by Stead Jones
‘That’s right,’ Gladstone said sharply, ‘you don’t know…’
Something snapped in me. ‘I do, though,’ I said. ‘I know what’s the matter with him.’ We stopped walking and made a circle on the pavement, ‘He’s a fraud,’ I said, trying to keep my voice steady. ‘He’s just one big fraud.’
I saw Dewi’s face light up in a big grin. ‘Too bloody true,’ he said. I didn’t look at Gladstone, who seemed at that moment to be towering above me, ready with a deluge of protest.
But when he spoke his voice was very soft and slow. ‘You mean he never saw any of those things? You mean he was acting?’
‘That’s what I think,’ I said, keeping my head lowered. ‘He’s a fraud.’
We moved to the doorway of an empty shop. ‘It was all one big act in there,’ Gladstone went on. ‘That’s what you think?’
‘Nearly as bad as Capel Mawr drama,’ Dewi said.
‘And he’s a hopeless case? And cunning – thinks we’re just muck from the harbour?’
I looked at him for the first time. ‘It’s true,’ I said. ‘You feel it too, don’t you?’
It seemed a long time before Gladstone nodded his head. ‘Yes – it’s true. He’s just a hopeless case…’
‘Wouldn’t trust him farther than I could kick him,’ Dewi broke in. ‘All of them things creeping up on him – it was acting, that…’
‘All acting,’ Gladstone agreed, ‘except for one thing. About Jupiter – that wasn’t acting…’
I wanted to destroy everything now. ‘How do you know? It could be…’
‘No, Lew. Jupiter died that day,’ Gladstone said quietly, ‘and nothing’s been right ever since. That’s what’s been eating him up…’
‘I don’t know,’ Dewi said with a sigh. ‘You could be wrong…’
‘Oh no.’ Gladstone drew us nearer to him. ‘They’re different, the Vaughans. They’re not like the town crowd at all. I don’t know how to say it, but I feel they’re different – as if they don’t belong here, as if they should be living at another time and in another place… at a time when nobody frowned on you because you were reckless, or because you didn’t follow suit. Lew,’ he gripped my shoulder tightly as if to force me to understand, ‘they’ve got style, don’t you see?’
Dewi grinned suddenly. ‘Close up the pubs, then, shall we?’ And we were all relaxed again, the quarrel broken up and gone.
‘Tell you what,’ Gladstone pleaded, ‘what do you say we find out how the other one’s taking it? What do you say we drop in on Marius Vaughan? He’s Jupiter’s brother too.
XII
Although Gladstone had tried his best to make me keen on paying Marius Vaughan a visit, all I could do was worry and ask myself questions. What were we supposed to do when we got the Point, anyway? Would we knock on his door, or what? And if we knocked on his door what would we say, what could we say? This wasn’t one of the grocers up on the Hill. This was Marius Vaughan…. And if we ever got around to knocking anywhere, or talking to anyone, what would we get for an answer? What would we get as an answer to: ‘Mr Vaughan, excuse us calling, like, but we thought we’d drop around, like, and ask you how you’re getting on, like, after all that terrible trouble you had when you accidentally shot your youngest brother dead, like, all these sixteen years ago…’ Oh, good God, Gladstone must have been carried away again – as carried away as he had been when he tried to get us to play in that bloody percussion band in front of the whole Sunday school, or the time he had us turn out for the May Day procession, dressed in hearth rugs, as the Mabinogion. This visit to Marius Vaughan, I felt certain, was going to be just as embarrassing. I tossed and turned all night.
Owen hadn’t helped any by staying up with me by the dying fire to talk about the Vaughans, although Meira kept on calling for him to go up. He had to tell me how he’d gone to the war on the same day as Marius Vaughan. (Owen had spent the war in the barracks in Wrexham.) And how a friend of his, who was in the know, had told him, in confidence of course, that Marius Vaughan had just about gone through all the money…. And how a pal of his, who been a waiter in the Red Dragon at the time, had told him about this big dance for the swells and how Marius Vaughan had fallen flat on his face when he was dancing, and how he’d stood there at the bar of the Dragon and cried. Not crying because he was drunk or anything, but crying because his leg had let him down in public, because he wasn’t the tough boy he wanted to be…. Marius was only a small chap, but he made himself tough…. Thankfully I had heard Meira stamp out on the landing and shriek ‘Owen!’ and he had gone, double sharp, and I was glad. Mention of Marius Vaughan was touching an open nerve…. But Owen’s gossip was something else to toss and turn over, even after sleep came reluctantly with the first light.
And it was all Marius next day, too, as we waited for the evening and darkness. Marius using his gun on a disobedient dog, Marius ramming another boat which had fouled him in the regatta, Marius bouncing the Rev A. H . Jones down the steps of his house, Marius taking on some of the locals because they had laughed at his limp, Marius turning the hosepipe on the man from the Council…. Oh, God, he was likely to do anything, a law unto himself. When we crossed the town that night I was wound up tight as a mainspring, and so sensitive that it hurt.
Halfway along the road to the Point there was a gate plastered with Trespassers will be Prosecuted and Private Road and Keep Out. This far we had been before. When we came to it that night it was thick darkness everywhere and not a sign to be seen, but I knew they were there. It was very warm and still, too, with the sound of thunder behind us on the mountains.
‘Once over this,’ Dewi said, his voice high with excitement, ‘and we’re not in Porthmawr any more. We’re in the Vaughan country.’ And, because he too was wound up, he had a pee against the Keep Out on the gate.
We climbed over, Dewi running on ahead to act as scout, Maxie bringing up the rear. Maxie’s nerves were on edge too: he never said a word, just followed along in the darkness, farting like a horse.
The road skirted the side of the harbour. I could see the white fence between us and the water now that my eyes were used to the dark. On the other side, Graig Lwyd towered above us. No escape anywhere, I thought.
‘Sure about the dog, then?’ I said to Gladstone.
‘Dead. I told you. Postman said they haven’t got another.’
We walked on, keeping to the grass verges most of the time in case there was anyone out and listening for us. Now and then Dewi up ahead gave his owl hoot, which wasn’t really necessary, but none of us knew how to tell him about it.
He was back with us suddenly. ‘Trees ahead,’ he announced. ‘Then it turns – the road – and we’re there. Plenty of them rhododendrons. Been up to the front of the house – well, nearly. Like a big yard there, and a bit of a garden near the house. There’s lights on.’
Something went deep in my stomach as he said that, and although I asked myself what did I expect, it didn’t help at all.
‘Listen to that machine for making the electric,’ Dewi said.
We stood, tightly grouped, and listened to the hum of the generator. Something else that made Marius Vaughan different, I thought – no penny in the slot for him.
Gladstone came to life. ‘All right. Let’s go on. Keep together. Everybody look out.’
We came to the rhododendrons. Once around them we could see the light falling in a huge, broken square on the rockery and the yard. There was a car on the yard, a small one. Eirlys Hampson’s car.
‘What do we do now?’ Dewi asked in a whisper. ‘Knock on the door and ask for the rent?’
‘Break a window,’ Maxie suggested.
Gladstone, I felt, wasn’t sure what to do either. He stood looking at the square of light as if it dazzled him. I could sense his indecision.
‘Go back, shall we?’ I said.
‘Not now,’ Dewi replied fiercely. ‘Now we’ve come so far we’ve got to do something…’
‘Follow me,’ Gladstone sa
id suddenly. ‘Make for the flower beds by the window.’ And he was off at a run towards the house.
We followed, Dewi and Maxie racing past me. There was a small wall around the flower beds, but I never saw it. The first thing I knew I was falling flat on my face on warm, moist earth, and lying there, my heart loud as a drum.
‘Lew! Here!’ Gladstone hissed.
I looked up slowly. No doors had been opened. No one was shouting what for… Gladstone was kneeling by the window. I crawled over to, him. ‘Take a look,’ he said.
The curtains weren’t drawn across the big bay window. I took a quick look then bobbed back again. All I saw was a large room and two people – a grey-haired man and Eirlys, both standing up, talking…. No, not talking, I thought. More like arguing…. I looked again, longer this time. Eirlys walking to the door, then turning to say something to him, finger pointing…. I bobbed back. She was coming out! I gripped Gladstone’s arm, but before I could say anything there was a crash of splintering glass farther up the yard where Maxie and Dewi had vanished. Then came a wild, uncontrollable shriek of laughter from Dewi.
Gladstone and I ran across the square of light from the window, leaping over rose bushes on to the yard. By the time we reached the other two a light had been switched on and the yard was bright as day. We didn’t realise it was on, however – not with the shock of seeing Maxie standing knee-deep in a flower frame, held there by broken glass, unable to move. Dewi was near by, bent double with laughing.
‘Jumped straight in the bloody thing,’ he cried. ‘Trust old Maxie to bugger a job up!’
‘Glass,’ Maxie said. ‘If I tear my trousers my dad will kill me!’
I looked up. ‘The light’s on!’
‘It is indeed,’ a voice said behind us. ‘Stay where you are! Don’t move!’ Then he must have seen Maxie. ‘Boy!’ he roared. ‘Get out of that bloody frame!’
Maxie just stood there shaking his head.
‘Do you hear, boy? Get out of it!’
‘Easier said than done,’ Eirlys said very quietly but clearly.
‘P-please, sir. Fell in it, sir,’ Maxie said.
‘Then fall out again, damn you!’ Marius Vaughan snapped. ‘You others – help him out.’
We managed to remove Maxie from the frame without any cuts or tears. Dewi was still giggling about it.
‘Come on out, Maxie,’ he whispered, ‘then we’ll make a run for it. Old peg leg there will never smell us.’
‘No,’ Gladstone ordered. ‘We stay. He’s recognised us by now, anyway.’
‘That’s enough of that talking,’ Marius Vaughan said. ‘Over here, all of you! At the double!’
‘Let’s rush him,’ Dewi whispered as we turned to face the doorway where Marius and Eirlys stood. ‘Four to one – we’ll mince him up.’
‘Quiet!’ Gladstone snapped. ‘Follow me…’ He set off across the yard straight for the door. For a moment I was all for running, but I couldn’t leave Gladstone to face him alone.
‘Come on,’ I said to the other two. ‘Crazy,’ Dewi muttered, but he and Maxie joined me, and we marched behind Gladstone, a small army going to our doom.
‘Well, well,’ Marius said when we reached the foot of the steps, ‘Ashton’s friends. Don’t tell me he’s lurking in the shrubberies somewhere?’
He had a very English voice – a fake English voice, every word spoken as if it were underlined.
‘Well – answer me. Is he with you or not?’
Gladstone shook his head.
‘Right,’ Marius Vaughan said, ‘inside. You’ve got some explaining to do. Inside – quick!’
We filed in past him, Eirlys leading the way. She looked over her shoulder and gave us a smile, and I felt a little bit better. We were in a large room now, a room with a lot of furniture, and pictures on every wall. Marius Vaughan followed us in. The door closed with a smack, and deep down in my stomach something went again.
He lined us up against a wall and walked slowly in front of us, like an officer inspecting his men. He wasn’t a tall man but he had wide, powerful shoulders. His hair and his moustache were pure white, only his eyebrows were still black. He wasn’t like Ashton at all – his face smooth, unmarked, except for a scar, his clothes very smart. He looked very clean, somehow, and full of menace.
‘Gladstone Williams and his gang,’ he said, speaking to Eirlys. ‘My brother’s keepers, in fact.’ He took up a position directly facing us, standing very straight and stiff. He had a stick in his right hand, but he wasn’t leaning on it at all. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘now tell me what you are doing on my property at this hour of the night. I assure you I have a right to know.’
Where had I heard that tone of voice before? In school, surely? And from a dozen or more sarcastic teachers who always asked their questions in the same kind of English.
‘Struck dumb, are we? I suppose you think it’s very unfair of me to ask you what you are doing here? After all I put that frame out there so that you could break it, didn’t I? And all those notices on my gate don’t really mean what they say….’ A thought struck him. ‘You do speak English, I suppose? Siarad Saesneg?’ He even said that with an English accent.
‘You know we speak English, Mr Vaughan,’ Gladstone said.
‘Ah, yes,’ Marius said, moving so that he stood directly in front of Gladstone. ‘We have met, haven’t we? Gladstone Williams, would you be so kind perhaps as to tell me what you were doing outside there, and how my frame came to be broken?’
‘It was my idea, sir,’ Gladstone said. ‘You can let the others go…’
The black eyebrows went up. He looked over his shoulder at Eirlys. ‘Can I, indeed,’ he said. ‘How very kind of you to tell me what I can do, Gladstone Williams.’
He went down the line, then, asked us our names in turn, where we lived, what school…
‘County, sir,’ I said.
‘Ah – then you must be able to read a little. What does it say on my gate, tell me that?’
‘Trespassers will be Prosecuted,’ I said.
‘Well done. And what does that mean?’
‘The police,’ I said.
‘Very good. I can see you are worthy of your place in the County School.’
I saw Eirlys pull a face and look away. I felt my temper rise. We were caught, weren’t we? There was no need for him to play the sarky teacher like this. ‘It also says Keep Out four times,’ I said.
For a moment I thought he was going to hit me. The scar on his cheek reddened a little and his mouth tightened. But he looked over his shoulder at Eirlys and I thought he smiled.
‘Well done, little sharp Welshman,’ he said. ‘Now perhaps you’ll tell me why you chose to disregard those notices?’
Little sharp Welshman! What did he think he was? He was Porthmawr born, too – as Welsh as any of us. If Dewi had rushed him then, I would have been with him, and to hell with the consequences.
Gladstone tried to explain. ‘Mr Vaughan, it was all my idea. I brought them here. We didn’t mean to break your frame…’
‘An accident,’ Maxie put in quickly.
‘Accident be damned,’ said Marius Vaughan. ‘The fact remains that you were trespassing on my land.’
Eirlys got up. ‘Let them go, Marius,’ she said. ‘They’re only boys. Probably taking a short cut somewhere…’
‘Aye, that’s right,’ Dewi said eagerly, ‘going after lobsters we were…’
The rocks beyond the Point were a good place for lobsters. I felt relieved: we had to have some excuse, after all.
‘Lobsters at this time of night?’ Marius said. ‘I don’t believe you.’
‘They don’t look as if they’ve come on a social visit, anyway,’ Eirlys said. ‘Send them home, Marius.’
‘Oh, no,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘You never know – they might be a deputation from the Free Church Council, or something. They could even be here to tell me about progress in the missionary field in Madras. Come to, that, they might be the Watch
Committee.’
‘Have your fun, then,’ said Eirlys.
‘Well, my dear, what can it be? I ask you? I’ve no apples to steal, no poultry going begging – nothing much of value anywhere. So it intrigues me. Suddenly I get a visit from the town, and my visitors don’t seem to know why they’re here. Very interesting isn’t it? Could they have come from Ashton, do you think?’
Eirlys picked up her coat from the back of a chair. ‘I’m going, Marius. Looks as if…’
‘Wait a minute – this might interest you, too.’ They stood there, staring at each other. Eirlys had a smile on her face, but it wasn’t a warm smile, and it wasn’t for him. ‘One never knows – does one?’
‘Ashton didn’t send us,’ Gladstone said.
‘Now then?’ Eirlys said. She was walking towards the door, and with each step she took my heart sank lower.
‘Then why did you come?’ said Marius, speaking to us but keeping his eyes on Eirlys.
‘To have a look, that’s all.’ Gladstone sounded genuinely ashamed.
‘You mean Ashton sent you to spy on me?’ Marius went on, still watching Eirlys.
‘No, Mr Vaughan. Your brother had nothing to do with it.’
Eirlys turned by the door. She took a bunch of keys from her pocket and jingled them. ‘So now you know,’ she said lightly. ‘I’m going…’
‘Are you?’ he said.
There seemed to be a struggle going on between them – only the eyes now, but previously, I felt sure, there had been words as well.
‘I’ve got some work to do – on the books,’ she said. ‘Very important, the books…’
He looked away from her. She opened the door. ‘See you, then, Marius,’ she said. ‘Don’t bother to come to the door with me. They might escape, or something.’ She smiled and gave us a wink. ‘That would never do, would it?’
The door closed behind her. Marius looked as if he was going after her, but he held himself back. We heard the front door slam shut, then the click of her heels outside on the yard, then the door of her car as it closed. When the engine started up, Marius went over to the window and looked out, one hand raised to shield his eyes. He stood there like that for a while after the sound of the engine had dwindled and died. The room seemed to have stiffened in the silence, meanwhile. I was afraid that, once someone moved or spoke, everything would shatter and crumble before our eyes.
