll put out your eyes so you never see Cantref-y-Gwaelod.’