Aberystwyth Mon Amour an-1

by Malcolm Pryce

  Furious, Pickel looked at Valentine, then me, then back to Valentine. 'Who's he think he is, talking to me like that?'

  Valentine responded in a cold, businesslike tone. 'The gentleman is right, Pickel. You muthn't mithtreat the ladies.'

  Pickel was boiling, but some instinct stopped him from pushing it too far. 'What ladies? They're all slags!'

  'Pah!' Bianca stood up and pranced haughtily through the crowd over to the other girls. At that point the manager appeared and interposed himself between me and the argument.

  'Sorry sir,' he said politely, 'only Druids allowed in this section.'

  It was a watershed. A single wrong syllable here and I would never be allowed back in the Moulin again. Whether or not I paid a visit to the Accident and Emergency department on the way home would depend on the syllable.

  'That's OK,' I smiled cheerfully, 'my mistake. Wouldn't want to be mistaken for a Druid.'

  I decided to leave. As I retrieved my coat the manager reappeared carrying a silver tray which he proffered to me.

  'For you sir.'

  There was a mobile phone on it. I picked it up.

  'Yes?'

  'Now that you have established your credentials ath a gentleman, maybe you will be tho good as to honour our little agreement.' It was Valentine.

  'I'm still considering.'

  'No, you don't have that luxury. My organisation is getting rather impatient. We've been very fair with you, but time is in very limited thupply in thith matter.'

  'Who do you represent?'

  'That doesn't concern you.'

  'Tell Lovespoon that I'll only deal with him directly.'

  'Please, Mithter Knight, you really aren't in a position to make conditions.'

  'No meeting with Lovespoon, no deal.'

  He sighed. 'You're one man. You know the power of our organisation. Why be tho foolhardy?'

  'It's the way I was brought up.'

  'You've got until thunthet tomorrow. After that we can forget about being "gentlemanly".'

  He hung up.

  The next day was Sunday, and as usual I went to meet my father for a pint down at the Ship's Biscuit. I arrived shortly after eleven and Eeyore was already there sitting outside at one of the tables. He was wearing his trademark raincoat and cap despite the warm weather and there was straw on his coat from the donkeys. Another trademark. We looked at each other and nodded; no other greeting was necessary. I went in to fetch two pints and then joined my father in the sun.

  'You just missed Mr Giles.'

  'I saw him the other day. He wasn't doing too well.'

  Eeyore made a sympathetic grimace into his pint glass. 'It's this thing about the dog.'

  'I know, but why's he so upset about it? He's seen plenty of worse things up at that school.'

  I looked across the harbour and over the rooftops. Aberystwyth was overshadowed by two hills: Pen Dinas with its iron-age hill fort; and Pen-y-Graig with its iron-age school.

  Eeyore sighed. 'It's just one thing after another for him, though, isn't it? What do they need a gardener up there for anyway? There's no garden.'

  'You seem thirsty today.'

  He shrugged.

  'Something on your mind?'

  'Not really, apart from where the next bale of hay is coming from.'

  It was the best time of day to enjoy a drink. The doors were wedged open to allow the fumes of the previous night to escape and in their place was the sharp, reassuring tang of disinfectant. The juke box and fruit machines were silent. The only sounds were the silvery tinkle of someone across the street practising scales on a piano; and the occasional cry of a gull.

  Eeyore took a gulp from his pint and then spoke.

  'How about you? Got any work?'

  I thought about the answer. 'Someone came round on Friday with a case. Missing person. Evans the Boot.'

  Eeyore made the sort of hissing sound you make when you burn your finger. 'Did you take it?'

  'I'm not sure. I think I turned it down.'

  He nodded. 'Probably wisest move.'

  I shook my head. 'I don't know. I told the client "no", but I seem to be mixed up in it all the same. I'm not getting paid for it, though; so I don't call that very wise.'

  'That's good.'

  I looked at him. He was still staring ahead, but talking to me. Which bit did he mean was good?

  'What is?'

  'If you're helping someone and it's not for money, stands to reason it must be for a reason that's a lot better than money. When I was on the Force we did things because they were right, not because of the money. We'd have been stupid if we'd exposed ourselves to all that danger for money, because they didn't give us any. Not much anyway.'

  I took a deep drink. The beer was good.

  'The trouble is, I'm not sure if I'm doing it for good motives or just pigheadedness.

  'Often there's no difference,' said Eeyore.

  On my way back I cut across past the town hall and heard from up ahead the jingling of Pickel and his keys, although it was too far for the smell of gin. He was scurrying with that strange bobbing, bent-over gait reminiscent of the gorillas in the Planet of the Apes movies. Some instinct made me stop halfway across the square and hide behind the slate plinth of Lovespoon's equestrian statue. I waited as Pickel entered the side door to the clock tower. It was a strange life he lived up there in the belfry: washing in an old tin tub that collected rainwater and cooking in a cauldron donated by the Shawl & Sorcery Society. Pickel was in school at the same time as me, but we seldom saw him there. Mostly, he would be playing truant and loafing around the Square, looking up at the clock with a curious love; an emotion that was hard to explain except in the terms of the saloon bar psychologist who saw it as the surrogate for a mother's love. The real commodity had been sold long ago to the sailors down at the harbour. Pickel got the job as clock-keeper when the previous incumbent, Mr Dombey, died after falling into the workings. It was the Aberystwyth version of the Kennedy assassination, and since it took a week to clean all his flesh off the teeth of the clockwork, time really did stand still for a while. There were many in town for whom the prospect of Mr Dombey dying that way seemed as unlikely as a fireman being run over by his own fire engine. But the police were satisfied that there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding the accident. Yet even they could not deny that there was a strange whiff of gin in the clock tower that day, and Dombey never drank. Still, someone had to wind that clock.

  A voice interrupted my chain of thought.

  'Hi!' It was Calamity.

  'Hi!'

  'Where have you been?'

  'The pub.'

  'You drunk?'

  I laughed. 'No!'

  She stood beside me twisting her body round to look at my face.

  'Have you changed your mind yet?'

  'Nope.'

  'Aren't you even curious to know who it is?'

  'Who what is?'

  'The murderer?'

  'All right. Who is it?'

  By way of answer she looked up, craning her neck and squinting into the bright blue sky.

  'Him.'

  I followed her gaze up at the leaf-green bronze statue of Lovespoon astride his sturdy cob. Around the hoofs at the base there was a Latin inscription recording the well-known story of how as an infant he refused his mother's teat during Lent.

  'The Welsh teacher?'

  'Yep.'

  'He's murdering his own pupils?'

  'You knew him didn't you?'

  'Yes,' I sighed, as my thoughts drifted back through the fog of years. 'Yes, he taught me Welsh many years ago.'

  'You know what he's like then.'

  'I remember he used to hit a lot of people. I don't recall him ever murdering anyone. I could have been away that day, though.'

  I could sense the frustration gradually squelching her high spirits.

  'Why won't you take me seriously?

  But before I could say anything, she started walking away, across the ro
ad.

  I leaned against the plinth, overcome by an unaccountable weariness. How could I take such a story seriously? It was just a piece of playground nonsense, the sort kids made up all the time. In school we had all been terrified of him, of course. When he appeared in the corridor we used to hurl ourselves aside like Chinese peasants caught by the sudden arrival of the Emperor. Pressed tightly against the wall, we would wait with averted gaze until he swept past, his white hair billowing like the sails of a clipper ship. But apart from dispensing thick ears he never did anything to justify such fear. Now he was Grand Wizard and ran the town from behind a veneer of solid civic respectability. But we all knew how thin the veneer was. Ask the men who mix the concrete in this town — those gaunt-eyed, haunted men who dare not speak of the things secretly added to their concrete during the night. Ask them about the bodies in the foundations. What was it Sospan said? The town is built on honest men. Or ask why Meirion the crime correspondent also covers the fishing industry. Why he reports so assiduously on the foreign objects that frequently snag the nets. Or ask the fishmonger about the human teeth found in the bellies of the fish. Or ask Lovespoon's cousin about his second-hand clothing store 'Dead Men's Shoes'. Ask him where he gets his stock from. Yes, Lovespoon was not a man to be meddled with. And the only reason I or Llunos had not also ended up in a lobster pot was because it suited his purpose to allow us to operate. Like Stalinist show-trials it added a gloss of legitimacy to his regime. All the same. Would he turn on his own pupils? Wouldn't they be sacrosanct? I pressed my cheek against the warm slate of the plinth. Who could say? How do you judge a man, anyway, who commissions an equestrian statue of himself after a pony trekking trip to Tregaron?

  Calamity shouted from across the road. 'Would you like to know who the next victim is going to be?'

  She grinned and skipped down the street, adding just before she got out of earshot: 'The fireman's son!'

  Chapter 5

  WHEN I RETURNED from my early-morning stroll the following day, Myfanwy was in the office sitting on a wicker picnic hamper. It squeaked loudly as she stood up.

  'Hi! The door was open so —'

  I waved away her explanations. We both looked at the hamper.

  'It was such a lovely day I thought we could go to Ynyslas; I hope it's OK. Besides, I wanted to apologise.'

  'What for?'

  She pulled the band from her hair and shook it loose. 'Last night — our little misunderstanding. I didn't want you to think I was after your money.'

  'Don't worry about it. I was drunk.'

  She lifted the lid to the hamper. 'So I thought I'd treat you.'

  My face lit up. 'Wow! Champagne, strawberries, chicken . . . you shouldn't waste your money on me.'

  'Oh that's OK, it didn't cost much.'

  'Of course it didn't, champagne's really cheap in this town.'

  'No, really, it was nothing.'

  I looked at her with a stern, schoolmasterly expression. 'Now don't you tell tales like that.'

  Myfanwy looked at me awkwardly. 'Honestly, it cost nothing.'

  It took a second or two before I understood what she was saying.

  'You didn't steal it?'

  'No, of course not! I put it on ... on ... a slate.'

  'A slate?'

  She twisted her hands. 'A slate?' I repeated.

  'Yes . . . yours actually,' she said brightly.

  'Where?'

  'At the Deli.'

  'I haven't got one.'

  She joined her hands together in front of her, stretched the arms and smiled sheepishly.

  'Well, I suppose you have now.'

  We wedged the hamper into the back seat of my Wolsely Hornet and drove through town and up Penglais Hill. I suppose I should have been annoyed but really I felt like a kid on a school trip. I didn't need to ask how she managed to get the man at the Deli to put thirty pounds' worth of food on to the slate of someone who never visited his shop. I could picture the scene only too clearly: Mr Griffiths standing there looking awe-struck and imbecilic as if an angel had appeared in front of the counter; his thick-rimmed spectacles misting up and his pink sausagey face, edged on either side by two broom-heads of wiry black hair, turning crimson. I could see him shooing away the assistant and adjusting his tie as he assumed command of the situation. He probably didn't dare look at her, in case he mistakenly looked at the wrong place. She probably told him he was handsome and he probably lost control of his bladder for a second. I could see the shaking of his hands as he put the produce into the hamper, and then the slight pause when she asks for the champagne, and then the shakes getting worse. He was lucky she didn't ask for the deeds to the shop.

  At the top of Penglais Hill we turned left and took the old route to Borth. The sun was hot, the windows were open and Myfanwy sang as we drove. It was like sailing a ship over an ocean of grass as the road went up and down over the hills and dales. Every hillside was chequer-boarded with cows. The constant rising and falling of the landscape had a hypnotic regularity and you thought it would never end. But then the car mounted the final hill with that suddenness that never fails to surprise and we were on the roof of the world, staring at nothing but blue: the washed-out blue of the hot sky, and the darker indigo of the cold sea rolling in from the Bay. We pulled into a driveway in front of a five-bar gate and got out. The hillside curved steeply away down to Borth and the wind was fierce, buffeting the car and making the loose cloth of my shirt flap with a sharp sound. Down below us, extending for almost ten miles, was the huge flat expanse of the Dovey estuary and stretched across it in a thin straight line was a straggle of houses. This was the town of Borth: tinselled up with inflatable swimming hoops, buckets and spades in summer; and in winter nothing but dust and creaking shutters. At the far northern extreme, lost in the haze and a desert of sand dunes was Ynyslas, goal of our picnic; and beyond that, on the other side of the estuary, were the dot-sized houses of Aberdovey. From here they looked achingly close, but so formidable a barrier were the estuarial tides, that Aberdovey often seemed like another country.

  Myfanwy inserted herself between my arm and my body, to shelter from the wind, and pointed out toward the dunes of Ynyslas.

  'That's where Evans the Boot's Mam lives. I thought we could drop in and say hello.'

  I looked at her with a mild sensation of having been subtly manipulated.

  'That's if you don't mind.'

  We parked midway along the main street and climbed on to the high concrete sea wall, which neatly divided town and beach and blocked any prospect of a sea view from the guest houses on the road. On the beach holidaymakers from the Midlands were encamped in three-sided tents made of deck-chair material, but so wide and long were the golden sands, the illusion of being alone was not hard to enjoy. It was a beach created for buckets and spades and sons burying dads.

  The land between Borth and Ynyslas is taken up by a golf course and we strolled gently between the rough of the links and the smooth of the ocean. Fifty yards ahead of us a lone figure could be seen tramping through the knee-high grass. His tattered army greatcoat and forlorn demeanour marked him out as one of the veterans from the war in Patagonia in 1961. We stopped walking and watched his slow, dreamy progress. Patagonia: the Welsh Vietnam. Even after a quarter of a century the scars on the collective heart had still not fully healed. Patagonia, a harsh tract of land on the tip of South America, a world of searing beauty and withering cold; difficult to find on an atlas and known only because Welsh settlers went out there in the nineteenth century. A story that began in adversity and ended in tragedy seventy years later when the Indians turned against them. It was a war of independence that soured a generation and left behind the legacy of the Vets: soldiers in a ghost army that haunted the lanes of West Wales. Each carrying in his heart the story of a military adventure that no one wanted to hear.

  He was looking for lost golf balls which he could sell for his evening's meal. There was a sudden shout, a sharp crack, and the old soldier spun to
the ground; felled by a golf ball. We ran towards him and from the fairway the party responsible for his misfortune came over at a more leisurely pace.

  He was sitting up rubbing his head when we arrived.

  'Are you OK?' said Myfanwy putting her hand on his shoulder.

  'Sure, sure,' the soldier said distantly. 'Not the first time I've been hit by a golf ball.'

  As he spoke we looked up to watch the arrival of the golfers. There were five of them, although we could only see four because the fifth was inside a sedan chair. The Druidic crest at the front told us it belonged to Lovespoon. The first of the party to arrive was Pickel who cartwheeled towards us like a circus tumbler. Behind him came Valentine in tartan slacks, three-tone golfing brogues and a sleeveless diamond motif sweater over a floral pattern shirt. He was pulling a squeaking trolley. At the back of the group, standing by the sedan chair, was the school games teacher, Herod Jenkins.

  'I think he may be concussed,' I said looking up.

  'Bloody idiot!' Valentine spluttered. 'I'll give him thomething to be concuthed about. Tell him to move his arse tho we can get on with the game.'

  'He needs to rest a while.'

  'Not here he doesn't.'

  Myfanwy spoke: 'You should say sorry to him, you could have killed him.'

  'You can shut your mouth you little tart!' said Pickel.

  'Why don't you try and make me you smelly little piss-pot!'

  'OK, OK,' I cried trying to wrest control of the situation. 'This man is injured —'

  'Well he shouldn't go jumping in front of golf balls, then, should he?'

  'Oh he jumped did he?'

  'Of course he did, didn't you thee? He dived, tho he could make an inthurance claim or something.'

  'Does he look like the sort of guy who has insurance?'

  'Don't you be fooled by him, I know his sort —'

  There was a sharp clicking sound and we all looked round to the sedan chair. A hand protruded through the curtains, like that of a Bourbon monarch. The hand waved impatiently and Valentine hurried over and poked his head inside. An uneasy silence ensued, broken occasionally by the sound of Herod Jenkins cracking his knuckles. I found myself unable to resist staring at him. Even after twenty years the sight of the man who sent Marty to his death on that cross-country run sent tremors of fear through my soul.